Braised Pork

by An Yu

  ‘“What on earth are you doing?” I asked her.

  ‘“Kill me,” she said.

  ‘I told her to give me the knife. She made me promise to kill her. I begged her to calm down, and asked her why she wanted to die. I assured her that we were going to go home. It would all be over soon.

  ‘“It’s already over,” she said calmly, tears still rolling down her face. “My body is still here, but it won’t be for long. The thing that gives this body meaning has been taken by the water. It’s hollowing me out. I left a part of myself there. It’s going to take all of me eventually.”

  ‘I didn’t believe her. More accurately, I couldn’t fathom the meaning behind her words. I called her selfish, for thinking only about herself and not our family. I knew that I was attempting to handcuff her with my idea of family again. I told myself that keeping her alive was enough to make a family.

  ‘I regret it all. I regret not being able to hold her hand and pull her back from the world of water. I keep thinking that had I been more understanding, had I accepted her way of living, things would’ve turned out differently and she would’ve found something to hold on to. But I was foolish. I couldn’t pull her back, even if I tried. Your mother said that there was nothing in the world of water, but I have come to the understanding that all she ever wanted was there, in those deep waters. And she left me alone here, in this world, searching for whatever it is I want.

  ‘I grabbed the knife from her by force. Grandpa must have heard our quarrel and seen your mother with that knife. Because from that day on, until we left, he didn’t speak another word about the world of water.

  ‘We returned home, and after a few months, your mother gave birth to you. She loved you with an intensity that I had never seen in her love before. I can say for certain that you were the only reason she held on to this family for all those years. She took on the role of the mother I had always believed her to be. Whatever was left of her, she gave it all to you. But during this time, I watched her drift from me, getting lost further in a world that I’ve never come to know. I learned that there are two kinds of people: those who need boundaries, and those who will die from them. Making your mother live the way I wanted us to be together was no less cruel than keeping a fish in a bowl.

  ‘It was an incredibly lonely experience for us both, I believe. Apart from living in the same space and sharing a child, we had nothing else in common. Throughout those years, she didn’t speak about going back to Tibet. Occasionally, she’d mention the world of water, but never anything more than a brief remark. Sometimes she’d buy tulips, and together we’d watch them flower and fade.

  ‘Finally, we left each other. Not long after I moved out, I learned about her illness. In a way, those cancer cells were not very different from that knife she held in her hand, just manifested in a different way. They killed her.

  ‘All my life, I’ve made countless mistakes. I’ve done plenty of things that I still question. But there is one thing I did that I would certainly do again, which was to take that knife from her hand.

  ‘She was wrong, you see, the world of water couldn’t take all of her. Things don’t work in such absolute ways. But she never understood this. Parts of her, like seeds, have been planted on this earth and grown into shoots, flowers, trees, day by day. The roots have dug deep into the soil and will continue to extend, for as long as you and I can imagine. Do you really think that the body can be separated from the rest of us? I certainly don’t.

  ‘This has been a long story, I apologise. I’m not going to ask you whether you’ve seen the world of water. I think I know the answer already. And I’m not surprised that something brought you back to that village we knew. But for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, I don’t sense from you any remnants of that total darkness that your mother fell into. For that, I am glad.

  ‘Keep this little sculpture. Your mother made it. We should visit her some day. I don’t think we’ve ever been to her grave together. We’ll bring some beer. She quite enjoyed beer.’

  18

  The moon resembled a circular pendant on a chain of three stars. Nights in Beijing were still cool blessings, and Jia Jia untied her hair and allowed it to hang down her back, protecting her neck from the breeze. Early spring’s lime leaves had turned to a palette of lush green, and gingko leaves waved in the wind like miniature hand fans.

  Li Chang had been released shortly after the May holidays. Jia Jia’s aunt decided that it did not matter if they were a few days late: they would celebrate the holiday together as a family. After dinner, at Li Chang’s request, Jia Jia had gone to drop off a bag of zongzi at Mr Du’s for the upcoming Duanwu festival. Mr Du was alone at home, watching television. He had not covered up the wall painting. In a few weeks, he had become an old man. Jia Jia could see the despair in his face, the loneliness of a silent apartment at night. She gave him the zongzi, and he thanked her politely for them and gave her a can of white tea in return. They did not exchange many more words, and afterwards, Jia Jia ambled to the Central Business District.

  Knowing that Li Chang was returning home, Jia Jia had contacted her estate agent to find a small studio apartment on the east side of town. Her aunt, meanwhile, liberated and excited, had gone to the flower market and bought red fish and red coral for the aquarium. For the past few chaotic days at her grandmother’s home, Jia Jia had been painting. She had begun working on another rendition of the horse on the beach, on a bigger canvas this time. It had kept her busy, and tonight was the first time that she had set foot outside. She had not seen Leo yet; she needed some time to piece the world of water together and absorb her father’s story. It was enough for her to know that he was nearby.

  She came across an empty playground and stepped into the sand, careful not to get any into her shoes. Rocking herself back and forth on a swing, Jia Jia glanced up at the building in front of her and counted the windows until she located her apartment. It was the day her tenants were due to move in. The apartment was brightly lit, and there was a young couple and an older woman sitting around a table right by the window. The walls seemed bare – they must not have had much time to set up their furniture. The young couple looked about the same age as Jia Jia. Even from their sitting positions, she could tell that the woman was taller than the man. The man had his back towards the window. He was engaged in conversation with the elderly woman, who must have been one of their mothers – his, most likely. He was leaning into his chair, lifting a beer bottle up to his mouth every few seconds.

  All of a sudden, the three of them turned their heads towards the bedroom, appearing alarmed. The young woman stood up and scuttled across the living room towards the back, returning soon with a baby in her arms and a half-embarrassed, half-proud smile across her face.

  Jia Jia’s phone vibrated in her bag. It was a message from Ren Qi.

  How have you been, Wu Jia Jia? I hope you’re with your family, eating some Beijing food and drinking plenty of wine. I’m getting quite sick of Tibetan food. I’m still here, sitting on the dirt road near the river, with a bottle of qingke wine next to me. Oh, how quiet it is tonight! Do you want to hear something? T.S. told me that when he was a child, there used to be wild tulips growing in this area. Where do you think they all went? There’s nothing here now. Just rocks and water.

  Jia Jia imagined him sitting alone on a small road, his crutch and notebook lying next to him, under the same moon that was above her head. She pictured the moon in Tibet to be lower and more brilliant, as if with a slight push it would bounce like a ball from one mountain to another.

  After a minute, another message followed:

  I wanted to call you, but I couldn’t let myself interrupt this silence. Plus, I’d rather not listen to my own voice right now. I hope you’re getting far in your search for the world of water.

  Jia Jia thought for a moment before she began typing:

  When are you coming back? Have you found your wife yet? When you come back, let’s meet, and I’ll tell
you everything.

  After she had sent the message, she placed the phone on her lap. Then she bent down and took off her shoes, digging her toes into the cool sand. She thought about the world of water and how she had been there already, long ago, when her mother was pregnant with her. Perhaps, like her mother, she had left something there too. As her father had told her his story, she had understood that the couple in the photograph were him and her mother. How caring he looked; his hand holding her mother’s arm as if afraid that she would get blown away with the wind. Jia Jia had no memories of seeing such intimacy between them. She could not have imagined that a single gesture like a hand on an elbow could give her so much comfort.

  Jia Jia’s phone vibrated again:

  I’m not well. Devastated. My wife has returned, but with another man, a Tibetan stud she knew growing up. You should’ve seen her face when she saw me here, waiting like a fool, trying to bring her back from some world of water that I’d never seen before. You know what I did? I smiled at her. She didn’t even want to talk to me.

  Jia Jia read his last message over a few times. It pinched at something inside her, knowing that he had not been armed for this, thinking about how much it must have wounded him.

  But this is life, isn’t it? his next message said. Sometimes you want to dance, sometimes you want to cry. I’m not crying though. The pain is too fresh. I can’t cry. Not until I see her bookmarked novel on our shelf, or open the half-finished tin of her oolong tea, or find her lipstick under our bed. Until then, I’m not going to feel anything apart from shame. But when the time comes, my heart will tear. I know it. I’m going back to the village now. I have run out of alcohol.

  She took a deep breath and looked back up at her apartment and the family, beginning their new lives in the place she had left behind. The playground remained empty, the yellow slide dispirited, holding up for no one in the dark. Jia Jia began typing:

  Have you been writing lately? I realised that I’ve never asked you for the titles of your books. It’d be nice, I think, if I could get my hands on a copy of one. Ren Qi, I’ve come to conclude that sometimes, the easiest way to lose somebody for ever is to keep them around.

  Before she’d finished, her phone vibrated again:

  The tulips! Wu Jia Jia, you wouldn’t believe what I’m seeing. That empty field is now filled with pure white tulips! They’re glowing like they belong in the palace up there, in the skies. The wind is gently combing their petals. The entire field is swaying like silk. Looking up at the full moon tonight, I can’t help but imagine this is what the moon goddess’s blanket must look like. Wu Jia Jia, allow me to announce to you, the tulips have flowered!

  In front of Jia Jia, the world of water came ink black, devouring the street lamps, the moon, the yellow slide, the apartment building and the family inside. The pavement washed away. The sand beneath Jia Jia’s feet spread sparsely into the water. Beijing was slipping its bounds.

  The sudden cold struck her. No amount of clothing or fire could warm her up, she knew. She sank, or so she believed, and focused on her body’s descent, refrained from struggling. This way, she hoped, perhaps she could at last find a bottom to this world. Because that’s what we do, isn’t it? she thought. Hope.

  The fish-man wiggled into view. Its face, like in Chen Hang’s sketch, showed nothing particularly intriguing. It was the face of an average man, with features that were medium-sized, wearing a blank expression. The most noteworthy part was perhaps the bald head that, at the neck, morphed into the khaki-coloured, scaled body. It was certainly not an exceptionally beautiful creature. It opened its mouth to speak.

  ‘Come home, dinner is waiting on the table,’ it said in a cello voice as it swam from side to side, as if between two invisible walls.

  ‘Is my mother there?’ Jia Jia asked. ‘She was here, thirty years ago.’

  ‘You’ll have to find out for yourself. Now come on.’ The fish-man was becoming agitated, its fins kept tapping on the side of its body.

  ‘I can tell you this,’ it added. ‘If she’s not where you are, she might be where I am.’

  Jia Jia began moving her legs. They felt heavy, as though they had been frozen solid. The fish-man twirled around and zoomed into the darkness; Jia Jia tailed behind. Soon, she could not see the fish-man’s head any more, only the tip of its tail, swaying.

  She wanted to speak to the fish-man some more, but nothing came out. Was she moving her lips? It was difficult enough to keep up with its speed, let alone hold a conversation. She could not even decide what she was trying to say.

  At some point, she realised that she must have closed her eyes, or fallen asleep for a moment while treading water. The fish-man was nowhere – when had it disappeared? Her memory was failing her, dissolving like salt into the water. The coldness had also vanished, her senses were failing, her body that was once heavy as stone was now light as foam. She ran her hands over herself.

  Nothing. There was nothing. Her body was gone. In fact, what she had believed were her hands were no more than a thought. This must be the end of it all. Was she ever going to be able to have a cigarette again? She desperately wanted one. She checked for her bag. Surely, it was not there.

  Was this how her mother got trapped? Was ‘trapped’ even the right word? Maybe this was how reincarnation worked. She would wake up in the body of another, and live a different life; in all likelihood, in her new life, she would never find out about the world of water. She might not even be human. She remembered the painting on Ms Wan’s wall. Mr Du’s wall now. The sapphire bowl glowing in the centre of it, held between the Buddha’s hands. The dash of orange that she had added into the blue paint.

  ‘What are you doing?’ The fish-man’s voice emerged from the darkness.

  ‘I must have lost you,’ Jia Jia said, pulled out of her trance.

  ‘Keep up.’

  ‘I can’t see you,’ Jia Jia said, wondering how it was possible for them to hear each other.

  ‘Just follow my voice.’

  Jia Jia did her best to trace the source of the voice. It seemed to come from above her.

  ‘Maybe you can sing a song,’ she said. ‘So that I can follow.’

  The fish-man began humming a tune. It was not anything recognisable or pleasant to listen to, but that was not its purpose anyway. Jia Jia instructed her bodiless self to close her eyes, to swim faster, not to lose the fish-man.

  ‘This isn’t going to work. I’m not moving,’ Jia Jia said. ‘I don’t have a body.’

  The fish-man stopped in the middle of its song and said, ‘I don’t either. That’s why you can’t see me. But I can assure you that we’re still moving. We’re always moving.’

  ‘Can you tell me where we are going?’ asked Jia Jia.

  ‘When we stop moving, we will have arrived at our destination.’

  Jia Jia listened to the fish-man’s droning tune as her thoughts waned. What language was it singing in? Tibetan? It did not matter, because eventually, the sound of the singing faded too.

  Nothingness.

  Only the silence of the mind.

  In the distance, she thought she saw a faint light. A silver fish.

  19

  Jia Jia saw her mother’s dim, orange lantern glowing at the entrance of Leo’s bar. It was not hung up, but instead sat on top of a small round table that Leo must have recently acquired. A beige cloth was set over the table and an empty ashtray was arranged next to the lamp. There was also a wooden chair, for smokers who preferred to sit down. Jia Jia touched her fingers along the contours of her face and watched her own reflection in the window of the bar. It was her, in the flesh, that was for certain. She turned around and located her apartment over the road. Her tenants were still at the table, the man drinking his beer, the woman smiling with the baby in her arms. The sound of an electric scooter grew louder and then weakened as it travelled into the distance.

  At this time of the year, Beijing was particularly dry. The world of water had left no visible tra
ce, but it stayed with Jia Jia as though running through her blood.

  She lit a cigarette. The guard at the car park had been replaced by another young, shorter man. This one, like his predecessor, also had his head buried in his phone. He wore thick-rimmed glasses, the peak of his cap turned slightly towards one side. Jia Jia thought that she could see him smiling.

  The door opened and Leo emerged from behind it. He had a scarf hung on his arm, which he wrapped around Jia Jia’s shoulders.

  ‘I saw you from the window,’ he said, taking a cigarette from her pack.

  ‘I came back a few days ago,’ she responded.

  ‘New tenants?’ Leo pointed up at her apartment window.

  Jia Jia smiled. ‘They’ve just moved in. Looks like a lovely family. Are you closing the bar soon?’

  ‘There are still plenty of customers inside.’ He turned back to look at his bar. Tobacco and citrus from his tall, slim figure touched Jia Jia softly on the nose.

  She put her cigarette out in the new ashtray and steadied her gaze on a tree in the distance. A bird had just flown back to its nest. She thought it must have ventured far, to return at this time. She drew the scarf tighter across her chest and waited, without a tinge of urgency to be anywhere or do anything, for Leo to finish his cigarette.

  *

  Later Jia Jia sat on the stool at the end of the counter and sipped brandy until the bar closed. The customers kept Leo busy all night. He smiled at them, took their orders, made their drinks, settled their bills. Groups of friends sat together, speaking in different accents, downing one drink after another around the low, circular tables, laughing sometimes, and then finally trickling out the door, some turning north, others south. Leo wiped the tables and waited for the next group of people to occupy them. This city was much like that, Jia Jia thought, with people coming and going, some staying briefly, others longer. And as one person left, the city waited for the next to take her place.