‘In addition, at the entrance to the Catholic Church on Liuli Street, a young man claimed to have acquired some gorilla faeces and ate them in front of the crowd, using this to incite the masses to gather at Round Square and support the sit-in. After this, a violent confrontation erupted, two people were seriously hurt and had to be rushed to the hospital for treatment.’
Mengliu got out of bed and washed himself. The radio was now playing ads for laundry detergent. He went out and looked at the trees and the sky, and his spirits were revived slightly. He went to his landlord’s shop for a drink of warm milk and a snack, and to chat with the elderly man as usual. But the old man, buried in his own business, ignored Mengliu.
He left the shop feeling awkward. Seeing a trishaw parked on the roadside, he climbed into it.
‘Where to?’
‘Didn’t I say to Round Square?’ He saw that it was the same dark, thin fellow he had met when he went to the square before.
‘You didn’t say anything when you got in. Am I supposed to read your mind?’ the skinny fellow said as he pedalled, the tassels around the roof of the trishaw trembling. ‘I can only take you to the top of Liuli Street. You’ll have to walk from Beiping Street to the square.’
When he arrived, he saw Hei Chun and a crowd of people gathered in a circle, their expressions serious as they discussed things. They were all very pleased when they saw him. Hungover, Mengliu looked at them without any interest.
‘Why isn’t Qizi here?’ Hei Chun asked.
‘Qizi? She…’
‘Where is she?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You had a fight?’
‘Sort of…’
‘Revolution always comes with the low tides. We have to be able to withstand the most severe tests.’
‘Yeah.’
‘A breakup is one way to prompt deeper feelings.’
‘That’s easy for you to say.’
‘Women are like a strangely tangled knot. The more you struggle with them, the tighter they bind you. They only know they want this or that, but they don’t understand what a man needs.’ Hei Chun was pulling him into the gathering. ‘Put aside your troubles with women and come, share some ideas.’
19
From his long experience, Mengliu was aware that different types of women had to be handled in different ways. It wasn’t wise to approach a woman carelessly without first understanding her history, education, habits, position, and other matters related to her background. If you didn’t, you stood no chance of managing her. Up until this point in his stay with her at Swan Valley, Mengliu hadn’t been able to figure Juli out. She was like a cluster of clouds he couldn’t quite grasp. She changed shape as winds of unknown origin blew on her — becoming dog, horse, fish, lamb — sometimes singly, sometimes in a group. In an instant she would change into a plant, a tree, a spreading branch or a flowering twig, and even the most solicitous bird couldn’t destroy her peace. But relying on his instincts about women Mengliu sensed that, deep inside, Juli harboured a suppressed assertiveness and lust. Moreover, he was sure that her lust had something to do with him, and with this thought he spent the whole night in a stimulated state, a torrent of heat flowing unceasingly through his body.
Imagine yourself as the sweet breeze of Swan Valley blowing into the window as Mengliu shaved. Follow his razor blade, serving as a sort of snow plough on his cheek, piling the foam in one corner, exposing the street-smooth greenish skin. He felt his cheek, scraped a few places again, then rinsed the razor and put it in its little box in the wall cabinet. He washed his face, then raised his head and checked his reflection in the mirror from different angles. He pressed forcefully on his skin with his left hand, like a masseur — or perhaps it was more an attempt to smooth premature wrinkles. His face followed the manipulations of his fingers, going askew as he pulled and poked. If you observed carefully, you could see clearly the traits of one who belonged to the 60s generation — teeth stained by tetracycline, a lack of calcium, shattered ideals and a perplexed idleness — rather like a mirror covered with a layer of dust that made you long to reach out and wipe it clean. But you could also see that Mengliu had an open well-fed look, the look of an official. If his waist had been broader with a more protruding belly, he would pass for a mid-level cadre. Only his eyes were still very clear, unclouded by worldliness. His stiff, detached expression caused his face to wear a cold glint like the blade of a scalpel.
Now, Mengliu was as careful about his appearance as a woman. He wiggled his eyebrows — rise, shoot, pinch, spread — like lively silkworms. He puffed up his cheeks, then opened his eyes wide, and his pupils suddenly turned dull, as if a bat had just flown past. The strange face in the mirror bore none of the romantic air of the poet. Years ago, his classmates said that his ‘every pore oozed with poetry,’ and he himself believed that each drop of his sweat bore the aroma of art. But the face in front of him now was characteristic of a professional, without the slightest trace of the poet, its pores emitting only worldly indulgence and aptitude.
How could a man who wrote no poetry, put in a place where the toilet was made of gold, go about pursuing Juli with dignity? This was the question that absorbed him now.
That night the moon looked pale as it hung above the forest. The look, so melancholy, made it seem like the moon was about to break into tears.
On Beiping Street a women’s propaganda troupe appeared, headed up by Qizi. Holding a megaphone, she spoke to the crowd, making up jingles by substituting their own words for the lyrics of popular songs. A girl named Sixi played guitar as she sang. Sixi was from the Arts Department. She had a round face and dark red skin and was just over a metre and a half tall. Her raven-black hair was twisted into two thick braids. She wore the cotton print patchwork outfit typical of a minority ethnic group and jade pendants that jingled when she moved. She had a style that was simple and understated. She was healthy and fit, and her deep-set eyes were adorned with long lashes, like a row of reeds alongside a pond, which often cast their dark reflection on its surface.
Sixi could sing and dance, and she played the guitar beautifully. She had once won first prize in a singing competition for university students, and had also participated in a nationally televised song contest and got good rankings. When Qizi and the rest recommended that Sixi join the Unity Party, she was unanimously accepted. As a contribution to the Party, she composed a theme song, ‘Tomorrow’, and performed it on the spot.
The Unity Party had taken up its main position on Beiping Street, hanging up clothing and props for performances in the vicinity. An unsavoury musty smell mingled with that of instant noodles and a mimeograph from which propaganda leaflets were being printed and distributed. Sixi sat at three square tables that had been joined to make a conference table, tuning her guitar. Her knees propped her flowery skirt up as she searched for the right key, then she sang in a solid voice.
At first, everyone looked at Sixi’s fingers, lips, face, earrings and floral dress. Then, as she sang the second verse, they closed their eyes and listened. Her voice was like a ball dangling mid-air in a fog. Sixi sucked in enough air to set her saliva splashing. She issued a string of groan-like trembling sounds from her lips, then bowed deeply.
She hopped off the table, put down the guitar, then said shyly that she had written the lyrics, but they had been polished and revised by a poet. Which one? Jia Wan. Some had heard that he wrote poetry, and was especially good at political verse. The poet’s face was round but held at an angle, with a dash of pockmarks. His nose was huge, and his eyes narrow. It was the look of one who had been brought up well.