Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather (3 page)

“When I get married I’ll write you a letter.”

“It’s best that you don’t write anything.”

“If I pass through for work later on, I might come to visit you again.”

“It’s best that you don’t.”

“Yes, it was a mistake.”

“What mistake are you talking about?”

“I shouldn’t have come to see you again.”

“No, it wasn’t a mistake for you to have come!”

“Neither of us is to blame. The mistakes of that era are to blame. But all that’s in the past and we have to learn to forget.”

“But it’s hard to forget everything.”

“Maybe with the passing of more time…”

“You had best go.”

“Don’t you want me to see you onto a bus?”

The two of them stand up. From behind the gray tree trunk near the barely visible empty stone bench, there is a sob that couldn’t be stifled. However, the person can’t be seen.

“Do you think maybe it’d be best that we urge her to go home?”

The silky, tender, new green leaves on the white poplar shimmer in the glow of the streetlight.

Cramp. His stomach is starting to cramp. Of course, he thought he could swim farther out. But about a kilometer from shore his stomach is starting to cramp. At first he thinks it’s a stomachache—that will pass if he keeps moving. But when his stomach keeps tightening, he stops swimming any farther and feels it with his hand. The right side is hard, and he knows it’s a cramp in his stomach because of the cold water. He hadn’t exercised enough to prepare himself before entering the water. After dinner, he had set off alone from the little white hostel and had come to the beach. It was early autumn, windy, and at dusk, few people were going into the water. Everyone was either chatting or playing poker. In the middle of the day men and women were lying everywhere on the beach, but now there were only five or six people playing volleyball, a young woman in a red swimsuit, the others young men. The swimsuit and the trunks were all dripping wet—they’d just come out of the water. On this autumn day, the water was probably too cold for them. Along the whole coastline no one else was in the water. He had gone straight into the water without looking back, thinking that the woman might be watching him. He can’t see them now. He looks
back, toward the sun. It’s setting, about to set behind the rehabilitation hospital’s beachfront pavilion on the hill. The lingering brilliant yellow rays of the sun hurt his eyes, but he can see the beachfront pavilion on top of the hill, the outline of the hazy treetops above the coast road, and the boat-shaped rehabilitation hospital from the first floor up; anything below can’t be seen, because of the surging sea and the direct rays of the sun. Are they still playing volleyball? He is treading water.

White-crested waves on the ink green sea. The surging waves surround him, but no fishing boats are at work. Turning his body, he is borne up by the waves. Up ahead on the gray-black sea is a dark spot, far in the distance. He drops down between the waves and can no longer see the surface of the sea. The sloping sea is black and shiny, smoother than satin. The cramp in his stomach gets worse. Lying on his back and floating on the water, he massages the hard spot on his abdomen until it hurts less. Diagonally in front, above his head, is a feathery cloud; up there, the wind must be even stronger.

As the waves rise and fall, he is borne up and then dropped between them. But just floating like this is useless. He has to swim quickly toward shore. Turning, he tries hard to keep his legs pressed together and, by so doing, counteract the wind and the waves to enhance his speed. But his stomach that had gained some slight relief again starts hurting. This time the pain comes faster. He
feels his right leg immediately become stiff, and the water go right over his head. He can see only ink green water, so limpid and, moreover, extremely peaceful, except for the rapid string of bubbles he breathes out. His head emerges from the water and he blinks, trying to shake the water from his eyelashes. He still can’t see the coastline. The sun has set, and the sky above the undulating hills glows with the color of roses. Are they still playing volleyball? That woman, it’s all because of that red swimsuit of hers. He’s sinking again, surrendering to the pain. He rapidly strikes out with his arms but, taking in air, swallows a mouthful of water, salty seawater, and coughing feels like a needle being jabbed into his stomach. He has to turn again, to lie flat on his back with his arms and legs apart. This way he can relax and let the pain subside a little. The sky above has turned gray. Are they still playing volleyball? They are important. Did the woman in the red swimsuit notice him entering the water, and will they look out to sea? That dark spot back there in the gray-black sea…is it a small boat? Or is it a pontoon that has broken loose from its mooring, and would anyone be concerned with what has happened to it? At this point, he can rely only upon himself. Even if he calls out, there is only the sound of the surging waves, monotonous, never ending. Listening to the waves has never been so lonely. He sways, but instantly steadies himself. Next, an icy current charges relentlessly by and carries him, helpless, along with it. Turning on his side, with his
left arm stroking out, his right hand pressing against his abdomen, and his feet kicking, he massages. It still hurts, but it’s bearable. He knows he can now depend only on the strength of his own kicking to fight his way out of the cold current. Whether or not he can bear it, he’ll just have to, because this is the only way he’ll be able to save himself. Don’t take it too seriously. Serious or not, he has a cramp in the abdomen and he’s one kilometer from shore, out in deep sea. He’s not sure anymore if it’s one kilometer, but senses that he’s been floating in line with the coast. The strength of his kicking barely offsets the thrust of the current. He must struggle to get out of it, or else before too long he’ll be like that dark spot floating on the waves, and vanish into the gray-black sea. He must endure the pain, he must relax, he must kick as hard as he can, he can’t slacken off, and above all he mustn’t panic. With great precision he has to coordinate his kicking, breathing, and massaging. He can’t be distracted by any other thoughts, and he can’t allow any thoughts of fear. The sun has set very quickly, and there is a hazy gray above the sea, but he can’t see any lights on the shore yet. He can’t even see the coast clearly, or the curves of the hills. His feet have kicked something! He panics, and feels a spasm in his stomach—sharp and painful. He gently moves his legs; there are stinging circles on his ankles. He has run into the tentacles of a jellyfish and he sees the gray-white creature, like an open umbrella, with thin floating membranous lips.
He is perfectly capable of grabbing it and pulling out its mouth and its tentacles. Over the past few days he has learned from the children living here by the sea how to catch and preserve jellyfish. Below the windowsill of his hostel window, there are seven salted jellyfish with their tentacles and mouths pulled out. Once the water is squeezed out, all that remain are sheets of shriveled skin, and he too will be just a piece of skin, a corpse, no longer able to float to the shore. Let the thing live. But he wants to live even more, and he will never catch jellyfish again—that is, if he can return to shore—and he won’t even go into the sea again. He kicks hard, his right hand pressed against his stomach. He stops thinking about anything else, only about kicking in rhythm, evenly, as he pushes through the water. He can see the stars…they are wonderfully bright…in other words, his head is now pointing in the direction of the coast. The cramp in his abdomen has gone but he keeps rubbing it carefully, even though this slows him down….

When he emerges from the sea and comes onto the shore, the beach is completely deserted. The tide is coming in again and he thinks he was helped by the tide. The wind blowing on his bare body is colder than it had been in the seawater, and he shivers. He collapses onto the beach, but the sand is no longer warm. Getting to his feet, he immediately starts running. He’s in a hurry to tell people he’s just escaped death. In the front hall of the hostel the same
group is playing poker. They are all looking intently at the faces or at the cards of their opponents, and no one bothers to look up at him. He goes back to his own room, but his roommate, who is probably still chatting in the room next door, isn’t there. He takes a towel from the windowsill, aware that the jellyfish, with a coat of salt on them and squashed under a rock outside his window, are still full of water. Afterward, he puts on fresh clothes and shoes and, feeling warm, returns alone to the beach.

The sound of the sea is all-embracing. The wind is stronger and lines of gray-white waves are charging onto shore. The black seawater suddenly spreads out, and because he doesn’t jump in time, his shoes get soaked. He walks a little farther off, following the shore, along the dark beach. There is no longer any starlight. He hears voices, male and female, and the figures of three people. He stops. They are pushing two bicycles, and one of them has a girl with long hair sitting on the pillion. The wheel sinks into the sand and the person pushing seems to be struggling. But they keep talking and laughing; the voice of the girl sitting on the pillion is particularly happy. They stop in front of him, holding their bicycles. A young guy takes a big bag from the back rack of the other bicycle and hands it to the woman. They start taking off their clothes. Two skinny boys, stark naked and waving their arms, prance about, yelling: “It’s really cold, it’s really cold!” There is also the happy, cackling laughter of the girl.

“Do you want to drink it now?” asks the girl leaning on the bicycle.

They go over, take a wine bottle from the girl, take turns drinking from the bottle, pass it back to the girl, then run toward the sea.

“Hey! Hey!”

“Hey—”

The tide noisily charges forward and keeps rising.

“Hurry back!” The girl screams out, but it is only the crashing of the waves that respond.

In the faint light reflected on the sea surging up to the shore, he sees that the girl leaning on the bicycle is supporting herself on crutches.

It happened like this….

A gust of wind swept up a pile of dirt from the roadwork outside Xinhua Bookshop on the other side of the road, swirled it up in an arc, then dumped it everywhere. The dust has just settled. It is five o’clock in the afternoon, right after the fourth beep has sounded on the radio in the radio repair shop in Desheng Avenue. It isn’t the dust storm season and the weather is only starting to turn warm. Some cyclists are still wearing short gray cotton coats, although on the pavements there are already young women in pale blue spring clothes. There are endless streams of cyclists and pedestrians, but it isn’t at a time when everyone is finishing work and traffic congestion is at its worst. However, inevitably there are people who are finishing work early, as inevitably there are people on work leave, so there are busy and idle people coming and going on the street. At this time of day it’s always like this. The buses aren’t too crowded even if all the seats have been taken and some people are standing, holding on to the handrail as they look out of the windows.

A bicycle fitted with an extra wheel for a baby-buggy with a red-and-blue checkered cloth shade is crossing diag
onally from the other side of the road, and a man is riding it. Coming from the opposite direction is a two-carriage electric trolley bus that is going quite fast, but not too fast. It is clearly going more slowly than the small pale green sedan car about to overtake the bicycle, but neither is necessarily exceeding the city speed limit. The man on the bicycle arches his back, pedaling hard, and the little green car overtakes him on the other side. On this side, the trolley bus is heading toward him. The man hesitates but doesn’t brake, and the bicycle with the buggy unhurriedly continues to cross diagonally. The trolley bus sounds the horn but doesn’t reduce its speed. As the man crosses the white line in the middle of the road, the dust from the gust of wind has already settled, so his vision isn’t obscured. Unblinkingly, he looks up; about forty, he is not a young man, and his hat, tilted slightly to the back of his head, shows that he is balding. He must be able to see the trolley bus coming toward him, and hear the horn. He hesitates again, seems to brake, although not hard, and the bicycle with the buggy clumsily continues crossing the road diagonally. The trolley bus is now close and the horn is sounding nonstop. However, the bicycle keeps going, as before. Sitting in the buggy under the shade is a child with rosy cheeks, barely three or four years old. Suddenly there is the screech of brakes and the horn sounds louder and louder as the trolley bus fast approaches. The bicycle’s front wheel continues heading diagonally toward the bus, slowly, as the horn grows louder
and the screeching of the brakes turns shrill. The bus has reduced its speed, but the front of the bus keeps moving ominously forward, closing in like a wall. The bus and the bicycle are about to collide and a woman on the pavement on this side of the road starts screaming. Pedestrians and cyclists alike all look on, but no one seems capable of moving. As the front wheel of the bicycle passes the front of the bus, the man starts pedaling hard, maybe he will just make it, but he reaches forward to touch the red-and-blue checkered shade, as if he is trying to push it down. As his hand touches the shade, the buggy flies off, bouncing on the single wheel. The man’s legs are caught as he throws up his arms and falls backward off the bicycle. In the clamor of the horn and brakes and women screaming, before onlookers have time to gasp, the man is instantly crushed under the wheels. The bicycle he was riding, completely twisted, is thrown ten or so feet along the road.

The pedestrians on both sides of the road are aghast and cyclists get off their bicycles. It is quiet all around, and only the gentle singing from the radio repair shop can be heard:

You may remember

Our meeting in the mist, under the broken bridge…

It is probably a record of some post–Deng Lijun singer from Hong Kong. Front wheels in a pool of blood, the
bus comes to a halt. Blood on the front of the bus is dripping back down onto the body. The first to approach the body is the bus driver, who has opened the door and jumped down. Next, people from both sides of the road also come running, while others surround the overturned buggy, which has rolled into the gutter. A middle-aged woman takes the child from the buggy, shakes it, and examines it all over.

“Is it dead?”

“It’s dead!”

“Is it dead?”

Talk in low voices all around. The child, drained of color, has its eyes shut tight, and blue veins can be seen through the child’s soft skin. But there is no sign of external injury.

“Don’t let him get away!”

“Hurry, call the police!”

“Don’t move anything! Don’t go over there. Leave everything as it is!”

A crowd several layers deep has surrounded the front of the bus. Only one person is curious enough to lift the twisted wreck of the bicycle. The bell rings as he puts it back down.

“I clearly sounded the horn and braked! Everyone saw it; he was intent on getting himself killed by charging into the bus—how can you blame me?” It is the strained voice of the driver trying to explain, but no one takes any notice.

“You can all be witnesses, all of you saw it!”

“Move aside! Move aside—move aside, all of you!” A policeman with a big hat emerges from the crowd.

“We’ve got to hurry to save the child’s life! Quick, stop a car and get the child to a hospital!” It is a man’s voice.

A young man in a coffee-colored leather jacket runs to the line in the middle of the road, waving an arm. A small Toyota sedan sounds its horn nonstop to make its way through the pedestrians who have spilled onto the roadway. Next, one of those 130 light trucks comes along, and it stops. Inside the windows of the bus involved in the accident, passengers are bickering with the conductress. Another trolley bus pulls up behind. The doors of the one in front open and the passengers surge out, blocking the trolley bus that has just arrived. There is a loud clamor of voices.

I will never, never be able to forget…

The singing on the stereo is drowned out.

Blood is still dripping, and there is a stench of blood in the air.

“
Waaa…
” The child’s repressed wailing finally breaks out.

“It’s a good sign!”

“It’s still alive!”

There are sighs of happy relief. As the wailing grows
louder, people also come back to life: it is as if they have been liberated. They then all rush to join the crowd surrounding the body.

Screaming sirens. A police car with flashing blue lights on the roof has arrived, and the crowd parts as four policemen quickly get out. Two of them are wielding batons, and people stand back immediately.

Traffic has come to a standstill and long queues of vehicles are waiting at both ends of the street. Honking horns have replaced the din of voices. One of the policemen goes to the middle of the road and waves his white-gloved hands to direct the traffic.

The police summon the conductress from the second trolley bus. She tries at first to make excuses, then reluctantly takes the child from the middle-aged woman and gets into the 130 light truck. A white glove signals. The truck drives off, taking with it the child’s shrill screams and wailing.

As the police wielding batons shout at them, the onlookers move back to form a rectangle that includes the twisted wreck of the bicycle.

What is happening to the driver can now be seen from this side of the road. He is wiping off the sweat with his cotton cap. A policeman is questioning him. He takes out his driver’s license in its red plastic folder, and the policeman confiscates it. He immediately protests.

“Why are you making excuses? If you’ve run over the
man, then you’ve run over him!” A youth pushing a bicycle yells out.

The conductress wearing sleeve-protectors comes out of the bus and rebukes the youth. “He was trying to get himself killed. The horn was sounding and the bus had braked, yet the man wouldn’t give way. He just went under the bus.”

“The man was in the middle of the road and had a child with him. It was broad daylight, so he must have seen him!” someone in the crowd says angrily.

“What does it matter to drivers like him if they run over someone? He won’t have to pay for it with his life.” This is said with derision.

“What a tragedy. If he didn’t have the child with him, he would have got across long ago!”

“Is there any hope for the man?”

“His brain came out?”

“I just heard this
plop
—”

“You heard it?”

“Yes, it went
plop
—”

“Stop all this talk!”

“Ai, life’s like that, a person can die just like that…”

“He’s crying.”

“Who?”

“The driver.”

The driver, sitting on his haunches with his head down, has covered his eyes with his cap.

“He didn’t do it deliberately…”

“If this had happened to anyone, they would…”

“The man had a child with him? What happened to the child? What happened to the child?” someone who has just arrived asks.

“The child wasn’t hurt, it was very lucky.”

“Luckily the child was saved.”

“The man was killed!”

“Were they father and child?”

“Why did he have to hook a buggy to his bicycle? It’s hard enough not to have an accident even with just one person on a bicycle.”

“And he’d just picked up the child from kindergarten to take home.”

“Kindergartens are hopeless, they won’t let you leave children for a whole day!”

“You’re lucky if you can get into one.”

“What’s there to look at! From now on, if you run without looking across the road—” A big hand drags away a child who is trying to squeeze between people in the crowd.

The Hong Kong star has stopped singing. People are crowded on the steps of the radio repair shop.

Red lights flashing, the ambulance has arrived. As medical personnel in white carry the body to the ambulance, the people in doorways of all the shops stand on their toes. The fat cook wearing an apron from a small eatery nearby has also come out to watch.

“What happened? Was there an accident? Was someone killed?”

“It was father and son, one of them is dead.”

“Which of them died?”

“The old man!”

“What about the son?”

“Unhurt.”

“That’s shocking! Why didn’t he pull his father out of the way?”

“It was the father who had pushed his son out of the way!”

“Each generation is getting worse, the man was wasting his time bringing up the son!”

“If you don’t know what happened, then don’t crap on.”

“Who’s crapping on?”

“I wasn’t trying to start an argument with you.”

“The child was carried away.”

“Was there a small child as well?”

Others have just arrived.

“Do you mind not shoving?”

“Did I shove you?”

“What’s there to look at? Move on! Everyone move on!”

On the outer fringes of the crowd people are being arrested. Traffic security personnel with red armbands have arrived and they are more savage than the police.

The driver, who is pushed into the police car, turns and tries to struggle, but the door shuts. People start to walk away and others get on their bicycles and leave. The
onlookers thin out, but people keep arriving, stopping their bicycles or coming down off the pavement. The second trolley bus leads a long line of sedans, vans, jeeps, and big limousines slowly past the buggy with the torn red-and-blue checkered shade in the gutter on this side of the road. Most of the people standing on shop steps have either gone inside or left, and the long stream of cars has passed. At the center of what has become a small crowd in the middle of the road, two policemen are taking measurements with a tape measure, while another makes notes in a little notebook. The blood under the wheels of the bus has begun to congeal and is turning black. In the trolley bus with its doors open, the conductress sits by a window staring blankly across to this side of the street. On the other side of the street, the faces in the windows of an approaching trolley bus look out and some people even poke their heads out. People have finished work: it is peak traffic time, and there are even more pedestrians and people riding bicycles. However, shouts from the police and traffic security personnel stop people from going to the middle of the road.

“Was there an accident?”

“Was someone killed?”

“Must have been, look at all that blood.”

“The day before, there was an accident on Jiankang Road. A sixteen-year-old was taken to the hospital, but they couldn’t save him—they said he was an only son.”

“Nowadays, whose family doesn’t have only one son?”

“Ai, how will the parents survive?”

“If traffic management isn’t improved, there’ll be more accidents!”

“Well, there won’t be any fewer.”

“Every day after school, I worry until my Jiming gets home…”

“It’s easier for you with your son—daughters are more worry to parents.”

“Look, look, they’re taking photographs.”

“So what if they are, it’s not going to help.”

“Did he deliberately run over the man?”

“Who knows?”

“It couldn’t have been attached, otherwise it would have been hit for sure.”

“I was just passing by.”

“Some drivers drive like maniacs, and aggressively. If you don’t get out of the way, they certainly won’t make way for you!”

“There are people who work off their frustrations by killing people, so anyone could be a victim.”

“It’s hard to guard against such occurrences, it’s all decided by fate. In my old village there was a carpenter. He was good at his trade but he liked to drink. Once he was building someone a house and, on his way home at night, rotten drunk, he tripped and cracked his head open on a sharp rock…”

“For some reason, the past couple of days my eyelid has been twitching.”

“Which one?”

“When you’re walking you shouldn’t be so engrossed in thought all the time. Quite a few times I’ve seen you…”