Leave Me Alone

by Murong Xuecun

  All my experience of women has taught me that it is fatal to give a straight answer to this question. You have to be evasive, because if you’re not careful, any answer is wrong. If you say ‘I love you’, she’ll say you answered too easily, you weren’t sincere enough. If you say ‘I don’t love you’ then that is also a mistake.

  ‘Why ask?’ I countered. ‘Is it so important whether or not I love you? You have your entrepreneur lover, what do you want your poor husband’s love for?’

  She cradled my head and kept crying. Huge tears dripped onto my face. I was genuinely afraid that something terrible had happened. Zhao Yue was bad at faking. Whatever happened to her was always written clearly on her face. When she first came to join me in Chengdu, I helped her unpack and unexpectedly turned up the photograph of a handsome stud. On the back were written these words: For Yue: I hope this feeling lasts for ever. I recognised the guy as one of our class’s biggest idiots. In his freshman year, he once dashed into our literature society meeting wanting to become a member. Li Liang deliberately asked him a few obscure questions then said apologetically, ‘You should leave. Our literature society doesn’t welcome peasants.’

  The photo didn’t really mean anything, but reading those words on the back started a fire in my heart. Zhao Yue tried to wriggle out of it, but my questions kept coming. She had no alternative but to own up, saying that the idiot had asked her out a few times but she’d always turned him down. The last time, however, she felt a bit sorry for him and so agreed to go for a walk, during which he’d dragged her along by the hand the whole time. ‘I swear on my mother’s health, we definitely didn’t do anything,’ she told me.

  Zhao Yue’s parents had separated when she was a child and Zhao Yue had lived with her mother. I knew that she wouldn’t causally invoke her mother’s name.

  I felt for some reason I should put on some clothes for this. After that, I told Zhao Yue, ‘Whatever you’ve got to say, get on with it. I’m ready.’

  She pinched my arm and said, ‘I know you too well. You’d love it if I’d done something wrong. It would be a great opportunity to dump me.’ Then she sobbed so violently I thought she might faint.

  I smothered all tenderness and, feeling like my heart had turned to stone, I asked her, ‘Are you telling me you’ve never had an affair?’

  She wept and said, ‘Never, never. Never again.’

  I felt a sharp pain and I took her in my arms and held her tightly against my chest, smelling the light, delicate fragrance of her hair.

  The next morning we got up at 10 a.m. Zhao Yue’s eyes were red, her smile bashful. It seemed like she was in a fair mood. I called my underling Young Li in the HR department and said that I was taking today off. The little bastard was getting quite cheeky.

  ‘Brother Chen, is this because you want to deflower more virgins?’

  ‘Shut it,’ I said. ‘Today I want to be with my wife.’

  He laughed and said, ‘If you can’t be good be careful.’

  Zhao Yue finished gargling and emerged from the bathroom looking like an entirely new woman. I kissed her and said, ‘My wife tastes good.’

  She returned me a meek smile.

  Hand in hand, we went out the door. In a small restaurant on Yulin North Road we ate delicious bowls of noodles with fried egg and shared a bottle of beer. When Zhao Yue went to the bathroom to re-apply her make-up, I took advantage of her absence to call Bighead’s mobile.

  ‘Bighead, this time you’ve got to help me.’

  ‘You creep, just say what’s up.’

  I lowered my voice. ‘Zhao Yue’s having an affair.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  When our salaries were paid, I visited the ATM to use my card and discovered something wrong. My basic wage was 6,000, and with commission on top I should have got around 8,200. However, only 7,300 had gone into my account. I asked our accountant to explain. He went through his books and said that in March I’d been absent two days, so they had deducted 900 yuan. I swore and then went to find Fatty Dong.

  He was talking to Liu Three. Recently Fatty had been going all out to win my sales team over to his side. He treated them to meals and showered them with presents. According to Zhou Yan, he was making extravagant promises of promotions and other favours.

  Last night at 10 p.m. she’d called me and said, ‘Chen Zhong, guess where I am.’

  I’d said, ‘If not underneath someone, then on top of someone.’

  She said don’t be crude, she was in the Binjiang Hotel where Fatty Dong was courting her and Liu Three over dinner, hinting that they should ‘leave darkness for light’. According to her, Liu Three had already pledged his loyalty. She couldn’t bear to watch, and so she’d slipped out to the toilet to call me. She sounded worried. ‘You should be careful, they’re two-faced.’

  For a moment I felt dazed and confused, as if someone had hit my head. Quite honestly I’d never imagined that Liu Three would betray me. Right from when he’d joined the company after graduation, he had learned his trade from me. Everything he knew I’d taught him; I was like a brother to him. Almost every few months I’d given him a raise and a promotion, one step after another to manager, so that he now supervised more than seventy people. If he’d really sold out to Fatty Dong, then things were worse than I’d thought.

  Now finding Liu Three in Fatty’s office, I remarked pointedly that they were obviously talking about something important. Liu Three blushed and he said, ‘Brother Chen, I have to go. You chat with Boss Dong.’

  I sat down and asked Fatty Dong, ‘What’s this about my missing work last month?’

  He played the impassive official again, saying that everything was done according to the system.

  That made me fly into a rage. ‘When did I miss work?’ I demanded.

  He fixed me with a stare then picked up the telephone and called our accountant Young Liu to come in.

  ‘You explain to Manager Chen,’ he told him.

  Young Liu gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘Mr. Chen, on the twenty-fourth and twenty-seventh you didn’t ask for leave but you didn’t come to work either, and so we put you down as absent.’

  Although Young Liu wasn’t one of my allies, he was honest and upright. When Fatty Dong wrote that poison pen letter about the former General Manager and forced all the office staff to sign, only Young Liu refused. Walking home with him once, I asked him about it and he said his personal philosophy was to never get involved in other people’s fights. This filled me with admiration.

  My mind saw clearly that for Fatty Dong this was a case of one stone, two birds. Young Liu and I were thorns in his side, so he’d be only too eager for the two of us to start feuding. This guy had studied politics at university and was a proficient scholar of manipulation. It was really a waste for him not to be a government official. So I managed to contain my fury and said, ‘On the twenty-fourth and twenty-seventh I was away on client business. There is no basis for deducting my salary.’

  He pinched in his waist and puffed out his chest like a big-shot and said that the company had a regulation. If you were going to be away from the office you should submit the appropriate form. ‘You didn’t submit the form so there’s nothing I can do.’

  I smiled coldly. ‘Do you have to treat matters so rigidly?’

  He spread his hands and said, ‘You broke the rules. I would like to help but I can’t.’

  This was typical of him. He talked in such a sanctimonious way, when actually he was filthy inside. I slammed the door on my way out, causing all one hundred people in the office to look up.

  Liu Three came to my office after that and asked me what to do about the Neijiang bad debts issue. I gave him a cigarette and said, ‘Liu Three, how do I treat you?

  ‘There’s no need to ask that,’ he said. ‘Without you, where would I be today?’

  As he spoke, his voice wavered and unless he was a great actor he appeared to be remembering all the kindness I’d shown him in the past. My mood lightened and I thought,
good, Liu Three isn’t a person devoid of gratitude after all. I smiled and said, ‘Then what’s this pledge of loyalty you’ve made to Fatty Dong?’

  He exploded with anger. ‘That Zhou Yan is a troublemaker,’ he said. ‘Such a cheap person doesn’t care about face. Flirting with Fatty Dong and then daring to tell lies about me?’

  ‘How did she flirt with him?’ I asked.

  He gave a mincing imitation of Zhou Yan’s voice: ‘Fatty Dong, you are mature and serious. You are the company’s most fascinating man.’

  When I heard this I felt sick to the teeth. Zhou Yan is cheap, I thought.

  The longer I sat there in my office, the more furious I got. Nine hundred yuan! Fatty Dong deserved to die — he shouldn’t pick a fight with me so casually. I thought up gratifying methods of revenge. I’d round up a few thugs to bash that oily fat face to a pulp; or fix the brakes of his car so that he was in a fatal accident. I fantasised about slipping him a few heroin cigarettes so that he became an addict and his wife left him. If Fatty Dong had any intuition at all, he’d be a trembling wreck right now.

  Bighead called my cellphone, pulling me away from these pleasurable imaginings. He sounded drunk, and told me in a slurred voice that he had the telephone bills I’d asked for. When I’d told him that Zhao Yue was having an affair, Bighead said he’d always known I should have stayed away from this kind of woman, ‘Cheap bitch!’

  Hearing this, I reflected that the business of sex really did upset people.

  However, for the moment I was half-willing to believe that Zhao Yue had got carried away on just the one occasion. What was more, an affair was just my guess, not something I’d seen with my own eyes. Still, I had to admit that women were often better than men at hiding such things. In our third year at university Li Liang had a girlfriend from Chongqing called Su Xin. Although her face was nothing special to look at, she had a hot body. Her personality was completely uninhibited and she swore even more often than I did. One time, the four of us were eating and Su Xin said to Li Liang, ‘Even if we were caught together in the dorm, I’d still jump up and say, “No, it hasn’t gone in yet!”’

  Zhao Yue had looked disapproving, but I believed she secretly shared Su Xin’s philosophy of never confessing to your crimes.

  I’d asked Bighead Wang to obtain a copy of Zhao Yue’s mobile phone records. My thinking was that if Zhao Yue had got carried away just the once I could forgive her, but I needed to have all the facts. Otherwise I ran the risk of acting like a real jerk.

  Bighead, however, had urged me to confront Zhao Yue. ‘Can a real man put up with this?’ he asked.

  When he said that, I vaguely began to hate him.

  Bighead’s precinct was located downtown. When I got there I discovered a riot. Two guys were handcuffed at the bottom of a stairwell, and a group of old bound-feet women was making a fuss. I listened for a while and learned that the two guys were laid-off workers. They drove those illegal three-wheeled cars known in Chengdu as ‘cake ears’ and had been carrying passengers without the proper licence. When the city officials confiscated the vehicle, the two laid-off workers hadn’t shown any respect. Instead they’d started pushing and shoving, and so the cops had arrested them and brought them here. Siding with the two laid-off workers, the elderly women had followed the party all the way to the police station, demanding with some choice dialect that the police give them justice.

  Bighead was playing Minecraft in his office. Seeing me come in he let out a big sigh. ‘In these lawless times, there are bad people everywhere,’ he said.

  ‘You’re the worst,’ I replied. ‘Are people trying to better themselves through their own efforts really any of your business?’

  Bighead claimed that orders had come from above. Then he slapped down a thick pile of paper on the table and said, ‘Investigate for yourself. This is a complete record of all the calls your wife’s made in the past year.’

  I didn’t know whether the dossier was a disaster or a blessing. It was hard to concentrate because outside the door there was a seething cauldron of noise. Seeing Bighead Wang’s concerned expression, I suddenly asked myself whether I really did want to know about this. Once I knew, what would I do? How would I cope with the secret concealed inside that stack of paper?

  Projecting my mind through the chaotic traffic of Chengdu’s concrete jungle, I pictured Zhao Yue on her way home, the front of her skirt dancing, her long hair flying in the breeze. She still had the kind of beauty that moved people. But from this point on, were the two of us heading in different directions?

  I realised that Bighead Wang was handing me a tissue and patting my shoulder.

  ‘Don’t crack up,’ he said. ‘When you get home, have a good talk with her. If you need me for anything, feel free to ask.’

  When I eventually got home, though, I was met by the unexpected sight of Zhao Yue appearing from the kitchen wearing an apron. She smiled at me.

  ‘Guess what I’ve made you for dinner?’

  I sniffed and said, ‘Bamboo shoots fried with beef, water-boiled fish, and my favourite, chestnut carbonado.’

  She punched me. ‘You greedy sod, you guessed right.’

  We ate. Zhao Yue’s cooking had come on in leaps and bounds. The beef was succulent but not greasy, the fish fresh and tender, the chestnuts clean with a honeyed texture, the chicken sweet and crisp. When I was done, I let out a long satisfied sigh.

  After dinner, Zhao Yue took me around the house and showed me she had tidied and polished everything. In the bedroom was displayed one of our wedding photos. There was a lipstick mark on the glass — right over my face.

  Tender feelings overwhelmed me as Zhao Yue leaned against the door, smilingly watching my reactions. I led her to the bed and ripped roughly at her clothes. She held me off, chuckling. Later, though, it was Zhao Yue who gripped my hand, yelling out loudly without the least inhibition. We made crazy love to a soundtrack of the All-China News At Seven mixed with the sound of running water from the bathroom next door.

  Afterwards, Zhao Yue nestled against my chest. I rolled down from the heights of carnal desire. The universe felt empty as I lay in a damp patch, outwardly peaceful, but somehow anxious. Some lines of poetry from years ago dripped through my mind:

  One night years later,

  You cover your face and sob.

  Your golden youth sometimes seems so near,

  sometimes so far.

  Who tormented you?

  Who was always true?

  Who is in heaven?

  Who is in hell?

  Who still looks for you in their dreams?

  Regret welled up in me and for some reason I felt like crying. Zhao Yue held me close to her, the light in her eyes as clear as water. In my memory a few images coalesced. I had a vision of meeting her seven years before on the steps of the library, a book under her arm.

  ‘Do you ever stop working?’ I asked.

  She lowered her head slightly but had this smile on her face.

  I said, ‘There’s someone who’d like to go for a drink with you, but doesn’t know whether you’d agree?’

  She pressed her book against my chest, and said, ‘Who’s the shy one? Let’s go!’

  I wondered whether Zhao Yue would remember this. We looked at each other solemnly and slowly the corners of her mouth curved into a smile. The smile widened until there came an unexpected snort. Without really knowing why, we both started laughing and our laughter was loud and hearty. Absorbed in the moment we caressed each other until a certain part of my body rose.

  Just then my cellphone rang. It was Zhou Yan.

  ‘Chen Zhong, how can you treat people this way?’ she asked with a sigh.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Fatty Dong just came here and accused me of being a traitor. I tell you, I never thought you’d sell me out like that. What kind of man are you?’

  Then she hung up.

  Zhao Yue asked me who it was but I ignored her. I dialled Liu Three’
s cellphone and he didn’t take the call. I persisted, then finally heard his reedy voice. I asked him to explain.

  He hesitated a while, then said, ‘Brother Chen, there’s something I’ve always wanted to ask you.’

  I spoke through gritted teeth. ‘So, ask.’

  ‘When Fatty Dong wrote the letter falsely accusing Boss Sun, you knew all about it. Why didn’t you stop it, or at least warn him?’

  This was a decision I’d long regretted myself. At the time of plotting his coup, Fatty Dong had said to me, ‘Old Sun is a waste of space. If we got rid of him, everyone would benefit.’

  I’d seen this as an opportunity for me too, and so I’d allowed him free rein to set up Old Sun. At no point had I intervened.

  I said to Liu Three, ‘So that’s the reason you’ve got together with Fatty Dong to murder me.’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘Come over here if you dare. Let’s talk face to face.’

  He said that as things had come to this, there was no need to talk any more.

  My anger erupted. ‘Fuck your mother, Liu Three!’

  He laughed but his tone still seemed to retain some of its former warmth. ‘Brother Chen, my mother’s already old. I’ll help you find a couple of younger chicks.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Li Liang’s wedding was a Chengdu sensation. On 1 May, twenty gleaming cars, precisely arranged like words in a sentence, set off from Jinxiuu Gardens and cruised smoothly towards the Binjiang Hotel. We’d arranged beforehand with the cops so there weren’t any hold-ups. I was at the head of the motorcade, driving a Mercedes-Benz 320. A little tune danced around in my head, a Zhonghua cigarette dangled from my lips, and whenever I saw a red light I accelerated. Li Liang sat at my side with a solemn expression. In his 30,000 yuan Zegna suit he looked very suave.

  I teased him. ‘Li Liang, my son, today you’re marrying your wife. What’s with the serious face?’