Jia Pingwa - Ruined City

“He’s sexually repressed?” Niu Yueqing said with a laugh before jabbing at the girl’s forehead. “How should I put it? You silly girl, what do you know about sexual repression? You’ve never been married, let alone been in love. Let’s talk about something else. Spray some water on the grass you gathered and take it to the bathroom to store in the shade. Otherwise it will wilt in the yard under the hot sun and won’t be fresh and tender for the cow tomorrow.”

“Talk of cows,” she said when she returned, “unsettles me. Something bizarre once happened in our village. When a man named Zhang Laizi’s father was alive, they were doing so well he lent eighty yuan to Laizi’s maternal uncle. One day, Laizi’s father was crushed to death while digging a hole. Laizi went to his uncle to get the money back, but his uncle denied ever borrowing the money. That led to an argument. His uncle swore that he would be reborn as a cow if he had borrowed money, so Laizi left without the money. In March of the same year, the cow at Laizi’s house gave birth to a calf, and the moment the calf was born, someone came to tell him that his uncle had just died. Laizi knew that the calf was his uncle’s reincarnation and was very sad. He raised the calf with great care, never taking it to work the field. One day he took it to the river for water. The cow stopped when they met someone from a neighboring village carrying clay pots. Laizi said, ‘Why are you stopping, Uncle?’ The man was puzzled why Laizi had called the cow ‘Uncle.’ When Laizi explained, he learned about the uncle’s death and shed a few tears, for he had known him. To their surprise, the cow kicked over the man’s carrying pole, breaking all the pots. Laizi asked the man how much they cost so he could pay him back. The man told him the price was forty yuan, but said, ‘There’s no need to pay me. I borrowed forty yuan from your uncle, and he has demanded payment for the debt.’ Dajie, the cow made me break my bracelet, so did I really owe it something in a previous life?”

“Even if you did, you’re all square now, aren’t you?” Niu Yueqing replied. “You heard what Zhuang Laoshi said. I have no use for that jade bracelet of mine, and you can have it.” Niu Yueqing went to get the bracelet and put it on the girl’s wrist. It fit perfectly, as if it were made for her. From then on, Liu Yue often rolled up her sleeve to show off her fair arm.

The next morning, after Liu Yue helped Zhuang drink milk at the gate and fed the cow the fresh grass, Niu Yueqing left for work. Zhuang stayed behind to chat with Aunty Liu and watch the cow enjoy the grass. Liu Yue went inside and, with nothing to do, got a book to read in the study. When he moved back, Zhuang had asked her to bring over a large number of books from the apartment in the Literary Foundation compound. Liu Yue had left all the antiques and other objets d’art behind, taking only the clay figurine, which she placed on the desk in the study. Now that she thought she might have owed the cow something, she recalled how, when she first arrived, people had commented on her resemblance to the figurine. To her, it could have been a different kind of karmic connection, which prompted her to come look at it daily. She was soon engrossed in the book. When Zhuang came in, she got up to go into the living room.

“Don’t worry,” Zhuang said. “Go ahead and read. I can still write.”

She sat back down to read but could not get back into the book. She liked the feel of the study at that moment: one person writing and one reading. The thought made her blush. She looked up at the figurine, with its hint of a shy smile. She admired her doppelgänger and, envying the figurine, said to herself, I can only read near him for a while, but you’re with him from the moment he comes in . She gave the figurine a pouty smile.

“What are you two talking about, Liu Yue?”

“Nothing.” She was embarrassed.

“I could hear you talking with your eyes.”

Now her face was as red as a peach blossom. “Instead of concentrating on your writing, Zhuang Laoshi, you were eavesdropping.”

“Ever since you came, people say this figurine looks like you, and it does feel as if it’s alive. When I come in to read or write, I always sense that she’s looking at me. Now a living Tang figure is sitting here, so how am I going to focus on my writing?”

“Do I really look like her?”

“The mole between your brows is the only difference.”

Liu Yue reached up to touch her forehead, but couldn’t find the mole.

“Is it ugly?”

“It’s a beauty mark.”

She laughed, but quickly stopped with a shrug of her shoulders. “I have another one on my arm,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

Reminded of the moles on Tang Wan’er’s body, Zhuang was distracted. Liu Yue rolled up her thin silk sleeve, which was loose enough to expose her arm, fair and well formed, like a section of lotus root. She raised it to check the mole on her elbow, giving him a good view of her lush armpit hair. He took her arm in his hands.

“You have a lovely arm, Liu Yue.” He bent down to give it a wet kiss. Right then the sound of children cheering came through the window, as a kite rose up into the air.

. . .

When the cow saw Liu Yue come with an armful of grass, she rewarded her with a grateful look. To the cow, the young woman and the house seemed familiar. It took several nights of reflection before she recalled her former life, also as a cow, when she was one of the thirteen water-carrying beasts working for the Water Bureau at Shuangren fu. The woman had been a cat at the bureau. One day, after the cattle returned with 104 receipts from delivering 52 buckets of water, the cat took two of the receipts to play with at the wall while the owner sat down to smoke and then doze off. The receipts were lost, incurring punishment for the cattle and their owner. Later she was sold to someone in Mount Zhongnan, where she was reborn, again as a cow. Lured by a fish, the gluttonous cat was skinned and turned into a neck warmer before being reincarnated as a human being in the northern Shaanxi countryside. Chewing the cud is a form of contemplation for cows. It differs from human ruminations in that it allows them to go back in time to recapture, though not always clearly, early images. This difference between humans and beasts means that cows know more than humans, which is why they do not need to read. Humans, on the other hand, remain in a state of ignorance after birth, knowing only how to eat and drink; they go to school to learn, but by the time they know how to think, they are nearing the end of their lives. Those who come after them repeat the process, going to school to dispel the ignorance of their own age, which explains why humans never grow big and tall. The cow wanted to explain all this to humans, but unfortunately was unable to use human speech. Oftentimes humans cannot recall what happened in the past, and after something has taken place, they open their thread-bound books to read “How can there be such astonishing similarities in history!” They sigh. The cow had to laugh at the pitiable humans.

Now, after the cow had enjoyed the tender grass, Liu Yue led her out of Shuangren fu Avenue, and as they walked down a lane, the cow shooed away gadflies with her tail and began to think again. In this life she had been born as a beast of burden deep inside Mount Zhongnan, and everything in the city still felt strange, even though it had been here for quite some time. What is a city? Just a mountain of concrete. Everyone in the city complains that there are too many people, saying the sky is getting smaller and the land narrower. Yet people in the countryside want to escape into the city, and no city resident would give up residency and walk out through one of the four city gates. Are humans really that debased? They create a city to hem themselves in. Mountains have their ogres and waters their spirits, so what demons does a city have? What makes people leave their harmonious, amiable villages, where everyone knows the nickname of everyone else’s grandpa, and people all know who owns every chicken on the ground? What makes them come to a city with its single-family units, where people shut their doors when they get home, ignoring everyone outside? With so many people out on the streets, people inhale each other’s breath; the buses are crammed full and the theaters are jam-packed, but people just stare at each other, total strangers. They are like dirt that forms a clod in your hand but falls through your fingers when you open it; the more you try to bring it back together with water, the more it scatters. People from places with an ocean or a river want to swim in man-made lakes at a party, while those who come from mountains climb fake hills. What is laughable is that they suffer from heart, stomach, liver, and nerve problems in their square or round or trapezoid concrete structures within the confines of four city walls. Forever vigilant in regard to hygiene, they wear facemasks, produce soaps to wash their hands and feet, invent medicines and vaccines, brush their teeth, and put condoms over their male organs. And they seem to wonder what it is all about. Research is conducted, meetings are held, leading to the conclusion that the population must be reduced, so they promote the idea of a powerful bomb that will kill off everyone but their own families.