Leave Me Alone

by Murong Xuecun

  Fatty Dong spoke in the manner of an executive. ‘Chen Zhong, don’t get excited. I’ve done everything by the company regulations.’

  ‘Please be clear,’ I said. ‘Just say whether or not you want to do this promotion. If you don’t want to do it any more, I’ll call up the Sichuan Petrol Company.’

  Fatty Dong hesitated before angrily signing the expenses form.

  After I’d got the money from accounts I called Zhao Yue and told her I’d treat her to dinner at the Jinjiang Hotel but she sounded less than enthusiastic. Zhao Yue was always very frugal. If we spent more than 100 yuan she felt bad. Once I splashed out 700 yuan on some perfume for her, but she was reluctant to wear it. When we were getting on well, I’d tease her: ‘You belong to the white-collar class, so how come you’re like a little match girl?’

  She usually laughed and said, ‘Me, white collar? At most I’m the spouse of a white-collar worker.’

  After work I visited the flower shop downstairs and bought a 268 yuan bunch of red roses. The salesgirl grinned widely at the thought of her commission. On the card I wrote: Wife, if you fatten up a bit you would be even better looking, so eat up!

  The girl gave me an even more simpering smile.

  I said, ‘Am I good to my wife?’

  ‘It’s touching,’ she said. ‘In the future, if I get married I will look for a husband like you.’

  Her words left me empty.

  With the flowers I still felt I cut a dashing figure as I marched into the Jinjiang Hotel. People stared at me. I commandeered a two-person table just near the window, then sent Zhao Yue a text: Husband’s already here, come and eat.

  These words had a special meaning in our secret sex language. There were many ways for us to ‘eat’: missionary, cowgirl, doggy. I imagined her naughty smile when she saw the message, and felt myself swell with lust. Weeks ago, Zhou Dajiang had given me two Viagra pills and I wondered whether tonight might be the time to try them.

  You get superior service in five-star hotels. In less than one hour my tea was refilled four times. I eventually got impatient and called Zhao Yue to ask her where she was.

  She sounded evasive. ‘I’ve got something on actually, I can’t come. You go ahead and eat.’

  My heart sunk. ‘Hadn’t we agreed to go out tonight?’

  Zhao Yue apologised like a diplomat: ‘I’ve really got something on so I can’t come. Next time!’

  ‘How come you’re so busy?’ I complained. ‘What is so important?’

  Zhao Yue already sounded less apologetic. ‘What’s the big deal? It’s just us, right. So what if I can’t come?’ And she ended the call.

  I almost exploded with anger. ‘Screw her!’ I said, flinging my phone to the ground. The young waitress picked it up and said, ‘Sir, you dropped your phone.’ Looking at her concerned expression, I thought, If only Zhao Yue was so sweet and considerate. I removed the card from the flowers and tore it up, thinking, you go ahead and eat. Eat your fill. Then I strode towards the door.

  The waitress called after me: ‘Sir, your flowers.’

  I turned with a smile and said, ‘They’re for you,’ then paused for a moment to enjoy her stunned expression.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  After leaving the hotel, I drifted along the bank of the Funan River whose water was alight with reflections. Lovers walked the river banks hand in hand, whispering softly. The night was full of quiet laughter.

  Clearly Zhao Yue and I needed to talk. For weeks now we’d been having these brutal fights which could be triggered by a sentence, even a look. Often they ripped open old scars and leaving them dripping with blood. It didn’t help that Zhao Yue’s main character flaw was her love of post-mortems. Each time after a quarrel she demanded that we clearly apportion responsibility: who said what; I said that because you said that, et cetera.

  As a result, any time we had a big argument we had to have a small argument afterwards. I said that the two of us were becoming like Cao Cao and Guan Yu from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms: every three days a big fight, every five days a small fight. Even when smiling, she was angry inside.

  When Zhao Yue and I had first started dating she took a caring interest in many aspects of my life. We would often walked around campus after dinner, hearts and hands entwined. The little wood, the hill, the grass behind the auditorium — all these had witnessed our courtship. Once when I had a high fever, she stayed with me in the hospital for two days, hardly sleeping until my fever broke. She bumped her head against a wall from sheer exhaustion. Thinking about this, I grieved. We had been so close, so how had we got to where we were today?

  Once, just before Spring Festival, we’d had a really spectacular row, which woke up everyone in the building. I said to her quite seriously, ‘Forget it, there’s no point in going on like this. We’ll just divorce.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow we’ll go to the registry office.’

  When dawn came, though, we both had second thoughts.

  ‘Are we still going to the registry office?’ I asked her.

  She started to wail, and put her head in my lap, while using her fists to beat my chest. ‘I’m not ready to lose you yet…’

  When I got home I brewed a pot of tea while I planned my ‘re-education’ of Zhao Yue. First, I would make her a voluntary confession of my faults. I had written the script in my head: It was my fault, I shouldn’t have lost my temper. You were right — it was just dinner. Just us. No big deal. What’s more, I could have got you a takeaway instead.

  After that I’d casually mention the flowers because the thought of that wasted 268 yuan would surely make Zhao Yue feel guilty. Then I would seize the advantage and introduce my central themes: tolerance, restraint, and understanding. As my main weapon I would rely on psychology: stress progress, encourage with praise, and make a little educational criticism in passing. And try not to lose my temper.

  In order to create the right atmosphere for this touching little scene, I dug out a few mementos of our relationship. There was the lovers’ yarn I gave her on one of our early dates, the scarf she wove for me our first winter together, and a set of handcuffs with keys bought during an outing to Qinghai Lake. At times when my suspected infidelities had made her paranoid, Zhao Yue would demand I be handcuffed by her side before she would sleep. In addition, there were twenty-three print-outs of her emails, sixteen congratulations cards and two big piles of photos. She had copied all my poems into a black-spined notebook, choosing the title Sent into Exile on a Dark Night. On the title page she’d written this inscription: You love to read books. I love you, like a mouse loves rice.

  My memory has associated a clear image with that inscription. Zhao Yue’s head is raised, her gaze passionate, her expression solemn. With a slightly hurt look she is saying: If in the future you don’t want me, I’ll still have that book.

  Zhao Yue didn’t come home at all that night. Around 3 a.m. I couldn’t stay awake and drifted off into a restless sleep. When I woke I heard upstairs playing Ren Xian Qi’s ‘Sad Pacific Ocean’:

  Step on to dusk

  Step back to birth

  The past bubbles under

  Memories stay but you’re gone.

  My emotions were disturbed; I started crying and couldn’t stop. I ran to the bathroom, where I strangely noticed in the mirror that my face was still somewhat handsome.

  This month the company’s sales figures had dropped: compared with the same period the previous year they were down seventeen per cent. When the results came in I was alarmed. We’d always been top dogs in the Chengdu and Chongqing area, especially when it came to gas where almost no one could touch us. I’d bragged to Bighead Wang that if we were to suspend our service for just three months, there would be at least 100,000 cars in Sichuan province off the road. Bighead Wang was impressed. ‘You really are the dog’s bollocks,’ he told me. ‘I’ll call you “Car Gods”, how about that?’

  I called a sales team meeting to analyse what had gone wrong and
work out a strategy. We talked it through for ages and everyone had their say. Gradually my ideas coalesced and I stood up and outlined my plan.

  ‘Firstly, to fight off the insurgent Lanfei brand, we’ll organise a big order meeting for the distributors and use up all their budgets for the year,’ I said. ‘Secondly, to counter any threat from the rest of Sichuan province’s car manufacturers we’ll arrange a few promotions to increase sales, focusing on the final sales link. Thirdly, we will do a one-month advertising blitz on Chengdu TV, radio and internet platforms. It’ll be a three-dimensional sales strategy.’

  Finally I told Zhou Yan that before she went home she was to report to Head Office all the decisions reached at today’s meeting.

  ‘Do you want me to get Fatty Dong’s signature?’ she asked cautiously.

  I frowned and said bluntly, ‘The prick knows nothing.’

  The meeting was over. As I went out the door I was still indignant at Zhou Yan for her stupidity. Why should I let other people get the credit for my achievements?

  My remark inevitably got back to Fatty Dong and he came to find me in a fury, puffing out his cheeks like a toad. He said, ‘You’re not showing me any respect, talking that way.’

  I put on an ingratiating expression. Boss Dong, your strength is administration. It’s best if you don’t interfere with marketing and sales.’

  He went ballistic and summoned Zhou Yan. ‘Without my signature, no one is allowed to distribute documents to Head Office,’ he told her, then left in a huff.

  Zhou Yan asked me what to do.

  ‘Distribute the report,’ I said. ‘If the sky falls down I’ll hold it up.’

  Zhou Yan hesitated, then said in a small voice, ‘You shouldn’t provoke him. Both of you will lose.’

  Before the Spring Festival, Lanfei car oil company had headhunted me and tried to lure me away with a high salary. It was a bitter-sweet experience because I was more than willing to change jobs; I just didn’t know how I could pay back the 200,000 yuan that I owed the company.

  Whenever I thought about the money my head hurt. Our previous General Manager had been a well-meaning old-timer who didn’t have any serious vices apart from lechery. He followed my advice, and never asked questions. Now he’d been replaced by my mortal enemy Fatty Dong. From the moment we’d joined the company the two of us had been locked in struggle which had the elemental force of fire and water. There was no way this jerk was going to let me off. I had to find a way out of the situation myself.

  On a whim I gave Li Liang a call and asked him about the futures market. He said the market situation was very good. Not just quite good he had me understand but extremely good. In barely one month his account had got a 200,000 boost. I tested the waters, asking if you took 4 million and invested it in stocks how much could you earn in one month. The receiver transmitted clicking sounds and I imagined Li Liang pressing buttons on a calculator. Eventually he said, If you invested well, you should have more than 10 million.

  When I heard this, my heart thumped wildly.

  My job title didn’t sound important but actually I had a lot of responsibility: each month at least 2 million yuan passed through my hands. Company management was lax. I could open a private account, divert small sums each time, and no one would have a clue. Bighead Wang and I shared the same view about this: if you had access to capital and didn’t use it, that was the biggest waste.

  Money — it was powerful stuff alright. Last year I became infatuated with a beautiful student. She was one metre sixty-eight with a generous front and prominent tush. Flagrantly erotic. I gave her a watch, a mobile phone, a Jaeger handbag, then finally got her into bed. One day in the Springtime Department Store, her eye was caught by a 3700 yuan Ports dress. She slipped into it and sure enough looked all the more delicately attractive. For some reason, though, when she suggested that I might like to buy it for her, I suffered an attack of tight-fistedness. After that she dropped me and so all my hard work was wasted. It was too bad. At the time I’d thought bitterly, If I had a few million, do you think I wouldn’t set my sights higher than you?

  I raised the futures idea with Bighead and he instantly doused me in cold water.

  ‘Don’t use me as a sounding board for these crazy ideas. You could make the money, of course, why not? But pay it back? It doesn’t matter what you say, you’ll never pay it back in time.’

  ‘I’ll try my luck with a few tens of thousands first,’ I said. ‘That shouldn’t be too much of a problem.’

  ‘It’s up to you,’ he said, ‘but best discuss it with Zhao Yue.’ He laughed mysteriously. ‘She’s much smarter than you.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Chengdu of twenty years ago was smaller and the waters of the Funan River were cleaner. I lived in a tenement owned by the water and electricity bureau. As soon as school was out, my gang of little hooligans would get together to fight and raise hell, getting ourselves filthy. All my bad habits were cultivated at that time: selfishness, coldness, detachment and a gobful of bad language.

  One day when I’d stayed out until really late, my father cursed me. My riposte: was the following ‘Leave me alone, you bastard.’ My father didn’t like that, and as a result my buttocks ached for a whole month.

  A few years later I’d already started getting drunk, watching porn flicks and stalking girls. As preparation for my current life as a playboy, I put in plenty of hard slog. At that time Li Liang was still planting seeds in the fields of Meishan, Bighead Wang was malingering on Xian street corners filching lamb kebabs, and Zhao Yue cried herself to sleep because her parents were fighting. When the time came, however, we were swept by the flood of life into our preordained relationships of today.

  Each time I went home, my mother’s head had a few more white hairs. She was a doctor until she retired but her whole life had been devoted to serving my father and my sister and brother. She was never shy about offering her opinion. Sometimes I wondered whether at any point she’d ever considered having an affair. Could she once have been the same as me, prepared to destroy the world for a fleeting moment of pleasure?

  Seeing me walk in, the old woman feigned irritation and said, ‘So you still know the way home.’

  I laughed and embraced her. ‘Your son is busy,’ I told her.

  ‘You always say you’re so busy, but I never see you bringing me a grandson.’

  Well, there it was, the very reason I didn’t go home more often. Each time I did, she’d ask me about a grandson as if I was a stud bull. The strange thing was that Zhao Yue and I had been trying for a baby for almost two years. At my mother’s insistence we went for two check-ups at the Golden Bull Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Verdict: all equipment was in good working order. The second time it was one of my mother’s former staffers who examined us. She gave Zhao Yue a few practical tips for getting pregnant, such as making love in the missionary position with her bottom raised on a pillow. When we got home, Zhao Yue insisted on doing it that way very scientifically, but I lost my erection halfway through.

  I asked Mother where Father was and she said, ‘At your Uncle’s Wang’s house of course, playing chess.’

  My father was hopeless at all board games. When I’d just started primary school he taught me Go. Two months later I already had the beating of him.

  Later, after his retirement, he decided to attend an old people’s Go class. Soon he somehow got the idea that he had mastered Go and he called me to urgently demand that I return home and play. That day he lost seven games, I won seven. In the final game Father was in a good position, but on the cusp of victory he carelessly allowed my men to surround him in a pincer movement. Whatever he did there was no way out of the trap. He wanted to play his last move again, and when I wouldn’t let him his indignation was something to behold. He slapped the board, cursing me in his Henan dialect. ‘I see I’ve raised you for nothing, you swine. What’s the meaning of this? Any time I want to take back a move, you won’t let me.’

  Zhao Y
ue was struggling not to crack up. As soon as we were out the door she said, ‘Your father is really sweet.’

  After washing down the tofu skins Mother had made for me with Father’s Mountain Cloud and Mist Tea, I felt my mood improve. Father was always critical of me, saying that I lived too recklessly, and I decided now that he was right. Happiness took many forms, and stability was one of them. On my way home to Zhao Yue I considered whether we should try again to have a child, which in the worlds of an old proverb would make our lives as ‘beautiful as the wind and sun, no clouds for a thousand li’.

  At three in the morning, Zhao Yue started sobbing. It had been past two before I’d finally drifted off so I was more than usually irritated to be woken. I hissed that she must be sick to be crying like a ghost in the dim shadows. Ever since the time she’d stayed out all night, I had resolutely implemented my special ‘Three Nos’ policy: No questions about her activities, no interest in her state of mind, and no being polite. Soon enough, I thought, she’d crack and tell me all. What I never imagined was that she would continue to be so detached and indifferent. This cold war continued for three days, the two of us living together in a phony peace, marred by sexual frustration.

  Actually, the sexual frustration part wasn’t hard for me to deal with. Before going to sleep, I’d have a wank over some internet porn, and I was confident that of the two of us, I would be able to keep this up the longest.

  Zhao Yue turned on the light. She leaned against the wall, shaking with sobs. I’ve never been able to bear women’s tears, and as I looked at her, for some reason I started to shake too.

  ‘What’s up?’ I said. ‘Just stop crying, OK?’.

  Zhao Yue choked up. ‘Chen Zhong, tell me the truth. Do you love me or not?’