Yan Lianke - Lenin's Kisses

Even at nine million yuan, Chief Liu still agreed to purchase the revolver.

This way, not only could the Lenin Memorial Hall open immediately for business, but by the following year they could set up a display room featuring the ashes, clothing, and personal effects of the other world leaders. This way, Spirit Mountain’s ten peaks would each have a memorial hall of one the world’s ten great leaders, and every day they would attract at least three to five times as many tourists as the Lenin Memorial Hall alone. This would include visitors from neighboring counties, from the district, from the province, from throughout the nation, and even from other countries around the world. Just as foreigners who come to China cannot fail to visit Beijing, if they visited Beijing they would have no choice but to also visit Shuanghuai. In fact, some people might even come to China for the express purpose of visiting Shuanghuai, without even having any interest in visiting Beijing. It was mind-boggling to think how much income that would bring in!

The people said that Chief Liu had already arranged to have Shuanghuai build new roads, and even an airport. They said that in order for Shuanghuai to be able to sell tickets for a hundred yuan each, the county would need to build three to five large printing factories, for the express purpose of printing these tickets around the clock. They said that all of China’s banks were preparing to establish their largest satellite branches in Shuanghuai, so that the county’s residents could deposit all the money they wouldn’t be able to spend. They said that in order to compete for the enormous amounts of money every resident would have in a few years, and in order to encourage everyone to deposit money with them, the banks were jockeying to be the first to give the county a loan to build a highway leading up to Spirit Mountain, both sides of which would be lined with guest houses.

Indeed, the lives of the residents of Shuanghuai had been turned upside down overnight. Their heavenly days were almost here. So, why wouldn’t they all express their gratitude to Chief Liu? Who in Shuanghuai didn’t know how hard Chief Liu worked to purchase Lenin’s corpse? Who didn’t know how hard he struggled to establish the Liven performance troupes?

Who knew, however, that even as he was working to purchase Lenin’s remains, Chief Liu was already making plans to obtain the personal effects of all of these other world leaders? No one had expected that all of these seemingly impossible tasks would be accomplished virtually overnight, that everything would be purchased and would immediately be ready to be shipped to Shuanghuai.

Chief Liu laughed and asked, “Who did you hear all this from?”

The person replied, “From your secretary. If your own secretary said it, how could it not be true?”

Chief Liu’s heart skipped a beat, but at that moment his astonishment was drowned out by the people surrounding him, as they kowtowed to him and crowded around just to say something to him, shake his hand, or have him caress their child’s head. They crowded him to the point that he could barely keep his balance. Indeed, with some people jostling in and others pushing back, in an instant the people surrounding Chief Liu had clogged up the entire roadway. The street peddlers started shouting,

“You’ve knocked over my apple stand! . . You’ve knocked over my apple stand!”

“You’re trampling on my bags of melon seeds! . . You’re trampling on my bags of melon seeds!”

The crowds knocked over the door plank that a peddler had set up as his stand, and the red paper and firecrackers he sold at New Year’s, together with his red couplets, gate couplets, and kitchen god portraits, were strewn all over the ground. The peddler stood to one side and beat his chest as he cried,

“Aren’t you afraid that the firecrackers will go off? . . Aren’t you afraid that the firecrackers will go off?”

All of this was merely so that people could bow and kowtow to Chief Liu, to express their gratitude. People who were out shopping immediately put their things down and walked out of the store. People who were out eating or drinking immediately put down their cups and chopsticks and emerged from the restaurants. They bowed and kowtowed, murmuring words of gratitude. Naturally, they didn’t forget to ask him, “Chief Liu, I hear that next year the street in front of our house will be paved in marble?” They also didn’t forget to ask, “Is it true that everyone will be guaranteed a monthly salary of five thousand yuan?”

Someone also asked, “I hear that whenever we want to eat something, the county will issue it to us?”

“Is it true that every family will be given a new house?”

Someone asked worriedly, “But then won’t people become lazier and lazier?”

“Perhaps our children won’t even want to study?”

This was all real, Chief Liu realized, as everyone swarmed in front of him. Under the sun, there was the rancid odor of people’s sweat, the smell of sweltering dust, and an oily stench of the hats the peasants had been wearing for many years without ever washing them, together with the scent of cotton from the city-dwellers’ new coats and scarves. Standing in the middle of this crowd, Chief Liu was jostled back and forth. He shook one person’s hand, and answered another person’s questions.

This true livening was as real as the warmth you feel when you put on clothes, or the pain you feel when you bleed. One group of people after another kept surging toward Chief Liu to bow and kowtow to him, and to express their gratitude. As soon as one group receded, another would take its place.

The sun was directly overhead, with warm air blowing through the streets. People’s heads were as densely arrayed as a field of melons. Some of the men were wearing padded hats, while others were wearing single-layer ones, or even going bareheaded all winter. The result was a colorful assortment of black, blue, and gray heads. Most of the women, on the other hand, were wearing scarves. The city women were wearing long red, yellow, green, or blue wool scarves, and they would each pick their favorite color depending on their age and fondness. 1When it was cold they would wrap their scarves around their heads, and when it was warmer they would pull them down to their necks, or would drape them over their shoulders, using them merely as an accessory. Some of the young rural women pursued this urban fashion, wearing long knitted scarves, but most of them remained fond of the traditional square scarves people had always worn in the country side, particularly cheap ones they had bought on sale. Although this was discounted merchandise, the colors were still bright red and green, filling the entire street with color. Regardless of whether people were bowing or kowtowing, the entire world became filled with dancing colors.

The entire world was greeting Chief Liu.

The entire world was crowding forward.

Chief Liu experienced an intense feeling of happiness. He’d thought that this sort of scene would be possible only after the Lenin Mausoleum had been established and Lenin’s corpse had been brought back and installed, or once the county became so rich that it would seem as though money were growing on trees, and the residents of every town and village would no longer need to work the land to be able to have whatever they wanted, and would instead be able to simply go to the public center to get it.

But now, here was this scene suddenly appearing before him. He saw that there were many peasants carrying the red paper, firecrackers, and stove god portraits they had prepared for New Year’s. He saw that there were oil paintings wrapped around many of the stove god portraits, and he instantly recognized that those outer paintings were in fact two-by-three-foot portraits of himself that people had purchased on the street, and that it seemed as though there was a red halo surrounding them. Having already noticed the portrait’s red frame and determining that this was his portrait, Chief Liu attempted to ask one person whether red paper and firecrackers were expensive this year. The person replied that the prices were not too bad, and added that the places selling Chairman Liu’s portrait also sold red paper and firecrackers for half as much as other places.