Death Fugue

by Sheng Keyi

  Mengliu was a bit bored now. He thought he might go to the Green Flower and grab a drink and a bite to eat. That should prove to be more interesting.

  Despite his longing for a little warm Chinese wine and some fried peanuts, he found himself mysteriously wandering into Round Square instead.

  The crowd in the square was beyond imagining. Some had lingered there for a long time, and in front of the newcomers their expressions filled with the pride of those in the know.

  Mengliu, listening to them talking about the faeces, got a general impression of it – that it was a dark brown lump smelling of buckwheat, soft in texture, and standing nine stories high. Its bottom layer was fifty metres in diameter. Its structure was like that of a layered cake, narrowing to a relatively artistic spire at the top.

  Mengliu found that the masses that had gathered in the square could be divided into three factions. The first had no sense of crisis, their interest lay in the question of what sort of sphincter would have been capable of forming such a masterpiece. The second was not interested in taking sides, and adopted a more neutral position as they waited to hear what those with some scatological expertise might conclude about the matter. The third group was for reform, having endured their meaningless lives for long enough. Anchorless, they held nothing dear. Their only hope was to catch a little fish out of the troubled waters through which they waded.

  In a state of disbelief over the size of Beiping’s population, Mengliu plunged right into the fray and became just another sheep in the mob. The rams, goats, ewes and lambs crowded together. They rubbed and brushed against one another, bleating the gossip from one mouth to the next. The agitation encompassed everyone – office workers and menial labourers, tourists and loiterers. They wore their expressions like masks, firmly buckled in place. Numb, expectant, worried, nervous, excited or eager, they wiggled their bloated bodies as their noses turned red and white smoke emerged from their mouths in the cold air. In times of excitement, even hands that are normally caged inside billowing sleeves will be let loose to the air. The people, huddled together as if waiting to witness some astronomical wonder, warmed the chilly streets.

  Mengliu could not squeeze his way into the heavily guarded area, where armed police were surrounded by a group of high school students, who in turn were surrounded by a group of kindergarten children. They had formed a three-layered human wall with their uniformed bodies. Water had been sprayed on the ground and, having frozen over, it now let off a luminescent glow. The air was heavy with fog and the sun seemed to be wrapped in a cocoon, emitting only a little grey-white light.

  Mengliu, pushing his way through the crowd, broke out in a sweat. Before he was able to get a good look at the famous tower of shit, he had to turn back. When he got home, he was feverish, and he felt ill.

  That evening, the television news went to great lengths reporting the incident, clearly advancing the theory that the tower was made of gorilla excrement, while at the same time criticising rumours of aliens and biological monsters. Together with sound bites, experts were seen donning their white gloves and inspecting the faeces. Their wrinkled brows showed their respect for their subject and underscored the serious academic nature of their work, leaving no room for doubt concerning the rigour with which their research was being conducted. The next morning’s newspapers printed essentially the same content, with nearly identical headlines appearing throughout the nation. But the majority of the people did not believe that it was gorilla excrement. Some even burned newspapers in the street as a sign of protest against the media’s failings and called for the government to be more transparent in relation to the faecal matter.

  Of course, the government could not easily modify its own conclusions about the Tower Incident. The media stood in a united front, offering an objective view of the event. When some papers went so far as to raise questions, their editors were immediately relieved of office for ‘dereliction of duty’, and the reporters were likewise sacked. This provoked the public’s ‘sense of justice’, making the people all the more certain that things were not as simple as they seemed. The feelings of resentment grew, and it did not take long for some people to take to the streets in protest. The crowd got steadily bigger, the protest gained momentum.

  People gathered at the site where the pile of shit had appeared. Naturally, it had been removed long ago. The ground had been carefully scrubbed clean. All evidence of it had disappeared, so finding out the truth was virtually impossible. No one could tear down the testimony of the so-called experts. They all knew of the shit’s existence, and many had witnessed the oddity first hand. But every one of them remained silent, without exception.

  The news that aliens had come spread like wildfire. Then, some reported that they had seen a UFO in the sky, and described it in concrete terms. Some claimed they had run into huge, strange creatures at night. As soon as evening fell, people locked their doors, no longer daring to walk on the streets after dark.

  Because of the emergence of the excrement, life was no longer calm for the citizens of Beiping.

  Postings on the double-tracked wall offered a detailed analysis of the Tower Incident, and mentioned several news reports. They pointed out a few holes in the arguments of the experts who claimed to know that the pile of excrement had come from a gorilla just by looking at it. In fact, they said, the research was very sloppy. They called for the most authoritative experts and the most scientific testing to be employed in addressing the mystery, saying that only DNA analysis of the faecal matter would be convincing.

  One of the famous writers in the ‘monster theory’ camp wrote: ‘Recklessly, they first came up with conclusions to deceive the public. It’s a trick for maintaining stability. The truth is in the hands of a small minority. If we go on like this, there will come a day when even the sun above us will be covered up by them.’

  Mengliu thought the claims of the ‘monster man’ were exaggerated. It was just a pile of shit. It was nothing to get so worked up about. But still, he had to admit it was a well-written essay, worthy to be counted among those of the talents at the Wisdom Bureau. As he casually read through the posters, he suddenly came across poems Hei Chun and Bai Qiu had composed about the faeces. They were written with a lot of passion. He was so excited that he fell into a fit of coughing.

  Still suffering from his cold, Mengliu broke out into a high fever again. He didn’t want to go to the hospital. He thought hospitals were places for making healthy people sick and sick people die. Some who had been admitted for nothing more than a cold had their appendices removed by mistake, someone with an inflamed gall bladder had ended up having his liver removed. This was no joke. Mengliu did not trust hospitals. He had his own remedies. He rinsed his throat, drank plenty of water and got plenty of sleep. After a couple of days, the fever broke and he felt fine.

  When he emerged from his quarantine, he walked on weak legs into the courtyard of his building. There, he heard the radio reports of the experts, still talking about the problem of the faeces. They said that ignorant people had been incited into rallying at Round Square, and they were destroying the public peace. It was producing a very negative impression. They hoped that these people would quickly disperse and go home to their families, keep house and cook for their children. The program’s host similarly persuaded the young people to disband and go home – preferably in time for dinner.

  Mengliu felt weightless. He was nearly blown over by the wind. After the coughing, he felt hungry. He needed to get something to fill his belly. He made his way to his landlord’s shop and got two cups of warmed milk and some bean cakes. As he chatted with the landlord, it was not long before the subject of the faeces came up. With the air whistling through the gap where he had a missing tooth, the landlord talked about the lively proceedings at Round Square.

  ‘Most of the people at the Wisdom Bureau will head over there today,’ he said. ‘You are all intellectuals. We common folk are too uncultured. We don’t know anything, but we trust you fello
ws. Whatever you say, that’s how it is.’

  Mengliu was a little taken aback. A collective action by the Wisdom Bureau was no small thing. He finished his milk, swallowed another bean cake, and went to wave down a trishaw to take him to Round Square.

  But before the vehicle could even get out of Liuli Street, it was blocked by a crowd. He had no choice but to get down and walk.

  At the intersection of Liuli and Beiping Streets, he saw a mighty procession. The crowd was in uniform, in white T-shirts and with red bandanas tied around their heads. They held up placards and waved banners.

  ‘We Want a Meeting’

  ‘Capture the Aliens’

  ‘DNA Testing for Stool Samples’

  ‘Live in Truth’

  The onlookers shouted warm welcomes from both sides of the street. They raised their voices in a chorus, singing the newly composed ‘Tower Song’, There were some individuals who had always been shy and reserved, but now suddenly they produced placards from inside their clothing, as if by magic. They slipped into the crowd and raised their signs. After a few moments their faces lit up with a burst of energy.

  The branches of the trees beside the street were bare, making the birds’ nests there uncomfortably conspicuous. The sky was grey, and it was becoming difficult to see in the failing light.

  By the time Mengliu realised that he was caught in the swaggering ranks, it was like waking up in a flood of consternation. He did not know how he came to be standing near the banner at the head of the procession. This was completely out of character for him. He was normally very cautious.

  In the chaos, as Mengliu tried to find a way out, several people in blue caps squeezed their way toward him. One with a sharp face and pinched mouth said to him, ‘We workers came especially to express our solidarity with you. You people at the Wisdom Bureau are the best.’

  Hearing this, Mengliu was filled with pride. He raised his hand high up in the air, causing the banner above him to tilt.

  When he did take note of the banner, he found that the other end was held by a girl with closely cropped hair, an oval face, and fair skin. Her almond-shaped eyes were dark and gentle.

  He felt as if his heart stopped beating in that instant.

  Just then, the short-haired girl raised her head, and turned a furtive glance his way. His heart came to life again, beating double time. He felt he was a cicada emerging from its cocoon. A ray of sunlight fell on him, making him feel warm all over and full of the joy of life. Stimulated by this joy, he raised his own voice in unison with those shouting slogans. His voice was like a stone thrown by a child, skipping across a lake, and he felt ashamed at the thinness of it. His heart boomed in his chest, and he raised his voice even louder. Perhaps a new measure of courage had been injected into him, for somehow his voice came out mellow and resonant. He gained confidence in his own cries. He pretended not to bother about the short-haired girl, exaggerating the measure of his passion and the grace in his performance. He knew she was beside him, delicate and quiet as a bird perched on a branch.

  The short-haired girl seemed to be withstanding a head-on invasion as she faced the storm. Her lips were shut tightly, and she remained silent.

  Suddenly, a group came out of nowhere to break up the procession. After a moment of confusion, Mengliu found himself crammed into an unmarked bus. The windows were sealed shut, and everything was dark.

  Half an hour later, a light came on in the bus.

  When his eyes had adjusted to the light, Mengliu found that the bus was full of people. More importantly, the short-haired girl was standing next to him. Her pale face made her look like a sleepwalker.

  It was a rickety old bus. He deliberately turned away from the girl for a few seconds, then turned back to adjust the angle so that he could make an even bolder observation without being noticed.

  She had pretty lips, full and red. The smiling mouth rested beneath a perky, slightly freckled nose. She looked down, her gaze following the bridge of her nose and landing at Mengliu’s feet.

  The sense of joy once again consumed Mengliu’s heart. He turned a little, gaining a more direct line of sight, and continued to stare.

  She was probably not much more than a metre and a half tall. She had withdrawn into herself, didn’t even look up. Her glossy black hair smelled of shampoo. Or perhaps the fragrance came from her body, her fair white skin, the unique expression she wore.

  As the bus rattled along, the distance between them changed, altering his perspective of her. Now she was facing him, her expression blank as a wall. She stared at the fourth button on his windbreaker as if examining its texture.

  He looked her over. The more he inspected her, the closer he felt to her. The longer he stared, the more he felt he had known her forever.

  When the bus had bumped along for more than an hour, making several turns along the way, it finally came to a stop. Several brawny, aggressive fellows suddenly leapt up. They separated the bus’s occupants into groups and led them away to different places.

  The dimly-lit basement was damp and cold, with a single bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling, its bamboo shade covered with dust. The concrete walls were uneven, and the mud-yellow floor was dirty. The shoddy tiles were broken in places, and crunched underfoot as they walked. The room was furnished with a single desk and two long, narrow wooden benches. The air was bad, filled with a nauseating mixture of cooking fumes and sewage.

  Mengliu and the short-haired girl were brought into the room with a young man from the construction department named Quanmu, a farmer from outside of Beiping, and also a high-school student.

  Before long, two men and a woman came in. It was not clear what their vocation was. Their faces were a blur, though they all looked vaguely similar. They carried with them an air of experience, streetwise people who had seen it all. A group of freckles gathered at the tip of the woman’s nose. She sat down, spread her notebook out on the table and uncapped her pen. The first of the two men sat down too, and propped his feet up on the desk, while the other rested his buttocks against its edge. All three pairs of eyes made their way over the group of people who had been brought in.

  ‘Relax. We’re just here to chat,’ the first man said, his face rigid.

  ‘Come on, we have the right to choose not to talk.’ The room was as icy as a freezer. Quanmu, seemingly quite familiar with the routine, turned and looked at his comrades. His face was bruised.

  In the strange atmosphere, Mengliu wondered whether he had unwittingly gotten himself mixed up with Triads.

  ‘What were you all doing playing in the streets? Don’t you know it seriously obstructs traffic and disrupts public peace?’ the first man said, ignoring everyone else. ‘Tell me. Just tell me all about it and you can go home.’

  ‘It was all about that pile of crap,’ the farmer cried. ‘Weren’t the slogans written out clearly enough?’

  The woman, who was busy scratching out her report, looked up. The first man looked like he wanted to give the farmer a good beating.

  ‘He’s right. It was all for shit,’ the short-haired girl suddenly interjected.

  3

  Now, with the heat close to 50 degrees during the day, Yuan Mengliu closed all the doors and windows in the house, drew the curtains and turned his room into a cave. Like an ant, he carried lots of food into his quarters, where he sometimes holed up for days at a time. When he looked out the window, he saw mounds of earth covered with weeds and small trees.

  The past rose up before him with all the force of a hallucination. He saw bodies lying in a disordered heap on the ground. The sun scorched them so that the people were faint and dehydrated. Starved of electrolytes, they fell into convulsions…Everything was chaos. There were ambulances, gunshots, and the blaze of red flames filled the night sky. He had discovered that there was no solace for him, even in the arms of a woman. Lately, he had turned to Jesus, spending his weekends reading a hidden copy of the English Bible and visiting the city’s magnificent churches. But
he had overestimated God, and the result of his conversion to Christianity was simply that he discovered the strange hypnotic power of hymns. As he sat on the churches’ pews, he entered into the same dream. In this dream, he was speaking in Round Square, surrounded by a crowd of people. The ferocity of his speech always jolted him awake. His face felt flushed, his eyes bloodshot, there was an icy pit in his stomach. After a vigorous ‘Amen’, he would leave the church and aimlessly follow the dispersing congregation into the streets.

  As he walked a complete circuit around Beiping Street, passing through the metropolis which had been attacked by financial crisis and turmoil, none of the city’s attractions held any appeal for him. The trees along the roadside had grown thicker, the road was wider and prettier, and the people were well-nourished and healthy. He bent his head and walked. The ground gradually turned red. He had walked all the way to the edge of the city. The water in the moat there was a violent scarlet stream. Dizzy, he leaned against the stone balustrade covered with engravings. The railings had been repaired so thoroughly that they were far superior to what they had been in their original state. The damage had been covered by a seamless reconstruction. Now that all the injury done had been compensated for, the events of a thriving life had taken over and filled in all the remaining cracks.

  A faint smell of blood was detectable, sometimes seeming to come from the flora and fauna, sometimes from the sewer, and sometimes from a certain class of people who couldn’t seem to rid themselves of it no matter how often they bathed, applied perfume, or covered it up with gorgeous clothing. Mengliu planted flowers, grass, fruit trees, but the poetic artificiality of the peaceful natural scenes could not rescue him from the restless feelings of the displaced. His spirit was never still. When he heard the night insects or a barking dog, or the wind howling in the dark, the sound was always interspersed with piercing jeers. His impeccable life had been calm as a brook, meandering through the plains and across the land, eventually to lose itself in the expanse of the sea. Now happiness had become shameful. He was filled with doubt, as if some conspiracy were brewing and a huge trap awaited him. He occupied his mind with research every day, seeking ways to better satisfy his physical needs. He went to night clubs, hung out with a group of female doctors. He seduced the bridesmaids at his friends’ weddings, or hooked up with female students on the train. Any consenting female was fair game. He would take women home, offering them his warmth and respect in exchange for the grave pleasure of having his way with them.