Ran Chen - A Private Life

I said, "That's a heavy weight to carry. I get the feeling that you want to do something big with your life."

He didn't say anything. He just turned to me with the shy little smile that I had come to love so much.

"You're a bit of an enigma," I added.

It was already quite late, and feeling a bit hungry, I began checking out the restaurants we were passing.

Yin Nan said, "When we get into town, we'll look for a nice place to eat."

"With your brother's money, too?" I asked.

"If he wants to support me, why shouldn't I take it? I've got lots of ideas. Maybe you'd call them dreams, but even if they are, what's so bad about that?"

"What dreams?"

He gave a little laugh. "Lots of them. You – you're one of my dreams. I don't know how you feel about it, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm not just one person anymore – you're part of me."

We were already in the city, and the car slowed down as we threaded our way along the street jammed with people celebrating Spring Festival Eve.

I lingered on his words, "you're part of me." It was as if I was unaware of what was happening on the street outside. They were like flames, a numbing drug that intoxicated me. I felt a new kind of strength welling up inside me.

We found a place to park, but before we got out of the car, Yin Nan, as if suddenly emboldened, grasped my shoulder eagerly, and pressing his cheek against mine, said in almost a whisper, "Would you like to be with me always?"

Although it was a question, it was obvious that he didn't want an answer, because he immediately enclosed me in his arms and placed that firm, sweet mouth squarely upon my own, preventing any reply. Like a big, lovable frog, he sucked in my fragrance, his breathing hoarse and desperate with excitement.

I could feel the sharp metallic beat of his heart penetrating into mine through the interstices between his ribs, which were pressing into my breasts like so many powerful fingers. That huge and ardent chest opening itself outward was like a large country bent on expansion, eager to annex, or more precisely, to welcome or accept a small country.

He mumbled incoherently as he ran his trembling hands over my back. I felt his fingers and gradually his entire body begin to tremble, and the tighter he embraced me, the more awkward and tense he became. I knew that only genuine love could stir that kind of awkwardness, excitement, that kind of restraint and tentativeness.

We embraced so long I felt faint.

At last, we got out of the car.

The strains of some strange kind of flute music drifted toward us, mingled with the rustle of the barren tree in front of us. Beneath it, a blind man with sunken eyes, his whiskers ceaselessly flapping, was lost in his playing. Expressionless, his bones grinding, he swayed to the tuneless music that floated upward through the branches and power lines into the yellow evening light to be carried away by the wind. That music, like piercing light, left you feeling lost and uncertain.

Facing the sun, he played the flute wildly, then shouted in a hoarse, dry voice, "I have come from a faraway place – far, far away. I have seen, I have seen the clouds of war drifting upon us… many people sticking out their young tongues… their eyes as bright as dazzling stars that have fallen to earth… "

He tore his shirt to shreds and threw the pieces on the ground to be blown away by the wind. "Look! Many, many young tongues have been scattered on the ground like this, on the ground where they continued their song… their eyes rolled away and were crushed like grapes…"

As we passed him, he suddenly "caught sight" of us, and he seized Yin Nan's hand. A strange light shot from his eyes. "You've only got half a head… "

Then he turned to me, "You've only got one leg… run! Run…"

"He's mad." Frightened, I pulled Yin Nan along with me as I fled.

Behind us, his cries grew more and more desolate and terrifying.

Even today, there is still no clear reason why that fire had to start. It was simply the will of heaven. When I look back on it now, it still seems totally unreal, like a dream within a dream that leaves you lost and uncertain. What this fire that shocked the whole neighborhood took away from me, or, I should say, the grief that it brought to me, left me unable for days to shed the tears that were choking me.

I usually go to bed very late, because I find the noise and confusion of the daytime very taxing. The days seem interminable, they exhaust me so; but from the moment supper is finished until late into the night I am filled with a carefree contentment. I often sit quietly by myself not doing anything, with countless images of people and events passing endlessly through my mind like scenes from a movie. I relax, viewing whatever scenes happen to suit my fancy. During this time I also have dreams, dreams that are exceedingly real. I don't as a rule turn on the light, imagining instead that I am in a cave or in some huge stone crevice, talking to a person very much like myself. She sits just in front of me, breathing and talking, but I can't see her face or even her outline, because I am enveloped in a thick, obscuring darkness. I immerse myself in it, a secret and safe world, where time and space no longer exist. I sit on my sofa or pace the carpet as quiet as a cat, very careful in my movements and my words, as if I were afraid of breaking something.

I see a great many people in my dreams; for example, I once saw Mrs. Ge among a group of ghosts. She was shouting herself hoarse, holding up a small flag bearing the word revenge. Although I couldn't hear what she was shouting, I could see her words on her lips, which were twisted with anger. Her lips were a flame the color of fresh blood, which took the shape of a pictograph as it leaped upward. It was through this pictograph that I could read what she was saying. On another occasion, I saw a huge open-air market. It had just rained, and I had muddied my trousers. The vegetables in the hawkers' stalls were so gorgeously colored they looked like beautiful still-life paintings. The place was crowded with familiar faces from my childhood. When the confusion and noise subsided, through the darkness I noticed a single eye sticking very closely behind me. I tried to get a better look at the person's face or body, but aside from the eye, I couldn't see anything. That is to say, the only thing left of this person was an eye, and it was following me.

At first I was afraid, but I very quickly realized that it was my nanny's eye. When I went to buy vegetables the hawkers would always cheat me, but this time the eye beside me would let out an ear-piercing shriek that sounded like it came from hell. The hawkers looked around in alarm for the source, but they could see that it wasn't coming from my lips. Then they looked at the eye beside me as if it were some weird and terrifying thing, and nervously weighed out my purchases in full measure. Pleased as punch, I swaggered about from stall to stall, buying all kinds of things.

At last, I addressed the darkness. "Nanny, let's go home."

The eye said, "I am already intertwined with the moonlight. Never again will a man be able to crush this eye of mine as if it were a flower petal. I live on the roof of the mortal world. I am the adversary of darkness. Never again will I allow women's eyes to be violently snuffed out one by one, like so many candles."

Her words were borne by the wind from some unknown season. Eventually her quiet voice and her footsteps drifted off toward the sounds of vicious struggle in the darkness. Amid this many-voiced, or, should I say, polyphonic "chorus," her voice became a strong and powerful solo…