Leave Me Alone (11 page)

I withdrew 2,000 with my card to pay back Li Liang. Actually I’d borrowed at least 10,000 or 20,000 from him at the mahjong table and so paying back this much was just a gesture. However, I was aware that at some critical time in
the future, Li Liang might be the only person who could lend me money.

Li Liang was playing mahjong again, Ye Mei sat opposite, and on either side of him were two men I didn’t know. The scene was much the same as that time the month before when I’d gone round. Sometimes life showed its bittersweet nature by taking you full circle. It was as if the last month had been a dream. The CD player was even playing ‘Scarborough Fair’. This time, however, Li Liang was cleaning up at the table.

On seeing me, Ye Mei’s face slowly reddened. I couldn’t tell whether Li Liang had noticed.

When I produced with a flourish the money for Li Liang, he gave me a kick and said, ‘That was a gift to your folks.’

Embarrassed, I put the money back in my pocket. Ye Mei gave me a mean look, and I blushed, wishing a crack in the earth would swallow me up.

Li Liang asked whether I’d heard what had happened to Big Brother. I asked what he meant, and Li Liang covered his tiles and looked at me, before saying slowly, Big Brother was murdered two days ago, in Shenyang… some young thug.’

I just gaped at him.

Our former classmate Big Brother’s real name was Tong Qinwei. He was one metre eighty-five, a true north-easterner. After graduation he returned to his hometown but things didn’t go so well for him there. First he was fired from his job, then he got divorced, and after that he seemed to lose his way. A few years ago, he visited us in Chengdu. As soon as he arrived he started to complain about life, his face full of deeply felt injustice. In the four years since we’d last seen
him he’d even got some white hairs and it was painful to look at him. When he left, Li Liang, Bighead and I pooled together to give him 10,000 yuan. Big Brother was so moved by this that his lip started to tremble. Later though, we heard that he went everywhere looking for old classmates to borrow money from; when he got the money, he spent it on women. Another classmate, Chen Chao called especially to warn me: ‘For god’s sake, don’t give him any money. He’s a completely different person these days.’

Big Brother was acknowledged by our crowd to be the one who most valued personal loyalty. If there was ever any fighting to be done, you only had to mention it to him and he’d charge in to protect you. Apart from drinking, his favourite pastime was girls; most of Chen Chao’s sex knowledge had been acquired from Big Brother.

One night in our dorm, Li Liang was reading aloud Shi Ting’s poem ‘Goddess Peak’:
The view from a mountain peak for one thousand years can’t compare to crying on a lover’s shoulder for one night.

Big Brother had shaken his head and muttered darkly, ‘No good. If it were me, I’d change it to ‘Wanking for one thousand years can’t compare to one night of rogering.’ From then on we called him the ‘Rogering Monk’.

Li Liang sighed. ‘Now I’m really starting to believe in fate,’ he said. ‘I never thought Big Brother would die this way.’

I didn’t say anything, but I was remembering Big Brother carting me crazily around the campus on a pushbike, telling me: ‘If only a girl would sleep with me, I could devote my whole life to her.’

Eight years later, he was dust.

This thought was mightily depressing. After dinner, Zhao Yue asked me to clean the plates but I pretended not to hear. A clearly upset Zhao Yue went to clean the plates herself.

When I heard the sound of something breaking I snapped, ‘If you don’t want to clean them, just leave them. You don’t need to show your bad mood at every opportunity.’

Zhao Yue laughed frostily. ‘Who’s in a bad mood? From the moment I got home you’ve been cold and distant. If there’s something you’re not happy about why don’t you just say so?’

‘What do I have to be unhappy about?’ I asked her. ‘I don’t have any lover disturbing me at three in the morning.’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The day Father got out of hospital was the happiest our family had known for months. I drove him home in the company Santana. Mother had prepared a full table of food, and we opened a bottle of bamboo leaf wine that we’d saved for over ten years. My brother-in-law had obtained two cartons of Zhonghua cigarettes as a bribe from a visiting work unit, and he presented one to his father-in-law. The other he gave to me, his wife’s younger brother. Meanwhile, my six-year-old nephew was running wild in the kitchen. It was said that the kid already had a girlfriend at kindergarten, and that his talents in this area exceeded mine. My sister and Zhao Yue were also in the kitchen, preparing a fish; I couldn’t hear what they were talking about.

Over dinner, my sister’s husband told us about a recent suicide case in the suburbs. A laid-off worker called Lou, who
ran a small stall in the night market, suffered a random city inspection. Some of his basins and jars were confiscated. Lou and a few of the other traders protested. Hoping to get their goods back, they followed the city inspector’s car a couple of kilometres, but without any success. In a burst of fury Lou threw stones and bricks at the official’s car. What they hadn’t foreseen was that while the official escaped unscathed, a young man passing by received a fatal blow. After running home, the more Lou thought about the situation the more frightened he became. He and his wife cried on each other’s shoulders and he said, ‘Let’s end it all.’ His wife agreed there was really no point in living and the two tearfully fed their child rat poison, then closed the windows and turned on the gas. The whole family was dead.

This story really brought the mood down. My brother-in-law added melodramatically: ‘These are dark times. No one can predict what tomorrow will bring. Everything is false; only money is real.’

As soon as he mentioned money, I felt queasy. Yesterday, at my request the accountant had printed out my debts statement. When I took a look at it, my head started spinning. There was a total debt of 280,400 against my name. Most of it was business loans: borrowing 10,000 and returning 6,000, with the remainder accumulating as debt. The accountant had hinted that there was a big audit coming up next month, and that if I didn’t return the money by then I’d suffer disciplinary action. When I heard this, I broke out in a cold sweat. I began to wonder whether the accountant could have got the numbers wrong. I went over it again and again in my
mind, but the more I tried to work it out the more confused I became. I couldn’t remember how I’d spent all that money but I guessed that if I hadn’t lost it at the mahjong table, I’d spent it on women. Bighead often said that I only went to work for the sake of the lower half of my body.

After his recent scandal, Fatty Dong was keeping a low profile. Each day he sat quietly in the office, and when walking he no longer deliberately thrust out his stomach. Head Office hadn’t made a decision yet on how to handle the prostitute issue. This was typical of them. No matter how pressing the issue, they still had to have a meeting and discuss all the permutations with frightening inefficiency. Last year the sales department applied for a new computer with a price tag of less than 5,000 yuan. I waited for over two months while the report bounced from desk to desk, eventually collecting around fifteen signatures. I thought that if Fatty Dong’s whoring had resulted in a child, the decision on how to deal with him would have taken forever.

Recently, the jerk seemed to have become friendlier. There was some bowing and scraping, and he even offered me cigarettes a few times. The previous Saturday when I’d gone in to prepare our advance orders for the month, I met him in the lift. He said that once again he’d recommended me to be Chengdu branch General Manager.

‘Even though we don’t get on as well as I’d like, I still admire your ability,’ he told me.

I couldn’t help feeling slightly flattered, although I didn’t know whether he was lying.

It would be heaven if I did get to be General Manager.
At our current volume of sales, the position would come with a salary of around 300,000 a year. Then there was a car, and expenses for just about anything. The company also offered interest-free loans to help with buying a house; Fatty Dong had borrowed 150,000 yuan, saying it was for a house but actually using it to invest in stocks. Apart from the twice-yearly review, Head Office didn’t interfere in branch office operations. If you added together the official salary and the hidden rewards, in three years the branch General Manager could easily clear more than 1 million yuan. It was a cushy number. What’s more, lots of our competitors were ex-senior executives from our company. After getting turfed out, Boss Sun had started a company in Tianjin and, apparently, business was sweet.

My biggest problem was that sometimes I was rash in both words and deeds. My mouth had no gate — it let anything out — and sometimes I even showed anger to my superiors. All this gave Head Office the impression that I was immature and a loose cannon. But after Fatty Dong’s comments, I wondered whether I should take the initiative and put myself forward for the General Manager’s position. Perhaps I should even write Head Office a report on my work.

I thought I’d ask for my father’s advice. After reflecting on his many years at the same work unit, he offered the following insight. To be a top official didn’t require outstanding achievements, but just three things: glibness, an effective pen and the ability to boast. Once you reached a certain level you didn’t even need all these skills yourself — you had assistants
and secretaries to help you. At least I had the advantage of being able to write skilful reports full of incisive words and enthusiasm. My pen could turn a broken temple into an imperial palace.

When I got home and mentioned the possible promotion to Zhao Yue, she seemed excited. She said that if it happened then she would finally ‘eat’ me with her mouth. I wondered though who she would be eating; me or a General Manager?

My comment the other day about her lover had left Zhao Yue speechless; it had taken her ages to collect herself. Then she’d coughed and said I was crazy.

‘Who saw me make a phone call at three in the morning?’ she demanded.

I said the telephone number and she looked blank and said that she’d never dialled that number. She had no memory of it.

‘You’re lying,’ I said bitterly.’

Jumping to her feet, she said that I was deliberately trying to spoil things between us.

Furious, I produced the pile of telephone bills from my bag. Smacking them down on the sofa, I said, ‘Look for yourself.’

Zhao Yue looked through the bills and her face reddened.

‘I remember now,’ she said falteringly. ‘That’s one of our department’s external supervisors. He was writing a report at that time so he often called for my input.’

I stared at her, feeling pained at her lies, thinking how
we’d grown apart. There was really nothing more to say.

In the film
Ashes of Time
, the actress Lin Qingxia had the following line:
If there comes a day when I can’t bear to ask you, you must have cheated on me.
This had long been one of Zhao Yue’s favourite phrases. When passions were high, she often quoted it to me. Before, when she’d said it, I’d hugged her, believing her to be loving and honest. Once the toilet has been flushed, it looks clean and fresh enough to wash your feet in, and it seemed Zhao Yue wasn’t as pure as I’d thought.

Zhao Yue and I hadn’t bothered with a big wedding; we’d just treated a few close friends to a meal. Bighead, Li Liang and Chen Chao, who’d made a special trip to take part in our wedding, all had fun joining in the traditional antics outside our bridal chamber. After our guests left, Zhao Yue waved her arms around as if she was scattering happiness. ‘Fom now on, you are mine!’ she declared.

I smiled and took her in my arms, but I couldn’t help thinking of that stirring piece of Communist party oratory: ‘On this battlefield we have thrown off our bridle and gained a whole world’. My version: ‘On this battlefield I’ve lost my world and gained a bride’.

Zhao Yue was good to me for the first few years of our marriage, but I felt that her main passion was controlling me. She often seemed to care more about my fidelity than my health. It only needed me to come home slightly late and, with a poker face, she’d ask me over and again: ‘Where were you? What were you doing? Who were you with?’

At first I’d try to explain, but eventually I got fed up and
started to treat her coldly. Zhao Yue’s anxiety had an impact on our crockery: every month she smashed a few bowls.

For the following few days after my mention of the General Manager position, Zhao Yue was extra loving. She even bought me a few expensive ties. One night, on our way home after visiting my elder sister and husband, we passed the KaKa Bar and she suggested going in. ‘It’s been ages since we had a dance,’ she said.

Zhao Yue was a good dancer. One time our university organised a fraternity dance competition, and Zhao Yue and a boy from her class won second prize, which made me jealous for days. When it came to dancing I only had a few basic moves. Zhao Yue said that I often looked like I had a bad case of piles. As a result, I rarely set foot in discos. But I didn’t have any problem with going to bars: drinking was the best way for people to forget their worries.

Under the dim lights, Zhao Yue was a lithe and graceful dancing queen: her long hair flew and her eyes glowed like precious stones. Two young guys nearby couldn’t take their eyes off her. When the disco really got pumped up, Zhao Yue’s moves became even more alluring. She danced alone, pulsating to the music. Onlookers applauded her, fanning my vanity so that I couldn’t resist blowing her a kiss. Zhao Yue flashed me a glance as she twisted and turned.

At that moment, I heard that her cellphone was ringing, and setting down my glass, I groped through the many pockets of her handbag before finding the phone. The music reached
a crescendo in the bar which was sparkling with disco lights. I held the phone up to the lights, but I already knew which number it would display.