“I’ve been searching for you. My legs are so sore that I can no longer raise them. I pitch stones on the ground. You must have heard it, haven’t you?”
“What trunk are you talking about? It’s just a story that I told you before. I warned you that it’s a waste of energy. It’s so stupid of you to search everywhere. You also mentioned three-needle acupuncture. You sound like a snake player. Are you really so afraid? Wait till you reach my age, then you won’t be afraid anymore. In your arrogant memory there must be many types of broken trunks. They are hidden here and there. You believe they contain something. It’s a phenomenon of youth, in fact…” She stopped short, impatiently examining the window behind me.
During the day I kept telling myself that I shouldn’t forget to pay attention to those trunks at night. I wondered why I always forgot, and thought I should make a mark at those spots. Yet as soon as night arrived, my memory was befuddled. I turned this way and that, passing a trunk, a broom, a wallet, etc. But I just couldn’t remember anything. Where were my family members? They should at least have left some clue. Rats started a fight in the light fixture. The rats in this house were as big as cats. I covered the bulb with my pale hands to avoid attracting moths. The light was cold, and its rays penetrated to the depths of my heart. On the wall, I saw a projection of my heart. I intended to tell Mother about the summer. Suddenly all the kidney beans she had salted melted into stinking water and the Boston ivy drooped over. In the shadow, the bronze kettle rattled angrily. A cat climbed over the wall, at the foot of which there grew some castor oil plants. My third sister came by whistling. She had two bamboo leaves stuck in her nostrils. They had red spots on them and resembled dominoes.
There was nobody in Father’s room, either. The air smelled of sweat. There was a banana peel on the stool. During the day he told me in secret that he had recently been engaged in catching locusts. With his own eyes he saw mother kill five flowery moths and dump them into the dried-up well at the back of the house. “Tomorrow I will climb the green mountain,” he said, twisting his hips, and tapping the earthenware pot that he held against his chest like a little kid. “The locusts are flourishing there.” He was enjoying the verb he used, his face glowing with health.
“I’d like to tell Mother something,” I said.
“Your mother,” he rolled his huge eyeballs with difficulty, trying to recall something. “She is not a reliable thing. Don’t trust such a thing easily.” He jumped high on one foot, spilling all of the sand out of the pot. “I’ve been sleeping in the cotton fiber. It’s so quiet there, and no rats, either. How long have you been suffering from sleepwalking? It’s certainly a painful ailment. I once had it, too. Now about Sunglasses, you don’t need to guard against him, but treat him nicely. That guy is my friend. When dawn comes, we wander around, and at night, we sleep in the cotton fiber. One day when the Chinese scholar tree blossomed all in white, I squatted down at the corner of the street. Taking off my vest, I scratched myself as much as I could — I hadn’t had a bath for the whole winter. Later on, I noticed somebody else squatting there. That was him, he was scratching also. Together we listened to the humming of the mosquitoes, and our bodies felt all warmed up.”
The door banged open. “I just can’t wash my hair.” My third sister stood between father and me, with her hands on her hips and her hair let down. “Every time I wash my hair, my head gets light and drifty, like a balloon, and floats away from my neck. You simply cannot experience such a thing, no way! I’m just wasting my time.” She sat heavily on the bedside, a hook from her bra strap unfastened. “Who understands my sorrow? In the blue sky, there flies a yellow weasel! Ah? Ah?…” She sang and panted in an odd tone and spat on the floor.
“She has an enlarged cervical vertebra.” Father’s nose wrinkled up. He threw something at the foot of the bed.
“Father?”
“Your mother will come and eat it. Do you know why your mother hides herself? She’s trying to avoid rats. Last time I threw down a piece of cooked meat with maggots in it, but she ate it happily. Her stomach is rumbling with hunger. She eats everything I throw down. You may try, too!” Tightening his pants, he let out the aged, shrunken, smooth left leg. Then he threw his canvas bag onto his shoulder. With high spirits, he said, “I’m going to the green mountains today!”
I could hear him whistling outside the window.
Finally, I told Mother the story about the summer. I repeated it again and again, my face turning purple. Mother appeared half listening, smiling indulgently. With a bare foot she scratched her tightened calf muscle.
“That’s right, when the sun rises, I will turn into a fat hen.” In that instant, her pupils seemed to be melting. “The whole day, I squat in the woodpile under the eaves. Little children come and throw cobblestones at me. Eventually, one of them will break my spine.” She suddenly stood up, her eyes turned left and right in an equivocal way. “Now I need to change my approach completely. I have displayed fortitude and resolution. Just now I have broken a window. You all believe that I’ve been kept in the dark, don’t you? You, every one of you, what are you crying for underneath your quilts? Every day, just look at your swollen eyelids. I’m also making my own plans. You can’t see through me, but you think you can do everything your own way now! That’s why you’re jabbering such nonsense to me.”
Since a certain day, Mother had started to frighten us. She hid herself on purpose, yet she was present everywhere — underneath the bed, on top of the cupboard, behind the kitchen door, inside the cistern. Her deformed shadow drifted all over the place. The shadow was fat, swollen, purple in color, and smelled moldy. As a result, we walked quietly and spoke in whispers. Often when I was talking in Father’s ear, she screamed, as if she were about to jump out. It scared the wits out of us. Yet when we looked around, she was nowhere to be found. And the scream was from the radio. At other times, she giggled in the shadow instead of screaming. The sound raised goose bumps on our bodies. My third sister was the first to burn out. Struggling out of her fits of hysteria, she searched for our missing mother, with a spade on her shoulder. At those moments, her face was purple, her neck stiff; she looked valiant and spirited. The base of the walls inside the house, the stove, and everything else had all been dug into a mess.
The day I suddenly realized that Mother had disappeared from this house forever, father was putting on his leg wrappings. “I’m going to the green mountains to fish for two months,” he told me in high spirits. His cheeks were flushed with excitement.
“What shall we do about Mother?” I asked abruptly.
“I’ve raised a poisonous snake in the bushes. It comes out whenever I call it. Are you interested? We can catch locusts together.”
“There’s a poisonous snake I raised right under my bed.” Mother’s sharp voice resounded in the shadows.
Taking up his canvas bag, Father dashed out of the house like a young boy, his bag flopping against his skinny hips. “Two months!” he shouted back to me, raising two fingers, while running away.
I heard a suspicious sound behind me. When I turned around, I saw my third sister smashing her spade down on the dark spot where Mother’s voice could be heard. A string of yellow sparks leapt from the cement.
“The buttons on that thing must be almost all gone, am I right?” I suddenly remembered.