Death Fugue

by Sheng Keyi

  6

  That night, Mengliu was a little sad. He thought of Suitang. In the pink of health, she was like Jupiter hanging in the night sky before his window. The moon in Swan Valley was always round, sometimes golden and sometimes silver. Sometimes she was covered in fine hair, sometimes she was more like cold rock, sometimes like a big sesame seed cake, and sometimes she did not look like anything other than the moon. She was always three-dimensional, often making him feel that he would see her back if he stood on tiptoe. He believed Suitang was there, her white face tightly clenched, chest bulging, black eyes rolling, as if she was always searching for some misplaced item. She was absent-minded when she cared for the sick, and caused her patients a lot of distress. Once, she was responsible for a patient’s death, but of course the incident was only known to a few people. The hospital had to protect its own cadres if it wanted to avoid developing a bad reputation that would harm its ability to generate revenue and to contribute to the nation.

  He knew that Suitang had greater ambitions than just to be an anaesthetist. Her lifestyle was on a much higher level than her career. She was an artistically talented girl. Her calligraphy was beautiful, and she produced inscrutable paintings. Society needed more unfathomable works to be produced. All people were doing these days was comparing who could draw the roundest circles. And she could carve. Her desk at work was covered with the carving of a strange creature. It was hard to tell whether it was an animal or a plant, and on closer inspection it was hard to make out anything other than a few scratches. But the identity of an anaesthetist was too strong to be surrendered. The role was part of the mainstream, and as it surged, it washed her clean of everything other than her anaesthetist’s pale face. Mengliu loved the part of her that had been obliterated, like that of an angel that had passed through death. He found it difficult to extricate himself from her gaze.

  Now it was Qizi’s face that was imposed over the moon in the night sky, making him feel several centuries had passed. He had in fact already forgotten her face, but every time he grasped the feelings he once had for her, he felt she had grown into a polyp, or a gallstone, or a kidney stone, something like that. He wished the polyp, or kidney stone, would start burning. God, I can’t feel my own body. The moonlight poured over him, venturing east. The birds and insects glided in the wind as if surfing on waves, like black meteors passing before his window. He stroked his major organs one by one – heart, liver, lungs, gall bladder, spleen, stomach, large intestine, small intestine, bladder, kidneys, eyes, nose, lips, ears… finally he remembered his genitals. Ah, my testicles, my penis. Poor little things! They were like refugees, beggars sheltering under the eaves of a great cold house, wrinkled and filled with a malaise. How they wished for a meal with precious delicacies! They waited for a glorious release. He worried about this ligament, that his muscles would deteriorate and he would develop other sorts of dysfunctions…He wanted to soothe his hungry cock. Its body was gradually waking up with the warmth of his touch. It was standing up energetically now, looking at the world. It saw the moon’s flowing in the soft night. It stood up and strutted, flapped its wings and cried out to the moon as it soared heavenward. He saw Qizi. She had just finished bathing and was walking out of the moon’s palace, her hair wet, lips red, dressed in white and holding a rabbit in her arms. Her chest swelled, flowers bloomed in her eyes. She had become a celestial being, was transforming into the rocks which covered wild places.

  Mengliu thought of the surgery. Perhaps there had not been enough anaesthetic. He saw a tear roll from the corner of Jia Wan’s eye. His will had been torn by his lawful wife. Practically all the wives of the world’s wealthy men would have been venomous, ready to take down their husband’s lover. Mengliu had thought heroic love had once again appeared amongst humans, when it came to him and Suitang. When Jia Wan died, the teardrop wrapped around Mengliu and Suitang, and they turned it into amber. Millions of years later it would find a place on some antique collector’s shelf. When Mengliu realised he had killed Jia Wan, he fled. He tried hard to recall the scene, but his effort was like breathing on a mirror. His past was becoming more blurred. He kept confusing Suitang and Qizi in his mind. His past was gradually disappearing. Now, he had completely forgotten his youth.

  7

  The weather had turned even colder, and the early morning fog blocked all the paths from the house. Visibility was low, and the atmosphere pervasively damp. The creatures of the world were unusually quiet. The silence was like a saucer, with nothing to crack it. Water dripped constantly from the ends of leaves, a cosy, soft but sad rhythmic accompaniment to the silence.

  Mengliu walked in the fog, his hair falling in sticky white lines. On this morning his body was hard and faced rigidly frontward, like a gun on a ship. He needed an animal to hunt, and aim his gun at. The beast inside him had an urge to feast. He walked along Juli’s well-worn path. A few minutes earlier, she had picked up a basket of clothes and headed toward the river. She liked washing her clothes in running water in the morning, just as she liked bathing at night when she had finished her dinner, and reading a book in bed before she fell asleep…She must have other habits, he thought, like preferring a certain type of underwear or her responses during orgasm. His intuition was that she had been with a man, and that there were certain things she had done surreptitiously. How did she overcome her feelings during ovulation, her desire? Was her eccentric personality the result of this long-term suppression? His own body experienced an indescribable excitement coupled with tender feelings of pity for her. He held his gun resolutely, not weakening even for a moment.

  Peering around, he saw he had entered a forest, which was fairly covered in fog. He heard his own pulse, the sound of his blood flowing, the bitter secretions of his gall bladder, and the infinite wind blowing through the silence. He felt like a monkey who wanted to climb up the tree and pick Juli’s solid coconuts, and lay her down whether she resisted or obliged. He was almost lost in the foggy forest, but the faint sound of her rustling clothes guided him, like a bell or drum sounding from some unseen place in the distance. He believed she was calling him, and that her already-damp body was waiting for him in the mist. He became urgent, resolute, and deciding not to turn back, followed Juli’s trail of white chrysanthemums, his hair dripping and his clothes mottled with damp stains. Juli’s laundry had already been packed into a bamboo basket. She sat on a bench reading a paperback, her rose-coloured robe revealing ornate shoes beneath, embroidered with plum blossoms.

  He came to a stop five metres from her.

  The fog cut them off from everything, as if they were in a secret room. He saw her hair was put up casually, a messiness that revealed her anxiety. He guessed she was reading the bible. He knew what he should do in order not to startle her. So they were at a stalemate for several minutes. Just as he intended to turn and plunge back into the fog in order to make a new entrance, she looked up. She was smiling, and her smile was bright. She was not the least bit surprised at his appearance, as if she had asked him to come.

  She seemed to have become a different person. He felt her change. This time she was like a maths problem that wasn’t too difficult, and he thought it wouldn’t take him long to solve her. She looked at him with interest, like a little girl. Like the sticky juice from a fruit, when she blinked, sweetness flowed from her eyes, along with a kind mockery. He noticed an awkward feeling in himself, like a stifled young bird. They could not find opening remarks. The shifting shroud of fog gently enveloped them in an even more profound silence. He slid swiftly toward her.

  ‘Juli…what a coincidence. You’re here too.’ He ran his hand over his hair at the same time as he realised that his gun was no longer there, and felt a timidity that came from knowing he was unarmed. ‘I heard noise here, so…What book are you reading?’ He held his hands behind his back, and bent his body to look at its cover.

  She closed the book, and he saw its title, The Gulag Archipelago. He sat down beside her. She read aloud, ‘“June 3, ra
dio stations in Novacherkassk broadcast the dialogue between Mikoyan and Kozlov. Kozlov did not weep. They made no further promises to identify the perpetrators amongst those in power. As they spoke, they only mentioned that the incident had been incited by enemies, who would be severely punished. Mikoyan said that the Soviet forces had not authorised the use of dumdums, so those using dumdums were certainly enemies. All those injured had not been accounted for, and none had come back. On the contrary, the families of the victims were sent to Siberia. Those others who were implicated, those who were booked, or who had been photographed, all faced the same fate. Those who participated in the marches were arrested and put through a series of trials…”’

  ‘Hey, Juli, you looked really beautiful when you were reading, like a bird singing.’ Mengliu interrupted cautiously, settling on the point to sweet-talk her. His feelings returned to being pure and simple. ‘I remember the first time I saw your face in the crowd. You were like a lonely century plant, your long hair fluttering. You could not have known my feelings at that moment – just when I thought I would never see another human again, I saw you.’ He looked at her intently. Her face was damp, her lips parted as if in surprise.

  She closed the book again and put it in her pocket. Just the right size, the pocket looked like it had been made especially for holding a book. ‘Yes, you dared to go with me then, not afraid that I was some monster who would eat you up in the middle of the night,’ she said, stretching her hands along her skirt.

  He continued teasing a little. Feeling that she had already got up onto his wagon, his own speech became a bit more presumptuous. ‘I wanted to be eaten by you. The best is if I could watch with my own eyes as you ate me…’

  She did not seem to understand the lewd direction of his conversation, but said that he was lucky, since the Swanese were not cannibals. They were silent a moment, and he tried to think of a way to lead her a step closer to his meaning. ‘Have you seen a wild lotus? The other day I wanted to pick one and bring it back for you, but it was very strange. As soon as I touched it, the petals scattered.’ He shook his head with regret. ‘I think they are the most beautiful flowers in the world. It was just like a folk tale, something seen by very few people. I was lucky.’

  Juli grew flowers in her garden, and she recognised many varieties, but she knew nothing about wild lotuses. This ignorance inevitably made her feel uneasy. ‘What colour was it? What flower was it most similar to?’

  He pondered for a moment, then said, ‘White, or pink, and the petals were thin as a grain of rice. But up close, it looked very different …It’s difficult to explain, but it was amazing.’

  She struggled to picture what the wild lotuses might be like, but gave up. ‘No, I have to see what this exotic flower really looks like.’ She jumped off the chair. ‘Take me there now.’

  He liked the way she leapt up, like a wayward girl. ‘What reward will you give me?’

  ‘Are you taking the opportunity to blackmail me?’

  ‘Would a hug be too much to ask?’

  She looked at him, acquiescing.

  He stood up, his arms in a wide circle, like a gambler about to pull in the chips he had just won. She snapped into his embrace, and he raised the gun again. Their embrace grew tighter, neither releasing the other. Everything around them grew quiet, as if immersed in the pleasure of their embrace. Her body was soft, and he pressed against the fullness of it. The parts that were bony made him think she would break if he exerted just a little strength. But when he lowered his head to kiss her, a terrifying scream sounded overhead. A vulture was circling above them at a low altitude like a model aircraft. Their embrace came to a sudden end.

  He led her deeper into the forest. They began their walk apart. But after ten minutes, they were clasping each other’s hands. He had no idea where they should go. He was looking for a comfortable patch of grass where he could lay Juli down and show her what a wild lotus really was. She seemed to be very patient, and didn’t ask him about their destination. There wasn’t any sunlight along the way. The trees were wet, and when the cold fog dripped down her neck, she cried out.

  ‘Tired? Rest here.’ He pointed to a fallen tree. He felt this place was all right, concealed enough, and completely safe. ‘I seem to have taken a wrong turn. I remember it was near the river…’

  He braced his feet and sat down on the trunk. Juli looked at him, but said nothing. He reached out and pulled her towards him. She stood between his legs. ‘Have you seen that bit of hazel wood before?’ He took her hand, looking at her wheat-coloured fingers and the white crescent moons in her fingernails. ‘I forgot which hillside it was on. There are so many bushes.’

  Her buttocks leaned against his thighs, and he naturally put a steady hand around her waist. Her chest was at the height of his mouth. His passion ignited again, and he buried his face in her cleavage, his body burning. He grasped her. Juli was like a plastic doll which emitted a strange sound when he squeezed. At that moment, as if he had pressed too strongly, the doll popped out of his grip. She looked like a deer standing still there outside his legs, her hair mussed. She said, ‘I still want to see the wild lotus!’

  She was full of an unfathomable vivacity today. He felt that he was a penis, stuck in the ground and unable to move. ‘I have one more condition.’ He reached for the hand tucked into her pink jacket sleeve. ‘I want you to kiss me for a minute.’

  He also had a puzzling waywardness about him, as if they were two innocent childhood friends.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Just for a minute.’

  She stared at him, not making a sound.

  ‘Okay then, I’ll kiss you.’ As he spoke, he stood up, feeling surprised at how free-flowing his performance was, whatever he said. There was no monitor, no alarm. He got to kiss a real woman, then broke off to breathe, but she did not release him. Feeling she was on board now, his restless hand began daring moves. He decided to take her right there and then.

  A crow cawed twice, quite rudely. As if she had heard an alarm, Juli suddenly released Mengliu. She could have been waking from a dream. She tidied herself quickly.

  ‘No, it’s not safe here.’ She covered her face, leaving only her eyes revealed. ‘Nearby there should be a rubbish dump. The people who go to dispose of things will pass by and see us.’

  Mengliu remembered that Shanlai had also mentioned the rubbish dump. Right now he wasn’t interested in figuring out why they chose the forest as a disposal site. His body was about to explode, and that was the only urgent consideration.

  They renewed their search for the wild lotuses. He clutched her hand firmly, his nose sniffing out a more secluded spot. She followed closely, like a runaway. Sometimes they climbed a slope, sometimes they moved on at a trot. He felt that with a woman like Juli, he needed to be clearer in his intentions, since she did not understand his hints. She was an elegant woman, and also infinitely spiritual, a vestal virgin. Of course, whether she was really a virgin he had no way of knowing.

  ‘Wild lotuses only open under certain conditions. I don’t know how our luck will be.’

  When they reached a sheltered place behind a small hill, Mengliu stopped. He thought that, whether from a physical or a psychological perspective, this slope was very suitable for lying down on. The grass was dense and clean, and wouldn’t soil Juli’s dress.

  ‘Don’t you want to know what conditions are necessary for the wild lotus to bloom?’ He turned to face her. He was glad the fog was still thick, like a curtain hanging around them.

  She watched his face, hesitating.

  ‘I do know. It opens when there are illicit sexual relations,’ she said, laughing triumphantly. ‘I also know there’s no such flower.’

  ‘Eh?’ Mengliu’s heart sank in awkwardness. ‘You…?’

  ‘Look at the flowers on this tree. I want you to pick me some.’ Her voice was still innocent. He pulled down a branch that held four or five blossoms. She sniffed. ‘I think this is called a wild lotus.’

 
‘Huh?’ Mengliu was taken aback. The situation had suddenly taken a one hundred and eighty-degree turn. He was the passive one. His mouth was now covered by Juli’s, and the crazed passion that came from her was not at all by his design, which made him feel that his careful schemes had been quite childish after all. He reflected on the situation. She had pretended to be confused. This discovery was unexpected, and also beyond his contemplation. It greatly stimulated his animal nature. All he wanted to do was press himself to her, to prevent any further interruptions. Their bodies intertwined in passion, they fell to the ground, and he felt the slope of the earth beneath helping as he eased himself into her. Without further ado, he began undressing. But suddenly, the sun shone directly on them with the glare of a spotlight. Juli’s body retreated instinctively, and even Mengliu was stunned. They stood up again, watching in amazement as the fog shrouding them disappeared. In the blink of an eye the air was crystal clear and they were standing not in woods, but in an open space, with only an old tree towering impressively overhead. As if grasping at the dissipating fog, there were two screeches from the sky and a pair of vultures rushed downwards into what looked like a meteor crater.

  This omen destroyed Mengliu, completely defeating his spirits. He wanted to know what was in the crater. ‘Let’s have a look,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t,’ Juli held herself tightly, almost begging. ‘It is the waste disposal site. There is nothing good there. We should go.’

  ‘Wait here. I will take a look. I’ll be right back.’

  ‘I’m telling you, don’t. Really. If you look, you will be sick.’

  The sky was like blue glass. There was not a speck of dust in the air. There were all sorts of weeds and flowers everywhere on the ground. The old gingko tree stood straight up, like a burning torch. Mengliu glanced back at Juli. Her words energised him, and he ran to the pit. She watched him stand there, then quickly turn away, bending over as if his stomach was cramping. She knew very well what he had seen, and that he would be vomiting for the next few days whenever he recalled the sight, expelling everything he ate.