Jia Pingwa - Ruined City

“You don’t care about your things, do you?” Tang said. “You don’t even bother to pick up all the goodies you left behind.”

Liu looked down at the ground and asked, “What goodies? I don’t see anything.”

“You dusted all the beady eyes off your pants!”

The others paused a moment before laughing.

“Wan’er is a clever little fox,” Niu Yueqing said. “That’s a funny way of putting it. I’m afraid you’ve drawn more eyes than any of us.”

The music halted at that moment, as brochures with product information settled onto the heads of the onlookers like snowflakes. When they reached up for them, the many hands looked like trees in a forest. Liu ran over to catch some as the performers donned masks resembling aphids, wood lice, moths, and flies, all strangely shaped and terrifying. They started singing:

We are pests, we are pests. 101—it kills, it kills us. Kills us, kills us all .

The music resumed when they finished, and the cycle repeated itself, making the onlookers cheer as they crowded forward. Chaos erupted. A woman cursed, “Who’s the shameless thief that took my purse? Pickpocket! You think people from the countryside have money? Thief! 101 Pesticide is rich, but not me. I only had fifty yuan for a trip into the city, and you had your eye on it. You city people, you stole my money. You’ll die a terrible death.”

“If a thief took your money, why curse the residents?” someone in the crowd said.

“You city thief, when your wife eats the food you buy with my money, she won’t give you a son and your dog won’t have her pups,” the woman continued.

“That’s great. Now you’re part of family planning. Xijing is teeming with thieves, and you should take better care of your money.”

“Who says I didn’t? Several youngsters crowded around me, in front and behind, and they even reached for my breasts. I just thought the young men had never seen anything like it, so I let them. I’m a mother of three, and those weren’t made of gold or silver. Who knew those damn kids wanted my money, not my breasts. They should be taken out and shot, or cut to pieces.”

The people who heard her howled with laughter.

“My anger has made me lose my head,” she said. “What was I saying?” She crouched down as the crowd surged again.

“There’s a lesson for you,” Xia Jie said to Tang Wan’er. “You’re going braless today, aren’t you?”

“It’s too hot in the summer to wear one,” Tang said, as Liu Yue ran over.

“There’s something here by Zhuang Laoshi, Dajie.”

“Let’s see what he wrote.” Wan’er grabbed the brochure and read aloud.

“Stop that. What a disgrace to have his name on this. That Huang guy probably didn’t warn him,” Niu Yueqing said as the people around them pointed and whispered. She heard a man say to someone next to him, “See them? Those are the wives of the writers.”

“Which ones? Where?” several people asked in unison.

“The one in the middle, in a green qipao, that’s Zhuang Zhidie’s wife.”

Niu Yueqing’s heart skipped a beat as she said to herself, He must know me, but I don’t know him. If he knows me, he should come say hello. Why hasn’t he? Why is he gossiping like that? Is he making fun of me because he knows that Zhidie and I had a fight? She turned to the others.

“Let’s go. Let’s get away from these gawking eyes.”

They got down off the platform and headed toward South Avenue.

“Since we’re not going to watch anymore, why don’t we go to my place for a game of mahjong?” Xia said. “It’s not far,”

“Liu Yue and I have to get back. We’ve been out too long already.”

“I had you in mind when I made the suggestion,” Xia Jie said. “You’re always so busy, you can never get away. Now that you’ve found the time and are in the mood to come out, you must stop by my place. Wan’er, Liu Yue, we’ll carry her if we have to.”

“All right,” Niu Yueqing laughed. “I’ll treat myself today.”

The four of them breezed down several lanes before reaching Meng’s house.

Once inside, they washed their sweaty faces, and Tang borrowed some of Xia’s cosmetics for a touch-up. A table was set up, dice were cast to determine the seating order, and they sat down to their tiles.

“Where’s Yunfang?” Niu Yueqing asked. “Practicing qigong at the Yunhuang Temple?”

“Who knows? He’s studying Shao Yong day and night. He’s already lost the sight in one eye and probably will wind up losing it in the other.”

The other women all knew about Meng’s eye, so they joked about who would look at Xia’s pretty face if he were completely blind.

“If that happened, I’d bring a man over. He wouldn’t be upset if he couldn’t see.” Xia’s comment left the others speechless; they didn’t know what to say to her. Niu Yueqing heard someone selling fresh milk outside.

“It sounds like Aunty Liu, Liu Yue,” she said. “Go see if it is.”

She went outside. Aunty Liu had brought her cow.

“Out selling milk at this hour, Aunty Liu?”

“Oh, it’s you, Liu Yue. What are you doing here? I went to North Avenue this morning to deliver milk and was stopped on the way home. I couldn’t get through no matter what.”

“Tie your cow up here and come in. Dajie is inside playing mahjong.”

Without waiting for a response, Liu tethered the cow to a purple pagoda tree and led Aunty Liu inside, where she was greeted by the three women.

“This place is too nice for someone like me.”

“Don’t worry about that. It’s a friend’s house. We buy milk from you most days, but it’s late today, so don’t be in a hurry to go home. Stick around for a game. We’ll have lunch here. Niu Yueqing dragged Aunty Liu over to the card table. A lifelong mahjong fan back home, Aunty Liu was happy to be invited by these urban ladies and could not wait to play a round. And yet, despite the honor, she was worried they might be betting more than she could afford. Touching her pocket to get a feel of how much money she had earned selling milk, she knew that if she lost it, she would have wasted a trip into the city and, worse, might wind up owing them money, which would make her a laughingstock. So she begged off. Knowing what was on her mind, Niu Yueqing said: “We play small, one yuan, maybe half that, a round. Here, you play a round for me. You can keep what you win, and I’ll pick up the losses.”

“Zhuang shimu is too rich already,” Tang said, “so we’re going after her today,”

Aunty Liu sat down. “All right, I will play a round for you. My hands smell, so I’ll just play one round.”

When Niu Yueqing stood up, Liu Yue said: “Take my place, Dajie. I have to go to the compound to make lunch for Zhuang Laoshi.”

Feigning ignorance, Wan’er said, “Is Zhuang Laoshi staying at the compound?”

Niu Yueqing ignored her and turned to Liu Yue. “Don’t worry about him. He comes and goes as he pleases. He just doesn’t think we can do the same.”

“Did they have a fight?” Wan’er asked Liu Yue. “Are they living apart?”

“Not really,” Liu Yue whispered and then turned away. Curious about what was happening between Zhuang and his wife, Tang was peeved at the girl’s response, but she knew better than to show her displeasure. Yet as she moved her tiles, she could not stop wondering, and ended up playing a wrong tile. Liu Yue snapped it up and kissed it.

“I’m too good a feeder,” Tang said. She got up and asked Niu Yueqing to play for her, saying she would deposit her poison in the toilet. When she walked out the door, she saw the cow lying on the ground, motionless except for her tail, which she was swishing back and forth to chase away insects. Tang made a secret pledge: Zhidie keeps asking me to wait for him, so did he find an excuse to fight with his wife, or was it just a common quarrel? If it’s for me, let the cow moo once; if not, then nothing . She watched for a while, until the cow cocked her ears and let out a snort, not a moo. With no way to tell if she was the cause of the fight, she turned around unhappily.