Massage

by Bi Feiyu

  Jin Yan took the phone from her and stroked it. What kind of life was it to lie like that day in and day out? It was her turn to put her arm around her friend’s shoulders. ‘I understand.’

  Now the two women were practically hugging each other, though they hadn’t meant to; it was their understanding of the other’s situation that drew them together, an accidental embrace. With their left hands, they rubbed and patted the other’s back; the rain continued outside, turning the windowpanes into drums and gongs.

  ‘Here’s a riddle for you, Yanzi. What is two blind girls hugging each other?’

  ‘A blind embrace.’

  ‘Another one – what is two blind girls rubbing each other?’

  ‘A blind rub.’

  ‘One more – what is two blind girls whispering to each other?’

  ‘Blind talk, prattle.’

  ‘You’re a prattler.’

  ‘No, you’re a prattler.’

  ‘No, you are.’

  ‘No, you are.’

  Back and forth they went, a dozen times at least, as if both were eager to hang a label on the other. Neither was willing to give in before they started laughing, muffled at first, sending their breasts jiggling silently in each other’s arms, tickling them so much they held their bodies apart, but kept their foreheads touching. Unable to hold it in any longer, Xiao Kong laughed out loud, prompting Jin Yan to follow suit. Her voice was so much louder than Xiao Kong’s, and now it was ear-splitting; a laugh that emerged from her navel, forced out by the power from her abdomen. Xiao Kong in turn was so tickled by Jin Yan’s laughter that she let loose as well. They forgot they were still at the centre, completely forgot; they even forgot who they were, completely forgot that too. Full-throttle laughter. It made them happy, euphoric. Their laughter bounced off each other; they egged each other on, like a contest, each louder than the other. They couldn’t stop. They were howling. They went wild, totally crazy; they were hysterical, and it felt good.

  The other therapists were crowded into the lounge, sitting up prim and proper, including Sha Fuming and Zhang Zongqi, whose magnetic repellent force was a silent ban against noise; even the rain fell with caution. When the stillness was shattered by the women’s hysterical laughter in one of the massage rooms, all heads in the lounge turned in that direction. What’s making them laugh like that? How could they be happy like that? They sounded as if they could laugh their heads off. It was funny, and it brought a smile to everyone’s face.

  ‘No one’s going to die laughing, are they?’ Zhang Yiguang said to Wang Daifu.

  ‘Two silly girls.’ Wang was smiling, but his mind was elsewhere. He had just over two weeks to pay off his brother’s debt, and the days were flying by. The deadline was nearly upon him. Taking a cigarette from behind his ear, he walked out of the centre.

  An overhang shielding the entrance was where the therapists came out for a smoke. Wang was not a real smoker, but he accepted cigarettes from smoking clients who enjoyed sharing them with the therapists after their treatment. Sometimes, when he had nothing better to do, he would light up just for the hell of it.

  Even outside he could hear the frenzied laughter from the two silly girls.

  ‘Crazy,’ he said to himself just as he discovered, to his surprise, that he wasn’t alone. He mumbled a greeting, and the response from the other person told him it was Tailai.

  Wang Daifu and Xu Tailai did not normally fraternise, although they maintained a cordial relationship typical of co-workers, neither interfering in the affairs of the other. Now an interesting situation had developed, with their girlfriends suddenly best friends and making quite a commotion. Momentary embarrassment gave way to an unspoken idea that they too ought to be friends. Putting his cares aside for the moment, Wang took another cigarette from behind his ear – a Zhonghua, a good brand, from a soft case, as the client took pains to remind him.

  ‘Here, Tailai.’ He thrust the cigarette towards Tailai’s hand.

  Tailai touched it and realised it was a cigarette. ‘I don’t smoke.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ Wang said. ‘Just for kicks. We don’t get a slow day like this very often.’

  Wang handed Tailai his lighter before lighting his own. ‘Don’t inhale. You don’t want to get hooked.’

  It was Tailai’s first cigarette and he lit the filter end. Then when he turned it around to light it and took a puff, he burned his lips. He licked them and finally managed a bit of smoke, a full mouthful. Closing his mouth lightly, he tried to exhale the smoke through his nose, but he choked so badly he couldn’t stop coughing. Finally, when he managed to stop, he said, ‘Good cigarette.’ Like a connoisseur.

  ‘Of course it’s good.’

  They began discussing cigarettes, but about all they could come up with was ‘good’. With nothing much to say, they fell quiet; they wanted to talk, but had to search for a topic, which made them both uncomfortable. All they could do was keep smoking. So they puffed away, one as fast as the other, like non-smokers. Gao Wei, who was sitting at the receptionist desk, looked out through the French doors and saw the two men smoking, the tips of their cigarettes flickering red.

  A naturally serious person, Tailai treated this first cigarette as important. He took every puff carefully, precisely and fully, and finished his cigarette in record time. Reaching into his pocket, he took out an object, also a cigarette, and handed it to Wang.

  ‘Have another, Brother Wang,’ he said, like a seasoned man.

  The two women had finally stopped laughing and were likely back to whispering. After lighting the new cigarette with the first one, Wang flipped the butt out into the street, where it sizzled briefly in the rain before dying out. Being the older of the two, he eventually found something to say. ‘You and Jin Yan have been together for some time, haven’t you?’

  ‘No, not really,’ Tailai replied.

  ‘When are you getting married?’

  Tailai smacked his lips, not knowing what to say. It was some time before he answered with a question of his own. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Us?’ Wang said. ‘We’re in no hurry.’

  ‘You must be planning on a big wedding.’

  ‘No, nothing big,’ Wang said. ‘There’s no need for that. Simple is better.’ There was more he wanted to say. ‘Marriage just means two people living together. A wedding’s not important.’ He paused before adding, ‘Xiao Kong feels the same way.’

  Finally finding someone who shared his view, Tailai edged closer, and was about to say something, but stopped. Instead he heaved a sigh. ‘Trouble.’

  ‘What kind of trouble?’

  ‘Jin Yan insists on a big wedding,’ Tailai whispered. ‘Otherwise, she’d rather not get married.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She said that the one thing a woman wants in life is the wedding.’

  ‘I doubt that.’ Wang smiled. ‘How can a wedding be the one thing a woman wants?’

  ‘I’m with you on that.’

  ‘What else does she say?’

  ‘She says that every woman feels that way.’

  Wang Daifu reacted to Tailai’s remark by slowly exhaling a mouthful of smoke. If every woman feels that way, why doesn’t Xiao Kong? He realised that he and Xiao Kong hadn’t talked much about a wedding, though he knew she wanted to get married soon. She never said a word about the arrangement or scale of their wedding, for she had always gone along with him. Wang realised that this could be a problem, and that he’d have to ask her about it one of these days. He could not take advantage of her reticence.

  ‘Ai!’ Tailai grumbled. ‘She insists on an impressive wedding, and I can’t talk her out of it.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound right,’ Wang said, more or less to himself.

  ‘Go ask Xiao Kong,’ Tailai replied. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if Jin Yan has already shared her thoughts with her.’

  As they stood under the overhang, the two men were lost in their own thoughts. They did need to have a good talk and share ideas wi
th each other. It would be good for them, and that suddenly made them feel like brothers-in-law, even before they’d finished their second cigarettes.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Wang Daifu

  WANG DAIFU KNEW it was bad news the minute he picked up the phone. The voice on the other end sounded pleasant as it asked him to please come home, to return to his parents’ house. It was such a nice voice, like a family member calling out to him, but, of course, he knew it was nothing of the sort.

  Over the previous two weeks, the twenty-five thousand yuan had been weighing heavily on his mind. He’d told himself not to think about it, that he’d come up with something as the deadline approached, like believing there will always be a path when the cart reaches the mountains. He did find a solution, which was to borrow ten thousand against his wages from Sha, which, when added to his savings, came to twenty-five thousand. He did not tell Sha why he needed the money, and luckily Sha didn’t ask.

  His problem now, as he fingered the money, was that he could not bear to part with it. He recalled what an older woman, also blind, had once said to him: ‘Money is like children. If you keep your distance, no problem. But lay your hands on them and you have to hold them close.’ This money meant the world to Wang Daifu, and his heart bled. He could smell the blood. It was so unfair. He’d give whatever he had if his brother was going to buy a house, get married or needed it to save his own life. But it was none of these; it was a gambling debt, a bottomless pit. What if his brother kept gambling? What if he wound up owing another twenty-five thousand? How would Wang manage that and live his own life?

  For the first time in his life, Wang felt self-loathing. Why did he have to be the older brother? Why was he so fond of being taken advantage of? Why did he have to step up? Really, there was no need for that. Without him the world would continue to turn. He needed to change that. Not this time, of course, but next time. He promised those people he’d pay them back. You can be blind, but you mustn’t let yourself be mute. If your tongue remains still, the whole world is blind.

  A debt must be repaid. That is, and has always been, an unassailable principle.

  After listening to the message, he shut his mobile phone and touched his waistband, where he’d tied the money to the inside. A vital precaution. He took out his dark glasses, put them on and walked to the street. As he stood by the side of the road, which was pitch black to him, the sounds of cars whizzing by filled his ears. They were not so much whizzing as peeling away the road surface, skinning the ground.

  This is the last time, the very last time, Wang kept telling himself. From now on, he would stay away no matter what happened to his brother. At that moment, his heart was as hard and cold as stone; this would absolutely be the last time. Twenty-five thousand yuan. It was not just money, it was Wang’s own ransom; he would not owe this world anything once he handed over the money. He would be debt free. His only regret, of course, was that the money could not have found a better use than giving it to those bastards. Go ahead, take the money and choke on it.

  He thrust out his arm, a grand gesture to hail a taxi. Fuck it! Why worry about the piddling cab fare now that I’m going to throw away twenty-five thousand yuan? Spend it! Spend it any way I want! I’m going to treat myself today and take a taxi. For the first time in my life!

  A taxi rolled up. He heard it stop, but didn’t move, since he didn’t know how to open the door. The cabbie yelled out impatiently, ‘Are you going to get in or not? What’s your problem?’

  Wang was gripped by a sudden panic. He’d been too rash. How on earth had he got the idea to hail a taxi? He didn’t even know how to get in. He calmed down after a moment of self-reproach and embarrassment. He was in a bad mood, a very bad mood indeed. ‘What are you yelling about? Get out and open the door for me.’

  The driver cocked his head to size him up through the window. Wang Daifu, wearing a grim look, had on a pair of dark glasses, which, like those on all blind people, were oversized and very dark, virtually wrapping around the eyes. So he’s blind, the driver said to himself, but maybe not. The more he sized up Wang, the less he appeared to be blind. Wondering what kind of suspicious character he’d run into that day, the driver nevertheless got out to open the door while puzzling over what sort of eyes lay behind those dark glasses.

  Wang was focused; overtaken by a sudden surge of vanity, he didn’t want to look timorous, nor did he want people to know that he was blind. Judging by the sound of the door opening, he eased in by holding onto the edge.

  ‘Where to, sir?’ the driver asked politely, almost humbly, once he was back behind the steering wheel.

  When had he become a ‘sir’? Wang felt like laughing. Then it dawned on him that he had been rude, which was not like him, but his rudeness was being handsomely repaid by the driver’s polite request. What has the world come to? He’d need to take stock later.

  ‘The market at Gongyuan Road.’

  He was home. His heart was racing as he climbed the stairs, caused by hesitation and timidity. Mainly timidity. The blind are always intimidated when dealing with the sighted, for the simple reason that they are visible, while the sighted are not; that is why the blind try to avoid interactions with the sighted. In their minds, the sighted are a different animal, one of a higher branch, with eyes and omniscience, almost deity-like. They deal with the sighted the same way the sighted deal with spirits and deities: respect at a distance.

  He was confronting the people who play by the rules – not all that different from spirits and deities.

  A surprise awaited him when he stepped inside; his brother was actually home. The nerve of that asshole, sitting at home like a guest, carefree as can be, just waiting for the sucker to show up. That made Wang’s blood boil. There were several people sitting in easy chairs, obviously waiting for him. They were totally self-assured – they were watching TV. A cacophony of noise emerged from the set, clangs and clanks filling the room, the sounds of metal on metal, the sound of combat, to be exact, with knives, spears, swords and halberds. Violent and sharp, even with a pleasantness to it, almost melodious. It was either a martial arts film or a gangster movie. Wang knew all about martial arts films, which worked under a certain premise: fists or bullets are the ultimate defenders of truth. He recalled the cab ride that had brought him here. He had been rude, which had elicited a humble response. He’d become a ‘sir’. Wang walked up to the sofa, and the TV volume was turned down. He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was his brother, Wang could tell, and his blood really began to boil, out of control. He could see his own body, infused with light and fully transparent, sending out intermittent rays. With a soft laugh, he extended his right hand to shake his brother’s, but, the moment the two brothers’ hands came into contact, like a gust of wind, Wang’s left hand smacked his brother across the face.

  ‘Get out,’ Wang shouted. ‘Get the hell out of here. You’ve got no right to be here.’

  ‘He has to stay,’ said the pleasant voice.

  ‘I don’t want him here,’ Wang said. ‘Didn’t I tell you it’s between you and me?’ He laughed. ‘I won’t go anywhere,’ he added. ‘I wouldn’t want to even if I could.’

  ‘Did you bring the money?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Give us the money and we’ll leave.’

  ‘No. He has to go first.’

  ‘He can’t.’ Again the pleasant voice.

  ‘He leaves and you get the money. He stays, no money. You talk it out.’

  With that, he left the room and walked into the kitchen.

  He went straight to the refrigerator, where he turned over his waistband, took out the money, and tossed it into the freezer. He took out two ice cubes and put them in his mouth. When he heard his brother go out the door, he began to chomp on the ice cubes, making a loud crunching noise. Feeling himself no longer human, he stripped off his shirt and returned to the living room with a kitchen knife.

  It was deathly quiet, so quiet he could sense the wall, the chairs, a
nd the cups and dishes on the tea table, as well as the knife, of course; it made a loud, crisp sound.

  ‘So you’ve thought it through. You’re the one who wants to do it this way, not us, but we can do it that way too. We’re just people who play by the rules.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you to do this.’ He raised the knife and sliced his chest. As if shy, the blood waited to emerge, but when it did, no more shyness; it spread its legs and ran down Wang Daifu’s chest, then his abdomen, and finally, with unerring accuracy, into his pants. It was hot as it stroked him like a loved one.

  Wang Daifu said, ‘Do you know what we blind people like most?’

  Wang Daifu said, ‘Money.’

  Wang Daifu said, ‘Our money is different from yours.’

  Wang Daifu said, ‘Your money is called money while ours is called life.’

  Wang Daifu said, ‘With no money we have no lives. No one knows where we blind people will die.’

  Wang Daifu said, ‘Have you seen blind beggars on the street? Of course you have.’

  Wang Daifu said, ‘I know how to beg too. Believe it or not.’

  Wang Daifu said, ‘But I can’t do it.’

  Wang Daifu said, ‘My parents gave me life, so I can’t.’

  Wang Daifu said, ‘We have a face.’

  Wang Daifu said, ‘We care about our face.’

  Wang Daifu said, ‘We love our face.’

  Wang Daifu said, ‘Otherwise, how would we continue to live?’

  Wang Daifu said, ‘I have to treat myself like a human.’

  Wang Daifu said, ‘Treat myself like a human. Do you understand that?’

  Wang Daifu said, ‘No you don’t.’

  Wang Daifu said, ‘I can’t give you the twenty-five thousand yuan.’

  Wang Daifu said, ‘If I did, I’d have to become a beggar.’

  Wang Daifu said, ‘Do you know where I get my money?’