by Yunte Huang
She stood up and went back into her room, where she suddenly remembered she also had a long flute, an heirloom left by her father, in her rattan suitcase. She opened the suitcase; it had not been in the sun for a long time and was already a little musty; all those abandoned and unworn schoolgirl dresses and skirts were neatly arranged in it as though all the days of her past were sealed there in dust, radiating tiny sparks from disappointed dreams. Lotus took out all the clothes, but did not see the flute. She clearly remembered putting the flute into her suitcase when she left home. How could it be missing?
“Swallow, Swallow, come here,” she called toward the porch.
Swallow came in and said, “Fourth Mistress, why aren’t you listening to the Young Master play the flute?”
Lotus asked, “Have you touched my suitcase?”
Swallow replied, “A long while ago you asked me to straighten up your suitcase, and I folded all your clothes, didn’t I?”
Lotus asked further, “Did you see a wooden flute?”
“Flute?” said Swallow. “I didn’t see one. Only a man can play a flute!”
Lotus stared straight into Swallow’s eyes, laughed coldly, and said, “Then you must have stolen my flute, didn’t you?”
Swallow replied, “Fourth Mistress, you shouldn’t just insult people any old way; why would I steal your flute?”
“Naturally you’d have your own mischievous plans,” said Lotus, “running around with a head full of clever schemes all day and still pretending to be little miss innocent.”
Swallow said, “Fourth Mistress, you shouldn’t wrongly accuse people like that. Go and ask Old Master, Young Master, First Mistress, Second Mistress, and Third Mistress, when did I ever steal so much as a single copper from my masters?”
Lotus paid no more attention to Swallow’s words; she stared contemptuously into Swallow’s face, then ran into her little bedroom, stepped on her cheap wooden trunk, and ordered, “You talk so tough; open up and let me see!”
Swallow pulled at Lotus’s leg and pleaded with her, “Fourth Mistress, don’t step on my trunk; I really didn’t take your flute!”
Looking at Swallow’s frightened expression, Lotus was even more sure of herself; she picked up an ax from the corner of the room and said, “I’ll hack it open and see; if it’s not there, I’ll buy you a new trunk tomorrow.” She bit her lips, swung the ax down, and Swallow’s trunk split right open as clothing, copper coins, and various sorts of trinkets spilled out all over the floor.
Lotus shook out all the clothes, but the flute was not there. Then, suddenly, she caught hold of a bulging little white cloth package; when she opened it up, there was a small cloth figurine. The figurine had three fine needles stuck into its chest. At first she thought it was pretty funny, but she soon realized that the little doll-like figure looked an awfully lot like herself; on close inspection she saw that it had one word faintly written on it in black ink: “Lotus.” She felt a sudden sharp pain in her chest, just as though she really was being pierced by three fine needles. Her face immediately went white. Swallow leaned back against the wall and stared at her in alarm. Lotus suddenly let out a shrill scream, jumped up, grabbed Swallow by the hair, and bashed her head repeatedly against the wall. She swallowed back her tears and shouted, “You trying to curse me to death? You trying to curse me to death?”
Swallow did not have the strength to struggle free; she just stood there limp and immobile, sobbing without end. Lotus grew tired, and while she was catching her breath she suddenly remembered that Swallow was illiterate. Who was it, then, who wrote her name on the cloth doll? This question distressed her even more. She squatted down and started wiping away Swallow’s tears, then spoke in a gentle tone of voice. “Don’t cry. It’s all over now; just don’t do it anymore. I won’t hold it against you, but you’ve got to tell me who wrote my name for you.”
Swallow was still sobbing as she shook her head. “I won’t tell. I can’t tell.”
Lotus said, “You don’t have to be afraid; I won’t make a big fuss about it. All you have to do is tell me, and I definitely won’t get you in trouble.” Swallow still shook her head. Then Lotus began to prompt her. “Was it Joy?” Swallow shook her head. “Then it must have been Coral, right?” Swallow still shook her head. Lotus swallowed back a breath of cold air, and her voice was shaking slightly. “Then it was Cloud?” Swallow stopped shaking her head; she looked both despondent and ridiculous. Lotus stood up, looked up into the sky, and said, “You can know a person’s face, but not her heart; I guessed it long ago.”
CHEN ZUOQIAN SAW Lotus sitting woodenly on the sofa with red and swollen eyes, twisting a bunch of wilted daisies lying limply in her hand. He said, “You’ve been crying?”
Lotus answered, “No. You treat me so well, why would I cry?”
Chen Zuoqian thought a moment and said, “If you’re feeling bored, we could walk around the garden, or we could go out for a midnight snack too.”
Lotus twisted the daisies again, tossed them out the window, and asked flatly, “What did you do with my wooden flute?”
Chen Zuoqian hesitated a moment and answered, “I was afraid you’d think of someone else, so I put it away.”
The trace of a cold smile formed in the corners of Lotus’s mouth. “All my heart is right here; who else would I be thinking about?”
Chen Zuoqian replied quite seriously, “Well, then, tell me, who gave you that flute?”
“It’s not a love token, it’s an heirloom; my father left it to me.”
“I was too suspicious,” Chen Zuoqian said with a slight air of embarrassment. “I thought some young student gave it to you.”
Lotus held out her hands and said, “Hurry up and bring it here; it’s mine, and I want to keep it here.”
Chen Zuoqian grew even more embarrassed. He walked back and forth, rubbing his hands together. “This is terrible,’’ he said. “I already had one of my servants burn it.” He did not hear Lotus say another word as the room gradually grew dark. When he turned on the light, he saw that Lotus’s face was white as snow and tears were flowing silently down her cheeks.
That night was a very unusual one for the two of them. Lotus curled herself up like a lamb and stayed far away from Chen Zuoqian’s body; Chen Zuoqian reached over and caressed her, but did not receive any response. He turned the lights off a while, then turned them on again and looked at Lotus’s face; it was as indifferent and unfeeling as a piece of paper. “You’re going too far,” he said. “I’ve almost got down on my knees and begged for forgiveness.”
Lotus was silent a moment, then said, “I don’t feel good.” Chen Zuoqian said, “I hate it when people frown at me.” Lotus turned over and said, “Why don’t you go to Cloud’s, she always smiles at you.” Chen Zuoqian jumped out of bed and pulled on his clothes. “I will go, then; thank God I still have three other wives!”
(Translated by Michael S. Duke)
ZHANG ZAO
(1962–2010)
Born in Hunan, Zhang Zao was a prominent poet who came of age after the Misty School. Trained in foreign languages and literature, he graduated from Hunan Normal University with a bachelor’s degree. In 1986 he went to study in Germany and received a Ph.D. in literature from Tübingen University. For years he was the poetry editor for the journal Today. In 2010 he died of lung cancer in Tübingen, Germany, the hometown of his favorite poet, Friedrich Hölderlin, whose work was introduced to China during the “culture fever” in the 1980s.
A Starry Moment
My first real agony
When whiteness blurs transparency
Beads of sweat commit suicide
And you are naked as the walls
Our first, how pure it is
And pretty like math
A fever seizes me
Light and skin hanging upside down
You, a dismembered body of flowing water
Choke me in the night
And scorch me in arrays of clarity
My purpl
e friend, the Emperor, weeps for me
Even the moon, as a blessing, opens the white door
At ten o’clock the desk lamp stops its walk
Scraps of paper behave like bewildered caresses
You ask me to forget the abysmal alleys nearby
Where year upon year the elderly fill up the windows
Even a cup of shining stars
Even the childlike dawn to the left,
That obscures the hanging constellations, is too weak
To support the torrents of yesterday’s wind
Oh, how white with purity I am now, like
The air before you were born
You once blossomed like a real pomegranate
Into the Mirror
As long as there are regrets
plum blossoms fall.
To see her swim for the far shore
or climb a pine ladder,
there is beauty in dangerous acts.
Better yet, to watch her return on horseback
cheeks flush with shame,
bowing her head, as if answering the Emperor.
A mirror always waits for her
And bids her to sit at her usual spot in the mirror,
looking out the window.
As long as there are regrets
plum blossoms fall
and cover the southern mountain.
Elegy
a letter opens, someone says
that the sky’s turned cold
another letter opens
it’s empty, empty
but heavier than the world
a letter opens
someone says he’s singing from the heights
someone says, no, even if a potato is dead
by inertia
it can still grow small hands
another letter opens
you sleep soundly like an orange
but peeling you naked, someone says
he has touched another you inside
another letter opens
everyone is laughing
everything around is uproarious with laughter
a letter opens
clouds and whitewater run wild outdoors
a letter opens
I am chewing certain darkness
another letter opens
a bright moon high in the sky
another letter opens, crying
death is a real thing.
(Translated by Yunte Huang and Glenn Mott)
XI CHUAN
(1963– )
Born Liu Jun in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, Xi Chuan graduated from Peking University with a degree in English in 1985. He worked as an editor for various magazines, including the literary journal Tendency (1988–91). In the wake of the Tiananmen crackdown and after the death of his two poet friends (Hai Zi and Luo Yihe) in 1989, Xi Chuan stopped writing for three years. He is currently a professor at China Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.
On the Other Side of the River
on the other side of the river
there is a flame
a flame
having burnt May
now burning August
when the pagoda tree blooms, the freckled old professor bows to her
when orange blossoms fall, a debonair heir waves and smiles to her
yet she remains burning
on the other side of the river
like red coral dazzling underwater
like a red straw hat
blown away by wind
yesterday when I saw her
she was looking to the sky
standing still
and today she lowers her head
watching the water
if it’s overcast or raining
what will she do
on the other side of the river?
—her flame won’t go out
a poet sees her
a peasant sees her
a Marxist sees her
she’s on the other side of the river, burning
having burnt May
now burning August
Blackout
a blackout, convincing me
I live in a developing country
a country where people read by moonlight
a country that abolished imperial exams
a blackout, letting me hear
wind chimes and a cat’s crawl upstairs
a running motor dies with a thud in the distance
the battery-powered radio still sings by my side
with every blackout, time turns back quickly:
candles lit in a little eatery
the fatso devouring crow meat
finds crows crowding the limbs of a tree
and the pitch-black before me
so much like the womb of a surging sea
a mother hangs herself on a beam
to each room belongs a scent of its own
a blackout. I fish out a slipper
but mutter: “Quit hiding, matches!”
in the candlelight I see myself
a giant wordless shadow cast upon the wall
Far Away
for Akhmatova
there in a dream is a snowfield
there in the snowfield is a white birch
there a small house about to resound in prayer
there a shingle about to fall off the North Star
far away
there a crowd of people green as cabbage
there a pot of hot water drunk up by beasts
there a wooden chair sunk in recollection
there a desk lamp representing me in illumination
far away
a sheet of glass scrawled in words I can’t read
a white page overgrown with soybeans and sorghum
a face forces me to drop my pen
picking it up again, I find the ink frozen
far away
December’s wandering clouds rise from treetops
my soul’s train in the cold stops
I see me treading a bleak road
coughing thrice at a woman’s door
(Translated by Yunte Huang)
YU XINQIAO
(1968– )
Born in Fujian and raised in Zhejiang, Yu Xinqiao is one of the most popular and important poets in China today. His maternal grandfather was a wealthy overseas businessman, a factor that doomed Yu’s prospects in a period when the Communist ideology pitched the working class against the “exploitive” class. A middle school dropout, Yu became a popular speaker on the subjects of poetry and Chinese culture in the years following the June 4 crackdown. In 1993 he called for a “Chinese Renaissance Movement,” a proposal welcomed by many but frowned upon by the government. He was subsequently jailed for eight years on dubious charges. While many mainstream journals, in fear of censorship, shy away from his work, Yu is tremendously popular among Chinese readers. His poem “If I Have to Die,” set to music, was a big hit; even real estate developers borrowed his lines for use on billboards.
If I Have to Die
What you didn’t ignite
Can’t be called fire
What you haven’t touched
Can’t be called sapphire
Ah you, you’re finally here
As soon as we meet
My heart breaks into bits
The whole world crumbles
Your beauty is an unsheathed blade
What you didn’t kill
Has no reason to live
What you didn’t shatter
Can never be patched together
If I have to die in this life
I must die in your hand
Epitaph
In my country
Only you have not read my poetry
Only you have not loved me
When you find my grave
Please select the prettiest spring day
Walk the sunniest path
And come apologize to me
If there’re raindrops
Ask them to fall another day
If the milkweed hasn’t yet blossomed
Ask them to bloom instantly
In my sunlit country
In my moonlit country
In my well lit country
Only you have not read my poetry
Only you have not loved me
You’re the only shadow in my bright land
You must apologize to the sky
Apologize to the clouds
Apologize to the mountains and rivers
Finally apologize to me
Finally say: If Yu Xinqiao were still alive
How great would that be
The Dead Are Mourning the Living
It’s time
Lily-white and jade-green Chinese
Demolishes in silence all platforms of good-bye
A voiceless train
Slows down in Tang and Song poetry
At present I wish
This country, addicted to forgery
Can at least speed up forgery today