Jia Pingwa - Ruined City

“Did you hear the cat crying upstairs and think it might have reminded me of my cat?”

“I—” Zhuang stammered as he closed the door and walked over to the bed, not sure what to do next. She understood what was happening.

“Zhidie—”

He bent over to hold her head in his hands and whispered, “I can’t sleep. I—” He put his wet mouth over her thin lips. She put her arms around him and twisted around, bunching up the blanket to reveal that she was wearing pink panties. She looked like a mermaid. Zhuang climbed onto the bed with his shoes on, but she cooled off at that instant and stopped him with her hands.

“No, Zhidie, we can’t do this. You’d be cheating on your wife, and I wouldn’t be able to face my husband.”

Zhuang wouldn’t listen, but she quickly wrapped herself up in the blanket and looked at him with pleading eyes. He froze. She reached out to smooth his clothes and asked him to sit at the head of the bed.

“I fell in love with you and don’t think I’ll ever stop, but we can’t do this. If you do love me, let’s wait till we’re both old. I don’t mean to curse my husband, but if he dies before me, and Yueqing before you, then we can be together. But if we both die before them, then that’s our fate. We can’t escape our destiny and shouldn’t force the issue. Otherwise, if we don’t stop here, life will be difficult, since you and Ximian are both famous, and after only one night as husband and wife, we’d continue living with our spouses with a sense of remorse.” She finished with a sad smile as she dried his tears, before reaching into her bra and bringing out a coin tied to a cotton thread.

“You saw this earlier, didn’t you? I wear gold rings, gold earrings, and gold bracelets, but no gold necklace, not because I don’t have one, but because I can’t bear to part with this coin. I took it from your windowsill that time I went to your house to take a look at Niu Yueqing. I wanted to wear something of yours since I couldn’t have you. Ximian knows nothing about this. Now I’m telling you, and I want to give it back, but not as something I’m returning. I’ve been wearing it for over a decade now, so it has been infused with my sweat, oil, and body odor to become an important part of me. I’m giving it to you so you’ll know what I’m like.” She took the necklace off. He put it around his neck and started to walk out tearfully, holding the coin in his mouth. When he got to the door, he stopped and turned to look at her. She laid her hands on her belly with an agonized smile.

“Are you in pain?”

“It’s my stomach, an old problem. It goes spastic when I get agitated. It’s all right. Go on back to sleep.”

He wanted to say he’d massage her abdomen for her, but instead he fumbled in his pocket before producing the magic health sack from Meng Yunfang.

“Here, put this on.”

She nodded with a smile and took the sack, then watched him open the door and walk out.

. . .

Over at Shuangren fu, Niu Yueqing, Liu Yue, and the old lady went to bed early on the night of the thunderstorm. At some point Liu Yue was startled awake by a loud thunderclap; to her it was like a fireball whirling in the sky before falling onto their rooftop and smashing the glazed roof tiles into pieces. When she was at home back in northern Shaanxi, she had seen a dragon snatch people. That was also on a day when thunder crashed, and she heard the villagers shouting, “The second mistress of the Hao family in the east has been taken by the dragon.” She ran over to see. Mrs. Hao, a woman with a fair face and a slender figure, was lying by a locust tree that had been split down the middle; its top half was resting in a pond, still smoking. The woman had turned into a five-foot-long charred log, a recently whitewashed canvas shoe the only thing that was still intact. When Liu Yue heard the thunderclap right above the roof, she wondered if it had come for her. Sticking her head out from under the blanket, she looked outside to see if a fiery red ball was about to break through the window.

“Aunty,” she called out, “Aunty. How can you sleep so soundly tonight of all nights? I’m so scared.”

The old lady didn’t make a sound. Liu Yue tried again; still nothing. It appeared to her that the dragon had taken the old lady instead, and she was dazed, feeling that all the dragons had come to Xijing at the same time to snatch away Wang Ximian’s wife, Meng Yunfang’s wife, Jing Xueyin, and Tang Wan’er, who was taken while washing her privates, which were rotten and filled her tub with bloody water. Liu Yue screamed.

It was a terrifying scream, especially coming so late at night. Niu Yueqing ran from her bedroom into the living room and turned on the light. The girl had crawled, stark-naked, in there and stared at Niu Yueqing as she said, “The dragon is snatching people, Dajie. The dragon is snatching people, and Aunty is gone.”

Niu Yueqing went into their bedroom, and indeed the old lady’s coffin bed was empty. She then went to the kitchen, the toilet, and the study, but there was no sign of her anywhere. “Check her shoes,” Niu Yueqing said. Her shoes were gone, so they opened the door and ran into the yard. It was still raining, and in between the flashes of lightning, they saw the old lady kneeling on a stone, praying, palms together. Still naked, Liu Yue rushed over, picked up the old lady, and brought her inside. Niu Yueqing followed. She found her mother a change of clothes, then draped a thin blanket over the younger woman.

“It’s pitch-black outside, Mother. Why did you go out there? Were you trying to get struck by lightning?”

“They were having a fight in heaven. I was worried it would get out of hand and spread to our city.”

“A fight in heaven?” Liu Yue asked unhappily.

“Demons fighting demons. It was terribly violent, and everyone in the city was watching. Wicked gawkers just wanted to enjoy the scene, and no one wanted to pray.”

“Who’s out there on the street?” Liu Yue said. “Ghosts more likely.”

“Right, it’s ghosts. There are more ghosts than people in the city now. People die and become ghosts, but ghosts never die, so they crowd into each other.”

The girl turned pale.

“Ignore her, or the more she talks the more frightened you’ll get,” Niu Yueqing said to Liu Yue, before turning to her mother. “Go to bed, Mother. Everything is fine.”

The old lady grumbled unhappily as she changed out of her wet clothes, but she would not let go of her wet shoes as she lay down in bed. Niu Yueqing told Liu Yue to go to sleep, too, adding, “Are you becoming as deranged as she is, Liu Yue? When you don’t see her in bed, get up and look around. If she’s not in the toilet, then go look for her in the yard. Where could she go? Why were you screaming about dragons snatching people? You’ve been to school and ought to know that lightning strikes are caused by static electricity. It’s not a dragon snatching people.”

The color had returned to the girl’s face by then, and she looked sheepish, though still afraid. “I don’t know why, but I thought it was a dragon that was snatching people.”

“You must have been dreaming, so you screamed when you woke up to find Mother gone.”

“I’m not sure now.”

The thunder died out after midnight, but the old lady did not go back to sleep. Liu Yue was getting drowsy, but before she fell asleep, the old lady poked her with her cane. “Someone’s knocking at the door, Liu Yue.”

The girl cocked her head to listen. “There’s no one there. Who would come at this hour?”

“Someone is knocking.”

The girl got up to open the door, but saw no one. “No one’s out there.” She went back to bed and slept awhile before the old lady called out again, “Listen, someone’s at the door.”