by A. Yi
“I’m not looking anymore.” Tears rolled out of the old man’s eyes.
When I had nothing more to vomit, I walked back to the cement road, up the slope, and sat down there until a beat-up truck drove over. The policeman got out of the truck, asked everyone to step back, and kept taking pictures of the corpse. The boatman sneaked up out of nowhere, and said: “You finally came.”
“No cars want to move it.”
The police tipped his head toward the truck, then turned back and went on shooting. “Don’t worry about the money. I’ll get it for you.” The boatman nodded. He couldn’t decide whether to leave or not, feeling restless. A long time later finally said: “Didn’t you take pictures in the morning?”
“The lighting wasn’t good.”
“They gathered themselves, I couldn’t stop them.”
“No problem, go on home.”
The boatman walked away. The policeman finished shooting and called the transportation crew. Wearing black gloves, heads raised, they carried the corpse stiff as furniture onto a stretcher. Before they transferred it to the truck, they leaned the stretcher against the bed. Spring, dead, leaned there, still, the hem of her pants dripping with water. The driver rushed over to help and got her into the truck. Then the truck sped off like a wisp of smoke. The crowd immediately felt depressed and soon dispersed.
The prostitute in the qipao kept clicking the lighter – today she brought paper money. The lighter clicked, faint sparks leaped up. When the journalist in the V-neck sweater came, she still couldn’t light the paper money. “They told me to come here,” he said. The prostitute tossed him a glance.
“I want to interview you,” he said.
“For what?” she said.
“I’ve heard you were close to the deceased.”
“Yes.” She stopped clicking the lighter and looked up at the sky.
“Can you say something?”
“There’s nothing to say.” Two of her associates grabbed her.
“I want to say,” she said calmly.
“There’s nothing to say.”
“No, she was killed by them.” She shoved aside the partners who grabbed her, lifted her dress, and walked to the journalist.
“Don’t say that,” they said.
“Don’t say what? If they hadn’t done anything against their conscience, why did they run away?”
“It’s been a month.”
“Exactly because of that, exactly.”
She found the qipao constricting, so she parted her legs and stood like a compass. Her associates stepped aside. When she was telling the story, she turned from time to time and said emphatically: “I must speak.” People gathered around, the journalist tried to stop them, as if only he had the right to hear it. But everyone could hear her. The prostitute spoke more and more excitedly.
In the end, the crowd dispersed, and I heard an impatient car honk. It was the secret signal to me, someone ordering me. Our old car was parked at the slope leading out of town. Lili stepped out of the car, pacing back and forth, very impatient. We were going to a farm. I knew in a moment she would say: “I can’t stay another second.”
8
News:
Exclusive report by He Fang – Around 6 a.m. yesterday morning, a female body was recovered from the Zhaojia Sluice in the eastern part of the city moat. According to Mr. Li, who was doing his morning exercise nearby, the corpse was discovered and reported to the police by him and his exercise partners before dawn. Civilian police from the Zhaojia Pass public security sub-bureau rushed to the spot, arranged for recovery, and removed the corpse before noon. According to the observations of the journalist at the scene, the female was in her early twenties, about 1.62 meters tall, wearing a white top, black capri pants, and white platform shoes. She was pale-skinned with some goose bumps, her hands tied together by a rope, already dead. Journalists have learned from police that the female is still unidentified, and they have yet to determine whether or not it was murder.
9
I’d never seen Lili fly into such a rage. Her hands were shaking, and relentless roars, like a barrage of cannonballs, were fired at the closed elevator door. Fuck off. She was compensating. She’d just been choking back her anger in Spring’s presence. I clamped her arms tightly, holding her, and we walked home. She kept breaking away. “Do you think that’s how it is, yes or no?” she said.
Since then she never forgave Spring. That’s the essence of relationships between women, once torn apart, forever torn. We sat blankly on the sofa. The room was like wreckage after a tornado. In the morning, the three of us ate together, but by midmorning, one had left. We couldn’t have predicted that result at the start of the day. We’d thought it would go on for a while. I walked toward Spring’s bedroom. The pillow had been left under the lamp, the bedsheet and blanket a mess, revealing the crimson mattress. There wasn’t really anything else left. A few paintings hung on the wall, the air conditioner plug dangled, the narrow closet open, only one sock inside. I wasn’t surprised Spring had managed to pack everything up so quickly. The place we lent her wasn’t big, not big enough for her to breed her own world and things.
When Lili came out with a mop, I slipped into the bathroom. I’d been holding it a long time but now I can’t go at all. The more I want to the less I can. Writing this may make you uncomfortable, but nothing can better explain what I’ve been suffering from. I feel I’m occupying someone else’s bathroom. Outside Lili and her man are shuffling around in slippers. You don’t know whether they’re reminding me or just want to walk around. They make my whole body stiffen up. They are watching me through this thin door. I’m occupying their toilet. Shame on me. I think only with no restrictions in a hotel could I go.
I sat on a corner of the mattress. When I stood up, I felt many odds and ends bounce. It felt surreal, but I still lifted up the mattress. God, hidden under the mattress were shoelaces, a button, a pin, a toothpick, a screwdriver, chopsticks, scissors, a mirror, a cell phone, a battery, electrical wire, a tin, a business card, some paint, a lighter, an ashtray, the top of a can, chewing gum, a condom, a discount card, a shopping bag, a sticker, a wooden carving of Guanyin, a book called Lady of the Camellias, and a journal crowded with thoughts. Things we’d used and ignored and the little treasures she’d collected at some point, made a kingdom there.
I pushed the door with my index finger, leaving it open a crack. Then I riffled through the journal. Sometimes she wrote stroke by stroke, but a great horror was hidden in her composure – she was convicting everyone in the world. Sometimes she wrote quickly, from standard to semi-cursive, from semi-cursive to cursive, eventually filling the whole page with exclamation marks like she’d stabbed the page again and again. In the end every page was covered with a big, nasty cross. I heard footsteps. She must have said bad things about me. It was impossible to hide it on me, only pants pockets, it would bulge strangely. Lili walked in. “Look what she’s done.” I lifted up the mattress. Lili’s eyes popped open. Like I said. She held the mattress. Like I said. She tutted.
“Her journal’s here too.”
Before I really knew what I’d said, the journal had been handed to Lili. Perhaps in the rush I thought it would make me seem a little more forthright. I buried myself in reading Lady of the Camellias. Small-format, white cover, a female silhouette with eyelashes curled up, by Alexandre Dumas of France, translated by Wang Zhensun. I read this over and over. A runaway runs, naturally, but as a result, those who chase them gain more and more confidence. If he turned and walked toward the latter would the situation change? “Oh.” I’ll say that soon.
Lili read the journal line by line, and page by page, eyebrows crooked, nostrils flaring, cheeks twitching. I waited for her to drop it, stand up, and interrogate me. But she just said casually: “This cunt.” Then she went on, “Come read this.” I obediently went and sat, turned my head to read.
No need to be like that, cheapskate, no need. I just used your water heater for a little while, just a little while. It won’t cost much. Lili, you didn’t have to turn off the water heater when I was in the shower. You didn’t have to. I will leave five yuan on the table as compensation for you. I will pay for every shower I take, and slowly compensate you for the showers I took before. You don’t need to act generous to my face. No need, cheapskate.
“Did I fucking turn it off? Doesn’t the water heater often break on its own?” Lili said. I nodded. “Did I offend you somehow? Can’t you tell good from bad? I offered you face but you didn’t want it,” she went on.
“Forget it.”
I took the journal and leafed through it again. I saw the recruiting manager’s lewd look, passersby who followed her around all day long, attempting to snatch her bag, and all the cars trying to kill her – I felt I was standing on a crowded dock, filled with a sense of security being a part of the hubbub. I certainly saw how I deliberately seduced her. Passing, I brushed against her, hooked her chin with my finger, grabbed her privates with my hand, and so on.
“Didn’t happen,” I said.
“I know.” Lili frowned, and kept shaking her head. I’d meant to say I didn’t really have the chance to spend much time with her alone, but I thought it was unnecessary. I ripped out the page where she slandered me, and the pages where she slandered Lili. “You’d better rip them all out.” Lili was looking at me, but still, in front of her, I put the journal and Lady of the Camellias into the open closet. She didn’t speak aloud, so I couldn’t throw it away. I’ve left it there ever since. It wasn’t anything wrong. If Lili looked for it one day, and it wasn’t there, I would have to give a long explanation, so I just left it there openly.
This cunt. Once in a while, Lili would curse the person who had left. Then she forgot who the cunt was. Due to this forgetting, she was caught off guard upon hearing of Spring’s death. But I had long anticipated the ending. Such anticipation, like hidden cancer cells, grew larger and larger, greater and greater, tormenting my soul.
I’d thought this was humanity one would have even for dogs. But when we lived together we held such a grudge against each other we were dying to ask her to leave right away, but when the bedroom was vacated, my heart started to ache. I didn’t have a heart of stone after all. We’d lived together for a period after all. I once got bit by Mom’s dog. Holding it tight, Mom retreated to the corner. I said: “You want the dog or me?”
“Both.”
I snatched it away and threw it out the window. “You’re nuts,” Mom said, crying. “I’m not.” I pulled up the hem of my pants and let her look. “I’m going to have an injection, otherwise I’ll die.” I heard the pup moaning in pain from upstairs. Dragging its broken hind leg, it crawled to the door, and in the end was picked up by a butcher. Head poking out of the pocket, forelegs clinging to the edge, it looked upstairs toward us. I suddenly felt guilty. Not because of Mother, but because I thought of the butcher’s weighing motion. I felt as if I’d executed it.
I’d been thinking I was responsible for Spring ending up like that, but then I thought, yes, it was really good, but a good heart can make you a defenseless puppet who can be controlled or used by anyone. Although Spring had only said such a thing to me once – you could tell she’d said it to a lot of people and probably couldn’t remember to whom she’d said it – it became a sharp claw gripping my heart. She only said that one thing, and I’ve been enslaved by it ever since. Though she left us and set us free, I was still firmly controlled by that threat. Even though what she’d said made no sense.
“I’ll let you watch me die.”
Because of that sentence, when she walked toward the window, I would think of her jumping; when she picked up a knife, I would think of her cutting her throat; when she trimmed her nails, I would think of her stabbing herself blind; was there anything she wouldn’t do? When she left I was relieved, thinking she would be out of my mind from then on, but in the end I failed to guard myself against the fear of the possibility of her death. I imagined that she died and people found the suicide note on her corpse, in which she blamed me for everything. Morally speaking, I was the murderer, the scum and degenerate. She was firm and determined when she said that sentence. She regarded me maliciously and as if using a knife to carve the words into my heart. She probably left to make the horrible promise easier to carry out. I wondered if I should look for her and follow her for 24 hours in case she killed herself. You can’t get away. I’ll let you watch me die, I definitely will. You’re like rice waiting for me to harvest at any time, you just wait. She gazed at me for a long time.
I went to a classmate of mine who was a therapist. We’d been like brothers in the past, and he still saw me like that, but I regarded him, white-robed now, as the father of my mind. I expected him to stroke my head and hold me in his arms. I said: “I’m always worried.”
“About what?”
“Other people dying.”
“Why?”
“I’m a softie, always worried other people will die. I’m kind.”
“Not true,” he said, laughing affably. “That is not kindness. You don’t really care about other people. What worries you is not that others will die, but the consequences their death would bring on you. You’re afraid of taking responsibility.”
I thought this was goddamn right. He went on: “What you’ve got is an obsession. People are more or less hypocritical. So am I. You should say to yourself: if you die, you die. Just die, I can’t wait for you to die.”
Later I called Spring. There were countless times I almost dialed the number but gave up. This time I clenched my teeth and dialed the number. The beeping sound was long and steady, like streetlights going on one after another, then out one after another until they were all out. I dialed the number four times. She finally picked up the phone. I could tell she was in the middle of something.
“What is it?” she said.
“How have you been?”
“Same as always.”
“That’s good.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Just called to ask.”
Then I heard a man’s voice on the other end of the phone. “Who are you talking to?”
“A friend,” Spring said.
“Man or woman?”
“Is it your business?”
“Must be a man.”
“Shut up.” Spring turned back to the phone and said, “I’m hanging up.”
I heard her horsing around as she hung up. I was greatly reassured. I didn’t know why I was so reassured. She was finally accepted by someone. The time bomb was finally taken by someone. I was free. I started to live with Lili with true fondness. I’d never liked her body like that. It was as if our life had just begun.
10
The fifth time. The last time. Before executing a prisoner, they let him have a proper meal. We set aside chopsticks, a spoon, and a bowl for Spring and waited for her. We’d made her favorite minced pork congee with pickled egg and a fried egg. But this was only an attempt to ease the pain of us still living together. We didn’t know she would leave that day. We only hoped she would keep her promise to leave in 10 days or so.
“Not eating.”
Lili walked out. Creamy light shone from Spring’s room. “She sat there stupidly, said she won’t eat,” Lili said. Then she sat down, picked up the bowl and got some shredded turnip. I did the same. We ate in silence like workers on break. I’d never heard a sound as odd as our mouths made. We ate slurping. In the middle of this, I walked to Spring’s bedroom. I leaned against the doorjamb. The light fell on Spring, left a shadow on the floor. She squatted there, leather suitcase open, inside a neatly arranged makeup case, tweezers, pads, and other odds and ends. There were also some things on the bedside table. She transferred those in the suitcase to the table, and those on th
e table into the suitcase. Over and over again. Her voice was calm and serious, deciding which belonged to Lili and which belonged to her. “Eat first,” I said.
“Not eating.”
“The congee is getting cold, be good.”
“I told you I won’t eat, are you deaf?”
She kept fiddling with those things. I turned and shook my head. Lili responded with a pained look. In silence, we cleared the table, leaving the portion for Spring there. I rinsed the bowls and chopsticks. Lili wiped them with a dry kitchen towel and put them into the cupboard. After we finished, we went back to our bedroom and lay down on the bed. I heard my bowels rumble. From the living room came Spring’s voice. “I won’t eat your meal. I said I won’t eat, and I won’t eat.” Lili gave me a little kick, I sat up. I saw she was looking at me. She held the congee in one hand and the side dish in the other, looking stunned, but she quickly tilted her head up, and strode toward her room.
“She ended up eating it,” I said.
“Don’t provoke her.”
“She seems to be in the middle of packing.”
“Yeah, it won’t be long, bear with it a little longer.”
Later I heard the sound of Spring rinsing the dishes. I still hadn’t slept. I thought Lili had fallen asleep, turned to look. Her eyes were open, fixed tightly on the ceiling. I got up and went to the bathroom. Spring sat on the sofa, holding a handbag tightly. She flicked the cigarette ash in the ashtray. She didn’t look at me.
“Going out?”
“Can I not have a bag if I’m not going out?”
She held the handbag closer and let out a puff of smoke. Smoking women are so beautiful, cold and dreamy. She turned her body to the other side and continued to smoke with her head held up. I went into the bathroom and sat on the toilet. I liked reading the paper again and again until I got bored. I heard Lili shuffling sluggishly out of the room in slippers. In the meantime Spring walked back to her room in high heels. As if there was a rule: only one woman allowed in the room at a time. Lili walked into the kitchen, turned on the tap, stirred her toothbrush in the cup, and squeezed out the toothpaste. She mucked around her teeth on the right side, then the left, mouth full of foam. She could brush her teeth like that all day long. Everything will pass. It seems hard to pull through it but it will pass one day. You can see the present as the future. Spring isn’t here in the future. She gargled on and on.