Candy

by Mian Mian

  3.

  We had our first meeting about the taping at Café Moti on Ruijin Road. Written by the door to the stairway were the words “If I’m not at home, I’m either at a café or on my way to a café.”

  The three of us never spoke Shanghainese when we got together, and when I was alone with Kiwi, or just with Apple, we didn’t speak Shanghainese either. Right now, we three were sitting together and talking about our work.

  I said, I want to find a way of writing that’s as close to the body as possible.

  But as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I was struck by the absurdity of what we were doing.

  I suggested that we leave. We went out for Hunanese food, and we started telling racy jokes, and after we’d laughed long and hard, Apple told me, You’ll be saved as soon as you start loving Truth more than you love men. These words instantly ruined my mood. I was getting fed up. I said, OK, that’s enough for today. When do you want to get together again? But instead Apple suggested that we go to the Cotton Club, where Cocoa was singing 1930s jazz. Each of us ran into people we knew, and before long we’d all had too much to drink.

  When it was time to say good night, we rode home in three separate taxis.

  Later that night, Kiwi and Apple phoned me at the same time.

  4.

  I had stood numbly in the dim passageway at school countless times, a bottle of ink in my hand, and countless times I had imagined myself hurling that bottle at someone’s head. With thoughts like these going through my head, I looked like a troublemaker. Once, as I was just about to throw the bottle at my beloved teacher, I wet my pants. In those days I often fantasized about being bullied or hurt, imagined that I was being abused by a merciless man, and this fantasy made me feel all warm inside, like some kind of chemical high. I believed that I needed to be protected, and in the haze there was a shadow—it was a man, and he had substance and specificity—and this shadow had come to protect me. I had been violated, and now I had been rescued. I felt wonderful. The death of that young girl set the tone for my entire life. Honestly, I’ve been terrified ever since; do you understand? The first time I made love, it was with a man. He broke open my body, and afterward I felt truly at peace. Love? I don’t know what love is. I only know that I’ve always been myself; I’ve always lived for a flicker of recognition, a flash of understanding. Life is a series of beginnings, not a string of conclusions, and that’s what makes life so beautiful. But I’ve never experienced a completely perfect day. Once, I saw that girl, in the space between waking and dreaming, and I felt faint, I couldn’t breathe, and I drooled all over myself. There were many colors, many schemes, and I heard the voices of many ghosts, while my ass and my heart were at war with each other. I saw her, really, and she was so beautiful! Lithe and graceful, deathly sad, adrift, oblivious to what lay under the surface, completely unafraid, unblemished, she was the epitome of beauty. I had chewed my fingernails ragged. I didn’t know if I was dreaming or if I was bewitched, but altogether I had gnawed away most of my fingernails. Maybe what I was feeling was terror, but I called it love. There was no difference between love and terror, no difference between blood and spit. Afterward I set out on my journey and began to study sculpture. I can capture a woman at the peak of her beauty; I turn women’s faces into paintings, and I can control their beauty. I came back to China because I’m sentimental. And how do I feel about you? You’re a beautiful woman, here with me, doing beautiful things. You have a stunning power, the power to bring comfort. I think I can say that. That is how I feel about you: this is the destiny you’re always talking about.

  5.

  Today I realized that you’re crazy. You want women and men. Do blood and spit mixed together make love? You’re crazy, but I love you. Let’s make love, for our tenderness and pity. Love is simply the looks, the gestures, the scent that I can’t stop myself from sending your way to make you remember me always. But it’s a comfort to me as well, something you’ve given me, and I’m touched by both of you. I believe in my body. More than anything else, I believe in my body, and my body conceals limitless truths. I need to live in my emotions. A pair of eyes is watching some fool or other, and these eyes don’t need to be understood at all. What these eyes like best is to run our lives at several speeds. We’re the same. And these nightmares, trampled underfoot, have touched off the madness of hallucinations. Our goodness is a goodness of the body, and our speed is the speed of the body. This is destiny.

  6.

  I will never forget him, not as long as I live. The older students were bullying me, forcing me to give them blow jobs. They used to stand in a line, and it all left a taste in my mouth that will never completely go away. My tears dripped into the toilet, black flowers blossomed, my every breath was filled with terror. The stars made their slow revolutions, and night descended like a sickness. My problems always surfaced at night. You were a day student, so you couldn’t have known what went on among the boarders. If I didn’t do as I was told, a line of tacks would appear around my bed as I slept, or I would awaken at midnight to find a cigarette burning between my toes. They always cornered me in the bathroom. Maybe that was where I first became excited by men’s penises. But that doesn’t mean I liked what they did to me. It’s important that you understand this. I’d never imagined that life could be so terrifying, one dick after another—it seemed endless. I decided to quit school, and my parents rushed up from the countryside. They had no idea what was going on with me. Why did I want to give up my studies? Such a good school! I couldn’t tell them anything; I didn’t think it was something you could talk about. That was when I began to see that everyone has secrets. I can tell you these things now because I’m proud of who I am today. These memories can’t hurt me anymore. I survived; I had the will and didn’t let myself be broken. Eventually my father found me a place to live near the school, but even though I didn’t live in the dormitory anymore, they still came over and bothered me. And this is where he finally comes into the story. I didn’t hear what he said to them, but I saw the steely look on his face, and they went away. After they’d gone, he said that if they didn’t do as he said, he would kill them all, one by one. He said he’d come up with a plan. He’d make all the boys in our class get into fights with him, which would settle this business of mine once and for all, while at the same time putting them in their place. There were always one or two boys in each class whom the others could turn to. He wasn’t one of these class leaders; he was just fearless. I took his coming to help me as a sign that God had taken pity on me. Really, for all these years I’ve never stopped believing that he was a gift from God, a sign of God’s love. Later on, his mother would curse me, and curse him for being with me and neglecting his studies. Afterward, that evening, as dusk was falling, I stood in his doorway for more than an hour because it was the first time I’d ever felt that I was important in any way. I could bring down someone’s grades, and I was moved to tears.

  7.

  Everything is crazy today, and for some unknown reason, everyone is talking about the past. Talking about the past turns everyone into a poet. I could never have imagined this, not even in my dreams, and I’m grateful to you for not telling me about it back then. I couldn’t have taken it; I can’t even take it now. I wonder why. I used to show up at that run-down house of yours every day because I’d dropped out and didn’t want to study anymore. I often came over at night, wearing that waterproof red sweat suit of mine, bringing you a few treats that I’d stolen from home, all packed up in little plastic containers. I liked you. You were pretty, and I’ve always liked pretty boys, ever since I was a child. You had large hands, and the saddest eyes, and your lips were full and still very red, and your little ass was like an apple. I don’t remember what it was that we talked about. I felt incredibly excited every day, and my heart would always pound. My mother thought I had a boyfriend. One day you kissed me, and I went home and told my mother. I said, Mama, I’m not too young. We’re just very close, really, and we want to
be friends. Mama, is that love? My mother made me go into the bathroom, and she gave me a quick rundown of all kinds of birth control, and later I learned that everything she had told me was the opposite of the truth. My mother and I are equally mixed up. But there was nothing she could do with me then, and she tried her hardest to get me to take what I was doing seriously. Later, you got into college, and I went to see you off in pink plastic sandals, and when the train pulled away, I didn’t think that you would ever come back. I sent you lots of telegrams. I liked the speed and simplicity, the plainness, of telegrams. Those were my first writings. The people at the post office all came to know me, and a hundred or more characters cost me something more than a yuan. Then you came back, and when you told me that you were definitely gay, I slapped you, and this was when my bad habit of slapping men whenever I have problems with them started. It’s a sickness, a wrong I usually commit in a room that is closed up, carpeted, and air-conditioned, and where there’s no music. When a man won’t get together with me, I do lash out, and even though I’ve only done it a few times, I’ve always regretted it, always felt like a failure.

  8.

  I got mixed up in his problems entirely by chance. The smell of the toilets was a warm, dark smell, a terrifying smell. I was also afraid, since there were potential threats all around us. It was a time for questioning, and we often asked ourselves, Why are things this way? It didn’t seem as if anyone was bullying him—at least that’s how it looked. It was a mystery to me. When he showered he used the cloth head of a mop to seal the door because he was afraid of being watched, and I couldn’t stand it. I felt I had to help him. My soul had already taken flight because of that girl. Aside from me and her, you’re the only person who knows what happened, and it’s a secret I’ll take with me when I die. I forced myself to muster up a sharp and steely spirit; it was an opportunity for me. Yes, he was extremely grateful to me, and he developed courage, consciously holding his head up when he walked down the street, and eventually nobody dared bully him. But the threat never went away completely; it was there when he turned out the lights, that scent was our shared history, and it became our shared secret. This is very painful, but also very compelling. He liked to be with me. He and I often walked together in the winter streets. He said that walking gave him a sense of excitement. I remember that on one of the corners of the street we used to walk down, there was a flower shop, and around dusk they always turned on a little lamp. There was something unearthly about the lamplight, and it flickered with a mysterious warmth. The first year I was in America, I sometimes spent entire days longing for that little street.

  9.

  We forget most of what’s happened to us. So how do you explain tonight? Even the moon is waxing nostalgic. And all the world is a poet. Tomorrow night there’s going to be a moon-cake party. It’s in an old 1930s house. I really should be at home tonight so that I can try out a few outfits and decide what to wear to this “party.” Everyone uses the English word these days. Moon-cake party, five-chrysanthemum party, golden stem and jade leaf party. Shanghai is the mother of all “parties.” So many foreign companies have cropped up, it seems as though everyone is living better. I don’t know what kind of fun an out-of-work person like me is going to have, though. When I go to parties on the weekend, I often run into the same bunch of people, even though the locations are always different. I always put a lot of care and effort into picking out whatever clothing, jewelry, and makeup colors I am going to wear, and I need to walk around in a cloud of perfume and to have many secrets. I don’t know why this is all so necessary for me; I just can’t help myself. My old boyfriend never got used to this aspect of my personality. He was always saying, What are you in such a panic about? Stop worrying about other people’s being hipper than you. Is being cool really that important? I said, I’m just trying to blend in. I need to. It’s my way of falling in love with this city, because the truth of the matter is, I never stop thinking about leaving. I’ve always felt it wasn’t right for me, but where else can I go? So now I’m just asking you, please, try to understand me. I want to go to bed now so I won’t have black circles under my eyes when I show up at the party tomorrow night. I need to go get some rest. This doesn’t mean that I don’t like listening to you talk. You can come by tomorrow and put on my makeup for me and pick out my clothes, because I’m too mixed up today to pick anything out. You guys have got me all worked up.

  10.

  Every day I think of you, and every day I wonder. Old habits die hard, and so my sweetheart has lost her heart. Why do you hesitate, all alone? I don’t suppose you’re afraid that the sea will rise up in big, stormy waves. If only flowing water could look back. Please take me away with you. If flowing water could be changed into me, then tears would fall. If I were clear flowing water, I would never look back. Time never stops flowing. It passes by, never to return, and the flowers on the trees burst into bloom, the blossoms so beautiful. Flowers fade and bloom again, but who can understand? I’m a star; you, a cloud. Was our love too shallow, or was it fate that kept us apart? Today you must accept all that lies before you. You love me; I love you. Don’t ask where love comes from, where the wind comes from. Love is like a song or a painted scroll. I hope you won’t forget me. The wind came to ask me what loneliness is, but I’m too young. What do I know of loneliness? Another cloud drifted over and asked me, Is love a kind of happiness? But until I understand romance, how can I know if it’s a kind of joy?

  Kiwi had a long-standing habit of writing down a bunch of words before he went to sleep, and it was more or less the same stuff every time, the same snatches of songs by Teresa Teng and others.

  Later he would take diet pills, and after swallowing them down, he’d turn out the lights.

  The sky broke with a crack, and the shattered pieces of the moon crashed down against the window. Kiwi’s eyelashes fluttered. There are some problems that the moonlight won’t let you forget. The things he always thought about after the lights went out and he closed his eyes and waited for sleep—those were the things that Kiwi had never in his life been able to unravel. No matter which of them he thought about, he always came to the same conclusion: that they were among life’s big, unanswerable questions.

  The early-morning sunlight was very sweet, like vanilla ice cream lightly spread across the sky, a gentle light that didn’t stab at the eyes, but Apple couldn’t see it, because at that moment he was still asleep. He never got out of bed until the afternoon, and then he would imagine the look of the morning’s sunlight, which gave him that just-awakened feeling. That began his days.

  He always felt at loose ends upon first waking up. He might decide to brush his teeth, or he might decide to smoke a cigarette or listen to some music. He always listened to the same music when he woke up: violin, Paganini. Or he might fiddle with his body for a bit and then call some friend or other so he could hear that person asking him how he was doing.

  When this day began, he couldn’t see a thing that was in front of him; he needed his contact lenses. He thought that his eyes looked better with gray contact lenses. But he always stood in front of the bathroom mirror without his glasses, often wondering whether the man that other people saw when they looked at him was the same person he saw when he looked at himself. After all, other people’s eyes weren’t his eyes, and without the aid of a mirror or contacts, he couldn’t have seen himself with his own eyes.

  He could spend a long, long time in the bathtub. Every day it was the same.

  Water was his most trusted mirror, and gazing at the hot water that quietly enrobed him like an invisible sugar coating, he would lie back, counting his toes, often counting eleven or twelve toes floating level with the surface of the bathwater.

  That day he counted and counted until he cried. The only place he ever cried was in his own bathtub; it had been this way for many years. The tears he cried in the bath weren’t in his tear ducts but in his skin, in every pore of his fingertips, knees, and heels, and between his legs. When
he was in the bath, all of his pores opened up, and his tears seeped out. At first he cried out of narcissism or because he felt moved by himself, but later on he might cry for no reason. Sometimes, merely getting into the bathtub would make him start to cry. Occasionally he would turn on the tap, letting the showerhead cry along with him. He wondered, If the shower had eyes, would it be sad? And there were other times when he felt like a tisane of pangdahai, slowly swelling in the tub like steeping leaves, and he would stand up, the droplets of water rolling down his skin and dripping into the bath one by one. This made him feel like a towel that was being wrung out.

  He felt clean.

  Then he might trim his nails, eyebrows, pubic hair, and the hair around his anus.

  Finally he put on his contact lenses. He liked the self he saw in the mirror—virtuous, free, clever, sensual, and young.

  I used to be a lot of trouble, a serious “problem child.” I had problems because I was both ignorant and passionate. I was on fire and I let it show, and during the periods of my worst excesses, I used to say to myself, Take it all the way, take it too far. If you push yourself over the edge, things will turn out right.

  I might be doing something like brushing my teeth and suddenly feel as though I just wanted to die right then, and then, as if my life depended on it, I would try to get in touch with all of the friends from my past. I often focused a lot of my energy on planning my death, but I always concluded that the desire to die was just an urge like any other. Like a common cold, it would come and go.

  Because what would happen to my parents if I died? Whenever I thought about this, I abandoned my plans. In the past I’d never so much as considered other people’s feelings. Love is something that has to be learned.