Howard Goldblatt (Editor) - Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused – Fiction From Today

In his search for some wire to make a toy gun, Shu Nong went into the storage room beneath the stairs. The latch was broken, so all it took was a good shove to open the door. Shu Nong found it strange that the room was deserted except for the cat sitting on an old slatted trunk, its eyes flashing. He wondered if the cat was up to no good, since cats are such inscrutable animals. When he walked over to pick it up, the cat sprang out of the way, leaving a pair of plum-blossom paw prints on the trunk. Shu Nong recalled this trunk as a place where his father stored all kinds of odds and ends. Maybe he'd find the wire he needed inside. He raised the lid and nearly jumped out of his skin. Two people were coiled up inside, and they were as frightened as he was.

Shu Gong and Hanli tried to make themselves invisible inside the trunk. He was naked, so was she. His face was scarlet, hers was ghostly white.

"What do you think you're doing?" Shu Nong nearly shouted.

"Playing hide-and-seek." Hanli covered her face with her hands.

"Liar," Shu Nong said scornfully. "I know what you're up to."

"Don't tell anybody, Shu Nong." Hanli grabbed his arm. "I'll give you anything you want."

"We'll see how I feel."

Shu Nong slammed the lid down and turned to leave. By then, the cat was outside, so he walked toward it. Shu Gong jumped out of the trunk, grabbed him from behind, and dragged him back into the storage room. He easily knocked Shu Nong to the floor, then walked over and shut the door. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for some wire. Nothing to do with you."

Shu Gong removed a piece of wire from the trunk and waved it in front of Shu Nong. "This it?" Shu Nong reached for it, but Shu Gong pushed his hand away and said, "I'll hold on to it for now. If you breathe a word of this, I'll seal your mouth with it, and you can spend the rest of your life as a mute."

Shu Gong was buck naked. Shu Nong noticed that his pecker was as stiff and big around as a carrot, with threads of purplish blood on the tip. As he stared at the bloodstains, his curiosity turned to fear. He looked over at the trunk. Hanli was sitting up, her face bloodless, her arms crossed over her breasts. Still, he detected the radiance of her body, the familiar bluish glare that characterized the bodies of Lin women. It stung his eyes. Shu Nong was feeling bad, real bad. He walked to the door again. By now, the cat was crouched on the first step. As soon as he was outside the room, Shu Nong threw up, the contents of his stomach spilling out in oceanic quantities. He had never thrown up like that before and had no idea why he was doing it now or why he couldn't stop. In the ensuing dizziness, he saw the cat hop up the stairs, one step at a time, until it disappeared from view.

One morning, Shu Nong instinctively knew that he had become Shu Gong's mortal enemy. At home, in the neighborhood, in school-wherever they were, Shu Gong gave him a glacial look out of the corner of his eye; Shu Nong had begun to cast a dark shadow over Shu Gong's secret happiness. Knowing that he was an obstacle in his brother's way, Shu Nong consciously avoided Shu Gong's stony gaze. It's not my fault, he reasoned. I'm a cat, and cats see everything. You can't blame a cat.

"Did you tell anybody?" Shu Gong grabbed Shu Nong's ear.

"No."

"How about Papa, did you tell him?"

"No."

"Watch out. Keep that mouth of yours shut." Shu Gong held up the piece of wire to show Shu Nong.

Shu Nong sat at the table, shoveling food into his mouth with his hand, a reprehensible habit with a long history. Old Shu could not get him to change, not even with his fists. No one knew he was just being catlike. That behavior symbolized Shu Nong's increasing inscrutability, but no one in the family realized it.

"If you tell anybody, I'll seal your mouth with this wire, understand? That's a promise, not a threat," Shu Gong said in measured tones before slicking down his hair with vegetable oil, putting on his white sneakers, and heading outside.

Shu Nong knew where he was going, and his thoughts turned to his father, who threatened him the same way when he was caught climbing the downspout. Who said I can't tell? If I feel like telling somebody, I will, and if I don't, I won't. They can't do a thing about it. They weren't fated to really shake people up, he reasoned; that was left to him. He followed people, seeing everything, and seeing it first. Is there a soul alive who can hide from the eyes of a cat?

They say Shu Nong followed lots of people, not just his brother and mortal enemy, Shu Gong.

As the sound of whistling faded away, Shu Nong calculated that his brother had passed the storage room and jumped to the street from the windowsill. Pinching his nose closed, he hugged the wall and followed Shu Gong to the limestone quarry, where Hanli waited. It was always the same: Shu Gong and Hanli hid between a wall and a waist-high stack of bricks, the space between stuffed with a battered bamboo basket, like a sentry.

Without a sound, Shu Nong flattened out on the ground and watched them through the gaps in the woven basket. Sometimes he saw their feet float and bob like paper boats. Shu Nong didn't think he could control the urge to screech like a cat, but somehow he managed. Afraid of being discovered, he lay on his belly and held his breath until his face turned purple.

Fragrant cedars are long gone from Fragrant Cedar Street, replaced by acacias and parasol trees. Let's say the acacias are in bloom. When the first winds blow, we see a light-purple haze shimmer above the eaves of the dark building, illusory somehow; the air is heavy with the redolence of fauna. It's the outdoor season, so we all troop outside. Nineteen seventy-four, if memory serves, early autumn, late afternoon.

The boys gather in the courtyard of Soybean's yard, around a pile of stone dumbbells. Most boys on Fragrant Cedar Street can lift a hundred-pound dumbbell. We see Shu Nong push open the gate and stand on the threshold, wondering if he should go in or back out. He seems to be in a trance, standing there, picking his nose with the pinky of his left hand.

"Get the hell out of here, bed wetter." One of the boys runs up and shoves him.

"I just want to watch," he says as he leans against a gatepost. "Can't I even watch?"

"Come tell us what the young lovers Shu Gong and Hanli do."

"I don't know."

"Don't know or won't say? If you won't tell us, then get the hell out of here."

Shu Nong stays put, his free hand sliding up and down the post. After a moment, he says, "They hide in a slatted trunk."

"A slatted trunk?" the boys hoot. "Doing what?"

"Fucking," Shu Nong says maliciously. He bites his lip as he jerks open the gate and is gone like a puff of smoke.

Hanli realized it had been a long time since her last period, two months by her reckoning, and she didn't know why. She was nauseated and felt tired, limp, and sluggish all the time. Frequently downcast, she suspected it was a result of what she and Shu Gong were doing. But she couldn't be sure. When she tried to ask her mother, the words rose to the tip of her tongue and no farther. Deciding to ask a doctor instead, she slipped off to the clinic. When the doctor uttered that fateful word, his voice dripping with disgust Hanli reacted as if struck by lightning; she was virtually paralyzed.

"Lin Hanli, you're pregnant. What school do you go to?" The doctor glared at Hanli, who snatched her sweater off the chair and dashed out of the clinic, covering her face with her sweater so people sitting in the corridor would not recognize her. She emerged into the blinding sunlight of a warm, breezy afternoon. The city and the streets closed in on her as always, but this time she was caught in the fetters of disaster and could hardly breathe. "You're pregnant!" Like a steel band cinched around her neck. How did this happen? What'll I do? Nervously, Hanli walked up to the post office and stopped to let her eyes wander up and down Fragrant Cedar Street. Few people were out and about on that peaceful afternoon; the cobblestones shimmered beneath the sun's rays. Hanli didn't dare walk down Fragrant Cedar Street since now it was an enormous pit waiting to claim her.