This Love Could Not Be Delivered

by Lu Min

  It could be said that his current happiness existed in juxtaposition to an artillery barrage, death or refugees. Every unlucky man, if he just had a little bit of conscience, could feel happy about the Gulf War. At least that's how it was for Lu Zhongsheng. His sense of well-being poured in from many channels. Every time he'd hear of something like a plane crash, coal mining tragedy, forest fire or vehicles in danger he'd sincerely take a long pause to regret it and scratch his head…There were people dying everywhere, and they were dying every day. As a matter of probability-no matter if it concerned Danqing, himself or anyone in his family-anyone could die at any time. But how lucky he was then! And he'd even had a new child. Wasn't that in itself a huge blessing? Wasn't that in itself cause to feel incredibly lucky?

  Xiaoqing was still unable to talk, but the whole home was filled with her words in her presence. She barked orders of various confusing meanings, throwing the parents into a busy, unkempt flurry…It was especially fatiguing for Lan Ying, who due to pregnancy-induced hypertension, had post-natal arthritis and high blood pressure, of which the latter induced yet another problem-heart disease. Intermittent rushes would often cause her complexion to flush bright red. If she got just a bit tired, her head would get dizzy, and the pain in her joints caused her to constantly groan at night in bed. It was apparent that her health situation was in steady decline, but the good news was that in spirit, she was like a legendary pioneer. Although her physical strength was nearly absent, she was never willing to compromise, and to the contrary, she would do whatever it took to give Xiaoqing the best upbringing she could muster…

  Xiaoqing was four months old, and according to recommendations from child rearing guides, Lan Ying dogmatically insisted that Xiaoqing sleep alone. Why, all the foreign kids are like this. If you can't handle it, I can get up once every hour to check if she's kicking the blankets or soiled her diaper…She was vainly teaching Xiaoqing with Chinese character flashcards as Xiaoqing squirmed all over her, and she instructed Lu Zhongsheng, Empty out Danqing's room and convert it into the baby's room. She said it in a completely casual manner and without a tinge of tragedy, like talking about the weather. What's more, she was apparently not faking it. Heavens! Has she truly forgotten about the other child she raised-one handful of excrement at a time? This gave Lu Zhongsheng a fit of palpitation. Memory…selective memory…is it really such short work, like sewing a pocket or stopping up a well?…

  [2]

  Son, it sounds like we've completely abandoned you…and I'm sorry to say, perhaps we really have. Your room looks like defense force abandoned territory. I knew that sooner or later it couldn't be saved. The cleaning up I'm doing now could be another chance to be close-or a final goodbye.

  Your room in the west balcony, due to piling it up with old furniture and sundry items in recent years-including the articles we acquired and stocked up during the buying craze-is now a storage room. Your books, tapes, clothes, notebook, sports shoes, film collection, model cars and such have all been stuffed into a corner. Though everything is intact, a long time has passed, after all, and it's looking abandoned and dilapidated. It all makes me feel extremely guilty. It's like I'm an unfeeling father. In less than six years I've somehow forgotten the suicidal depression that commenced with your death, and I'm now turning over a new leaf with our newborn. Did we make a mistake or create a new life?…I remember how I hated time. But now I'm more inclined to bow down to it, considering how powerful it is without even batting an eyelash and how beautiful and kind it is without saying a word.

  Perhaps you'll forgive me, Danqing. I have to process your things and throw them away…I have no choice. We only have so much room, and we need to give Xiaoqing space. No matter if it's in a material or mental sense, we have to be fully dedicated parents…

  I found a large, empty bag, and every time I go to toss something in, I pass it under my nose and sniff it (though its smell is already muddled) . Luckily a conservation about smells and how they influence memory might do a little something to make up for what I'm doing…Your sports shoes-those smell like playground dirt. You always played ball on Wednesday afternoon, and you played straight till dusk. Your old clothes have that gamey smell of wool. You used to shout with excitement when taking off your sweaters made a crackling noise from static electricity. The towels have the smell of the oil from your hair. You used to wrap your head from behind with a towel, jokingly pretending to be an old man from Shaanxi. Your swim-trunks smell like chlorine. After you learned how to swim you proudly announced that if anyone in our family fell in water, you'd be sure to save us…Aye. I'm saying goodbye forever to all of this. All I can do is keep stuffing it into the bag. Danqing, in all these nineteen years, is this the sum total of what you've left behind? After I've thrown it all away, there'll be no trace left of you, and it'll be like you were never here in the first place…

  There's a small envelope in your drawer that I accidentally threw in with your stationary. I'm suddenly curious and want to open it up. It was for your baby hair and first set of teeth-I clearly remember putting it there. Since you were little, every time you'd lose a tooth I'd carefully stow it away…Once, you were elated and surprised to see all of these treasures, and only with persistent persuasion did I ever let you take them back for safe keeping…

  Oh Danqing, This is the envelope! Here's your brown and slightly curled baby hair and uneven, old teeth inside. They come from your body that's already gone. It's you. I'm holding them now and sobbing my eyes out. I'm really saying goodbye to you forever this time. Child, everything of yours is now passed. Now our home is Xiaoqing's, and our hearts will be with her as well…The era of your existence in our home, for now, has truly and finally passed.

  Chapter Three: 1996

  "What, after all, would become the single most important thing to her? What goal, after all, would she strive for in the days that were to follow? Si Jia used a method often recommended by "Duzhe" to help in her decision, i.e., write out a long list of items-family, money, intimacy, love, health, friendship, reason, profession, romance…Then she started crossing items out with a red pen."

  The Wind's Direction

  [1]

  Of all you living beings out there, does anyone know who I am? Do you know how old I am? Do you know which side of the world I'm standing on? Haha! I'm guessing no one can answer. This question bothered me for a long time, especially during my observation of Si Jia for all these years. She lives like a strung-out rope, chock-full of superfluous odds and ends hanging from it that are contradictory though harmonious. They were like pearls, stones and feathers that sometimes pulled the string downward and sometimes let it float up…As I follow her closely from behind, I stagger along, mentally and physically exhausted. The conundrums of my identity and perspective often torment me. Should I continue to be infatuated with her and admire her, following her around forever like an uneducated country boy? Or should I look at her conservatively and critically, coldly tossing her to the side? No. Either option is unacceptable, I'm truly confused about what I should do.

  But I guess I'm smart enough, because I've figured out what my problem is. I understand it now. I have no age in reality, because I died back then when I was nineteen-did I not? My heart's been in shambles ever since. I'm not thirty-one years old now, because ever since that point I've been unable to smell the smoke of the human world. I'm not male nor female, so I don't get jealous or frail. I have no moral viewpoint-I ignore what's right, left or middle. I'd never say anything critical about Si Jia. I'll always stand by her side, share in her joys and sorrows, and progress (or regress) with her. It's because she's everything to me. If she weren't, why would my lonely eyes want to keep observing the human world?

  Sometimes I keep thinking that Si Jia is the kind of woman who is rich in individuality, unwilling to have an ordinary life, prefers to always be on the razor's edge (or in purgatory) . She attains the splendor of evanescent flourishing, but also the lonely, long night of conceit…Indeed, that's the
way Si Jia is.

  I'm looking inward and asking of myself-if I lived in the human world up to now, would I like Si Jia the way she is now? But I'm framing the question wrong. If the Christmas dance had never happened and I were still in the human world, would she have become the way she is? I'll never be able to extrapolate from such a paradox.

  [2]

  Si Jia's marriage dragged on for two years until it was announced null and void, just as unsympathetic spectators had privately sensed. Good for them that they had no children. However the translator's public explanation for the divorce was: She didn't want children. I like kids, but there was nothing I could do.

  Si Jia tacitly permitted the translator's explanation. It should be noted that in the latter half of the marriage their cooperation was unusually harmonious. The so-called intimacy issue of the first year of marriage was the proverbial elephant in the room, but it shrank down with time. Before long, the male half had a harem going, and close female friends and third parties were nothing new. Affairs had become his secret staple, so there was no need for him to be pent up with hormonal frustration. The translator had his hangouts, and many liberal friends of the opposite sex (even French ladies) . He was undeniably a successful translator going out to play. Apparently Si Jia didn't want to show weakness on this account, either, so she found a few rambunctious young men and made an ostentatious point of buying them a few drinks, involving herself in an amorous game where reality and fantasy were indistinguishable. She was virtually shaking salt over her life, wondering how she'd otherwise palette such a bland existence.

  The way the translator perceived this, however, was that Si Jia was being far too insincere with them. She was nothing but a fraud. The translator didn't make a public break with Si Jia, but lines from a tacit screenplay instinctively flowed forth: Phht. She's apparently incompetent at dating, so why does she even bother to try? She should save her energy. What's the use of continuing to pretend? It's a disgusting farce…

  A tacit screenplay is known as tacit, though it can't really be concealed. It wasn't just about what their marriage was lacking, but what there was too much of. It was like a zit-a very small one-hidden under bed covers like a soybean. 21 Though Si Jia wasn't a princess, it still felt like a nagging lump under her mattress.

  The zit rolled around. Sometimes it would roll onto the translator's face by his mouth. He was often insinuating about Si Jia's history, plans for the future, and present situation. He spoke in a noble and obtuse tone, as if it were an exceedingly obscure and professional translation, but the general meaning could always be discerned: he wanted recognition for his patience and nobility concerning the losses he suffered to his reputation, material status, and so forth. He was handling what amounted to a charity case, sheltering Si Jia and giving her a respectable marriage (instead of her facing some other unthinkable fate) …She should thus be deeply thankful to him and even flatter him. At the very least she shouldn't be so colorfully vitriolic…

  …Such a translation, if repeated in succession, could get really upsetting. Frankly, she could admit all of her problems, but she was unwilling to be submissive. Even getting a fierce, honest comeuppance would be much more enjoyable than cowering around the way he wanted her to. Was she going to keep on feeling oppressed like that for the rest of her life? That's not the way Si Jia does things.

  Alright then, a divorce was in order. One day Si Jia blurted it out like pulling up that bed cover, picking out the zit and throwing it in the trash. The sudden and surprising feeling of breaking free was salubrious as a breath of fresh air.

  Alright. In what era are we now, and what education did we get? The French translator was not the least bit surprised and acted as though he'd waited a long time. Notice that his reaction followed his marriage proposal to the letter, and this was to assuage his counterpart. Indeed-in what era are we now? They then went to notary office to finalize the divorce in perfect harmony, negotiating a felicitous solution. How directly and beautifully it was handled! It was veritably the perfect completion of their modern marriage. Divorce had even just come in vogue that year. Even the newspapers were enthusiastically discussing it (as if it were a trifle), writing things like, The people's catchphrase has gone from "have you eaten?" 22 to "did you get divorced yet?"

  …Behold…Si Jia's knack for trendsetting was as inconceivable as sowing beans and reaping squash. Some people even thought: Weren't they always such a liberal couple? It's predictable that they'd get married and divorced on a whim.

  However the French translator insistently denied that he was trendsetting and was happy to explain why they divorced. In private to one or two confidants, he could explain it in a very impressive, completely earnest way. If you really want to know, I'm not all that concerned about her past, nor do I care that she doesn't want children. If those things mattered to me, would I have married her in the first place? But the problem is-and I'm telling you as a friend (he'd start to lower his voice and pull in close), that she has a problem…with that. Really. I'd have never guessed it, that such a voluptuous woman would be so…in bed…We'll let's put it this way. The quality of our lives was unacceptable…The translator would make a quizzical gesture. Indeed, the quality of one's life is very important-anyone with culture would give it priority.

  The translator's confidant had confidants, who in turn had other confidants, and so on down the line, until Si Jia's "problem" made big waves, which came in continuation till everyone found out. No one bothered to ask if it was true or not, because there was no way to check. They'd have never confronted Si Jia herself, because being the kind of woman she was, no one was willing to spit it out and ask her. Truly she was taking it all far too much in stride. She made divorce look as casual as hacking up a phlegm globber. This was disquieting and infuriating to other women. She'd already acted nonchalant when losing her virginity before, and she had the nerve to act the exact same way after a divorce. It really incensed people. Why doesn't she cry her eyes red and hit her head against the wall in frustration? What right does she have to hold herself like a general in a victory parade? Forget it. Ignore her. Just let her do whatever she wants. Who cares about her? If it's true that she's sexually cold, it serves her right. They say she has a great body, and she's so hot. But in reality, haha. She can't even put out. Why would anyone go for her?

  Then wise men would examine and research the question after having tea or a meal, expounding on human emotions and opinions. They would release their flummoxed sighs, leaving their listeners with a couple bromides about women, Well would ya have a gander at that…A woman's a lost cause if she gets off on the wrong foot, and it doesn't matter how pretty she is. She couldn't even enjoy life a little. What a shame.

  [3]

  In a word, in the deconstruction of all kinds of traditions and post-modern gossip, Si Jia had again become a single woman. Being raped, sexually cold, divorced, and living alone, she looked like nothing but a chaotic mass of weeds.

  The stepfather and mother were both willing to let her back, and Si Jia tried staying with them for a time. But she quickly discovered that even if she were at a dead end, she couldn't stand living with them in the same apartment anymore. Her mother had made her debut on the stage of senior social events and was filled with enthusiasm for all community and volunteer performances. She was constantly hyper-excited, busying herself with things like makeup, dieting, and being picky about the order in which performers come on stage. She'd jump to conclusions concerning Si Jia's changed marriage status with the attitude of an expert and the mentality of a dancer, making mountains into mole hills. Did she get it from me? Why, of course she did. She'll always have marriage difficulties, just like me. When she finished speaking she'd make eyes over at the stepfather as if something was up her sleeve.

  Si Jia didn't know then that the mother and stepfather's relationship was in trouble. The stepfather was an eyesore. It was one thing if he were just fat, but he was also a slob, casually wearing a huge sweatshirts with oil stain
s all over the front. He also gasped for air when he walked, and there was a murky sound of chimney bellows between his nose and mouth. When passing Si Jia, he'd make a futile attempt to suck in his belly. It was alright though, because his optimism was appropriate for his body type, his big belly having the capacity for whatever the world could throw at it 23. Even with the mother flashing despising, disgusted eyes at his looks, he just shrugged it off and smiled, continuing in his self-indulgence and being a slob. The only thing that miffed him was how his painstakingly prepared dishes never got reciprocal attention. The mother was busy counting calories, and Si Jia didn't have the appetite.

  He often sat alone in front of a small table steaming with hot food, holding his food up with chopsticks. He'd grumble in a low voice: Aye. Do you think life is like acting in a TV series where we have to brave through one wave of problems after the other? They didn't understand who he was talking about. Could it be that to him, Si Jia's mother or Si Jia seemed to be acting in a TV series? Grumbling and eating with a look of satisfaction on his face, he'd take in a big bite, nod his head, and take in another. It was a funny scene to watch, but it was also inexpressibly infuriating.