by Sam Meekings
Everyone has advice, Yuying thought, brief words of wisdom that soon crumble to dust. Everything looks so simple, so clear-cut to them when they do not have to live it every minute of every day. Everyone is an expert on other peoples’ lives. She remembered one of the earlier doctors who had tried to reason with her that Jinyi was lucky, since everyone else in the country was going out of their way to actively forget the past, while he was granted a reprieve from those terrible years. She snorted, and her daughter turned to look at her before she slumped back into her restive state.
Jinyi snuffled, coughed; his unbruised eye squeezed itself open. He looked about the room, his hands twitching at the sheet.
‘Good morning, Jinyi, how are you feeling?’ Yuying asked, her voice calm and clear.
He stopped twitching and stared at her quizzically.
Yuying scraped her chair closer to the bed as she answered his unasked question. ‘Don’t worry, we’re in hospital. There is nothing to worry about. I’m here. I’m your wife, Bian Yuying. And here’s your youngest daughter, Hou Xiaojing. Would you like something to eat?’
‘Nnh,’ he rasped, and recoiled, shocked by the sound of his own voice.
‘A drink?’
‘Nnh.’
‘Do you need to go to the toilet?’
‘Nnh.’
‘Would you like me to read to you from the newspaper then?’
‘Nnh,’ he grunted, and began to groan as he tried to move his aching right arm.
‘Jinyi, no! Don’t do that, you’ll end up on your back again, or else you’ll fall onto your chest and we’ll have to get the nurse to help prop you up. Would you like another pillow?’
He did not reply, his eye closing to a dim slice. His mouth stayed pursed open, the dank, heavy air hissing in and out. His mind was a jigsaw into which the wrong pieces had been forced, his thoughts unaccountable relics of shipwrecks and ruins. Light flickered in from the window as the circular saws burred through scrap. Time was a series of indivisible, unlinked moments – he could no longer connect this strange series of events, order them and call them his life.
Liqui arrived with food and clean clothes, and the women greeted each other with yawns. They spotted a dark stain spreading across the front of Jinyi’s pyjamas and tried to unknot the buttons without disturbing him. They slid them down and off his feet, revealing his pale, spindly legs, the sparse tufts of grey pubic hair, the coiled snail of his shrivelled penis. Yuying dug out a baby wipe and cleaned the sticky mess, carefully anointing his vein-mapped flesh. His daughters threaded his feet through a clean pair of pyjama bottoms, which they dragged up to cover him. Jinyi rasped and moaned, his eyes pressed closed, immune now to embarrassment.
‘Now go, please, Ma. You need the rest. Go on, the house is empty now; you can get a good bit of sleep and come back soon,’ Xiaojing said.
‘No. I’m not leaving him. Not again.’
‘OK. At least go and get yourself something to eat from the canteen,’ Xiaojing said.
Yuying sighed and got to her feet. ‘I suppose I don’t have a choice if I don’t want you to keep on at me. I’ll be back in a minute.’
She bent close to the bed, supporting her weak frame against the metal headboard, and whispered to her husband. He did not respond. She pulled on her heavy coat, replaced her slippers with her flat black shoes, and arranged her bag on her shoulder, delaying leaving as long as possible, hoping for a sign that he had heard her before she went.
‘Don’t forget this,’ Liqui said, thrusting a mobile phone into her mother’s hands. ‘Just in case.’
Yuying nodded and wandered from the room, clutching the fold-up silver phone in her palm. Her own company frightened her – if she was not helping others, seeing herself through their eyes, then she was not sure who she was. The mobile beeped, and she fumbled with it, prising it open to see that it was low on battery and needed to be charged. She should have known that, she reminded herself. The messages she received on the phone were troubling; she could read them all right, but she was not sure how to reply, how to order the brush strokes on the numerals into a coherent sentence, and so the communication could only go one way. In fact, she considered, the whole damn beeping thing bothered her. Phones in houses were fine, the idea of buidings linked by wires tripping through the sky seemed clear to her: making a call was like completing an electrical circuit. But these disembodied gadgets seemed somehow ghostly – like storing a thousand captive voices in your pocket.
She lined up in the canteen in silence. When she remembered how she had once thought – how everyone had once thought – that by changing the way she acted she could help change the world, her lips strayed into a wry smile. Now every little thing she did, from cooking to whispering to washing to holding hands to arguing with doctors, she did to try to keep the world from changing. It was an impossible task, she thought, but that is what we Chinese are good at.
In one corner of the canteen was an old, battered television, playing out a traditional love story in the form of a soap opera. Tinny strings raced to a crescendo as the doe-eyed actors stared at each other. It was a story I’d heard a hundred times before – but then again, those are the best kind. Shall I tell it to you? After all, we can’t stay moping around at Jinyi’s bedside all day now, can we?
Zhu Yingtai’s family were as rich as they were conservative and traditional. Thus when, at the age of twelve, Zhu Yingtai asked her father if she could go to school, the old man did not know whether to burst out laughing or to retrieve his old walking cane to beat such foolish ideas out of his daughter once and for all. After a moment’s deliberation, he chose the latter. However, the bruises across the back of her legs did not deter Zhu Yingtai. Ever since she had taught herself to read, she had spent her days looking through her father’s collection of classical tomes; while her sisters picked at their needlework, learnt how to prepare tea for visiting guests and attended to the silkworms, Zhu Yingtai was carefully turning crisp, inky pages, lost in the intricate brush-strokes. As was later to become tragically clear, she was not the type of person to give up her hopes without a fight.
She took a length of silk cloth and spun it tightly round her chest; she bit her nails down to the quick; she wriggled into a pair of straight trousers and pulled on a baggy jacket; she practised sneering and walking with her feet facing out and her hands swinging ape-like at her side; and she learnt how to hawk and spit. Finally, Zhu Yingtai took a deep breath and a pair of scissors and hacked off her long plait, until her hair was cropped close to her head. Then she climbed out of her bedroom window.
Yet instead of running away, she simply walked round to the front of the house and began to bang as loudly as she could at the gate. A flustered servant hauled the great wooden door open and peeked out.
‘I am an acquaintance of Old Zhu. Please direct me to his chambers,’ Zhu Yingtai said, as sonorously as she could.
The servant scuttled away and, on returning, beckoned her into the entrance chamber. She made an effort to sit with her legs splayed casually in front of her, and began to crack her knuckles as her father swept into the room. He stared down contemptuously at the odd-looking visitor before him.
‘Is this some kind of joke?’ Old Zhu asked. ‘Answer me, boy! What business do you have claiming to be an acquaintance of mine? Do you have a message for me, or are you a beggar here to waste both of our time?’
‘Do you not know me, then?’ she asked, pitching her voice as deep as possible.
‘Enough of this foolishness!’ he shouted. ‘I have never met you before in my life. Now get out of here before I set the guards on you!’
Zhu Yingtai began to approach Old Zhu. She cleared her throat, and spoke in her natural voice. ‘Father, look more closely. It is me, Yingtai.’
The old man peered into her eyes, and was suddenly rendered speechless.
‘Since I have fooled even you with my disguise, surely those who have never met me will also believe I am a boy. Therefore if you let me attend
school dressed like this, there will be no risk of me bringing dishonour on the family. No one will recognise me for who I really am, and you can tell the neighbours that I am off visiting relatives in another province. What do you say, father? Please let me go to school.’
Old Zhu slumped back into one of the elaborate wooden chairs. ‘If you are willing to go to so much effort and debase yourself like this just to get your way, then I see that I am powerless to stop you. I will allow you to go to school, on the condition that when you return you submit to my rules, for the good of the family. A woman should not believe that she can do anything she wants.’
Zhu Yingtai agreed and, after kissing her father’s hand, ran straight to her room to begin packing for her new life. Three days later she had said goodbye to her family and was riding towards the renowned academy in Hangzhou when she spotted another rider on the plains in front of her. Squinting, she could make out that he – for the likelihood of a woman travelling unaccompanied in bandit country like that was small – also carried many bags with him, and was heading in the same direction she had marked out on her map. She broke into a canter, determined to catch up with him.
Liang Shanbo’s first impression of Zhu Yingtai was not particularly favourable. As the sweaty, red-faced young boy approached, Liang Shanbo sighed to himself: great, another know-it-all runt attaching himself to him in the hope that his friendship would stop the weaker boy from getting beaten up after class. Short, gangly, not particularly athletic, decidedly effeminate and with the worst haircut this side of the Great Wall! It was just his luck to get stuck with him for the next two hundred li.
‘Hello there, er, mate! Are you off to the Hangzhou Academy?’ Zhu Yingtai said as she drew side-by-side with him.
‘I am,’ he answered.
‘Oh, great! I’m so excited – I’ve already read the four classics, and I can’t wait to find out more about what we’ll be learning. What’s your name?’
‘Liang Shanbo,’ he replied, still staring straight ahead. Zhu Yingtai waited for him to continue with the courtesy questions, but was met only with silence. She decided to fill it by listing all the things she was looking forward to.
Liang Shanbo began to cluck his tongue against his teeth in annoyance; yet as the plains struggled up into hills, which in turn became rough breaks of bracken and burr, he found some of the shorter boy’s enthusiasm rubbing off on him. Perhaps, Liang Shanbo thought to himself, this chap is not so bad after all. By the time the rain-washed eaves of the school rose up above the cedars, the two of them had told each other everything about themselves – give or take a few vital secrets. When the scholars began the lessons later that week, they even found themselves huddling next to each other on the stone floor, sharing a slim pool of plum-dust ink in which they took turns dipping their slender brushes.
‘Mix the ink stick with a little spit, and then your writing will really shine on the page,’ Liang Shanbo whispered to his classmate while the elderly scholar marched about, explaining how the earth floated in a sphere of celestial water.
‘Thanks,’ Zhu Yingtai replied, and proceeded to show her new friend how to clean the wax from his ear with the brush’s spindly tip.
Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai became inseparable; they were the first out with their longbows in the morning and the last to bed during the long summer evenings when they would test each other’s memory of freshly composed verses as they strolled around the lake. They developed a collection of private jokes and a habit of finishing each other’s sentences. It was therefore of no surprise to any of their friends or teachers when, after a large intake of new students at the beginning of their second year led to shortage of space, they chose each other as roommates.
This new arrangement presented a few problems for Zhu Yingtai, yet she went about solving them with her usual resilience. She developed a reputation for fastidiousness where personal hygiene was concerned, performing her private ablutions daily (a stark contrast to the other boys’ weekly washes), but only once everyone else had gone to bed. She was proud that, after close to three years, despite mutterings about her odd physique, no one had discovered her secret. In their windowless room, where the best friends studied together by candlelight, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai slept top-to-tail on either side of a single stone bed. And so Zhu Yingtai began to wish that her days at the academy would never end.
‘Hey. Hey! Are you awake?’
Zhu Yingtai was woken by Liang Shanbos’s urgent whisper. The darkness was thick and stale, as though they were lying in the depths of a dragon’s stomach. She rubbed her eyes before answering.
‘What’s the matter? Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine. I just wanted to ask you something,’ Liang Shanbo replied.
‘Oh. What time is it?’ she yawned.
‘I don’t know. Anyway, I was just wondering … well, you know how this is our final year and all our studies will come to an end next term …’
‘Yes, of course. What’s the problem?’
‘Well, I guess I feel a bit confused. You have your family business that you must go back to,’ Zhu Yingtai blushed in the dark as she heard him repeat her lie, ‘but what about me? What am I going to do when we leave here?’
‘You should take the imperial examination,’ she answered. ‘You’re bound to get the highest mark in the whole province. Then you’ll be able to do anything.’
‘I know, I know. But what’s the point of having money or power or success if I haven’t got my best friend near me to make fun of me and bring me back down to earth?’
Zhu Yingtai realised that this was the opportunity she had been waiting for. ‘Listen, I have a sister who is close to our age and unmarried. I could arrange a union between you and her – if you two were married, our families would be entwined and we would always be able to stay in contact.’
‘That sounds like a perfect idea. I will marry your sister, even if she turns out to be as ugly as you!’ he joked, and rolled over to go back to sleep.
On the last day of term, after their teachers had handed them specially written scrolls and wished them well for the future, the two friends went over their plan once again. They agreed for Liang Shanbo to travel to Zhu Yingtai’s house for the wedding as soon as he had taken the imperial examination. How could her father possibly refuse her marrying a mandarin? Zhu Yingtai reasoned. The only question was whether Liang Shanbo would still want to go through with the marriage when he found that his old school friend would be his bride. Their horses parted on that same plain where they had met three summers before, and each rode off with the kind of giddy smile that the malevolent gods of fate always seize upon as a provocation.
When she reached her house, Zhu Yingtai was amazed to find a red silk wedding dress already laid out on her bed.
‘Are you surprised?’ her father asked as her sisters stood behind him giggling.
‘Very. How did you know?’ she asked.
‘How did I know? I arranged the whole thing. You will be married to the honourable Ma Wencai next week. I’ve spared no expense – this will be the grandest wedding this village has ever seen! How’s that for a coming home gift, eh?’
‘What? Ma Wencai? Who the hell is Ma Wencai?’ she screamed.
‘Watch your words, young lady! Ma Wencai is a great gentleman, and will soon be your husband, so you’d better start showing his name some respect!’ her father replied.
‘I cannot marry him – I will not marry him!’
‘You will! His father has already helped our family through many difficult times, and put in a good word for us with the local government to enable my promotion. How would it look if I repaid him with a humiliating spite? More importantly, you gave me your word that when you returned from your studies you would submit to my rules. Have you forgotten your promise?’
‘No, father,’ she sobbed.
‘Then stop crying and call your maids. There is a lot of work to be done if we are to transform you in just five days from looking
like a young boy to a beautiful bride. Try the dress and pick a wig, and do not disturb me. I have work to do!’
And with that her father huffed from the room, leaving Zhu Yingtai to mop at her eyes and sniffling nose with her sleeve.
True to his word, Old Zhu had planned such a lavish and elaborate ceremony, with a guest list that stretched into thousands and was rumoured to include the local chief magistrate himself, that news of the approaching wedding soon spread throughout the entire province. So it was that, leaving the examination hall in the provincial capital and feeling quietly confident, Liang Shanbo happened to overhear two of the adjudicators mention a village whose name seemed strangely familiar to him, though he could not work out why. He therefore stopped at the steps to listen to the rest of the conversation.
‘… and suckling pigs, and it seems that there will be some kind of lion dance too. Everyone is going. I’m surprised you weren’t invited.’
‘Huh. Well, it doesn’t bother me. The groom’s family may be all right, I suppose, but I heard that the bride hacked off all her hair in order to look like a man! Whoever heard of such a thing?’
‘I’m sure there’s no truth in that old rumour. Old Zhu is a well-respected official. I’m sure his daughter is –’
‘Wait! I’m sorry, but did you say Old Zhu? From Chicken Claw Village?’ Liang Shanbo interrupted.
The two elderly adjudicators stared at the rude young man in front of them, noting that his face was turning pale. ‘Perhaps,’ one of them answered. ‘What is it to you, boy?’
‘Just tell me!’ he shouted. The old men tutted.
‘Not that it is any of your business, but yes, we were talking about the wedding that will be held in three days in Chicken Claw Village, between Ma Wencai and Zhu Yingtai. You must have heard about it. Hey – steady on now, what’s the matter?’ The adjudicator reached forward to try to catch Liang Shanbo as his body crumpled and he toppled forward.
‘Bring him to my house, quickly!’ the adjudicator shouted to his nearby sedan-carriers.