Life and Death are Wearing Me Out (64 page)

More people crowded up, filling the compound with noise, but quieting down almost at once.

At this point, Hong flung the bone into the air, spun around, and, so all could see, caught it before it hit the ground. While it was in the air, it sang out its unique sound, almost like a living being. Amazing! The crowd roared. Scattered applause. The expression on Hong’s face underwent a dramatic change. He continued:

My heart breaks when I say these things, tears and snivel run down my face . . .

He flung the bone into the air and caught it with his right hand as he dried his eyes with his left. The next time he caught it with his left hand and dried his eyes with his right. That bone was like a white weasel jumping from one hand to the other. The applause was deafening, almost but not quite drowning out the sound of police sirens.

With increased passion, Hong continued:

The crowd responded with a roar. People cursed and swore, they laughed, they stomped their feet, and they jumped in anger. Chaos reigned at the gate. I was just looking for an opportunity to climb out of the car and, as a fellow villager, get them to leave. But Hong Taiyue’s clapper talk had by then implied that I was Jinlong’s backer, and I shuddered to think what might happen if I confronted this fired-up crowd. All I could do was put on my shades to hide my face and lean back in the seat until the police came and broke up the demonstration.

I watched as a dozen cops standing on the perimeter of the demonstration brandished their clubs — no, now they’re in the midst of the surging crowd, surrounded.

I adjusted my shades, put on a blue cap, did my best to cover my blue birthmark, and opened the car door.

“Don’t go out there, Chief,” my driver said, clearly alarmed.

But I did, and I forged ahead at a crouch, until I tripped over an extended leg and found myself sprawled on the ground. The earpiece of my glasses had broken off, my cap had flown off my head, and my face was lying on the noon-baked concrete. My nose and my lips hurt. Suddenly I was in the grip of incapacitating despair; dying there would have been the easy way out. I might even have been given a hero’s funeral. But then I thought of Pang Chunmiao; I couldn’t die without seeing her one more time, even if my last glimpse of her was in her coffin. Just as I managed to get back on my feet, a chorus of shouts thundered all around me:

“It’s Lan Jiefang, it’s Blue Face! He’s Ximen Jinlong’s backer!”

“Grab him, don’t let him get away!”

Everything went black, then a blinding light, and the faces around me were all twisted, like horseshoes dunked in water after emerging from the forge, emitting steel blue rays of light. My arms were twisted roughly behind my back. My nose was hot and itchy, and it felt as if a pair of worms had wriggled onto my upper lip. Someone kneed me in the buttocks, someone else kicked me in the calf, and someone else slugged me in the back. I saw my blood drip onto the concrete, where it immediately turned to black steam.

“Is that you, Jiefang?” The familiar voice came from somewhere up ahead, and I quickly composed myself, forced the cobwebs out of my head so I could think, and focused my eyes as best I could. There in front of me was Hong Taiyue’s face, the picture of suffering and hatred. For some strange reason, my nose began to ache, my eyes seemed hot, and tears spilled out, the very thing that happens if you spot a friend when you’re in danger. “Good uncle,” I sobbed, “tell them to let me go. . . .”

“Let him go, all of you, let him go. ...” I heard his shouts and saw him wave his ox bone like a conductor’s baton. “No violence, this is a peaceful demonstration!”

“Jiefang, you’re the deputy county chief, the people’s official, so you have to stand up for us villagers and stop Ximen Jinlong from carrying out his crazy scheme,” Hong said. “Your father was going to come and petition on our behalf, but your mother fell ill, so he couldn’t come.”

“Uncle Hong, Jinlong and I may have been born to the same mother, but we’ve never gotten along, not even as children. You know that as well as I.” I wiped my bloody nose. “I’m as opposed to his plan as you are, so let me go.”

“Did you all hear that?” Hong waved his ox bone. “Deputy County Chief Lan is on our side!”

“I’ll forward your complaints up the line. But for now, you have to leave.” I pushed aside the people in front of me and, as sternly as I could manage, said, “You’re breaking the law!”

“Don’t let him go until he signs a pledge!”

That made me so mad I reached out and snatched the ox bone out of Hong’s hand and brandished it over my head like a sword, driving the crowd back, all but one person who got hit on the shoulder and another who took it on the head. “The deputy county chief is assaulting people!” That was fine with me, right or wrong. Right or wrong, county chief or not, you people had better get out of my way — I opened a path with the ox bone, broke through the crowd, and made my way into the building, where I took the stairs three steps at a time all the way up to my office. I looked out the window at all those shiny heads beyond the gate, then heard some dull thuds and saw a cloud of pink smoke rise into the air, and I knew that the police had finally resorted to tear gas. Bedlam broke out. I threw down the ox bone and shut the window, ending for the moment my dealings with the world outside. I was not a very good government cadre, because I was more concerned about my problems than the people’s suffering. In fact, I was glad to see those poor people petitioning the government, since it would be up to Pang Kangmei and her ilk to clean up the mess. I picked up the phone and dialed the bookstore number. No answer. I phoned home. My son answered, which took the edge off my anger.

“Kaifang,” I said as calmly as I could, “let me talk to your mother.”

“What’s going on with you and Mom?” he asked unhappily.

“Nothing,” I said. “Let me talk to her.”

“She’s not here, and the dog didn’t come to school to pick me up,” he said. “She didn’t make lunch for me, and all she left was a note.”

“What’s the note say?”

“I’ll read it to you,” he said. “‘Kaifang, make yourself something to eat. If Dad calls, tell him I’m at the Chili Sauce Shop on People’s Avenue.’ What does that mean?”

I didn’t explain it to him. “Son, I can’t tell you, not now.” I hung up and looked around the office. The ox bone lay on my desk, and I had the vague notion that I ought to take something with me, but I couldn’t for the life of me think what that was. I rushed downstairs. The area around the gate was chaotic, with the people crowding together to get away from the nose-pricking, eye-burning smoke. Coughing, cursing, screaming, the sounds all merged in the air. The clamor seemed to be coming to an end near the building, but only beginning out by the gate. Holding my nose, I ran around the building and slipped out through the rear gate, immediately heading east. I ran past the movie theater into Leatherwork Lane, then turned south and headed for People’s Avenue. The distracted shoe repairmen in shops lining both sides of the lane obviously linked the fleeing deputy county chief to the commotion at the county office building. County residents might not recognize Pang Kangmei if they saw her out on the street, but every one of them recognized me.

I spotted her on People’s Avenue, her and the dog beside her, the son of a bitch. Crowds were running all over the place, disregarding traffic laws, as cars and people came together; horns blared. I crossed the street like a kid playing hopscotch. Some people noticed me, most didn’t. I ran up to her, breathless; she just stared at the tree. But you, you son of a bitch, you stared at me, a look of desolation in your eyes.

“What have you done with her?” I demanded.

Her cheeks twitched, and her mouth twisted into something close to a sneer. But her gaze stayed fixed on the tree.

At first all I saw were some black, oily smudges on the trunk, but a closer look revealed clusters of disgusting bluebottle flies. So I looked even harder, and now I saw the two words and three exclamation signs. I smelled blood. My eyes glazed over and I nearly blacked out. What I’d feared more than anything, it seemed, had occurred. She’d killed her and written on the tree with her blood. Still, I forced myself to ask:

“What did you do to her?”

“I didn’t do anything to her.” She kicked the tree, which sent the flies flitting away with a gut-wrenching buzz. She showed me her plaster-wrapped finger. “It’s my blood. I wrote those words with my blood to get her to leave you.”

Like a man who has been relieved of a crushing burden, I was overcome by exhaustion. I sank into a crouch, and though my fingers were cramped, twisted like claws, I managed to fish a pack of cigarettes out of my pocket, lit one, and took a deep drag. The smoke seemed to snake its way up into my brain, where it swirled amid all the valleys and canals to create a sense of well-being. When the flies were flitting away from the tree, the filthy words had leaped tragically into my eyes. But the flies quickly swarmed back and covered them up, making them virtually invisible.

“I told her,” my wife said in a monotone, without looking at me, “that if she leaves you, I won’t say a word. She can go fall in love, get married, have a child, and enjoy a decent life. But if she won’t leave you, then she and I will go down together!” She turned abruptly and pointed her injured, wrapped index finger at me. Her eyes were blazing as, in a shrill voice that reminded me of a cornered dog, she said, “I’ll bite this finger again and expose this scandal of yours by writing it in blood on the gates of the county office building, the Party Committee building, the Political Consultative Conference building, the local People’s Congress building, the police station, the courthouse, the procurator office, the theater, the movie house, the hospital, and every tree and wall I can . . . until I run out of blood!”

Your wife, in a floor-length magenta dress, was sitting in the passenger seat of a VW Santana, smelling of mothballs. The neckline, front and back, were decorated with shiny sequins. My thoughts at that moment? If tossed into a river, she’d turn into a scaly fish. She had mousse in her hair and makeup that turned her face so white it looked like limestone and contrasted starkly with her dark neck; it was as if she was wearing a mask. She had on a gold necklace and a pair of gold rings, intended to give her a regal appearance. Your driver pulled a long face until your wife gave him a carton of cigarettes, which turned his face back to oval.

Your son and I were in the backseat, which was stacked high with packages: liquor, tea, pastries, and fabrics. This was my first trip back to Ximen Village since I’d ridden to the county town in Ximen Jinlong’s Jeep. I’d been a three-month-old puppy then; now I was an adult dog with a full range of experiences. Emotionally, I watched the scenery go by on both sides of the broad, tree-lined highway. There were few cars on the highway, so my driver drove at speeds that seemed close to flying.

My excitement was not shared by your son, who sat quietly, absorbed in the Tetris game he was playing on his electronic toy. His intensity was visible in the way he was biting his lower lip, his thumbs dancing on the buttons. He stomped his foot and puffed angrily each time he missed.

This was the first time your wife, who in the past always took the bus or rode her bicycle back to the village, had ridden in the official car in your name. And it was the first time she’d returned looking like the wife of an official instead of wearing her stained work clothes and not bothering about her hair or face. It was the first time she’d brought expensive gifts with her instead of homemade oil fritters. And it was the first time she’d brought me along rather than locking me in the yard to keep an eye on the house. Her attitude toward me had taken a positive turn after I’d snooped out your lover, Pang Chunmiao; more accurately, I suppose, my importance had, in her eyes, increased considerably She often talked to me about what was on her mind, like a garbage pail for her throwaway comments and complaints. And I was not just her confessor figure, I was, it seemed, a sort of adviser:

“What do you think I ought to do, Dog?”

“Do you think she’ll leave him, Dog?”

“Do you think she’ll go see him at his conference in Jinan, Dog, or will he take her someplace else for a little tryst?”

“Do you think there really are women who can’t get by without a man, Dog?”

I dealt with these interminable questions the only way I could: with silence. I gazed up at her, my thoughts leaping up and down in concert with her questions; sometimes flying to heaven, sometimes plummeting to hell.