Leave Me Alone (26 page)

This hairy dude sitting beside me was choking up. My heart received a jolt when I heard Li Liang’s voice and I said to him, ‘Li Liang! Fuck, I thought you were dead.’

Li Liang laughed and said that in all his life, the times he remembered most fondly were our university days.

Before graduation, Li Liang had published an article in the
literature society paper called ‘My Homeland of Emotions’. I still could remember a few lines:

The overture of our youth was still reverberating but I had moved on now. No matter whether I succeeded or failed in the future, was happy or sad, in the depths of my life there was a home I would never visit again.

In some ways though, Li Liang had never grown up. He was always thinking about the past. There was a fable that summed him up: if you were given some grapes, would you eat the big ones or the small ones first? I chose the big ones, which meant I was a hopeful pessimist, overdrawing on life. Although every grape I ate was the largest to hand, the grapes themselves became smaller and smaller. Bighead Wang chose small ones, which meant he was a pessimistic optimist. Hope was always there but he could never reach it. But Li Liang didn’t actually eat grapes. He was a grape collector.

Li Liang took a lot of photographs on his nostalgia tour of the university, many of them outside our dormitory building. I looked at them, and each small scene reminded
me of forgotten times: us sat outside the dormitory getting drunk; another time, when we came back at midnight and made a human ladder to climb the wall with moonlight on our backs. We took pictures outside the building and sang ‘The Internationale’ and Panther’s ‘No Place to Hide’:

Zhao Yue was in these memories too. She would stand under the Chinese parasol tree with her schoolbag and a lunch box, waiting for me to come downstairs to eat, or to make out in the woods.

Li Liang said that our dorm was still as filthy as ever. There were posters of naked women on the walls, smelly socks on the floor. The new generation of university students still debated our old topics: poetry, love, and their brilliant futures. In Big Brother’s bed was a new generation Big Brother lookalike, and in my bed was a fat guy from Lanzhou. The woods that once witnessed my seductions had been levelled and there was a tennis court there now. Zhang Jie, who worked in the university office, had given birth to a 4-kilogram baby boy. The literature society newspaper had changed its name to
Sound of the Whirlpool.
Teacher Lin who taught poetry had died, and his wife had burnt all of his manuscripts. Among the remains was found a blackened piece of paper with one legible line:
The journey of life is long, there is no place to rest.

Li Liang said, ‘You have to admit, we’ve all degenerated.’

Li Liang, the recovering addict, looked sallow. His face was stubbly. His voice was hoarse and squeaky, as if a pig-gelder was gripping his crotch. I didn’t agree with what he’d said. There was no degeneration. The stars were still the stars, the moon remained the moon. Walking in the river of life didn’t make us taller or shorter; our ups and downs happened on the surface of the water and were beyond our control. Twenty years ago I’d wanted to be a scientist, but I didn’t believe that the Chen Zhong of that time was any nobler than the Chen Zhong of today. As I stepped out of the door, I thought that ambitions were like soap bubbles. After they burst, their true ephemeral nature was revealed. Li Liang’s mistake was to mistake the bubbles for life itself.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Zeng Jiang from Dachuan County came to Chengdu on a business trip, and I told Fatty Dong I’d have to spend time entertaining him. Honestly, I both envied and despised those sales agents who worked on a commission basis. I envied them because they earned more than me and the girls on their arms were therefore more beautiful. But I couldn’t stand how coarse and shallow they were, especially Old Lai. Quite apart from him spending all his money on whores, you never heard anything uplifting come out of his mouth. He called himself ‘semen-sprinkling god’ and boasted foully how he’d stuffed his ‘gun’ into girls from thirty-one provinces, as well as conducting ‘international trade’ with Russia. The last time he came to Chengdu, we went to a nightclub. He grabbed a girl and bragged about his personal dimensions, using gestures to illustrate: 2 inches wide at the top, weight about 7 pounds,
and more than 154 square centimetres. His talk was so unbelievably foul that my eyes nearly popped out and the girls gagged and fled the scene. Old Lai was satisfied with himself, believing that his weapon was supreme and he’d won a battle without even taking to the battlefield.

Zeng Jiang, however, had the style of a scholar merchant. He wore smart suits, expensive shoes and a big smile. Any comparison was embarrassing but he was the same age as me, twenty-eight. He was a graduate of Shanghai Tongji University and able to talk intelligently on any topic. I would often say to him, ‘You’re a walking encyclopaedia’.

Once when we were walking around Wu Hou Temple, a couple of foreigners asked us for directions. He conversed with them in fluent English, while I stood at his side feeling like a loser. I was poor at foreign languages, always confusing singular and plural, unable to distinguish between tenses. On one of the occasions when Old Lai conducted ‘international trade’, he asked me to help him with introductions. He only knew one English phrase: ‘fa-ke you’, which I’d taught him, for use when he was fleeing the scene of battle. Anyway, that time in the Pushkin Hotel, my mind was a blank as I found myself approaching a detachment of beautiful Russian girls. I decided to try flattery, but I was careless with my verb and said, ‘You is a beautiful girl.’ They laughed at me.

As we left Wu Hou Temple, I thought angrily that my life had been wasted. I’d accomplished nothing, my wife had left me, and I had debts. The knowledge I’d acquired at university had turned out to be useless. What could I do now?

Zeng Jiang didn’t notice my dark expression as he
continued talking about how he wanted to go to the UK to study. I felt as if I’d somehow been robbed.

At that month’s sales fair our Sichuan branch’s achievements ranked first in the whole company. A triumphant Fatty Dong returned to Head Office to receive the garlands we had earned. Before he went, he held a short meeting during which he boasted that he was a master strategist, surpassing Zhuge Liang of the Three Kingdoms period. My lungs felt swollen with indignation as I listened to him; if he’d had to rely on his own pig brain there was no way we’d have got this result. Our success was down to two factors: good coordination on adverts and seizing our opportunity.

Lanfei company — our rivals — sneakily held their sales fair on 15 October, two days earlier than we’d expected. The instant I got hold of this inside information I applied to Head Office to bring our plans forward. I pressed the logistics centre to get the stock ready, then summoned Fatty Dong from his wife’s side to convene an urgent meeting. We talked till three in the morning, until finally we’d decided a detailed plan. By that time this so-called ‘master of strategy’ was only capable of nodding his head; he didn’t have so much as a fart to offer.

That was the second day after Li Liang had gone missing and leaving the office, I’d noticed the moon scattering irregular beams in the alleys between the clusters of buildings. Apart from the occasional shooting star, the whole city was still and silent. I’d slowly made my way back to my
deserted home thinking of Li Liang, my heart like an expanse of empty desert — endless, solitary, not even a blade of grass growing there.

The 24th of October was my twenty-ninth birthday. My mother called me at work and told me to come home for dinner. She said she’d cooked several dishes and my father had already poured the wine. I laughed soundlessly. Although I didn’t know why, I felt slightly hurt.

That night, though, we had a happy meal together. My mother’s beef was hot enough to bring tears to our eyes, but we wolfed it down. The old man challenged me to a drinking contest, saying that tonight he would drink me under the table. Heroically I managed two glasses to his every one, downing as many as six doubles. Someone had got my father the wine wholesale from Quanxing factory and it was powerful. Soon I felt warm from head to toe, my brain flooded with a drunk self-satisfaction. Despite his crushing defeat my father bragged that thirty years ago he’d been more than a match for two, even three, rabbits. Everyone laughed loudly and my nephew snorted until he spewed his dinner all over himself.

Before my sister gave birth to her child, she and her husband used to argue a lot. When my sister’s husband first started out, he was just a small-time reporter but his ambition was great. He wanted to be a famous journalist. He went everywhere, day and night, with his concealed camera. His unit had a dormitory, but my sister said she’d rather die than let him live there
— it was damp and depressing, only fit for storing radishes, she said. So we all spent two years squeezed together at our parents’ place. My sister and her husband were in the room next door to me. Often in the middle of the night their iron-framed bed would shake and clank. One night it disturbed me so much that I leapt up and banged the wall in protest, causing my ‘famous journalist’ brother-in-law to be red-faced for days. At one stage, their relationship reached crisis point — probably some kind of something-year itch. They’d argue eighty times a day, then my brother-in-law would storm out and my sister would weep silently. Around the time of the spring festival they had another big fight. My sister was pregnant then, and was trembling all over with rage. She shook her fist at him, shouting, ‘You’re immature.’ My brother-in-law leaned against the wall, not saying a word. I protested that my sister was being unreasonable, that nagging was wrong. My sister got so angry that she beat her swollen stomach. Full of indignation she shouted, ‘Heavens, even you won’t take my side. Don’t you know he has a lover?’

Now I realise how normal this kind of thing is. As I walk around Chengdu, there is no way to tell whether the men I see are honest, the women faithful. Betrayal and self-indulgence are the characteristics of the age. It is just as Bighead Wang said: everyone plays the field. But back then, the Chen Zhong who still had some illusions about love was so angry about this betrayal of his sister that he almost smashed the floorboards. He charged at his brother-in-law with a roar. Looking back on it now, I see the whole comedy as some parable about human nature. My sister sobbed loudly, my
mother wept softly, and my brother-in-law ended up on the floor, shaking and moaning, his head in his hands.

It proved difficult for my sister to get past her husband’s affair. For months she waged a cold war against him. Sometimes I wondered whether her son’s poor health was the result of all this. It was definitely a tough time for my brother-in-law too, having to suffer my supercilious looks and my father’s and mother’s cold faces. But he sincerely repented and, after working on my sister’s emotions, finally won me over too. My sister moved in with him and recovered her health. She got into selling cars and enjoyed being a good wife and mother.

My brother-in-law’s career was on an upwards trajectory. He’d broken several big stories, and had even been to the Middle East once. In fact, it was said that he was about to be promoted to deputy editor. My sister’s face was happy these days. Every time she came round, out poured a torrent of admiration for her husband’s achievements. What was more, these days he never forgot to call her and report his whereabouts. Each month he handed over his salary right away to the head of household affairs; my sister. She gave him an allowance according to his needs. As she had a back problem, he taught himself how to give a massage and every night put his hands and feet to good use on kneading and pummelling her back; he jokingly described this as ‘legal wife-beating.’

After dinner, I played Go with my father. My sister helped our mother put away the pots and plates, then left with her family. From the window, I watched them walk hand in hand
through the yard beneath a blazing building of lights. My nephew bounced along like a small dog. My brother-in-law said a few words to my sister, who first made a fist and then rocked with laughter.

Suddenly I thought about my former home and our old street at night with its jewels of lamplight. Only a few months ago, Zhao Yue and I had walked along there together. My insides were frozen by a pain which didn’t go away for ages. The old man stared at me, then said in a casual voice, ‘Still not guarding your corner? I’ve taken three of your pieces.’

That day I’d received three birthday calls: Li Liang, Zhou Yan, and the one I didn’t expect… Ye Mei.

Zhou Yan was now assistant to the CEO at a special institute that researched how to feed pigs. This seemed rather an unlikely position for her and I asked whether her boss had any other requirements. She laughed and told me to get lost.

‘You think everyone is as lecherous as you,’ she said.

Zhou Yan was a strange girl. She had to know what I wanted from her, and she was usually friendly, but just when I thought I could advance a step towards my goal, she would back off. Once, during an agents’ conference in the Jinzhu Garden Holiday Village, we sang a few songs together:
When it’s raining I kiss you, in spring I embrace you.
My heart beat faster as I pictured ‘embracing’ Zhou Yan in many different positions. After the clients had gone back to their rooms, I suggested that we go for a walk. She gave me a surprised squint, then took a swing with her handbag, saying, ‘You … give you a little smile and you get carried away.’