Authors: Yan Lianke
Who, therefore, could have expected that the auditorium would end up being filled to capacity—especially since, because this was merely a dress rehearsal, no one had arranged for an audience. Chief Liu had Secretary Shi ask their office to notify only the relevant departments, including the tourism bureau; the culture center and culture bureau, charged with arranging times for performances; and the county committee, county government, and other relevant officials. They originally expected to have just a hundred or so audience members. When Chief Liu sat down at the front of the theater, however, the cadres from the county committee and the county government all crowded behind him, sitting in accordance with their position and status. The auditorium’s electric fan was on in consideration of the county chief, and after the room began to cool off, more people began crowding in. Because there was no admission charge, people who were wandering around outside all came pouring into the auditorium to get out of the heat.
The auditorium quickly filled up.
Inside the auditorium, there was a sheet of darkness.
Inside the auditorium, there was a cacophonous hubbub.
Chief Liu had arrived punctually, and as soon as he entered everyone immediately grew quiet, as if the people had come, not to watch the performance or to get out of the heat, but rather to await Chief Liu’s arrival. He had a different allure here, and after he entered the arena, everyone in the auditorium broke into loud applause, the way people in Beijing would greet a foreign leader. Actually, here in the county seat Chief Liu was regarded as an emperor or a national president, and it was an ordinary occurrence for people to break into loud applause when they saw him; it had already become a habit. Hearing this applause, Chief Liu walked into the auditorium, blushing deeply, and took his seat in the third row from the front. Then, he turned around, and gestured for everyone to stop applauding and to take their seats. He called Secretary Shi over and whispered something in his ear, whereupon Secretary Shi went backstage to announce that the county chief had arrived. This increased the nervousness of the performers by a factor of ten, or even a hundred, putting increased pressure on the people in charge of overseeing them—professionals formerly affiliated with the Balou tunes opera troupe, who, after that troupe dissolved, had had to rely until recently on performing for family weddings and such.
Days earlier, news has spread that Chief Liu wanted to organize a special-skills performance troupe made up of disabled people—including the blind, the crippled, the deaf, deaf-mutes, those missing a leg, and young polio victims—from that village deep in the Balou mountains that everyone had heard about but no one had seen. Initially, it was said, the villagers hadn’t paid much attention to this announcement, but given that it was Chief Liu who made the announcement and invited them to come and perform, they had no choice but to do so.
Secretary Shi had suggested that Huaihua serve as the announcer; he found that although she was on the short side, she was nevertheless attractive. He then said that there would be a dress rehearsal on the ninth day of the seventh month, so it was appropriate to begin preparing right away. He recognized that what the audience was mainly interested in was cooling off under the fan. And sure enough, at first they were not really paying attention, and were therefore startled by the arrival of Chief Liu. He had not been expected to attend, given that this was merely a dress rehearsal and that furthermore he was said to have a cold, with a nose so stuffed it felt as though he had chicken feathers rammed up it. It had been reported that he had gone back to the county seat to take care of some business, and would return to watch the actual performance.
Who would have thought, therefore, that he would suddenly appear to watch a dress rehearsal? When he arrived, the cadres from the county committee and the county government all came with him. As a result, this dress rehearsal was transformed into a formal debut performance. Secretary Shi came backstage and told the fifty-something leader of the Balou tunes
opera troupe that Chief Liu had drunk some ginger soup and decided to come after all. He reported that Chief Liu said that his nose was still a little stuffed, so he wouldn’t come up on stage to speak. He added that Chief Liu still had to convene a county standing committee meeting that evening to research a construction plan for the Lenin Memorial Hall, and asked the troupe director to hurry up and start the performance.
The troupe director started hustling about. He gathered all of the Liven performers together in a corner of the stage and told them three things: 1) Don’t be nervous while performing on stage, but rather be as relaxed as if you were at your own livening festival. 2) Don’t look directly at the audience while on stage, because if you do you will become alarmed, so just look at the ceiling instead. 3) After finishing your performance, remember to bow to the audience; Chief Liu will be sitting in the middle of the third row, so when you bow you should be sure to make him feel that you are bowing directly to him, while at the same time making the rest of the audience feel that you are bowing to them. After he finished, the troupe director called Huaihua over, and asked, “Are you nervous?” Huaihua replied, “A little.” The troupe director said, “There is no need to be afraid. You are the prettiest girl in the entire troupe. Wait a moment and I’ll find someone to apply your makeup, so that when you stand at the front of the stage, you will look as pretty as a peacock. When the audience sees you, they will be astounded by your beauty. You should calmly announce that the performance is about to begin, and what the opening acts will be. That’s all.”
Huaihua blushed deeply, and nodded to the troupe director.
The troupe director caressed her cheek, and gave her a kiss. Then he asked someone to go apply her makeup.
The performance began. No one anticipated that when Huaihua, this tiny nin, walked onto the stage wearing heels and a blue silk dress, with blush and lipstick, she would look like an oriole fresh out of the nest. Given that she was wearing high heels, she no longer resembled a petite nin, like her sisters Tonghua, Yuhua, and Mothlet. However, since she still wasn’t very tall, people felt that she was not seventeen, but rather perhaps eleven or twelve. Her eyes were pits of darkness, and her lips were covered in bright red splendor. Her nose was thin and pointed like a knife. When she stood on stage in the sweltering theater wearing her blue muslin dress, she was like a cool breeze. Her appearance startled the theater audience, and even Chief Liu was utterly spellbound when he saw her. He knew that she was small, but hadn’t expected that her voice would be so sweet and delicate, nor that after having been instructed just a couple of times she would have succeeded in shedding her Balou accent and learned to speak with a perfect city accent. She rhythmically uttered one syllable after another, every word flowing like juice from a melon.
Huaihua stood at the front of the stage, and the entire theater fell silent. Then, she said in her sweet, delicate voice, “Our opening act will now begin. The first performance . . . will be the One-Legged Flying Leap.”
After finishing her announcement, she stepped off the stage and the troupe director enthusiastically grabbed her hand, as though his own daughter had unexpectedly done something extraordinary. He caressed her face again, patted her, and then gave her another kiss. When Huaihua came off the stage, a wave of applause erupted from the crowd. After it died down, the second red curtain slowly opened, as though the clouds were parting and the sun was coming out. The stage lights came on.
One-Legged Monkey’s leap was actually not all that extraordinary in itself. Given that he had been missing a leg ever since he was born, he had needed to learn to walk, carry things, and climb mountains using only one leg. As a result, that one leg had become very strong, allowing him to leap vast distances. However, the troupe director had added his own ideas to the One-Legged Flying Leap performance, making it terrifyingly dangerous. As soon as the curtain was raised, the actor who normally played the part of the clown in traditional opera performances appeared on stage juggling three straw hats. Two people then came onto the stage and scattered mung beans, soybeans, and green peas all over the ground behind him, covering the stage with a red and green sheet the size of three standard floor mats. Then, they had One-Legged Monkey go up on stage and make a one-legged leap over this sea of beans and peas. On the eastern side of the stage, they placed two cushions, so that when Monkey performed his One-Legged Leap, he would land on them. It was Yuhua who brought the cushions over. She was also wearing a theatrical costume, with blush and lipstick, so she looked quite attractive, like an innocent country girl.
On one side of the stage, therefore, a young country girl approached, and on the other side there was a man performing his One-Legged Leap. The resulting contrast was like that between fresh flowers and wilted grass. Needless to say, if One-Legged Monkey didn’t manage to complete his leap, he would land spread-eagled on the peas, and quite possibly break his good leg. The theater was filled with the smell of peas. The idea of covering the stage with beans and peas for the opening act was a stroke of genius, and even Chief Liu smiled broadly.
At that point, One-Legged Monkey appeared on stage, his empty pants leg dangling in the air. He was quite handsome, but his face was covered in shiny oil so that you couldn’t make out whether he was handsome or ugly. But everyone was astonished by his single leg. Chief Liu already knew about his One-Legged Leap, but the audience hadn’t realized that Monkey actually had only one leg. Then, someone on stage announced that he would leap, with his single leg, over the two-meter-wide and three-meter-long pool of peas, and if he didn’t make it he would land in the middle of the peas. The person on stage asked the audience to keep their eyes peeled. Accordingly, the audience sweated anxiously on his behalf. As they were watching from below the stage, up on stage the one-legged performer looked small and thin, and when he walked he had to hobble around on crutches.
Huaihua announced that he would leap over that sheet of peas, and that he would leap three meters, or nine feet; this was farther than many wholers could jump, but now
a cripple
was about to attempt this distance. The audience was nervous on his behalf, and One-Legged Monkey himself—either because he was genuinely worried about his ability to clear those three meters, or because he was just putting on an act—went to measure the distance with his hands, as though if it had been even an inch longer than it should have been, he would shift both the pool of peas and the cushions over by an inch. At that point, Yuhua, looking very concerned, gently urged him to be careful. One-Legged Monkey nodded to her.
Finally, he was ready to perform his leap.
The spotlights were as bright as the sun, and the audience were all holding their breath. Even Chief Liu leaned forward in his seat. Then, music and drums started playing, as though he were a brave warrior about to head into battle. One-Legged Monkey ran out from the side of the stage holding his crutch, lurching across like a three-legged deer. His right leg landed with a thud like a wooden mallet striking a board, his left crutch with a thud like a stone hammer hitting a board. After several rounds of this sound, the audience briefly glimpsed the shadow of a figure wearing a green T-shirt and red sweatpants, hopping awkwardly across the stage. His crutch happened to land right in the pool of peas, and seeing that he was about to fall, everyone craned their necks like trees about to topple over. But he suddenly took advantage of his crutch’s flexibility to leap into the air, and flew above the pool of peas, landing cleanly on the other side.
The audience was deathly quiet as they watched him leap over the pool of peas and land on the cushion. Then, everyone broke into wild applause. In fact, the applause was so loud that it almost split the building’s rafters. Chief Liu was leaning forward, but after One-Legged Monkey completed his leap he sat straight up and led the applause. The applause went on and on, until Yuhua walked out holding a pair of wooden planks, each of which was three feet wide and five feet long. Each of those planks was lined with row upon row of three-inch nails that had been inserted into the boards at one-inch intervals. The audience had not realized that Yuhua was a nin, and it wasn’t until she walked to the front of the stage that people noticed she was as tiny as a sparrow. Astounded by her size, they watched as she placed the two wooden boards in the middle of the pool of peas, and realized that when One-Legged Monkey leaped over the pool of peas again, he would also need to leap over this bed of nails. Given that this bed of nails was wider than the original pool of peas, and was covered with sharp spikes, the audience once again fell into stunned silence.
Everyone stared up to the stage in astonishment as One-Legged Monkey succeeded in leaping over the bed of knives.
His third leap, however, was even more amazing. The performance was called “Crossing-a-Sea-of-Fire.” On the floor of the stage there were now a pair of thin iron sheets, which were even broader and longer than the bed of nails, and which were covered with kerosene and kerosene-soaked cotton. At the touch of a match, the entire sheet erupted in flames, illuminating the entire theater. In the light of the fire, One-Legged Monkey once again hobbled to the front of the stage. His mouth tightly closed, he bowed to the audience, and after receiving a round of applause he hobbled back. Then, like a three-legged gazelle, he ran out and leaped over the sea of fire.
While he was in midair, however, there was an accident. Because his right leg consisted of merely an empty pants leg, as he was passing over the flames the fabric caught on fire. When he landed on the cushion on the other side, his pants were on fire, and he began to cry in agony. Huaihua and Yuhua, who were observing from the side of the stage, began to scream, and the audience jumped to their feet. Although the fire was quickly extinguished, when One-Legged Monkey came out for his bow, his empty pants leg was now missing, and all that remained was the charred circular opening.