I Did Not Kill My Husband

by Liu Zhenyun

  The first step in putting an end to the past and opening a new page in her life was to go see Qin Yuhe at the fertilizer plant in town. Her purpose in going the last time had been to trick him into coming back home to kill him. She’d even carried her two-month-old baby girl with her; but when she got there she’d been told that he’d driven to Heilongjiang with a load of fertilizer. Then her younger brother had taken off to Shandong so he wouldn’t have to kill Qin for his sister. Going off like that had likely saved Qin’s life. And if she’d managed to have him killed, where would she be now? Probably in prison awaiting execution, and she wouldn’t have been here today to look him up.

  Unlike the previous trip, when she hadn’t succeeded in finding him, this time she spotted him before she entered the plant. He was enjoying a leisurely beer with half a dozen other men around a table at an outdoor diner next to the plant entrance. She recognized one of them, a bearded fellow named Zhang who also drove for the plant. They were having a spirited conversation as they nursed their beers. To the left of the plant entrance was the pay toilet; the diner where the men were sitting was to the right. Only a few dozen feet separated the two, and both were busy with people relieving themselves, eating a meal, or drinking beer. After Wang Gongdao had thrown out Li Xuelian’s case at court, Qin Yuhe had stopped avoiding her. He was free to once again live life out in the open, no longer finding it necessary to travel to Heilongjiang with a load of fertilizer, free to enjoy a leisurely beer with friends in front of the plant. As far as he was concerned, his troubles were all in the past. No one at the table spotted Xuelian until she walked up and called out:

  “Qin Yuhe.”

  Qin gulped in surprise when he turned around and was face to face with Li Xuelian. So did the other men. But Qin quickly regained his composure.

  “What do you want?”

  “Come here, I want to talk to you.”

  Qin glanced around the table but made no move to get up. He thought for a moment. “Whatever you have to say you can say it here.”

  “What I have to say is meant for you and me, nobody else.”

  Having no clue what she’d come for, he stayed put.

  “I said, whatever you have to say you can say it here. Everybody in the county and in the city know what’s going on with us, so there are no secrets.”

  She thought that over, and made up her mind.

  “All right, I’ll say it here.”

  “Well?”

  “Since there are others here,” Xuelian said, “I want them to hear you tell the truth. Our divorce last year, was it real or was it a fake?”

  Qin was not pleased to hear her bring that up again, unaware that she’d done so in order to bring the matter to an end. All she wanted was a truthful answer, but he assumed she hadn’t given up her original plan of tormenting him.

  “Real or fake,” he said, keeping his head down, “what did the judge say when you went to court?”

  “I lost the case, but now I don’t care what anyone thinks, including the court. I just want to ask if you think the judge made the right decision. Our divorce last year, was it real or fake?”

  Qin was more convinced than ever that she wanted to make things hard on him again. And who could say she wasn’t secretly recording this conversation? His face darkened.

  “I’m not going to go round and round with you. The court made its ruling, so what could you possibly have to say? Go back and sue me again.”

  “Qin Yuhe,” Xuelian sobbed, “you’re a man without a conscience. How can you look me in the eye and lie like that? Are you a man of your word or aren’t you? Last year we agreed to a sham divorce, you know that, so what made you change? And not only change, but team up with others to fabricate charges against me. Why can’t you admit it was a sham?”

  Seeing Xuelian cry really angered Qin Yuhe.

  “What do you mean, fabricate charges? When did I do that? Did the court and all the way up the government ladder fabricate charges against you too? Take my advice, Li Xuelian, and quit pestering me. Keep it up, and things could turn ugly. Even if I had wronged you, did everyone up the line wrong you as well, from the court to the Judicial Committee, the chief justice, the county chief, even the mayor? If you stop this nonsense now, you could get away with having been briefly detained, but keep it up, and you could wind up in prison.” He added, “Are you looking for a fight with me? Or with the others up the line? If you are, do you really expect things to go your way in the end?”

  Li Xuelian had not come looking for a fight. All she’d wanted was a simple statement. But what he said made her blood boil. This was not the Qin Yuhe she’d married. No, he’d changed. Back when she and her truck-driving husband were together, he’d had his faults, but he’d been a reasonable man who’d let her have her way some of the time. But in a single year they’d become bitter enemies, and he’d turned into someone who was hard to deal with. Why else would he be on the lookout for another wife? It was also what made him insist that their private talk go public. To make matters worse, he’d dragged the court, the Judicial Committee, the chief justice, the county chief, and the mayor over to his side, as if they were family, leaving her on the other side all alone. The truth was, what had happened over the past month proved that they had indeed taken his side. If Xuelian wasn’t angry enough by now, Qin Yuhe underscored his comment by spitting on the ground, picking up his bottle, and chug-a-lugging the beer inside. Had she brought a knife along with her, this would have been the moment she really did kill him. Qin’s friend Zhang stood up to make peace.

  “Xuelian, this is going to take time to work out, so why don’t you go home for now?”

  She stayed put and started crying again.

  “Qin Yuhe, we were once husband and wife, how could you be so cruel?”

  She sobbed some more.

  “I’m not interested in courts or lawsuits, and I don’t care about any county chief or mayor. All I want to ask is how you could have the heart to hook up with another woman while I was pregnant?”

  Mention of his hooking up with another woman both embarrassed and angered Qin. He tipped his head back, chug-a-lugged what was left in his bottle, and spit on the ground again.

  “You should be asking yourself that, not me,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Where fooling around is concerned, I’m the one who should complain.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Were you a virgin when you married me? On our wedding night you said you’d slept with someone before me. Are you Li Xuelian, or are you Pan Jinlian, China’s most famous adulteress?”

  That remark thudded into Li Xuelian’s head like a thunderbolt, and if she hadn’t braced herself against the wall, she’d have fallen to the ground. That was the last thing she thought she’d hear. Up till this moment, what had tormented her had been the question of whether their divorce had been real or a sham, but all that seemed to have gotten her was a comparison to the notorious Pan Jinlian. Her attempt to torment Qin Yuhe had backfired.

  She’d been quite pretty as a young woman, and had caught the eye of many men, several of whom she had dated before marrying Qin. Two of her romances had gone beyond the level of a casual relationship, but for a variety of reasons, neither had worked out, and she’d married Qin. On their wedding night, he’d discovered that she was not a virgin, and she’d admitted that truthfully. These days, how many eighteen-year-olds were? But Qin was obviously unhappy, and it took several awkward days for them to put the matter to rest. Or so it seemed. Eight years later, by bringing it up, Qin showed that it still rankled. The problem was, the fictional Pan Jinlian had had relations with Ximen Qing after she’d married Wu Dalang, while Li Xuelian’s sexual initiation had occurred before her marriage to Qin Yuhe, before she even knew him. And, unlike, Pan Jinlian, she did not conspire with a lover to kill her husband, but was herself a victim, when her husband took up with another woman. It was obvious to her that his spur-of-the-moment outburst had bee
n a way to vent anger and cover his embarrassment, not a desire to reveal a secret; either that, or a way of freeing him from an entanglement. But whatever the impulse, she sensed that things had taken an ugly turn. Why? Because it was not a conversation involving only the two of them; his beer-drinking friends had heard every word. The saying “good news never leaves the home; bad news travels far” had it right. By the next morning, word of Li Xuelian as a modern-day Pan Jinlian would spread throughout the county, and by the day after, all over the city. She already had a reputation in both places, thanks to her lawsuit over the validity of her divorce. But Pan Jinlian? That would be a lot more interesting to them. The validity of her divorce was no longer an important issue. What would matter to people now was whether or not Xuelian was Pan Jinlian incarnate. For if she was, then Qin Yuhe had every right to divorce her—real or sham—since no man would be willing to share his life with a Pan Jinlian. Put another way, if Xuelian was, in essence, a Pan Jinlian, then Qin Yuhe was justified in doing what he wished, and she went from being a plaintiff to being the prime defendant. And that was what made his comment so toxic. She had come to put the past behind her and find a man with whom she could start a new life, but had wound up being smeared as a modern Pan Jinlian. Her hopes for a new life were dashed. Who in his right mind would want to marry a Pan Jinlian? As she stood there looking wobbly, supporting herself against the wall, Old Zhang rebuked Qin Yuhe:

  “That’s going too far, Old Qin. That’s not what this is about. Don’t forget the saying, ‘Don’t hit people in the face and don’t point out a weakness in an argument.’”

  He turned to Li Xuelian.

  “Xuelian,” he said, “this is getting out of hand. Why don’t you go home?”

  Li Xuelian blew her nose and walked off, not in response to Zhang’s urging, but because she had an idea. If the future was now closed to her, then she’d have to revise her past. Her earlier revision of the past had been tied up with the question of the validity of her divorce; this new revision had to deal with proof that she was no Pan Jinlian. Up till this moment she’d wanted to punish Qin Yuhe; now she needed to demonstrate her chastity. That was what made it a complex problem: the question of whether or not Li Xuelian was a Pan Jinlian evolved out of the validity of her divorce from Qin Yuhe, and so to prove that she was not a Pan Jinlian, it was necessary to resolve the divorce issue. Two unrelated issues had been twisted, cruller-style, into one by Qin’s comment. Old Zhang’s mention of the saying “Don’t hit people in the face and don’t point out a weakness in an argument” resonated with her, for the other men clearly believed Qin, thus exposing her weakness; in their eyes she was already a Pan Jinlian. She’d come with no intention of causing a scene or tormenting anyone, but that had all changed; the question was, where could she take her cause now? She’d already caused scenes in all the appropriate places—every relevant office in the county and city, where she had offended just about everyone. Bringing legal action had failed her once and would surely fail her again, could even end in her imprisonment. At that point in her thoughts, she made a decision: she’d take her case directly to Beijing. Getting through the days from now on would be nearly impossible if she could not satisfactorily resolve this issue. Here she was surrounded by simpleminded people, but Beijing, the nation’s capital, had to be home to the clear-minded. Every official she’d encountered locally, from Judicial Committee member to chief justice, county chief, and mayor, had turned the real into the sham, the true into false. People in Beijing ought to be able to keep them separate—the real as real and the sham as sham. But real or sham was secondary in importance to the fact that she was Li Xuelian, not Pan Jinlian. Even better, she was the martyred heroine Dou E in the yuan drama Snow in Midsummer.

  12

  Li Xuelian chose the wrong time to go to Beijing. She had no understanding of the capital, nor it of her. She traveled there while the National People’s Congress was in session. The two should have had no bearing upon one another, but because they occurred at the same time, they did. So-called redundant people were prohibited from entering the city when the NPC was in session. Just how “redundant people” was defined no one could say for sure, but was generally interpreted as anyone who might somehow bring harm to the Congress. Trash pickers, beggars, thieves, prostitutes who worked out of hair salons, and people who had come to lodge protests, disappeared from the city streets overnight.

  Xuelian had ridden a bus to Beijing; she’d originally planned to take the train, until she learned that it cost fifteen yuan more than a bus. After a day and a half of bumpy travel, she arrived at the toll station where Hebei province bordered Beijing, which is where she learned that the Congress was in session. A dozen police vehicles with flashing lights stopped every vehicle entering the city to check its occupants; the roadway was cluttered with buses, delivery trucks, minivans, and sedans that had been stopped for inspection. Li Xuelian’s bus fell in at the end of the long queue. Two hours later a pair of policemen finally boarded her bus to check the identity papers and luggage of all passengers; they asked why the visitors were coming to Beijing and demanded to see authorizing documents. The reasons were diverse and colorful: company or official business, commerce, family visit, illness, even someone looking for a missing child … A few of the passengers were allowed to continue on, the others were told to get off the bus, which they did without a murmur of protest. Li Xuelian watched carefully to detect selection standards, but failed. Finally, a policeman stepped up and asked to see her ID card.

  “What’s your purpose in going to Beijing?” he asked.

  She knew she looked nothing like someone on a business trip, a traveling salesman, or a woman looking for a missing child. And since telling the truth was out of the question, she took her cue from a passenger up front:

  “Medical,” she said as she leaned her head against the window, trying to look as sick as possible.

  “What’s the problem?” the policeman asked, his eyes boring into her.

  “A descended uterus.”

  The policeman’s cheeks twitched.

  “Which hospital in Beijing?”

  Xuelian was momentarily stuck for an answer. She’d never been in the city, let alone seek medical treatment there, and knew the names of none of its hospitals or what they were noted for.

  “Beijing Hospital,” she ventured.

  She’d taken a chance on the obvious. The policeman gave her a long look, and when he asked his next question, she knew there must be a Beijing Hospital in the city, and breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Your medical record?”

  That was unexpected. “What do you mean, my medical record?”

  “If you’re going to a hospital,” he said impatiently, “you have to have a medical record.”

  “This is my third visit,” she said. “I left my records at the Beijing Hospital the last time.”

  This time he gave her a very long look before moving on to his next question.

  “Where’s your proof?”

  “Proof? Proof of what?”

  The policeman’s patience was wearing thin.

  “Don’t you know anything? The National People’s Congress is in session, and anyone wanting to enter Beijing must have a letter of introduction from a county or higher government office. You say you’re coming to town to see a doctor, but what proof do I have?”

  Poor, foolish Li Xuelian had no idea that she needed such a letter to come to Beijing when the Congress was in session; even had she known, no county office would have given her one.

  “I forgot that the Congress was in session,” she said.

  At last the policeman got what he wanted. He relaxed.

  “I can’t let you into Beijing without a letter.”

  “But I’ll miss my treatment.”

  “The People’s Congress is in session only for two weeks,” he said. “You can come back after that. Now off the bus.”

  Li Xuelian’s stubborn streak surfaced.

  “I’m not g
etting off.”

  “Why not? Other people do as they’re told.”

  “My uterus is in danger of rupturing. I need my treatment now.”

  Again the policeman’s cheeks twitched.

  “That’s not my problem,” he barked. “Don’t cause a scene. It’s only two weeks.”

  “I’ll get off if I have to,” she said as she stood up. “But it’s on your head.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m not sure I want to go to Beijing anyway. My money’s gone and I’m not any better. Why go on living. You want me to get off and wait two weeks? No, I’ll get off and go hang myself from the nearest tree.”

  Li Xuelian read the identification on the tongue-tied policeman’s badge.

  “I’ve got your number. In my suicide note, I’ll say you drove me to this.”

  He stood there, mouth open, dumbstruck. In the end, he spat out the window and grumbled, “Women like you are nothing but headaches.” He shook his head. “Troublemakers, you’re all troublemakers.”

  With a frown he moved on to the seat behind Li Xuelian.

  As night fell, she breathed a sigh of relief out the window.

  13

  Li Xuelian’s entry into Beijing was a dizzying experience. Her first sensation was wonder at the size of the place—bigger than her village, the town, the county seat, and the city back home, unimaginably huge. She boarded a bus that took her past tall buildings, and more tall buildings, under flyovers, and more flyovers. Her sense of direction betrayed her. Back in school she’d learned that Tiananmen Square was on the northern edge of Chang’an Avenue, but as her bus passed by the square, she discovered that it was on the southern edge. The north-south orientation of her village was no help in clearing up her confusion, no matter how hard she tried. While she was in Beijing, it seemed, she’d have to turn north into south, east into west. But that was the least of her worries. She’d come to lodge a protest, but now that she was here, she had no idea where to go or whom to see. Where did the people who could receive her complaint live? It was, she figured, her good fortune that the National People’s Congress was in session. She knew they would be meeting in the Great Hall of the People, which was on the western edge of Tiananmen Square—naturally, to her that meant the eastern edge—and that was where anyone who was anyone would be found; and important anyones at that. She had a sudden brainstorm: once she’d settled in, she’d take advantage of the Congress to stage a sit-in in Tiananmen Square. That was her best shot at gaining the attention of important members of the Congress.