by Sheng Keyi
He placed women in two basic categories. There were those who liked revolution and those who did not. Women who liked revolution were energetic and restless. They liked to take the initiative, riding him for their own pleasure. Those who did not like revolution blindly closed their eyes and wore pained expressions. They secretly enjoyed being ravaged by him, and even when they reached a climax, it died on their lips. He could not say which group fascinated him more. Eventually he would think of Qizi, imagining her in his bed, and what it was like when the two of them were together.
It was a painful torment to him.
Each year at the height of summer, Yuan Mengliu was stricken with a strange disease, involving itchy skin, inflammation, muscle spasms, convulsions and headaches, and his hallucinations grew more severe. He beat his body and bathed himself in hot water, soaking there until his skin was as red as a newborn baby’s.
He had had a few lengthy relationships over the years, and during his bouts of illness he spent much effort convincing those innocent girls that he needed to be alone for a while in order to recover. None of them believed that his illness required him to be away for such a long stretch. Most were convinced that it was a cover for him to engage in an affair. Others, those with a deeper disposition who understood his personal experiences a little better, laughed at him for shouldering the burden of history, telling him that life was short and he should seize the day. One broad-minded girl gritted her teeth, pulled out a few of his white hairs and tenderly warned him that he should pay attention to his safety. A secret spring brews in the hearts of women. When it bubbles into action, it is the recovery of all things, a sort of rejuvenating power. It is as unstoppable as the coming of spring, and the opening of flowers – and just as short-lived. He was not saddened by this. On the contrary, he appreciated it.
Mengliu believed Qizi was alive. She must be in some corner of the vast territory of Dayang, raising a family. So every year he went travelling, driven to find her by his gathering hysteria.
This summer he decided to go even further than usual, on the recommendation of a girl he had met.
After a long journey he came to a fertile land with exquisite scenery. He sat in a small café by the lake, where the well-endowed proprietress knew that the taste for delicacies was like going to the opera; the leading actors were the main attraction. Haltingly, she rattled off the names of the four specialties from the area around the lake. There was wild celery, wild artemisia, asparagus and knotweed. She was like a procuress carefully reading off the names of famous courtesans in a pleasure quarter. The wild, the lovely and the innocent – all kinds of beauties to please and entertain her guests, who had travelled such distances.
Mengliu went on a little binge, indulging in fried whitebait, steamed mandarin fish and braised carp, along with the four regional specialties. The table was overflowing with delicacies as he drank his wine and gorged himself on the fish. His face was flushed all the way down to the base of his neck. Even his pores gave off the smell of alcohol. When he’d finished eating he felt a little sleepy and so he settled down to take a nap in the breeze. He was awakened by a sudden roar, to find several motor boats resembling tanks bulging with machine guns taking a colourful, noisy crowd to the island in the lake.
He pulled out his chuixun, thinking he would play for a while. He changed his mind, rubbed the instrument a few times, then slipped it back into his pocket. He peeled off a few garlic cloves and went for a walk along a secluded road as he chewed them.
The houses were scattered. The signs of people gradually disappeared. Birds flew low overhead, beneath brilliant clouds.
He continued to walk, passing over several hills and into less hospitable terrain. After a sharp turn in the road, he saw the white walls and grey roof tiles of a house. There were some domestic animals at its door, and a boat with its sail rigged was moored nearby.
There was something a little different about this lake and mountain scene. The lake’s surface was an endless sketch of muddy yellow, a vast expanse. A white bird fell from the sky and struck a graceful pose on the sail of the boat. A spotted eagle dived into the water and speared a silver fish. When the clouds burned away, the water also seemed to burn, and the fishing boats in the distance could hardly be seen in the blaze.
Mengliu suddenly heard the screech of birds as they whizzed by like bullets overhead. He ducked quickly.
Now the scenery at the lake was beautiful and quiet. The path was overgrown with wild grass. The air was humid. The gardenia bushes were full of plump white flowers. Thin gourds dangled on the loofa vine, alongside pink hibiscus blooms and bamboo shoots. Smoke hung over the house like the billowing sleeves of Chinese opera performers.
A pungent smell diluted the poetic effect of the scene. A fish hung on a bamboo pole, its eyes protruding. It wore the look of one who had died without finding happiness.
A fisherwoman in bright red garb stepped toward Mengliu, holding a harpoon. The blood-red colour she wore had a dizzying effect. Her rough skin and dark complexion were in stark contrast to the colour of her clothes. Her face, a black spot on a crimson bed, was that of a person who was content with poverty. Perhaps it was because of the dust, or maybe it was just a trick of the light, but her messy hair looked as if it were silver-plated, like a lazily floating reed.
The fisherwoman first looked frightened, as if she had never seen a stranger before. But once she realised that he wanted to charter her boat, she moved her bamboo chair over and offered it to Mengliu, then boiled him a strong brew of the fragrant local leicha, a green tea blended with sesame, peanuts, and herbs.
The house was old, and seemed to sag just a little. The exterior wall was painted with red-lettered slogans.
In the distance the lake had a bewitching appeal. The breaking waves faded in and out. Waterfowl flew exuberantly into the line of fir trees which stretched to the horizon until it disappeared from view. The reeds formed an ashy clump of down that scattered in a thick cloud when the breeze blew.
The sun had ascended to its full height. Huge geese flew up like seeds sown in the sky.
Mengliu finished his tea in a single gulp. He was still chewing on the residue left from the brew as he boarded the boat. The rope was released, and the boat slipped out into the lake.
The sun was majestic, the white clouds puffy against the sapphire sky. Mengliu steered the boat past a wetland covered with a large patch of duckweed, blooming with flowers that flowed by like gold, slowly passing the low bushes, reeds, water hyacinth and other plants whose names he did not know, stretching out into the distance. He could see a bird’s nest in the reeds. The chicks sat there undisturbed by his presence, picking at each other’s feathers. At intervals, he caught sight of cranes nesting on a single leg, curled up for a nap. Water snakes swam in lazy figure of eights.
With the boat drifting in the breeze, he pulled out his lady-charming chuixin and played a tune in the face of that vast lake. It was melancholy, solemn, and mysterious, and the water trembled.
When he grew sleepy, he found relief by reclining his head. He lay down in the boat, closed his eyes, and breathed in the pungent smell of fish.
4
Outside, flurries of downy snow began to fall. The basement windows were quickly sealed with snow, and the room in which their interrogation was taking place became even dimmer. Mengliu was so hungry that a constant rumbling sound came from his belly, making him feel uneasy. By now he had learned that the short-haired girl’s name was Qizi. She was from the Physics Department, and was twenty-three years old. Everything she said was interesting. When they asked her why she had joined the procession, she said it was because she’d broken up with her boyfriend and was feeling down. She had absent-mindedly stepped into the street. Anywhere that there were lots of people suited her just fine. She didn’t care anything for this shit everyone was talking about. She joined the procession because of love, and so she could breathe freely.
With the way that Qizi transformed filth into love
, the atmosphere in the room suddenly became more relaxed. Even their captors started chatting idly about love. But before long they felt that they were getting carried away, so they turned back to the problem of the excrement.
The freckled woman said that ever since she was small, she’d heard her father talk about the animal kingdom. She knew a lot about hundreds of different species of animals, and understood them better than she did humans. She said that gorilla manure was shaped like a fried twist of dough, not like a pagoda. Furthermore, the gorilla’s excrement was important for the environment, so any attempt to protect the forest without protecting the gorillas was a mistake…
‘Growing up with a father who talked so much about the animal kingdom must have been pleasant,’ said the first man.
The second, catching hold of the crux of the issue, ignored this proposition. ‘Why did that pile of dung shrink by ten percent after it was first reported in the news? Surely it didn’t suddenly dry up?’
Everyone took this as a licence to laugh. They wanted to ask the father of the freckled woman to offer his testimony. She said her father was just a humble scholar of the working class, not someone with a real academic background. Nor did he have any professional ties, so no one would believe anything he had to say. His speech and the belief of others would alike be of little use.
The first man’s face squeezed itself into a worried expression. ‘If it’s not gorilla shit, then what sort of trick are they trying to pull on us?’
The freckled woman knocked on the table, warming the two men to keep their roles here in mind.
After a while, some food was brought. There was only bread and water. The farmer, unused to eating bread, chewed at it awkwardly as he complained about the government’s unreasonableness. ‘A man can’t say a few words without being punished. All I did was carry a sack of peanuts into the city to sell, and I said just one word to support them…and now you’re starving me to death, giving me nothing more than this rotten thing to chew on. My wife is still waiting for me to bring back the meagre earnings from that sack of peanuts so she can attend a wedding reception. We need to buy clothes for the banquet, and I was on my way to the market to get a little fabric for my wife. We haven’t finished with the arrangements, and now it’s getting so dark that I can’t go home anyway. I’m sure she’s sitting at home cursing me, saying I went out squandering the money, drinking too much and passing out on someone’s doorstep…I just want to go back and tell her all about this shit business. She’s sure to jump to her feet and give me a good telling-off for talking such rubbish!’
The farmer raised his voice to a shrill note in imitation of the woman. ‘What? A pile of shit? What crap is this? You think that after all the years we’ve spent raising animals, I’ll buy that? It might be easy to fool those hoity-toity city folks, but I’m no fool! That’s like saying my dog’s turned into a poet – there’s no way!’
The words flew out of the farmer’s mouth like bats from under the eaves of a house, a rapid stream in a strong rustic accent. When he’d finished howling, he glanced at everyone in turn as if looking for an ally. He licked bread crumbs from the corner of his mouth.
‘I’m an honest farmer, always on schedule with my deliveries. Whatever the government asks me to do, I do. If they tell me to grow rice, I grow rice. If they say to plant hemp, I plant hemp. Everything is according to their plan. They set the price, and that’s the price. If they don’t accept my crops, then I let them rot at home. A fellow like me just wants to provide a simple house for the wife and kid, and to put food on the table. How could I have the time to accompany those who want to take to the streets to play their silly games?’ When he’d had his say, the farmer patted his body here and there, then produced a flattened cigarette pack from one of his pockets. When he discovered that he didn’t have a lighter, he reluctantly put the cigarette back into the pack and let out a long breath, just as if he’d actually taken a puff. ‘The plight of a farmer! Which of you knows anything about that, huh?’
The lamp was not working, and the rest of the house had been left in darkness. Only a faint glimmer from a streetlight fell in through the basement window. The farmer’s voice made a circuit around the room, like the buzzing of a fly. No one paid any attention to him. After a while, his voice died down and he began to snore.
The detainees were released from the basement one by one. Eventually only Mengliu and Qizi were left, sitting at opposite ends of the bench. They could not see each other’s faces.
‘The Wisdom Bureau is so big…This is the first time I’ve noticed you,’ he said.
‘I’ve seen you before. You’re a famous poet. But it’s good that you don’t put on airs.’
‘Where’ve you seen me? And who are you calling “a famous poet”? Is that supposed to be some kind of insult?’
‘It’s from the newspapers of course. Who doesn’t know the poetry of the Three Musketeers? Your poetry, if you don’t mind me being direct, I really like it.’
‘Oh, you mean you guys in the Physics Department are interested in poetry?’
‘We have a literary society too. Unfortunately, the atmosphere at our meetings isn’t much to boast about.’
‘You should join our literary salons. There are forums and poetry readings every week.’
‘Maybe I am an undiscovered poet…but I’m presently tied up in a scientific research project.’
‘Oh? Something relating to the use of a machine in place of the human brain?’
‘A secret machine. The preliminary work will be done soon. I believe we’ll see the results in the near future – at least, in theory. Are you laughing at me? To laugh at me is to laugh at science.’
‘I wouldn’t dare! I hear that the Physics Department has quite a number of creative…geniuses.’
‘You can call me mad and I wouldn’t care. There’s not much to distinguish a mad woman from a genius. To a poet, scientific fantasies may sound weird. For example, would you believe there’s a machine that can detect information anywhere in the world, even extracting human genetic information or accurately calculating the electrical power generated in a lightning storm? And that, harvesting the forces of nature, it is able to absorb data on the world’s finest species?’
‘I think your concept is worth admiring and exploring. But if there really were such a machine, it shouldn’t be used to plunder…’
‘…it also has an automatic conferencing facility that makes policy decisions, and holds think tanks to analyse the situation at hand and offer proposals about how to solve the nation’s incurable diseases. It serves so many functions. It converses with people. Its methods are even more humane than a human’s.’
‘Humane? Unless it has emotions…This machine, is it male or female?’
‘How far we can progress is only limited by the smallness of our minds. Never doubt science, Yuan Mengliu.’ She used his own name to mock him.
‘Yes, yes, yes. Humans wanted to go to the moon, so they went to the moon. And if they want to go to hell, they’ll go to hell.’ Mengliu was rather enjoying himself.
But Qizi was taken away. Before long, he left the basement too.
The streetlights were dim. The people on the streets were wrapped up warmly.
The night mingled with the snow, a world of black and white.
5
The sky over the lake suddenly turned dark with rolling clouds and a freakish wind. The gigantic waves were like horses rushing out of an open gate, striking the hull of the boat with a loud crash, raising the bow out of the water and throwing Mengliu into the cabin, where he struck his head just hard enough to daze himself. The maddened clouds surged together, twisting in a fury into one great pillar that towered over the lake and drew it up into a funnel, leaving a spinning whirlpool at its centre. The sail, caught in the winds, began to flap violently, and everything turned black before Mengliu’s eyes. Both his body and his consciousness were sucked into the great black hole.
He did not know how much time
had passed before he opened his eyes to see the clear moon overhead, looking like a round loaf of bread in the sky. The forest around him was dark and full of rustling sounds. The leaves of the trees reflected the light from the moon, as if countless pairs of eyes were watching. His body lay in the damaged boat, his legs dangled in the water. He was so cold that his teeth chattered. He cursed. The boat sank beneath his hand as he tried to push himself up.
He was soaked. He waded towards the bank, starting a bright ripple in the water that accompanied the sound of his splashing. Scrambling ashore, he shouted several times, but even his voice seemed dark and hollow. He wasn’t sure whether his shivering was inspired by the cold or by his fear. The moonlight was cold, the shells strewn along the bank reflected its light. He was surrounded by a pale blue fog. He wrapped his arms around his body. He was barefoot, and wore little more than tattered rags. He took each step cautiously, hoping to see some signs of habitation.
The moon was a dandy. As he walked, it followed him, mocking him for his beggarly appearance.
He was like a louse on an elephant’s body, nothing more than a tiny insect in the forest. Branches whipped against him as he moved along, stinging his flesh.
