Mo Yan - Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh

Old Ding could find nothing wrong with his apprentice's argument. He's right, he concluded. Sure, there was nothing saintly about what he was doing, but one saint was plenty in this world. Any more was just asking for trouble. The last thing Ding Shikou wanted was to be a saint. Besides, he couldn't even if he wanted to. Ding Shikou, he was thinking, you're doing the government a big favor. Being the master of a love cottage in the woods may not bring you honor, but it's a lot better than causing a scene in front of the government headquarters. This thought brought a smile to his face, which flabbergasted his wife, who was shucking peanuts at the table.

“What are you smiling about, you old fart?” she asked him. “Do you have any idea how scary a smile like that looks?”

“Scary?”

“Yes, scary.”

“Well, today that's exactly what I want to do, scare you.”

“Just what do you have in mind, you old fart?” she asked as she backed away, holding a handful of peanut shells. Lightning split the sky outside, heralding a downpour. Cool, damp air seeped into the room, causing the atmosphere inside to actually heat up. He removed his clothes as he bore down on his wife, tossing them behind him; she cowered against the wall, her face turning scarlet, her normally gloomy eyes shining like those of a girl in her prime. Cornered, she flung the peanut shells in his face. “You old fart,” she muttered, “the older you get, the crazier you are.. the middle of the day.. what do you think you're doing. … The lord of thunder and mother of lightning are looking at you.” He grabbed her around the waist and bent her backward. “You old fart!” she screamed. “Old fart… not so hard … you're going to break me in half.. ”

In order to guard against any unforeseen trouble, Ding deposited his earnings under a phony name and hid the passbook in a hole in the wall, which he sealed with two layers of paper.

After the winter solstice, the temperature began to drop and there were no clients for two or three days in a row. He rode over to his cottage around noon. Frost clung to the fallen leaves on the ground. The dark yellow sun cast precious little heat. He sat under a tree for a while, until his fingers and toes turned icy cold. The lake was quiet, deserted, except for a man walking in circles by the water's edge, gauze wrapped around his neck. He was a man engaged in a life-and-death struggle with cancer, a bit of a celebrity around town, owing to the fight he was putting up; the local TV station had aired a segment on his struggle. The station had sent a crew down to the lake to film the story, scaring the hell out of Ding. Just to be safe, he'd climbed a tree and perched up there like a bird for over two hours.

After that incident, a fire inspection team had come to the area, frightening him half to death. This time he'd hidden behind a tree and waited there with his heart in his mouth. One by one the men had walked past his little cottage, but with no visible reaction, as if it were just another of nature's creations. The sole exception was a fat guy who had walked behind the cottage to release a stream of yellow piss. Ding could actually smell it. Our leaders are suffering from too much internal heat, he thought to himself. The fat guy looked to be getting on in years, but he pissed like a youngster: sucking in his gut, he formed a wet circle on the sheet-metal side of the bus, then another and another; but before he could complete the fourth circle, the stream broke off. After taking his young man's leak, the fat guy rapped loudly on one of the sheet-metal window coverings before buttoning his fly and waddling quickly off to catch up with his partners. Just those two frightening episodes.

The chilled air under the tree was too much for Ding, so he got up and moved into the bus to sit down and have a smoke. After carefully extinguishing his cigarette, he closed his eyes and roughly calculated how much he'd made over the six months or so he'd been in business. The results were gratifying. He decided to come back tomorrow, and if there were still no clients, he'd close up shop until the following spring. If I can keep this up for five years, I'll be in great shape for old age.

He rode out to the cottage early the next morning. Cold overnight winds had nearly denuded the trees; there were hardly any leaves left on the poplar branches, while those on the few oak trees scattered among the pines held on and turned a golden color. As they rustled in the wind, they looked like yellow butterflies swarming amid the branches. He came equipped with a snakeskin-patterned sack and a steel-tipped wooden staff. He picked up all the litter in the broad vicinity of the little cottage, not for any monetary gain, but out of a sense of obligation. He was a beneficiary of the best that society had to offer. After tying off the trash bag, he placed it on his bicycle rack, then went into the cottage to gather up the assortment of articles. The caw of a solitary crow outside made his heart skip a beat. Taking a look out the door, he spotted a man and a woman walking his way up the gray path from the little hill behind the factory.

8

The couple, middle-aged, stopped in front of the cottage. It was half-past noon. The man, his hands thrust into the pockets of his gray windbreaker, was quite tall. The wind behind him billowed the cuffs of his pants and exposed his lower calves. The woman was shorter, but not by much; calling upon his decades of experience in sizing up lengths of iron, old Ding guessed that she was in the neighborhood of five-five or five-six. She was wearing a purple down parka over a pair of light blue jeans and white lambskin shoes. Since neither of them was wearing a hat, their hair was at the mercy of the wind, and the woman frequently reached up to pull her hair back out of her face. As they drew up to the cottage, they subconsciously increased the distance between them, which only served to strengthen the impression that they were lovers, and probably had been for many years. When old Ding saw the cold, pained expression on the man's face and the look of an indignant woman on hers, he knew exactly what was going on between them, as if he'd just finished reading their dossiers.

He decided to stay open for one final pair of clients, not because of the money, but because his heart went out to them.

The man spoke to old Ding in front of the cottage, while the woman stood with her back to the door, her hands in the pockets of her parka, as she absentmindedly kicked at some leaves on the ground.

“It sure turned cold today,” the man said. “All of a sudden, like. Not normal.”

“On TV they say it's a cold front down from Siberia,” old Ding said, reminding himself that he ought to get rid of the old black-and-white TV at home.

“So this is the famous lovers’ cottage,” the man said. “I hear it's the brainchild of the Chief of Police's father-in-law.”

Old Ding just smiled and shook his head, which could have meant almost anything.

“Actually,” the man said, “all we're looking for is a quiet spot so we can talk.”

Old Ding gave him an understanding smile, picked up his stool, and headed over to the locust grove without so much as a backward glance.

Sunbeams burst from a gray cloud, flooding the woods with dazzling light. The locust tree seemed covered with a layer of tinfoil, glittery and magical. As he leaned against the springy limbs of the tree, powerful gusts of a northeast wind felt as if they had turned his spine into cold metal. The man stepped into the cottage, bent at the waist. The woman stood off to one side of the doorway, her head lowered, as if deep in thought. The man emerged from the cottage and walked up behind the woman to whisper something. There was no change in her demeanor. So the man reached out and gently tugged at the hem of her coat. She squirmed, a childish movement, like a little girl's display of temper. The man rested his hand on her shoulder, and even though she continued to squirm, she did not shake off his hand. So he pressed down and turned her toward him; she put up mild resistance, but ultimately turned to face him. Then, with both hands on her shoulders, he spoke to her — to the top of her head, actually. At last, he ushered her into the cottage.