Xiaobin Xu - Crystal Wedding

Actually, it all went unexpectedly smoothly and when she had written the synopsis and completed her first draft, she printed one copy for Qiang and one copy for his deputy, Zhi. Some weeks later, at the first discussion meeting, Zhi jumped in with a list of criticisms, thirteen of them, before Qiang could speak. The first criticism carried most weight, and it was this: it would be quite reprehensible for a highly reputable production company like theirs to make a film about the dark underbelly of society.

Instinctively, Tianyi looked at Qiang. Quite obviously, since this topic had met with Qiang’s approval, Zhi’s criticism meant one of two things. Either he was getting at Qiang, or the latter was too embarrassed to say anything and Zhi had to play the bad guy. Qiang still said nothing and sat there leafing through the photocopy of the screen play she had given him, as if he was deaf. She understood.

Zhi had started his career as a secretary, and was adept at divining the boss’s intentions. He made it his business to get on well with his superiors, especially his immediate line manager. He was also at an age when he could hope for promotion, so there was no way he was going to jump out of line and offend Qiang. He must have got Qiang’s approval before speaking out. He might even have discussed it with him.

Tianyi was devastated. Until now she had been ambivalent about Qiang, but from now on, she was finished with him! She did not even hate him anymore. Hate meant that she still had feelings for him, but now she just despised him. She felt suddenly liberated.

She stood up to speak, a mocking smile on her lips. She spoke to Zhi but her remarks were clearly intended for Qiang: ‘I’m not as well as educated as you are, and I don’t think I understand,’ she began. ‘As you well know, this theme was our manager’s personal choice. The detailed synopsis got the nod from the company director, Mr Feng, himself. How come it’s suddenly become “reprehensible to film the dark underbelly of society”? If that’s what you’re saying, where does that leave the director and Qiang?’ Zhi was taken aback. The arts department staff had always been so amenable, he had not expected this pugnacious reaction. She had backed him into a corner! He looked uneasily at Qiang, and Tianyi, seeing the glance, was even more convinced that the two of them had been in cahoots with these thirteen criticisms. Qiang looked up, and swept Tianyi with his dignified gaze. ‘All screenplays come out different from the synopsis. I’d strongly advise you to pay serious attention to this feedback,’ he said. The old Tianyi would have flushed in consternation at this, which was no doubt what Qiang anticipated. Her haughty response must have surprised him: ‘Excuse me! I am not in the habit of re-writing!’ He was outraged. He was suddenly reminded of the Old City fiasco. This woman jinxed everything she touched. Resentments, old and new, rushed to the surface and he leapt to his feet, banging the table: ‘That’s enough from you, Yang Tianyi!’

There was shock at his enraged outburst. All the staff, from senior women to young girls, crowded around the doorway of Qiang’s office, craning their necks to see what was going on. They heard the urbane Qiang bang the table again and shout: ‘Let me make myself clear, Yang Tianyi! We make mass-market films these days, it’s fast-food culture, for ordinary people to watch! So don’t come to me with your highbrow ideas. No one’s going to watch a film like the one you’ve written!’ The staff were thrilled to hear Tianyi roundly condemned. You asked for that, Tianyi! That’s what you get for your smug hoity-toity attitudes! We’ve had enough of being treated like ignorant yokels by Madam Highbrow!

But if they were hoping to hear Tianyi break down in tears, or even choke back a sob, they were disappointed. Tianyi startled them with her response. Quite calmly, she took back the two copies of the screenplay and, looking coldly at Qiang, said: ‘You’re a nasty little man and I despise you.’ Then she turned on her heel and left.

A deathly stillness fell. The Arts Department staff were like an audience that needed time to absorb a highly significant play before bursting into applause. The trouble was that they did not know whom to applaud.

T ianyi went home from her confrontation with Qiang to be met by a long-faced Lian. He waved Niuniu’s exercise book in her face and shouted: ‘Just take a look at this! Look! Am I a single parent? I’m so busy and you pay absolutely no attention to Niuniu … Do you know what your precious son has been doing? He’s been skipping school, that’s what! Skipping school and going to internet cafes! He’s spent the last forty-eight hours in one!’

Tianyi stared at Lian appalled. She could not think of anything to say. As Lian carried on shouting, she could not help thinking that she had come home from being yelled at at work to more yelling at home. Really! Chinese men! She found it rather funny, and started to laugh but that just made Lian angrier. ‘Just what are you laughing at?’ he demanded. ‘Just tell me this: are you the slightest bit bothered about it?’ Of course, the situation was serious, and it suddenly occurred to Tianyi to ask, if Niuniu had been in an internet café for two days on the trot, where had he got the money from? Lian did not appear to have thought of that: ‘Well, I thought you’d given it to him!’ Tianyi went through her bag, and discovered she was three hundred yuan short. She had never bothered to keep tabs on how much money she carried around in her bag, but as it happened, she had received some prize money just two days ago and knew she had not spent any of it.

Her heart sank like a stone. Her ten-year-old son was a thief! That was a terrible thing to call someone, but as she had always been careless of her money, it was very possibly not the first time he had done it. And she had just let things slip and not discovered it.

Lian hauled his sleeping son out of bed, and dragged him by the ear into the hallway. Niuniu stood the way he always did before his father, feet together, head lowered, ready to receive his punishment. Lian was unmoved. He bellowed with rage at the boy, then began to pummel him with his fists. This was the umpteenth time Tianyi had seen Lian beat up his son and she felt too drained to react. Lian’s temper had been getting worse and worse. When things went badly at work, a man could bring his bad temper back home to inflict on his family, but what could a woman do in the same situation? Tianyi felt like crying but found she had no tears. Something seemed to be blocking up her insides, something that would not come up, or go down. How much more would she have to put up with?

Niuniu finally admitted that he had stolen his mother’s money, a bit at a time, more than 3,000 yuan in total. His visits to the neighbourhood internet cafes were not just occasional, he haunted them. But his mother had been the last to know. This was Tianyi’s biggest crime in Lian’s eyes. ‘What kind of mother are you?’ he accused her. ‘Have you ever taken responsibility for your son? Or for the family?’

Having finished with Niuniu, Lian gave Tianyi a vicious tongue-lashing. When he was in a rage, he was terrifying. His eyes paled to yellowish-brown, and his mouth gaped as if he was going to devour them both. Tianyi looked at him and thought how capricious the human face was: when he and she were dating, his face had been soft and gentle, and now it had turned so ugly. The most dignified and cultured of men could turn into anything, once the mask slipped. It made her suspicious of the very nature of marriage.

Tianyi did not know what to say in the face of Lian’s accusations. She stared at him vacantly until finally he ran out of energy, went back to the bedroom and slammed the door hard. Then she heated some water, had a wash, and got under the covers in her little cubbyhole of a study. An odd smell emanated from the quilt, too much oestrogen, the smell of a woman who had not been with a man for a very long time. She and Lian had not had sex for two whole years. Just the thought made her groin suddenly burn. Flushed and restless, she got up and took two sleeping pills, then went back to bed again. She thought of the screenplay she had spent three months writing, shot down in an instant by her boss. She thought of the despicable features of the firing squad, of her impotent husband and her thieving son, and wondered what on earth the next decades would bring. Finally, the tears came. Once they started, the trickle became a torrent, and she could not stop. She felt that one of these days, she would simply keel over for good. The thought, strangely, did not frighten her. It almost brought her relief.