Yan Lianke - Lenin's Kisses

Further Reading:

1) Nonlivening.DIAL. Means “unable to put up with.” This is an antonym of livening.

The encore performance included a variety of different specialty acts. The race between cripples and able-bodied people was an old favorite. One-Legged Monkey and a young man by the name of Niuzi lined up on the edge of the field, and when someone shouted “Go!” they both shot out like a pair of arrows. Needless to say, the young man ran like the breeze, while One-Legged Monkey — who had just turned twenty-three — borrowed a red sandalwood crutch that was smooth on the outside but had a flexible core inside, and each time it struck the ground it flexed slightly. When One-Legged Monkey leaned into the crutch, it bent so much that it looked as though it were about to break. Everyone thought it was going to snap in two and One-Legged Monkey would fall to the ground, so who could have imagined that instead it would flex as he stepped forward, sending him flying through the air. In this way, he was able to leap forward, and while he lagged behind the other young man throughout most of the race, by the time they reached the finish line Monkey — inspired by the crowd’s cheers of encouragement — had somehow managed to pull ahead.

In front of everyone, Chief Liu gave One-Legged Monkey a hundred-yuan bill, and also agreed to give his family an extra two hundred pounds of disaster relief grain. In addition, One-Eye, who the previous year had been able to thread five needles at once, was now able to thread eight to ten of them. Paraplegic Woman not only could embroider a pig, dog, and cat on thick paper and rags, but could even embroider two identical cats and dogs on each side of a leaf. Deafman Ma, living in the rear of the village, was able to light firecrackers next to his ears, with only a thin board to protect his face. And then, there was Jumei’s eldest daughter, Tonghua, who, as everyone knew, was blind.

Tonghua was already seventeen, but didn’t know that leaves are green, clouds are white, and the rust on iron shovels and hoes is brown. She didn’t know that the sun’s rays are golden in the morning, or that they are blood red at dusk. Her sister Mothlet explained, “Red is the color of blood.” Tonghua asked, “Then, what color is blood?” Mothlet replied, “Blood is the color of hanging couplets that have been left up after the new year.” So Tonghua asked, “What color is a pair of couplets?” Mothlet responded, “Couplets are the color of autumn persimmon leaves.” Tonghua asked, “Then what color are autumn persimmon leaves?” Mothlet responded, “You blind person, you! Persimmon leaves are the color of persimmon leaves.”

Mothlet walked away, not wanting to discuss the matter further.

Tonghua stood in complete darkness, even as the sun was shining down brightly around her. From the day she was born, she had never seen anything other than pure blackness. Daytime was black, and nighttime was also black. The sun was black, and the moon was also black. For the past seventeen years, everything had been pitch black. Beginning from when she was five, she’d walked around using a cane made from a date tree, tapping this way and that. With her cane, she made her way from inside her home to outside, from her doorway to the center of the village. During previous livening festivals, she would come with her mother and her cane and find a spot on the side of the field, listening intently to the Balou and Xiangfu tunes, together with the plays, song and dance routines, and so forth, but then would leave when they got to the grand finale, asking her mother to stay and watch in her stead. All Tonghua could see, after all, was utter darkness.

But this year, Jumei said that she was too busy to leave the house. Tonghua told her mother that everyone claimed the county chief would give whoever went to watch the performance a hundred-yuan bill. Her mother was silent for a long time, as though recalling the festivals they had attended, but in the end still insisted she couldn’t leave the house. Tonghua waited for her sisters — Huaihua, Yuhua, and Mothlet — to leave, then stood in the doorway, listening to the sound of footsteps in the street and the hubbub in the field. Then, tap tap tap, she made her way to the side of the field, where she stood next to the crowd and listened to the entire special-skills performance. She heard people’s searingly black shouts, their reddish black laughter, their whitish black applause flying back and forth through the air. She heard Chief Liu applauding One-Legged Monkey, shouting, “Go! Go! If you win, I’ll give you a hundred yuan!” She heard Chief Liu’s shouts flying back and forth in front of her eyes and next to her ears, and heard him give One-Legged Monkey his hundred-yuan bill and the latter kowtow in appreciation, knocking his head on the ground with a bright black sound. (Chief Liu was so moved by this that he gave him another fifty yuan.)

Tonghua also heard Paraplegic Woman embroider a two-sided sparrow on a tung-oil leaf. When Chief Liu handed her the money, he looked at the leaf and asked, “Are you also able to embroider on a poplar leaf?” She replied, “A poplar leaf is too small, so all I would be able to embroider would be a grasshopper or butterfly.” He then asked, “Are you also able to embroider on a pagoda tree leaf?” She replied, “A pagoda leaf is even smaller, so I could only embroider a few baby faces.” Chief Liu grabbed her hand and stuffed who knows how much money into her fist, saying, “Such skill, such exquisite skill! Before I leave, I will definitely make you a plaque with an inscription saying, The most skilled in the world .”

During the encore performance, it seemed as if the entire mountain was full of people, and their jostling and clapping sounded as though the entire world was filled with the sound of black rain. When Chief Liu awarded the performers their money, that sound of black rain suddenly stopped and the crowd went silent, becoming so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. After Chief Liu had awarded the money, however, the person accepting it would kowtow to him, and that intensely black sound of applause would once again ring out like black rain, enveloping the mountain range, the village, the trees, and the houses, as though mosquitoes had flown into the darkness.

This was the first time that blind Tonghua had clearly heard the village’s livening festival, including the villagers’ special-skills routines: the one-legged race, the deaf-person-lighting-fireworks, the one-eyed needle-threading, the paralyzed woman’s embroidery, the one-armed arm-wrestling. There was also the nephew of the village carpenter who lived in the back of the village. He was only about ten years old and small like a bug. He had contracted polio as an infant, and it had left one of his legs as thin as a twig and his foot as tiny as a bird’s head. He was, however, able to insert his tiny foot into a bottle and use it as a shoe to walk around.

Chief Liu’s eyes were opened by Liven’s special-skills performances, and blind Tonghua heard him clap so hard that his hands turned black-and-blue. She heard him distribute money, and speak and laugh until his voice became black-hoarse, such that his every word became as black and shiny as the black blade of the carpenter’s saw. In the end, as the sun was about to set and the temperature turned from hot to cool, many of the outsiders chatted and joked as they prepared to return together to their own villages. Chief Liu stood on the stage and shouted with his pitch-black words, “Who else has a special skill to perform? If you don’t speak now, you won’t get another opportunity. Tomorrow my secretary and I will leave, and afterward there won’t be anyone left to hand out awards!”