Death Fugue

by Sheng Keyi

  ‘Anyway, another ten years went by, and public morals were declining each day. I’m pretty clear about the hospital’s business today. Patients should be careful when receiving prescriptions. It’s like a private challenge, different from bargaining for the best price at a farmer’s market. The buyer’s the one taking the initiative there. What you’re looking for, at the hospital, is a speedy and thorough recovery, and what drugs you get depend on the doctor, so you hang on his every word. You need to speak very cautiously, and not have any illusions about the doctor’s kindness or compassion or integrity, or that he holds to some high-sounding code of medical ethics…Public health care has become a business. Individual officers scramble in pursuit of lucrative contracts. Whether through departmental contracting or single commissions, the rebates the doctors get from drug companies go toward their personal wealth. As long as something is profitable, then it’s pretty much “anything goes”. They opt for expensive drugs…meaning that cheaper, more effective treatments are now harder to come by. And then there are the substandard medications, which lead to malpractice. People have lost confidence in medicine. It’s becoming a crisis…’

  ‘It’s as if you’re saying that the country has gone bad because it’s taken bad medicine,’ the raccoon-like child showed a change in attitude, and seemed to be taking some interest in the conversation now.

  Surprised, Mengliu stared at him. He seemed to have just noticed that the boy was there.

  ‘If everyone is like you, then things will just get sicker,’ the little fellow said earnestly.

  As usual, the weather was fine, and they ventured outdoors to enjoy the afternoon sun. The bright-eyed raccoon wore a sapphire blue robe with a standing collar and the sleeves turned up a couple of times. He folded his legs under him on the swing, looking like a cat curled up before the fire and wearing a serious expression, making his fat baby-face look even more childish.

  ‘Two-thousand six-hundred years ago, there was a ship that met with a storm and it was wrecked on a desert island. People from many races, including Chinese, the non-Han nationalities, the Miaos and the blue-eyed people were washed ashore. Left on the island, they settled and multiplied. These were the ancestors of Swan Valley. Later…’

  A young man with teeth as shiny as a steel blade came out from beneath the shadow of the trees, saying, ‘Shanlai, it’s been a long time since I heard you tell these stories.’

  Shanlai, as startled as if he had heard a bomb explode nearby, dropped his feet to the ground, stood up, and said politely, ‘Señor Esteban!’

  Esteban smiled. He was tall, stately, handsome. His well-proportioned build could stand up under any form of measurement, an impeccable specimen amongst humans, evoking a feeling of profound respect.

  Mengliu was as confused as if he had been struck by a surging wave but, not forgetting his manners, he greeted the newcomer. ‘Hello, Esteban. It’s nice to see you again.’

  The impeccable specimen conjured up a vague impeccable smile, offering it to Mengliu as if it were a sweet on a plate.

  ‘Mr Yuan, sir,’ – Mengliu noted the use of ‘sir’, both polite and cold – ‘I hear you are a poet. Poetry is the heart and soul of Swan Valley. It seems, sir, that you have come to the right place.’

  Mengliu’s heart, like a sensitive scar registering a change in the weather, began to feel a dull aching soreness. He looked around carefully, noting the dancing vine leaves, the falling pomegranate flowers, and the layer of red that carpeted the grass.

  ‘It’s more accurate to say that I am a surgeon,’ Mengliu replied, straightening his back. Then, somewhat dramatically, he added, ‘If I reluctantly admit that I was a poet, it is only because I have performed some artistry on the bodies of my patients. But the employment of medical technology does not require the daring application of the imagination.’

  ‘Between diseases of the flesh and sicknesses of the soul, which do you think is in more urgent need of treatment? Which of the two types of illness does more harm?’ The gentleman seated himself on the swing. He lifted Shanlai, whose ears were pricked up, and seated the child on the swing beside him. With his feet against the ground, he gave the swing a push.

  ‘Neither is as serious as the sickness that infects the state,’ Mengliu muttered, obviously preferring not to discuss the subject. He crushed the petals on the ground with his foot, watching them turn into powdered soil. Their fragrance blended with the smell of the earth, and rose up in an aromatic blend of fermented grains. He knew Esteban had not come by to wile his time away in idleness. From the first time they had met, he knew this was not a person who could be dealt with easily.

  Esteban listened, then put his left foot on the ground, stopping the swing. He seemed surprised by Mengliu’s answer.

  ‘Surely your own country isn’t terminally ill?’ he asked, sucking in his breath as if dragging on a cigar. The swing started moving again as the child got down to give it another push, then clambered back up onto his perch.

  ‘That’s right! Their country has taken so much medicine that it has become even sicker,’ Shanlai said, one hand clutching the rope at his side and the other pointing at Mengliu. ‘And he is wallowing in the mud of cowardice!’

  ‘Shanlai,’ said the gentleman, pulling the child toward him and putting an arm around his shoulder. ‘You need to listen first and only comment later.’

  Mengliu felt as if he had turned into a turtle, rolled up in its shell and tossed back and forth between two children. He was annoyed, but controlled his irritation as he replied in his usual prudent tone, ‘There are idle people all over the world who sleep half the day. A lot of people spend their time gambling, visiting places of pleasure, amusing themselves to pass the time, without giving a second thought to society and those less fortunate than themselves. They don’t have pity for their parents or compassion for their siblings. They don’t have a soft heart at all. In their eyes, all that matters is their own gain…’ Then he looked as if he wanted confirmation of his ideas from Esteban and Shanlai. ‘I think human nature is the same everywhere you go, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s not necessarily true, Mr Yuan.’ The gentleman put his feet on the ground and steadied the swing again. His bright eyes bore the look of one who loved a good debate. ‘When a nation goes crazy, it wields the scalpel on intellectuals. There will be both natural and man-made disasters, culture will regress…’ He shook his head helplessly, then continued in a despairing tone, ‘Do you know how lethal the Great Famine was, how many people it destroyed? It was the equivalent of more than four hundred and fifty times the number of people killed by the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki. It was a tragedy far greater than the Second World War. I’m not exaggerating, not at all.’

  Mengliu did not doubt the information, for this fellow had the sort of charisma that made people trust him unconditionally. His views, like his person, were real and tangible. But as the words came flooding out of his mouth, it was as if a spy had stolen state secrets and was putting them on display in front of you, in order to let you know how naive you had been to be deceived. It sounded like an insult.

  ‘History, after the period when it was being dressed up in all sorts of fancy attire, will eventually reveal its true colours…’

  Mengliu, trying hard to hide his inner turmoil, suddenly felt an inexplicable pain. It was as if he were a husband who one day came to hear from the mouth of another that his virtuous wife had been unfaithful to him for a long time. He had to express his confidence in his wife, not only in order to protect her reputation, but also to preserve some sense of manly dignity for himself, at least in the eyes of others.

  Mengliu felt extremely uncomfortable, like his heart was being scrubbed with a brush, and he said distractedly, ‘Mozi contributed not a small amount to cosmology and mathematics, but his asceticism was contrary to human nature. His impoverished approach to life was his own business, but to expect others to live like that was unreasonable. But then, the old gentleman thought that eating
to one’s satisfaction, dressing comfortably, living in a house with sufficient space, and having a car to get around in was enough. Everything that has no practical value, and excessive enjoyment, should be abolished. That’s not unreasonable. The problem is that during his time, most didn’t have enough to eat or sufficient clothes to wear, so houses and cars were all the more out of the question…All kinds of health care, employment, education, and legal systems were imperfect…The public’s grievances piled up…’

  ‘You talk like a dumb government official.’ Shanlai jumped off the swing, landing on his tiptoes next to a dragonfly resting on a leaf. The dragonfly flew away, and the child watched it land on a leaf higher up on the vine. ‘The emperor made new clothes, just to make himself more comfortable. It kept him warm, it wasn’t to display luxury or for showing off. When people make clothes, they use gold thimbles to guide their needles, and precious beads to make ornaments. That is living luxuriously. It doesn’t help the state, and may even cause serious harm…There’s materialism, moral decline, and everyone tells lies. Everywhere you go, there are false Christians…’

  He jumped up and tried to reach the dragonfly, following it as it flitted away.

  ‘Señor Esteban, Shanlai…does he know what he is saying?’ Mengliu asked cautiously.

  The gentleman once again offered an impeccable, sly smile, but this time something new was added to the platter – a look of disdain that was like a worm after feasting, lying on the leaf, mind blank while it basks in the sun and wind, lazily squeezing out a few blobs of black shit.

  To link insect shit to the smile on that perfect, youthful face did not seem quite decent, but it was how Mengliu felt. Later, he came to understand that Esteban’s smile held a much deeper meaning. In Swan Valley, a child of seven or eight often had the intellectual capacity of an adult. Their thoughts were fully mature before they turned ten years old. This was an amazing rate of brain development. It proved that Swan Valley’s approach to genetic development was correct.

  15

  Swan Valley, with its pleasant and impeccable environment, was a good place to live. It was full of fine women and men of excellence. In Beiping, it was only at upscale nightclubs that you would see such neatly turned-out people – highly educated good-looking call girls, busy young gigolos with qualities that surpassed those of Alain Delon or Gregory Parker. If you were not a big spender their supercilious gaze might sometimes float by you as gently as a feather. Of course Mengliu was not a patron of such establishments. His interest in places of pleasure fluctuated, and though it sometimes grew into an addiction, it also became jaded after a while. Once, a patient whose outlook took a rapid turn after having his gall bladder removed, decided that he should seize the day and enjoy life, so he invited Mengliu to ‘a very special place’ as a reward. It was a man’s paradise, providing a range of services that included threesomes, foursomes, bondage, suspension, inversion, water treatment, air treatment, and of course the deflowering of a virgin. But when men come into contact with women who possess a cold charm combined with beauty, and topped by an overwhelmingly elegant disposition, they are reduced to the state of a weak country facing a superpower. Under such enormous psychological pressure, they often become impotent.

  Mengliu was drawn to a particularly stunning woman and planned to take a room with her. When she told him that she drove a Ferrari, he found he wasn’t up to the task. He couldn’t muster the courage to engage such an extravagant and alluring creature, so he dug out all the cash he could for the woman and slunk away. From that moment on, he knew that he would always be like a fish out of water in Dayang’s high society. It was infected with skin disease, and seriously ulcerated inside.

  This was why he liked Swan Valley so much, its fresh fertile nature, its simplicity, innocence, and peace. Even the breeze seemed to bring with it a nourishing power. His skin felt moist and smooth, his mood was like a wandering shapeless cloud, free of the burden of the past. At the side of this beautiful woman, accompanied by an intermittently racing heart and the secretion of hormones, he lived every day as if in the early stages of love. A noble temperament was slowly taking over his whole being. The prospect of leading a selfless magnanimous life, away from worldliness and beyond the mundane, permeated the atmosphere. He found it in Su Juli’s neat appearance and style of conversation, and in the calmness and accomplishment of the people of Swan Valley.

  In the morning, like a married woman who had spent all night amusing and pleasing others, the sun was late in rising. It was nearly nine before it roused its lazy body, fatigued and weak, to glance at the world, before going quietly back into hiding to wash and dress.

  Esteban had invited Mengliu to watch the rice-planting ceremony. The scenery as they walked along was glorious, and Esteban urged him to compose a pastoral idyll, in the hope that he would slowly recover his identity as a poet. He even recited one of his own, and invited Mengliu to critique his composition.

  Looking back at his own messy footprints as he trod along the muddy path, Mengliu thought what a foolish suggestion that was – to rattle off a few simple pastoral stanzas and recover his fucking poetic identity. Only the people of Swan Valley had the idle time to treat poetry – a bold and powerful mastiff – like a pug. Poetry was a raging fire, not a rhetorical game. When the Dayangese composed verse, they never went about it like a girl with her embroidery.

  Saying nothing, he bent his head and continued walking. He had no power in his lungs to say anything.

  The scenery was like nothing he’d ever seen, heard about, or imagined. It was perfectly suited to a dissatisfied government official turned hermit or recluse, putting up a hypocritical show of farming while, at the same time, waiting to hear the hoof-steps of a courier from the imperial government. On both sides of the road, the hedgerows were covered with tiny blossoms, punctuated by the occasional fiery-red wild rose. The sides of the ditches were scented with wild celery. The distant hillside was covered with flowers and grasses and white mushroom-shaped houses which popped up in the landscape here and there.

  Mengliu refused to discuss poetry with Esteban. They had nothing to talk about. They silently passed a lotus pond full of blossoms, and came to a gathering of fruit trees. Here in a sea of flowers, bees, butterflies and birds fluttered about busily. The orioles were warbling, filling the air with the scent of pollen. It was like a produce market or some sort of meeting place; in the midst of the dazzle, all that was left to Mengliu’s ears was a roar, the sound growing more intense and more immediate, as if it was pressing closely towards him, and would soon roll over his body. Ashen-faced, he reached out and steadied himself against a tree, then leaned his whole body against its trunk. The petals upset by his movement dropped like snow, there were so many of them.

  ‘Mr Yuan, you don’t look good. Is something wrong?’ Esteban’s voice didn’t hold concern for Mengliu’s person, though he seemed interested in the cause of his discomfort.

  ‘Sorry, I’m just allergic to pollen.’ Mengliu recovered, pretended to sneeze, and tears started to form in his eyes.

  Esteban turned up the corners of his mouth, putting on a smile that seemed to indicate an insight into how things really were.

  Mengliu guessed that the other man must have seen through his lie. It wasn’t that difficult, really. After all, he hadn’t had any problem with the pollen at Su Juli’s house.

  Esteban continued to walk at a leisurely pace, as if he were deliberately torturing his companion. He picked a flower, curled his upper lip, placed it beneath his nose, and took a long sniff at it.

  Wiping the tears from his eyes, Mengliu continued with an affected casualness, ‘It’s not an allergy to every kind of flower. I’m not even sure which flowers are my natural enemies. It might not be just one kind, but perhaps a combination of several kinds. I haven’t been tested…But it’s nothing serious, just an allergy. It’s not a big deal.’

  Esteban lifted the edge of his robe and strode across a gully. ‘From what I know, allergies a
re the body’s exaggerated reaction to stimulation. Of course, that also includes mental stimulation.’ He stood across from Mengliu, looking at him with stormy eyes.

  Just then the raccoon-like child jumped out of the forest in front of them. He stood in the middle of the path, hair strewn with petals and body covered in pollen. In his right hand he held a long stick, sharpened to a point. A fire wheel made out of green bristle grass wound around his left elbow. He wore an expression of superiority.

  ‘Shanlai, did you go to see the peonies?’ Esteban asked.

  ‘Yes, the peonies have really opened up now. Those fellows are really plump,’ Shanlai answered.

  Before long, Mengliu came across ‘those fellows’ that Shanlai had mentioned. There were worms on the peonies. The ‘peony silkworms’ were Esteban’s innovation, the result of a breeding method he had discovered. Their silk was very strong, able to withstand fire, radiation, even bullets. It was lightweight and warm. And it retained the smell of the peonies themselves.

  It was hard to believe that Esteban could be credited with this discovery, but such a thing should not have been surprising in Swan Valley. There was no distinction between farmers and intellectuals here. Every farmer was himself an intellectual, and every intellectual was also a farmer or a craftsman. Everyone was a manual labourer and a thinker. Occupational discrimination did not exist. Everyone was equal. They advocated learning, and focused on nurturing a comprehensive sort of intelligence. One didn’t just become an expert in nails and screws, or understand a specialised, one-dimensional field of knowledge, while remaining an idiot in all other fields. In Swan Valley, there was no monopoly on a profession or authority. They had none of that so-called authority crap, where everyone had to listen like a fool, and take notes, without the ability to doubt or object.