Wild Fruit

by Keyi Sheng

  My brother raced away like pedalling on hot wheels, escaping from the scene.

  *

  When he told Shui Qin about the incident – and the five yuan – that night, he said it was good he had not had fifty on him. If he had had that much, that old woman would have dug it out of him. She was not rich, but acted like she was, even saying that the potatoes and tomatoes had organs.

  Shui Qin had just finished washing her feet and was drying them on the rim of the basin. At first, she had only listened with one ear, but hearing this, she suddenly laughed so hard she overturned the foot basin, spilling water all over the floor. My brother rushed to get a mop and rag and started mopping and wiping the mess up.

  Shui Qin curled up on the sofa and watched her husband clean up the mess. She said, ‘The woman said organic, not organs. It means they were grown without pesticides and fertilisers. Rich people eat that sort of thing. One tomato costing three yuan is not considered too much.’

  Shunqiu wrung out the rag, letting the water drip into the basin with a ringing sound. He spread the rag on the floor, using his hands to push it and turn here and there all over the whole room, swiftly wiping the whole floor. The floor sparkled delightfully. Since Shui Qin had fallen sick, he had meticulously taken care of all the housework, developing a method of his own.

  Shunqiu said, ‘Whether they’re organic or not, they’re not worth that much. When I grow vegetables at the farmhouse restaurant, I just pour urine and dung over them. It’s a natural fertiliser. It makes them taste better.’

  Shui Qin did not answer. Her body began to contract gradually. Eventually, she sat on the sofa, curled up like a shrimp.

  When Shunqiu had finished washing the rag and mop, he went into the washroom and cleaned up the wash basin and toilet. After he busied himself for a while in the washroom, he dried his hands and came out. He noticed Shui Qin’s strange position, and when he came nearer, he saw she was trembling slightly.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he thought she was crying.

  Shui Qin did not respond.

  My brother touched her. Her forehead was covered in sweat. He cried, ‘It’s not hot today. The hot spell of autumn is over. Why are you so sweaty?’ he handed her a towel, ‘Are you feeling sick?’

  Shui Qin tried to pull herself up. Looking at him, she intended to tell him her condition, but then changed her mind, feeling there was no point causing him unnecessary anxiety. She decided to downplay it. ‘I was a little chilly just now. I’m afraid it’s malaria. I’ll go to bed and sleep it off.’

  ‘I’ll boil some ginger water for you,’ he said, and went to prepare it.

  After a while, he carried a bowl of ginger water into the room. Shui Qin was reclining on the bed, studying their cash and account books. Her face was dull.

  Shunqiu put the ginger water down and sat timidly on the edge of the bed, as if the money were pigeons that would fly off at his approach.

  ‘Drink it while it’s hot,’ he urged.

  Shui Qin took a spoonful, then put it aside. ‘I’m going to put all of this in your keeping. The PIN is Xianxian’s birthday.’

  ‘Why?’ It was as if he had been stung by an insect. He was a little flattered.

  ‘Whether it’s in your care or mine, it’s all the same,’ then she changed her tone. ‘I mean, if I want to relax a bit. Isn’t that OK?’

  She said the last phrase in a tender tone, like she was being coquettish. Shunqiu was not used to that. He touched her forehead to check if she were in some sort of fevered confusion.

  She grasped his arm and pulled him to her side. ‘Shunqiu, look, we only bother about making money. We never go out together as a family. This weekend, let’s bring Xianxian to the Changsha Zoo.’

  He rested his arm behind her, letting her lean on it like pillow. ‘That costs money.’

  ‘I’ve realised that you can never save enough money. You have to work for a living, but you also have to live. In the blink of an eye, we’ll be old. Once that happens, it’s too late to enjoy ourselves.’

  ‘But we haven’t saved enough for Xianxian’s studies. . .’

  ‘Actually, I was wrong. Our way of doing things may not be what she really wants. We shouldn’t put pressure on her. We should let her pursue her own destiny.’

  ‘Yes. I feel the same. It’s good if she stays close to home. She can’t go a day without peppers fried with meat. What would she do if she went far away?’

  Shui Qin smiled silently. ‘True.’

  My brother was relieved. He felt his life was truly a happy one.

  *

  On the weekend, all three of them got up early. The atmosphere was cheerful. Food and everything they needed for the outing was ready.

  Shui Qin was in too much pain to walk. She did not say anything, but stood, doubled over and with huge beads of sweat rolling down and hitting the floor, where they gathered into a puddle. It reflected her soon-to-be extinguished flame, and darkness was like a group of crows, gradually gathering.

  Xianxian looked at her mother, not sure what to do. From the time she was three years old, she had dressed and fed herself. At six, she washed her own clothes. When she was eight, she learned to cook for herself. She had not grown up acting like a spoiled child in her mother’s embrace. She had not heard fairy tales as she was tucked in at night, and she had never cried for sweets. She had given Shui Qin’s arms that freedom very early, never asking to be held or carried. She did not know how to return to her mother’s embrace now.

  ‘We’ll go to the hospital,’ Shunqiu said, putting down his backpack.

  His wife waved him off and lay on the sofa. ‘No, there’s no need. I think I got a chill last night, and my stomach hurts now.’

  Xianxian gave her mother a glass of warm water. Thinking of the photo on her phone, she was unhappy.

  ‘Xianxian, how about if Baba takes you?’ Shui Qin said.

  ‘I’m not as bad as just being concerned about enjoying myself, not caring whether you live or die.’ Xianxian wanted to help her mother, but she could not draw near her. This barrier made her feel fear and anger.

  Feeling her tone was inappropriate, her father criticised, ‘Xianxian, is that any way to speak to your mother? If we can’t make it this time, we’ll just go another time. The zoo will always be there. It’s not going anywhere, right?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter to me. It was the two of you who wanted to go,’ Xianxian insinuated. ‘I don’t have too many expectations in life. It’s just a bunch of animals, right? It’s no big deal whether we see them or not.’

  The three of them stopped talking. The room was still.

  Suddenly, a wailing cannon shot out from Shui Qin’s mouth, whooshing as it rushed towards the ceiling, and after a few explosions, silence quickly resumed. The writhing Shui Qin, and the father and daughter struck dumb by the cannon, stood among the smoke and fragments in the room, forming an equilateral triangle, unmoving in their separate positions.

  My sister found a lawyer after all. Aside from eagerly pocketing the attorney fees, everything else the lawyer did was just going through the motions, as if he came especially to chime in with others’ views.

  The retrial appeal upheld the original judgement. Zhima wept when he heard the verdict.

  The day before his scheduled execution, Chuntian went to visit him. He was still weeping. She wanted to capture a last photo of him on her phone, but it was not allowed.

  She just sat there, listening to Zhima cry through the glass. Thinking of how this person would be reduced to a heap of ash the next day, she was a little horrified. After all, they had shared a bed for more than twenty years. Many couples were like this. Neither partner belonged to the other, but after sleeping together for some time, they did.

  For the past several days, she had been rushing about on account of Zhima. She did not have time to mourn for Yicao, so she held her sorrow inside like a rolling snowball. By the time Zhima’s execution was set, this snowball suddenly broke through the barrier and c
rashed and struck her head. The snowball exploded into fragments, becoming snowflakes filling the sky.

  My sister did not cry. Rather, she laughed. She giggled, then stopped, alternating between walking and resting, and always looking like she could not hold back a smile.

  She thought of the time she gave birth to Yicao. It had been a difficult delivery, breech. The lives of both mother and daughter had been at risk. Yicao had entered the world with great difficulty, just for the sake of sixteen short years.

  Chuntian laughed. She thought of the scene of her own birth, how her father had held her upside down, intending to drown her in the river. She laughed again.

  She thought of the first time she had gone into the field and several leeches had attached themselves to her legs and sucked her blood. It scared her so badly she had screamed and cried. She laughed again.

  My poor sister’s laughter sounded like she had a cough with a cold. She had to cough intermittently between the laughter, causing the people on the street to look at her in surprise. Past events which cost her pain and sorrow could only make her laugh right now. She felt that she would never finish laughing as long as she lived. So she became worried, wanting to cry, to shed a few tears, or to scream her sorrows to the world around her. She wanted to tell everyone that she had collapsed, that nothing was left but a skeleton of her. She also wanted to ask why all these things had happened to her, too.

  Everyone seemed to be hurrying, completely disinterested. Chuntian could do nothing but continue laughing. The corners of her mouth cracked from too much laughing, and her brain ached from it too, so she leaned on the fence and took a nap.

  When she came to herself, it was dusk. She found she had taken the wrong route. Everything around her was unfamiliar, and she did not know the way home. She walked aimlessly, trying to get her bearings. She asked directions from passersby, but she could not remember her own address, nor could she recall the name of the neighbourhood, so she could only sit on the ground and wrack her brain.

  Yu Shuzhong was sentenced to ten years in prison. The leader of the Today Newspaper was replaced, and the newspaper renamed. We were all sacked.

  I did not wish to stay in Guangzhou. Yehe Nara and Tang Linlu migrated to Canada, leaving the Thinker Bookstore behind. They invited me to return to Beijing to manage it.

  The temperature in Guangzhou suddenly dropped. The moist, lingering heat finally exhausted its own moisture, like a plaster cover being torn open by the wind, and a trace of coolness poured in.

  I sat in the departure lounge at the airport, looking at the floating clouds. They kept broadcasting news about flight delays.

  I had not seen Yihua often, and she never took the initiative to look me up. Our relationship was left undeveloped.

  The day we met, I asked her to a café beside the Pearl River so I could say goodbye. She had gone through a great change. She was all grown up, looking like a woman instead of a girl. The experiences she had undergone showed, and there was a certain seriousness in the way she talked now. She did not sound at all like a girl who worked in a nightclub. I suddenly felt a little guilty. I should have shown more concern for her, especially after so many things had happened. As I listened to her talk, the idea came to me that maybe I should take her to Beijing with me.

  Yihua said she had slept with Hu Lilai, and that he was very good to her. He wanted to marry her, letting her rule the roost and take charge of the passbook. She, on the other hand, did not want to continue the relationship. She did not love him, but out of boredom, she had slept with him several times.

  Yihua was the most innocent girl in the world. I regretted having despised her relationship with Liuzi.

  She talked about Zhima as well. When the time came, she would go back and accompany her mother to collect the ashes.

  As I sat in the airport thinking of these things, the clouds turned grey and thickened, pressing the distant sky very low. The plane was still slowly taxiing on the runway. The lift brought the food containers to the door, and a man went back and forth, carrying it aboard.

  Yihua had said that the problem she encountered was that Lilai did not agree to the breakup. He would not give up.

  She did not ask me for help, but just spoke frankly about her troubles. If I had cared about her a little more, if I had realised how crazy Hu Lilai was, or if I had taken her away from Guangzhou early on, I would not have read about her death in the newspaper: Unsuccessful breakup, girl chopped to pieces by boyfriend.

  Rain poured down, suddenly turning everything white. After two or three hours, the rain was still falling fiercely and there was lightning and thunder, as if the sky were enraged. The airport started to flood. The work crew cleaned up in the rain, their figures like insignificant road signs.

  All airlines had stopped their flights. The exits, halls, and waiting areas were all crowded with stuck travellers. The airport was like an ant bed. The cafés, restaurants, and even the toilets were too crowded to enter. Everywhere you looked, there were thighs, behinds, arms, mouths, and faces. Many people were making phone calls, speaking in all different tones with different attitudes, and after they hung up they all seemed lost.

  The wind was very strong, torturing the trees to their limits, they moved hysterically, as if they wanted to crash dead somewhere. For a while, hailstones the size of eggs fell, denting cars and making a loud racket. There was a giant, light-polluting screen advertising a new movie about a girl and three men. The actress’s lips were red and her cleavage was exposed. Her eyes were bewitching. Her expression and the egg-sized hailstones in some ways enriched the boring wait. Some people cheered.

  *

  As I dozed in my chair, I dreamt of Yihua. I dreamt she had just bought a train ticket. Hu Lilai called, agreeing to the breakup, but said his mother wanted to see her again. Yihua agreed to see her. Lilai rode on a cloud, carrying Yihua with him, rushing all the way to his house. He suggested going upstairs first, saying he had something to give her. Since they were breaking up, she agreed to whatever he wanted to do.

  Lilai’s room was spotless, and there were red roses in the vase. A plastic plate held a pineapple, bananas, and apples, and a knife lay beside it.

  Lilai closed the door. He led Yihua away from it and asked her to have a seat, as if afraid she might run away. He smiled at her mysteriously, then reached into the compartment behind the headboard and brought out a box. He opened it carefully and showed her a sparkling diamond ring.

  ‘It’s inlaid with diamonds,’ he said, looking at the ring.

  Yihua replied, ‘I don’t want it.’

  Lilai admired how she looked when she got into a huff, like he was indulging his own naughty daughter. ‘I went to Hong Kong and had it specially made. It’s pretty, isn’t it? Come, try it on.’

  Yihua pushed it away. ‘I’ve said all I have to say.’

  Lilai was still smiling and said, ‘Huahua, I’m not going to let you go.’

  ‘I don’t love you. How many times do you want me to say it?’

  ‘But I love you. I can’t live without you.’

  ‘That’s your problem.’

  ‘Huahua, don’t be so cold. Isn’t it good when we’re together?’ he said, still smiling.

  ‘Having sex is having sex. Marriage is marriage. They’re two different things.’ Yihua got up and walked toward the door.

  Lilai rushed to the door in a flash, turning the built-in lock.

  ‘Huahua, don’t leave.’ He suddenly knelt before her, his eyes filling with tears. ‘I’m begging you, don’t go. Don’t leave me alone. I can’t stand it.’

  ‘I don’t owe you, and you don’t owe me. Let me go home. I need to rush to catch my train.’

  Lilai knelt blocking the door, his face turned upwards at Yihua. ‘Tell me, what do you want me to do? I’ll do whatever you say.’

  ‘Please open the door and let me go home,’ she said emphatically.

  ‘Huahua, I love you so much. Let’s get married, OK?’

  ‘L
et me go back. My father just died.’

  The word ‘died’ seemed to give inspiration to Lilai. He looked like he wanted to die. Suddenly, he banged his head against the doorframe, making a loud sound.

  Yihua looked at his forehead, slowly oozing with blood and swelling.

  ‘Do you want me to die before you’ll promise me?’ Lilai cried as he banged his head.

  Yihua turned her back towards him. Lilai continued banging his head patiently and rhythmically.

  Yihua shouted, ‘Lilai! Enough!’

  He stopped pounding his head. A ray of hope slowly blossomed on his blood-caked face, like a sky clearing up after the rain, brightness shooting onto the muddy ground.

  Yihua took a glass and banged it against her own scalp. The glass broke into fragments on the floor, and blood in red streaks as long as earthworms crawled from the corners of her forehead to her mouth.

  The room was silent.

  ‘Can I go now?’ Yihua said, looking at the floor.

  Lilai was like a shark, drawn to the scent of Yihua’s blood. What he sniffed from the blood was none other than love. He did not believe what Yihua said, but he believed her blood.

  He moved his rusty joints, stood up and embraced her firmly, patting her and licking the blood from her face. He laughed and cried at the same time, his mouth never stopping. ‘Huahua, I won’t let you harm yourself. I know you love me. . . Huahua, it’s all my fault. Let’s not fight. We’ll be OK. Let’s not fight anymore . . . Eh?’

  Lilai acted like a blind man touching Yihua all over, his mouth professing his love for her. His grip became tighter and tighter. He kneaded Yihua’s neck like he was kneading dough. She found it hard to breathe. Her mouth opened, and a strange sound was coming from her throat. Her response excited him. He closed his hands tighter around her throat and kissed her, sucking her tongue vigorously, blood filling his mouth.

  Yihua’s body gradually grew limp. Her hands drooped, falling to her side. Lilai knelt on the floor and continued to kiss her.