Yan Lianke - Lenin's Kisses

Secretary Shi said, “That’s crazy. I can’t believe it.”

The township chief replied, “Secretary Shi, everything I said is the absolute truth, and if there is even the slightest falsehood, may this summer snow freeze me to death, and the winter sun burn me up.”

Secretary Shi asked, “Really?”

The township chief said, “Really. Have you ever seen red dates growing on a peach tree? Or a one-legged man outrun a two-legged one? Or a blind person who can use his hearing to find where everything is? Do you believe any of this? Or a deaf person who, by feeling your ears with his fingertips, can hear everything you are saying? Or someone who has been dead for seven days and buried for four, but is still able to come back to life? Have you ever seen anything like that? Or a black crow that bears and raises chicks that look just like doves? If you don’t believe these things, then when we arrive in Liven I will show you, thereby expanding your horizons. Okay?”

He added, “Secretary Shi, these things are all common occurrences in the Balou mountains. Fortunately, you are still a college student, because I’d really love to take a crap on your college textbooks and wash your blackboard with my piss. After studying for so many years, you earn more each month than I do, and sleep with more women, but you don’t even know that here in Balou the temperature can drop to four or five degrees below zero in the summer, and can rise to thirty-four or thirty-five degrees in the winter. Don’t you agree that I should take a crap on your textbooks, and wash your blackboard with my piss?”

Secretary Shi said, “Chief, your mouth is like a toilet.”

The township chief replied, “Ask the county chief whether I was telling the truth.”

Both of them turned to Chief Liu, and noticed that his face had turned a deep shade of purple and he was trembling from head to toe. Back in the county seat, he typically wore only a T-shirt, but now his entire body was covered in goose bumps. He was hugging his shoulders, and his teeth were chattering madly. In front of the car, snow was falling heavily and the windshield wipers kept trying to clear it from the windows.

The entire mountain was covered with a layer of pristinely white snow.

The township chief asked, “Chief Liu, are you cold?”

He shivered, but didn’t respond.

In order to reach Spirit Mountain, they had to traverse the Balou mountains and take the road up to Liven. The base of Spirit Mountain was located about seventeen li or so beyond Liven. They were driving an old car with all the windows open, but even then they’d each had sweat pouring down their bodies. When they’d started out on their drive, warm wheat fragrance had wafted over the car, and the peasants beside the road had disappeared into the wheat fields. It was more than a hundred li from the county seat to the Balou mountains, and it took them more than half a day to cover the distance, since the driver was afraid that if he went too fast they might get a flat. When they had arrived in the Balou mountains, they drove through a forest of pagoda trees, where they were able to enjoy a breeze. As the temperature dropped, however, the fragrance of ripe wheat began to fade. The smell of summer gradually changed to that of fall, and as the car scurried over the mountain the weather became increasingly cool, even downright chilly. If the car’s occupants hadn’t kept the doors and windows tightly shut, they would have felt as though they were out in a field in the dead of winter.

The driver said, “It’s getting colder and colder. What’s going on?”

The township chief replied, “Fuck your family for eight generations. That’s just how the weather is here. In the third lunar month they sometimes have peach blossom flurries, while in the middle of winter it can be scorching hot.”

The driver said, “Fuck, if it really is snowing, we should use the windshield wipers to clean the snow off.”

Secretary Shi asked, “Chief Liu, are you cold?”

The township chief said, “Why worry whether he’s cold or not? Let the heat bake him to death, and the cold freeze him to death.”

Chief Liu said, “I didn’t bring any other clothes. If it’s this cold in Shuanghuai, where will I get warm clothes?”

The township chief said, “If you wear heavy clothes you will burn up, but if you take them off you will freeze to death.”

The township chief added, “It’s snowing. Let’s go — we need to get the county chief a padded jacket.”

Secretary Shi said, “Let’s pull into the village up ahead.”

Chief Liu said, “Fuck, I simply can’t believe it could possibly get too cold for me.”

As he was saying this, the car pulled into a village halfway up the mountain and stopped at a wheat factory, where they borrowed a jacket and an army coat. After the driver stored the new clothing, they continued making their way up the mountain. It was on that snowy day that they encountered Jumei and her three nin daughters, and succeeded in finding Grandma Mao Zhi.

They arrived at Liven’s guest house, where they stayed for the night.

The snow finally stopped falling.

The temperature, however, remained bitterly cold. When they woke up the next morning, the sky was still overcast and snow was blowing everywhere. Chief Liu hadn’t slept well. The statues of the bodhisattvas, Lord Guan, and Lady Livening that had been in his room in the former Buddhist temple were no longer there. The three-room tile-roofed house was split into three sections by two partition walls. Chief Liu slept in the northernmost section, with a bed all to himself. The bed had two mattresses and two quilts, and therefore was certainly warm enough, but he couldn’t sleep. Instead, he kept thinking about some of the things that had taken place eighteen years earlier when he was a soc-school teacher in Liven, and particularly about a woman who had given birth to quadruplets.

He thought that once he was able to bring back Lenin’s remains and install them on Spirit Mount, 7he could help promote tourism throughout the county and bring wealth to the district. He would surely be promoted then from county chief to deputy district commissioner or deputy district Party committee secretary. By that point, he would become a major figure, even an international personality, and not even the district Party secretary would be his equal. Four-fifths of the dozen or so counties in the district were poor, but he had already decided that once he was appointed deputy district commissioner or deputy district Party secretary, he would order that a memorial hall be erected in each of those poor counties, and then would have Lenin’s remains circulate from one county to the next, thereby bringing each of them additional tourism revenue and greater wealth. He would also institute a global Lenin Day for the district. On this day, he would place Lenin’s corpse on display in the city square in Jiudu, the district seat, so that everyone could revere and better understand him. Anyone wanting to read Lenin’s works — together with those of Marx and Engels, and of course Mao Zedong — could gather together. As for whether or not those who revered Stalin and read his works would be permitted to visit, Chief Liu had not yet fully made up his mind, since he had heard that Chinese and foreigners had differing opinions about Stalin.

He had thought about many things that night, as he listened to the township chief and Secretary Shi snoring away in the next room like an old erhu melody, to the point where he almost couldn’t resist going over and stuffing their mouths with dirty socks, and covering their noses with cotton and old shoes.

But given that now he was the county chief, he had no choice but to simply tolerate the noise.