Massage

by Bi Feiyu

  This was not a meal he felt like eating, but skipping it was not an option. He was forced to join the others.

  It was a formidable array of people standing outside the diner, but scattered in twos and threes. No one said a word, and the silence was one of desolation and latent violence.

  After the waiters prepared two tables, the owner, who had taken a headcount, walked up to Sha and invited everyone to take a seat. Sha hesitated, for the arrangement of the tables meant that he and Zhang would each sit at one. With his hand on the back of a chair, he considered the situation as an odd expression appeared on his face. Du Hong had not been the cause of the rift between him and Zhang; in all fairness, she’d had nothing to do with it. And yet she had been the root of the problem. The question was, where was she now? Du Hong was gone, without a trace.

  Sha managed to pull himself together.

  ‘We’ll eat as a group, so would you please put the tables together?’

  The waiters quickly went back to work, arranging three square tables into one large, rectangular one, on which beer, soft drinks, glasses, bowls and chopsticks appeared, creating the feel of a grand feast, a rare scene for a roadside diner. The sky was above their heads, the ground under their feet, and to their left stretched a broad, empty street named General Boulevard. This was more than a typical night out for a group of blind therapists; it was a splendid dinner party.

  ‘Let’s take a seat,’ Sha Fuming said.

  Zhang, who was standing nearby, could not pretend he hadn’t heard Sha’s invitation, directed at no one in particular and therefore not specifically targeted at him. So he hesitated to say anything. But a moment later: ‘Let’s take a seat.’

  There was no logical connection between the tones of their utterances, but there was meaning. They both sat down at the head of the table and instantly rued their choice, suddenly as uncomfortable as if they were sitting on pincushions, holding their elbows in so as not to touch one another.

  The others also hesitated. Wang Daifu had the most difficulty deciding where to sit. He thought long and hard: Xiao Kong was mad at him, so were Jin Yan and Xu Tailai, which left him few if any choices. He wasn’t too concerned about Xiao Kong, since they were a couple – she’d be easy to deal with. But not Jin Yan and Tailai. After a bit of thought, he decided to get Xiao Kong to sit with him. He easily sniffed her out, walked up to her and tugged at her sleeve. But she was still angry and flung his hand away, a rapid, violent motion. She did not want him to touch her. You made me lose face. I don’t want to ever see you again!

  Staring straight ahead, Wang grabbed her wrist, this time so forcefully she could not resist, but she turned stubborn and struggled to pull away. It was quickly getting out of hand.

  ‘How many are we?’ he whispered.

  No one paid any attention to his abrupt question, since they all thought he was counting heads. Not Xiao Kong, of course, who remembered that it had been a question she’d once asked him while they were making love. ‘One,’ he had said shortly before he had an orgasm, followed by her, and she’d never forgot that riveting lovemaking experience. Her arm went limp, as did her legs. Love can be strange, like an on and off switch. Only a moment before she’d been gnashing her teeth, furious with him, and a second later her lips parted and the anger lost its power. She turned her hand around to hold his, tightly, and dug down with her nails. Tuina therapists cannot keep long nails, and hers were naturally ineffective, so instead she went for the spaces between his fingers. On his part, Wang held her hand and observed closely what was going on around him; in the end, he and Xiao Kong sat across from Jin Yan and Tailai, a perfect spatial relationship filled with endlessly rich and positive meaning.

  Everyone took a seat, but no one said a word. As an awkward silence crept into their dinner party, Zhang Yiguang, who was sitting at the far end of the table alone, picked up a bottle and began to drink, like an outsider. It was out of character for him, someone who got garrulous at the first whiff of alcohol. Everyone at the centre knew he was like a bottle that spewed beer the moment it was opened. He was all foam.

  Wang Daifu was lost in thought, trying to come up with something to say to Jin Yan and Tailai. The party turned spooky, as, except for the sounds of restrained chewing and clanking chinaware, it was deadly quiet. Wang Daifu hoped that Zhang Yiguang would liven up, which would get more people to talk, and then Wang could find an opportunity to say something to Jin Yan and Xu Tailai. But he had to find the right moment for it to come out naturally, to avoid further worsening their relationship.

  But Zhang remained stubbornly quiet. He had always been a marginal figure in the group, not someone the others paid much attention to. He had barely spoken in days, as he harboured a huge secret, one about Xiao Ma. He’d gone back to the hair salon – why had the young man left and where was he now? Zhang was the only one in the centre who knew what happened to Xiao Ma. He was wretched. If not for him, Ma would not have left. He was to blame for what happened to that poor man. He should never have taken him to the hair salon. Some people just don’t belong in such a place. Xiao Ma, your brother took you whoring, why did you go and fall in love? Didn’t you have any self-awareness? I guess you were fated to fall in love once and suffer the consequences.

  No one spoke at either end of the table. Sha Fuming and Zhang Zongqi were strangely quiet; their silence was restrained, reserved, though with hidden good will. At that moment, they each were feeling a myriad of complex emotions, profound and substantial accumulated energy that was looking for an outlet. It might find a broad opening that would lead them down a smooth path. But a slight disagreement can make a bad situation worse. Which was why they were particularly cautious, trying their best to catch signals from the other person while at the same time trying to withhold their own intentions. Luckily for them, they were patient. What’s the hurry? Let’s wait and see. They both looked grave.

  Picking up his mug, Sha took a sip and Zhang did the same. Zhang thought that Sha wanted to say something. He didn’t. Instead, he jumped to his feet, a little too fast and a little too forcefully. He apologised before walking off. Zhang didn’t turn to follow his departure; he used his ears for that. Sha appeared to be on his way to the toilet.

  His sudden departure was caused by an uncontrollable need to throw up, but he managed to hold back until he groped his way to the toilet. Leaning over, he threw up and immediately felt better. Opening his mouth wide, he sighed.

  ‘What’s happening to me?’ he asked himself. ‘I didn’t have that much to drink.’

  He had no idea that this was just a beginning. Before he could wipe the tears from his eyes, another wave of nausea hit him, stronger than the first, quickly getting so bad he had to bend over and vomit again. He was mystified. Except for a couple of stuffed buns on the way to the hospital, he hadn’t had much to eat, so where had all the stuff come from? He wasn’t just vomiting any more, he was spewing everywhere.

  A diner, a total stranger, was on his way to the toilet. He and his friends had waged a bet to see who could drink the most without going to the toilet, and he had lost. With a bladder nearly bursting, he rushed inside, only to be stunned by what he saw before he had a chance to take his tool out. Someone was in there, bending over and throwing up, splattering the place with blood, bright red blood everywhere, including the walls.

  ‘Hey you, what’s wrong?’

  Sha turned his head and smiled pleasantly. ‘Me? I’m fine.’

  The stranger grabbed him and turned to shout at the others outside.

  ‘Hey, you out there! Something’s wrong with one of your people.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ Sha said unhappily.

  ‘Hey, you out there! Something’s wrong with one of your people.’

  Wang Daifu was the first to grope his way to the toilet door, where he took Sha’s arm from the diner, who walked off quickly. He couldn’t wait to get away from there and find a clean spot somewhere to relieve himself.

  ‘I didn’t have that much to
drink,’ Sha said, ‘I really didn’t.’

  Wang could not see what had happened in the toilet, but Sha’s arm and his hand gave him a terrifying foreboding. Both were icy cold, but before he could ask what was wrong, Sha crumpled and slid to the floor. ‘Fuming,’ Wang shouted. ‘Fuming!’ Sha ignored him. He couldn’t hear a thing.

  The feast ended before it began. Everyone from the centre left, piling into four taxis that raced towards the Jiangsu First People’s Hospital. Wang Daifu and Zhang Zongqi were in one cab with Sha Fuming, the others shared the remaining three taxis in various groupings. It was after midnight and the streets were deserted, so they made it to the hospital in under twenty minutes. By then Sha was unconscious, so Wang Daifu carried him on his back into the emergency room. ‘We need a doctor!’ Wang was panting. ‘Hurry, please!’

  The others, also out of breath, arrived in groups and crowded into the emergency room entrance, anxiously hoping to hear what was going on inside. A nurse wiped the blood from Sha’s mouth. He was covered with it.

  A doctor walked up to Wang. ‘What caused this? Did you see anything wrong?’

  ‘What do you mean what caused this?’ Wang asked.

  The doctor could tell that he was blind. ‘Your friend is haemorrhaging. What caused it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Wang replied.

  ‘Do you know if he has had any prior medical problems?’

  How would he know if Sha had any prior medical problems? He could only stare blankly at the doctor. Then he was reminded of what the policeman had said. You have an obligation to tell the truth.

  Wang Daifu had an obligation. He wanted to tell the doctor the truth. But he didn’t know what that was. That despite the fact that they were schoolmates and friends, and that Sha was his boss. Did Sha Fuming have a medical history? All he could do was stand there nervously in front of the doctor. They stared at each other.

  ‘Hurry, tell us. This is really important.’

  Wang knew it was really important, and he was anxious. He instinctively turned to his fellow therapists in the doorway, but none of them said a word. They didn’t know anything. A chill ran through Wang Daifu’s heart, as cold as well water. He and Sha Fuming, he and the others, the others and Sha Fuming, they were together every single day, and yet they were so distant from one another. In the end, none of them knew any of the others.

  The only thing any of them could do was look around. While they were looking around, their ears were doing the same thing. They all heard each other’s heavy breathing.

  A flurry of activity occurred in the emergency room, with medical staff coming and going. Wang backed out, and the other therapists instinctively parted to let him pass, some standing to the left of the hallway and others to the right. Silence reigned; no one wanted to be the first to speak. They neither moved nor made a sound. The footsteps of the medical staff were sounding more and more urgent. They were rushing in and out of the emergency room. Wang Daifu and the other therapists were swallowing hard because the frantic footsteps told them how serious the situation was.

  The only thing Wang heard all that time was the emergency physician’s shout: ‘Take him into surgery! We need to open him up to see what’s wrong.’

  The emergency room door opened for two nurses to push Sha into surgery on a gurney, followed by the therapists, who were stopped by the nurses at the lift door. After asking where the operating room was, Gao Wei took Wang by the hand. Wang grabbed the hand of Zhang Zongqi, who took Jin Yan’s hand. Jin Yan took Xiao Kong’s hand, Xiao Kong took Xu Tailai’s hand. Xu took the hand of Zhang Yiguang, who took Du Li’s hand. She took Xiao Tang’s hand, and she took Jin da-jie’s hand. They arrived as a group at the operating room door, where they stopped, let go of their hands, and formed two lines, leaving space between them.

  ‘Who’s in charge here?’ A nurse walked up to them. ‘I need someone to sign.’

  Wang Daifu stepped forwards, but Zhang Zongqi pushed him aside. The nurse handed him a ballpoint pen. He put it in his mouth, broke it with his teeth, took out the ink filler, pulled out the nib with his teeth and blew onto the filler to send ink flowing. He dabbed his right index finger with the ink and smoothed it over his thumb. Then he showed the nurse his thumb.

  The hallway outside the operating room was deathly quiet. In all his years, Wang Daifu had never experienced such total silence. It was as if an enormous weight had pressed down from above and was squeezed into a desolate space. Wang Daifu, Zhang Zongqi and all the others were pressed down for an hour and fifty-three minutes, until their eyes were nearly popping out of their heads. No one dared asked questions. That would have been a bad thing to do. In all situations, the blind staunchly believe that good news arrives only through others, that news brought by other people brings them pleasant surprises.

  After an hour and fifty-three minutes, a doctor came out of surgery. They crowded around him.

  ‘The operation was successful. We’ve done what we can. But it’s too soon to tell. We’ll know better in seventy-two hours.’

  We’ll know better in seventy-two hours. That was not the best news, but definitely good enough. At least Sha Fuming remained unchanged. Yet Wang Daifu could not keep from wondering exactly who the man lying in there now – and who had been with them all this time – really was. He could not have suddenly come down with that ailment; he must have been suffering from it for a long time, but no one had an inkling of it. None of them knew a thing about him. Sha Fuming turned out to be a void around them, one that could talk and breathe, a hole he had dug himself, a hole that served only to drag himself down. Maybe every one of them was a hole, all madly hurtling down a bottomless, murky pit; the thought made Wang feel that he was falling. He suddenly felt ill, a discomfort tinged with a deadly panic. He lurched; his body shook. He felt like crying, but told himself he mustn’t; he could not let himself become a void. His heel bumped into who he thought was Xiao Kong. He grabbed hold of her, like grasping at a straw, and at that moment he felt unbearably frail. Holding her in his arms and resting his chin on her shoulder, he began to feel the tears well up, followed by a snivel that smeared snot all over her.

  ‘Married. Let’s get married.’ He was incoherent. ‘We’ll be married.’ It was a choking plea. ‘We’ll have a fine wedding.’

  The woman in his arms was not Xiao Kong, but Jin Yan, who knew that he was holding the wrong person, but was reluctant to let go. She too was crying.

  ‘Tailai,’ she said, ‘everyone heard that, so you have to keep your word.’

  Witnessing the touching scene from behind the surgeon, the operating room nurse was moved by the blind therapists. Next to her stood Gao Wei, whose eyes the nurse saw when she turned her head. Her eyes were unusual, small and not at all like the others. The nurse stared at Gao’s eyes for a while, and, still unsure, reached out and waved her index finger in front of Gao’s eyes. Gao returned the nurse’s gaze; not knowing what she had in mind, she cocked her head, reached out, and took hold of the nurse’s finger, moving it aside. Then she blinked at the nurse, once and then twice.

  It was clear to the nurse when she saw it – a gaze that was most ordinary, most pervasive, most common. She froze at the realisation as her soul, frightened and pierced by something, nearly left her body.

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  Text copyright © Bi Feiyu, 2008

  Translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin

  Originally published in Chinese as Tui Na by People's Literature Publishing House.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

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  ISBN: 978-0-14380-002-6

  CHAPTER One

  I

  SPECIAL Investigator Ding Gou’er of the Higher Procuratorate climbed aboard a Liberation truck and set out for the Mount Luo Coal Mine to undertake a special investigation. He was thinking so hard as he rode along that his head swelled until the size fifty-eight brown duck-billed cap, which was normally quite roomy, seemed to clamp down on his skull. He was not a happy man as he took off the cap, examined the watery beads on the sweatband, and smelled the greasy odour. It was an unfamiliar odour. Slightly nauseating. He reached up to pinch his throat.

  The truck slowed as the potholes grew more menacing and made the creaky springs complain eerily. He kept banging his head on the underside of the cab roof. The driver cursed the road and the people on it; such gutter language spewing from the mouth of a young, and rather pretty, woman created a darkly humorous scene. He couldn’t keep from sneaking furtive looks at her. A pink undershirt poking up above the collar of her blue denim work shirt guarded her fair neck; she had dark eyes with an emerald tinge, and hair that was very short, very coarse, very black, and very glossy. Her white-gloved hands strangled the steering wheel as the truck rocked from side to side to avoid potholes. When she lurched left, her mouth twisted to the left; when she veered right, it twisted to the right. And while her mouth was twisting this way and that, sweat oozed from her crinkled nose. Her narrow forehead and solid chin told him that she was or had been married-a woman to whom sex was no stranger. Someone he wouldn’t mind getting to know. For a forty-eight-year-old investigator, and an old hand at that, such feelings were ludicrous at the very least. He shook his large head.