A Private Life Read online

  Only many years later, when I reflected on what it was that Yi Qiu and I shared in common at that time, was I able to see that, in fact, we were fundamentally different in nature.

  Yi Qiu had strong survival instincts. She understood that regardless of the individual's reasons for doing so, it was self-destructive for a person to cut all ties with surrounding society, that to do so would lead to the danger of isolation, and that any individual who did so ran the risk of withering away. She knew that she had to make every effort to establish a relationship of mutual interdependence and trust with her classmates if her life was to have a solid and healthy foundation. She truly worked hard to bring this about. But because of her disability, she was rejected by this excessively normal and healthy group. Yi Qiu's isolation from this group, clearly, was not her own doing.

  On the other hand, my isolation from it was. My behavior stems from a fear of the world outside the self; or, to put it another way, my disability is a mental one. I have never been willing to adopt an exploratory attitude toward the outside world, which would have created opportunities for me to establish real contacts with my companions within the group. Even today, I still have this kind of fear. I am stubbornly unwilling to recognize this fact: to reduce or abandon my concentration on self and open wide the door to socialization within the larger group would be to open the obvious door to my own survival; but, to look at it another way, would be to open the door to my own extinction.

  We didn't complete our assignment for that day. Yi Qiu brought out her pictures of her parents to show me. The old-fashioned black-and-white photographs were ragged around the edges and starting to yellow with age. Yi Qiu told me lots of things about her life. Of course, she had heard these things from her uncle.

  Yi Qiu's father had been the headmaster of a primary school. He was a big, tall, good man who cut an imposing figure. He was always extremely painstaking, easygoing, thoughtful, and modest and respectful in dealing with people in his school; but underneath, he was very easily upset by the people around him, was cynical and anxiety-ridden, and had no more courage than a mouse. Her mother, a member of a drama troupe, was spirited, cheerful, and attractive, with an aura of sexuality about her. Although she was not well educated and lacked a proper upbringing, she exuded a surface jauntiness and passion that fueled men's fantasies and turned them on, so in the eyes of the local males she was the number one "star," the woman they would fight over. Yi Qiu's father, after chasing her for eight years, finally won her over with his scholarship and his graciousness. They were married in early 1964 and the following year gave birth to little Yi Qiu, who inherited her mother's good looks and her father's submissiveness.

  But the times were against them, and the idyllic scene soon ended. In 1968, when little Yi Qiu was three years old, her anxious father could no longer bear the vicious infighting of the political campaign that was going on in the country at that time. He had been ordered to sleep between two corpses, one of them one of his female teachers who had been beaten to death by the Red Guards, the other, the Dean of Instruction of his school, who had "jumped to his death for fear of facing his crime." He was ordered to not only lie between the two corpses but also continuously stroke them so that he could respond to questioning the next day "with a cleansed mind." The night of mental torment cracked his nerves. At the first hint of dawn the next morning, when the guard had dropped off to sleep for a moment, he fled from the cowshed where he was kept and went home. On that cold January morning, before the sun had risen, his depressed and weak spirit suddenly broke and he sank into a deep manic depression, which set the stage for the final bitter scene of the family's extinction.

  When tiny Yi Qiu was dragged from the river by a passerby, she was very close to death. She had been stabbed several times with a pair of scissors, and it was easy to re-create the scene. Taking a pair of scissors with him, her father had carried her in his arms to the river. When she saw the demonic expression that had taken over his face, she beseeched him again and again, "Papa, I'll be a good girl, I won't bother you." After he had stabbed his baby daughter several times, he could still hear her pleading feebly, "Papa, I'll be a good girl," and unable to continue, he dropped her in the river.

  The bodies of Yi Qiu's father and mother were found together in a grove of barren, bent-over trees on the outskirts of the city. They were hanging separately from two adjacent trees.

  One summer a number of years earlier, Yi Qiu's father had gone to this place with a number of his colleagues for a weekend to escape the heat. At that time, the entire grove was filled with countless pink peach blossoms – a virtual peach garden paradise, like a totally romantic stage set in the midst of the gray city suburbs. In the center of the grove, completely surrounded by peach trees, was a clump of small birches, all canted over at an angle of about 45 degrees. Those slanted birches must have made a deep impression on Yi Qiu's father.

  The bodies were discovered early in the morning by a woman doing calisthenics. She said that she was doing waist bends in an area facing and a little bit higher than Yi Qiu's parents' leaning birches. At first she only vaguely noticed what appeared to be a man standing in front of a bare tree, his cap pulled down very low, almost completely covering his face. It puzzled her that anyone would stand there so long without moving on such a cold day. Then she noticed a second person, apparently a woman, with her long hair around her shoulders, standing before another tree close by. She was convinced that it was a pair of lovers meeting secretly. She continued exercising, but her attention had shifted, and she kept an eye on the man and woman. At first, she thought it a little strange that they didn't move, but when they had been rigidly motionless for about twenty minutes, she was sure there must be something amiss. Lovers just wouldn't behave like that. She stopped exercising and started moving closer for a better look, until she could see that they were not standing, they were hanging about a foot above the ground. She gave out a stunned scream… As I listened to Yi Qiu talking about her life, I did everything I could to suppress my fear and discomfort. We agreed to meet again the next day.

  When I was leaving, she pressed close to my ear and whispered that she had a "boyfriend," and enjoined me not to tell anyone else. From the way she said this I could more or less imagine what kind of secrets were involved. I was filled with the kind of admiration for Yi Qiu, with her unique life experience, that a young girl feels for an older girl.

  8 The Inner Room…

  For women, the inner room is referred to in a different way; it has a different name. It is a wound, it seems, that comes along with birth, that others are not allowed to touch, that secrets itself in shadow as deep as the obscure darkness within the womb that quickens the heartbeat of men. Our maturation process involves our gradual acquiescence to and our seeking for and ultimate acceptance of "entry." During the process of seeking, our girlhood ends and we enter womanhood.

  One morning shortly after eight, when I arrived at Yi Qiu's place as usual, I had to go to the toilet because I had had a bowl of thin gruel and a glass of milk before I left home.

  Yi Qiu was putting on a blouse that was so tight she could hardly do up the buttons. Her plump breasts threatening to tumble out, she used a bare foot to point to the westernmost corner of the big room. "Nnn! There!" she said.

  Only then did I notice a white door curtain hanging against the wall, but no doorway.

  "Where?" I said.

  She waved me over. "I'll show you."

  I followed her, her bare feet padding across the rough but clean floor like a pair of big fat bugs.

  Lightly lifting the curtain with one hand, she gestured, "Here. Most of the time I don't use the communal toilet. I go here."

  I was totally surprised to find that this big square box of a house, in fact, had a "sleeve" attached to it. There was a long, rectangular space behind the curtain, which really did stretch out like the sleeve of a sweater. There was a triangular steel stand that had been painted blue, with a washbasin on it. A pair of under
pants, a bra, a pair of stockings, and a handkerchief were hung to dry on a crooked length of wire that ran at an angle from one corner of the ceiling to a screw above the doorway. Like a miniature airplane, a big mosquito with transparent wings was perched securely on the wire, its stomach distended with blood it had probably sucked from Yi Qiu. A simple toilet that looked like a wooden stool stood in the center of the room, its bowl speckled with rust.

  Yi Qiu said, "Xi Dawang fixed it up for me. You can't flush it like the ones in apartment buildings, but you can rinse it out with the water from the washbasin. It's connected to the sewer."

  "Xi Dawang?" I asked. "Who's Xi Dawang?"

  Yi Qiu smiled. "My cousin." She started tidying her hair as if the person she mentioned was about to appear in front of her. "Actually, he's my boyfriend."

  I went into the toilet and dropped the curtain. The seat was wet and not very clean, so I sort of squatted rather than sitting right down. When I was finished, I put my toilet paper in a big bag for waste paper beside the toilet. As I stood up, I suddenly caught sight of a blood-soaked wad amid the waste paper in the bag. Its strident red color seized my eyes. It was like a budding flower that had burst into blossom hidden among a heap of white paper. My heart pounded wildly for a moment.

  I had seen older women doing this sort of thing in public toilets. They were very open about changing the paper, making no effort to hide what they were doing. It seemed it was something that everyone did; there was no need to be secretive about it. Nonetheless, I would always turn away in embarrassment, unable to watch. But even though I didn't look directly, I could still see them dropping the red wads of paper into the filthy pit. I thought it was very strange, but that was all, because it was something that concerned adults.

  When I saw that my companion Yi Qiu also had this problem, I was amazed. Only then did I begin to realize that this was going to happen to me too, and I couldn't help feeling confused.

  When I came out of the "bathroom," I pretended nothing had happened and without a word, I opened my exercise book.

  After a while, Yi Qiu said she had to go to the toilet, and disappeared into the "sleeve."

  Unable to suppress my curiosity, I raised my head from my book and looked at the curtain.

  Through a gap at the curled edge of the curtain, I could just make out Yi Qiu sitting on the toilet. She had something in her hand that she was rubbing herself with. I could see that it was red in color. My heart started to pound wildly all over again, so I dropped my head and forced myself to calm down.

  Even today, I still believe that Yi Qiu was the catalyst that initiated my passage into womanhood, because when I got out of bed the morning after I had witnessed this, I discovered a small patch of blood, like a living crimson plum blossom, among the printed green flowers on my sheets.

  I was fourteen that year.

  When Yi Qiu opened the curtain and came out of the "sleeve," I had my head down and was practicing my written characters with grim deliberation. They were square and solid as bricks. She said, "How strange. You're so thin and frail, but your characters are so sturdy and solid."

  I said, "What's strange about that? My mama says that looking at a person's writing is like looking into her heart."

  "Heart?" Yi Qiu thought about it, but she couldn't see the connection between written characters and the heart, and said, "Your mama's an intellectual. Intellectuals are a pain, they want to connect everything to the 'heart.'"

  "But it makes sense," I answered.

  "What sense? I don't think your heart is anywhere near as rigid as your characters." She opened her own exercise book and said, "Look at how round and soft my characters are. According to your mother's theory, I should bawl when I look at a falling leaf. In fact, I never cry. What is there that's worth crying about?"

  Because of the weird business with the red wad of paper that had just happened, I was confused and illogical and couldn't explain myself clearly.

  I said, "She doesn't mean your heart, she means your temperament; well, not really your temperament, it's… Anyway, Mama's always correcting my characters. She says people who write characters like mine will get more and more stubborn, more unreasonable… and… and…"

  Just then someone outside shouted, "Yi Qiu!"

  We immediately fell quiet, straining to hear who was there.

  "Yi Qiu!" Again a shout. There was definitely someone outside, but I had never met anyone at her house before.

  I watched with great curiosity as she went to the door.

  A tall male came into the room, with black, flashing almond eyes, a lowering brow, and a narrow forehead. He was sturdy as a gatepost and gave the appearance of having an endless store of vitality.

  When he saw that there was a strange girl in the room, he smiled stiffly and seemed a bit too reserved, but he looked very sweet.

  Yi Qiu introduced him: "This is Xi Dawang. I told you about him." Then she pointed at me and said to him, "This is my new friend, Ni Niuniu."

  He came over to me, holding out a big, raw hand. "Hello," he said. "Yi Qiu has told me about you."

  I shyly offered him my hand. His palm was oily and damp with sweat.

  He and Yi Qiu sat close to each other on the bed, across the table from me. Yi Qiu and I had put our homework aside, and the three of us were sitting a bit awkwardly around the table as if we were having a chat, but not knowing what to say.

  He picked up my exercise book and bumbled out, "Your calligraphy is very beautiful."

  In those hands of his, which had probably been carrying bricks for many years, my exercise book looked very thin and fragile. He was turning the pages with great care, one by one, as if it were not an exercise book at all but a collection of expensive silks.

  "My calligraphy isn't the least bit beautiful," I said.

  Without responding to my comment, he fished some tomatoes from his rather worn military haversack, and wiping them with his hands, said, "Have one, please."

  Yi Qiu passed one to me immediately.

  All three of us started to eat, and with the tomatoes suddenly easing the tension among us, we started to chat.

  From Xi Dawang's conversation I gathered that he had been on regular service in the air force as ground crew in a small northern city, working mostly as a lineman, a ditch digger, and in a factory manufacturing oxygen. Later on, he left the force because he had developed a brain disease.

  I asked what kind of disease can affect the brain.

  Neither of them answered.

  When I finished my tomato, I got up to go to the "sleeve" to wash my hands. I noticed that Xi Dawang was wiping the red juice off his hands on his trouser legs. Yi Qiu was going to go with me to wash her hands, but when I got up she said, "You go first. You go."

  As I was washing my hands, I watched them through the gap at the edge of the curtain.

  Like bolts of lightning, they were into each other's arms. Xi Dawang madly clasped Yi Qiu to him, with his thick, strong arms enclosing her shoulders, like a prisoner who had not eaten the tender breast of a fat chicken for many years and now suddenly had before him a huge portion. Yi Qiu eagerly pressed herself against him, moving her breasts against his rib cage like plump hands passionately brushing the strings of a harp.

  I dragged out my washing as long as I could, then went back to my chair and opened up my exercise book as if I hadn't seen a thing.

  By this time, they were sitting separate again.

  For a while nobody said anything.

  To lighten things up, Xi Dawang started to tell us that one evening at dusk, when he was in the air force, he had sat down for a rest on a mountain slope. Leaning against a large rock, he was idly picking some of the brilliant yellow wild blossoms of the "gold watch" flower when he noticed an owl not very far away from him devouring a marmot it had caught. Putting down the flowers, he hid himself and watched quietly. Unlike other birds, the owl has its eyes on the front, not the sides, of its head, with the feathers around them radiating outward in a ci
rcle so that it appears to have a face, though, in fact, this is not so. Eventually the owl saw him; then after they stared at each other for a moment, it disappeared as silently as a shadow. It frightened him deeply to discover that an owl can fly silently, without a whisper of sound.

  Xi Dawang said that the next day he fell ill. He firmly believed that his sickness was brought on by his staring into the owl's eyes.

  "When you're in the mountains," Xi Dawang said, "you live among unfettered forces, and communicate with the silent stones though they have no way to speak."

  When he loosened up and started to talk like this, I discovered that there was indeed something about him that was not quite right.

  His eyes were focused straight ahead, but he wasn't looking at anyone. It seemed as if he were holding a very urgent conversation with some little person inside his head. I also saw that his hand was continuously stroking Yi Qiu's waist, and that her waist was a substitute for whatever it was that was in his mind. A definite nervous twitch pulled at the corner of his mouth, as if his fingers were at that moment discovering some as yet unperfected pleasure at Yi Qiu's waist, as if his desire for this unspoken place was nerve ending by nerve ending being ignited – trapping him in the throes of sexual hunger.

  Yi Qiu responded to his fingers with an unbroken thread of silvery laughter, a laughter that in fact came from that same distant and secret place, that dim, obscure place from which desire emanates. It was "that place," grinning like an open mouth, that was laughing.

  I kept writing in my exercise book but couldn't stop listening to them.

  Then Yi Qiu told me that she and Xi Dawang were going to the other room to discuss something personal.

  The two of them got up and went into the inner room.

  I was left alone in the outer room, separated from them by a wall. I suddenly felt isolated and left out of life. That inner room had an indefinable attraction that so seduced my power of concentration that it was impossible for me to focus on my lesson. But what was going on in there was really beyond the scope of my imagination, because there was little in my own personal feelings or experience that had any connection with it. That area of experience for me was essentially blank. But at this moment it was as if that room were at the center of a powerful magnetic field that had captured me in an unidentifiable tension from which there was no relief.