The Explosion Chronicles (40 page)

The tea on the tea table had grown cold, but Minghui still didn’t take a sip. When they had poured the water in, the green tea leaves had swirled in the boiling water, but now, even though the water had long since cooled and stopped steaming, the tea leaves were still swirling in the cup as fast as before. “I don’t need anything; I just want to see my brother.” The first time Minghui said this, the sun outside the window was bright yellow like a firefly; the second time he said it, the sun was fiery red; and by the third time he said it, the sun had entered a twilight color somewhere between red and yellow. Twilight had arrived without his noticing it, and within the room’s warmth there was a layer of coolness. Cheng Qing’s face had lost its former fiery brightness, and her yolk-like smile had also turned the color of twilight. Sitting in front of Minghui, from dawn to dusk she said the same thing:

“If you need anything, all you have to do is tell me. The mayor represents the citizens of Explosion, not only your Kong family. He is so busy that he doesn’t even have time to stop and breathe.”

Regardless of whether it was spring, summer, fall, or winter, Minghui kept saying the same thing:

“I don’t need anything; I just want to see my brother to say a few words to him.”

In the end, as the sky was turning dark, Cheng Qing went into another room in the office and made a telephone call, then returned. With a relieved smile, she said, “The mayor has gone to the city’s east side to host a leadership restructuring meeting. He’ll be back by nightfall, and if you want to wait for him, he said that you may wait in his office.”

Minghui therefore proceeded to his brother’s office. It was not very far and was on the same floor as Cheng Qing’s—with the two offices separated only by three conference rooms. The only difference between the two spaces was that outside the mayor’s office, there were two bodyguards, while next door there was the office of his administrative secretary, whom he could call whenever he wished. The bodyguards and secretaries all reported to Cheng Qing, and when they saw her they smiled and said, “Good day, Chief Secretary!” Cheng Qing nodded lazily, then gestured for Minghui to enter the mayor’s office. Inside, she exchanged a few more words with him, then slipped out, as though trying to avoid a leper.

“Just wait here patiently.

“… If you want some water, you can serve yourself.

“… Don’t touch your brother’s things. He never permits anyone to wait in his office alone.”

When Cheng Qing left, she shut the door behind her. The setting sun hung behind the enormous window like a piece of red fabric. This was the first time Minghui had entered his brother’s city mayor’s office. He didn’t see anything extraordinary about the office’s decorations or contents. There was a large red desk, but his brother Mingyao also had one of those; there were two evergreen trees, but Mingyao’s office had these as well. As for the rest, there was a couch, some newspapers, a telephone, documents, a water fountain, and a bookcase full of thick scholarly books. What else was there? Across from the red bookcase, there was also a display cabinet containing a
variety of exquisite artifacts that foreign guests had brought as gifts when they had visited. But apart from this, the only thing that was somewhat unusual was the curtain hanging over the window. The curtain’s fabric was extremely thick and heavy, and was covered on both sides in high-quality cloth with embroidered borders. Also, next to the display cabinet containing the foreign gifts there was another room with the key still in the keyhole.

Minghui walked around the main room for a while, then opened the door to the other room.

The room was the office’s relaxation space. When Cheng Qing had told Minghui not to touch anything in the mayor’s office, she had probably meant that he should not enter this particular room. Minghui hesitated a moment but in the end still proceeded inside. He was the mayor’s younger brother, and when he entered the inner room he felt as though he had just entered the home of a close friend. There was a bed, wallpaper, a lamp, a white ceiling, and a desk piled high with newspapers and documents, while on the floor there was a dark-colored wool carpet. Minghui didn’t know that the carpet was made from the hair of sixteen-year-old girls, but when the light was turned on the carpet radiated a soft skin-like glow. The floor felt a bit slick, and it occurred to him that rather than the carpet, it would have been better to put down a bath towel. He opened the door to the washroom to take a look, and apart from the pristine white bathtub, a gold-rimmed urinal, a gold-plated faucet, and a solid gold soap dish, there was nothing else that struck him as particularly extraordinary. The light in the bathroom was pure white, and various bathing utensils were also made of pure gold, each of them so heavy that he almost couldn’t lift them. This made him feel a bit faint, as if he had accidentally entered the wrong room. He again remembered Cheng Qing’s instructions that he not touch anything in the mayor’s office, but as he was tearing his eyes away from those gold artifacts,
he noticed that in the waste basket next to the sink there were some remains from a sexual encounter. When he saw this, his stomach began to rumble and he felt as though he were about to vomit. As he was rushing out of the bathroom, he noticed that next to the towel rack there was another door, on which there was a wooden sign that read,
ENTRY PROHIBITED
. Moreover, just like the “Mine until death do us part” that Sister-in-Law had inscribed below all of those pictures of Second Brother, the
Entry Prohibited
inscription was followed by a string of three exclamation marks. He now realized what Cheng Qing had meant when she said that he shouldn’t touch anything. He stood in front of the bathroom staring at that door. He wanted to walk away, but without realizing it he instead grasped that solid gold or gold-plated door handle. To his surprise, on one side of the door his brother had posted a plaque saying
NO ADMITTANCE
!!! while the secret door itself was unlocked—like a secret room in a bank when, because no one ever goes in, the staff doesn’t bother to lock it anymore.

After hesitating for a moment, Mingling pushed open the secret door.

As he had expected, there was a light switch on the wall next to the door.

He flipped the switch, and the light came on.

Under the white light, Minghui initially looked around in confusion, but he became increasingly alarmed as he gradually understood what he was seeing. There were several rooms with the windows all tightly sealed, as in a storeroom. Against the white walls there were shelves made from the most expensive yellow pear wood. Each shelf must have cost several hundred thousand or several million yuan, but they were full of the least expensive objects imaginable. Minghui entered that storeroom and stood in the middle, staring at those shelves that looked like something one would find in a palace treasure room. He inspected each shelf and saw that they
had an array of different-sized boxes, and in each box there were exceedingly ordinary items collected from different hotels, including toothpaste, toothbrushes, slippers, hand towels, bathrobes, and disposable razors or hair dryers. Furthermore, under each item there was a date and the name of a hotel. In another display area, there were pen cases, pen racks, staplers, pencil sharpeners, and all sorts of fountain pens and ballpoint pens that he had collected from all sorts of different conference halls. Beneath these items from around the country, there was also a date and the name of the organization to which the hall belonged. In the display area beneath it, there were artifacts collected from countless foreign banquet halls, including forks and knives, Korean tin chopsticks and Japanese copper ones, together with an occasional ordinary dish or bowl. In the fourth display area, there were some slightly more valuable artifacts, such as an oddly shaped telephone and several cigarette lighters in the form of a handgun. There were also drinking glasses with
PEOPLE’S MEETING HALL
or
ZHONGNANHAI
printed on them. It was when Minghui’s gaze alighted on the final display area, however, that he felt he had finally found his brother—and specifically his brother’s fraternal warmth. In the darkest inner corner of the display case, there were several pieces of coal and coke, cheap cigarettes and wine, and the sorts of cheap suits, clothing, hats, and shoes that only peasants from rural areas would wear.

Minghui felt as though a bucket of cold water had been poured over him and gradually realized that Second Brother was still the same brother he had known—the same Kong Mingliang who had led the residents of Explosion on those secret expeditions. After he was appointed town mayor, Mingliang once took some people to beat those residents of Explosion who were unable to stop stealing, though he himself never completely abandoned the habit either. After he was appointed county mayor and city mayor, he definitely wouldn’t
openly steal anymore, though he never did cure himself of the habit of casually taking things. All of the carefully dated slippers taken from hotel rooms and towels taken from airplanes, together with a matchbox filled with three-inch-long matches taken from the home or reception room of some official in Beijing—these demonstrated that Mingliang not only stole when he was village chief, but also continued stealing whenever he had a chance even as town mayor, county mayor, and city mayor. The only catch was that he never stole anything of value but rather merely pocketed an assortment of random items, the same way that many people, after they finish eating, will take the toothpicks and napkins sitting on the table. Mingliang brought these stolen items home, then he carefully placed them on display in this secret room. Here, Minghui rediscovered the Mingliang he had once known, and as he was reminiscing he heard the sound of Mingliang’s footsteps approaching.

Minghui looked in the direction of the footsteps and, without turning off the light, he walked out of the secret room, passed through the bathroom, and returned to the display case of foreign gifts on the eastern side of Second Brother’s office. He saw that in the office doorway, a young man even taller than Second Brother was standing, handsomely dressed in a suit, with a crew cut, and a face so white that there wasn’t even a hint of color. Meanwhile, the briefcase he was holding was so black it looked fake. However, his bright smile was utterly genuine.

“I’m Mayor Kong’s secretary, Secretary Liu. In order to have Explosion City redesignated as a metropolis, Mayor Kong has had to return to Beijing to make a report. Before he boarded the plane, the mayor told me to ask you what happened at home that has made you so anxious.”

Minghui stood flabbergasted and, after a moment, responded, “Nothing has happened at home. I just need to see him.”

With a soft smile like an autumn leaf falling on that square face in the doorway, it felt as though an extreme chill had suddenly fallen, as if all the warmth in the room suddenly disappeared. Minghui saw Mingliang suddenly disappear from in front of his eyes, like a breeze blowing through a crack in a door.

3. KONG MINGHUI

Because his heart was icy cold, the ground outside was frozen, the marble stones in the city square were covered in frost, and even the oil left behind by a car had become lumps of ice. The car had stopped by the side of the road, and the driver was hunched over, blowing on his hands while stomping his feet and cursing nonstop: “Fuck, Fuck!” But he couldn’t get the car started again.

Unable to endure the bitter cold, Minghui decided to go see his third brother, Kong Mingyao.

Minghui’s visit with Third Brother was exactly the opposite of his visit with Second Brother and was as straightforward as opening and closing a door. He went to the base of the mining company building, where he told the sentry that he was Kong Minghui, the fourth brother of Kong Mingyao, whereupon the sentry quickly called up the office building. As soon as Minghui entered the building, Mingyao was there waiting for him in the first-floor hall. All of Explosion—including the old city district, the city’s east side, its west side, and the development zone—was frozen solid and covered in snow. Minghui trudged in from outside, trying to get warm, and saw Mingyao wearing a munitions belt and standing in front of a Lohan bamboo. Because of the cold, the bamboo plant’s leaves had fallen off, but at that moment, as Mingyao looked at the bare plant, he removed his arms belt and placed it next to the bamboo, and the plant began emitting warm sounds as it produced streaks of green.

Mingyao then touched the plant, and countless green buds appeared on the bare branches.

Minghui walked over, looked at the new buds, then looked at his brother’s face. Just as Minghui was about to say something, his brother asked,

“Is it very cold outside?

“It’s somewhat warmer upstairs,” Mingyao added, as he took Minghui to his sand table room on the eighth floor. Apart from the maps of the world, the United States, England, France, and Germany hanging on the wall, next to the map of the United States, which was half as large as the room itself, there was an equally large map of Afghanistan and Iraq. On the eastern side of the office, in addition to the sand table maps of the United States, Japan, and Taiwan, there was an unfinished sand table map of Afghanistan and Iraq—some craftsmen were in the process of using Bakelite and clay to create a sand table model of Iraq, but when they saw Minghui and Mingyao approach, their clay-covered hands were suspended in midair. Mingyao gestured for the craftsmen to continue their work, while he sat down with his brother and had someone pour them some water. Seeing that Minghui was warming up and was no longer shivering, Mingyao asked him why he had come.

After recounting how the previous day he had failed to see Second Brother, Minghui sighed and said,

“It’s as if we weren’t even brothers anymore.”

Mingyao saw Minghui’s expression and then reflected for a while before saying,

“The United States might attack Iraq.”

Minghui said, “It’s as if Mother were sick, because she keeps talking about you every minute of every day.”

Mingyao said, “I never expected that the world could become so chaotic, and it’s entirely the fault of the United States.”