I could tell by my driver’s attitude that my days as an official had come to an end. I’d no sooner returned from the provincial capital than he complained to me that my wife had made him drive her and my son somewhere, and not on official business. He hadn’t come to pick me up, claiming that the car was experiencing electrical problems. I’d had to hitch a ride with the Agricultural Bureau bus home. Now I was walking toward the county town. But did I really want to go back there? To do what? I should be going to wherever Chunmiao was. But where was she?
Jinlong drove up in his Cadillac and stopped alongside me. He opened the door.
“Get in.”
“That’s okay.”
“I said get in!” Clearly he would brook no disobedience. “I want to talk to you.”
I climbed into his luxurious car.
Next I was in his luxurious office.
He sat slouched in a burgundy leather armchair, leisurely smoking a cigarette and staring up at the chandelier.
“Would you say that life is like a dream?” he asked light-heartedly.
I silently waited for him to go on.
“Do you remember how we used to tend our ox on the riverbank?” he said. “In order to get you to join the commune I slugged you once every day. At the time, who could have imagined that twenty years later the People’s Commune would be like a house built on sand, washed away in front of our eyes? I’d never have believed back then that one day you would rise to the position of deputy county chief and I’d be the CEO of a corporation. So many of the sacred things we’d have lost our heads over aren’t worth a dog’s fart today.”
I held my tongue, knowing that this wasn’t what he wanted to talk about.
He sat up straight, stubbed out the cigarette he’d just lit, and gazed intently at me.
“There are plenty of pretty girls in town, so why jeopardize everything to chase after that skinny monkey? Why didn’t you come to me if you wanted some fun? Black, white, fat, skinny, I could easily get you what you wanted. You want to try a change of diet? Those Russian girls only charge a thousand a night!”
“If this is what you dragged me over here to talk about,” I said as I got to my feet, “I’m not sticking around.”
“Stay where you are!” he shouted angrily, slamming his fist on the desk and sending the ashes in his ashtray flying. “You’re a bastard, through and through. A rabbit doesn’t eat the grass around its burrow, and in this case, it’s not even very good grass.” He lit another cigarette, took a deep drag, and coughed. “What do you know about my relationship with Pang Kangmei?” he asked as he stubbed out the cigarette. “She’s my mistress! The planned Ximen Village resort, if you want to know, is our venture, our bright future, a future you’re screwing up with your dick!”
“I’m not interested in what you’re doing,” I said. “My only interest is Chunmiao.”
“I take it that means you’re not giving up,” he said. “Do you really want to marry the girl?”
I nodded forcefully.
“Well, it’s not going to happen, no way!” He stood up and paced the floor of his spacious office before walking up and thumping me in the chest. “Break this off at once,” he said unambiguously. “Anything else you want to do, just leave it to me. After a while you’ll realize that women are what they are, and nothing more.”
“You’ll excuse me,” I said, “but that’s disgusting. You have no right to interfere in my life, and I certainly don’t need you to help me arrange it.”
I turned to leave, but he grabbed my arm and said in a milder tone:
“Okay, maybe there is such a thing as love, damn it. So what do you say we work out a compromise? Get your emotions under control and knock off this talk about divorce. Stop seeing Ghunmiao for a while, and I’ll arrange a transfer to another county, maybe even farther, one of the metropolitan areas or a provincial capital, at the same level you are now. You put in a little time, and I’ll see that you get a promotion. Then if you still want to divorce Hezuo, leave everything to me. All it’ll take is money, three hundred thousand, half a million, a million, whatever it takes. There isn’t a goddamn woman alive who’d pass up money like that. Then you send for Pang Ghunmiao, and the two of you live like a couple of lovebirds. Truth is,”-he paused-“this isn’t the way we wanted to do it, since it’s a lot of trouble. But I am your brother, and she is her sister.”
“Thank you,” I said, “for your wise counsel. But I don’t need it, I really don’t.” I walked to the door, took a few steps back toward him, and said, “Like you say, you are my brother, and they are sisters, so I advise you not to let your appetites grow too big. The gods have long arms. I, Lan Jiefang, am having an affair, but, after all, that’s a problem of morality. But one day, if you two aren’t careful…”
“Who are you to be lecturing me?” He sneered. “Don’t blame me for what happens! Now get the hell out of here!”
“What have you done with Ghunmiao?” I asked him dispassionately.
“Get out!” His angry shout was absorbed by the leather padding on the door.
I was back on Ximen Village streets, this time with tears in my eyes.
I didn’t even turn my head when I walked past the Ximen family home. I knew I was an unfilial son, that both my parents would be gone before long, but I didn’t flinch.
Hong Taiyue stopped me at the bridgehead. He was drunk. He grabbed my lapel and said loudly:
“Lan Jiefang, you son of a bitch, you locked me up, an old revolutionary! One of Chairman Mao’s loyal warriors! A fighter against corruption! Well, you can lock me up, but you can’t lock up the truth! A true materialist fears nothing! And I’m sure not afraid of you people!”
Some men came out of the public house from which Hong had been ejected to pull him away from me. The tears in my eyes kept me from seeing who they were.
I crossed the bridge. The bright, golden sunlight made the river look like a great highway. Hong Taiyue’s shouts followed me:
“Give me back my ox bone, you son of a bitch!”
49
Hezuo Cleans a Toilet In a Rainstorm
Jiefang Makes a Decision After a Beating
A category-nine typhoon brought an almost unprecedented rainfall at night. I was always listless during spells of wet weather, wanting nothing more than to lie down and sleep. But that night, sleep was the furthest thing from my mind; both my hearing and smell were at their peak of sensitivity; my eyesight, owing to the constant streaks of powerful blue-white light, was dimmed, though not enough to affect my ability to discern each blade of grass and drop of water in every corner of the yard. Nor did it affect my ability to spot the cowering cicadas among the leaves of the parasol tree.
The rain fell nonstop from seven until nine o’clock that night. Streaks of lightning made it possible for me to see rain flying down from the eaves of the main building like a wide cataract. The rain came out of the plastic tubing on the side rooms like watery pillars that arced downward onto the cement ground. The ditch beside the path was stopped up by all sorts of things, forcing the water up over the sides, where it swamped the path and the steps in front of the gate. A family of hedgehogs living in a woodpile by the wall was driven out by the rising water; their lives were clearly in danger.
I was about to sound a warning to your wife, but before the bark emerged, a lantern was lit beneath the eaves, lighting up the entire yard. Out she stepped, shielded from the rain by a conical straw hat and a plastic rain cape. Her thin calves were exposed below her shorts; she was wearing plastic sandals with broken straps. Water cascading off the eaves knocked her rain hat to one side, where the wind blew it off her head altogether. Her hair was drenched in seconds. She ran to the west-side room, picked up a shovel from the pile of coal behind me, and ran back into the rain. Pooling rainwater swallowed up her calves as she ran; a bolt of lightning smothered the light from the lamp and turned her face, to which strands of wet hair clung, ghostly white. It was a frightening sight.