Two Lives

by A. Yi

  Helpless, he let the tears pour out. I was waiting for that thing called a sudden realization. So this is the guy. He said: “Really it’s all because of me.” But I didn’t think so. He was supposed to have the dangerous look women like, and a cold, cruel temperament, but whether it was his face or his demeanor, he seemed too honest. Only the modest scar on his forehead seemed to indicate that he’d had a violent experience, but I prefer to believe he was the one who got beat up.

  “Come in,” I said.

  He thanked me quickly and bent over to untie his shoelaces, but I stopped him. I went to the small bedroom to fetch Spring’s belongings, found he was still at the door. “I read the news in the paper, so I came, couldn’t believe she died,” he said.

  “It’s been hyped up for a while. It was a suicide, but they have to say murder.”

  “I know.”

  “Spring was not some prostitute either.”

  “Mm, really I hurt her.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  I thought I was, after all, friendly to people, and so softened my tone. “I haven’t shown it to anyone outside. Take a seat.” He bowed and took it. On the title page of Lady of the Camellias, there was the line:

  Margaret feels sorry for Spring.

  The moment he saw it, like a criminal facing ironclad evidence, he suddenly dropped his head. This was his handwriting from the old days, innocent, confident, and casual. Driven by love, he blindly believed the other was the one and only. Now he’d walked across the river of time and faced numerous consequences to be checked against his past promises and praises. In the journal he was about to open, every page had a big, nasty cross drawn in ballpoint pen, some to the point of being torn, as if making visible the hysterical actions of Spring that day. I walked into the kitchen to get water, while the young man kept leafing through the journal, finally held his head tightly, and broke into sobs. I saw his back slightly heave, then his shoulders, arms, and clothes clearly heaving, as if his whole body was participating in the crying.

  Spring wrote:

  I can’t find anyone to talk to. I’ve thought of all the people I know, none are right. Maybe right is not the word, but no one is willing to listen to me. I’m dying. I’m dying but they keep asking: “What’s the matter with you? Do you want some hot water?” You’re not here too. Even if you were here, you would cruelly walk away. I can’t trust you anymore. I’m sick and dying. I could die somewhere desolate where it rains for days on end. My corpse would be soaked through, but none of you would come. I’m not on your list. I deserve it. None of you sympathize with me. None, none, none of you care about me. Who the hell am I?

  Other than this, the rest of the journal is gibberish from a patient with persecutory delusions. I’d long since ripped out the pages about me where she wrote how I seduced her deliberately – passing by, I brushed against her, hooked her chin with my finger, grabbed her privates with my hand, and so on. She slandered everyone.

  “Never happened,” I said.

  I know. Lili knitted her eyebrows, and kept shaking her head. You’d better rip them all out.

  I walked back to the living room with water. The young man raised his head, his eyelashes wet. “I have to go. I’ve bothered you enough.”

  “No problem.”

  “Can I take it?”

  I nodded and put down the tea I’d prepared for him on the table and let him walk out. “If you need anything, you can come to me,” I said.

  “Mm,” he answered quickly.

  I shut the door, walked to the window, and waited until he appeared on the ground. He walked the wrong way, and it took him a long while to realize it and walk back. He held his head to the sky, arms hanging, and cried uninhibitedly. A few passersby stopped to look; he almost ran into one of them. I guessed even if someone spat in his face now, he wouldn’t care; even if someone stabbed him in the chest, he’d still walk on. He’d have to cry for a long time for his sins.

  Afterward, I was alone again. For a long time, I put a drink between my legs, and sat dully on the sofa. Morning left and afternoon came. When the gray thing pressed down from the sky, it got dark. Then an indistinct moan came from that small bedroom. Maybe just a cold, but Spring, like a seasoned old lady, was silent when her surroundings were silent. As soon as she heard footsteps, she quickly moaned again. When we were at the door, the moaning was even louder.

  “What’s wrong with you?” we asked as we walked in.

  “I’m dying. Look, there’s no color in my face,” she wailed, tears tumbling out. Cunning. Lili looked at me. I nodded, and said: “Drink some hot water. I’ll go get it.” Afterward, we never stopped when passing the room, she just moaned in vain. Now she was dead, but I could still hear her like a weaver weaving her moans in the room.

  “Enough.” Drunk, I kicked the door open. There was just a small crimson mattress inside. I found a broom, and swept every corner. I shouted: “Enough, enough, stop your fucking moaning.” She stopped. But when I looked down, she had floated elsewhere. I hurried to look, and she, like debris blown by breath, scattered silently away.

  I called Lili and said: “I’ve never missed you so much.” But she was still wrapped in sorrow. “Sell the house, I really can’t keep going.”

  “Okay, after the New Year.”

  “Sell it as soon as possible. I’ve never been this bad.”

  “So you’ll come back?”

  “I won’t.”

  I left the lights and TV on all night and more than ever looked forward to morning. During the day, I walked street after street, mimicking the sound, um-ah, um-ah, um-ah. But there was always a gravitational force pulling me back. Even with my back turned to the door of my house, I’d walk home backward. Um-ah, um-ah, um-ah, I mimicked, and was forced back like a donkey.

  * * *

  “Isn’t that him?”

  The guard pointed his finger over the young man’s shoulder at me. The young man turned, his gaze hitting me like a club. Within a few days, his hair had become unkempt, face whitish, lips colorless, even his eyebrows graying. He looked like he’d been doing drugs for years, or staying up night after night playing mahjong, extremely exhausted physically but extremely excited mentally.

  “I came here to say goodbye to you.” He bowed to me.

  “Is everything settled?”

  “Not yet, I’m about to go see Spring.”

  “You haven’t seen her?”

  He clenched his fists and started to curse the funeral parlor guard. In fact, the fury of this decent man, um-ah, since it wasn’t acted out, was expressed as nastily as he could verbally. He searched for the introduction letter in his bag, cursing.

  4

  The police didn’t reply and summoned me into the conference room. Someone drew the curtain closed. The cameraman carried a video camera on his shoulder. The rear of the machine had a cable plugged into a speaker. Holding the speaker, the TV reporter recited the opening. “Was it suicide or murder? Death. That is certain. Welcome to Mysterious Situations.”

  “Can I leave?” I asked again.

  “Wait. They’ll probably ask you something.” The police officer gazed at the video camera.

  The boatman sat in a corner, his hands resting on his knees, eyes fixed straight ahead. I heard someone say, “Record first, record first,” then the lighting man held the incandescent light up to the boatman. The latter’s face froze immediately. The TV reporter walked over, grabbed the boatman’s hand, and gave it a powerful shake. “Don’t be nervous,” he said and withdrew the hand. The boatman didn’t know whether to close his fingers or to leave them apart, so he just let his hand hang in the air. When the interview finished he withdrew his hand and squeezed his clothes.

  Then the TV reporter started to shake the cable. It was my turn. I panted. Nothing was more tormenting than the wait; I’d never experienced anything like this. When
the TV reporter held the smoothed-out cable and walked toward me under the incandescent light following him, I stood up. He was like a commander exuding an authoritative air, armor clinking.

  “No need to stand up,” he said, smiling. I sat down. My face turned thoroughly red.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “We all know the deceased lived in your home for a period.”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is she to you?”

  “She was my wife’s classmate.”

  “Why did she live in your home?”

  “She was my wife’s classmate, and they were very close. She was poor and couldn’t afford a house. Maybe.”

  “What kind of person do you think she was?”

  “She was friendly with people, and polite.”

  “Could you be more specific?”

  “She was very decent.”

  “For example?”

  “She was friendly with everyone.”

  He winked slightly at me. I said: “Ah, I never expected she would pass so early.” He turned to the camera and made some comments, then he turned to me and said, “Thank you.” He held my cold hand, but my sweat was pouring out.

  “Can I go?” I walked over and asked the policeman.

  “Wait, who knows what else there might be.”

  A while later, the forensic scientist pushed the door open. He tossed a blue file folder onto the table and put on a pair of white gloves. He was followed by a bunch of noisy newspaper reporters led by a short man wearing a red V-neck sweater. He nodded at his acquaintances, smiling hypocritically. Then, with a beastly, almost barbaric arrogance, he sat down across from the forensic scientist.

  “Are you filming now?” the forensic scientist shouted at the cameraman.

  “Can I?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  The forensic scientist shook his clothes, settled in his chair, pulled a picture from the folder, and said: “Look, there were mushroom-like bubbles under her nostrils, indicating death by drowning. This is the result of cold water getting into the respiratory tract and irritating the mucosa of the windpipe.” Then he pulled out another picture showing Spring grasping muddy grass. “This is also an important indicator of death by drowning. We can at least eliminate the possibility that she was thrown into the water after being murdered. She died directly from drowning.”

  The dumpy journalist raised his hand.

  “What is it?” the TV reporter asked him.

  “May I ask some questions? I’m afraid I may slow down your shoot.”

  “No problem. They’ll edit it,” the forensic scientist said.

  “All right then. The two pictures can’t rule out murder. Death by drowning doesn’t necessarily point to suicide. Someone may have pushed her into the water to kill her.”

  “That situation is quite rare.”

  “I’ve seen it in movies. Golden Triangle drug lords always push people into ponds to kill them.”

  “That’s a movie.”

  “Movies come from life.”

  “Let me ask you this. If you were a murderer, would you push an adult into a river?”

  “Why not? No trace left behind.”

  “Have you taken into account his swimming ability, his survival instinct, the depth of the water and the direction of the current? Have you ever considered that? What do you do if he doesn’t die?”

  “I’d take precautions.”

  “What precautions?”

  “Tie his limbs together, or tie heavy objects to him.”

  “In that case, did you see any ropes or heavy objects?”

  “Of course.” The journalist put down the camera, pulled up a picture. “Look, her hands were tied together.” The forensic scientist waved a hand. The journalist continued: “It’s simple. If I’m trying to commit suicide, how do I tie my hands together?”

  “This is not uncommon in suicide cases. You just haven’t seen it.” The forensic scientist gestured. “You can either ask someone for help, or make a rope loop by yourself first, and use your teeth to tighten the knot,” he said, regarding the journalist mercifully as if wasn’t he who was defenseless, rather the other had to take the final step and fall into the trap he himself had set. The journalist said, as he expected: “You can’t rule out the possibility that someone tied her hands together and pushed her into the river.” The forensic scientist clapped, and the police brought in the boatman.

  “Ask him yourself,” the forensic scientist said.

  “Right, I was the one who tied her hands together,” the boatman said.

  “What?”

  “I was the one who tied her.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “We all do that.”

  “You tie the hands of the corpse together?”

  “Yes, that way we can pull it onshore.”

  “Can’t you get it on board?”

  “Bad luck.”

  The boatman added, “When I tied her, she had already died and bubbles were coming out her nose.” The journalist took a big breath, and his chest puffed out. I really want to stomp you to death, you old shit. The forensic scientist walked over, smiling. He fished out a cigarette, tapping the cigarette pack with it, and said: “Writing news isn’t writing novels. Right, little He?” Blushing, the journalist put the notebook away and said: “Don’t I have a job to do?”

  The cameraman gestured once again. The forensic scientist took two quick drags, squished the cigarette out, and sat back down. “I don’t know if you have any idea about the width of the river?” He gestured. “Only this wide, roughly four to five meters. You swim a little. Well, let me put it like this, you paddle a little, and you reach the other side.”

  “Mm,” the journalist said.

  “Would be very hard to kill someone.”

  “Does that also mean the difficulty of suicide increases? Make the success rate of suicide low?”

  “No, not the case for someone determined to commit suicide. Give him a small puddle, and he can drown himself. A person who is fed up with life can drown himself by sticking his face into the toilet. And there are people who manage to get water into their lungs lying drunk on a mountain trail after a heavy rain. All evidence shows that the party in this case attempted suicide. She drank pesticide first.”

  The forensic scientist took out the autopsy report:

  “We’ve extracted prepared organic phosphorus from her body. She drank the pesticide voluntarily. This was the suicide method she’d intended to utilize. If someone fed her pesticide after killing her, since her metabolism had already stopped, we wouldn’t be able to extract pesticide from her liver and other organs.” The amber wine bottle, uncapped, was placed on the chair. The wine, mixed with DDVP, gave off a stench. The river, which hid fabric scraps, leftovers, used pads, black mud, and rotting dead cats and dogs, really stunk. The river flowed very slowly, carrying them and depositing them. Spring had drunk four bottles of wine. The fifth bottle was mixed with pesticide. Sitting on the roadside bench, she looked up at the dull night sky, then automatically grabbed the fifth bottle. She only took one sip then bent down vomiting. But she still took two more gulps to make sure she had ingested pesticide.

  “She didn’t drink much, not enough to kill her, but her body reacted violently.” She held her head, walking limply. Her right leg swung right, and after it became the supporting leg, her left leg swung left. She swung a few steps forward, then a few steps in a row backward. She turned halfway, and continued to swing. Her head was the source of the swinging that made her body turn around. She felt sick and sweated profusely while turning around and around. After a while, she felt like she had entered a world of fog. The streetlamps, benches, and branches all became slightly darker shapes, some small, some big. She held her head tightly, panting.

  “H
er body had been damaged partially but not completely. She couldn’t live and she couldn’t die either – worse than dying.” She was halfway between life and death. The human world was at the mouth of the well which gave out a faint, ironic glow. She had no strength to rise another inch. The bottom of the well where the infinite darkness dwelled was like a mother waving an encouraging handkerchief to her. Jump, Jump down. She considered it again and again: In a flash, everything will finish, no more physical pain or mental torment. And if I don’t decide now it will be too late. I’ll be like a badly wounded wild pig caught in mud, twitching endlessly, horribly.

  “So she jumped into the river a few steps off. She no longer cared that it stunk so bad. This is very common in suicide cases. Many suicides give up their initial method of suicide in the end.” Spring started to walk. She walked a long while, but as if in a nightmare, she couldn’t move. She was anxious, frightened, and furious. In the end, she made out the rustle of the river. She climbed onto the floodwall, moaning, and plunged into the river. When she was falling down, everything in the world flashed clearly before her eyes like racing numbers. Everything veiled began to take shape – oh, she was about to have an epiphany. Then she was swallowed down by the river. The river, like icy blades all around, pierced her body and cut in and out of her thoughts.

  “And here.” The forensic scientist presented another picture, which showed Spring’s bruised, scraped palms, the bones of her right index and middle fingers sticking out. “She was trying to climb onshore, to grab something, but in the end the only thing she could grab was the water grass.” Spring reached the floodwall, her hands shaking incessantly. She had no more strength, not even enough to keep her body from falling back into the river. Her body was like a wild bull, pulling her cruelly the opposite way. Finally, she was like a lonely shell, falling back into the river. For a while, she stuck a hand or half her head out of the water, but then we could only see the slightly swelling water surface. Her face started to appear in the vast, dull night sky. The face of her soul lingered alone in the empty sky, watching her body sink deeper and deeper until it touched the bottom of the river like a weight, and stuck there. Then, the soul was gone too.