Jia Pingwa - Ruined City

Niu Yueqing was so furious that she went to her bedroom and let out a scream.

After a restless night, the three of them woke up with puffy eyes. Liu Yue made breakfast and brought it out; Zhuang slurped away while Niu Yueqing refused to eat. “Eat something,” Zhuang said, “so you’ll have enough energy to fight with me.”

“You clam up when you should be talking, Zhuang Laoshi,” Liu Yue said, “and you say all these clever things when you should be keeping your mouth shut.”

“It’s all your fault, Liu Yue. You told Dajie that Tang Wan’er and I have something going on.” He winked her.

“Impossible. I just said you and Tang Wan’er were waiting for me at City Hall. What’s wrong with that? Just tell her what you were talking about while you waited.”

“We were just chatting. How can I remember any of that? Oh, now I see — I need to carry a tape recorder with me.”

Niu Yueqing heard every word of the exchange, but she didn’t say a thing.

“Eat something,” Zhuang said to her. “After breakfast, go to the mayor’s house with Liu Yue. We have important matters to attend to. Tell the mayor’s wife about the lawsuit, and ask the mayor to see the secretary for the Committee on Politics and the Law and the chief judge. This has to be done as soon as possible, since it will take the mayor a couple of days. Time is running out. We mustn’t delay.”

“You want me to talk to the mayor’s wife?” Niu Yueqing finally spoke up. “So you need me now?”

“It’s easier when a woman is talking to another woman.”

“I won’t do it. You love Jing Xueyin, you love women. So why should you be afraid of lawsuits? A lawsuit over a sex scandal, it sounds so nice. Didn’t you always say you would rather die at the hands of a woman, since you’d become a romantic ghost? It would surely be romantic if the court sentenced you to death. So why would I want to talk to her? If I try to cover things up when my own husband’s affair is exposed, what kind of woman does that make me? Am I that worthless, that stupid?”

Zhuang silently listened as she continued to rant about the same thing. “Are you finished?” he asked as she fumed.

“You think you’re in the right, so explain yourself,” she said.

“You don’t want to go see the mayor, and I’m not going to go. You say Tang Wan’er and I are seeing each other, so you can fantasize about how close we are. Well, I don’t care. You can call Zhou Min again, even start an investigation with him.” He walked out, but immediately returned to pick up his cigarettes.

Niu Yueqing did not go to work that day. She stayed home and cried her heart out until her hands and feet went cold. Liu Yue tried to talk her around but earned a scolding, so she sat in the study, where she stared blankly at the traffic outside. For over an hour, the junkman shouted, “Junkman — collecting junk — junk — I buy junk.” It was annoying beyond words, and someone in the next unit threw open the window and shouted, “Hey, you, junkman.” He looked up and said, “Over here. You’ve got junk?”

“Fuck you!”

Unperturbed, the old man pulled his cart along and sang another of his ditties:

First-rate writers enter politics

ink up with officials and become their aides .

Second-rate writers switch fields

they write ads instead of tirades .

Third-rate writers join the underworld

reprinting porn for accolades .

Fourth-rate writers sit down to write

going hungry, their good name made .

Fifth-rate writers fall on hard times

screwing themselves in a quest delayed .

. . .

Niu Yueqing and Liu Yue went to the mayor’s house that afternoon. He was busy with meetings, so his wife and son gave them a warm welcome before proposing that the wedding ceremony be held a month from that day. “Liu Yue will no longer be a guest here, but a host to Madam, our matchmaker.” The comment brought a smile to Niu Yueqing’s face. “Liu Yue’s parents aren’t here, so you’ll be her family, since you’ve been so nice to her.” The mayor’s wife continued, “On the wedding day, the bride’s family will have to follow the custom of providing a dowry, and we will send a car to pick her up at your house.” The mention of a dowry concerned Niu Yueqing, who nonetheless kept smiling and said that was the way it should be done. The mayor’s wife smiled happily and said, “But it shouldn’t be. People would laugh at us if you spent money on her after you’ve made such a wonderful match. You don’t have to spend a cent on the dowry. Dazheng will have everything delivered to your house in advance, to be brought over properly on the wedding day.”

Niu Yueqing cried out cheerfully, “Ai-ya! We would never marry her off empty-handed, whether Dazheng sends the dowry over beforehand or not. But since you’re being so considerate in order to make us look good, Zhidie and I would be happy to be her family forever.” The two women continued their conversation as in-laws, chatting about things that concerned women: furniture styles and colors, which relatives and friends to invite, the location and cost of the banquet, who should be the bridesmaids, who should serve as the master of ceremonies and the witness, and so on. That went on for most of the afternoon, until Niu Yueqing took a moment to broach the main purpose of her visit. Trying to remain casual, she gave a detailed account of the origin of the lawsuit and related the suffering brought on by the case, before repeatedly stressing that they were coming to the mayor for help because they were simply at their wits’ end. She talked fast without looking at the mayor’s wife, but when she was done, she thought she might have sounded incoherent, so she repeated herself. I can’t care about saving face now, and I can’t look at her face , Niu Yueqing said to herself. If she shows a hint of hesitation, I won’t be able to say what I need to say. If she hems and haws when I’m done, I will get up and leave . Her face was flushed when she finished, but she added: “Ai-ya! Listen to me. My husband told me again and again not to bring this up. Why did I tell you all this? It’s so embarrassing. Everyone’s gossiping about him, and he can’t sit still at home. You probably will laugh at him now that you know about it.”

“What’s embarrassing about that?” the mayor’s wife said with a smile. “Lawsuits aren’t unusual. Writers like your husband care too much about saving face. That’s why he didn’t want to mention it to Dazheng’s father.”

“Ai, he knows only about writing and nothing else. He’s a total incompetent away from his desk. A few days ago someone said to me, ‘Writers know so much that your life with Zhuang Laoshi must be very exciting.’ In fact, he knows nothing about real life, and we lead a boring existence. You can ask him what else he knows besides making up stories. He can’t compare with a section chief, not to mention the mayor. Excellence in one area covers up all other deficiencies, as they say.”

“But neither you nor I can make up stories, can we? And a mayor must run for office, while you can’t elect a writer. He is our city’s treasure.”

“Ai-ya! You make him sound so special, and yet Jing Xueyin is suing with the intention of ruining him.”

“Let me tell you this: No one can defeat you but you yourself. Xijing can’t do without Zhuang Zhidie, so the mayor won’t sit idly by if someone is trying to bring him down.” She wiped off a tea stain on the table. “I’ll talk to Dazheng’s father.”

That brightened Niu Yueqing’s mood, but, afraid that the woman might forget, she reminded her of the possible serious consequences if the mayor didn’t help.