Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused – Fiction From Today (28 page)

Is she better? Her voice was soft and supple, like a rope twisted out of rubber.

Much better, Ma. He was desperate to convince Her that nothing had happened a moment ago.

Is she asleep?

She fell asleep long ago, Ma. Still desperate to convince Her, he turned on the light and opened the door. An icy hand descended on Mimi's forehead. Oh! She's feverish. Mimi raised her eyelids, which were nearly stuck shut. She saw a knifelike old face leaning over her, a glinting cold light like the dead grasses covering a winter pasture in whose roots were hidden the hope of rebirth for snakes and scorpions, ants and bugs. Mimi was like a spring that had been stretched too far, its tension completely lost. The channels in her heart slowed down, twisted; last night, so transparent, would decompose where it stuck. She tossed down a green stone. The echo from the bottom of her heart reverberated, was still reverberating. I'm not sick! I'm not. Mimi sensed that she was an emotional, kind-hearted sparrow silently keeping watch over a nonexistent snake track in the darkness of a vast forest. Deep autumn, when the birds fly south, and Mimi no longer had the strength to cross the single-file bridge of his heart.

Profound sorrow wrapped itself around her. All Mimi could do was cry.

Mimi, you're sick.

There are yardsticks all over the world, but not a speck of land for me anywhere. Take my measure with your yardstick, take your measure with mine.

What nonsense is that? Mimi. You really are sick.

She has no husband, I have no father. None of us has a father.

Mimi, snap out of it. I love you, Mother loves you, too… She loves…

She loves acting high and mighty the foreign superstition of not going outside on Friday the thirteenth eating sausage sandwiches even if they taste funny drinking coffee without sugar destroying nerves that are already too fragile…

Why do you insist on making this relationship impossible!

The relationship is cruel enough already. At first, I was confident in my youth and my good looks, confident that no one could replace the love of a wife. Heh-heh, I was wrong. You'll never have the courage to cut the umbilical cord, and, of course, that's what She's counting on. It's not enough just to be your wife…

Goddamn that Freud and his theories!

No, it's more than that. It's castration. Most Chinese men are swallowed up by maternal love. There's nothing left. I want nothing. I'm leaving.

What nonsense is that? You're sick. Where do you think you're going?

… Mimi walked into the gray misty dusk empty-handed.

You can't leave. He reached out but grabbed only the empty dusk air, like an infant who's lost the nipple and stares into a great void.

Let her go and walk it off. She's just tired. She walked over abruptly and stood in his way, Her face suffused with the innocence of an eighteen-year-old girl.

Ma-she's still got a fever. She's talking nonsense. Now that he'd found an excuse, he was as excited as a drowning man reaching out to grasp a straw, someone who'd found the hope to go on living.

Take it easy. Nothing will happen. Her voice was thinner than paper.

Ma. He felt like crying, but he didn't, though his eyes were burning.

An ancient ugly dying forest way off in the corner of the dark-green sky. Decrepit forked branches, so rusted they looked as if they'd never borne flowers or brought forth tender new buds-ancient trees forced to bear the stigma of not having seen the color of green in thousands of years. Flocks of birds perching densely on the shaky forked branches were exchanging curses that birds have known since antiquity. Pair after pair of bulging eyes looked down on Mimi's life and her lives to come. Mimi was frightened out of her wits. She wouldn't choose this decaying den of spies as the place to end her life. She emerged from the forest and lay down on a desolate slope covered with years of loneliness. The grass around her was restless; the desolate slope lifted her up until she was floating in the air. Snakes and scorpions, bugs and ants lazily raised their heads, eyes heavy with sleep. Mimi was so tired she couldn't keep her eyes open. An icy softness kept brushing past her hands. There was a tautness in her belly, a weightiness, painful cramps. She undid her underwear and held her bulging belly with both hands, letting the first flakes of snow moisten the tiny new life. A momentary throbbing reminded her that the child would be born under the sign of the serpent. Why is there so much movement during a period of hibernation? A smile spread across Mimi's face as tranquillity settled upon her once again.

It's snowing hard now, and Mimi still isn't home. I'll find her and bring her back to talk some sense into her. His reproach was filled with anxiety.

I won't allow you to talk sense into her. Let her calm down first. Who knows, maybe she went to her mother's home. Mother held his arm. Her withered, yellowing body blocked the huge cedar doors.

Ma, let me bring her back and give her a good talking to. He tried to wrench his arm free from Her grip, but She held on for dear life.

I won't allow you to frighten her! She shouted anxiously.

Ma. He pushed Her hand away and burst through the door.

Stop right there! She ran out after him, stumbled, nearly fell. He had no choice but to rush back and steady Her. Her mouth was open wide; She was gasping. She couldn't speak.

Ma-

I won't allow you to be rough with Mimi. It's cold out there. I'll go with you to find her. Suddenly calm again, She looked at him tenderly. He lowered his head to avoid Her eyes. His voice was so low he seemed to be talking to himself. She's still got a fever.

Mimi raised her leg-it was stiff from the cold. She didn't have the heart to stamp a footprint onto the translucent surface, though maybe that was the way for her to experience the pleasure of destroying purity. White sky. White snow. White night. Tender snowflakes translucent in the boundless translucence. Not a breath of wind. The flakes seemed to be floating in their prescribed spots a scene of chaos, nihilism. This was Mimi's cherished hope-heaven and earth a single color. As she stood in the snow, she could no longer see herself. Fossilized bones glistened so brightly they dazzled her eyes; her terrified, trembling heart had petrified, had been transformed into a heart-shaped green agate tossed onto the boundless snow all by itself. Don't open the door, people; give the world a chance to hold on to this pale, powerless purity! Hide under the snowbound roof to cry alone over your own death. Look, the sky is responding to human misery by sending down its symbol of filial piety-snow that covers the ground. In the snow-covered wilderness, only the emerald-green agate awaits rebirth-maybe the tragedy of these two legs will be replayed somewhere else in the universe. Mimi was overcome by sorrow, but she was at peace. Inadvertently, she discovered a long piece of light-purple silk rolling back and forth across the earth's crust with a soft tearing sound, leaving behind an eternal silence. Mimi had no sense of her own being, not even as a tiny snowflake. As she slumped slowly to the snow-covered ground, she saw the bright, snowy red of the ancient grove with its rusted trees. Flowers in full bloom were like huge tongues stretching up into the vault of heaven, sucking dry all the blood vessels, turning the anemic heaven and earth paler than ever. The delicate and beautiful ancient forest trembled in the dazzling snow, sending skyward a cloud of red mist…

He picked Mimi up, his face as dark as the earth. He gazed in stupefaction at Mother's silvery new teeth. A confused look on his face, the twin expressions of laughter and crying.

Translated by Howard Goldblatt

The early-morning stillness is broken by the braying of a donkey.

Blackie says, "That fucking in-law has come for you." The woman says, "Stall him while I put on my pants." "Shit," Blackie says, "what difference does it make?" The woman blushes. "Just say I'm sick and I can't go. It's that time of the month anyway."

"I can't do that," Blackie says. "Chinese don't go back on their word."

Blackie walks outside to greet his in-law, who is tethering his donkey at the gate. Blackie turns and shouts into the cave, "Go fetch a chicken. I'll get some liquor from the commune."

"In-Law," Blackie's counterpart says, "I brought a bottle since we always drink yours."

"When did we start worrying about yours and mine, anyway?" Blackie's woman walks into the yard and, without a glance at either man, heads for the chicken coop.

"No need, no need for that. A cow fell and died last night at our village," the in-law says to Blackie's woman. "I borrowed this donkey from the brigade leader, and the son of a bitch was cooking a pot of beef." He takes a leather bag from around the donkey's neck "Here, take it. You might need to cook it a bit longer."

Head lowered, Blackie's woman takes the bag and goes into the cave without a glance at either man.

While they are drinking, Blackie says, "It's that time of the month. Day before yesterday. Want to wait till it's past?"

"Fine with me."

"On the other hand, the brigade leader might deduct work points for keeping his donkey. You can take her now. Just wait till she's finished before she does it."

"Fine with me."

"Bring her back next month. I can't borrow a donkey."

"Fine with me."

After they finish drinking, Blackie says to his woman, "Put on those clean clothes. I don't want people in the other village laughing at me."

"No need. The commune's on the way. I'll buy her a jacket and trousers there."

Blackie sees his woman and in-law on their way, across one ravine after another and over a series of ridges.

"Go on back," the in-law says. "Here's the mountain."

Blackie says, "You go on up the mountain. I'll head back." He hesitates, then turns back. The in-law smacks the donkey's rump with his large fist; the animal starts clip-clopping down the road.

Shit. Go on, go ahead. A thousand yuan less would be the same as handing me his own daughter. Shit. Go on, go ahead. It's only one month a year. And Chinese don't go back on their word. These are his thoughts as he walks.

Blackie takes another look behind him and sees his woman's turniplike feet dangling alongside the donkey's haunches, swinging back and forth.

Blackie's heart, too, is swinging back and forth.

Wen Hai finally got a wife, which made the villagers very happy. But people listening at the door that night said she wouldn't let him do it. She refused to loosen the knot in her red sash and spent the whole night crying.

Later on, they said that not only would she not take off her trousers for him, but she even refused to work in the fields. And when Wen Hai came in from a hard day's work, instead of cooking for him, she did nothing but cry; she kept it up all day long.

Before long, the village was in an uproar. Not taking her trousers off for him is one thing, but refusing to work the fields and not cooking are things he should not tolerate.

"The founder of the Wen clan cave dwellers would not have tolerated this," they told Wen Hai.

"What should I do?"

"Beat her till she comes around."

"Can I do that?"

"Go ask your mother," said a man whose face was creased and pitted like a newly plowed hillside and on whose chin grew a wispy goatee like partially chewed grass on a grave site.

Wen Hai went and asked his mother, who told him, "Trees need to be pounded if they are to grow straight. Women are the same."

So Wen Hai went home and, taking his mother's advice, beat his wife black and blue.

People listening at the door reported, "It worked. Wen Hai is doing it to his wife right now, and he keeps saying, 'Fuck your old lady. You think I'm screwing you? No, I'm screwing that two thousand yuan. Fuck your old lady. You think I'm screwing you? No, I'm screwing that two thousand yuan!' "

"That's exactly what Wen Hai's daddy did to his mother back then," someone said.

Not long afterward, Wen Hai's wife started cooking for him.

After that, Wen Hai's wife was seen following him out into the fields, keeping her distance, a hoe over her shoulder.

"My, my, black-and-blue."

"My, my, black-and-blue."

The women in the fields scrunched up their mouths, blinked their eyes, and shook their heads.

‹h4

"Go on," his wife said. "He hasn't sent us any money for at least half a year. And bring some burlap bags back home with you."

So Leng Two's father climbed unsteadily onto a manure cart heading to the mines. The day after his father left, Leng Two went mad. The same thing happened as before; he kept shouting over and over, "Murder! Murder!"

Leng Two lay face up on the kang, slapping it with his big, swarthy hands, making it resound like a threshing ground. When he tired of that, he pressed the back of his head against the hard brick sleeping platform, arched his back, and shouted, "Murder! Murder!" When he tired of that, he recommenced slapping the kang. Not daring to leave his side, Leng Two's mother kept a vigil beside him.

We're done for if he really commits murder. He would have to be possessed to really commit murder. These were her thoughts as she stood by the stove. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

"So fucking poor," Leng Two said often, "that we can't even eat oatmeal bread without mixing it with wild yams."

Leng Two's mother replied, "That's to save money for you."

"How many fucking years of going without oatmeal bread will it take to save up two thousand yuan?"

This time, Leng Two's mother went ahead and made some oatmeal bread. But he wouldn't eat it. He just kept shouting "Murder" and slapping the kang until he wore holes in the grass mat, which had already been mended with burlap bags.