Leave Me Alone (30 page)

I wanted to protest at this but he stopped me with a look.

‘I’ll suppress your statement. This thing won’t get out of hand.’

I finally understood Bighead’s strategy. He wanted to frighten the company into not proceeding with the charges.

On the way out, he said, ‘We just need to convince them that if they still want to do business in Sichuan, they don’t want to take the lids off those pots.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Christmas was nearly here. The Chengdu streets throbbed with excitement. Unscrupulous businessmen flew God’s banner while thrusting money into their pockets. The shops were endlessly discounting, the restaurants endlessly delivering. Even the medicine shops offered special promotions. Buy two packs of condoms, get a free detox pack. Buy two bottles of Indian love oil, get a bottle of athlete’s foot lotion. Complete insanity. There were people everywhere. Chunxi Road was a sea of heads clustered together like mushrooms. Never mind what their resources were, they were spending like crazy. The attitude wasn’t like going to spend money, it was like going to steal money. Everyone was bristling with competitive ardour; even asking for directions risked starting a fight.

I went with my mother to take a look at the scene and my eyes nearly suffered from visual overload. My nostrils filled
with the pungent smells of different meats and fish. Radish, flowered garlic, full-flavoured puffed rice. Smelly tofu. My head felt swollen like a big jug, filled with commercial messages. In the Red Flag market we bought five kilos of preserved meat and two strings of sausages, then in the People’s Market I acquired three shirts and several pairs of socks. Mother took a liking to a gaudy traditional-style red jacket and urged me to try it on.

I bowed and said, ‘Mother, your son is not a gigolo. What good is this for me?’

These last few days my mood had improved. Last week Zhou Weidong called with the inside information that Fatty Dong and Liu Three had been cursing me terribly. I had him tell me exactly what they said, and it turned out to be nothing but ‘mean’, ‘shameless’, ‘lowdown’ that kind of thing. Their cursing lacked originality. Still, I could hardly stop laughing.

I’d obediently implemented Bighead Wang’s strategy and the case had already moved from being one of misappropriation to one of bribery. The police had taken the bribery list I’d provided and gone to question Fatty Dong, Liu Three and the accountant. Fatty Dong was apparently so shocked by this development that he turned green. The police had also issued a formal request for the company to clarify the situation. The document included a few menacing sentences on product quality and tax issues. The words were understated but their implications deadly. I thought the big boss would be concerned on seeing them.

I was encouraged by this into thoughts of demanding my October salary, but Bighead warned me against going too
far. ‘With this kind of thing you need to know to quit when ahead,’ he told me. If I really drove them mad and dragged them right in it, I’d also be exposed. I was chastened, and told him I understood. Looking at him with new respect, I thought, this guy has a pig’s brain. Where did he get so wise?

A few days ago I’d had to visit the company to get my social insurance book. When I appeared, the administration department was suddenly very quiet, like that old saying: people go, tea is cold. Apart from Zhou Weidong, everyone ignored me; all my formerly devoted subordinates had simultaneously become deaf and blind. None of them so much as glanced at me. Furious, I cursed them loudly.

Zhang Jiang, sitting near the door, was apparently engrossed in some paperwork and didn’t raise his head. I got mad at him ignoring me and went over to his table and shouted, ‘Zhang baby, you don’t know me? Have you forgotten how you always used to ask me for things?’

When Zhang Jiang had first come to the company he’d got off to a bad start, and Liu Three had made a big noise about firing him. I had a quiet chat with him, and the guy opened up to me, begging me to give him another chance.

Now Zhang Jiang face’s swelled up like he’d got uraemia. He couldn’t say a word.

Zhou Weidong came and tugged my sleeve, saying, ‘Brother Chen, forget it. Zhang baby also has his problems.’

I sneered, saying, ‘Isn’t this all for Fatty Dong? Do you think that if you ignore me, Fatty Dong will love you?’

At that moment Fatty Dong’s door creaked open.
Pretending not to have noticed, I drummed my fingers playfully on Zhang Jiang’s head.

‘I’ll tell you what brother. The most evil, mean, lowdown, shameless of all is that loser Dong!’

It was a deliberate attempt at provocation. This time I had lost so badly that I just couldn’t accept it and I wished that Fatty Dong would come out and really do battle! I thought that I knew him now: if you were polite to him, then sooner or later he would knife you in the back, but if you took him on then he was impotent.

I was about to leave when Fatty Dong roared, ‘Chen Zhong!’

His outburst was as tremulous as a long held-back fart. Turning my head, I saw him brandishing two fists. He stood in the doorway to his office, convulsed with rage.

I said smoothly, ‘Boss Dong, do you think I understand you well?’

Fatty Dong bore down on me fiercely, bellowing, ‘You say that again! Shameless!’

The guy was massive; towering over me, he was like an iron pagoda. To be honest I was afraid, but when I thought of what he’d done to me, my common sense evaporated and I wondered what I could say to really drive him mad. After about one-tenth of a second, it came to me.

Still laughing, I bowed mock-apologetically, saying, ‘Boss Dong, I did wrong by you. You are right, I am shameless.’

He was struck dumb.

‘Although you only went to a brothel,’ I continued, ‘I had the cheek to inform on you to the cops, and then summon
reporters to come and cover it, to get you in the papers. I really treated you badly.’

I squeezed through the main door of the People’s Shopping Centre and sighed with relief. Then I turned around and found that my mother was missing. I waited for ages but still couldn’t see her, and so had to drag my aching feet and all our shopping back inside to look for her. I couldn’t leave without her — she had my wallet and cellphone. I went all round the store several times, but couldn’t see her anywhere. By now I was furious. I’ll really give her a piece of my mind this time, I thought. How could she just wander off like that? Didn’t she care about losing her own children?

From the first floor to the fourth floor, from the fourth back to the first. My feet nearly dropped off, but still there was no sign of the old woman. Finally I sat down on the ground from exhaustion, and passers-by looked at me like I was a vagrant. I forced myself up again, thinking that I’d do one more circuit and then if I didn’t see her I’d go home alone and leave her to worry.

This time, the second-floor clothing department was swollen with a particularly noisy crowd. I guessed that some brand had a special promotion on. Clutching my bag of meat, I pushed my way through mumbling, ‘Excuse me, excuse me. Be careful, oily clothes.’

The sea of people was parting when suddenly I heard a familiar voice saying tearfully, ‘You ask him yourself who was was the wronged party!’

That day I’d seen a smiling Zhao Yue emerge from the Trust-Mart supermarket, I’d felt as though I’d been paralysed by the Monkey King: I couldn’t move a step, my heart pumping with blood, nerves, excitement, and some strange residue of shame.

I didn’t have anything now, but there she was, as lovely as ever. Zhao Yue looked thinner though, just as she was when we were first dating, and it made me sad. As I stared dumbly at her, hate and love were mixed in my heart. I felt like lashing out at her, but I also wanted to hug her. I wanted to rebuke her and at the same time beg for her forgiveness. In the end I didn’t say a word. Yang Tao was with her, and the two of them saw me but pretended not to. Yang Tao was hugging Zhao Yue tightly, perhaps to try and wind me up; my whole body went cold at the sight. I stood there numbly but my face muscles were twitching so much they seemed audible. As they passed, Zhao Yue, who had her head down, glanced at me for half a second. What did that look mean? I thought that she was crying.

After that, I didn’t hate her any more. Although I’d pledged not to believe in her tears, my vow was undone by her expression. The past was like a flood that couldn’t be stopped. Every day of our seven years together, every trivial scene, was swept up by that tide, until it was all finally washed out as tears on my face.

Pushing through the crowd, I reached my mother.

‘Leave it,’ I told her. ‘Come home with me!’

The old woman didn’t want to leave it. She’d waited a long time for this opportunity and was not in the mood to be restrained. She resumed her assault: ‘Divorced, divorced! All ties severed. Why are you still living in his house?’

I shouted furiously, ‘Ma!’

I couldn’t bear any more of this and I grabbed her hand and dragged her away, the crowd parting quickly around us. After we’d got clear, I glanced back and saw Zhao Yue sobbing on Yang Tao’s shoulder. In that moment I finally believed: her tears were for me.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

It was the 24th of December. Two thousand and one years before, a great life had started in a stable in Palestine. From birth he was alone, suffering, before ascending to heaven amid the curses of the crowds. It was said that tonight he granted people his blessing.

Actually, I knew that all days were the same.

Li Liang said once, apparently with something particular on his mind: ‘Every year spring is green; every year the autumn wind comes. Life never changes. It’s just that we get old without knowing it.’

I stared into a starless night. The Chengdu I knew was always overcast and polluted but once in a while some sunlight broke through. Tomorrow, maybe?

A silent night, many years ago. Li Liang arranged with Big Brother and me to go to church and pay our respects to God.
The word was that after the service there would be holy food. We waited until twelve when the hymns had finished, then the clerics removed their white robes and revealed their real forms. Heaven’s big gate clanked carelessly shut. The security guards at once started to chase people away. The church was miles from the campus, so after we’d been expelled there was nowhere to go. We were forced to sit by the gate in front of the church, shooting the breeze, bragging, shivering and cursing a malignant God. When the sky was nearly light, Big Brother stood and directed a long jet of piss towards the iron gate, saying nastily, ‘Paying my respects to God! Amen!’

Li Liang and I rolled around laughing.

Another Christmas Eve, at university. Zhao Yue and I were nested in a coffee shop beside the main campus gate, waiting for the glad tidings. The wind whistled outside, while inside, her face was flushed in the dim candlelight. Her eyes were bright as always, smiling at me.

At midnight, I kissed her, saying, ‘Make a wish. This is the best time. God is watching.’

Zhao Yue muttered an inaudible incantation then after a full minute she opened her eyes and said with a grin, ‘I know you want to ask me what I wished, but I won’t tell you!’

I don’t remember much about the intervening years. The tides of life rose and fell. In these years there were a few days that stood out, but many more were sunk in the depths of
time, never to resurface. On those now forgotten Christmas nights, it’s hard to remember whether I felt peaceful and happy.

When it comes to the past, we all get a bit sentimental. Li Liang said, ‘Let’s have a drink for Big Brother.’

I raised my glass silently.

‘Drink up,’ he said. ‘Big Brother is watching us.’

Recently Li Liang had lost a fortune. In just half an hour before the stock market closed last Wednesday, he was down more than 700,000 yuan. When I heard this, I was shocked and I said: ‘Futures are too risky. You’d be better to stop gambling. Let’s go into business together.’

I’d been idle for more than a month, and was bored. If I could persuade Li Liang to open a medium-sized car repair place, with my knowledge and contacts, it would be sure to make money. I’d suggested this before, but he always laughed and said nothing, which I guessed that was a refusal. These days Li Liang was increasingly hard to read: everything he did appeard to have a hidden meaning. Shaking my head, I lifted up the glass and drained the metallic-tasting Carlsberg in one go.

At this time of year it was considered unprincipled for companies to fire people, and as a result, there were few opportunities to find work. I sent letters to more than ten companies. Some of them thought my salary requirement was too high; some of them had no vacancies. I heaved sighs of despair, and lost a few kilos. My mother had taken umbrage at my attitude that day at the shopping mall and wasn’t talking to me. My situation really was pretty depressing.

I’d never liked the layout of the Glasshouse bar. The tables were too close together; if you farted, your neighbour would gag. But Li Liang said the place was ‘very Chengdu’. His implication was that only in a place like this could he feel truly comfortable but I thought it was more likely a question of habit. Wasn’t life mostly this way? A minor change could make us all feel uncomfortable.

As the night deepened, crowds of beautiful women rushed past our table. Their eyes were painted blue and green, their hair was colourful too. Even in the depths of winter they weren’t wearing many clothes.

I was enjoying the passing scene when Li Liang quietly remarked that a few people were staring at him. When I saw who they were, I sensed trouble. I said to Li Liang, ‘Maybe they fancy you,’ but although my voice hadn’t faltered, the smile had frozen on my face. Not far away, Fatty Dong was glaring ferociously at me and his gaze had a green glint, like a wolf hanging about a village waiting for someone to attack.

Whenever I thought back to that confrontation at the office I couldn’t help laughing. Fatty Dong had made two giant fists just like a big orangutan assuming a fighting posture. I wasn’t sure whether he really intended to beat me or just wanted to intimidate me. I’d looked at him coldly and thought that if he so much as dared to move, I’d kick him in the balls and break his cock. During my days as a left forward for the university football team, I’d had a famous mid-air swivel and shoot movement. Fatty Dong shook his fists, his face terrifying, but he didn’t dare take a swing. He clenched
his teeth and disappeared inside his office until I’d got my insurance book and left.

Seeing him here made me uneasy, although, when I reflected on his usual behaviour, I relaxed. It was well known that Fatty Dong never got into fights. His mighty physique was wasted on him. When I’d first joined the company, he used to brag that such was his good nature that even the shortest runt in his primary school class had dared to bully him.

‘I could lift him up with one hand,’ he’d say, ‘but he still dared to jump up and hit my face! Fuck! I was absolutely furious, but after thinking it through I decided not to stoop to his level. Be a virtuous person.’

‘Be a virtuous person’ was one of Tiger Lei’s lines from the film
Legend of Fong Sai Yuk.
For ages after that I called him Tiger Dong.

There were four or five people at his table. Among them I recognised a guy called Liu who I’d met before, the one who’d opened the wife-swapping club. He had a reputation for having screwed women from all the seven districts and twelve counties. We’d drunk together once and he had vividly described the characteristics of each: Qing Yang’s are flirtatious, Chenghua’s depraved. Different districts for different occasions. If you want romance, go to Jinjiang. In Jinniu, if you don’t have any money, forget it.

As he’d talked my mouth watered and I’d smacked my lips. He encouraged Zhou Dajiang to go there; taking his wife too, of course.

I said to Li Liang, ‘Relax. They don’t want to fuck you.
They’re looking at me.’

As soon as I’d said it, I felt that because of his problem in the trouser department, I shouldn’t crack that kind of joke with him. Li Liang didn’t seem bothered though, saying with a smile: ‘Well, aren’t you going to go over and charm them?’

He was right. I steeled myself by downing a full glass of beer, then went over to Fatty Dong and his gang. They looked at me and I nodded at Liu and punched Fatty Dong’s shoulder.

‘Our destinies are linked, Boss Dong. Wherever I go I run into you. Come, have a drink with me!’

Fatty Dong raised his glass dourly and clinked it against mine, then gulped down slowly and deliberately. I was ready to go after that, but Liu grabbed my wrist.

‘Why are you in such a hurry? You haven’t drunk with me!’

At that moment I had a sudden sense of foreboding that something was going on. But I looked at Liu’s hearty face and ignored my intuition.

After downing his drink, he said with a menacing grin, ‘I hear that you’re doing some free advertising for me, telling everyone that I opened a wife-swapping club?’

Fatty Dong had told me about the club originally. Liu’s tone carried an implicit threat, but what could he do, I reasoned. He wasn’t shy to promote his own joint. So what if I had been talking about it? After thinking it over, I looked at Fatty Dong and found him studying me with his mouth half open. His murderous gaze and fake smile made me want to beat him up.

Something was definitely wrong. I hesitated, glass in hand, thinking that I shouldn’t confess. I had a swig, rubbed my mouth and said with a laugh to Liu: ‘I heard about your club from Boss Dong. Why would I go everywhere doing adverts for you? Brother Liu, you’re a clever guy, how can you believe such a thing?’

This arrow had three targets. It flattered him, got me off the hook, and fitted up Fatty Dong.

He laughed, lifted his glass and drained it.

‘I want to ask you about someone, a cop called Wang Lin,’ he said. ‘Do you know him?’

As soon as he mentioned Bighead, I felt more relaxed. ‘Know him? I know him too well actually, I said. I know all the moles on his arse.’

Liu smirked and his gang all smiled. When I shot Fatty Dong a contemptuous look, I saw that his face was red and his jowls were quivering like a sow that’s given birth to eighteen piglets. When we’d stopped laughing, he abruptly gathered his leather bag and stood up, telling Liu that he had some business to take care of but we should stay and drink.

I said cheerfully: ‘Boss Dong, is your wife cracking her whip again? Does she need you at home to kneel before her?’

He didn’t reply, just put his bag under his arm and went to the elevator. But then he turned and looked at me with ashen eyes, like a dead fish.

‘How do you know Bighead Wang?’ I asked Liu.

He choked up, coughing and grinning. ‘So his nickname’s Bighead, the son of a bitch. No wonder he refused to tell me, no matter how often I asked.’

I’d given Bighead this nickname. In fact, in the last few years I had chosen a lot of names for people: ‘Fucking Monk’, ‘Tiger Dong’, ‘Fatty Dong’, ‘Liu Deadskin’, ‘Zhou Trickery’. I’d given Zhao Yue loads of names too: ‘Pisspot Master’, ‘Sister Dai Yu’, ‘Fat Sister’, ‘Tiger Sister’, ‘Street Cleaner’ and ‘Little Lips’ — the latter was to make her relaxed about blow jobs. Thinking of Zhao Yue I poured myself another glass of beer, closed my eyes and downed it, remembering that peaceful night when she’d told me: When I die, I want to die in front of you.

My hands and feet twitched slightly.

Fatty Dong had gone so there was no need for me to sit there any more. I finished my drink.

‘I have a friend over there,’ I said. ‘You’ll have to excuse me.’

‘Why are you in such a hurry?’ Liu said. ‘I want to take you to my joint to have some fun.’

My eyes lit up. ‘I can go even without a wife?’

He smiled. ‘For other people that would be impossible, but you are Wang Lin’s friend.’

This made me proud and I glowed in Bighead’s aura. Liu said to the guy at his side, ‘Today’s guests are Raise Flag, aren’t they?’

When the guy nodded his head, I really wanted to go to Liu’s club Raise Flag were Chengdu’s most famous tribe of beautiful women dancers. You could watch them forever. A few times I’d driven past the club and my eyes had bulged from their sockets. The car park was usually full of luxury cars, whereas mine was a battered old Santana. I didn’t have the nerve to go inside so had to satisfy my craving by driving past.