by Yunte Huang
As I looked at them, I don’t know why but I couldn’t help recalling Liu Yu’s story about the dogs who found a home with the old woman. For some reason I couldn’t fathom, that story kept running through my head. The two girls brought over some barley wine and invited us to drink with them. We were afraid of getting diarrhea but nobody wanted to say so out loud. We politely turned down their offer and invited them to try what we’d brought. The cold chili chicken clearly delighted them, and after we finished the beer we had a big pot of their warm yak-butter tea.
It was the younger sister who discovered Xinjian’s paper hawk hanging on a bush. She squealed with surprise and bubbled over in expressions of admiration. She asked Xinjian’s permission, then with an expert hand she let the kite fly.
She said there were two paper hawks at home, her father had folded them, her father folded such beautiful paper hawks. Come spring lots of neighbors came looking for her father to fold them a paper hawk. He could fold two completely different kinds. Just then I recalled that when her older sister had given us their address a moment before, she said it was just below the Potala. I thought I’d ask them about the old woman who sheltered dogs. They were natives of Lhasa, lived here all their lives, and they came from the same neighborhood, so maybe they knew more about her.
Too bad, they didn’t. But it turned out Luo Hao knew something. He said the old woman hadn’t only kept dogs at the end of her life, she’d done that for years, and indeed had kept twenty or more. She didn’t really make clay Buddhas. She had no relatives. She was long dead and gone, so the two girls from her neighborhood wouldn’t have even heard of her. Luo Hao said the old woman often saved up her own grain for the dogs until she grew incredibly emaciated. The Lhasa people back then all knew about her. Some gave her grain out of pity, but she wouldn’t eat any of it herself. They say the government even gave her an extra share of grain, but she refused to eat that too, giving it all to the dogs. She was stubborn, wouldn’t listen to anyone. Some say she starved, others say she died of some disease. Anyhow, she lived alone, never had anything to do with the neighbors. They found her dead, and since she was so thin, the rumor naturally spread that she starved. Nobody knew for sure. Living together with so many dogs that roved all over, maybe she picked up some contagious disease and died.
The younger sister’s mind was absorbed in flying the kite, but as the older sister turned away I happened to notice her wipe a tear from her face. I gave Luo Hao a poke and he broke off the story.
Xinjian finally gave the paper hawk to that playful girl.
But what was the matter with big sister? Could it be . . .
11
Before he left Lhasa, Liu Yu finished his version of the story for me. This time there was no interruption, and I listened to the end. I know maybe Luo Hao’s version of the story is more down-to-earth, more authentic. But Liu Yu’s version brings out the meaning better. Liu Yu wants to write a story, so his material is more elastic. Luo Hao’s version is too restrictive on the imagination. Liu Yu doesn’t just want to tell it superficially. I guess he’s most concerned with the story’s Buddhist elements and their deeper impact. This version gives the tale room to soar. I realized how keenly I hope for a chance to read Liu Yu’s story, to discover what this tale had sparked off in another writer’s imagination. That spark is what fascinates us.
Three days after Liu Yu left Lhasa I looked up the two sisters. I found their little alley, narrow and deep. Just the luck! Little sister wasn’t there. I asked big sister why. She answered, “She’s gone to fly her kite.”
(Translated by Herbert J. Batt)
* Sakyamuni: Siddhartha Gautama (ca. 563 B.C.–ca. 487 B.C.), the historical Buddha, founder of the Buddhist religion.
† In such bargaining one finger usually represents 1,000 yuan.
‡ Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) was a monk posthumously regarded as founder of the Geluk (System of Virtue) sect, the dominant sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The Dalai Lama is its leader.
§ Special certificates in Chinese currency denominations that foreigners received in exchange for foreign currency. The practice was discontinued in 1994.
¶ Tsampa is ground roast barley, the Tibetan staple.
CHE QIANZI
(1963– )
Born Gu Pan in Suzhou, a city noted for its exquisite gardens and aesthetic traditions, Che Qianzi is a renaissance man who is adept at poetry, essay, painting, and calligraphy. Steeped in Chinese classics, he represents the avant-garde, experimental spirit of contemporary Chinese poetry. Seriously playful and profoundly witty, he once won a sonnet contest by writing the same line fourteen times. In 1992 he graduated from Nanjing University, where he had formed a poetry group called the “Original.” A prolific essayist and noted painter, he now lives in Beijing.
The Night in the End
Sign: Inspired by a Letter *
* The Chinese word for “letter” in the title is zimu, literally meaning “mother of words.” Hence, the title may be translated as “Sign: Inspired by Mother of Words.”
A Chinese Character Comic Strip
An Antique Style Door Screen
a long line of ants another long line of ants another long line
(Translated by Yunte Huang)
YU JIAN
(1954– )
Born in Kunming, Yunnan, Yu Jian worked as a riveter for ten years before entering Yunnan University in 1980. He and fellow young poets founded an unofficial journal Them in 1984, proclaiming that “poetry stops with language,” a view that foregrounds the oral, colloquial in writing. Positioning himself as a southern regional author in opposition to the cultural center dominated by the northern capital, Yu caused a stir in 1994 with the publication of his long poem “File 0.” Praised by some critics as a milestone in contemporary Chinese poetry and maligned by others as a jumble of gibberish, the poem, with its accidental rhyming and ironic spacing, is a postmodern epic of the battle of discourses, a Kafkaesque fable of how private lives are recorded and examined by the state machine—the filing system.
CHI ZIJIAN
(1964– )
Born in Mohe, Heilongjiang—a city often called “China’s North Pole”—Chi Zijian began writing in high school and had her literary debut while still in college. Her novella Fairy Tales from an Arctic Village (1986) brought her into prominence. Like her predecessor Xiao Hong, Chi also writes about the northeastern region of China with a rare, gripping poetic sensibility. Under Chi’s pen, the frozen northern land is turned into a magic fairyland for dramas of love and human vulnerability. Currently the chairperson of the Heilongjiang Provincial Writers Association, Chi has the unique distinction among Chinese writers of having won the most prestigious Lu Xun Literary Prize three times.
Night Comes to Calabash Street
If Calabash Street can ever justly be described as humming with prosperity, it is at that fleeting moment as the bright golden sun slips into the mountain cool.
This impression derives mainly from the reflected brilliance of the sky. The streets of the town gain a certain dignity where two of them, ash-gray, crisscross in a minute intersection. Passersby marvel, not just at the new dome-roofed traffic control box, but at long-established landmarks—Xizi’s mom’s noisy jellied bean curd shop, Old Yu Fa’s splendid pancake shop, and Skinny’s ever more profitable shoe repair shop—these too contribute to the impression of a robust yet peaceable life outside the city.
As he stepped through the school gates, Minghua spotted his granddad, birdcage in hand, waiting for him by the gray gatepost. Grandfather and grandson smiled at each other knowingly across the sunset; neither one offered the other a greeting. The young one took the cage from the old one and raised it level with his eyes to tease the bird; the old one took the young one’s book bag and slung it over his shoulder like a soldier off on a rapid march.
Together they strode off toward Calabash Street.
The gray street was engulfed by the setting sun. They stepped into the boundless brilliance a
nd were transformed into celestial beings. The thrush in its cage set up a spellbinding warbling just then, as if it was dreaming it had flown back to the forest. Trills of birdsong blended with the footsteps, the peddlers’ cries, and the fragrance of frying pancakes, all wafting gently up from Calabash Street.
The street lay before them in all its glory. It wouldn’t be going too far to compare it to a bride in her wedding finery. The sign in front of Xizi’s mom’s jellied bean curd shop was as smart as the coil of her hair. The shop was certain to be full already, a clutch of men and women under the awning outside stippling the benches with all the colors of the spectrum. There was always laughter in Xizi’s mom’s voice, you could hear it a mile away.
The muscles in the old one’s face relaxed all at once, the way dried wood-ear fungus does when you pour boiling water over it. Though he was a man of seventy-odd and frosty white at the temples, when he got to Calabash Street, he’d go all red in the face with excitement, like a child. The little one smiled, showing teeth gilded by the setting sun, as if someone had stuck a wild chrysanthemum in his mouth.
“Kept late again?” the old one grumbled.
“We had these endless practice tests today. The teachers took turns bombarding us in every subject,” the little one said with unaffected humor.
“Battle readiness,” the old one responded, as though that were an end to it.
They had reached the door of the jellied bean curd shop. White snow floated in all the bowls, glittering like coral. Small spoons, the six fen apiece kind, dug into the fragrant, tender stuff, making it quiver, making everyone’s mouth water.
A nod, a smile, but no words: that was their protocol for greeting friends. Everyone’s appetite was as clear as the skies, and immediately they were raring to eat.
Xizi’s mom spied them through an opening in the door curtain and her voice immediately came spilling through the chinks in the woven bamboo:
“Xizi, seat the customers!”
“Ai . . .” That voice, crisp as a chisel cutting through a block of ice, could belong to none other than ten-year-old Xizi. He was small-boned and spindly, but his body was crowned with a magnificent head, as if a weak plant had by some miracle produced a gigantic fruit. The effect he had on people was half pleasing and half frightening. That head was as big as the setting sun—and as round.
Minghua was into the shop before his granddad. Xizi, wiping off tables in the kitchen, cocked his head to smile at Minghua. The soy sauce bottle on the table boasted a number of flies disporting themselves like ladies of the night. Their tryst with the bottle interrupted by Xizi’s movements, they flickered off one after another to the windowsill.
“Xizi—bowls!” Xizi’s mom’s voice seemed fused with piping hot beads of sweat.
“Ai . . . I’m coming—” Xizi threw down his cloth, put two round stools into position, and, dusting off his hands, went off to fetch the bowls.
“Why so slow?”
“I wiped off the tables and put the stools around first.”
“You should get the bowls first and then do the stools; that’s the right way.”
“If I do the stools last, people have to stand around too long.”
“You can never be wrong, can you?” Xizi’s mom laughed.
They always got good service in Xizi’s mom’s jellied bean curd shop. If the place was full, they were invited into the inner sanctum, where they could eat in peace.
“Have a couple of bowls, Minghua. Jellied bean curd is good for the brain and you wear yours out!” Xizi’s mom stood behind them brimming with cheer.
Minghua turned and gave her a smile, which made Xizi convulse with laughter, his huge head swaying on his slender neck as he rocked to and fro.
“Just look at these two kids, would you?” The old one swallowed down a mouthful of jellied bean curd and beads of sweat bubbled out on the tip of his nose.
“I give up!” In a single swoop, Xizi’s mom took the white-flowered blue apron from her waist and slipped it over Xizi’s head. “What is that stupid laughter of yours all day long about?”
“Minghua’s gone to school so long it’s made him stupid.” He’d seen Minghua grip the spoon as though it was a pen.
“You’re a big dope yourself and don’t know it.”
Xizi had already yanked the apron from his head and thrown it onto the pastry board. The setting sun swelled like a tide against the windowpane. Inside the shop tranquillity reigned.
“Go buy me a pancake,” the old one ordered Minghua. There was still an edge to his appetite. When Xizi’s mom heard that a pancake was wanted, she seemed to see Old Yu Fa’s shriveled-walnut face glow among thousands of pancakes, round yellow orbs like huge suns scorching her heart. She blinked; there was a barely discernible tightening at the corners of her mouth. In a strongly nasal voice she put in: “Xizi will go.”
“No, let me.” Minghua’s figure was already stirring the curtain and there was a crisp rustle of bamboo.
Old Yu Fa’s pancake shop sprang up in response to Xizi’s mom’s jellied bean curd shop. Generally, people who eat jellied bean curd want some steamed buns or pastries to go with it. Xizi’s mom’s wasn’t a large shop and they were short of hands, she couldn’t handle these as well, so Old Yu Fa’s pancake shop wafted onto Calabash Street like a rosy cloud drifting over from the horizon.
Actually, Old Yu Fa wasn’t old, not more than fifty, twelve years older than Xizi’s mom. He had been a carter in a production team for most of his life, had never married, and had a bit of money put by.
The fact that he was without a wife was partly due to his looks and personality. He was only 1.53 meters tall, stocky, with short legs, a paunch, and a thick waist. His arms were in fact quite beefy, and because his head resembled a big iron ball stuck in the mire, he seemed to have no neck. At first glance, he looked like an oaf. But appearances can be misleading; he was one clever fellow. To give his pancake shop a boost, he bought a dark red donkey and several granite millstones. His busiest time of day was dusk and his face became as lively as a bridegroom’s then.
Standing there under the awning in the open air, in a sunset fine as this, with lots of people gathered around—now, that was sheer bliss, rare in this mortal world, and Old Yu Fa the presiding genius of the moment. Anyone hearing his tone of voice and watching the way he moved as he fried the pancakes would envy him his lot in life.
“The usual, Minghua . . . nice and brown?”
“Mmm!”
“You’re sure to pass all your exams with flying colors. Seen the big bright sun in your dreams?”
“No, but I have seen stars.”
“Ah—stars!” shouted Old Yu Fa as he turned the pancake with the spatula. “Stars mean official position. You’ve got a bright future ahead of you.”
Bursts of hearty laughter came from the bystanders. The pancake was rolled and ready: a long cylinder of hot and fragrant crispy-soft dough, like a rice-colored napkin tucked under Minghua’s chin. He began taking big bites of it.
As a result of his recent exertions, Old Yu Fa’s face grew even redder and shinier. Seeing that he was about to serve the other customers, Minghua said quickly, “Fry another, not too brown this time.”
“One for Granddad?” Old Yu Fa’s eyes sparkled and the ladle rattled against the pan.
“Yup, for Granddad.”
“Having jellied bean curd at Xizi’s mom’s again, is he? Of all the luck!”
As he spoke, Old Yu Fa splashed a ladleful of batter into the pan, evened it out with the wooden spatula, and then gave it a few good turns, making the pan wheeze clouds of white steam.
“What d’ya need all that flour for? Pancakes got to be thin or they ain’t any good,” a very old woman said as she licked the remains of one from her palm.
“Missus, you’re not familiar with the size of our county magistrate’s belly!”
“Hahaha . . .”
Minghua took his granddad’s pancake and, rubbing the enchanting dusk from his
eyes, ambled off in the direction of the jellied bean curd shop. Just then, from the empty square around the traffic control box at the head of Calabash Street, came the golden tones of a gong.
Skinny’s trained monkey was about to perform again.
Men women young old gathered around in a circle; some were eating, others just stood there. The monkey was really very clever. He wore a cunning black Chaplinesque waistcoat and an absurd pair of bright green velvet trousers. After a day spent mending shoes, Skinny would squeeze into his jeans, near-white from washing, and tuck a flowered shirt into them. He made a sight for sore eyes as he put the monkey through its paces.
When the monkey had enough of banging on the gong, he handed it over to Skinny and picked up a square of rosy red cloth, which he slipped over his head as he minced coyly about playing the bride. Following laughter from the satisfied crowd, a silvery shower of coins pelted the monkey, sliding suggestively down his rump to sigh contentedly onto the black and white pavement.
All the glory of Minghua’s granddad’s life was congealed in that fifteen meters of street.
“Another bowl?”
“No, I’ve had enough.”
“You shouldn’t drink too much in the evening. You’re getting on in years, and if you got something stuck in your throat, you might choke to death.”
“Nothing to worry about. I’m off.”
“Just like that?” Xizi’s mom’s voice suddenly darkened like the skies at dusk. “Minghua and Xizi are watching Skinny’s monkey.”
The dusk had been shattered, and the golden light fringing the horizon died swiftly away. The interior of the small shop grew unusually warm and quiet. More and more people poured into Calabash Street to watch the monkey, until finally the traffic cop had to disperse the dense crowd.