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

How sublime! I had finally overcome the psychological obstacles, conquered the fear of pulling, the fear of pain. With head held high and swinging steps, I marched into the dental clinic; I swept past the gatekeeper with the dignity of a man about to meet his maker, stepped into Special Services, room 54, and stood before the nurse-I was a new man.

"Have you come for your teeth?" The smiling nurse flashed her teeth at me. I tried to smile back, with my hand on my aching, swollen jaw.

I explained my business and showed her the official letter. The nurse spread out her hands: "How unlucky. Dr. Zi Wutong had a stroke last night and is now in the emergency ward. The other doctors are not informed about your case. You know, of course, that our consultations are all planned beforehand. Please go home. You jnay leave the letter here; I'll make some inquiries, and let you know later…"

Was this possible? Treating me like dirt! But…

I made my way out of the hospital; I fought my way onto the bus, and after riding three stops, it suddenly occurred to me that my tooth was spared that particular day, that I need not go through that excruciating pain. It was not my fault; I had done all I could, but it was just not in the stars that I should have my tooth pulled on that day. What could I do? The tooth was willing, but the pulling was put off. What can it be but the will of heaven?

I was so overjoyed my bad tooth had even stopped hurting. Marvelous it was that although my tooth was not pulled out, I was just as gratified as if it were-actually, even more so. From the Taoist viewpoint of Laozi and Zhuangzi, pulling was not pulling, not pulling was pulling. From the Buddhist viewpoint, the tooth was the sorrow, the great sorrow was suffering, suffering was boundless; but turn back your steps, and salvation was at hand. From the Freudian viewpoint, pulling out the tooth was release. From the Keynesian viewpoint, pulling out the tooth was a process of value accumulation. From the Sartrean viewpoint, the aching tooth was the externalization of the essence. From the viewpoint of systems, pulling the tooth was system engineering. From the Nietz-schean viewpoint, a toothache was the proof of degradation and misfortune, was the pain of you not feeling my pain, the proof of the isolation of misunderstood greatness, proof that the culture of teeth was more unbearable than the aching tooth…

My tooth has not been pulled out yet, but it has acquired more profundity than if it had been.

Translated By Zhu Hong

He thought it felt like a sham right from the start. When the production-team leader, who was standing as guarantor, grinned and led the woman and a three- or four-year-old girl into the courtyard, he was pretty sure the one thing guaranteed was that the team leader had already boiled her noodles. But he steeled his heart and took in the woman and child anyway. His wife had been dead for twenty years, his two daughters married off, and after enduring a bachelor's life for twenty years, his lonely rod was all dried out with thirst. While the man and woman pressed their fingerprints onto the guarantee, the team leader broke off a straw from the kang mat, picked bits of green onion and egg out from between his teeth, and stuffed them back into his mouth, which reeked of alcohol.

"Good, yet another made-to-order family! A lonely rod like you, so poor you can't even marry. And you, with your man dead, you come begging at harvesttime, and as soon as you open your mouth, the food is there. One poor devil bumps into another: a perfect match. Everywhere you go in this world, it's the same: men sleeping with women, women having kids, and all of them sticking it out together. And don't you worry about that official commune wedding certificate yet. When you're all settled down, you just ask somebody to write home for a letter of proof to make up for it."

As they were walking out the gate, the leader pressed up against his ear and added, "You can't go wrong. She's from Hejialiang, Yulin County, Shaanxi. I got Liu the schoolteacher to check the map, and it's right where you'd expect it to be. She's not going to go running off the map. So tonight you just have yourself a good time taking care of that thirst of yours, but don't get too rough or anything. There'll be plenty more nights from now on. Heh heh, some goods she's got, nice and plump; I guarantee you, you can't go wrong…"

Suddenly, a flame rose up inside him. "You fucker, what's guaranteed is that you boiled her noodles!" But even as this rage flared up, it had already passed. Say what you will, he brought you a wife you didn't have to pay a thing for. And besides, even if it wasn't the team leader who boiled them this time, you sure won't be the first-or were you still dreaming about marrying some un-plucked lily? At this point in his thoughts, he had to laugh at that indescribable flame of rage: he was just like the old toad that lusts after a swan's flesh.

As soon as he had returned to his room, he pointed out the rice, flour, oil, and salt to the woman. He showed her how to get a fire going. He shouldered a couple of pails and filled up the cistern. Then, putting down the shoulder pole, he took up his ax and headed for the woodpile. For twenty years, he had put up with fetching enough water and cutting sufficient firewood just to make do, and after marrying off his daughters, he had lost interest in the flavor of even oil and salt. But today was different: his body was suddenly flooded with a rush of energy. He had really guzzled it down with the team leader, and now as the liquor burned fiercely in his chest, he felt slightly tipsy. The ax he wielded in the yard nearly rocked the mountains and shook the earth; with each thud, pure-white wood chips burst from beneath the razor-sharp blade. The ground around him was blotted with flowery white patches, like falling snow. As he was chopping, the woman came out to collect the firewood, and when she bent over beside him, he suddenly caught a glimpse of heavy swelling breasts jiggling provocatively. It was as if she had hidden a plump goose under her dingy clothes. He clamped his lips together and laughed inwardly: Nice fat tits like those-I'll bet you could balance a couple of temple guardians on top of them!

Actually, he had seen the woman the day before, after hearing that someone had come to the village begging for food and that she was staying overnight at the team leader's house. When he went over to take a look, he was unaware that she was looking for a husband. But seeing her now was a lot different from looking at her then. Yesterday it was a matter of looking at somebody else's woman; today he was seeing his own. With these thoughts in mind, his eyes locked onto her, betraying a possessive, wanton gleam: he eyed her up and down, from in front and from behind, her head, her legs… The woman clearly felt the scorch of his gaze. Enduring it in silence, she kept at the work in her hands without pause. Now and again she raised her eyes slightly to meet his but quickly let her eyelids drop in submission. His male intuition could sense the composure of her silent yielding, her calm of having bowed to fate. And yet he felt she shouldn't be so calm. The force of this calm collided with the surging heat in his chest: this coolness of hers was too unfeminine. Still, he couldn't imagine what kind of woman she would have to be to fulfill his masculine desires. Three people who had never laid eyes on one another in their lives had abruptly been made up into a family-even an opera has to have a prelude. But this was no opera. This woman before him had long since found out what goes on between men and women, and not just eight or ten times, either-she even had a child of three or four. A penniless, lonely old rod like you, what were you thinking, anyway? The liquor was still burning in his chest, and now yet another force was churning with it. He grasped the ax firmly in his hands, relying on his masculine strength to hold down that force stirring inside him. He couldn't let the struts supporting him collapse, and he certainly couldn't lose his male strut in front of this beggar woman. As he watched the woman's outline disappear behind the door, those full breasts appeared again before his eyes; that strange thought of his, that they could balance a couple of temple guardians on top, made him laugh. You dumb fuck, so you're still picky about whether you get a fat one or a lean one. Anything that satisfies hunger is a good meal!