Brothers

by Yu Hua

  After the competition concluded, a chorus of criticism emerged in the papers, radio, and television, complaining that this Virgin Beauty Competition represented a return of feudal values, that it trampled on women's self-confidence and self-esteem, and so forth. The focus of the criticisms was ultimately on the competition's creator, Baldy Li, though PR Liu was also implicated. The initial critiques were then followed by a flurry of rumors. Some of the beauties who weren't selected among the top three couldn't contain their fury and proceeded to anonymously leak the fact that the judges had accepted sexual bribes from some of the virgin contestants. Of course, the biggest scandal was the fact that the grand winner of the Virgin Beauty Competition was already a mother. This news immediately circulated throughout the country. But in dealing with the press, #1358 turned out to be a veritable female Baldy Li. She repeatedly stated her views and accepted all invitations for interviews. She admitted that, indeed, she had a two-year-old daughter, but she nevertheless insisted that she was still a virgin. She explained that, spiritually, she would always be a virgin, because she had maintained her spiritual purity. Contestant #1358 gave virginity a new definition, which in turn inspired wide-ranging social commentary. She had her detractors as well as her supporters, and they argued back and forth for more than half a year.

  During that half year, Baldy Li was delighted. As long as discussions about him continued he would remain a choice bone. He fully supported #i358's new definition of virginity and told PR Liu that, ultimately, the most important thing was spiritual purity. Baldy Li sighed over how times had changed, complaining that today's women were all unreliable and that in a mere twenty years social mores had been turned upside down. Twenty years earlier, 90 percent of unmarried women were still virgins, but now at most one out of every ten was. Baldy Li immediately corrected himself, saying that out of every ten women today, there wasn't even half a virgin. Of the women strolling out on the streets, not a single one is a virgin. Nowadays, the only place one can still find virgins might be in preschool! Outside preschool, finding a virgin is harder than finding a needle in a haystack.

  "But," Baldy Li added, changing the subject, "spiritual virgins can still be found everywhere."

  Then he extended Virgin Beauty #1358's spiritology to himself. He knew that those doglike reporters would forget him very quickly, but he no longer minded. He said philosophically, "At a spiritual level, I, Baldy Li, will always be a bone."

  CHAPTER 65

  WANDERING ZHOU sold his last artificial hymen before the Virgin Beauty Competition had even concluded. As the final round was about to begin the charlatan was prepared to bid farewell to Liu Town, to the straw-embedded buns in Missy Su s snack shop, and to the virgin beauties who bought his artificial hymens. He also bid farewell to Poet Zhao, noting that he owed Zhao one thousand yuan for working for him for ten days, plus two hundred yuan for letting Zhou use his house as a warehouse, and two thousand yuan as a bonus for good performance. Zhou licked his finger and counted out Zhao's thirty-two hundred yuan. Then he licked his finger again and counted out five hundred yuan more, saying that this was for Missy Su, to pay for the buns. He couldn't remember how much exactly he owed her but said that five hundred yuan should definitely be enough and asked Poet Zhao to pass it on to her.

  Wandering Zhou didn't say goodbye to Song Gang, although he did give him one thousand yuan in wages and two thousand yuan as a bonus. Then he sat down on the couch in Song Gang's home. The enormous success of his artificial-hymen sales in Liu Town made Wandering Zhou very ambitious, and he expansively sketched out a glorious future. He told Song Gang he needed an assistant, and this assistant would be Song Gang. When it came to work ability, Poet Zhao was much stronger than Song Gang, but Zhao was unreliable and was capable at any point of selling him out. Wandering Zhou said that after working together for ten days, he felt that Song Gang was a friend he could trust implicitly.

  "You are the kind of person," Wandering Zhou said as he sat on Song Gang's couch with his legs crossed, "that even if I were to leave you all my money and go away for a year, when I returned, I'd find that you wouldn't have spent a single cent."

  Then Wandering Zhou exclaimed passionately, "Song Gang, come with me!"

  Song Gang was excited by this opportunity. He knew that he didn't have a future in Liu Town, where he would never be more than "chief sub." If he went with Wandering Zhou to make a living away from home, however, he might be able to establish a career. He shuddered to think how much money Lin Hong had already spent on his medical bills, not realizing that it was actually all Baldy Li's money. Lin Hong had told him that her parents, friends, and relatives had supplied the money, but he knew that none of them was rich. He suspected that she had borrowed money from someone, and if things continued like this, she would be crushed by the burden of supporting him. Song Gang nodded to Wandering Zhou and said with determination, "I'll go with you."

  That evening, when Song Gang gave Lin Hong the three thousand yuan he had earned selling artificial hymens, she was flabbergasted, never having expected that he could earn so much in ten days simply following that Wandering Zhou character up and down the street. Seeing her surprise, Song Gang stammered out a long explanation about how he felt much better after his treatment, sighing over how much money that treatment must have cost, and finally rambling on about how if there's a will, there's a way, and great rewards come at great risk, and so on. His ramblings left her completely in a fog as to what he was trying to get at. Finally, he told her straight out that he was planning to go out into the world with Wandering Zhou and try to make a career for himself. He then related to her word for word what Wandering Zhou had discussed with him. Then Song Gang earnestly asked her, "Do you agree to let me go?"

  "No, I don't agree." Lin Hong shook her head emphatically. "You must first finish your treatment, and after you are better, we can discuss it."

  Song Gang said sorrowfully, "But I'm afraid that by that point it may be too late."

  "Too late for what?"

  Song Gang sighed as he explained, "We don't have enough money to pay for my treatment, and your friends and relatives don't have that much money either. I know that you have borrowed the money from someone, and even if I am cured, we still won't be able to pay back the money we owe."

  "You don't need to worry about the money." Lin Hong understood his concerns. "Just concentrate on getting better."

  Song Gang shook his head and didn't respond. He knew that even if he continued to insist, Lin Hong wouldn't agree. During their twenty years of marriage, whenever she hadn't agreed to something, Song Gang hadn't done it. So when he fell silent, Lin Hong assumed that he wouldn't continue to press his point. What she didn't realize, however, was that Song Gang had already made up his mind to follow Wandering Zhou on the road. She had forgotten about Song Gang's capacity for stubbornness. When she went to bed as usual, Song Gang lay at her feet unable to sleep. As he listened to her rhythmic breathing, he gently caressed her calves, and countless memories came flooding back to him. When he thought of how he would have to leave Lin Hong the next day, he suddenly felt a pang of sorrow. This would be the first time since they were married that they would be separated.

  The next morning, when Lin Hong left for the knitting factory, Song Gang stood at the doorway and watched her ride away down the street. Then he went back inside and sat down at the table, got out a sheet of paper, and wrote her a letter. Song Gang wrote very simply, first asking that she forgive him for leaving, and then asking that she trust him, promising that this time he would definitely make something of himself. Even though he couldn't compete with Baldy Li, he would earn enough money to allow her to live comfortably for the rest of her life. Finally, he told her that he was taking with him a photograph of the two of them and a house key. He would look at the photograph every night before going to bed, and the key signified that he would return home as soon as he earned enough money.

  When Song Gang finished writing the letter, he got up and went to f
ind the photograph. It was taken just after they bought the shiny new Eternity brand bicycle and captured the two of them smiling happily as they stood beside it. Song Gang examined the photograph for a long time, then placed it in his breast pocket. Next he ransacked the room looking for the travel bag with SHANGHAI printed on the side—the only artifact of his father's he had in his possession. He filled the bag with several sets of clothing for all seasons, as well as his unfinished medicine. Deciding he still had some time, he took the clothing Lin Hong had just worn and washed it in the washing machine. Then, his face covered in sweat, Song Gang cleaned the house to the point that not a speck of dust remained and wiped the windows to the point that they were as bright as mirrors.

  Around noon, he and Wandering Zhou snuck out of town like two thieves. Wandering Zhou was very dissatisfied with Song Gang's old-fashioned travel bag. He said that it looked like something from the old society and that they wouldn't be able to do any business while he was carrying it. He therefore put Song Gangs clothing into a cardboard box and threw the travel bag into a trash can on the side of the road. Seeing Song Gang looking back longingly Wandering Zhou consoled him and said that after they reached Shanghai, he would buy him a suitcase with foreign words on it.

  Then Song Gang and Wandering Zhou hurried toward the bus depot, their heads bowed under the noon sun, with Song Gang carrying his cardboard box and Wandering Zhou carrying his large black bag. Song Gang didn't know that Wandering Zhou had one hundred thousand yuan in cash in his bag. When he arrived in Liu Town, Wandering Zhou had only five yuan left in his pocket, having invested all his money in artificial hymens. His gamble had paid off. When their bus pulled out of the depot, Wandering Zhou turned and said to Liu Town, "We'll meet again someday."

  Song Gang also turned back and looked at Liu Town, and upon seeing the familiar faces in the street fade away in the distance, followed by the familiar houses and streets, he felt a pang of sorrow. He thought about how, in a few hours, Lin Hong would ride home through those familiar streets and, upon discovering that he had left, become angry or start weeping. In his mind, Song Gang told her he was sorry. As the bus drove away Liu Town faded into the distance, eventually disappearing behind the wide-open fields. Song Gang turned back around and saw that Wandering Zhou had fallen asleep, still grasping his black bag. Song Gang felt tears run down his face and into his face mask.

  When Lin Hong rode her bike home that evening, she opened the door and noticed that the house was all clean. She smiled and called out, remarking on how neat the house was. Then she walked into the kitchen calling out to Song Gang, but there was no sign of him. Normally at this time he would be cooking dinner, and Lin Hong wondered where he could have gone. When she passed by the living-room table, she failed to notice the letter Song Gang had left for her. Instead she went and stood outside for a while. People wandered up and down the street in the twilight, and the lights in Mama Sus snack shop across the street were already on. Lin Hong went back inside, then went into the kitchen and began to prepare dinner. She thought she heard the sound of a key opening the door and thought it was Song Gang returning home. She went to the kitchen doorway but didn't see any movement in the rest of the house, so she continued fixing dinner.

  When Lin Hong finished, she carried the food out to the table. By this point it was dark, and when she turned on the light, she noticed the paper on the table but didn't pay any attention to it. She sat down at the table and watched the doorway, waiting for Song Gang to return home. Suddenly she noticed that there were several lines of writing on the paper. With a sense of trepidation she grabbed it and hurriedly read it, only then understanding that Song Gang had left. His letter in hand, she rushed out the door toward the bus depot, as though determined to catch up with him. After she had run one hundred yards or so down the street lined with lights and neon signs, she began to slow down, realizing that by now he was already far away. She stopped in confusion and, watching the people and cars going up and down the street, glanced down at the sheet of paper in her hand, then slowly headed home again.

  That night Lin Hong sat under her lamp and read Song Gangs letter over and over again, and it wasn't until her tears had made the writing virtually illegible that she finally put the letter down. She didn't blame Song Gang, because she knew that he was doing this for her. Instead, she blamed herself for not realizing his determination to leave. The next several days seemed like an eternity. At the factory she continued to endure the chain-smoking Director Liu's harassment, and each evening she returned home to an empty house. In her loneliness, she had no choice but to spend countless hours in front of the TV, which merely made her miss Song Gang even more desperately. Before falling asleep at night, she would feel a twinge of anguish as she remembered how, when he left, he hadn't taken a single cent of their money.

  Lin Hong didn't tell anyone that Song Gang had left with Wandering Zhou, saying only that he had gone to Canton to do business. When Wandering Zhou first arrived in Liu, Lin Hong had sensed that he was up to no good. Assuming that Wandering Zhou and Song Gang would continue selling artificial hymens when they reached Canton, Lin Hong couldn't bring herself to tell people what Song Gang would be doing.

  Lin Hong waited every day for a letter from Song Gang, and every day at noon she would go to the reception office of her factory and watch as the postman threw a bundle of letters onto the counter. She would urgently open the bundle and search for a letter with her name on it. Song Gang didn't write her, but a month later he did call her. It was nighttime, and he called Mama Sus snack shop. Mama Su rushed across the street and knocked on Lin Hongs door. Lin Hong rushed back across the street into the snack shop and picked up the phone. On the other end of the line, Song Gang asked, "Lin Hong, are you well?" When Lin Hong heard Song Gangs voice, her eyes teared up and she yelled into the receiver, "Come back, you must come back immediately!"

  On the other end of the line, Song Gang said, "I will come back—" Lin Hong continued to shout, "You must return right away!" The two continued on in this way for a while, with Lin Hong demanding that Song Gang return immediately and Song Gang saying that he would. At first, Lin Hong issued her cry to return as an imperative, but later she began to plead with him. As for Song Gang, he initially insisted that he would definitely return but eventually said that he was going to have to hang up, since this was a very expensive longdistance call. Lin Hong, however, continued to plead with him, "Song Gang, come back…"

  Song Gang finally hung up as Lin Hong was still speaking into the receiver. When she heard the dial tone, she disappointedly put the phone down. Then it occurred to her that she hadn't asked Song Gang how or what he was doing but had only repeated "Come back" over and over again. She bit her lip in frustration, then looked at Missy Su, who was sitting somberly at the counter. Lin Hong laughed bitterly in Missy Sus direction, and Missy Su laughed bitterly in response. When Lin Hong left the snack shop, she wanted to say something to Missy Su but couldn't think of what to say. Therefore, she merely bowed her head and walked out.

  For the next several months, Missy Su and Lin Hong were similarly depressed. Five months after the charlatan Wandering Zhou left without saying goodbye, Missy Sus growing belly began to show, leading everyone to speculate who might be responsible. As their imaginations ran wild the number of suspects increased until they finally reached a list of 101. Poet Zhao was also a suspect, and in fact he was the 101st. Poet Zhao swore high and low that he had nothing to do with it, but this only made everyone even more convinced that he was the one. He bitterly told everyone that, even though Missy Su was not terribly pretty, it was common knowledge that she was loaded. Therefore, if he had been the one responsible for making her belly grow big, why would he still be living in his dilapidated old house? "I would have moved long ago into the snack shop across the street and become its boss."

  Everyone then realized that Poet Zhao must be innocent of this whole affair and therefore once again started suspecting others, but during the entire process no
one thought of Wandering Zhou. Zhou was an extraordinary charlatan. He arrived in Liu Town at the same time as the three thousand virgin beauties, who had slept with the judges, with the political leaders, with Baldy Li, with PR Liu— essentially with everyone. The judges, political leaders, Baldy Li, and PR Liu were all hoodwinked, having slept with women who either had surgically reconstructed hymens or were using artificial ones. Wandering Zhou, meanwhile, was the only one who slept with an authentic virgin, transforming the only genuine virgin in Liu Town, Missy Su, into an ex-virgin.

  Missy Su still sat at the cashiers counter every day, but now she no longer chatted with the waitresses or customers. Wandering Zhou's unannounced departure had left her heartbroken, and from that point on she was somber and grim. Mama Su would often stare off into space and sigh, and sometimes she would secretly cry. What she couldn't figure out was why her fate was now being repeated by her daughter. At first everyone was curious and excited, but gradually they got used to the situation, pointing out that the same thing had happened to Mama Su and that no one knew who had gotten her knocked up—they only knew that she subsequently gave birth to Missy Su. Now Missy Sus belly was made big by a mysterious man, and nine months later she too gave birth to a daughter. Missy Su named her Su Zhou, but even then no one suspected that the itinerant charlatan Wandering Zhou was the father. By this point everyone had lost interest in speculating and shifted their attention to divination: They predicted that after this girl grew up, her belly would also mysteriously get large, just like that of her grandmother and mother. They concluded confidently, "That is fate."

  CHAPTER 66

  WHEN WANDERING ZHOU left Liu Town for Shanghai with Song Gang, he headed south along the railway system and hoped to repeat his enormous success, this time selling male virility-enhancing pills. Zhou and Song Gang got off the train at a couple of midsize cities along the railroad and hawked their male-potency pills at the train station, at the wharf, and in the commercial districts. The neatly dressed Wandering Zhou held up a vial of imported Apollo pills in his right hand and one of domestic Fierce Zhang Fei pills in his left, announcing dramatically, "Every man wants to have a hard erection and fully display his virility. For many reasons, however, men often develop erectile problems as they grow older. This is very common."