Mulberry and Peach

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘I'm not Mulberry. Mulberry is dead!'

‘Well, what is your name, then?' asks the man from the Immigration Service.

‘Call me anything you like. Ah-chu, Ah-ch'ou, Mei-chuan, Ch'un-hsiang, Ch'iu-hsia, Tung-mei, Hsiu-ying, Ts'ui-fang, Niu-niu, Pao-pao, Pei-pei, Lien-ying, Kuei-fen, Chü-hua. Just call me Peach, OK?' She is dressed only in skin-coloured bikini panties and a peach blouse.

The Immigration agent is standing in her doorway. He is dressed in a dark suit with a black and grey striped tie. He wears sunglasses, although it's an overcast day. The dark lenses disguise the only distinguishing part of his face: eyebrows, eyes, the bridge of his nose. Only the anonymous parts are visible: bald head, sharp chin, high forehead, beak nose, and pencil-thin moustache.

He takes a form out of his briefcase. The form is covered with a cramped script in fountain pen. In the corner is the number: (Alien) number 89-785-462. In the other corner is a woman's photograph. The name Mulberry is written under the photo. One item on the form is checked in red: Application for Permanent Residency.

He points at the woman's photograph. ‘This is you in the picture, right? There's a mole under her left eye and her right earlobe has a small notch. You . . .' he says, pointing at Peach, ‘have a mole under your eye and there's a notch in your right earlobe.'

Peach laughs. ‘Mr Dark, you have a real good imagination. What you see isn't real. What I see is real. You know what I see when I look at you? A tiger with nine human heads.'

‘Please don't make jokes,' the agent says. ‘May I come in and talk with you?'

‘Only on one condition. You can't call me Mulberry.'

The agent comes in, looks around. ‘There's no furniture in here.'

‘The furniture belonged to Mulberry. I don't want anything that belonged to a dead person, so I called the Salvation Army to haul it away. Besides, furniture gets in my way. I like it like this.'

Peach moves aside heaps of clothing, boxes, bottles, newspapers, paints, and pieces of paper and sits down on the floor. She pats the floor beside her, ‘Sit down here.'

Things are piled all over the room. There isn't any place for him to sit. He stands in the middle of the room, looking around at the walls on which are scrawled crooked columns of words in English and in Chinese.

There are also drawings on the wall: A naked figure, beheaded, his two nipples, eyes; his protruding navel, a mouth. In one hand he holds a huge axe and hacks at the sky. With his other hand, he gropes for his head on the ground. To one side is a black mountain with a gaping hole. The head lies beside the hole.

A tall man sits stiffly in an armchair. Leopard's face: golden forehead, golden nose, golden cheekbones, black face, black eyes, white eyebrows. Forehead painted with red, white and black stripes. He bares his chest. His chest is an idol's shrine enclosed by bars. A thousand-handed Buddha sits in the shrine. The hands stretch out through the bars. The Buddha is locked inside.

A gigantic, swollen penis stands like a pillar in the middle of the floor. A butterfly bow has been tied around the glans and the two ends of the ribbon trail to the floor. Rose petals are strewn around it. A tiny Pekinese dog squats beside it, gazing up at a card that dangles from the bow: Happy Deathday Mulberry.

The agent stands in the room, still wearing his sunglasses, pen and notebook in his hands. ‘May I copy down the things on the wall?'

‘Go ahead. I could care less. If you want to investigate Mulberry, I can give you a lot of information. I know everything about her. Wherever she went, I was always there. What are you after her for, anyway?'

‘It's classified. I can't tell you. Can I ask you some questions?'

‘If you want to know about me, I won't tell you anything. If you want to know about Mulberry, I'll tell you everything I know.'

‘I appreciate your cooperation.' The agent looks over Mulberry's form. ‘What is Mulberry's nationality?'

‘Chinese.'

‘Where was she born?'

‘Nanking.'

‘Date of birth?'

‘October 26, 1929.'

‘And you,' he says pointing at Peach, ‘where were you born?' The dark glasses flash at her. ‘Where were you born, what date?'

Peach giggles. ‘Mr Dark, don't try to be so smart! You think I'm going to tell you that I was born in Nanking on 26 October 1929 so you can prove I'm Mulberry? Well, you're wrong, Mr Dark. I was born in a valley when heaven split from the earth. The goddess Nüwa plucked a branch of wild flowers and threw it to the earth. Where the flowers fell, people sprang up. That's how I was born. You people were born from your mothers' wombs. I'm a stranger wherever I go, but I'm happy. There are lots of interesting things to see and do. I'm not some spirit or ghost. I don't believe that nonsense. I only believe in what I can smell, touch, hear, see . . . I . . .'

‘Excuse me, Mulberry may I . . .'

‘Mulberry is dead. Mr Dark, I won't let you call me by a dead woman's name.'

‘You two are the same person all right.' His moustache twitches slightly. He pushes his sunglasses back up on his nose.

‘You're wrong. Mulberry is Mulberry and Peach is Peach. They're not the same at all. Their thoughts, manners, interests, and even the way they look are completely different. Mulberry, for instance, was afraid of blood, animals, flashing lights. I'm not afraid of those things. Mulberry shut herself up at home, sighing and carrying on. I go everywhere, looking for thrills. Snow, rain, thunder, birds, animals, I love them all. Sometimes Mulberry wanted to die, sometimes she wanted to live. In the end she gave up. I'd never do that. Mulberry was full of illusions; I don't have any. People and things I can't see don't exist as far as I'm concerned. Even if the sky fell and the world turned upside down, I still wouldn't give up.'

‘You smoke?' The agent takes out a cigarette.

‘Good idea! Mulberry didn't smoke. Let's have a cigarette to celebrate her death.' She lights her cigarette, stretches out on the floor, staring up at the ceiling while she smokes. The window is open; a gust of air blows in. The newspapers on the floor rustle in the breeze. ‘Ooh, what a lovely breeze!' She rolls on the floor in the breeze.

The agent looks away and goes to close the window.

‘Mr Dark, please don't close the window. Wind should blow, water should flow. You can't stop it.' Peach unbuttons her blouse, exposing
her breasts. ‘What a nice breeze! Soft as a deer's skin!' The cigarette in her fingers falls to the floor.

‘Mulberry, please behave yourself.' He puts the cigarette out with his foot.

‘Mulberry . . . is . . . dead. I am Peach.'

‘Please button your blouse.'

‘Even if I button it, I'm still naked inside.'

‘Don't make jokes. I represent the Immigration Service of the Department of Justice and I am here to investigate Mulberry.' He shivers in the breeze. ‘OK, Peach, you win. I need your cooperation. Please tell me everything you know about Mulberry.'

‘OK, listen.' Peach sprawls on the floor and pillows her head with her arms. She crosses her legs and swings her calf up and down as she talks. She is speaking in Chinese.

The agent can't understand. He paces back and forth. The papers rustle under his feet. He motions for her to stop, but she goes on speaking in Chinese. Gusts of wind are blowing in.

He finally interrupts her. ‘Excuse me, may I use your bathroom?' The glasses slide down his nose, revealing his thick eyebrows. His eyes are still hidden.

‘Of course.'

When he comes back, Peach is standing by the window, her blouse half-open, her breasts full. She looks out the window and smiles faintly. Her belly is slightly swollen.

The agent from the Immigration Service picks up his briefcase and walks out, without saying goodbye.

(January 1970)

 

 

CHARACTERS

PEACH, one half of the split personality of the woman Mulberry-Peach. She is running away from the US Immigration Service agent while writing him about her wanders across America.

THE MAN FROM THE IMMIGRATION SERVICE, he represents the modern institutionalized threat.

 

Dear Sir:

I'm wandering around these places shown on the map. If you want to chase me, come on. Anyway, I'm not Mulberry. Sometimes I hitchhike. Sometimes I take a bus. As soon as I get somewhere, I leave. I don't have any particular destination. I'm always on the road. You can meet a lot of interesting people on the road. There is so much to see. One by one, the horizons sink behind me and new ones rise ahead of me.

Right now I'm on Highway 70 heading east. We're going 100 miles an hour. The car is black, painted with large red letters: March Against Death.

I got this ride in St. Louis. I was standing by the road and a car came toward me. I waved. The car stopped. Inside were all kinds of people: white, black, yellow. I couldn't tell the men from the women, they all had such long hair.