Lenin's Kisses (31 page)

Further Reading:

1)
Ragged wolf.
DIAL. Refers to those people who, like cubs in a wolf den, don’t know how to take care of themselves.

C
HAPTER 7:
E
STABLISHING TWO SPECIAL-SKILLS TROUPES, AND IN
NO TIME AT ALL THERE IS A
SHEET OF SNOW ON THE ROOF

The sun was in the western part of the sky by the time the county’s standing committee meeting concluded. In the courtyard, things had already started to quiet down, and everyone departed, brimming with excitement. The offices in the buildings with electric fans all turned off their fans, and also locked their cabinets and the doors to the offices. The hallways were quiet except for the part-time workers sweeping the floor and emptying the trash. At this point, Chief Liu—stepping carefully as though he were walking on cotton—emerged from his office.

He had to return home—he had to go to his Hall of Devotion.
¹
He had to return home and sleep with his wife.

It had been ever so long since he had been home and entered his Hall of Devotion.

Given the success of the Liven troupe’s performances, and given that he had just been talking nonstop at the standing committee meeting, Chief Liu felt exhausted. He returned to his office and, after sending out Secretary Shi and the other office workers, sat there for a while drinking water. He savored the memory of the excitement of his speech, together with the anticipation of each segment of the preparations for purchasing Lenin’s corpse. Eventually, as the setting sun passed his window like a silk disk silently being pulled away, he began to rest from his excitement and fatigue.

The sky outside the window was overcast, and the streets were now quiet. He could vaguely see and hear the bats flying around in front of the buildings as they waited for dusk. It occurred to him that it had been almost two months since he’d last returned home. At the time, he had told his wife in a fit of anger that he wouldn’t be back for three months. But that, after all, had been said merely in anger. How could he have really meant that he wouldn’t come home? He would go back to check on things, and retreat to his Hall of Devotion and offer a prayer for his efforts over the preceding two months to establish the performance troupe and take it on tour. Then, he would have dinner, watch some television, and sleep with his wife.

He thought dispassionately about enlivening with his wife.

It occurred to him that it had been several months since he had enlivened with her. He was like a child craving a candy, but who can’t bring himself to eat it and therefore hides it somewhere and forgets about it. Therefore, with a smile, Chief Liu got up from the stool, drank the rest of his water, and headed home.

But then, but then . . . in a coincidence like the kind you find in operas, just as he was opening the door to leave he happened to run into the one person he least wanted to see. This was Liven’s Grandma Mao Zhi, who was leaning on her dusty crutch in his doorway and holding a bundle. He stared at her in dismay. He knew the reason she was waiting there was that she wanted to discuss the prospect of allowing Liven to withdraw from society. He realized that a month earlier he had written her a document agreeing that in ten days or two weeks he would go to the county seat to take care of the relevant paperwork. His desire to return home and enliven with his wife immediately faded, as though he had had a bucket of cold water poured over his head. Nevertheless, he merely smiled and said with surprise, “Oh, Grandma Mao Zhi, please come in.”

Grandma Mao Zhi walked into the office. The office was not entirely unfamiliar to her. In the
renchen
year, she and her stonemason husband first arrived in this courtyard looking for that county clerk from the Fourth Red Army to help Liven enter society, and ever since her husband passed away in the
gengzi
year, she’d never stopped wanting to return to this courtyard to get Chief Liu and the Party secretary to help her arrange for Liven to withdraw from society. She had been struggling for more than thirty years to withdraw from society, and during that time the county committee had exchanged its red-tiled building for office buildings, but these office buildings were dilapidated and run-down. The county committee’s building was so brightly illuminated that people cast shadows on the cement floor, which was so worn away that it was full of holes, and the whitewash on the walls had already begun to turn yellow and peel off. There was an electric light hanging from the ceiling, and when she first saw the room more than a decade earlier, it had been as white as snow, but now it was covered with cobwebs. Even when the light was turned on it didn’t seem very bright, given that two of the fluorescent bulbs had already burned out, though the middle one still worked.

Grandma Mao Zhi walked in and looked around. Eventually, her gaze came to rest on the Shuanghuai county map on the wall next to Chief Liu’s desk. Then she took the note that Chief Liu had written urging that Liven be permitted to withdraw from the jurisdiction of Shuanghuai county and Boshuzi township, and placed it on the desk. She said, “I’ve been waiting here for you for two weeks now. I hear that you took the people of Liven to perform at the district seat. Did the performance go well?”

Chief Liu smiled and said,

“Guess how much each villager can earn each month.”

Mao Zhi placed her bundle on the ground, then sat down in front of Chief Liu and said,

“I don’t care how much they can earn. I’ve come to get our paperwork signed.”

Chief Liu took the document he had written and glanced at it, then said,

“Each of them can earn two to three thousand yuan a month. With two thousand yuan you can build a large tile-roofed house. After performing for three months, each of them could return to Liven and build a house.”

Mao Zhi picked up the bundle and hugged it to her chest, as though she were afraid someone might steal it. Then, she looked disdainfully at Chief Liu and said,

“You can give me your empty words if you like; I’ve come to fill out the forms permitting us to withdraw from society.”

Chief Liu straightened his neck and said,

“Really, everyone who watches the Liven troupe perform goes crazy. Every performance is completely packed. If you were to join the troupe, I guarantee that you would also earn two or three thousand yuan a month.”

Mao Zhi again waved the blue bundle she was holding, and replied, “I won’t go.”

Chief Liu asked, “How about if I were to offer you five thousand yuan?”

Mao Zhi replied, “I wouldn’t join even if you gave me ten thousand yuan.”

Chief Liu asked, “Are those your burial clothes you are carrying in that bundle?”

Mao Zhi replied, “I thought about it, and eventually decided that if you don’t sign the documents authorizing us to withdraw from society, I’ll put on these clothes and die right in your house or office.”

Chief Liu replied seriously,

“We just convened a standing committee meeting to discuss the issue. The committee members all agree with me that between the end of this year and the beginning of the next, we should definitely allow Liven to withdraw from Shuanghuai county and Boshuzi township. As of the first day of next year, Liven will no longer fall under their jurisdiction.”

Mao Zhi just gazed at Chief Liu, looking as though she couldn’t believe her ears. Then she quickly asked, “Chief Liu, you won’t change your mind?”

Chief Liu replied, “I have always been a man of my word.”

She asked, “Today it is already dark, but tomorrow could you fill out the paperwork so that I can take home a copy?”

Chief Liu said, “In the next official document that we send to the county committee and county bureau, as well as to each of the township and village committees, I will print the forms and include them. Today, however, one of the members of the standing committee raised a question.”

Grandma Mao Zhi stared at him intently.

Chief Liu said, “The committee member suggested a condition. He pointed out that there are a hundred and sixty-nine disabled villagers in Liven, but that we are only using sixty-seven of them for the current troupe. Liven, therefore, could actually establish a second troupe—having other deaf people practice the Firecracker-on-the-Ear routine or something of the sort, other cripples learn the Leaping-Over-a-Mountain-of-Knives-and-Crossing-a-Sea-of-Fire routine, and other blind people learn the Acute-Listening routine. The member of the standing committee said that as long as you establish a second performance troupe, then by the end of the year the county would be sure to send down an official document, and by the beginning of next year you would no longer belong to Shuanghuai county or Boshuzi township. You would be completely free. Neither earth nor the heavens would pay you any mind, and all of you could enjoy your heavenly days.”

Having said this, Chief Liu stared intently at Grandma Mao Zhi. They were separated by only a few feet of table. The sun had already begun to set in the west, and dusk began to fall. Bats continued to fly around outside. It had become a little darker in the room, but Chief Liu could clearly see the corner of Grandma Mao Zhi’s mouth twitching anxiously. Her original bright but skeptical expression had been replaced by a pallor that blended in with the dusk.

Chief Liu said, “The county committee and the county government are both acting in Liven’s best interests. If you establish two performance troupes and recruit someone from every household, then by the end of the year every household in the village will be earning a high salary. By next year, each family will be able to build themselves a tile-roofed house. By that point, the entire village will be a sea of red-tile roofs and snow-white walls.”

Chief Liu added, “But think about it. If you withdraw from society next year, then Liven won’t have its own seal, and each family won’t have its own residence permit booklet. They would be living in today’s world, while at the same time not even belonging to this world. If you wish to go to the market you could certainly do so, but without a seal you won’t have any letters of introduction, and without letters of introduction you won’t be able to go out on business, and you certainly won’t be able to have the two special-skills performance troupes tour under the name of Shuanghuai county.”

Chief Liu said, “Consider this carefully, and if you agree, then we can sign a contract right here and now. If you agree to establish another performance troupe for the county, and have these two troupes perform until the end of the year, then I guarantee that each performer will earn at least three thousand yuan a month, and that at the end of the year I will send out a document stating that as of the beginning of next year Liven will be completely independent of Boshuzi township and Shuanghuai county.”

Chief Liu concluded, “From Liberation up to the present day, Shuanghuai county has had seven county chiefs and nine Party secretaries. You have spent the past thirty-seven years trying to withdraw from society, and I have just agreed to all of your requests.”

He added, “If I help you, you should also help me. Everything has its own complement. If you agree to establish a second performance troupe, I agree that as of the beginning of next year, Liven will be permitted to withdraw from society. This is a perfectly reasonable arrangement, and should be mutually agreeable to both parties.”

He asked, “Do you agree? It is almost dark.”

He continued, “Please consider this carefully. This is something I would like to do for Liven before it withdraws from society. Once I have purchased Lenin’s corpse from Russia and installed it at Spirit Mountain, the county won’t have to worry about not having enough money, and instead will merely worry about not being able to spend all of the money. By that point, however, Liven may well become so poor that you won’t even have enough money to buy salt or vinegar. The question then would be how to rejoin the district and the county. Therefore, you should establish a second performance troupe, so that every household in Liven can earn a lot of money. In that way, you will not only be helping me, you will also at the same time be helping yourself and Liven.”

He continued, “So, please consider carefully. You should give me an answer by the time I leave for work tomorrow.”

He added, “Look, the sun has already set. Where are you staying? I’ll have someone escort you back, and arrange for your meals and lodging.”

He said, “Go. You should go now.”

As he was saying this, he stood up. Through the window, the sun obeyed his order and fully slipped behind the wall of the building. The lights in the room seemed to brighten. At this point, Grandma Mao Zhi just looked at Chief Liu, and then placed her bundle of burial clothes next to one of the legs of the chair. The corner of her black silk burial gown was sticking out of an opening in the bundle, and because the gown had a bright yellow silk border, it looked like a blooming black funerary flower with a yellow stamen.

Chief Liu gazed at the black flower.

Grandma Mao Zhi asked, “How many more people would we need to recruit to go touring with the second troupe?”

Chief Liu looked up from the black funerary flower and said,

“If we are speaking of blind, deaf, crippled, and paraplegic villagers, then thirty to fifty more would be enough.”