by Yu Hua
Song Gang hadn't heard a word Popsicle Wang had said. In agony, his chest throbbing, and sunk in confusion, he simply peered over his face mask at Wang. When Song Gang realized that Baldy Li wasn't there and that Lin Hong wasn't there either, he no longer knew what he himself was doing there. He sat for half an hour without saying a word. Then, still without saying a word, he stood up and walked out of Popsicle Wang's extravagant reception area. Wang followed him out, rattling on nonstop. When he reached the entranceway, however, Popsicle Wang stood still. He was still talking, but Song Gang didn't hear a word. Song Gang stared vacantly at the streets of Liu and, with a heavy heart, returned home.
CHAPTER 73
AFTER SONG GANG returned to Liu Town, he went six days without receiving any news of his wife. During those six days, he cooked six meals, but each day he ate only a single bowl of rice. He kept his door shut and went out only to buy vegetables. He encountered many people he knew, and their brief remarks gave him the vague understanding that something had transpired between Baldy Li and Lin Hong. He looked apathetic and listless. On the evening of the seventh day, Song Gang took out the family photo album and looked at each of the portraits of himself and Lin Hong; then sighed and closed the album. He found the photograph of himself; his father, Song Fanping; his mother, Li Lan; and his brother, Baldy Li. This black-and-white photograph was already turning yellow with age. Song Gang again sighed, put it into the photo album as well, and lay back in his bed with tears streaming down his face.
After mucking about for seven days, Song Gang finally recovered his senses. All the memories of his history with Baldy Lin and Lin Hong came rushing back to him, twenty years passing in the blink of an eye. Now he understood that Lin Hong should never have married him but rather should have married Baldy Li. When he saw things this way, Song Gang suddenly felt relieved, as if a heavy weight had been lifted from his heart.
At sunrise on the eighth morning, Song Gang sat at the dining table and started earnestly writing two letters, one to Lin Hong and the other to Baldy Li. Though he wrote painstakingly, there were a lot of sentences he wasn't sure he had written correctly and a lot of characters he wasn't sure how to write. He remembered how, when he was twenty, he had been so fond of reading and of literature. He recalled how he had written a story and how Baldy Li had praised it highly. During the intervening years, however, life had borne down on him mercilessly, to the point that he could barely breathe. He had stopped reading books and newspapers, with the result that now he realized he couldn't even write a simple letter.
Song Gang therefore made a mental note of the characters he didn't know how to write, then wore his face mask to the bookstore, where he looked them up in a dictionary. Then he returned home and continued writing his letters. He couldn't bring himself to buy a dictionary, though he had brought thirty thousand yuan back for Lin Hong. He felt that the entire time they had been together, he had never been able to provide for her, and therefore he was determined to leave her this money he had finally earned. Over the next several days, he went to and from the bookstore more than ten times, and every time the clerks saw him they would laugh, remarking to each other that Song Gang used to be Chief Sub but now had become the towns chief scholar. One day the clerks couldn't help calling him first Chief Scholar, then Chief Dictionary. When Song Gang heard this, he laughed but didn't respond; instead he simply lowered his head and diligently looked up the characters he didn't know. Chief Dictionary Song Gang spent five days writing his letters, alternating between composing, looking up characters in the dictionary, and correcting his writing. When he finally finished the two letters, he carefully copied them over, then stood up as if relieved of a heavy burden and went to the post office to buy two envelopes and two stamps. After addressing the envelopes and putting on the stamps, he hid both letters in his breast pocket.
The pain in Song Gang's chest had become increasingly severe. Confused by the binding pain, he slowly opened his shirt and found that it had become stuck to the open wounds under his armpits. As he removed the shirt he felt as though he was ripping away his flesh. The searing pain made his entire body shudder. He waited for it to subside, then lifted his arms and saw that his wounds had become swollen and infected, with the black stitches now stretched tight over them. He remembered that he was supposed to have removed the stitches six days after the operation but now thirteen days had passed. The pain had become virtually unbearable.
Song Gang got up and went to look for a pair of scissors and then, with a mirror, prepared to take out his own stitches. Worried that the scissors weren't clean, he lit a flame and placed them over it for five minutes to sterilize them. He patiently waited another ten minutes for the scissors to cool off, then finally began to carefully clip away until the scissors were covered with bits of black thread. He felt the throbbing pain in his chest gradually subside, as though his entire body had been released from immense tension.
That evening Song Gang used an old newspaper to wrap up the money he had brought home and placed the bundle under his pillow, leaving aside only ten yuan for himself. He took his key out and inspected it carefully then lay it on the table, put on his face mask, and walked to the front door. When he opened it, he turned and looked back at his home and at the key on the table: Everything in his house seemed to be in sharp focus, but the key was a blur in his vision. He carefully closed the door, then stood there for a while. It occurred to him that the key was inside, that he would never be coming back.
Song Gang turned and walked down the street, proceeding on into Wanderless Zhou's Snack Shop. He had never eaten straw-embedded buns, and now he wanted to try some. When he went in, he didn't see Zhou or Missy Su. He looked around and noticed that Mama Su wasn't there either. As it turned out, Zhou had succeeded in converting both of them into fans of Korean soaps, and therefore every weekday at this time the three of them would sit at home, staring intently at the television screen. Song Gang hesitated in the doorway for a moment. Seeing a strange waitress sitting at the cashier's counter, he approached her and, after pondering for a moment, mumbled vaguely, "How do you eat…"
The cashier had no idea what he was talking about "How do you eat what?"
Song Gang realized he had misspoken but couldn't think of the proper way to phrase the question. He pointed to some customers eating the straw-embedded buns and said, "These straw-embedded buns…"
The customers laughed out loud, and one of them asked him, "Did you suckle at your mother's breast as a child?"
Song Gang felt that this person was making fun of him, and therefore he replied smartly, "We all did."
"Did you eat buns after you grew up?"
"We all did."
"Good," that person said. "I'll teach you. First, you suck it like you did your mother's breast, sucking out the juice, then you eat the remaining bun the way you would eat any bun."
All the customers laughed uncontrollably, and even the waitress at the cashier's counter couldn't help laughing. Song Gang, however, didn't laugh. The customers response allowed him to regain some clarity of mind, so he turned back to the waitress and said, "I was asking how much they cost?"
Understanding him now, the waitress took Song Gangs money and gave him a receipt. Song Gang then took his receipt and continued standing in front of the counter. The waitress suggested that he sit down, because it would be ten minutes before the buns were ready. Song Gang eyed the laughing customers, then sat at a table as far from them as possible. With an expressionless gaze, he sat there patiently like a student, waiting for his straw-embedded buns.
Song Gangs buns were finally brought out and, faced with this wave of hot steam, Song Gang slowly lowered his face mask, put the straw in his mouth, and immediately sucked out the meat sauce. Those customers who had been making fun of him jumped in surprise, because the sauce was at least 175 degrees Fahrenheit. Song Gang, however, sipped it up as though he were sipping cold water. After finishing one bun, he proceeded to another. In all, he sipped the sauce out of
three buns, then looked up at the astonished customers and smiled. His smile sent shivers down their spines, making them suspect that he was somewhat deranged. He then lowered his head again and placed one of the buns in his mouth. After he had eaten the three buns, Song Gang put his face mask back on, stood up, and walked out of the snack shop.
By this point it was evening, and Song Gang set off toward the setting sun. He didn't walk down the street with his head bowed, as he used to. Instead, he walked with his head up and looked back and forth at the stores and the pedestrians on either side of the street. When people called out his name, he no longer mumbled in reply but, rather, waved at them amicably. When he walked past a shop window, he stopped to look at the products on display inside. Many of the townspeople of Liu saw Song Gang stroll by that evening. Later they recalled how, in the past, every time he appeared he was always hurrying to get somewhere; this was the only evening they had seen him just strolling. They said he stopped to look in every shop window, turned to greet every person he passed, even displayed considerable interest in the wutong trees on either side of the street. He stood outside a music store for five or six minutes listening to two pop songs, turning to someone walking by and saying, "These two songs sound really good."
When he passed the post office, he took Lin Hongs and Baldy Li's letters from his breast pocket and, after putting them in the mailbox, squatted down and peered inside to make sure that they had gone all the way in. Then he continued walking in the direction of the setting sun.
Song Gang walked out of Liu Town to where the railroad tracks were. He sat down on a rock next to the tracks, took off his face mask, and contentedly inhaled the evening air. He looked around at the fields full of grain waiting to be harvested. There was a stream not far from him, and the setting sun tinted the water crimson. That made him look up, and he felt that the evening sky was even more beautiful than the earth. The sun glowed crimson, and the clouds shimmered brightly, with layer upon layer of colors pouring in like the tide. As the multi-hued rays shuttled unpredictably through the sky he felt as if he had seen the light. Then he lowered his gaze and once again looked at the fields of grain stretching in every direction, reflecting the evening light like fields full of red roses, he felt as if he were sitting in the middle of a million blooming flowers.
Hearing the sound of a train whistle approaching, he took off his glasses, wiped them, and put them back on. He saw that the sun had sunk halfway below the horizon and that a train was approaching from the same direction as the setting sun. He stood up and told himself it was time to bid farewell to the world of the living. He couldn't bear to part with his glasses but was afraid that the train would crush them. Therefore, he took them off and placed them on the stone where he had been sitting, and again felt everything become blurred. He removed his jacket, folded it, and lay it on the same stone, placing his glasses on top. Then he took a deep breath and put his face mask back on. He forgot that dead people couldn't breathe, and was afraid that his lung illness would be transmitted to the mortician. He walked forward four paces, then lay facedown on the tracks with both arms extended. His chest pressing against the tracks was excruciatingly painful, so he crawled forward until his abdomen was resting on the tracks and immediately felt much more comfortable. The approaching train made the tracks under him tremble, and as a result his body also started to tremble. He raised his head to look at the distant sky, feeling it was truly beautiful. He then turned his head and looked at the fields of roselike grain in front of him and felt they too were quite beautiful. At this point he noticed with delight a seagull flying overhead. The seagull was crying out, flapping its wings as it flew from far away. As the train rumbled over his back the last thing he saw was the solitary seagull soaring among the million blooming flowers.
CHAPTER 74
BALDY LI and Lin Hong rode into Liu Town in the white Mercedes just before dusk, driving right into Baldy Li's mansion. Lin Hong had had her hymen surgically reconstructed, and Baldy Li had done a lot of business in Beijing and the northeast. When they got out of the car, it was as if they were making a triumphant return. As soon as they walked into the living room, Baldy Li's phone rang. It was Deputy Liu telling him that dinner was prepared, and that he could come eat whenever he wished. Baldy Li closed his cell phone and said, "That bastard definitely thinks of everything."
Baldy Li and Lin Hong deposited their luggage in the living room, then glided into the dining room. By that point, night had fallen, so Baldy Li turned on the chandelier. He saw that the dinner was laid out and that a bouquet of roses had been placed in the middle of the table. A bottle of French red wine was sitting in a stainless-steel ice bucket. The bottle had been opened and the cork reinserted. Baldy Li and Lin Hong sat down across from each other. Baldy Li was very satisfied with Deputy Liu, telling Lin Hong, "That bastard has arranged everything very romantically."
Lin Hong glanced over at the dinner and the roses and began to giggle, remarking that it was as if they were foreigners sitting down to a meal. Like a foreign gentleman, Baldy Li took the wine out of the ice bucket, and after removing the cork, he poured a little into his glass. Then he put down the bottle, raised his glass, swished it around, sniffed it, and drank a sip. He said approvingly, "This wine is not bad at all."
After he got up, he placed his left hand on his back and used his right hand to elegantly fill Lin Hong's glass. At the sight of the uncouth, foul-mouthed Baldy Li acting with such refinement, Lin Hong couldn't help laughing. This being the first time Lin Hong had seen such elegance, she asked Baldy Li, "Where did you learn this?"
"From TV," Baldy Li replied graciously, then lifted his glass and waited for Lin Hong to lift hers and toast with him. She took a tiny sip of her wine, then put her glass down. Baldy Li, by contrast, immediately downed his entire glass, as if he were engaged in a drinking competition. He was an old dog who couldn't be taught new tricks, and he called out to Lin Hong, "Eat quickly, then go wash up. When you're done, go to the bed and wait for me."
At that moment, Song Gang was sitting in Wanderless Zhou's Snack Shop eating straw-embedded buns for the first time in his life. The piping-hot juice was scalding the inside of his mouth, but he couldn't feel a thing. By the time he walked out of the snack shop and headed toward the railroad tracks to the east of town, Baldy Li had wolfed down his dinner and was urging Lin Hong to finish hers. Thus was life: Someone who was walking toward death might linger over the setting sun's glorious rays, while two others who were hedonistically pursuing pleasure might be completely oblivious to the beauty of the sunset.
The setting sun finally vanished, and a heavy night sky enveloped Liu Town. As Song Gang lay down on the railroad tracks under the faint light of the moon, Lin Hong was sitting on the bed with her pants off, waiting for Baldy Li to emerge from the bathroom. He dawdled for a long time, and just as he turned on the faucet Deputy Liu called again. Liu had figured that Baldy Li would have gone to the restroom and conscientiously told him that in the cabinet there were two new instruments for inspecting hymens. Baldy Li warmly called Deputy Liu a bastard, and after he washed up, he hurriedly dried himself off, then opened the cabinet to see what kind of instruments they were. Surprised to discover miner's implements, Baldy Li stared in astonishment, then once again affectionately called Deputy Liu a bastard.
Lin Hong heard Baldy Li mumbling in the bathroom but didn't know what he was saying. When he finally emerged, she stared at him in astonishment. He had his pants off but was wearing a miner's hat with a lamp. Around his waist he had a leather belt with a battery in back, and a cord ran like a Qing dynasty queue from the hat down to the belt. Noticing Lin Hong staring in astonishment, Baldy Li turned on the lamp on the miner's hat, and a beam of light suddenly shone directly on her crotch. He announced proudly that this time he wanted to appreciate her hymen. Looking like a miner crawling into a cave, Baldy Li chortled as he crawled into bed. Lin Hong finally reacted and let out a huge laugh, never having imagined that Baldy Li would have accou
tered himself in this way. She laughed so hard that she couldn't catch her breath and began to cough. Baldy Li was very displeased by her reaction and lifted his head so that his light shone on her chest, then asked, "In what way is this supposed to resemble a virgin?"
Lin Hong was laughing so hard tears came to her eyes, and she said, "You're killing me. I'm going to die laughing…"
Baldy Li angrily sat down next to her, with his searchlight shining on the wall. He waited for her to finish, then exclaimed, "Damn it, you look like a slut. In what way do you resemble a virgin?"
After Lin Hong covered her mouth to smother her last few guffaws, she adopted a serious demeanor and asked Baldy Li, "How should a virgin act?"
Baldy Li instructed her: "The first time you see a naked man, you should cover your face."
Lin Hong laughed under her breath, then covered her face with both hands but still kept her legs spread wide. Baldy Li was not pleased and said, "Only sluts would spread their legs upon seeing a naked man. What kind of virgin would do that?"
Lin Hong locked her legs together and asked, "How's this?"
Baldy Li continued to instruct her: "You should also cover that area with your hands and not let the man see."
Lin Hong replied unhappily, "First you ask me to cover my face with my hands, and then you tell me to cover that area. Does it look to you like I have four hands?"
Baldy Li thought that Lin Hong had a point. He sought her advice, asking, "What were you like when you did it with Song Gang for the first time?"
Lin Hong replied, "It was under the covers, with the light off."
Baldy Li quickly got out of bed and turned off the lights, making the spotlight on his head appear to shine even brighter, so bright that Lin Hong couldn't keep her eyes open. Lin Hong told him to turn the miner's light off, but he refused, saying that if he did, he wouldn't be able to see her hymen. He then asked her, "How did Song Gang look at your hymen?"