Tales of Accidental Genius
Page 9
a part of me hurt.
There was no relief. And I never saw her ever again, Weng.
Over the years, other women came and went.
I got on very well in my job, with a reliable income.
But my heart had tightened like a southern fist.
Some girls I met wanted to marry—but I was stubborn,
so they went on to marry others and have nice lives.
In the end, to be happy, it’s not enough to love someone,
you also have to accept something in return.
“A few years ago, about when I turned sixty-eight,
I fell down at a restaurant.
The waiters thought too much grape alcohol,
but felt guilty later for not rushing over.
At the hospital, the doctors said
there was a problem with my heart
and I would need an operation.
A chance I might not wake up after.
Say your good-byes now, they told me.
“For a long time after surgery I stayed in bed.
At night, when the nurses drifted like swans through the ward,
I began to think about my life as though it were over,
And I, Uncle Ping, a ghost poking about in the past.
I went through each scene.
Drew up the cast of characters who had been part of my story.
Of course, she was who I thought of most,
and still so breathtaking—even in memory,
as though my poor heart had been tricked
into believing there was still hope.
“I began to think about what happened all those years ago,
but this time from her point of view.
I considered what life must have been like
living with her mother and sister in that damp house.
I don’t think I mentioned that her father
had passed away when she was young.
I began to feel sorry for her, Weng—to forgive her even.
And it was like falling in love again, but without any pain.
“And in that spirit, I decided to go and visit
her old place near where we grew up.
Fifty years had passed. I put on some nice clothes
and combed my hair.
When I arrived, the house was for sale.
There was a light on inside, but when I glanced at my watch,
it was too late to knock.
So I looked instead through a keyhole.
My heart, Weng, was throwing itself against my ribs
as if trying to get into the house.
Then—couldn’t help myself!
. . . I lightly rapped on the door.
“The woman who opened the door was not old,
but seemed frail and done-in.
I could tell she was suspicious, but I was wearing nice clothes,
aftershave, and the Rolex Submariner
I bought in the year of the goat,
so she mistook me for someone interested
in buying her house and invites me in,
tells me she’s moving away, needs a quick sale.
Once we were in the kitchen, where there was more light,
Guess what?
I couldn’t believe it:
Same table, same dishes, same chairs. . . .
Thought I was dreaming.
“This old woman is my beloved’s little sister!
I am not proud to admit what I did next,
but realized that in the disguise of a potential buyer,
there was a chance to finally get the truth.
So I asked if she had grown up in the house.
She said Yes.
Brothers or sisters?
She paused for a moment,
then nodded, Older sister.
She sensed my anxiety. . . .
Would I like some chrysanthemum tea?
It must have been lonely for her there, Weng,
because near the sink: one set of dishes, one bowl,
one pair of chopsticks, one glass, one teacup.
Silence has many forms, eh?
But I gritted my teeth, kept lying,
told her I was from Shanghai.
She didn’t say anything, so I asked if she had ever been there.
She said once, last year with the company she worked for.
‘You never lived there?’ I asked. ‘You never moved
away from the house?’
“She told me that, for one year, when she was a teenager,
They had lived somewhere else, but not Shanghai.
Then I asked if older sister lived nearby.
She considered the question, then pointed to the window,
‘Older sister is on a hillside outside the city.’
Instead of anger, Weng—instead of desire, I felt something else,
a sort of lightness, and truly hoped she was with a devoted
husband, children too, even grandchildren,
a house full of voices like a forest in spring.
“. . . Little sister went on talking. ‘I don’t visit
as much as I used to, but
at least she is there with our father—
and our mother is out there now too.
I’m the only one left, and so the house that was
once too small is now too big.’
It sounds silly, Weng—but it took me a moment
to realize what she was saying.
‘I can see my story has depressed you,’ she said finally,
‘but the end of my sister’s life was happy—because she knew what
love was like, got to taste it before she died with a boy who lived
nearby. Whereas I have lived a whole life and still don’t know how
it feels.’
I wanted to speak up! Cry out! Pull the sister toward me!
Tell her: I was that boy!
But all I could do was fix my eyes
on some object in that kitchen,
with little or no meaning.
“At last I said, ‘What happened to the boy?’
The little sister shrugged. ‘She never told him she only had a year
to live when she broke off the engagement—
wanted to spare him a lifetime of grief.’
‘He probably thought she didn’t love him,’ I said.
‘Yes, I’ve never decided which was worse,’ Little Sister answered,
‘to lose the person you love after one year?
Or to think they never loved you in the first place?’
For a while neither of us spoke.
Then little sister looked me in the eye.
‘Sometimes I think about him and go over in my head
what I would say if we were ever to meet again.’
“I visited that hillside cemetery the next day, Weng.
Then a few days later, I went again.
Then again.
I began practicing the songs she loved
and realized I still had my voice,
though it had been silent for a long time.
When I go there now, other people visiting the graves
of their loved ones mistake me for her husband.
So in the end, Weng, you can see that I got some of my wish.”
Then Uncle Ping wrote down the poem that was carved into
his beloved’s memorial:
我对你的感情就像最深山谷里的野花，
尽管肆意疯长却无人知晓。
My feelings for you are like the wildflowers
Of the deepest valleys:
Though their abundance increases,
There are none that knows.
七
The following week, Weng was involved
in a serious road accident.
Witnesses saw a man fly off his tricycle into the guardrail.
What bad luck, they all said.
For a few moments after impact, Weng didn’t move.
People thought the worst.
But then he opened his eyes and stood quickly,
cursing not out of anger but embarrassment.
The driver of the Rolls-Royce that hit Weng was furious too,
but then an old woman spoke up and waved her cane,
ordered Mr. Yi to help Fun Weng pick up his vegetables.
The smell of onions reminded Mr. Yi of his father’s clothes
when he came in from the fields. When the police arrived,
the old woman explained what happened and what she had said
about family and ancestors—how she had used
her cane to restore harmony.
The police looked at the mangled tricycle,
couldn’t believe Weng was not injured.
Volunteers carried the twisted frame to the sidewalk as Mr. Yi
noticed a cabbage-shaped bulge of metal welded to the tubing.
“What’s that?” he said, pointing.
The volunteers looked too.
“Golden Helper II,” Weng said.
“But what is it?”
“It’s something that makes it easy to go a long way.”
Mr. Yi examined the mechanism more closely.
“But what does it do?”
Everyone on the street was now fascinated
with Golden Helper II.
“It helps with my family business . . .” Weng said.
“. . . in a golden way.”
Mr. Yi thought he was being funny.
“Where’s Golden Helper I?”
“Dead,” Weng said.
“Dead? How?”
“Passed away in bed one night.”
The crowd didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Mr. Yi shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand you.”
“Golden Helper II was named after my mother.”
“Your mother’s name was Golden Helper I?”
Mr. Yi bent down and touched the mechanism with his hand.
“It’s still hot! How does it work? A dynamo? A current through
motion? And look! Your tricycle has three chains.”
“It was my father’s idea,” Weng said. “He got it one night
after my mother found a tomato in my bed.”
Then the policemen got impatient,
thought Weng was a lunatic,
wanted to know where he lived. Traffic was backed up for miles,
angry voices crackled from their walkie-talkies.
“Drive this man home!” They barked at Mr. Yi.
But Weng refused to leave without
his vegetables and Golden Helper II.
Could he put them on the backseat of Mr. Yi’s big car?
Was there some rope to tie the frame of his tricycle to the roof
of the Rolls-Royce?
In the end, Mr. Yi agreed to buy
all the vegetables for a good price,
and told the crowd of people watching,
Please take free onions and cabbages.
At first they were shy, but after one person
grabbed a bundle, the pile disappeared.
Mr. Yi also pleaded with Fun Weng to let one of his men deliver
the broken tricycle frame to his door as soon as they could get a
truck through the traffic.
The crowd watched as the vegetable seller
was driven away in Mr. Yi’s fancy car.
What good luck, they all said.
“Is this a Rolls-Royce?” Weng asked, pushing buttons.
“Don’t touch, Mr. Fun, please.”
“My father loved cars,” said Weng. “He was blind
but would have put his hands on everything—
taken things apart even.”
Although Mr. Yi was a solitary person who rarely enjoyed the
company of other people, there was something about the
vegetable seller he liked, and surprised himself by going into
detail about his humble roots in Guanshan village (Hunan
Province), where he was raised on a pig farm.
“My father was just like yours,” Mr. Yi insisted.
“Always inventing things. . . .”
“Yes,” Weng said. “Mine was always doing something.”
“Mine too,” Mr. Yi said, “Once he even built
a ten-foot-high platform
above the river that flowed near our farm.
Every morning he would launch
pigs off the highest plank into the water
because he thought it boosted appetite.”
“Whose appetite?” Weng asked.
“The pigs’ of course, Mr. Fun.”
Mr. Yi’s car inched through the hutong district,
past stands of fruit, small children playing,
people squatting to eat.
Even though Mr. Yi was only forty-nine,
his father was also dead.
Heart attack. Chopsticks on the ground,
and Mr Yi, with all his money,
helpless as a pauper.
Weng thought of both their fathers sitting somewhere together
like the plastic wise men used to decorate bonsai trees.
Weng told Mr. Yi to stop when they were outside his home.
“I’m sorry about the accident, Fun Weng,
but glad you’re not hurt.
I’ll provide you with a brand-new tricycle within a few days.”
“I don’t want another,” Weng said firmly. “The Shanghai
Forever tricycle was my father’s and must be returned.”
“I’ll do my best,” Mr. Yi said. “Truly I will.”
The next few days were torture,
for Golden Helper II did not come home.
Weng’s knee was also hurt. It swelled up and he couldn’t walk.
Sitting alone in the kitchen, Weng ate his dinner from cans.
He had also fallen into the habit of checking
his cell phone for text messages,
amazed at how nothing can also bring unhappiness.
Weng remembered the day he bought it
and first showed it to Cherry in the park.
“I got it for a good price,” he had said, flipping it open and shut.
“And it’s only two years old.”
八
After ten days, Fun Weng stared at himself
in the bathroom mirror.
He had lost Cherry and Golden Helper II.
But at least his knee was better.
His neighbor Hui, had an old Pigeon bicycle
in his bedroom with plastic over it.
Weng watched him put on new tires,
then gulp oil across the chain.
“It hasn’t been ridden since Mao died,” Hui told him.
“But we all have to work, Fun Weng.”
The next day Weng transported what produce he could
in large bundles strapped to the frame.
But it was less than half his usual cargo.
Without Golden Helper II, Weng got a taste of what other
cyclists had been going through all these years.
It made him sad to think what his mother
would have said about all his misfortune.
Once, on the old spring bed,
In the middle of the night,
he sat up and said her name.
Over time, he thought, a person can get used to anything.
Almost two weeks after the accident,
there was a knock at his door.
The driver had been trying to find Weng’s address all morning.
A few of the neighbors came out to watch as an electric tricycle
was lowered off a flatbed truck.
The driver asked Weng to sign some papers.
“It is our best model, Mr. Fun—even before Mr. Yi
called in the customization.”
“But where is Golden Helper II?” Weng asked.
“Where is my old tricycle?”
“What do you want something old for?” the driver said, lighting
a Baisha cigarette. “This has a lightweight high-side bed,
built-in electric lights, heated seat, heated handgrips, air-horn,
radio, CD player, DVD player, low-tire-pressure warning
system, GPS, and custom Chanel handlebar gloves.”
A sticker on the frame in writing Weng couldn’t read said:
Racing Monument Paris
Tour de Farce
But in the days that followed, Weng could not
fully enjoy his new machine.
He went back to where the accident occurred.
Talked to the man in the magazine kiosk,
but learned nothing new.
Contrary to his promise, Mr. Yi had ordered the wreckage of
Fun Weng’s tricycle be taken to his apartment
in the central business district of the city,
where he spent several days examining Golden Helper II
in his English pajamas and blue velvet slippers.
It was impossible to dismantle without destroying—
and so Mr. Yi just stared at it, concluding that it was not a
complicated mechanism,
but simply one that hadn’t been thought of.
Each evening, Mr. Yi drank single malt
and looked at the broken tricycle in his front room,
marveling at how so basic a principle
could have escaped the engineering minds of history.
When Mr. Yi’s friends came over for dinner one night,
they sat admiring the mangled tricycle too.
His business partner’s wife liked it so much,
she demanded the name of the gallery.
“I want one for the third guest room,” she said.
“Chinese art is so real!”
When the fruit came, Mr Yi told his business partner
that the metal egg mechanism known as Golden Helper II
could potentially be a candidate for mass production.
He explained what he thought it did,
and how it might take a team of skilled engineers
weeks—even months—to reproduce it exactly.
The business partner looked worried,