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

That night, we finally enjoyed another drinking bout, we talked endlessly, forgetting the passage of time, and none of us wanted to go home. Again and again we recalled those days when there were no women to bother us. What a wonderful time that was, when we walked forever through the streets, singing our heads off; when we muttered dirty remarks as we checked out the pretty girls; when we smashed the street lamps all along the block; when we knocked on doors in the middle of the night and ran away before the people could get out of bed and open the door; when we shut ourselves in a room with the windows closed and smoked like chimneys until the fog grew thicker and thicker, until we could hardly see one another. How many pranks did we used to play? How many times did we laugh so hard our guts ached? Some evenings we would pool together all the cash in our pockets and splurge it on beer. Later we would throw one of the empties into the air and then toss up another, making the two bottles collide in the air, shatter in the air, so the shards of glass fell to the ground like hail. We called this game Mid-Air Collisions.

“Let’s …”

As he spoke, he turned his face toward her and the sunlight glittered on the black frames of his glasses. His gaze seemed to perch on top of her head like a ladder, only for him to peer off into the distance as though looking over the rim of a grassy knoll. She took her weight off the railings of the bridge, as she waited for him to say “Let’s go” or “Let’s go home now.”

She stood there tautly, her leg bent, ready to take a step forward. But he did not finish what he was going to say.

He continued to lean against the parapet, his eyes darting back and forth like a kite that has lost its string. She relaxed her tensed posture. “What are you looking at?” she asked.

He began to cough, but it wasn’t the kind of cough that you get with a cold, it was the kind of cough that you make when clearing your throat. What was he planning to say? She saw his lips part and his teeth press down on his lower lip. A throng of shouting schoolchildren poured onto the bridge, waving their satchels, and threw themselves against the parapet, as evenly spaced as a row of sparrows perched on a telephone line. A tug was approaching, its whistle blowing, a long string of barges trailing behind, and they were waiting for it to pass underneath.

A cloud of black diesel smoke had enveloped the bridge, and then the children’s mouths opened and closed with a pop, and white spittle swung in an arc toward the boats below. A dozen or so barges slid one by one beneath the bridge, to be baptized by the children’s saliva. The people standing at the prow of the tug waved their hands to block the spittle, as though attempting to evade arrows that were speeding toward them. Only by futile cursing could they vent their outrage. Their dog made a more impressive show of indignation, barking furiously as it ran back and forth the full length of the boat, as if racing along a street. The dog’s performance captivated the children, who now forgot to carry on making a nuisance of themselves and instead watched the dog with rapt attention, at the same time filling the air with their piercing laughter.

Once again he said: “Let’s …”

She watched him, waiting for him to continue.

It had been about a week since he had suddenly begun to be concerned about her period. This was something new. They had been married five years, and one day he was lying on the bed — it was after lunch, he was dressed and still with his shoes on — and he said he didn’t plan on having a real nap. Clutching a corner of the quilt, he lay sprawled across the bed. “I’ll just have a quick lie-down,” he said with a yawn.

She was sitting on the sofa by the window, knitting a scarf for him. Winter was still a long way off, but better safe than sorry, as she liked to say. The autumn sunshine radiated in, tickling her neck with its warmth and casting a glow on her left hand. These sensations, and the sight of her husband peacefully reclined on the bed, gave her a contented feeling.

It was then that her truck-driver husband sat up, as abruptly as a vehicle that brakes suddenly when speeding. “Has it come?” he asked.

She was startled. “Has what come?”

Without his glasses, his eyes bulged. “Your monthly, your period, that old friend of yours,” he said testily.

She laughed out loud. “Old friend” was her word for it. The two of them had known each other for well over ten years now, and this old friend of hers would come and see her every month, leaving a cramp in her belly as a calling card. She shook her head: her old friend had not yet arrived.

“Should be here by now.” He put his glasses on as he spoke.

“It is time,” she agreed.

“Then why the hell isn’t it here?”

He appeared agitated. On such a clear and mild afternoon, in the middle of a nice nap, he had suddenly jumped up, but it wasn’t because of anything big, it was just to ask her if her period had started. His attitude struck her as so comical, it made her laugh. But he seemed to have something weighing on his mind. He sat on the edge of the bed, his head tilted toward her. “Shit,” he said, “are you pregnant?”

It was a mystery to her why he was reacting this way. Even if she was pregnant, this wasn’t a disaster. “You’ve got to give me a son,” he had told her when they married. “It’s a son I want, not a daughter.”

“Didn’t you want a son?” she asked.

“No!” He practically shouted. “We can’t have a child. If we have a child now, it … it’s going to be awkward.”

“What’s awkward about it?” She stood up. “We’re husband and wife — it’s all legal … I didn’t sneak into your bed through the back door, you know. We were married with all the proper trimmings, so what’s the problem? Didn’t you rent two cars and three vans for the wedding?”

“That’s not what I mean.” He dismissed her remarks with a wave of his hand.

“Then what do you mean?”

In the week that followed, he was consumed with anxiety about her old friend. Every time he came back home after a job, she would hear the heavy thud of impatient footsteps on the stairs, along with the crisp clink of keys, and she knew very soon he would open the door and appear before her. After a glance at the balcony he would say dejectedly, “You haven’t washed your underwear?”

Hearing that she had, he clutched at a sliver of hope. “Has it come?” he asked.

“No.” She kept it simple.

This would take the wind out of his sails, and he would flop down on the sofa and say with a sigh: “I really don’t feel like being a father right now.”

She was baffled by his attitude. His paranoia about her being pregnant seemed abnormal. “What’s up with you?” she said. “Why are you so afraid of me being pregnant?”

At moments like this he would look at her pathetically and not say anything. Her heart would soften; she would tell herself not to be so hard on him and try to see things his way, make him feel better. “I’m just five days late. Do you remember? Once it came ten days later than usual.”

Behind his glasses a glimmer appeared in his eyes. “Is that possible?”

She saw a naive smile appear on his face. Yesterday he smiled in just that innocent way when he asked, “Are you using a panty liner?”

“I don’t need it yet,” she said.

“You have to,” he said. “If you don’t use a panty liner, it’ll never come.”

“That’s ridiculous.” She didn’t take him seriously.

This provoked him. “If you’re fishing and you don’t use bait, how can you catch fish?” he cried.