Two Lives

by A. Yi

  The night was cool and breezy. In the air he could still hear the sound of her hanging up. Click. The voice of the living person cut off, his connection disappeared. The woman would take her shower, go to bed, and pretend that she had forgotten all about it when she woke up. But he also knew he had to wait. In fact, he had no other options but to wait. He pushed open the steel box, shoved the filth aside, and fell asleep in the stench. He woke several times in the middle of the night and clambered out. In the lane was only the wind leaping down the houses’ roofs and darting over the stone road. The corner store’s light was out too; there was nothing.

  At dawn Zhou Lingtong faintly heard the dumpster being kicked. Not trusting his hearing, he went back to sleep. As he was slipping into a deeper slumber, he suddenly got up. Zhou Lingtong clambered out of the dumpster and looked around the lane. But there was still nothing. Rubbing his eyes, he looked again and saw a lanky figure walking past the corner shop.

  Is that you? Zhou Lingtong shouted. The other stopped. Zhou Lingtong shouted again: It’s me. The other turned around. Zhou Lingtong continued to shout: Rock, rock.

  The woman walked over to him and said: It’s me.

  Zhou Lingtong felt as if a string of firecrackers went off at once in his heart. Bleary-eyed, he saw a black bag reach toward him. Inside were the things he’d always wanted: roast duck, ham, bread. . .endless food and Coca-Cola. He snatched the bag, tried to tear the packets open with his hands but failed, so he ripped them with his teeth, which worked. He began to eat ferociously with both hands. When his throat was clogged with pieces of bone he force-swallowed them down.

  Zhou Lingtong finished the food and shook the bag. There was nothing. He glanced up at the woman. The woman shook her head. As they stared blankly at each other the woman tapped one of her high heels on the road and said they should go. Zhou Lingtong rose obediently. Before setting off the woman bent over to pick up that black genuine leather bag and carefully toss it onto the dumpster.

  Zhou Lingtong wanted to say thank you, but couldn’t get the words out. He followed her out of the lane and into the street where a worker was sweeping the ground with a bamboo broom. The rustling sound gave him the uncanny feeling of entering the world of ghosts. Zhou Lingtong knew that in his world, there were people with kidney problems, so there were those who tricked people into drinking, got them drunk, gave them an anesthetic, and cut out their kidney while they were still alive. Zhou Lingtong looked at the rear silhouette of the unknown woman and felt suspicious. But he also figured dying is just dying. He had long been dead; at least he was full now.

  The woman led him all the way to a hotel. At the entrance, there was a guard in a red woolen uniform. He first bowed to the elegant-looking woman, then to the ragged, stinking Zhou Lingtong. At that moment Zhou Lingtong knew he was hers. After checking in, the woman led Zhou Lingtong to a room. She ran a hot bath, tested the temperature, and said: You have three hours to wash up.

  Zhou Lingtong looked in the mirror: a ghost. He jumped in the bath and scrubbed himself hard. The water turned completely black, then it turned completely white. Again he scrutinized himself in the mirror: looking like a human now. He repeated this process several times until there was nothing left to wash. Only then did he realize he had nothing to wear. He ran to the door and listened. There was no sound outside. He gently opened the door a crack and saw a pile of clean underwear, a shirt, and pants in the doorway.

  Zhou Lingtong got dressed, took a deep breath, and stepped onto the fluffy carpet. The strong morning sun shone like a projector on the woman, leaving a shadow on the white bedding.

  The woman was facing the sunlight, smoking a cigarette. Her long, soft fingers tapped ashes into the trash can like a pianist’s. At that moment, Zhou Lingtong could see her warmth, misty, forming layer by layer from her elegant back and bare upper arms, and suddenly broke into tears. He fell to his knees and said: I love you. I love you, Mom.

  6

  At 26, Zhou Lingtong also went from the bottom to the very top. That Beijing woman, Zhang Xina, who represented an impossible utopia, an impossible Bodhisattva, absolutely let Zhou Lingtong hold her hand, bite her tongue and became the guardian angel of his money and life.

  For a long time Zhou Lingtong kept his beggar’s instinct. When he went with Zhang Xina to Beijing he gripped her hand, afraid she would run away. Even with his penis inside her he didn’t feel secure. Not till the day when Zhang Xina couldn’t help but lick it like an ice pop did he completely relax physically and psychologically. He caressed her hair and said, Don’t, babe, don’t do that.

  The first time they paid a visit to Zhang Xina’s father, Zhou Lingtong was a bit nervous. He just perched on the edge of the leather sofa, not daring to meet the formidable eyes across from him. Having observed Zhou Lingtong for a long while, the old man held up his tea mug, took a few gulps and asked, Where you from, little Zhou?

  Zhou Lingtong blushed and said: Anhui.

  The old man waved a hand and said: I already knew that. I’m asking if you’re from the city or the country.

  Zhou Lingtong felt a little insulted, said softly, From the mountains.

  The old man said: Speak up. Where?

  The mountains, Zhou Lingtong shouted, humiliated. Then he heard a clap. The old man began to laugh. The laughter made Zhou Lingtong’s whole body tremble, then suddenly the laughter stopped. The old man said: The mountains. I really like mountain folk. Down to earth. Then the laughter started all over again. Zhou Lingtong also started to laugh.

  At dinner, the old man pressured Zhou Lingtong into drinking a lot. When he saw his face turn red the old man patted his shoulder and said: Down to earth.

  After dinner, Zhou Lingtong thought he shouldn’t stay long and started looking for an excuse to leave. Meanwhile, the old man went to the sofa, made a phone call, slowly spoke a few sentences, and hung up. The old man looked at cautious Zhou Lingtong, said, Come here, son-in-law, I’ll give you a company to run.

  Those were the words Zhou Lingtong wrote over and over in his general manager’s office: Come here, son-in-law, I’ll give you a company to run. Things were that unimaginable. Yesterday he was in the dumpster with plastic bags and dead rats, and now he had his feet up on a giant, glossy mahogany desk – twinkling, swaying.

  Later, the company opened a branch in Malaysia. The first time Zhou Lingtong went there he checked into a hotel and asked a trusted assistant to make some calls. Soon prostitutes from England, France, Germany, Russia, America, Japan, Italy, and Austria came to his room. They bowed at once, smiling, then said in Chinese: Hello boss.

  Zhou Lingtong pointed at them, counting, and said: Back then you guys were the eight allies that invaded my country’s capital, Beijing. Now I’m going to set you straight. He spoke sternly. The eight girls looked at each other, not understanding his Chinese, and laughed loudly. They quickly took off his polished leather shoes and creased trousers, pulled the thing out, and tasted it one at a time. Soon the fluid was coaxed out. Zhou Lingtong got flustered and said, Really not fucking worth it.

  For eight years Zhou Lingtong’s life rolled along smoothly and peacefully. But one day as he was leaving his office he saw several men barging in, calling Lingtong, Lingtong. Security couldn’t hold them back. He recognized their Eshan accent, panicked, and shouted: I have a gun too.

  The leader grinned and said: It’s not that, not just that. You just got slandered back then.

  Zhou Lingtong took another look at them. They were all smiling flatteringly. Only then did he relax and wave for them to sit. After sitting and talking a little he understood they worked in Eshan’s Beijing office and wanted someone to pull strings to get Eshan’s status changed from county to city. Zhou Lingtong dismissed the idea, saying he had no sway. The director and deputy director immediately understood and said, Someone claimed you raped someone – what rape? Where’s the evidence? We were after the wrong person.


  Zhou Lingtong just offered them good tea, then offered them good alcohol, but didn’t answer. A few days later, the head of the county criminal investigation unit, now Deputy Secretary of the Eshan County Political and Legal Committee, hurried over behind the head of the county, patted his chest and made a note that finally made things clear. When Zhou Lingtong was drunk, he shook the deputy secretary’s shoulders and said, You were a good shot back then. The deputy secretary turned white and changed the subject: You and I are related on your mother’s side. I’m just thinking about everything Auntie and Uncle went through.

  Zhou Lingtong thought, What the hell kind of relative are you? but didn’t want to seem unfilial so instead asked, How are my mom and dad?

  Not long after you left they died, the deputy secretary said sorrowfully. Zhou Lingtong looked around, stunned, picked up a napkin, and rubbed it back and forth a dozen times till his eyes were red. Everyone flocked around him: Don’t cry, don’t cry, it’s been years. Only then would you say Zhou Lingtong began to cry.

  7

  Having fled his hometown eight full years ago, Zhou Lingtong returned for the first time. He did not take a plane or a train. He asked the driver to go slow in the Lincoln limousine with him and Zhang Xina in the back. When the car was a kilometer from the Eshan border he saw the secretary of the Eshan City Party Committee and the mayor waiting respectfully at the roadside, a throng of local officials and a fleet of Santanas behind them.

  In the city proper were red banners on every building and red inflatable arches at the entrance to every street to celebrate the upgrade in status from county to city. Hydrogen balloons floated in the sky, firecracker residue carpeted the ground, Eshan citizens flooded the streets and lined up outside the public toilets. As the convoy went by countless hands reached for the jet-black limousine, ignoring the police cars honking at them to get out of the way. Zhou Lingtong sat in the limousine in his suit and leather shoes and watched pairs of bulging eyes rush toward him. They couldn’t see him, but he could see them, see right in their hearts.

  After attending some meetings in the city, giving some speeches, Zhou Lingtong got sick of it and figured he’d just go tend the grave in his hometown and then go back to Beijing and never come back.

  His wife was having a migraine, so Zhou Lingtong went alone in the county head’s car to Zhou Village in Toushan Town. He handed a stack of red envelopes filled with money to the village head to distribute among the villagers for him. Then he went to look for his parents’ grave. He looked a long time. Everyone bashfully said it was the one without a stone. Zhou Lingtong said, Oh, then tossed some cash to a couple cousins to take care of it.

  After a few cups of Gushao baijiu at lunch, Zhou Lingtong left Zhou Village. Halfway back, he suddenly thought of something and asked the driver to head for the mountain. The 2000 Santana reached the foot in 15 minutes. Zhou Lingtong got out of the car and looked at the paved ramp and dry potato field, sighing, overcome by emotion. Then he told the driver, I’m going up the mountain to burn some incense. The driver wanted to go with him, but he refused – going alone was more sincere.

  Zhou Lingtong was nastier than eight years before. Though he was fatter, he walked faster like he was burning with anxiety, in a hurry to find something. Only when he was soaked in sweat and discarded his jacket did he reach the summit. He stood where he’d knelt eight years before, in a patch of shade, looking at the dilapidated Longquan Temple. The temple door was shut. Wisps of steam rose through the tiled roof. Zhou Lingtong went and pounded on the door, shouting: I’m back.

  The voice from behind the door answered, Coming, coming. Zhou Lingtong thought it sounded familiar but couldn’t think of who it was. When the door squeaked open he couldn’t help but take a few steps back. The monk’s reaction was similar. He stumbled and fell on his butt. Zhou Lingtong watched the bald monk fall in his long robe, string of prayer beads around his neck.

  Somehow he and the monk looked exactly the same.

  Zhou Lingtong started to open his mouth, and the monk opened his mouth too. Zhou Lingtong let him speak first. The monk put his palms together and said, Amitabha. When the voice came, strange mold grew over the familiar face until finally they were completely different. The monk was the monk. Zhou Lingtong was Zhou Lingtong. The humble was humble. The noble was noble.

  Zhou Lingtong relaxed and asked meanly, Where’s Deyong?

  My master passed away 8 years ago, the monk said then nodded and bowed. When he raised his head, his eyes gleamed with unconcealable envy. Zhou Lingtong tried swinging his Rolex hand to the right – the eyes followed it, swinging right. Zhou Lingtong said, Come touch it. The monk, embarrassed, came and touched it all over.

  Zhou Lingtong said: What did Deyong say when he was dying?

  The monk said: He cursed me. He said the temple could only feed one mouth. Me coming made him starve to death.

  Attic

  Thanks to Ms. C for the embryo of this story.

  For 10 years Zhu Dan answered countless pointless phone calls from Mother. The only one she ignored was a warning about avoiding her own death. She was on her way to her parents’ home, the afternoon sun making the face of the building shine. There were swallows and cicadas but no wind, like a panicked ghost town. Her mother was shuffling madly in a pair of slippers right toward her. The moment she glimpsed her, Mother turned down an alley. She stopped the shout rushing to her lips, sensing the other had not seen her. No need to make a fuss.

  The second person she ran into was the owner of Sheyuan Restaurant. He was squatting by the bridge, plucking a chicken. The restaurant had more than 10 years of history. After nightfall, he and his wife would pour the swill into the city moat. He was a craven but excitable fatty. He threw a glance at Zhu Dan, but she ignored him. When she was a few meters past him, she cursed, as always: “Die sonless.”

  “What?”

  “Die sonless.”

  “I’m not the only one dumping trash in this river, everyone does.”

  “Do it one more time if you dare. Do it.”

  “Fine.”

  He held up the red plastic tub and threw the feathery water into the river. Then one by one, he tossed down the rotten vegetable roots. But she’d already arrived home. For 10 years, every time they met she cursed him and listened to his pushback but he never got retribution. As he said, he would dump trash into the moat if he had any, and if he didn’t, he’d make some.

  For a long time all that had been left of the river was a stagnant trickle. The swampy riverbed overgrown with weeds gave off the abhorrent stench of excrement, swill, pads, dead animals, and even dead babies. A secretary of the county party committee once convened a meeting to state that the river, being the eyes of the city, mother river, must be restored without delay. Zhu Dan was thrilled at the time, but as soon as the assessment was done the project was abandoned. It would have required 1.5 million yuan.

  * * *

  Ten years prior, the Zhus built their house by the river because it was the main route to the city for the farmers of the eight nearby villages and towns. Just before the house was completed, Mother had a quarrel with the contractors from Fujian, because the stairway to the attic was narrow and steep. “What good is it?” Mother said. “I won’t pay for it. If you think it’s a bad deal tear it down.” Being no match for Mother, the contractor quickly finished the house. A day later he came back with a trowel and said: “If you live through the year, I’ll take your last name.” At the time Zhu Dan’s father was standing in front of him. He looked stupefied.

  Father was a genial person. Geniality made him offer to name the contractor’s son and made him unable to stop his wife’s unjust behavior. It was almost Spring Festival. Apparently waiting until after Daughter’s wedding, and apparently in order to make clear that as a man he felt ashamed about those Fujian contractors, he left a fish basket, fishing tackle, and cigarettes he hadn’t finished smo
king at the river on the outskirts, and went to another world.

  The smell of spent firecrackers from the wedding hadn’t completely left when new firecrackers were lit again. Guests again poured in, tidying up, making arrangements, eating, drinking, jostling like a flock of penguins. Facing the sky, Zhu Dan cried aloud. A few times she nearly passed out. Women took out their handkerchiefs, now and then wiping the tears rolling down her face. When the women had all dispersed, her crying continued like it was a shield or something worth indulging in.

  Since Father’s death, Zhu Dan, already a wife, went to her parents’ home at noon every day for lunch to keep Mother company. You could also say it was a duty Mother made her perform. She and her elder brother Zhu Wei had been under Mother’s control since they were little. “Don’t think about leaving me,” Mother often said but then would add, “It’s all for your sake, isn’t it?”

  The control bore two fruits:

  Zhu Wei was an idler, Zhu Dan a nervous wreck.

  Zhu Wei knew he could do nothing and Mother would still protect him, so he just let her take care of everything. He quit high school his sophomore year and was forced to work in the police traffic division as a temporary worker before going pro some years later. Mother bought him a house and let him marry the movie ticket seller he was secretly in love with. He was responsible only for getting fat. At a young age he puffed up like bread. Back home he’d sprawl on the sofa and say: “You’re nagging me again. What’s there to nag about? Can’t you just leave me alone?” Zhu Dan knew whatever she did, Mother wouldn’t be satisfied. Life was filled with choices of one kind or another, from whether or not to join the Party to what vegetable to buy, all of which terrified her. When she had to make a choice she did so covertly, reassuring herself all the while that Mother had no idea.