Can Xue - The Embroidered Shoes

“After that, we traveled somewhere every year — to the desert or the lakes, to the forest or the plains. But Sha-yuan was completely indifferent. Sitting in the train, he behaved exactly as he did at home, never looking out the window, never talking to anybody. It was possible that he did not even know he was traveling. But his father and I knew that the child had been too carefree ever since he was young. He never paid attention to his surroundings. He might have been a little cold. I don’t know how to put it, but he lacked sensitivity toward new things.

“It culminated last year when we discovered that his right arm was covered with wounds. Questioning him closely, we were led to a pitch-dark air-raid shelter where he squatted down with a flashlight. We found a box of little flowery snakes. His father asked him with horror where those snakes had come from. Sha-yuan replied: ‘I caught them one after another.’ This was very odd because he had been with us every day. Hadn’t we watched him with care? ‘I was not always with you. Don’t be fooled by superficial appearances,’ he said in his casual tone. After his father coaxed him away, I found a hoe and exterminated those little vipers.

“When we got home, we stayed up nights to prevent his sneaking away again. Yet after two days, fresh wounds had appeared on his arms — like pairs of red spots from snakebites. He said to us, ‘Why bother to tire yourselves out. You simply can’t understand that I’m only sitting with you in appearance. But there’s no place I can’t go even while I seem to be sitting with you. There are so many snakes, and they lose their way often. So I gather them from here and there, so they won’t feel lonely. Of course you can’t see them, but yesterday I found one over there under the bookshelf. I can always find snakes if I look around. I was afraid of them when I was young. I even bit a snake’s head once. I can’t help laughing at myself when I think of it now.’ He kept talking to us like this.”

One day, while sitting with his back to us, Sha-yuan suddenly patted his head with his hand. We walked over, and Sha-yuan’s mother turned him around so he was facing us. His facial expression was calm and relaxed. Cautiously choosing my words, I asked him what he was thinking about while sitting here, and if he was feeling lonely.

“Listen,” he replied briefly.

“What do you hear?”

“Nothing, very quiet. But the situation will change completely after nine o’clock in the evening.”

“How can you possibly dare to desert us like that? How can we live without you?” Sha-yuan’s mother started her lament.

“You can’t call it desertion,” Sha-yuan said gently. “I was born to catch snakes.”

I advised Sha-yuan’s mother not to worry too much about her son. In my opinion, her boy, odd as he was, appeared to be a genius, who might one day turn out to be somebody.

“We don’t care if he will be somebody,” the mother said. “Both his father and I are only ordinary people. How is it that we should have a son who is involved in such shameful business? Raising poisonous snakes, that’s frightening. What does he want to do? I might as well have given birth to a poisonous snake! We simply can’t stop worrying about him. We’re completely worn out by him. The worst thing is that now he can do strange things even without going outdoors. He always has a way to achieve what he wants.”

* * *

One day I saw Sha-yuan’s mother coming out of the air-raid shelter with a hoe in her hand. She looked wan and sallow. She told me she had just exterminated another nest of little snakes, eight altogether. She was almost bald, and she walked like an aged woman. Behind her appeared Sha-yuan’s father, an old man who couldn’t stop blinking one eye. Finally Sha-yuan himself emerged. His back was bent, and he appeared calm. When he saw me, he nodded and started talking: “I created this scene of slaughter on purpose. It might even be described as spectacular — eight lives destroyed once and for all. To them, it was not a matter of any particular terror. I was only surprised by the firmness and confidence of the hands that raised the hoe.”

When asked if he was the one who took his parents to the shelter, he said yes. As soon as they asked, he took them there. He had always maintained a kind of curiosity about his parents’ behavior. While he was talking, his mother stared at the sky with her empty eyes, and his father mumbled repeatedly: “Extreme views can cause tremendous difficulty in a person’s life, but beautiful scenery can open one’s mind.”

I found that the slaughterer, the mother, was the most crestfallen among the three, but Sha-yuan remained detached. All at once it dawned on me that there existed a subtle relationship among these three, a peculiar mutual check. What had just happened was a proof. He didn’t have to take his parents to the shelter; instead, he could have led them somewhere else. Was this only the result of his easygoing personality?

Then I recalled Sha-yuan’s infancy. No doubt, he had been an extraordinarily sensitive baby, with extremely rich facial expressions. The mother had been very proud of him, yet she was nervous. She told me privately that she found the child got tired very easily, particularly when others were talking. As soon as a person started talking to him, he would lower his eyelids and fall into a sound sleep. “He’s just like one of those sensitive mimosa plants whose leaves fold up when you touch them, though he’s not as shy.” Sha-yuan kept his habit until he was five. Then he learned to control himself, though purely for the sake of courtesy. When others talked to him a little bit too long, he would start yawning, then doze off without any consideration for the speaker.

At that time, he did not hate traveling. On the contrary, he appeared to like it somewhat, because he did not need to listen to others while traveling. While his parents were enjoying the beauty of nature, he would sit down to the side and listen attentively to any smallest sound made by little animals. He could always point out accurately where a field vole had just dug a hole, or in which direction a banded krait was advancing quietly. It was possible he had been training his unique listening ability ever since he was born. It seems, however, that this talent has never been tuned to the human voice. After several years’ practice, he could make certain movements just by activating his mental will. On the surface, he was a soft and obedient kid. Such a child very easily makes people lose their vigilance. The fisherman’s child was bitten under such circumstances. Now Sha-yuan’s parents were getting hurt. It was a profound puzzle how he considered the people and objects surrounding him. On the one hand, he seemed to pity those little snakes, but on the other hand, he instigated his parents to slaughter them. Nobody can figure out such contradictory actions. I can’t say that beautiful scenery did not affect him. It may have been the beautiful scenery that cultivated his temperament. After all, different people can appreciate scenery very differently. By the same token, his parents’ painstaking efforts to control the child could only lead to the opposite result.

Then suddenly there came a day when Sha-yuan stopped meditating facing the wall, and his attitude toward his parents also turned warmer. Whenever I went for a visit, I always saw the threesome living in harmony. The smile had returned to his mother’s face. In the past decade or so, the old lady had been completely tied down by her son. But now, even the wrinkles on her face had smoothed out. She said to me happily, “My child Sha-yuan is getting sensible. Just think how many poisonous snakes I have killed for his sake!” As she was talking, Sha-yuan in the background was nodding his head in agreement.