Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused – Fiction From Today (36 page)

She asked, "Finished?"

"Yes."

It was too quiet in the room. I couldn't help but listen to the sound of the footsteps. They were moving very slowly, from this end to that, back and forth, back and forth. I could hear every single step.

"Don't be afraid." She patted my back. "If it stops, then you should be afraid."

The footsteps stopped. I waited for them to resume, but they didn't.

She sat up, looking for the cigarettes.

"What's the matter?"

"Go to sleep. I'll just sit for a bit. I thought I'd be able to sleep with you here. But it isn't working."

"Maybe I can help."

I tossed away her cigarette and pulled her under the covers, and I began stroking her attentively. In order not to see her face and thereby spoil my mood, I even turned off the light. Every part of her I touched felt nice. It was like stroking an ivory sculpture. I'm normally easily excited. Yet strangely at this point, I was quite calm. The sensations somehow stopped at my fingertips and would not go higher.

"Enough, that's enough," she said harshly. With a jerk, she sat up. "You're just wasting your energy." She climbed out of bed and switched on the overhead light. She put on the jeans and shirt still damp with water stains. Then she put on her jacket.

"I'm not mad at you. Just a little restless. I have to go and take a walk." Her voice had become soft again. She put her hand into her pocket and pulled out a key. "Here's your key. I thought I could use it to make you stay. I've been alone for too long. I'm glad you came tonight. All I wanted was to have a good sleep for a change. You tried, but it didn't work. Not your fault."

"It's late. Want me to come with you?"

"No. I always walk alone. You've let me have my way in everything. I want to thank you for that. Just let me go take a walk alone now. You can either sleep here or at your own place, whatever."

I heard the door shut, then the cast-iron gate. The sound of footsteps resumed after a long hiatus. I turned my eyes toward the ceiling; it suddenly seemed to have become transparent. Against the pitch-black sky, I could see a pair of feet rise up and then come down. As though through a translucent glass, the feet came down, turning from murky to clear until I could even make out individual footprints.

The feet walked straight on. Following them, I returned to my own apartment.

In my imagination, I stroked the feet walking over my head. Yet the only thing I could really make out was the sound. It was like her voice, very soft, very young, yet not tempting. She was beautiful, both her body and her voice. Yet rather than tempting, she repelled. I was tempted by the repulsion. At this very point, I tried to respond to her repelling footsteps with my own spirit, not with my voice or with my body. I had already tried that. It didn't work.

I don't know how long it took, but I finally fell asleep. Even the wavelike noise of the cars below didn't wake me up. In my dream I was trod on by the everlasting feet, every single step treading on me. Suddenly I thought, In the whole human body, only the basest things, the feet, always leave traces on the ground. The things that never leave any traces are the head and the sexual organs.

Thus I slept on in a daze until the doorbell started ringing insistently.

At the door stood a middle-aged woman. She was very friendly and very gossipy. She said she was my neighbor, the owner of 602. She happened to be in the neighborhood so dropped in to have a look.

"I don't know why, but my door was open," she said. "It's happened before."

"Did you give the key to anybody?"

"No, never."

I followed her into 602. I could smell the faint scent of cigarettes. The rooms were very neat. On the desktop, there was a thin layer of dust.

I asked, "Anything missing?"

"Nothing much is kept here. Nowadays, what thief would steal a blanket? I wanted to trade this apartment. I've looked but just haven't found the right one yet."

"Why trade it?"

"It's haunted." She glanced at me and then said mysteriously, "A young couple moved into six-oh-one, your apartment, right after the building was completed. The woman was pretty, a baby face. The man was handsome, too. He could carry a bicycle all the way up to the sixth floor without even being out of breath. Then the woman went on a long business trip to Xinjiang. The man jumped out of the upstairs window."

She led me to the corridor and pointed to a spot downstairs. From way up here, no trace was visible.

"Dead?"

"Of course he was dead. Six floors. How could he survive?"

"After that, a lonely single woman moved in. She had such white skin and a soft, gentle voice. Also a baby face. She never made a sound all the time she was here. Nobody even knew if she was in there."

"No friends ever came to see her?"

"Didn't seem to." She pointed to the tunnel. "One night, real late, a tunnel clean-up crew found her."

"Dead?"

"Dead. Hit by a car. They say she slammed into the wall. Internal bleeding. Maybe the liver was punctured. Hit-and-run."

I let out a deep sigh.

"That's why I had to move out of here. This building is unlucky. Used to be a cemetery."

I invited her in. She looked around, then said she had some business to take care of. Said she'd drop in some other time. Before she left, she remarked in a small voice, "They say that every night there's the sound of footsteps on the roof. I've never spent a night here. Did you hear anything last night?"

"I was exhausted by the move and was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Didn't hear a thing."

"True enough. Moving is hard work."

"Take care."

Over the past half year, I've paid close attention to next door but have heard nothing-except for one day when the light went on. I happily went to knock on the door. Out came a young man, then a young woman from the north. They were on their honeymoon.

Whenever it rains, the stain appears on the ground in front of the door. Rain or shine, I always avoid that particular spot. I've got used to the sound of footsteps on the roof. I feel lost if I don't hear it.

Once, I climbed onto the roof to take a look. A couple of TV antennas stood there like scarecrows. Out of the blue, I snapped the ground wire: it was very brittle. There was also a Coke can and a cigarette butt. I walked back and forth on the roof. It was big enough to hold a basketball court. Below me, not far off, cars were whizzing in and out of the tunnel. They looked tiny. The wind was strong up there.

Off in the distance, in Huangpu West, stood many tall buildings. I recognized one of them as either the Hilton or the New Jinjiang.

I stood on the roof for a long time, as though I, too, were a scarecrow.

While climbing down, I lost my footing and scraped my arm. The wound was red, with pink liquid oozing out. I opened the cast-iron gate and closed it behind me. Then I opened the door to my own apartment and closed it. I opened all the doors in my apartment: bathroom, bedroom, study, pantry, even the balcony door. I also opened all the windows.

Above the balcony, the rope was still swinging gently in the wind. Sunlight slanted through, casting its swaying shadow on the wall. My potted chrysanthemum had long since withered, leaving only the bare, brittle branches. Its shadow was also cast on the wall. The shadow, too, was dead, dead still.

I glanced downstairs. All of a sudden, I felt the urge to jump. I wanted to leave my own mark on another piece of concrete. Leave it with my head.

Jump. Just that.

I returned to my room and closed all the doors and windows. Then I sat in the armchair she had once used and poured myself a glass of beer. There was a lot of foam, which didn't go away until I finished a cigarette. The foam was this deadly white, like the tunnel entrance on a rainy day, like her neck.

While drinking the beer, I thought of a metaphor. Her ugly navel was just like the tunnel, upon which I depended for my coming and going.

I sat like that until late into the night. I knew that these few days would pass uneventfully. Then on a rainy night, I would take a walk. I would walk into the tunnel to breathe the damp foul air. I would study the grimy stains on the wall. Perhaps behind me would be the sound of footsteps on the roof. I would not look back. At this point, the doorbell rang.

Translated By Hu Ying

The late-spring plum rains fell softly, sadly, lightly, silently. Dusk encroached everywhere; the sky was dark, the earth dizzy, everything near and far was completely dreary.

A small dreary street in a big dreary city.

A small eel-like sedan drifted up slowly.

Faint streetlamps were so far apart that the shadows of the few pedestrians out on the street were stretched taut. They swayed unsteadily. The superstitious driver slithered in and out like a snake, afraid of running over someone's shadow.

"What's the problem, Tian?" asked the old man in the backseat.

A bit put out, the driver replied, "What do you mean, 'What's the problem,' Mr. Guo? Are we there yet, sir?"

"You can park just up ahead."

"Hm," said the driver, as if relieved of a heavy burden.

The old man said, "You know I won't need a car anymore after this, don't you?"

The driver was rattled, "Mr. Guo, how can you say that? I can't stand it! I'm not one of those petty, opportunistic people who burn their bridges behind them! All these years you-"

"Stop the car," said the old man.

Not waiting for the driver to open the door, the old man stepped out, slammed the door shut behind him, and walked off.

The old man turned into a small alley.

The old man purposefully wound his way down the labyrinthine alley.

The old man stopped in front of a building with dappled walls. He sized up the building, which looked like an ancient Buddhist temple, reached out to touch the green moss between the bricks, and then rang the bell above the two huge China-fir doors.

The creaky door opened a crack. The entryway was dimly lit. The old fellow who opened the door recognized the guest in the dim light, stepped aside, then closed the squeaky door after the guest. Steam began hissing from two kettles at the same time. Both kettles lay atop charcoal stoves alongside two doors. Old men standing in the doorways stopped what they were doing and stared through rheumy eyes at the visitor climbing the stairs.

The stairway seemed darker and narrower than before. The banister was cold and smooth, like a frozen snake. The old man was forced to lean his paunchy body forward as he negotiated one step at a time. The steps creaked and groaned beneath the heavy weight. The sound of the old man's footsteps echoed through the foyer like the sound of a bell in a deserted valley. A shrill voice shattered the quiet from downstairs: "Who's that? Stop that devilish clomping, or you'll bring the house down! What did those poor stairs ever do to you?"

Ignoring the woman, the old man kept climbing, one step after another.

Suddenly, the stairway was illuminated. The old man raised his head and saw her. She stood at the top of the staircase, thoughtfully shining a flashlight on the steps beneath the old man's feet.

He reached the top of the stairs. She looked up at him and remarked tenderly, "You've come."

The old man said, "Yes, I have."

The old man felt relaxed, like a bird returning to its nest, as if he came here every day.

She followed him into the room, leaving the door unlatched.

The winter warming stove hadn't yet been put away; on it sat a steaming earthenware kettle. The dark-blue flames danced playfully at the base of the kettle. The small room was warmer than early summer. The faint smell of sandalwood incense hung in the air. A small light above the stove formed a halo of light around the stove. The rest of the room was dark and shadowy.

In the dark shadows, she took off the once costly woolen coat that she wore when she went out, revealing a black, narrow-sleeved thin cotton jacket. Oh, her waist was still hourglass thin. Even at her age.

The old man gazed at her.

She took the old man's hat and shook the fine droplets of rain off the woolen surface, saying, "Oh, these spring rains."

Then with a dry towel, she gently dried off the old man's clothes, from his collar to his pant legs.

She moved two faded old-fashioned armchairs up to the stove. "Sit down," she said, "I'll make some tea."

The old man sat down. Amid the delicate fragrance of the warm, dry heat, the old man felt completely relaxed; his joints cracked as they loosened up.

She carried over a serving tray and removed the tea towel covering it. On the tray were an Yixing ceramic teapot, two ceramic teacups, and a ceramic jar. After warming the teapot with hot water, she scooped a few spoonfuls of tea leaves out of the ceramic jar with an ivory teaspoon and put them into the teapot. She then refilled the teapot with hot water and put the lid on tightly. After a moment, she lifted up the water bottle and poured hot water over the outside of the teapot. The reddish-purple color of the ceramic tea ware and the pair of small, pale, bony hands looked like a flower of unmatched beauty slowly blossoming. She prepared the tea with composure, her hands and eyes in perfect accord, completely absorbed in the task.

The aroma of the tea seeped out.

After pouring a cup of tea for the old man, she took out a plate of his favorite treats, long famous in the small alleys of the big city: crab cakes. A habit of many years it was for the old man to enjoy this treat only if he hadn't already eaten.

She poured herself half a cup of tea and sat down across from the old man, separated from him by the stove.

How did she know that the old man hadn't eaten?