by Qiu Miaojin
“Chu Kuang, listen to me. When you’re around me, just be your genuine self. I know it’s not easy. My feet have a few calluses, too, but I’m not ready to talk about them with anyone yet. Is that okay?”
We hadn’t even noticed that it was almost ten o’clock. Outside the recreation center and all over campus, the festival raged on. A heavy metal band was playing, and laser beams shot in all directions as drunken students bid farewell to their desires. . . .
6
What’s written here are fragments from the first semester of sophomore year, the period from July 1988 to February 1989. After the wild boar barreled through the pasture gates and returned to the wild, was it a boar who’d suffered a concussion? With its boar hooves lifted over its boar head, it was a boar skipping through the rain forest, and one that could do a mind-blowing jitterbug at that. It took a merry bath in the river and leaned back against the riverbank, telling itself, “Well, it’s a good thing I lost myself crashing through that fence!” Its amnesia was so severe that it struggled to remember what it had said just a second earlier. Meanwhile, ants had covered the half of its body that was above water and were pecking at its cheek.
So I didn’t need Shui Ling, then? She’d become the mythical goddess Nüwa—a snail of a woman curled up inside a shell somewhere beyond my recollection. I dove down to a coral reef at the bottom of the sea, a long, grueling journey to a place where all kinds of caves could be found. The reef was a microcosm of deep-sea consciousness, from its pink bud-like tentacles to the moist, black marrow of its skeleton. Whenever I ventured into the wrong cave, the snail woman would emerge from her shell to temper my alcohol-hardened brain, mending the membrane layer where freshly spawned desires were being sundered by a death wish.
A winter’s night. I had just finished a paper on Freud for a seminar and was leaving a basement meeting with Tun Tun. The lights were out and a cold wind blew as we biked across the dark campus. Tun Tun said, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I have a problem, and although I’m not completely sure what that problem is, I do know that you’re the kind of person I can talk to, someone who might be able to help. Her voice was soft and quivering, like the rustling of a lone maple tree in the wind, yet there she was, bravely forcing herself to smile. This girl was so precious, it brought me to shame. What about Zhi Rou? I posed the question with a cool detachment, working my way one step closer to Tun Tun’s fears in life. We had almost reached the campus gates. There was no time to get into the details, but she was going through a tough spell, she told me. Is it serious? Is it affecting your work and personal life? It was like this almost every week, her accompanying me to these dingy basements. She was like quicksilver, this kid. It’d been going on for a long time. How was it possible that I could never get past that brave smile and find out what was behind it? My intense affection for her came gushing out. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how much of it was welled up inside of me.
It’s nothing. It’ll be fine. Don’t worry. With overstated confidence, Tun Tun tried to console me. It was just that she’d been at the so-called wall of absurdity for two months and hadn’t managed to make it far enough to figure out exactly where it would end. She couldn’t fall asleep. She’d been gripped by paranoia. She’d suddenly become afraid of all kinds of things. She couldn’t get herself out of the house. She went to class or else she kept busy. The only time I’m happy is on Fridays, when I can come here and see you. I can’t stand being alone at night. It was out of my affection for her that I started whistling. I said, Today is my ex’s birthday, and after we broke up, I got a package with three little letters in it, but I can’t bring myself to open them. I stopped abruptly. So what if these were just kids’ problems? Like hitting a patch of broken glass while biking, they could leave you fragile, and unable to speak.
7
The crocodile was a diligent worker. It was so diligent that it was drying a whole bathtub’s worth of still-usable one-cent postage stamps. That’s the kind of worker it was. It used to work at St. Mary’s Bakery, where it stood next to the cashier, wrapping and bagging pastries. After work, it strolled across the street to a gift shop, where it bought exquisite wrapping paper and fancy ribbons. In fact, that was the crocodile’s favorite pastime. And courageously, it drew a crocodile design, then stuffed it into the slot in the manager’s office door, proposing that the design be adopted on the bakery’s plastic bags and cake boxes.
“I heard that in addition to eating canned goods, crocodiles supplement their diet with bread,” said customer A.
“That’s a minor bit of trivia. I didn’t think you’d have heard it, too. Maybe it was in a housekeeping magazine.” Waiting in line behind customer A was customer B, who held a cake box with baguettes inside and a wicker basket filled with pastries.
“Oh, does everyone know? I read more details in a cooking magazine. Crocodiles only eat sugar-free bread. They won’t even touch salted bread. What nonsense.” C was in line after B.
“How could that be true? Their favorite pastry is cream puffs,” said the crocodile, who’d been listening impassively to the conversation while wrapping and bagging pastries.
“How do you know?” the three customers, along with the girl tending the cash register, all asked at the same time. A was surprised, B filled with admiration, and C indignant. The cashier envied the sheer volume of knowledge the others seemed to have at their disposal.
After finishing work that day, the crocodile didn’t return to St. Mary’s, nor did it ever set foot in a bakery again.
Though the thought of cream puffs frequently entered its mind, the crocodile could only afford to spend fifty cents on one, so it asked a child at the door of the bakery to go inside and buy a thirty-cent cream puff. If the crocodile didn’t throw in a little extra cash, the kid would never do it.
The crocodile was filled with resignation. It didn’t say a word to the manager. It was convinced that the manager had long figured out that it was a crocodile and had noted its baked-goods preferences and sold the information to all the local rags. All the evidence was there: A magazine had just leaked the bit about the cream puffs, modifying its earlier story about sugar-free bread. After all, the latest report reflected the conversation that had transpired in the shop, didn’t it? Whenever the manager was around, the crocodile chose only sugar-free bread so as not to blow its entire paycheck. After the manager left for the day, it secretly devoured an entire box of cream puffs.
Whenever the crocodile thought about the manager, its skin turned a monstrous shade of green. But now the crocodile was sashaying down the street with its precious, thirty-cent cream puff, cravenly and delightfully taking a giant lick of the filling. It spotted a sign posted on a door: BREAKING NEWS: CREAM PUFFS ARE A CROCODILE FAVORITE! NEW CREAM PUFF STAND AND BAKERY COMING SOON.
Oh no! I can’t resist cream puffs!
NOTEBOOK #4
1
Tun Tun. After reaching the aforementioned wall of absurdity she’d told me about the previous semester, she was nowhere to be found.
Zhi Rou. After we met at the club’s booth at orientation, she never followed through. She said she was too busy with schoolwork. But really, she wasn’t: I knew she was slacking off. Once, she dropped by around noon—basically when the office was at its most bustling—and sat in the far corner, staring at me without saying a word. When I asked how she was, she was all smiles. I raised my voice, trying to show solicitude. A moment later, she’d put on her backpack and wandered off, vanishing into thin air. The next time I ran into her, she’d adopted a more mature hairstyle and there was a conspiratorial grin on her face. She hadn’t fooled me, though. I was on to her decadent ways.
I liked these two. And I knew that they liked me. There was no romantic interest whatsoever in that like. As for how much I liked them, the two of them were perhaps my very favorites out of all the people to whom that word applied. I liked them as individuals. I liked them even more when they were together. Were I a fanatical collector o
f figurines, these two would be my most prized pair.
Not only the people I’d forged close bonds with but almost everyone I knew from college appeared or disappeared in the blink of an eye. No one could be counted on to show up anywhere. Our relationships were about as tight as those between one drifting nebula and another.
When I was twenty, these two entered my orbit, and like every other nebula adrift, soon strayed from its center. Yet they came to represent something very important to me. And what was that? The answer is simple: beauty.
The meaning they brought to my life could be condensed into a single image that has stayed with me ever since. On the morning of our school’s anniversary, our club set up a concession stand with beverages and snacks to rake in some extra dough. Everyone was doing their own little jig to attract attention, and me, I was sitting there hollering. Out of nowhere appeared the shaggy-haired duo of Tun Tun and Zhi Rou, who had a guitar on her back. Tun Tun had gone for a retro look in baggy white capri pants, complete with suspenders. Zhi Rou was wearing the skirt from her military uniform, which made me smile. She said it was for an occasion that evening, and that she’d add a white blouse for a seamless transition to a formal, elegant look. The two of them joked that they should help drum up business while I was working the concession stand. They sat on the edge of the table, Zhi Rou concentrating on her tuning and Tun Tun riffling through the sheet music. As soon as they were ready, they exchanged a quick glance, then launched into their set. The first song was “Cherry Came Too.” One of them strummed, while the other swayed and sang “Oh cherry honey. . . .” A light rain began to fall. After a spell, they stopped to wipe their faces of the ethereal dew that had showered down from the sky like confetti. Life, it seemed, was beautiful. I hadn’t thought about it in ages, until one day the sound of pattering rain, along with “Cherry Came Too,” entered my dreams.
The Freud seminar ended that Friday evening at ten. Being the last one to leave, I shut off the lights. Emerging from the gloomy classroom in the basement, I was struck by acute waves of self-pity. I scrambled to find a pay phone, then tossed in a coin and called Tun Tun. I hadn’t seen a trace of her in more than a month, and I missed her like she was family.
“Tun Tun, is that you? It’s Lazi. How have you been?”
“It’s nice to hear your voice. Sorry I don’t have the energy to go out tonight.”
I couldn’t bring myself to say anything about my troubles or how much I missed her, as we’d never gone so far as to reveal our feelings to each other. But on that dark night, the two of us, by way of a single coin, were touched by a mutual warmth. That was the moment when the dust settled. Everything was going to be okay.
“How about if I come visit you?”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
“Okay, come over then! What are you waiting for?”
At nineteen years and eleven months old, I’d invested a single coin, and the significance of this act was extraordinary. It was like the moment when a crawling baby learned how to stand up and take that very first step. I was in need, and so I called someone. The instant itself was a blur. I’d wrongly assumed that I, having played the role of protector far too often, was overreacting the way a parent frets over a child getting sick. But no, this was an important turning point for me. For a long time, my hidden shame had made me push everyone away. I’d rejected them before they could reject me. I ran away from close relationships even with the people who loved me. I was a blind man fallen into the ocean. I’d taken the mirror and smashed it to pieces, unable to stand the sight of my hideous, disfigured self. Tun Tun was the first person I’d taken the initiative to call on. She was the one mirror that I was willing to see my own self-pity in.
“Do you want something to eat?” Tun Tun asked.
“I’m starving. What do you have?”
“Milk. Bread. Fruit. Everything. How about if I make you a bowl of noodles?”
“Sure, I’d be up for that. But if I have to help you, forget it.” “How on earth did I end up with this terrible houseguest who can’t feign the slightest manners?”
It was eleven in the evening, and Tun Tun had let me in. Everyone else in the house was fast asleep. She came out to meet me, humming under her breath, and it made me feel at home.
“Have you ever hit the wall of absurdity?” She handed me a bowl of noodles and sat down across from me.
“Yeah, a long time ago. When I was sixteen, seventeen. But back then I didn’t think of it in those terms.” The noodles looked delicious. I started wolfing them down.
“So what happened? Can you tell me?”
I gestured okay one-handedly. “No problem. But first you have to sign a contract saying that you owe Lazi a hundred bowls of noodles.” A long, white trail of steam rose from the savory beef broth. There was still one large, tender curl of beef remaining.
“Hey, that beef was actually braised by my dad! Do my dad and I make a good beef-maestro and noodle-chef team, or what?” Tun Tun asked excitedly after a pause, unable to contain herself any longer.
“I don’t care if this is processed beef noodle soup!” I responded. Then, becoming solemn, I told her, “It was one night about two or three years ago when my world started to change. I wasn’t really sure what exactly was changing, but suddenly, there I was, in an unfamiliar place. I felt like I was being pulled in so many different directions, to the point where I had no idea who I was anymore. I was crying out for help, but no one seemed to hear me. I couldn’t imagine my future. I kept waiting for my old world to come back and lift me out of this silent depression. Every morning I’d wake up and see the sun, and cry knowing that today would be more of the same, that the old world was gone forever. It was like, this is how things are now. Welcome to cold, hard reality.”
“How’d you get out of it?”
“The wall of absurdity might be gone now, but that was only the prologue. If you fast-forward a little, the relationship between me and the world gets even uglier. The fact is, it’s been a constant battle. I mean, absurdity? That’s the least of it! You’re trapped, so you force yourself to adapt after a while. Otherwise, if you start thinking too much, you’ll suffocate. But once you become stronger than your surroundings, the absurdity will come to an end.”
“It sounds like the home of a married couple who quarrel non-stop, until someone pulls out a kitchen knife or handgun, and the fighting comes to a halt.” She was laughing so hard that it looked like she was trying to swat a mosquito.
“That’s really how it is, at least for me. What about you?”
“My whole world wasn’t turned upside down in one night, but it’s like you said, I feel this silent depression, and I don’t know why things have to change. Something is blocking my path, and I call it the wall of absurdity. Honestly, I’m having a total breakdown. Ever since I was little, I’ve always been successful at everything I’ve tried. It’s probably because my mom and dad let me pursue whatever I wanted, so I had other things on my mind besides wanting to be at the top of my class, or wanting to be the prettiest or most popular. Yet I was naturally at the top of my class, and I got along with everyone, and you could say I’ve turned out to be okay-looking. Succeeding at whatever I tried made me into a happy, well-adjusted kid. I made it through all the dreadful parts, though getting zits and my period were stressful. You might say I was like a little sunflower in junior high. But back then, life was about jumping through hoops. I always did my homework as soon as I got home from school. Classes were really easy. All you had to do was pay attention in class, and you’d do fine on the tests. So then I had a load of free time. I liked reading The Big Book of Why and other science books, and I built and painted my own furniture. The paint you see on my bedroom walls is something I did in those days! It was so much fun, always trying new things. In high school, I got kind of depressed. I was like, how come all we do is study? So I decided to take it easy instead. I didn’t want to go home and do my homework like clockwork anymore, so I
became captain of all these sports teams. I started a volleyball team and led the basketball team’s practices, and organized group outings with all-boys schools. I got into the gifted program at Academia Sinica, and at the same time I was directing all these brilliant performances in drama competitions. After I got into Academia Sinica, I realized that this one guy had been trying to get with me the whole time. Suddenly, doing well in school became less of a priority. Growing up, I felt so different from the girls I knew, though I applied myself all the same. I remember how my older brother had to escort me on his bike when I went out on those chilly nights. He’d be on his bike, and I’d be on mine, and neither of us would say much. I just focused on pushing the pedals, one foot after the other, until we got home. That’s what high school was like. It was such a great feeling. . . .” She was smiling as she spoke.
“It doesn’t sound like there was any reason you’d change. Do you have any idea what happened?”
“It must have something to do with the college lifestyle, right? It’s scary. It’s like all this bacteria was already there, but because it was microscopic, you let it build up and form dust under the rug. The college lifestyle is about becoming independent, with no one else around to force you to do anything. So there’s this muck that hasn’t been dealt with, and because all your arrangements are loose now, you have no one to hold on to, which means you get sucked into the vacuum cleaner and tossed around in it. Your automatic response is to grab hold of something and pull yourself out. My first instinct was to cling to Zhi Rou. I wanted her by my side all day, every day. I even made her sleep over. I was scared of being alone in my room at night. I’d never been like that before. Time crawled by, especially at night, and each second went on for an eternity. I felt like I was struggling to break through the glass wall in front of me. It was agonizing. Having another living, breathing person around made things easier. But then she got frustrated because the homework was hard. She couldn’t adjust to college life at all. I couldn’t explain what was wrong with me, and she didn’t believe me when I said I was a complete mess. I couldn’t talk to her about it. I insisted that she do things beyond her abilities and I hung out with her during breaks. I told her she was the only person I’d ever help like that. But our relationship went downhill. She was pessimistic to begin with. She was never, ever happy. Before that, I used to joke around with her. Well, once I went on strike, she became morose. She had no idea how to appease me. When I saw her face, I couldn’t take it, I wanted to cry. I had to hold it in, though. There was nothing I could say. After a while, my silence really hurt her. She was tired of bringing me down. One night, I asked her to try to smile a little. I said I couldn’t stand to see that gloomy look on her face. So she stood up with a gloomy look on her face and left. She said she couldn’t smile. She said she didn’t want to see me anymore. . . .” Tun Tun had been gazing at me the entire time, her eyes glistening as she spoke.