Ma Jian - The Noodle Maker

The dog seemed to ignore for a moment the noise booming from the streets below. He turned his head away. ‘Can you do me a favour?’ he said, lowering his gaze to the ground. ‘I saw some spare ribs in a dustbin on Serve the People Road. There was still some meat left on the bones.’

I kept silent.

‘They were obviously stewed in some thick, spicy sauce,’ he said, still averting his eyes. He took a gulp of water from his bowl, then pointed his nose into the air and sniffed the breeze.

‘You still haven’t finished that joint I brought back from the cafeteria yesterday.’

‘It was revolting,’ he moaned. ‘You know I don’t like mutton bones.’

‘But I can only get bones from the Muslim section now.’

He bowed his head again and sighed.

In the streets below, the crowd started scattering like a swarm of ants. More policemen and security officers arrived at the scene. Then a regiment of PLA soldiers, fronted by two army tanks, suddenly appeared from nowhere, and began to drive back the remaining hordes chanting ‘Socialism is good!’ in thick Henan accents.

‘They’ve caught one of the rapists,’ I cried.

‘Did you see those people demonstrating in the streets last week?’ The dog seemed distracted. He was probably still thinking about the spare ribs in the dustbin.

A huge grey cloud moved through the sky, and the streets darkened. The girl was wrapped in a blanket and escorted into a police van. On the flyover above the intersection, the leaders’ meeting was approaching a conclusion.

‘She shouldn’t have worn that tight skirt,’ I muttered. ‘None of the women in our museum are allowed to wear tight skirts.’

The dog gazed up at the clouds and said, ‘In two minutes the rain will fall. It was the low air pressure this morning that made those boys lose their minds.’

Raindrops cut through the sunlit sky like threads of nylon. The dog shook the water from his coat and stood up. ‘The rain is clean, but when it reaches the earth it turns into mud,’ he said. ‘Why not just enjoy the sight of the rain and forget about the mud?’

‘I live in the clouds, so of course I can just look at the rain. But your feet are stuck on the ground, so you can’t ignore the mud.’

‘You dogs are so lucky. You can roam the world without a care, while we must spend our days earning money to pay our rent, buy jumpers, raincoats and thermal underwear. If we want to keep our jobs, we must control our behaviour and deny ourselves the flights of fancy and reactionary meditations you indulge in. We have to study the newspapers every day to ensure we take the correct political line. Our skins are so thin, we have to wear clothes, and when these clothes are ripped from us, we become like naked pigs, or that girl on the street below. We depend on our elegant wrappings. We have to conceal our true natures if we want to survive.’

‘You sound as though you’ve caught a cold,’ the dog whined, paying no attention to what I had said.

When I returned from the conference and discovered the survivor had died, my spirits crumbled. Every day I stared at my paintbrush, but was unable to lift it to my canvas. I longed to contract a fatal disease, or to perish in some natural disaster. If I’d been a drinker, I would have drunk myself to oblivion. How nice that would have been. To stop myself from dreaming about him at night, I turned my bed round so that my head pointed south. I’d read in a magazine that this keeps nightmares at bay, and also improves your complexion and delays the onset of grey hairs. Although I did indeed suffer fewer nightmares after that, my dreams became more erotic. One night, I dreamed I was flying through the air, chasing after a fat girl’s bottom. After I grabbed hold of it, I discovered it belonged to the woman who plucks dead ducks in the museum’s cafeteria.

Since he passed away, I haven’t cried once, or encountered one setback that might have allowed me to release a strong emotion. The world has carried on as usual. Although my parents are over eighty, they are in fine health. My classmates are still living dull, uneventful lives. My girlfriend’s suicide has almost vanished from my mind. Apart from me, everyone seems at peace with themselves.

In memory of his perceptive gaze, I bought myself a telescope. Now I can see the world of men as he saw it. Sometimes, I even pass comments on events taking place below.

The town is quiet and orderly now. Bright red boxes have been attached to every street corner to collect citizens’ reports of uncivilised behaviour. The municipal Party committee has banned pedestrians from shouting, laughing or running in the streets, and insists that they only walk outside in groups of less than four. If a group exceeds four members, it has to split in two. The committee has also arranged for cultural troupes to visit local work units to educate employees on the virtues of polite behaviour and assess their understanding of modern citizenship. Our work unit failed to make the grade because two old comrades from the finance department walked down the street taking strides that were judged to be either too large or too small.

When I look down from the terrace, the pedestrians seem to squirm through the streets as slowly as maggots. The only time I ever see a crowd is in the morning, when the pensioners are doing their exercises in Red Scarf Park.

I often sit on the terrace gazing at the clouds in the blue sky. They seem to have been hanging in the same position for months. I’m painting again now, but my inspiration has gone. I’ve messed around with the canvas on my easel for so long that from a distance it looks like a dirty apron.

The other day, I borrowed a guitar from an old classmate, and played a mournful tune on the spot beside the kennel where I used to sit and chat with the dog. I thrummed the strings and the tinkling melody drifted into the air. I thrummed again, but this time the strings produced no sound. In the evening, the head of the museum’s security department came up and told me not to play my guitar on the terrace again. He said the State Security Department had confiscated the noise from my instrument, and from now on I’d have to content myself with listening to the radio. He took the guitar from me, but to my great relief, didn’t ask me to write a self-criticism letter.

If only the survivor could see how clean the streets are now. He wouldn’t recognise the place. I often think back on those warm summer evenings when we lay on the terrace, the sea breeze stroking my skin and his fur. He would give me his canine view of the world, and criticise humans for not being more like dogs. This angered me. Since dogs don’t drive cars or wear clothes, he argued that cars were unnecessary and launderettes a waste of time. ‘And your cinemas are so noisy,’ he said one night, ‘they give me a headache.’

‘Thank goodness God never let dogs rule the world,’ I replied.

‘Man’s habit of standing upright is disgusting. Your leaders address the crowds with their chests and genitals on full display. When we want to speak, we just lift our heads up. It’s much more polite that way.’ He then outlined the policies a future dog government would introduce to reform human behaviour.

‘It’s true our leaders address the people standing upright,’ I consented, ‘but at least they are polite enough to wear clothes. You may bend over when you speak, but everyone can still see the genitals dangling between your legs. If ever the day came when you dogs were to gain power, I’d prefer to climb onto my roof and turn into a mouse rather than submit myself to your rule.’

‘At least the dogs would do a better job of ruling this country than your government has done.’ When the stars came out at night, his eyes were piercingly bright.