The Noodle Maker

by Ma Jian

  His elder daughter looked similar to most children of the world who share her disability. She had a small flat head covered with thin downy hair, a broad and wrinkled forehead, tadpole like eyes set deep into sallow sockets, a flat nose, and large nostrils that flared with each intake of breath. Her mouth was always open. Saliva and scraps of food would fall from it, drip down her small chin and collect in the creases of her thick neck. Her existence caused him only trouble.

  During her seven years of life, she had acquired a few skills. For example, she knew to cry out when she felt the need to relieve herself, and had learned never to refuse any food or medicine. But she never lost her fear of being removed from the family’s dank room and taken out into the fresh air. Whenever her father grabbed her in his arms and carried her to a place where an open expanse of sky could be seen, her hair stood on end, and her jaws clenched so hard it was impossible to wrench them apart. She had already spent a whole weekend alone in the woods, a night on a stone bench, six days in an orphanage in the countryside, and forty-eight hours on a train bound for the capital. Before each of these unhappy experiences, she would suddenly lose sight of her father and find herself alone. But in the end, she always managed to be rescued from danger and returned safely to the dark room that smelt of mud and rotten cabbage.

  At the beginning of each journey, he had no idea whether he would succeed in abandoning her, but he was determined to continue his war against fate. For the sake of his future son, for the sake of the successful fertilisation of his wife’s next egg cell, he would go ahead with his plan. He told himself that the only reason he looked after his daughter was to wait for an opportunity to get rid of her. For her, each journey they took together into the outside world was an opportunity to prove the resilience of her life force.

  Although he had entered the Party in 1958, and had worked conscientiously for the following thirty years, he was still only a middle-ranking accountant. In the Cultural Revolution, he joined a political cell that failed to keep up with the changing times, and became outlawed by a rival cell. He ended up marrying an activist from the cell that had outlawed his. He made love to his wife in their dormitory room as the bullets pelted through the sky outside. Neither of them had much knowledge of sexual matters, other than the little they’d learned from various swear words, so the wife didn’t become pregnant until their second year of marriage. The doctor told her that the child’s defects were caused by excessive sexual activity during her pregnancy.

  When he reached fifty, he resolved to focus more of his energies on the task of abandoning his elder daughter. He started taking his work less seriously. The fortune tellers had told him that considering the year in which he was born, he would only succeed in getting rid of his daughter if it was certain that someone would take her home and look after her. So he never abandoned his daughter if he thought there was any danger she might starve to death, or come to any harm. His failure in abandoning her was clearly linked to the year in which he was born. He was convinced that if he had been born in the Year of the Tiger or of the Chicken, he would be holding a baby son in his arms by now.

  One morning, he left her alone in an open field outside town. He hid himself behind a bush in the distance, and observed her for an entire day. When the sun was setting in the west, he gave up hope of anyone coming to her rescue, so, faint with hunger, he ran over to her, grabbed her in his arms and carried her back home. He endured all kinds of hardships for her. One day he read an article about an orphanage in a neighbouring town. He took a day off work, travelled to the town and deposited his daughter at the reception desk of the orphanage, claiming he had found her on the street. The director of the orphanage told him the child was not necessarily an orphan, and that she would have to be handed over to the public security bureau. In a panic, the father explained that he had wanted to perform a good deed and emulate Lei Feng, but could do no more, as he had a train to catch. So the director agreed to take the child to the public security bureau herself. The next day, when he was gazing out of the window by his desk, the police of the neighbouring town telephoned him and asked him to collect his child from their bureau. So he took another day off work, much to his leader’s consternation since it meant missing the department’s weekly Party meeting. That afternoon, he waved goodbye to his wife and his younger daughter, who was now two years old, and set off on a journey to bring his elder daughter home.

  (‘You live in your own small universe,’ the blood donor tells the writer. ‘You’re stuck inside your mind, and this suitcase-like flat of yours. We’re growing further and further apart.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We have different values. I have surrendered to reality and made a success of my life. You put on a show of arrogance, but you are a failure, you live off this world’s discarded dregs.)

  Before abandoning his elder daughter, he always gave her a sleeping pill, afraid that if she were left awake, she might choke on her tears, or that her cries might attract a pack of wolves. Since she spent so much time out of doors, he even bought her a plastic coat to protect her from the rain. His wife was a typical Chinese woman. Each time he set off on a journey with his daughter in his arms, she always walked him to the door, her eyes filled with tears. Despite his repeated failures, she always managed to cry each time she waved him goodbye. She fully supported the course of action he had chosen to take. In the past, she herself had employed a go-between to arrange the sale of her elder daughter to an infertile couple, but unfortunately, when the couple discovered the child was retarded, they brought her back and demanded a refund.

  The retarded child was subjected to an endless stream of trials and traumas, but always managed to escape with her life. Before she had taken her first step, she had survived two car accidents and a fall from a third-storey window. Later on, she found herself dropping from her bed onto the cement floor almost every night. Neighbours said that only a child who was blessed could survive so many accidents, and they predicted she would bring the family good fortune and prosperity. So for an entire year, the father gave up his attempts at abandoning her, and waited for his fortunes to turn.

  But nothing happened, and the father became convinced once more that the future the lame man Zeng had predicted for him was cast in stone. The imminent end of his family line weighed heavily on his mind. He knew that if his wife exceeded her birth quota of two children, he would lose everything he had worked so hard to gain: his government job, his Party membership card, his room, his salary. The continued presence of his elder daughter in his family threatened every aspect of his existence.

  In the end, he decided to take early retirement and concentrate all his waking hours on the mission to abandon his daughter. However, each time he tried to get rid of her, he felt his attachment to her grow deeper. In the past, he had hoped she would cooperate with him, and disappear quietly from his life so as to let him try again for a son. But as this hope diminished, she became his comforter and sympathiser. Although he caused her pain, she was the only person in this world who could forgive him.

  As time went by, she became his closest friend. He couldn’t help but pour out his heart to her, telling her about his marital problems, his concerns about world affairs, and the heartache he felt for all the pain he’d caused her. Knowing that she could say nothing in reply, he felt free to use the foulest language in her presence. As he grew aware of the futility of his efforts, he slowly lost control of his thoughts. Each time he attempted to abandon her, he felt as though he were in fact abandoning himself and the future that had been destined for him. But he was still determined to keep trying.

  Sometimes he felt that it was his daughter who was dragging him through the town, rather than the other way round. Before each of his attempts at abandoning her, he seemed to hear her say: ‘I consent to being abandoned. Over the years I have gained my own identity, and through your struggles with me you have learned some lessons about life. A father can fool a retarded child, but a retarded child ca
n also fool her father. I have given a pattern to your life, a rhythm. You must understand that your mission will destroy you in the end. I have taught you things about yourself you would have preferred not to know. In a deranged world, only retarded people can find happiness. I share none of your commitments or responsibilities. I care nothing about the past or the future, or whether your sperm will ever meet another egg cell. I am not even sure whether I exist. If you were retarded, you would understand what I am saying. I wish you would give up this futile mission of yours. You’ve done your best for everyone. You have neither let me down, nor yourself down. There’s nothing more you can do.’

  As people became caught up in the changes brought about by the Open Door Policy, they began to talk less about this father and daughter who spent their lives being separated, then reunited. But everyone knew who they were. Occasionally they would see a man with freshly washed collar and cuffs (you could tell at a glance he was a cadre) emerge from behind the municipal museum, holding a retarded child in his arms. He would cross the pedestrian flyover, then proceed through the new urban district, heading not for the seaside park, but for the open fields beyond. When he reached his destination, he would place the child down by the side of the road, then squat behind a tree ten or so metres away. Passers-by noticed that when he was squatting there, the lines on his face seemed to disappear. But as soon as someone walked over and laid their hands on his ‘lost property’, he would jump to his feet, charge over and scoop her up in his arms. In this town, he became the retarded child’s only protector.

  What will happen to me tomorrow? the professional writer wonders. Perhaps I’ll bump into those two on the street, and see the look of despair in the father’s eyes. The writer’s mind turns to the quiet waitress with long hair who works in the noodle shop where he goes to eat rice congee. He likes to gaze at her. She is brimming with life, but has a reserved and peaceful demeanour. He wonders how he can manage to work her into his novel too.

  The Carefree Hound or The Witness

  His bark often woke me from my sleep. It sounded different from the bark he used during our conversations: it was the bark of a dog. In the two months following his death, his bark continued to wake me. I’ll never recover from the fact that I was not with him when he died.

  (The professional writer strokes his cigarette lighter and remembers the day he had lunch with the painter in the cafeteria of the municipal museum. The painter stared at him and asked, ‘Do you think my dog will be reincarnated again? How come he could talk like you and me? I’ve never told anyone the truth about him before, not even my girlfriend. I’ll tell you now, but you may not believe it.’)

  I never saw what he looked like when he was dead. When I returned from my conference trip, he was already being transformed into a museum exhibit. Secretary Wang, the director of the museum, never told me the story behind his death, he just sent an officer up to my room to criticise me for secretly rearing a dog. The children downstairs told me they’d seen the dog being beaten to death by the old carpenter who lives on the fourth floor. They even led me to the alleged scene of the crime. They pointed to a dirty patch on the concrete floor and claimed it was the dog’s blood. I examined the patch carefully, and discovered that it was in fact a paint stain left behind by the decorators a few years ago. So I didn’t tackle the old carpenter about the subject. One day, Secretary Wang saw a picture I’d taken of the dog and said, ‘Well, if you didn’t want this to happen, you shouldn’t have let your dog piss in the lift.’ I came straight out with it, and asked him whether the old carpenter had been responsible for my dog’s death. Secretary Wang glanced at the door and said, ‘Did that security officer pay you a visit in the end? He was furious to hear that you were keeping a dog.’

  When I asked him again how the dog had died, Secretary Wang seemed to change into a moth. His eyes became smaller and smaller, then he turned his back on me and flitted away through the open door. I could tell that his arse was no cleaner than any of the others I see in the public latrines. When I returned from my conference trip, the kennel was empty and there was no smell of urine on the terrace. The piece of cloth I had cut from the blanket on my bed was still lying in his basket, but it was infested with ants now. When I peered down, the ants looked up at me, then continued to race though the forest of woollen threads, as fast as the people in the streets below.

  I crawled out of the kennel and started searching the roof terrace for any signs of the dog’s presence. The terrace is huge. There are so many chimneys sticking up from it, it looks like a forest of dead trees, or a field of gravestones. Some of the chimneys are over fifty years old and built in the shape of a cross. My room is in the tall clock tower on the edge of the terrace. It has a small window that looks out onto the streets below. Before my girlfriend committed suicide, she often came to visit me. She complained that the terrace was like a graveyard, and the clock tower like the house of the cemetery guard. She hated all the pipes that cut across the roof, she was always tripping over them. But my dog leaped happily across the terrace for more than two years without complaining once, and he only had three legs.

  The clock doesn’t strike the hour any longer. During the Cultural Revolution, a Maoist cell called ‘Army of Millions’ took control of the tower and removed some parts of the clock to make weapons for use in their battles against the rival Maoist cell, ‘The Expulsion of Enemy Factions Brigade’. In the past, policemen all over town used to time their shifts by the clock. You can see its face from any road in the city. Likewise, I can see the entire town from my terrace, including the new urban district by the sea. When I get up in the morning and step out onto the terrace, I can see my former classmates and other people I know squeezing onto buses or eating breakfast at street stalls. Some who’ve made it into the office already and are trapped in a political meeting, wink up at me through their windows. When they finish work, I shout out to them, and they all shout back to me. It’s easier than using a telephone.

  My dog was born up there.

  (This was obviously impossible, the writer thinks to himself. For a start, no female dog had ever set foot on the terrace. The truth is, his dog was in fact born in the suburbs, in a yard outside a private crematorium. Only there was it possible for dogs to produce puppies that were so similar to men. The yard was haunted by the spirits of the dead. The dogs took pity on some of them, and allowed them to reincarnate themselves in their offspring.)

  When I saw he only had three legs, I was overwhelmed with pity and decided to take him into my care. He wasn’t steady on his feet. If he was standing up, I would sometimes prod his front leg and he’d topple to the ground. After a few months, he learned that if he splayed his legs out in a tripod position, he was less likely to fall. The next time I tried to topple him, he curled his lip and said, ‘Don’t waste your energy, my friend.’ I was so startled to hear the dog speak, I felt like running away. But before I’d had a chance to move, he sighed, ‘I’m just telling you – give it a rest.’

  ‘Are you really a dog?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, what are you?’

  ‘A man, of course.’

  ‘Well I’m a dog then. But I must have been a man in a previous life, otherwise how would I be able to speak your language?’

  ‘Which man do you think you were?’

  ‘Go and check the municipal death register, if you’re so interested. Why should I tell you? One thing I will say is that I’ve lived in this town for over a hundred years. I would never have guessed I’d come back this time as a three-legged dog, though. What a joke!’

  ‘Who were you in your past life?’ I repeated, my body still shaking like a leaf.

  ‘I’m not sure. There’s no way of knowing. All I do know is that I didn’t want to return as a human in my next life. I don’t mind being a dog, it’s just a shame I have one leg missing.’

  We got on well together. As soon as I finished my work in the museum, I would run upstairs to the terrace and see him waiting for me outside hi
s kennel. I’d jump over the maze of pipes, unlock my door and let him in. I would paint for a few hours, then we’d retire to bed to read books and discuss various matters of the day. He read nearly every book in my room, apart from the ones on the highest shelf. I forbade him to touch those because I was afraid that their contents might corrupt his mind, and besides, I couldn’t bear the thought of him overtaking me. I also insisted he made sure the door to our terrace was locked before he raised his voice or barked. Three of the museum’s staff, including the old carpenter and his son the plumber, belonged to the dog extermination brigade. If news had reached them that there was a dog on my terrace, they would have had the authority to search my tower then eat any dog they found. They always ate the dogs they killed – their leaders only required them to hand in the dog’s head.

  I work as an illustrator for the municipal museum’s natural history section. My task is to make sketches of all the stuffed animals that are exhibited in the museum. The job is much better than any my old classmates were assigned, so I consider myself very fortunate. After the survivor moved in with me (that’s the name the dog gave himself), I was afraid he might jeopardise my career. So to protect myself, I began to work more assiduously, and stepped up my efforts to join the Party. But the dog died in the end, and all that survives of him now is his beautiful hide.

  (The writer remembers the blank expression on the painter’s face when he recounted his story in the cafeteria. It was impossible to know whether he was telling the truth or not. Perhaps the survivor was just an extension of himself. When the writer asked him if he really believed the dog had lived on that terrace, the painter grunted impatiently and said, ‘His kennel is still up there. You saw it yourself.’)