Leave Me Alone (14 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

June in Chengdu is always bursting with life. The flowers were out, the markets awash with watermelons, and a scent of jasmine pervaded the air. After nightfall you’d see people in the crowd laughing and others crying. Life was like a lavish banquet in a graveyard, with death fluttering smilingly around us. When the last traces of youth were lost, who remembered those vanished days of tenderness and pain?

Zhao Yue had been suffering for several days with a bad cold. Each time I suggested she buy some medicine she said she was too busy. She paid for her negligence, because one night she had a fever of 39 degrees. I piled all the quilts in the house on top of her but she still said she felt cold. We passed an uncomfortable night and the next morning I carried her to the hospital. Zhao Yue moaned feebly the whole way. I felt sorry for her, but scolded her for not heeding my advice.
‘I told you to come earlier but you didn’t listen. Now you’re suffering, huh?’

She lay across my arms at a crooked angle and her breath smelt as though she’d crawled out of a fish’s stomach.

Once attached to a drip, Zhao Yue drifted into semi-unconsciousness, her nose quivering like a three-year-old kid’s. I adjusted the drip flow rate to the lowest level and wiped her face with a tissue. She held my arms tightly, and muttered that she had a headache.

I hadn’t slept at all the night before and after sitting there for a while I just couldn’t keep my eyes open. Leaning against the hospital bed, I half drifted off. Suddenly in my befuddled state I heard a whisper: ‘Isn’t that Chen Zhong?’

I opened one eye and saw a pale, buxom woman standing outside the door, making eyes at me.

I slowly withdrew my hand from Zhao Yue’s chest. She was sleeping deeply with an innocent smile on her face. Walking towards the door, I waved at my visitor, who was the wife of the owner of the Emei Tofu Restaurant. I called her ‘Tofu Queen’.

‘Is that your wife?’ she asked.

I pinched Tofu Queen’s waist and said, ‘Yes. She’s more beautiful than you, right?’

She humphed, pretending to be jealous.

‘Come on. You fool around with eight hundred handsome guys every day,’ I said, ‘so don’t pretend to be innocent.’

Emei Tofu Restaurant was just across the street from my office. The owner, Mr Xiao, was from Leshan. Although short, he had a head like a boulder and the piercing eyes of a kung fu
master. I often entertained clients in his restaurant. His chicken cooked in tofu pudding was something I especially loved: fragrant chicken boiled inside a big bowl of fresh snow-white tofu pudding with crispy vegetables. It was indescribably delicious. After I’d been there a few times we got to know each other and soon it was ‘brother’ this and ‘sister-in-law’ that. I even flirted with Xiao’s wife, and she flirted back. Xiao didn’t seem bothered — he still proposed toasts and served dishes as usual. His hands were like big cattail leaf fans and his eyes like iron bells.

One winter night, Li Liang and I had played mahjong one in the morning and Li Liang had lost 7,000 yuan and was despondent.

‘My luck’s bad today,’ he said. ‘Let’s quit and go out for some drinks.’

I took him to Emei Tofu Restaurant, where we found the owner away and Tofu Queen about to shut up for the night. I rapped on the table and said, ‘Quickly, tofu chicken, tofu fish and four bottles of beer.’

After the dishes and beer were served I asked her to join us. She sat beside me and played the finger guessing game, drank, and competed in telling dirty stories. When Li Liang went out to talk to someone on his phone, she nudged my leg with her knee and said, ‘My husband’s not coming back tonight.’

I felt aroused. I waited impatiently until Li Liang finished his meal then told him, ‘You go home first. I have something to discuss with her.’

He gaped at me. ‘Be careful that I don’t tell Zhao Yue.’

At the head of their bed was a big wedding picture. Short
Xiao looked earnest, glaring at me intently with his searchlight eyes.

Tofu Queen asked me now if I was free that afternoon.

‘Why? You want to get fucked again?’ I said. I couldn’t help talking dirty when I saw her but actually she was the same. Once she called me and said outright: ‘Do you want it? If you do, then come over. He’s not at home.’

The first few times I’d found this a novelty, but after a while the appeal faded. How was it that this woman could think about nothing but sex? She didn’t display any emotion at all: she’d take off her trousers and get straight on the bed, then after we’d finished she’d give a satisfied smack of her lips. What was more, she never even gave me a discount in the restaurant.

Now she trod on my foot with her heel and said, ‘Your face is spotty. Perhaps you need to release some heat.’

Sneaking a glance round the door I saw Zhao Yue turning over in her hospital bed, apparently oblivious to everything. I calculated: it would take about one hour to go and come back. Most likely Zhao Yue would still be asleep when I returned. Suddenly I was feverishly excited and I grabbed the woman’s hand and dragged her straight for the exit.

‘This time we’ll go to my place so I don’t have to see your husband’s ugly face,’ I said.

I bought the apartment at the Youth Garden in Yulin compound last year and Zhao Yue and I had argued a lot about renovations. She was slightly unhinged the whole time the
property was being done up, not combing her hair or washing her face, apparently because of her anxiety that the workers might do shoddy work or use inferior materials. She practically slept at the apartment.

‘Is it really worth all this fuss?’ I said. ‘As long as it’s OK for us to live in, that’s enough.’

She seemed to go berserk and ripped some wallpaper from the wall, asking me repeatedly: ‘Who am I doing this for?’

I apologised, while secretly cursing her for being insane. When the renovation was done, Zhao Yue spent several days cleaning the apartment; knelt on the floor, she wiped it tile by tile. When I finally got to see it, the whole place was completely spotless.

‘You’ve made it so clean, I don’t dare go inside,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you carry me on your back?’

Tofu Queen was about to charge inside the apartment but I hauled her back sternly.

‘Take off your shoes,’ I said.

She looked at me, confused.

I thought, Zhao Yue has cleaned this apartment inch by inch. What right do you have to get it dirty?

She clung to me while taking off her shoes. Her hands were oily and her body smelt of vegetable soup. Suddenly I felt a rush of disgust. When we got to the bedroom, she embraced me and wanted to kiss but I pushed her away impatiently.

‘You take a shower first,’ I said.

I’d always considered Tofu Queen to be dirty. There was
often dirt in the cracks of her nails. Xiao loved her and bought her designer clothes — even her underwear was Calvin Klein. However, they were usually smeared with chopped scallions or smashed garlic. Once I discovered she didn’t even wash her hands after going to the toilet. I forced her to go back and wash them. She was slightly ashamed of her low habits, and each time after that whenever we met up she’d say straightaway, I’ve just had a shower.

This time she took offense though. ‘What do you mean? If you look down on me, just say so directly.’

I knew I was in the wrong. Forcing a smile, I said, ‘I didn’t mean that. You know my wife is sick, and so I’m a bit upset.’

She said ironically, ‘I didn’t realise you were a good man who cared about his wife.’

With a little wiggle of her butt, she went into the bathroom.

I stuck on a rock album, lit a cigarette and paced the room. All jittery, swinging my arms, I knocked down a picture frame on the desk, and when I squatted on my heels to pick it up and set it straight, I saw Zhao Yue dressed in her white wedding dress, smiling. At the back of the picture was a line of colourfully drawn rabbits. Zhao Yue’s zodiac sign was the rabbit, and she believed these rabbits would bring her safety and happiness.

Tofu Queen emerged from the shower naked. Glancing around the room she said, ‘Your place isn’t large but it’s quite clean. You must have a good wife.’

Her words pained me.

She kissed me, saying, ‘I haven’t seen you for a month and I really missed you.’

She had perfect skin, soft and smooth, just like the best tofu pudding at her restaurant. My fires were stoked again. Fatty Dong divided women into two categories: for use and for appreciation. Every time we teased him about his wife’s appearance, he insisted that she was for use. ‘What do you know about it?’ he’d say.

I always thought he was bragging. His wife was as flat as a bench, nothing in the front or back, and so she couldn’t have been very satisfying. Women like Tofu Queen, however, were definitely designed for use. She moaned as soon as I touched her.

The telephone in the living room began ringing. I wondered who was being so inconsiderate. It made enough noise to drive anyone crazy. At first I said, ‘Fuck,’ and ignored it, but it continued, as if someone was deliberately trying to annoy me. Finally I couldn’t bear it any more. I grabbed the phone and demanded fiercely, ‘Who is it?’ Silence. I was about to put down the phone in a fury when I heard Zhao Yue say weakly, ‘Open the door. I don’t have my key.’

One Chinese New Year, I went to the north-east with Zhao Yue and met my parents-in-law. Zhao Yue was constantly in a bad mood during that trip. I called her Sister Dai Yu after the doomed heroine in Dream of the Red Chamber. The second day of Chinese New Year, after dinner at her father’s place, it started snowing heavily. Despite my advice, Zhao Yue insisted on walking home. When we reached an empty alley, she stopped and said, ‘I feel very sad now. Hold me!’

I held her and whispered, ‘Don’t be so sad. They may not love you, but you still have me.’

Zhao Yue trembled, put her arms around my neck and started crying. I looked up and saw that the sky was full of flying flecks of snow, just like lonely moths with nowhere to go; they landed on our shoulders in tiny flakes.

That night I felt quite moved thinking about the hardships Zhao Yue had suffered while growing up. When her parents were going through their divorce she would lock herself in her room and cry herself to sleep. Like a little adult, she did housework. It must have been very painful. Zhao Yue often asked me the ‘forever question’ and I usually gave some perfunctory answer. That time, however, I said with great sincerity: ‘I will be sweet to you forever. Stop crying Sister Dai Yu.’