Gao Xingjian - One Man

With such a life they should be happy and contented. That night was sheer pleasure for him. Qian was not as passionate, as engaging, as lustful, or as beautiful as Lin, but he was embracing his own lawful wife. Indulging in this basic human pleasure, he no longer needed to be anxious or worried that the walls had ears, or be afraid of being spied on through the window. Listening to the sound of the wind and rain on the roof, he thought, in the morning when the rain stopped, he would take Qian into the mountains for an outing.

"You're just using me, this isn't love." Qian lay on the bed, expressionless, but she had said this quite clearly.

He was sitting at his desk by the window and put down his pen to turn to her. For years, he had written nothing, apart from copying Mao's Sayings for the investigation, but that was before he had fled the cadre school. They had spent most of the day walking in the mountains, but on the way back got completely soaked when it started raining. The charcoal fire was burning, and steam was coming from their wet clothes that were drying on a bamboo basket.

He got up and went over to sit on the edge of the bed. Qian was lying under the bedcovers, her eyes staring.

"What are you saying?" he said without touching her.

"You've killed me," Qian said. She remained lying on her back, not looking at him.

What she said hurt him. He didn't know how to respond and just sat there.

In the gully by the mountain, Qian was fine, she was in good spirits and started singing. They went up the slope to where the bushes were withered and no one was in sight, so he got Qian to sing as loudly as she wanted. Her clear voice swept through the gully and faint echoes were borne on the wind. The lower part of the slope was a tangled growth of grass and shrubs, and the clumps of rice stalks in the terraced paddies, still to be plowed in after harvest, made it look even more desolate. In spring, the slope would be covered in bright red azaleas, and the flowering rape in the fields would have turned into an expanse of golden yellow. But he preferred this early autumn scene of decay and desolation.

On the way back, it had started raining. By a creek, she picked some daisies that were still flowering and some dark-red branches of little-leaf box, and these were now in a bamboo penholder on the desk.

Qian was weeping wretchedly, but he couldn't work out why. When he tried to put his arms around her, she resolutely pushed him away.

In the rain, Qian's hair got wet, and rain was running down her face, but she had just put down her head and kept walking. He now wondered if she had been crying then. He had simply said don't worry, I'll light the fire when we get home, and you can warm up. He had never lived with a woman before and couldn't work out why she was throwing a tantrum like this just because she had got wet in the rain. He didn't know what to do. He thought he loved her and had done everything he possibly could for her, but maybe that was the extent of human happiness in the world.

He went out and headed for Maomei's home. Why had he gone to her house and not anywhere else? Because it was the second house into the town, it was still raining, and also because Maomei's mother said if he wanted to eat chicken she would catch one for him. Maomei's mother was in front of the house, getting some vegetables, and said she would get him an old hen right away, kill it, and have it sent over. He said there was no hurry, and that tomorrow would be fine.

When he returned home and pushed open the door, he got a shock. The wet clothes that had been drying on the basket were strewn all over the floor, and the basket had been trampled and flattened. Qian was lying in the bed, her face to the wall. He held back his anger and forced himself to sit at the desk. The rain outside the window kept falling.

With nowhere to dissipate his frustration, he immersed himself in writing and kept writing until he could no longer see and put down his pen. Maomei was at the door, calling out to him. He got to his feet and opened the door. She was holding a plucked chicken and a bowl of innards. Not wanting her to see the clothes strewn on the floor, he took the chicken and quickly went to shut the door. But Maomei had seen it and looked at him in surprise. He avoided Maomei's startled eyes, closed the door and latched it, then sat quietly by the overturned stove, looking at the glowing charcoals on the floor.

"You don't believe in God, don't believe in Buddha, don't believe in Solomon, don't believe in Allah. The totems of precivilization peoples, the religions of civilized peoples, and the even larger number of contemporary creations, like all the idols put up everywhere and the fabulous Utopias in heaven, all mysteriously make people go crazy…" This filled several pages, all written on thin letter paper purchased in the little town. Qian had read this after she had started throwing her tantrum, and it was too late to burn it.

"You are the enemy!" The woman who had slept with him in the same bed angrily spat out this sentence. The woman in front of him, hair disheveled, clad only in her underpants, stood there in her bare feet, petrified with fear.

"What are you shouting for? People will hear, have you gone mad?" He went up to her.

The woman retreated step by step. Huddled close to the wall and brushing so hard against it that bits of sand started falling off, she yelled, "You're a counterrevolutionary, a stinking counterrevolutionary!"

He felt that her last sentence was less rabid, so he said, "I'm a counterrevolutionary, a genuine counterrevolutionary! So what!" He had to keep on the attack in order to control the woman's madness.

"You deceived me, took advantage of my momentary weakness, I've fallen into your trap!"

"What trap? Talk sense. That night by the Yangtze? Or this marriage?"

He had to turn the topic to their sexual relationship to hide his inner terror, and, trying hard to sound calm, he forced himself to say, "Qian, you're talking nonsense!"

"I'm quite clear-headed, I couldn't be more so. You can't hoodwink me!"

"What are you making all this fuss about?" He suddenly got angry and went up to her.

"Do you want to kill me?" Qian asked in a strange sort of way. Probably she had seen the anger flashing in his eyes.

"Why would I want to kill you?" he asked.

"You yourself know best," the woman said quietly, holding her breath, frightened.

If the woman had again shouted he was the enemy, probably he would have killed her right then. He couldn't let her come out with those words again, he had to make the woman feel secure, trick her into bed, make a pretense of being a caring husband. He went up to her and slowly said, "Qian, what is troubling you?"

"No! Don't come near me!"

Qian picked up the chamber pot in the corner and hurled it at him. He raised his arms to fend it off, but he was soaked. The acrid smell was worse than the humiliation. He gritted his teeth and brushed off the urine streaming down his face. His lips were salty and bitter, and he spat out with unconcealed derision, "You've gone crazy!"

"You want me certified as mad, but it's not that simple!" the Woman said with a smirk. "I'm not going to let you off lightly!"

He understood what she was threatening, and, before things erupted, he had to burn up those sheets of paper on his desk. He had to bide his time and he had to restrain himself from charging at her. At that point, the urine in his hair had again reached his lips, and he spat it out in disgust but without making a move.

The woman squatted on the floor and started wailing loudly. He could not let the villagers hear her, and could not let anyone see this sight. He dragged her to her feet, twisted her arm to stop her from stamping her feet, and pushed her onto the bed. She struggled, weeping and yelling, so he grabbed a pillow and pressed it over her mouth. He thought he was in hell. This was his life, yet he was seeking to live in this hell.