Hard Like Water

by Yan Lianke

  As I was staring at my wife, it occurred to me that this would be an opportunity to kill her. At that point, this idea was still vague and inchoate, but it was then that the idea of killing her first began to germinate in my mind. In the end, however, I remembered I was a revolutionary humanist, and for a long time afterward I didn’t return to this thought. That night, I grew tired of staring at her, as I waited until she, too, had seen enough of me. Only then did I pull up the sheets that had fallen off the bed and say, gently, “Go to sleep, Guizhi. Tomorrow I’ll take you back to Chenggang.”

  I didn’t even touch her feet that night, despite the fact that we hadn’t seen each other for two years. But the next day, I didn’t send her off after all, and instead the following night I acceded to her request. She wanted to get pregnant, so I did as she asked and got her pregnant. She subsequently gave birth to a baby girl named Honghua. At this point, you must have noticed our family’s revolutionary spirit? My given name is Aijun, meaning “love the army”; my son’s name is Hongsheng, or “born red”; and my daughter’s name is Honghua, or “red blossom.” Ours is truly a revolutionary family! In fact, my family’s political status was so resplendent that it could blind many onlookers. Our children’s grandfather had been bayoneted by Japanese devils, and their father had served in the People’s Liberation Army. Our children, meanwhile, were born under the red flag, grew up under the red flag, and should have become exemplary revolutionary successors. But fate had arranged for their father to meet Xia Hongmei.

  It was love and revolution that would take their lives and the life of their mother, just as it was the Japanese who chopped off my father’s head and hung it from Chenggang’s outer gates.

  3. Red Music

  The Baiyun county train station consisted of a single two-story building, where a train would stop for just one minute each day. The railroad tracks, meanwhile, seemed to extend forever in both directions. In the fourth lunar month of that year, our army regiment dismissed and replaced its entire staff for political reasons, and I was demobilized. Chenggang was located seventy-nine li from the county seat, and I disembarked from the train just as the sun was about to set. In order to make it to the People’s Armed Forces department the next day and complete the requisite demobilization paperwork, I had to stay overnight in the county seat. That night, just as the political situation was transforming in such an extraordinary manner, my love life reached a new vista. I was illuminated by a great sunbeam of love. You tell me: Was this not fate? Was this not an example of what is often described as revolution reaching a crucial turning point?

  In the county seat, I stayed in a guesthouse at the People’s Armed Forces department. For twenty cents, you could rent a room with a single bed, and fifty-five cents would get you a larger room with four beds. Generally speaking, prices tend to go through the roof at revolutionary moments. This is a historical rule. However, given that I had come to complete my demobilization paperwork, regulations stipulated that I be permitted to stay there for free. For forty-five cents, I was able to go to a state-owned canteen and purchase a bowl of my hometown’s mutton stew, which I hadn’t tasted for the longest time, as well as a bowl of beef soup and two baked biscuits. After I had successfully stuffed my belly, I saw that the sun hadn’t fully set yet, and therefore—not having anything else to do—I proceeded to wander aimlessly through the streets. The county seat was no longer as vibrant and bustling as it had been before I joined the army. Light from the setting sun shone down on the shops’ front doors, and both sides of the street were filled with a clattering sound. Previously there had been several factories in the area—including a rope factory, a cork factory, and a textile factory that made gloves for all the workers in the other state-run factories in the nearby city of Jiudu—but now barely anyone could be seen near these buildings. After the factories closed down, the empty buildings just sat there with their courtyards full of logs and rusting iron, like women who had died in childbirth. Yet the county seat was still the county seat, and the streets remained as wide as before. The roads were still paved in brick, and some old people could still be seen leisurely walking home with baskets of vegetables. The only difference was that the walls on both sides of the street were now plastered with big-character posters full of people’s names with red Xs over them. This was not a new sight for me, and instead it simply signaled that the revolution had already begun to gather momentum here. Many young people wearing armbands brushed past me, as though rushing to attend a meeting. I was envious of the fact that they were from the city, and regretted that I wasn’t one of them. If only I were the leader of their organization! If only they were all rushing to hear me lecture about the revolution! I watched as, one after another, they rushed past me—and as they did, I saw how their eyes would linger on me. I knew they were envious of my green army coat, and I was concerned that one of them might rip off my coat or grab my hat. I didn’t stay in the street for very long and instead slowly headed out of town.

  I followed the train tracks like the hero of a revolutionary epic. The scenery was quite beautiful, with a high sky and sparse clouds. There were no geese flying south, and in the twilight, cattle were feeding from their troughs. An old man was leading some sheep over from the railroad tracks, and as he came over from the vast wheat fields, the bleating of sheep resonated in my ears like a song. The county seat grew increasingly distant, even as the setting sun grew increasingly close. As the bright red sunrays shone down on the railroad tracks, they made a sound like water dripping onto sand. I walked along the tracks until, in my lonely and uncultivated heart, I heard that sound of loneliness growing louder and louder, and I abruptly came to a halt.

  I saw that someone was sitting on the train tracks in front of me. Her face was as rosy as a morning sun, and her jet-black hair hung down over her pink blouse. In the distance were black trees and light green crops, and the smell of dirt, grass, and wheat drifted over from the field at the base of the hills. At first I saw only a figure sitting on the tracks; it was only after taking several steps forward that I was able to make out her long hair and women’s clothing. When I realized it wasn’t a man, I hesitated for a moment before approaching. Chairman Mao famously said that women hold up half the sky, but now I realized that it must have been precisely in order to wait for me that she had been sitting there holding up half the sky all day. She must have been waiting for me. I walked toward her, and she turned to me. I was startled by her expression, which resembled the expression girls have when they feel ignored. It was as though just a few days earlier she had been soft and delicate—like a vine-ripened fruit that accidentally got crushed when someone tried to pick it. Her face had an exhausted pallor. I could see that she was from either the city or the suburbs, given that she was wearing a pink blouse made from a synthetic fabric that you wouldn’t find in rural areas at that time. I stood a meter or so in front of her and noticed she was staring intently at me.

  She was staring at my new army coat.

  I noticed she was wearing a pair of imitation army pants.

  She said, “We should learn from our People’s Liberation Army comrades.”

  I replied, “PLA soldiers must learn from all the nation’s citizens. I’ve already been demobilized but haven’t completed the paperwork yet.”

  She said, “If you haven’t completed the paperwork, then you are still a PLA soldier.”

  I hadn’t expected that she would gush with respect for me or that she would treat me as a model for the entire nation to emulate. I sat down on the tracks across from her—facing her the way I would face our political instructor when he came to address us soldiers in the army. I replied that we had already eliminated all the enemies we could see, but perhaps there still remained some we couldn’t see? I asked her if she wasn’t afraid, sitting here all alone? She replied that heaven is the People’s heaven, and the earth is the People’s earth, so what was there for her to be afraid of? As long as the American imperialists and Soviet revisionists don’t inv
ade, what is there to fear? I replied that even if American imperialists and Soviet revisionists were to invade, I still wouldn’t be afraid—because when faced with our People’s Liberation Army, the Americans and Soviets were but paper tigers. Then I waited for her to ask me my name, where I lived, and in which regiment I had been stationed, after which I would reciprocate by asking her name and where she worked. However, she just kept staring at me, then said something that made my heart leap and my clothes ache.

  “Could you give me an article of clothing from your uniform? In exchange, I’m willing to give you five yuan and a ration coupon for a meter of fabric.”

  Embarrassed, I stammered, “My class compatriot, I’m truly sorry, but when I was demobilized I was given only two sets of clothing. Everyone who is demobilized gets only two sets. One is for me to wear, while the other I promised to give to my militia battalion commander.”

  She burst out laughing. “Revolution is not a dinner party. If you don’t have any army clothing to spare, that’s fine. After all, why would anyone give a perfect stranger such a valuable item?”

  When she said this, I felt overwhelmed with guilt. It was as though I would be letting down Chairman Mao and the Central Committee of the Party if I didn’t give her the clothing. I bowed my head and gazed down at the weeds growing through the gaps between the railroad ties. There were fairy bells and mugwort. A muddy, semiopaque mist lingered between us. After the sun set, we could hear the sound of the mist condensing and dripping down. The county seat was off to one side, and the village was also far away, at the base of the hill. It was as if this woman and I were the only people left in the entire world, together with the weeds and the wheat, the air and the solitude. As the time was rolling by between us, the large, round footprints of history appeared between the railroad ties. I saw that she was wearing a pair of foreign-looking black velveteen shoes with aluminum buckles, which sparkled in the sunlight like the Big Dipper.

  Mountains—

  Great waves surging in a crashing sea,

  A thousand stallions,

  In full gallop in the heat of battle.

  Inside, a fierce battle was bubbling up, like boiling water for tea, while outside everything was as calm as still water. I stood there motionless, staring at her feet. She asked me, “What do you see?” She stuck out one foot and waved it back and forth, then wiggled her big toe such that the top of the shoe rose and fell. As she was doing this, her beautiful face began to blush, as though, at the touch of her partner’s hand, she had fallen in love for the first time.

  “I wasn’t looking at your feet,” I said. “I was noticing that not a single one of the stones in the bed of these rail tracks is round.”

  She said, “You were looking at my feet. I saw you staring at my toes.”

  I asked, “What’s so attractive about your toes?”

  At that moment, heaven and earth were startled, and the spirits wept. When you fight with heaven you mustn’t fear the wind and rain, when you fight with the earth you mustn’t fear deep gullies and ravines, and when you fight with other people you mustn’t fear that they might use underhanded tactics.

  She unbuckled and removed her shoes. In the blink of an eye, all ten of her toenails were revealed. Heaven, oh heaven! Earth, oh earth! Those toenails were painted in brilliant red, like miniature setting suns. They were all carefully trimmed—as round as crescent moons and as beautifully tender as the bright red tips of her fingers. I was startled. I knew that her nails had been painted with a polish made from crushed safflower. I saw the pink mist and could smell the rosy scent of a woman’s fragrance. There was a semi-pungent odor of grass and earth too. People often say that no matter how great heaven might be, it cannot contain one’s love, and regardless of how expansive the earth might be, it cannot contain one’s affection. However, in this world, only revolutionary emotion is heavy, because the revolutionaries’ bonds are taller than mountains and deeper than the ocean. Even the tallest mountain and the deepest ocean cannot compare with the breadth and the depth of a revolutionary’s love at first sight. What kind of person should one try to be? One should strive to be honest. To be honest, at that point I felt as though an unspeakably beautiful flower was blooming inside my heart. But that flower was making a sound like a car driving through my chest. She pursed her lips and stared at me, as though she were about to give me a test. In a single movement, she slid down off the tracks and extended her feet outward. Heaven, oh heaven! Earth, oh earth! She was using the radiance of those ten suns to bake my heart.

  I felt an electric shock. Her beautiful feet were white with dark tan lines, and in some places the two skin tones mixed together to yield a purplish-red color. The parts of her feet that were normally inside the shoes were so white that they appeared bloodless. The red nails appeared thicker against that white background, and against their red thickness, her white feet appeared even thinner. If this is what her feet were like, then what might her calves, her thighs, and the rest of her body be like? Could the rest of her be even more tenderly white than her feet? I too slid down from the tracks, as though I had been seduced, and sat opposite her. I spread my legs so that her legs were between mine, pointing toward my chest. I don’t know what my expression was like at that point; I just know that my heart was pounding and a river of blood was rushing through my veins. Even though there was no enemy secretly directing me, my hands trembled violently as I fumblingly reached out to touch her legs, as though I were exhausted from a long march. At that moment—at that great and divine moment—just as I was caressing her blood-red toenails, she pulled her feet away. The air between us suddenly grew chilly, though heaven and earth kept spinning. After a brief pause, however, the frozen gulf between us began to melt again, and small green shoots began to sprout. She held her legs back only for a moment and then, with a bashful smile, slowly extended them again. At that point, the railroad tracks’ endless desolation warmed us up, just as the countryside’s endless desolation boiled and burned us. The sun was blindingly bright, and it shone down on the fields like an enormous red-silk bedsheet draped over the land. A sparrow and a swallow had landed on the railroad track next to us and were chirping happily. I gently grasped her feet as though holding a flower in my mouth, placed them on my crossed legs, and with a trembling hand reached out to caress her red toenails. I began with her left foot and proceeded to her right, moving from her pinky all the way to her big toe. I could feel her toes trembling in my grasp and could feel the blood rushing through her veins. I stroked her toenails dozens—maybe hundreds—of times. I stroked them until the redness was as thin as a sheet of paper and until the floral fragrance of the nail polish was gently radiating from my fingertips. Following that gentle fragrance, there was a strong pink odor of woman’s flesh, which pelted my head like raindrops. I was overcome by that red nail polish and that intoxicating scent and was so ecstatic that I felt I might pass out. My lips were trembling and my teeth were chattering. I began madly kissing her feet, proceeding from her pinky to her big toe and from her toes up to the top of her feet. But as I was kissing her, she once again pulled her feet out of my grasp.

  We stared at each other, our gazes like blood-drenched swords.

  It was at that moment that we heard a blast of opera music from the village’s loudspeakers. First there was a bright red song, followed by countless cries and screams, as though from a mental asylum. From every direction, loudspeakers were broadcasting songs and slogans, and the loudspeakers from the village closest to us were broadcasting songs that were loud and bright, new and red, with sparkling lyrics, every word of which cascaded down like water flowing over a tall cliff onto the rocks down below. The musical notes shone and sparkled like silk, and each note was like a water droplet shattered by the lyrics. I saw her listening to a very familiar song, one I couldn’t name at that moment. She appeared very excited, as though the melody were flowing like a wave over her face and directly into her veins. She remained frozen throughout the song and the announcement
, staring intently in the direction of the village behind me. Her face resembled a wet red cloth that has frozen solid after being hung out to dry in the middle of winter. At some point she had put her hands over the shirt button directly below her neck—as though she wanted to unfasten it but was unable to do so because I was standing in front of her. Her fingertips were trembling as if she had touched a red-hot piece of iron, and as she tapped that reddish-yellow button it produced a faint sound of flesh on metal. I wanted to figure out what that loud familiar song was, and therefore perked up my ears and listened. At that point, I realized that the easternmost loudspeaker was playing the black-iron and white-steel song “Carry Revolution to the End”; the westernmost loudspeaker was playing the clatteringly strong song “Overthrow the Reactionary American Imperialist and Soviet Revisionist Party”; the southernmost loudspeaker was playing the song “Dragons and Tigers Race to the Top”; while the northernmost loudspeaker was playing the red-filled-with-green-fragrance song “Please Drink a Cup of Buttermilk Tea” and the salty-sweat-and-tears song “Denouncing the Evil Old Society.” Coming down from above was the earthy-smelling song “Not Even Heaven or Earth Are as Vast as the Kindness of the Party,” while coming up from underground was the silken jumping-and-laughing sound of “The Sky of the Liberated Areas Is Bright.” All these lyrics were so familiar that I could recite them word for word, and if I heard a single line I could sing the entire rest of the song. But for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what that loudest, brightest, most moving, and passion-inducing song was, the one that was playing overhead, behind me, in front of me, and on all sides. Needless to say, she was similarly agitated by these songs, and she infected me with her agitation. I wanted to ask her what that oh-so-familiar song was, but just as I was about to do so, I noticed that her eyes—with which she was staring at my lips—had turned light purple. She had unfastened her top button, and now both of her hands were trembling over the second button.