by Keyi Sheng
Shui Qin wanted to live. In the past, she had always been at odds with reality, sometimes defeating it, sometimes being defeated by it, but always knowing there would be another opportunity to test her skills against it. There were no more such opportunities now. Reality had dealt her a heavy blow and she had half collapsed into the loess. All it would take now was a single pat to her head, and she would disappear completely from the earth.
Shui Qin had never in her life been passive. Sitting and waiting for that final blow was almost too shameful to bear.
It was deep into winter and all the leaves had all fallen. When the wind blew, the trees had nothing with which to welcome their guest, but trembled with their naked trunks. Not hearing any rustling echoes, the wind was angry, and it kept shaking the trees, questioning them. From a distance, it plunged at the trees, tearing them until they fell left and right. The trees suffered silently, able to keep quiet better than ever.
My brother got off work and went to buy some boiled assorted beef giblets with a wheaten cake to take home, since the stove at home was always cold these days. He put the food on the table and opened the refrigerator. It was full. There were vegetables, fish, pork ribs, milk and fruit juice. . . clearly, Shui Qin had gone to the supermarket that day. She very rarely bought so much, usually buying milk but not juice, or juice but not milk; fish but not meat, or meat but not fish. If something was on offer, she bought it. If there were buy one get one free offers, she would buy those items, or sometimes even just pick up the free items.
My brother looked at the clock. Xianxian would finish school soon. He quickly tied on his apron and started cooking rice. He thought about whether it was better to braise fish or pork ribs, finally settling on the ribs. It was best to eat ribs fresh, and the carp would actually be tastier if it was pickled in salt for a while.
When Xianxian came in, the rice cooker had just finished cooking, and the house was full of the fragrant smell of meat.
‘Go find your mother to come back to eat,’ Shunqiu said, waving his spatula as he let the vegetables slither into the wok.
‘Even though she’s sick, she runs about. Why don’t you rein her in?’ Xianxian was impatient.
It got dark early, and the wind outside the window was strong. Plastic bags swirled along the ground.
Placing the vegetables on the table, my brother took off his apron and set the bowls and chopsticks on the table. In the bedroom, Shui Qin’s phone rang. It was my mother, saying she had made pickles, the hen had laid eggs, the yellow dog got sick and died, and Li Ganzi’s mother had drowned in the latrine pit. Her rambling was endless. My brother did not pay attention.
He saw a note from Shui Qin pressed under the phone. It read:
I’m sorry. I have to go. I can’t stand it anymore. I didn’t tell you about the condition of my illness because I knew there was nothing you could do to ease my pain. Even more, there’s nothing you can do to save my life. It would only add to your pain and anxiety. I don’t need to exhaust you, and I certainly don’t want to consume our hard-earned money. Money should be used where there is hope. It need not be used on the dying.
To bury someone in the village takes at least 20 or 30 000 yuan; the villagers can’t even afford to die. They are poor all their lives, and don’t get to eat or wear anything good. But in death, they are extravagant, letting their relatives take out loans, perpetuating the poverty. They don’t know how to live well, but they want to do well in death. I don’t like the idea of extravagance or the display of splendour in death. I’m tired. I want to go far away, as if on a trip. Don’t look for me. You won’t find me.
Xianxian has her own mind. Don’t force anything on her, but discuss any decisions with her. It is best to let her live a happy, healthy life.
Forgive me for everything. I love you both.
Shunqiu and Xianxian ran beside the river, shouting. The wind distorted their voices. They ran on the bank, stopping at the wharf to inquire among the fishing boats, asking if they had seen a woman with short hair. They ran for a long time. Their loud panting covered all other sounds, while the water rose and fell with it.
‘She hides everything from us. . . I must find her and bring her back,’ said Xianxian, though she did not cry.
My brother had never entered so deeply into the dark night. It was like he was walking down a very long tunnel. He could hear only his own footsteps. Shui Qin was his lighthouse, and now that the light had gone out, he would run aground on the reefs. He needed to see her again. He wanted to know where the reefs lay, how deep the river was, how quick the rapids, and what precautions a helmsman needed to take. He felt he was a tiny boat swaying in the wind, his oars were tired, and even a small whirlpool could make him turn circles on the spot. He was dizzy from the spinning. He plopped down on the long embankment. The river was dark. The lights of fishing boats glittered in the middle of the river. On the opposite bank, the city curled up like an animal entering a dreamland.
Shunqiu felt like he was in a desert. The year he had gone to prison, the iron gate had clanged shut and the lock had tumbled shut, as well. A corresponding lock had been shut at the same time and had since grown rusty, and it had no key. But now, because of the rust, the lock cracked open on its own. The sound was weak, producing slight reverberations, like a rippling current moving in all directions.
Throughout his life, it seemed there was always someone behind the scenes who wanted to make life difficult for him. Someone who wanted to do him harm or destroy him.
‘Who’s trying to make life so difficult for me? Who?’
Perhaps he had committed some huge sin in a past life. He had been to the temple and burned incense to all sorts of deities, but his hand was burned by the incense. It was a bad omen.
A woman’s body was fished out of the river. My brother went to see. It smelled horrible. The face had been decomposed, and the teeth were exposed. After just one look, he vomited onto the ground. He retched until his stomach was empty and he could not eat.
As he made his way home, he tried to think of all the things that might happen to Shui Qin. He imagined her suddenly pushing the door open and entering the room, carrying her bags, full of discounted items. He listened to the footsteps on the stairs, tidying her clothes and putting the cooking utensils away the way she had always kept them.
Xianxian did not come back from looking for her mother, and the police could not find her, either. She had run away.
Exhausted, my brother closed the door and wept. The rusted lock on his heart broke and fell to the floor. The world was like an image of something floating in the water, shimmering.
The only thing he could do was go back to the place where he was born.
The stream rinsed the tree roots and stone on both sides, passing through the arched bridge and flowing deep into the forest. There was a smell of rotten leaves. Lovebirds were whispering to each other among the bamboo clumps. My sister looked around like someone from a different village, even though she was familiar with the vegetation here, the shape of the stones, and the sound of the river. Every wildflower knew her. She could tell time by the shadow of the trees, and her voice had echoed through the valley. She had stepped on the dew to go to the fields, lugging her heavy burden up the ridge.
The dreary scenery of the past flew like dust, kicking up a residue. Touching the swaddled urn, she quickened her pace.
A column of smoke rose above the roof. Liu Zhima’s mother was starting a fire in the kitchen, while his father chopped firewood on the terrace. Seeing my sister, his father stayed his axe midswing, as if considering whether it was better to let the blow fall on the wood or on her.
My sister did not dare go near. By right, she should greet her father-in-law ‘Ba,’ but the sound would not come out. Her relationship with her in-laws had always been a source of discomfort, like having grains of sand in her shoe. When she returned to this environment, she was, out of habit docile and stiff. She looked at the axehead and squeezed out an embarrassed smi
le, like a traveller asking for a drink.
‘You, you, you . . . Who do you think you are?’ Zhima’s father held the axe in his hand, and even though he stammered when he talked, his tone was cruel. ‘You . . . you still dare to show your face here?’
Chuntian continued to smile, but she kept her distance from the axe.
The neighbour’s back door creaked open. The neighbour, Chai Fengying, stuck her head out, exposing her upper body. Seeing the woman she had betrayed so many years ago when she slept with Zhima, she slowly stepped out the door, displaying her full length. Her posture showed she lived a nourished life.
‘Aiyoh, Chuntian. Chuntian is back! I thought it was some important guest coming to visit you all.’ Chai did not like to talk at such a distance, so she moved to the wall by the fence and parted the withered vine from the fence. ‘You’re dressed so fashionably, Chuntian. It’s like you’re getting younger by the day.’
The previous year, the woman living next door had died of liver cancer. Chai had grabbed the opportunity to fill the house the neighbour had left.
‘Don’t forget to stop by for a visit, Chuntian.’ Chai released the withered vines, and the mottled figure went back into her house, leaving the back door open.
‘Hussy,’ Zhima’s father whispered, spitting. ‘That fell . . . fellow’s wife had been dead just two months and that . . . that hussy is sleeping in her bed. Wo . . . women . . . there’s no . . . not a good one.’
Chuntian said nothing. She held the urn in her hands, hoping to draw her father-in-law’s attention to it.
Zhima’s mother stepped over the threshold and stood on the base. She scattered cold rice and called to the chickens. The cockeye stared at the tip of her own nose, ignoring Chuntian.
Compared to the axe, the cockeye seemed to pose no danger. My sister walked through the clucking, pecking flock, with the chickens parting to let her pass.
Zhima’s mother had not ever looked Chuntian directly in the face, but stared in deadly fashion straight down her own nose. The whites of her eyes were cloudy.
‘Zhima is home,’ Chuntian said gently, holding out the urn to her mother-in-law.
The whites of the cockeye’s eyes widened quickly, in a split second forcing the black pupils to an impasse. They looked like startled children, hiding in the corners of the eyes.
Chuntian could not gain any accurate information from the pair of cockeyes. She did not know whether Zhima’s mother was sad, shocked, or angry. If she was sad, my sister did not mind crying with her. If shocked, she could have extracted all the details, recounting the whole tale for her. If angry, she wanted to take two steps back to avoid being hit with that porcelain bowl of chicken feed.
She stood still, trying to get a read on her mother-in-law’s emotions. The porcelain bowl fell to the ground, scattering the clucking chickens, and bouncing a few feet away. The old woman slowly took the urn, and the black pupils half-hidden in the corners of the eyes suddenly rolled around. Those tiny black balls rolled about on the white screen, faster and faster, more and more randomly, until they finally came to an abrupt stop. They trembled on the spot for a while, then the owner of those tiny black balls raised the urn and struck my sister with it.
‘You ill-fated bitch. . .’
Her eyesight was not good. It would have been better for Chuntian if she had not dodged. One clumsy dodge and she absorbed the blow full-on instead. There was only a blunt sound, as if Zhima were sighing inside the tight confines. A wound opened on Chuntian’s head, and blood started to flow from the parting of her hair.
Zhima’s mother possessed some sheer animal strength. Chuntian squatted, but was off-kilter. Her behind fell on the rice grains left uneaten by the hens.
Zhima’s father tossed the axe aside and grabbed the urn. Looking toward the sky, he cried, ‘There has only been one son in the each of the three past generations, and now my own son is gone, leaving our house barren!’ He said this smoothly, without stammering.
Chai Fengying rushed out of her house at this moment and pulled Chuntian up. She said to Zhima’s parents, ‘Why treat her like this? Your son is dead, and her husband is dead. You’re all grieving. Why should you treat her this way?’
‘She’s grieving? Ask her, is she saddened by this at all? If she didn’t go to the city and mess around, my son would not have. . .’ Zhima’s mother closed her cockeyes, wailing.
‘You’re her mother-in-law. That’s true. But don’t forget, you’re also a woman. Women should have sympathy for other women.’ Chai pulled my sister up by the arm and took her home.
There was a buzzing sound in Chuntian’s head. Woodenly, she curled up on the sofa without a word. Chai wiped the blood from her face with a warm towel, muttering about how inhumane Liu Zhima’s parents were. She even called a ‘village doctor’ to come from the clinic to clean and treat the wound.
At midday, Chai cooked a few dishes. Chuntian did not once open her mouth.
‘Chuntian, you weren’t knocked silly, were you? That old woman is ruthless. She really wanted to kill you,’ Chai said indignantly. ‘They’re always fucking bullying naïve people!’
When Chuntian heard that, she laughed.
‘The stammerer and cockeye are both unkind sorts. Zhima was nothing much to speak of either. Chuntian, you should be happy to be rid of the whole bunch.’
Chuntian sat motionlessly. Chai shook her. ‘Chuntian, are you OK? Don’t scare me. Say something if you’re all right. If you want to eat something, my husband just caught a fish. I don’t know how to make salted fish. I’m not sure if it’s too salty, or too bland. Will you taste it for me?’
Chuntian sighed at length, her breath rolling the chopsticks over and over.
‘All I did was bring Zhima home,’ she said, crusty blood sticking to the corners of her mouth, ‘and they hit me.’
Chai said, ‘The Liu family owes you a lot, especially Zhima. Chuntian, I want to tell you something, but don’t be angry.’
Chuntian laughed. ‘Why would I be angry?’
‘I slept with Zhima.’
My sister smiled as she looked at Chai.
‘It was when you threatened to divorce him,’ Chai explained, embarrassed by Chuntian’s expression.
Chuntian lowered her head and started to eat. She looked like she was simmering with laughter and might cough the rice out at any moment.
*
My sister found a new job cleaning hotel rooms. She washed toilets, replaced the toiletry items, and topped up the supply of condoms. There were many rooms taken at hourly rates, so she had to wait onsite to clean up the battlefields, day and night. Men and women came in puffed full of energy, then left deflated an hour or so later, living their lives as they pleased. Chuntian was always all smiles, acting like she was very contented.
The guests were very liberal. If there were no paper towels or not enough condoms, the toilet bowl blocked, or the hot water was not hot enough – if anything was not to their liking, they wrapped a towel around themselves and stood at the door shouting for the staff. The staff members always huddled together to talk about this couple or that, who this man or that woman was, whether or not they were married, how many times they had visited, and with how many partners. The happy chatter went on endlessly.
Chuntian did not join in gossiping about who had slept with whom at the hotel. She was constantly busy, knowing only how to work. She was always sought out to take over for someone on leave. Sometimes she got a headache, but she would just rest in one corner for a moment, then carry on working. The others whispered behind her back, saying that she was an odd widow, frigid and reserved. Those who had some compassion tried to talk some sense into her. She only smiled in denial and said she just wanted to make a little extra money so she could touch up the house, then Yihua would be comfortable when she came home and would want to stay longer.
The old newspapers pasted on the wall were stained black by grease and smoke, crisp and torn, and crumbled like confetti when they were scra
pped. They were quite ugly. Every day, Chuntian took old newspapers home from the hotel. When she had gathered enough, she spent her day off scraping and cleaning the wall, then boiling some glue. She then would take up a brush and go to work repairing the wall, pasting new paper on it. In consideration of Yihua’s tastes, she chose photos of celebrities, sticking them to the wall. She also fixed a few nails for hanging things at the entrance of the house. She put a floral print quilt, which Yihua liked, on the bed. The room looked brand new, shiny and clean, and ready for Yihua to come home.
When Chuntian kept buying rag dolls to put at home, people started to realise something was wrong with her. It was like the rag dolls reproduced automatically, forming a lively crowd in the tight space.
The landlord, a plump elderly woman, said, ‘Chuntian, what do you want these useless things for?’ She was very sympathetic towards Chuntian’s situation, and had even cried with her.
Chuntian smiled. ‘My girl Huahua likes rag dolls. She always wanted one when she was little, but I never bought her one. She cried and cried, but I still wouldn’t buy one. What use is a rag doll? But Huahua likes them.’
*
The snow came again that winter. It fell on my sister’s body as if falling on broken brick walls and withered foliage.
The houses were fattened, the people bloated. The streets became mysterious, the cars moving slowly along them as if afraid of startling the snow. The snow fell without reservations.
Chuntian walked on the street, her hair a puffy mess. She looked like a wild bush making its way down the road. She took no interest in her surroundings, and did not appreciate the snow. She seemed anxious to reach some destination, and also seemed like she was just strolling. She was not dressed very neatly, revealing three layers of clothes, the innermost longer than her outerwear. Her scarf was grey, and her pair of tennis shoes were scuffed up. The muddy snow splashed onto the legs of her pants. Her face was dirty, her nails black. It appeared she had not bathed in a very long time. She did not care about such trivial matters; she had more important things to do – like walking. She walked as if walking into the past or the future, or perhaps as if walking in place. She walked down from the long decline of the peach blossom warehouse to the crossroads, then continued northward to the river. There, she turned left and continued walking along the bank to the South Bridge. She looked at the Pei Gong Pavilion. The mountain peak was white with snow. Occasionally a flock of blackbirds scattered like seeds.