Jia Pingwa - Ruined City

The day dragged on until night. It was late, and Zhou Min was still not home. The sound of a bell from the nearby nunnery made the night seem colder than usual. A gust of wind whistled through the paper covering a broken windowpane, making her heart race as she imagined Zhuang pacing outside. She raced out in her slippers, her hairpin falling out as she flew down the stone steps, which sent her hair cascading down over her shoulders. She tried to pick up the pin, but gave up after several unsuccessful attempts. She went to open the gate — not even a shadow was out there. Looking left and right, she wondered if he might be waving to her from a dark corner; eventually, as if in a daze, she made her way back inside, realizing that it was just the wind playing tricks on her. When she finally collected herself, she accepted the fact that Zhuang Zhidie had not come and, after being absent for many days, might never return. She choked up, and with tears on her cheeks, she sighed over her sad fate. Once she started sobbing, she couldn’t stop, and soon she was howling, as a pent-up longing for her son sought release. A quick calculation told her that he would be three years old in three days, which prompted her to open the door and go out again, unconcerned about whether or not Zhou would be back. She flagged down a pedicab driver, offering him three yuan to take her to the post office near the clock tower so she could send a telegram to Tongguan. After sending her son a message reading “Happy birthday to my boy,” she sobbed all the way home and went to bed.

Upon his return late that night, Zhou was greeted by a dark house with no dinner prepared for him. He turned on the light and pulled back the blanket to ask her what was wrong. Puzzled by her eyes, as puffy as rotten peaches, he saw the receipt for a telegram to Tongguan by her pillow. He demanded an explanation, so enraged that he slapped her. Leaping off the bed naked, she grabbed his hair and spat out angrily, “How dare you hit me! That motherless child is about to turn three years old, and even the worst mother should be able to send him a five-word telegram!”

“Do you have water for brains? Or is that a pig’s brain in your head?” he demanded. “What good is a telegram? When he gets it, he will check to see where it came from and will know it’s Xijing. Were you planning for him to know where we are?”

“So what if he knows?” she said. “Xijing is as big as the ocean; how is he going to find us?” She looked at her face in the mirror, and seeing the red marks from his hand, she reached up and pulled hair out of his head.

“You’re fearless, aren’t you?” she sobbed. “Why are you afraid he might find you? You’re scared of him. A gutless coward like you should never have seduced his wife into running away with him and sneaking into Xijing like thieves. I don’t mind roaming like this, but how dare you hit me? He never touched a hair on my head, but you, you’re a heartless brute. Why not hit me again, why not kill me?”

Seeing her swollen face reminded Zhou of how hard it had been on her, wandering around with him. Filled with regret for his cruelty, he got down on his knees and wrapped his arms around her legs to beg for forgiveness, while using her hand to slap his own face. An expert in sweet-talking women, he managed to stop her crying by showing that he hated himself for his actions. As she wiped away her tears, he went up, put his arms around her, and kissed her, then tickled her to make her laugh as proof that she forgave him. She was so ticklish, he had once joked that it was a sign she’d had many admirers. Zhuang Zhidie had also tickled her, digging in the more she laughed. She could not stop laughing, which put his mind at ease as he went to the kitchen to make dinner. He brought some food for her before they went to bed in peace and harmony.

Over the days he was shut in at home, Zhuang sensed an invisible shadow looming over him. He felt like complaining, but could find no excuse; unable to leave the house for any sort of diversion and enjoying no visits from old friends, he could only pass the days reading. But he forgot what he read almost immediately. All he had for amusement were chats with Liu Yue. By then they were closer than just a domestic helper and her employer. He asked her to sing, so she sang a folk tune called “Holding Hands.”

When you hold my hand, I want to kiss your mouth ;

holding hands and kissing, we walk down the alley to the south .

The tune made Zhuang’s blood run hot, while she, her face red, ran into the old lady’s room and shut the door. Zhuang limped over and called out to her when he couldn’t push the door open, “Keep singing, Liu Yue.”

“It’s a bad song. I shouldn’t sing it,” she said from inside.

“It’s all right if you don’t want to sing. But why don’t you open the door?”

She was quiet for a moment. “You must think I’m being bad.”

“I never thought of you that way,” he said, still trying to open the door. She quietly pulled the latch when he gave the door a push, sending him to the floor when it burst open. His face twisted in pain, scaring her so badly that she squatted down to check him out.

“It’s my fault,” she said gravely. “Dajie will be mad at me when she comes home. She’ll send me away.”

He pinched her buttocks. “How would she know? You won’t go if I don’t want you to.” He tugged at her, making her stumble and nearly step on him. She tried to move her foot but ended up sitting on his neck, with her belly almost in his face. He wrapped his arms around her legs, startling and embarrassing her. “That’s better. Let’s have a good look at you.”

He looked up, and through her loose blouse he could see a pair of large, fair breasts with tiny maroon nipples, the color of red beans.

“So you don’t wear a bra?” he said, reaching under her blouse. She squirmed to stop his hand from going further. ☐☐ ☐☐ ☐☐ [The author has deleted 25 words.]

“You’ve had so many women, why would you be interested in a maid from the countryside? You know I’m a virgin.” She pushed his hand away and stood up to go into the kitchen to cook. His face red, Zhuang lay on the floor and reproached himself for projecting his longing for Tang Wan’er onto the girl. He was besieged by shame and guilt, when Liu Yue began to sing again in the kitchen:

When the big red fruit was peeled, people talked about me and you .

Names were besmirched, though nothing happened between us two .

That night, when husband and wife were chatting in bed, the topic naturally turned to Liu Yue.

“Why was she wearing my shoes today?” Niu Yueqing asked. “I didn’t notice at first. She quickly changed into slippers when I came in, and her face was red.”

“She washed her shoes in the morning and had nothing to wear to go out grocery shopping, so I told her to wear yours. She probably forgot to change after she came back. She has a nice figure and looks good in anything. You have so many shoes, why not let her have those?”

“Buy a new pair if you want to give her shoes. I’ve only had those for two weeks, and, besides, we’d be giving her used goods.”

“What a nice person you are. I’ll give her some money to buy a pair tomorrow.”

“You’re so considerate,” she said. “Something’s been bothering me all day. This morning on my work to work, I stopped by a candy store on Zhubashi Street. The shopkeeper stared at me. ‘Aren’t you the wife of the writer Zhuang Zhidie?’ she asked. I said, ‘Yes, I am. Why do you ask?’ She said she had seen a picture of us in a magazine and asked if we had recently hired a maid. I said, ‘Yes, a smart, pretty girl from northern Shaanxi named Liu Yue, a radiant girl no one would assume was from the countryside by the looks of her.’ ‘Don’t judge a person by her looks,’ she said. I asked her what she meant. Had Liu Yue bought candy and walked off with more change than she deserved? She said that Liu Yue had worked for her and caused her a great deal of trouble. She said, ‘I hired her at a labor market to take care of my child. But somehow she heard about your family and asked to leave. I couldn’t keep her if she insisted on leaving, and all I asked was for her to wait until I found a replacement. Then one day I came home after work to find my child crying and the girl nowhere in sight. There was a note on the table saying she’d left. She had made it into a better family, while I had to stay home to care for the child for two weeks. I lost my bonus, but she walked off with two weeks’ pay.’ I said nothing, because I couldn’t be sure that the shopkeeper’s story was credible. If not, it would be a false accusation. But that still made me uneasy. What do you think?”