Lovers in the Age of Indifference

by Xiaolu Guo

  ‘What about the money then?’ Weiming asks cautiously.

  The man opens his leather suitcase, takes out a heavy blue plastic bag but doesn’t give it to Weiming straight away. Instead he says: ‘Let’s go into the park, we need to check the baby is as healthy as you say.’

  It is May; the willows are green, the bamboos lush, flowers blooming. Some old people are doing t’ai chi. Kids are flying their kites as their grandparents run after them.

  The baby boy is now in the Wenzhou couple’s arms. In turn, the wife and the husband thoroughly check him over, studying him like a pair of newly-made shoes. They turn him upside down, check his ears, eyes, teeth, nostrils, fingers, legs, toes, as well as his bottom and his penis. Oddly enough, the baby doesn’t cry this time. He seems to enjoy this sudden attention, and he starts to giggle.

  Finally, the Wenzhou woman is satisfied and asks the young couple: ‘Do you have a name for him?’

  ‘Not really. Just for the hospital registration, we called him Wei Yu – that’s the combination of our family names,’ Weiming answers.

  ‘In that case we will give him a great name, the best name a man can bear!’ The Wenzhou man says in an inspired voice.

  They find a quiet area of the park, beside a lake surrounded by leafy willow trees. There, no one can see what’s going on. The water is clear, red carp swimming on the bottom. Lotus plants grow densely and lush, dragonflies are skating on the surface of the water. The Wenzhou woman volunteers to stand guard and walks away from their little group. The Wenzhou man puts his suitcase on the ground and takes out the blue plastic bag. Grabbing a bundle of money, Weiming starts to count, carefully. From time to time, he also checks whether the notes are fake.

  It takes too long; half the money is still uncounted. The Wenzhou man begins to look impatient, and Yuli gets restless too. She lays her baby on the ground, facing the lake, and starts counting another bundle of notes. After minutes of intense silence filled only with the flicking of the banknotes, they reach their conclusion: exactly sixteen thousand yuan, no cheating. Weiming starts to gather the money, when suddenly there’s a scream.

  ‘Where is my baby?’ Yuli cries, panicked.

  They look around them, but there is no baby, only a suitcase lying empty on the ground.

  The Wenzhou woman is just returning. As she approaches, her face changes colour. All three follow her gaze towards the water. As their eyes settle on the glassy surface, they see a baby sinking silently toward the bottom of the clear, beautiful lake.

  DEAD CAN DANCE

  IT ALL BEGINS with a tube of toothpaste. He doesn’t even know what brand of toothpaste it is.

  It is daybreak and in a half-waking trance, his eyes open ever so slightly. It is as if he’s in a test tube. The room is empty; there is not a sound. Gradually, the outside world seeps in, like water trickling through the walls. Old women are bickering out there and fruitsellers are passing by, and he doesn’t need to open the curtains to know that the sun’s shadow has reached the fifth panel in the fence. Or that the iron railings are covered with countless quilts baking in the sun and that some are being thwack-thwack-thwacked with wooden beaters. He rolls over to find that the girl lying next to him has her eyes open too, as if in deep contemplation.

  ‘Put some music on, will you?’ She sighs languidly.

  ‘What do you fancy?’ he asks as he sits up and lights a cigarette.

  She strokes his slightly bulging belly. ‘You look middle-aged.’

  He exhales a puff of smoke and glances down at his midriff.

  ‘You choose, put on whatever. I just need noise,’ she says.

  He gets up off the mattress. Naked save his glowing cigarette, he enters a plastic metropolis of towers constructed entirely from CD cases. He is engrossed and puts great thought into his selection. He wants to choose something a girl would like. He’s beginning to like this girl lying on his bed.

  His cigarette is smoked down to the butt before he finds something to his liking. He puts the CD in the stereo and the apartment fills with music. Weird music.

  She smiles. ‘“Dead Can Dance”, I like that name.’

  He gets up and turns over the sofa cushions in search of his clothes. So far he has found a pair of trousers, which he has pulled on. He sits down in the wicker chair beneath the window and rests his feet on the table. He is smoking in deep gulps, like a parched traveller in the desert. He watches as the girl disappears into the bathroom, and pulls the curtain open just an inch.

  On the windowsill sits a lily he bought two days ago. It is withered to the brink of death.

  Dead Can Dance. Dead Can Dance.

  The noise infuses the entire room. It sounds like music for a funeral.

  It’s 9.10 a.m. when he checks his watch. He can hear the jets of water ricocheting off the bathroom walls. A couple of minutes later she appears at the bedroom door, her sodden hair dripping. She’s holding a toothbrush in one hand and her mouth is brimming with bubbles.

  ‘I’ve used up the last little bit of your toothpaste,’ she says casually, and then continues to brush.

  He finishes his second cigarette of the morning and stubs the butt out in the ashtray. It’s already full with last night’s fag ends.

  ‘I’ll go to the supermarket next door and get some more.’ He stands up to leave.

  ‘I could go …’ she says as she wanders into the bathroom.

  The sound of running water stops. There is a tinny clatter as a toothbrush is dropped into a cup.

  Then she’s back in the bedroom, where she picks up a brush on the table in front of the mirror and begins to brush her long hair. A constant trickle of water falls to the floor. He can make out four or five strands of her hair mingled with the droplets by his feet.

  She starts to dress, item by item. First a white singlet – she doesn’t wear a bra underneath. As she slips the top over her head her gaze sweeps over the bed. Her eyes are cold, void almost, as she bends down towards the floor in search of a pair of white tights. She finds them and then slides on a blue skirt with a slit up the back. She is skinny, with a childlike body.

  ‘Do you have any change?’ she asks.

  He gives her a five-yuan note. She plucks the note from his hand and walks towards the door, stopping to put on a pair of sandals with precariously thin straps. He opens the door for her and says: ‘I’ll put the kettle on. Once you’re back with the toothpaste, we’ll have some coffee.’

  She does not respond, walking straight out the door, her wet hair wagging against her exposed shoulders.

  After closing the door he notices the girl’s rucksack still hanging from the back of a chair. So she wasn’t leaving. Of course, she’s just gone to buy toothpaste.

  The sound of her sandals slapping on the concrete hallway fades as she heads down the corridor. His mind is full of her moist hair and how the dampness will evaporate in the few moments she is outside under the glare of the sun. He walks to the kitchen, fills the kettle under the tap, lights the gas stove and starts to boil some water.

  Then he wanders through to the bathroom where, sure enough, the tubes of toothpaste, two of Crest and a local brand, all caps off, are shrunken and empty. He tosses them in the bin.

  He begins spreading shaving foam over his chin and moments later his face is covered in lather.

  Unlike the previous times they had met, last night she had been the one to approach him, she made the first move, but now she seems distant and withdrawn. It pains him. And at that moment he decides he needs to make an effort to keep this girl – by shaving, maybe, or somehow preparing for life as a couple, as two people joined together. A life that could begin with a new tube of toothpaste.

  He moves to the small shaving mirror and picks up his razor, then, slowly, begins to shave. The first strokes are from his left ear to cheek, then from the bottom of his neck to the jawbone.

  By the time I’ve finished shaving, he thinks to himself, she will be back from buying the toothpaste.

&nbs
p; The sound of high heels comes from the corridor outside, sharp and rhythmic high heels, thin and slender high heels. That’s not his girl. He carries on shaving, but a hint of anxiety slowly sneaks into his mind.

  Dead Can Dance. The bedroom brims with the melody’s drumbeats, groans and wails. It has the sound of tribal music.

  His mind wanders for a moment and in that second of broken thoughts a crack of blood emerges from the skin by his mouth. He pulls the razor away; with a look of shock on his face he examines himself in the mirror. He raises a finger to the cut and touches it softly, not knowing what to do.

  He rinses the razor under the running water then dabs the wound with a hand towel. He isn’t feeling quite right.

  The walkway is silent now, and he knows she should be back from the supermarket. Maybe she’s leaving the checkout at this very moment, and now she’s sauntering through the entrance, or maybe she’s stopped off at the florist’s to buy some flowers. The lily on the windowsill is withered and women notice that kind of thing.

  He raises a hand and touches the stripe of crusty scab from an old cut in the hollow of his cheek, as the kettle’s piercing whistle grows louder. He walks into the kitchen and turns down the gas. She should definitely be back by the time this tiny flame has boiled the water again, he decides.

  Back in the bathroom he turns to the other side of his face and starts shaving off the rest of his stubble with deliberate clean strokes. As he shaves he has an expression of complete concentraction, absorbed in the task.

  He is now clean-shaven and has washed his face. He turns off the tap.

  He walks from the bathroom through to the living room and stares at her black rucksack hanging behind the chair. It occurs to him then that she has worn this same black bag each time they’ve met, yet he knows nothing of its contents. With that thought he returns to the bedroom. The CD is still playing, the funeral procession still singing.

  He is beginning to run out of ways to busy himself. His mood is starting to alter, ever so gradually.

  His throat feels raw and tickly. He flings open the curtain with intent. The sun’s intense light dazzles him and he instinctively draws it back. As he drops his hand it brushes past the sickly lily and a handful of wilted petals flutter to the floor.

  He sits down on the mattress, lighting another cigarette, an attempt to relieve his growing anxiety.

  It’s his third cigarette of the morning.

  It’s his third cigarette before brushing his teeth.

  When his third cigarette is smoked down to the butt he gets up off the bed and stands. He is utterly lost now and begins to pace, up and down, between the kitchen and the bedroom. Eventually he picks up two cups and spoons a helping of instant coffee into each one.

  And then he sits down on the mattress, again.

  The heavy footsteps of a man wearing chunky boots reach him from the corridor outside, then the hushed tread of old people’s cotton slip-ons and the swift passing of a running child – then cries and sniffles as he tumbles over. But there isn’t the sound of plastic sandals striding along concrete. That pair of plastic sandals, each held on by two precariously thin straps.

  The ashtray is now an overfed and oversized mound of singed paper. He gets up off the mattress and tips its contents into the bin. It is empty only momentarily before it is filled with a new pile of glowing butts.

  Tick, tock, tick, tock goes the clock hanging on the wall and the incessant march of the mechanical hands infuriates him.

  In his frustration he realises – in a moment of clarity – that he likes this girl; or perhaps, even, that he has decided to love this girl.

  He is in agony while he awaits her return. Or perhaps it is the effect of his wait that is a growing agony. It’s the kind of suffering that breeds and multiplies with each passing second. It’s not unlike being shot at, being shot at time and again, in a long-drawn-out gunfight. Not just mental anguish, but physical injury too.

  He sits back down on the bed and smokes. Despair. Cavernous, consuming despair. Waiting, expecting her to return, waiting for her to appear, the yearning devours him. The sense of overpowering desire, of bottomless yearning, only drives him deeper into the darkness.

  The water is boiling and the kettle is screeching. Louder and louder it calls to him, but he does not hear it. He has forgotten the kettle; it is just an object for him, like all the motionless furniture surrounding him. It continues to cry in wretched shrill screams and before long the kitchen is shrouded in a haze of wispy mist, like a volcano before it erupts.

  Time passes, it could be fourteen or fifteen minutes, it could be half an hour, or an hour, even two hours, but for him, it seems an entire century has slipped by. In just one morning he has grown old waiting. He has aged beyond recognition.

  And eventually, time stands perfectly still while he sits there in an empty flat, losing himself.

  The kettle’s calls loses pitch and volume and fades until it is almost silent. He is oblivious to it all. He knows that the generous scoops of instant coffee in the cups on the kitchen counter are still dry. Not one cup, but two.

  The stereo must be on repeat, the same CD continues to play, track after track until the disc finishes, and then starts over again.

  Dead Can Dance. Dead Can Dance.

  Suffering oozes down through the ceiling, every last drop seeping through every inch of his skin. Waiting for a lover who will not return is to undergo an exquisite pain. It suffocates him.

  He isn’t smoking any more. The whites of his eyes are red and he coughs.

  With that cough he knows that his girl is never coming back. She has vanished.

  *

  The kettle in the kitchen has screamed itself hoarse. It waits silently on the gas stove. In the smoke.

  Smoke, like his suffering, is all-consuming and envelops every object in the apartment. It permeates the space between his bones. This fastidious smoke, with meticulous attention to detail, even wraps itself around the empty tubes of toothpaste discarded in the bathroom bin.

  BEIJING MORNING STAR

  Beijing Morning Star

  Current Affairs, here

  14 07 2008

  Due to accusations and criticism from the United Nations concerning China’s human rights record, China’s People’s Court has decided on a reform of the way the death penalty will be administered. From now on the method will be lethal injection rather than gunshot. The officials explained that this measure had been introduced to make the process more humane.

  8.45 A.M., AND Chief Editor Zhang had only just arrived at his office. It was July; he was sweating through his freshly-ironed white shirt. With his half-eaten breakfast in his hand and food collecting in his beard, the Chief did not look very respectable. He turned on the air conditioning, made himself a cup of green tea, sat down and started to check the articles for the next day’s edition. The phrase ‘lethal injection’ made him feel slightly uneasy. His eyes went back and forth along the line: ‘The officials explained that this measure had been introduced to make the process more humane.’ He sipped his tea, swallowed the last bite of his pork and mushroom steamed bun, and called journalist Yu to his desk.

  After a brief discussion with Yu, Chief Editor Zhang rewrote the article as follows:

  The People’s government has been collecting opinions from the public about the death penalty. As a result, the People’s Court has decided on a significant reform about the way death sentences will be administered. From now on the method will be lethal injection rather than gunshot. The lethal injection allows for a peaceful and painless death, and it is fast as well as economical. This method will therefore help improve the human rights record of the country.

  Journalist Yu was happy with the revision, although he wasn’t convinced that lethal injections were indeed cheaper than bullets. But he assumed that the cost issues weren’t important. He went back to his desk and continued working on other articles. After a few phone calls, he typed a news tagline, and showed it to his
editor-in-chief:

  Beijing Morning Star

  Eating Out, see here

  14 07 2008

  KFC restaurants in Beijing have announced that they will stop selling Sky-green soup, as the Health Control Bureau found cadmium in it, an extremely poisonous element which can cause cancer. This means that the only Chinese dish sold by this Western chain will no longer be available.

  Chief Editor Zhang was reading Yu’s article carefully. He knew this Sky-green soup very well – he often ate it with his wife and his ten-year-old son. Now he was surprised to learn this bad news, but even more surprised that his journalist had reported it. Fearful that KFC might sue his newspaper, he immediately altered Yu’s text.

  KFC restaurants have become extremely popular in Beijing, especially with children. They now count as key family dining spaces. Their Sky-green soup is one of the few Chinese dishes they serve, and is a great favourite with all their customers. Unfortunately, KFC have today announced that they are going to stop selling the soup, as some unfriendly chemicals have been found in it that might cause disease. Apart from that, all the hamburgers, sandwiches and French fries have been found to be healthy for everyone to eat and enjoy.

  There was not much time left before the deadline for tomorrow’s publication, so Yu was in a hurry typing the corrections on his computer.

  Then Zhang read and checked articles by some of the newspaper’s other journalists:

  Beijing Morning Star

  Current Affairs, here

  14 07 2008

  On Monday morning, pupils from elementary schools in Beijing took part in the ‘Green Olympics’ programme aimed at promoting water conservation. This session was to promote the slogan ‘Save a bucket of water, let the flowers of the Olympics bloom’. Mass dance formations representing drops of water and flowers were performed. Large numbers attended.

  This was certainly a piece of good and joyful news. The Editor-in-Chief approved it, and instructed the layout designer to put it on the front page, beside another article: