Can Xue - The Embroidered Shoes

Every evening, the guy seduced by my third daughter swaggered in, his gunnysack on his back, waiting for the fall of darkness. Before the sky darkened, the couple was extremely busy. Putting on their big-mouthed masks, they ran in and out, back and forth several times. My third daughter was hot tempered, and she’d been afflicted with vain hopes ever since youth. However, this was the first instance of such publicizing. The most annoying thing was that my son might also have been in cahoots with them. I was determined to give them a blow. I hid in the wardrobe, waiting for that guy to release the pigeon. As soon as the little thing flew into the wardrobe, I grabbed it and broke its neck, then I threw the bloody body outside before going back to my bed. The two set up wild shrieks and howls the whole night.

The next morning, though their eyes looked like walnuts, they said to me indifferently: “Mother, such gloomy weather is not good for planting vegetables.”

Holding back my pleasure, I replied: “Such weather is no good. I did not sleep deeply, so I feel very tired. I saw my camel hiding in a bathroom, eating the cement on the ground.”

“I heard,” the guy said in a rush, because my third daughter had given him a kick in secret. “In the gunnysack there’s an animal that is harmful to the health. This is only a wild guess. In fact, nobody can tell if there is anything inside the bag. Therefore, illusions occur, gossip follows, unfair criticism comes…” He stopped short as my third daughter was ordering him to “scram.” She complained that his mouth “stinks”; it was caused by “eating rotten stuff the whole year round.”

In those days when I set out to look for the camel, my sister ran away with a geomancer. That guy had only half of a real body. At night, I saw him disconnect the other half, while talking to me offhandedly: “As a matter of fact, half is enough.” When he lay down, he looked as if chopped in half with a knife. “Some kind of insect has grown on my body. They have eaten up the other half. The whole process was carried out without my knowing it.”

Before the elopement, my sister and I squatted in the kitchen, discussing the series of strange things that had happened in the corridor. Blushing, she told me that she had seen a bloody rooster pecking the wood on the doorframe when she opened the door to the corridor early in the morning of the thirtieth. Headless nuns streamed past. “They looked full of thoughts. I could see that from their chests.” While talking, she glanced at me in fear that I did not believe her. The incident happened one midnight. I opened the door to the corridor with a yawn, and immediately I realized that something had happened. Every door was tightly closed, yet the corridor was swept by beams of electric light, as if people were pointing their flashlights from above. This was very absurd. The north wind was blowing outside. A thin man came toward me.

“That’s your son.” My sister tugged the corner of my clothes with excitement. “I’m instructing him to cultivate another kind of lifestyle. Be careful, be careful, don’t bump him. This is a successful try. Of course, I have to teach him how to wipe his rear end. I didn’t see much hope at the beginning.”

While she was talking, her body gave off the smell of horse urine. She was born a country woman. I didn’t really see my son. There was a human figure, but it disappeared in a glance. But she simply refused to let go of it, arguing for my son doing some experiment. Then we stopped our quarrel and closed the door, because numerous wild pigeons had flown in. I believe that the pigeons were raised by the guy seduced by my daughter. This fellow was suffering from cancer, and he had to find a prank to cheer himself up. At the same time, he could create an atmosphere that made himself the center of attention.

“In the dusk, roses are blooming, wild pigeons are singing. You can’t help feeling carefree and joyous,” Sister rattled on. “Some people who don’t possess a heroic personality have collapsed, and they’ve developed a mood of resistance. These people are determined to live a kind of nondescript, weird life that runs counter to both reality and law. The fiancé of your third girl belongs to this type. You can find such people everywhere. They are easy to recognize. All you need to do is check their ears and eyes. These people are all cross-eyed, flap-eared, their lobes swollen and purple.” Talking thus, she came over to check my ears. Grabbing my ear, she jabbed it with a hairpin.

“Bumpkin!” I yelled, and escaped from her grasp.

She continued, “There’s a subtle relationship between protruding ears and crossed eyes. This has provided us reliable evidence. Talking about raising pigeons, this is an example of an attempt at self-exploration. In other words, the final result of the resisting mood. Such a result is usually interesting. I once had a friend who didn’t raise pigeons, but instead just moved his furniture around and around. He was very sick. One of his eyes had lost its eyeball. Diastolic pressure of 110 is a separation. In the countryside, all such diseases will be cured in the natural scenery.”

I should have gotten the hint from this (that is, fled), but the damned pigeons were swooping high and low, distracting my attention. While I was flailing at those birds, my sister blew a very strange whistle, forcing the birds to expel their shit. All at once, pigeon excrement fell like a storm. The whole room stank. Before I could climb out of the plastic shelter where I had taken cover, my sister had already escaped.

Now I remember the incident: The camel came here from the fire. At that moment, the sandy wind was so strong that I could not stand steadily. When the fire had burned to the top of the pagoda, a window below opened, and the camel stretched out its tamed head. The scene had stayed in my memory for so long that I did not feel any surprise when I was riding on its back. It simply came here naturally. Ever since its disappearance, I have been wandering around the blackened pagoda every day. I peep into every open window, only to hear wild pigeons flapping their wings in the empty pagoda, which they have turned into their nest. The fire was odd, as it did not burn anything down. When I asked my son about the cause of the fire, he was tying a slipknot in a rope and attaching one end to the bed. He asked me to put one leg into the knot, then he tied my leg up suddenly.

“Tonight, I’m going to tie up both of your legs so that you won’t stamp on the little strolling parrots. All those wonders that you told me about happened before our birth. We were thrilled every time you opened your mouth. A few days ago, you broke the mirror, saying there was flame licking out of it. You are so rude. The mirror was our family heirloom. I saw you running around the house, writing obscenities with chalk on the wall of the public toilet. You looked jubilant when you returned. You even told me that you’d been to the forest when you lost your way while looking for the camel. But where was the camel to start with? I said so at the time just to please you. But you simply wouldn’t let go of it, pursuing something unrealistic and out of date. You’ve become so crazy that everybody has a headache. Let me tell you, this so-called camel is only a symbol and sign of the color blue. If you are so foolish as to look for its existence, that’s a road toward death.”

He forgot me completely after his lecture and resumed playing with his marbles, despite the fact that one of his old mother’s legs was tied to the bed.

5. MY FIRST DREAM

I dreamed an oval square with silver sand on the ground. Gazing into the distance, I saw the short black houses glaring covetously. There was no sun in the sky. The sand was shining as if it were alive. I put on my sunglasses in fear that my eyes would get irritated. I was not standing in the square. In the bluish white sky cinereous vultures floated, casting huge, dark shadows on the square. Then the silver sand would shiver as if suffering from convulsions. Tears froze on my cornea like wax.