Tales of Accidental Genius
Page 7
But in time they would see he was right. They would catch up.
There would, of course, be new conditions with a picture like this. The studio might want him to finance a portion personally, until audiences could get used to the new genre.
But Longwei believed so strongly in his vision, that with his wife’s blessing—he was prepared to finance the entire picture himself. This would almost certainly give him final say on the last scene, because, although he was yet to write the script, he knew instinctively, there could be no people in the shot:
Just a tiny hutong home,
with an old spring bed,
a vase of blue flowers,
full moon drifting. . . .
WORKING SCRIPT/STORY NOTES
Beijing/Ningbo Shooting Crew
Golden Helper II
An Epic Fable of
Wealth, Loneliness, and Cycling
A NEW FILM
by
PENG LONGWEI
Chinese Translation by Li Chen of Bethel, China
Home for Blind and Visually Impaired Orphans
Inspired in part by the true story
Restoring the Light
A documentary film by Carol Liu
意识是改变的第一步。
. . . awareness is the first step for change . . .
一
For a long time,
Golden Helper II was just a lump of metal welded
to the frame of a crooked tricycle
used to ferry small mountains of bok choy
(and occasionally celery)
to a street corner in Beijing opposite Chanel
where blind Mr. Fun and his wife
had their vegetable business.
The idea for Golden Helper II had appeared in Mr. Fun’s head
one night at the kitchen table
searching for a home in the world like fire or the wheel.
Mr. Fun folded pieces of newspaper to help him remember—
couldn’t draw his ideas for the same reason he sold vegetables
and didn’t work as an engineer,
which was his dream.
Mr. Fun put the pieces of folded newspaper away
in a drawer that wouldn’t close because of New Year’s cards,
coins, a set of teeth, old keys, plastic toys, souvenirs,
and a whistle;
Mr. Fun’s life in small pieces.
Most of his inventions never became anything
more than a folded newspaper,
but Golden Helper II was special,
and Mr. Fun knew exactly where this bundle
of copper, steel, and rippling chains could be welded
onto the frame of the Fun family tricycle.
Mr. Fun’s ideas often came in the evening
when Mrs. Fun and Little Weng were at home
watching television, bellies full, eyes closing.
At night he sometimes stood over their beds,
sometimes stood there in the darkness,
his heart like a kite on currents of breath.
It would be like when they were dead, he thought,
except he would be dead too.
No more Fun.
Mr. Fun was also a worrier,
but if there was nothing to worry about,
he let himself be swept up in flights of fancy.
Once he wondered what it would be like to go backward.
He caught the idea from television:
Mrs. Fun staying up to watch Brad Pitt
in the old days of America.
In the movie, the voice of Brad Pitt got younger and younger
until he could only cry, and not say to those around him,
“I was born an old man who played cards, smoking.”
When the house was quiet, Mr. Fun imagined living every day
of his own life again in reverse.
. . . sitting around as Little Weng gets younger and shorter,
until he stops walking, becomes very small,
disappears back into his mother.
He would get younger too, until an eager, sprightly Mr. Fun,
sat listening to a pretty girl (Mrs. Fun) wash clothes
in a bucket for the first and last time.
Little Weng would be lost first, though,
dead without having to die.
What a good thing, he told Mrs. Fun in bed,
that the street of life is one-way.
One of his customers once told Mr. Fun
about a household machine
that could press thoughts into waves of dots,
then be read and understood by anyone
willing to learn this new language.
Mr. Fun described it to his family one night eating dinner.
“There is a machine for everything nowadays,” Mrs. Fun said.
Little Weng stood up from the table,
“One day I will be rich enough to buy Dad this machine
so he can learn the language of dots.”
“But you are already the richest person in China,”
said Mrs. Fun wisely.
“I mean with money,” Weng said. “I’m going to be the first
person in our family to attend university. Then after years of
hard work, will provide a life of comfort for you and dad—
no more bok choy, no more celery—
farewell, bitter melon.”
“That’s such good news,” his mother said.
“But first step: finish noodles.”
One night Little Weng couldn’t sleep.
And a light in the kitchen meant his father was awake too.
Peeking around the door, Weng saw tomorrow’s vegetables
all over the table.
Then he heard his father’s voice.
“Think how many rainfalls made each one grow.”
Weng went barefoot into the
kitchen, climbed into his father’s lap. “Sixteen?” he said.
“Hard to say,” replied his father, lifting a tomato to his son’s ear,
“but everything inside has entered from the roots.”
The windows were violet when blind Mr. Fun
carried his son back to bed.
Day was in night’s arms.
The following afternoon when Weng was in school,
his mother had a fright while making his bed.
Mr. Fun was oiling the family tricycle in the kitchen.
It would soon be time for Mr. Fun and his wife
to pick up the afternoon vegetables
and pedal them back to the corner for selling.
“You need to speak to our son,” Mrs. Fun said,
standing in the doorway.
“He’s been sneaking food into his room.”
“Sneaking food?”
Mrs. Fun found her husband’s hands.
“What is this?” he said. “A tomato?”
“It was under his pillow!”
Over dinner that night Mrs. Fun saw the funny side.
When she stood to get second helpings, Mr. Fun reached
for her arm and held on. “Mrs. Fun,” he said,
“Most of the work in this family falls on you because I am blind,
without you all would be lost . . . you are our golden helper.”
Mrs. Fun blushed and went to the stove.
“But you don’t know what golden means!”
The words floated around Little Weng’s head
as he fell asleep that night.
Moments like this between parents
give children the courage they will need to watch them die.
That was the evening Mr. Fun remembered his latest invention.
And when everyone was in bed, he went to the drawer
(that wouldn’t close)
and found the pieces of newspaper
he had folded in a special way
so the idea would not escape.
As a worrier, he knew th
at life would be hard
for his wife and son
if he happened to die one night on the old spring bed;
Mrs. Fun was captain of the Fun family ship,
But he was the anchor.
That’s why he knew this latest invention had to be made,
and how it came to be called Golden Helper II.
He instinctively knew the different parts
and how they should piece together.
Golden Helper II would also be a family of three,
but in metal, with oil for blood.
Over the next several months, Mrs. Fun procured
the different pieces her husband would need to assemble the
mechanism for real.
Some parts were not the right size
and had to be cut again by angry men in the metal shop.
Some pieces were too heavy,
others too light.
Part of the mainspring had to be wound from different metals
to account for summer heat and winter cold.
Mr. Fun could not have asked for a better wife.
When it was finally built, they took turns
holding Golden Helper II in their hands.
“Heavy,” Mrs. Fun said. “But I still don’t get what it does.”
Then she helped her husband put on welding gloves
that reached up to his elbow.
“Think of it like this,” Mr. Fun said. “Imagine that, when you
give me a kiss, I take that kiss and turn it into something else,
like a compliment for our son, who turns it into a good deed at
school, and so on and so on, and the energy keeps going, keeps
turning through the universe on the same course, forever and
with no one name.”
Little Weng’s job was to make sure Mr. Fun didn’t catch fire.
The water in his bucket was heavy.
He remembered his father telling him about the sea,
and how it undresses the earth every night.
The welding torch made Mrs. Fun think of New Year.
The dazzle and scent of solder hypnotized her.
How blind Mr. Fun scorched Golden Helper II onto the frame
of the family tricycle is—to this day—a complete miracle.
When it was finished, Mr. Fun stood back
while his family stared
at the smoking, blackened, cabbage-shaped bundle,
bulging with oily strips of metal.
“I have a good feeling about your new invention,” said Mrs. Fun.
Her husband thanked her. “Let’s hope it works.”
Once Golden Helper II had cooled,
Mr. Fun began gathering the other parts,
including three chains, which over the next few evenings
he would thread with painful slowness
through openings in Golden Helper II.
With a few minor adjustments
Golden Helper II did work.
Imagine freezing Weng on the backseat of the tricycle,
teeth rattling—small hands pressed into the bun
of his father’s belly
who hardly had to pedal on account
of Golden Helper II’s magic touch.
Then tiny Mrs. Fun at the front on a horse cushion,
steering around holes in the road, shouting at pedestrians.
二
By the time their son turned sixteen,
nothing seemed like it would ever change,
which usually means it’s about to.
One morning Mrs. Fun put on a Sunday dress and a silk scarf
because she had to go out.
Mr. Fun gave her money to pay their neighbor Hui
who sometimes drove them places,
but Mrs. Fun saved it and took the bus.
When she got to the hospital, she told the doctor
she had been uncomfortable for some time.
The pain had been coming and going,
as though it couldn’t make up its mind.
She got back late with the smell of chemicals on her.
When she saw her husband and son
at the kitchen table with no bowls
Mrs. Fun started to cry and rushed to the sink,
but her husband stood and said firmly,
“Put down that wok!”
A few days later she went back for the results.
Other people were waiting noisily outside the room,
but the doctor gave Mrs. Fun time to digest the news.
As she waited for the bus home her bag got heavy
and she fell headfirst into the street.
Road sweepers dropped their brushes,
then helped get her a seat when the bus came.
On the journey home Mrs. Fun realized it was time for action
and started making a long list to record for her husband
on the family cassette player.
She imagined the sounds of her voice in the machine,
years after the real one had gone silent.
Here are some of the things on Mrs. Fun’s list:
当我们的儿子表现不好的时候，和他开个玩笑，这样他在
承认错误的时候就不会不好意思。
虽然小翁长大了，还是要每天给他一个拥抱。
一定要让他吃，直到他打嗝。
直到他打嗝。直都在看着他，除非他想独处的时候。
独处的时候。谢谢你在天坛公园邀请我做你的新娘。
你送我的那些蓝色的花，这些年来我都把它们养
的很好。
When our son acts badly, make a joke so he’s not
embarrassed to admit he was wrong.
Although Little Weng is big now, put your arms
around him once a day.
Make him eat until bursting.
Reassure him I am watching (except
when he wants to be alone).
And thank you, Mr. Fun, for asking me to be your bride
in Tiantan Park. The blue flowers you gave me
I have kept alive all these years.
One evening,
Mrs. Fun asked her husband and son
to lie with her on the old spring bed.
When they woke the next day she was gone.
It rained then. But after that it was clear and bright
with a half-moon drifting.
三
Mr. Fun got old very quickly.
His hair went gray.
He didn’t laugh into his soup anymore.
His son had to remind him,
wash your face, Dad, comb your hair.
He never stayed up late,
nor made another model out of newspaper.
Anything that broke he left broken.
Little Weng stopped thinking about university
because his father could not sell vegetables without assistance.
They measured time through old rituals and new ones
forced upon them by absence.
Twelve years passed like this.
It eventually became easier for Weng to leave his father home
where he could keep warm and listen to the television.
But Mr. Fun was soon bored
and wanted to go out in the evenings.
Weng trailed him through the hutong district at twilight,
through the sizzle of woks and the calling out;
past grocers packing their vans,
and the song of bells as parents pedaled home to their children.
He kept a close eye as Mr. Fun stopped every now and then
to turn around and look.
He once told his son:
“The greatest treasure of our lives cannot be seen,
or held, or touched.”
Sometimes Weng took his father to hear karaoke
in Tiantan Park.
There was a singer Weng liked who always
put his hand
on Mr. Fun’s shoulder at the end of a song,
as though the words had been written with his story in mind.
The attention made his father eat more
and comb his hair on Sunday
the way he did when Mrs. Fun was alive.
The singer encouraged people to clap along too,
so that Mr. Fun could hear there were others.
Sometimes, when they got home in the afternoon,
Mr. Fun would sit with Mrs. Fun’s scarves.
She had kept them in a basket under the old spring bed.
He held each one to his face.
The scarves were silk and many colors.
Each birthday he used to buy Mrs. Fun a new one.
When times were hard, Mrs. Fun went to the shop
a few days before her birthday with one of her old scarves.
She told the woman to look out for the blind man
that was her husband, then said:
“Please sell this old one to him for the price of the wrapping.”
Whenever Mr. Fun checked in the basket
under the old spring bed,
he believed his wife kept losing them.
That Mrs. Fun, he thought.
One evening he wandered on to Wangfujing Road
and was almost killed.
When Weng caught up with him, people shouted:
“Get the old man home!”
The next afternoon, the woman who supplied the Fun family
with vegetables advised Weng to tie a piece of rope
to his father’s legs so he could go only so far.
Weng thought about it all that afternoon