Lenin's Kisses (16 page)

Cao’er stared at him in confusion, and said, “Chief Liu, did I not sing passionately enough?”

He repeated firmly, “Go now.”

Cao’er pushed away the money he was offering her, and said, “If I didn’t sing well enough, then for my encore I’ll perform
The Injustice Done to Dou E
.”

Chief Liu said evenly, “Are you going to leave or not? If you don’t, then I will. You can stay here and help with disaster relief, and next year if the villagers don’t have enough grain, I’ll come looking for you.”

Cao’er glanced at Secretary Shi, standing next to Chief Liu, and noticed that he was discreetly nodding to her, so she packed up her performance wardrobe and walked away, her musicians following close behind. At that point, the sun was directly overhead, leaving the mountain covered in a yellow aura. In the center of the stage, countless specks of dust were flying around like tiny stars. Once Cao’er had departed, everyone shifted their attention to Chief Liu, who again began distributing the money. Each time a head of household approached, One-Legged Monkey would record his name in a little booklet, and if the person reported that there were three people in the household, Secretary Shi would hand Chief Liu one hundred and fifty-three yuan. Chief Liu said,

“I know this isn’t very much money. Please accept it as a gesture of goodwill from the county. Together with the grain, your family will be able to make it through the winter and spring famine.”

After taking the money, the person would either gaze gratefully at Chief Liu or say a few words of gratitude, whereupon the county chief would blush in response. Some of the older villagers in their sixties and seventies would accept the money and bow at the waist, whereupon Chief Liu would blush like a flower about to bloom, as colorful as persimmon leaves in autumn. But there were only forty-something households in Liven, and before Cao’er left, Chief Liu had already distributed money to about half of them, and consequently the persimmon-colored flush on his face did not last for very long.

At this point, some people began finishing their lunch and returned to the field. The tall and short stools that had originally been arranged in the field were restored to their original positions, and the bricks and stones that had been used as seats were returned to their original locations. The first people to return to the field, however, surreptitiously rearranged the seats, shifting the low ones up to higher ground and the outer ones to the midle of the field. As for the visitors who didn’t have relatives in town, after buying some snacks at the food stalls on the edge of the field they now returned to their seats.

They were all waiting to watch the encore performance of the livening festival.

Chief Liu had not yet had his lunch. After he gave all of the households their money, the people of Liven naturally cooked several dishes for him, including stewed chicken, scrambled eggs, and stir-fried chives, together with some wild fowl and fresh hare from who knows where. All of the dishes were laid out on a table in one of the rooms at the temple guest house. Originally, these dishes were also intended for Cao’er and her musicians, but now the entire table was just for Chief Liu and his secretary. Chief Liu washed his face and hands, whereupon Secretary Shi said, “Chief Liu, please eat.”

Chief Liu just sat at the table without moving.

Secretary Shi asked, “Shall I have them cook you some other delicious dishes?”

Chief Liu replied, “This is fine.”

Even after saying this, however, Chief Liu still didn’t move his chopsticks. He sat at the table on a stool, his back to the door and staring straight ahead, both hands behind his head as if he were afraid it might fall off. It was as if his hands and his head were fighting one another, each pushing in opposite directions, even as his eyes continued staring at the newspapers plastered all over the white temple wall.

Secretary Shi said, “Cao’er has already left. So be it. You shouldn’t keep thinking about her.”

Chief Liu remained silent.

Secretary Shi said, “The encore is a special-skills performance, and after eating you will need to say a few more words.”

Chief Liu stared at a couple of flies buzzing around in front of him. He watched as one landed on a dish and nibbled, then flew to another dish and nibbled some more.

Secretary Shi shooed away the flies and said,

“Chief Liu, if you have finished eating, why don’t we go to Spirit Mountain to look at the future site of Lenin’s Mausoleum. Once you are there, you won’t have any reason to be unhappy.”

Chief Liu rested his gaze on Secretary Shi’s face, and asked,

“Is it not true that I gave each of them fifty-one yuan?”

“It’s not a small amount,” Secretary Shi answered. “With fifty yuan, you can buy one hundred pounds
of grain.”

“I had thought they would all kowtow to me in gratitude. But in the end they didn’t do anything.”

Secretary Shi suddenly realized what was wrong, and therefore promptly started for the door.

Chief Liu asked, “Where are you going?”

The secretary said, “I’m going to ask the cook to prepare another soup.”

And, with that, he left.

Soon, he returned.

When Secretary Shi reappeared, he was carrying a delicious bowl of hot-and-sour soup with chives and coriander floating on the surface, which was emitting a pungent pepper smell. He was followed by more than a dozen villagers, men and women, all of whom were over forty. When they entered, they promptly knelt down in front of Chief Liu and that tableful of food, and some of them even knelt down in the courtyard outside the temple. They had been brought over by One-Legged Monkey and Lame Carpenter, who naturally knelt down in front and, like standard-bearers, announced,

“County Chief Liu, this morning you distributed famine relief money to all of us here in Liven. There was no way for us to bow down to you in gratitude while down in the performance field, and therefore we are all here now to express our thanks.”

The crowd proceeded to kowtow to Chief Liu three times in unison.

Chief Liu became somewhat anxious, and immediately dropped his chopsticks. His face flushed bright red, and he asked urgently, “What is this? What is this?” As he was speaking, he quickly pulled the carpenter to his feet, and then did the same to several of the other villagers, while angrily rebuking them. In the end, he invited them all to sit down and eat with him. The villagers naturally didn’t dare eat and drink with the county chief, and therefore he accompanied them out to the temple courtyard. When he returned, his face was bright as he reprimanded his secretary, ordering him to never again bring people in to bow down before him. After this, the two of them finally began eating their stewed chicken, fresh hare, and chicken wings with mushrooms and vegetables.

Chief Liu wolfed down his food, and in no time at all he had eaten his fill.

Secretary Shi said, “Chief Liu, you ate very quickly.”

Chief Liu replied, “Everyone is waiting in the field for the encore performance. How can we make them wait for us?”

With that, he threw down his bowl and chopsticks and proceeded to the field. When he arrived, he discovered that it was, in fact, already packed with villagers eager to watch the performance, while those waiting to perform their special skills were assembled below the stage.

It was during this encore that many things finally came to light, as though the performance had succeeded in pulling back an enormous curtain. Chief Liu suddenly had an epiphany, and realized that he had not rescued the villagers from six months of famine following the summer blizzard, but rather that it was he himself who had been rescued by this summer blizzard. More specifically, the blizzard had rescued his grandiose plan to purchase Lenin’s corpse.

Further Reading:

1)
Nonlivening.
DIAL. Means “unable to put up with.” This is an antonym of livening.

C
HAPTER 9:
C
HICKEN FEATHERS GROW INTO A SKYSCRAPING TREE

The encore performance included a variety of different specialty acts. The race between cripples and able-bodied people was an old favorite. One-Legged Monkey and a young man by the name of Niuzi lined up on the edge of the field, and when someone shouted “Go!” they both shot out like a pair of arrows. Needless to say, the young man ran like the breeze, while One-Legged Monkey—who had just turned twenty-three—borrowed a red sandalwood crutch that was smooth on the outside but had a flexible core inside, and each time it struck the ground it flexed slightly. When One-Legged Monkey leaned into the crutch, it bent so much that it looked as though it were about to break. Everyone thought it was going to snap in two and One-Legged Monkey would fall to the ground, so who could have imagined that instead it would flex as he stepped forward, sending him flying through the air. In this way, he was able to leap forward, and while he lagged behind the other young man throughout most of the race, by the time they reached the finish line Monkey—inspired by the crowd’s cheers of encouragement—had somehow managed to pull ahead.

In front of everyone, Chief Liu gave One-Legged Monkey a hundred-yuan bill, and also agreed to give his family an extra two hundred pounds
of disaster relief grain. In addition, One-Eye, who the previous year had been able to thread five needles at once, was now able to thread eight to ten of them. Paraplegic Woman not only could embroider a pig, dog, and cat on thick paper and rags, but could even embroider two identical cats and dogs on each side of a leaf. Deafman Ma, living in the rear of the village, was able to light firecrackers next to his ears, with only a thin board to protect his face. And then, there was Jumei’s eldest daughter, Tonghua, who, as everyone knew, was blind.

Tonghua was already seventeen, but didn’t know that leaves are green, clouds are white, and the rust on iron shovels and hoes is brown. She didn’t know that the sun’s rays are golden in the morning, or that they are blood red at dusk. Her sister Mothlet explained, “Red is the color of blood.” Tonghua asked, “Then, what color is blood?” Mothlet replied, “Blood is the color of hanging couplets that have been left up after the new year.” So Tonghua asked, “What color is a pair of couplets?” Mothlet responded, “Couplets are the color of autumn persimmon leaves.” Tonghua asked, “Then what color are autumn persimmon leaves?” Mothlet responded, “You blind person, you! Persimmon leaves are the color of persimmon leaves.”

Mothlet walked away, not wanting to discuss the matter further.

Tonghua stood in complete darkness, even as the sun was shining down brightly around her. From the day she was born, she had never seen anything other than pure blackness. Daytime was black, and nighttime was also black. The sun was black, and the moon was also black. For the past seventeen years, everything had been pitch black. Beginning from when she was five, she’d walked around using a cane made from a date tree, tapping this way and that. With her cane, she made her way from inside her home to outside, from her doorway to the center of the village. During previous livening festivals, she would come with her mother and her cane and find a spot on the side of the field, listening intently to the Balou and Xiangfu tunes, together with the plays, song and dance routines, and so forth, but then would leave when they got to the grand finale, asking her mother to stay and watch in her stead. All Tonghua could see, after all, was utter darkness.

But this year, Jumei said that she was too busy to leave the house. Tonghua told her mother that everyone claimed the county chief would give whoever went to watch the performance a hundred-yuan bill. Her mother was silent for a long time, as though recalling the festivals they had attended, but in the end still insisted she couldn’t leave the house. Tonghua waited for her sisters—Huaihua, Yuhua, and Mothlet—to leave, then stood in the doorway, listening to the sound of footsteps in the street and the hubbub in the field. Then,
tap tap tap,
she made her way to the side of the field, where she stood next to the crowd and listened to the entire special-skills performance. She heard people’s searingly black shouts, their reddish black laughter, their whitish black applause flying back and forth through the air. She heard Chief Liu applauding One-Legged Monkey, shouting, “Go! Go! If you win, I’ll give you a hundred yuan!” She heard Chief Liu’s shouts flying back and forth in front of her eyes and next to her ears, and heard him give One-Legged Monkey his hundred-yuan bill and the latter kowtow in appreciation, knocking his head on the ground with a bright black sound. (Chief Liu was so moved by this that he gave him another fifty yuan.)

Tonghua also heard Paraplegic Woman embroider a two-sided sparrow on a tung-oil
leaf. When Chief Liu handed her the money, he looked at the leaf and asked, “Are you also able to embroider on a poplar leaf?” She replied, “A poplar leaf is too small, so all I would be able to embroider would be a grasshopper or butterfly.” He then asked, “Are you also able to embroider on a pagoda tree
leaf?” She replied, “A pagoda
leaf is even smaller, so I could only embroider a few baby faces.” Chief Liu grabbed her hand and stuffed who knows how much money into her fist, saying, “Such skill, such exquisite skill! Before I leave, I will definitely make you a plaque with an inscription saying,
The most skilled in the world
.”