Cries in the Drizzle

by Yu Hua

  Later I grew more accustomed to the sensation, and when darkness fell I was no longer so fearful of sinning. It had become apparent to me that self-reproach was ineffectual in the face of temptation, and night always accorded leniency and consolation. As I wearily drifted off to sleep, the sight that often met my eyes was a brightly colored jacket fluttering gently in a light gray sky, and the austere soul that had been wont to put me on trial disappeared in the distance.

  But in the morning, when I started my walk toward the school, heavy chains dragged me down. As I approached the school and saw female classmates, so neat and tidy, I could not help but blush. The healthy life embodied in the sunlight by their gay laughter seemed to me the most wonderful thing in the world, and my tainted condition stirred in me a disgust with myself. What I found hardest to bear was the way their glowing eyes skimmed over me from time to time, because now all I felt was anxiety, and I was no longer able to enjoy the happiness and excitement of being warmed by a girl's glance. At moments like that I always vowed to reform, but with night I would return to my old ways. My self-contempt expressed itself through weak avoidance, and I would slip out to some empty spot at the intervals between classes and stand there blankly. I kept away from Su Yu, on whom I had become increasingly dependent, for I felt I didn't deserve such a good friend, and when I saw Su Yu (who was completely in the dark about my ordeal) approaching me in a friendly way, I was so distressed I scuttled off in the other direction.

  My life organized itself into two parts, day and night. During the day I felt upright and fearless, but once night arrived my resolve quickly collapsed. The speed with which I fell into desire's embrace never ceased to astonish me. In those days my heart was in turmoil. I often felt that I was being torn in two, my dual identities glaring at each other like archenemies.

  At night, as desire ran rampant, I increasingly felt a need of a female image for inspiration. I didn't really want to sully anybody's honor, but the urge was just too compelling. I chose a pretty girl in my class named Cao Li. She wore shorts to school that summer and other boys more physically advanced than me quite lost their heads over her, hot in their praise of her exposed thighs. I, on the other hand, still lacked a true awareness of the female body and was quite taken aback when I heard their muttered comments. It was incomprehensible to me that they did not single out her face for accolades, for at the time I felt she possessed a peerless beauty and was completely infatuated with her captivating smile. At night she became my fantasy companion. Although my attention to her physical assets was not nearly as down-to-earth as the other boys’, I noticed her thighs too, and their sleek luster made me quiver. But it was her face inspired my most fervent admiration. The sound of her voice, from wherever it came, was always tantalizing.

  And so after nightfall, in my imagination, lovely Cao Li would appear by my side. In these moments I never had any improper designs on her body, for we would simply walk along a riverbank which we had all to ourselves. I made up the words she said and imagined the looks she gave me, and at my most daring I could even fashion a scent that emanated from her flesh, the smell of a meadow at daybreak. My only unseemly fantasy was that of stroking her hair as it stirred in the breeze. Later, when I prepared to caress her cheek, my nerve failed and I cautioned myself: No, you're not to do that.

  Although I successfully prevented myself from stroking Cao Li's adorable face, with the arrival of daylight I still felt I had behaved indecently toward her, and as soon as I stepped inside the school I grew uneasy. I chose not to let my eyes rest on her, but I had no way of imposing similar control over my hearing, and the sound of her voice might wing its way toward me at any moment, making me happy and miserable all at the same time. Once she was tossing a paper ball toward one of her girlfriends, and it accidentally hit me instead. She just stood there, not knowing what to do, and then sat down amid the laughter of our classmates. Her face turned crimson as she bent her head to organize things in her satchel, and that flustered look stirred me to the core: if a trivial paper ball could embarrass her so acutely, then my nocturnal fantasies about her had to count as really filthy. But it was not so long afterward that I was to see a dramatic change in her.

  Over and over again I vowed to cease my secret injuries to Cao Li, and on a trial basis I would fantasize about dating another girl, but it never took long before Cao Li's image took her place. Despite my best efforts I could never break free from her grip, and my only comfort was that no matter how often I molested her in my imagination she remained as beautiful as always, and when she ran across the playground her figure was just as vital and touching.

  As I sank deeper and deeper into this quagmire of self-indulgence and self-laceration, Su Yu, who was after all two years my senior, noticed my haggard face and my strange insistence on avoiding him. Not only was seeing Cao Li a source of distress, encounters with Su Yu also left me acutely embarrassed. His cultured manner as he walked across the sunny playground evoked purity and an unruffled calm, and my dirty secrets had deprived me of the right to enjoy his company. After class I did not venture over to the older boys’ classroom to look for him as I had earlier done but made my way to the pond next to the school, enduring in silence and solitude all these problems I had created for myself.

  Su Yu came over to the pond on several occasions. The first time he asked me what was wrong with such obvious concern that it brought me to the verge of tears. I said nothing and just went on watching the ripples on the surface of the pond. After that, if Su Yu came over he would not say a word, and together we would stand there quietly waiting for the bell to ring, when we'd head back to school.

  Su Yu had no way of knowing what torments I was having to endure, and my manner made him suspect that perhaps I had begun to get tired of him. So he became more cautious in his approach and no longer came over to the pond to check on me. Close friends for so long, we found a barrier now lay between us and estrangement quickly ensued. Sometimes if we ran into each other on the road to or from school we both appeared nervous and ill at ease. I noticed that Zheng Liang, the tallest boy in the whole school, was now beginning to appear by Su Yu's side. The two would stand at the edge of the playground, and Zheng Liang would chat amiably with the more refined Su Yu, punctuating their conversation with his loud laugh. I watched in misery as Zheng Liang occupied the place that was rightfully mine.

  I tasted to the full the bitterness of losing a friend, resentful that Su Yu had bonded so quickly with Zheng Liang. At the same time, when we ran into each other I was stirred by the expression of perplexity and hurt in Su Yu's eyes, and there was sparked in me a fervent desire to reestablish my old friendship with him. But as long as I was bogged down in my nightly sinning I felt it impossible to set about restoring our relationship. Daylight plunged me into a mood of unspeakable dread; under the blazing sun I always hated myself and Su Yu's remoteness simply intensified my self-contempt. So one morning I made up my mind to confess to him how low I had sunk. I wanted to do this partly to impose a real punishment on myself and partly to demonstrate my loyalty to him. I could perfectly well imagine Su Yu's shocked reaction to my revelations, for he could not possibly anticipate the extent of my wickedness.

  But the morning I summoned up courage to call Su Yu over to the pond and was able to maintain this bold stance long enough to tell him everything, Su Yu showed not the slightest sign of alarm, instead saying earnestly, “What you're talking about is masturbation.”

  His attitude astonished me. There was a smile of embarrassment on his face as he told me evenly, “I do it too.”

  Tears seemed to spill from my eyes and I heard myself saying with vexation, “Why didn't you tell me that before?”

  I will never forget that morning beside the pond with Su Yu. In the wake of his admission, daytime recovered its beauty. The grass and trees nearby gleamed in the sun and when some boys burst out laughing over some joke or other, Su Yu pointed at them and said, “At night they do it too.”

  One evening n
ot long afterward, at the tail end of winter, Su Yu and Zheng Liang and I were walking along a quiet street—the first time I was with Su Yu after dark. I remember I had both hands in my pockets, through habit ingrained by the winter cold, and it was only when I realized that my palms were breaking into a warm sweat that I asked Su Yu in surprise, “Is it spring already?”

  I was fifteen that year, and to be going around with two friends considerably older than me was a memorable experience. Su Yu was on my right, his hand on my shoulder. Zheng Liang— my companion for the first time—was on his right. When Su Yu introduced me, Zheng Liang did not think any the worse of me for my shortness and even seemed pleased, saying to Su Yu, “Did you think I don't know who he is?”

  Zheng Liang made a deep impression on me that evening. He had a way of swinging his arms as he walked, and in the moonlight his tall figure conveyed an air of complete self-assurance. It was on that occasion that the three of us quietly addressed the topic of masturbation. Su Yu, normally so laconic, was the one who started things off, and I was quite taken aback when he calmly broached the subject. It is only now, when I recall this scene after an interval of so many years, that I understand Su Yu's intentions. At the time I had yet to shake off all the baggage I had accumulated, and Su Yu brought the issue out in the open to help me put it in perspective. And it is true that only after this did I become truly relaxed about it. Now, as then, I feel there was something touching about the conspiratorial tone of the confidences we shared.

  Zheng Liangs attitude was matter-of-fact. “If you can't sleep at night, it really does the trick,” he said.

  Recalling how cruelly I had been punishing myself just a few days earlier, I shot him an admiring glance.

  Although on that particular evening he put me entirely at ease, a casual remark of his somewhat later on created a new matter for concern. Zheng Liang, quite unaware that he was revealing his own ignorance, said to me, “That stuff is like water in a thermos—there's only so much of it in you. People who use it up quickly exhaust their supply by the time they're in their thirties, whereas people who save it up still have some when they're eighty.”

  This comment sent me into a tizzy. Given my overindulgence during the preceding weeks, I thought it very likely that my stocks had been drained dry, and I was worried sick at night when I contemplated my future. As fear gnawed away, my romantic yearnings failed to reignite those fantasies that once kept me in their thrall and instead I became increasingly resigned to a life of loneliness. One evening I imagined myself as a doddery old man plodding alone through the winter snow, and I felt heartsick over my wretched lot.

  For many nights after this I continued my nocturnal activities—not to satisfy physical urges but to determine the status of my bodily functions. Successful experiments gained me only momentary reassurance, for panic followed hard on their heels. I was well aware of the risks I was taking with each effort at verification and that the very last drops of fluid had just been discharged. Then I would bitterly regret the proof I had just completed. But within days anxiety about the prospect of internal depletion would stir me to renewed testing. My physical growth took place against the backdrop of a wan complexion, and often I would stand next to the pond in Southgate, looking at my reflection. I saw my emaciated chin and lackluster eyes drifting helplessly in the water, and faint ripples made me see a face covered in wrinkles. Especially when the sky was overcast I could clearly make out the gloomy features of a man grown senile before his time.

  It was not until I was twenty years old that I learned the truth of the matter. I was at the university in Beijing at the time and happened to make the acquaintance of a poet who then enjoyed a considerable reputation. He was the first celebrity I had known and his offhand, distracted manner inspired me regularly to take a two-hour bus trip to reach the other side of town, just to enjoy a few minutes of conversation with him. After three such visits he was still vague about what my name was, but his friendliness and his scathing mockery of fellow poets more than compensated for this indignity. Though prone to holding forth at great length, he was also capable of listening attentively to my own scattered opinions while regularly correcting what he saw as erroneous views.

  At the home of this forty-year-old bachelor I would encounter women of various stripes and hues, a reflection of the poet's catholic tastes. After our relationship developed, I once rather gingerly suggested that perhaps it was time for him to get married. This intrusion into his privacy did not seem to irritate him, for he answered casually, “What's the point of getting married?”

  This put me on the spot. Out of concern for him as a man I much admired, I blundered on, “You don't want to use all that stuff up prematurely.”

  This bashful remark left him incredulous. “How on earth could you think like that?” he asked.

  So then I repeated what Zheng Liang had said that evening years earlier. His reaction to this account was a roar of laughter, and I still remember vividly the sight of him doubled up on the sofa, splitting his sides with mirth. Later he invited me for the first time to stay for dinner, a meal that took the form of two packets of instant noodles purchased from the convenience store downstairs.

  The poet did get married when he was forty-five, to a woman in her thirties whose striking good looks were paired with a remarkably fierce temper. The poet, formerly such a free spirit, now found himself the cat's-paw of fate. Like a child in the hands of a stepmother, when he left his apartment the only money he had in his pocket was his round-trip bus fare. Control of the purse strings was just one of her areas of expertise. He often came over to my place, bruises all over his face, seeking temporary refuge, the reason being simply that a certain female had called him up. A few days later he would insist that I accompany him back home as he prepared to make an official apology. I said to him, “Don't look so dejected. You've got nothing to be ashamed of. You didn't do anything wrong.”

  But he smirked and said, “Better to confess my errors.”

  I remember how his pretty wife, from her perch on the sofa, said to her husband as he came in the door, “Take the garbage out!”

  Our poet lifted the bulging basket of trash, a beam of pleasure on his face. He was wrong to assume that performance of this chore would secure him a clean bill of health, for on his return she gave me my marching orders, and after the door had closed behind me, I heard her launch forth like a parent lecturing a child. As his wife, she was of course fully aware that the object of her reprimands was a gifted poet. So it was that I heard a tirade that left me quite dumbfounded, so wide was its lexical range, incorporating references to classical poetry and contemporary political jargon, pop lyrics, and goodness knew what else. At intervals in between I heard her husband's pious utterances: “That's well put” or “You've set me straight on that.”

  As the wife's voice grew ever more passionate, she was no longer censuring her husband as much as she was carried away by a pure love of invective. I hated to imagine what it would be like to be under her thumb on a daily basis: even if one could endure the black eyes and bloody noses, it would be hard to put up with her verbal incontinence.

  Her most extreme measure was to decorate their apartment with her husband's letters of repentance, pledges to reform, and statements of self-criticism, as though they were some kind of design element that would impress her husband's friends when they visited. When she first stuck them up, his face was ashen, but with time he was able to pretend it was no big deal. “A dead pig's not afraid of being scalded with hot water” was his comment.

  “Forget about the physical abuse,” he once told me. “She's making an emotional wreck out of me too.”

  “Why did you marry her in the first place?” I asked.

  “How was I to know she was a shrew?”

  Along with other friends I urged him to get a divorce, but he ended up reporting our advice to his wife, holding nothing back. His betrayal resulted in an identical outcome for each of us, a threat-filled phone call from his
wife. The curse placed on me was that I would die on the street on my twenty-fifth birthday.

  In the spring ofthat year when I turned fifteen, I was dressing after a shower one lunchtime and discovered that my body had undergone a peculiar change. I noticed that some long hairs had appeared in my groin, which added a new layer of agitation to the inner turmoil generated by my nocturnal activities. Uninvited guests, these slender intruders had all of a sudden sprouted on my smooth skin. I stared at them stupefied, uncertain just how I should view their arrival, though I had the fearful sensation that my body had lost its carefree simplicity.

  As I headed off for school through the sunlight, everything around me was just as it had always been—my body alone had changed. Something ugly was hiding in my underpants, making me feel that my feet were unbearably heavy. Although I hated those hairs I had to keep their existence a secret, because I could not deny that they were a part of me.

  Soon after, hairs started springing up on my legs, too. I noticed this in the summer, when I no longer wore long trousers, and when I walked to school in my shorts the hairs’ obvious and inescapable presence made me feel hideously exposed. All it took to make me squirm was for a girl to glance in their direction. Even if I had uprooted the most flagrant offenders by the following morning, I was always worried that Cao Li would already have seen them.