Can Xue - Five Spice Street

This isn’t all. He made up stories about his past, claiming that he had no father or mother, that he’d been born from a leather skin hanging on a tree. The day he was born, he had seen lots of silkworms spinning golden-yellow cocoons. ‘‘They spun back and forth, back and forth.’’ A silly smile hung on his face. ‘‘Everyone jumps down from cocoons on the tree. Just look at their feet and you’ll know. Ahead was a dark wood that people would fall into, just like ants that had lost their sense of smell. What’s that sound?’’ The sister told him it was the footsteps of people on their street: they were tailing her sister and her family. ‘‘They were scattered in the dense woods, those bugs.’’ He nodded, and his ears pricked up like a cat’s.

Our widow, who hadn’t participated in the crowd’s activity either, expressed another opinion of Mr. Q’s daytime character. This derived from personal experience for which she had paid a high price. She had concentrated a long time on her research and had long ago stopped thinking of Mr. Q. She could hardly even remember what he looked like. One day, the widow and Mr. Q ran into each other at a fence. Mr. Q ‘‘leered at her with a dirty smile hanging from his fleshy lips’’ and stared at her urgently with ‘‘erotic eyes.’’ He was evidently scheming ‘‘something evil.’’ The widow screamed and ran off. After almost a mile, she was still so afraid that ‘‘her face had turned pale.’’ ‘‘He clearly wanted to rob me of my virtue,’’ she said furiously. You have to realize that in the widow’s eyes, Mr. Q had been no more than androgynous, ‘‘a eunuch.’’ Whenever Mr. Q was mentioned, she’d held her head high and laughed and then asked, ‘‘Is it the guy picking up chicken bones to eat?’’ No one could imagine how she had dreamed up this description. A hypocrite or a horse thief or something of the sort would have made sense, but a guy picking up chicken bones to eat! How wonderful the widow was! Now, when everyone had forgotten him, and thought he was insignificant and unimportant, he suddenly appeared like a jackal- an incredibly oversexed and aggressive jackal.

‘‘I was scared half to death.’’ Her hand on her chest, the widow asked, ‘‘Under what circumstances can a sexless man-one who picks up chicken bones to eat-change into a sex maniac? Isn’t this fascinating? What I said about what he did to me wasn’t at all exaggerated: it was the absolute embodiment of libido. We can easily conclude that in their relationship, Madam X hasn’t inspired any sexual consciousness in Mr. Q. Their infantile friendship could never reach the point of sexual contact. Why? Because after meeting a real woman, with that crazed, violent expression, in a split second he became a real man.’’

Since the encounter at the fence, the widow felt low and despondent all day long. Before bed, she saw rats and bare feet. She started using language from the meetings in the dark room to hint of a certain thing deep in her heart. She couldn’t talk about that thing out loud, for if she did, it would no longer exist. She made comparisons and suggestions. If she hadn’t been the one Mr. Q ran into at the fence, but had been, for example, the old woman with the felt hat, she could say for sure that Mr. Q would have had a much different expression. There was no need to test this. She had figured it out intuitively. And if Mr. Q had been playing with a puppet and hadn’t seen this woman who was every inch a woman, she could just imagine the ‘‘sex appeal’’ Mr. Q’s mouth and eyes would have had.

In general, other people were inclined to think that ever since Mr. Q and Madam X started their illicit affair, Mr. Q’s appearance had changed greatly: it had become ‘‘filled with lust.’’ Actually, this was nonsensical speculation-a conclusion based on prior beliefs without rigorous authentication or independent analysis. What happened at the fence had overturned these simple-minded fancies. Let’s suppose something else: when Mr. Q rushed at her, the widow wasn’t able to ward him off and was tarnished by him. Though lamentable, at the same time she could tell that after contact with the flesh of a real woman who released his libido, the sex appeal in his face would have vanished. Every day and all day long, the widow was entangled by these hypotheses and deductions. Her eyes grew dull, and her face withered. It’s said that not long afterwards, Mr. Q repeated his sex attacks. Several beautiful women on Five Spice Street were ambushed in broad daylight-always near the warehouse. They said he launched his offensive with the ball and then rushed up wanting to ‘‘do it.’’ Because the women ran off, there ‘‘was no doing it.’’ But if they hadn’t run off, very likely there would have been ‘‘doing it.’’

After learning that the adorable widow had been so traumatized by Mr. Q that she fell ill, the writer-filled with sympathy-went to see her. When he arrived she was in bad shape, wrapped in a heavy quilt and with perspiration falling like rain. That frightening scream had caused her to lose her hearing, and she couldn’t converse. But when he sat by the bed, she seemed excited and talked without stopping. She spoke about the ideals of her youth and the pursuits, fears, agonies, and wreckage that had come from those ideals.

‘‘How do the people see me?’’ Covering her mouth with the quilt, she spoke with great effort. ‘‘This is already clear. For decades, I’ve preserved the integrity of this visualization. Tell me whether what I say is true.’’

The writer nodded his head so vigorously that his chin hit his chest. After this, the widow cried her eyes out. Her tears soaked the quilt. Shaking her shoulders and wishing to calm her, the writer made wuwuwuwu sounds like a mother nursing a baby. He didn’t imagine she’d start crying even harder. Now and then, she also gave him bitter, tear-filled looks. She curled her lip. Haggard and thin, pure and innocent as a child, she filled the writer with tenderness. She was wholly trusting. The writer couldn’t keep tears from his eyes. Who took the initiative isn’t known, but the writer burrowed into the widow’s warm quilts and they cuddled.

And so it was that the writer was fortunate enough to experience the widow’s ample body. Of course, not completely, because that would have been violating principles, and the widow herself had always detested that sort of thing. The writer supposed that she was looking only for comfort and pity, nothing more. She was so fragile! Illness had flattened her like a steam-roller. This time, after completely collapsing, she felt a few steps closer to the abyss. She urgently needed a real man to give her a helping hand. As for the writer, he was honored to play a knight’s role. It was the first time in his life that he felt filled with honor and obligation. Although he was only an artist, this made him a hero.

From the moment the writer came in contact with the widow’s body, she miraculously recovered her hearing, and they began talking with one another. Under the quilt, the writer and the widow solemnly vowed that after this they would support each other forever, would help each other forever. After this vow, the widow wrapped her legs tightly around the writer’s legs and said, ‘‘Now, pull yourself together: aren’t you aware of a certain dangerous kind of temptation?’’

The writer was bewildered. She hinted again: ‘‘For example, things having to do with sex?’’

All of a sudden, the writer understood. He sat up and began quoting various proverbs and sayings, such as ‘‘serve one’s country with absolute loyalty,’’ ‘‘die for a just cause,’’ ‘‘spiritual companions,’’ ‘‘symbols of eternity,’’ and so forth. Others might have seen this as hyperbole, but the writer thought it was just right. This speech roused him, and his blood boiled. It was as though he had arrived in an uncorrupted, relaxed, and happy wonderland.