Can Xue: The Embroidered Shoes

“As soon as I became a doctor, the woman’s mother immediately proposed to marry her daughter to me. She pestered me endlessly. Once I was trimming my mustache when she dashed in. She grabbed the scissors from my hand and kicked me on my hipbone, calling me ‘fond dreamer,’ ‘without escape,’ and such things. I didn’t want to marry her because I simply couldn’t recognize her. Faintly, I noticed a pair of buttocks, a pair of skinny legs, and very dirty nails. Often I dodged her and hid aside, yet when I raised my head, I would still see one of her arms hanging on the wall, with thick black hair under the armpit. The inside of the fingers were twitching, and there were blisters between the fingers. I was greatly enraged by the scene. I practiced several times to drive out her spirit. Yet her mother, that witch who never shows herself (she told me that her mother disappeared ten years ago in the cellar), was controlling the unfolding of the whole situation. I could make no progress whatsoever. I would hide myself in the cistern for twenty-four hours, feeling relieved that they had started to forget about me. Just then the mother’s voice started talking to me in a partly ingratiating, partly coquettish tone: ‘My darling baby, I’ve been watching you. I’ve accompanied you all along. It’s true that she is no good at sex. It’s fair to say that she has lost all her sexual ability. That’s why she is so self-contented. I am very sympathetic to your situation. I am a woman full of sympathy. Oh!’ she suddenly screamed. ‘You’re shivering in the cold water. This breaks my heart. I’ve been watching you crying! Sometimes I feel happy when I see her condition today. I have to see her get married. If she can’t marry, I won’t have the face to live on in this world. Please think from my perspective. I originally intended to substitute her for my younger sister to marry that fellow in the circus, because my sister is a person with underdeveloped nerves. I’ve been taking care of her life all the time…’”

“Those people, she is addicted to robbing!” The fat woman suddenly became uneasy. “Let me take you to the temple.” So saying, she started running, dragging me behind her by my collar. I tried to struggle free, protesting that I didn’t want to go to the temple, because my life was hopeless. All I wanted was to complain to somebody. I was satisfied with that. “That can’t be done,” she said firmly, while running faster. When we arrived at the temple, we saw a woman with her face covered spinning thread at the door. She spat at the humming wooden spinning wheel.

I heard the father-in-law chuckling somewhere, but I couldn’t see him. Oil lamps could be seen floating in the air inside the temple, busy footsteps could be heard moving back and forth. I had lost sight of the fat woman, but I could hear her giggling somewhere. The lights quivered. On the ceiling a huge black shadow trembled. It resembled an old bear. “What fun it is to fish in summer!” I recited loudly in a calm voice. Taking off one shoe, I banged it noisily. The fat woman told me that I didn’t need to play any role. From now on, I could do whatever I wanted. Just like my wife’s classmate — self-confident, firm, decisive. Before that, she had been controlling my fate. But now she felt tired and fruitless. Immediately, I thought of becoming a warlord. This was a role I’d been dreaming about ever since I was a little boy. I started laughing once I made the decision. Freedom tasted so good. “Your old partner is drinking lamp oil on the sly.” She asked me to watch the big black shadow on the ceiling. The shadow was stretching and then shrinking. “I’ve been thinking of cultivating his son. I want to teach him metaphysical thinking, and other things, but I’ve failed. Now he has become a good-for-nothing. Look, that’s him crawling in through the window. He cries bitterly every time he sees me and he chews up all my arecas. That’s all about the family. You can’t even determine what kind of people they are.”

Finally my father-in-law appeared. He emerged from behind the Buddha. Shading his eyes from the light with his hand, he singed his hair on each of the oil lamps and calmly sniffed the odor. After some thought, he came to me. “You are forever thinking of floating toward that ball of light,” he said, shaking my hand solemnly. His own hand was warm and dry. “I still remember you coming to my house to buy used pens. I must feel suffocated, right? It’s very complicated. There’s no particular benefit. When you finally float to the top, you feel worse, because you simply can’t breathe. Some people died just like that. All in all, don’t make trouble for yourself. But I, I love the little shrimp that are hiding in the cracks of the rocks. I am completely happy and pleased with myself. I swim here and there, never opening my eyes. That’s why I never have eye disease. My legs are still good. You’ll know it when you see me jumping. “He tried to jump up. I only heard a fit of cracking sounds and found him groaning on the ground. “I can jump really high!” He panted, waving his fists. I simply stepped over his body.

I knew there was something seriously wrong with his legs. What happiness and pleasure was he talking about? He was only pretending to be a young man. He could do nothing but burn his hair at the lamps and steal food from home. It was a life of penal servitude. In order to stretch his neck to let out the stinking hiccups in his throat, he used the words “happy” and “pleased.” But he had overdone it, and now he could not get up again. Why was he so stubborn! He wanted to show people he was not afraid of death by burning his hair. But what’s the use? I still remember his trick of declaring, “Going to the green mountains!” traveling bag on his back, that he had played for decades. Every time he looked full of vigor and vitality. But now even though he had given up the old past, he still struggled for a jump.

“He is living a happy life as a bachelor,” the fat woman told me quietly, with a handkerchief over her mouth. “He is an out-and-out puppet, and he has lost feeling for his surroundings. As a matter of fact, his whole family has sneaked into this temple. When the north wind starts blowing, they hide in the attic. The lady on the ceiling is your mother-in-law, isn’t she? Fortunately the old man doesn’t know, or it would cost him his life. He is too solitary to measure himself objectively. Look at those oil lamps. They lit them. They light the lamps even during the day because they feel distracted. But the old man never recognizes it. This old fool always believes the temple is completely empty. I once gave him some hint, and he was enraged. It’s so stupid that he believes he is unique. Of course, they can’t see the old man either. They have tired themselves out with the game of catching rats. Now they are suffering from a bad cold. They’ve wrapped themselves up in thick clothing, and they poke their flashlight beams here and there every day. Bah, such people.”

Night had fallen. I went out with the fat woman. The wind was strong. Creamy colored phantoms floated past us. We were huddled up, unable to see each other.…

I haven’t told the story as I intended. I am forever circling around, never able to approach reality. Once I open my mouth, I discover I’m telling something that I have falsified, instead of the thing. The whole purpose of talking is to arouse others’ attention. As a matter of fact, I never intend to tell anything, but only to make some noise. There was a time when I had the spirit to go forward. I dissected a toad, laying its organs on the table one after another. As for those little lumps, I broke them one by one with a small knife. We all make noise, which is very different from the noise made by rats. For instance, on a summer noon, we sit at home. It is very quiet around us, but the gal I married suddenly makes a thump. It turns out that the hook on her bra has slipped out. I know she does that on purpose, and that’s extremely different from rats. When she has accomplished her success, she tells me that once she quiets down, she will smell the hair of her dead mother.