by Lu Min
A night like that was, without fail, wonderful, and one could even say it had an intimate character. It was an intimate character overshadowed by life experiences and covered up by destiny, great yet unmoving, weak, and pure, like smoke or fog, on her lips and in her ears, between narration and imagination…The elephant in the room turned to nothing, and like sweet transience, Si Jia was satisfied. She'd tranquilly fall into deep sleep, not noticing the disappointed look on the face of "Violent Aesthetics" in the darkness.
[2]
Up until this reminiscing turned into a staple of their relationship's diet, conversation had proceeded unimpeded. But one day "Violent Aesthetics" somehow asked without giving it much thought: How is it you never talked about Danqing and the physical relationship you had with him? It was a question that "Violent Aesthetics" had been secretly saving for a long time. She thought she'd touched on the deepest point in Si Jia's conscious illusion. …If she could only break Danqing's curse, Si Jia would surely get better.
"Violent Aesthetics" knew the details of what happened on that Christmas night, but her knowledge only went as far as the incident itself. On the surface, whatever happened happened, and as for getting deep inside the darkest recedes of what she experienced in her mind…perhaps even Si Jia was unable to understand it. She'd never thought about it much before…
What could that be? It was just a finger I guess, Si Jia unintentionally blurted out, It's a fact.
There was a big, full moon outside the window in the balmy October weather, but a big shiver came over Si Jia as if she'd returned to that December Christmas night…That scary winter was always bitter cold as I remember it. Even with a red ski jacket and a small, pink and tightly-fitting vest it was still cold-cold from head to toe. No, that's not right. It was always cold outside, but very warm inside. Danqing's embrace was very warm. His finger was very warm. My own blood was very warm. Suddenly, something cozily and viscously slipped out. The pain was like thunder out of nowhere, the climax was like a flash of lightning, his finger and my blood intertwining. It was passing and superb, unique and without a match. She was shaking from inside to out, quickly covering up her whole body.
Oh I remember now. Aren't you always asking me if over all these years, no matter if with the translator or the filthy Hong Kong man…if I'd ever had a climax? I'd always thought not. But now I remember I actually did. I truly had a climax once. It was the first time and with Danqing's finger. Oh that's fantastic! I had a climax, and I can make love! Si Jia unrepentantly admitted as if clasping onto a fleeting inspiration.
"Violent Aesthetics" sat up, and very carefully like handling a precious viper, she let her spirits get incrementally higher…The method really worked, and it resurrected some kind of experience that Si Jia had…"Violent Aesthetics" didn't dare interrupt and patiently waited for Si Jia to continue talking.
Oh, really. I know when intimacy is best. When he was looking at me that way, when his finger went in forcefully, when it hurt, when I bled…Si Jia was so excited she could hardly make proper sentences. I know you've always been waiting for me, waiting for me to become a genuine lover to you…But how difficult it is! Now I know that emotionally, out of everyone, I've only really liked my stepfather. Before I was eighteen, I had the best part of my life when I was with him…Concerning intimacy itself, I'd always thought I never had it before. But now I can honestly tell you that I did-in that one second, that one second with Danqing…I'd never loved Danqing, and I'd only started feeling guilty or nostalgic for him later on, even missing him all the time. However, those feelings have never turned into love…
Alright, I understand what you're saying. Actually I should have known it all along. "Violent Aesthetics" collapsed back down on the bed. Si Jia, psychologically, aside from your stepfather, you're averse to every one of the opposite sex. After the one second that Danqing gave you, your capacity for intimacy was already pronounced dead. With these two very important preconditions, you've started missing family life again, and you need a partner. Thus, the only possibility is an asexual family life. Damn it, it's a bit like a tongue twister! In conclusion, you were never a typical lesbian, just the same as you were never a typical heterosexual…Si Jia, you have to admit that your whole life rests on the tip of a finger. Ha! I want to salute that one-second climax you had with Danqing. It's a boat out on the ocean, with not only Danqing's life, but the cause of your life inside-and my life too…Look at me. I'm loving and desirous! How did I end up laying in the same bed with you, a woman who's pure and dispassionate like an old, recluse lady?
So…Si Jia didn't dare continue. How would she have been to someone like herself?
Aye, infatuated me. In the final moment, I can't accept it for some reason…The smile of "Violent Aesthetics" disappeared in silence. …Out among the masses, she'd searched for Si Jia, captivated and clinging on the whole way. Starting from point A, she'd planned on getting to her ideal point B, but ultimately had settled down at point C…It played with her emotions too much. She couldn't let her future conclude at point C; it wasn't the way she wanted to be. So maybe I'll fall in love with someone else and have an affair; when I come back I'll be honest with you and beg your forgiveness, making another sincere promise. Then you'll give me an enlightened and fading smile, and ultimately we'll have an enlightened breakup…In a word, it'll be like any asexual family…Hehe. Go to sleep, poor Si Jia. I'm just kidding. How could I ever cheat on you in secret. I'd never do that. If it ever came to that, I'd tell you everything up front…The tone of voice of "Violent Aesthetics" was relaxed. She turned over and actually, it seemed, she was going to sleep.
They had a deeply meaningful conversation that night concerning the feasibility of their relationship, but its ending was surprisingly sloppy.
Si Jia couldn't sleep.
She was thinking about the last thing "Violent Aesthetics" said: "Just kidding"…Who knows? There are no jokes in the world that just come out of the blue. Just like any slip of the tongue, it was unintentional and subconscious. Or it could even be said that it was the way "Violent Aesthetics'" talked. She was smart, and she knew Si Jia was smart. She used this "kidding" method to tell Si Jia that it was over, and she was planning on giving up. What she wanted were whole feelings and love, soul and flesh…
What would they be like the next day? It was apparent as day. Companionship among people is always the totality of different phases. You might have everything now, but its true nature is like a handful of sand, which the more you squeeze, the more falls out…
On the condition of not touching "Violent Aesthetics'" body, Si Jia cuddled up to the latter with infinite tenderness, doing all she could to feel the last bit of warmth and companionship. She thought back in detail to the way things began with "Violent Aesthetics" and to her experiences with her, all the affection and patience, and how close they were…It was over. She was the one and only person who'd had any love for her, but such was fate. It was never to amount to anything…
However it was strange how unfazed Si Jia was about this "sudden, hostile turn" that life gave her, as if it were a coincidentally and perfectly salubrious attack. All she needed was to sit and take it, take the bitterly cold breeze blowing on her face and let her mind be filled with nothing but pure clarity…What's lesbianism or heterosexuality? Just let go of anything having to do with intimacy. Leave it far behind as if it were noisy, bustling society or a great tempest. A life of tranquility was soon to come, as God's blessing was soon to be bestowed. Never fed, ever satisfied-she was to attain true freedom.
[3]
She didn't know why, but in that heavy and almost peaceful mood, Si Jia started thinking of that old man who'd already gone away. What's up with him? Why had such a long time passed (from the end of summer) since she'd seen the old man? Si Jia looked over the street time and time again, like a breeze brushing past the bare trees, but she got nothing but a hollow echo…Why'd he suddenly stop coming? What happened? Is he in good health, and is he still alive?…How cou
ld she have been so heartless to let him just casually disappear…
Si Jia sweat all over and was afflicted a burning anxiety. She suddenly realized that the old and tragically miserable father, another relation of the great "one second man", had surely never known what really happened that night. Danqing surely didn't tell anyone, including his own father. The poor father-he's like every tangential relation to the affair. He thinks it was a real "rape" case, and thus he's always been gingerly following me, staying on my trail. But he had no idea that it was in fact me who hurt his son…Oh, I'm sorry-I'm sorry! This deceived father-he surely thinks I've always hated them…
This belated revelation gave Si Jia recurring fits of cold heartache. She curled up on the bed like lettuce leaves soaking in salt water 43, losing its juice bit by bit…If she'd known it was like that, she'd have gone up to them to know them long ago-and tell them everything…and ask for their forgiveness. Danqing's unfinished business was her burden to bear. It was the only way to atone for her own original sin and was the last boat that could take her across the river that is this merciful world…
But could this be a fatuous dream? When they finally realize it, they'll see that the actual executioner was me, and that Danqing died because of my own caprice. He and his family-how could they ever really accept me?
Heaven, have pity on her! She needed them, and it could even be said that they needed her. In this desolate human world, only they could console one another and give a shoulder to cry on. They could have discussed in detail everything that happened to them starting from 1984, like long-separated family members stuttering and jumping over themselves to narrate stories almost forgotten…But no. The second they meet, they'd start tearing open old wounds, and past experiences would start gushing out like fresh blood. It would only make them run away only more irate and anxiously desirous. They'd run away to avoid breaking their hearts that were hardened only through strenuous effort…
In the darkness Si Jia outstretched her needy hand, like reaching out for a disappearing, red line. Between her and that family, that desolate and warm, thin, red line…Please don't let it break…
The Dustbin of Memory
[1]
Just after Lan Ying had recovered, another major issue arose in the family: because the university was expanding its facilities, all the teachers' apartments were to be demolished and have classroom and laboratory buildings built up in their place. 44 By the end of that year their family would have to be moved out of their apartment. There was a school policy which provided two options for old professors like Lu Zhongsheng-either a not-so-shabby relocation fee, or move into a suburban apartment complex pre-arranged by the university. The new location was very far away, being situated in the far northeast corner of the city. At Lu Zhongsheng's age, he naturally chose the latter option. In any case Xiaoqing would be going to university after only one year, and where it was, whether it was in a bustling quarter or clean and lonely place-whether it was somewhat closer to heaven or somewhat closer to hell-was all the same to he and Lan Ying.
In those days, Lu Zhongsheng and Lan Ying were constantly organizing their stuff to prepare for moving house. They were like ants, taking on a little today and a little more tomorrow no matter how long it was going to take. Lan Ying took on the old clothes and things in bottles and cans; he took on the old books, letters, and printed materials. When old people go through things, they're unwilling to give them up on the one hand, but still unwilling to give them up on the other hand, making it seem like the longer they organized things, the more stuff there was. There was an odor that was difficult to describe floating around the apartment that was rotten, gloomy, and wonderful, and it made them want to cry. The two seniors would intermittently organize and stop, stumbling over some old thing from time to time, bringing up tomes of memories to each other. The more they scratched their heads, the less hair they had, and they couldn't even get a hairpin to stay stuck anymore. They laughed and cried, completely forgetting what the outside world was like. If anyone watched that ethos and milieu, they'd surely let out a sigh of pity.
The way Lu Zhongsheng and Lan Ying were organizing their old things was like a slow-motion goodbye mixed with feelings of tragedy and joy. Very soon their whole home and all its memories were to be uprooted and abandoned, replanted in a yet-more ethereal unknown…They'd spent twenty-plus years in their old apartment. Infant urine stains, empty plates on the dinner table, the apron hanging on the back of the door, the toilet with brown excrement stains, their shadows under the lights, the dust on the bookshelves…all these microcosms and ephemeral scenes would all have to surrendered and lost in the span of one night. Perhaps a huge bulldozer or new, technologically-advanced demolition technique would send the apartment crashing down to the ground in the bat of an eye.
Lu Zhongsheng was helpless and indifferent in an atmosphere of desolation, yet it also seemed like a felicitous escape. When Lan Ying wasn't watching, he'd always catch the quick opportunity to wave his hand goodbye to the old apartment's air, to Xiaoqing's infant graffiti on the wall, to the West-facing, L-shaped balcony room with an elegant posture, softly floating.
Goodbye, adolescent Danqing; goodbye Danqing, hooligan.
Goodbye, first-grade student Xiaoqing; goodbye Xiaoqing, young-woman blogger.
Goodbye, Lan Ying in old-age pregnancy; goodbye Lan Ying with heart disease.
Goodbye, respectable Professor Lu Zhongsheng; goodbye angry old man, Lu Zhongsheng.
Goodbye, the joy of public morals lost; goodbye old apartment, destroyed and fallen into tatters which he was to personally witness.
[2]
Right when they were going through old things saying goodbye to their old home in the wintertime, amnesia set in like a cold fog, slowly creeping into Lu Zhongsheng's forehead. Perhaps it was earlier, after the day that Lan Ying suddenly fell down and he went to let off steam about "strict punishment" with Officer He that Lu Zhongsheng's memory started choosing a recluse life and withdrawal from worldly affairs.
What could this metamorphosis in gradual degeneration be blamed on-biology, psychology, or sociology? Perhaps a synthesis of several factors worked together to steal away Lu Zhongsheng's memory. What he was once persistent about he suddenly and liberally left to the wayside; he tried his hardest to put what he'd remembered word for word to the back recesses of his mind…That lovely amnesia, like the white wings of an angel, like the lotus flowers in nirvana, naturally and swiftly drive Lu Zhongsheng's memory up into the sky.
Lan Ying didn't notice at first. For one thing, she was already burdened with her own illness, and two, Lu Zhongsheng already had a tendency to lose things-like wearing his glasses while looking for them, paying for wares but forgetting to take them with him etc. They were typical examples of getting old and weak and were still slipped unnoticed under Lan Ying's radar.
But there were first visible signs of Lu Zhongsheng's long-nascent amnesia, like not being able to say which high school Xiaoqing went to, mistakenly calling a neighbor of more than ten years by a student's name, seeing Lan Ying taking a quinine pill one minute, then holding up a glass of water behind her for her to take the pill the next. The strangest example was the time when someone asked him his home phone number, and Lu Zhongsheng's mouth lay agape, tongue-tied, and he looked all around, confused. No matter how he tried, he couldn't say what those eight digits were.
Later on the person requesting the phone number reminded Lan Ying: unfortunately, Professor Lu has a bit of a…problem. But Lan Ying never believed it. One could only say that Lu Zhongsheng's memory was a bit odd, maybe. Perhaps his memory failed a bit in the course of daily life, ignoring and forgetting certain issues at hand, but he could remember chunks of past happenings like the back of his hand. The precondition was that an old relic would have to pop up, and like blocks of yeast used for cooking bread, with that one old object the past would be like a hunk of dough, expanding out robustly in Lu Zhongsheng's brain.
For example, he'd pick up
a box of old wooden toy building blocks, then start remembering in detail…On that night, Xiaoqing came back from kindergarten unhappy, frowning and unwilling to talk. Only after hours of me asking her did she answer me, that her classmates were standing around her in a circle saying she had grandparents instead of parents. Then, that night I rushed over to the shops and bought her this box of building blocks. The two of us played with the blocks all night long and in every way. She was thrilled, finally clapped her hands together with a smile, and admitted I was her dad…
Seeing a slotted spoon used for stewing Chinese medicinal herbs, he'd turn back to Lan Ying, lips moving…Do you still remember? It was so I could help you keep the baby-we'd come to believe the potency of a folk remedy: 25 grams of raw eucommia, 25 grams of radix dispaci, 25 grams of radix boehmeriae, 50 grams of rhizoma disoscoreae, 50 grams of mochi powder. Stew the first four, take out the dregs and save the liquid, put in the last two in, and make a soup out of everything…Only after you'd had it for a full forty days were you able to keep from miscarrying Xiaoqing.
A postcard fell out from a book, Lu Zhongsheng picked it up, suddenly smiling with joy. I know this student. He graduated in '95, a boy from Hufang, Lichuanzhang Village, Jiangxi Province. He looked a bit rough around the edges, had a red mole under his ear, and was always sleeping in class. But I found out that coincidentally his birthday fell on the same day as Danqing, so I had a special liking for him and always called him into my office to chat…