The Big Red Book of Modern Chinese Literature

by Yunte Huang

  Of course, when I tease them they never get angry. They’re proud of their purity, and laugh at my childishness. I suppose I understand how they feel; it’s just another one of those strange, unexplained things that happen in life.

  I went to Yunlin’s tonight (I guess I should call it Yufang’s now) and we told ghost stories, so I didn’t get back until ten o’clock. When I was a child I used to sit in my auntie’s lap and listen to Uncle tell strange tales from the Liaozhai all the time. I loved to hear them, especially at night; but I never let anyone know how much they frightened me, because if you said you were afraid, that was the end of the stories. The children wouldn’t be allowed out of bed and Uncle would have disappeared back into the study. Later, in school, I learned some rudimentary science from the teachers, and pockmarked Mr. Zhou inspired me enough to trust the books so I outgrew my terror of ghosts. Now that I’m grown up, I always deny the existence of ghosts. But you can’t halt fear by simple declaration, and the thought of ghosts still makes my hair stand on end. No one grasps fully how eager I am to change the subject when the topic comes up. That’s because later, when I’m sleeping alone under the covers at night, I think about my dead auntie and uncle and it breaks my heart.

  On the way back, I felt a little jumpy when I saw the dark alleyway. What would I do, I thought, if a monstrous yellow face appeared in the corner, or a pair of hairy hands reached out at me from that frozen alley? But a glance at the tall strapping man beside me—Ling Jishi—acting as my bodyguard, reassured me. So when Yufang asked me if I was frightened, I just said, “No. No, I’m not.”

  Yunlin left with us to go back to his new room. He went south, and we went north, so we’d only gone three or four steps when the sound of his rubber-soled shoes on the muddy boards was no longer audible. “Sophia, you must be scared,” said Ling Jishi, reaching out to put his arm around my waist. I considered freeing myself, but couldn’t. My head rested on his shoulder. What would I look like in the light, I thought, wrapped in the arms of a man so much taller than I am? I wriggled and slipped free of him. He let go, stood beside me, and knocked at the door.

  The alley was extremely dark. But I could clearly see which way he was looking. My heart fluttered slightly as I waited for the gate to open.

  “Sophia, you’re frightened.”

  The bolt creaked open as the doorman asked who was there.

  “Good ni—” I said, but before I’d finished, Ling Jishi was holding my hand tightly.

  Seeing the large man standing beside me, the doorman looked surprised.

  When the two of us were alone in my room, my bravado disappeared. I tried to conceal my discomfort with a little conventional chatter, but couldn’t manage that either. “Sit down,” was all that came out, and I went to wash my face. I can’t remember how we got off the subject of the supernatural.

  “Sophia, are you still interested in studying English?” he suddenly asked.

  It was he who had come looking for me. He’s the one who brought up the subject of English. He’d never sacrifice his time just to help me with my English, and no one as old as I, over twenty, could be deceived by such an offer. I smiled and said, “I’m too stupid. I probably wouldn’t do very well. I’d just make a fool out of myself.”

  He didn’t say anything, just picked up a photograph from the table and toyed with it. It was a picture of my older sister’s daughter, who had just turned one.

  By that time I’d finished washing my face and was sitting at the end of the table. He looked at me and then back at the little girl, then at me again. It’s quite true. She does look a lot like me, so I asked him, “Cute, isn’t she? Does she remind you of me?”

  “Who is she?” There was unusual earnestness in his voice.

  “Tell me, don’t you think she’s cute?”

  He asked again who she was.

  Suddenly I realized what he meant by the question, and I had an impulse to lie about it. “She’s mine.” I snatched the photograph and kissed it.

  He believed me. I made a fool of him. My lie was a complete success. His seductiveness faded in the face of my triumph. Otherwise how—once he’d revealed such naïveté—how was I suddenly able to ignore the power of his eyes and become so indifferent to his lips? I had triumphed indeed, but it cast a chill over my heated passion. After he left, I was consumed with regret for all the obvious chances I’d let slip away. If I’d shown more interest when he pressed my hand, if I’d let him know I couldn’t refuse him, he’d have gone a lot further. I’m convinced that if you dare to have sex with someone you find reasonably attractive, the pleasure must be like bones dissolving, flesh melting. Why was I so strict and tight with him? Why had I moved to this shabby room in the first place?

  January 15

  I certainly haven’t been lonely recently. Every day I go next door to visit, and at night I sit and talk to my new friend. Yet my condition continues to deteriorate. That discourages me, naturally, since nothing I desire ever ends up helping me. Is this craving really love? It’s all so completely absurd. Yet when I think about dying—and I think about it frequently—I’m filled with despair. Every time I see Dr. Kelly’s expression I think to myself, it’s true, say what you like: there’s no hope left, is there? I laugh to mask the tears. No one knows how I cry my eyes out late at night.

  Ling Jishi has been over several nights in a row, and he’s telling everybody he’s helping me with my English. Yunlin asked me how it was going, but what could I say? This evening I took a copy of Poor Folk and put it in front of Ling Jishi, who actually began to tutor me, but then I threw the book aside. “You needn’t tell people you are helping me with my English anymore,” I said. “I’m sick and no one believes it anyway.” “Sophia,” he said hastily, “shall we wait until you’re feeling better? I’ll do whatever you want, Sophia.”

  My new friend is quite captivating. Yet for some reason I can’t bring myself to pay much attention to him. Every night as I watch him leave morosely, I feel intense regret. Tonight, as he put on his overcoat I said to him, “I’m sorry. Forgive me, but I’m sick.” He misunderstood what I meant, took it for convention. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not afraid of infection,” he said. Later I thought that over. Perhaps his comment had a double meaning. I don’t dare believe people are as simple as they appear on the surface.

  January 16

  Today I received a letter from Yunjie in Shanghai that has plunged me into a deep depression. How will I ever find the right words to comfort her? In her letter she said, “My life, my love are meaningless now.” Meaning, I suppose, that she has less need than ever for my condolences or tears shed for her. I can imagine from her letter what married life has been like even though she doesn’t spell it out in detail. Why does God play tricks on people in love like her? Yunjie is a very emotional and passionate person, so it’s not surprising that she finds her husband’s growing indifference, his badly concealed pretense at affection, ­unbearable. . . . I’d like her to come to Beijing, but is it possible? I doubt it.

  I gave Yunjie’s letter to Weidi when he came over, and he was genuinely upset because the very man making Yunjie despair is, unfortunately, his own older brother. I told Weidi about my new “philosophy of life.” And, true to form, he did the only thing instinct gives him leave to do—he burst into tears. I watched impassively as his eyes turned red and he dried them with his hands. Then I taunted him with a cruel running commentary on his little crying jag. It simply didn’t occur to me then that he might indeed be the exception, a genuinely sincere person. Before long I slipped off quietly by myself.

  In order to avoid everyone I know, I walked alone around the frigid, lonely park until very late. I don’t know how I endured the time. I was obsessed with one thought: “How meaningless everything is, how I’d rather die and have done with it.”

  January 17

  I was just thinking, maybe I’m going crazy. It’s fine with me if I lose my mind. I think, once I’ve got to that point, life’s sorrows will neve
r touch me again. . . . It’s been six months since I stopped drinking because of my illness. Today I drank again, seriously. I can see that what I’m puking now as a consequence is blood-redder than wine. But my heart seemed commanded by something else, and I drank as though the liquor might ease me toward my death tonight. I’m so tired of being obsessed by these same endless complications.

  January 18

  Right now I’m still resting in my bed. But before long I’ll be leaving this room, maybe forever. Can I be certain I’ll ever have the pleasure of touching these things again—this pillow, my quilt? Yufang, Yunlin, Weidi, and Jinxia are all sitting protectively in a gloomy little circle around me, waiting anxiously for dawn when they can send me to the hospital. I was awakened by their sad whispers. Since I didn’t feel much like talking, I lay back and thought carefully over what had happened yesterday morning. It wasn’t until I smelled the stench of blood and wine in the room that I was overcome with agony and convulsive tears. I had a premonition of death as I lay in the heavy silence and watched their dark, anguished faces. Suppose I were to sleep on like this and never wake up . . . would they sit just as silently and oppressively around my cold, hard corpse? When they saw I was awake, they drew near me to ask how I felt. That’s when I felt the full horror of death and separation. I grabbed at each of them and scrutinized their faces, as though to preserve the memory forever. They all wept, feeling, it seemed, that I was departing for the land of the dead. Especially Weidi; his whole face was swollen, distorted with tears. Oh! I thought, please, dear friends, cheer me up, don’t make me feel worse. Then, quite unexpectedly, I started to laugh. I asked them to arrange a few things for me, so out from under my bed they dragged the big rattan box where I kept several little bundles wrapped in embroidered hankies. “Those are the ones I want with me when I go to Union Medical College,” I told them. When they handed me the packages I showed them they were stuffed full of letters. I smiled again and said, “All your letters are here,” which cheered them up a bit. I also had to smile when Weidi took a picture album from the drawer and pressed it on me as though he wanted me to take that along too. It contains a half dozen or so photographs exclusively of Weidi. As a special favor I let him hold my hand, kiss it, and caress his face with it; and so, just as we’d finally dispelled the sensation that there was a corpse in the room, the pale light of day broke across the horizon. They all rushed about in an anxious flurry searching for a cab. Thus my life in the hospital began.

  March 4

  It was twenty days ago that I got the telegram notice of Yunjie’s death. Yet for me each passing day means more hope of recovery. On the first of this month, the crowd that had brought me to the hospital moved me back to the freshly cleaned and tidied residence. Fearing I might get cold, they’d even set up a little iron coal stove. I have no idea how to convey my thanks. Especially to Weidi and Yufang. Jin and Zhou also stayed two nights before they had to go. Everyone has played nursemaid, letting me lie in bed all day feeling so comfortable it’s hard to believe I’m living in a residence and not at home with my family. Yufang decided she’s going to stay with me a couple more days, and then, when it warms up, she’ll go to the Western Hills to find me a good place to convalesce. I am so looking forward to getting out of Beijing, but here it is March and it’s still so cold! Yufang insists on staying here with me. And I can’t really refuse, so the cot set up for Jin and Zhou remains for her to use.

  I had a change of heart about some things during my stay in the hospital. I must credit it to the overwhelming kindness and generosity of my friends. Now the universe seems full of love. I am especially grateful to Ling Jishi. It made me so proud when he visited me in the hospital. I thought that only a man as handsome as he should be allowed to come to the hospital to visit a sick girlfriend. Of course, I was also aware of how much the nurses envied me. One day that gorgeous Miss Yang asked me, “What’s that tall man to you?”

  “A friend.” I ignored the crude implication.

  “Is he from your home area?”

  “No, he’s an overseas Chinese from Singapore.”

  “Then he’s a classmate, right?”

  “No, he isn’t.”

  She smiled knowingly. “He’s just a friend, right?”

  Of course I had no reason to blush and I could have called her on her rudeness, but I was ashamed to. She watched the way I closed my eyes indecisively, pretending to be sleepy. Finally she gave a satisfied laugh and walked off. After that she always annoyed me. To avoid further trouble, I lied whenever anyone asked about Weidi. I said he was my brother. There was a little guy who was a good friend of Zhou’s whom I also lied about. I told them that he was a relative or close friend of the family from my home province.

  When Yufang leaves for class and I am alone in the room, I reread all the letters I’ve gotten in the last month or so. It makes me feel happy and satisfied to know there are so many people who still remember me. I need to be remembered. The more the better. Father, needless to say, sent me another picture of himself, hair whiter than ever. My older sisters are all fine, but too busy taking care of their children to write more often.

  I hadn’t yet finished rereading my letters when Ling Jishi came by again. I wanted to get up but he restrained me. When he took my hand, I could have wept for joy.

  “Did you ever think I’d make it back to this room?” I asked him. He gazed, tangibly disappointed, at the spare bed shoved up against the wall. I told him that my guests were gone but that the bed was left up for Yufang. When he heard that, he told me that he was afraid of annoying Yufang and so he wouldn’t return that evening. I was ecstatic. “Aren’t you afraid that I’ll be annoyed?” I said.

  He sat on the bed and told me in detail what had happened over the past month, how he had clashed with Yunlin over a difference of opinion: Ling Jishi felt I should have left the hospital earlier, but Yunlin had steadfastly refused to allow it. Yufang had agreed with Yunlin. Ling Jishi realized he hadn’t known me very long and that therefore his opinion did not carry much weight. So he gave up. When he happened to run into Yunlin at the hospital, he would leave first.

  I knew what he meant, but I pretended not to understand. “You’re always talking about Yunlin,” I said. “If it hadn’t been for Yunlin, I wouldn’t have left the hospital at all, I was so much more comfortable there.” I watched him turn his head silently to one side. He didn’t answer.

  When he thought Yufang was about to return, he told me quietly that he’d be back tomorrow. Then he left. Shortly after that Yufang came home. Yufang didn’t ask and I didn’t tell her anything. She doesn’t like to talk too much, since with my illness I might easily exhaust myself. That was fine with me. It gave me a chance to think my own thoughts.

  March 6

  After Yufang went to class, leaving me alone in the room, I started thinking about weird things that go on between men and women. It’s not that I love boasting, actually, it’s just that my training in this regard is far greater than all of my friends’ combined. Still, recently I’ve felt at a spectacular loss to understand what is happening. When I sit alone with Ling Jishi, my heart leaps and I’m humiliated, frightened. But he just sits there, nonchalantly, reaching over to grasp my hand from time to time, and tells stories about his past with apparent naïveté. Although he carries on with supremely natural ease, I find that my fingers cannot rest quietly in his massive hand; they burn. Yet when he rises to go, I feel an attack of anxiety as though I am about to stumble into something really horrible. So I stare at him, and I’m not really sure whether my eyes seek pity or flash with resentment. Whatever he sees there, he ignores. But he seems to understand how I feel. “Yufang will be back soon,” he says. What can I say to that? He’s still afraid of Yufang! Normally I wouldn’t like to have anybody know what kind of private fantasies I’ve been having recently; on the other hand, I do feel the need to have someone understand my feelings. I’ve tried to talk indirectly with Yufang about this, but she just covers me with the quilt
loyally and fusses about my medication. It depresses me.

  March 8

  Yufang has moved out, and Weidi wants to take over her job. I knew I would be more comfortable with him here than I was when Yufang nursed me. If I wanted tea in the middle of the night, for instance, I wouldn’t have to creep back under my quilt with disappointment, as I did when I heard Yufang snoring and I didn’t think it would be fair to disturb her sleep. But I refused his kind offer, naturally. When he insisted, I told him bluntly, “If you are here I will be inconvenienced in a number of ways, and anyway I’m feeling better.”

  He kept insisting that the room next door was empty and he could live there. I was just at my wit’s end when Ling Jishi came in. I didn’t think they knew each other, but Ling Jishi shook Weidi’s hand and told me they’d met twice before at the hospital. Weidi ignored him coldly.

  “This is my little brother,” I said with a laugh to Ling Jishi. “He’s just a kid who doesn’t know how to act in mixed company. Drop by more often and we’ll have a great time together.” With that Weidi really did turn into a child, pulling a long face as he rose and left. I was annoyed that somebody had been present when this took place, and I felt it would be best to change the subject. I also felt apologetic toward Ling Jishi. But he didn’t seem to notice particularly. Instead he just asked, “Isn’t his last name Bai? How can he be your younger brother?”