Death Fugue

by Sheng Keyi

  The furnishings inside her home gave him a sense of deja vu. If not for the different murals, he’d think he was back in the place where he’d eaten the pig’s trotter. These buildings that all looked the same were also similar inside, almost the way rooms in a hotel have the same appearance. The only difference was in the detailed decor, like the arrangement of flowers, that revealed the owner’s personal taste. This woman’s home had a lot of flowers and plants. To the right of the door, there was a screen of plants lush with fresh foliage. On the ground were pots of various heights, and hanging baskets above, full of colourful floral vines. He recognised periwinkle, bluebells, marigolds, begonias, petunias, and the short blossoms of morning glory. The plant blooming in the living room window was like a curtain of falling water. On the dining table was a hydroponic orchid with one elegant flower in bloom. The open cupboard held stacks of candles and beautiful silver candlesticks covered with elaborate decorations. Atop them were half-burnt candles. On the floor were several blue and white porcelain vases, and a stone sculpture of an animal head. He also saw flowers that looked like birds. After the meal he learned they were called ‘bird flowers,’ ‘birds of paradise,’ or ‘birds of heaven,’ and their scientific name was Strelitzia.

  Practically all the plants were in bloom. The woman in green was herself like a dragon tree, her long hair naturally loose, covering the slender stem of her body and drooping with a finely wrought leaf pattern. Filled with desire, his hands were scheming how they might minister tenderly to her.

  His eyes turned back to the woman. Watching how she went about managing the household, he wondered how she could work without making a sound. He too kept silent. It was like a scene from a pantomime.

  After a short while, she went into another room. When she came out, she held a stack of fresh clothes, shoes, and socks. She handed the stack to Mengliu and flatly asked him to bathe and dress. Her pronunciation in English had a loose quality, like wind stirring up all sorts of sounds in the dragon tree. It was a flavour all her own. When she uttered an ‘s’ sound, she gritted her two rows of small pearly teeth tightly together and spat an ethereal wisp of air from her mouth, letting it float like a subtle fragrance. When she said ‘I am…’, her rosy tongue crept out and her eyes moved.

  The smooth glow of her breast made Mengliu’s tongue stiffen. He politely took the clothes, uttered a terse but sincere thanks, and turned his attention to bathing and dressing.

  Incense sticks burned in the bathroom, saffron-scented, or maybe gardenia. They again awakened the desire in him. The wall was tiled with colourful mosaics and the window decorated with tinted wax. The lights were soft, and the room filled with purple flowers. Entering into this space filled with an air of feminine sweetness, Mengliu grew reckless, but at the same time felt the secret joy of such a privilege. His heart filled with sweetness too as he carefully set the clean clothing on the counter. Humming a tune to himself, he undressed.

  When he went to urinate, he discovered that the toilet bowl was a chic matte golden colour, and gave out a cool, dark gleam. He leaned his head down and inspected it, carefully running his finger over the surface of the bowl a few times. He tapped it a few times more, and gasped as he came to a tentative conclusion: the toilet bowl was wrought of gold. Taking upon himself the serious, responsible role of a scientist, he continued the exploration, squatting before the bowl and finally lying down and biting on it to test its authenticity. His sensitive fingers found the shallow tooth marks his bite had left behind.

  He took the marbles the brown-eyed boy had given him from his pocket, and rotated them in the light for a while, then cradling them in his hand, he created a circle of darkness around them just so he could admire their glitter. He did not doubt that they were genuine. He only found it hard to believe that the people of Swan Valley could value precious stones and metals no more than they would a piece of shit.

  He stood for a long time, feeling emotional. Faced with the golden toilet, he felt an inexpressible pressure. The urge to urinate disappeared. He couldn’t even squeeze out one drop. He dawdled as he began to bathe. Covering himself with shower gel, he thought of the hardships of the road, the strange things he’d encountered, the energy of the spiritual leader, the charm of the girls, the beauty of Swan Valley, the simplicity of the people, and he was overwhelmed with admiration.

  Distracted, he finished bathing, his pores emitting the fragrance of the gel, dried his fit body, trimmed his moustache, dressed in the loose linen robe, then faced the mirror again. What he saw there was very pleasing to the eye. He felt that he had the look of one of the famed scholars of old. On his way out, he touched the toilet bowl again, rapping his knuckles against it a few times. He took a final look at the mirror and saw that he looked like a man going on a date. He wore a happy smile – the sort of expression a wife might see on the face of a husband who had been gone for a very long time and had now returned.

  The meal was served, and a steaming aroma filled the air. In the centre of the dishes of bamboo shoots and salted meat, rose soup, blood tofu and vegetables was a vase of purple flowers. There were skirt-like blue and white porcelain bowls, two blue and white cups, and three pairs of chopsticks. The fragrance of the rice wine evoked a memory in Mengliu. He thought back to eating in a Chinese restaurant, where it was this same type of rice wine that had made Qizi drunk. He had taken her back to the West Wing and they had slept together on the same bed. Even in this state, she was alert enough to guard her chastity. His desire had boiled through the night.

  The woman in green poured a milky substance into his cup. Placing it in front of him with both hands, she asked flatly, ‘Where does the gentleman come from?’

  ‘Dayang. My family name is Yuan. You can call me Mengliu. I’m a surgeon.’ The chopsticks had a pattern painted on their upper ends. He privately wondered what the meaning of the third pair of chopsticks might be. There was a stiffness to his speech. He employed a formal mode of expression, hoping that would weaken his Dayang accent and add a bit of charm to his words.

  ‘Oh, I guessed you were from there.’ The girl in green wore a gentle expression, but she seemed to be testing him.

  Mengliu was surprised. At times like this, he did not want to waste his energy on polite matters. His heart was pounding with the sights and sounds of spring, his face radiant as if love-struck, like a bird rising confidently and joyously to greet the morning sun.

  ‘It’s actually a very interesting country,’ the girl continued.

  ‘Yes, it is vast and overflowing with resources. It has a long history. Swan Valley is…?’ Mengliu tried to hide his embarrassment as he sought to gain a little insight into her place.

  ‘You can call me Su Juli,’ the woman interrupted.

  ‘Oh…that’s a pretty name. Does it have any special significance?’

  ‘My favourite number is seven, because God created man on the seventh day. Our poems have lines with seven characters. There are seven treasures in the Buddhist scriptures. The human body has seven openings, seven passions…’ The woman in green hesitated, as if trying to think of what else might relate to the number seven.

  ‘…There’s the book Seven Epitomes, and there are seven continents on Earth. Which continent is Swan Valley on?’

  ‘Mr Yuan, what kind of book is the Seven Epitomes ?’

  ‘It’s an ancient library catalogue.’

  ‘China is a very mystical country. Look, this blue and white porcelain, that animal carving, they are all very ancient. I don’t even know what period they come from.’

  Mengliu pretended to look at them. ‘They’re pretty. But, I don’t really know much about these things.’

  Unperturbed, the woman asked in a different tone about Dayang’s legal system, the standard of living of its people, who its spiritual leader was.

  Mengliu was overjoyed. He felt that this woman in…no, he should think of her as Juli – that what she had asked was intriguing, and humorous, but the expression on her face as she wai
ted for his answer showed that she was not joking. He had to employ diplomatic tactics and recite at length from passages in his textbooks in praise of the motherland. He could not find the English equivalent to some parts, but he finally managed to express himself clearly – not fluently, but clearly. At a certain level, what touched Juli might not be her opponent’s wit, but his awkwardness. Not everyone liked an eloquent person. Sometimes a person’s charm emerged at a point between a pause and a hesitation. Mengliu strove to express himself in a more careful, mature manner, hoping in this way to attract Juli.

  At the end of the day, he was a poet, and not a bad one at that. He was never at a loss with women. One might even say that this was his greatest strength. His accomplishments in literature and his interest in philosophy were embedded deep within him, and women always seemed to have a way to draw it out. He would rather waste all his talent on a woman than be hailed a hero by his ruthless motherland.

  With an affected dramatic accent that made it sound like he was explaining a disease, he continued, ‘…with the ups and downs and changes in life, our people are wealthy now and very particular about how they live. After dining out on the weekend, they often go and listen to the music of a mega-star, or see a play featuring some famous actor, or appreciate a world-renowned ballet. During the course of the evening they smoke Cuban cigars and sip on vintage wines. The women go for expensive beauty treatments, and their little purebred dogs visit pet salons…’

  The longer he spoke the more outrageous he became. It was obvious his vanity was leading him into trouble as he took the upper echelons of society as the norm in his exposition. In fact, only about four percent of the population of his country enjoyed the lifestyle he spoke of, while eighty-four percent made up the bottom of the pyramid, mired in poverty and unemployment.

  The woman in green spoke slowly, inclining her head slightly and clasping her wineglass, ‘We focus on liberal education, and our aim is a cultured people. We spend our time developing the mind, engaging in debate and the appreciation of the arts. For example, Esteban – he’s the young man you saw today, the one who has been engaged in debate for three days and three nights – he admires the ancient Chinese philosopher Mozi. He says people should pursue plain living and seek after spiritual wealth, since pleasure and luxury are evil.’

  ‘Esteban sounds like a wise man.’ Mengliu returned the salute politely, then drank his wine. ‘Where does he work?’

  ‘He has many identities. He trains future spiritual leaders, scholars and poets.’ The ring in the woman’s lip shook slightly beneath her pointed nose.

  Her long lashes tickled his senses, almost beyond what he could bear. He released a little cry. He tried hard to make his ‘oh!’ reflect admiration and feeling. Admittedly this was a difficult thing to bring off, but he did it easily. Going even further, he plunged straight into an elaborate, silent contemplation, and his silence was just perfect, for a long-winded man who sought to get to the bottom of things would have seemed boring and lacking in intellectual prowess.

  Mengliu was smart, and he remained completely focused on the woman in green. At the most appropriate moments, he would say things like, ‘Do you engage in the art of dancing?’ as a way of suggesting that her body was beautiful, or ‘You’re like the goddess in The Rhapsody of the Goddess of Luo.’ In this way, he quickly shifted the atmosphere from a stiff awkwardness to more yielding ground.

  ‘Oh no! No, I’m just a teacher. I teach sculpture and painting.’ She waved him off with a limp hand. ‘I’m just an ordinary woman. But thank you for the compliment.’

  Mengliu, sparing no effort, continued to employ his genteel manners in this nauseating play. The woman in green was obviously not the sort whose head would start to spin from the sound of a little flattery. If he did not appreciate the need for moderation, all his efforts would end up being counterproductive. So he used food to stop up his mouth, showing by his expression how delicious it was. He wasn’t very hungry, but he was happy. His knotted feeling from a while back had disappeared, and he went about it all with an easy, carefree manner.

  They chatted, and as they entertained themselves, the food diminished and the bottle emptied. With his body swathed in comfortable clothing, filled with the appropriate amount of wine, and faced with an appropriately fair female, everything seemed just right. He glanced at the foliage of the tree in the garden, and his heart overflowed with a special kind of wealth. Just then, the small raccoon-like boy he’d seen earlier jumped into the garden and trotted straight over to the woman in green. ‘Mum,’ he complained, ‘I don’t want to wear these things.’

  The woman in green took the diamond jewellery off his body and threw it in the trash. It was as if she was picking strands of grass off him.

  ‘Shanlai, this is Mr Yuan…remember your manners.’

  One can never avoid one’s nemesis for long. Mengliu mockingly prepared to accept Shanlai’s greetings, but the latter gave him a supercilious look and ran out through the front door.

  ‘As long as there’s a debate going on, he doesn’t bother about anything else.’ She spoke as a mother, and didn’t try to make excuses for her son.

  ‘That was your child?’ Mengliu knew he had asked a redundant question, but to push aside the surprise he was feeling, he quickly added a second question, ‘Those things…you just throw them away?’

  ‘Things made of jewels and diamonds are just ornaments children wear to ward off evil.’ The woman in green started to put the dinner things away. ‘Let me clean up. If you’ll wait for a while, we can have tea in the garden.’

  Mengliu bowed in her direction. From various details he had deduced that this was a very well-mannered place, and so he too had become more courteous.

  The garden was filled with the scent of flowers, and lots of fruit. They were green, red, yellow, round, long, flat – the greatest variety he had ever encountered. A hammock stretched between the trees alongside some lounge-chairs. A stone table, carved with a multi-purpose playing board, was surrounded by four wicker chairs and two round stools. He sat in one of the chairs, and watched Juli carry the tea things over. She was just like Chang’e, the famed Lady of the Moon.

  ‘Along with their formal careers, all the people of Swan Valley learn a handicraft.’ She put the tea set down and opened the box of leaves. The scent of tea escaped from the box like a pack of demons. ‘I learned how to roast fermented tea over a fire, and how to pick the tea leaves myself. Those picked and brought back before rainfall have the best quality.’

  ‘It seems you get a lot of rain here in Swan Valley. I didn’t know the weather was so important in tea-picking.’ Mengliu admired the cups and sniffed at the tea leaves with an affected panache, trying to demonstrate some level of expertise.

  ‘I’ve heard that China’s fermented tea is also pretty good. It has quite a long history there.’ She added plain hot water to rinse the tea set, put in more leaves, then brewed the first pot. ‘Our fermented tea comes from a different strain, but we use the same methods for preparation, heating, crumbling, soaking and drying. It’s not uncommon for us to store the tea in a cellar for more than five years before taking it out to drink. This has been kept for twenty years. Try it.’

  ‘I don’t know much about tea. I like to drink sorghum spirit. Rice wine is also good.’

  ‘Swan Valley prohibits the consumption of spirits. Liquor is a source of trouble.’ She had made the tea, and was waiting for its colour to deepen.

  Mengliu replied, ‘Alcohol is innocent. To put the blame on alcohol is like a conquered people putting the blame on women for the death of their country.’

  Juli said, ‘Your institution of marriage…’

  ‘According to the law, it is one man, one wife. In reality, if a man’s rich, he can have concubines, mistresses, bastard children.’

  She poured the tea into a small porcelain cup. The cup’s surface glistened like jade against the golden hue of the tea. The aroma was light, though the tea was concentrated, and
the bottom of the bowl was visible through the liquid.

  The young woman was suddenly quiet, taking her tea very seriously.

  ‘Have you seen an instrument like this before?’ Mengliu pulled out his lady-charming chuixun.

  Juli took the flute from him and inspected it for a while. ‘I know it’s a xun, but it’s the first time I’ve seen a real one. It looks very old. Oh! and your name is carved on it.’

  ‘Yes. It’s an antique. At least six-hundred years old.’

  ‘That’s priceless. Where did you get it?’ She returned the chuixun to him.

  ‘My mum left it to me.’ It was the first time he had ever uttered this strange word ‘mum’ in the presence of a woman he hardly knew. He was surprised by it. He almost went so far as to share his most personal information, that his mother had given him the instrument at the time when she abandoned him in his swaddling clothes.

  To rescue himself from further embarrassment, he said, ‘You want to hear it?’

  She nodded, and he began to play the soothing notes of his old favourite, ‘The Pain of Separation’.

  As he played the low, sad melody, the night fell quietly about them, as if the dark eyes of a multitude of small animals were peering from the shadows.

  9

  His bedroom was next to the garden. Its decor was simple and it smelled like it had been vacant for a long time. The smell of loneliness resembled that of a dried melon. But when Mengliu walked in, that smell disappeared, and the room became warm and pleasant. He paced slowly around it, a smile on his face, knowing that he already liked it here. He looked about him and noticed a moderately-sized painting on the wall. It was of a white cathedral, its steeple covered in red tiles and its windows filled with gorgeous colourful images. The cathedral was surrounded by trees with golden leaves and white clouds billowing overhead. A bust of crude appearance sat on the wardrobe, its hair bristling and a rough beard curling beneath its protruding chin. Books rested on a small bookshelf, alongside a stack of blank paper. On the desk there was a framed photo, and the back of the frame bore the name Juan. Mengliu turned the frame around again, and saw that the soldier had a commanding presence with his long face, deep-set eyes, bright teeth and glossy dark skin, holding a hat under his arm. He was dressed in riding breeches and black boots, and his legs were very straight. He was young, about twenty-four or twenty-five.