Ran Chen - A Private Life

In the past the people and events that I encountered in these real yet unreal visions were all old people and events from my own past. But on this particular evening, to my complete surprise, it was Widow Ho that I saw through the darkness.

She was poking her head around the door, a book in her hand, smiling at me. Like rings of ripples on a pond, her beautiful smile spread slowly across her face. What was strange was that she didn't have a stitch of clothing on. She stepped out of the room absolutely naked, her smooth skin flashing like a red fish under a dazzlingly rich red glow of light. But she didn't appear the least bit shy or hesitant as she casually passed people in the corridor. I watched her from a distance, and although her face looked a bit drawn and had that sleepy look of someone who has just been suddenly awakened, those big eyes of hers, glazed with sleep but as lovely as ever, were fixed confidently in front of her, showing absolutely no awareness that she was stark naked. Astonished, I anxiously waved my hand to get her attention, to get her to leave, because evil spirits often haunted this place. I shouted her name, only to discover that the sound of my voice faded into nothingness. It was no use, no matter how hard I tried. I wanted to go and push her away, but before I could reach her, she pulled back to be swallowed up in the shadows, and I lost sight of her.

Indistinct shadows kept shifting all around me, and with a dim and distant hope that I had been mistaken, I continued looking for her along that endless, silent, tortuous corridor where every face was masked in sorcery. It was very dark, and to find my way I closed my eyes. I went back and forth along the long, narrow corridor not daring to look behind me, for I had heard that in the countryside they say you should never look back when you are walking in the dark, because on your shoulders you have little flames – "shoulder flames" – that keep away ghosts and evil spirits when they are lit; if you look back in fear, the turning of your head and your heavy, fearful breathing may extinguish your shoulder flames and let the evil spirits ensnare you.

Then all around me, not very far away, I heard a voice that was more like a moan calling out softly. Because I was so desperate to find Ho, I was convinced that it was her.

The corridor suddenly became so hot that I had to take my jacket off. There was a door in front of me that I immediately recognized – it was the door to Ho's apartment. I pushed it open and went in. The faint moaning sounded closer and a fierce wave of heat slammed into me. On the edge of collapse, drenched in sweat and gasping for breath, I desperately called her name.

The moaning was getting louder. I followed it till I came to a door I knew very well – the door to her bedroom. I knocked wildly, but there was no answer. I pushed with all my strength. The heat hurt my hands. It was so intense that it had twisted the door frame so the door couldn't be opened. I could hear very clearly that the moaning was coming from inside that inner room.

Peering through the keyhole, I saw the completely transparent corpse of a woman curled up on the bed, her legs strangely contorted, both arms clasped rigidly across her chest. She was lying motionless on her side, her hair and eyebrows totally burned away. Countless bright red tongues were darting up like flames beside her body. It was these fiery red tongues that had licked away all the hair on her body. I struggled to see her more clearly. It seemed like it wasn't Ho, it was somebody else, but when I listened to the moaning, there was no doubt that it was the magnetic sound of Ho's voice.

My heart thumped.

I shuddered as I returned to my senses.

I felt a bit frightened, aware that I had stayed too long in that dark world of my own making. I was afraid that I had sunk into some secret, irrational territory. Whether other people ever got to that place, I had no way of knowing. But when I think back on it, from when I was very small, that place had always been a constant companion in my thoughts. Like the wind, it followed my every footstep. Whether I was in the rain, on the streets, in a deserted square, or in a crowd, it would always appear in some form or other, some situation or other. It was a bottomless pit; if I didn't make an effort to control my thinking, it would lead me on endlessly.

Thoroughly frightened, I hurriedly jerked myself out of my thoughts. Then I turned on the light.

It was already late. I stared dumbly at the clock on the wall for a while; then I got up and wandered around the room, my mind at odds. I felt strangely unsettled but had no idea why.

I decided to go and visit my mother, then later on come back, have a bath, and relax a bit before going to bed.

Mother was in the middle of writing something when I entered her apartment.

I said, "Mama, what are you writing when it's so late?"

She hesitated a moment; then, smiling very awkwardly, she said, "Oh, I don't want to hide anything from you. I want… " She stopped again, uncertain.

"Tell me," I said, a bit impatiently.

"I want to find you a… father," she said; then she turned her eyes to me uncertainly as she waited for my response.

I was totally floored by this.

Then I started snorting. "Really? Good. That's good." When I stopped laughing I added, "But it has nothing to do with me. It's for yourself that you're looking for a man."

Mother said, "What do you mean it has nothing to do with you? I'm not going to be around that much longer. Whether I have a man or not really doesn't matter, but I have to find a father for you. One of these days will see the end of me. I can't just leave you as an orphan. We've got a house; what we need is someone to live in it."

I said, "Mama, you're really a laugh. I'm not a child anymore; and besides, what's this about your 'not being around that much longer'? Our best times together have only just started."

Mother said, "I read a story in the paper today about a terminally ill doctoral candidate who was looking for a wife. He was an only child, thirty-one years old and quite good-looking, but had never found a suitable match. This had become the chief worry in his parents' life, never affording them a moment's ease. It was about a month before this that he had found out he was terminally ill. The doctors had told him that he had two years at the most. This was truly a bolt out of the blue. His first thought was suicide, but when he got home and saw his aged parents, frail with worry, he felt that giving up like that would be tantamount to abandoning them. He turned it over in his mind for a long time and finally gave up the idea of killing himself, determining instead to fulfill his parents' chief wish and concern, and provide them with a descendant. Because he didn't want to bring worry to his family, he never told them about his illness. Secretly, he put an ad in the paper looking for a wife, including the details of his condition and his hopes. Many women wrote to him, and in the end he set his heart on a doctor, and she devoted her life to him totally. Not long after they were married they had a baby daughter. Although he couldn't in the end escape his dark fortune, he lived a fulfilling life, and left a daughter for posterity."

"But… but what about the woman?" I said. "Do you really want to praise that kind of deed? Only here in China does that kind of thing draw great choruses of praise."

"The woman did it because she wanted to. Forget about ethical judgment. All I'm saying is that stories like that are uplifting."

I said, "Well. If that's the way you feel, I guess you'll be submitting an uplifting ad for a husband."

She paused for a moment, then responded, "Well, anyway, we've just been chitchatting."

At this point, perhaps because she'd overstrained herself talking, her breathing became labored and she began struggling obviously for air.