The Past and the Punishments

by Yu Hua

  The parents weren’t really sure when the kids had gone out, but they vaguely remembered seeing them around the dinner table.

  When the young people began to fill the streets, the night grew thick with lively voices. They streamed under the street lamps, disturbing the tranquillity that had reigned moments before. Although they streamed into the movie theater, into the worker’s club, toward friends, and toward love, the streets stayed busy. The crowds still poured in and out of the shops like waves, into one place and out of another. They walked for the sake of walking, hurried into the 172 yu hua

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  stores just so they could continue moving. Their parents walked for a few minutes to stretch their legs and went home. But the young people continued to walk deep into the night because they needed to walk, because walking was what made them young.

  But evening lasts only so long, and, almost before it had started, the deep of night had arrived. The evening was almost over; they had already said their good-byes. They walked alone toward their respective homes. But they weren’t lonely. They had enjoyed the evening to the fullest.

  There were many more nights to come. They happily made their way home, and the streets once again grew tranquil and still.

  The shops were dark, and the windows of the apartment buildings no longer shone. Now there was only the gleam of the street lamps, the light of the moon. They had fallen into slumber. The town went to sleep along with them. But the few remaining hours until dawn would pass quickly, and the morning sun would rise once more.

  The madman was still sitting in the middle of the road.

  The rope was so tight he hadn’t moved a muscle since the afternoon. He sat, in a stupor, until the sun was about to rise. The sky to the east shone red. He opened his eyes and saw the red light. He heard the sound of howls echoing in the distance. The howls moved closer, growing louder as they approached, like a pack of wild beasts sprinting toward him. He began to rally, to grow excited. He saw something huge, burning red in the distance. Now he knew where the howls were coming from. He saw countless bodies falling through the flames. He leaped up from the ground and began to run toward the flames.

  It seemed that he had just come to from a deep sleep. His chest gradually filled with a strange new feeling. His eyes struggled open. It was dawn. He saw a street, lined by wutong trees, immobile as a stage set.

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  It seemed that he had been in a kind of stupor for a very long time. Now he was awake. The swirling mists in his head seemed to drift off into the air. And, when they were gone, his mind was an empty room. But, peering through a little window, he began to be able to see something, and at the same time, something new began to come into the room.

  But now he had no sensation of himself. He wanted to move, but his body wouldn’t move. He tried to shake his head, but his head wouldn’t react. At the same time, his mind was getting clearer and clearer. But the clearer his mind became, the less he could feel his body. He had the distinct sensation that he was losing his body, or maybe just trying to find it. He started to wonder if you can lose your body. He was startled to find that it was gone.

  He started to remember. There were so many things to remember. They were tangled together in a heap. He struggled to put them in some kind of order. He remembered that he was in his office. Two bright incandescent lamps, the northwest wind whistling over the roof. Dust coated the desktop, but the windows were clean. He remembered walking down the street in thongs, a crowd of people at his back.

  He remembered them breaking through the door. He was washing his feet; his wife was sitting on the edge of the bed.

  His daughter was asleep.

  Now he was wide awake. He realized that it had hap-

  pened last night. The morning clouds had begun to rise; the sun was on its way. He was certain it had happened last night. He had left his house last night. He was taken away last night. His wife had watched numbly as they took him away. His daughter had started to cry. Why did his daughter have to cry?

  But he knew that he wasn’t in the office anymore

  because, instead of spotless windows and dust-caked desks, he saw a street lined with wutong trees. He didn’t under-174 yu hua

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  stand how he could have gotten here. He desperately tried to straighten his mind, but he still couldn’t understand what he was doing here. He decided not to think about it.

  He felt that he really ought to go home. Maybe his wife and daughter were still asleep. His daughter’s head would be cradled in his wife’s arm. His wife’s head would be resting on his shoulder. But somehow he was here instead. He wanted to go home. He wanted to stand up. But his body wouldn’t react. He didn’t know where he could have lost his body. He couldn’t go home without a body. His heart would break if he didn’t go home. Now he seemed to recognize the street. If he walked down the street for a few minutes and turned at the next corner, he would be able to see the windows of his apartment just up ahead. He was certain he was quite close to home. But he didn’t have a body, so he couldn’t go home.

  He seemed to see himself walking across campus carrying an armful of heavy books. He saw his wife, hair in braids, walking in his direction. They didn’t know each other yet.

  They passed by each other without a word. He had glanced back to see a pair of pretty red butterflies. It seemed that the street was covered with snowflakes. He saw people pick the snowflakes off the ground and begin to read them. He saw a dead man slumped against the postbox by the side of the road. The blood was still fresh, still wet. A leaflet drifted through the air and settled on his head, obscuring half of his face.

  The sun had risen, and hazy light slid silently down from between the clouds. The street began to stir with life. He watched people come in from the wings, appear on stage, talk with one another, strike poses. He was not among them. Something separated him from them. They were who they were, and he was who he was. He felt himself stand up and move toward the edge of the stage. But he remained in place, and instead of moving toward him, the stage simply retreated further into the distance.

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  She woke as the sun rose. She heard the sound of bowls clanging in the kitchen. Her father was already making breakfast. And her mother was probably sitting in her usual place by the door with the same look on her face. She didn’t know how much longer this could go on or how it might end. She really didn’t want to think about it. Instead, she watched as the sparkling morning light began to slide through the curtains. She wanted to open them, to let the sun shine through the clean glass panes onto her bed, onto her body. She climbed out of bed and slowly began to comb her hair by the mirror. The face in the mirror was pale and lifeless. She wondered how she would make it through another day. She walked out into the living room. With a shock, she discovered that the room was suffused with light.

  The curtains had been thrown open. The sun swarmed

  through the open windows. Her mother’s chair sat empty, one wooden leg bathed in sunlight.

  “But where is she?” she thought. Her chest tightened with dread. She ran toward the kitchen. Her father wasn’t in the kitchen. Her mother turned and smiled gently toward her. Her hair was neatly combed, and her face, though hag-gard and pale, had regained its familiar composure. Sensing her shock, her mother explained, “Just after the sun came out I heard him walking away.” Her mother’s voice sounded so tired, but she couldn’t help smiling in relief. Her mother began to busy herself with breakfast, and she gazed for a moment at her back. Suddenly, she remembered something important and turned back toward the living room. Her father was already standing just behind her. Her father’s face was as bright as the sun. She realized that her father already knew. Her father patted her gently on the head. His hair was white. She knew why hi
s hair was white.

  After breakfast, her mother picked up the shopping

  basket, asking, “What do you think you’d like to eat?”

  She quietly added, “It’s been a long time since I cooked you a good meal.”

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  Father looked at her, and she looked at him. Father was at a loss, as was she. Her mother waited for a moment before repeating with a smile, “Come on. What do you want to eat?”

  She tried to think of what she might want to eat, but nothing came to mind. She glanced once again toward her father.

  He turned towards her. “What do you feel like eating?”

  “What do you feel like?” she returned.

  “I’ll have anything”

  “I’ll have anything too,” she said. She thought that seemed like the right thing to say.

  “All right then. I’ll buy anything.”

  The three of them chuckled. She said, “I want to come with you.” Her mother nodded. The three of them went out together.

  They walked arm in arm. Things were back to normal.

  They stopped to chat with some friends, who began to chat and joke with them just as they always did. She walked joyfully between them.

  When they got to the corner, her father turned right on his way to work. She and her mother stood and watched as her father strolled easily and confidently down the block.

  After a few seconds, her father glanced back, and, discovering that they were still looking his way, he started to swagger down the sidewalk. She and her mother burst into happy laughter.

  But as she laughed, something occurred to her. Fearing that he would be too far away to hear, she began to shout his name. He stopped and turned. She shouted again, “Buy me a rubber ball.”

  Father froze, nodded, and walked away. She began to cry.

  Mother pretended not to notice. They began to walk forward without a word.

  They saw a crowd of people gathered around in a circle.

  They stood at the edge of the circle to get a glimpse of 1986 177

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  whatever it was everyone else was looking at. They saw the madman. The madman was bound with rope. The madman

  was dead. His body, which seemed to have been varnished a deep red, was slumped against a postbox. Two sanitation workers were muttering to themselves as they picked up the body and deposited it on top of a bicycle cart. Another, grumbling under his breath, a pail of water in one hand and a broom in the other, approached the postbox. He upended the pail, carelessly swept the broom across the bloodstains on the sidewalk, and left. The cart slid away from the curb and down the street. The crowd began to break up. Mother and daughter continued on their way. Watching the madman’s body being borne away by the cart, she felt a sudden surge of relief. As they walked, she began to tell her mother that she had seen the madman twice before and how she had been so scared she had run away. Her mother couldn’t help chuckling as she listened to her story. The sunlight was splattering across the pavement, and as they walked down the street, they were walking through the sunlight too.

  6

  That was how spring ended and summer took its

  place. No one saw it coming. They had been waiting for it since early spring, but no one heard its footsteps walking into town. They knew that they had left their jackets at home. But no one saw it coming. Until the very end, they imagined that it was still spring. Each day was as lovely as the next, and the season seemed to extend before them indefinitely. It was only when they began to walk the streets in shorts and skirts that they realized that summer had long since arrived. They began to hear the cicadas hum and the ice cream carts chime. They began to think it was nicer to 178 yu hua

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  sit in the shade than to stand in the sun. And they grew even fonder of nighttime than before. The night breeze blew as cool as water drawn from a well. When night fell, they poured from their apartments into the street. Some of them pushed chairs onto the balcony or set them outside the front door. Some people dragged bamboo cots into the lanes when it was time to sleep. Still more fled to the vast fields outside of town to stroll along the earthen embankments that curved above the rice paddies, savoring the moonlight, the croak of frogs, and the gleaming tracery of fireflies dancing through the air.

  She always left the house after sundown, meeting her friend in the lane outside the house just as the evening mist had begun to rise. Her friend was wearing a skirt that was every bit as pretty as her own. They walked onto the avenue shoulder to shoulder. She could feel her skirt brushing against her friend’s skirt and her friend’s brushing against hers. The street was awash in skirts. Skirts drifted out of open doors and narrow residential lanes into the street.

  Skirts merged, separated, and swayed through the streets as if performing some kind of intricate dance.

  It was then that a madman came hopping toward them

  like a flea. The madman was clean and well groomed. He gazed toward them, crying, “Sister, sister, sister . . .”

  They tried to remember who he was. People used to say he had gone crazy during the Cultural Revolution. His wife had left him long ago. His daughter was in their class.

  People said that when he cried, “Sister,” it meant that he was looking for his wife.

  “I haven’t seen that one in a while. I thought he was dead,” her friend said. A second later she tugged gently on her hand and nodded toward a woman and a girl walking together. “That’s them,” her friend whispered, “that’s his wife and daughter.” But she already knew who they were.

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  She watched the woman and her daughter walk past the madman as if they had never met. The madman kept on hopping down the sidewalk, calling all the while for his

  “sister.” The mother and her daughter kept on walking down the street. They didn’t look back. They moved forward with ease and grace.

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  Blood and Plum Blossoms

  1

  Fifteen years before, Ruan Jinwu, the greatest

  swordsman of his generation, had died at the hands of two warriors of the Black Way. That day, Ruan Jinwu’s five-year-old son, Ruan Haikuo, saw bloody leaves flutter across the sky.

  Ruan Jinwu’s wife had long since lost her former beauty.

  White hair grew from her head in weedy clumps. And just as surely as the fifteen hard years since her husband’s death had stolen her beauty, they had also effaced the memory of the dashing figure her husband had cut in the world of swordsmen in the days when he had wandered the land with his incomparable Plum Blossom Sword in hand. The sword itself, however, had not been forgotten, and among the heroes who now roamed the rivers and lakes of China in search of duels and high adventure, stories of its magical properties continued to circulate.

  For once its blade had been slathered with the blood of a foe, one gentle wave of the hand would suffice to send the blood flurrying from the blade like red snow, leaving a single stain in the shape of an exquisite plum blossom embossed on the blade for all eternity. The sword had been passed down through several generations of swordsmen. By the time it fell into Ruan Jinwu’s grasp, seventy-nine plum blossoms were arrayed across the blade. Ruan Jinwu had stalked the land for twenty years, and in that time a score of blossoms had been etched on the steel. And so impeccable was Ruan Jinwu’s swordsmanship that, once the Plum Blossom blade left its scabbard, the blood of his opponent was sure to be spilled.

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  It was for this reason that the riddle of Ruan Jinwu’s death had tormented his wife throughout the long years since she had first discovered his death. He had died on a dark, quiet night. She had fallen into deep slumber just
as her husband had been silently and mysteriously dispatched in a weedy field in front of their cottage lit only by the gleam of a full moon. In the days and weeks after his death, she had obsessively cataloged each of her husband’s enemies in her mind, in search of one who perhaps could have been capable of the murder, but all her efforts had proved futile.

  In the last year before her husband’s death, there had been several bright mornings when, having pushed open the front door, she had seen a corpse gleaming in the sun in front of their cottage. Her husband, she knew, had slipped out of bed to fight a life-or-death duel in the dead of night.

  And each time she had seen a corpse, she had been chilled by a premonitory vision of her husband’s lifeless body shining amid the weeds. One serene morning, she woke to find that her premonition had been fulfilled. Ruan Jinwu’s corpse lay across the weeds in a heap, limbs splayed helplessly out around him. The black handles of two daggers sprouted from where his eyes had once been. A few withered leaves that had fluttered down from a nearby tree hovered across the ground next to the body. She watched as her son, Ruan Haikuo, began to gather the leaves into his outstretched hands.

  In the years that followed, the boy grew as slowly and painstakingly as the roots of an old tree. By the time he had turned twenty, he began to take on something of his dead father’s good looks and elegant bearing. It was clear, however, that Ruan Haikuo had inherited none of his father’s prodigious skills with a sword, much to his mother’s dis-may. When this frail young man stood before his mother inside the cottage, she almost could not bear the sight of his slender frame. This clearly was no swordsman. But despite her reservations, her patience had been tried beyond endur-182 yu hua

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