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

Guo Bin was sitting in a chair when he began to tell us his story. He stood up, walked around in a little circle, and then looked at his three friends. Two days earlier, he said, he was about to knock on the door of Horsie’s apartment when he heard the sound of sobbing inside — low but prolonged sobs that he felt could only have been triggered by some heartrending sorrow. So he let his hand drop to his side and stood outside Horsie’s door until the sobs subsided, until he could not hear them anymore. All this time he wondered why Lü Yuan was crying. What could have made her so sad? Had Horsie been mistreating her? But he hadn’t heard Horsie yelling at her — in fact, he hadn’t heard any talking at all.

After the sobbing had ceased, Guo Bin reckoned that Lü Yuan must now have dried her tears, so he raised his hand once again and knocked on the door. It was Horsie who opened up, and what astonished Guo Bin was that Horsie’s eyes were wet, while Lü Yuan was sitting comfortably on the sofa with the TV remote in her hand. It was only then he realized the person who had just been crying was not Lü Yuan, but Horsie.

“Do you get it?” Guo Bin asked his friends, a smile on his lips. Then he went back to his chair and sat down, very much at ease.

ON THIS PARTICULAR DAY, that’s to say the afternoon of June 30, 1996, Horsie stopped by Guo Bin’s apartment. His wife, Lü Yuan, had left for Shanghai the previous day and wouldn’t be back for a week, so Horsie, being all alone, thought of Guo Bin, because Guo Bin had an extensive collection of videos and Horsie wanted to borrow a few to watch at home and enliven this period of enforced bachelorhood.

Guo Bin had been having a nap. Wearing only a pair of jockey shorts, he opened the door and gave a long yawn. “Did Lü Yuan get off okay?” he asked, his eyes puffy from sleep.

Horsie was a bit taken aback. He wondered how Guo Bin knew Lü Yuan was out of town. “How did you know she’s away?” he asked.

Guo Bin rubbed his eyes. “You told me she had a trip planned.”

“When was that?” Horsie didn’t remember this at all.

“Then it must have been Lü Yuan.”

As Guo Bin said this, he went into the toilet and had a pee, not bothering to close the door. Horsie sat on the sofa and watched as Guo Bin gave another yawn, rubbing his eyes again with one hand and tugging the toilet chain with the other. Amid the din of the flushing water, Guo Bin came out of the bathroom and shuffled over to the sofa. He hesitated a moment, then turned around and lay back down in bed.

Horsie noticed a camcorder in the corner by the balcony. “Whose camera is that?” he asked.

“It’s mine,” Guo Bin said. “I bought it last month.”

Horsie nodded. “I’d like to borrow a few videos,” he said.

“What kind do you want? Action or romance?”

Horsie thought about this. “Both.”

“Help yourself,” Guo Bin said.

He told Horsie the thrillers were on the third and fourth shelves and the love stories on the fifth shelf and the right-hand side of the sixth shelf. Guo Bin rubbed away gum from his eyes and yawned.

Horsie walked over to the bookcase and scanned its contents. He took out two tapes, one from the third shelf and one from the fifth. When he turned around, Guo Bin seemed to have drifted off to sleep. He hesitated a moment, then said quietly, “I’m taking two tapes.”

Guo Bin opened his eyes. He propped himself up and his head tilted in Horsie’s direction. “Go back to sleep,” Horsie said. “I’m off now.”

A smile appeared on Guo Bin’s face, an odd kind of smile. “How about something erotic?” he asked.

Horsie smiled too. Guo Bin jumped out of bed, knelt on the floor, and pulled a carton out from underneath the bed. When he opened the box, Horsie could see it was filled halfway with videos. “All porn,” Guo Bin said proudly. “Is it Hong Kong and Taiwan movies you want?” he asked. “Or foreign?”

“I don’t know.”

Guo Bin stood up. Seeing Horsie at a loss to know what to choose, he patted him on the shoulder. “Just pick one,” he said, “any one you like.”

Horsie chose one at random. In bed that evening, he first watched a love story that moved him to tears and then watched a thriller that made his hair stand on end. He reserved the porn movie for the finale.

Horsie inserted the video into the warm VCR and went to the bathroom as the tape rewound. By the time he came out, the tape had begun to play. He saw a mass of snowflakes, and after a few moments a picture appeared on the screen: a naked woman lying on her back, her head buried in a pillow, her legs together. A man’s arm moved on the left side of the frame; shoulders appeared, then the man’s back. The man walked toward the bed, put a hand on the mattress to steady himself, then clambered onto the bed. He separated the woman’s legs and mounted her.

Horsie heard a little groan as the man began to move back and forth on the woman’s body. He was struck by the way the man’s buttocks trembled, as though shivering with cold. Horsie heard the man pant, and the woman too, then constant groaning from the woman. In the following frames there was no significant change, but the bodies clamped together on the bed swayed slightly; a quiver had seized them. This uneventful scene lasted a little longer, until two cries were heard. The bodies now lay glued together, motionless, as though dead. After a little while the man shifted his weight and detached himself from his partner. She gave a long, capricious moan. The man knelt on the bed, his back to the camera; he was doing something with his head lowered.

Horsie realized that their job was done, but … “Why wasn’t there any music?” he wondered.

He thought this very strange. “Can it be that porn flicks don’t have music?”

The man lay down once more, shoulder to shoulder with the woman. They linked feet and pulled a blanket over their naked bodies.

“How was it?” Horsie heard the man ask.

“Fantastic,” the woman answered.

After a moment of silence he suddenly heard his own name spoken. “Am I better than Horsie, then?”

“Oh, no comparison.”

Just as Horsie was wondering if he had imagined it, he heard his name once more. “What’s Horsie like in bed?” the man asked.

“What a pain you are!” She gave him a little punch. “Didn’t I tell you already?”

“I want to hear it again,” the man said.

The woman laughed. “He doesn’t move.”

“What do you mean, he doesn’t move?”

“You won’t leave it alone, will you?” Another laugh.

The man persisted. “What do you mean he doesn’t move?”

“Once he’s in, he just doesn’t move … You’re such a pain.” She gave him another punch.

“What does he do then?”

“He gets on top of me and lies there, not doing anything, just pressing down on me, so hard I can hardly breathe … Satisfied?” the woman asked.

“How long does he spend there on top of you, not doing anything?”

“It varies. There have been a few times when he fell asleep on top of me …”

“What do you do if he falls asleep?”

“I give a heave and push him off … Is that enough for you now?”

They burst out laughing. Then the man sat up. Turning toward the camera, he got out of bed. “Let’s have a look at our recording,” he said.

Horsie recognized the man who came forward. It was Guo Bin. Toward the back of the shot, the woman was now sitting up. Lü Yuan smiled at the camera.

A WEEK LATER, Lü Yuan returned home. As she pushed open the door, she could see Horsie eating his dinner at the table by the balcony. Lü Yuan observed, needless to say, those familiar parallel lines; a bowl of noodles had flushed Horsie’s face to a deep red. She tossed her handbag onto the sofa. “Go fetch my suitcase,” she said.