This Love Could Not Be Delivered

by Lu Min

  Indeed, there was nothing whatsoever remarkable about the food market. There were fish, vivacious yet on the verge of death, inverted lamb corpses looking as if they were still sprinting, chickens snoozing in their cages, mushrooms arranged like a row of dolls, white powder all over the hair and beard of the man making sweet mochi balls, a farmer lording over two ginger stands barking out sale: one bunch seventy cents, two bunches one yuan…

  ---There were some gusts of warm air there, a touching, cozy atmosphere. Lan Ying's fattened body strolled through the throngs of food vendors, disappearing and popping up again with a heart-rending desolation. Lu Zhongsheng watched his wife's back carefully. How could this filthy, chaotic vitality always interest and entrance her-and let her forget her pain and desperation?

  No. Maybe it isn't. Lu Zhongsheng finally noticed that his wife's seemingly careless promenade revolved almost entirely around a root vegetable stand. There were some battered bamboo baskets holding white radishes, rutabagas, carrots, and flowering radishes lined up in rows. What was so special about it? Lu Zhongsheng carefully noted that the vendor was a loosely-clothed wife, nails packed with dirt, and two huge breasts hanging heavily off her chest. Oh, she's lactating, and she has an oval-shaped basket with a fat, white baby, oblivious to the world, at her foot.

  It's the baby-a baby!

  [2]

  For the first time, Lu Zhongsheng regretted how he'd stubbornly refused to have another child. He really should have done what others from his generation did and have two or three more children (he could have done it anytime in the ten years before or after Danqing's birth) . It's like planting crops or doing experiments; survival and failure rates should considered. Fate can be coldly hostile. Heaven can give you a child today and take it back tomorrow-so you stack your deck of cards…Lan Ying actually wanted to have more children, but Lu Zhongsheng blocked her with his flapping jabs, his intellectual emotionalism and stubbornness. Aye, what naive times those were! Planned parenthood hadn't even started to exist. But he was focused on his career and wanted to put all his thought and hopes into Danqing. But love can't be concentrated on a child, because it burdens him far too much…and look at how Lan Ying was then, with no loved ones at her side and no hope for the future…

  Sure enough, after winding around through the market, Lan Ying's footsteps came to a halt, seemingly without giving it a thought, in front of the root vegetable stand. She was picking up and putting down random items, pawing her way through the stacks of roots, but with her eyes fixed in the direction of the infant's basket. Her gaze caressed the infant from top to bottom like a subtle and miraculous measuring tool, constantly quantifying in every which way. When Lan Ying failed to find a pretext to strike up a conversation, she decided to take the quick, honest route, putting down her small grocery basket as if it were a stage prop. She submissively reclined herself towards the infant, thoroughly probing and carefully examining its form. She even extended her reach outward, touching the tiny body of the deeply sleeping infant. The wife selling root vegetables was too absorbed in her work and was either unaware of, proud of, or long ago used to Lan Ying's actions.

  However as her husband, Lu Zhongsheng could easily see that Lan Ying had become alienated. There were people coming and going in all directions, all of them haggling and bargaining. It was the domain of vegetables and meat, the fount of beverage and cuisine. But her and her infatuated look of mixed emotion and insuppressible passion was completely incompatible with everything around her.

  In a spell of helplessness, Lu Zhongsheng stopped in his footsteps and his pursuit. After all, was this love by proxy (which was completely beyond his expectations), better than her previous phase of accosting people and prattling on forever, or was it a new form of bondage? Furthermore, should he take his wife's new behavior and pummel it on the head with a club or let it fizzle out on its own?

  Luckily, life is like taking a walk, and there are always intersections or places to turn. Right on the day before the first anniversary of Danqing's death, Lan Ying suddenly and mysteriously came home with a huge bag of brand-name infant products, and moreover she laid out the contents on the bed and put the items in precise order, beaming with smiles and admiring her work. At this point Lu Zhongsheng had to ask: Who did you buy this for?

  Lan Ying flashed a smile to him and whispered in a low voice, Shh! I know he's taken another body. Really. I found him and recognized him. He looks exactly like Danqing, and I found out that he was even born on March twenty-seventh…But I won't give it away. I'll pretend I don't know and that I don't recognize him…These things are for him, you know.

  Okay, okay. Lu Zhongsheng had a look at Lan Ying, and he couldn't say she was abnormal. She just had some strange imaginings. When all is said and done, it was a positive attitude, and one should always give others an out.

  However, just the day after she'd given the gifts away, it was time for Lan Ying to come home, but she was gone without a trace. Seeing it was already dark and the streets were practically abandoned, Lu Zhongsheng had no choice but to go looking for her-and there could be only one place, the food market. Lu Zhongsheng guessed: the baby's mother must have figured everything out, and either she and Lan Ying buddied up like sisters or had a big row instead. Alas, I hope that farmer's wife can have pity on Lan Ying and keep her arms open for her, sharing a bit of the joy her baby brings…

  However what happened was somewhat unexpected: after accepting the expensive gifts from Lan Ying (which must have seemed to drop out of the sky), the farmer's wife packed up her stand and moved out that very night. When Lan Ying hurried back the next day, the spot was already taken up by the booth next to it, and the infant and his mother had vanished into thin air. The new booth owner explained with a chortle, They went home, and they're never coming back…

  Lan Ying couldn't believe it, but it would have been useless to complain. She was stuck there like a bobby pin, gravely disappointed and staring into space with a frozen, blank look…and when Lu Zhongsheng went looking for her, she was already breaking down, swaying back and forth and ready to fall down on the scummy floor strewn with rotten vegetable stems. Lu Zhongsheng went to help her get walking, and she forced herself to drag her feet uneasily for a few steps. She stammered in a heavy tone, It's my fault. It's all my fault. I shouldn't have broken the rules. Now he's left again, and I'll never see him again…

  Lu Zhongsheng patted her back until they were practically hugging each other as they stood. In the hollow vegetable market with sewage streaming on the floor, this rigidly-dressed, gloomy couple, were the closest they'd ever been to each other since their son's death. As they were separated by heavy clothes, the insulated temperature of their physical bodies slowly rose like mercury in a thermometer, the warmth crawling to their feet, their bellies and hearts. There was a "crack", and maybe something was shattered or something melted, but they ignored it and felt, generally speaking, that it was better to stay together.

  Lu Zhongsheng struggled to smile as the wind filled his mouth. He believed that braving a few more waves like this-for himself, for example, his chimerical and blind truth seeking, or for Lan Ying, the emotional change from nascent pain and confusion-could have been the necessary pathway to break free from the past, like lingering on a hospital bed after recovering from an illness…Maybe, all the pain would actually go away, because they did, after all, learn how to hug each other again.

  [3]

  Danqing, we haven't talked for a long time. Spring is almost over. You've been away from us for a long time already…and now, more than ever I'm afraid of time slipping through my fingers, because the more that slips out, the more I forget. I'm afraid of forgetting you one day.

  I've been thinking of Fu Lei 16. Didn't he write almost 300 letters to his son? Look at what a sorry comparison I make to that. But no matter-the dead will live on forever in the memory of the living. To keep you alive, Danqing, my son, I'll always remember you, and I'll always write to you. These letters which cannot be d
elivered, however, are like pearls scattered in mud. Son, would you come back to life one day, so I can string these pearls into a necklace and roll them carefully in my hands?

  I heard the news read by the golden-voiced anchorman I like yesterday-probably the same man who announced your death, a divinely-ordained coincidence. I heard him say that the first phase of "strict punishment" was a glorious success. He spoke too quickly, so I looked it up in a newspaper later. I took some notes to give you an idea: the Public Security Bureau arrested murderers, burglars, rapists, hooligans…1,027,000 criminals in all. The Prosecution Bureau prosecuted 975,000, the court sentenced 861,000, and of 24,000 of them were sentenced to death. The Judicial Administration Bureau enforced 687,000 hard labor cases and 169,000 community service cases. This was the greatest crackdown since the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries in 1950. The battle resulted in positive changes in the Party's code of conduct after a year of implementation, and a transformation of social ethics and an edification of material and spiritual civilization could be observed…

  Danqing, you don't know that things are far from coming to a close. You were just one of the first examples of what was to become a three-year strict punishment campaign, and a second phase is being implemented. Sometimes I think that even if they didn't "strictly punish" you in the first year, you still would have been nabbed in the second phase or third phase. Looking at the unpropitious signs of perversion left in your room, you perhaps would still be in the aforementioned statistic anyway. It's much easier to be a peace with myself now that I believe in faith…

  Let's see…is there's anything else worth mentioning to you about this year?

  Oh, recently everyone has been talking about a Bu Xinsheng, a man from Zhejiang Province. He's a factory owner and pioneer in market competitiveness who broke out of the "one big wok" system, boldly initiated reforms, stimulated sales, and pays his employees according to their completed work…Interestingly, higher officials advocate what he's doing and are implementing a far-reaching, well-organized propaganda campaign. In the span of less than a few weeks, all of the newspapers and TV stations were echoing the same ideas in reams of paper and hours of newscasts. Mr. Bu was an instant celebrity and was shuttled around the country on a tour. Amid flowers and applause, he gave presentations on previous reforms, gave speeches to the military about military reform, and lectured on art reform to the arts community…

  Moreover, after 1952, China had even become a participant in the Olympic Games-there was Xu Haifeng's first gunshot 17, Li Haining and Luan Jujie-not to mention women's volleyball winning three championships in a row…Every time another gold medal was announced, our university students would all cheer and hurrah, stomping their feet in celebration and clanging their bowls with their chopsticks. They expressed their high excitement in the most primitive ways. It seemed that it wasn't a sports event, but rather a war representing the immortal affluence of our race…I end up feeling blue every time I see such a jubilant scene, because, as I'm so sentimental, I'm thinking of you, son. If you were here, you'd be shouting and jumping with them. What a wonderful life experience that you'll never be here to enjoy!…

  Oh, that's right. Here's a message you'd perhaps be more interested in. The Central Fine Arts College, and the fine art department at the PLA Arts College were publicly recruiting figure models. There were 170 brave candidates, and they ultimately hired ten males and twenty females. They were all very young, aged between seventeen and thirty…it's hard to imagine, but it's true-I don't know what you'd think of it-real, living models for students to observe…Son, if you could only have died a few years later-if you could only see all of this.

  However, son, if you think about it: Bu Xinsheng, the Olympic Games, models…I don't know why, but I think there's something new and cryptic to be learned from it all.

  What will things become in our lives and our society of tomorrow-and tomorrow's tomorrow?

  Son, it's all visible to you from your vantage point in the sky. Let's watch it together…

  Chapter Two: 1990

  "That's right dad-it's too good to be true! I'm in heaven, and from here I can see everything…

  "Perhaps my new home should be cause for celebration. I have a splendid viewpoint indeed-nothing obstructs me, nor are there any shadows. Omniscient and omnipotent, I can penetrate roofs, curtains, and even all the repressed secrets in the world-I can penetrate through everything that is left unsaid, and all that is covered up, and now that I have these powers, what I want to find and what I'll seek out for the duration is Si Jia. I want to understand her in detail, from the very beginning of her story."

  "Open"

  [1]

  That's right dad-it's too good to be true! I'm in heaven, and from here I can see everything…

  Perhaps my new home should be cause for celebration. I have a splendid viewpoint indeed-nothing obstructs me, nor are there any shadows. Omniscient and omnipotent, I can penetrate roofs, curtains, and even all the repressed secrets in the world-I can penetrate through everything that is left unsaid, and all that is covered up, and now that I have these powers, what I want to find and what I'll seek out for the duration is Si Jia. I want to understand her in detail, from the very beginning of her story.

  Dad, don't be angry. I'm not ignoring you and mom on purpose. You accompanied me for nineteen years as I was growing up, though she was only with me for one night. But that night was my whole life.

  …That young woman led me into her previously closed domain. The happiness she gave me was so intense that I shivered, and when it happened I could feel how great the human body is and what the limits of human life are…now isn't that worth something? It merits dedicating all my energy to discover everything she's about, from the past all the way up to the present. Is it fatuous love at first sight and secret admiration? Call it that if you want, but it appeals to me.

  Ha! I'm sure that even if I were nothing to her and didn't love me at all, she'd still couldn't stop me from subtly leaving traces around her way and reshaping her fate's trajectory. That's why she and the suspense she puts me in mean a lot more to me than you and mom.

  By the way, as I'm able to see her, I must also see her stepfather. Honestly, even after watching him for five or six years, I still don't get it. I just can't get a firm grasp of who the man is. After what happened between me and Si Jia, his behavior as a member of her family has been truly inexplicable. I don't know if he was always like that, or if he got that way after our affair-before that, did he and Si Jia have mutual sympathy and personal chemistry then, or could there have been a kind of fear or attraction? Being before I got my unbridled perspective, I would know nothing about it. But even now I can tell there's something odd between he and Si Jia-surely something's amiss. I somehow can't put my finger on it, even while I'm closely observing it…Typically I feel confused for a while, then think I understand it, only to feel confused again…

  But no matter. What's the point in getting such a clear picture and understanding it all so well? I don't really want to know who made Si Jia so impervious to good reason that night…

  Motive, process, and result run in three independent modes, and no one can control them. Motive is divinely created, process is sincere, and result defies common sense. What does any of it have to with me? She did what she wanted, and so did I. This was the beauty of the occasion. Furthermore, that's why I better equipped to satisfy her feverish head, dance with her boldness and assuage her confusion…I helped her, and she helped me.

  I've been able to stay at peace, but it's getting harder for me. Especially as I zoom into to her life and get familiar with her smell, it's getting harder. The longer I follow her, the more profoundly I observe her, the further down I sink into depression. How could hearing, seeing and thinking about all this not bring on mixed feelings?

  As the days go by, my Si Jia gets less and less like the high school girl I first saw on Christmas night. In six stark years, the trees have swelled from slender to wide,
the buds have withered and won't bloom, the white walls have freckled up with stains…She went to college and majored in information management, a field I'm completely unfamiliar with. She graduated from college and found work in a district library. She works from nine to five and socializes on holidays and weekends. She's become a complete society woman with a sophisticated mind and a broad, ever-progressive perspective…As for our ages, I'm still nineteen years old, but she's aged to be five years older than me. This makes me feel more distanced from her, but what can I do about it? She's on the fast-spinning wheel of time, while my growth is stunted like a pitiful midget. I have to stand on my tip-toes and strain my mind before I can barely catch up to just ten or twenty percent of her news.

  [2]

  It could no longer be said that Si Jia was divinely crazed or fearless, particular symptoms pertaining to a period of growth. By 1983 or 1984 this huge and destructive force like a wild tempest had already spent itself to its core. The stronger adolescence rages, the shorter it lasts. Their adolescence was a cup of water, but hers was series of shot glasses, quickly and thoroughly imbibing. Thus Si Jia's adolescence flew by-earlier than all her peers. When all her college classmates were obsessed with Qiong Yao's romance novels in the late 80's, she ignored them completely and concentrated on translated, foreign novels or classics from the Ming and Qing dynasties. Furthermore, she didn't read everything in them, just the parts relating to romance. So far as male-female relations were concerned, she understood them well (in a literary sense) practically overnight, grasping all essential principles completely. This, furthermore, could be seen as her waking up out of a long slumber, and only then did she realize how low-class it was for her to do what she did on that one Christmas night six years ago.