The Real Story of Ah-Q (28 page)

Travelling down from the north, I broke my journey south-east with a detour to the part of the country I’d grown up in. Along the way, I found myself stopping off in S—, a town some ten miles – less than half a day’s travel by small boat – from the old family home, and where I’d once taught for a year. A recent snowfall had brought a chilly desolation to the midwinter landscape, and a combination of apathy and nostalgia drove me to take a room at the Luosi, a hotel that had opened some time after I’d moved on. Since S— was a small place, I tried looking up a few of my old colleagues, but they all seemed to have gone, and who knows where. I walked past the gates of my old school, but everything about it looked different; even its name had changed. Within four hours, my sentimental enthusiasm had evaporated, and I was rather regretting this unnecessary diversion.

My hotel offered room but no board, so food had to be ordered in from outside. It was tasteless when it came – I might as well have been eating mud. My window faced on to a wall, piebald with stains, to which a withered moss was clinging. Above, fine snowflakes had begun to whirl down again from a pale, leaden sky. As I had only picked at my lunch, and had no other distraction in prospect, my thoughts quickly turned to a small tavern – the Yishi – that I had once frequented, not far from the hotel. Locking my door, I immediately set off – not in search of intoxication; merely to escape the ennui of travel. Outside, the tavern looked much as it had always done: the same narrow, drab, damp façade; the same shabby sign. But inside, I recognized no one, neither the bar manager nor the waiters: I was a stranger in my old haunt. Yet I found myself climbing once more up those familiar old bannistered stairs in the corner. The narrow first-floor room was cramped, as ever, with five small tables; the only change was to the back window, its old wooden lattice newly inlaid with glass.

‘A catty of Shaoxing wine… and ten bean-curd fritters, with plenty of chilli sauce!’

Giving my order to the waiter – who had followed me upstairs – I made for the table by the back window. The room was empty, leaving me free to take the best seat, with a view down over a ruined garden below that probably didn’t belong to the tavern. I’d gazed over it many times, sometimes on snowy days. But seeing it now, with eyes used to the north of China, I found much to wonder at. A scattering of ancient plum trees were in full defiant flower, as if oblivious to the midwinter snow. Perhaps a dozen fiery red camellias were blooming amid a dense covering of dark green leaves on a tree by a ruined pavilion – there was something furiously, contemptuously bright about their contrast with the snow, which I imagined directed at me and my aimless travels. I was reminded again of the nourishing moisture of southern snow – clinging lustrously to anything it touches – so unlike the dry snow of the north, filling the air with powdery mist at the slightest touch of wind.

‘Your wine, sir,’ the waiter drawled, setting down a cup, chopsticks, a flask of wine, a bowl and a saucer.

I turned back to the table, arranged everything to my liking, and poured the wine. Though I was no northerner, I now felt a stranger in the south also – as if the dry snow of the north, and the soft, clinging snow of the south were both foreign to me. I medicated my melancholy with a sip of wine. Both wine and bean curd were excellent – my only complaint was that the chilli sauce was too weak. The people round here had never had much of a stomach for spicy food.

Maybe because it was early – still afternoon – the place didn’t have much atmosphere. After three cups of wine, the four tables around me remained deserted. Looking back over the abandoned garden, I began to feel lonely, but also unwilling to share my isolation with other drinkers. Vexed by the clatter of footsteps on the stairs, I relaxed when I saw it was only my waiter, and dispatched another two cups of wine.

At last, however, a series of footsteps much slower than the waiter’s told me another patron was on his way up. Glancing over – almost apprehensively – when I guessed he had reached the top of the stairs, I jumped up in surprise. By some marvellous coincidence, the new arrival happened to be a friend – if he would still permit me to call him that – an old classmate, and colleague from my teaching days. Though his face was a little changed, I recognized him instantly. He moved differently as well – more slowly; there seemed to be little of the speed and energy of the old Lü Weifu.

‘Weifu? Imagine – us meeting here! I can hardly believe it.’

‘Neither can I… Is it really you?’

I immediately invited him to join me; after a hesitation, he accepted. I was first perplexed, and then saddened and perturbed by his reluctance. Beneath his characteristically untidy hair and beard, I noted, lay a long, pale, exhausted-looking face. He looked subdued, or perhaps melancholy. His eyes – overshadowed by thick, dark eyebrows – seemed to have dulled. But as he looked slowly about him, and down over the abandoned garden, they suddenly brightened with a piercing gleam I remembered from our schooldays.

‘It must be ten years,’ I began, rather stiffly, despite my pleasure at seeing him. ‘I heard a while back that you were in Jinan,
¹
but I never got round to writing.’

‘Me neither. I moved to Taiyuan
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a couple of years ago with my mother. When I came back to fetch her, I heard you’d moved on.’

‘What are you doing in Taiyuan?’ I asked.

‘Tutoring a family from round here.’

‘And before that?’

Drawing a cigarette out of his coat pocket, he lit it and placed it between his lips, watching the smoke trickle out. ‘Nothing much: stupid, pointless things. A complete waste of time.’

He turned the questions back on me. As I gave him a brief outline of my situation, I called for another cup and pair of chopsticks, poured Weifu what remained of the first flask of wine and asked for another two catties. I decided to order food, also. A strange, new reserve had sprung up between us, as we each ceremoniously urged the other to do the choosing. The whole order became so confused that only the waiter’s summary clarified that we had requested four dishes: aniseed beans, jellied meat, fried bean curd and dried black carp.

‘I know how ridiculous I am, coming back like this,’ he resumed, the corners of his mouth uncertain whether to force a smile. One hand went on wielding the cigarette, with the other wrapped round the cup. ‘I remember, when I was a boy, laughing at bees and flies when they returned to settle on a place they’d just been frightened off, after making the tiniest tour of avoidance. Pathetic. And here I am, doing exactly the same thing. Now you, too. Couldn’t you have flown a bit further away?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe not,’ I replied, also unsure whether to smile. ‘Why did you come back?’

‘For more stupid, pointless things.’ He drained the wine at a gulp, then took a few draws on his cigarette, his eyes opening a little wider. ‘Utterly pointless – but I might as well tell you about them.’

Returning, the waiter covered the table with fresh food and wine. Our small party seemed to bring a little life to the room – or at least the warmth of cigarette smoke and fried bean-curd. Outside, the snow began to fall more heavily.

‘You may or may not know,’ he went on, ‘that I had a younger brother, who died aged two, and was buried round here. Though I don’t even remember what he looked like, my mother has always told me we were great friends; that he was a sweet little boy. She still cries, even now, when she talks about him. Last spring, we got a letter from a cousin of mine who said the river was starting to flood his grave, and if we didn’t do something about it soon, it would be under water. Mother can read, of course, and as soon as she found out, she got into such a state she could hardly sleep at night. But I had neither the time nor the money to do anything about it.

‘On it dragged, until I could come south, during my annual leave, to move his grave.’ He drained another cup of wine and glanced out of the window. ‘You’d never get that in the north: flowers in the snow. The ground can’t be frozen underneath. The day before yesterday, I bought a little coffin in town, supposing the old one would be completely rotten by now. I hired four diggers and off we went into the countryside to move the grave, bringing extra cotton wool and bedding. I was suddenly glad: glad I was about to see the remains of a little brother I had once loved so much. It was a novelty. When we reached the burial site, we found the river had indeed been eating away at the bank, and was now less than two feet from the grave, which was almost flattened from neglect. “Dig it up!” I told my men, as we stood around in the snow. It was curious hearing myself give an order – probably the most important one I’ll ever give in my life. I’m not used to it, I’m too ordinary. But my diggers just set to work. When they’d dug down to the coffin, I went over to take a look. As I’d thought, it had rotted almost completely away – leaving only a few chips of wood. My heart in my mouth, I began to clear it carefully away, hoping to see my little brother. But there was nothing below – no quilt, no clothes, no skeleton. It must have all crumbled away, I thought to myself. Remembering, from somewhere, that hair is meant to take the longest to decay, I bent down to see if there was anything in the mud where the pillow would have been. Nothing. Not a trace.’

His eyes, I suddenly noticed, were pink around the rims; then I realized it was the wine taking effect. Though he barely picked at the food, he steadily drank his way through a whole catty of wine. He began to look and act more like the old Lü Weifu. After calling for another two catties, I turned back round to face him, taking up my own cup again, listening silently.

‘As there was no longer any need to move the grave, all I had to do was get the ground levelled out again and sell the coffin on. Though it was bound to look odd, the store I’d originally bought it off would probably take it back, as long as I kept my price low enough. I’d get back a few coppers to go drinking with, at least. Instead, I laid out the bedding, wrapped in cotton some of the mud from where his body had originally been, placed it all in the new coffin, took it to the graveyard in which my father is buried, and reburied it next to him. Because I had the interior of the grave walled up with bricks, I spent a great slice of yesterday supervising the workers. But this way at least, I’d achieved what I’d set out to do: I’d done enough to fool my mother, to set her mind at rest… I know why you’re looking at me like that: you can’t believe the change in me, can you? Don’t think I’ve forgotten going to the temple with you, to pull the beard off the statue of the town god. I remember how we used to argue, every day, about how we were going to change China – how sometimes we even came to blows over it. Now look at me: blundering along, one compromise after another. If my old friends could see me now, I sometimes think, they’d disown me… But that’s how I am.’

He produced another cigarette, placed it in his mouth and lit it.

‘I can see you expected more of me – I’m not completely brain-dead. In some ways, it makes me glad, but also uncomfortable – worried that I’ll let my old friends down, betray their faith in me.’ He paused to take a few draws on his cigarette. ‘Today, just before coming on here, I did something else pointless; but at least I did it because I actually wanted to. We used to have a neighbour over to the east called Chang Fu – a boatman. He had a daughter called Ah-shun – maybe you met her on one of your visits to the house, but I doubt you’d remember her, she would have been very young at the time. She didn’t grow up into anything much: she had a very ordinary sort of face, long and thin like a melon seed, and sallow. It was just her eyes that were unusual: enormous, with very long lashes, as clear as the still midnight skies you get in the north. You don’t get nights like that down here. She was an excellent housekeeper: she’d lost her mother when she was about ten, and she’d taken care of everything around the house ever since – a younger sister and brother, as well as her father. She was careful with the purse strings, and thanks to her the family finances slowly straightened out. Just about all our neighbours were always singing her praises – and from time to time even her father expressed his appreciation. My mother suddenly started talking about her as I was about to set out on my trip back – the memories of the elderly seem to reach indefinitely back. Ah-shun had once taken a fancy to a red velvet flower she’d seen someone wearing in her hair, she recalled, and had cried so much when she couldn’t have one for herself that her father had beaten her. Her eyes were red for days afterwards. But no one made or sold velvet flowers in these parts, so there was no point her pining like that. Seeing as I was heading south anyway, Mother asked me to buy her a couple of flowers as a present.

‘I didn’t mind in the slightest – in fact, I was delighted to do something for Ah-shun. One day, the year before last, when I came back to bring my mother north, I fell into conversation with Chang Fu, who happened to be at home. He was set on feeding me a bowl of buckwheat mush – sweetened with white sugar, he proudly told me. They must have been doing well for themselves: it isn’t every boatman who can throw white sugar about in his food. Since he wouldn’t take no for an answer, I thanked him, but asked for a small helping. “You scholars’ve no appetite for anything. Give him extra sugar!” he commanded Ah-shun, outmanoeuvring my attempt to temper the extravagance of it all. I couldn’t believe my eyes when it was brought in: she’d made me an enormous bowl of the stuff – easily enough to keep me going all day. Though my bowl was, admittedly, small compared to Chang Fu’s. It was the first time I’d had buckwheat, and I didn’t like the taste much, even though there was obviously a lot of sugar in it. I thought I’d give up after a few mouthfuls. But I lost my nerve when I spotted Ah-shun over the other side of the room. I saw the fear and hope on her face: fear she hadn’t cooked it right, hope that we would enjoy it. I knew how disappointed and embarrassed she would be if I left more than half my bowl. And so I steeled myself to finish the lot off, gulping it down almost as fast as Chang Fu. This, I think, was the first time I realized how agonizing it can be to force food down – it was as unpleasant as a bowl of tapeworm medicine mixed into sugar I was fed as a boy. But I didn’t mind: because when she came over to tidy the empty bowls, I could see the glimmer of a happy smile, which more than made up for my discomfort. Even though my stomach was so painfully distended I slept awfully, tormented by one dyspeptic nightmare after another, I still wished her joy, still wished that the world would get better for her sake. But then I laughed at myself, for clinging on to the ruins of dreams I’d had in a former life, and forgot all about it.