I Live in the Slums

by Can Xue

  “Please come and visit. Will you?” the woman insisted.

  “Okay. I’ll come Saturday.”

  As soon as she hung up, Zhou Yizhen had misgivings. How could she have agreed? She wasn’t superstitious, but she wasn’t sure she could handle the memories of those days when she suffered from the terrible disease. Intravenous injections, handfuls of pills to swallow, and the frightening chemotherapy—she had nearly buried these dark memories. Was she now ready to revive them? And if Xu Sheng knew, he would surely not agree.

  On the way back from the woolen mill, Zhou Yizhen began feeling better. She hadn’t expected to receive so much—two hundred yuan! They could live on this for three months. Although she was fifty-five years old, she felt more energetic than ever. The world was green, and flowers were in bloom. Zhou Yizhen was sweating as she walked. She was also working out a new design for baby shoes. She nearly laughed out loud. When she was almost home, she decided that Saturday afternoon she would indeed go to her old place in the city and look around. She was proud of this decision.

  After dinner, she told her husband about this.

  “Zhu Mei isn’t an ordinary woman,” Xu Sheng said.

  “Do you mean I shouldn’t go?”

  “No, no, this isn’t what I mean. Why not go? Since you want to go, just go.”

  Xu Sheng’s answer surprised Zhou Yizhen. She knew that it wasn’t out of a lack of concern for her. How had he reasoned that she should go? Xu Sheng was a straightforward, fairly simple man. If he thought she could go, then she probably wouldn’t have to worry about this trip. And she was curious about her old home.

  The three days passed quickly. During this time, Zhou knitted an entirely new style of baby shoes; they were very pretty. Xu Sheng held the wool shoes up and looked at them from all angles. He was as happy as she was. “Remember to tell Zhu Mei how skilled you are at knitting.” Zhou Yizhen asked why. He said, “I don’t want her to look down on us.”

  Zhou Yizhen was startled. What an odd idea coming from her husband.

  “I don’t care what others think,” she replied.

  “That’s good.”

  Zhou Yizhen was a little nervous on the bus. She was still sort of worried about going back. She kept saying to herself, If I continue thinking positively, there won’t be a problem.

  After getting off the bus, she headed for Jixiang Lane. Once there, she found a dilapidated lane where many bungalows had been demolished. It didn’t look at all as it had in the past. The city was in the midst of rapid development: the changes in Jixiang Lane should not have been a surprise, but still she was shocked by the scene.

  Eventually she reached her former home. Her little courtyard remained the same, but no one was there. Zhou Yizhen saw the faucet outside the door of the house: she had often washed clothes and mops here. She felt a little sick at heart, yet she quickly got hold of herself.

  She knocked on the door several times, but no one answered. Curious, she pushed the door gently, and it opened.

  It was really strange: the furnishings in the two rooms were exactly the same as the ones she had had in her home! Hadn’t she moved all of them? What she and her husband had turned over to Zhu Mei was an empty house. With mixed feelings Zhou Yizhen sat at her old-fashioned dressing table. She didn’t want to move, remembering the last time she had sat here. Back then, the bald woman reflected in the mirror had made her quiver.

  She heard approaching footsteps. Probably the owner had returned.

  Spotting Zhou Yizhen, Zhu Mei exclaimed, “Sister Zhou, how nice to see you! I’m so fortunate!”

  “Fortunate?”

  “Yes. You always inspire me.”

  “Hold on a moment. What are you talking about? And what about the arrangement of the furniture and the various decorative items?”

  “Oh, you mustn’t be confused. I designed it so it would look the way it did before you moved out. Back then, I came to your home several times. Have you forgotten? I was a designer. How should I put it? At that time, I had sunk to the lowest point of my life. I decided to cast off my old self and change into a new and different person. I happened to meet you in the hospital and learned that you wanted to sell your house. I followed you and your husband here.”

  “You made up your mind to change yourself into me?” Zhou Yizhen paled.

  “That’s right. Please don’t be mad at me.” As she answered, Zhu Mei looked Zhou Yizhen directly in the eye. “In fact, you saved me. See? I’m living a full and healthy life.”

  “Hold on, please give me a moment to think.”

  “Here—I brewed some tea for you. Have some. You don’t look so good. Do you want to lie down and rest for a while? This is still your home.”

  Zhou Yizhen drank some tea and composed herself. Her gaze dulled and slowly shifted to those familiar furnishings.

  “This is great,” she said, insincerely. “I’ve truly returned to my former home. Is that my chopping knife? I cut lotus seeds with it in the processing plant. Zhu Mei, you must have gone to a lot of trouble with all of this. I can’t believe my eyes!”

  A neighbor stood at the door and looked in. He recognized Zhou Yizhen.

  “Mei, you have company. I’m here to collect for the electricity. I can come back whenever it’s convenient.”

  He didn’t greet Zhou Yizhen. She felt awkward and dispirited. Did this neighbor think she had died? In the past, they’d seen each other every day.

  “Yes, I have a guest. Don’t you recognize her?” Zhu Mei said.

  “She seems a little familiar. No, I don’t know her.”

  He left, looking a bit terrified. Zhou Yizhen suddenly felt tired. She struggled to keep her eyes open. Zhu Mei’s figure looked distorted.

  “You’re sleepy. Lie down. I’ll help you take your shoes off. Yes, that’s good. I’m going out to buy some groceries. We’ll have dinner together tonight. What? You say there’s a spider? Don’t be afraid. There’s one in this room, but it doesn’t amount to anything . . .”

  Before she fell asleep, Zhou Yizhen heard Zhu Mei close the door.

  When Zhou Yizhen awakened, the sun had set. She had slept a long time. She felt that her behavior was strange: Why had she come to another person’s home and fallen asleep on another person’s bed? She had never done anything so out of character. She heard Zhu Mei busying herself in the kitchen, and so she made the bed and went to help right away.

  Zhu Mei had cooked an appetizing meal. Zhou Yizhen thought she was very good at taking care of herself.

  As they ate, Zhou Yizhen said, “Look, I’m so embarrassed that—”

  Zhu Mei interrupted her at once. “Don’t be. Please. This was your home in the first place. You can do whatever you wish here. Anyhow, I’m the one who invited you to come.”

  After dinner, they tidied up the kitchen together. Zhou Yizhen was going to go home. Zhu Mei said, “Didn’t you notice a bed made up in each bedroom? This one is especially for you, even when you aren’t here. I sleep in the inner bedroom.”

  Zhou Yizhen was surprised.

  “I haven’t discussed this with Xu. I don’t think he would agree.”

  “Why not? I’m sure he would. Just phone him.”

  So Zhou Yizhen sat down and phoned.

  “That’s great,” Xu Sheng said. “Since she really wants you to stay, you may take the opportunity to get better acquainted with each other.”

  Xu’s attitude seemed odd to Zhou Yizhen, because he had never shown great interest in making friends, and he knew that Zhou Yizhen didn’t enjoy it, either. Not without annoyance, Zhou Yizhen said to her husband, “Okay, then I’ll stay overnight. Sure you won’t mind?”

  “No, of course I won’t mind.”

  The moment she hung up, Zhu Mei clapped her hands.

  “Your husband is so understanding!”

  But Zhou Yizhen was unhappy. She was still annoyed with her husband.

  Zhu Mei asked her to take a seat at the desk. She invited Zhou Yizhen to page through the lar
ge photo album she had placed under the desk lamp.

  The pictures in the album were all taken in places that she couldn’t have known better. She missed them very much: a stone lion in the lane; a cast-iron mailbox on the street nearest to her home; the shop that had sold sugar-coated dried fruit for more than twenty years; the date tree in the little courtyard; the clothes of all different colors drying beneath the tree under the sun. But the main person in the photos, Zhu Mei, didn’t look familiar. And Zhou Yizhen noticed that her face was always out of focus, and her body wasn’t much in focus, either. It was like a shadow. It was hard to believe that this was Zhu Mei. Looking more closely, Zhou Yizhen was startled because the main person in each photo actually looked like herself. Zhou Yizhen and Zhu Mei weren’t at all alike: Zhu Mei had the features of an educated person; Zhou Yizhen didn’t. What on earth were these photos about?

  After Zhou Yizhen had paged through most of the album, she turned around. Zhu Mei had disappeared. So she got up and looked at all of the rooms. These furnishings and objects called to mind many sentimental memories. Under the present circumstances, she liked being sentimental for a moment. Sentiment was a beautiful thing. If she could cry, it would be even better. But she couldn’t. It seemed that Zhu Mei had gone out. How could she leave her guest behind and go out by herself? But then, why couldn’t she do this? She’d already said she wanted Zhou Yizhen to consider this home her own. It was quiet outside: there was only the deep sound of the wind shaking the date tree branches. Zhou Yizhen felt safe in this house. She regretted having stayed away for twenty years. She had misconstrued everything! If Zhu Mei hadn’t invited her, would she have never returned? Could Zhu Mei have been calling her to come back throughout these twenty years in her peculiar way, and she hadn’t heard? Zhou Yizhen kept thinking it over, sometimes sitting down, sometimes standing up and pacing. She sensed that the familiar objects in front of her were talking to her in low tones. Too bad she didn’t understand.

  At the corner of the wall was a little metal bucket with dried lotus seeds inside. Next to the bucket was a small bench. Zhou Yizhen’s heart leapt happily! She sat down at once and started cracking open the lotus seeds. Though she hadn’t done this for more than twenty years, she still knew how to do it! And she could do it almost without looking. It was as though she wasn’t cracking lotus seeds, but picking mushrooms in the forest. She joyfully discovered one after another. As she did this, she didn’t think back to her work in the plant when she was young. Quite the opposite: what she recalled were the good things that she usually didn’t think of. For example . . . Ah, she was suffocating from happiness! She wouldn’t die of happiness, would she?

  “Zhou Yizhen, are you fishing?”

  Zhu Mei’s voice came from the door. Why didn’t she enter? Was she playing hide-and-seek? Zhou Yizhen put the knife down and went to look.

  No one was in the courtyard. Where was Zhu Mei hiding? Zhou Yizhen walked lightly under the date tree, intense emotions rising from within. This courtyard had five other homes; the lights were on in each one, but the doors were shut tight. Zhou Yizhen recalled that it was never like this in the past; back then, the neighbors felt close to each other, and doors always stood open. Did all these homes have new owners?

  Without thinking, she walked out of the courtyard and came to the lane. So strange: at night, the lane didn’t look at all dilapidated, as it did in the daytime. Instead, it was clean and tidy, and full of life. Although you couldn’t see anyone, the street was giving off light, as though some liveliness were left over from the daytime. The entrances of all of the courtyard houses stood wide open, letting her thoughts run wild.

  Zhou Yizhen caught a glimpse of a woman’s silhouette entering a courtyard house in front of her. Ah, was it Zhu Mei? She shouted, “Zhu Mei!”

  Zhu Mei dashed up to Zhou Yizhen.

  “You’ve come out, too,” she said with a smile. “Sure, why wouldn’t you? At night, it’s a Shangri-la here. Do you know who I was looking for inside? My lover. He’s only twenty-eight—a guy who fears nothing!”

  Zhou Yizhen heard the lewdness in Zhu Mei’s tone. Ordinarily she wouldn’t be able to stand it. But in this kind of moonlight, this kind of atmosphere, she felt that everything was reasonable. The fifty-year-old Zhu Mei should love a twenty-eight-year-old. If she, Zhou Yizhen, were a young man, she would want to fall in love with Zhu Mei: Zhu Mei was a rare treasure.

  “Oh, so that’s it. I’ve disturbed you. Don’t pay any attention to me. I’m leaving,” she said.

  “No, don’t go!” Zhu Mei raised her hand and said decisively, “Since you’ve come out, I want to enjoy this evening with you. Look, the twilight is so beautiful!”

  “Yes. Yes,” Zhou Yizhen murmured.

  “We’ll go to the plant where you worked before. Now it’s been converted into shops selling a wide array of goods.”

  Zhou Yizhen wanted to decline, because for twenty years she’d been afraid of running into her former workmates. But Zhu Mei pulled her along in that direction; Zhou Yizhen thought that Zhu Mei was warmly enthusiastic. Why was she so exuberant? Zhu Mei told Zhou Yizhen: before the plant went out of business, she had been a temporary worker there for two years. After that, all she could do was return to her old trade as a design assistant. She had earned some money in design the past few years, but she still cherished her time in the plant. As she talked, Zhou Yizhen recalled the lotus seeds and felt intensely emotional. Without thinking, she said, “Those days working in the plant were splendid!”

  “See!” Zhu Mei shouted. “I read your mind, didn’t I? Even if a person goes only once to that sort of place, she never forgets it!”

  When they reached the spot where the plant used to be, Zhou Yizhen saw that it had completely changed.

  The workshops in the former plant were now small shops. There were colorful lamps everywhere, and people coming and going. Some of the shopkeepers looked familiar; they had worked at the plant. Some were unfamiliar. They welcomed Zhu Mei with open arms, but no one recognized Zhou Yizhen. The shops sold a variety of goods—kitchenware, appliances for lavatories, writing implements, metal fittings, children’s shoes.

  Zhou Yizhen was in a good mood when she saw her former workmates, even though they didn’t recognize her. She was grateful to Zhu Mei for not introducing her to them; this was just as she wished. She walked behind Zhu Mei, feeling very relaxed. A joyful premonition arose within her.

  Zhu Mei pulled Zhou Yizhen into a two-room shop selling chinaware. The shopkeeper was a middle-aged woman whom Zhou Yizhen didn’t recognize. When she asked them to sit down, Zhou Yizhen thought she seemed familiar. Zhou Yizhen had no sooner taken a seat than the woman dragged Zhu Mei off to the other room and left Zhou Yizhen to watch over the chinaware.

  After a while, several customers showed up all at once. Flustered, Zhou Yizhen wished that Zhu Mei and the woman would come out soon, but they remained in the warehouse in back.

  An old man picked up a teapot and asked the price. Zhou Yizhen replied that she wasn’t the shopkeeper.

  “If you aren’t the shopkeeper, why are you standing here?” he reproached her. “You have to take the responsibility. Oh, I see the price. It’s pasted on the bottom of the teapot. It’s twenty-three yuan.”

  He counted out twenty-three yuan, placed it on the counter, and headed out. As he left, he said angrily, “You’re the worst businessperson I’ve ever seen.”

  Then a young woman picked up a vase and sought out Zhou Yizhen. Zhou Yizhen told her the truth and asked her to wait a moment, because the shopkeeper was in the other room. She looked inside the warehouse, but no one was there. A door opened from this room onto a small street. The other two must have gone out for a stroll.

  She returned and told the young woman that the shopkeeper was out.

  “But you’re here, aren’t you?” the young woman said, staring.

  Then the young woman said she had found the price; it was thirty-seven yuan. She placed forty yuan on the counter, t
ook the vase, and left. Zhou Yizhen put the money away at once.

  Every person who came in bought something. The last customer wanted to bargain with Zhou Yizhen. He was holding a large soup bowl and said fifteen yuan was too much. He asked Zhou Yizhen to sell it to him for ten yuan. Zhou Yizhen said the shopkeeper was out, and it wasn’t up to her to lower the price.

  “Why can’t you? Didn’t you sell several things just now?” he said in a fierce tone.

  Zhou Yizhen was afraid. She shouted toward the back room, “Zhu Mei! Zhu Mei!”

  The man immediately said, “Don’t shout! Please! I’ll just put it back, okay?”

  When he swept past her, Zhou Yizhen saw that he was her former gang boss. Back then, they had sat in the same workshop opening lotus seeds. Why had he threatened her?

  Zhou Yizhen was angry with Zhu Mei. She put the money in a drawer under the counter, closed the shop door, and ran out.

  All at once, she relaxed. She thought, I came here just for fun. Why had Zhu Mei pressured me so much? Whatever happened in the chinaware shop was really a conspiracy. The surroundings had changed greatly, and there wasn’t much lamplight. Zhou Yizhen had actually lost her way outside the plant where she used to work. Just then, she heard someone call her name. She turned around and saw her former workmate Bai E. Except for her voice, this woman had changed completely. Even in the dim lamplight, one could see that her face was dark and that she was very thin, yet she seemed in good spirits.

  “Zhou Yizhen, come to my house!” she said eagerly. “I live alone now. You can live in my home!”

  She gripped Zhou Yizhen’s arm, and dragged her to a low house next to the road. It was dark inside. The two of them almost fell onto a bed with a big mattress. Zhou Yizhen struggled to get up because she hadn’t taken off her shoes. Bai E was still holding her tightly. She said there was no point in following any rules in her home. It was best to simply fit in.