The Past and the Punishments

by Yu Hua

  She stood by her mother for a moment. Her mother said,

  “I heard him screaming.”

  She didn’t know how to reply, so she simply stood in silence for a moment before walking into the living room.

  She saw her father sitting blankly by the window. She went to him, calling softly, but he continued to stare out the window, replying only with an absent murmur. It was only when she began to move toward her own room that he

  turned to her, saying, “From now on, I don’t want you to go out unless you really have to.” Then he turned back toward the window.

  She muttered something in reply, walked into her room, 1986 153

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  and sat down on the bed. The house was silent. She gazed at the window. A few strands of moonlight shimmered across the glass like raindrops. In the distance, the moon looked red. She heard the sound of teardrops falling on her shirt.

  3

  Flying sparks and the sharp sound of metal ham-

  mering metal cascaded through the blacksmith’s shop. The smelting furnace cast a reddish glow on the bared torsos of the blacksmith and his assistant. Gleaming beads of sweat snaked down their backs like earthworms.

  The madman stood at the door. His sudden appearance brought their hammers to a halt, and a piece of red-hot iron lay on the ground where the startled blacksmith had dropped it from his tongs. The madman walked into the shop, his mouth twisted into a strange smile. He knelt down by the smoking piece of iron, which had already begun to blacken and cool. The madman reached for the iron, and a hiss resounded through the shop. He immediately withdrew his hand and began to suck on his fingers.

  After a moment, he reached for the ingot again. He lifted it and held it against his face. A few tendrils of acrid white smoke began to disperse through the room. The blacksmiths stood, immobilized by fright and by the extraordinary stench that had filled the workshop. They heard him yell, “ !” as he limped contentedly out of the workshop, down the lane, and to the street corner, where he paused for a moment before turning to his right. A truck drove by, burying him in a torrent of dust. He walked down the middle of the road and sat down. A few people followed him and began to stare. They were quickly joined by a few more curious passersby.

  Her mother hadn’t gone to work for almost a month. For the past few days, she had sat, silent and immobile, in the 154 yu hua

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  front hall. And since her mother cried out in fright whenever she walked in through the door, her father told her not to leave the house at all. She spent every day in her room.

  Her father still had to go to work, so he left the house early and came home late. He no longer came home at lunch time. She sat alone, wishing that her friends would come to visit. But when they finally did come and knock on the door, she had not dared let them in. Her mother had been so frightened by the sound that her whole body trembled. She didn’t want her friends to see her mother like that. She could not help but cry as she listened to their footsteps retreating back down the hall.

  Now her mother was afraid even of daylight. Her father had closed all the curtains so that the whole apartment was bathed in darkness. Sitting in her dimly lit room, she felt herself growing distant from the sunlight outside, from the spring, from her youth.

  In years past, she had walked through the spring sunshine with her mother and father at her side. And whenever they walked together, arm in arm, they would invar-iably stop and chat with a few friends of the family. “You still haven’t married her off?” they would begin. And her father, with mock seriousness, would reply, “I’m not giving my daughter away to anybody.” Her mother, beaming,

  would add, “How could we give her away? She’s the only one we’ve got.”

  Many years ago her father had given her a rubber ball, and they had been happy ever since. They had always laughed and smiled when they were together. Father knew how to tell a joke, and mother learned how to be funny from him.

  She was the only one who had never got the hang of it. She could hardly count the times when their laughter as they walked down the stairs had made the neighbors exclaim,

  “What is it with you people? Are you always so goddamned happy?” Father would always proudly reply, “I guess that goes without saying,” and mother would add with a gener-1986 155

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  ous flourish, “We’re saving some for you, too.” She always wanted to contribute something to the ritual, but she could never think of anything interesting, so she simply stood quietly by their side.

  But now the house was dark and silent, even when the three of them were together. There had been a few times when she felt she just had to say something to her father, but the sight of him sitting blankly in the living room forced her back into her room. She shut the door behind her, went to the window, stealthily lifted a corner of the blind, and gazed outside. She watched people move back and forth across the street, watched them stand on the corner and chat endlessly about whatever was on their minds.

  Whenever she saw any of their acquaintances pass by, she couldn’t help but cry.

  She had spent several days at the window by now. When she lifted up the blind, she felt as if she were walking once more down those sunlit streets.

  She was standing at the window watching the pedestrians through the glass. She discovered that they were moving like ants, swarming across the pavement, clustering around a single black spot. The circle around the spot was growing steadily thicker.

  He sat cross-legged on the streeet, hair cascading onto the asphalt like willow branches. The sun had shone on the road for more than a month, slathering it with a layer of golden light, warming the hearts of the passersby. He stretched out his slender arms in front of him. They looked like they were coated with antique black lacquer that had begun to chip and fade. He held a rusty saw, its blade no more than three inches long, in both hands and began to examine it.

  She saw a few children shimmy up the trunks of the

  wutong trees that lined the avenue. A few people stood balanced atop their bikes. She wondered if someone was showing off his shadowboxing to promote herbal tonics.

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  But if that was the case, why would he stand in the middle of the road rather than on the sidewalk? The circle kept ex-panding until the entire street was choked by onlookers. A traffic policeman rushed forward to clear the street. But as soon as he hurried to the other side of the circle, those he had shooed away merely rejoined the throng. She watched as the traffic policeman, realizing the futility of this repeti-tious task, took up position on a spot that had not yet been entirely blocked by the crowd and started to wave newcomers around the sides of the circle. The black spot quickly swelled into an oval.

  He shouted, “

  !” as he carefully placed the teeth of the

  saw against the bottom of his nose. His grimy black lips trembled, almost as if he were smiling. His arms began to rock back and forth, and with each spasmodic motion he shouted “

  ” as loudly as he possibly could. The blade

  worked its way into his flesh, and blood began to seep out from under the skin. His dark lips turned red and shiny as the blood dribbled down from his nose. Within a few seconds, the blade hit cartilage with a soft scraping sound. His shouts died down, and he rocked his head back and forth, emitting low rasps. He looked as if he were happily blowing on a harmonica as the saw ate into his cartilage. But after another few seconds, he began to scream. The numbness of shock had passed, and severe pain had come in its wake. His face began to twist with the pain. He continued to work the saw back and forth, but the pain had become unbearable, and he quickly pulled the saw away from his nose and set it down on his knees. He threw his head back and gasped for air. The blood was flowing freely now, quickly staining his mouth and his chin red
. Little streams trickled down from his face, tracing a tangle of intersecting lines across his chest. A few drops landed on his head, slid down strands of hair, and splashed on the pavement like little red sparks. He panted for another few moments before lifting the saw once again to the sun and carefully examining the blade. He ex-1986 157

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  tended a long and blood-stained fingernail to the blade and began to pick little bits of cartilage out of the teeth. Satu-rated in blood, they shimmered red in the sunlight. He went about cleaning the blade with extreme care, moving slowly, methodically, and clumsily. When he was finished, he once again lifted the blade to eye level. Satisfied, he pulled his nose away from his face with one hand while positioning the saw blade under it with the other. But, instead of setting the saw in motion, he merely shouted for a moment and placed the saw back on his knees. Holding his nose between his fingers, he twisted it from side to side until it dangled loose from his face.

  She saw that the oval was gradually dissolving as more and more people streamed away from the center to the edges.

  It began to look like someone had accidentally dropped a bottle of ink on the ground. In the center, there was a solid black mass, surrounded on all four sides by splattered drops of ink. The children slid down the tree trunks like cats.

  There were fewer and fewer bicycles. The street was beginning to clear, and instead of standing nervously to one side, the traffic policeman was once again moving around the perimeter of the crowd.

  He held the saw up to the light for a long time before putting it down. He sat for a few minutes with his hands resting on his knees, as if in repose. Then he began to pick the grime out of the cracks in his feet with the tip of the saw. As soon as he had finished, he proceeded to stuff the grime back in. He slowly and lovingly repeated this process several times. Finally, he set the sawblade on his right knee, looked up around him, let out a great shout, “

  !,” and

  started to saw. The skin broke under the teeth, white at first, but gradually growing lustrously red as the blood began to flow from the wound. With a few more strokes, the sawblade hit bone. He stopped sawing and grinned. Then his hands rocked neatly back and forth until a soft scraping once again issued from the saw. Within a few seconds, 158 yu hua

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  though, his face twisted into another scream. Beads of sweat rolled from his forehead. He gasped for air. The rocking slowed, and his scream faded to an almost imperceptible low wail. His arms fell limply to his sides. The saw chimed on the pavement. His neck tumbled against his chest. He sat, softly wailing. A moment later, he looked up, grasped hold of the fallen saw, and once again placed it atop his knee, but remained motionless for another moment. Suddenly, as if he had come to a great realization, his lips shuddered into a kind of smile. He removed the saw to his other knee, bellowed “

  ” a second time, and began to rock. Sec-

  onds later, the blade had cut through his skin and penetrated to the bone. His shouts came to an abrupt halt. He looked up, laughed for a long time, gazed at his leg, and finally produced a throaty rasp. Still rasping, his arms began to rock back and forth. His head bobbed back and forth and, with it, his body. His rasp and the rhythmic sandpapery scrape of the saw sounded together like a pair of cloth sandals swishing through a weedy thicket. A strangely appeal-ing smile lit up the madman’s features. Seen from behind, he might have been polishing a pair of nice leather shoes.

  Suddenly, the saw blade snapped in two with a sharp metallic chime. The broken pieces of the blade fell to the pavement. His body flopped back and forward as if it had lost its balance. The pain came in waves, and with each wave, his body shivered like a leaf in the wind. He waited a few minutes for the shivers to subside. Then he picked up the two halves of the broken blade, held them up to the light, and appraised each one in turn, as if he were trying to ascertain which was the longer of the two. This process was repeated, one blade after the other, again and again, until he had finally cast one half of the blade to the side. He continued to saw at his right leg with the one that remained. But as soon as he had managed to make a gentle sawing motion across the bone, he screamed once more in pain. Picking up the piece that he had discarded, he once again compared the 1986 159

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  blades in the light. He dropped the second half back to the ground and tried the other one. But after only a few strokes, he began once again to compare one blade with the other.

  She saw that there were fewer and fewer people clustered together, as if the drops of ink were shooting away, one by one, from the black mass in the center of the spill. The crowd had trickled away until all that remained was a narrow ring.

  Traffic was moving freely, and the traffic policeman had long since gone on his way.

  He compared the two blades for a long time. Finally, he tossed them both aside, inspected each of his legs, and returned to his original cross-legged position. He examined his knees. Then he squinted up at the sun. His blood-red lips began to quiver. He stretched his legs in front of him, fumbled at his waist, and slowly pulled down his pants.

  When he saw his tail, his lips curled into a sluggish grin.

  He appraised it the same way he had examined the broken sawblade. He grasped hold of it with his hand and jerked it up and down. His head began to rock back and forth. He reached behind his back and fumbled for a rock. He splayed his legs out in front of him and lifted the rock above his head. He glared up at the rock for a moment, finally nodding his head with evident satisfaction. Bellowing “ !” at the top of his lungs, he pounded the rock against the tail as hard as he possibly could. Then he began to roar.

  Within a few seconds, the circle disintegrated. She watched as the spectators scattered like a flock of magpies frightened into sudden flight. In the distance, she could see something bloody sitting on the pavement.

  4

  Just before dawn, she was startled awake by her

  mother’s scream. She heard her mother putting on her clothes as her father murmured something soft and indistinct. Her 160 yu hua

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  father would be telling her to stay in bed. She heard the bedroom door open. She heard her mother take up her customary position by the door. The chair emitted a few low, hollow squeaks. She imagined watching her mother sit down in the chair. She heard her father’s heavy, helpless sigh. She could no longer sleep. The moon glimmered weakly through her window curtains. She lay under her quilt listening to her father get out of bed. As her father paced across the floorboards, she felt tiny tremors shaking her bed. Her father slumped back down on the bed, which squealed under his weight like a crying baby. After that the house was so quiet that she could hear herself breathing.

  The window curtains changed from pale silver to red.

  The sun was rising. She climbed out of bed, pulled on her clothes. She heard her father get up from bed, walk to the kitchen. The sounds he made were barely perceptible. He had grown accustomed to the silence. She too had taken to moving silently through the house. As she dressed, she watched the color of the curtains brighten until fiery shafts of light filtered through the cloth and onto her bed.

  By the time she appeared in the living room, her father was just leaving the kitchen. Mother sat motionlessly in her chair. She couldn’t repress a wave of sadness when she saw her tangled, unkempt hair. She hadn’t really looked at her mother for a long time. And now she had discovered that her mother had grown suddenly and unrecognizably old.

  Unthinkingly, she reached out her hand to touch her shoulder. Her mother started, looked up at her with terrified eyes, and said, “I saw him last night. He was standing next to the bed. He was covered with blood.” She too began to shiver as she remembered what she had seen the day before outside her window.

  Father walked over and gently squeezed her mother’s shoulders.
Mother stood up and slowly walked toward the table. They sat and ate a little in silence.

  It was time for Father to go to work. He moved toward 1986 161

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  the front door, and she returned to her bedroom. Her father hesitated by the door, turned, and followed her back inside.

  She had just begun to lift the curtain to look outside when she heard him whisper, “Why don’t you come out and take a walk?” She turned, looked at her father, and then followed him out the front door.

  But when they had descended the stairs into the light and he asked her if she was going to go see any of her friends, she could only shake her head in response. She felt lost outside the dim apartment. She felt like going back inside. She had grown accustomed to seeing the world through a square of glass that looked out on the street. But she followed her father out of the lane and into the street, stopping at the corner for fear that someone would come to visit. They would come up the stairs and pound on the door.

  Her mother would be so scared. She decided to stand guard at the intersection. Her father turned right. It was rush hour and swarms of bicycles moved down the street to the accompaniment of chiming bells. She watched her father disappear unexpectedly into a shop down the block. When he emerged, he walked back and stuffed a handful of candy into her hand. She watched until her father had disappeared once more and then looked down at the candy. She put one piece in her mouth and stuffed the rest into her pocket. She heard herself chewing, but no taste came. She watched a young man maneuver his bicycle at breakneck pace down the street until he was swallowed up by the swarming rush-hour traffic.

  A friend from school sauntered up, saying, “Where have you been?”

  She stared blankly back, then shook her head.

  “Then why don’t you ever answer the door? Why are the curtains always closed?”

  She rubbed her hands together.

  “What’s wrong with you?”