Leave Me Alone

by Murong Xuecun

  He didn’t smile, just asked earnestly, ‘Why do I feel a little scared?’

  ‘What’s there to be scared of?’ I said. ‘Ye Mei won’t bite you; at the most she’ll give you a blow job.’

  He shook his fist. But he soon became solemn again and sighed loudly, apparently gripped with anxiety.

  Having been chief witness to Li Liang’s golden years I was intimately familiar with every one of his former girlfriends; even their bra sizes. Don’t get the wrong idea — it was Li Liang who told me. In second semester of our first year at university he fell big time for a Jiangsu girl in the PE department. She had a classically beautiful face — large eyes, red lips, fair complexion, straight nose — but her figure … well, it was unusual. Her lower arms were the width of my calf, her upper arms bloated and her midriff well-padded. She had what was known in campus slang as a ‘tiger back’ and a ‘bear waist’. There was a story that some guy had tried to steal her purse in the dining hall and she’d fought back. Before long the guy’s strength was spent and he sat on the floor and started crying. He refused to get up, as if she’d put a spell on him. This girl liked to go for a long run every morning and she had the physical force of a team of horses galloping. The two magnificent constructions on her chest moved like ocean swell. It was an overwhelming sight. One evening when we were chatting after lights out in our dormitory, Chen Chao from Shandong slapped his hand on the bedboard and expressed his reverence for that imposing chest: ‘Mother, those are quite simply two Mount Tais.’

  After that, the name ‘Mount Tai’ got around fast. I didn’t know exactly what Li Liang loved about Mount Tai, but I believed this love was the real thing. Each night when Li Liang returned from a date, he dragged me to the privacy of the steam room to report on how they’d held hands, how they’d kissed, how Li Liang had used his hands to ‘climb Mount Tai’. He held nothing back.

  Li Liang was a brilliant talent in those days and threw himself into things with passion. Every day he’d write a few ‘against the current, hold you in my arms’ type of romantic poems, which caused philistine Bighead Wang to despise him. When no one was around Bighead would ask: ‘Has this asshole Li Liang got water in his brain?’

  When the summer holiday came that first year of college, Mount Tai returned to her home town of Nanjing. We saw her off at the train station. The two of them held hands and stared tearfully into each other’s eyes. I found this scene hilarious but restrained myself. When the train started, Mount Tai waved forlornly from inside the carriage but no one could have foreseen what happened next. Li Liang suddenly sprang forward like a leopard, sprinting after the train, slamming his hand against the window and shouting himself hoarse: ‘Little Zhu, I love you. I LOVE YOU!’

  His voice boomed across the platform. Finally, about a hundred metres away from where I was standing, he threw himself to the ground with a dramatic thud. I ran over to where he lay completely motionless, blood trickling from his head.

  When ten thousand people share your dream

  Your dream will grow wings.

  — Li Liang, ‘Love’

  Surprisingly, they broke up straight after the holiday. Li Liang wouldn’t say why, just smoked cigarettes and looked depressed. The next few girlfriends all went the same way — none lasted more than three months. Secretly I started to wonder whether Li Liang had a sexual problem. Once, in the dormitory, I had stayed up all night reading a book, then at dawn stealthily climbed onto Li Liang’s bunk to filch a cigarette. He’d seemed to be asleep, but when he heard me he jumped abruptly. His face was very white and he looked startled. I realised that he’d been wanking.

  Some people, like Li Liang, can make sacrifices for love. I both respect and despise these people, because my own feelings are more complex. I have always viewed love as a game. No one really loves another; or, to put it another way, we only really love ourselves.

  After he split with Mount Tai, Li Liang became mentally unstable. Sometimes he’d go missing for half the night. Bighead Wang and I searched the campus for him once, and eventually found him sitting in a small wood opposite the female students’ dorm. He was facing Mount Tai’s window, and whistling a tuneless melody. I was about to call out to him, but Bighead put his hand on my shoulder. At that moment the moonlight shifted like water, sprinkling the wood with silver, and we saw two fat tears navigating the contours of Li Liang’s face.

  Li Liang probably still missed Mount Tai, I thought, all these years later as I accelerated through another red light Nevertheless, his life was definitely better than mine. He earned good money, he had status and he understood all the big questions of life. Whereas deep inside I was still stuck where I’d been years ago: a shy first-year student wearing a 5 yuan T-shirt.

  At the wedding banquet I tried my best to lighten the atmopshere. I asked Ye Mei, ‘Are you willing to accept Li Liang as your husband?’

  Ye Mei nodded. I continued: ‘Are you ready, come wind, come rain, thunder or lightning, come warm winters or cold summers, to always love him, comfort him and screw him?

  Everyone else laughed but Ye Mei looked angry. I thought of that wild night in the hotel at Leshan when she had given me the silent treatment.

  The bride and groom went around the tables and toasted all the guests. Bighead pointed to the wontons and asked Ye Mei about the fillings.

  There’s pork, and prawn, and chicken,’ he said, ‘but tell me: how many stuffings have you had?’

  She considered carefully. ‘Seven stuffings,’ she said.

  The whole table laughed at the double-entendre. Zhao Yue leaned against me and guffawed. I said, ‘Li Liang, you stud: such stamina! Seven stuffings!’

  This set everyone laughing again. Ye Mei seemed slow to get the joke, but then quite suddenly she hurled the contents of a wine glass in my face. The 800-yuan-a-bottle wine dripped down my chest towards my groin. I leapt to my feet, Bighead’s gawping mouth filling my vision.

  What happened after that was a blur, but certainly everyone was shocked. Zhao Yue helped me wipe the wine from my face, while Bighead stood up indignantly, then appeared not to know what to do. Ye Mei, her face very red, still clutched the glass, and I noticed that Li Liang was staring at me with a strange smile. It seemed that a new idea had occurred to him. I licked my lips and found a bordeaux with a sweet bouquet and a slightly sour aftertaste.

  No one was in the party mood after that. Bighead Wang muttered a few sentences of congratulations into the microphone and the wedding finished early.

  On the way home Zhao Yue stared blankly out of the car window. I deliberately drove too fast, wanting to provoke her into saying something, but all the way she didn’t even look at me.

  Finally I said, ‘What’s up?’

  She was lying on the bed, clawing over and over at the wall with her fingers. When I hugged her, she struggled silently.

  ‘What’s wrong? At least say something,’ I told her.

  ‘What is our relationship?’ she muttered.

  I jeered, ‘It’s more than just a relationship. You’re my wife!’

  ‘Seems like you’re more interested in someone’s else’s wife,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Zhao Yue met my eyes fearlessly. ‘You tell me.’

  I was nervous now. Feigning bewilderment, I turned away from her and spat out, ‘You’re crazy.’

  Zhao Yue ignored this and continued to scratch at the wall. I sat there until an idea struck me, and then I hurried downstairs two and three steps at a time. From the public telephone opposite the entrance to our stairwell, I made a call.

  A man’s voice answered. ‘Who do you want?’

  ‘Zhao Yue,’ I said.

  He seemed surprised and asked, ‘Who is this?’

  ‘I’m Zhao Yue’s husband. Who are you?’

  The line went dead. After a moment I thought to call Zhao Yue’s mobile phone, but got the following repeated message: The subscriber you want is busy. Please wait and try again.

  I
smiled coldly.

  My head smarted with frustration. I called Bighead and asked him out for a drink, but he said he needed to sleep. I noticed that his tone was a bit impatient. Next I tried Zhou Weidong, but he said he was on a business trip to Qingcheng Mountain and wouldn’t be back until the day after tomorrow. Finally, I called my brother-in-law’s mobile. He swore at me: apparently, the day before there had been a family dinner and everyone had waited for me to turn up but I didn’t show.

  Your mother muttered to herself the whole night, he said.

  I hung up. A few fire engines rushed past. Apart from that the night was peaceful. From one apartment building there came the sound of laughter, from another the sound of a fight. Standing in the shadows, a creature of the night, I felt myself smiling but I wasn’t happy.

  A taxi slowed opportunistically nearby and the driver gave me a questioning look. I nodded, opened the door and got in.

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

  ‘Find me a place to have fun.’

  ‘What kind of fun?’ he asked.

  ‘Girls.’

  ‘Try Longtan, One Fifty Street,’ he said, ‘there are loads of girls there, beautiful ones and cheap ones.’

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Take me to Longtan, One Fifty Street.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The taxi pulled up by a wall plastered with billboard health warnings about gonorrhoea and syphilis. I handed the driver a generous fifty and he asked if I needed him to wait. I said no, I’d be there all night.

  The name One Fifty Street referred to the price because for 150 yuan you could get anything. There were around seventy to eighty karaoke bars on the street, all with tacky coloured lights around the doors. Hideous drunken singing came from inside: sounds like roaring bulls and whinnying horses. Dozens of girls sat outside each place, smiling painfully through their disguise of powder and youth.

  Slowly I walked down the street as from each side, fluent patter assailed my ears. There were romantic pitches: ‘Come on, handsome, I love you.’ Shrewd appeals to profit: ‘Beautiful girls and reasonable prices, only an idiot would say no.’ Or it might tout sexual proficiency: ‘Sir, come and play here. Our girls are good at it!’

  One ugly runt kept following me and pushing the unique virtues of his establishment: ‘All our girls are fifteen or sixteen, fresh and tender. Come on, come on.’

  I shook off his hand and walked on, still checking out the girls on both sides of the street. My mobile rang: it was Zhao Yue. I cut her off but when she kept calling, I turned off my phone.

  It was me who bought Zhao Yue her first ever mobile phone: I realised it was four years ago almost to the day. At that time the Motorola GC87C cost more than 5,000 yuan. Zhao Yue thought this gift was too expensive and didn’t want it, but I used humour to persuade her:

  ‘You think I bought this for your benefit? Take it! It’s just so I can check up on you more easily.’

  Zhao Yue laughed and accepted the phone, but in the first months her monthly call fee was even lower than the plan costs. She didn’t use the phone regularly until she got promoted and her new position included a 150 yuan monthly mobile subsidy.

  My head was still processing the implications of the call I’d made earlier. That number had appeared regularly in her list of calls in the last two months — the greatest frequency nine times a day, the longest duration one hour seventeen minutes. I’d checked the date of that call and it was the very day I’d bought those roses to present to her during our dinner at the Jinjiang Hotel. While they were talking about who knews what, I’d been waiting there for her to come, wondering how to apologise to her.

  The past two days I’d been crazy busy helping with Li Liang’s wedding. I’d organised the loan of cars, been involved in endless back and forth about the banquet, sent out invitations, even decorated the bridal chamber. Being so busy had helped keep my mind off the situation. All the same, whenever I had a few seconds to think I couldn’t help wondering where they met, where they slept together, whether Zhao Yue moaned underneath that guy like she did with me. What was weird was that instead of feeling angry, I mainly felt sad. The night before, after a few drinks, I’d stood in front of the window for ages in a sort of daze. Li Liang had asked me what was wrong, but I’d evaded the issue.

  I regretted making that phone call. If it hadn’t been for that, everything might have gone back to normal. I could have chosen to believe that Zhao Yue’s slip had been a one-off and performed the necessary mental contortions to accept whatever explanation she made. No matter that I would have suspected her for the rest of my life. But now this stranger had a voice and the distance between Zhao Yue and me had suddenly grown. We were colder, estranged: it was as if there were thousands of miles between us.

  A moon-faced girl pulled my arm and then rubbed against me with her voluptuous breasts. ‘Hey, good-looking, you’re so handsome. I want to make love to you.’

  I smiled and reflected coldly how cheap love was that you could enjoy such a generous amount for only 150 yuan. On the other hand, she did have a beautiful round arse which felt firm when I gave it a quick rub. I followed her into a dimly lit room where she removed her clothes then lay on the bed smiling at me. I buried my head in her breasts and held her, thinking that if Zhao Yue died right then I wouldn’t care at all.

  Coming downstairs together afterwards, the girl put on a show of being sweet. She clung to me and called me ‘hubbie’. This made me mad.

  ‘Who do you think you are?’ I snapped.

  She stared at me. ‘Cheap tart,’ I said, and went out the door. Behind my back I heard her shouting after me, something like, ‘Fuck your mother.’

  I turned on my mobile to check the time: midnight already. The street was full of cars because this was when many Chengdu men, having stuffed themselves with food and drink, came out to work off some excess energy. How many tales of cruel youth had unfolded on this uneven street amid the colourful lights and the music, the powder and the condoms? I sighed and suddenly felt hungry, remembering that I’d hardly eaten anything at the wedding dinner. Because Ye Mei threw the wine over me, I hadn’t even had a single mouthful of the specially cooked hairy crab.

  Zhao Yue called yet again and this time, after a moment’s hesitation, I took the call. When she asked me what I was up to, I adopted my usual strategy to confuse her with truth and told her I was out whoring.

  ‘I know you’ve got some misunderstandings about me,’ she said. ‘Come back and we’ll talk about it.’

  ‘I haven’t come yet,’ I told her, ‘so you’ll just have to wait.’

  She called me shameless and hung up.

  I felt good again as thinking about Zhao Yue’s angry face gave me a happy glow. Going into one of the several small restaurants along the street, I ordered two bottles of beer, some cold dishes and a portion of twice-cooked pork. I ate with great relish, until it suddenly occurred to me that Li Liang might be doing it with Ye Mei.

  The thought of Li Liang made me feel guilty again. Holding up my glass, I addressed the distant fading lights of Chengdu: ‘Li Liang, my brother, please forgive me. Had I known Ye Mei was your woman, I wouldn’t have done her to save my life.’

  The hole-in-the-wall restaurant was unhygienic; while I was eating the meat dish I found a long hair. Feeling disgusted, I turned around to expectorate. As I did, I noticed a dark-green Honda Accord slowly driving along the street. Fatty Dong was at the wheel, his fat neck twitching as he inspected the merchandise. Quickly draining my glass, I went outside to the street and watched him cruising the venues one by one. Finally he stopped outside a karaoke bar called Red Moon.

  Fatty Dong had the face of a government official: fat, round cheeks and large ears but somehow dignified. In contrast, his wife was frighteningly ugly. Once I’d seen them on the street together; his wife stalked along in front with a cigarette in her mouth; Fatty Dong followed her like a pet pig, a servile gait, an expression of reverence on his face. On the eighth of March last year,
International Women’s Day, Fatty Dong had turned up two hours late with bruises and cuts on his face and neck, bleary-eyed: I guessed his wife must have caught him cheating.

  Finding Fatty Dong’s home number in my address book, I hit the dial button with a big grin.

  His wife’s dour voice answered, ‘Who is it?’

  Just as I was about to reply, more inspiration struck. I ended the call immediately, ran to the public phone and pressed three digits: 110.

  The duty cop sounded cutely concerned as she asked me what was wrong. In a low whisper, I told her I suspected someone was dealing drugs. Recently the cops had generated loads of publicity for their campaign against drug crime, and it was said that a drug squad hero from Xichang had just been transferred here to supervise their operation. In fact, only the week before, a high school mate of Li Liang’s who’d opened a spicy soup restaurant, was caught buying 250 jin of poppy shells at Lianhua Pond market. Li Liang had wanted to stand bail for him but Bighead advised him against it. ‘Whatever you do, don’t get involved,’ he’d said. ‘Drugs are the hottest crime right now, and whoever gets messed up with them will fry.’

  As soon as she heard the word ‘drugs’ the cop got excited and she pressed me for details about the whereabouts and distinguishing features of the suspect. I told her the approximate location, then gave her Fatty Dong’s car registration and said I hadn’t seen his face clearly.

  ‘He’s obese and wearing a purple shirt,’ I said. ‘The gear’s on him or maybe concealed in his car tyre.’

  She asked me for my name and ID number but I pretended to be nervous. ‘Please don’t ask,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t have called the cops if I’d known you’d want my details.’

  I found particular satisfaction in setting this trap for Fatty Dong because I’d met some similar misfortune myself a few years ago on a business trip to Mianyan. I’d just undressed when there was a knock at the door and I sensed it meant something bad. Immediately I grabbed my trousers and pulled them back on. But the greater the hurry, the more mistakes you make: somehow I put them on back to front. Just as I was about to rectify the situation, the door was kicked open and two ferocious cops dashed in. I almost fainted and the girl had to hold me up. I was fined 4000 yuan. Fortunately I’d had enough money on me, otherwise things might have escalated.