Lenin's Kisses (59 page)

“They’re not splashing water or crumbling buns anymore?”

Everyone just stared at her.

She said,

“I know most of you still have money on you, and I also know exactly where you keep it. If you don’t believe me, then let’s have everyone take off their clothes and let someone look through them, or lift up the bricks beneath their bedroll and let someone look under them.”

She said,

“It won’t do for people to die of hunger and thirst. One hundred yuan for a bowl of water, two hundred for a bowl of noodles, and five hundred for a steamed bun—if you buy them, you’ll live, but if you don’t, you’ll die. So, will you buy them or not?”

She concluded,

“You don’t need to hide your cash. Every family can drink the water and eat the steamed buns they buy with their own funds. Trust me, those who don’t have any money will die of hunger or thirst before they use a cent of any one else’s.”

The entire hall fell into a deep silence. Then there was the sound of people looking around. Soon, they were all looking toward the corners of the room where they had hidden their money. It was as though they were all afraid that Grandma Mao Zhi had found their secret stashes of cash, as if she had revealed their secret weakness. Some of them hated her for this, some simply felt embarrassed, while others were grateful that she had finally torn down the artificial facade that had been erected inside the hall. However, they all remained where they had been sitting or lying, looking silently at one another. It was as if they each felt Grandma Mao Zhi was talking about someone else. It was as if they all felt as though if others took out their money to buy some water, they couldn’t possibly avoid sharing it with them, and that conversely, if they themselves took out their money to buy a bun, they would have no choice but to give some to the others. What made them particularly anxious and fearful was the thought that if they were the first to take out their money, everyone might jump on them and beat them, saying,
Fuck your mother, you had all this money on you, and yet you made us endure three days of thirst and hunger
, and then would proceed to steal their money and use it to buy water, noodles, and steamed buns for themselves.

So instead, they all remained where they were without moving or saying a word, as if the hall were completely empty.

The air became increasingly noxious.

It was fouled further by the stench from the latrine.

The main hall was so quiet that it seemed as though a leaf or feather would create an enormous pit if it fell to the ground, and would carve an enormous gash in one of the marble pillars if it happened to brush against one of them. It was as though the leaf or feather might shatter Lenin’s crystal coffin into countless shards of glass. Indeed, the hall was so quiet that you wouldn’t find a quieter place anywhere in the world. It was also so stuffy that you wouldn’t find a stuffier place anywhere in the world. As everyone gazed up at Grandma Mao Zhi, they gradually began to feel somewhat ill at ease, and they remained focused on some indeterminate spot in front of them.

In this way, the confused time inched past, as though it were counting individual strands of hair; perhaps it covered a hundred-long li, or perhaps it was the equivalent of several strands of hair. Eventually, Grandma Mao Zhi shifted her gaze to Polio Boy.

The boy was sitting in the corner closest to the hall’s main door. He was leaning against the door frame, and the water that had been thrown in through the window had reached his feet and splashed his face. Whenever the people outside threw water in, he wanted to go try to catch it with his mouth, but was afraid that afterward he might find himself stuck there and unable to move. Needless to say, his face had a deathly pallor from hunger and thirst and had become as swollen and shiny as a rotten apple or peach, while his lips were covered with dry, bloody ridges and were extraordinarily engorged. Grandma Mao Zhi looked at him, and he looked back at her. It was as if he were seeing someone who resembled his mother. He seemed to want to call out to her, but was afraid that he had misrecognized her. Therefore, he just stared at her silently, as though waiting for her to recognize him.

Grandma Mao Zhi watched him for a while, and then said,

“Boy!”

He grunted in response.

She asked, “Do you want to eat?”

He nodded, and said, “I’m very thirsty.”

Grandma Mao Zhi said, “Give me the money you have stitched inside your pants pocket, and I’ll go buy you something.”

The boy took off his pants in front of everyone, revealing his floral underwear. On the underwear there was a bulging white pocket with the opening stitched shut. The boy leaned down and ripped the pocket with his teeth, as Grandma Mao Zhi came over and took his money. After counting out six bills, she handed the rest back to him, and then went over to the memorial hall door and knocked a few times, saying, “I want a bowl of water, and a steamed bun!” Then she stuffed the money under the door.

In the blink of an eye, a bowl of water and a steamed bun were passed in through the window over the door. The boy stood behind the door to receive them, and began drinking and eating in front of everyone. He was just a boy, and initially no one paid him any mind, even as the sound of his drinking reverberated throughout the hall like a river, while that of his eating was like food frying during the village’s livening festival.

He ravenously devoured the steamed bun, heedless of everyone around him.

The aroma swept through the memorial hall like a tornado, followed by the sound of the boy chewing. His right leg was as shriveled as a stick and he was as skinny as a stalk of grain, and normally when he opened his mouth he couldn’t even stuff an egg inside. But now this small and skinny boy brought his mouth up to the edge of the bowl and, in two or three swallows, managed to gulp down two-thirds of the steamed bun, which was as big as a rabbit’s head.

Everyone’s eyes remained fixated on his steamed bun, and on the boy delightedly enjoying his food.

No one said a word. Everyone was consuming the sight of him swallowing the water and the sound of him eating the steamed bun. One-Legged Monkey was standing to the side licking his cracked lips. Deafman Ma for some reason was covering his mouth with his hand. Tonghua, Huaihua, Yuhua, and Mothlet were not watching the boy, and instead were just staring at their grandmother as if she, who was standing right next to them, might suddenly pull out a wad of cash and buy each of them a steamed bun and a bowl of water.

By this point it was already afternoon and it seemed as though the air in the room, and even time itself, was being chewed up by the boy.

Suddenly, Deafman Ma unbuttoned his pants, and muttered, “If we’re all about to die, then what the hell do I need money for?” He pulled twelve hundred yuan from his underwear, and shouted at the door,

“Give me two steamed buns, and two bowls of water!”

He passed the money through the crack under the door.

The smiling face of a thirty-something-year-old appeared at the window, and handed down buns and water.

The Mute wailed several times, stomped his feet, then suddenly went back to the side room where he slept. He started counting the bricks along the wall behind his bed, and when he reached the fifth one, he lifted up the corresponding bricks beneath his bedroll and removed several wads of cash. He removed a pile of bills, and as he walked forward he stuck out three fingers and wailed. Grandma Mao Zhi took his money and explained to the smiling face in the window, “He wants three steamed buns, and three bowls of water. Here is eighteen hundred yuan. Count it yourself.” She then passed the wad of bills through the window into the person’s hand.

The smiling face accepted the money. Without even counting it, the man immediately shouted out to the people below him, “Quick, bring us three steamed buns and three bowls of water.”

In this way, the situation slowly began to shift. The villagers no longer needed to avoid one another. As Grandma Mao Zhi had claimed, their money had been stolen three days earlier, but they still had some cash stashed away on their persons. The women opened their shirts in front of everyone, and most of them had money hidden away in little pockets that they had sewn inside. There was one woman who didn’t have this sort of pocket, but she retreated to the latrine and, in the blink of an eye, reemerged holding several hundred yuan.

The boy’s uncle sat there without moving. Eventually, he ripped open his pants leg, revealing several hundred—or perhaps even several thousand—yuan.

The old man who had gone on stage playing the role of a hundred-and-twenty-one-year-old didn’t rummage around in his clothes for money, and neither did he retreat to the side room to retrieve it. Instead, he went over to Lenin’s crystal coffin and, lying down, starting feeling around on the ground underneath the coffin, eventually withdrawing the sort of wallet that usually only city folks use. The wallet was full of crisp, new hundred-yuan bills. He pulled out who knows how many bills, muttering, “Fuck her grandmother. If everyone is going to die, what use will our money be to us?” He didn’t buy a steamed bun, though, nor a bowl of water. Instead, he purchased three baked buns and three bowls of noodles. The buns were baked to a succulent shade of brown, and the noodles were similarly cooked to perfection.

After the old man accepted the three baked buns and three bowls of noodles, he placed two of the bowls at his feet and held the third in his left hand while cradling the three baked buns in his right. He then took the buns and bowl over to Lenin’s crystal coffin before going back to collect the remaining two bowls of noodles. The coffin was light and bright, and when he placed his noodles and buns on top, it was as if he were placing them on an imperial jade table. In this way, it wasn’t as though he were eating simply because he was hungry, but rather as though he were saying,
Eat and drink, because the important thing is simply to survive. What use is your money? What’s special about it? Food is the most valuable thing in the world.

He savored his bun as happily as a cow chewing its cud, and drank his noodles as if he were guzzling water in the middle of a desert. He focused only on his eating and drinking, completely ignoring everyone else. It was as though he were on stage performing the role of a starving man.

Several people stood there watching him, while others retrieved money from various places and, like him, bought armfuls of buns and noodles. As they did so, they said, “Grandmother! If people can’t even survive, they should at least eat and drink well.”

One-Legged Monkey had been hiding motionless behind the crowd of villagers, but after watching everyone eat and drink, he suddenly took out some money from somewhere. Then he saw Cripple: the “hundred-and-twenty-one-year-old man.” He was eating and drinking on top of the crystal coffin, while peering beneath the coffin at the brick from which he had just removed his money. From this, One-Legged Monkey began to develop a suspicion, whereupon he cursed, “Fuck your mothers!” It was unclear whether he was cursing the old cripple or himself. He took off the special hard-soled shoes that he wore while performing his Leaping-Over-a-Mountain-of-Knives-and-Crossing-a-Sea-of-Fire routine and removed several hundred-yuan bills, then used them to buy some buns and noodles.

As One-Legged Monkey ate and drank, he looked around, and his gaze would periodically come to rest on that area below the crystal coffin, where Cripple kept glancing.

Meanwhile, the main hall erupted into tumult, with everyone calling out for buns and water. The villagers all hobbled over to the door of the memorial hall, where, like the old cripple, they would say, “That’s right. Fuck your mother! If people are starving to death, what the hell do they need money for!”

They said, “Eat, drink. It won’t do if everyone dies of hunger or thirst.”

They said, “It doesn’t matter if a bowl of water costs one hundred yuan. Even if it cost a thousand yuan, I wouldn’t accept this sort of death sentence.”

Soon, the entire hall was filled with the sound of people eating and drinking.

One person gulped down a bowl of water, then extended a hundred-yuan bill toward the window and shouted, “Sell me some more water! I need some more water!” Another person devoured a bun in a few bites, then shouted, “Sell me another bun, sell me another. I want that oil-baked bun!”

At this point, however, the four small windows above the memorial hall door were pushed open, and in them appeared the faces of four wholers. In the middle window appeared the face of the driver, but he wasn’t smiling contentedly like the wholer beside him. Instead, he stuck his head in and looked around, cleared his throat, and said,

“If you had done this earlier, you wouldn’t have had to go hungry for so long!”

He added,

“I apologize.
. . .
The price of the buns has gone up.
. . .
They now cost eight hundred yuan each. The price of water has also gone up, to two hundred yuan a bowl.”

All of the villagers immediately fell silent, as though the driver had suddenly thrown water onto a burning fire. Some of the people holding up their money to buy buns and water promptly pulled their arms back down, but one woman remained frozen there with her arms suspended in the air, the money still in her hands. One of the wholers in the window quickly grabbed her money, and the woman shouted,