I Live in the Slums

by Can Xue

  The senior citizens recreation center was Ms. Wen’s secret, but it also seemed to her that everyone knew this secret. Besides her two sons, some retired colleagues—affecting a casual manner—also asked her about it. Ms. Wen thought, A certain kind of structure is closely related to everyone’s life, and that structure always has to be embodied in some real objects—buildings, for example—otherwise, there would be no way to see it or visualize it. Had she discovered the structure of the senior citizens recreation center, or rather had the structure kept sending her messages, luring her to be part of it? Perhaps once this kind of thing happened to someone, he or she would naturally draw people’s attention. And so Ms. Wen now sensed that she was enthusiastically surrounded by people. Everyone seemed to expect something of her. Even the vegetable vendors in the market were talking about her. “She transformed an ordinary building into a thing resembling fate.” “People say that if a building went through infinite changes, this must have been caused by someone’s physical force.” Ms. Wen just happened to hear these comments. The two people were purposely talking loudly; obviously, they meant for her to overhear them. The vegetable vendors’ feedback heartened Ms. Wen. New hopes kept surging from her heart. If the structure was revealed in everything in the world, she could speak from it at any time to anyone she wanted. Yes, she had to continue with this because it was connected with happiness. Ever since last month, as soon as she stepped into the starry sky, a roof would appear above her. She felt perfect. She wanted to transmit the profound mystery of euphoria to other people. That is, one could enter into different things and become the thing itself. Of course, this involved having some skills; she would be happy to pass these skills on to others. She would share her experiences: how to discern directions by touching the walls, the doorknobs, the staircases, and so forth. And how to determine the scope of her movements according to the height of the ceilings and the length of the corridors.

  Going to the senior citizens center to meditate had become Ms. Wen’s privilege. This began as a casual visit to the building after she retired. One day, after eating dinner and tidying up the kitchen, she went out for a walk. She remembered that she had run into a retired school principal. He had said that she “looked healthy.” Then she had passed the senior citizens center and noticed that the door was open. The lights were still on in several rooms. Curious, she walked in. She went first to the Ping-Pong room; the two Ping-Pong tables stood quietly under the light. No one was likely to come here. And so she withdrew and walked into the chess room. On the chess table was a drawing of a person’s head. The drawing was blurred; perhaps it wasn’t a picture of a person but the contours of a granite cliff. Ms. Wen sat down and looked at it, and wondered which old person would paint like this. As she kept looking, she went into a sort of trance. In her trance, she felt faintly excited. She heard a tiny disturbance on the ceiling; it came in fits and starts—sometimes vehement, sometimes quieting down. What kind of animal was making this noise? Ms. Wen climbed up on the table, intending to find out what it was. She had no sooner stood on the table than someone opened the door. Zhong Zhidong, a retired electrician, stood at the door. Embarrassed, Ms. Wen got down from the table.

  “I came to have a look because the lights were still on,” Zhong Zhidong explained.

  “Apparently I’m not the only one concerned about the senior citizens center,” Ms. Wen said.

  “Naturally. We’re always concerned about this center,” Zhong Zhidong said firmly.

  Zhong Zhidong left soon. Ms. Wen sat down at the table again. The noise coming from the ceiling had stopped. Ms. Wen looked again at the drawing. This time, she saw that it was a drawing of a building. The method of drawing was quite distinctive: looked at from various angles, the structure of the building was quite different from the number of its stories. At first, she thought it was a drawing of the senior citizens center, and then she thought it was a drawing of the building where she had taught. Finally, she saw that the structure drawn on this piece of paper had thirty-three stories; it was much like an office building in the city center. Her interest aroused, Ms. Wen didn’t want to leave anytime soon. Inside herself, she began feeling almost as energetic as she had when she was young. She wanted to engage in activities in this building. Of course, just then she had no idea exactly what activity she would engage in. For a while she went upstairs, and then came downstairs, then went up again, then down again. While she was walking up and down stairs, she found that the entire building was pressed to her heart, making it exquisitely private. It was as though someone were asking her amiably, “Turn left or right? How about going to the room on the south side of the eighth floor . . .” She certainly heard the voice of the person making the inquiry, and she responded casually. She felt comfortable both physically and mentally. Then came the metamorphosis. How many exciting scenes had she experienced? Ms. Wen asked this inner question out loud.

  Late at night, Ms. Wen walked out of the senior citizens recreation center with great satisfaction. On a night like this, the transformation of the starry sky and the city depended upon her will and her passion. She stopped next to a newspaper kiosk, gazed at a dark shadow approaching slowly, and said distinctly, “Once more.”

  LU-ER’S WORRIES

  Lu-er was grinding glutinous rice with a small mill. This was simple, boring work; he had no choice about doing it. Mother kept urging him to hurry up because she needed rice flour to make dumplings for the Lantern Festival. He was almost finished when he heard the sound. At first, it was like a train in the distance, approaching bit by bit, louder and louder. The noise was nonstop. Squeezed within it now and then was the explosive sound. Suspecting a landslide, Lu-er kept asking himself, “Should I run? Do I have to run?” He made up his mind to flee for his life. Taking nothing, he ran.

  Not one person was in the village. Lu-er ran through vegetable fields, ran across the little bridge, and ran to the open country. He ran until he could run no longer before stopping in his tracks and standing there gasping for breath. His face turned red. How odd: when he was running, the sound was present the whole time, as if a mudslide were chasing him. Now, the moment he stopped, the sound stopped, too. He looked around: people in the fields acted as if nothing had happened. On the path to his right, some people were carrying brooms to sell in the market. The mountain ahead of him was standing still as usual. Nothing had happened.

  He dawdled on the way home. His mother cursed him loudly because he had run out without finishing what he was told to do. She had had to do it by herself. Lu-er wondered silently, Just now, when he had fled, where had his mother gone? Hadn’t he shouted several times to warn her? Lu-er didn’t dare ask his mother; he wanted to make his way through the kitchen and stay out of her way. But she wouldn’t let it go; she followed him into the kitchen.

  “Why did you come back? Why didn’t you just die out there?”

  Angry, Lu-er flung the kitchen door open and went outside. Not until he had walked around aimlessly for a while did it occur to him to go up the mountain and investigate. Something must have happened on the mountain. Otherwise, what was that sound?

  He encountered Xibao, who was carrying firewood down the mountain. He greeted him and asked if he had heard any weird sounds. Standoffishly, Xibao shot a glance at him and said, “Huh. Who cares? It isn’t one bit interesting.”

  Finally, Lu-er climbed onto the cliff. Feeling resentful, he walked to the edge of the cliff, but he immediately retreated several steps and fell to the ground. Previously, two cliffs had faced each other here. They had been three or four meters apart, as if they had been cut apart. Several hundred meters below, a mountain spring roared. At this moment, the opposite cliff disappeared. Looking across, one saw only nothingness flashing past.

  Lu-er sensed danger. His legs were trembling as they carried him quickly down the mountain. In his hurry, he tripped; the momentum sent him rolling a long way before he was stopped by a small fir tree. When he stood up, he saw that his clothes had been ripped
in several places.

  He wanted to tell someone what he had discovered. As his mother scolded him, he chopped pig feed and waited for dark. Not until dark did he go looking for the little shepherd Ji.

  “Ji, did you hear that?” he asked him impatiently.

  “Oh, yes.” Ji avoided his fierce gaze.

  “Do you know where that sound came from? I went to check it out—”

  “I don’t care!” Ji suddenly roared, interrupting him.

  He turned and went inside. Lu-er stood there, stunned.

  Dad passed by from a small courtyard. Right now, the one Lu-er least wanted to see was his dad. He wanted to hide, but there wasn’t time.

  “Are you loafing again, Lu-er?” he shouted. “When we were kids, we worked all the time. We worked from morning to night! You are so irresponsible as a boy, what kind of man will you become? Just look: Ji is more mature than you are, isn’t he?”

  When they had almost reached the door, his dad suddenly said, “Don’t let me down, Lu-er!”

  Lu-er thought his dad knew what had happened and hadn’t said anything because he was worried about him. What was his father so worried about?

  Lu-er couldn’t sleep. The scene on the cliff kept playing back in his mind. At the time, if he had walked ahead two more steps and found out what was going on down there, wouldn’t that have been much the same as death? Everyone said that death meant going to another world. Naturally, Lu-er didn’t want to go to another world, but lying in bed he couldn’t keep from repeatedly imagining that he had fallen down the cliff. Just then, he heard his dad talking with someone in the courtyard. Sure enough, it was Ji. Ji must have had an important reason to come over so late. Lu-er got up immediately, put on his clothes, and walked out to the courtyard.

  But Ji had left. His dad was standing there alone smoking a cigarette.

  “Ji is really sensible,” his father said. “I wish I had a son like him.”

  Lu-er stood there, head bowed, ashamed.

  “Lu-er, look up and look ahead,” his father spoke again all of a sudden.

  Perplexed, Lu-er looked ahead. In front of him was the mountain. In the night sky, it had become a heavy dark shadow. All of a sudden, it expanded until it covered nearly half the sky. Soon, Lu-er could see nothing. Extending his hand, he couldn’t see his five fingers. He groped around, intending to go back inside.

  When he reached the stairs, he heard his father saying bitterly, “Lu-er, it would be great if you were Ji.”

  Lu-er went back to bed and started giving careful thought to what his father had said. Ji had been his friend all along—a child picked up along the street by Auntie Hua who lived in back of the tofu shop. He was a year older than Lu-er. Ji didn’t talk much, but when he did, his words usually shocked people. Lu-er admired him. For example, one day, the two of them were playing outside; it was late before they went home. Lu-er was worried that he would be beaten when he got home. Ji consoled him, “Beatings will make your skin thicker, and then you won’t feel any pain in the future.” Another example: he taught Lu-er to sneak eggs into the pot where the pig swill was boiling, and when others in the family weren’t looking, ladle them out and eat them. He summed up this method by saying, “If you eat a fresh egg every few days, in ten years you’ll be a strong man.” Lu-er’s father didn’t see Ji’s dark side. He thought that Ji had better prospects than Lu-er. Dad said it would be great if he were Ji. Did he wish that Lu-er was an orphan? The more he thought about this, the greater his shock. He knew his dad was disappointed in him, but how could he now be reborn as an orphan?

  Lu-er felt that the brightest spot in his life was his friendship with Ji. Ji was different from all the other village children, yet Lu-er liked hanging with him. But what was going on with him today? Had Lu-er exposed some inner secret of his and this had made him unhappy? Was the landslide Ji’s secret? Or even worse: Was the landslide the inner secret of all of the villagers—and it could only be stored at the bottom of one’s heart and never be spoken of? Thinking of these troubling matters, Lu-er tossed and turned in bed. Finally, when he was about to fall asleep, he thought of one person—Auntie Hua, a middle-aged woman who knew everything. He would sound her out on this tomorrow.

  It was three days before Lu-er saw Auntie Hua. She always went to the market early in the morning to sell tofu and didn’t return until dark. Lu-er’s mother wouldn’t let him go out after dark.

  Consumed with worries, Lu-er was sitting under the eaves making straw sandals when Auntie Hua suddenly turned up in front of him.

  “Were you looking for me?” she asked with a smile.

  “Auntie, how did you know?” Lu-er blushed.

  “You left footprints in front of my door. I knew you weren’t looking for Ji. You were looking for me!” She pulled Lu-er up and looked him up and down.

  “Auntie?”

  “Shhhh!”

  She motioned him to follow her. They came to the side of a well. Pointing to the mouth of the well, Auntie Hua asked Lu-er if he dared jump in. Lu-er said no, and Auntie Hua smiled.

  “You’re a good kid. I’ll tell your father. I checked you out just now. You’re free of any burden. Your father shouldn’t worry about you. Go home, okay? Go home. There’s something nice waiting for you!”

  Puzzled, Lu-er went home. But nothing nice was waiting for him. Maybe it would appear at night? He continued making straw sandals. After a while, Ji showed up.

  “Lu-er, I’m confused.” He bowed his head and said despondently, “Has my mother been here?”

  “Huh? What’s wrong?”

  “My mother has high hopes for me. Too high. The pressure’s going to kill me.”

  “I don’t get it. I thought your mother was fair and reasonable.”

  “She is, but people who are fair and reasonable also have their bad side. She makes you feel pressure. Our cattle were slaughtered a long time ago, and yet she sends me up the mountain. And then I saw something I shouldn’t have seen. You know what that was. I don’t want to talk of it. But my mama: I even think of leaving her. I think, Is it because I’m not her biological son that she tells me to go up the mountain and see that kind of thing? I think and think, and the more I think about this, the more I come up with hateful ideas.”

  “Your-ma-ma-is-very-kind,” Lu-er said, one word at a time.

  “Of course. Sure. And your dad and mama are, too. We shouldn’t leave these grown-ups. Do you agree?”

  Lu-er was uneasy when Ji looked him in the eye and asked him this. He answered reluctantly, “Yes.” Lu-er thought, Actually Ji is talking about that matter. He went up the mountain often and knew the topography well. He had seen it. Why did he say “something I shouldn’t have seen”?

  “Ji, did you come to find me just now in order to speak ill of your mama?”

  “At first, yes. But then I realized she’s good to me. Lu-er, can you come out tonight?”

  “My mother won’t agree. But I can slip out the window. Just wait for me outside the courtyard.”

  Looking at Ji’s back, Lu-er thought to himself, Is this what Auntie Hua meant by “something nice”? Even after Ji had been gone a long time, Lu-er was still really excited.

  When he slipped out the window, Ji was waiting for him. Ji was wearing a straw hat decorated with many feathers. He was carrying a spear. In the bright moonlight, he looked like a savage. Lu-er was jealous of the way he dressed, and asked who had taught him to dress this way. Ji said he had learned it from a magazine that belonged to Auntie Hua’s nephew.

  “There are leopards out there. We can’t go without a spear,” he said.

  He walked in front, and Lu-er thought he would head up the mountain. But he made a big detour and entered the rapeseed plot. When they walked in the vast rapeseed plot, Ji would stop every now and then and listen alertly to distinguish sounds. At those times, he raised his spear, as though to stab the sky with it, but then hesitated and didn’t do it. Lu-er thought it was strange: Could they be in danger? Rapeseed was t
heir village’s main source of income, and so this plot was enlarged every year. Lu-er had no idea where the plot ended.

  “Ji, where is the leopard?”

  “It’s wherever my spear reaches,” Ji said arrogantly.

  “But you haven’t done anything with your spear.”

  Lu-er admired Ji greatly. He thought, Ji definitely can summon a leopard! This idea made his blood boil. All of a sudden, Lu-er saw the shadow of a gigantic person swaying in the sky. Each time the shadow flashed by, the earth seemed to vibrate along with it—but it was a light vibration. Ji raised the spear again. This time he was facing that human shadow in the sky. He flung his body out along with the spear, but he quickly tumbled to the ground.

  Ji cursed through his moans. Lu-er asked if he was hurt. He answered, “I’d rather be dead.” Ji’s ambition was remarkable. The best Lu-er had ever done was jumping from a rock three meters high, yet Ji tried to leap into the sky! Lu-er looked up at the sky. It was the same sky; there was nothing unusual about it.

  Ji sat up slowly. He asked Lu-er to find his spear. Lu-er found it quickly nearby. It had been broken into two pieces. Ji threw them into the rapeseed plot and said, “I don’t want it anymore. I’m ashamed. When I was on the cliff—”

  “What was happening when you were on the cliff?”

  “Ah, I remember. It isn’t worth talking about.”

  Lu-er was furious, but what could he do? Ji was very arrogant. No one could make him talk about something he didn’t want to talk about.

  “Now I have no spear. We might as well go home.”