by Bi Feiyu
Dieting is a lot like ilness. Getting well can be like extracting thread from a silkworm cocoon, whereas falling ill is like the toppling of a mountain. Xiao Yanqiu had been off her diet only a few days when the red needle on her scale bounced back, dredging up more than a pound, like a free gift with each purchase. She’d been in a better mood for days, but as her weight returned, so did her regrets. An opportunity she’d fought so hard for was lost almost before she knew it, a realization that led to a new and crippling sadness. She would stare at the needle on her scale, and her mood would plummet if it edged upward. But she knew she mustn’t allow herself to grieve over the results; she had to beat back the sorrow as soon as it began to form, pinch off every last trace of it. At first, she had thought that her promise to give up the Chang’e role would have a calming effect. But no, her desire to be on stage was stronger than ever. Be that as it may, she’d made a promise in front of Bingzhang, and that promise was like a sword that cut her in two. One half remained on the shore, while the other half was submerged in water. When the water self tried to come up for air, the shore self unhesitatingly pushed her down even farther. The shore self could feel the underwater self fighting for air, while the water self witnessed the cold cruelty of murder. The two women’s eyes turned red from anger as they glared at each other. Xiao Yanqiu struggled both in the water and on the shore until she was utterly exhausted. So she decided to gorge herself, like a drowning person gulping down water. Her weight shot up; the regained pounds not only betokened her promise to Chunlai, but effectively stopped her from coveting the role. For the first time in her life Yanqiu realized that she could really eat, that she had an amazing appetite.
Everyone spotted the changes in Xiao Yanqiu, a taciturn woman who had given up dieting just when her efforts were beginning to show results. No one recalled hearing her talk about what she was up to, but they saw her face regain its luster and her voice rediscover its depths. Some assumed she had not recovered from “tattooing” her voice that time, for a proud woman like Xiao Yanqiu did not give up easily. But the abandoned diet was not the greatest change in her. Nearly everyone noticed that she took herself out of the picture once the full cast rehearsal started. For all intents and purposes, Chunlai was the only one rehearsing now, while Xiao Yanqiu sat in a chair facing the girl to prompt and occasionally correct her. Xiao Yanqiu looked happy, too happy, in fact, as if she had snatched the sun out of the sky and stored it in the fridge at home. Given the circumstances, she had no choice but to put on a show, to overact. As she devoted all her energy to Chunlai, she looked less like a performer and more like a director, or, to be more precise, Chunlai’s personal director. No one knew for sure what she was up to; they had no idea what was ripening and flowering in her head.
Every evening she dragged herself home, exhausted. The fatigue lingered, roiled, and flooded through her body, like thick, suffocating smoke from burning leaves after an autumn rain. Even her eyes were tired; they would lock onto something and stay there, too weary to move on. She often stood up straight and breathed in deeply to rid her chest of the imagined smoke and mist. But the air never reached the right spot, so after a while she gave up.
The dazed look in Yanqiu’s eyes did not escape the attention of Miangua, for whom his wife’s lethargy was cause for serious concern. She had rejected him twice in bed already. Once she’d been cold and detached, the second time it was a case of nerves. The way she acted, you’d have thought that he didn’t so much want to make love as to stab and make her bleed. He dropped a hint here and there, and sometimes was quite direct, but she remained oblivious. There had to be something terribly wrong with the woman’s heart, for nothing seemed to touch her.
7
Bingzhang came to see Xiao Yanqiu when she was teaching Chunlai how to stand for maximum effect. Striking the right pose entailed not only the conclusion of one dramatic mood, but also the silent beginning of another; it had both its own logic and beauty. The most difficult task was finding the right measure of decorum, for that, ultimately, was what art was all about. Xiao Yanqiu had demonstrated the pose several times, and kept raising her voice until she was nearly shouting. She wanted everyone to take note of her enthusiasm, her even temper, and her willingness to show that she did not feel ill-treated, that she was at peace, as if her mood had been ironed out smooth. She was more than just the most successful performer around; she was also the happiest woman and sweetest wife in the world.
That was when Bingzhang showed up. Rather than step into the rehearsal hall, he waved to her through the window. This time he led her to the conference room, not his office, where they’d had their earlier conversation. The previous talk had been productive, and he hoped this one would be as well. In a pleasant, unhurried manner, he asked how the rehearsal was going, though it was obvious that this was not what he had in mind; unfortunately, beating around the bush was too ingrained a habit for him to do otherwise. For some reason, even though he was in charge of the drama troupe, he could not help being afraid of the woman sitting across from him.
Xiao Yanqiu sat with a single-minded concentration that was exaggerated to the point of borderline hysteria, like a woman waiting to hear sentence pronounced. Noting her demeanor, Bingzhang knew he needed to be careful with what he was about to say.
Finally he got around to the topic of Chunlai, and then came straight to the point. He told Yanqiu that the young woman had previously decided to move on out of concern that she’d be unable to go on the stage and was unsure of her future, not because she’d really wanted to leave. A smile burst onto Xiao Yanqiu’s face. “I have no objection,” she said in full voice. “Really, I have no objection at all.”
Ignoring her comment, Bingzhang continued with what he wanted to say: “I should have spoken to you earlier, but I was kept from doing so by meetings in town.” With a self-deprecating smile, he continued, “My hands are tied, as you know.”
Yanqiu swallowed and repeated herself, “I tell you, I have no objection.”
He gave her a cautious look. “We held two special high-level organizational meetings over what we consider a very serious matter,” he said, “and I want to see what you think—”
Yanqiu jumped to her feet, so fast she even frightened herself. Again she smiled. “Really, I have no objection.”
Bingzhang stood up and asked warily, “Have they spoken to you already?” She stared blankly, not knowing what “they” were supposed to have “spoken” to her about. Biting his lower lip, Bingzhang blinked nervously, filled with things to say, but unable to begin. Finally, he mustered up the courage to stammer, “We held those two meetings, and, we thought—they thought—it would be better for me to talk to you.You will take half the role … though naturally, we’ll understand completely if you think it’s a bad idea. But you will play half, Chunlai will play the other half. Do you think this will …”
She did not hear what came after that, though she had heard every word up till then. At that point, she realized that for days she’d been operating under false assumptions, from which she had been making plans. No one in authority had spoken to her. Putting on an opera was such a huge event, how could she decide which play to perform or who to play which role? Everything had to be finalized by the organization. She’d been thinking too highly of herself and overestimating her authority. One person getting half the role was the sort of decision the organization would inevitably make. That was how they always did it: one role, two performers. She was so happy she broke out in a cold sweat. “I have no objection,” she gushed. “Honest, I have absolutely no objection.”
Xiao Yanqiu’s quick and easy agreement came as a surprise to Bingzhang. He studied her carefully and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that she was sincere; he wanted to praise her, but could not find the words. Not until much later did he ask himself how he had come to utter a phrase that no one had used for decades. “Your consciousness has been raised,” he’d said. She nearly shed tears of joy on her way back to the rehearsal
hall, as she recalled the afternoon when Chunlai had talked about leaving and the words she’d used to convince the girl to stay. She stopped to look back at the conference room door. Although she’d told Chunlai in front of Bingzhang that she would be her student’s understudy, obviously he had not taken her seriously. To him, apparently, she was just farting in the wind. And he was right, Yanqiu told herself. A vow from a woman like me is just that, a fart in the wind. No one believes a woman like me, not even me.
A wintry gust blew into the hallway and picked up a slip of paper, which immediately assumed the wind’s form and its substance. The wind blew past Xiao Yanqiu, causing her to shiver. The paper itself was like a Qingyi in the wind, drifting yet wistful, until it was tossed into a corner by the wall. When another blast followed, it quivered, as if both seeking and trying to avoid the wind. That slip of paper was a sigh from the wind.
The weather turned bitterly cold as the opening approached. At moments like this, the factory boss showed his true mettle as a media manipulator. At first, there were occasional reports in the media, but the heat was turned up as the day drew near, until all the media outlets, big and small, had joined the clamor. The noise of popular opinion created its own mood, almost as if The Moon Opera had, bit by bit, become part of the people’s daily life, the sole focus of attention by society in general. The media created a peculiar buzz, telling people that “everyone is waiting anxiously.” Using the seductive countdown method, these expressions of public opinion reminded people that everything was ready, everything but the east wind, that is.
The voice rehearsal was nearly over, and Yanqiu had visited the toilet several times. She had sensed something was wrong as she crawled out of bed that morning, overcome by nausea. But she refused to dwell on her discomfort, since she’d felt much the same back when she was taking all those diet pills. But on her fifth visit to the toilet, she was troubled by feelings she could not describe; her only certainty was that she had something important to do. Her bladder felt full, yet each time she tried to urinate, nothing came. All the time she was in the toilet she thought about that important thing she hadn’t yet done, but still could not say what it was.
The nausea returned when she got up to wash her hands. This time the sour taste drew her back to the toilet, where she threw up several times before stopping abruptly. Ah, now she remembered. She finally remembered. She knew exactly what she hadn’t done over the past few weeks. Breaking out in a cold sweat at the realization, she stood at the sink and counted back. Today was the forty-second day since Bingzhang had first talked to her. Since then she’d been so busy with rehearsals she’d lost sight of a woman’s most important monthly concern. In truth, she hadn’t forgotten anything; the damned thing hadn’t come. Now she recalled that crazy night with Miangua forty-two days earlier. She’d been so pleased, so elated, that she’d forgotten to take any precautions. How could she be so fertile? How could such a little escapade come to this? Women like me should never let ourselves be too happy, for if we are, then what should happen will not, and what should not happen will make a spectacle of us. Instinctively covering her belly with her hands, she felt shame, but that quickly subsided and was replaced by uncontrollable rage. The opening night was only days away. How had she failed to squeeze her legs together that night? Staring at herself in the mirror above the sink, she wrapped up her situation with a single comment, patterned after the coarsest of women, in the foulest language she knew: “Fuck me, a slut who can’t even keep her legs closed!”
What was growing in her belly became her most urgent consideration. She counted the days again and felt a chill travel all the way down to her calves. Nothing could save her if she threw up on stage during the performance. The best solution was, of course, a surgical procedure, for that was clean and thorough and would solve all her problems. But surgery had its downside; pain, of course, but pain wasn’t the worst of it. Not only would it take too long for her to recover, but she might well once again “tattoo” her voice on stage. Five years earlier she’d had an abortion, and it had taken a tremendous toll on her body, requiring almost a month to recover. She could not have another one. Pills were her only choice. They would abort the fetus quietly, and she would only need a few days’ rest. She stood vacantly at the sink a while longer before leaving the toilet and heading straight for the main entrance. Xiao Yanqiu was fighting for time—not with anyone else, but with herself. Each day gotten through was one day saved.
Later that same day she held six small white tablets in her hand, with the doctor’s instructions to take one in the morning and one in the afternoon for two days, then two on the third morning. When they were all gone, she was to see him again. The tablets had a lyrical name—Stopping the Pearl—as if such a lustrous object were slowly taking shape in her belly and hindering her from doing what she wanted. No wonder there were fewer poets and playwrights these days; they were all busy giving names to pills and tablets. Sadness surged up inside as she gazed at the tablets in her hand. A woman spends her life in the company of these things, something that started with Chang’e, who stole the elixir of immortality and flew to the moon. Now she, Xiao Yanqiu, had to follow in Chang’e’s footsteps. Medicine is truly strange, one of life’s oddest conspiracies.
Though she lived some distance from the hospital, she decided to walk home. Along the way, she grew angry at herself, but even more so at Miangua. By the time she arrived home, she was no longer just angry, she was filled with loathing. She walked in the door, gave him a nasty look, and went to bed without eating or washing up.
Yanqiu chose not to ask for sick leave, for abortion was not something to be proud of, and there was no need to spread the news. But she reacted badly to the Stopping the Pearl tablets: she was bilious and felt so lightheaded it was as if she had just returned from the moon. With great difficulty, she managed to make it through a day of rehearsal, but her loathing was doubled; it penetrated the marrow of her bones. The homecoming scene that night was a repeat of the day before, except that the atmosphere was even colder. Her face was darker and more menacing than ever as she walked in the door. Like the preceding day, she didn’t eat, drink, or wash up, and she didn’t say a word before going straight to bed. The house felt different. For Miangua, a wintry wind had gathered at the door and was slipping in through a crack; he stood there listening for a while, unaware of what had happened and not knowing what to do about it.
But Xiao Yanqiu did not sleep. Miangua heard her sigh late at night, when all was quiet. She took in a breath and held it, as if not wanting him to hear, but she wasn’t fooling anyone. He sighed too, but softly. Something was wrong, something was definitely wrong. He thought he could almost see the end of life.
Miangua began to feel nostalgic about the past, and when a person does so, it can only mean that something is nearing its end. He and Xiao Yanqiu were not a good match—like a pigeon settling into a magpie’s nest. He’d come into her life when she was in dire straits. Now she was going back on the stage, becoming a star again. Where does Chang’e fly except up to the heavens? Sooner or later she would soar back into the sky, and it wouldn’t be long before their home was turned upside down. He was reminded of her abnormal behavior over the past few days and could only sneer at the dark night.
Xiao Yanqiu took the last two tablets the following morning and sat at home waiting quietly. At nine, she went to the hospital with a stack of sanitary napkins. The doctor told her to take more tablets, this time three little white hexagons. She swallowed them all and walked around for a while before again sitting down to wait. The spasms began slowly, with increasing frequency. Bending over in the chair, she panted.
“What are you sitting here for?” the doctor said sternly when he came out. “It takes four hours. Go outside and run around or jump or do something. Don’t just sit here!”
So she went downstairs, but the pain was so intense it felt as if something were gnawing at her insides. It was becoming unbearable, and she wished she could find a place
to lie down. Not daring to go back upstairs, she knew as well that she could not hang around the hospital entrance, in case she ran into someone she knew; that would be too great an embarrassment. So, unable to hold out any longer, she decided to go home. Their place was empty, as were all the flats in the building. And as she stood in the living room, recalling what the doctor had said, she decided to jump, to stir things up a bit. So she took off her shoes and leaped into the air; her heels landed with a thud, frightening and energizing her at the same time. She listened intently before jumping again and landing with another thud. Encouraged by the thumps on the floor, she kept it up. The more she jumped, the greater the pain; the greater the pain, the more she jumped. The jumps accompanied the pain; the pain accompanied the jumps. She leaped higher and higher, and her spirits soared. A singular sense of contentment and relaxation spread over her; this was an unexpected reward, and an unforeseen pleasure. She took off her coat, laid it on the floor, and leaped and twisted as if her life depended on it. Her hair came loose and flailed wildly in the air, like ten thousand gesticulating hands. She felt an urge to shout, to scream, but knew it wouldn’t help if she did. By this time she had forgotten why she was jumping. Now she was just jumping, jumping to hear the thuds, jumping to feel the floor groan beneath her feet. Xiao Yanqiu was deliriously happy. She rose into the air; she was flying. Finally, physically drained, her last ounce of strength used up, she sprawled on the floor as tears of happiness flooded her eyes.
Downstairs, a shopkeeper wondered what all the noise was about. Sticking her head out the door, she muttered, “What’s going on up there?” Her husband, who was counting cash, grunted without looking up, “Renovating, I suppose.”
Around noon, the pearl slid from Xiao Yanqiu’s body. With the bleeding the pain stopped, and with the disappearance of the pain she was more relaxed; she experienced an intoxicating relief. Exhausted, she lay down on the bed to savor that intoxication, the respite from pain, and the fatigue. Intoxication took her to a different realm, the respite from pain brought understanding, and the fatigue was itself a sort of beauty.