Can Xue: Five Spice Street

‘‘Hallucinatory drugs’’ also suggests another of X’s strange hobbies. Anyone who looks for X knows that X hides in the bedroom to engage in some kind of activity involving the sounds of jumping and other noises whose cause is unknown. At such times, through a crack in the door, she sometimes tells people, ‘‘Please wait a moment.’’ The wait might be long or short, sometimes ten minutes and sometimes more than half an hour. While she engaged in this secret activity, it didn’t matter who it was; no one-not even her husband or her darling son-could go in. Because of the curtains, no one knew what she was doing. It’s to the widow’s credit that Five Spice Street’s residents aren’t still fretting over this. It was a rainy night when the much-admired widow obtained first-hand information. (She announced that her method was a secret.) It was dark outside the window. Listening to the rain, the widow reported to several residents that what X was concealing inside the room was ‘‘downright dull’’ and she ‘‘couldn’t figure out what possible pleasure lay in it.’’ Her activity was nothing more than skipping naked back and forth in front of the mirror like a little child (she had a large full-length mirror, bought second-hand; the image was unusually clear and true). Then she kicked, bent over, and turned around and around to appraise her waist, her breasts, her rear end, her legs, and other spots. ‘‘She struck a flirtatious pose’’ and ‘‘was unbearably vulgar.’’ In fact, you couldn’t say her breasts were the least bit full; at most, they weren’t any better than a teenage girl’s. A mature woman naturally ought to have mature beauty-a lingering, winning charm in order to bewitch men. What did such childish breasts and a tiny wasp-like waist count for? Could this world be upside down? Why was Madam X so happy with herself, going so far as to look at her reflection for an hour or two every day? Did she behold a non-existent phantom? It’s said that this is a symptom of hysteria. After finishing her report, the widow told the residents: Madam X’s inner world is arrogant, narcissistic, and selfish. She attaches so much importance to her body: every day, she closes the door and looks at it, and yet to the people all around, she claims ‘‘not to use her eyes to see them,’’ her eyes were ‘‘retired,’’ she ‘‘didn’t have any feelings’’ because she had ‘‘grown a plate of steel on her body.’’ After hearing the widow’s report, Five Spice Street’s residents felt a load had been lifted from their shoulders.

The people of Five Spice Street had bitterly despised and feared X’s behavior behind closed doors, and they’d come up with a lot of strange ideas: one said that X was manufacturing dynamite in the house and getting ready to set it off in the public toilet; one said she was raising scorpions and planning to retaliate against the people who had talked about her; one said she was practicing certain ‘‘arts’’ and could force a person into the grave using only her idiodynamics; and still another, who thought himself clever, said that X was working on ways to make herself invisible, because he had once peeped inside, and no one was there, yet he had heard scuffling and kicking. Of course, the widow later refuted this. After learning what Madam X was doing inside, some gossips thought that people would want to drill holes in the wall of Madam X’s home and wait to feast their eyes. What would they wait for? What would they get from it? Nothing. Not only did crowds of people not drill holes but they never brought this matter up again.

Madam X and her husband manage a small snack shop located on the corner. They sell sauteed broad beans, fried broad beans, five spice melon seeds, plain melon seeds, sauteed peanuts, fried peanuts, and so on. They employ no workers. Every day the husband goes somewhere and hauls back fresh broad beans, peanuts, and melon seeds. Then they wash, cook, and sell them. Generally, they’re extremely busy, and all year long, aromas waft from this corner. We’ve mentioned that Madam X and her family are outsiders. Before coming here, what kind of work did they do? They never want to talk about this. Only when forced will they reply, with a smile, ‘‘We made our living by searching garbage heaps for odds and ends.’’ Finally, when there was a general survey of the residents, in the column on the form having to do with their prior work, they wrote ‘‘party cadres.’’ The neighbors were greatly surprised: if they had been ‘‘government employees’’ before coming here, then how had they sunk so low as to be running a snack shop, totally unrelated to the government? From being government employees to selling broad beans was like dropping from heaven into hell: had they caused some trouble in their office and been driven out? The residents of Five Spice Street believed that something terribly shocking was being covered up. Day and night, they felt uneasy. For example: why couldn’t these two ever just be like the others on Five Spice Street and become part of the community? Certainly no one had stopped them from doing this! Why did they always have to engage in secretive activity, causing others to be doubly wary and suspicious?

On the surface, they seemed urbane and ordinary, but the people of Five Spice Street sniffed out something not quite right-completely unusual-from their reserved manner and distracted demeanor. They intuitively sensed that they were dissidents, and on this basis excluded them from the Five Spice Street community. But these two not only continued their snack stand with a clear conscience, they gloried in it, as if this were some high-class livelihood worth flaunting. They also indoctrinated their son, Little Bao: if someone asked him what-ideally-he would choose to do when he grew up, he answered without hesitation, ‘‘Work in a snack shop.’’ The snack shop is Madam X and her husband’s public occupation. Madam X also has a secret business that everyone knows about; she chose a complicated name for it: ‘‘diversion to dispel boredom- or mischief-making.’’ Nobody can say for sure what this is: when others investigate, they learn nothing. If you question those who take part in it, it’s even more tangled and unclear, for they explain things in double-talk: ‘‘If you close your eyes, you’ll see the spectacle of spaceships and the Earth colliding,’’ ‘‘a twig poked through a red heart and a blue heart and hanging in midair,’’ ‘‘ten articles of clothing are hanging in the closet; if you take one out, you can sense the body heat in it.’’

From the first day that X came to Five Spice Street, she stealthily pursued this ‘‘diversion to dispel boredom.’’ Most who seek her out are boys and girls in their early teens. Her activity continues smoothly when they are present, but she doesn’t take any fee. (To tell the truth, Madam X’s expression is unfathomable; it’s still debatable whether she even sees these people who show up in her room.) Once, her activity was investigated by the authorities; then, because of insufficient evidence, she got away with paying a 100-yuan fine and spending a week being forced to study relevant regulations. After this incident, Madam X became even more aggressive and reckless. She didn’t mind being degenerate. What kind of activity is Madam X engaged in? What does her activity lead to, and does it have any influence? Why-as if possessed-do young boys and girls go to her small room? What lures them? It isn’t just the government’s investigative unit but also the much-admired widow who can’t answer these questions.

The widow broke into Madam X’s inner room numerous times at night, using her admirable spirit of exploration, and spent several nights with Madam X and her young confederates. She left no stone unturned in her questioning. She even placed a stethoscope, cold, on the napes of their necks to listen from behind their backs. She took great pains but learned very little indeed.