Bi Feiyu - The Moon Opera

Every evening she dragged herself home, exhausted. The fatigue lingered, roiled, and flooded through her body, like thick, suffocating smoke from burning leaves after an autumn rain. Even her eyes were tired; they would lock onto something and stay there, too weary to move on. She often stood up straight and breathed in deeply to rid her chest of the imagined smoke and mist. But the air never reached the right spot, so after a while she gave up.

The dazed look in Yanqiu’s eyes did not escape the attention of Miangua, for whom his wife’s lethargy was cause for serious concern. She had rejected him twice in bed already. Once she’d been cold and detached, the second time it was a case of nerves. The way she acted, you’d have thought that he didn’t so much want to make love as to stab and make her bleed. He dropped a hint here and there, and sometimes was quite direct, but she remained oblivious. There had to be something terribly wrong with the woman’s heart, for nothing seemed to touch her.

Bingzhang came to see Xiao Yanqiu when she was teaching Chunlai how to stand for maximum effect. Striking the right pose entailed not only the conclusion of one dramatic mood, but also the silent beginning of another; it had both its own logic and beauty. The most difficult task was finding the right measure of decorum, for that, ultimately, was what art was all about. Xiao Yanqiu had demonstrated the pose several times, and kept raising her voice until she was nearly shouting. She wanted everyone to take note of her enthusiasm, her even temper, and her willingness to show that she did not feel ill-treated, that she was at peace, as if her mood had been ironed out smooth. She was more than just the most successful performer around; she was also the happiest woman and sweetest wife in the world.

That was when Bingzhang showed up. Rather than step into the rehearsal hall, he waved to her through the window. This time he led her to the conference room, not his office, where they’d had their earlier conversation. The previous talk had been productive, and he hoped this one would be as well. In a pleasant, unhurried manner, he asked how the rehearsal was going, though it was obvious that this was not what he had in mind; unfortunately, beating around the bush was too ingrained a habit for him to do otherwise. For some reason, even though he was in charge of the drama troupe, he could not help being afraid of the woman sitting across from him.

Xiao Yanqiu sat with a single-minded concentration that was exaggerated to the point of borderline hysteria, like a woman waiting to hear sentence pronounced. Noting her demeanor, Bingzhang knew he needed to be careful with what he was about to say.

Finally he got around to the topic of Chunlai, and then came straight to the point. He told Yanqiu that the young woman had previously decided to move on out of concern that she’d be unable to go on the stage and was unsure of her future, not because she’d really wanted to leave. A smile burst onto Xiao Yanqiu’s face. “I have no objection,” she said in full voice. “Really, I have no objection at all.”

Ignoring her comment, Bingzhang continued with what he wanted to say: “I should have spoken to you earlier, but I was kept from doing so by meetings in town.” With a self-deprecating smile, he continued, “My hands are tied, as you know.”

Yanqiu swallowed and repeated herself, “I tell you, I have no objection.”

He gave her a cautious look. “We held two special high-level organizational meetings over what we consider a very serious matter,” he said, “and I want to see what you think—”

Yanqiu jumped to her feet, so fast she even frightened herself. Again she smiled. “Really, I have no objection.”

Bingzhang stood up and asked warily, “Have they spoken to you already?” She stared blankly, not knowing what “they” were supposed to have “spoken” to her about. Biting his lower lip, Bingzhang blinked nervously, filled with things to say, but unable to begin. Finally, he mustered up the courage to stammer, “We held those two meetings, and, we thought—they thought—it would be better for me to talk to you.You will take half the role … though naturally, we’ll understand completely if you think it’s a bad idea. But you will play half, Chunlai will play the other half. Do you think this will …”

She did not hear what came after that, though she had heard every word up till then. At that point, she realized that for days she’d been operating under false assumptions, from which she had been making plans. No one in authority had spoken to her. Putting on an opera was such a huge event, how could she decide which play to perform or who to play which role? Everything had to be finalized by the organization. She’d been thinking too highly of herself and overestimating her authority. One person getting half the role was the sort of decision the organization would inevitably make. That was how they always did it: one role, two performers. She was so happy she broke out in a cold sweat. “I have no objection,” she gushed. “Honest, I have absolutely no objection.”

Xiao Yanqiu’s quick and easy agreement came as a surprise to Bingzhang. He studied her carefully and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that she was sincere; he wanted to praise her, but could not find the words. Not until much later did he ask himself how he had come to utter a phrase that no one had used for decades. “Your consciousness has been raised,” he’d said. She nearly shed tears of joy on her way back to the rehearsal hall, as she recalled the afternoon when Chunlai had talked about leaving and the words she’d used to convince the girl to stay. She stopped to look back at the conference room door. Although she’d told Chunlai in front of Bingzhang that she would be her student’s understudy, obviously he had not taken her seriously. To him, apparently, she was just farting in the wind. And he was right, Yanqiu told herself. A vow from a woman like me is just that, a fart in the wind. No one believes a woman like me, not even me.

A wintry gust blew into the hallway and picked up a slip of paper, which immediately assumed the wind’s form and its substance. The wind blew past Xiao Yanqiu, causing her to shiver. The paper itself was like a Qingyi in the wind, drifting yet wistful, until it was tossed into a corner by the wall. When another blast followed, it quivered, as if both seeking and trying to avoid the wind. That slip of paper was a sigh from the wind.

The weather turned bitterly cold as the opening approached. At moments like this, the factory boss showed his true mettle as a media manipulator. At first, there were occasional reports in the media, but the heat was turned up as the day drew near, until all the media outlets, big and small, had joined the clamor. The noise of popular opinion created its own mood, almost as if The Moon Opera had, bit by bit, become part of the people’s daily life, the sole focus of attention by society in general. The media created a peculiar buzz, telling people that “everyone is waiting anxiously.” Using the seductive countdown method, these expressions of public opinion reminded people that everything was ready, everything but the east wind, that is.

The voice rehearsal was nearly over, and Yanqiu had visited the toilet several times. She had sensed something was wrong as she crawled out of bed that morning, overcome by nausea. But she refused to dwell on her discomfort, since she’d felt much the same back when she was taking all those diet pills. But on her fifth visit to the toilet, she was troubled by feelings she could not describe; her only certainty was that she had something important to do. Her bladder felt full, yet each time she tried to urinate, nothing came. All the time she was in the toilet she thought about that important thing she hadn’t yet done, but still could not say what it was.