Brothers (86 page)

After Wandering Zhou put the box down, a man crowded forward and pointed at Wandering Zhou's crotch, whispering, "Will it have any effect if you apply it there?"

"You mean on your penis?" Wandering Zhou replied in a loud voice. "Of course it will."

"Hey hey," that man whispered. "Please lower your voice."

"I understand." Wandering Zhou nodded to the man, then held up the bust-enhancing cream and said to the men who were crowded around, "This Boobs cream can also serve as a penis enlarger, making your erections bigger, longer, and longer-lasting. But when you use it, you must be very careful to follow doctor's orders. Otherwise, it might end up so big that it will no longer be a penis."

"If it's no longer a penis, what will it be?" some of the men asked laughing.

"If it becomes too big"—Wandering Zhou thought for a moment— then "it will become a breast."

Wandering Zhou was blessed with beginners luck, and the first day he sold fifty-eight vials of the cream. For Song Gang, however, that day was like the seventh circle of hell. Having to unbutton his shirt and let all these unknown men and women admire his fake breasts, and to listen to some of them even debate whether he was a man or a woman, was enough to make him feel as though he was about to go insane. However, he gritted his teeth and collected himself. As the sun went down Wandering Zhou gathered the boxes. Song Gang, looking like a woman who had just been sexually brutalized, shamefully buttoned his shirt back up and, with an ashen face, followed Zhou back to the hotel. Wandering Zhou knew that Song Gang was distressed and therefore comforted him, saying, "No one knows you here."

The next day, the two returned to the same street and continued their performance. This time, Wandering Zhou managed to sell sixty-four vials of the cream. According to Zhou's custom, the third day they should have moved to a new location, but their success up to that point made him reluctant to leave and therefore they once again returned to the same street corner. By noon, the petite woman who had pinched Song Gangs nipple the first day came forward with a big, burly man. The man, who looked like a butcher, walked right up to Song Gang and carefully examined his fake breasts. At the time Wandering Zhou was energetically hawking his wares and didn't notice that this man's lips were swollen to an enormous size. When the man was finished examining Song Gang's breasts, he grabbed Zhou by the collar and started cursing up a storm, saying that the breast-enlargement cream he was selling contained poison. This man caught Zhou by surprise, and at first all Zhou heard was a buzzing sound coming from the man's swollen lips. Eventually he understood that the man had applied the cream to his lips. Wandering Zhou forcefully pushed away the man's hand and reprimanded him, "Why did you use the cream on your lips? That was an idiotic thing to do—"

"Fuck you!" The man with the swollen lip became furious. "Why would I want to use your cream?"

"Then what did you use?" Wandering Zhou was confused.

"I…"

The man didn't know what to say, and so his wife blushed and said, "I was the one who used it."

Not allowing her to finish, Wandering Zhou cried out, "How could you apply the bust-enhancing cream to his lips?"

"I didn't!" By this point even her neck was blushing red. She pointed to her chest and said, "I applied it here, but I didn't tell him, so he—"

All the men and women crowded around immediately broke into uproarious laughter. Even Song Gang couldn't help laughing, and Wandering Zhou was even more delighted. He repeated over and over again, "I understand, I understand…"

"You tell me," the man howled, "isn't this poison?"

"It's not poison, it's a kind of growth agent." Wandering Zhou pointed to the man's swollen lip and told the crowd, "Do you see? His lips grew this much in just two days and have even started to develop a red nipple!"

The man's wife protested quietly, "But I myself haven't gotten any bigger."

"Of course you haven't. All the growth agent was rubbed off on him!" Zhou pointed to her husband's swollen lip and didn't pass up this opportunity to make another pitch to the crowd, saying, "Do you see? He was only exposed to it indirectly, so just imagine what would have happened if he had applied it directly—his lips would have grown into two ears!"

As the crowd laughed, the man with the swollen lips went from embarrassment to fury and proceeded to punch Wandering Zhou in the face, leaving him staggering. This punch was like the one Blacksmith Tong gave the young Baldy Li so many years earlier, and like Baldy Li's, Wandering Zhou's ears also buzzed for several days afterward.

In business terms, this man with the swollen lips ended up helping Wandering Zhou immeasurably: That day he sold ninety-seven vials of the cream. The morning of the fourth day, Wandering Zhou held his buzzing ears and quietly snuck off with Song Gang. For the next ten days, their sales on Hainan Island were extraordinarily successful. They were like dragonflies treading water, not staying in any one place for more than two or three days, promptly moving on before anyone saw through their act. Song Gang gradually became accustomed to unbuttoning his shirt in public and began to feel less and less ashamed. Seeing the pile of cash in Wandering Zhou's black bag grow, Song Gang felt reassured. Each night, Zhou sat on the hotel room bed, listening to the buzzing sound in his head and counting their day's earnings. When he told Song Gang how much they had made, a smile appeared on Song Gang's face, as he was convinced that he would soon be able to return home.

At that point, Wandering Zhou discovered a Korean soap that he hadn't watched before. Therefore, every night he would sit on the end of his bed and warmly invite Song Gang to join him, helpfully explaining the plot to him. Song Gang hadn't spoken with Lin Hong for a long time, so he went out to call her. Wandering Zhou told him to use the phone in the room. Song Gang said it was very expensive to make calls from the hotel, but Wandering Zhou replied that they had money now, so it was okay to spend it. Song Gang then said that if he called from the room, he might disturb Wandering Zhou watching his Korean soaps, but Wandering Zhou said not to worry. Therefore, the two sat together on the bed—one absorbed by the Korean miniseries, and the other placing a long-distance call to Mama Sus snack shop.

Song Gang held the receiver with both hands, and as Mama Su ran across the street to get Lin Hong, he heard a tumult in the snack shop, including the crying of a newborn baby. When he heard the sound of footsteps on the other end of the line, he knew that Lin Hong had arrived. His hand began to tremble, and then he heard her eager voice, saying, "Hello …"

Song Gang's eyes filled with tears, and Lin Hong said hello several more times before he could gather himself together enough to sob, "Lin Hong, I miss you."

Lin Hong became silent for a moment, then sobbed back, "Song Gang, I miss you, too."

The two spoke for a long time. Song Gang told Lin Hong that he was in Hainan, but he didn't tell her that he was selling bust-enhancing cream, merely saying that business was going very well. Lin Hong told him some of the things that had happened in Liu Town. As the sound of the baby's crying grew louder and louder, Lin Hong quietly told Song Gang that Missy Su had had a daughter and had named her Su Zhou but that no one knew who the father was. As the two spoke they lost all track of time. Wandering Zhou watched two entire episodes of his Korean soap while Song Gang and Lin Hong were still pouring their hearts out to each other. Song Gang saw Zhou sitting there watching him and realized it was time to hang up. At that point Lin Hong cried out to him, "When will you be coming home?"

Song Gang replied emotionally, "Soon. I'll be home soon."

After Song Gang put down the phone, he looked at Wandering Zhou with downcast eyes. Wandering Zhou also looked depressed— depressed that he didn't know what was going to happen in the next
episode. Song Gang laughed bitterly, then felt an urge to talk. He muttered miserably that he didn't know how Lin Hong had gotten on that past year while he was away. Wandering Zhou was still mulling over the Korean drama that just ended and didn't register what Song Gang was saying. After a while, Song Gang asked Zhou whether he remembered Missy Su from the Liu Town snack shop. Zhou nodded and looked at Song Gang with alarm. Song Gang then told Zhou that Missy Su had had a daughter and had named her Su Zhou but that no one in Liu Town knew who the father was. When he heard this, Wandering Zhou's jaw dropped in astonishment.

That night both of them tossed and turned in bed. Song Gang missed Lin Hong's every little gesture, her smile, and her temperament. Wandering Zhou, meanwhile, kept thinking about Missy Sus smile and imagining the baby girl's smile. Even after Song Gang finally fell asleep, Wandering Zhou continued to stare straight ahead, imagining Missy Sus and the baby's smiles. Song Gang woke up the next morning at dawn and saw that Zhou was already dressed and had placed two piles of bills on the bed. Zhou announced proudly, "I am Su Zhou's father."

At first Song Gang didn't understand what he was saying. Wandering Zhou pointed to the pile of cash on the bed and said that their entire earnings were there—45,000 yuan in all. Divided 50/50, they each got 22,500 yuan. Wandering Zhou took one pile of bills and put it in his pocket then pointed to the other pile and said, "This is yours."

Song Gang stared at Wandering Zhou with a look of profound skepticism. Wandering Zhou said that they also had more than two-hundred vials of the bust-enhancing cream left over, and he was leaving all of that to Song Gang as well. Then Wandering Zhou passionately declared that he had been wandering through the region of rivers and lakes like a knight-errant for more than fifteen years and that the dangers and travails of life on the road had made him profoundly weary and left him longing for a stable resting place. Therefore, he had decided to bid farewell to all this and return to settle down in Liu Town, where he would enjoy being a family man as Missy Sus husband and Su Zhou's father.

When he finished, Wandering Zhou picked up his black bag and walked out. Only then did Song Gang finally understand that it was Zhou who had gotten Missy Su pregnant and that Wandering Zhou's
breast-enlargement business was being abruptly terminated. He called out to Wandering Zhou, pointing at his own fake breasts and asked, "If you leave, what about me?"

Wandering Zhou looked at Song Gangs fake breasts with profound sympathy and said, "You'll have to figure that out for yourself."

CHAPTER 68

A
BOUT TEN MONTHS
after Song Gang left Liu Town with Wandering Zhou, there was a new hubbub in town concerning the Russian painter Baldy Li hired to come paint his portrait. It was said that the resulting painting was as big as Mao's portrait in Tiananmen Square. Legend had it that this particular artist had just spent three months living it up in the Kremlin while painting Putin s portrait. After Yeltsin stepped down from power and became a stale flower, he wanted to hire this same artist, but since he wasn't able to offer as high a price as Baldy Li, the painter came to Liu Town instead. The townspeople all saw him with their own eyes, with his white hair and white beard, his big nose and blue eyes. He loved to eat Chinese snacks, so every day he would walk happily to Mama and Missy Sus snack shop to have steamed mini-buns.

What this Russian artist liked best were the straw-embedded buns, and each time he came, he would order five steamer trays of them, with three buns in each tray. With fifteen buns and fifteen miniature straws in front of him like a birthday cake with fifteen candles, he carefully sipped the juices out of each bun, then ate the buns themselves. This was the delicacy the charlatan Wandering Zhou had introduced to Liu Town. He had personally taught Missy Su how to make the buns and also personally made her belly grow big. He had left abruptly, but the straw-embedded buns he brought to Liu Town not only took root but even became famous. Everyone would line up each day to have them, and the snack shop was full of a sound like suckling infants.

The famous Russian painter ate straw-embedded buns at Missy Sus snack shop for three straight months, until he finally finished his portrait of Baldy Li. The day he finished, he dragged his luggage to the snack shop, and as he ate, everyone learned that he was about to return to Russia. They all assumed that he was finally going to get to work on Yeltsin. Just as the painter finished eating his buns, Baldy Li's sedan pulled up in front of the snack shop. At that moment Lin Hong was standing outside her apartment building. Baldy Li was not in the sedan, but his chauffeur took the artist's luggage and placed it in the
trunk. The artist then walked out, wiping his mouth, and got in the car. Lin Hong watched as they drove away.

Lin Hong and Song Gang had now been separated for more than a year. Lin Hong was alone with her shadow. She would bike to work every morning and return every evening. With Song Gang gone, their home, which had originally seemed small and cramped, now appeared enormous, cavernous, and deathly still. It was only when she turned on the television that Lin Hong had a chance to hear other people s voices. Ever since the first time Song Gang called the snack shop across the street, Lin Hong had taken to standing in the doorway of her apartment building in the evening, expectantly watching the people walking in and out of the snack shop. At first she was waiting for Song Gang to call, but since his calls were few and far between, she no longer knew what she was waiting for.

Lin Hong felt extremely ashamed. After the chain-smoking Factory Director Liu learned that Song Gang had left, he became even bolder in his advances. Once he called Lin Hong into his office and, after shutting the door, pushed her onto the couch. This time he succeeded in ripping her shirt as well as her bra. Lin Hong struggled and screamed, eventually frightening him to the point that he didn't dare continue. After that, she never returned to his office, and when Director Liu told her workshop leader to send her in, she would shake her head firmly and state, "I won't go."