by Yan Lianke
“Mother!”
I stood in the light, facing the kitchen.
“Where’s your father?”
Mother looked back at me. Steam had condensed on her face, producing droplets of water and leaving her face covered in a layer of red blush. The light on her cheekbones was a sort of yellow, while her hair, which was disheveled from sleep, looked like scattered straw. Her expression had gone from resembling paper from an old book or an old newspaper to resembling a wet rag. Her body was like a toppled tree. She had clearly turned to speak to me, but then turned away again before I could answer. She seemed to have forgotten what she had just asked me, and fallen back into her dreams. She focused only on her boiling water, and the tea leaves she was adding to the teapot. This was Xinyang tea from Henan, which the fat owner of the farm tools shop next door had brought from home. The shop owner had given this to my mother, saying that the tea was heavenly good, and if you add a few leaves to a cup of tea, you can boil them until they are standing upright. It looked as though a small sprout had appeared in the water. It was said that if you drank a cup of this tea, your exhaustion would evaporate and you would become reinvigorated, and if you had a cold and were running a fever, you could drink several cups to get better. People from China’s Central Plains very rarely drink tea, and the people from the Funiu Mountains almost never do so. Only at the height of summer do they boil some green bamboo leaves and drink bamboo tea, which is cooling and helps defeat the heat. But the fat shop owner claimed that her tea not only had the same effect as bamboo tea but also had a number of additional side benefits. She said that her tea was unusually effective in dispelling drowsiness. If people drank a cup they would immediately perk up, and if they drank two cups, they wouldn’t be sleepy at all.
In fact, we each drank one cup, and lost all desire to sleep.
After drinking two cups, we felt as though we could stay up all night.
Our entire family drank that tea. Once, after drinking it, our entire family stayed up all night, chatting until dawn. Mother said, “If people feel sleepy, they should simply drink a cup and they’ll immediately wake up. If they drink the tea, they won’t sleep, and neither will they dreamwalk.” While sleeping, Mother said she wouldn’t dreamwalk, and would help prevent others from dreamwalking. The smile on her face resembled a peach, elm, or tung blossom. She removed the aluminum pot from the stove, then found two teacups and three bowls and said, “Let’s go. Let’s go to the entranceway. We can give a bowl of tea to whoever is dreamwalking.” I stood under the kitchen light without moving. “Father told you not to leave. He said you were dreamwalking, and that I absolutely shouldn’t let you leave home.” I went up to Mother and handed her a bowl of tea. “You should first drink a bowl, and after you do so, you’ll wake up from your somnambulism.” Mother lunged backward, and her left elbow struck the wall, sending the bowl she had been holding to the floor. “You said that I was dreamwalking. Actually, I wasn’t dreamwalking. I was tired from making wreaths, but my mind remained as clear as a pool of water.” As Mother was saying this, she picked up her bowl, and proceeded toward the door of the store. She laughed as she walked. “Tonight, God has been good to our Li family. The entire town is dreamwalking, and our family is the only one still awake. The dreamwalkers are like confused demons, and those who are not dreamwalking are like awake gods. Awake gods are best positioned to help the confused demons, and if we help them, we’ll be able to wipe clean our debts. If they wake up, they will be grateful to your father and me, and to our entire family.” She said this as she walked—taking light footsteps as though she were dancing.
As I listened to Mother, for some reason I began staring at her legs. As a result of the car accident, she had always walked with a limp, but she no longer appeared crippled. I was so surprised that I took two steps forward, and clearly saw that as Mother passed through the gap in the wreaths, her lame leg seemed to have grown a bit longer, and appeared a bit stronger than it had been. It was now full of energy, and could easily support her weight. Astonished, I stood there in the middle of the room and watched as Mother moved some tables back and forth. She took some bowls and cups, and placed them on the table in the entranceway. Under the lamplight, she pulled over a chair and sat down in the entranceway. She scanned the street, and saw that someone carrying a bundle of wheat was coming toward her—making a sound like someone’s dying scream. The bundle of wheat rose and fell, like a boat sailing down a river.
“Now that you’ve gone out to harvest wheat in the middle of the night, you should come over here and drink a bowl of tea.”
The person carrying the wheat ignored her, and instead passed right by. As he was passing in front of her, he switched the wheat from one shoulder to the other. Then, someone else appeared carrying what looked like a sack of grain. He walked urgently, staring straight ahead and breathing heavily. “Come here and drink a bowl of tea. You are very busy in the middle of the night.” The man glanced in our direction, then began walking even faster, as though he were fleeing someone or something. A bottle fell out of his bag and rolled from the middle of the road to the side of the road. “You just dropped something. You just dropped something.” Not only did the other person not stop to pick it up, he remained perfectly upright as he continued to run away.
Bewildered, my mother watched the man rush off, then went to pick up the object he had dropped. It was a baby’s milk bottle and a packet of condensed milk. The packet was printed with an image of an infant so chubby that its cheeks drooped down. The bottle and the milk packet both still had the colorful brand name and the price, and upon seeing this, I realized that the man must have just robbed someone’s store, and had a baby at home that needed milk. I watched as the thief ran away.
I noticed that my mother really was no longer lame.
She no longer walked with a limp, and was now not very different from ordinary people. I’m not sure what time it was by this point. It may have been late at night, or perhaps it was not late at all. The scene on the street was different from that on the riverbank, in that it was still hot and humid. There were some people who were heading toward us, their footsteps as loud as explosions. There were several of them, a large group. They were all in their thirties and forties, and were all strong, energetic, and wild. As they walked, they muttered mysteriously. They were discussing whether to rob the department store next to the town’s train station or the electronics store next door. The latter was called Electronics City, though in reality it was merely an electric goods shop with a grandiose name. The thieves concluded that the items in the department store were simply too random, and even if they grabbed a sackful of goods, they wouldn’t necessarily be able to sell it for very much. But if they instead went to Electronics City and each of them grabbed one item, they’d be able to sell it for several hundred or even several thousand yuan. “I want you to stay in the street and keep watch. Also, pry open a window and stand outside it. The three of us will go inside and hand you the goods.” The person giving these directions was the head of the town’s moving company. He was tall and burly, and normally directed men who were responsible for performing the town’s moving jobs. When the thieves came up to our house, they saw that we had placed some tea on the table in the entranceway, and so—without waiting for my mother to summon them—they each proceeded to drink a bowl. One of the men didn’t drink, and instead appeared as though he were about to fall asleep.
“You should also drink a bowl. If you do, your drowsiness will disappear.”
“Drowsiness my ass,” the burly one retorted, looked at his companions. At the mention of the possibility of getting rich, he became more enthusiastic than the others. Then he turned to my mother. “We are awake while everyone else is dreamwalking. This is a remarkable opportunity.” He was drowsy, but unable to fall sleep. He threw the empty bowl at the stool in the entranceway, where it made a clattering sound as it spun around. Then he told his companions to follow him. Usually, they would move things to other people�
��s houses, but this time they were moving things back to their own homes. The men’s faces trembled with excitement. They were carrying bundles they had made from bedsheets or sackcloth, and either had hooked them at the waist or were carrying them in their hands.
In front of the shop, everyone was nervous as though the air were too thin.
Out in the streets, everyone was nervous as though the air were too thin.
My palms were so sweaty, they resembled pools of water. “Relax,” the burly one said. “No one is going to rob your family’s funerary shop.” After they finished drinking, they left. And as they were leaving, they turned and said, “You can go to sleep. Stealing from your family’s funerary shop would be as bad as stealing from a grave. No one in the entire town, or even the entire world, would want to come and steal a wreath from your shop and put it up at home.”
After they said this, there was a laugh. A hearty laugh. A crazy laugh. It sounded like a firecracker exploding in the quiet night. They walked away. The entire world fell quiet. In this momentary stillness, however, there was an anxiety that could not be dispelled. My mother’s face was pale with fear. Her eyes no longer appeared blank as though she were sleeping, and instead it appeared she had woken up. In fact, she had just woken up. Those five or six men had woken my mother from her dreams. Mother pushed the hair out of her face, and looked in the direction of the men. “They are thieves. They have gone to rob someone.” I couldn’t tell whether she was asking me this, or simply talking to herself. “My God, we have to take some of this tea to all the families in town. If they drink it, they will no longer be drowsy, and they can guard their property. They can guard against all of that deadly activity.” As she said this, she went back into the house. It looked as though she wanted to get something. She took rapid steps—both light and powerful.
That night, it really did appear as though my mother was no longer crippled. She appeared even and balanced, as though she were wearing perfectly fitting clothes. She walked briskly back and forth, as though she were flying.
2. (1:11–1:20)
During the night of the great somnambulism, stealing things was as easy as simply leaning over and picking them up.
Electronics City was located about a hundred paces east of our house. If you turned west, however, just before you arrived at the town’s train station, there was more tumult. As the thieves approached Electronics City, they saw it was located between a convenience store and a wineshop. It was a three-room house, with two windows and a door. The thieves agreed that they should break the door and windows, and go inside. They weren’t carrying any hammers or drills, but claimed they didn’t need them. The lamp inside was as bright as the sun, and light streamed out the windows as though the sun were rising in the east. In the lamplight, they could see a drop of saliva dangling from the corner of the owner’s mouth, as he appeared to sleep. The owner was in his fifties, with a round face and a slightly hunched back. When he spoke, delight was visible in the corners of his mouth, and when he didn’t speak, happiness was still visible in the corners of his mouth. When people came to buy appliances, he would smile, and if they merely looked around without purchasing anything, he still smiled. The display shelves were arranged against the wall, and there was a large as well as a small one. The large shelf had television sets, while the small one had a variety of small appliances. There were also some refrigerators, but the owner rarely sold any of those. In town, people had begun using electric rice cookers, irons, and fans. There were also light bulb plugs and sockets. These items were all carefully placed on display. The owner had nothing else to do, and he would always be dusting those display cases with a feather duster. In this way, he swept out the thieves, who stood in astonishment in the entrance to his store. It turned out that this owner was not asleep, and instead was now dusting his goods with the lights on. The thieves stood in the darkness in front of the store, then decided not to take the risk of trying to steal from there. Instead, they decided to continue on and steal from whichever houses didn’t have any lights turned on. But as they were about to depart, the owner came out and stood in his doorway. “Don’t leave! Even if you don’t want to purchase anything, you should still come inside and take a look.” He sounded as friendly as though he were speaking to a neighbor or his own brother. In the end, they were all from the same town, and they all knew one another as if they were brothers or neighbors. “We have no choice but to leave.” The big burly one gestured to his companions. But the owner took two steps outside and waved his feather duster in the air. “It’s time for the wheat harvest, and the weather is very warm. I therefore haven’t had any business for days. Please come in, so that I can have some business. Come in so that I can have some business.”
They all stood motionless.
One of the bolder ones walked over toward the entrance to the store, and waved his hand in front of the owner’s face. He then went back out and stood in front of the burly one. “Damn it, it seems he is dreamwalking. He was originally my neighbor, but now he views me as merely a customer.” The man’s burly companion stared in surprise, then laughed. He waved, and led the others to the lighted area in front of the store, where they saw that the owner was, indeed, smiling. He was staring straight ahead, and although he was smiling, his eyes didn’t light up. The whites of his eyes exceeded the black portions, and he would periodically lift his hand and rub his eyes. “Come inside and look. Regardless of whether or not you plan to buy anything, you can still come inside and take a look.” Then, smiling, he rubbed his face with both hands. “Whenever fieldwork is at its peak, business at my store becomes as cold as the dead of winter, and sometimes I may go for several days without selling anything. At the end of the month, however, I still need to pay rent on the land.” This building was one that the owner, Wan Ming, had built himself. At the time he built the house, the thieves were not yet thieves, and they had all come over to lend him a hand. But now, in telling them that at the end of the month he would need to pay his rent, he was treating them as though they were total strangers. When people started dreamwalking, they entered a different world.
The tall one waved his hand in front of the owner’s face. His eyes looked as though he were asleep, and he wasn’t even blinking.
“Do you want to buy anything? If you do, I can give you a discount.”
“How much of a discount?”
“That depends on how much you want to buy.”
“I’ll buy a television set.”
“What size?”
“This one. It has a twenty-nine-inch screen.”
When they first saw each other, the thief had addressed the owner as Boss Wan. But now the owner treated these men as though they were total strangers. He was in a dreamworld while they were in the waking world. In his mind, he was a businessman eager to sell his goods, while they were customers who had come to buy his goods. “I noticed this television set . . . I noticed this refrigerator . . . If you can sell them to us cheaper, each of us would buy one.” Originally, in bartering with him the men were simply trying to waste some time while waiting for their opportunity to rob the store. But Wan Ming asked if they were each willing to purchase something, and added that, if so, he would be happy to give them a discount. “I can sell them to you for a thirty percent discount. Thirty percent off is my lowest possible offer, and even in your dreams you won’t find anything so cheap. As long as each of you purchases at least two thousand yuan worth of goods, I’ll make sure that you get everything for thirty percent off . . . This is cheap . . . Dirt cheap . . . So, will you buy anything? If so, you can go select your goods, and while you are doing so, I’ll have a drink of water.” As he said this, he turned and proceeded toward the counter, but walked right into it. “Damn it. I’m falling asleep. It’s too hot, and I can’t see anything. If you want, you can come in and I’ll shut the door and go to sleep.”
He did, in fact, sit down on a stool and, leaning against a cabinet, proceeded to fall asleep, his hand still resting on th
e glass.
The sound of early morning snoring resonated through the store like a swarm of mosquitoes. The thieves were startled and delighted, and it was as if each of them had a bird’s nest full of eggs sitting on his head. They all felt warm and happy. The one who had been standing in front of the televisions pretending to select one, initially reached for a television set but then paused and smiled. The man who had been pretending to examine an electric rice cooker turned around and placed the rice cooker under his arm, but when he noticed that everyone else was standing in front of the refrigerators and television sets, he dropped his rice cooker and went to stand in front of the television sets as well.
In this way, they all stole what they needed, and in the blink of an eye they had emptied out the entire store.
3. (1:21–1:50)
In addition to the aluminum pot Mother had just prepared, she boiled another pot of water for tea.
In the first pot, she had placed seven or eight pinches of tea leaves, and in the second she placed two large handfuls. This freshly brewed tea was as thick as Chinese medicine. It was dark red, and was steaming. The tea leaves were floating on the surface, like sticks drifting down a river. “Take this bowl to the house of the man you call Fifth Grandpa, on the next street over. Take it, so that whoever in his family is drifting off can drink some. Tell his relatives that they absolutely must not let those in their family fall back asleep, because if they do, they will start dreamwalking—and if they start dreamwalking, there’s no telling what might happen.” I didn’t respond, nor did I move a muscle. I simply stood there and looked into Mother’s eyes. At this point, Mother’s eyes did not appear in the least bit sleepy. Instead, they resembled a couple of dried-up ponds that had been refilled with water. I don’t know whether that pair of grayish-white dreamwalking eyes had been startled awake by someone, or had been woken by the steam from the tea. The wrinkles around Mother’s eyes were so numerous and so deep that they resembled trenches. “Take this over to them.” My mother took a step forward, and waved that bowl of tea in front of me. “Your father has let them down, and your uncle has also let them down. If we send them a bowl of tea, our debts to them will be met, and we will no longer owe them anything.”