by Sheng Keyi
‘Everyone? You mean Hei Chun? You think I’ve embarrassed you. Well, isn’t this what you wanted?’ Mengliu was cynical. ‘Did you really read those books when you were a junior? You probably just saw the covers at Hei Chun’s place.’
In his jealousy, Mengliu could not make himself speak nicely to her. How could she flirt with Hei Chun right under his nose? Their familiarity with each other was beyond his understanding.
17
Mengliu had become used to the golden toilet, and his digestive system was now more regular than it had ever been. He toyed with the diamond marbles in his hand, his heart as forlorn as the baskets that were hanging on the wall, waiting for Juli’s care. What annoyed him was her ambiguous attitude. He couldn’t figure her out. She seemed like a wife of many years, placid and quiet, rarely meeting Mengliu’s eyes when she spoke. All he could do was look at her limitless face, the long eyelashes, the distant nose and eternal lips. She was cool, but not cold, like the low fence around the vegetable garden that was a sort of loose boundary and easy to step over. But Mengliu was acting contrary to his usual style, and was also reserved and considerate, like a rabbit sensitive to the signs of a trap. He found that the one sure way to catch Juli’s eye was to talk about his past. In order to win a glance from the beauty, he sometimes talked of Dayang’s shocking political scandals or its human tragedies. Afterwards he regretted it, and felt like a traitor. Even so, just for the sake of bringing tears to Juli’s chocolate-coloured eyes, even just for the shadow of a glance, he would spare no effort, working out a draft of his presentation in his mind first, so that he wouldn’t end up discrediting his own country while trying to win her favour.
Juli wanted to know specifically what made the machinery of a large nation turn. Was it flexible? Did the gears make a grinding noise, and what sort of lubricant was needed? Was wear and tear a big problem, and how did one go about replacing old parts? Or was it better just to scrap it all and start from scratch?
Mengliu kept leading the conversation back to medicine, saying that doctors had mastery over the machinery of the body. From ancient times until now, the body’s organs and tissues had not changed. The Yellow Emperor and The Compendium of Material Medicine would never be outdated, and medical skills were essential for keeping all the two-legged creatures of the world up and running.
Juli was more concerned about the body politic and the diseases it suffered from.
Mengliu had a premonition of danger. When a beautiful woman developed her intellect, it could only lead to disastrous consequences for him.
It was a good day. Juli brewed the dark, fermented tea and invited Mengliu to play a game of chess. Distracted, Mengliu lost two games.
Juli’s hair was arranged in two braids wrapped around her head and secured at the back with a shell clip. She wore clogs, and her toes were visible beneath the hem of her light blue skirt. The skirt was made of a soft, comfortable fabric that hugged her curves.
‘You’re playing too impatiently today. You are too distracted. You’ll scare away the spirit of the tea.’
She smiled serenely. It was a typical Swan Valley smile, temperate and lovely as porcelain. At that moment Mengliu felt the cherries had ripened, the coconuts were heavy, and the grapes on the trellis were surging forward.
‘You’re especially beautiful when you smile. Why don’t you smile more often? When you smile, even the plants and flowers take notice.’
Juli’s smile broadened, as if she were granting some special permit for Mengliu to make an even more daring comment. Of course, this was just a small test. He had stronger motives within him. He was just waiting for Juli to issue a more relaxed smile. But Juli’s smile came out like a bud in spring, showing signs of the flower, but not quite opening. Her liquid brown eyes solidified again and her thoughts took a leap.
‘From your point of view, what could a scalpel bring to the nation?’
The leaves rustled around them, his losing game displayed by the distinctive black and white pieces on the chessboard.
Mengliu picked up his cup in two fingers and took a small sip of the tea. His movements were slow. He set the cup down and steadied it, then said, ‘Each flower is a world unto itself, and each tree a life. Perhaps I can give a sick person a new world, a healthy world that has emerged out of their experience of horror, blood, pain, and repentance.’ He paused, leaning back in his chair with his elbows resting on the armrests, as if talking about these things exhausted him. ‘You know, to open up a person’s flesh with a knife is easy. Too easy…Sometimes, you cut out a tumour, or lance a boil, or remove a damaged kidney…just to save a corrupt official, a thief, or some other person who deserves to die a hundred times over…These people are the pillars of the nation, and taxpayers’ money goes to salving their conscience and fitting them with prosthetic limbs…You don’t know, but the kidneys of the poor, the bellies of the hungry, the various organs of the good – they all die helplessly at hospitals and at home. I can do nothing about that.’
The last bit was spoken with great emotion. He surprised himself, not realising he was so thick-skinned, as if he really did do his best for all living creatures, especially for those members of society who were subject to abject poverty and had no one to depend on. Actually, he had never cared about a patient’s identity when he wielded the knife, and he had never felt real sympathy or compassion. He had just taken his salary and lived his own life. Or, rather, he relied on his own abilities to live out his life. Unbelievably, his eyes were actually wet. He was like a revolutionary talking about his failed experiences, occasionally revealing a certain will and spirit to start over again.
His expression touched Juli. She almost felt an impulse to take his hand and comfort him.
‘People are always like this. When their desires reach a climax, their inner demons are released. The nation is like a person, always experiencing problems with its personality. But in the final analysis, wherever there are no strong values, things will end up in a mess.’ Juli sighed, then turned and said in a gratified tone, ‘Our hospital is like a beautiful historic site close to the mountains and water. When you see a doctor or pick up a prescription, it’s all free.’
‘All free?’ He was so surprised that he could not help but repeat Juli’s words. He thought of Hei Chun’s description of an idealised world, and now here it was right under his nose.
‘Yes, the doctors are like our close friends or family. In the hospital, the patient enjoys warmth and care, as if from a member of their family. And the hospital’s food is good too.’
‘You don’t have to go under the table to get that sort of care?’
‘We have state-of-the-art medical equipment. There are always beds and plenty of space.’
‘The key thing is, you don’t have a large population, everybody is healthy and beautiful, and people rarely get sick.’
‘No, the key is that we have good genes.’ Juli stretched and stood up, then said casually, ‘The place Esteban took you to wasn’t too bad, was it? When you got there…were you inspired to write poetry?’
‘No,’ Mengliu answered decisively. ‘If someone’s poetry cells have been burned to death, there’s no way to resurrect them. They won’t come back to life.’
According to what Juli told him, the population of Swan Valley was strictly limited, and not heavily concentrated in the suburbs. The areas lying around the town made provision for only two thousand households, and the number of people who could live in each household was also limited, with the surplus moved to other places to pioneer new developments. For every one hundred people there was a church, its reverend trained from youth by special agencies. He was highly respected. He also held other executive offices, such as Head of a Hundred Households or Head of a Thousand Households. The reverend’s wife had to be one of the outstanding women of Swan Valley. Criminals and the intellectually average were prevented from reproducing. Their propaganda slogans included exhortations like, ‘Ensuring a Quality Population Starts with Good Gen
es’ or ‘Let the Best Sperm Combine with the Best Egg’.
Now imagine you are an insect, and you fly through a low-rise building to a grove filled with the scent of magnolias. Religious music comes from one of the windows. If you were to say that the scent belongs to the music, or that the melody comes from the scent, you would not be wrong. The streets are exceptionally clean, and there is no smog or noise pollution. The pureness of the air bears with it a trace of sweetness. In a colonnaded ring-shaped square, forty-five degrees to the east, you will see an old tree. It is called the Tree of Beasts, and it is said to be the patron saint of living creatures, and has been standing since ancient times. Its trunk is amazingly thick, and requires dozens of people to encircle it. The bough is wound tightly with dendrites, and the roots are engraved with animal shapes, inlaid with precious stones for eyes. When you see a python with blue eyes sticking out its tongue, there is nothing to fear. It is fake.
You lift your eyes a little and focus on a point two-hundred metres away. There you see one black figure, one white, accompanied by a pair of shadows. It is Yuan Mengliu and Su Juli, walking away along a bridle path on the green slopes.
It was the time to go to church, and Juli was dressed in a sober linen dress, with hem and neckline decorated with colourful feathers. She wore a necklace of exquisite workmanship. Her hair was in braids, coiled on top of her head and clasped with a crescent-shaped comb, so that it resembled a halo atop the Virgin Mary’s head.
Following Juli’s instruction, Mengliu wore a Chinese robe and cloth shoes. This style of dress suited him.
They met others going to church along the way, all wearing sober but kind expressions. They didn’t speak, but nodded to one another or waved.
Mengliu followed Juli closely, asking her questions from time to time in a soft voice. She offered short replies or responded simply with an ‘Ah.’ They looked like a couple after a quarrel. The man spoke carefully, and the woman was not very willing to entertain him.
The two figures made their way up the slope in this fashion. The wind suddenly gained force, and hair and skirts were sent flying wildly. Hiding his warm feelings, Mengliu looked around. The sun was dazzling and the distant stretch of river seemed to have donned a knight’s armour, setting off a metallic glitter. He was not sure if this was the same river he’d seen earlier. A muddy grey wall rose from the ground, stretching for a hundred metres or so between each watchtower or crenellation, like the Great Wall of China. The river ran beside the wall. There were thick bushes growing at its base, with blooms reaching out over the river like they were playing in the water. They seemed to be offering the continuous reminder, unless you are one of the hosts of heaven, you can banish all thoughts of attacking the city, given the defence offered by the river and this wall.
Juli was downwind of him. Her breasts stood out pertly, and even her belly and the space between her legs could be clearly seen in the wind, like a naked body wrapped in a cloak. Her body’s shapely and mysterious terrain was the main cause of the flames warring in Mengliu’s heart.
For a short period of time Mengliu imagined the possible consequences of a surprise frontal attack. He even thought about blaming his actions on the surrounding environment, just as you might excuse killing someone because the hot weather had made you bad-tempered.
Of course he didn’t do anything like that, he just watched as Juli turned around, her clothes bulging and then instantly deflating as she turned back to face the wind again. He didn’t do anything at all except for maintaining the reserved, aloof demeanour of a poet, though Juli’s skin was now emitting a bronze shine, smooth as satin.
He began to appreciate his poetic demeanour.
Turning to Mengliu, Juli said, ‘In 1876, the year the US celebrated a century of independence, an international expo was held in Philadelphia, with thirty-seven countries taking part. The latest British steam locomotive was on display and America’s high-powered electric motors and generators, along with Germany’s precision machine guns…Can you guess what China exhibited?’
Mengliu cited several things, such as porcelain, cheongsams, various kinds of facial makeup from the Peking opera, and so on. Juli said all were wrong, it was an earwax cleaning set made of pure silver, and embroidered shoes for binding feet. She was very interested in the bound feet of Chinese women. Such topics played right into Mengliu’s hand. He immediately recited, in an exaggerated dramatic tone, a few lines from a famous poem by the Tang poet Li Shangyin, ‘Paper made from the river is the colour of peach, with verses inscribed in praise of little feet.’ Then he followed with a made-up story similar to the one about the King of Chu and his obsession with tiny waists.
Yuan Mengliu could not be bothered with the location of the church. The steeple emerging some distance from the forest might be their destination, but he preferred to go about things in a rather nonchalant manner. Su Juli’s skirt occasionally flapped against his legs, tapping out a playful rhythm. Several times Mengliu thought she was about to fall straight into his arms. His legs, having endured the onslaught of flirtation, felt fresh one minute, limp the next, and then perkier than ever, while his chest alternated between feeling full to the point of bursting, and completely deflated. His heart moved at a pace similar to that of a woman walking on bound feet, trembling and shaking all the way.
Judging by the constant changes in distance between himself and Juli, Mengliu guessed that her feelings must also be fluctuating. He noticed one small detail in particular. On the journey from the foot of the mountain to its peak, the distance between them had reduced from three metres to just twenty centimetres. From that progress, he anticipated that before they’d travelled another hundred metres, they would at last achieve an earth-shattering zero-distance.
But Mengliu’s method of calculation proved not to be a useful guide. They suddenly pulled apart, for he had stopped, noticing a round object hanging from the wall, like a bell with a dangling tassle. The bell, rotating in small circles as it hung from the stone surface, suddenly turned to show a face, pale as a piece of paper and baring white teeth. Its eyes were wide open, and the blue eyeballs protruded, like glass orbs. He felt two rays of blue light on his eyes, then the face turned away again. Mengliu was a battle-hardened man and he had used his scalpel on bloodied bodies, confronted dead men and even watched some die, but this lonely hideous hanging head still gave him a fright. The unlucky unpleasant piece of human debris struck him like a gunshot, scaring the fledgling of love from his heart, and leaving behind only a few downy feathers twirling in the wind.
Glancing at him, Juli said blandly, ‘Actually, criminals aren’t so readily executed in Swan Valley. For the most part the penalty of forced labour is preferred, since it’s more useful to make them work than to kill them off.’ With her hand she pressed down her floating skirt. Mengliu caught a glimpse of a tattoo on the back of her wrist, a captivatingly beautiful poppy in bloom.
‘That…why…’ As he held out a stiff finger towards it, the human head turned around again, as if complying with his summons. The features, those of a handsome white man, were graced with a goatee. ‘What was his crime?’
Juli brushed her fingers along her forehead, where the breeze had blown a few strands of hair into her eyes. She continued walking then, as cavalierly as if she were talking about nothing more significant than washing up, or brushing her teeth, or making her bed. ‘Adultery. He was tied up and left hanging for two days. When he was barely alive, they cut him down and, while his heart was still beating, castrated him, dug out his intestines, ripped out his heart and lungs, then threw them all into the fire and burned them to ashes. Finally…’ she turned and made a chopping motion in Mengliu’s direction, ‘finally they dismembered him and hung his head on the city wall for a week.’
For a moment, Mengliu’s blood seemed to freeze in his veins. It was as if a blade had been jammed into his teeth. His whole body ached, and chills ran down his spine. On more than one occasion he’d heard Hei Chun speak about how to use t
orture to achieve social stability. Allowing the masses to hear the condemned’s screams and witness the suffering caused by the execution, would be a warning that carried more impact on the inner person than any amount of moral education or effort on the part of the legal system. To be shot dead wouldn’t be all that horrifying, since such a quick death would be painless. The criminal law’s unique charm, its deterrent force, lay in its ability to make the public quake in terror, forcing them into submission.
What really terrified Mengliu about this case was not the method with which the criminal had been disposed, but the easy tone in which Juli spoke about it. She employed the same voice she might use if she were teaching someone to knit, ‘Loop the yarn over the right needle, insert the left needle into the loop, left, right…’ It was as if she was talking about a ball of wool, a few needles and the deft movements of the fingers as they manipulated them. He would need a strong constitution to keep his stomach from turning over when faced with such a casual attitude.
Mengliu was struck by the clear and sudden change as everything around him grew dark. A bitter wind attacked his flesh, and he wrapped his arms around himself.
Soon, he heard the comforting voices of the white-robed priests. With great relief he entered the church, and turned his eyes up toward the giant vault, around which he saw thousands of candles burning. The flames restored the warmth inside him. The priests in their pure clothing had serene faces. The music accompanying the hymns of praise was like larks flying through the forest. He felt a sense of enduring freedom.
‘No matter what,’ he thought, ‘with a girl like Su Juli, Swan Valley is a beautiful place.’
Inside the church the pair stood close together. As his shoulder brushed against hers, he felt her tremble slightly. The warmth of her body moved him again, as if her blood coursed through his veins. He glanced at her. Her eyelashes touched her cheeks, and a drop of sweat inexplicably trickled down her nose. For reasons he could not express, he rejoiced in the sight.
