Life and Death are Wearing Me Out (60 page)

If you want to know the truth, when you came home that evening you had a new smell, one that could make man and dog happy. It was nothing like the one you brought home after shaking a woman’s hand or sharing a meal or dancing with a woman. It wasn’t even the way you smelled after sex. Nothing got past that nose of mine. Big-head Lan Qiansui’s eyes lit up when he said this.

His expression and the look in his eyes made me realize that at that moment it wasn’t Pang Fenghuang’s exceptional child, with whom I had such an unbelievably complicated relationship, talking to me; no, it was my long-dead dog. Nothing got past that nose of mine, he’d said.

That fresh, new smell merged with your personal odor and changed the way you smelled altogether. That told me that a deep and abiding love had developed between you and that woman. It seeped into your blood and your bones, and no power on earth could separate the two of you after that.

The show you put on that night was, in truth, wasted effort. After dinner you went into the kitchen and washed the dishes, then you asked your son what he’d learned in school that day — both things you almost never did. Your wife was so touched she went in and made you a cup of tea. You had sex that night. By your count it was the twentieth time; it would also be the last time. From the strength of the odor I could tell that the sex wasn’t bad, even though it held no real meaning. In the midst of your sense of moral obligation, guilt feelings temporarily overwhelmed the physical revulsion you normally felt for your wife. Meanwhile, the smell of that other woman was beginning to germinate, like a seed in the ground, and when its buds burst to the surface, no power in the world could drag you back into the arms of your wife. My nose told me that you’d experienced a rebirth, one that portended the death of this family.

Seven years had passed from the day I arrived at your house up to the day of your and Pang Chunmiao’s first kiss, during which time I’d grown from a little puppy into a large, powerful dog. Your son had grown from a little baby into a fourth-grade student. Everything that happened over that period was enough to fill a novel, or it could be written off with a single stroke of the pen.

Now I think it’s time to talk about your son.

He was a filial boy, no doubt about that. When he started school, your wife took him there and picked him up on her bicycle. But the school schedule interfered with her work schedule, which put a strain on her. And whenever something put a strain on your wife, she started to complain; and when she started to complain, curses flew at you; and whenever curses flew at you, your son frowned. So you see, he really did love you. “Ma,” he said, “you don’t have to take me to school or pick me up. I can go by myself.” She’d have none of it. “What if you got hit by a car or were bitten by a dog or got picked on by bullies or got taken off by a slap-lady or were kidnapped for ransom?” Five ugly scenarios in a row, without taking a breath. Public safety was a big problem in the early 1990s. People knew there were some women from the south — known on the street as slap-ladies — who traded in children. Pretending to be selling flowers or candy or shuttlecocks made with colorful chicken feathers, they hid a spellbinding drug in their clothes, and when they saw a good-looking child, they slapped him or her on the head, and the child walked off with them. Well, your son slapped his own face, right on the birthmark, and said, “Slap-ladies only deal in good-looking children. If someone looking like me volunteered to walk off with them, they’d shoo me away. And what could you, a woman, do if someone tried to kidnap me? You can’t run away—” He looked at your injured hip, which made your wife so sad her eyes reddened and she began to sob. “Son,” she said, “you’re not ugly, your mother’s the ugly one, with half her buttocks missing. . . .” Well, he threw his arms around her waist. “You’re not ugly, Mother, you’re the most beautiful mother anywhere. Really, you don’t have to take me to school. I’ll take Little Four with me.” They turned to look at me, and I rewarded them with a couple of authoritative barks as a way of saying: I’ll do it. No problem, leave everything to me!

“Little Four,” your son said as he wrapped his arms around my neck, “you’ll take me to school, won’t you?”

Arf! Arf! Arf!
I barked so loud, the leaves on the parasol tree rustled and scared the wits out of a pair of ostriches our neighbor was raising. My meaning was clear: No-prob-lem!

Your wife rubbed my head. I wagged my tail for her.

“Everybody’s afraid of our Little Four, isn’t that right, son?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“Little Four, Kaifang will be your responsibility You’re both from Ximen Village and grew up together, so you’re like brothers. Isn’t that right?”
Arf arf!
That’s right. She rubbed my head again, looking sort of melancholy, before removing my chain-link collar and signaling for me to follow her. When we reached the front gate, she stopped and said, “Little Four, listen carefully. I have to be at work early in the morning to fry oil fritters. I’ll have your breakfast ready for you. At six thirty get Kaifang up. At seven thirty, after you’ve had breakfast, start out for school. Don’t take shortcuts. Stay to the main streets. It’s okay if it’s a bit farther, since safety is the most important. Walk on the right side of the streets, look both ways before you cross the street and then to the left when you’re halfway across, looking out for motorbikes, and especially, motorcycles with riders in black leather jackets, since they’re all members of gangs and act like they can’t tell the difference between red and green lights. After you’ve left Kaifang at the school gate, head east, cross the street, then go north straight to the bus station restaurant. You’ll find me out front frying oil fritters. Come up and bark twice, and I’ll know everything’s fine. Then go back home. This time you can take a shortcut. The door will be locked, so you’ll have to wait at the gate till I get there. If it’s a hot day, you can cross the lane and lie beneath the pagoda pine on the other side of the wall. You can doze off in the shade, but don’t fall asleep. With all the thieves around, you need to keep an eye on our place. They carry master keys, and if they find an empty house — they first knock at the door as if they were normal visitors — they walk in and take what they want. You know all our relatives by sight, so if you see a stranger going into our house, don’t hesitate, run over and bite them. I’ll be home by eleven thirty, so you can come in and have some water before taking the shortcut back to school to bring Kaifang home for lunch. Then back you go in the afternoon, but this time, after you’ve reported to me, run home to make sure everything’s okay, then run to school, since there are only two classes in the afternoon. Come back home with him and watch while he does his homework. Don’t let him play till he’s finished. Do you understand all that, Little Four?”

Arf arf arf,
Un-der-stand.

Before your wife went to work in the morning, she always put the alarm clock on the windowsill and smiled at me. A mistress’s smile — a pretty thing. I’d watch her walk out the door.
Arf arf,
Bye-bye,
arf arf,
Don’t worry. Then I’d make my rounds in the yard, feeling like the master of the house. When the alarm sounded, I’d run into the boy’s room, where the smell of youth was strong. Not wanting to startle him awake by barking, I’d go over and lick him on the face, feeling the tickle of his peach fuzz. He’d open his eyes and ask, “Time to get up, Little Four?”
Bow-wow, I’d
answer him softly, It’s time. Then he’d get dressed, give his teeth a quick brushing, wash his face like a kitten, and sit down for breakfast. Most of the time it was soybean milk and oil fritters, or regular milk and oil fritters. Sometimes I ate with him, sometimes I didn’t.

The first day we followed your wife’s instructions to the letter, partly because her smell followed us most of the way; she was watching us. Perfectly understandable — she was a mother, after all. I walked a yard or so behind your son, keeping my ears and eyes open, especially when crossing the street. A car was coming our way, driving normally, still two hundred yards away, plenty of time to cross. Your son wanted to, but I grabbed his shirt with my teeth and wouldn’t let him. “What’s wrong with you, Little Four?” your son said. “Don’t be chicken.” But I wouldn’t let go. It was my job to keep my mistress from worrying. Once the car had passed, I let go of him, but remained on my guard, prepared to protect your son with my life, if necessary, as we crossed the street. I could tell by the smell that your wife’s mind was at ease. She followed us all the way to school. I watched her ride off on her bike and then trotted after her, keeping a distance of a hundred yards or so between us. I waited till she put her bike away, changed into her work clothes, and started her day before running up and barking softly to let her know everything was all right. A look of gratification came over her, and the smell of love was strong.

We started taking shortcuts on the third day, after letting your son sleep till seven o’clock. We could make it to the school gate in twenty-five minutes if we took our time and fifteen if we ran. After you were kicked out of the house you often stood at your office window with Russian binoculars to watch us as we passed down a nearby lane.

In the afternoons we were in no hurry to get home. “Little Four, where’s Mama now?” he’d ask me. I’d sniff the air to pick up her scent. I’d only need a minute to fix her location. If she was at work, I’d face north and bark; if she was home, I’d face south and bark. When she was home, that’s where we headed, no matter what. But if she was at work, we could have a little fun.

Your son was a good boy. He never followed the example of those unruly kids who left school with their backpacks and went to one roadside stall or department store after another. The only thing he liked to do was go to the New China Bookstore and borrow children’s books for a fee. Once in a while he’d buy one, but most of the time he just paid to borrow them. The person in charge of selling and lending children’s books? Your lover, that’s who. But she wasn’t your lover then. She was nice to your son; I could smell the good feelings, and not just because we were regular customers. I didn’t pay much attention to how she looked, since her scent was intoxicating enough. I could distinguish a couple of hundred thousand scents floating around in the city by then, from plants to animals, from mining ores to chemicals, and from food to cosmetics. But none of them pleased me like Pang Chunmiao’s scent. To be perfectly honest, there were in the neighborhood of forty local beauties who emitted a lovely scent. But they all had impurities. All but Chunmiao. Hers was like a mountain spring or the wind in a forest of pine trees, fresh, uncomplicated, and never-changing. How I yearned for her touch — not the sort of yearning associated with family pets, but. . . damn it, even a great dog can experience a momentary weakness. As a rule, dogs weren’t allowed inside the bookstore, but Pang Chunmiao made an exception for me. You couldn’t find another shop in town that was as deserted as the New China Bookstore, which employed three female clerks, two middle-aged women, and Pang Chunmiao. The other two women did their best to butter up Chunmiao, for obvious reasons. Mo Yan, who was one of the bookstore’s rare customers, once saw Lan Kaifang sitting in a corner absorbed in a book, so he went over and tugged on the boy’s ear. Then he introduced him to Pang Chunmiao, telling her he was the son of Director Lan of the County Supply and Marketing Cooperative. She said that’s who she thought he was. Just then I barked to remind Kaifang that his mother had gotten off work and that her scent had traveled to the hardware store, and if we didn’t leave now, we wouldn’t get home before she did. “Lan Kaifang,” Chunmiao said, “you’d better be getting home now. Listen to your dog.” Then she said to Mo Yan, “That’s a very intelligent dog. Sometimes Kaifang gets so wrapped up in a book he forgets everything. When that happens, the dog runs in from outside, grabs his clothes in his teeth, and drags the boy out of the shop.”

After that first kiss, I wanted to back off, wanted to run away. Sure, I was happy, but I was also afraid and, of course, suffering from guilt feelings. That twentieth and last time I had sex with my wife had been a product of the internal conflict I was feeling that night. I tried my best to be a decent lover, but I finished much too soon.

Over the six days that followed, off in the countryside or at a meeting, cutting a ribbon at an opening ceremony or as a guest at a banquet, in the car or on a stool, standing or walking, awake or asleep, Pang Chunmiao was constantly on my mind, and I was trapped in intoxicating feelings from which I simply could not extricate myself in spite of the inner voice that kept saying: Stop here, go no further. It was a reminder that grew progressively weaker.

At noon on the following Sunday I was a guest at a luncheon for a visiting official from the provincial government. I ran into Pang Kangmei at the county guesthouse. She was wearing a dark blue dress and a string of pearls. Her face was lightly powdered. The guest of honor was a man I’d come to know during a three-month course at a Party school, and though the banquet was hosted by the organization department, he asked that I be invited. I sat through the meal as if needles were poking up out of my chair. The way I sputtered and stammered, I must have sounded like an idiot. As hostess, Pang Kangmei toasted the guest and invited him to eat and drink, witty remarks falling like pearls until he was tongue-tied and enchanted. During the meal, she cast three chilled looks my way, each boring right through me. When the meal was over, she saw our official to his room, smiling all the way and making small talk with all the other luncheon guests. Since her car was the first to arrive, we shook hands to say good-bye. The mere touch of her skin was repulsive, but she said in a tone that sounded filled with concern, “You don’t look well, Deputy Chief Lan. If you’re sick, you should go see a doctor.”

As I rode off I pondered Kangmei’s comment and shuddered. Over and over I warned myself: Lan Jiefang, if you don’t want to wind up broken physically and saddled with a ruined reputation, you must keep from plunging over the cliff. But when I stood at my office window and looked down at the weather-beaten New China Bookstore signboard, my fears and worries dried up and flew away, leaving only thoughts of her behind, thoughts etched deeply in my mind. In forty years on this earth I’d never felt anything like that. After adjusting the pair of Soviet Red Army binoculars a friend had brought back from Manzhouli, I focused my gaze on the bookstore entrance. The double doors, with their rusty metal handles, were unlocked; from time to time someone walked out, and my heart raced. Each time I was hoping to see her slender figure emerge, then gracefully cross the street and walk elegantly up to me. But it was never her, always book buyers, young or old, male or female. When their faces were pulled into the lenses of my binoculars, their expressions were very much alike — mysterious and bleak. I’d start thinking crazy thoughts. Had something bad happened in the store? Had something happened to her? More than once I entertained the thought of going to see for myself, pretending to be a customer, but with what little reason remained, I managed to hold back. I gazed up at the clock; it was only one thirty, still an hour and a half to go before the time we’d agreed upon to meet. I thought about taking a nap on the army cot I kept behind the screen, but I was too worked up to sleep. I brushed my teeth and washed my face. I shaved and trimmed my nose hairs. Then I studied my reflection in the mirror, half red, half blue — truly ugly. I gently tapped the blue side and cursed: Ugly shit! My self-confidence was on the verge of crumbling. Several times I heard light footsteps coming my way, and I rushed to open the door to greet her. But the hall was always empty. So I sat where she always sat and waited impatiently, flipping through the book I’d handed to her; I could almost see her sitting there reading. Her smell was on that book, her fingerprints were all over it. . . .