Yu Hua - Brothers

The formerly polite and refined Poet Zhao had become angry and cynical, always cursing up a storm. While C Liu was living amid a bevy of beauties, Zhao didn't have a single woman in his life and had to settle for hanging an old pinup poster on the crumbling wall of his dilapidated apartment and staring at it ravenously, like a man who paints a cake to assuage his hunger. There was not a living woman who was willing to look him in the eye, and even when he once tried to chat up some old widows, they saw through his ruse and told him straight up that he should first figure out how to provide for himself before entertaining thoughts of finding a companion. Zhao became extremely depressed. Many years earlier he had had an elegant and attractive girlfriend, and the two had enjoyed a yearlong loving relationship, but then he tried to straddle two boats simultaneously as he pursued Lin Hong, and as a result, not only did he not secure Lin Hong but his girlfriend ran off with someone else.

Meanwhile, after C Liu's former wife was cast off, although she was very satisfied with the million yuan she had in her bank account, she would nevertheless stand in the street crying woefully, complaining that C Liu was heartless and cruel. She would again hold up all ten fingers, though now of course what she was counting was not the number of times they had slept together but, rather, the matrimonial bliss they had shared over twenty years of marriage. She said that over the past twenty years she had cooked for C Liu and washed his clothes and looked after him through good times and bad. After C Liu was laid off and became unemployed, she didn't leave him but, rather, cared for him even more considerately. She said that her body was like a stove in winter, warming him up, and like an ice cube in the summer, cooling him down. She tearfully complained that his entire being was obsessed with money, just as his mind was obsessed with sex. She said that, in the past, he had been a high-minded writer, walking elegantly and speaking with refinement. She had fallen in love with him and married him because he was Writer Liu, but now that Writer Liu no longer existed, her husband no longer existed either.

At that point, one of her listeners remembered Poet Zhao and, in an attempt to play the role of a pimp, said, "Although it's true that Writer Liu doesn't exist anymore, there is still Poet Zhao, who has not yet married. He's a bachelor about to approach his diamond anniversary— a rare gem."

"Poet Zhao? A rare gem?" She snorted a couple of times. "He wouldn't even stand out in a bachelor remainder sale."

Liu's wife considered herself one of Liu Town's rich maidens, and for someone to mention her and that poor bachelor Zhao in the same breath was profoundly humiliating for her. She angrily added, "Even an old hen wouldn't deign to give him a second glance."

Poet Zhao, to whom even an old hen wouldn't give a second glance, would often come in and out of Popsicle Wangs five-star reception booth and sit on Wangs Italian sofa, caress his French cabinet, and lie down in the German bed, and if he happened to have a chance to wash and dry his butt in the TOTO toilet, he naturally wouldn't pass that up either. Zhao was very complimentary of the giant high-definition plasma television Wang had hung on the wall. He said that it was several millimeters thinner than the poetry collection he was preparing to publish and that the number of television programs it played was even greater than the number of poems in that forthcoming collection. When Popsicle Wang heard Poet Zhao speaking of his forthcoming publication, he sent Zhao a congratulatory card and asked where it would be published. "You wouldn't be publishing it in Liu Town, would you?"

"Of course not," Zhao replied. He recalled how, at the Virgin Beauty Competition, Wandering Zhou had mentioned a place-name and, impulsively borrowing it, he said, "It's being published in the British Virgin Islands."

POPSICLE WANG led a luxurious and boring life. Day after day he used his television channels to pursue traces of Yanker Yu's political activities, continuously regaling people with tales of them. The people of Liu eventually grew tired of hearing these tales and began calling Popsicle Wang Brother Xianglin, after Sister Xianglin, the compulsively repetitive protagonist of that Lu Xun story. In the end, Poet Zhao was the only one who did not grow weary of Wang's stories; each time he would listen attentively, looking completely entranced and making Popsicle Wang believe that it was enough to have just one true friend in life. In fact, what Poet Zhao did not tire of was all the drinks in Wang's giant refrigerator, the empty bottles from which would pile into a mountain that scraped the sky.

At this point, a wave of anti-Japanese sentiment swept through the nation, and the anti-Japanese parades in Shanghai and Beijing could be seen on television, in the newspapers, and all over the Web. Seeing Japanese stores in Shanghai being destroyed and Japanese cars in Shanghai being burned, a crowd of townspeople from Liu didn't want to miss out on the action, so they also went marching with big banners, looking for something to destroy or burn. When they came upon Baldy Li's sushi shop, they spiritedly walked up and smashed the windows, then brought the chairs out and burned them for two hours, though they refrained from destroying the other installations. Blacksmith Tong saw them and decided that things were not looking good, so he immediately threw out all the Japanese goods in his supermarkets and hung a huge banner in the entranceway saying: WE REFUSE TO SELL JAPANESE PRODUCTS!

After Yanker Yu returned from his globe-trotting pursuit of political hotspots, Popsicle Wang promptly lost interest in Poet Zhao now that his real best friend had returned. Wang closed the door to the luxurious reception booth, shutting out Poet Zhao, who gazed through the window at Popsicle Wangs giant refrigerator, swallowing his saliva and sighing as he thought of the refreshments inside it.

Wang devoutly followed Yanker Yu everywhere he went, leaving early each morning and not returning until late each evening; each night he would even yearn to share a bed with Yu. Liu Towns anti-Japanese demonstrations had in fact run their course, but after Yanker Yu returned, they again picked up steam. Whenever he spoke, political slogans in ten different languages would stream out of his mouth, which the people of Liu then learned by heart, and within ten days or so they too could utter this string of foreign slogans as needed. Yanker Yu was no longer the best tooth-yanker within one hundred li; now, having experienced political disturbances around the world, he returned to Liu Town looking and sounding like a true political leader. As he put it, "I have weathered countless political storms."

Yanker Yu decided to take Popsicle Wang to Tokyo in order to oppose Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi s annual visit to the Yasukuni shrine. When Popsicle Wang heard this, he muttered, "I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have left Liu Town, much less left the country, and now he wants me to go to someone else's country and protest against their prime minister?" Popsicle Wang really had his doubts. He suggested delicately, "How about if we continue our protests here in Liu Town?"

"If we protest in Liu Town, you will merely be one of the masses." Yanker Yu had political ambitions, and he directed Popsicle Wang, "But if we go to Tokyo to protest, you will truly be a politician."

Wang couldn't care less about either the masses or politicians; all he cared about was Yanker Yu. He idolized him and knew that Yu's horizons were much broader than his own; therefore, as long as he followed Yanker Yu, he couldn't go wrong. Popsicle Wang looked at his aged face in the mirror and thought to himself that his life was almost over and he had not visited a single foreign country. He therefore gritted his teeth and resolved to accompany Yanker Yu to Tokyo, and while Yu was carrying out his political activities, Wang could do some foreign touring.