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

Old Mu Xi watched their backs with contempt, emitting one drawn-out syllable: "Zhuo!" The sound stirred up a frenzy in his heart.

Old Mu Xi was still troubled by his shadowy memories, which revealed themselves in dreams at night; his dreams were endless torture. Old Mu Xi's experiences removed the fear of being suspended in midair. What he really feared was the feeling that he was confronting the shadowy human world like a criminal facing execution. There emerged in his vague, groundless memory, for no specific reason, the image of a river. He recalled that its water could completely cut off people's memories of the world. With this vague thought taking hold in his mind, Old Mu Xi set out to find that river.

Many years passed, quite a few, actually. Old Mu Xi had crossed innumerable mountains. Whenever he arrived at a mountain, he would climb to the top to look around. He had seen all kinds of rivers, each one different. Yet none was the one he was looking for, not at all. From the riverbanks came the faint call: "Old Mu Xi! Old Mu Xi…" More and more, the sound revealed its ominous meaning and seemed to hang in the air forever. Old Mu Xi wrinkled his brow and felt discouraged. He hated that sound.

He didn't know when he began to realize that his health was deteriorating. His appetite was decreasing. Sometimes he wouldn't eat a single leaf all day long, yet he walked without pause, looking more and more determined. His weakened condition lasted for a long time. Then one day, he saw his reflection in a forest creek. It looked like a ghost. The part below his skull had nearly disappeared, leaving only a few thin sticks, a rectangular box, and something lumpy. Long hair grew over the thin sticks, the box, and the lumps. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see more clearly. Obviously, his constitution could no longer stand the enormous exhaustion of his nights. He was disappearing. Then he heard shouting from far outside the forest. For him, the ominous shouts were full of foreboding. He couldn't endure it, so he covered his ears.

That morning when the frost settled over the forest, Old Mu Xi lay down inside a hole in a tree. He plugged his ears with his fingers because the unbearable sound came from afar on the wind. He lay wide-eyed in the darkness, which smelled of decayed wood. He gurgled softly as if groaning, as if complaining. He rolled over and looked out at the white frost on the ground and at little animals searching for food.

It was broad daylight. A beam of light entered the hole. Old Mu Xi could see his own body. It was about to disappear completely. His fingers and toes had become thin as matchsticks and black as the tree's moldy bark.

He began to question whether there really was a river that could erase memories, because his memory of the river was itself unreliable. Finally, he truly felt there wouldn't be any miracle. He closed his eyes and waited in terror for that final emptiness to arrive. He did not forget to plug his ears with his matchstick fingers-in fact, he couldn't forget anything at all. For the first time in his life, he fell asleep in broad daylight. In his dream, he hummed. Outside the hole, there blew a gust of frosty wind.

Old Mu Xi entered the dreamland mentioned earlier. And that dreamland led to all that was written afterward.

Translated By Jian Zhang And Ronald R. Janssen

Standing quietly at the far end of time, Great-Grandmother has transcended the meaning of life. Her life encompasses an entire century of history. She is silent year-round. During that weak and quiet century, my grandfather's generation all passed away, leaving only the old lady to look down from across the generation gap at her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Her eyes are white with cataracts, which allow her to look down, beyond all human limits, shrinking the vastness and boundlessness of the universe while displaying the same immemorial and profound qualities of matter itself. To this day, Great-Grandmother has maintained the customs and attitudes of the Late Qing dynasty. Great-Grandmother does not bathe. All year-round, the smells of a coffin and coffin nails hover over her. Great-Grandmother does not brush her teeth. Great-Grandmother does not believe in airplanes. Great-Grandmother does not watch television. Great-Grandmother understands nothing but her hometown dialect, not even the Mandarin radio broadcasts.

Great-Grandmother spends every morning at her toilet. She has begun every morning for the last hundred years with the same ritual-fixing her hair in the Qing-dynasty style. Afterward, she sits up straight without saying a word, spending hours measuring up whatever she first lays eyes on. The old woman's way of sizing up things is like philosophical speculation-she looks but does not see, what appears true is false, and any historical conclusion is always shrouded in the mists of ambiguity. Each winter, Great-Grandmother sits in the sunshine, which seems incapable of penetrating her and instead merely casts a shadow behind her. That is the image-carved in wood-I had of my great-grandmother from ten years ago. Ten years ago, on the morning I left to study in Beijing, I looked back at Great-Grandmother's garret. She was already up and standing at her window, time covering her cheeks with a network of wrinkles. She stood as tranquilly as a piece of antique porcelain, all the tiny cracks displaying an archaeological significance. I knew she couldn't see, but I waved to her anyway. I suspected I would never see her again, and I felt very sad. Ten years later, she was still there, as tranquil as an antique, standing at the window. This time, I was the father of a son, and I could see the ravages wrought by those ten years. Great-Grandmother didn't move, as if the only thing that had happened in the last ten years were that another layer of dust was added to the antique porcelain.

I returned home with my wife and son after receiving Father's urgent telegram. My home is situated at the far end of a long, dark alleyway in a dusty gray town. To get there, you must make five turns and pass by ten thresholds. There is a dark, dank passageway, above which sits the wooden garret where my great-grandmother lives.

The space inside Great-Grandmother's garret forms a separate universe, a dark, enigmatic corner of my home. No one is permitted to enter. I remember hearing Great-Grandmother say when I was small, "Don't even think about coming in, not unless I'm dead." In those days, my father would say, "What's all this talk of death? We won't come in; nobody is thinking of entering."

Returning home this time, I noticed a number of major changes. The place was a mess and in decay; things had been torn down and removed from the house. After making only the third turn, I saw that the neighbor on the other side of our western wall had cleared out; the only remaining traces were some bricks and a few pieces of wood. And those ancient remains formed a very modern flat composition. To one side, Great-Grandmother's garret stood all alone, looking forlorn and helpless, making one think of a wooden coffin hanging on a precipice.

In the evening when the maid was helping her down the stairs to dinner, I walked up and called loudly to her, "Great-Grandmother."

Her eyes fixed on me, and after a long pause she said, "I heard your footsteps this afternoon."

I let my wife greet Great-Grandmother. Clutching our son, she stood nervously, if not fearfully, before Great-Grandmother. For a moment, I didn't know what my son should call my great-grandmother. Since he could not speak yet, I could address her for him only as Old Ancestor. Great-Grandmother stood in front of my son for a long time. She felt around inside his diaper, then she smiled. When she smiled, it was like an irregular chink that had opened in parched ground. I knew she must have touched his little penis. She drew back her hands, spit on her fingers, and pressed them between my son's eyebrows. My son cried. Irrelevantly, Great-Grandmother shouted "Old Ancestor" at him. I thought she had made a mistake, but I was incapable of deciphering the mystery and the profundity of her universe.