Jia Pingwa - Ruined City

Zhou waited until midnight, when Tang returned, her hair a mess and torn socks on her muddy feet. She was carrying a plastic bag filled with live cicadas. “What crazy idea is it this time?” With a smile, she said she had run into a man along the moat who had followed her. She was ready to give him all her money if he came near her, but fortunately a group of people came by, and he went away. “He didn’t want your money,” he said.

“What did he want?” she asked “Any chance he could have gotten it?” She poured salt water into a basin and plunged the baby cicadas in to get rid of the muddy smell.

“Why aren’t you coming to bed?” Zhou asked.

“Go to sleep; don’t wait for me.”

“Wan’er, Wan’er.” She knew what he wanted and ignored him. She tiptoed into the bedroom once he began snoring.

The next day Zhuang and Zhong came by at the prearranged hour. Zhou Min brought out some liquor so they could drink and talk. When Zhong said they didn’t have anything to go with the liquor, Tang emerged with a smile and a plate of golden fried young cicadas, so alarming Zhuang that he covered his nose and mouth. Upset by his reaction, she said, “Isn’t this up to your standard, Zhuang Laoshi?”

“How could anyone eat this?” he said.

“They’re delicious. People in my parents’ village drool over them. I made a special trip last night to catch them in the woods by the city moat.”

“You people from southern Shaanxi will eat anything in the air but airplanes and everything on the ground but straw sandals,” Zhuang said.

“Won’t you give it a try?” she said, picking one up with three fingers and feeding it to him. An unusual fragrance filled his mouth, and the more he chewed, the better it tasted. That brought a smile to her face as she placed those three fingers in her mouth to suck on the oil. “Now you know how good they are.” She smiled and continued, “You’re always eating long noodles and cornmeal-nugget soup. I’m going to train you to be a gourmand.”

“Train. That’s a fine word,” Zhong Weixian said. “I’ve never heard of a woman training a man. I once read that a woman is like a piano, and that a good man can produce beautiful music on it, while an awful man can only pollute the air with noise.”

“That’s a good line,” she said. “But I read that a man is like a horse, and a woman is the rider who can determine whether the horse is good or bad.”

“That’s enough,” Zhou Min said. “Don’t you know who Mr. Zhong is? Why show off for him?”

“Mr. Zhong doesn’t pay my salary, so I needn’t be humble, like you.” They joked for a while before Zhong asked Zhuang if he knew the people in charge of assigning job titles at the Provincial Office.

“I do, but not well,” Zhuang said.

“As long as you know them, they’ll listen to you. I have a favor to ask. The business sections at the Department of Culture have been given two high-ranking posts for the coming round of job title assignments. But there are two editorial offices, one for Xijing Magazine and the other for Xijing Drama World . With so many editors, it’s like more wolves than meat and will end up creating rifts among the intellectuals. I wouldn’t have to ask for help if I hadn’t been condemned as a Rightist. But I wasn’t an editor during those years. I was in charge of a magazine for a while after my rehabilitation before I was removed from the position. I didn’t have anything to do for several years. Now I’ve finally been promoted to editor-in-chief, and yet the very first issue under my editorship got us in trouble. So the department has refused to give us one of the titles. I went to see them and was told that there weren’t enough. Which is why I’d like you to talk to the people in charge of the assignment and see if they could give the department one more title. I’m old and frail, and who knows how long I have. It really doesn’t matter to me if I get a high-ranking title. But it’s a government perk for intellectuals for which I’m qualified. Those people use the job title to put me down, so I plan to fight for it to show them. What do you think?”

“Of course, absolutely. If they think you’re not qualified for a high-ranking title, then why did they make you the editor-in-chief of such an important magazine? I’ll go talk to them over the next few days and see if they can give us an extra title specifically for you.”

“There’s no need for that. It’d be easier if there were just one more title. I wouldn’t complain if they acted without bias against me and the assignment committee deemed my job performance to be below their standard.”

“If you’re not up to their standard, then I’m afraid no else in the department could be.”

“I’m touched that you agree. I was worried you might laugh at me for using a back door for this.”

“Wasn’t your problem caused by my troubles?”

“Now that you mention it, I will tell you and Zhou Min something, so you can both be prepared. Li Hongwen has changed completely since we received the notice from the court about a rebuttal. Gou Dahai was the first reviewer of the article and Li the second, so now he has adopted a defeatist tone, saying we’ll definitely lose the case; he even tried to shirk responsibility by arguing that Gou Dahai said in his review that it was a great article, but he asked me to be the final reviewer since he thought it involved personal privacy. He said I confirmed in my final report that it should be the featured article because the contents were factual and the writing was elegant. In fact, Gou wrote the first review, Li wrote the second, and I wrote the final report, and we all had the same view. He showed us his copy of the report, and there was nothing in the second review column. Dahai and I suspect he forged the report. Dahai wanted to take the form to the police for authentication, but I stopped him. I told him not to bother with Li’s attempt to duck responsibility. He was the second reviewer, so how much blame can fall on him if we lose the case? As the magazine’s legal authority, I will bear the heaviest responsibility.”

“No wonder Li Hongwen was smiling when he went to greet Jing Xueyin yesterday,” Zhou said.

“A lawsuit isn’t a covert revolution, so why would he turn on good friends like that?” Zhuang said. “You never know a person’s true colors until something happens.”

Zhou Min’s face reddened when he heard Zhuang’s comment; he called out to Wan’er to make some noodles. Zhong took out his rebuttal for Zhuang to read and whispered to Zhou Min, “Do you know where I can find a rental in the city?”

“Don’t you have a place here?” Zhou asked.

“It’s not for me. I invited an old schoolmate to Xijing, someone I haven’t seen for decades. I need to find a good place. I’d like to rent it for a week or ten days.”

“Then a rental place won’t do. You’ll need to book a room in a hotel.”

“Where am I going to get that kind of money?”

Zhuang, who was listening to them as he read the rebuttal, felt his heart skip a beat, wondering if Zhong was trying to find a place for the woman in Anhui. Ah-can’s sister had forwarded three of Zhong’s letters from Suzhou, and in each one Zhong had expressed his desire for her to come visit him to fulfill their life-long dream. They’d been in love all these years, so why not spend a few days as husband and wife? After this bold request, he asked if he’d gone overboard, if he sounded unsavory. In his forged reply, Zhuang wrote that that was what “she” was thinking, what she had been hoping for, if not for the fear that she would not have a place to stay in Xijing. It had to be a secret. People approved of a young couple living together, but for older folks it would be considered an illicit affair, and no one would understand. She would come when everything was ready in Xijing.