Wild Fruit

by Keyi Sheng

‘You’ll have to be admitted right away. Where is your family?’ The doctor spoke haughtily, the two thick lips expanding so broadly they covered half of her face.

  ‘I need to go home first and discuss it with them.’ Shui Qin was like a defeated hen, wings drooping as she turned and walked away.

  To Shui Qin, removing money from her savings was worse than death. As soon as she finished sewing the pile of clothing that was accumulated at home, their savings would hit six figures. She had intended to celebrate a little that day.

  She walked beside the wall, she could still jump and hop like a frog when she had come to the hospital, but now, she had no strength, feeling like a fat, ugly toad, wriggling on the ground. She walked a few steps, stopped, then repeated the process. Finally, she stood beneath a tree, with nobody around, and started weeping.

  In taking care of Zhima, my sister started to neglect Sun Xiangxi. Thinking it through, she knew that, though Sun had his good points, he was, in essence, a playboy who was not to be relied upon.

  Having had a taste of what other men were like, my sister now felt Zhima was even more annoying. He was 80 per cent ill, but pretended an extra 30 per cent on top of it. He was using the chance to rule over her with vigour, and she played the role properly.

  When Yicao came to the hospital, she was chewing bubble gum. She blew a large, egg-shaped bubble. When it exploded, it left the gum stuck all over her mouth. She rolled out her tongue to pull the gum back between her lips, whispering, ‘Ba, are you using bodily suffering to keep Ma by your side?’

  Zhima was so angry he blew his beard and glared at her, then spat out a wad of phlegm.

  Yicao went on, ‘Don’t tie my mother down. If you really are crippled, Yihua and I will take care of you.’

  My sister stopped her quickly. ‘You bad girl! Hurry back to school now. Don’t hang around here talking that sort of nonsense.’

  Yicao had no intention of hanging around. She said, ‘Ma, we’re all women. I’ll definitely help you. What right has my father to ask for a 100 000 yuan divorce fee from you, when it should be you asking him for money? Even I feel it’s shameful.’

  My sister smiled bitterly, ‘Your help is only making things worse.’

  Yicao said to Zhima, ‘Ba, if you keep making things difficult for our mother, Yihua and I won’t have anything to do with you. We’ll do as we say. Why do you think Yihua didn’t come back? It’s because she’s already angry with you, you know.’

  Zhima displayed a weak, pitiable look. Chuntian chided Yicao as she pushed her, ‘Go on, you bad girl . . . ’

  But inwardly, she was especially pleased. Watching Yicao make her way down the stairs, she even leaned on the windowsill and smiled faintly. She wanted to watch her a little longer. Then she saw Yicao walk out of the building. A boy walked toward her, and the pair walked out of the hospital hand in hand.

  When Zhima received the medical expenses from the contractor, he wanted to be discharged. Chuntian did not want to go back to the village. Disheartened by Sun, she no longer felt the urgent desire for a divorce. She muddled along and agreed to let Zhima stay and squeeze in the same bed as her.

  Yicao’s warning had been effective. Zhima said to my sister, ‘I’ll treat you well. I’ll do some small business in the city, and we can save money to buy a small house. The leeches won’t bite your legs anymore.’

  In so many years of marriage, Zhima had never said one intimate word to my sister. Now, he just blew lightly, and she cried uncontrollably. She had a whole basketful of the past that she brought up, rebuking Zhima until her throat and tongue were dry, then the clouds dispersed and the sky cleared. Her body gradually became light. She could not help but ponder quitting her job at the teahouse, since she had broken up with Sun. As soon as she saw Sun, she would no longer be master of herself. She could not let this playboy continue to make a mess of her life.

  When Chuntian went to the teahouse in her free time, she happened to bump into Sun, drinking tea. A woman sat beside him, as pretentious as a queen. Sun was trying to please her – apparently he had not yet taken this woman. My sister bit her lips, turned around, and left. The owner of the teahouse stopped her. Sun likewise called generously, ‘Hey, Chuntian. Come here! Have a cup of this new blend.’

  He had not even bothered to slide his own arse away from the woman’s.

  My sister stopped at the door and said to the owner of the teahouse, ‘I need to apply for another week of leave.’

  Her boss said, ‘No problem. Just come back when your family matters have been arranged.’

  On the spur of the moment, she decided to stay at the teahouse. At least that would prevent Sun from carrying out any monkey business on the premises. She suppressed the fire of jealousy within her and desperately forced herself not to look at Sun, feeling both nauseated and sad.

  After she left the teahouse, about half a mile down the road, she grew confused. She did not know what she wanted to do. She thought as she walked.

  In the distance, she saw the words Beautiful Tailor Shop, and envy of Shui Qin suddenly sprang up in her. She envied her happy family life and her work. She felt herself like duckweed by comparison, her body and feelings rootless and floating with the current. My sister walked into the tailor shop, half in a trance. There were no machines whirring like machine guns. It was very quiet inside. Shui Qin sat on a chair sewing buttons. She had become skin and bones.

  My sister asked, ‘Are you sick?’

  Shui Qin said, ‘May my ancestors protect me. I won’t die, but it will be difficult to recover. I don’t know how much this is going to cost.’

  Chuntian said, ‘Health is what matters. It’s far more important than money. What sort of illness is it?’

  ‘Choriocarcinoma. A one in 100 000 chance of getting it. My odds of striking the lottery would have been better,’ Shui Qin said.

  Chuntian did not understand. She asked where the illness was situated. Shui Qin repeated the diagnosis as if she were a doctor.

  ‘You should have had the baby. Maybe it would have been a boy.’ My sister felt it a real waste.

  Shui Qin said, ‘You’re a woman yourself. Why do you favour boys over girls?’

  Chuntian replied, ‘Everyone thinks this way . . . ’

  Shui Qin’s face reflected her feebleness, but it did not affect the look of pity ensuing from her eyes. It flashed like lightning, then disappeared. Chuntian had not taken the slightest notice.

  ‘If Xianxian’s grandfather hears of it, he will certainly curse me.’

  ‘Be glad you aren’t his daughter. If you were, you’d be like me, praying to the gods every day to curse him.’

  ‘Chuntian, you shouldn’t always remember your parents’ wrongs.’

  ‘That year, I really had no way out, so I married Liu Zhima. I spent my life working like a beast of burden, and now I’m stuck with this good-for-nothing.’

  ‘Think of it from another point of view. You have Yihua and Yicao, two beautiful little wadded jackets. That’s a respectable harvest.’

  ‘Yeah. A grown daughter has her own mind. Just wait until Xianxian is grown and you’ll know what I mean.’

  ‘Her? She’s started to manage us already.’

  When they talked about their daughters, the atmosphere was gentle. Smiles appeared on both Shui Qin and Chuntian’s faces.

  When my brother got home, dinner was ready. Chopped peppers with boiled mud fish, chilli rings fried with vegetable stems, fried salted fish, and another plate of peppers, deep-fried. These were all of his favourite dishes. He turned it over in his mind. It wasn’t his birthday, nor was it their wedding anniversary. He was suddenly on guard, even deeply disturbed. What had he done to deserve Shui Qin going to all that trouble to make a table of almost flattering dishes for him? She was still sick. My brother was not stupid. After he came out of prison, his brain might have seemed a little rusty, but he could put two and two together, especially when some strange phenomenon occurred. There might be a bit of a rattling sound w
hen his brain powered up, as the rust was shaken off, but there was still a bright steel machine underneath.

  My brother quickly erased signs of his first misgivings and turned with a happy expression to face the food. He would not expand his emotional territory. He was used to keeping the range of his emotions within the train of Shui Qin’s skirt.

  ‘Where’s Xianxian?’ he asked.

  ‘She went back to the village,’ Shui Qin said. ‘Your parents are always hoping she will go back over the weekend.’

  ‘They’re old. They only have this little thing to look forward to.’ My brother’s sarcasm had some pity in it. ‘Actually, they don’t really love anyone.’

  He placed chopsticks and two bowls of rice on the table.

  ‘Are you like Chuntian, always remembering your parents’ wrongdoings?’ Shui Qin sat down and picked up her rice bowl. ‘Which children in the village did not grow up like animals?’

  ‘Chuntian will never get rid of the shadow cast over her life. Even when she is doing well on the surface, she’s definitely still struggling inside.’ My brother was helpless on all fronts, and this made him feel somewhat ashamed. ‘And Zhima is a bastard. Fortunately, Yihua and Yicao keep their mother in their hearts. Xianxian also takes your side. If you were to have another, it would weaken my position even further.’

  Shui Qin had been wondering how she would bring up the subject of her own illness. She never imagined he would throw her a line like this. She grabbed it. ‘Yes. That’s why I got rid of it.’

  My brother thought she was joking. He picked up a mud fish with his chopsticks, put it into his mouth, pursed his lips, sucked and dragged out its whole skeleton.

  ‘I’m sick now . . . It was caused by my recent abortion.’ Shui Qin knew she could not conceal it, so she thought it best he heard it straight from her.

  ‘You had an abortion?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah. I know you all wanted me to have a boy, but I didn’t want to have another child.’ She searched for the right words. ‘Of course, I should have at least talked to you first. But I knew you would support me.’

  Shunqiu paused for several seconds. He then picked up another mud fish and started sucking on it. He slowly dragged its skeleton out, just like the other.

  He remembered well that over the last two months, he had only slept with Shui Qin once. It had only lasted five minutes, and he was sure he had pulled out in time.

  ‘I have cancer now . . . ’ Shui Qin went on.

  The skeleton slipped from his chopsticks. He was suddenly alert. ‘Cancer?’

  ‘I won’t die. It’s still at an early stage.’ Shui Qin put the word ‘die’ right out in front, wanting to use the cruel word to stop Shunqiu from discussing it with her further – for example, whether she could have gotten pregnant when he had pulled out.

  My brother said, ‘Admit yourself to a hospital. We can always earn back the money.’

  His voice sounded sleepy. He was still digging through his memory, wondering if they had done something one night when he was half asleep. After he had fallen ill, the doctor had advised abstinence. His heart was insipid, and his body indifferent. It was hard for him to say for sure whether there had been a mishap.

  ‘I . . . did I do something in the middle of the night . . . make some mistake?’ he asked carefully, as if offering a self-criticism.

  ‘Shunqiu, what do you mean? I’m in this state now. Can you act like a man?’

  Shui Qin immediately got angry, and even started to cry. She was also confused about what the tears meant, but she could not think of what else to do, so she just cried. She was acting, and she felt ashamed.

  She regretted the time she had done it with the ‘old customer.’ At the time, she had been like a girl, head over heels, not knowing north from south. She even forgot to remind the ‘old customer’ she was ovulating. The ‘old customer’ was in his prime of life, and he must have thought that a middle-aged woman would have some experience. Perhaps he even assumed she had on a contraceptive ring, so he shot with all his might, sending millions upon millions of wild chargers into Shui Qin’s territory. But the sound of the hoofs told her that it was a huge mistake.

  My brother said nothing. He continued sucking the mud fish, a large pile of skeletons in front of him.

  ‘What will happen to Xianxian while I’m hospitalised? Will you ask your mother to come look after her?’ Shui Qin said.

  My brother grunted in agreement. ‘I’ll go back tomorrow morning to get them,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t let your father know I’m sick,’ but what she actually meant was, don’t let your father know I had an abortion.

  ‘If my mother knows, there’s no way to keep my father from knowing,’ Shunqiu said.

  The news had wings. It filled the air, firing the nation up and generating discussion about the C&R systems. Scholars jointly wrote letters, demanding an examination of the violation of the constitution in the Custody and Repatriation system.

  Yu Shuzhong’s office was filled with smoke. He chugged away at his cigarettes, as if the solution to the problem lay at the end, where the smoke clears. But the mountain range shrouded by the smoke was indistinct, its expression vague.

  I stood at the door, in a dilemma. Yu waved away the smoke hovering before him. He said he was looking for me.

  We sat by the coffee table, and he brewed a pot of fermented tea. Several old photos were added to the wall, taken during Yu’s university days. My brother appeared in them. They looked quite different from today’s university students; the gap was as obvious as that between the Tang dynasty and the Qing. In the space of just ten years, it was as if we had seen several dynastic changes.

  ‘Once, Xiazhi brought a cake of fermented tea. It was harder than a brick. We had to use a hammer to knock the leaves loose,’ Yu said as he poured tea. ‘Do you like the fermented tea from your hometown?’

  ‘I don’t know much about tea. As long as it can quench thirst, it’s fine with me. But I don’t like men in striped T-shirts, especially those with wide stripes.’

  Yu looked at the shirt he was wearing. ‘Are thin stripes acceptable?’

  ‘T-shirts with wide stripes are funny. They either make you look Western, or like a country bumpkin. What you’re wearing falls in between the two.’

  ‘Rural-urban fringe zone?’

  ‘The rural-urban fringe zone leans slightly towards town.’

  ‘Even though you both came from the same mother, Xiazhi was kinder than you,’ Yu said, laughing. ‘But when Xiazhi criticised the current political situation, it was like he drove the nail so deep, it hit the bone.’

  When we were small, Xiazhi had said that a gentleman would speak, but stay his hand, reasoning things out rather than resorting to force. But he said, words were like a stream of bullets, whizzing towards the bad guys. He would never have imagined his own ending.

  ‘Didn’t you quit smoking three months ago? Why are you smoking again now?’ I was more concerned about the living Yu than I was about my deceased brother.

  ‘Smoking is certainly not going to solve anything. I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?’

  ‘The bad,’ I said.

  ‘I just had a meeting. In the Ma Lujia case, we’ve become peace-breakers, and were criticised and cursed. With the first report of the SARS incident, we’re in big trouble. I might be transferred to a new post, and the Today Newspaper might become a walking corpse.’

  ‘In Ma Lujia’s death, we brought the criminals to justice. We set things right for an ordinary man. We took the lead in breaking through the forbidden zone of reporting on SARS, and we can round that off to be a good deed.’

  ‘Also . . . they told me to fire you.’

  I was caught off guard for a moment, then overjoyed. ‘I never imagined an underling like me would be included in their net. It’s an honour.’

  ‘I won’t dismiss a good journalist without an appropriate reason from them.’

  ‘They do
n’t need a reason for anything they do.’

  ‘As long as I’m here, you stay,’ Yu said.

  I immediately recalled a stage line from wartime, As long as I am here, the battlefield is here. I almost blurted out, ‘I’m your battlefield, but you’ve never fought on this battlefield,’ and realised then that I had not had any romantic affairs in a long while.

  I tilted my head and drank my tea, suppressing my confused thoughts. ‘Tell me the good news,’ I said.

  ‘The good news is, the central leadership has already looked into the Ma Liujia case, and the shelter system will soon be abolished.’

  I nearly slipped off my seat. I was completely shocked.

  ‘I didn’t expect it to be done so quickly either. This is from the Xinhua News Agency.’ He handed me a copy of the report as he spoke.

  The new prime minister convened a meeting of the State Council to discuss the abolition of the shelter system, and it was decided that action must be taken immediately.

  I read the title.

  ‘More than seven hundred shelters will be closed nationwide,’ he said.

  ‘You succeeded,’ I replied.

  ‘We succeeded.’

  We should celebrate in bed. I didn’t actually say that out loud.

  ‘Now there is a new battle to be fought. Medical personnel will also contract SARS and die from it. We need brave reporters,’ he said.

  ‘As long as I’m on the battlefield, I’ll work. I’ll go.’

  ‘Promise me you will be careful, no matter what happens.’

  ‘If I am quarantined, you send me spicy crawfish. If I’m killed, you write my obituary.’

  At that moment, I received a call from Yehe Nara. The C&R system had been abolished and she congratulated our paper on accomplishing a great feat. Because she was coughing, she was currently in the Xiao Tang Shan SARS quarantine area. Tang Linlu had worn a mask thirty-two layers thick in order to see her. Whether it was a misfortune or blessing, she finally had some quiet time to read The Golden Lotus. She talked about some matters coherently. In the end, she asked how my sex life was going.