In a distant mountain lives a beautiful girl. Whoever passes her cottage will turn, Hoping to catch a glimpse of her.
Her small pink face shines like the sun.
Her lovely eyes move
Like the moon in a cloudless night.
O I'm willing to give up all I have And just follow her flock of goats,
So every day I can see her small pink face And her pretty dress frilled with gold.
O I'm dying to be her little goat And always stay at her side, So she can flick her tiny whip To stroke my behind.
Having finished the song, Fanlong wagged his big ass and bleated twice, which set off whoops of laughter. He then held the woman's hands and did a little jig under the miniature chandelier, swinging his legs briskly while his cheeks glistened with sweat. The woman followed his steps, swaying her hips while holding her face up and straight. Despite the noisy audience, the two looked quite natural.
Nan was a little tired, but he thought he ought to keep his friend company. Danning was playing cards with Mengfei, the captain, and the journalist at their own table now. They had asked Nan to join them, but he had forgotten how to play One Hundred Points and just stayed around watching them.
Two girls, heavily made up, came over and sat beside the men. One of them said to Mengfei, "Colonel, don't you want some fun and comfort today?"
"Wait until I lose another five pounds." Mengfei rolled his bovine eyes. Except Nan, all the others cackled. Nan was puzzled by the colonel's answer, but said nothing.
The other girl turned to Danning. "Hey, big writer, you've forgotten me already? Where's the perfume you promised me?"
"Next time, Dailian, all right? I'm with my friend here." His chin jutted at Nan.
"Doesn't your friend feel lonely? He's so quiet."
"Ask him then."
The girl was all smiles. She scooted closer to Nan and asked coquettishly, "Don't you want to know me?" "Sure," Nan replied out of politeness. "Would you like to spend some time with me?" "For what?"
Mengfei gave a belly laugh and said, " Nan 's so innocent. Different from us. He's still uncorrupted."
"Just follow her," Danning told Nan. "She'll let you know for what."
"Who will pay for it?" Nan asked.
"You will, of course." Mengfei pointed at him. "Now I see that you're not so innocent as I thought. I pay for food and drinks but not for fellatio or sex."
The girl sitting near him pouted. "He's always so shameless and barbaric. "
Jokingly Nan said to the girl beside him, "I don't have money, unless you're willing to spend time with me for free…" "You don't have to pay now."
Danning intervened, " Nan, don't tease her. She knows you're from abroad. If you're not interested, just say you don't want it. She'll hold me responsible if you get anything free from her."
"All right." Nan turned to the girl. "I'm too tired today. I just flew all the way back from America, almost twenty hours, and I'm still jet-lagged."
" America? That's beautiful. Don't you want my phone number just in case?"
"I'm a married man."
That set the whole table roaring with laughter. "We're all married men," Mengfei said, and slapped his broad forehead three times with the heel of his hand. " Nan, please don't remind us of our depravity." He stared at the girls, who turned quiet at last. A moment later they both moved to a nearby table.
On their way back, lounging in the Audi, Nan asked Danning, "Why did Mengfei tell the girl to wait until he lost another five pounds?"
"Ah, he has a theory-the intensity of sexual pleasure is in proportion to the weight you have lost." "Strange. Do you believe him?"
"Too much body fat dulls the physical sensation, doesn't it?" " I see, you fellows are experts. By the way, why did the restaurant give those common dishes all the fancy names?"
"To get more business. Everybody wants to sell and sell and sell, to make money by hook or by crook. People don't call things by their names anymore."
Then Nan asked him what kind of place was that restaurant. "It's like a brothel," he said.
His friend laughed and told him that there were many bars, salons, and hotels like that in Beijing. Using women to attract business was common practice nowadays. Nan thought of asking him whether he had often spent time with the girls, but he checked himself. Without question Danning was a regular customer; so were his friends. Nan wondered whether he himself would have become one if he lived here.
9
AFTER a whole night's train ride, he arrived at Harbin in the early morning. The train station had been renovated, and, with a new veranda and a massive gateway, it looked more welcoming than it had twelve years before. People here were dressed more colorfully than Beijingers, though they had much less money. The city appeared dormant and aged; the old Russian buildings in the southeast looked gray and shabby in spite of their copper cupolas. In the square before the station a few boys and girls in sweat suits were practicing martial arts, jumping around, or kicking and punching air, or directing their energy to different parts of their bodies while standing still with their knees bent at a right angle. On the west side of the square stretched a line of food stands that sold fried dough sticks, soy milk, sugar pies, jellied tofu soup, roasted beans and peanuts. Several customers sat on canvas stools there, eating breakfast while palavering or reading newspapers; a woman had a beagle on a long leash that kept wagging its docked tail. Nan flagged down a cab and set out for Nangang District, where his parents' home was located.
The city hadn't changed much. Indeed, there were more cars on the streets, but unlike in Beijing, not many of them here seemed privately owned. Nan liked the new tall buses, which looked roomy, like tourist coaches. Five minutes later he asked the taxi to stop at Friendship Boulevard, about three hundred yards away from Wind Chime Street, on which his parents lived, because he wanted to walk a little. He gave the cabbie, a young man with a missing front tooth, twenty yuan and let him keep the change. Then he headed toward his parents' home, lugging his wheeled suitcase without looking at the street signs as if his feet knew where to take him.
When he entered the residential compound, he heard a man chanting, "Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out…" Accompanying those amplified singsong words was slow, dangling music that sounded ancient and listless. Rounding the corner of the first building, Nan caught sight of a group of old people, about thirty of them, doing morning exercises in the open space between two concrete tenements. They stepped around rhythmically, putting down heel first and swinging their arms left and right, all with their eyes half shut. They looked funny to Nan, as if sleepwalking or wrestling with shadows. Among them he saw his parents, who were swaying their shoulders indolently, his father wearing a flat brown cap while his mother was in purple slacks and a white short-sleeved shirt. To his amazement, neither of them had changed much; only their midriffs seemed thicker than before and their limbs looked a little stiff. All the people were expressionless, and their bodies moved in time with the male voice and the music as if they were in a hypnotized dance. Unconsciously Nan stopped in his tracks, his chest so full of feeling that he could hardly breathe. His eyes filmed over. Then he came around and decided not to address his parents, not to wake up the whole crowd. He went along and passed them with his face toward the wall of the building.