The students stared at me. I thought for a while and said, ‘For happiness.’
Li Lian paced excitably denouncing my view.
‘Wrong! Life has only one goal!’
Li Liang was twenty-one. He was wearing a red striped T-shirt that he’d bought for 5 yuan at a small stand outside the campus. He didn’t say what he thought the point of life was, but I knew anyway. It was death.
My happiness is a handful of dust
On a windless moonlit night the long grass trembles
The hills are blanketed with money
Mourners: your tears
will erase the traces of my former lives
But the congregation of departed is swelling
— Li Liang, ‘Moonlit Night’
By the time Ye Mei dashed panting up the stairs, I’d lit my third cigarette. She didn’t say a thing, just opened the door. Without removing my shoes I rushed in.
Li Liang wasn’t there. His luxury apartment by the Funan River was as empty as a ransacked tomb. The window was wide open, the wind carrying in the smell of rotten fish. A baby bird flew by and perched on a branch from which yellow leaves were falling. Autumn was here, and the bird was returning home.
After searching the whole house, I had to concede that Li Liang’s corpse wasn’t concealed inside the wardrobe, under the bed or down the toilet. I’d even prodded the mattress all over, suspecting that he might have stitched himself inside. The whole time Ye Mei just stood there watching me race back and forth like a madman. Her eyes expressed contempt, as if the sight of me might pollute her.
After I’d finished my search, she said coldly, ‘I didn’t know you were such a good friend of his.’
I was a bit worked up and answered emotionally: ‘Li Liang is my best friend in the world. He always will be! I would even…’
Ye Mei folded her arms and she had a look of complete disdain as she waited for me to finish. I mustered up my courage and said confidently, ‘I would even die for him!’
She snorted and with a peculiarly savage expression said, ‘Li Liang didn’t really regard you as his friend. That 32,000 yuan you owe him — he’s never forgotten about that.’
This was Ye Mei, a woman I was familiar with yet who was a stranger to me. In other words, what I was familiar with was just parts of her body. I’d never cared about her mind. That time when Li Liang had told me gloomily, she only listens to you now, I’d fled.
As a master in whoring, I could vaguely sense how Ye Mei had felt about me that night in Leshan when she’d lain on top of my body letting out heart-rending cries. And when she’d thrown that glass of wine over me. What had confused me was her behaviour afterwards. From the day of her wedding up until today we’d met only six times and each time it was as if she’d just emerged from the fridge. She gave me goose bumps.
After my divorce from Zhao Yue, she’d called me one morning at five o’clock. Confused, I asked who it was.
She said it was her.
Immediately I asked what was up.
She didn’t reply and rubbing my eyes, I heard loud music coming down the phone line. After nearly a whole minute she suddenly said, ‘Forget it. I dialled the wrong number, OK.’
Without another sound she hung up.
The sky was already a little light, a thread of dawn penetrating through the window into my sleepy eyes. I cradled the phone as I sat there stupidly, my mind empty. Later, I slept again and didn’t wake until it was fully light. When I woke I felt a sense of loss, and wasn’t sure whether it had been a dream.
I knew that what she said was true. Li Liang was totally different from me. I was careless and never knew how much money I had, let alone how much of that belonged to me and how much to others. I was the type of person who thought, there’s ten yuan in my wallet, so I’ll spend nine yuan on a pack of cigarettes. Li Liang was very meticulous: he remembered every favour he received and gave. But seeing as he remembered that I owed him 32,000, he should remember what he owed me.
In our final semester at university, Li Liang was constantly broke. All his money was lost at the mahjong table. He never won, but his addiction trumped that. Anytime someone shouted in the corridor, ‘we’ve got three but we’re short one,’ he’d be the first to dash out and sign up.
That semester I’d brought 2,300 yuan with me, but blew it all within three months. At least half went on paying off Li Liang’s gambling debt. He didn’t even have enough money to buy his train ticket home to Chengdu, and depended on me for everything. He had nowhere to stay when he got back to Chengdu, and so once again it was me who gave him a free room and board at my place. He smoked my father’s Red Pagoda cigarettes, and my mother washed his socks.
Yes, that was my point. The value of friends lay in using each other. Those friendships where you’d die for each other might exist; on the other hand, they might just be fantasy.
So that afternoon, as the autumn leaves drifted in the dusty air, I continued to look for my drug-ruined friend Li Liang. A white plastic bag sank slowly into the Funan River’s grey and stinking water. I stood on the bank thinking, ‘life and death’ friendships? Don’t make me laugh.
CHAPTER THIRTY
There were two sorts of business trips in our company: ‘profit’ and ‘non-profit’. A non-profit trip meant there was no chance to make money. The standard rate of travel-expense remuneration was low — no more than 100 yuan a day for food, accommodation and travel included — and anyone going on this kind of trip would actually end up out of pocket. ‘Profitable travel’ was a different story, an opportunity to cash in; you could routinely net a few thousand yuan. Everyone wanted to go on this type of business trip, but no one wanted to go on the ‘unprofitable’ trips. This was one of the main reasons why Zhou Weidong and the others had to keep in with me — I had the right to decide their business travel.
The sales fair was a supreme example of profitable travel. The company gave us a one per cent discretionary expense fund, which we could ‘disburse according to requirements.’ ‘disburse according to requirements’ was a beautifully subtle phrase and everyone understood this and secretly made money. Even Fatty Dong dropped his habitual fake-righteousness, loudly shouting that he was going in person to the Chongqing fair. Fuck, just for that tiny rake-off? I wasn’t greedy; I’d settle for just thirty per cent of that one per cent. This meant that if 3 million yuan of goods were ordered, I would make 9000 yuan. It was simple to avoid difficulties after the event: you just needed to take back a big bunch of hotel and dining receipts. The clients would help you arrange everything so there was no trouble back home.
My most recent trip to Chongqing arguably belonged to a third kind: it was hard to say whether it was profitable or unprofitable. When Liu Three went he’d lost over 1,000 yuan and got a slapping. In my case, I spent plenty on food, drink and Old Lai’s Young Lover, but finally lined up a profit of 50,000. All the same, this was in question now because that damned Old Lai had recently repaid the company 150,000 but still hadn’t given me the 50,000 as promised.
As soon as the sales fair was over, I resolved that I would go to Chongqing and urge Old Lai to pay up. At the same time I’d ask the company to file a suit against him. If he dared try and cheat me, I’d make him cough up the full 250,000.
I was in charge of the Dachuan, Nanchong, Neijiang and Zigong sales regions. After returning from a circuit of my territory, I had made more than 10,000. Zeng Jiang from Dachuan, a new client this year, had courteously given me a big parcel with a carton of Zhonghua cigarettes, two bottles of five-grain spirit, and several packets of lamp shadow beef. He’d made at least 150,000 yuan, and the bridge of his nose almost collapsed from smiling. I felt pretty good by the time I got on the train home. Sat by the window, I struck up a conversation with two girls in the lower bunk. They were of the new generation: one was dressed in what looked like a net curtain and the other could have stepped out of the canvas of an old master. First I flattered them that they looked cute, and then praised their
great bodies.
They laughed and one said, ‘You’re smart enough not to just say we’re cute.’
After careful questioning, I discovered they were fresh graduates of Chengdu University and were looking for jobs.
‘Come to my company!’ I said. ‘I need two secretaries.’
They asked me what I did, and I said I was an independent director of the Pan-Pacific Sweaty Foot Group and CEO of the Chinese Smelly Tofu company.
They both laughed. ‘No way. You’re smelly enough, don’t make us stink as well.’
This banter aroused lecherous thoughts in me. The taller one wore a mini skirt, and sat cross-legged. Her black panties were just visible, which made my heart flutter.
Throughout this business trip I hadn’t been with any women. The last night, in Dachuan, I tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep. I browsed all the TV channels from beginning to end until my mind was full of commercials. Soft drinks that sounded like the urine of the gods. Some western medicine disguised as a Japanese tonic pill; it could cure any disease you had, and just a sniff would prevent constipation. The funniest were the commercials for sanitary napkins: you could move whichever way you wanted without any leakage, and the way they described them made them sound like a respirator. Just when I was feeling unbearably bored, the hotel sauna called to ask if I needed a massage. When I asked the price, they said it was 100 yuan plus a 300 yuan tip, which seemed reasonable. I asked them to send up some girls. The first girl had freckles, which was a turn-off for me, so I declined her services. The second was too skinny, which would definitely be uncomfortable, so I said no. The third was too old, the fourth too short, and the fifth had a cigarette burn on her arm. In the end I didn’t choose any of them. When I’d rejected the lot, the sauna boss made a furious phone call.
‘Bastard. If you’ve no money, then why don’t you make love to yourself.’
She said she hoped that I’d wank myself to death. Not knowing whether to laugh or be angry, I hung up the phone.
The problem wasn’t really the girls, the problem was me. In the past few years I’d copulated so much I’d gradually grown weary of it. Chen Chao said that the Yellow Emperor had slept with a thousand women and ended up a god. He complained that he’d almost caught up with our ancestor, but instead of becoming a god he had got the pox. When I thought about it, whoring was really very dull. You spent 400 yuan just to do push-ups, and then when it was over you parted company and never got to know the other person. It was a profitless business. I was becoming more and more afraid of the empty feeling that came after ejaculation, when a world that had lost its desire would gradually turn grey. Where was my life? My ambitions? I had no enthusiasm for anything, and negativity flooded my mind. A voice in my head kept asking: Chen Zhong, is this what you wanted?
It wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted kisses, hugs, and staring gently into each other’s eyes. I even wanted lies that would eventually be exposed, rather than merely a piston movement. I’d developed a dread of the night. The slightest sound could wake me up. When I opened my eyes in the darkness, everything I looked at seemed distorted. The lamplight was a dead man’s eyes, the curtains were a murderer’s overcoat. Once I hung my leather belt over the bed headboard. When I woke in the night it had become a snake wriggling towards me. I was terrified. At such times, I really did wish that a certain person was beside me, her hands on my chest, or lying in my arms chatting away about something. Ordering me to get her some tea. When it was dawn, she would kiss me and tap my head. ‘You pig, if you don’t get up now you’ll be late.’
I hadn’t heard from Zhao Yue after that night at the Golden Bay. I’d assumed she would call and interrogate me, and had worked out responses to anything she might say. I might call her stupid for not realising I was setting her up. Maybe I wouldn’t even answer the phone, just let her stew.
But she didn’t call, and this gave me a sense of loss. It was as if I’d punched at thin air. The day she got married I’d planned my words of congratulations to her: ‘The adulterers finally make it legal’. Then I’d spit loudly. When I called however, I found that Zhao Yue had gone so far as to change her mobile number.
The morning after Zhao Yue’s wedding when I woke up in Neijiang, my head hurt as if it was about to split open. But while my limbs felt weak, my mind couldn’t have been more awake. When I thought about the twenty-eight years during which I’d squandered everything and struggled without ever catching hold of anything, I felt like shit. I guessed Zhao Yue and Yang Tao were probably still in bed right now and I wondered whether she was giving him a blow job, gagging as her head moved backwards and forwards. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I kicked the quilt off the bed. Fuck! It’s not over yet.
After sleeping the whole night on the train, my mouth was foul. I had also woken with an erection and had to recite some of Chairman Mao’s quotations before I dared get off the bed. This technique was learned from our department head who’d said famously: Politics results in impotence, while literature cures impotence.
So to be safe I receited two more lines of poetry:
Trousers on, off bed.
Anyone see my shoes?
The two girls rocked with laugher, saying, ‘General Manager Stinky, we didn’t expect you to be a poet!’
Ever since I’d told them my made-up job titles, they’d addressed me as General Manager Stinky. I smilingly invited them to eat lamp shadow beef with me. As I handed it round, I casually touched the taller girl’s arm. She blushed, but she didn’t shrink away and I felt a jolt of happiness. The more I looked at her, the more beautiful she seemed and the more I felt that she was my type. Despite my depressed mood, I couldn’t help laughing happily.
After we’d chatted for another thirty minutes, the train arrived in Chengdu where the sky was overcast and, as always, the north railway station was rowdy. The crowds at the exits were like ants after a flood, biting, ripping and pulling at each other to be first to crawl into this dangerous city. They would dig holes into every small alley and house, then creep in and bury themselves, never to emerge again.
I insisted on seeing the two girls home. They said there was no need so I looked serious and warned them about the dangers of society. ‘There are bad guys everywhere. The way you look will have a negative influence on society — everyone will stare at you. As a responsible citizen, how can I stand aside and do nothing about a soaring crime rate?’
They both laughed. ‘You’re the one most like a bad guy,’ one said, ‘and you’re warning us about others?’
Girls these days all loved a bad guy. As long as you had a smooth tongue and weren’t easily daunted, you could have your way. You had to make sure you didn’t talk yourself up too much though. People were contrary. The worse you said you were, the more they concentrated on your strong points.
Li Liang had never understood this. In the days before his diagnosis, there was a time when he wanted to study from me how to chat up girls. We went to most of the bars in Chengdu, and I always pulled a girl while he left empty-handed. Making a detailed analysis of our tactics, I discovered that the biggest difference was this: as soon as I opened my mouth I admitted I was a bad guy, while Li Liang always talked to girls about life, philosophy, and even communist morality. Oh, Li Liang!
Li Liang wasn’t dead, he’d just paid a visit to our old university. He called one day, just as I was leaving Chengdu on a business trip. That movie All about Ah-Long was playing in the bus, the scene when Chow Yun-fat’s character takes part in a motorbike contest and then has a crash causing a big pile-up. Chow Yun-fat thuds to the ground and rolls around, while Sylvia Chung and her son cry beside the track. You can see Chow’s abnormally calm expression beneath his helmet as he staggers along and the soundtrack tells of his distress:
That sad song haunts my dreams
With tales of times gone by
Those who turn away with dead hearts
Are the lonely shadows left behind
After crying eyes
are dried by the wind.
This hairy dude sitting beside me was choking up. My heart received a jolt when I heard Li Liang’s voice and I said to him, ‘Li Liang! Fuck, I thought you were dead.’
Li Liang laughed and said that in all his life, the times he remembered most fondly were our university days.
Before graduation, Li Liang had published an article in the literature society paper called ‘My Homeland of Emotions’. I still could remember a few lines:
You can never find the books you want in the library. There’s always the smell of sweaty feet in the dorm. There’s a poster of film star Maggie Cheung on Big Brother’s wall, with her breasts circled: she is his ideal lover. On Chen Zhong’s bookshelf there’s a big knife. Maybe one day he’ll kill someone. Bighead has a grotesque birthmark on his stomach, but he says people with this kind of birthmark will become big officials.
The overture of our youth was still reverberating but I had moved on now. No matter whether I succeeded or failed in the future, was happy or sad, in the depths of my life there was a home I would never visit again.
In some ways though, Li Liang had never grown up. He was always thinking about the past. There was a fable that summed him up: if you were given some grapes, would you eat the big ones or the small ones first? I chose the big ones, which meant I was a hopeful pessimist, overdrawing on life. Although every grape I ate was the largest to hand, the grapes themselves became smaller and smaller. Bighead Wang chose small ones, which meant he was a pessimistic optimist. Hope was always there but he could never reach it. But Li Liang didn’t actually eat grapes. He was a grape collector.
Leave Me Alone Page 18