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

Pothook was the only individual who drank every day and could afford to do it. His younger brother, Panhook, a ranking official in their native province, sent him twenty or thirty yuan every month-he spent it on drink.

Pothook was not one to eat anything with his wine, which he drank warm. He had a unique method for warming his wine: he made a little pocket in the crotch of his pants, where he tucked away the wine bottle after every couple of swigs.

Pothook liked to share his wine. "Come on, take a fucking swig for your grandpa here." He'd then suck in his breath, making a hollow in his wrinkled belly so he could reach down into his crotch to bring out the bottle. It would be nice and warm. Besides the smell of wine, the bottle carried other odors, rank enough that some refused the offer. But others, less fastidious, hoisted the bottle like a bugle and- glug glug -took a healthy swig. Pothook, his eyes crinkled in a smile, would cock his head to watch, his mouth opening and closing as if the liquid were pouring down his own throat.

As soon as Pothook was drunk, he staggered off toward the graveyard, muttering the same two lines from a folk song:

When I think of you in the daytime, I climb the wall to you; When I think of you late at night, there's nothing I can do.

Once he reached the graveyard, he lay spreadeagled atop a large stone to sleep it off. Weather permitting, he would strip naked, exposing his skin to ants and an assortment of bugs.

"Go on, go down to the graveyard, and carry Grandpa Pothook back. We can't let him catch cold," one of the older generation would say to one of the younger ones, who would take four or five friends along.

When he had sobered up a bit, they would start teasing him: "Do the tiger hop for us, Grandpa Pothook!"

And he'd reply, "I'm too old for that sort of stuff."

"You're not too old," they would say as they wove a tail out of tall grass.

Pothook would hold the rope in the crack of his ass and begin hopping all over the place. Instead of falling out, the tail would smack loudly against the scrawny thing hanging between his legs. That had everybody in stitches.

Now they were carrying him back once again, but this time Grandpa Pothook uttered only a single comment before passing out for the last time: "Bury me in Widow Three's grave."

Never expecting him to say something like this, everyone who heard him stared blankly into space.

Translated By Howard Goldblatt

When Old Mu Xi woke up, he found himself lying on a small wooden boat afloat on a pitch-dark river. The silent river was very dirty and so wide that he couldn't see the banks. Nor were there any other boats in sight. The setting sun declined in the extreme west like a tiny red button falling into the black waters of eternity.

Old Mu Xi sat up and stretched, remembering he once had looked forward to this day for a long time, and now it had come, yet in the interim he had managed to forget about it. He looked around and found that the river was not flowing and his little boat was motionless. Furthermore, the boat had no oar on board. Once in a while, a breath of ill wind from nowhere dusted his face as lightly as if it were both there and not there. The little boat would move some distance in the breeze before stopping again. Old Mu Xi thought to himself, Turns out there's not much going on here.

Suddenly out of nowhere, a faint call could be heard: "Old Mu… Xi! Old…"

Old Mu Xi gasped and was dumbstruck, yet the call resounded in his ear. As he heard that baleful voice, his vision began to blur, and his whole body became extremely old and feeble. He struggled, trying for the last time to pronounce a syllable: "Zhuo," he said, then dropped to the deck of the little boat like a piece of firewood, his glazed eyes turned up to the gray-black sky. He was sinking back into memory.

More than a decade before, Old Mu Xi had inherited a sum of money, which he and a friend used for investments. Together, they bought a piece of uncultivated land, where they decided to grow corn. They set to work immediately, but the heavens seemed to be against them. Four years running, they harvested almost nothing because of bad weather. Mu Xi and his friend encouraged each other and continued to work hard. Finally in the fifth year, they were rewarded with a bumper crop. Just before the harvest, Old Mu Xi's friend suddenly suggested a distribution plan, insisting he should get three-fourths of the crop. He also criticized Old Mu Xi for his lazy way of working. He even hinted that the money Mu Xi had used to buy the land came from questionable sources.

All of this struck like a lightning bolt. During the ensuing quarrel, all the villagers took the side of Mu Xi's friend. Old Mu Xi knew that the villagers sided with his partner because he himself was a widower and without family. In the countryside, a widower was an ill-fated figure. Ultimately, Old Mu Xi watched his friend claim all of the harvest and also threaten Mu Xi not to get close to this piece of land-since the harvest belonged to him, the land naturally was his also. All the villagers supported Old Mu Xi's friend.

After several sleepless nights, Old Mu Xi killed his friend with a sickle and began his prolonged life as a fugitive.

He always chose to travel on mountain paths, especially those that ran through dense, primitive forests. He was not afraid of losing his way. As a matter of fact, so much the better if he lost his way, because then nobody could find him. Over several months of rain and wind, he gradually developed a pair of iron soles and an animal's stomach-now he could survive by eating leaves. During that period, the shadow of horror forever hung over him, forcing him to flee frantically. Surprisingly, the animals in the forests never harmed him. Instead, they all went their own way and coexisted without any trouble.

One evening when he had just emerged from a forest, he vaguely heard a gong. He thought it was sounded by people trying to catch him, so he quickly hid in the bushes. The people passed him by, however, laughing and talking. They turned out to be a troupe of acrobats traveling by night.

Perhaps people had already forgotten about the murder he had committed. Perhaps nobody in the village had ever thought of either reporting or capturing him. Perhaps the mountain forest he was in at the moment was far, far away from his hometown. It could be anything. But not once had Old Mu Xi pondered these possibilities. He considered what he had done to be so serious that he didn't believe there could be any pardon. Holding such a belief, he walked hurriedly through the bushes, his body scratched bloody. This character trait was destructive, driving Old Mu Xi to hide out and separate himself from other people.

Several years of dining on the wind and drinking the morning dew passed. Long thick hair grew on Old Mu Xi's body. His clothes had been worn out for some time, and long brown hair sneaked its way out through the holes. One day when he was taking a bath in the river, he was startled to see the reflection of his body. After careful thought, he felt greatly relieved: from then on, he no longer wore clothes. When he met up with people, he didn't feel so frightened because he figured nobody could recognize him. But in his stubborn mind, he refused to accept the possibility that he might get away with his crime. By now, he had become set in this way of thinking.

Life in the forest was extremely monotonous. He couldn't get used to eating meat, particularly raw meat, so he never caught small animals. His daily task was to find tender tree leaves to eat, and he disliked staying in one place-his imagination needed constant refreshing-so he was constantly on the move, picking leaves along the way to keep up his strength. He frequently encountered people as he went; without exception, they screamed and ran away, and at that moment he would feel an unreasonable satisfaction.