Jia Pingwa - Ruined City

“What’s the hurry?” she said as he tried to get away. “Do you want those bugs to suck your blood dry?”

Zhuang asked her what was going on.

“It’s horrible. Xijing is on the verge of a plague. No one knows where these strange bugs came from, but the leaves on the trees to the north of the west gate have been chewed up so badly they look like nets. It’s scary the way the bugs fly around. Everyone’s saying it’s a bad sign. Shanghai is having an epidemic of hepatitis A, and the bodies are piling up. The bugs here in Xijing may be worse than hepatitis A and could take down half the population.”

Liu Yue was bitten in five spots when she went out to do the grocery shopping, so she took off her clothes to be disinfected when she came back. Standing naked before a mirror in her room, she dabbed the spots with a medicinal ointment, then rubbed her eyes without washing her hands, which stung them badly. She got dressed.

“So that’s what it is? They bit me in five spots, and I got a rash.”

“Even the bugs are drawn to Liu Yue’s tender skin,” Zhuang said.

“You get what you deserve,” Niu Yueqing said. “In order to look pretty, you walk around in a super-short miniskirt and show off your stumpy legs.”

Peeved, Liu Yue turned and went back to her room.

“Look at her,” Niu Yueqing said. “Not even a farewell fart before she left.”

“No one would like to hear what you just said,” Zhuang said before shouting in the direction of Liu’s room, “Liu Yue, use soap on the rash, that’ll stop the itch. What’s the date today? I have to remember this phenomenon. Xijing has magic sacks and supernatural covers, so how did we get these damned bugs?”

“The more you back her up, the worse I look. Is that what you want?”

Zhuang just smiled and ducked into his study. Later in the evening, the three of them sat quietly watching TV, on which the head of the city’s Sanitation Bureau showed up to talk to the residents about the bugs. It turned out that when the old houses were torn down in the lowland area, bugs that had dried up from near-starvation were released from cracks in the walls to fly around the city. They were revived once they fell on animals and humans. But the residents had no reason to panic and should ignore all rumors. The city’s Sanitation Bureau had sent out cleaning teams to fumigate the area. The pestilence would stop soon.

“So those are bedbugs.” Liu Yue heaved a long sigh. “Their bite gives you a heartache.”

“What are you talking about, Liu Yue?” Niu Yueqing asked.

“I was just saying that bites from the bugs are unnerving.”

Niu Yueqing did not respond to Liu’s comment; instead she wrinkled her nose and said, “What’s that foul smell?”

“Did Zhuang Laoshi forget to wash his feet again?” Liu said.

“It’s not from stinky feet. The bugs only bite stinky things, and your Zhuang Laoshi has no bites on his feet.”

Zhuang laughed. “Listen to you two. Where did you learn to bicker like that?”

The women laughed.

“I’m no match for Liu Yue,” Niu Yueqing said.

“You’re too modest,” Liu said. “There’s a lot I can learn from you.”

“You have no manners, and you argue with me all day long.”

“It’s no fun if we don’t argue. I wouldn’t bother if it were someone else.”

That pleased Niu Yueqing so much that she wrapped her arms around Liu and said: “We are karmic enemies.”

The phone rang. Liu Yue got up to answer, not missing a beat in her retort: “I’m not your karmic enemy. That would be Zhuang Laoshi. You have a moon [yue] in your name and so do I, but there can only be one moon in the sky, so with two moons, we can only be rivals.”

The call was from Shuangren fu. When Niu Yueqing heard that it was from her mother, she told Liu Yue, “Ask her if the bugs have gotten to her.”

“Why would I have been bitten?” she said to Liu Yue. “I knew they were bedbugs days ago, after your uncle came to tell me they would bite city folks. Do you know why there are bedbugs? Your uncle said they were wiped out decades ago because the spirits in charge protected the residents. Now all those houses are being torn down. Know who built them? The spirits. When they came to raze the houses, not a single descendant from the families offered a sacrifice to their ancestors, who could not watch over their offspring on empty stomachs. So it’s no wonder the bedbugs are biting people. Spirits of dead ancestors inhabit them, and they will suck the blood of anyone who forgets to offer a sacrifice. Was your dajie bitten? Zhuang Laoshi? The bites are from Uncle, for no one burned any spirit money for him on his birthday.”

“Are you having another episode, Granny?” Liu Yue asked. “Has this become a people city or a ghost city? How about catching one for me?”

“I can’t catch one in the daytime. Not when they’re up high in the sky. Maybe if you gave me an airplane. They’re everywhere when it’s overcast or raining, or pitch-black. People come and go in the world. None of you has ever seen your dajie’s granddad, but I saw him when I was married into the family. He looked just like your uncle, except he had a full beard. When your uncle got old and Granddad’s old friends came to visit, they all thought it was Granddad. They kept calling him Desheng, Desheng. That was his nickname. Your dajie looks just like Uncle now, a smaller version. We’re made that way, as if we came out of the same mold — the old are enlarged versions of the young, the young are shrunken copies of the old, but they all become ghosts after they die. That’s why there are so many spirits. Tell your dajie that she needs to see Uncle. When she comes back here, I’ll get him to talk to her at night.”

“I don’t want to hear any more,” Liu Yue said. “No more. I’ll call Dajie.”

Niu Yueqing took the phone.

“What are you talking about now, Mother? We’ll come see you tomorrow. Now, get a good night’s sleep.”

The old lady made a resentful noise over the phone. “So that’s how you talk to me. Let me tell you, you can come over if you want, or stay away if that’s how you feel. Your foster sister came. She’s pregnant and has morning sickness the moment she sits down. But you don’t even come to see her. She said you promised to marry Liu Yue to her son, so why has nothing been done? She came specifically for an answer.”

Niu Yueqing’s feelings were a mix of happiness and anxiety. She was happy about the cousin’s pregnancy and anxious about Liu Yue’s marriage. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow when I get there.” She hung up and asked Zhuang to come into the bedroom.

“Is Mother up to her old tricks?” Zhuang asked.

“Still the same old batty things.” Niu Yueqing laughed.

“What’s the good news? Why are you laughing like that?”

“My foster cousin came. She’s expecting.”

“She’s here again? What’s she expecting?”

“You seem to know everything under the sky when you write your novels, but in real life you’re a total idiot.”

“She’s pregnant? I told you I don’t want this.”

“You don’t want it? Don’t you think I’d rather have one myself? Let’s have one of our own if you can. Now that it’s come to this, what I want counts more than what you say.”

Zhuang got up angrily and started for the door, but she stopped him.

“There’s one more thing for you to decide. My cousin is asking about Liu Yue. They want a definitive answer.”

“When you go over tomorrow, tell Mother not to meddle and muddy the water. Liu Yue wouldn’t want to marry your cousin’s son. The other day, Zhao Jingwu came to me with a proposal; he wants to marry Liu Yue, and asked me to be the matchmaker. Wouldn’t it be better if she married him?”