Can Xue - Five Spice Street

‘‘There’s a street where a transparently pure youth and a transparently pure woman are living. They have silently loved each other for years, but because of a certain reason they’ve been unable to take the next step in their relationship. They’ve only admired each other from a distance. They both transcend the ordinary. Today, this type is scarcer and scarcer. They communicated with each other in a way that didn’t require speaking directly. (They used various ways of expressing things: for example, talking of the weather, health, other people’s sexual problems, and so on). Each knew the other’s longing and encouraged each other in the dark. Several eventless years passed. All along, the young man took this friendship (or love) as a spiritual trust, and he lived happily. Like him, the woman was intoxicated by everything that existed between them. A thunderbolt struck the young man in the head and interrupted the fine day. Overnight, a beautiful woman became a poisonous snake, a pure and noble goddess became a depraved, demonic fox, and ideals became a ragged dishcloth! How did this happen? The young man was unable to respond. He grew so depressed and decadent that his health deteriorated. His life was destroyed. What a dreadful fate, such cruel irony. I can’t bear imagining how he endured. He felt disgusted. Nothing about her body could arouse him, and he just wanted to shake off these worldly entanglements and attain a genuine, independent selfhood. Indeed, what did the changes in certain parts of the woman’s body have to do with him? Hadn’t she played enough tricks on him? Did he want to sink into that shameful muddy hole once more? He had been wasting his life for many years; he had forfeited his self-esteem and hadn’t held fast to his ideals. Wasn’t this lesson painful enough? Being young is beautiful, but at last a person has to grow up. He can’t indulge in dreams and unreal idealism for a lifetime. He has to march on. He must acknowledge his past and become a new person. And so the young man did not join in the talk of the crowds; instead, he surveyed the world of his inner heart and forgot everything around him. In a kind of transparent state, he entered maturity.’’

Someone asked: since Mr. Q becomes a eunuch as soon as night falls, is it possible that this disease doesn’t affect his sexual function at all? During the day he is not only not impotent, but he’s even more vigorous and irresistible. The ways of the world are so strange! They truly are just this strange. Ever since the mysterious Madam X arrived on Five Spice Street, strange things have occurred one after the other, violating common practice. You must believe this, even if you don’t want to. You could see how strong Q’s sexual power was just by looking at the changes in Madam X’s body, because she- according to the young coal worker-was actually ‘‘like a flower in blossom.’’ Wherever she went, unless you were blind, you’d see desire written on her face. No man could keep from turning around and looking at her with a sweet smile, or keep from itching from head to toe. Indeed, no one had a handle on her. No one knew where and when she did it. It seemed that the whole day, she was busy with her husband at the snack shop. People merely presumed that the granary amour existed; they didn’t have any first-hand proof. Certainly they were seen rendezvousing at the intersection, and their conversation was recorded by someone hidden behind the power pole, but this isn’t the same as adultery.

And so there was a new perspective: Mr. Q’s dual personality was a rumor that Madam X had deliberately spread in order to cover up her unspeakable deeds. She deliberately said that Mr. Q was a eunuch at night, a defective, in order to distract people from paying attention to him. Then people would let up on their spying. Thus, the two could catch people off guard and go into the granary, where they could indulge their passion. Their adultery had never gone on at any time during the day but happened only at midnight, at the very moment when Madam X proclaimed that she ‘‘couldn’t find him’’ and that she could only ‘‘run crazily around on the rooftop.’’ That so-called iron woman (iron? who are you kidding?) had been ‘‘bought’’ by this couple and had become the mouthpiece for their proclamations. Her so-called surveillance was simply nonsense trumped up to confuse people. A traitor had emerged within our community. All along, we had taken sentry duty and had followed her in the daytime. The discussion also focused on the daytime. Now it appeared that we had done all this in vain; we had been taken in by Madam X’s plot. Whenever we heard her talk of such things as ‘‘bones like tender blades of grass’’ and ‘‘blindness in both eyes,’’ we immediately felt compassion and threw away both principles and common sense. As the saying has it, ‘‘Age thirty is like a wolf, age forty like a tiger.’’ At midnight, it was quiet everywhere. Nobody was around. Wasn’t it obvious yet what was going on inside the ink-black granary? We should have placed the time at midnight! How many detours we had taken! As soon as this new perspective emerged, it was supported by most of the people and became the guiding thought of the entire community.

The people of Five Spice Street reacted in no time. They immediately altered their daily schedule, sleeping in the daytime and working intensely at night. Nonetheless, the results were very slight. Those two persons didn’t even leave their own homes at night- nobody could deny the fact-unless they morphed into ‘‘invisible persons.’’ And this change in work and rest times harmed everyone’s health. In the daytime they couldn’t sleep. They were listening to Mr. Q dribbling the ball at a certain spot for all he was worth. Its earthshaking sounds completely dispelled their drowsiness. Were the colleagues wrapped up in blankets in their offices able to doze off? How long would this uncertain situation continue?

Madam X sat in her gloomy room, carefully analyzing future developments and possibilities. She concluded that she was standing on a huge, creaking sheet of thin ice. A crack was widening. She was finished. Her sister said she could fly. If so, why didn’t she brush all of this off and leap into the air?

‘‘Ah, I can’t. You have no idea how much I’ve been drawn to all these things. I cared about nothing else.’’ As she said this, she pointed at her toes, indicating that her feet were stuck to the ice. “There’s nothing I can do.’’

It appeared that she had only herself to thank for the spot she was in. She’d asked for this. Now, stuck firmly to the ice, her feet were immobilized. If the ice cracked, she would sink. That was predictable. In any case, she was determined to act out the drama to the end.

As she was obstinately clinging to that thin sheet of ice, her sister’s confidence in her abruptly wavered. She carefully stepped to the water’s edge quite far from the ice. She didn’t dare walk any farther. The sunshine was cold. The two sisters looked at each other and made megaphones of their hands and shouted. Madam X’s face was livid, and she looked stern and impatient. She stamped her feet, widening the crack even more. Her sister’s eyes were fervent and imploring, brimming with tears. She was all but kneeling. Their conversation lasted an hour and a half. Both were shouting themselves hoarse. Later, heedless of her own safety, the sister wanted to dash out onto the ice to save Madam X. But Madam X wasn’t grateful and reproached her sternly. The sister went back, depressed.

The sister: Let’s come up with a scheme that will satisfy both sides. Lift your toes lightly and run quickly across the ice. I’ll meet you on this side. If we just make up our minds, we’ll succeed.