This Love Could Not Be Delivered

by Lu Min

  She stubbornly refused to go back to work at the district library. She was aware that she'd become an object of scorn for her acquaintances and coworkers. Ha. They added "arrested in sales" on top of all the scorn they'd already heaped on her. Couldn't anybody have just picked it up, pinched it and trampled it?! Nor was she as strident as before. She had neither the strength nor the interest to struggle with common society. It was best to just give it up. She wanted to try a new method of survival, cozying up to purity and taking a secret path.

  Fortunately at that time quitting one's job didn't create scandal, and it wouldn't be too hard to find a new job to provide for herself again. Quitting: it looked like her doing this was yet again catching up to what was in vogue. Others saw her as very moody, undisciplined and out of control. She was explosive. Perhaps the stepfather understood her, but he continued to bring up mild objections. He sat in front of the food, talking softly while eating. He actually had ample reason to object, saying, No way. You think you can avoid it? Never. Surely their ears are longer than your legs. Have you forgotten that it's the same wherever you go? Others are going to find out about your issues sooner or later. They'll sketch out the nose, eyes, and even eyebrows and cheeks, making it even more real-to-life and exuberant than before. It'd be better to stay at your old job. It couldn't get much earlier, and anyway, that's just the way it is…

  …He looked at the expression on Si Jia's face and how she seemed to be forcing herself to step back from conflict and concentrate fully on eating. Then the next morning the obesely malformed body went running errands for her, running around getting documents stamped and her resignation filed as required by regulation.

  [2]

  After taking a few days off, Si Jia went and picked up a newspaper to look though the want ads. Looking through help wanted ads: that was Si Jia in 1996. It may sound like she was down and out, but fortunately she had a different take on misery. She wasn't asking for much anyway. She'd already lived the commoner's life, was sick of it, and wanted a change. For example, she was looking for a night job. She really wanted to be further away from spring breezes and daytime sunshine, preferring to turn things upside down and do the opposite of everyone else instead. That way she could come into as little contact with others as possible…

  As she was taking on such an odd position, finding work was indeed a breeze. Right when a newspaper was looking for a night shift editor, Si Jia took a shower and went there to respond to their ad. The people willing to do this work were generally retired teachers, employees with extra time or news junkies. When the boss saw Si Jia he sized her up with his eyes and was a bit taken back. How could a woman like that-with her education, at that age, with that style of conversation and charm-end up putting herself in such a bad situation as that of a night shift editor? Aye. Intriguing! She's certainly not a loafer or a coward…

  Why do you want this job? He asked seriously, as if her future employment hinged on this one answer. I like sleeping during the day, Si Jia replied with droopy eyelids.

  Isn't that what it's about? You sleep in the daytime and work at night. The editing work really appealed Si Jia, and she even regretted not finding it earlier. Finally, her work schedule and time coming home could be different from everyone else.

  From the time she'd divorced, she detested getting off work the most. Everyone rushing home, buying groceries, cooking, spending time with their kids…an endless stream of errands and trivial entertainment. In their every, minute motion there was the tranquility of following a precise protocol, having an aversion to heresy and inclinations to lax discipline. Si Jia was a single woman, and her way of idling away time or doing as she pleased gave them the impression she was a "weed" long growing in a wheat field-and it frustrated them not to get it pulled out. However on the other hand, in order to protect herself, Si Jia looked down on the goody-two-shoes "wheat"-the poor babies, under house arrest with their wretched domestic bliss…

  However, it was strange how her aloof satisfaction had an expiration date. Si Jia was soon to become palpably jealous of the way the masses were under house arrest: even if she were a prisoner all bunged up in shackles, she'd still have to give it a try…Sometimes she'd patiently observe what the family in the opposite apartment was doing, patiently watching the negligibly-numbered members of their family scoop out rice, ladle out soup, pass out chopsticks, finish their big bowl of soup, and split up and eat a fish. The mothers would debone fish for the kids, and the men would help a severely wounded fish flip over…Si Jia watched all such details with wide eyes, all they way until they'd start flapping their chopsticks at lightning speed to scrape out the bottoms of the bowls. She'd get miffed if they had the curtains pulled, because she could only see the shifting of their shadows when their lights were on. They were like actors in a play with a vague plot, singing wholly unauthentic music for puppet shadow plays 27, with the silhouettes of men and women moving back and forth, arms gesticulating, lunging back and forth…

  In objective terms, it wasn't Si Jia's intention to be a dirty peeping Tom. To deal with those long nights she'd sometimes go out by herself, going for a long promenade, kicking up clouds of dust as she walked on and on in the same direction till reaching a strange street or alley. She'd buy one or two disks to while away the time or a few ice-cold pears, then turn back to go home in exhaustion…

  But wasn't it just the right thing at the right time? With a night-shift job, she could go against the flow but retain a good reputation. Covered in darkness to burn the midnight oil, she could leave her gated apartment complex with its "families" with their lights on behind. When everyone was cuddling and going to sleep, she'd have an imminently respectable rationale, maintaining a cool head, solitude, insomnia, and dispassionate disposition…Then at the crack of dawn just before the whole city woke up out if its nightmares and sweet dreams, she'd obtain the long night's conclusion, furtively submerging into her small apartment, laying down in her own fabricated darkness, and laying down through a somehow non-existent daylight. Ah, how nice! She had nothing but supreme, incomparable black, a gorgeous color and impregnable refuge…

  And so it was. No matter how brilliant spring's light nor indulgent summer's sun, Si Jia had become a single woman who consumed the night and refused the daylight. All aspects of her life revolved around this dark theme. She carried things like a switchblade for defense, curtains that met a strict sunblock standard, a protective cream for the bags under her eyes, a flashlight (and extra batteries), candles, matches, flavorful biscuits in several varieties for convenience, instant noodles, coffee for her twilight setting out to work, melatonin pills to pop in the morning, a clothes dryer, artificial houseplants that didn't need daily care and nutrition, an electric blanket, a TV guide, and paperbacks good for reading in bed.

  Moreover she'd niggardly collect errands that could only be done during the day and finish them all in one swoop-groceries, the reception office, the post office, the bank, the barber's, the shops…There were also times when she'd put sunlight to good use and hang her bedding outside, and then the sun would pierce her eyes and make them stream tears down her pale, listless face. She was like a night sentinel keeping watch till morning.

  Was she consciously chaste and penitent? Aye, her soft, warm body, lying thin in darkness…it's slenderness…was without a trembling embrace and never had sincerely taken another into its arms since Danqing…However, it was of no consequence. That wasn't what Si Jia was looking for, nor was she thinking about it…

  [3]

  Just because Si Jia ignored those passions didn't mean others did.

  The boss, who hired Si Jia, and his staff (journalists, editors and whatnot) were all cultural elites who would typically talk about women or romance. One time, an editor suddenly thought of something during his occasional, casual talk about pretty women who worked for the paper, lining them up: Oh, actually, we have a pretty woman-actually she's gorgeous-with charm…real charm. However she…he seemed to be relating his sensory imp
ressions, but he was actually preparing a story for the dating section. He was greedily amassing dating stories when he came up with the idea. Story material was always easily culled from his surroundings, and he went on writing articles like a rabbit eating around a warren's hole, as usual. Why not call her over for a chat? We use pseudonyms in the final edit anyway.

  Thus after her being at the new workplace for just more than a month, men were again starting to approach Si Jia. The editor was reputedly dating several different women-too many, in fact. They talked to him on the phone, sent emails, made dates, and looked for "a shoulder to cry on". Virtually all of them were both attractive and out of luck, but when meeting face to face for the first time, only their bad luck would turn out to be real. The women were also competing in a self-pity contest. Indeed they were eager to unload their biggest gripes and make mountains out of mole hills, too. They expounded on convoluted male-female relationships, and could do nothing but convolute simple male-female relationships…There were "narcissists" and "blatherers" one after the other, which was truly trying and distasteful to the editor.

  It goes without saying that when Si Jia came in, she was a surprising, angelic sight. It was like seeing a solid ware on a heap of shoddy ones, and he was visibly elated. He'd have never guessed that she was one of those rare women whose reason overpowered her feelings. Sparing words like gold, she'd say nothing of private matters and leave her audience starved for gossip material. Although he was (tactfully) rejected, he was still impressed with a hundred of her positive qualities. Thus, due to his connoisseur's tastes and acquisitiveness, he started consciously approaching and pursuing Si Jia.

  His pursuit and admiration was like…how could it be described? Even though the editor was single, he was certainly not in sincere pursuit of true love with Si Jia. He thought of it in starkly realistic terms: Isn't Si Jia divorced? She won't have any hang ups about disloyalty or losing her chastity. The opportunity was not only there, but it called out to him. Wouldn't it be nice to get together and mess around with her?…Si Jia caught onto his game long ago, but she didn't let on. Perhaps she was still willing to entertain the idea and leave the option open in the future. After all in this world, a few more refreshing options couldn't hurt…Furthermore, there was still delusion in Si Jia's mind concerning "intimacy". It seems everyone is eating it up with a smile. After all this time, maybe my own appetite has changed? How would I know if I didn't try? In any case, everyone meets the editor with their guard down, and you can't help but to fool around a bit.

  Si Jia was, after all, too lonely. She'd already forgotten what it felt like to get a hug or kiss…Behind the neighbor's curtains just a few feet away, intimate couples were sleeping together in careful, mutual consideration. They never woke up alone, and a warm body just like their own was always within reach. Oh that's what she was really longing for-to have someone close to her breath, sleeping a little closer…Understand that she wasn't acting on caprice. He was, finally, the first man she'd come in contact with since her divorce.

  And thus conditions were apparently right and there was mutual consent. Si Jia's inverted lifestlye and introverted personality complemented her pale, secretive complexion. Frankly, she was particularly alluring to the editor. He'd have never guessed that one day during daylight hours he'd slip away from work, go to Si Jia's room with the curtains closed, and enter into her gloomy inner realm…

  Thinking about and also commencing the affair along these lines, Si Jia practically cooperated-the stage curtains opened, the prelude began, and the most subtly beautiful central theme with its background chords could almost be heard in the distance. The overstaying guest pretending to be impulsive, the impeded noontime sleep, saying no and meaning yes as she worked her way to the canopy bed's edge…

  But it didn't work out. The recurring nightmare punctually arrived in the last minute. An acute pain started in the skin, crawling out in the arteries, in constant contact like a long ream of paper in a shearing machine. Si Jia closed her eyes tightly, and a succession of images pierced her like thorns and lightning. Dropped underwear, blood, the policewoman's nails pinching into her flesh, the frigid stairwell air, the report discussed by doctors, her mother and stepfather's beast with two backs, the French translator's angry, matrimonial rape…Wah, the sky was falling! She was going to be buried alive…she was going to die of asphyxiation.

  No! I don't want it! Never again. Si Jia was loudly protesting when a garish arc of vomit spewed out of her mouth like a rainbow.

  [4]

  The proverbial conservation of energy is, sometimes, measured in family units. Si Jia was defeated and impecunious in love, while her mother unintentionally reaped its copious benefits.

  The life of exercise and entertainment of that throng of retired and old folks was a far cry from the struggle for basic survival and heap of health problems that young people imagined it to be. Their lives were surprisingly abundant and complex. Competing for favors, love triangles and self-fulfilling prophecies-although in no way stormily dramatic, were chock full of fascination and intrigue. Not to mention Si Jia's mother, an artistic personage with an inherent romantic passion…

  She took romance seriously and only regretted starting it too late, finding a soul mate, a little, black bow-tied couples' dancing aficionado. They became a couple made in heaven, and the meandering process of their twilight dates would have made enough material to write another novel. If they didn't dance together for the rest of their lives, it would be a celestial disappointment-and thus, it was agreed that both she and "little black bow tie" were to get divorces, poised to create another century of wonderful moments together…It played out both simply and comfortably, and would have been a welcome addition to the newspaper's society section.

  Si Jia's mother planned on revealing everything to the family, and furthermore requested that Si Jia be present at her earnest presentation as everyone was expected to harmoniously elucidate their positions to each other.

  When Si Jia got her phone call, Si Jia was already without sleep for two consecutive days and nights. In those two nights she'd done her editing work and for one of the days, the editor came over-an experience she couldn't bear to describe…It was the second day, and her face was swelled like a drum. Her complexion was like wax, and her eyes large and vacuously black, seeming to float around as she ambled along like a clothes rack.

  She had no regrets in losing contact with the editor. It was obvious how much love was really between them. But she couldn't help but feeling desperate in her complete failure in intimacy. The editor had forgotten a pack of cigarettes in his rush to get out the door, so she picked them up and pulled one out without smoking it. Instead, she crumpled it up into a pile in her palm, and started chewing the bitter and mealy shreds of tobacco as her teeth turned brownish black.

  Si Jia pushed herself to trace it back to the source: How could it have gotten to this point? I seriously can't get along better with them, nor sleep with them? Am I handicapped or what?…She wasn't concerned with being different from everyone else, because she'd always been that way. It's just that there were rational limits-health. Look what she'd become. She really wanted to take her grotesque trappings, rip them up and feed them to the dogs.

  When she got her mother's phone call, she had no choice but to drag herself out the door.

  It was a rare chance to get outside in daylight hours. She was completely unused to the piercingly-bright scenery, the scintillating leaves, the dust blowing up, and the cacophony of the masses.

  Was the human world always been so dynamic, so boisterous? It's like it's never had pain or desperation. Why would she be the only one so frigid and disappointed? She was truly despicable. She couldn't enjoy herself nor acclimate to a live-in partner. She was bereft of marriage and orgasm-she was nothing but a murderer, trash-a redundancy. Wasn't she?

  And that's how Si Jia went home, abandoning herself as she sunk deeper into depression. She went in the family apartment and walked between her
mother and stepfather, on the verge of divorce. It was a stroll through a gushing river or a trek to the peak of a still-unmelted glacial mount.

  It was her mother's second divorce, and she had an unimpeded, cool attitude. Concerning the reason given, aside from the ever-emphasized romantic vibrations with "little black bow tie" (and his imminent charm), she mentioned what she thought to be the most grave threat to she and the stepfather's "harmony", confronting him in a thinly-veiled manner. Si Jia, you were married once. You understand the relations between men and women…Look at his body now. He even has trouble walking. Think about it-your mom is now fifty-five years old. For us dancers, fifty-five years is like forty years for a normal person. Our physiology is totally different. Whose right is it to let me wither away? You know what a raw deal it is if a husband and wife have no intimacy. Isn't it unfair?

  The mother's mouth, carefully painted over with lipstick, spoke with such candor (and even warmth and sincerity), that winds of change came blowing in…Si Jia looked at her mother who discussed the bedroom, the bedroom…and welled up in her mind in striking detail: the mother and stepfather rolling around, the mother and "little black bow tie" rolling around, Si Jia and the French translator rolling around, Si Jia and the editor standing there without his pants or underpants on just eight hours ago…a long concatenate of bedroom scenes whirled before her-successful ones, merely attempts, being peeped upon, in times unwilling…these scenes whirled up by her mother's face, her flapping lips, and her suggesting, loving smile. Si Jia couldn't hold it in any longer, and like having inhaled a potent whiff of gasoline, like being piss drunk and food poisoned, she again hysterically "threw up a lung" like a filthy musically-controlled fountain, spewing refuse between her mother and stepfather which made a dramatic climb in the air, yet slowly splat on the ground. This made Si Jia's mother cease her self-absorbed narration and start caressing Si Jia's protruding shoulderbone, getting a sudden flash of apparent enlightenment. Aye. I was wondering how it is you keep eating but don't gain weight, and you're always slender as a stick. It was a bad stomach all along. It's a fantastic problem, actually. It would be just wonderful if I were as thin as you and keep throwing up whatever I ate. Do tell-are you taking some kind of weight loss medicine?…