The Embroidered Shoes (23 page)

“Aunty, what are you collecting?”

“Playing cards,” she shook the boot and laughed. “The ground is littered with such little playthings. I am dazzled. When you pick them up, every piece seems to be an unexpected achievement. I play this game every night. I am so enchanted by it that I sing and dance like a little kid. But your mother never believes such business. I'm going to guide you.”

The thick bushes opened beside us. This was probably a road. My feet only glided above the road, without touching down. I was not used to this. But the more forcefully I stepped down, the more obvious the feeling of floating became. My body was swinging, my long, narrow shadow looked like a guy walking on stilts.

The short figure of my aunt came and went among the trees. Her firm voice resounded in the air like the lingering sound of a big bell: “I'm going to guide you.” She entered the thick black forest as if she were entering total emptiness, and she could still see the playing cards scattered on the ground. This was certainly a unique skill. My mother had a similar ability. Once I followed her closely and found her running into an empty deserted stone pit. She circled there several times and then ran all the way back home. As full sisters, their behavior was strikingly identical.

“There's a hot spring ahead. Do you see the spout of hot mist? One summer, lilies blossomed all around the hot spring. We collected them seriously, feeling really fulfilled. But when I got to the spring two nights ago, the old man failed to recognize me. Approaching him, I realized that he was chewing the roots of the grass. He told me that his two legs were rooted in the earth.”

“Could the square be only a model?” I was still pondering this matter. The lily blossoms were another of my aunt's lies. The reason she left the house with my mother at midnight, sacks in hand, was to dig for gold.

“There won't be any solution to such things.” My aunt suddenly hushed me. “In the valley over there, a rabbit once appeared. It was all red. Your mother went crazy because of that. One day I took her to the valley and told her, pointing at a protruding stone, that was the so-called rabbit. I shouted at her for a long time before I realized that her ears were deaf. Aha, a king of spades.”

She was running far ahead of me, then her voice suddenly stopped. It was very dark, my head grew hot, and I pursued her with all my might. Suddenly I stepped on something soft. It turned out to be my aunt, who had fallen asleep on the ground. She had her worn rubber boot under her head, and her fat body looked swollen and horrifying in the dim light. Without the courage to look at her, I turned around and tried to run. But I couldn't run at all. Anyway, I assume that I ran out of the forest and found a big stretch of flat land in front of me, and on the land was a tall building, with many open windows and irritating lights. Father was waving at me from one window, all smiles. On his face, he wore a huge artificial beard. He jumped onto the windowsill and sang out at the top of his voice, his thin legs trembling. I was hiding here and there, trying to avoid people and give my legs some rest. But lights were chasing me like hunters pursuing an animal. Then I said: “Now it's morning.” Immediately I heard the mocking cry of a rooster. This method has become my magic weapon.

7. M
Y
T
HIRD
D
REAM

I found myself living in a cave—this happened after one of my naps. I dared not open my eyes because I heard two tigers pacing back and forth outside. After a long time I was sure that they had not discovered me, so I opened my eyes and sat up. A beam of sunlight shone down through a crack in the cave. Someone was snoring deep inside the cave. He snored in his sleep as well as when awake. Touching my body, I found myself wearing a set of khaki fatigues. I knew it was only a disguise: No savages living in a cave wore khaki suits. The most they could have had was some hanging leaves. They might even have been naked. I dared not leave the cave, so I stayed there dully till dusk. The two tigers finally left. I could hear the noise they made while descending the mountain. I should have begged for something to eat at the foot of the mountain. As I had no preparation whatsoever for living in a cave, I didn't need to put on an air if it was only a fraud. I walked for a long time in the confusing mist, then I heard a weird chuckle: a human figure appeared vaguely in the top of the dragon spruce.

“So you are living in the cave?” he was shouting. “Excellent! It's very noble to do such a thing!”

I continued on my way. I felt very bored. I hated to see my shadow, because it too appeared suspiciously vague. This just wasn't right.

“You'd better get really prepared if you are determined to live in a cave. That will be an eternal silence.” The man was still shouting; his voice was very irritating. I meant to hide from him in a bush, but he discovered my attempt immediately. So his shouting became all the louder: “Someone is in khaki, someone has a cap without a peak, and he walks loudly. Please pay attention to such matters.”

I simply squatted down and pressed two stones against my throbbing temples. This proved to be very effective, for I fell into sleep immediately.

In a minute, I saw my aunt's fat gray face above my own. She was stroking my face with a pitiful expression. She spat on her palm and then applied it to my neck. The tone of her voice was very emotional and gentle: “You are beset with crises. Your living in a cave has aroused so much disturbance. The cave is so dirty that I feel very worried. I plan to clean it and cover the wall inside with those artistic paper fans and also several porcelain plates. I learned such aesthetic interest from the classmate of your third sister. She is well cultivated.”

Two pine trees had grown out of the run-down temple at the foot of the mountain. The branches had broken through the roof and stretched toward the sky.

Could my aunt be the snoring person? So she has been waiting in the darkness for this performance?

“Someone is raising two panthers in the corridor.” She clenched her teeth. “That's the guy who was experimenting with growing vegetables. Today the corridor is full of disasters. The day the rain came, I fell asleep on the cement floor of the corridor. I shiver even to recall that. You have to be determined and persistent in order to live in a cave. I had focused so much expectation on it that I was overjoyed from the very beginning.”

Many vicious black cats attempted to get close. I had this dream during my nap. When I was about to fall asleep, I saw Father's head pop in, hanging like a pine worm on the wall. Now, I wanted to go to the rock. I would have awakened if I had jumped down.

8. M
Y
F
OURTH
D
REAM

I once arranged to go with my father to the riverbank which was ten
li
from here to pick up shells and cobblestones. It seemed that we were discussing this matter in a bar. At the time, a skinny guy was squeezing onto the same bench where we sat. He was constantly picking his nostrils and wiping his hands on my father's back. Whenever we whispered, he would move closer to listen. When I stared at him, I saw that his eyeballs were made of plaster.

We didn't carry out our plan immediately after our discussion. As a result, Father made faces, passed code words, and made gestures in front of everybody, as if he had special privilege. I was utterly embarrassed. He even went to the trouble of following me everywhere. No matter whom I was talking with, he would join us. Holding my shoulder and winking at the person, he would interrogate this person rudely: “Hey, do you want to return to the joy of a carefree childhood?” Full of worry, I hid myself behind the toilet, hoping the big dog would appear, as if this would become a life-and-death turning point. But Father immediately joined me in my hiding place and rattled on about our “secret.” While talking, he would elbow my waist, and ask: “Isn't it a wonderful break? Isn't it a genius of a creation? How did we come up with such a unique idea?”

The dog eventually showed up. I jumped on it ferociously but ended up in hitting my mouth against the ground. I made use of the momentum and closed my eyes. I knew that my teeth were bleeding, but I still pretended to be falling into sleep. It was not at all comfortable sleeping beside the toilet, with green-headed flies roiling beside me. But I couldn't wake up, because my father was waiting for me. Since it was a dream itself, I drifted into yet another dreamy image once I thought like that. In this dream, the earth was so covered with thorn bushes that nobody could move. Somewhere I heard a pair of bare feet running on the playground. The feet were full of corns. Because the feet had been stamping on the crushed stones, they had turned purple and brown. All my family members lay in ambush amidst the Cherokee rosebushes. The wind carried their whispering, and I could see Father's peaked cap swinging. (Ever since he got bald, he has been wearing that cap.) A pigeon flew out of a Cherokee rosebush into the sky. So there was another trick there.

A similar thing had happened several years before, when we were at the end of our rope, and the whole family fled to a stone pit. Hiding behind a work shed, we jabbered on and on until dawn. Outside the stone pit, there wandered packs of hungry wolves. The moon rose. I counted eight of them altogether. They swung in the sky as if they were stringed balloons. Somebody was taking aim at a black muzzle showing amidst the rosebushes. Father could be heard chuckling. Then a loud bang …

9. M
Y
L
AST
D
REAM

It seemed to be in our big house. The light was dim, and my whole family was dozing off on the floor. Half asleep, people saw a fine figure entering the house, but nobody wanted to move or to observe clearly. Nobody knew the time. The window was opened gently by the wind, and a strong scent of Seven-Li Fragrance filled the house. Gray and jade-colored locusts were hopping all over the place.

Father was the first to jump up. Looking around in a hurry, he put on his travel bag and ran out of the house. His long legs carried him really fast, like a master sportsman. The scent of the flower was making him crazy. His air of going ahead regardless of anything else was very surprising. Two big wasps flew after him at a distance.

My third sister got up early in the morning. She dashed over to close the window as soon as she saw that it was open. Standing by the window, she sank into meditation, watching Father's back, as if she were getting lost. She had once told me about a big snake shining with sapphire blue light. The snake crawled across the grass, its head raised high and swinging. The grass was very deep, with strings of ball-shaped fruit on the flowers. “Once there was a mountain monkey, which waited day and night on an empty hillside.” Her eyes suddenly turn perplexed, making her face strange to me. The locusts were flying and jumping with a rustle. The wind carried Father's coarse voice. He was singing a funny song. My third sister suddenly straightened her face and walked heavily to the chest of drawers.

Mother was forever in a state of unconsciousness. In her dream, she stretched her limbs, and her face was all rosy and smiling.

I rolled on the floor and heard some disturbing noise. An old woman with grayish blue skin was squatting on the tea table, resembling a funny little animal. She was digging with her small finger in the tea leaves left over in the cup and eating them, while instructing my third sister about something. I couldn't figure out the strange language.

My third sister shrugged her shoulders, throwing the clothes in the drawers out the window. “It has always been placed in the last drawer, my model someone must have moved it. Damn him!”

Mother was perspiring. Her eyelids were damp. In her hand, she had a bunch of broad bean flowers that she had gathered in her dream. She was chewing enthusiastically.

I was killing locusts by the pond with my father. The sunlight was glancing on the quiet lotus. Someone threw a stone into the water. My father kneeled down to drink the green water from the pond. He said with tears in his eyes: “My intestines all have been dyed green.” His thin hair was sticking out at the back of his head like the tail of a chicken.

Touching his travel bag, I found it completely empty. So I said to him on purpose: “It was said in the temple today that you were selling human organs. This could be a misunderstanding caused by the travel bag. Why should you take the trouble of holding it all the time? It's not beneficial to you…”

Turning around, he patted my back. He then sank into a reverie: “Dear boy, do you have such experience? There will be one day, let's suppose it's a dull day. You are skipping and running along the avenue, singing pop songs, even turning somersaults. Suddenly rain pours down. Pedestrians on the road start running, yet you stop in the rain. You simply pause, motionless. Thunder comes. You find a screen of rain all around you. Bending low, you pick up a spotted fallen leaf. On your feet, you are wearing a pair of rain shoes that you had in your childhood. One shoe is broken, exposing your bony toe. There is a man, a beggar, marching from the fields. He is shouting out a song: ‘The soldier's troop is facing the morning sun…' His rough voice scratches the milky sky sharply. Raindrops drip down from your coarse face. You suddenly realize that the person who is passing the field is no other than yourself.”

“I've tried more than once the method of jumping from the cliff. But I've never reached the expected result.”

He glanced at me seriously and said: “You have to make up your mind. Every expectation is a trap.” So saying, he pulled away a big stone and pointed at a dead centipede giving out groans. Frogs were jumping in the lotus pond. “I'm not at all happy in the temple. There were days when someone kept banging the gate of the temple. I burn my beard because I don't know the time, also because of the feeling that the deadly silent mountains are pressing on toward us whenever I hear the wind. And the door is banged so loudly. Oh!”