by Yu Hua
Much later, after her father and the man in the sheepskin jacket had spoken at length in low whispers behind the locked door of her father’s study, she heard the news of the woman in gray’s death. The man in the sheepskin jacket had already left, and her father had retreated to his bedroom.
People said there had been no indication that anything was wrong. She seemed a little tired when she came home around dusk the day before. She drank a few sips of fish broth at dinner and went to bed very early. She had slept quietly. She may have tossed and turned, but that was all.
The woman in gray was an early riser, but that morning she had slept late. At eight, her daughter went into her bedroom to check on her. She was sleeping with her mouth open. Her daughter hadn’t thought anything unusual until she came back half an hour later. It was then that she discovered that there wasn’t even a wisp of air emerging from her mother’s gaping mouth. This fact confirmed that she was dead. Later, her daughter happened to notice the gray jacket slung over the stool next to her bed. When she picked it up, she discovered the pattern of thick tire treads embossed on the fabric. The family began to wonder if their mother had been run over by a truck. But if she had been run over by a truck, her placid and altogether ordinary return to the house the evening before would have been unthinkable.
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chapter three
1
Because of the woman in gray’s sudden death, her
son’s wedding took place two months earlier than had been originally planned. In order to dispel the family’s sorrow, he decided to follow a time-honored tradition and see off the deceased with the joy of a marriage ceremony.
The body of the woman in gray was laid out on her bed.
All colorful objects had been removed from the room. Her bed sheets were replaced with a length of white cloth, on which she was laid out, clad in black brocade, and covered by a second white cloth. A plain white bowl full of kerosene burned by her feet. This was the lamp that would light her dark and chilly path to the netherworld. Her spirit tablet was next to the lamp, and spirit banners fluttered at strate-gic places throughout the room. There was a photograph of her affixed to the tablet. The photo had been blown up from a one-inch original, so her face looked as spotty and mottled as an old wall.
The woman in gray held her pose for two days and two nights. The next morning, she was carried to the crematorium by her son and a handful of relatives and friends. Her children asked 3 to head up the funeral procession as the chief mourner. That was how 3’s piercing wails came to envelop the town like fog all morning.
At eight in the morning, the woman in gray was deposited inside the burial urn. The funeral procession began. It was neither rainy nor sunny as the procession slowly snaked through the narrow streets of the town.
By that time, the blind man had already taken up his usual position by the school. 4’s voice, which had vanished many days before, unexpectedly reappeared. He sat as scores of different voices, rising and falling in unison, emerged from the school like orderly columns marching in his direc-78 yu hua
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tion. The blind man knew that 4’s voice was concealed somewhere within the column, but, try as he might, he was unable to isolate her voice from the rest. Soon, the columns began to waver and fade, replaced by the sound of several adults speaking. Suddenly, the blind man heard 4’s voice. 4
was quite clearly standing to recite a passage from a text-book. Her voice was like a breeze blowing across his face, and in its timbre he could detect the aroma of fragrant herbs. But it blew only intermittently, for its passage to the blind man’s ears was obstructed by the adult voices. It was only when those other voices fell away that the unadulter-ated sound of 4’s voice fell like raindrops into his ears. And once 4’s voice was isolated from all the rest, the blind man was able to sense the sadness with which it was suffused. It was a lonely kind of sadness, the sadness of empty places, of wilderness. But, seconds later, the columns once again began to advance, burying 4’s voice beneath them, like a howling wind drowning out the soft utterances of a girl sitting by a lonely grave in the middle of the wilderness. A moment later, the sound of 3’s funereal wails reached his ears from the procession passing two blocks away. By the time 3’s wails had slid through the buildings between, they sounded like the yawls of a cat in heat. As the procession drew closer, the sound of 3’s wails seemed to splinter into a frightening sonic complexity, a chaos composed of every noise guaranteed to make shivers run down the spine. He heard within her voice the thud of a child falling from a height. He heard the concussive crash of hundreds of windows shattering at the same time, the shriek of a door blown convulsively open by storm winds late at night. He heard the suffocated rasps of someone on the brink of death.
The woman in gray’s urn circled through the town’s principal thoroughfares. It was as if, several of her acquaintances thought to themselves, she were merely taking a final stroll through town. Finally, the procession returned home. As World Like Mist 79
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soon as they walked in the door, her son and daughter took off their mourning and put on fresh, new suits. The funeral had lasted until noon. The wedding would take place that very evening.
2
The truck driver was among those who attended the
wedding party. By the time he arrived, there was no hint that a funeral had taken place that very morning. The bride’s long red skirt had replaced the white sheets and spirit banners that had filled the apartment a few hours before.
The truck driver stood and stared at the bride. She sat across the room, and because of the way it was lit, he discovered that half of her body was bathed in brilliant color and the other half immersed in shadow. That was why one side of the smile painted like rouge across her face left him utterly enchanted and the other sent shivers down his spine.
And it was precisely because he was staring so fixedly at the bride that he failed to notice what was happening all around him. He stood amid the clamor of the wedding party like a man surrounded by strangers on a busy street corner. Every so often, he lifted his eyes from the bride’s face and looked around at the guests. All sorts of expressions flitted across their faces, but their voices seemed to be coming at him from somewhere else. And, as he looked, he discovered for the first time that the entire room was broken into swatches of brilliant color and gloomy shadow that swirled constantly across the room. He noticed someone knock a bottle of wine over on the table. In the light of the overhead lamp, half of the purplish liquid that spilled from its mouth was bright and half was dark. When 2 stood up from the table, most of the shadow disappeared, leaving the liquid bathed in brilliant color. But a little patch of shadow still shimmered at 80 yu hua
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the edge of the spill. 2 went to look for a towel and found a rag. The truck driver saw the cloth cover the purplish liquid. The cloth began to move back and forth. 2’s hand sat on top of the rag. Half of 2’s hand was brightly illuminated.
The other half was immersed in shadowy gloom. The truck driver noticed that the cloth was gray. He could vaguely make out the pattern of tire treads embossed on its surface.
The truck driver hadn’t gone to work that morning, but he woke up early. He had watched his mother wash her face in the kitchen. The water pouring from the faucet reminded him of a strip of smooth white paper. His mother had crin-kled the paper into a ball. He heard her footsteps leave the house, heard the sound of a basin of water spill out onto the ground in the courtyard. The water collided with the dirt, and little rivulets trickled across the ground. The truck driver thought of highways stretching into the distance. 3, who lived next door, walked into the courtyard gargling a mouthful of water. After a long time, she spat. The truck driver heard his mother ask why she was gargling.
I have
to clear my throat, 3 replied.
Who’s having a funeral this time? his mother asked.
3 had already sucked in another mouthful of water. Her muffled reply sounded to the truck driver’s ears like the low rumble of tires spinning on pavement. But he had already gathered that someone had died and that 3 had been asked to lead the funeral procession. 3 spat once again, and the truck driver heard his mother compliment her on her voice.
3 merely replied that it wasn’t as powerful as it used to be.
The truck driver lay in bed for a long time before getting up. When he finally went out to the courtyard, he saw 7
sitting by his door in a rattan chair, staring ashenly at him through sunken eyes. 7’s laborious breathing made the truck driver feel as though the air was very thin. 7’s five-year-old played in the mud in front of the chair, yellow tufts of hair scattered across the top of his head. Someone walked into the courtyard to deliver a card. It was a wedding invita-World Like Mist 81
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tion from a girl he had known many years before. The invitation sent a flurry of memories careening through the truck driver’s head.
3
The climax of the wedding party started with the
truck driver and 2. By that time, the cook had left the kitchen to eat his own dinner. A few drunks had already tried to go home but had succeeded only in reaching the bottom of the stairwell before collapsing on the floor. 2 was yelling for the bride to wash everyone’s face, so everybody in the room gathered in a circle around her. The truck driver hadn’t yet realized what was going to happen. His mind was occupied by a piece of gray cloth that seemed to be fluttering just outside his field of vision. When the bride walked toward him with a basin of water in her hands, however, the gray shirt fell away, and he was struck by his first inkling of what might lie in store. It clearly had something to do with him, because the only people who remained seated at the table were 2 and himself. The bride set the basin down in the middle of the table, and as she did so, her red sleeves slid up her arms, revealing a lustrous expanse of skin. The truck driver, enchanted, watched as ten slender fingers began to wring out a hand towel over the basin. But the truck driver didn’t see the towel. He only saw the fingers execute a series of delicate twisting motions. These motions were like a dance, a dance that culminated in a lovely cascade of water dropping into the basin.
Do him first, the truck driver heard 2 say. He looked up at 2. 2 was pointing his index finger at him. 2’s finger looked sharp under the lamplight.
The bride’s towel moved toward his face, wiping 2’s finger out of sight. Before the towel had even reached his face, the truck driver felt the bride’s five lovely fingers press 82 yu hua
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lightly on the back of his head. Then his face was engulfed by the towel. The towel began to move gently back and forth across his face. Instead of feeling the towel, the truck driver felt the lovely soft caress of the fingers above the fabric. He thought he might faint with pleasure, but the caress was finished almost before it had started, and 2 sat leering across at him. The truck driver pulled twenty yuan from his pocket and handed it to the bride. She took the money without touching the truck driver’s hand and put it in her pocket.
The truck driver watched as the bride proceeded to wash 2’s face. He found it difficult to believe that the bride’s fingers could caress 2’s face as lovingly as they had moved across his own. He saw 2 place forty yuan in the bride’s outstretched hand. 2 said: Your turn.
2’s words triggered in the truck driver a growing awareness of his plight. And so, when the bride once more began to twist the excess water from the towel, the movement did not seem quite as lovely as before. Nor did the motion of the bride’s towel across his face bring him to the same pitch of excitement as the first time. When she had finished, he emptied his pocket of his last forty yuan, wondering at the same time whether 2 might let him off the hook he had been skewered on.
2 gave her eighty yuan this time, and, instead of bringing the game to an end, he called for the bride to wash the truck driver’s face once more. It was only then that the truck driver realized that the space around the table was packed with revelers. The mob was cheering 2 on. The bride’s towel moved across his face once more, and, as she wiped, he quietly removed his watch from his wrist. When she had finished, he handed the watch to the bride. He heard the room erupt in laughter. 2 did not even smile. He said: Let’s assume that your watch is worth a hundred yuan. Then he slapped two hundred on the table. When the bride had finished washing his face, he picked up the bills, stuffed them World Like Mist 83
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into her pocket, and at the same time gave her buttocks a little slap. Then he gestured toward the truck driver and said: One more time.
This time, the towel scoured his face like a hard-bristled brush. The fingers pressed into the back of his head like rusty nails. But the real discomfort came only after the towel and the fingers had receded. He was painfully aware of the seriousness of the predicament he had fallen into. He heard a chorus of howls fill the air around him. It sounded like the cries of men going into battle. He saw a look of jubilation slant across 2’s face. He noticed that half of 2’s face was bathed in brilliant light and the other immersed in gloomy shadow. 2 extracted a wad of bills from his pocket and said: Tell you what. I’ll give you four hundred yuan for your underwear.
The truck driver heard a kind of wind whistle through the room. He sat and listened to it for a very long time.
Finally, he stood and walked into the kitchen. He closed the kitchen door carefully behind him. As soon as he had shut the door, the whistling faded behind him. The truck driver decided that he liked the kitchen. A few coals in the open stove were still glowing red among whitened embers. A few woks were piled in a heap on the floor, and dirty bowls towered above the sink. He saw a vegetable chopper among the dirty utensils, picked it up, and absently ran his finger along the blade. It seemed very sharp. He moved over to the window. He saw dapples of streetlight outside the window.
The street below the window looked like a shadowy trench.
Someone was walking in the trench. He looked at the house across the trench. There was a girl standing by the window.
She seemed to be wearing a black shirt. She was washing the dishes. Her body swayed lightly back and forth with the motion. Her mouth swayed too. He realized that she was singing. And although he couldn’t hear the song, he felt that it must have been very beautiful.
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4
Only after the truck driver had fled to the kitchen did 2 join in the general merriment. The laughter, like a sudden rainstorm, continued for a long time before tapering off into isolated chuckles and guffaws. 2, thinking that he should go into the kitchen and see what exactly the truck driver was doing, stood and made for the kitchen door. As he moved, he sensed their eyes following him. The crowd wanted to see what the truck driver was doing in the kitchen just as much as he did. He felt something slippery underfoot just in front of the door. Curious, he knelt down to look. The liquid was dark red. But, in the dim light, he couldn’t be sure, so he touched a finger to the floor. When he had lifted his hand toward the light, he began to feel more certain of what it was he had seen. Flustered, he turned to leave but discovered that they were still staring bemusedly toward him. He hesitated, turned back to face the kitchen door. He pushed at it with hands that had begun to tremble like twigs in the wind. He cracked the door open a few inches and peered inside. The truck driver wasn’t there. He immediately shut the door. Turning back to face the crowd, he wanted to laugh, but his face seemed to have frozen shut. He heard somebody ask: What’s he doing? He felt himself thread wordlessly through the crowded room. He heard someone else ask: Is he taking off his underwear? He nodded insensibly. He heard something that
sounded like an airplane roaring through the room. He walked over to his chair, stood for a few seconds, and then moved toward the stairwell. He heard people asking him questions, but he couldn’t tell what they were saying. He was already at the top of the stairwell. A few drunks were snoring on the steps. He stepped carefully over them, walked down the stairs, and emerged into the street.
The street was quiet and empty. The gray light of the World Like Mist 85
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street lamps floated across the asphalt. A cold breeze seemed to blow right through his body. He heard someone walking behind him. The footsteps sounded like little stones dropping one by one into a deep well. At the same time, he heard a kind of whisper. He knew it was the truck driver.
He walked as fast as he could toward the well of light beneath a street lamp. Then, without so much as a glance behind him, he continued on to the next street lamp. Each time he reached a lamppost, the sound of footsteps behind him would immediately disappear. And each time he moved away from a lamppost and into the darkness between, the sound would just as suddenly reappear. With each lamppost, he would pause for a moment, as if to warm himself in its protective circle of light. Then he would sprint across the darkness to the next lamppost. When he broke into a sprint, he could hear the footsteps break into a sprint behind him.
The footsteps maintained the same distance between them throughout the trip home, neither losing nor gaining any ground.
Finally, his own house came into view. The building looked like an enormous shadow. Moonlight streamed like rainwater from the eaves. When he had gotten close enough to see the door, the footsteps came to a sudden halt. He let out an explosive sigh, but, just at that moment, a gleaming, watery trench appeared before him, blocking the little path that led to the front door. He knew the truck driver was inside the water. His legs went limp, and he fell to the ground. He heard his own voice: Have mercy on me. His voice hung, trembling in the air. He waited, crumpled on his knees, but the gleaming water refused to disappear. He said once more: Have mercy on me. Then he began to cry: I didn’t mean to kill you. Still the gleaming water refused to budge. He bent and began to kowtow to the water. He said to the truck driver: If there’s anything you need down there in the netherworld, just let me know. Come to me in a dream. I’ll do my best for you. He continued to knock his 86 yu hua
