Jia Pingwa - Ruined City

“Why is she acting like that? After bringing over so many dowry items, Dazheng will send a festooned sedan to fetch her on the wedding day, and that will surely dazzle the people along the streets,” Meng continued. “You’ll have to deliver the invitation yourself, Liu Yue. Tell us what we should give you, so the gifts won’t overlap. What else do you need?”

“I need a bank,” she said from the kitchen.

“Ouch!” Meng exclaimed. “I won’t go to the wedding, then. I was hoping for your help if we become beggars one day, but obviously we can’t rely on you.”

“I’d like to thank you for your kind thoughts,” Dazheng said. “Of course Liu Yue will deliver the invitations, and I hope you will all come celebrate with us. Here’s to you all.”

“Just this one and no more,” Wang said. “We’ve been at this for quite some time, so why don’t you drink with Meng Yunfang.”

“Meng Laoshi is having a soft drink. He’d surely get me drunk,” Dazheng said.

“Go ahead and play the finger-guessing game, Meng Laoshi,” Hong cut in. “I’ll drink for you when you lose.”

Meng and Dazheng began the game, creating a din as the other men watched. The women, on the other hand, sat idly around. Soon, however, Wang’s wife left to chat with Liu Yue, while Xia Jie went to check out the dowry, followed by Hong Jiang’s wife, who touched the items and commented appreciatively, trying to guess their prices.

“The mayor has power and status, but he’s no match for you business types when it comes to spending money. This skirt of yours had to cost at least two or three hundred.”

“Twelve hundred. It’s a luxury brand.”

“Wow, that much!” Xia Jie said. “There are celebrity writers, painters, performers, and braggarts among the guests today. Now I know there’s even a fashion celebrity. You are really doing much better than the mayor.”

“We may have more money than the mayor, but there’s more gold in his cache,” the woman said, before joining Wang’s wife and Liu Yue to gossip about Liu’s good fortune. She took them all into her room and closed the door. “You’re mocking me, aren’t you? Look at him. Who but a housemaid like me would marry him?”

“Don’t talk like that,” Wang’s wife said. “The mayor’s family has so much to offer you. Besides, he’s really not that bad.”

“My dear sister, you’ve been around, and you think Dazheng’s not too bad?”

“His thick brows are nice, and he looks dependable,” Wang’s wife said.

“He looks fine except for that leg,” Xia Jie added.

“That’s right,” Hong Jiang’s wife said, but Liu Yue began to cry.

“I know what you’re saying. He’s a dependable man with thick brows. But what’s so fine about him with that leg? I’m so mad at him. Why did he have to pick today to bring the dowry?” Liu Yue said tearfully. The others tried to console her.

“You can’t have everything,” one of them said. “Besides, no average girl could have your kind of good fortune.”

“Liu Yue, your husband is failing,” Meng shouted from the living room. “Come drink for him.”

“He lacks common sense,” Liu Yue complained. “He’s a guest here, so how could he let himself go like that? Obviously Meng Laoshi is trying to make a fool of Dazheng by getting him drunk.” She refused to go out, as the people in the other room clamored for Dazheng to drink more. Soon Zhou Min and Hong Jiang carried him in, so drunk he looked like a mountain of mud. As they tried to put him on Liu Yue’s bed, his shoes fell off. One of his feet was straight, the other one crooked with the toes pinched together. Liu Yue sobbed as she draped a blanket over his feet.

When the men saw her crying, they thought she was upset with them for getting Dazheng drunk. Ruan Zhifei, who was fairly drunk himself, complained that Dazheng was no fun, that he got drunk too easily. He bragged that in his crazy younger days he could match Gong Jingyuan glass for glass, and once single-handedly finished off four jin of liquor as if it were water. But the mention of Gong saddened him, and he was soon sobbing. A couple of the women talked about Liu Yue in whispers; everyone’s mood soured.

“What are you crying about? You’re just making things worse,” Wang said to Ruan. “It’s getting late, we’d better leave. You can cry as hard as you want at home, but not here.” He turned to Zhuang. “Zhidie, we’re going now. Dazheng may have come because he has something to say to the two of you.”

Niu Yueqing and Zhuang tried to get them to stay longer, but they insisted on leaving. So Zhuang walked them out to the gate, where he said to Zhou Min, “Is Wan’er ill?”

“It’s nothing serious. I’ll tell her to come see you another day.”

“Let her rest, then. From what Yueqing told me, it could be indigestion. Here’s something she can take.” Zhuang handed Zhou Min a sealed medicine box.

. . .

Tang Wan’er opened the box and took out a pill bottle that contained nothing but a wrinkled piece of paper: “Take care of yourself.” She cried at the note. Since the day she had returned shamefaced from the compound, she had felt the sting of humiliation. The bigger the balloon, the more likely it is to burst, she knew, but once it gets started, it’s hard to suppress the desire and excitement to make the balloon bigger. Unable to control her feelings for Zhuang, she felt that the nicer Niu Yueqing was to her, the more guilt and apprehension she would experience; so she resolved to avoid Niu Yueqing and refrain from going to their house to meet Zhuang. It was clear why he had asked her several times whether he was a bad man. She had even said to him, “If this is too hard on you, let’s just be friends. Let’s not do that again.” It was a test, and he had not responded to her suggestion, so naturally, without thinking, they had sex every time they met. Niu Yueqing had cruelly killed the pigeon and cooked it to feed them, which canceled out Tang Wan’er’s guilt feelings. I hurt you, but you hurt me, too. We’re even, we don’t owe each other a thing, and now we’re like strangers , she thought on her way back that day; a sense of tranquility washed over her when she was back home. Suddenly feeling industrious, she cleaned the house and did the laundry. That night she said to Zhou Min, “Why aren’t you in bed already?” He was writing the book that would not bear his name, after coming home from playing his xun, so he said, “I’ll be there in a minute.” He put away his paper and pen, heated some water to wash up, and came to bed in high spirits, only to find her asleep and snoring. She stayed in bed and did not get up for three days; she had such a terrifying dream that she was drenched in sweat when she woke up. Unable to recall the details, she remembered only that she had felt profoundly lonely and forsaken; she thought of herself as a fish roasting in a pan. Three days later, she struggled to sit on the edge of the bed before moving to a sofa, where she sat for a long while before going back and sitting up in bed. Thinking she heard the cooing of a pigeon, she tiptoed outside and leaned against the pear tree, where she looked into the high, cloudy sky — there was no pigeon. Tears slipped down her cheeks. Zhuang lived in the same city, but no street connected them, and now even their conduit in the air had been cut off. The yard was littered with fallen leaves; more were drifting down from the branches. Autumn was in the air, and the cicadas had grown quiet. Night winds had turned the lush pear tree scrawny, and she sensed that her hips were losing their shape and her face had become gaunt. Life seemed to have lost its meaning, to the point that only the sighing wind was left to disturb the bamboo curtain at the door.