Jia Pingwa - Ruined City

“I won’t forget,” the mayor’s wife said. “Liu Yue, why don’t you go make a glass of lemonade for Dajie?”

Liu Yue brought the drink over and said, “You’ve insulted Zhuang Laoshi today, Dajie. He’s a famous writer, and yet you make him sound worthless.”

“She isn’t insulting Zhuang Laoshi. Every word from her is a compliment.”

“I said long ago that I would never, ever marry a writer if I were born a woman in my next life,” Niu Yueqing said.

“Ah-ha! If you let that be known,” the mayor’s wife said, “you’d be shocked to see how many women would fight to marry him.”

“Who would want him? Only a foolish woman like me agreed to marry him years ago. Now I will hand him over to anyone who wants him and count that as a blessing.”

“Really? Are you sure?” Liu Yue said, which earned her a glare from Niu Yueqing.

At dinnertime Niu Yueqing insisted on going home, and she signaled Liu Yue with her eyes to help her out. So Liu Yue said that Dajie was worried about Zhuang Laoshi, and they needed to go home to cook for him. “He’ll have to eat out if we don’t. Restaurant utensils are dirty, and it would be terrible if he caught something.”

“Don’t worry. If something happens to him, I’ll find you a section chief. Didn’t you say you’d rather marry one of those?” Niu Yueqing laughed. “I’ve always heard that you are a good wife; now I see it’s true, so I won’t keep you. Dazheng, come see your matchmaker off.”

He called for Liu Yue from his room instead. Staying put, she asked him what he wanted. Niu Yueqing nudged her to go inside while she chatted with the mayor’s wife about clothes and food. It was some time before the girl came out. “What’s the matter, Liu Yue? Your lips are so pale.”

“Nothing,” Liu Yue said, as Dazheng lurched out with a flushed face.

“Mom,” is all he said.

The mayor’s wife slapped her forehead and said to Niu Yueqing, “I’m afraid we’re getting old.”

It was dark by the time the two women were out on the street. Niu Yueqing wanted to eat at the night market, but Liu Yue said, “Aren’t we going home? What about Zhuang Laoshi?”

“Don’t worry about him. He doesn’t care about me, so I’m not going to worry about him.” They ordered two bowls of wontons and four flatbreads stuffed with meat.

“One’s enough for me. How many can you eat?” Liu Yue asked her.

“We can take the leftovers home for our next meal,” Niu Yueqing said.

Realizing what was going on, the girl said, “I’m so stupid. Why did I ask that question?” Niu Yueqing rapped her on the head with her chopsticks.

The living room was dark when they got home, but a light was on in the study. Niu Yueqing went to the kitchen, where the cold pots and stove told her that Zhuang had not cooked anything. Liu Yue went to the study and said to Zhuang, who was lying on the sofa under a blanket, “Guess where we went today? We took care of it.”

“Really?”

“Dajie said she wouldn’t go, but then what needed to be done was done,” Liu Yue replied.

“Are you being a bigmouth, Liu Yue?” Niu Yueqing commented from the living room. “What did you tell him? Do you want him to laugh at me for being so hopeless? Where do you keep the enzyme pills? Bring me some. You ought to take some yourself. We ate so much meat tonight, we might get heartburn.”

“You haven’t eaten yet, have you?” Liu Yue said to Zhuang with a smile. “We bought two meat flatbreads for you.”

“I ate already,” he said.

“Are you being a flirt in there, Liu Yue?” Niu Yueqing called out. “Go to bed.”

“I’m going.” Liu Yue turned to Zhuang when she heard Niu Yueqing go into their bedroom. “Are you sleeping here again tonight? She cried her heart out at noon but went for your sake later. You ought to go show her some gratitude and make her feel better.” She went to her room.

After some thought, he picked up the blanket and went into the bedroom. Niu Yueqing had turned off the light, so he undressed and went into the bathroom to wash, then groped his way into bed. She had rolled the blanket around her, but he forced his way in and climbed on top. She neither resisted nor displayed any reaction, so he got going quietly. ☐☐ ☐☐ ☐☐ [The author has deleted 52 words.] Doing his best to seem eager, he pretended to be aroused. He tried to kiss her, but she clamped her teeth together and rolled her head back and forth. “I’ll tell you a story about an impatient man eating quail eggs cooked with spinach,” he said lightheartedly. “He picked at an egg with his chopsticks, but it rolled to the side, so he tried again, and this time it rolled to the other side. After five or six attempts, he lost his patience, knocked it to the floor, and squashed it.”

She laughed. “You can squash me if you want.”

“All right. Everything’s fine. A husband and wife patch things up in bed after a fight.”

“So you’ve thought it through and found your conscience?” He held his tongue. “I’d have lost all faith in you if you hadn’t come to me tonight. Now that you’re here, I’ll let you off the hook and forget about what has happened. But I’ve learned my lesson, and I know I have to keep an eye on you. I want you to break off all communication with Tang Wan’er. I’ll accompany you when you go to her house, and she is not to come here without my permission.” He remained silent while continuing what he was doing under the blanket.

“You’re in good shape tonight, but I’m not, so tell me another story.” She pushed him off her. He lay in the dark for a while, since he had no story to tell her, and then got up to turn on the light, saying they could watch a video.

“An adult video?” she asked as he inserted a tape, immediately filling the screen with lots of action.

“You call those humans?” she asked. “They’re animals.”

“Many intellectuals have these in their houses, for husbands and wives to set the mood. What do you think? Does it work for you?”

“Turn it off. It looks awful.”

He turned the TV off and got back into bed. ☐☐ ☐☐ ☐☐ [The author has deleted 36 words.] “Did you and Tang Wan’er do it this way?” she asked. He fell silent again, but she persisted.

“No more talk of that,” he said. “If you want to make love, talk like you do.”

She tried to keep quiet, but blurted out, “No. This is no good. I keep thinking about what you two do together, and it makes me want to throw up.”

He stopped in mid-action, climbed off, and shed silent tears.

. . .

One morning Niu Yueqing was putting clothes out to dry on the balcony when the pigeon landed on the windowsill. Always fond of the little bird with its white feathers and sweet, cooing red beak, she put down her washbasin, picked up the bird, and laid it in her hand. The folded paper on its toe ring caught her attention. “I want you,” it read, with a lipstick mark over the words. She froze as she realized it was a message from Tang Wan’er asking for another tryst. After tying the pigeon down with string, she waited in the living room for Liu Yue to return from buying cooking oil.

Niu Yueqing locked the door the moment Liu Yue got in. She placed a small round stool in the middle of the living room, fetched a leather duster from her bedroom, and told the girl to sit down.

“Let me put the oil in the kitchen first. There were so many people on the street today, I couldn’t get through, so I yelled, ‘Oil here, oil here,’ and a little space finally opened for me.”

“I told you to sit down.”

“What’s the matter with you, Dajie? I’m not going to sit down.”

That earned her a whack from the leather duster. She cried out with an ugly look, “You hit me!”