Lenin's Kisses (36 page)

Once he finished, Chief Liu felt he had done everything he needed to do, and could leave at ease. Just as he was preparing to depart, however, he again had a nagging feeling that there was something he had failed to do. When he considered it carefully he realized that what he had found in his travels was not what he had originally been looking for. It was only then that it occurred to him that the task he felt he needed to finish was not that of burning incense in front of his foster father’s portrait. Instead, he turned around and looked at the two rows of portraits. He examined each image in turn, and when he reached the fifth one on the second row, the portrait of Lin Biao, he hesitantly took down his own portrait and hung it where Lin Biao’s had been.

After Chief Liu finished rehanging his portrait, he felt completely at ease, as though he had finally succeeded in doing something he had been trying to accomplish for decades. He suddenly felt as though the unspeakable envy he felt toward Lin Biao for being promoted to corps commander at the tender age of twenty-three had subsided somewhat. Chief Liu stood in the same spot where he used to stand while examining Lin Biao’s portrait, though now he was looking instead at his own image. It seemed to him that the portrait was hanging perfectly straight, and that the trace of melancholy in his eyes had been replaced with a look of unconcealed joy. After having gazed with infatuation at his official portrait, hanging right next to Liu Bocheng’s, he smiled for a long time, then wiped the dust off his hands and walked out of the Hall of Devotion.

Chief Liu noticed that the lights in his house were still on and the window was as bright as the daytime sun. Chief Liu stared at that light in stupefaction, then began making his way home.

Further Reading:

1)
Relics.
DIAL. Refers to souveniers.

3)
Selling flesh.
DIAL. Refers to prostitution, but the phrase doesn’t carry any pejorative connotations.

C
HAPTER 13:
H
EY, WHO WAS
THAT WHO JUST WALKED OUT
OF OUR HOME?

“Fuck! I’ve been knocking for hours. Why didn’t you open up?”

“Oh, it’s you! I thought you were a thief.”

“Stand right there. Tell me, who the hell was it that just left our house?”

“If you saw him yourself, then why are you asking me?”

“I just saw his shadow. Tell me who the hell it was.”

“Secretary Shi.”

“What the hell was he doing here at three o’clock in the morning?”

“I asked him to come over, to bring me some cold medicine. You were the one who told him that when you weren’t here, he should be diligent and come whenever he was called.”

“I’m telling you, you shouldn’t be having people bring you stuff at three o’clock in the morning.”

“Are you suspicious? If so, you should just go ask him about it yourself.”

“I can fire him with a single word.”

“Go ahead.”

“With a single word, I can have the police arrest him.”

“Go right ahead. Do it.”

“With a single word, I can have the courts send him to jail for years. I can make it so that he would never get out of jail alive.”

“Do it, then.”

“
. . .
”

“Okay, then. Didn’t you just go away for three months without returning home?”

“This is my home. I can return whenever I want.”

“So now you remember it’s your home.
. . .
Why didn’t you just endure another month before coming back?”

“I couldn’t resist. You know how much I’ve done for the county this past month? Whenever anyone sees me in the street, they should all bow down and kowtow to me as though I were an emperor.”

“I know that you established a special-skills performance troupe, and that next year you plan to purchase Lenin’s corpse from Russia and bring it back. I know that within two or three years you hope to be promoted to deputy district commissioner. But do you know how our daughter has been this past month? Do you know how I’ve been?”

“Where is our daughter?”

“She’s at her godmother’s.”

“How have the two of you been?”

“We both came down with bad colds. Our daughter had a fever of thirty-nine degrees, and had to spend three days in the hospital having shots.”

“Oh, I thought it was something important. At any rate, I also want you to know that I signed a contract with Liven’s Grandma Mao Zhi, agreeing that within a couple of weeks she will establish a second special-skills performance troupe. The proceeds from the admissions tickets from the two sets of performances will flow into the county’s coffers like a river. By the end of the year we will have enough money to buy Lenin’s corpse from Russia. As soon as we bring the corpse back and install it on Spirit Mountain, the county’s coffers will be so full that money will pour out through the doors and windows, and everyone in the county will be able to enjoy the good life. Their only worry will be that they have more money than they can spend. By that point, when winter comes I’ll give everyone in the county a free imported flu shot, so that no one in the county will ever catch the flu again. Hey, why have you fallen asleep?”

“Do you realize what time it is?”

“Okay. If you want to sleep, then sleep. I won’t take a bath tonight.”

“You can sleep in the other room.”

“Where are you going to sleep?”

“I’ll sleep right here.”

“Do you want to do it?”

“I have my period.”

“I’m telling you, your husband is not the same Boshuzi commune soc-school teacher you originally married. He’s not the same turnip-head cadre he once was. He is now the county chief, the emperor of Shuanghuai county, with eight hundred and ten thousand subjects under his command, including tens—or even hundreds—of thousands of women who are younger and prettier than you. He could sleep with any of them, if he wanted.”

“Mr. Liu, I also want tell you that you shouldn’t forget where you grew up and who raised you. Do you think that you got to where you are today simply by relying on your own efforts? Don’t forget that it was the secretary of the Boshuzi commune who promoted you to the position of the commune’s Party committee member, and it was because the secretary was one of my father’s students. And don’t forget that the reason you were appointed Chunshu township chief was that the director of the Organization Department was also one of my father’s students. And don’t forget that the reason you were able to become the youngest deputy county chief in the entire district is because the district’s Secretary Niu was formerly the principal of the commune soc-school, and was also close to my father. Fuck this! Get out! Go get your stuff from the bedroom and smash it! If you can, you should take all of our spoons, ladles, pots, and pans to a relative’s courtyard and smash them. This will let everyone in the county know that you, the county chief, can also smash dishes.”

“Hey, you can go on and on about this, but I never betrayed your father. I am now the county chief, and perhaps in another two or three years I’ll be promoted to the position of district commissioner. Although your father was only my foster father, I still burn incense for him every month like a filial son.”

“Where do you burn it?”

“In my heart.”

“Asshole. Are you going to go sleep in the other room? Because if you won’t, then I will.”

“I won’t sleep in that room, or in this one. The entire county is my home, and therefore I can sleep anywhere I want. Do you think that, as the county chief, if I leave these two rooms I won’t have anywhere to sleep? Let me tell you something: I’ll sleep better anywhere else but here. If your father hadn’t taken my hand before he died and asked me to look after you, then I could easily go three months without returning home, or even thinking about you.”

“If you want, then you really should go three months without returning home. You should go three months without touching me.”

“Do you think I can’t live without you?”

“Go, go to Spirit Mountain to build your Lenin Mausoleum. Go to Russia to buy Lenin’s corpse. If during the following three months you find that you can’t resist coming home again, then you shouldn’t be county chief! You shouldn’t even
think
about being promoted to district commissioner. Even if you are promoted to district commissioner, you should be sent to jail.”

“Huh? You mean if I buy Lenin’s corpse and bring it back, I won’t be able to resist returning home? Why don’t you calculate for yourself. When we last agreed I wouldn’t return home for half a month, I ended up staying away for a month and three days. This time we agreed that I would stay away for three months, but because I lacked resolve I ended up returning after only two. Now I’m telling you, I, County Chief Liu Yingque, won’t return home for at least half a year. After bringing Lenin’s corpse back, I won’t return home again for at least six, or maybe even twelve, months.”

“Okay then, why don’t you go. If you really do go for half a year without returning home, I’ll wait on you however you like. If you want me to kowtow to you like a maid kowtowing to the emperor as I back my way out of the room, I would be happy to do so.”

“That’s fine. What if you don’t kowtow to me?”

“Then you can go to my father’s tomb at the soc-school and dig up his remains.”

“Deal.”

“And what if
you
can’t resist returning in less than half a year to touch and caress me?”

“I would agree to transfer your father’s remains to the Lenin Mausoleum on Spirit Mountain.”

“Agreed. If you go back on your word, may you be struck dead by a car, choke to death while drinking water, die from infection as a result of a splinter in your foot, or be poisoned in broad daylight.”

“You don’t need to curse me like that. Just say that I won’t succeed in bringing back Lenin’s corpse—which, for me, would be a fate worse than death.”

“
. . .
”

“Bam!” The door to Chief Liu’s house slammed shut.

Book 9: Leaves

C
HAPTER 1:
E
VERYONE RAISES THEIR HANDS, CREATING
A FOREST OF ARMS

Liven became a virtual ghost town, since most of its disabled residents left to perform with the troupe. Even if someone’s only disability was that he had six fingers rather than five, as long as he could use his extra digit to help him pick up two bowl-sized balls, he could perform a six-fingered bowl-lifting event.

Even the sixty-one-year-old Cripple joined the troupe. Because Cripple had a younger brother whom he physically resembled, the deputy leader of the Balou tunes opera troupe decided to modify Cripple’s residency papers, changing his birth date from the twenty-first year of the Republic to the same year in the preceding sixty-year
jiazi
cycle, thereby making him a hundred and twenty-one years old. The decision to change his age to a hundred and twenty-one, rather than a nice round number, was deliberate on the part of the wholers, who thought this way the age would appear more realistic.

But if Cripple was now a hundred and twenty-one years old, what about his younger brother? Given that the brother was originally three years younger, now that Cripple had sixty years added to his age, that meant he was now sixty-three years older than his younger brother. The younger man, therefore, could no longer call Cripple “Brother,” but rather should begin calling him “Grandpa.” The younger brother pushed Cripple onto the stage in a wheelchair and showed the audience Cripple’s residence permit and identity card stating that he was a hundred and twenty-one years old. Standing before the audience of more than a thousand, the fifty-eight-year-old man called his elder brother “Grandpa.” The audience was amazed that a hundred-and-twenty-one-year-old man’s eyesight and hearing were still reasonably good, and that he looked so much like his sixty-something-year-old grandson. In fact, apart from having lost a few teeth and needing to be pushed around in a wheelchair, Cripple didn’t seem to be much worse for the wear. The performance was a sensation, and someone in the audience shouted in amazement,

“Hey, what does the old man normally eat?”

The hundred-and-twenty-one-year-old Cripple pretended he couldn’t hear very well, and therefore his fifty-eight-year-old grandson responded in a Balou accent:

“What does he eat? He eats mixed grains.”

“Does he exercise?”

“He worked in the fields his entire life. Working in the fields is a kind of exercise.”

“How did your grandfather become crippled?”

“Earlier this year he was climbing down a mountain after having gone to cut some kindling, and he fell into a ravine.”

“Heavens. A hundred-and-twenty-one-year-old man still climbing mountains to cut kindling? How old is your father, and is he still able to work?”