Jia Pingwa - Ruined City

Zhuang told his wife that he didn’t want to go anywhere over this holiday and that she should decline all the invitations by phone the next day, telling everyone that he had left on a long trip. By the time the fourteenth rolled around, he regretted turning down Ruan’s invitation. So he wrote out a shopping list for Liu Yue to buy some gifts for his friends.

“Dajie already told them you’re away and can’t make it back on time,” Liu Yue said. “If you send gifts now, they’ll be upset that you can’t be bothered to join them when you’re right here in Xijing.”

“Just tell them it was Dajie’s idea.”

Liu read the list: for Ruan Zhifei, one cattie of Dragonwell tea and some spring liquor from Jiannan; for Gong Jingyuan, a bottle of Shaoxing liquor, three catties of slow-cooked mutton, and a carton of State Express cigarettes; for Wang Ximian, a jar of Nescafé, a can of Coffeemate, a pack of chewing gum, and a box of Winfong cosmetic products. “Except for Wang Ximian,” she said, “they’re all edibles. Why cosmetics for him?”

“Why can’t men use cosmetics? You haven’t seen enough of the world, so you think that’s strange.”

“You’re right. I’ve seen so little that everything is strange to me. That pockmarked face of Wang’s does need some powder to smooth it over. I just thought you seem to worry about too many things.”

“Don’t be petty. Haven’t you gotten enough from me? Go deliver the gifts and then come right back. Oh, and buy a stack of hemp paper to burn for Zhong Weixian tonight.”

A feeling of sadness rose up in Zhuang; the mention of Zhong reminded him of Ah-lan, then Ah-can. If only he had a gift… He sighed, lowered his head, and went to read in his study. A while later, Zhou Min, Li Hongwen, and Gou Dahai came by with five lawyers. The court had summoned Jing Xueyin and Zhou Min. Sima Gong had not let on whether or not there would be a second round of arguments, but Zhou Min was uneasy, so he brought the lawyers over to strategize about the second court session. The other side had raised some issues that had not been examined during the first session. They tossed around a number of possible responses but had not yet reached a consensus when Liu Yue returned. After greeting everyone, she brought out a teapot and added tea, then leaned up against the door and waved at Zhuang. He was reading a guide to nonfiction writing that some friends had provided. He got up, went over, and asked in a low voice, “Is everything all right? Did you deliver the gifts?”

She backed into another room. “Yes. Some even returned the favor.” She took out a pastel yellow scarf and a small pipe. “This is for Dajie, and the pipe is for you. I don’t understand why they gave you this since you smoke cigarettes, not a pipe.”

“Really?” He put the pipe in his mouth and puffed on it until his mouth filled with saliva. “I can’t smoke it like this. Tomorrow go out and buy some tobacco. I’ll smoke this from now on.”

“Now I see,” Liu Yue said. “I was so stupid.”

“What do you see?”

“When you smoke a pipe, it’s kissing you the whole time.”

“Ah, Liu Yue, I see I hired a little fox fairy, not a maid. Why don’t you keep the scarf for yourself? It’ll come in handy in the winter.” He started to walk away.

“Don’t you want to know who it’s from?” she asked him.

He just smiled and went out to talk to the lawyers.

When Niu Yueqing came home from work, she invited them all to stay for dinner. She and Liu Yue went out to buy dumplings. They ate and talked and finally reached an agreement. As they were leaving, Niu Yueqing gave each of them a pack of moon cakes she had just bought, while Zhuang suggested that they all go burn paper money for Zhong Weixian. They went out onto the street to do so and then left.

“I’m sure you didn’t buy that many moon cakes, Shimu.” Zhou Min handed his back to Niu Yueqing. “And you’ve given them all away. We have some at home, so why don’t you keep these for yourselves?”

“The others all took theirs, so you have to take yours,” she said. “It’s not a big deal. A few moon cakes can’t cost as much as several meals, can they?”

“It’s the Mid-Autumn Festival, and we should have invited people to a celebration. So go ahead and take them,” Zhuang joined in.

Liu Yue handed the bag back to Zhou Min. “Take it. It’s an order from Zhuang Laoshi. If you don’t want them, maybe Wan’er would like them.” He walked off with the bag. As they watched him recede into the distance, Niu Yueqing said, “Zhou Min just told me that since Mr. Zhong’s death, Li Hongwen is fearful he’ll be held responsible for things, so the magazine is rudderless. You’ll definitely have to show up if there’s a second court session.”

“Let’s worry about that later,” he said and walked home.

Over the days that followed, Zhuang stayed home and read instead of writing a new rebuttal. The festival passed with no festivities, so Niu Yueqing and Liu Yue, who wanted some excitement, decided to go see the chrysanthemum show at Xingqinggong Park. After they returned, she phoned Meng Yunfang and invited him over. He spent the rest of the day there, while Niu Yueqing and Liu Yue went to Shuangren fu. Meng had a suggestion for Zhuang: Since the case was not going to be resolved any time soon, constantly living on pins and needles served no one. He would organize a literary salon at the House of Imperfection Seekers, and Zhuang would be the speaker. Zhuang replied that he didn’t feel like it, that everything seemed to have lost meaning after Zhong’s death.

“Others can say that, but not you,” Meng said. “What a pity for someone of your status to be so passive and negative.”

With his head in his hands, Zhuang said that he had indeed fared better than many other people, but in name only. Now that he was living a different life, why not keep at it? It was no small feat to find a place like the House of Imperfection Seekers in Xijing, and he wouldn’t mind joining them if Meng had friends over, but he had nothing to share and would not be a good speaker. Meng encouraged him to at least show up at the gatherings.

He invited some people who were into metaphysics to talk about qigong, but not only were their friends puzzled, they thought the speakers were strange, that they must suffer from some sort of mental disorder and lived with a different mindset, which was why they could produce qi to cure illness and predict the future. Zhuang’s circle of friends decided to let them keep talking, for it was amusing, if nothing else. One day, Meng invited another “guru,” a man who claimed to belong to the Mount Tian School. He opened with a self-deprecating remark about his inferior powers. According to him, his master, who was 125 years old, could rise up with the wind and travel under the ground. After looking at Xijing from a distance one day, his master concluded that the one-time capital should be a site with a denser concentration of unusual talent, but there was too much yin circling the city, making it impossible to see if that could be so. So the guru was sent by his master to check out the place. After his arrival, he met all sorts of people, including Master Zhixiang at the Yunhuang Temple, but that only made him lament the fact that true masters, like his, had yet to descend to the mundane world. Someone asked him to share his views about the future world. That spurred him into a seemingly endless monologue: how the universe had started; how the sun and moon were formed; Darwin’s theory of evolution; the idea of being one with nature promoted by Laozi and Zhuangzi; the mystery of the Egyptian pyramids; the riddles in the rock paintings on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau; the effects of the moon’s phases on ocean tides; the impact of the tides on women’s menstruation; how the man from Qi worried that the sky would fall, something that had already happened once; and how Mao Zedong practiced qigong, which was why he could make a million Red Guards cry with a wave of his hand at Tiananmen Square.