Life and Death are Wearing Me Out (61 page)

Finally, I heard a knock at the door and felt cold all over. I was shivering, my teeth were chattering. I rushed over and opened the door. The smile on her face found its way into my soul. I forgot everything, the words I’d planned to say to her, Pang Kangmei’s veiled warning, all my fears. I took her in my arms and kissed her; she kissed me back.

Between kisses we looked into each other’s eyes. There were tears on her cheeks; I licked them dry — salty and fresh. “Why, dearest Chumiao? Is this a dream? Why?” “Dearest Lan, everything I have is yours, you want me, don’t you. ...” I struggled. We kissed again, desperately, and what followed was inevitable.

We lay on the cot in each other’s arms; somehow it didn’t seem so narrow now. “Dearest Ghunmiao, I’m twenty years older than you, I’m ugly as sin, and I’m so afraid I’ll bring calamities down on you. I don’t deserve to live. ...” I was nearly incoherent. She stroked my chin and my face. With her mouth pressed against my ear, she said, “I love you.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll be responsible for what happens.”

“I don’t want you to be responsible. I’m a willing partner. I won’t leave you until we’ve been together a hundred times.”

I was like a starving cow that has suddenly spotted a patch of fresh new grass.

A hundred times came and went in a hurry, but we still found it impossible to part.

On the hundredth time, we wished it would never end. She touched my face and said tearfully, “Take a good look at me. Don’t forget me.”

“Chunmiao, I want to marry you.”

“No.”

“I’ve made up my mind,” I said. “What awaits us is probably an abyss. But I have no choice.”

“Then we’ll jump in together,” she said.

That night I went home to lay my cards on the table. My wife was in the side room, winnowing mung beans — a tricky job, but one she was good at. As her hands moved up and down and sideways, the beans fairly flew and the husks soared out.

“What’s up?” I asked for lack of anything better to say.

“His granddad sent over some mung beans.” She reached down and picked out some gravel. “They came from his garden. I don’t care if other things go bad, but not these. I’ll have some bean sprouts for Kaifang.”

She went back to work.

“Hezuo”—I hardened my heart—“I want a divorce.”

Her hands stopped in midair and she stared blankly at me, as if she didn’t comprehend what I was saying.

“I’m sorry, Hezuo, but I think that’s best.”

The winnowing basket tipped slowly forward, sending a few, then a dozen or so, then a hundred or more beans spilling out onto the cement floor, like a green waterfall.

The basket fell out of her hand and she began listing to the side, losing her sense of balance. I thought about reaching out to steady her, but she leaned up against a chopping board on which some onions and dry oil fritters lay. She covered her mouth with her hand and began to sob. Tears gushed from her eyes.

“I really am sorry, but please do this for me.”

She flung her hand away from her mouth and wiped the tears from her eyes with her fingers. Clenching her jaw, she said:

“Over my dead body.”

While you were laying your cards on the table with your wife, still covered with the heavy scent of passionate lovemaking with Pang Chunlai, I was outside crouching under the eaves, gazing at the moon, deep in thought. There was a deranged quality to the wonderful moonbeams. Since it was a full moon, all the dogs in the county were scheduled to meet in Tianhua Square. The first item on the agenda was a memorial for the Tibetan mastiff who could not adapt to life below sea level, causing his internal organs to fail, which led to internal bleeding and death. Next was to arrange a celebration for my third sister, who had married the Norwegian husky belonging to the county Political Consultative Conference chairman four months earlier, and had just had a litter of three white-faced, yellow-eyed bastard pups a month ago.

Lan Jiefang, you rushed out of the house and gave me a meaningful glance as you passed by I saw you off with a series of barks: Old friend, I think the happy times are coming to an end for you. I felt mildly hostile toward you; the smell of Pang Chunmiao you carried with you worked to diminish the hostility I’d otherwise have felt.

My nose told me you headed north, on foot, the same route I used when taking your son to school. A lot of noise from your wife came from inside the house, thanks to the open door, through which I saw her raise her cleaver and, with loud thuds, shred the onions and oil fritters on the chopping board. The pungent smell of chopped onions and rancid odor of oil fritters spread vigorously through the room. By now your scent placed you at the Tianhua Bridge, where it merged with the putrid smell of foul water running below. With each blow from her cleaver, her left leg wobbled a bit, accompanied by a single clipped word: “Hate! Hate!”

Your son came running out of the main house to see what was going on in the side room. “Mama!” he shouted in alarm. “What are you doing?” Two more violent chops finally vented the hatred she was feeling; she put down her cleaver, turned her back to him to dry her tears, and said, “Why aren’t you in bed? Don’t you have school tomorrow?” He walked up in front of her. “You’re crying, Mama!” he cried out shrilly. “What do you mean, crying? What’s there to cry about? It’s the onions.” “Why are you chopping onions in the middle of the night?” “Go to bed. If you’re late for school tomorrow, I’ll show you what it means to cry.” The anger in her voice was unmistakable. She picked up the cleaver, throwing a fright into your son, who backed up and started muttering to himself. “Come back here!” she said, rubbing his head with one hand and gripping the cleaver in her other. “I want you to study hard and bring credit to yourself. I’ll make some onion-stuffed flat bread for you.” “I don’t want any, Mama,” he said. “You’re tired, you work so hard. . . .” But she pushed him out the door. “I’m not tired. Now be a good boy and go to bed.” He took a few steps, then stopped and turned back. “Papa came home, didn’t he?” She didn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “Yes, but he left, he had to work overtime tonight.” “How come he always has to work overtime?”

I found the whole episode depressing. Among dogs I could be totally unfeeling. But in a family of humans, emotions came at me from all directions.

As promised, your wife set to work making onion-stuffed flat bread. She kneaded the dough, so much that she wound up with a pile half the size of a pillow. What was she thinking, that she’d treat your son’s whole class to freshly baked flat breads? Her bony shoulders rose and fell as she worked, sweat darkened the back of her jacket. Intermittent spells of crying spoke to her anger, to her sorrow, and to so many of her memories. Some of the tears fell on her jacket front, some fell on the backs of her hands, and some fell into the dough, which was getting softer and softer and producing a slightly sweet aroma. Adding some flour, she continued to knead the dough. She sobbed from time to time, but quickly stopped and dried her tears with her sleeves. Soon her face was dotted with white flour, a comical yet pitiful appearance. She occasionally stopped working, let her hands fall to her sides, and walked around the room, as if looking for something. On one of those occasions, she slipped on some scattered mung beans and fell to the floor, where she sat for a moment, looking straight ahead, as if staring at a gecko on the wall. Then she banged her hands against the floor and wailed, but just for a moment, before getting to her feet and going back to work.

Once the dough was ready, she set her pan on top of the stove, turned on the gas, and lit a fire. After carefully pouring in a bit of oil, she laid in the first prepared flat bread, which sizzled and sent bursts of fragrance into the kitchen air and from there to the yard outside and the street beyond; once it had spread through town I was able to relax a bit, after being so fidgety. I looked up into the western sky, where the moon now hung, and listened to what was happening at Tianhua Bridge. The scent told me that our regular meeting was ready to begin, and that they were all waiting for me.

The hundreds of mongrels seated around the central fountain stood up when I made my entrance at Tianhua Square and welcomed me boisterously.

Deputy chairmen Ma and Lü escorted me to the chairman’s podium, a marble foundation on which a replica of the Venus de Milo had stood before someone walked off with it. As I rested there to catch my breath, from a distance I must have looked like a memorial to a brave canine. My apologies, but I’m not a statue. I’m a living, breathing, powerful dog who carries the genes of the local big white dog and a German shepherd, in short, Gaomi County’s dog king. I gathered my thoughts for a couple of seconds before beginning my address. In that first second my sense of smell was still focused on your wife; the heavy aroma of onions coming from your home told me that everything was normal. In the final second I switched to you, sprawled at the window in your smoky office, gazing dreamily at the moon. That too was perfectly normal. I looked out into the flashing eyes and shiny fur of all those animals arrayed before me and announced in a loud voice:

“Brothers, sisters, I call this eighteenth full-moon meeting to order!”

A roar rose from the crowd.

I raised my right paw to quiet them down.

“During this past month our brother the Tibetan mastiff passed away, so let’s send his soul off to the plateau with three loud cheers!”

The chorus of cheers from several hundred dogs rocked the town. My eyes were moist: sadness over the passing of our brother and gratitude over the expressions of friendship.

I then invited the dogs to sing and dance and chat and eat and drink in celebration of the one-month birthday of my third elder sister’s litter of three.

Whoops and hollers.

She passed her male pup up to me. I kissed him on the cheek and raised him over my head for all to see. The crowd roared. I passed him down, and she passed up a female. I kissed her and raised her over my head, and the crowd roared again. Then she handed up the third pup, another female. I brushed her cheek with my lips, raised her over my head, the crowd roared for the third time, and I passed her down. The crowd roared.

I jumped down off the platform. My sister came up to me and said to her pups, “Say, Hello, Uncle. He’s your mother’s brother.”

Hello Uncle, Hello Uncle, Hello Uncle.

“I hear they’ve all been sold, is that right?” I asked her icily.

“You heard right,” she said proudly. “They’d barely been born before people were beating down our door. My mistress sold them to Party Secretary Ke from Donkey County, Industry and Commerce Department Chief Hu, and Health Department Chief Tu. They paid eighty thousand.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t a hundred thousand?” I asked, again icily.

“They brought a hundred, but our master would only accept eighty. My master isn’t a money-grubber.”

“Shit,” I said, “that’s not selling dogs, it’s selling—”

She cut me off with a shrill rebuke: “Uncle!”

“Okay, I won’t say it,” I promised in a soft voice. Then I announced to the crowd, “Come on, dance! Sing! Start drinking!”

A pointy-eared, slender German dachshund with a hairless tail came up to me with two bottles of beer. When he popped them open with his teeth, foam spilled over the sides and released the delightful aroma.

“Have one, Mr. Chairman.” So I took one of the bottles and clinked it against the one he held for himself.

“Bottoms up!” I said. So did he.

With two paws on the bottles, we tipped them up and slugged down the contents. More and more dogs came up to drink with me, and I didn’t send any of them away A pile of empties formed behind me. A little white Pekinese, her hair in pigtails and a ribbon tied around her neck, came rolling up to me like a little ball, with some locally produced sausage in her mouth. She was wearing Chanel No. 5 perfume, and her coat glistened like silver.

“Chairman . . . Mr. Chairman . . .” She stammered a little. “This sausage is for you.”

She undid the wrapping with her tiny teeth and with two paws carried the sausage up to my mouth. I accepted her gift and took a small bite, then chewed it slowly as a sign of respect. Vice chairman Ma walked up with a bottle of beer then, and clinked it against mine.

“How was the sausage?”

“Not bad.”

“Damn it. I told them to bring over one case, but they brought twenty cases of the stuff. Old Wei, over at the warehouse, is going to be in deep shit tomorrow.” There was a noticeable degree of pride in his voice.

I spotted a mongrel crouching off to the side with three bottles of beer lined up in front of him, along with three chunks of sausage and some cloves of garlic. He took a swig of beer, then a bite of sausage, and flipped a clove of garlic into his mouth. He smacked his lips as he chewed, as if he was the only dog around. He was enjoying himself immensely. The other local mutts were drunk by then. Some were howling at the moon, others were belching loudly, and some were spouting incomprehensible rubbish. I wasn’t happy about that, of course, but I didn’t do anything about it.

I looked up at the moon and could see that the night was coming to an end. During the summer months, the days are long, the nights are short, and in an hour, no more, birds would be chirping; people would be out airing their caged birds and others would practice tai chi with their swords. I tapped Vice Chairman Ma on the shoulder.

“Adjourn the meeting,” I said.

Ma threw down the beer bottle he was holding, stretched out his neck, and released a shrill cry toward the moon. All the canine participants tossed away their beer bottles and, drunk and sober alike, gave me their undivided attention. I jumped up onto the platform.

“Tonight’s meeting is hereby adjourned. All of you must vacate the square within the next three minutes. The date of our next meeting will be announced later. Adjourn!”

He released another shrill cry, and the dogs began heading home as fast as their bloated bellies would allow. Those who had drunk too much reeled from side to side, frequently losing their footing in their haste to clear the square. My third sister and her Norwegian husky husband piled their three pups into a fancy Japanese import stroller and left quickly, one pushing, the other pulling. The pups stood up with their paws on the outer edge and yelped excitedly. Three minutes later the clamorous square was deserted, littered with empty beer bottles and odorous chunks of leftover sausage, and befouled by countless puddles of dog piss. I nodded with a sense of satisfaction, slapped paws with Vice Chairman Ma, and left.