Leave Me Alone

by Murong Xuecun

  Zhao Yue was shallower than Cheng Jiao, I thought, because she didn’t know who she had feelings for. It was easy to move her. All the same, I felt a pang as I realised how well I knew her.

  The restaurant’s staff were very efficient. At precisely seven thirty they played Zhang Ai Jia’s ‘The Price of Love’:

  Do you remember the dreams we had?

  Like a bunch of flowers that never faded.

  Stand by me through the wind and rain.

  Watch the changing world.

  This was our song. At our first New Year’s party, I’d worn a black suit and Zhao Yue a white skirt and red top. We linked hands and passionately led the singing, to the approval of everyone there. When Zhao Yue heard the song, her lips trembled. I looked straight into her eyes and sang softly: That deep love always in my heart, even though you have gone.

  I held her hand and said I didn’t know when I’d get another chance to sing the song with her. Zhao Yue was in tears and her chopsticks fell to the table.

  I shook my head and said that my biggest regret in life was letting her go. ‘You gave me your best few years,’ I told her, ‘but I let you down. I didn’t even buy you any decent clothes.’

  Zhao Yue threw herself into my arms. People looked at us. I cradled Zhao Yue’s head to my chest and waved at them, smiling.

  When we’d finished eating Zhao Yue’s eyes were still tearful. I felt myself soften a bit and asked her: ‘Do you think we can get back together? Be like before?’

  Zhao Yue said there was no way she could forget the scene in our apartment that day. ‘You hurt me too much!’

  I thought gloomily that I’d given her a chance but she hadn’t taken it.

  My plan was to suggest to Zhao Yue that we spend the night together. I was about to leave Chengdu and it could be the last time we were together. It was also the seventh anniversary of our first kiss in that campus grove. We’d told each other how we felt. The moonlight was very strong, making her body smooth and clear as jade. ‘My Zhao Yue really is as beautiful as a goddess,’ I’d said.

  She’d poured herself shyly into my embrace, wrapped her arms around me so tightly I could hardly breathe. Each year we’d celebrated that day and Zhao Yue said that it was more important than our wedding. Marriage was just a form, but love, that was happiness. In two days time it would be exactly seven years. That was 2,555 days and nights. Fuck, even I felt emotional.

  To begin with Zhao Yue said no to my suggestion of a last night together, but when she saw my tears — although no doubt the apartment crossed her mind as well — she finally agreed.

  The Golden Bay Hotel was a place where our company often put up clients and I’d already arranged everything. When we went into the room I let down her hair, and caressed and stroked it as I’d done many times before. Zhao Yue nestled in my arms, a little shy. When all her clothes were off, I kissed her.

  ‘It’s been months since I kissed you,’ I said with deep regret.

  Zhao Yue looked at me sadly and her expression triggered a lot of memories in me. In the winter vacation of our third college year, she’d seen me off at the railway station. After my graduation she came again to the station to see me off and embraced me, crying so loudly the rail staff didn’t know where to look. On the day of our divorce, before we set out from home she straightened my tie and told me to take care.

  Suddenly I thought I couldn’t go through with this. A voice inside me was saying, Everyone makes mistakes. Forgive her.

  Very seriously I asked her, ‘Can you tell me about you and Yang Tao?’

  She sat up angrily, and said she was leaving.

  ‘There’s really nothing between us, nothing at all. Do you think everyone is like you?’

  I shut my eyes, then I sighed and said that I was in the wrong.

  ‘I shouldn’t bring that up right now.’

  I pulled her to me.

  Do you remember the dreams we had?

  Like a bunch of flowers that never faded.

  Stand by me through the wind and rain.

  Watch the changing world.

  The price of love is hard to forget.

  The price of love stays in my heart,

  Even though you have gone.

  Move on; people always look for gain.

  Move on; it’s hard to avoid pain.

  There was a knock at the door. Zhao Yue nudged me anxiously and said, ‘There’s someone outside.’

  Caressing her face I said, ‘So? What are you afraid of? I’m here.’

  She appeared nervous and told me to go and look.

  ‘We’re not husband and wife any more,’ she said.

  I smiled. ‘OK, whatever you say.’

  Zhao Yue gave me a grateful smile, which was repaid with an equally charming look. Zipping up, I went and opened the door.

  Yang Tao stood there in a red T-shirt. He looked outraged. I patted his shoulder, buckled my belt and said, ‘Go in. Your girlfriend is naked and waiting for you.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The skin on my hands peeled every autumn. Western doctors blamed a vitamin deficiency, and Chinese doctors said that it was too much heat in my blood. Zhao Yue claimed that I had been a snake in my past life. Had I watched this passing scene from a remote cave in the mountains? Love and hate, sorrow and happiness. Would this life that for Buddhists was a compound of hundreds of accumulated lives be like the skin on my hands, flaking away bit by bit in the cold autumn?

  This autumn in Chengdu was little different from the autumns of past years. Yellow leaves were everywhere; the wind blew sand into eyes. Each night there were deaths, and those keeping vigil over the bodies played mahjong, their faces alive with pleasure. Babies were born, their umbilical cords cut and their fates set. Li Liang said, ‘Believe it. Life’s a joke played on us by God.’

  I was laughing like a movie villain as I left the Golden Bay Hotel. The girl on reception said goodbye and I gave her a graceful half bow.

  ‘Thanks for making that call,’ I said.

  Zhao Yue should be feeling humiliated. I wondered whether Yang Tao would just climb on her and carry on where I’d left off: the stove was hot and so Zhao Yue shouldn’t mind frying one more dish. And I thought that a guy who’d stepped into someone else’s shoes wouldn’t say no to sloppy seconds. The only pity was that I’d had to pay the 300 yuan room fee in advance. I reminded myself to get a receipt and claim expenses.

  The two of us had settled our accounts; we were even. This evening, that woman called Zhao Yue was struck from my ledger. We’d spent seven years establishing the truth that love was no more than a by-product of sexual excitement. Or to put it more simply: in this world there was no such thing as love. Deceit and betrayal ruled.

  I jumped in the car and sped off. Suddenly a taxi screeched to a halt by my side. The driver stuck out his head and cursed me furiously.

  ‘You want to die! Blockhead, can’t you drive a car?’

  I apologised, but his anger didn’t abate and he went on cursing. I smiled, thinking that this was what came of seeking forgiveness. If I’d got out and smacked him in the face, the son of a bitch wouldn’t even have dared to say anything.

  After drinking so much, my bladder was swollen. I stopped my car on the second ring-road and undid my fly. In the dusky lamplight, the patch of grass appeared withered. When were my green years? Thanks to the bounty of my piss, this grass should grow well next year, but where would I find nourishment?

  A long-distance bus whistled past, a row of faces glued to the window watching as I let forth a torrent. Just as I was losing all inhibition, I heard a woman call out, ‘You’re shameless, pissing in the street.’

  I quickly put away the instrument of my disgrace and then when I turned around, I saw a shadow approaching.

  I truly believe that in this world there are no truly honourable people. Given the right combination of time, place and person, anyone will cheat — even an impotent guy or a frigid woman — if they think they could get away
with it.

  Zhao Yue had disputed this, but with one sentence I’d forced her into a corner. ‘If you and Louis Koo were alone in a room and he wanted you, would you resist or not?’

  Hong Kong film star Louis Koo was her idol. Zhao Yue tried to avoid answering, but finally was only able to protest that there was no way such a situation would ever occur. I’d dropped the subject, thinking that this basically said it all about so-called true love.

  Approaching me through the dark was a woman of about twenty-six or twenty-seven. Her face was made up like a fried breadcake. She was wearing shorts and a skimpy top which revealed her belly button. Just from one glance I could tell she was a hooker. I strated to get in the car, but she stopped me.

  ‘Hey, handsome, give me a bit of business. One hundred yuan will do.’

  I was about to tell her to scram, when suddenly I had a thought.

  ‘Will you do it with your mouth?’

  She shot a disdainful look in the direction of what I’d just put away and spat on the ground. ‘With the mouth it will be 500.’

  Sneering, I shut the car door and started the engine. The desperate girl threw herself against the window.

  ‘Four hundred! Three hundred!’

  Zhou Weidong always eulogised about what was still referred to in local slang as a Lewinsky. Once he told me he wanted to open a club on the river called the White House Kiss. When I told Zhao Yue about this, she muttered, ‘That Zhou Weidong really is an animal.’

  I’d immediately drawn a line between Zhou Weidong and myself, saying, ‘Exactly. He’s undermining conjugal love between a man and wife, it’s degrading. Of course, in our case…’

  Zhao Yue gave me a penetrating look. ‘I know what your dirty idea is. Forget it.’

  At that moment I felt like a mouse in a trap.

  The lights of a stream of cars approached and then faded into the night. The night market had already shut down; the vendors had put away their pots, pans, dippers and basins. Their faces etched with hardship and loss, they were heading back to their homes. Every night people on the street thought about going home, but who waited for me? Who was missing me?

  The girl practised her oral kung fu on me, her long hair floating over my waist. All that was solid melted and, as the world soundlessly collapsed, and was remade memories rolled over me.

  That autumn on Mount Emei, I’d wrapped an overcoat around Zhao Yue’s body but she’d continued to shiver, her teeth chattering like a horse’s hooves on flagstones.

  ‘Twenty years on, if we come here again we can’t go back on our promise,’ she said.

  ‘By that time you’ll be an old woman,’ I replied. ‘I’ll want a younger girlfriend.’

  Zhao Yue had kicked me, hit my chest with her fist and chased me furiously. Finally I embraced her. She struggled but couldn’t get free and all at once calmed down. After I kissed her gently, we turned our heads and saw a vast expanse of white clouds. A red sun slowly rose, bringing the day, illuminating our bodies with a golden glow.

  Two years later, when we departed from the North-East after visiting her parents, Zhao Yue and her mother wept on each other’s shoulders at the train station. My mother-in-law took my hand and said, ‘Chen Zhong, Zhao Yue hasn’t had many good times. You should treat her well.’

  Zhao Yue sobbed so much she nearly put her back out. I put my arm around her shoulders and promised her mother, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be good to her.’

  As the train went through the Shanhaiguan pass, Zhao Yue asked, ‘Did you mean what you said?’

  I was eating instant noodles and answered indistinctly with my mouth full. ‘If I cheat on you, I am a dog.’

  She smiled like a flower blossoming.

  That mouth-artist had gone but I had started to doubt my memories: those fragments — true or false? In this city tomb, who could serve as a reliable witness to my youth? Li Liang once said, ‘You can live for many people, but you can only die for one.’ But this night, who was I living for? Who could I die for? I zipped up and crawled back into the front seat. Starting the car, I spun the steering wheel and did a U-turn. The car door scraped against a tree with a soul-piercing sound.

  Zhao Yue’s boyfriend before me was called Ren Li Hua — a name that made it hard to guess whether its owner was a man or a woman. After that incident in the woods when he ran off, Zhao Yue never spoke about him, no matter what. She refused to divulge any details of their relationship.

  ‘I’ve seen him anyway,’ I said. ‘What’s left to be embarrassed about?’

  Even as I spoke, I was unsure what I actually wanted to know, but the more she refused to tell me, the more I felt there was something wrong. We had a massive argument. At one point I said nastily, ‘You checked to see that Ren Li Hua’s cock wasn’t up to much before you came looking for me!’

  She grabbed a knife from the kitchen and brandished it, saying she wanted to stab me. I made her hand it over but tears still streamed down her face as she screamed, ‘Chen Zhong, you have lost all goodness. You’ll come to a bad end.’

  There was a lot of stuff about Zhao Yue that I supposed I’d never know now. It was rumoured at university that she’d attempted to commit suicide because of what happened in the woods. I asked her a few times, but she always denied it, and if I pressed her she got tetchy. One Christmas Eve, however, we were embracing tenderly, with her face pressed to my chest.

  ‘I’ll never commit suicide for another person,’ she said. ‘If I die, I want to die for you.’

  Immediately after she said that, the Christmas bells started in the distance and we heard thunderous cheers from the bar downstairs.

  I was suddenly full of dread: surely Zhao Yue wouldn’t commit suicide?

  A taxi drove by. The road light at my side winked twice and then, without a sound, it went out. My mind threw up this thought: a person’s death was like a light going out! My brain felt as if it’d been struck by lightning. Dancing spots before my eyes that gradually formed into Zhao Yue’s face.

  Room 308 in the Golden Bay Hotel. The door was still unlocked. I held the handle, my heart leaping madly. After waiting two seconds to cool down, I gently pushed open the door.

  No one. The place was as silent and still as the grave. The TV was on, the sound turned down; a few shadows with happy faces danced across the screen. Their lips moved but I didn’t know what they were saying. All the lights were on, the sheets tangled on the bed. The paper I’d used to clean my shoes stuck up from the edge of the wastepaper basket, fluttering in a slight draught.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  There’d been no follow-up to my interview with the big boss. Fatty Dong continued as our General Manager, his stomach stuck out in front and his arse protruding behind. His manner was increasingly high-handed and when he got worked up about something he produced enough saliva to drown people.

  Zhou Weidong summarised his three favourite sayings as follows:

  1. You’re wrong!

  2. I can’t just sign this.

  3. You can disagree, but you still have to obey.

  He imitated Fatty Dong, thrusting out his stomach as he walked around.

  ‘Chen Zhong, do you dare disobey?’ he said in Fatty Dong’s blustering tone.

  I beat the desk and laughed loudly.

  ‘Genius. You’ve got him down to a T.’

  The past two months had been tough for me. Disregarding Head Office’s instructions, Fatty Dong asked accounts to deduct 5,000 yuan from my salary each month. As it was the slowest season for sales, I was making less than 3,000 yuan a month. If I hadn’t had some capital to fall back on, I would have had to declare bankruptcy.

  Last week at the Binjiang Hotel I’d seen Zegna suits on sale, the cheapest going for just 4,600. I hesitated for a long time before deciding to pass it up. I was almost thirty years old, life wasn’t forever, and it was time to think about the future.

  In my university essays, like many students I loved using the word ‘lifetime’. A ‘lifetime’ of
true love, a ‘lifetime’s’ ambition, blah, blah, blah. Back then I’d genuinely believed there were things that were essentially unchanging. It was only now that I realised, apart from the food you ate, nothing else was fixed. That which you valued most would eventually turn to shit.

  I called the HR director, Mr Liu, and asked him whether there were any new arrangements forthcoming for the Sichuan branch. Disappointingly his voice held no trace of his former warmth as he said that first I should concentrate on doing a good job in my current position. I wondered what had gone wrong.

  Whatever it was, I was sure Fatty Dong had something to do with it. The jerk had paid his own expenses for a trip to Head Office in August and since returning he had been abnormally energetic. He stuck his nose into all of the sales team’s business, big and small. He even rejected my proposal for firing Liu Three. I criticised Liu’s lack of ability, and added that Old Lai from Chongqing wasn’t happy with him.

  Fatty Dong waved his pipe like a big shot and said, ‘I decide how to make use of people. You can disagree but you still have to obey.’

  I was desperate to beat him up, but Zhou Weidong dragged me away.

  I still hadn’t got that 50,000 that Old Lai from Chongqing owed me. When I called to rebuke him for not keeping his promise, he said, ‘You’re putting so much pressure on me. All my savings are tied up in this stock. Can you give me a bit more time? I’ll send the money to you personally after I’ve got the goods off my hands.’

  I wanted to tell him, Your fucking assets are worth millions but you can’t find a piffling 50,000 yuan? Do you really take me for such an idiot?