by Can Xue
“Aha, so you have recovered from your disease? Are you telling everybody that you have severe diabetes?” The fat woman pushed my hand away and staggered to the wall to observe me. She said calmly, “I remember you living by fishing for little shrimp in the past. You were bent down next to the brook. You slept under a dead Chinese scholar tree, all wrapped up in old cotton wadding. On that tree there were several odd-looking bird nests. The birds went into panic whenever the wind came … You once gave my nephew a bamboo hat. He’s lost consciousness ever since he put on that hat. You’ve destroyed his life. I’ve been waiting to settle accounts with you.”
“I’m thirty-six. They say I’m still a young man. The problem started the year I was five. Hey, have you ever heard of a disease called snake’s-head craziness? It causes sores on the fingers. I had it once. It caused an infection in the lymph nodes all over my body.” I blushed when I said that and kept my eyes on the ground timidly. I always feel embarrassed when I touch on the fundamental problem.
“You are learning a skill. That’s good. I’m her aunt, and I’ve watched her grow up. The night you squatted with her under the cotton rose tree, I was spying on you in the corridor. I was thinking: What a good day you picked! I even pointed my flashlight at you, hoping I could dazzle your eyes and have some fun with you. You just can’t accept the fact that my niece has lost her sexual ability, right? What I mean is that she has never had sexual ability. Why did I point my flashlight at you? Because she never keeps me, her aunt, in her mind. For more than a decade, she has been telling people that I’ve disappeared, and she even forces others to believe her stupid presumption. She has been sabotaging my little plans in secret all that time. Did you notice the window facing the corridor that humid night? I was behind that window the whole night, observing you two. I flashed the light repeatedly to scare you. I am the memory of this family. I’ll die after everyone else.” She glanced at me sexually, her wrinkles becoming moist. “Do you have any interest in arecas? All the residents in the building keep their senses with my arecas. In fact all those rooms are empty. I’ve felt my way into each one of them. There’s not a single soul here. Sit close by me, I’d love to soothe the wound in your heart. I am a massager of the human soul.” She squatted down against the wall. Her voice became as soft as a little chick’s, and her eyes dimmed down. She beckoned me to squat down with her and clasp her hand, because she was having trouble breathing. She might have died if I had made any mistake.
I was delighted. This was everything that I could hope for. I immediately started my complaint. I love to start from the very beginning, which is closer to the fundamental problem, and thus more meaningful.
“I plan to start with the fundamental thing,” I said solemnly, then I peeped stealthily at her. She was distracted, her facial expression extremely serious. I felt excitement rise in my heart.
“Thirteen friends have said the same thing to me: ‘How can a young guy turn out like this? Think of the past, he was so valiant and bright!’ They were stunned, they felt pained, then they presented me with a memorial album and an umbrella. Now I’m going to touch on the fundamental problem—my whole story, cause and effect, origin and development. But before that, I’d like to raise an important issue. Wait a minute, please answer a question for me: Have you ever had snake’s-head craziness?”
The fat woman complained that some insect had crawled into her ear, so she felt curiously itchy. Shrugging her shoulders, she offered again to massage my soul. “I understand you.” She sniffed my palm and put on an unfathomable smile. Pressing one ear against the dirty brick wall, she said, “There’s all kinds of noise. When did you change your occupation? My niece told me that you’ve become a doctor? You’re certainly very flexible.”
“Oh, yes, this is exactly what I am going to say—why I believe that the profession of doctor is the most suitable for me, and why I don’t feel that being a butcher fits me. The decision was an accident. It was caused by my mother. You know that my mother died when I was eight. Day and night, she dug in the garbage heap. She belonged to such a miserable class, and I despised her. At my house, there were always many female guests. They covered their eyes to play blindman’s buff until each one of them was black and blue from tumbling and falling. Mother would boast while chewing odd-tasting beans: ‘My child is studying law.’ But in fact, I was thinking how to sabotage their game. I planned to pee in their plates, I planned to steal money from one of them. Outside the house, the sun was whistling, the little tree was swinging and swaying neurotically. I feared going out on sunny days, because I always stepped on my own shadow. My eyelids drooped constantly, and I always felt like peeing. I was doomed if someone gave me a slap on the back. ‘What are you listening to?’ Mother asked, putting her hairy arm on my shoulder. ‘The shouting of the sun.’ ‘Aha, this child is studying law.’ I walked into the corridor, hoping I would meet a person or even a cat—whenever I’m left alone, I long to meet something. I hate monotonous days. It’s a piece of luck that I have this corridor. It’s always so dim, and this is exactly what I like. Seeing a ball of stuff rolling by, I yelled, ‘Excellent!’ Mother and her female guests all peeped out to see what was the matter. But there was nothing happening, only my vision was blurred, and my throat felt itchy. ‘He’s doing research.’ Pointing at me, Mother told the group, ‘There’s certainly much to do in it.’ Spontaneously, they raised one finger: ‘Hush.’ Then they all returned to their hide-and-seek.
“I’m going to tell you in a minute how the idea of acting roles came to me—that was the product of a brainstorm. I once ploughed a piece of vegetable garden, do you believe me? Inside a broken trunk full of earth, I planted rows of Chinese cabbage very neatly. When the sun started shouting, I was engaged in an experiment on fertilizer production. I was very serious, yet very confused. While working, I was looking around. Every now and then, I would drop the rakes and spades, pretending not to be doing anything. I opened the window a crack and turned an ear to listen to the sun. When I felt tired, I would go to the house for a rest. But when I came out again, I found all my cabbages gone, only some traces of digging left in the earth. This happened several days running.
“Finally, I caught the saboteur. She was a woman who lived in a glass wardrobe. She was like a column of smoke. Day and night, she clutched an ice bag. According to her, this was her therapy. When she discovered that my therapy (planting Chinese cabbage) interfered with her therapy, she was determined to stop me. She complained that the smell I created in the corridor had caused a malfunction of her urinary system. ‘It’s no good to ignore the existence of others,’ she warned me, while tapping on the glass. ‘If you feel restless, you may talk to me. I will find some time to receive you. I’m not a rigid person bent solely on profit. Talking to others cheers me up and reminds me of my past.’ She opened her mouth exposing her decayed teeth. Her face looked blue inside the wardrobe. ‘What do you think of me? Not ugly at all, right?’ Several times I intended to move, yet stopped short, because she ordered me to. From her wardrobe, she pointed at me and commanded: ‘Halt!’ My legs felt weak, and I stopped. My back was sweating. ‘I have a classmate living downstairs. You’ve been evolving designs on her.’ She gave a snort of contempt and then nodded her head.
“Thus I became a puppet controlled by that woman. She lived in the glass wardrobe, wrapped up in soft silk wadding. Her lips were black, her eyes closed. However, once she moved her stiff little finger, my body would feel paralyzed. Involuntarily, I went to listen to her teaching every day. Deep in my heart, I felt that it was something extremely important, and my feet simply carried me to her house, while my body was occupied with satisfaction. If I missed a single day, I would feel so agitated at night that I kicked my bed like crazy. At those moments, the woman who later married me was catching moths in darkness. If I stood up, I would bump into her knee. That was no fun: She had a gun in her pocket. ‘Your classmate is certainly a circumspect and farsighted person,’ I once tried to tell her. The conseque
nce was a bang of the gun with a bullet going through the wall. In fact all I wanted was her consent, so as to satisfy my little desire. This has long since become a habit, yet the woman who married me would never understand this.
“The next day, I went there again. My heart felt apprehensive, and my head was empty, therefore, I had to go. This time she came out of the glass wardrobe to look me up and down attentively. She was in a black robe. She reeked of alcohol. Her neck was wrapped with a bandage, and one eye was covered with an orange patch. She supported her whole body by holding on to the arm of a chair with one skinny hand. She looked shabby and funny, yet her single eye was shining brightly. ‘You have to change your strategy immediately and play the role of a doctor.’ She gave me the instruction and put her other hand on my shoulder. That hand was dislocated, feeling like a fresh squid. ‘This is a prestigious profession; I myself was once in it. You will be outstanding. There won’t be any trouble.’ After the comment, she suddenly turned very powerful. Pushing both me and the chair aside, she stretched her arms and jumped upward several times. She might have been thinking of flying. Then she stood firmly on one foot for a long time, totally forgetting my presence. When she finished this gesture, she reentered her wardrobe and lay down on the cane-chair padding, feeling for her ice bag with one hand. Her body was all wet. I knocked on the wardrobe door hesitantly. But she gave out a sudden yell and hurled a huge iron hammer at me. While I was running for my life, a big gust of wind slammed the door at my back, which caught my leg and broke my bone. It was very painful.
“One drizzly day, frogs were hopping about in the mud. As I woke up from a dream, I suddenly put on the disguise of a doctor. This matter was first reported by an old garbage collector. That old man was living by the restroom on the first floor. On the wall inside his room, he hung ragged female underpants, stockings, and bras. They were all covered with a thick layer of black dust. Every time I met him, I felt enraged. I often shouted at him: ‘Get out of my way!’ Instead of letting me pass, he would slow his pace. Using his wicker basket, he pushed me against the walls on the left and the right. He never talked to me, but only glanced at me showing the whites of his eyes. Or he would pass a stinking fart whose smell could make me dizzy for several days. When I saw his bowed legs and smelled his rotten rags in the dawn, my blood boiled. I had to eliminate this guy, who was a fish bone in my throat, an ulcer in my stomach. My struggle against him was a life-and-death one. On that significant morning, I left the house. When I cleared my throat to give him some warning, he cast a sidelong glance at me and suddenly discovered the change on my face which was going to kill him. I did not know what touched him, but he discovered it with a wink of his eye. So he started running toward the muddy field. Repeatedly, he fell down and got up, fell down and got up. Anyway, he lost all his normal behavior. I did not chase him but stamped my feet to threaten him until he disappeared completely. After a few days, he was found hanged on the doorframe. When I took him down, he was as light as if he were only a husk. All the junk in his house had disappeared. On the empty wall hung a solemn portrait of the great leader. Underneath it there were bloodstains from mosquitoes.
“As soon as I became a doctor, the woman’s mother immediately proposed to marry her daughter to me. She pestered me endlessly. Once I was trimming my mustache when she dashed in. She grabbed the scissors from my hand and kicked me on my hipbone, calling me ‘fond dreamer,’ ‘without escape,’ and such things. I didn’t want to marry her because I simply couldn’t recognize her. Faintly, I noticed a pair of buttocks, a pair of skinny legs, and very dirty nails. Often I dodged her and hid aside, yet when I raised my head, I would still see one of her arms hanging on the wall, with thick black hair under the armpit. The inside of the fingers were twitching, and there were blisters between the fingers. I was greatly enraged by the scene. I practiced several times to drive out her spirit. Yet her mother, that witch who never shows herself (she told me that her mother disappeared ten years ago in the cellar), was controlling the unfolding of the whole situation. I could make no progress whatsoever. I would hide myself in the cistern for twenty-four hours, feeling relieved that they had started to forget about me. Just then the mother’s voice started talking to me in a partly ingratiating, partly coquettish tone: ‘My darling baby, I’ve been watching you. I’ve accompanied you all along. It’s true that she is no good at sex. It’s fair to say that she has lost all her sexual ability. That’s why she is so self-contented. I am very sympathetic to your situation. I am a woman full of sympathy. Oh!’ she suddenly screamed. ‘You’re shivering in the cold water. This breaks my heart. I’ve been watching you crying! Sometimes I feel happy when I see her condition today. I have to see her get married. If she can’t marry, I won’t have the face to live on in this world. Please think from my perspective. I originally intended to substitute her for my younger sister to marry that fellow in the circus, because my sister is a person with underdeveloped nerves. I’ve been taking care of her life all the time…’”
“Those people, she is addicted to robbing!” The fat woman suddenly became uneasy. “Let me take you to the temple.” So saying, she started running, dragging me behind her by my collar. I tried to struggle free, protesting that I didn’t want to go to the temple, because my life was hopeless. All I wanted was to complain to somebody. I was satisfied with that. “That can’t be done,” she said firmly, while running faster. When we arrived at the temple, we saw a woman with her face covered spinning thread at the door. She spat at the humming wooden spinning wheel.
I heard the father-in-law chuckling somewhere, but I couldn’t see him. Oil lamps could be seen floating in the air inside the temple, busy footsteps could be heard moving back and forth. I had lost sight of the fat woman, but I could hear her giggling somewhere. The lights quivered. On the ceiling a huge black shadow trembled. It resembled an old bear. “What fun it is to fish in summer!” I recited loudly in a calm voice. Taking off one shoe, I banged it noisily. The fat woman told me that I didn’t need to play any role. From now on, I could do whatever I wanted. Just like my wife’s classmate—self-confident, firm, decisive. Before that, she had been controlling my fate. But now she felt tired and fruitless. Immediately, I thought of becoming a warlord. This was a role I’d been dreaming about ever since I was a little boy. I started laughing once I made the decision. Freedom tasted so good. “Your old partner is drinking lamp oil on the sly.” She asked me to watch the big black shadow on the ceiling. The shadow was stretching and then shrinking. “I’ve been thinking of cultivating his son. I want to teach him metaphysical thinking, and other things, but I’ve failed. Now he has become a good-for-nothing. Look, that’s him crawling in through the window. He cries bitterly every time he sees me and he chews up all my arecas. That’s all about the family. You can’t even determine what kind of people they are.”
Finally my father-in-law appeared. He emerged from behind the Buddha. Shading his eyes from the light with his hand, he singed his hair on each of the oil lamps and calmly sniffed the odor. After some thought, he came to me. “You are forever thinking of floating toward that ball of light,” he said, shaking my hand solemnly. His own hand was warm and dry. “I still remember you coming to my house to buy used pens. I must feel suffocated, right? It’s very complicated. There’s no particular benefit. When you finally float to the top, you feel worse, because you simply can’t breathe. Some people died just like that. All in all, don’t make trouble for yourself. But I, I love the little shrimp that are hiding in the cracks of the rocks. I am completely happy and pleased with myself. I swim here and there, never opening my eyes. That’s why I never have eye disease. My legs are still good. You’ll know it when you see me jumping. “He tried to jump up. I only heard a fit of cracking sounds and found him groaning on the ground. “I can jump really high!” He panted, waving his fists. I simply stepped over his body.
I knew there was something seriously wrong with his legs. What happiness and pleasure was he talking about? He was on
ly pretending to be a young man. He could do nothing but burn his hair at the lamps and steal food from home. It was a life of penal servitude. In order to stretch his neck to let out the stinking hiccups in his throat, he used the words “happy” and “pleased.” But he had overdone it, and now he could not get up again. Why was he so stubborn! He wanted to show people he was not afraid of death by burning his hair. But what’s the use? I still remember his trick of declaring, “Going to the green mountains!” traveling bag on his back, that he had played for decades. Every time he looked full of vigor and vitality. But now even though he had given up the old past, he still struggled for a jump.
“He is living a happy life as a bachelor,” the fat woman told me quietly, with a handkerchief over her mouth. “He is an out-and-out puppet, and he has lost feeling for his surroundings. As a matter of fact, his whole family has sneaked into this temple. When the north wind starts blowing, they hide in the attic. The lady on the ceiling is your mother-in-law, isn’t she? Fortunately the old man doesn’t know, or it would cost him his life. He is too solitary to measure himself objectively. Look at those oil lamps. They lit them. They light the lamps even during the day because they feel distracted. But the old man never recognizes it. This old fool always believes the temple is completely empty. I once gave him some hint, and he was enraged. It’s so stupid that he believes he is unique. Of course, they can’t see the old man either. They have tired themselves out with the game of catching rats. Now they are suffering from a bad cold. They’ve wrapped themselves up in thick clothing, and they poke their flashlight beams here and there every day. Bah, such people.”
