Lenin's Kisses (61 page)

After peeing out those few drops, One-Legged Monkey felt as carefree and livened as though he had finally relieved himself of the urine that he had been holding back for the past three days. He stood erect in the latrine, without tying up his pants, his shoulders thrust back and his arms in the air. At this point, he heard someone at the window above the main door of the memorial hall shout inside:

“Hey, come on out. People of Liven, come out. My elder bro here wants to organize a meeting for you—there’s something he wants to tell you.”

After some of the villagers emerged, the person at the window repeated,

“Someone get Grandma Mao Zhi. My bro wants to organize a meeting for you, and after you’ve listened to what he has to say, he’ll let you go.”

One-Legged Monkey heard the sound of many footsteps. He emerged from the bathroom and saw that the villagers were coming out of the side rooms, walking behind Grandma Mao Zhi. They proceeded to the center of the hall, where they stood in a group. Not a single one of them, not even Old Crutches, glanced over at the crystal coffin. At the window the faces of those four wholers reappeared. One of them still had the condescending smile that he’d had earlier, while another had turned pale. The truck driver, whom the others called “Elder Bro,” looked utterly calm. He was standing at the center window, gazing into the hall, and let his gaze come to rest of Grandma Mao Zhi. He said,

“Hey, people of Liven, Grandma Mao Zhi, listen to me. I’m going to level with you. We’ve grown impatient waiting for you. It’s hot and we all want to go home, and I’m sure you’re even more eager to return home than we are—to return to your carefree days of livening. We all want to return home, so let’s be honest with each other. You are all disabled, so you don’t
really
need any money to enjoy a carefree life. Even if you were to cook and eat like crazy, you couldn’t possibly spend very much money every month. On top of it, I can’t bear to see you locked up in this hall with nothing to eat or drink. Some of you are missing an arm or a leg, or are unable to see, hear, or speak—life for you must not be easy.”

He said, “We wholers have been thinking about you. We’ve been watching you, and we know where each of you has hidden your money. We’ve calculated that, for every performance, each of you has earned half a seat, on average. We don’t know precisely how much you have earned over the past six months, but the thieves could not have stolen more than a third or half of it. The remainder must still be hidden on your persons. You need to hand over that money, every cent of it.”

He said, “After you have done so, we will issue each of you three thousand yuan. You’ve been traveling and performing for the past six months, so it’s only fair that we give you three thousand yuan, which amounts to your having earned five hundred yuan a month. Five hundred yuan a month—that would be a good salary even for someone in the city. Three-quarters of the residents of Shuanghuai are workers who don’t earn a salary at all, but I propose to give each of you five hundred yuan for each month you have worked, over and above what we’ve have already given you in food, clothing, and housing, none of which you’ve had to pay for. If you add everything up, it amounts to our having given you the equivalent of between nine hundred and a thousand yuan a month.”

At this point, the driver paused. The setting sun shone down on the right side of his face, revealing that it was covered in sweat. He wiped his forehead and looked into the hall, where he saw that the villagers appeared more lively. They exchanged glances, suggesting that they were considering this proposition. He saw that, in the end, the villagers all turned to Grandma Mao Zhi, as though waiting for her decision, waiting for her to say something to them and to the wholers. Grandma Mao Zhi, however, didn’t utter a single word. Instead, she remained in the front of the hall, half standing and half leaning against one of the marble pillars. She simply stared at the faces of those wholers in the window, and at the mouth of the driver. She appeared pale, as though someone had just slapped her several hundred—or even several thousand—times, and as if those slaps were still continuing.

“Hey, people of Liven and Grandma Mao Zhi, did you hear me?” The driver wiped the sweat again, then cleared his throat. “Let’s settle our accounts. You hand over all your money, and then each of you can return to your village with three thousand yuan, to enjoy a carefree, livening existence. Or do you prefer to remain locked in this memorial hall, paying five hundred yuan for a bowl of water, twelve hundred yuan for a steamed bun, and three hundred yuan for a packet of pickled vegetables?”

He said,

“If you can’t bear to part with your money and refuse to buy anything, then you will slowly die of hunger and thirst. Or maybe you think it’s not so bad to die of hunger and thirst here. After all, you do have Lenin’s crystal coffin, so whoever dies can use it.”

Then he asked,

“Hey, think about it. Do you prefer to die and be placed in that crystal coffin, or would you like to hand over your money, take your three thousand yuan in salary for the past six months, and then return to Liven and live happily ever after?”

After that, he didn’t say anything else. It was as if he had concluded the meeting and said everything he wanted to say, and was now waiting for everyone to vote.

The villagers silently watched Grandma Mao Zhi. The atmosphere in the main hall had become extremely oppressive, as though they all had thousands of pounds of pressure weighing down on their heads. At that point, Grandma Mao Zhi moved away from the column she had been leaning against, and shifted her gaze away from the windows above the door. She slowly turned and looked at the villagers. After regarding them for a while, she appeared to reach a decision. She looked back at the window and asked,

“If you don’t open the door, how will you collect the money?”

The driver didn’t even need to think about this. Instead, just as he’d typically needed only a quick glance to park the truck carrying the villagers’ performance props, he waved at the window and said, “Have you decided? If you have, then listen closely. I want you to all line up at the southern end of the hall. Then, you should lay a sheet on the ground and place all of your money on it. After everyone has done so, you can each proceed to the northern side of the sheet.” When he finished, he looked at Grandma Mao Zhi, as though he was trying to discern something from her expression.

But he wasn’t able to make anything out. Grandma Mao Zhi didn’t go to the side room to fetch a bedsheet, but rather removed her light blue shirt and laid it on the ground in the center of the hall, then led Tonghua and Mothlet over to the southern end of the hall.

With this, the situation abruptly changed. Either because the villagers had just eaten some buns and drunk some water, and no longer felt as famished as before, or because they had already become limp from hunger—after looking first at Grandma Mao Zhi, and then up at the face of the wholer in the window, they all promptly followed Mao Zhi to the southern end of the hall.

One-Legged Monkey and Huaihua also followed Grandma Mao Zhi.

The stuffy atmosphere began to congeal.

The expressions of the wholers in the window glazed over, as though they had become frozen.

No one uttered a single word. Grandma Mao Zhi, Deafman Ma, and Blind Tonghua and her little nin sisters, Yuhua and Mothlet, were standing or sitting in the first row, while Old Crutches, Polio Boy, and his uncle were all standing in a group slightly behind them. In the final row, Huaihua and One-Legged Monkey were standing shoulder to shoulder. One-Legged Monkey nudged Huaihua, then laughed softly and said, “Hey, after we return to Liven, I want to marry you.” Huaihua squinted at him, and merely snorted in response. He smiled and said, “You see yourself now as a beautiful wholer, but I can still use my money to marry you.”

She looked at him coldly, and stepped away from him.

He stepped closer to her, then smiled once more and said softly, “If you don’t marry me, I guarantee you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.” He didn’t look at her again, and she didn’t look at him. The hall was deathly quiet and no one spoke, or even moved. After a long silence, Grandma Mao Zhi emerged from the crowd, went to the northern side of the hall, and said to her granddaughter,

“Tonghua, your entire life you’ve never been able to see what color money is. What do you want money for? Why don’t you take out the money you’ve sewn into that pocket, and then we can go home.”

When Tonghua heard her grandmother address her, she began to tremble. Following the sound of her voice, she turned toward her grandmother, and it seemed as though she could see her grandmother’s calm and inscrutable face. She stood there silently, looking as though she wanted to take out the money she had hidden but couldn’t bear to part with it. She hesitated, locked in a stalemate with her grandmother. At this point, One-Legged Monkey abruptly left Huaihua’s side and jostled his way to the front of the crowd. To everyone’s astonishment, he hobbled over to the blue shirt lying on the ground, took off his left shoe, and removed several thousand yuan in brand-new bills from beneath the insole, together with another wad of several thousand yuan from the waist of his pants. Then, he bent down and placed all of the cash on the shirt.

“I’ve put all of mine here. After all, what is money worth? Returning to the village to enjoy a life of livening is more important than anything.” Having said this to the villagers, he looked at the driver in the window and added, “The important thing is for you to open that door and let us leave. I don’t even care if you give us those three thousand yuan or not. The critical thing is that we be permitted to return home.”

Having said this, he obediently moved from the southern side of the hall to the northern side, where he stood next to Grandma Mao Zhi.

The driver in the window nodded in satisfaction.

At this point, the situation was abruptly transformed. It was as if One-Legged Monkey had opened a door, and after he passed through it everyone else could then follow. Blind Tonghua silently took off her floral shirt, ripped it open, and removed one wad of cash after another, then felt around on the ground for her grandmother’s shirt. When she finished, she too confidently went over to the north side of the hall.

Grandma Mao Zhi said, “Mothlet, do as your grandmother says.”

Mothlet proceeded to untie her finger-thick red velvet hair ribbon, and from inside removed several wads of cash. She placed them on the shirt, then moved over to the northern side.

Little Polio Boy removed his money from a pocket and placed it on the shirt.

Deafman Ma walked up from the back of the crowd, removed the money from his pants legs, and placed it on the shirt.

Some of the other villagers hesitated. The fifty-year-old One-Arm, who with only a single arm could cut radish and cucumber into paper-thin slices faster with his one hand than a wholer chef could with two, had earned a considerable amount of money with this skill, but no one knew where he’d hidden it. Most of the villagers had already gone to the northern side of the hall, and only a handful remained on the southern side. One-Arm looked at the four faces in the window, then back at the villagers standing across from him, and then went to the side room to fetch a winter hat and removed the money he had hidden inside it. He placed several wads of cash on the shirt, then proceeded to the northern side of the hall. At this point, the driver in the window said coldly, “Place the hat itself on the shirt as well.”

One-Arm gripped his hat tightly and didn’t move.

The driver cursed, “Do you fucking not want to live? Remember that you only have one arm!” With this, One-Arm deposited his hat on the shirt. The hat’s earflaps were so stiff it looked as though they had wooden boards inside them. Needless to say, they were stuffed full of cash.

By this point, all of the villagers had moved to the northern side of the room. Those who had money had taken it out, while those who didn’t had claimed they really didn’t have any, since it had all been stolen, and then they too moved to the northern side of the room. There was a small mountain of cash on Grandma Mao Zhi’s light blue shirt, like a pile of vegetables or broken roof tiles. The sun was shining directly on the money, illuminating the colorful designs on the bills. Half of the bills in the pile were brand-new—so new that the scent of their ink filled the room like the smell of fresh paint. Those who had placed money on the pile had each deposited thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan, so that once all the cash was gathered together, the pile was amazingly large, so large that the villagers felt they were seeing a tower of gold or a mountain of cash. They didn’t look at the people in the window, but rather kept their eyes fixed on this pile of money, as if they were gazing at the face of their own children and wanted to go hug them close. Everyone standing, together with the two paralyzed women lying on the ground, crowded together on the northern side of the hall.

At this point, the driver said coldly, “Grandma Mao Zhi, come over here, and nobody else move. Now, bundle the money together, every single bill, and pass it to me with your crutch.”

Everyone stood there in a dead silence, staring intently at Grandma Mao Zhi, as though hoping she wouldn’t walk over. She hesitated for a moment, then proceeded to do as she had been instructed. She tied together a corner of the shirt and its collar, then did the same with the two sleeves. After the bundle was all tied up, she patted it with her hand, as if to make sure it was secure. Then, as she was lifting it with her crutch, she looked calmly at the driver and said, “Son, I’m already seventy-one years old, and it was I who led the people of Liven out to perform. If I give you the money, you must open the door and let me lead them home again.”