Chen Xiwo: The Book of Sins

I hated it when he took me out shopping, or to the cinema. I detested sitting in tea houses, sipping all sorts of brews. I couldn’t stand going to western restaurants, hacking at a slab of steak with a fork in my left hand and a knife in my right. And he would just sit there, cold and uncaring, bragging about his qualifications. I told him he was just like Zhang Yimou. He wasn’t happy about that at all.

‘What do you mean?’ he protested. ‘He’s just a director. He’s only famous because his films get good reviews. I’ve got exams.’

He could never bear the cheating that went on in examinations. He wanted so much to believe in them, to believe he had got into medical school purely through his own talent. But it’s pathetic to take an exam, whether you cheat or not. People with real political clout never need to sit them, they make other people study hard and take the tests, they control the system.

Once he brought all his certificates along in a briefcase.

‘This is my capital,’ he said, as he showed them to me, one by one. ‘All my capital!’

I pictured him laying them out every night on the bed in his room like a winning hand of cards, then flinging himself down beside them in an ecstasy of delight. As for me, I was like a whore touting her pussy, or rather a girl trading her virginity and finding there was no one who was willing to invest.

I shoved his precious certificates away. What good were they for a headache or a sore foot? He quickly put them back in order.

‘This is science,’ he said, like a primary school kid putting on his red scarf for the first time. He knew all about science, he had all sorts of technology at his fingertips. But sometimes it seemed he didn’t really believe in it.

‘If everything goes well, I’ll get promoted soon — the first in my year to get a proper job.’

He was always very careful with his prescriptions, even lowering the dosage sometimes, thinking that the slightest mistake could ruin his career. He used to tell me that his family was different to mine.

‘My grandfather was a peasant, my father was a factory worker and now I’m an educated man,’ he said. ‘I love my job, but it wasn’t easy to get here.’

Sometimes I prayed he would screw up and prescribe poison. He’d be destroyed — it wouldn’t do him any good loving his job then. But every time he wrote out a script, he’d tilt up the pad and check it over. He even shredded his old pads. I could never get hold of one.

My mum knew I was up to something, even though I never breathed a word. She must have figured my pain would lead me to do something stupid. After my dad died, our home crumbled, leaving my mother pitiably, ridiculously, alone, a pillar left standing in the ruins of the Summer Palace. She worried about me more and more. Every time I cried out ‘It hurts!’ she’d snap back ‘Why are you wailing like that?’ My illness scared her. It was as if I was a ghost howling at her. Howling at the whole world.

The doctors all knew about the famous clinician’s daughter who had this terrible illness. Did doctors pass down disease to their children, they wondered. But no one lifted a finger to help me.

Mum would tell me how her generation had lived — putting things to rights after the Cultural Revolution, the Reform and Opening Up period, respecting education, developing the economy, the fight against corruption, the progress towards a glorious future.

‘Your generation is so lucky, what more do you want? You just don’t know how lucky you are … ’

But the word ‘glorious’ was like hitting a gleaming pane of reinforced glass — I was in more pain than ever.

‘What more do I want? I want to be happy!’ I shouted. ‘You think I’m really happy? I’m in pain, I’ve been in pain ever since I was born! You shouldn’t have had me if you couldn’t give me happiness. Why shouldn’t I go and look for happiness myself?’

‘Of course there’s still a dark side to society,’ she admitted. It was something she would never have said before. ‘There are people out there who who pretend they know just what you’re going through, but actually they’re just trying to get you on to their side. The dark side of society,’ she continued, whispering now, ‘comes from the speed at which society is developing, a speed which has produced psychological disorders in some people. It’s a problem we will have to face …’

So it was just psychological? Hadn’t she seen me sick for the last 20 years? She was behaving like some big doctor, more doctorly than any doctor, brandishing her miracle cure. No. It wasn’t true. I didn’t have a psychological disorder. I was just in pain. It had nothing to do with the dark side of society. I was just in pain. Pain. Pure pain!

I hated the way no one would really treat my illness. I hated the strange way my mother wanted to deal with it instead. I hated her logic. She was so complacent.

‘So how come all you did was cry when dad was sick?’ I asked. ‘Why did you let him die in so much pain?’

‘You think you’re the only one in pain?’ my mother howled back. ‘I hurt all over too! I’ve had all sorts of gynaecological problems. Eroded cervix, inflamed pelvis, obstructed fallopian tubes. None of it’s ever cleared up. I don’t go around shouting about that, do I? No one should ever expect to be completely well!’

I looked at her in astonishment. She was drowning in her own despair. I burst into floods of tears, crying like a helpless baby.

‘A girl shouldn’t let people think she’s too easy!’ my mother yelled.

‘Easy?’ So she was calling me a whore. I ran out of the house.

It was a moonless night. As I walked down the street a car alarm went off and the neighbours poked their heads out between the bars of their security grilles — frightened birds shut away in their luxurious cages. Every possession was guarded by alarms, defended by metal bars with reinforced, galvanised, stainless steel tubing, protected by lock after lock as if otherwise it would just fly away. A locksmith society. A society where prescription medicines had given way to quack remedies. A society where all our troubles would be solved by city-building, share-trading, property-holding, piano-playing, English classes, Peking opera classes, the internet economy and the virtual world. But it had nothing to do with me. I was a whore.

I went to the hospital accommodation block and knocked at his door. The assistant opened the door and I collapsed at his feet. He picked me up and panicked and pulled me inside.

‘I’m in pain!’ I cried.

‘Where?’

‘Everywhere!’

Of course, I wasn’t in any pain at all. I was just making it up.

Now I was pretending, I could see pain was nothing to fear. I was writing pain on to my body as if I was writing it on to a piece of paper. I struggled and yelled so skilfully that it was more convincing than the real thing.

‘Please! Stop screaming!’ he begged. ‘Someone’ll hear!’

He was starting to sweat. I carried on screaming.

‘I’m begging you! Stop screaming! I’ll go and get you some medicine.’

‘Medicine! It doesn’t do any good! I’ve had this all my life!’

‘OK … then I’ll tell your mother.’

‘Don’t you dare tell my mum. I’ll die right here in your room!’

He went pale.

‘So what do we do?’

‘Give me some pethidine!’

It was as if my father was talking. His stern, commanding tones rang out, pronouncing the name of that blessed, addictive drug that allowed people to live and die with dignity. The assistant grew paler still.

‘But that’s a controlled drug!’

‘Give me some pethidine!’

The three syllables landed like blows from a whip.

‘Stop saying that!’ He didn’t care if anyone thought he was up to no good with a woman in his room, so long as they didn’t hear us talking about pethidine.