Yu Hua - Boy in the Twilight - Stories of the Hidden China

That’s Morning Tang for you. As soon as he gets going, he forgets himself. He forgot that my wife was stir-frying something in the kitchen, and given how loud his voice was, she heard every single word he said. So my wife marched out, her face livid, giving Morning Tang a prod with her wok, as the oil inside sputtered and spattered all over the place. “Get out of here,” she said. “Get out of my house.”

Morning Tang’s face twisted with alarm. He beat a hasty retreat, his two hands groping for support on the sofa as he stumbled backward, and he didn’t even have time to cast a glance my way before taking to his heels. I had never before seen such a look of sheer terror. I knew it wasn’t my wife he feared as much as the hot wok she was holding. Its spattering din took the steam out of his sails that day, and it had been more than a year since he had stepped inside my door.

Now, on this hot August night, he suddenly appeared, came into my house, and had a re-encounter with my wife. By this time she was already on her feet, and when she saw Morning Tang she gave a friendly smile. “Oh, it’s you. You haven’t been to see us for a long time.”

Morning Tang chuckled. It was obvious he remembered the hot wok. He stood there, somewhat ill at ease, until my wife pointed at the straw mat on the floor. “Come and sit down.”

He glanced at the mat, but remained standing. I raised the rattling fan so that it blew in his direction, and my wife took a soda out of the refrigerator and handed it to him. He wiped the sweat off his face as he drank. “Why don’t you sit down?” I said.

Now an ingratiating smile appeared on his face. “I don’t dare go home,” he said. “I have run into trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” I was taken aback.

He glanced at my wife. “There’s a woman I’ve been … She’s married, and now her husband is waiting for me outside my apartment …”

I realized what had happened. A jealous husband had been moved to a towering rage, and now he was bent on giving my friend Morning Tang a bloody head. My wife picked up the remote and after changing a couple of channels began to watch a program with interest. She could afford to give the matter no further thought, but I couldn’t do that, for Morning Tang was my friend, after all. “What shall we do?” I said.

“Could you see me home?” he said, pathetically.

I needed to see my wife’s reaction. She was sitting on the mat watching the TV, and I was hoping she would turn her head and look at me, but she didn’t do that. So I had to ask her. “Can I see him home?”

My wife was still watching TV. “I don’t know,” she said.

“She says she doesn’t know,” I said to Morning Tang. “That being the case, I can’t tell whether or not I can see you home.”

Morning Tang shook his head. “When I was coming here,” he said, “I passed Chen Lida’s place, and Fang Hong’s place too. And if I’d wanted to go to Li Shuhai’s place, that would have been more convenient. Why did I come to you first? You know, though we haven’t seen each other for a year, we are still best friends, and that’s why I came to see you first. I never thought this would be your response, to say you can’t tell. Why don’t you just say straight out you don’t want to?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to, I just said I can’t tell.”

“What do you mean you can’t tell?”

“ ‘Can’t tell’ means …” I glanced at my wife. “It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s that my wife doesn’t want me to. If she doesn’t want me to, there’s nothing I can do about it. I can go with you all right, but once I go I won’t be allowed back home again — she’ll lock me out and not let me in. I can stay at your house for a day, or two days, or even a month, but I’ll have to go back home sooner or later, and once I do that my life will be a misery. Do you understand? It’s not that I’m unwilling to go, but she just won’t let me …”

“I didn’t say that,” my wife spoke up. She turned to Morning Tang. “Don’t believe what he tells you. Now he’s so intent on presenting himself as a pitiful creature, but the fact is he’s a real tyrant at home. He insists on having the final word on everything, and it just takes the slightest thing to go wrong for him to get in one of his rages. He’s smashed three glasses already this month …”

I interrupted her. “I really am afraid of you. Morning Tang can vouch for it.”

Morning Tang nodded his head repeatedly. “That’s right, he really is scared of you. We can all see that.”

My wife looked at us and laughed, as we stood there awkwardly, then turned to Morning Tang with a smile. “How many people are waiting outside your apartment?”

“Just one,” he said.

“Does he have a knife?”

“No.”

“How do you know he doesn’t? He would hide it in his pocket.”

“Impossible,” he said. “All he’s wearing is a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. There’s no way he could conceal a knife.”

My wife’s fears had been allayed. “Don’t stay out too late,” she said to me.

I nodded immediately. “I’ll leave now and be back soon.”

Morning Tang was clearly delighted by this unexpected development. Rather than turning around and making a prompt departure, he stood there and launched into an elaborate tribute to my wife’s liberal-mindedness. “I knew you’d understand, otherwise I wouldn’t have come here first. I thought it over, and it was clear to me that of all my friends’ wives you are the most reasonable. Fang Hong’s wife is so weird. Chen Lida’s wife is a shrew. Li Shuhai’s wife is always so keen on lecturing people. You’re the only one who listens to reason, you’re the best …”

Saying this, Morning Tang turned to me. “You’re a lucky devil.”

I thought that if he went on bullshitting like this much longer, my wife might well change her mind, so I gave him a kick. I kicked him so hard it must have hurt, for he gave a stifled “Ow!” but immediately caught on. “We’re off now,” he told my wife.

Just as we were going out the door, she called me back. I thought she had changed her mind, but all she did was tell me quietly, “Don’t you go first. Let them go ahead of you.”

I nodded reassuringly. “Got it.”

After leaving my house, Morning Tang and I went first to Li Shuhai’s house. Just as he had predicted, Li Shuhai’s wife gave Morning Tang a long lecture. She had just taken a shower and was sitting in front of the fan combing her hair, and the water droplets shaken free by her comb blew like spittle onto Morning Tang’s face, forcing him to stretch out a hand frequently to wipe away the moisture. “Didn’t I warn you ages ago?” she said. “Didn’t I tell you that if you carried on this way, sooner or later someone’s going to break your leg? Li Shuhai, didn’t I say that?”

Our friend Li Shuhai sat there, saying nothing. It embarrassed him to hear his wife scolding his friend in such a tone of voice, but he still nodded his head ever so slightly. “Morning Tang, it’s not that you’re a bad person,” his wife went on. “In fact, your only problem is you’re such a skirt-chaser. It wouldn’t be a big deal if you went out with single girls, but when you start seducing other people’s wives, that’s really too much. The other couple has a perfectly good marriage in the first place, but once you start butting in, their happiness turns into suffering and you break up a once-contented family. If there is a child involved, it’s even worse for the kid. Just think, if you were to seduce me, how miserable Li Shuhai would be! Isn’t that right, Li Shuhai?”

Her use of such a personal example made her husband quite uneasy, but she was oblivious to this. “That’s the way you operate,” she continued. “You build your happiness on other people’s suffering, but sooner or later you’ll get your comeuppance. Someone’s going to beat the hell out of you, and in your case even if they beat you to death nobody’s going to shed any tears. Remember what I’m telling you: If you refuse to clean up your act, you’re going to come to a bad end. Now, there are people waiting for you outside your apartment, isn’t that right?”