by Can Xue
“Is there a photography studio upstairs, too?” Ayuan asked. He spoke louder than usual to boost his courage.
Without answering, the bride looked reproachfully at him.
The footsteps continued down. Ayuan had to take another look. He saw a black bear paw. The bear paw stopped where it was and didn’t move.
Cold sweat ran down Ayuan’s back. He didn’t dare breathe.
The bride looked contemptuous and sneered. She wasn’t the least bit afraid. Ayuan felt really ashamed. To cover up his cowardice, he asked her again, “What’s upstairs?”
“The swamp,” she said.
“Oh! Can we go up there?”
“When it’s dark. But in any case, you can’t leave now, so just be patient.”
Before long, it was dark, and Ayuan could see nothing. Then he realized that the bride was no longer beside him. He had no idea whether she had gone upstairs or slipped out of the corridor. But the bear was now going up and down the stairs, making a ghastly noise.
Leaving the stairs, Ayuan reached the gloomy corridor. A faint light shone at the far end of the corridor, but from where he stood he could see only a glimmer of light. He wanted to move toward it, and he also wanted to go upstairs to see the swamp. He couldn’t make up his mind.
Someone in a certain room asked, “Who is it? Who’s there?”
“Me. Ayuan.”
“Are you the dealer who buys kraits?”
“No. I’m a mason.”
“Get out of here. The great escape is about to start. Don’t block the road!”
Ayuan stood pressed against the wall, hoping that his corporeal self would disappear.
The bride returned. As the two of them stood in the dark against the wall, the bride softly recounted her story.
Originally, she was to have married after another week, but one day the bridegroom had insisted on taking her to a park in the suburbs.
At the artificial lake, a large fish was hanging around in the shallow water next to the shore. It began raining, and the two of them slid down the bank. Only after they were in the lake did they find out that it wasn’t shallow but instead was very deep, and the water was filled with aquatic plants. The bridegroom dragged her down. Entangled in the aquatic plants, she couldn’t move; she could only sink farther. But she kicked off the plants, broke away from her bridegroom, and clambered up to the bank.
“It was spooky. You can’t imagine such temptation.”
“It doesn’t matter. What happened, happened,” Ayuan comforted her.
“What?”
“What I mean is that you’re still alive. In the future—”
“Didn’t you understand my story? What you mean is certainly not what I mean! God, why have I kept talking with you all along? How could you ever understand me? Impossible!”
Ayuan felt apologetic and embarrassed. She was right: he didn’t understand anything about her. This was partly because he hadn’t yet been in love, but also because his experiences were only shallow. He tried his best, but he couldn’t share the emotions this girl beside him felt.
They fell silent for a while, and then the bride couldn’t help herself: she began talking again.
“The more you struggle to get untangled from those weeds, the more tightly they wind around you. While I was underwater, I even heard him laughing! Coo coo, coo coo—a really bizarre laugh. And his face . . .”
“Yet you did struggle free.” Ayuan’s voice deepened.
“I did, but how could I kick him away? I’ll never forget the scene down there. I’ll go upstairs first. You wait here and don’t move. I’ll call you.”
Her blurry figure left him. Ayuan remembered the black bear and thought, It must be a circus bear.
Now, except for one sound, everything was quiet. The gurgling sound of bubbles rose from the pool. From the beginning, Ayuan had noticed this sound, but there was no pool outside the building, and so the sound was absurd. Could the sound be coming down from upstairs? the sound of bubbles in the swamp? It wasn’t at all like that. The sound definitely came from outside the building.
Ayuan waited a long time, his legs aching from standing, but the bride didn’t call him. The photographer did come, however. His feet thumping, he flew down the stairs and arrived quickly at Ayuan’s side. His breath smelled bad as he approached Ayuan and started talking. He touched Ayuan’s head with one hand.
“I thought so, it’s you. You’re still here. Generally, we don’t let people spend the night here. You played a little trick in order to stay here, didn’t you? Do you want to learn the secrets of our trade? You’re too ambitious!”
“Right now, I just want to go home,” Ayuan said in disgust.
“You’re free to go. No one’s stopping you!”
“I can’t get out. Where’s the door?”
“It’s right behind you. Give the door a push. Harder! That’s it!”
The photographer pushed Ayuan out from the wall.
He stood in a small alley in the old part of the city. The houses on both sides of the alley were shut. Once more, he heard bubbles gurgling and rising from the pool—this time, more frequently than before. He started running, thinking that he had to run out of this alley before he would reach a familiar road.
“Ayuan—Ayuan!!”
Ayuan turned around and looked: the bright red satin gown was gleaming under the streetlight. The face of that ghostlike woman was whiter than plaster. He felt that the end of the world was upon him and began running for his life. At last he exited the alley. He turned once, and then again, and looked back: no one was following him. Only then did he slow his steps.
The two mountain folk stood at the junction of the old and new parts of the city waiting for him.
“We waited here to say good-bye to you. It’ll be light soon,” the two said in unison, as if they had memorized their lines.
“Good-bye, good-bye,” Ayuan waved at them.
Ayuan was sleeping in a work shed. Today was his day off. At dawn, a male voice whispered in his ear, “This place was excavated in 1963. A large group of prisoners bubbled up from the darkness underground.”
Ayuan sat up abruptly and shouted, “Is it the swamp? Is it the swamp?”
Strong light forced him to close his eyes. No one replied.
After getting dressed, he went outside, dragging his feet. He walked out of the work site and reached a small street, where he bought two sesame biscuits. Then he returned to the shed to wash his face and brush his teeth.
He had no sooner eaten the biscuits than he saw the two little mountain people peering into the work shed.
“Can you take me to the place that was excavated?” Ayuan asked.
“Are you talking of what happened in 1963? That place is now the largest hotel in this city,” the older one said.
“The Milky Way Hotel? I would never have imagined that. Does it have a basement?”
“Yes, but it was locked up long ago. In the past, something awful occurred there. Come along with us, will you? Don’t keep pestering us with questions; that’s useless. Do you really think we’d lie to you?”
And so Ayuan went with them again. He was reluctant to give up his innermost wish.
“I want to go somewhere I’ve never been. Not a place like the Milky Way Hotel. Too many people are there. I want to go to a remote place that has no people, such as an abandoned factory. Can we find such a place in the city? Actually, I used to be quite familiar with the old section of the city, but now I don’t recognize some of the places . . .”
Ayuan rattled on and on. The other two paid no attention to him.
After a while, Ayuan realized that the three of them had been circling around the same two lanes, one of which led to the shantytown where he had stayed earlier. Looking into the distance, he saw that half the sheds had been demolished. He thought, Perhaps it’s my fate to be related to this place. Walking absentmindedly, he tripped on something and nearly fell. Oh, it was the piglets! They were scurrying fast in al
l directions. The younger mountain person said, “All kinds of animals live in swamps, except for water buffaloes.”
“Look—the piglets are going into the Grand Theater!” Ayuan shouted in excitement.
In the blink of an eye, the two mountain folk disappeared.
Ayuan went over to the Grand Theater. A poster outside the theater pictured the piglets. They were actors! A male voice came from the theater’s loudspeaker, “This is 1963. Mushrooms grow underground here. This is a girl’s bowknot. Ladies and gentlemen, give me your attention . . .”
Ayuan lost no time in buying a ticket and rushing into the theater.
Lights were on, but no one was there. He made his way down a long aisle between the seats and climbed up to the stage. Just then, he tripped again. Oh, the piglets! Before he could get a good look at them, they disappeared behind the curtain, and the stage light went out. Feeling his way, he walked across and grabbed the curtain.
It was wet. God! It had so many layers that it was almost a forest of curtains. Panting, he squatted down. Wrapped in the damp velvet curtains, he heard the piglets moving—many of them. What on earth did the poster signify? Below the stage, a woman shouted, “Ayuan, Ayuan! Did you see the big-headed fish?”
Smothered by the curtain, Ayuan couldn’t talk. His voice sounded like a whisper, “I—I . . . piglets.”
At last, a piglet made its way to his feet. The piglet was smelly, but it showed warmth toward Ayuan. At once, he found it easier to breathe. The woman below the stage was still calling him, but Ayuan didn’t want to answer. Holding the piglet, he trembled with excitement. The curtains groaned and wriggled gently. The thick curtains turned into living things; no light could penetrate from outside. Ayuan eventually figured out that the woman below the stage was the bride from the photography studio. He thought, What kind of life is this bride leading?
In this forest of curtains, Ayuan’s mind was filled with many events of the past. He felt it was bizarre that although many of these things hadn’t actually happened, nonetheless in his memory they had become his own experiences. For example, it was the bride who had had an accident in the artificial lake, but now this had become an event from his past. His palm was still scarred from being scratched by a shard at the bottom of the lake. When he thought of this, he licked his palm.
The loudspeaker blared again.
“In the spring of 1963, hundreds of bodies were floating in the artificial lake . . .”
It was always like this: the first sentence was clear, but the rest of it was indistinct.
He sensed that throngs of people had arrived at the theater. All the curtains suddenly rose. When the dazzling stage lights shone on his face, he nearly fainted.
“Look! It’s the swamp!”
“Oh, yes, it really is!”
“This is the way it really was in 1963!”
When Ayuan heard the audience members remarking about this, he tried hard to remember what his life was like in 1963. He couldn’t open his eyes, and so—in order not to fall—he had to sit motionless on the floor. His mouth began moving, but he couldn’t be sure of what he said. It seemed to be related to 1963. The audience fell silent.
From the loudspeaker came the gurgling of bubbles, as if accompanying his words.
When he talked of bleeding, he tasted blood in his mouth.
“Piglets! My piglets—” Ayuan covered his eyes with his hands and shouted.
The stage lights went out, and Ayuan opened his eyes. The auditorium contained only empty seats. A dim light shone on the right side of the wall. Ayuan thought to himself, It’s over. The show is over for today. He slowly left the stage from one side and walked toward the back door. It was as if he were stepping in soft mud. From somewhere within him came a shout that shattered his heart, “Piglets, piglets!”
When he reached the entrance, the two mountain people reappeared.
“Ayuan, have you said everything you had to say?” the older one asked.
“Pretty much. I did my best.”
“Good. I was afraid you hadn’t and that you’d regret it later.”
Ayuan was grateful to them, but he also wished they were somewhere else, far away.
“Is this the place that was excavated?” Ayuan asked.
“When you were on the stage, didn’t you use your feet to check each place you stood on?” the younger one asked.
“No. I didn’t have time. It happened too quickly.”
“Oh, I see. You couldn’t stay calm.”
With a wave of their hands, the mountain people parted from Ayuan, and then disappeared in the crowds on the main road.
Ayuan headed absentmindedly toward his workplace. When he had almost arrived, he suddenly started thinking more clearly. He shouted, “That was the swamp!”
He finally understood: the swamp is anywhere you want it to be. But wasn’t this too scary? If his life had come to this, was this what he had been hoping for earlier?
Ayuan ate some noodles at the noodle shop in front of his workplace. He was a little uneasy. After eating, he went into the empty shed for a nap. No one else was in the shed. As Ayuan lay in bed, he recalled Uncle Sang and the red-garbed bride. Were they frequent visitors in the swamp? He thought that the swamp where they (including the mountain people) had been must really be an extraordinary place—much different from what he had just experienced. He had no way to go to the genuine swamp. All he could do was go through nooks and crannies in the city to acquire a sense of it. He wasn’t sure, however, that anyone had actually been to the extraordinary place in his imagination. Ayuan fell asleep while thinking of these illusions.
When it turned dark, he was awakened by the noise of the other workers. Seeing that he was up, they approached him and asked, “Didn’t you notice the two thieves? They dug a deep hole next to the shed. They jumped in and disappeared. That’s when we discovered that they had stolen some of our things.”
“Were the thieves short?” Ayuan asked.
“They were small and dark.”
Ayuan walked outside the shed and saw the deep hole. He stood there for a while, knowing that he lacked the courage to jump in. Even if this pit had been dug for him, he wouldn’t dare jump. He had exhausted his courage in the daytime. Feeling cold, he left at once.
Uncle Sang, who had been missing for a long time, reappeared. He caught up with Ayuan on the main road and shouted, “Ayuan, you failed to meet their expectations!”
“Who?” Ayuan asked.
“Your guides! Without them, you could’ve gone nowhere.”
Uncle Sang looked sad, and then all at once he looked as if he’d lost his bearings.
Ayuan thought to himself, I lost my best opportunity. Every day, he saw the deep hole next to the shed, avoiding drawing too close to it. One day, when he went back to the shed after work, he saw that the hole had been filled in. No trace of it remained on the ground. Grass was even growing on that piece of land. Was this magic?
Pointing at a car in the stream of traffic, Uncle Sang said, “See those two guides? They’re guiding others. I’m telling you that they could have taken you to the real swamp. They’re my old drinking buddies. I entrusted you to them. Ayuan, isn’t this precisely the only significant thing about living in this dry city?”
“Uncle Sang, what’s up with the photography studio and the theater?” Ayuan asked, perplexed.
“I told you long ago. That’s the swamp. Why weren’t you patient enough to inspect them closely? You’re too impatient.”
Uncle Sang’s son drove up to meet him, and Uncle Sang said hastily, “I have to go. Now I can’t leave there for a moment. I have some land there where I grow lotus roots. Of course leeches are abundant there. Good-bye!”
The car drove away and soon disappeared. Ayuan thought, Since Uncle Sang blamed me for being impatient, why not go back to the photography studio in the old part of the city? I should be able to find that place. Uncle Sang was right: for people like Uncle Sang and me, the only thing worth pursuing
in this dry city is the real swamp.
He boarded a bus, and half an hour later reached the old section of the city. He had no idea whether he would succeed in his exploration.
In his two-week absence, the old part of town had changed greatly. But now and then one could still see the old two-story wooden buildings and even an old-fashioned public toilet. Remembering that he used to go in and out of these intestine-shaped alleys like a loach, Ayuan couldn’t help but smile.
How strange it was that now he had no trouble finding the photography studio where he had stopped last time. It was still the same three-story brick building, but the sign saying “Wedding Photos” was missing, as was the main entrance. The building seemed to have been reoriented: the entrance no longer faced the small street.
Ayuan was leaning against the red-brick wall, his ears pricked up. But he heard nothing.
A girl eleven or twelve years old walked up.
“Hi there, what are you doing?” she asked.
“Do you know how I can get in?” Ayuan asked in embarrassment.
“Go in? You can’t. This building has no door.”
“Is anyone inside?”
“Of course.”
“What I mean is, Don’t the people inside ever come out? How can they never come out?”
“Why not? I’ve never seen them come out. Not even once. You’re a fool if you go on waiting.”
The girl glanced contemptuously at Ayuan and looked at him doubtfully for quite a while before leaving.
Ayuan circled to the back of the building. Sure enough, there was also a brick wall behind the building. Although there were some windows, they were on the second and third floors. He looked down and saw the sign he’d seen before—the words “Wedding Photos” were blood red. Ayuan recalled the long red satin gown that the bride had worn. How come the sign had fallen down? This time, he’d better do as Uncle Sang had said and patiently investigate this building. He decided to keep watch.
The morning sunlight fell on the sign. The words that were painted blood red actually lit up in the fire, and a funny smell filled the air. Ayuan heard someone stick his head out a window and shout, “Fire! Fire!”
