by Sheng Keyi
His hand seemed stuck to hers. He wasn’t able to detach it for a moment. He wondered if he told her what he had seen in the woods, revealing the contents of the letter, what her scream would sound like. Of course his motive wasn’t to frighten her. In the end he suppressed the desire and didn’t say anything. Yuyue’s hand was like the kitten he had raised in his younger days. When she withdrew it, he felt a sense of nostalgia. It was at such moments of loneliness that one was most likely to commit an error. So he looked back at her. She stood motionless, hands in the pockets of her white coat, like a newly built snowman. It was the first time he had smiled at her. He had not smiled in such a long time he felt his muscles had grown stiff.
‘Maybe we can go some place interesting.’ Yuyue stepped forward again, hands still in her pockets. ‘There are some rare creatures to see. I am sure you will like it.’
He didn’t immediately reject her. Since the person in black had died, things could slow down a little. If that letter really was just mental trickery, and he took it seriously and went to the authorities, he would be a laughing stock. He did not want to lose face in front of Juli. When he thought of Juli’s description of the nursing home and the look of longing on her face, his heart dropped. So he stayed where he was and waited for Yuyue to change her clothes in the office. A sort of excitement like elopement brewed in him. Not long ago the two of them had been relatively cold towards each other, and now they were planning a sightseeing trip together. Although it was difficult to adapt to all the changes, he found it fairly easy to fall into step with his emotions. He didn’t know what sort of battle awaited him. How would things progress with Yuyue? Was she one of those who liked revolution? His thoughts now turned towards such questions with the same liveliness as his sperm. When he saw Yuyue in her casual clothing, like a bluebird in flight, he almost thought they had been in love for a long time.
They each took a bicycle from the hospital garage. Their wheels turned in unison, the silver rims ran over the hard grey road. A brightness swept over the snowy mountain slopes. The sun and the moon were both overhead. The clouds looked like a sandy desert swept clean by the wind. The air was very pure.
‘Yuyue, how old are you actually?’ Mengliu asked, slowing down as they reached a flat stretch of road. He knew nothing about her.
‘Me? I turned twenty-one today,’ she said.
‘Go –’ Mengliu braked suddenly. He had not thought she was already twenty-one. ‘Oh. Your birthday.’
Yuyue stopped her bike and said, ‘Twenty-one years ago today, my mother was successfully impregnated via artificial insemination. The moment the sperm and egg met is considered my birthday. The day of my birth was my mother’s Day of Suffering, and was also Mother’s Day. We have a special celebration. It’s a custom in Swan Valley.’
‘That’s very humane,’ he said. ‘But where are your mother and father now?’
‘My father passed away, and my mother is in the nursing home.’ Yuyue sat herself happily on the saddle again, her pale blue jacket and white skin blended with the sky. Perhaps the sky was too bright. There seemed to be a halo around her.
Her mention of the nursing home coincided perfectly with what was on his mind. He caught up with her and said casually, ‘Why don’t we go to the nursing home now to visit your mother?’
‘Staying there she is like an immortal, with nothing to worry about.’ Yuyue laughed easily. ‘Hey, it’s as if you believed that patient you saw. Poets love to imagine things, but life goes on as usual. It’s very rare that anything extraordinary happens.’
‘You’ve never been to see her?’
‘No.’ Yuyue shook her head, and her hair flapped against her face. ‘She writes to tell me how things are going for her. She’s happy. Last year she even entered her “second spring” there, and fell in love like a teenager.’
‘Why haven’t you thought of going in to have a look?’ Mengliu knew the Swanese were independent from the time they were small, and never relied on their relatives much. They were not sentimental, but surely they must have some curiosity about this mysterious place.
‘I’m not interested in a place where a bunch of old people live. And in order to get into the nursing home, you need a special pass that requires you to go through a physical exam, get approval stamps, and then there’s a long waiting period. Who wants to go to such trouble?’
‘When did she go in?’
‘A few years ago.’
They began pedalling uphill, with the last few metres becoming so strained that it seemed impossible to move forward. After ten minutes of pushing, they reached a downhill slope a few hundred metres long. They slipped between endless rows of birches, their golden leaves rustling all around them. There was no path through the trees, but there were plenty of ways around them on every side, though they had to deal with their bikes getting stuck, and avoid falling. Their previous conversation had been interrupted. Naturally, in such bright sunlight, amongst the trees and bushes, in the forest air, with a beautiful girl by his side, Mengliu forgot his interest in the nursing home. He kept the talk with Yuyue light, as he tried to avoid the stones and other obstacles in their path.
Playing cards, drinking and travelling are all quick ways to excite the feelings, especially travelling. By the time they reached the dilapidated old house they were as unrestrained as two old friends. The old wooden building had a Gothic spire reaching to the sky and blurred stained-glass windows. Its windows and doors were shut tight, and leaves covered the steps. A railway track buried in weeds ran past the door and disappeared into the depths of the forest. This place must have been a small train station in the past. From time to time a lone traveller must have got off the train, or on the train, coming home or leaving it. Mengliu thought of the noisy stations in Beiping, always crowded and with young people from everywhere hopping off the trains to head straight to Round Square, some wounded, some humiliated, some dying in their dreams.
‘Let’s rest here a while.’ Yuyue brushed the fallen leaves aside, exposing the wooden steps. When she sat down, her movements were a little jerky, as she rested her elbows on her knees and intertwined her fingers. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘someone is reading.’
The sound came from inside the house. It was speaking Mandarin with an accent. Judging from the person’s rhythm, Mengliu thought he must be reading a Chinese rhapsody. At the same time, he recognised the voice. It was Shanlai.
Surprised, he opened the door and went in. His eyes were momentarily unable to adapt to the dimness of the room, but a skylight allowed some natural light in, and he could see it was covered in dust. The building was full of sacks of grain, and there was a layer of grain on the floor too. A huge millstone occupied the remaining space. A person with white hair and beard and dust all over his body was working the millstone. The gold crown on his head glittered. He was like a negative film, flashing in the glare, then retreating into the darkness. On the other side of the millstone, Shanlai sat on a sack, his legs dangling and a book perched on his knees, its pages pure white. Dust motes hovered around his head like a band of mosquitoes.
‘Those who strike in hatred will be sadder in the nether world.’ Shanlai stopped reading and asked the person grinding, ‘Why is it called the nether world?’
‘Legend says there are nine levels of heaven above, and nine levels of hell below. Amongst the odd numbers the greatest is nine, and the nether world is the deepest of the nine levels below. All who die must go there.’
‘Wherever you go, I will go too,’ Shanlai said. Then he continued asking about the book he had been reading, ‘The poet Yu Xin was a great deserter, and forgot his loyalty to the aspiring politician Wang Shao. Should he be considered a pathetic coward?’
‘This…you can ask Mr Yuan.’ He continued grinding as he replied, turning the millstone in circles.
When he once again passed through the pillar of light, Mengliu saw that the person with the white hair and beard was Esteban. Noticing that Mengliu was too surprised to speak
, Esteban stopped, and used a cowhide brush to sweep the flour off him, from head to foot. Like the cold and snow disappearing from a person who comes home on a stormy night, the young Esteban stood there, black hair poking out from the thorn-like golden barbs of the crown around his head.
Mengliu secretly wondered why Esteban was doing a mule’s work. Why was he wearing a golden crown, with his hands bound in golden chains, dressed like a prisoner? Had he committed some crime?
‘Mr Yuan, was Yu Xin a coward?’ Shanlai asked.
A shadow of embarrassment crossed Mengliu’s face. He wanted to brush Shanlai off, but Esteban seemed to take the question seriously. He was watching them, and looked calm as he waited for the answer.
‘Well…in a sense it could be said that he was a coward, abandoning his armour…though even if he stayed, he might not have been able to keep them from destroying his home city…he was miserable and his family ruined and three of his children were executed,’ Mengliu said.
‘He was miserable? He lost his country? Wasn’t he eventually roped in to be an important government official?’ Shanlai responded quickly. His comment gripped Mengliu.
‘Yes. He was in great conflict and suffered all his life. He developed a split personality. One side of him hated the rebels who invaded his homeland, the other gratefully sang the praises of its new rulers, then he hated himself for it late at night when he was alone. Of course, if he had been killed in battle you would not now be able to read such compelling poetry,’ Esteban said, renewing his work of grinding the grain, still with a calm demeanour.
For a while no one spoke, they just listened to the sound of the millstone. The white flour fell slowly from it, covering the whole room.
‘Shanlai, many things are not as simple as they seem. We might have been less decent than he was. Yu Xin’s mental suffering is hard for outsiders to understand. A single poem could not alleviate his pain.’ Yuyue had walked into the room, breaking the silence. ‘But if he had not written about it, nor found some other release, he would have gone crazy.’
‘I cannot like anything written by a deserter,’ Shanlai said. ‘Some people stop writing, and seem to manage to live happily enough without suffocating.’
‘Oh…because the lies of a contrary spirit can never become good poetry. Some people need a long time to think things over…’ Yuyue was like a fire extinguisher.
‘A real poet would not use poetry to spread lies…It’s all about attitude.’ Esteban came back from the shadows into the light.
Mengliu had not expected the arrow to be pointed at him the whole time, but now he understood that he was in a trap. They had not come to this place by chance. Perhaps the rare creatures Yuyue had spoken of were these two people, Esteban and Shanlai. Together they had captured and trained a fly to recite poetry, and whenever they got the opportunity, they let it out to buzz in his ears. They were crazy. Regardless of the time or place, they would talk about poetry or the spirit, and make him feel awkward. He would rather talk to them about the basic needs and freedoms of the body, or why Esteban was wearing golden chains and pushing a millstone. What crime had he committed, he wanted to ask, but he suddenly found it was too private an issue for the level of friendship he shared with Esteban, not to mention the fact that the atmosphere didn’t suit the change of subjects.
He stood there stiffly. Now his mind was pounding with the sound of sloshing water. Which of you is worthy to talk to me about poetry? You sprouts in the greenhouse, you people of talk and no action, have you seen its blaze, or heard its roar? None of you have touched the soul of poetry and its wounds. None of you have tasted it. There isn’t anyone who is above the material attractions of the world. Our last great poet died nobly. He stood in the night as a testament. You’re just a bunch of busybodies full of useless knowledge.
17
It seemed Juli had gone missing. The stove in her house was cold and lifeless.
From time to time Mengliu took out the letter he had found under the tree in the forest. The initial shock it had caused now turned to suspicion. Increasingly he came to feel that the allegations it contained regarding the real business of the nursing home were quite impossible. How could it be like that? The letter was full of deranged comments. He recalled the strange scene in the forest, but whenever he tried to expand his memory of it in an attempt to verify the experience and put it into perspective, it was like fishing for the moon in water. When he lowered a finger to its surface, the moon dispersed. He could not even confirm where the letter had come from. Perhaps it was a novelist’s discarded draft, or a drunkard’s ramblings, or the product of a random graffitist’s whim. He put a pot of tea on to steep. He thought about the contents of the letter as he drank his tea. He was still troubled. He did not feel grounded. But he stopped feeling that way after drinking half a cup.
The sky was very overcast. The cold pierced him like a knife. Mengliu stoked the fire in the fireplace with dry wood, and noticed that it was now snowing outside. The snowflakes hit the ground like beans, making the leaves crackle. After half an hour, it turned downy and continued to fall. Soon, other than the great white snowflakes, there was nothing else to see outside.
It was the morning of the third day before the snow really stopped. The sun shot out through a layer of ice, the cloudless sky was a thin transparent blue. There was a sharp tranquility to the cold wind. The earth was swollen with the snow cover, making the black strip of the river seem thinner. The silver hair of the willows floated on the wind, and the hills looked like a sleeping woman, her curves rising and falling.
When Juli came back at last, Mengliu was warming himself by the fire as he read. Perhaps because she was wearing so many layers, she looked plump, thick around the waist, and a little clumsy. He stood up quickly. The tip of her nose was so cold it was red. She looked at him dully, her eyes like solidified chocolate, as if a layer of autumn ice had formed over a pond. There were no withered lotus leaves in this landscape. There was only a clean vastness.
‘Where did you go?’ He wanted to ask her why she had vanished without a word, but he suddenly remembered that he was the one who had been drawn away to the hospital, so he couldn’t blame her. He changed tack, saying he had almost registered her with missing persons. Looking like someone who had just returned from a long journey and was extremely tired, she sat on the sofa in front of the fireplace and closed her eyes. He didn’t say anything else, but took a blanket and covered her. He noticed that her face was also slightly swollen, and felt that she must have been in a great deal of trouble.
‘I thought the squid must certainly have eaten you this time. I didn’t think you’d survived,’ Juli said, with barely enough strength to smile. ‘It’s a miracle.’
Hearing her speak, Mengliu was very happy. ‘What would you like to drink? Tea? Milk? Or rice wine?’
‘Give me a cup of warm milk. If you can add a couple of eggs, all the better,’ she said bluntly. Of course, since this was her house, there was no need for formalities. She spoke lightly, but it still knocked him senseless.
‘Actually…I’m pregnant,’ she said.
He had just turned around to prepare the milk. He spun back to face her, and stood mutely for a moment. Finding nothing to say, he went back to boiling the milk. A few minutes later, carrying it over in a pot, he said, ‘Your husband?’
She did not say anything.
‘Your government made you undergo artificial insemination?’
She shook her head.
‘I see,’ he said. ‘You acted freely…adulterously…and are in big trouble.’
Her expression surprised him. She was smiling. ‘I won’t die. Esteban surrendered himself, so at least the child can be born.’
Mengliu suddenly thought of Esteban in golden chains, but his consternation was only momentary. His attention was completely focused on the child. ‘Oh…if it is allowed to be born…then it’s not all that bad,’ he said mechanically.
‘Yes. It’s not that bad…but I have to com
ply with the National Planned Parenthood Non-Matching Data Policy…this will determine whether the child will be allowed to live, but first it must pass a test, and be soaked in alcohol for half an hour.’
‘What? Soaked in alcohol for half an hour? Isn’t that infanticide? They might as well do it as quickly as possible…’ Mengliu lost control of his voice, and was unconsciously shaking the pot in his hands.
‘No, Shanlai also survived this test. When he was a year old, people found his mother’s body next to the river, her lower half eaten by squids. A poor Cuban woman.’
In his mind, Mengliu reached out for the wound in his own leg. ‘You mean you are not his…?’
‘I brought him up…I like children, and I definitely don’t want an abortion.’ She paused, then said, ‘What’s more, this is love…’
Love. She was talking about love. That was fresh! Now he was really uncomfortable. He would prefer to think it had been a moment of passion, so he could tell her that losing control was a virtue, that he was glad her body was awakening to the freedom to be used as she chose, that he liked her courage to resist in secret, and that her suffering now would be his, he would bear the burden for her. But she insisted it was love, and moreover, it was Esteban she loved. He did not believe she knew what love was. A citizen who allowed the government to decide his or her marriage did not have the capacity for love, because love required freedom, and freedom came at a cost. He thought, What was all that ambiguity in her conduct with me? That night in her bedroom, and later in the forest? Wasn’t that almost ‘love’? He wanted to slap her ‘love’ a few times, yet he was grateful for this moment. They were talking deeply for the first time, almost like good friends.
She ate the milk and eggs as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
The house was surprisingly bright. He thought hard, looking for something to say, like a fly searching for a crack on an eggshell. But even though he crawled over the surface several times, he couldn’t find a suitable opening.