Lenin's Kisses (9 page)

The temperature, however, remained bitterly cold. When they woke up the next morning, the sky was still overcast and snow was blowing everywhere. Chief Liu hadn’t slept well. The statues of the bodhisattvas, Lord Guan, and Lady Livening that had been in his room in the former Buddhist temple were no longer there. The three-room tile-roofed house was split into three sections by two partition walls. Chief Liu slept in the northernmost section, with a bed all to himself. The bed had two mattresses and two quilts, and therefore was certainly warm enough, but he couldn’t sleep. Instead, he kept thinking about some of the things that had taken place eighteen years earlier when he was a soc-school teacher in Liven, and particularly about a woman who had given birth to quadruplets.

He thought that once he was able to bring back Lenin’s remains and install them on Spirit Mount,
⁷
he could help promote tourism throughout the county and bring wealth to the district. He would surely be promoted then from county chief to deputy district commissioner or deputy district Party committee secretary. By that point, he would become a major figure, even an international personality, and not even the district Party secretary would be his equal. Four-fifths of the dozen or so counties in the district were poor, but he had already decided that once he was appointed deputy district commissioner or deputy district Party secretary, he would order that a memorial hall be erected in each of those poor counties, and then would have Lenin’s remains circulate from one county to the next, thereby bringing each of them additional tourism revenue and greater wealth. He would also institute a global Lenin Day for the district. On this day, he would place Lenin’s corpse on display in the city square in Jiudu, the district seat, so that everyone could revere and better understand him. Anyone wanting to read Lenin’s works—together with those of Marx and Engels, and of course Mao Zedong—could gather together. As for whether or not those who revered Stalin and read his works would be permitted to visit, Chief Liu had not yet fully made up his mind, since he had heard that Chinese and foreigners had differing opinions about Stalin.

He had thought about many things that night, as he listened to the township chief and Secretary Shi snoring away in the next room like an old
erhu
melody, to the point where he almost couldn’t resist going over and stuffing their mouths with dirty socks, and covering their noses with cotton and old shoes.

But given that now he was the county chief, he had no choice but to simply tolerate the noise.

So, he woke early and got out of bed.

The temple courtyard was half a
mu
in size, and had several old cypresses, a young elm, and a couple of middle-aged tung-oil
trees. The branches and leaves of the tung-oil
trees were pushed down to the ground by the weight of the snow. The old bird’s nests in the cypresses had been pulled down by the weight of the snow, and a branch was lying at the base of the courtyard wall. There were also a couple of chicks that had hatched in the middle of the summer, but had fallen to their death and frozen into little balls of ice—only their tiny beaks poking out of a ball of snow, as though they were trying to peck their way out of an eggshell. The courtyard wall was made from adobe, and was covered by a thatched roof made from cornstalks. The cornstalks had dried up, and one by one had fallen to the ground. Under the influence of the elements, various sections of the wall itself inevitably began to collapse.

Chief Liu draped his coat over his shoulder, and stood in the doorway gazing at the courtyard.

Out in the street there was a cripple who had just gotten out of bed and was drawing water from a well. He hobbled over on his crutches, and as he walked through the snow his feet didn’t make a conventional
zhizha zhizha
sound; rather, the sound of his lame leg gently coming down was followed by that of his other leg forcefully lifting up and back down again into the snow. This alternation of light and heavy thumps had a melodious quality, and to Chief Liu this sounded as if off in the distance there was a pair of wooden mallets, one large and the other smaller, taking turns pounding in the snow. As Chief Liu walked away and everything began to grow quiet, he looked up and saw that behind the clouds over the eastern mountain there was a sheet of whiteness that looked as though it would have oozed out if it hadn’t been held in place by the mountains. But there were tiny cracks between the clouds that allowed several silvery white strands to pour through as though they were liquid.

Chief Liu stared intently at the white liquid.

It oozed out and accumulated like a pool of mercury, but was gradually covered up by dark clouds.

As Chief Liu stared at the rapidly disappearing white liquid, he glanced once again at the courtyard, and noticed that next to the southern wall there was a rusty shovel. He went over and pulled it from the snow, and then placed it in a notch in the wall. With the shovel’s blade pressed close to his collar, he aimed it toward the silvery clouds to the east, and as he was aiming, his right index finger kept tugging at his chest as though he were pulling a trigger. Each time he pulled the trigger, he shouted
bang,
imitating the sound of a gun.

Ready, aim,
bang
!

Ready, aim,
bang
!

Ready, aim,
bang
!

Ready, aim,
bang
!

As he shouted
bang,
the black clouds in front of the white liquid began to part, allowing it to further ooze out into a small pool.

When Chief Liu heard the sound of the white liquid pouring through the clouds, his face immediately turned scarlet. He proceeded to fire even faster while continuing to make a thorough
⁹
bang
ing
sound. Eventually, the sun reappeared, and the silvery white liquid turned golden yellow, creating a golden yellow world.

“Chief Liu, the sky has cleared up,” Secretary Shi remarked as he approached from behind, rubbing his sleepy eyes. “As you were firing toward the east, the sky cleared up and the sun came out.”

“How would the sun dare
not
to come out?” Chief Liu turned around and, grinning happily like a general who had just won a battle, said, “Come here, Secretary Shi. Why don’t you give it a try.”

Secretary Shi picked up the shovel and, resting it on the courtyard wall, aimed it toward the eastern sky and pulled an imaginary trigger with his right index finger while shouting
bang, bang, bang
. But even as he was firing and shouting, the clouds moved back toward the center of the sky, once again covering up most of the golden yellow and silvery white pool.

Secretary Shi said, “I can’t do this.”

Chief Liu suggested, “Let the township chief give it a try.”

The township chief walked out of the latrine and quickly tied his pants back up, then he too used the shovel as a gun and aimed it at the eastern mountains. He fired more than ten times, but as he did the clouds reconverged and the silvery white liquid was once again fully covered up.

The sky was filled with dark clouds.

Even in the temple courtyard, the air turned humid and steamy.

Chief Liu patted the township chief on the shoulder and said, “With your skills, I’ll appoint you secretary of tourism after we bring Lenin’s corpse back.” As he took back the shovel, he shifted his position and aimed, then fired it three times. Sure enough, another fissure appeared in the clouds.

As the gun sounded, the clouds dispersed, and the sun came out again.

He fired ten or so more shots, and along the ridge of the eastern mountain there appeared a silver mat.

He fired another ten or so shots, and several gold mats appeared.

He fired another ten or so shots, and the gold and silver areas grew as large as a wheat field.

In the blink of an eye, a bright blue sky emerged behind the eastern mountain, and the black clouds that had not yet dispersed became covered by the gold and silver mats. The snow shone brightly in the sunlight. The tree branches poked out in all directions, silver-coated. Throughout the snow-covered fields along the mountain range, there were occasional clumps of wheat sticking out, like thorns piercing through the snow-white bed covering the ground. The air was unusually fresh, and if you took a few breaths and savored them, a distinctive aftertaste would linger in your mouth—and this aftertaste, while initially pleasant, would subsequently become nauseating.

The entire village was filled with the sound of retching.

After they finished coughing, these people who had just gotten out of bed all slapped their foreheads.

The men said, “Ah, the sky has cleared. At least now we can harvest some of the grain and recover somewhat from this natural disaster.”

The women said, “Ah, the sky has cleared. The mildewed sheets can be hung out to dry. Even during a natural disaster, you shouldn’t let your sheets get moldy.”

The children said, “Ah, the sky has cleared. The next few days will be great fun. Each day that it snows is another day we can stay in bed and not go to school. Having to go to school is worse than starving to death.”

There were also some people staring at the temple guest house, who said, “Ah, the county chief arrives and the sky immediately clears up. Even the weather recognizes that he just isn’t like the rest of us.”

Chief Liu heard these remarks from the other side of the courtyard wall, whereupon he took down the shovel and stuck a fistful of snow into his mouth, which was parched from all of his
bang-bang-bang
ing. He reflected for a moment, then turned to the township chief and asked, “Is it normal for it to snow here in the middle of the summer?

The township chief replied, “There was one such snowstorm just before the three years of natural disaster, and another during the lost decade, but neither was as big as this one. Those were mere dustings that immediately melted as soon as the sun came out.”

Secretary Shi said, “So, in other words, this summer snowstorm is really a once-in-a-century occurrence?”

The township chief replied, “Fuck, if this miraculous incident isn’t newsworthy, then I don’t know what is.”

Chief Liu said to the township chief, “I want to contribute to the disaster relief. Why don’t you go to Spirit Mountain and have someone take the Hanbai jade down from the latrine wall. They should clean it thoroughly, and use the cleaning water to cook some food.” Then he suggested to his secretary, “Why don’t you go back to the township and urge each board member to donate ten yuan to Liven, even if it means that they have to go hungry to do so. Then, write about how the entire township dedicated its efforts to disaster relief and send the report to the district and provincial seat. After the disaster relief has concluded, I’ll have Liven convene a several-day-long livening festival
¹¹
to express their gratitude to the government for its efforts on their behalf.”

After finishing his breakfast, the township chief headed off to Spirit Mountain to clear snow.

Secretary Shi returned to the county seat.

Chief Liu stayed behind in Liven.

Further Reading:

1)
Lenin Fund.
A fund specifically reserved for purchasing Lenin’s corpse. This became the most frequently used term after Shuanghuai resolved to purchase Lenin’s remains.

3)
Head.
Skull.

5)
Coquette.
Coquettish.

7)
Spirit Mount.
An abbreviation for Spirit Mountain.

9)
Thorough.
Continuous.

11)
Livening festival.
A major festival held every year after the wheat harvest, this being a tradition unique to Liven.

C
HAPTER 5:
T
HE LIVENING
FESTIVAL OF THE INTERCALARY FIFTH MONTH OF THE
WUYIN
Y
EAR OF THE
T
IGER

The harvest season was almost over.

The period of hurried walking was almost over.

In the end, it was still summer. When the sun briefly came out, the snow quickly melted, leaving the ground soaking wet—to the point that if you were to pick up a fistful of soil, you would find it half full of water. Just when the sun was needed most, they got day after day of fog. The fog was so thick, in fact, that it was not much brighter during the day than at night, and although Chief Liu continued waving his shovel at the sky every day, the fog continued to envelop everything in sight. Every day, Chief Liu would pick up the shovel when no one was around, and wave it at the sky. Squatting down in the excrement-covered ground of the latrine, he would aim his imaginary handgun toward the area of the sky where the sun should have been and fire several shots, but the fog continued flowing inexorably forward. By the fifth day, he was so anxious that his mouth was filled with cold sores, to the point that he took a real rifle and fired it three times into the fog. All three bullets hit squarely in the middle of the clouds and fog.