One Man's Bible (38 page)

55

One day, passing Drum Tower around dusk, he got off his bicycle and was about to go into a small eatery when someone called out his name. He turned. A woman stood there, looking at him. Uncertain about smiling, she was biting her lip.

“Xiao Xiao?” He wasn’t sure.

Xiao Xiao gave an awkward smile.

“I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what to say. “I didn’t think. . . .”

“You can’t recognize me, can you?”

“You’re more robust. . . .” In his memory, she was a young girl with a slight build and small breasts.

“I’m a peasant woman?” the woman asked sarcastically.

“No, you’re just more sturdy!” he hastened to add.

“I am, after all, a member of a commune. But I am not that flower turning with the sun; it withered and died!”

Xiao Xiao was caustic. She was referring to a song in praise of the Party, which compared the members of a commune to a sunflower that turned with the sun. He changed the topic, “Are you back in Beijing?”

“I’m trying to get a residential permit. I’ve put down that my mother is ill and needs me to look after her, I’m the only child in the family. I’m dealing with the formalities for getting back to Beijing, but I haven’t got my residential permit yet.”

“Is your family still at the same place?”

“The place is a shambles. My father is dead, but my mother has come back from the cadre school.”

He knew nothing of Xiao Xiao’s family circumstances and could only say, “I went to the
hutong
where your house is, I went to see . . .”

He was talking about ten years ago.

“How about coming to my house for a visit?”

“All right.” He agreed without thinking, although he hadn’t originally intended to. That year, he had cycled many times through that
hutong
in the hope of running into her, but he didn’t say this, and simply mumbled, “But I didn’t know your house number. . . .”

“I didn’t ever tell you.” Xiao Xiao remembered very clearly. She had not forgotten that winter night when she left before daybreak.

“It has been a long time since I’ve lived in that house. I was in a village for almost six years, and I am now living in a workplace dormitory.”

This explained things, but Xiao Xiao didn’t say if she had also tried to see him. He pushed his bicycle, walking for a while in silence beside Xiao Xiao, until turning into a lane. He had gone through this
hutong
on his bicycle many times, from one end to the other, then had gone into another lane, circled around, and come back from that end of the
hutong
. He had noted each of the courtyard gates, thinking that he might bump into her. He didn’t know Xiao Xiao’s surname, so he couldn’t make inquiries, he thought Xiao Xiao had to be a name her classmates and her family called her. The
hutong
was quite long when it came to walking through it.

Xiao Xiao went ahead, through a gate leading into a big courtyard shared by a number of families. On the left, was a small door with a padlock hanging on it, and, next to it, a coal stove. She opened the
door with a key. Inside was a big bed piled with folded bedding, the rest of the room was a mess. Xiao Xiao quickly grabbed the clothes from a chair and threw them onto the bed.

“Where’s your mother?” He sat on the chair, and the springs in the seat cushion squeaked noisily.

“She’s in a hospital.”

“Why is she in a hospital?”

“Breast cancer, it’s already spread to the bones. I hope she will last the year and a half it will take to get my residential permit issued.”

After such a response, he couldn’t ask anything else.

“Like some tea?”

“No, thanks.” He had to try to think of something to say. “Tell me about yourself—”

“What about? What’s worth talking about?” Xiao Xiao asked, standing right in front of him.

“About your years in the countryside.”

“Didn’t you also stay in the countryside, don’t you know?”

He started to regret having come. The cramped room was a total mess, and destroyed the image of the young girl he had cherished in his mind. Xiao Xiao sat on the bed and looked at him, frowning. He didn’t know what else he could say to her.

“You were my first man.”

All right. He thought of her left breast, no, it was his left hand, so the tender red scar was on her right breast.

“But you were so stupid.”

This hurt him. He immediately wanted to ask her about the scar on her breast to get back at her, but he asked instead, “Why?”

“It was you who didn’t want it. . . .” Xiao Xiao said calmly, her head hanging.

“But at the time you were only a middle-school student!” he explained.

“I became a peasant woman a long time ago. It was soon after I
had been sent to the countryside, not even a year. . . . People in the village couldn’t be bothered with things like that!”

“You could have reported it—”

“To whom? You’re really stupid.”

“I thought . . .”

“Thought what?”

“I thought at that time you were a virgin. . . .” Thinking back to that time, he had thought this, and so he didn’t dare to defile her.

“What were you afraid of? It was I who was afraid. . . . You were just a coward! I knew that, with my family background, nothing good would come of me, it was I who presented myself at your door, but you didn’t have the courage to take me!”

“I was afraid of taking responsibility,” he was forced to admit.

“I hadn’t told you about my parents’ situation.”

“I could have guessed. It’s too late now, how can I put it. . . .” He said, “I’m married!”

“Of course, it’s too late. I can also tell you that I’m a slut. I’ve had two abortions, two bastards that I didn’t want!”

“You should have taken precautions!” He also needed to say things that would hurt her.

She snorted in derision. “The peasants don’t carry condoms. It was my own bad luck that I didn’t have good parents and didn’t have anyone to turn to for help. Anyway, I can’t keep going on like this in the village.”

“You’re still young, don’t be so negative and cruel to yourself. . . .”

“Of course, I have to go on living. I don’t need you to preach to me about that, I’ve had enough of being preached at!” She laughed, laughed really hard, her hands gripping the edge of the bed, her shoulders shaking.

He laughed with her, as tears welled in his eyes. Xiao Xiao stopped him. Suddenly, he seemed to see in her face the gentleness of that young girl of the past, but, in an instant, it had vanished.

“Would you like something to eat? I’ve only got dried noodles. Wasn’t it dried noodles that you made for me?”

“You made it,” he reminded her.

Xiao Xiao went outside to cook the noodles on the coal stove, shutting the door behind her. He cast his eyes over the mess in the room. Even her dirty underwear was among the clothes she had thrown onto the bed. He had to completely destroy the dreamlike image that evoked tender feelings in him, he had to be debauched, he had to treat the woman like a slut he had picked up, a whore who had been used by the villagers.

Shoving aside things like grain-coupon booklets, keys, and other odds and ends, Xiao Xiao put the noodles on the table. He embraced her from behind, pressing his hands onto her breasts, and got the back of his hands slapped, but it was not a genuine slap.

“Sit down and eat!”

Xiao Xiao was not angry, there was no emotional reaction. Her relationships with men were probably like this, and she had become used to it. Xiao Xiao ate her noodles with her head down and said nothing. He knew she had sensed what he had on his mind. There was no need to talk about it, there were no obstacles.

Xiao Xiao quickly finished eating, pushed away her bowl and chopsticks, and, head held high, stared blankly at him.

“Should I leave now?” he asked. That was how hypocritical he was.

“Do whatever you like,” Xiao Xiao said flatly, without moving.

He got up and went over to her. He took her head in his hands and tried to kiss her, but Xiao Xiao turned away and put her head down. She would not let him kiss her. He put his hand down her shirt and felt the woman’s breasts, which had become big and plump.

“Get into bed, then,” Xiao Xiao said, heaving a sigh.

He sat on the edge of the bed and watched the woman bolt the door. The switch was by the door, but the light hanging from the ceiling pasted with yellowing old newspaper did not go out. Xiao
Xiao ignored him, and, straight away, stripped. He gave a start; for a moment, he did not see the scar in the shadow at the base of her breast. While he was untying his shoelaces, Xiao Xiao got on the bed, spread the bedding, then lay on her back and covered herself.

“Aren’t you married?” the woman said, staring with her eyes wide open.

He made no response. He felt humiliated and wanted revenge, but he couldn’t understand why. He roughly pulled away the bedding and threw himself on the woman’s body. What came into his mind was the body of that other girl in the production-brigade storehouse by the road, all his repressed violence poured into this woman’s body. . . .

Her eyes closed, Xiao Xiao said, “You can relax, even if I were to become pregnant you wouldn’t need to worry about it. I’m used to abortions.”

He examined the skin and flesh of this woman who was a stranger to him. The pink nipples and the protrusions dotting the dark-brown aureoles were hard, but the breasts were white and soft. It was then that he saw the inch-long, pale-brown scar below the breast. He didn’t touch it, and stopped himself from asking how she had got it.

Xiao Xiao said nothing frightened her anymore, and it didn’t matter to her if the neighbors wanted to talk. However, he said he was married, and if the neighborhood committee reported him to his work unit, his application for divorce would fall through. When he put on his clothes, Xiao Xiao was still lying in bed, she seemed to be smiling, but the corners of her mouth were turned down.

“Will you come again?” Xiao Xiao asked. “I never see any of my former school friends and I’m very lonely.”

He didn’t ever go back to Xiao Xiao’s home and even avoided going past Drum Tower. He was afraid of bumping into her and not knowing what to say to her.

56

It was with difficulty that he pulled off the mask he had put on his face. This false skin was a sheath of molded plastic, mass-produced to standard specifications, elastic, and able to stretch and contract as required. Wearing it gave the appearance of an upright, correct, positive character, which could be deployed in various roles—whether for the masses, such as workers, peasants, shop personnel, university and office personnel, or intellectuals, such as teachers, editors, and reporters. By putting on a stethoscope, one became a doctor, by replacing the stethoscope with a pair of glasses, one became a professor or a writer. The glasses were optional, but the mask was obligatory. Only bad elements in society, such as thieves, hooligans, and public enemies of the people, were entitled to rip off this mask. This was the most commonly used mask, probably made of high-density polyethylene and indestructible even if hammered.

He toyed with the mask, scrunched up his eyes, uncertain if he was still capable of normal human expressions. However, he refused to put on some new mask, such as political dissident, cultural broker, prophet, or member of the new rich.

Having removed the mask, he could not help feeling somewhat awkward. He was tense and didn’t know what to do, but, for better or worse, he had discarded hypocrisy, anxiety, and unnecessary restraint. He had no leader, because he was not controlled by the Party or some organization. He had no hometown, because his parents were dead. And he had no family. He had no responsibilities, he was alone, but he was free and easy, he could go wherever he wanted, he could drift on the wind. As long as others did not create problems for him, he would resolve his own problems, and if he could resolve his own problems, then everything else would be insignificant, everything else would be inconsequential.

He no longer shouldered any burdens, and had cancelled emotional debts by purging his past. If he again loved or embraced a woman, it would only be if this was what she wanted, and she accepted him. Otherwise, at most, it would be going for coffee or beer in a café, having a chat, a bit of a flirt, then each going their separate ways.

He wrote because he needed to. It was the only way he could enjoy total freedom; he didn’t write for a livelihood. He also did not use his pen as a weapon to fight for some cause, and he didn’t have a sense of mission. He wrote for his own pleasure, talking to himself so that he could listen to and observe himself. It was a means of experiencing those feelings of the little life that remained for him.

The only thing in his past he didn’t break with was the language. He could, of course, write in another language, but he didn’t abandon his language, because it was convenient and he didn’t need to look up words in a dictionary. However, conventional language did not suit him, and he had to look for his own voice. He wanted to listen intently to what he was saying, as if he were listening to music, but he found language always lacking in refinement. He was certain that one day he would abandon language and rely on other media to convey his feelings.

He admired the agile bodies of some performers, especially dancers. He would love to be able to use his body to freely express
himself: to casually stumble, fall over, get up, and go on dancing. However, age was unrelenting, and he could very well end up injuring himself. He was no longer capable of dancing, and could only somersault about in language. Language was light and portable, and it had him under its spell. He was a carnival performer in language, an incurable addict, he had to talk, and even alone he was always talking to himself. This inner voice had become the affirmation of his existence. He had already formed the habit of transforming his feelings into language, and not to do so left him feeling unfulfilled, but the joy it brought him was like groaning or calling out when making love.

He is sitting in front of you, looking right at you, and laughing loudly in the mirror.