Life and Death are Wearing Me Out (67 page)

I did not apologize to any of them. Their words, especially those of Pang Hu, had bored powerfully into my heart, and even though I had a thousand reasons to tell them all I was sorry, I didn’t. I had ten thousand excuses, and I knew that I ought to break it off with Pang Chunmiao and go back to my wife, but I also knew that was something I could never do.

When Hezuo had written that message in blood, I actually considered ending the affair then, but as time passed, my longing for Chunmiao increased, until I felt as if my soul had left me. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t get a thing done at the office. Hell, I didn’t
feel
like getting anything done. The first thing I did after returning from the provincial capital was go to the bookstore to see Chunmiao, only to find an unfamiliar ruddy-faced woman standing where she usually stood. In a tone of cold indifference she told me that Pang Chunmiao had requested sick leave. The other two clerks were sneaking looks at me. Go ahead, look! Say bad things about me! I don’t care. Next I went to the bookstore’s singles dormitory. Her door was locked. From there I managed to find the home of Pang Hu and Wang Leyun, fronted by a village-style yard. The gate was padlocked. I shouted, but only managed to get neighborhood dogs barking. Despite knowing that Chunmiao would not run to the home of her sister, Kangmei, I nonetheless summoned up the courage to knock at her door. She lived in top-of-the-line County Committee housing, a two-story building protected by a high wall to keep visitors out. My deputy county chief ID card got me past the gate guard, and, as I said, I knocked at her door. Dogs in the compound set up a chorus of barking. I could see there was a camera above the door, so if anyone was home, they’d see it was me. No one came to the door. The gate guard came running up when he heard the noise, a look of panic on his face. He didn’t tell me to leave, he begged me to leave. I left and walked out to the busy street, barely able to keep from shouting: Where are you, Chunmiao? I can’t live another day without you! I’d rather die than lose you! I don’t give a damn about my reputation, my position, my family, riches ... I just want you. At least let me see you one more time. If you say you want to leave me, then I’ll die, and you can. .. .

I didn’t apologize to them and I didn’t say what I was going to do. I got down on my knees in front of my father and mother and kowtowed. Then I turned and did the same to the Huangs, who were, after all, my in-laws. Then I faced north and, with all the respect and solemnity I could manage, kowtowed to Pang Hu and his wife. I was grateful for their support and even more grateful for bringing Chunmiao into this world. Then I stood up and backed over to the door, where I bowed deeply, straightened up, turned around, and, without a word, walked out of the house and down the road, heading west.

I could tell by my driver’s attitude that my days as an official had come to an end. I’d no sooner returned from the provincial capital than he complained to me that my wife had made him drive her and my son somewhere, and not on official business. He hadn’t come to pick me up, claiming that the car was experiencing electrical problems. I’d had to hitch a ride with the Agricultural Bureau bus home. Now I was walking toward the county town. But did I really want to go back there? To do what? I should be going to wherever Chunmiao was. But where was she?

Jinlong drove up in his Cadillac and stopped alongside me. He opened the door.

“Get in.”

“That’s okay.”

“I said get in!” Clearly he would brook no disobedience. “I want to talk to you.”

I climbed into his luxurious car.

Next I was in his luxurious office.

He sat slouched in a burgundy leather armchair, leisurely smoking a cigarette and staring up at the chandelier.

“Would you say that life is like a dream?” he asked light-heartedly.

I silently waited for him to go on.

“Do you remember how we used to tend our ox on the riverbank?” he said. “In order to get you to join the commune I slugged you once every day. At the time, who could have imagined that twenty years later the People’s Commune would be like a house built on sand, washed away in front of our eyes? I’d never have believed back then that one day you would rise to the position of deputy county chief and I’d be the CEO of a corporation. So many of the sacred things we’d have lost our heads over aren’t worth a dog’s fart today.”

I held my tongue, knowing that this wasn’t what he wanted to talk about.

He sat up straight, stubbed out the cigarette he’d just lit, and gazed intently at me.

“There are plenty of pretty girls in town, so why jeopardize everything to chase after that skinny monkey? Why didn’t you come to me if you wanted some fun? Black, white, fat, skinny, I could easily get you what you wanted. You want to try a change of diet? Those Russian girls only charge a thousand a night!”

“If this is what you dragged me over here to talk about,” I said as I got to my feet, “I’m not sticking around.”

“Stay where you are!” he shouted angrily, slamming his fist on the desk and sending the ashes in his ashtray flying. “You’re a bastard, through and through. A rabbit doesn’t eat the grass around its burrow, and in this case, it’s not even very good grass.” He lit another cigarette, took a deep drag, and coughed. “What do you know about my relationship with Pang Kangmei?” he asked as he stubbed out the cigarette. “She’s my mistress! The planned Ximen Village resort, if you want to know, is our venture, our bright future, a future you’re screwing up with your dick!”

“I’m not interested in what you’re doing,” I said. “My only interest is Chunmiao.”

“I take it that means you’re not giving up,” he said. “Do you really want to marry the girl?”

I nodded forcefully.

“Well, it’s not going to happen, no way!” He stood up and paced the floor of his spacious office before walking up and thumping me in the chest. “Break this off at once,” he said unambiguously. “Anything else you want to do, just leave it to me. After a while you’ll realize that women are what they are, and nothing more.”

“You’ll excuse me,” I said, “but that’s disgusting. You have no right to interfere in my life, and I certainly don’t need you to help me arrange it.”

I turned to leave, but he grabbed my arm and said in a milder tone:

“Okay, maybe there is such a thing as love, damn it. So what do you say we work out a compromise? Get your emotions under control and knock off this talk about divorce. Stop seeing Ghunmiao for a while, and I’ll arrange a transfer to another county, maybe even farther, one of the metropolitan areas or a provincial capital, at the same level you are now. You put in a little time, and I’ll see that you get a promotion. Then if you still want to divorce Hezuo, leave everything to me. All it’ll take is money, three hundred thousand, half a million, a million, whatever it takes. There isn’t a goddamn woman alive who’d pass up money like that. Then you send for Pang Ghunmiao, and the two of you live like a couple of lovebirds. Truth is,”—he paused—“this isn’t the way we wanted to do it, since it’s a lot of trouble. But I am your brother, and she is her sister.”

“Thank you,” I said, “for your wise counsel. But I don’t need it, I really don’t.” I walked to the door, took a few steps back toward him, and said, “Like you say, you are my brother, and they are sisters, so I advise you not to let your appetites grow too big. The gods have long arms. I, Lan Jiefang, am having an affair, but, after all, that’s a problem of morality. But one day, if you two aren’t careful . . .”

“Who are you to be lecturing me?” He sneered. “Don’t blame me for what happens! Now get the hell out of here!”

“What have you done with Ghunmiao?” I asked him dispassionately.

“Get out!” His angry shout was absorbed by the leather padding on the door.

I was back on Ximen Village streets, this time with tears in my eyes.

I didn’t even turn my head when I walked past the Ximen family home. I knew I was an unfilial son, that both my parents would be gone before long, but I didn’t flinch.

Hong Taiyue stopped me at the bridgehead. He was drunk. He grabbed my lapel and said loudly:

“Lan Jiefang, you son of a bitch, you locked me up, an old revolutionary! One of Chairman Mao’s loyal warriors! A fighter against corruption! Well, you can lock me up, but you can’t lock up the truth! A true materialist fears nothing! And I’m sure not afraid of you people!”

Some men came out of the public house from which Hong had been ejected to pull him away from me. The tears in my eyes kept me from seeing who they were.

I crossed the bridge. The bright, golden sunlight made the river look like a great highway. Hong Taiyue’s shouts followed me:

“Give me back my ox bone, you son of a bitch!”

A category-nine typhoon brought an almost unprecedented rainfall at night. I was always listless during spells of wet weather, wanting nothing more than to lie down and sleep. But that night, sleep was the furthest thing from my mind; both my hearing and smell were at their peak of sensitivity; my eyesight, owing to the constant streaks of powerful blue-white light, was dimmed, though not enough to affect my ability to discern each blade of grass and drop of water in every corner of the yard. Nor did it affect my ability to spot the cowering cicadas among the leaves of the parasol tree.

The rain fell nonstop from seven until nine o’clock that night. Streaks of lightning made it possible for me to see rain flying down from the eaves of the main building like a wide cataract. The rain came out of the plastic tubing on the side rooms like watery pillars that arced downward onto the cement ground. The ditch beside the path was stopped up by all sorts of things, forcing the water up over the sides, where it swamped the path and the steps in front of the gate. A family of hedgehogs living in a woodpile by the wall was driven out by the rising water; their lives were clearly in danger.

I was about to sound a warning to your wife, but before the bark emerged, a lantern was lit beneath the eaves, lighting up the entire yard. Out she stepped, shielded from the rain by a conical straw hat and a plastic rain cape. Her thin calves were exposed below her shorts; she was wearing plastic sandals with broken straps. Water cascading off the eaves knocked her rain hat to one side, where the wind blew it off her head altogether. Her hair was drenched in seconds. She ran to the west-side room, picked up a shovel from the pile of coal behind me, and ran back into the rain. Pooling rainwater swallowed up her calves as she ran; a bolt of lightning smothered the light from the lamp and turned her face, to which strands of wet hair clung, ghostly white. It was a frightening sight.

She carried the shovel into the alley through the south gate. Crashing sounds came from inside almost at once. It was the dirtiest and messiest part of the yard, with decaying leaves, plastic bags blown in on the wind, and cat droppings. The sound of splashing water emerged; the level of standing water in the yard was lowering, and the drainage ditches were spiriting water away. But your wife remained inside, where the sounds of a shovel on bricks and tiles, as well as on the surface of water, came on the air. Her smell permeated the area; she was a hardworking, resilient woman.

Finally, she came out through the drainage ditch. The plastic rain cape was still tied around her neck, but she was soaked to the skin. Streaks of lightning made her face show up whiter than ever, her calves thinner. She was dragging the shovel behind her and walking hunched over, looking a bit like the way female demons are described in stories. She wore a contented look. She picked up her straw hat and shook it several times, but instead of putting it on her head, she hung it from a nail on the side room wall. Then she propped up a Chinese rosebush, apparently pricking her finger in the process. She stuck her finger in her mouth, and as the rain lessened a bit, she looked up into the sky and let the rain hit her squarely in the face. Harder, harder, come down harder! She untied the rain cape to expose her rail-thin body to the rain and stumbled toward the toilet in the southeast corner of the yard, where she removed a cement cover.

Your son came running out with an umbrella and held it over her head.

“Come inside, Mama, you’re wet from head to toe.” He was crying.

“What are you so worried about? You should be happy it’s raining hard.” She pushed the umbrella over your son’s head. “We haven’t had rain like this for a long time, not once since we moved into town. It’s wonderful. Our yard has never been this clean. And not just ours, but every family’s. If not for this rain, the town would stink.”

I barked twice to approve her attitude.

“Hear that?” she said. “I’m not the only one who’s happy with this rain. So is he.”

But eventually she did go inside, where, my nose told me, she dried her hair and body. Then I heard her open her wardrobe, and I got a strong whiff of dry, mothballed clothes. I breathed a sigh of relief. “Crawl into bed, Mistress. Get a good night’s sleep.”

Not long after the clock struck midnight, a familiar smell came on the air from Limin Avenue, followed by the smell of a Jeep that was losing oil, accompanied by the roar of the engine. Both the smell and the sound were coming my way. It pulled to a stop in front of your gate. My gate, too, of course.

I started barking ferociously before whoever it was even knocked at the gate, and raced over there, my paws barely touching the ground, sending the dozen or so bats living in the gateway arch flying into the blackness of night. Yours was the only one of the several odors I knew. The pounding at the gate created hollow, scary sounds.

The light beneath the eaves came on, and your wife, a coat over her shoulders, walked out into the yard. “Who is it?” she shouted. The response was more pounding. Resting my front paws on the gate, I stood up and barked at the people on the other side. Your smell was strong, but what made me bark anxiously were the evil smells that surrounded you, like a pack of wolves with a captive sheep. Your wife buttoned up her coat and stepped into the gateway, where she switched on the electric light. A bunch of fat geckos were resting on the gateway wall; bats that hadn’t flown away were hanging from the overhead. “Who is it?” she asked a second time. “Open the door,” came a muffled voice from the other side. “You’ll know who it is when you open up.” “How am I supposed to know who comes knocking at my door in the middle of the night?” Speaking softly, the person on the other side said, “Deputy County Chief has been beaten up. We’ve brought him home.” After a moment’s hesitation, your wife unlocked the gate and opened it a crack. Your face, hideously disfigured, and matted hair appeared in front of her. With a scream, your wife opened the gate wide. Two men flung you like a dead pig into the yard, where you knocked her to the ground and wound up crushing her beneath you. They jumped down off the steps, and I ran, lightning quick, after one of them. I dug my claws into his back. All three men were wearing black rubber raincoats and dark glasses. The two made for a waiting Jeep, where the third man was sitting in the driver’s seat. Since he’d left it idling, the smells of gasoline and oil came crashing at me through the rain. The raincoat was so slick the man slipped out of my grasp as he jumped into the middle of the street and ran up to the Jeep, leaving me in the rain, a predator without his prey. The water, which was up to my belly, slowed me down, but I pushed myself to go after the other man, who was climbing into the car. Since his raincoat protected his rear end, I sank my teeth into his calf. He screeched as he shut the door, catching the hem of his raincoat; my nose banged into the shut door. Meanwhile, the first man jumped in on the other side and the Jeep lurched forward, spraying water behind it. I took out after it, but was stopped by all the filthy water splashing in my face.