The Moon Opera (10 page)

Outside it was already dark. Snowflakes, big, dense snowflakes were falling. Distant neon lights blinked on and off in the blanketing snow, turning the flakes into little whores who could worm their way into any spot, whereas the high-rises were towering, whoring men who seemed to sway in the illusory scene. Xiao Yanqiu tried to flag down a taxi, but they were all taken, and the drivers mockingly honked their horns at her. Too anxious to feel sick, she kept on, now revitalized. She ran, yelling and waving her arms.

Chunlai was finished with her makeup when Xiao Yanqiu stormed into the dressing room. Their eyes met, but Chunlai said nothing. In one of the classes Yanqiu had told her that a person disappears from the world after she is made up. You are no longer yourself. You don’t know anyone and you don’t listen to anyone. Yanqiu grabbed the makeup artist, wanting to tell her, wanting to tell everyone, “I am the true Chang’e. Only I can be Chang’e.” But she didn’t. She couldn’t make a sound; all she could do was move her lips. At that moment, she wished that the Queen Mother of the West would descend from heaven and give her an immortality pill. Once she swallowed that, she would be transformed into Chang’e instantaneously, even without the aid of makeup. But there was no Queen Mother of the West, no one to give her an immortality pill. She turned to look at Chunlai, whose face was more beautiful than a fairy’s. Now
she
was Chang’e. There could be only one Chang’e; anyone who was made up like that became Chang’e.

The drums and gongs sounded. Yanqiu watched as Chunlai went to the door. The curtain went up, and Yanqiu saw the factory manager sitting in the middle of the third row, smiling amiably like a great man, applauding slowly like a great man. The sight of him sitting there strangely calmed her. She knew that this time her Chang’e was dead. Chang’e’s remorse ended on that snowy night in Xiao Yanqiu’s fortieth year, cause of death unknown, at the age of forty-eight thousand.

Xiao Yanqiu returned to the dressing room and sat down wordlessly at the mirror. The applause from the theater made the room seem especially quiet. She stared at herself, her eyes unfocused, like moonlight on an autumn night. She had no idea what she was doing, as, zombie-like, she picked up the dress with water sleeves and draped it over herself. She squeezed flesh-colored foundation into her hand and dabbed it evenly over her face, her neck, and the back of her hands. Then she asked the makeup artist to raise her eyebrows, wrap her head, apply the bangs, and put on the headdress. Lastly, she picked up her flute. All this she did calmly, so eerily quiet that the makeup artist felt a chill, the fine hairs on her back standing up. Terrified, she stared at Xiao Yanqiu with unconcealed apprehension, but Yanqiu stood up without a word, opened the door, and walked out.

Dressed only in a thin opera robe, Xiao Yanqiu walked out into the snow and arrived at the theater entrance, where she stood beneath a streetlight. She glanced at the snow-covered street, counted a beat, and waved the bamboo flute. She began to sing, the same
Erhuang
aria, slow and meandering to a lyrical rhythm, and then to a strong beat, leading to a crescendo. Snowflakes swirled around her, and suddenly there was a crowd at the entrance, causing traffic to stop. More and more people arrived, crowding the street, but nothing, no one, made a sound. The people and cars seemed to have been blown to her on the wind, falling soundlessly like snowflakes, but Xiao Yanqiu was oblivious to it all. Another round of applause erupted inside the theater. She danced and sang. Finally, people noticed something dripping from her pant legs to the ground. The drops, black under the street light, fell on the snowy ground and created a series of black holes.