Jia Pingwa - Ruined City

The cow snorted out of both nostrils, creating hollows in the ground with each breath as she railed against the humiliation her species has endured. But then she raised her head, looked into the sky, and grew placid again, even releasing a long laugh. That laugh sounded to others like a long moo. What lay behind it was a reminder that of all the creatures on earth, only the cow is free of savagery, and only God and cows are silent. As slaves of human beings, we differ from other animals by following humans on the path of a civilized society. How wonderful that being civil causes humans to employ a range of tricks, cleverness that ultimately backfires and leads them straight to destruction. So, then, who will take their place as masters of society? Cows, only cows. This is not empty rhetoric. Human history is full of examples of slaves who replaced their masters, isn’t it? Besides, the bovine race has already begun assuming the appearance of human beings. Haven’t you seen how people have taken to wearing coats, jackets, and shoes made of cowhide? Those are our spies. After infiltrating the world of humans, it is only natural that they yearn for their bovine race or remind themselves of their responsibility, covering parts of their bodies with cow things as a secret hint or an open display. As for me, this particular, prideful cow, my mission is of enormous importance, for I am the first to infiltrate this flourishing city in a cow’s native state of being. In what other city does a cow walk grandly down the street?

When the cow’s thoughts reached this point, she was awash in gratitude toward Zhuang Zhidie. It was he who had suggested to the woman that she purchase a cow in a distant mountain town and bring it back with her, then take it into town to supply milk straight from the teats, and who finally uttered the comment “The cow looks like a philosopher.” Powerful, rousing words worth their weight in gold, making her aware of her sacred mission. I am a philosopher, I truly am. I must keep close watch over this city to evaluate the lives of its human inhabitants and serve as a bovine prophet during the transitional period between humans and cows .

. . .

Around sunset on the nineteenth of June, Zhuang Zhidie brought a packet of spirit money back to Shuangren fu. Niu Yueqing had summoned a metalsmith to the compound gate to turn a pair of inherited silver hair ornaments into a new ring. Zhuang walked up to watch him work. A young man with a fair complexion, narrow eyes, and thin lips boasted about his family’s skills as he pumped the bellows with his foot. He had laid the silver on a piece of wood and was melting it with an oil gun, turning it into tiny beads. That was a new sight for Zhuang, who had assumed that his wife was having a pair of earrings made. “If you use those hair ornaments whenever your mother has an attack of nerves,” he said, “you will have to take them out of your ears and boil a pot of silver water for her to drink, won’t you?”

“I don’t wear earrings. Wang Ximian wears three rings, but you don’t have even one. People will laugh and call you tightfisted and curse your wife for neglecting you.”

“That’s nonsense,” he muttered before walking in to talk to her mother.

Once the ring was ready, Niu Yueqing cheerfully carried it inside and insisted that Zhuang try it on. He was busy stamping “RMB” onto the spirit money. With it stacked on the floor, he pressed both sides of an authentic bill onto each stack. Niu Yueqing laughed at him for taking his work so seriously, telling him he was putting a lot of effort into something that is used to express grief and sadness. The old lady reached over and pinched her daughter’s lips shut and told Zhuang to make sure he did a good job of pressing the money down. If not, when the dead souls crossed the river, it would turn into useless money, known as iron currency. Niu Yueqing said, “You’re talking about something that only applies to silver ingots and brass coins of ancient times. These days we use paper money, so if it turns into iron currency, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

With another cross word to her daughter, the old lady separated the stamped money into six piles and asked Zhuang to write the name of a deceased family member on each one. The father-in-law’s pile, of course, was the tallest, followed by the old lady’s parents, her uncle, and her elder sister. The final pile was for a sort of second mother to Yueqing, her so-called dry mother. Yueqing poked fun at her mother’s sense of obligation to so many people as she slipped the large new ring onto Zhuang’s finger. He struck a rich man’s pose, leaning back on the sofa and swinging his foot up and down, the shoe balanced on the tip, as he tapped the arm of the sofa and complained that the shirt he was wearing was out of fashion, that he needed a new one.

“I bought you a red T-shirt just this morning, but was afraid you wouldn’t wear it. Lao Huang in our office wears one. He’s sixty-two, and it makes him look ten years younger.”

“It won’t go with these pants,” Zhuang said. “People are wearing Hong Kong suit pants these days, and I need to get a pair. Then, once I have those, I will need new shoes, a new belt, new socks…”

“Enough already,” Niu Yueqing said. “At this rate you’ll be seeing a plastic surgeon to get a new face. And a new job, and a new wife!”

“Last year you traded a hair ornament for a gold tooth cap, and ever since then only nuggets of wisdom have come out of your mouth. What you say goes in this house. You wanted me to wear a ring, so you had it made.” He laughed, took off the ring, and laid it on the table, complaining that she was always following the latest fad, and wondering what she wanted to turn him into.

That upset her. “What you’re saying is that instead of kissing your ass I’m biting your balls, is that it? I try my best to make you look better, but you won’t listen to me. So from now on, don’t tell me how to do my hair or what to wear.”

The old lady let them fight on, since she had discovered to her alarm that the old fellow was going to get money only in denominations in the hundreds, nothing smaller. “Won’t that make it hard for him to buy things in the underworld?” So Zhuang picked up a stack of manuscript paper and stamped it with ten-, five-, and one-yuan bills, after which they took it all out into the lane to burn it-

It was pitch-black outside. Few cars or people were out on the street, which was dimly lit by a streetlight a few hundred yards away. The fire cast the flickering shadows of three ghostly figures onto the wall. Paper ash floated into the night sky, then settled to the ground. Zhuang and his wife knelt close to the fire at first, but moved back as it burned hotter and hotter, while the old lady began incanting the names of the dead, calling for them to come get their money, telling them to tuck it away safely, and urging them to spend it wisely but not to scrimp. They were to come tell her when it was gone. But a chill overcame Zhuang and his wife when they saw an eddy of wind swirl alongside the flames, which they quickly smothered with paper money, as a red light appeared in the night sky. They looked to the west. “Hungry ghosts are fighting,” the old lady said. “I wonder which family they belong to. Damn your descendants for not giving them money. They’re trying to steal from my husband.”

Niu Yueqing shuddered. “What nonsense is that, Mother? It’s a factory welding torch. What makes you think it’s fighting ghosts?”

The old lady kept staring into the sky, and muttered something. Then she sighed. The old man was too quick for them, she was saying. He kept them from stealing our money. “Yueqing, does a pregnant woman live in number 10 over there?”