Can Xue - Vertical Motion

I’d been left on the stairs by myself. I must have gone down seventy or eighty flights of stairs. Why was it that I still couldn’t see the bottom? Scared, I turned around and climbed up. My legs were really supporting me. Nothing was wrong with them. I had never been as strong as now! In the stillness, I climbed and climbed. The afternoon scene from the past kept flashing through my mind. It was always that obscure wing room, and always with the four childhood friends. We were crowded around the small stool where the deck of cards lay. The deck of cards lay on a square stool, and the four of us were crowded around the square stool. Outside, it was raining. Uncle Lou’s silhouette flashed out from behind the mosquito net and disappeared out the door.

Ultimately, I never found the exit and I returned to Uncle Lou’s home. His nephew greeted me at the door.

“Hedgehog, you’re back from your walk. You must feel great.”

“No, I’m feeling a little depressed. I want to go back to my own home.”

As I said this, I was taken aback: How had I become “Hedgehog”? He was my twin brother. In the past, when we lived in the old house, we had been inseparable. It was my brother who had scraped together enough from our pocket money to buy the deck of cards: he was a boy with ideas. Over the years, I had gradually rid myself of the shadow of his death. I had never expected that both Uncle Lou and his nephew would think I was Hedgehog.

“You’ve already been gone fourteen years. What difference does it make if you go back a little later?”

Ah, he still thought I was Hedgehog!

“I’m Puppy.”

“We know you’re Puppy.”

When he said this, I suddenly noticed that his face had become scary, just like a leper’s. He looked as if he would throw himself at me, so I turned around right away and ran off. I ran to the elevator; its door opened automatically. It was empty. I closed the door and quickly pushed the button for the first floor. The elevator was slow, and, staggering, it finally stopped. As soon as the door opened, I streaked outside. The sun was bright, so dazzling that I couldn’t open my eyes. When I passed the gate guard, I heard the middle-aged man say loudly:

“Isn’t this Hedgehog from Old Qin’s family? How did he happen to come to our ‘Village in the Big City’?”

The others burst into loud laughter. I flushed, but I didn’t know why they were laughing.

I walked to the main street, and turned around to look at the “Village in the Big City.” Uncle Lou and his nephew were standing at the entrance waving to me. They looked reluctant to see me go, but as soon as I recalled the nephew’s hidden ugly face, I began trembling. The cars going back and forth blocked their images, and I continued walking ahead. I walked for a long time. The three twenty-four-story residential buildings were still behind me. If I turned around, I would see the compound. It was so close that I could even see Uncle Lou’s small room. I picked up my pace, but after a while I couldn’t help looking back again. Ah, a bamboo pole was sticking out from Uncle Lou’s window. What game was he playing? Was he greeting me? I waved and hurried on.

Sitting in the bus, I heard the following conversation:

“This rain was really heavy; it’s never rained so hard before. The tadpoles in your pond all swam over to my side. ”

“Yes, it rained really hard, welcoming us home.”

“When you left, did you put the playing cards away?”

“Someone did it for me. They’re safe.”

I opened my eyes and saw two men who looked like farmers in front of me, but they certainly didn’t seem to be the ones who had just been talking. My staring made them unhappy, and I hurriedly shifted my gaze.

I transferred to another bus and went home. The first thing I did when I went inside was to see if the small mirror was still under the pillow. It was. I looked in the mirror several times. Nothing was wrong.

I sat at the table and recalled today’s adventure. I felt that my innermost being had been substantially enriched. Perhaps I should start calling on Uncle Lou frequently. It was about time. “Village in the Big City”: what a marvelous name!

When she arrived, it was already three in the morning, a time when the lights were all out in the apartments in this old building. I heard her coming up the stairs, and then she entered my apartment. She must have walked through half the city to get here — I figured she lived in the suburbs. It was a little absurd that someone like me chose to live in the downtown area. Even though the room was so dark, I saw her long hair glistening. Where was the light coming from? As always, she stood in the middle of the room, giving off a slight smell of dried red peppers. When I asked her to let me stroke her hair, she walked over and bent down in front of me. Her hair was like a horse’s mane, icy cold and vigorous. I couldn’t help burying my face in it.

“Can you see me?” I asked.

“Of course. But I’m not accustomed to using my eyes. Where I live, we have lots of things to play with — as many as the cockroaches you have here, layer after layer of them. ”

“Are there cockroaches in my room?”

“Yes. They’re under the floor struggling to emerge. The city is the cockroaches’ kingdom. Where I live it’s different; we have different things — like clouds floating in the air, sometimes dense and sometimes sparse. When they are extruded too densely, they usually discharge sparks that make pih-pah pih-pah sputtering sounds. When I’m there for a long time, I get scared, so I’ve come to you. Give me your hand, okay?”

Her mouth was ice-cold, gripping my palm like an acetabulum. My hand tingled. She asked me what it felt like, and I said I was a little afraid but it didn’t matter. It was always better not to be alone. I also asked her what she’d seen on her way here. She said it seemed there’d been some white mice, but she hadn’t seen them. She’d figured this out from the shape, because one had jumped onto her breasts.

She suddenly leapt from the bedside and then squatted. I heard sharp teeth biting sand. The light on her black hair flickered.

“Elena (this was the foreign name I had given her), may I go to your home?”

“No. The air there is too thin. Your lungs couldn’t take it.”

“Aren’t you afraid of cockroaches?”

“Yes, I am. But you’re here. You’re a man, and I love you.”

She curled up into a ball under the table. She looked like a little bear, a little bear nibbling on quartz. She looked sweet.

A lot of noise started coming from the streets, as if a powerful army were hurrying past. This sort of thing didn’t occur very often — probably only once or twice a year. She just sat there, aloof and indifferent. The chachacha. chachacha was rhythmic. I asked when she had started loving me, and she said a long time ago.

“At that time, there was nothing frightening where we lived. My parents and my five brothers swam around all day long. As for me, I stood at the window and yearned for you.”

“Back then, I probably wasn’t in the picture, was I?”

“Possibly. Then you appeared later. I remember that I first saw you at the small coal pit. I often went there and listened closely to how those people emerged from the ground. You were the last one to come out. I heard your whole body make a tiny sound; perhaps it was discharging electricity. This was eight years ago. My parents also knew about you and me. They said this was a good thing. My parents and my brothers often bring this up to make fun of me.”

It grew quiet outside. Hand in hand, Elena and I went downstairs. The street lights were on, and we kissed under the moonlight. It rained yesterday, so the streets were clean, and they didn’t look at all as if an army had just passed by. Skipping and leaping, she started running off. Her long hair was like a torch. I wanted to chase her, but I couldn’t catch up. Turning the corner, she disappeared without a trace. Ah, I heard a lot of people opening their windows to look at me.