Can Xue: Five Spice Street

The more applications she wrote, the more ardent she became. She wrote not only on paper but also on the whitewashed wall of the small half-house. Dr. A’s gaze pierced her wall like a knife and found it dotted with tadpole-like little characters. It seemed that X didn’t abstain from her nighttime activities. She frequently told her patrons: ‘‘Last night, I had insomnia and wrote until dawn.’’ Her tone was as casual as if she had said, ‘‘I sold another ten pounds of peanuts.’’ Once she linked writing applications and selling peanuts, her private life no longer interested us. Her half-collapsed house also kept visitors away. Even such an enthusiastic person as her husband’s good friend didn’t have the guts to go into the dangerous house to ‘‘steal a look at her ID card’’ (even though X herself had asserted that ‘‘she could live there at least five more years’’).

The writer bet that even if Madam X now wrote her applications with chalk all over the walls of everyone’s home, people would still ignore her, because: (1) no one would walk into her trap to try to figure out what she had written; and (2) this was monotonous and dull, absolutely different from her earlier sexual exploits. Who had the patience to watch her doodling with chalk? Just let her draw. I wouldn’t pay the slightest attention. Even if it’s valuable for research, let posterity deal with it. Our responsibility is only to provide her with space, protect her work, and leave it for future generations. Since her works haven’t yet been evaluated, she mustn’t expect any privileges (she has already gained a lot from us!). Whether it’s gold or brass, this is something our descendants must settle! Before this appraisal, we will continue to regard her, as always, as a peanut vendor, both friendly and mysterious. Imagine how we will introduce ourselves to the outside delegation. We’ll describe the wave of the future-how it will flourish and develop here, how much deep philosophy it contained, and then we will suddenly say: ‘‘Our representative of the wave of the future is a peanut vendor!’’

The delegation will be dumbfounded! How indescribably pleasant! Now, at last, we’ve thought it through and won’t expend any more effort to drag her into the ranks of our elite citizens. We want her to be a peanut vendor forever. This is best for her and for us. But we also hope she won’t consider herself simply a peanut vendor and let up on writing applications. We want her to go on writing applications. If she wants to be recognized posthumously, could she do any better than by writing applications? Her position will be secured only by the number of her applications. In this lies the value of her existence. When all is said and done, Madam X is full of petty tricks. Without any hints from us, she understands these principles and consciously goes about implementing them. And so we continued receiving applications from her (still in the form of wrappers). We were satisfied that she did not make her daily activities public. In this way, we had a kind of tacit agreement with her, the sort of agreement that exists between a fish and water.

One cloudy morning, Madam X walked to the suburbs and sat on the flagstone where she had spent the night a long time ago with some young guy. She picked up a coin from the flagstone. It had dropped out of his pocket that night. She recalled everything about that night, how it was that in the end they hadn’t done anything. She laughed for no reason. She threw the coin with all her might into a distant thicket.

She didn’t know that two of our Five Spice Street scouts were lying in wait! People had been uneasy about her going out so early, and we had to send people to follow her. If Madam X had run into something unexpected, our plan would have been wrecked; it would have been a disgrace. After seeing her on the flagstone, our scouts wondered if she was waiting for P. The two thought of P at the same time. He had made a deep impression on the people of Five Spice Street. If she was waiting for P, what the two scouts saw would be most fascinating. And so they were very excited. In order to satisfy the wishes of the people on Five Spice Street, they wanted to recite an invocation summoning the romantic P, whose whereabouts they didn’t know. They waited and waited, but P didn’t show up. Instead, they saw Madam X asleep on the flagstone (perhaps she was faking this).

Actually, Madam X was sleeping. To be sure, we can also say she wasn’t, because her dream life was as clear as day. Her eyes were wide open, but she didn’t see anything. She slept this way until dusk, then yawned, sat up, and headed back to Five Spice Street.

Our scouts saw her taking light steps, striding toward tomorrow, striding toward the beautiful wave of the future. They were suddenly moved. They sighed and said loudly, ‘‘From the perspective of the grand sweep of history, what has happened on our Five Spice Street is so heroic and romantic!’’

Naturally, this marvelous scene quickly appeared in the writer’s notebook. After a series of baptisms, everyone now acknowledges that Madam X is ‘‘inexpressibly wonderful.’’ Even the widow does not disagree.

Of course, this ‘‘inexpressible’’ feeling is different for everyone.

[1]In traditional Chinese medicine, the use of movement, meditation, and regulation of breathing to improve health.