Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused – Fiction From Today (29 page)

Villagers said that if the barefoot doctor, one of those itinerant care providers, could do no good, she ought to ask the spirit healer to look at her son. But Leng Two's mother just shook her head, for she knew from experience that neither the barefoot doctor nor the spirit healer could cure him.

We're done for if he really commits murder. He would have to be possessed to really commit murder. Again these were her thoughts.

Then one day, the villagers realized that Leng Two had stopped screaming "Murder" and slapping the kang.

Leng Two slept soundly on the kang, snoring like a pig.

"Is he cured?" someone asked Leng Two's mother as she fetched water.

"Yes, he's fine."

"How did that happen?"

"He's fine." Leng Two's mother walked off in a hurry.

Leng Two's father returned on the manure cart, reporting that their daughter-in-law would give them no money but sent him back with a few burlap bags and some ephedrine. Leng Two's mother did not tell his father that he had gone mad, for she had not told him the time before either. Leng Two's father took no notice of the sorry condition of the kang mat, either this time or the time before. He was concerned only with the ephedrine, two crystals of which would take care of his problem.

Leng Two's mother mashed some boiled yams for Leng Two to use as paste to mend the grass mat with the burlap bags.

At least he didn't commit murder. At least he's not possessed, Leng Two's mother was thinking as she stood beside the stove, watching him mend the mat. She raised her arm to wipe her eyes with her sleeve every so often.

Silence all around; the moon goddess casts her light on the ground. On the moonlit side of the haystack, he and she tamp out a nesting spot.

"You first."

"No, you first."

"We'll go in together, then."

He and she climb into the nest, bringing the hay sliding down so that it buries them both. He reaches out with his muscular arms to prop it up again.

"Don't worry, this is fine." She cuddles up in his arms. "You must hate me, Elder Brother Chou."

"I don't hate you. The coal miners have more money than me."

"I won't spend any. I'll save it up so you can find a wife."

"No, thanks."

"But I want to."

"I said, 'No, thanks.' "

"And I said, 'I want to.' "

He can tell she is on the verge of tears, so he holds his tongue.

"Elder Brother Chou," she says after a long silent moment.

"Hm?"

"Give me a kiss, Elder Brother Chou."

"Don't be like that."

"But I want to."

"I'm not in the mood today."

"But I want to."

Once again, he can tell she is on the verge of tears, so he leans over and pecks her on the cheek, gently, softly.

"Not there, here." She puckers up.

He gives her a peck on the lips, cool and wet.

"How did that taste?"

"Like oats."

"Wrong, you're wrong. Try again." She pulls his head down.

"It still tastes like oats," he says after a thoughtful pause.

"Don't be silly. I ate some hard candy a while ago. Come on, try again." Again she pulls his head down.

"Hard candy, it tastes like hard candy," he hurries to say.

Neither of them says anything for a long while.

"Elder Brother Chou."

"Hm?"

"Why don't I do this for you tonight?"

"No, no, the goddess of the moon is right outside, so you can't do that. It's not something girls of the Wen clan cave dwellers do."

"Then make it next time, when I come back."

"Um."

Once again, there is a long silence, except for the footsteps and sighs of the moon goddess.

"Elder Brother Chou."

"Hm?"

"It's fate."

"Yes, it is."

"Our rotten fate."

"Mine, maybe. Yours is OK."

"No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is."

"No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is."

"I said, 'No, it isn't.' "

He can tell she is crying now. He also feels hot tears rolling down his cheeks and splashing onto her face.

Grandpa Pothook was carried back from the graveyard again.

Grandpa Pothook was from another province and had no kin in the village, but everyone still called him Grandpa. When he got drunk, he became everyone's grandpa, young and old. That is exactly what everyone called him.

Pothook was the only individual who drank every day and could afford to do it. His younger brother, Panhook, a ranking official in their native province, sent him twenty or thirty yuan every month-he spent it on drink.

Pothook was not one to eat anything with his wine, which he drank warm. He had a unique method for warming his wine: he made a little pocket in the crotch of his pants, where he tucked away the wine bottle after every couple of swigs.

Pothook liked to share his wine. "Come on, take a fucking swig for your grandpa here." He'd then suck in his breath, making a hollow in his wrinkled belly so he could reach down into his crotch to bring out the bottle. It would be nice and warm. Besides the smell of wine, the bottle carried other odors, rank enough that some refused the offer. But others, less fastidious, hoisted the bottle like a bugle and-
glug glug
-took a healthy swig. Pothook, his eyes crinkled in a smile, would cock his head to watch, his mouth opening and closing as if the liquid were pouring down his own throat.

As soon as Pothook was drunk, he staggered off toward the graveyard, muttering the same two lines from a folk song:

Once he reached the graveyard, he lay spreadeagled atop a large stone to sleep it off. Weather permitting, he would strip naked, exposing his skin to ants and an assortment of bugs.

"Go on, go down to the graveyard, and carry Grandpa Pothook back. We can't let him catch cold," one of the older generation would say to one of the younger ones, who would take four or five friends along.

When he had sobered up a bit, they would start teasing him: "Do the tiger hop for us, Grandpa Pothook!"

And he'd reply, "I'm too old for that sort of stuff."

"You're not too old," they would say as they wove a tail out of tall grass.

Pothook would hold the rope in the crack of his ass and begin hopping all over the place. Instead of falling out, the tail would smack loudly against the scrawny thing hanging between his legs. That had everybody in stitches.

Now they were carrying him back once again, but this time Grandpa Pothook uttered only a single comment before passing out for the last time: "Bury me in Widow Three's grave."

Never expecting him to say something like this, everyone who heard him stared blankly into space.

Translated By Howard Goldblatt

When Old Mu Xi woke up, he found himself lying on a small wooden boat afloat on a pitch-dark river. The silent river was very dirty and so wide that he couldn't see the banks. Nor were there any other boats in sight. The setting sun declined in the extreme west like a tiny red button falling into the black waters of eternity.

Old Mu Xi sat up and stretched, remembering he once had looked forward to this day for a long time, and now it had come, yet in the interim he had managed to forget about it. He looked around and found that the river was not flowing and his little boat was motionless. Furthermore, the boat had no oar on board. Once in a while, a breath of ill wind from nowhere dusted his face as lightly as if it were both there and not there. The little boat would move some distance in the breeze before stopping again. Old Mu Xi thought to himself, Turns out there's not much going on here.

Suddenly out of nowhere, a faint call could be heard: "Old Mu… Xi! Old…"

Old Mu Xi gasped and was dumbstruck, yet the call resounded in his ear. As he heard that baleful voice, his vision began to blur, and his whole body became extremely old and feeble. He struggled, trying for the last time to pronounce a syllable: "Zhuo," he said, then dropped to the deck of the little boat like a piece of firewood, his glazed eyes turned up to the gray-black sky. He was sinking back into memory.

More than a decade before, Old Mu Xi had inherited a sum of money, which he and a friend used for investments. Together, they bought a piece of uncultivated land, where they decided to grow corn. They set to work immediately, but the heavens seemed to be against them. Four years running, they harvested almost nothing because of bad weather. Mu Xi and his friend encouraged each other and continued to work hard. Finally in the fifth year, they were rewarded with a bumper crop. Just before the harvest, Old Mu Xi's friend suddenly suggested a distribution plan, insisting he should get three-fourths of the crop. He also criticized Old Mu Xi for his lazy way of working. He even hinted that the money Mu Xi had used to buy the land came from questionable sources.

All of this struck like a lightning bolt. During the ensuing quarrel, all the villagers took the side of Mu Xi's friend. Old Mu Xi knew that the villagers sided with his partner because he himself was a widower and without family. In the countryside, a widower was an ill-fated figure. Ultimately, Old Mu Xi watched his friend claim all of the harvest and also threaten Mu Xi not to get close to this piece of land-since the harvest belonged to him, the land naturally was his also. All the villagers supported Old Mu Xi's friend.

After several sleepless nights, Old Mu Xi killed his friend with a sickle and began his prolonged life as a fugitive.

He always chose to travel on mountain paths, especially those that ran through dense, primitive forests. He was not afraid of losing his way. As a matter of fact, so much the better if he lost his way, because then nobody could find him. Over several months of rain and wind, he gradually developed a pair of iron soles and an animal's stomach-now he could survive by eating leaves. During that period, the shadow of horror forever hung over him, forcing him to flee frantically. Surprisingly, the animals in the forests never harmed him. Instead, they all went their own way and coexisted without any trouble.

One evening when he had just emerged from a forest, he vaguely heard a gong. He thought it was sounded by people trying to catch him, so he quickly hid in the bushes. The people passed him by, however, laughing and talking. They turned out to be a troupe of acrobats traveling by night.

Perhaps people had already forgotten about the murder he had committed. Perhaps nobody in the village had ever thought of either reporting or capturing him. Perhaps the mountain forest he was in at the moment was far, far away from his hometown. It could be anything. But not once had Old Mu Xi pondered these possibilities. He considered what he had done to be so serious that he didn't believe there could be any pardon. Holding such a belief, he walked hurriedly through the bushes, his body scratched bloody. This character trait was destructive, driving Old Mu Xi to hide out and separate himself from other people.

Several years of dining on the wind and drinking the morning dew passed. Long thick hair grew on Old Mu Xi's body. His clothes had been worn out for some time, and long brown hair sneaked its way out through the holes. One day when he was taking a bath in the river, he was startled to see the reflection of his body. After careful thought, he felt greatly relieved: from then on, he no longer wore clothes. When he met up with people, he didn't feel so frightened because he figured nobody could recognize him. But in his stubborn mind, he refused to accept the possibility that he might get away with his crime. By now, he had become set in this way of thinking.

Life in the forest was extremely monotonous. He couldn't get used to eating meat, particularly raw meat, so he never caught small animals. His daily task was to find tender tree leaves to eat, and he disliked staying in one place-his imagination needed constant refreshing-so he was constantly on the move, picking leaves along the way to keep up his strength. He frequently encountered people as he went; without exception, they screamed and ran away, and at that moment he would feel an unreasonable satisfaction.

Yet the nights were hard to endure, and this hardship had nothing to do with the weather. Old Mu Xi had long adjusted to wind and rain, scorching heat and freezing cold. In winter, there were fewer tender leaves, so he had to eat old ones, but his stomach had become strong. The hardship derived from his feeling of suspension.

Whenever he fell asleep, he felt clearly that he was suspended in midair. Beneath him, the villagers were busy working their fields, barefoot children ambled along the bank between the plots, chimneys gave out a light-gray smoke; yet all of that had nothing to do with him. Hanging in midair, he felt dizzy; it seemed as if his innards were flying out of his body. The nightmare would continue until he was startled awake by his extreme terror. Since fleeing into the forest, he had spent every night this way. Mornings when he arose, he would be pale, his body shivering like a typhoid victim's. Each step was agony. He would struggle to collect a large quantity of leaves to compensate for the strength he had lost during the night. Slowly, he would recover his energy, and toward afternoon he would have regained his vitality almost fully.

Old Mu Xi passed one month after another, one year after another in such a pattern. In moments of desperation, he often dreamed of finding a place that no one could think of or remember. There, one would neither hear the wind chimes echoing in the mountains nor see the leaves changing color with the seasons. The earth and sky would merge. Perhaps in such a place, he would no longer feel suspended in midair, and he wouldn't have to eat all those leaves.