Q (gently): Ah, don’t cry. I’m here. There are two guys-one loafing around on the main street, and the other in a dark house. The one on the street is black and supple. He’s about to melt into air in the daylight. The one in the house is white-a solid glaring white light. He would be well groomed even in a coffin. Listen: he’s coming. Every time, he stands on that corner and stares at me, I can’t move. This has happened three times.
X (looking ecstatic): I didn’t bring any mirrors today. I feel very stimulated by you today. Please repeat the last sentence: it was wonderful.
Q: I can’t move. Ah! (He looked frustrated. After a while, he started smiling sweetly again, showing his teeth to the glass of the roadside shop window.)
X (talking to herself): Let the miracle come! Let the miracle come!
Hiding behind a power pole, the female colleague had recorded this conversation in a small notebook without missing a word, noting that it was ‘‘after the adultery occurred.’’ She furnished this conversation to the writer and exhorted him to keep her role secret because she had always felt sisterly love for this adorable, charming Madam X. (In fact, she leaked it to the writer only because she felt that she and the writer were like Damon and Pythias.) Madam X had often sought guidance from her in dealing with relationships between men and women. And because they were always together, Madam X always relied on her charms to attract crowds of men, though some might have thought that Madam X herself was also very good at this. For this reason, Madam X idealized her and babbled all her innermost thoughts to her. She held nothing back and also dragged her into anything she did. Madam X didn’t mind that she had heard this conversation; she knew the female colleague was standing behind the power pole. She even raised her voice to make sure that the wind would carry her words to her friend’s ears, even if she didn’t want to overhear.
There was reason to think that Madam X had deliberately allowed her female friend to record their conversation. Maybe she’d figured that it would become part of the history books! She knew her female friend was loyal and trustworthy and never suspected that she would distort the facts. And so why did the friend insist that the writer conceal her? Did she have some things to be ashamed of? Was this a trick to gain advantages? No, absolutely not. She was always aboveboard. Madam X hinted at what she wanted in a very delicate way, neither by a meaningful glance nor by any twitching of her facial muscles. If Madam X hadn’t given her this hint and if she hadn’t felt sisterly toward Madam X, she wouldn’t have stupidly hidden behind a power pole on the dusty road and-sweating profusely-recorded this conversation! Unfortunately, she didn’t have any natural gift for stenography. She wrote slowly and didn’t hear very well, either. Furthermore, she was disgusted with those insane words. The work left her exhausted. If in the end she was vilified and got the reputation of being a blabbermouth, how could she go on living? Even if she could stand it herself, how hard it would be for her dear friend Madam X!
In that gloomy room of hers, Madam X told her several times: if anything happened to her dear colleague and friend-if she was plotted against and lost her reputation or even her life-she wouldn’t want to go on living, either! Madam X was just like her-a very passionate person. Their relationship had stood the test of time. Anyone would be moved by their mutual affection, so she couldn’t do whatever she wished. She had to consider X’s feelings in everything she did, and wanted her to be eternally happy. If the writer leaked her name so that those narrow-minded persons accused her of being a blabbermouth and the whole thing was made known to Madam X, she would be terminally hurt! She knew Madam X well. How could she bear the pain? Those men had approached her first, and only because of her tactful management did they gradually turn their attention to Madam
X. If she’d selfishly shown off her own charms, those men would have stuck around, so Madam X would never have enjoyed her good fortune. Madam X deeply appreciated this.
After saying all of this, the female colleague turned her moony eyes to the writer and asked if he understood. Had her secret kindled new inspiration in him? Did he want to record their ideal relationship in his notebook using a different style? The writer thought it over and agreed. When he got inspired, he would reproduce this moving scene and enter their unconventional feelings vividly into the history. He had fallen in love with Madam X’s female colleague at first sight, and now he’d fallen deeper and couldn’t extricate himself. He’d never experienced such a strange feeling before. It wasn’t a bit carnal. The writer had only great admiration and heartfelt respect for this beautiful (please forgive the word) female colleague. Any other ideas would be improper. He had to get rid of those improper ideas. If he couldn’t do it right away, he still had to try to keep his mind pure and transparent with her. Only in this way could the writer become enlightened and inspired. Otherwise, he would slip and wallow in the mud of vulgarity, write something garish, and finally get nowhere.
After he sent the female colleague off, the writer’s thoughts returned to Madam X. The protagonist of this long story-the most colorful and romantic witch on Five Spice Street: what was she like when the adultery was going on? She couldn’t be as abstract as a symbol or a thread of steam, could she? Could we reach a fair and reasonable conclusion by relying on those petty clues? There must be a lot to discover. If the writer didn’t persevere and painstakingly sort out the main threads from this mess, the riddle would never be solved.
The most reliable first-hand information came from a woman whose husband was a friend of Madam X’s brother-in-law. She was an emaciated, dark-skinned woman. She angrily drove the mosquitoes away with a big fan. Shaking her knees, she casually told the writer, ‘‘It’s embarrassing to talk about this kind of thing.’’ Then she blushed and jumped up and down as if bitten by bedbugs. She glanced at the crowd cooling off outside. (People were staring at her and pricking up their ears. Some who’d been sitting a little farther away moved their chairs closer.)
‘‘Let’s find a place where we can talk!’’ She started to run, dragging the writer by the arm. People followed closely. They were shouting who-knows-what. The writer was sweating profusely, but the woman seemed tremendously strong and lifted him up onto her square, thin shoulders and rushed ahead. We don’t know how far they went. Finally, the woman placed the writer on a bed in a dark little room and bolted the door. The crowd besieged the little room: some kicked the door and rapped on the window. Others hurled stones inside.
‘‘Shhhh! They’ll leave. It’s just vulgar curiosity. They’re just like gluttonous children-never satisfied,’’ the woman whispered to the writer.
After a while, they heard someone say in a high voice, ‘‘Probably she doesn’t have any interesting secrets. They’re probably just using this as an excuse to make out inside. The stenographer is kind of cute!’’
The people fell quiet, and then they began grumbling, complaining that they’d run over for nothing. They gradually dispersed and went far away. In the dark, the woman kept poking the writer in the ribs, and giggled as she snuggled up to his neck, so happy she couldn’t contain herself. When the writer finally really responded intimately, she jumped away and sat at the other end of the room as if disgusted. Her knees bumped together like the beating of a drum.