Hung-chien said, “I’ve already given it up, and Miss Sun doesn’t smoke at all.”
Hsin-mei said, “I smoke a pipe and have tobacco with me, so I won’t need to buy any on the way. But I won’t smoke any more from now on, so you won’t get envious watching me.”
Li was silent, then suddenly said, “I just bought two cans of tobacco yesterday, so of course we can still smoke on the way as long as we don’t buy any more.”
That evening the five of them bought third-class sleeping car tickets and boarded the train at Chinhua, due to arrive in Yingt’an early the next morning. A few amorous lice who were willing to brave the dangers of the long journey accompanied them all the way.
The train arrived at Yingt’an early in the morning. By the time they picked up their baggage, the bus had already left. The only decent hotel in town had hung out a “Full House” sign, so their only choice was to put up at a small inn. People stayed on the top floor of the inn, while tea and rice were sold on the ground floor. With houses on either side of the narrow street, the sun rarely shone into the teahouse on the ground floor. Rice bowls were piled on a table at the entrance along with a few pieces of half-cooked fat meat on a large plate, meat which turned out to be red-cooked pork. Now cold and black, the pork was like a once prosperous man who was down on his luck and had lost his formerly ruddy complexion. Next to this was a plate of steamed bread which, from a distance, looked like a once pure-white virgin who has been soiled. It was covered with black specks and streaks. When one came closer, the black specks flew off and disappeared in the surrounding shadows. In fact, they were flies. These, along with mosquitoes and bedbugs, are considered the “three companions of winter”11 at small inns. As it was now just late autumn, their steadfastness in winter was not yet apparent.
The only access to the second floor was by a bamboo ladder, and it was impossible to move Li’s metal trunk upstairs. The innkeeper, however, patted his chest and assured Li that it would be quite safe to leave it on the ground floor. Li consoled himself, “When the trunk was mishandled on the train and didn’t get here, didn’t someone else look after it for me in the same way? I don’t think anything will get lost. Wasn’t it several days before it finally arrived in Chinhua?”
Everyone praised him for being able to see his way out of the problem. Hsin-mei went up with the waiter to look at the rooms. The floor creaked under their footsteps, and dust came fluttering down.
Ku said with a laugh, “Mr. Chao is quite heavy!”
As Miss Sun took out her handkerchief to wipe away the dust, the innkeeper said, “Don’t worry. The floor is very sturdy. A creaking floor is good. If a thief comes during the night, the guests will wake up. We’ve never had any thieves in our inn. They wouldn’t dare come because of the way our floor creaks. Why, even if a mouse makes a move our floor will report it.”
The waiter came down the ladder to ask the guests to go up. With great reluctance Li entrusted his metal trunk to the innkeeper. There were only three vacant rooms upstairs, all with single beds. The waiter added a bamboo cot to Chao and Fang’s room, which was to be charged at the double rate.
Hsin-mei said, “Our room is the best. It faces the street and gets the most light. There’s a net on the bed too, but I don’t want to sleep in the inn’s bedding. We’ll have to think of something else later on.”
“Why not let Miss Sun have the good room?” asked Hung-chien. Pointing to the wall, Hsin-mei said, “Take a look.”
There on the peeling white plaster wall, in crookedly written pale black characters were the lines, “Written in everlasting memory of the love shared with Miss Wang Wei-yü while passing through Yingt’an. Hsü Ta-lung of Chinan.” The month, day, and year of the Republic were recorded. It reckoned out to have been written the night before. Next to this, in what also appeared to be Hsü Ta-lung’s hand was the poem:
Liquor does not intoxicate; one intoxicates oneself.
Lust does not blind; one blinds oneself.
This morning we met by fate.
Tomorrow you go east and I head west.
To this were added the words, “Off I go!” The exclamation mark made one imagine Mr. Hsü mimicking the style of the dialogue in Peking opera and the actor gallantly flourishing his whip.12 In addition there were some smaller characters in pencil all on the subject of Wang Mei-yü, which must have been written prior to the night of Mr. Hsü’s intoxication with liquor and blindness from lust by someone else, since Mr. Hsü’s poem had been written over them. They read: “The lone prince became drunk in Yingt’an palace; Wang Mei-yü has a face so fair.” There were also three lines of penciled characters with the new-style punctuation: “Attention! Wang Mei-yü is infected! During the War of Resistance, my compatriots, you must all make hygiene a basis for the strengthening of the nation. You must not spread infection! Furthermore, she recognizes money only and has no love! From one who knows!” Next to this was Hsü Ta-lung’s comment in pale ink: “What sort of crime is it to defame someone else?”
Hung-chien said with a laugh, “That Hsü fellow is a man of passion and honor!”
Hsin-mei also laughed and said, “Is such a room fit for Miss Sun? It’s even less fit for Li Mei-t’ing—”
Just as he spoke they heard shouts coming from Li and Ku’s direction. Ku was quarreling with a waiter. Hsin-mei and Hung-chien ran out to see. Since the inn’s bamboo cots had all been used to make extra beds, the waiter had placed a door plank across two unpainted wooden benches to serve as Ku’s bed.
When Ku Er-chien saw Hsin-mei and Hung-chien, he became bold. Exposing his teeth and claws, he said, “Don’t you find this disgusting? This is for laying out a dead man’s remains. Is he trying to bully me?”
The waiter replied, “This plank is all the inn has. You civilized men in Western suits must be reasonable.”
Patting a greasy spot on the breast of his blue cotton Chinese robe, Ku demanded, “Are you saying people like me who don’t wear Western suits aren’t reasonable? Why do other people get a bamboo cot to sleep on while I don’t? Don’t I pay just the same as everyone else? I’m not superstitious, but when a person travels away from home, he hopes for good omens. A rascal like you doesn’t know the proper way to behave.”
Since the discovery of his Western medicine the day before, Li Mei-t’ing had ceased to be Ku’s protector and had been coolly watching throughout the quarrel. He now interrupted, “Just take the plank away. What’re you arguing for? Find a way to move my trunk up here, and it can serve as a bed. I’ll offer you a cigarette,” and he stuck out his left index finger and waved it about as though it were a sample cigarette.
When the waiter saw it was not a cigarette but a yellow tobacco-stained finger, he stared at him and asked, “Where’s the cigarette?”
“Humph, stupid fool!” said Li, shaking his head. “Naturally I have the cigarette. You think I’d cheat you? Move my trunk up here, and I’ll give you one.”
“If you have any, then give me one,” said the waiter, “but if it’s the trunk you want moved, that’s out of the question.”
Li was so angry that all he could do was laugh. Ku triumphantly asked everyone to note how utterly unreasonable this waiter was. In the end the bamboo bed Hung-chien was to sleep on was exchanged for the door plank.
Miss Sun came up and Hsin-mei asked where they should go for breakfast. Li said, “Why not right here in the inn? It’ll save us the trouble of finding a place. It might even be a little cheaper.”
Hsin-mei was not in a position to offer his opinion, and just at that moment the waiter arrived with tea, so he asked the waiter what was to eat at the inn. The waiter replied there was large white steamed bread, four-happiness pork, eggs, and ham. Hung-chien suggested slicing up a plate of ham and sticking it inside the steamed bread to eat. Li, Ku, and Chao all approved of the idea, calling it a “Chinese sandwich,” and were all set to have the waiter go down and fix it.
Miss Sun said, “I noticed when I came in that this inn is full
of flies. It’s probably not very sanitary.”
Li said with a smile, “Miss Sun, you’ve had a very sheltered and pampered upbringing. You don’t know the hardships of the road. If you want to find an inn without flies you’ll have to go abroad. I assure you, you won’t get sick from eating it. And even if you do, I have plenty of medicine in my trunk.” He contorted his features as he spoke; his twisted face, rather than his original, looked more appropriate for him.
Hsin-mei just then took a drink of the freshly boiled water in Li’s room. After taking one swallow, he frowned. “I get thirstier the more I drink this. It tastes smoky. It could be used instead of kerosene to light the lamp—if you ask me, the stuff in this inn isn’t dependable. You usually don’t have ham until winter, and now it is only autumn. Who knows how old an antique their ham is. Instead of ordering first, let’s go down and look around a bit before we decide.”
From the wall the waiter took a pitch black, greasy object and offered it for their inspection, repeatedly saying, “How delicious!” his own mouth watering as he spoke, fearful only that the fat meat would waste away under the greedy stares of the guests. Wriggling and squirming from its greasy slumber, a maggot on the meat awoke. Li saw it and was repulsed by the sight; from a distance his mouth pointed toward it and he exclaimed, “We can’t have it.”
The waiter quickly stuck his finger over the tender, soft, white object and pressing down lightly, drew a shiny, black, oily streak like a freshly poured asphalt road across the filthy surface of the meat. At the same time he said, “It’s nothing!”
Infuriated, Ku asked the waiter, “You think we’re blind?”
“Outrageous,” they cried.
Ku prattled away, even dragging in the bed plank incident. The commotion brought in the innkeeper. Meanwhile two other maggots in the meat also heard the noise and poked their heads out for a look. The waiter, no longer able “to do away with the corpse and destroy the evidence,” merely retorted, “If you won’t eat it, then other people will. I’ll eat it to show you—”
The innkeeper took the pipe from his mouth and remonstrated, “Those aren’t bugs. They don’t hurt anything. Those are ‘meat sprouts’—‘meat sprouts.’”
Hung-chien’s reply was, “All the food in this place sprouts, not just the meat.”
The innkeeper didn’t catch on, but seeing everyone laugh, he also became upset and muttered something to the waiter in the local dialect. In the end, the five of them went out to eat at the one and only respectable-looking hotel in town.
Li’s cards had little effect on the stationmaster, who said there was nothing he could do for them. They must register for the buses like everyone else and they would certainly have tickets in three days. The five of them grew alarmed. Room and board for three days would be a considerable expense. If they were to go on delaying like that, their money would probably never get them to Chian. In low spirits they returned to the inn. Opposite the inn they saw a woman leaning against a door smoking a cigarette. The woman had prominent cheekbones and a thin face. Her hair, waved by some unidentifiable instrument, resembled a plum tree in full bloom in a Chinese impressionist painting. Around her neck she wore a white silk scarf and was dressed in a green silk Chinese dress which was dazzlingly resplendent, but shiny like the material high-class girls used for lining. Hsin-mei nudged Hung-chien’s arm and said, “It must be ‘there’s a beautiful gem here.’”13
Hung-chien said with a laugh, “I was thinking the same thing.”
Hearing them recite from the Confucian Analects and not understanding what it was about, Ku Er-chien asked, “What?”
Li Mei-t’ing was more clever. “Er-chien,” he asked, “how do you suppose there could be a woman dressed like that in a place like this?—What are you reciting from the Analects for?”
“Come to our room and see,” replied Hung-chien.
When Ku heard she was a prostitute, he gawked at her, unable to take his eyes off her. When the woman, who had been giving Miss Sun a careful scrutiny from head to toe, suddenly discovered she had Ku’s attention, she flashed him a big smile, revealing a mouthful of fresh red gums, which bulged like a hero’s chest. Sparsely studded with a few yellowed teeth, the upper jaw was too bashful to show itself. Ku blushed in confusion, and thankful that no one had noticed, hurried into the inn after Miss Sun.
Hsin-mei and Hung-chien hadn’t slept well the whole night on the train, so they returned to their rooms to rest. Li knocked on the door and entered, asking them what wonderful things they had to show him. Neither of them felt like getting up, so they let him look at the wall graffiti by himself.
Li glanced out the window, then turned and cried, “You young men are up to no good! No wonder you wanted to take this room. It must be because Wang Mei-yü’s bedroom is opposite yours, just four or five feet away, close enough to jump across. Get up and take a look. There’s a red blanket on her bed and a large mirror on the table with perfume bottles on it—Ai! You bachelors are really sneaky. This is no joking matter—Ai, she’s come up!”
Hsin-mei and Hung-chien craned their necks to see from their beds. Sure enough, the woman who had just been leaning against the door smoking a cigarette was standing at the window. They hastily drew their heads back and lay down. Li casually leaned against the window smoking a cigarette and gazing upward, taking in the view of the roofs opposite with his dark glasses. Hsin-mei and Hung-chien waited impatiently on their beds and were just about to ask him to leave when suddenly they heard the woman say, “Where did you all come from?”
Li started as though roused from a dream and said, “Are you talking to me? We’re from Shanghai.”
There was nothing funny about these remarks, but Hsin-mei and Hung-chien broke out laughing so hard that they pulled the covers over their heads, then quickly lifted them off in order to catch what followed.
“I’m from Shanghai, too,” the woman said. “I came here as a refugee. What do you all do?”
Li subconsciously reached into his pocket to pull out a card, then caught himself and replied with dignity, “We’re university professors.”
“Oh, you teach?” said the woman. “There’s no money in teaching. Why not set yourself up in a business?”
The two pulled up the covers again. Li merely grunted in response.
The woman said, “My father was a teacher too—”
The two were laughing so hard under the covers they cried out in pain.
“Who’s that woman with you? Does she teach, too?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been to school myself. Hou much does she make?”
Afraid she would make fun of Miss Sun for not earning as much as she did, Hsin-mei coughed loudly.
Li merely replied, “Quite a lot, quite a lot—Care for a cigarette? Here, take one”—Hsin-mei and Hung-chien were so tense they didn’t dare breathe, and when they heard Li’s next remarks, they could hardly believe their ears—“Tell me, bus tickets are very hard to get. You—you know quite a few people. Can you think of any way? We will thank you properly.”
The woman let out a long stream of words, spoken quickly and crisply, like a steel knife slicing up a turnip, the gist of which was that if one could not get bus tickets, one could get a ride on a military convoy. She knew a Major Hou who would be coming to see her in a while, and Li could come over then and negotiate with him directly. Li thanked her profusely. After the woman had left, Li turned to Chao and Fang, and with a triumphant swirl of his head, stood and looked at them without saying a word. They both commended him for having hit upon such a brilliant idea and for being so very skillful.
Li wished he could have jumped out of his body and patted himself on the shoulder, saying, “Li, ol’ boy, you really are something!” He then bragged openly, “I know that sort of women have many of their own special ways of doing things and can sometimes be useful. That’s what Meng Ch’ang-chün had in mind when he befriended men who could crow like a cock or steal like a dog.”14
After Li had left, Hsin-mei and Hung-chien fell asleep. In his dreams, Hung-chien sensed something hitting against the dense casing of his sleep. It poked a tiny hole through, and his entire sleep dispersed like boiling water injected through an icy surface. When he awoke all he heard was “Hey! Hey!” He stepped groggily from bed and saw Wang Mei-yü yelling toward them from across the way. He was about to close the window and ignore her, when he suddenly remembered Li’s negotiations with her. Hsin-mei also woke up.
Wang Mei-yü said, “Where’s the one in the dark glasses? Major Hou is here.”
When Li Mei-t’ing was informed, he quickly took out his Western trousers and tie which lay pressed under his mattress. He had already shaved and though his skin was cut in several places, his whole face shone with a ruddy glow. On his way out, he said that he couldn’t go to a prostitute’s room empty-handed and would have to spend some money. How was this social expense to be reckoned? He had just doled out one cigarette already. Everyone assured him that as long as the negotiations went off smoothly, not only would the expenses be shared, but there would be a reward for his service as well. Li asked if they would like to go to Hsin-mei’s room to listen in through the window. “After all, there’s nothing secretive about this,” he insisted.
The others said they were not interested. Since it was now four o’clock, they would go out for a stroll and meet at six for dinner at the restaurant where they had had breakfast.
At the appointed time Li came, brimming with excitement. They quickly asked him how it had turned out. He replied that the truck would leave the next day at noon. As they plied him with more questions, he explained that Major Hou would come at nine o’clock that evening to check the luggage, and if they had any questions, they could ask him directly. The military transports were going to Shaokuan and each could take one passenger and one or two pieces of luggage. Once they got to Shaokuan, they could take a train into Hunan. The cost would be twice that of a bus. “But,” said Li, “we have to wait everywhere for bus tickets and each wait takes a few days. This way we’ll save on room and board.”
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