As I rode off I pondered Kangmei’s comment and shuddered. Over and over I warned myself: Lan Jiefang, if you don’t want to wind up broken physically and saddled with a ruined reputation, you must keep from plunging over the cliff. But when I stood at my office window and looked down at the weather-beaten New China Bookstore signboard, my fears and worries dried up and flew away, leaving only thoughts of her behind, thoughts etched deeply in my mind. In forty years on this earth I’d never felt anything like that. After adjusting the pair of Soviet Red Army binoculars a friend had brought back from Manzhouli, I focused my gaze on the bookstore entrance. The double doors, with their rusty metal handles, were unlocked; from time to time someone walked out, and my heart raced. Each time I was hoping to see her slender figure emerge, then gracefully cross the street and walk elegantly up to me. But it was never her, always book buyers, young or old, male or female. When their faces were pulled into the lenses of my binoculars, their expressions were very much alike – mysterious and bleak. I’d start thinking crazy thoughts. Had something bad happened in the store? Had something happened to her? More than once I entertained the thought of going to see for myself, pretending to be a customer, but with what little reason remained, I managed to hold back. I gazed up at the clock; it was only one thirty, still an hour and a half to go before the time we’d agreed upon to meet. I thought about taking a nap on the army cot I kept behind the screen, but I was too worked up to sleep. I brushed my teeth and washed my face. I shaved and trimmed my nose hairs. Then I studied my reflection in the mirror, half red, half blue – truly ugly. I gently tapped the blue side and cursed: Ugly shit! My self-confidence was on the verge of crumbling. Several times I heard light footsteps coming my way, and I rushed to open the door to greet her. But the hall was always empty. So I sat where she always sat and waited impatiently, flipping through the book I’d handed to her; I could almost see her sitting there reading. Her smell was on that book, her fingerprints were all over it…
Finally, I heard a knock at the door and felt cold all over. I was shivering, my teeth were chattering. I rushed over and opened the door. The smile on her face found its way into my soul. I forgot everything, the words I’d planned to say to her, Pang Kangmei’s veiled warning, all my fears. I took her in my arms and kissed her; she kissed me back.
Between kisses we looked into each other’s eyes. There were tears on her cheeks; I licked them dry – salty and fresh. “Why, dearest Chumiao? Is this a dream? Why?” “Dearest Lan, everything I have is yours, you want me, don’t you…” I struggled. We kissed again, desperately, and what followed was inevitable.
We lay on the cot in each other’s arms; somehow it didn’t seem so narrow now. “Dearest Ghunmiao, I’m twenty years older than you, I’m ugly as sin, and I’m so afraid I’ll bring calamities down on you. I don’t deserve to live…” I was nearly incoherent. She stroked my chin and my face. With her mouth pressed against my ear, she said, “I love you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll be responsible for what happens.”
“I don’t want you to be responsible. I’m a willing partner. I won’t leave you until we’ve been together a hundred times.”
I was like a starving cow that has suddenly spotted a patch of fresh new grass.
A hundred times came and went in a hurry, but we still found it impossible to part.
On the hundredth time, we wished it would never end. She touched my face and said tearfully, “Take a good look at me. Don’t forget me.”
“Chunmiao, I want to marry you.”
“No.”
“I’ve made up my mind,” I said. “What awaits us is probably an abyss. But I have no choice.”
“Then we’ll jump in together,” she said.
That night I went home to lay my cards on the table. My wife was in the side room, winnowing mung beans – a tricky job, but one she was good at. As her hands moved up and down and sideways, the beans fairly flew and the husks soared out.
“What’s up?” I asked for lack of anything better to say.
“His granddad sent over some mung beans.” She reached down and picked out some gravel. “They came from his garden. I don’t care if other things go bad, but not these. I’ll have some bean sprouts for Kaifang.”
She went back to work.
“Hezuo”-I hardened my heart-“I want a divorce.”
Her hands stopped in midair and she stared blankly at me, as if she didn’t comprehend what I was saying.
“I’m sorry, Hezuo, but I think that’s best.”
The winnowing basket tipped slowly forward, sending a few, then a dozen or so, then a hundred or more beans spilling out onto the cement floor, like a green waterfall.
The basket fell out of her hand and she began listing to the side, losing her sense of balance. I thought about reaching out to steady her, but she leaned up against a chopping board on which some onions and dry oil fritters lay. She covered her mouth with her hand and began to sob. Tears gushed from her eyes.
“I really am sorry, but please do this for me.”
She flung her hand away from her mouth and wiped the tears from her eyes with her fingers. Clenching her jaw, she said:
“Over my dead body.”
43
Angered, Huang Hezuo Bakes Flat Bread
Drunk, Dog Four Displays Melancholy
While you were laying your cards on the table with your wife, still covered with the heavy scent of passionate lovemaking with Pang Chunlai, I was outside crouching under the eaves, gazing at the moon, deep in thought. There was a deranged quality to the wonderful moonbeams. Since it was a full moon, all the dogs in the county were scheduled to meet in Tianhua Square. The first item on the agenda was a memorial for the Tibetan mastiff who could not adapt to life below sea level, causing his internal organs to fail, which led to internal bleeding and death. Next was to arrange a celebration for my third sister, who had married the Norwegian husky belonging to the county Political Consultative Conference chairman four months earlier, and had just had a litter of three white-faced, yellow-eyed bastard pups a month ago.
Lan Jiefang, you rushed out of the house and gave me a meaningful glance as you passed by I saw you off with a series of barks: Old friend, I think the happy times are coming to an end for you. I felt mildly hostile toward you; the smell of Pang Chunmiao you carried with you worked to diminish the hostility I’d otherwise have felt.
My nose told me you headed north, on foot, the same route I used when taking your son to school. A lot of noise from your wife came from inside the house, thanks to the open door, through which I saw her raise her cleaver and, with loud thuds, shred the onions and oil fritters on the chopping board. The pungent smell of chopped onions and rancid odor of oil fritters spread vigorously through the room. By now your scent placed you at the Tianhua Bridge, where it merged with the putrid smell of foul water running below. With each blow from her cleaver, her left leg wobbled a bit, accompanied by a single clipped word: “Hate! Hate!”