Can Xue: The Embroidered Shoes

Obviously this left artificial marks on his body. He was not born this way, but he didn’t know at all that it was all Lao Jiu’s arrangement. He only kept feeling surprised.

“I should have a father. This is very strange.”

“The notebook that you have forgotten is his biggest mistake. The old man has cut off his own retreat.”

The marks and scars on his face healed gradually, and the shape eventually stabilized and many unpredictable expressions appeared. Sometimes his glance would startle Lao Jiu at a particular moment. Several times, he raised the issue of the black leather notebook to probe him. The teenager listened without any facial expression. Obviously he was changing day by day.

More and more often, he could hear his upset footsteps in the wilderness at midnight. The footsteps bothered Lao Jiu, making him get up, put a shirt over his shoulders, and listen. From the window he could see a swinging candlelight. The young man was alone. In the small hut behind him there were all kinds of groaning sounds. Originally, he had hoped for a companion, who obviously was not Lao Jiu — had hoped for not the present existence but some discovery. He felt he would die if he couldn’t discover something new. Every day he despised his present existence. He would die of anxiety if some unexpected happiness did not appear. For several months he sat on the benches in the park half dreaming. He was trying to create a kind of strong image, yet simultaneously his mind resembled a dying rabbit. Ru Shu entered his life at that critical moment.

Ru Shu was a woman without roots. He noticed this while sitting on the bench in the park, and it was further proved when she repeatedly jumped from running trains to meet him. But this was not important. The thing that deeply shook his belief was the fact that she had her own pursuit.

“The cold wind blew and blew at midnight. I knocked open a door. From inside stretched an unfamiliar head. All of a sudden it started to talk. I could barely understand it at first, and I made all kinds of mistakes. Now that naivete has passed.”

This was her description of her work. She said that up to now she had seen the goods in every house. There was no way to cheat her even if they wanted to. For example, the uncle. She had certainly seen him. Even with her eyes closed she could imagine him; otherwise, how could she give such an accurate judgment? Talking about him, she had also knocked at his door on a certain summer night in a certain year. At that time both of them were young, a little girl and a little boy. They were farther from resembling each other then than now. She remembered the incident. The reason she went to the park was because of her remembrance of this. At first glance she could see the changes that had taken place in his face over these years and the horror came to her. Then there was the incident of escaping.

“Why should you knock at the door? Since there is no secret whatsoever inside the house?” he asked.

She answered that it was because she did not want to give in, or she didn’t want to lose the game. Since she had already entered the dead end, she had to bother the people inside the house for the rest of her life. That was all her happiness.

That fall, Ru Shu’s searching gradually showed a purity and extremity. In the aging season, her face showed some edges and corners, and her expressions turned indifferent and cold. She came to him less and less; instead she would stay inside the house alone — her house was never located permanently at one place, and he could never decide where she lived. Like their life histories, it was a fabrication.

Using a charcoal pen she drew many thick lines on the wall (those walls were very white and totally empty), and on every line she drew numerous antennas. She told him that those antennas were all memories about nights. Now she was devoting all her energy to this work. Nothing related to daylight could arouse her interest. Of course, daylight did not include him. He also was an antenna that she had drawn, and he belonged to the night. This was revealed by the shadows in his face. Even the blazing sun in the vast desert could not burn that shadow away. The symbols on the walls were all alive. Very often she was so touched by them that she could not stop sobbing!

In a ceilingless house, she pointed at the slim woman who passed by outside the window and said, “She’s wearing such a thin coat. Yet in the place she is going to it is snowing. The whole sky is full of six-cornered floating flowers. She is walking gently, taking into her eyes all the scenery along the way. ‘Fragrant Grassland,’ the name of the place, appears in her mind. But in reality the place in front of her is seeing falling temperatures. When I was young, I had similar experiences several times. Every time I forgot to bring proper clothes. Now that woman is far away, and her figure from behind does not appear that confident.”

“Fragrant Grassland! Fragrant grassland in a snowstorm?” she suddenly shouted.

At the same time he found himself in the middle of a crowded square. Many familiar faces passed by without expressions.

Somewhere Ru Shu was saying excitedly, “I’m the puzzle inside the puzzle!”

He knew what emphasis she made with her vigorous charcoal pen. He could also see her lonely destiny. He did not pity her, but let her go her own way. The narrative about that woman had started before they moved into the room in the corridor. For a long time, Ru Shu would toss and turn in bed, placing her fevered head on his bosom, and then she would lead into that story. According to her that woman was everywhere. She wrapped her head in a kerchief with colorful patterns. She would appear from a dark doorway and she would travel through every big street and small lane. She had been to Ru Shu’s room. Quietly she sat by the desk and one page after another she turned through an old book, her ears pricked up with caution.

“Every time I removed the clutter from the desk, there was always one book that appeared punctually. In the light, her hair was shining, and it was even thicker than mine.”

She asked him to recall from which day the story about that woman started. And he answered that it seemed to have started from that day when the camellia blossom withered away. That day they were circling around and around in the mountains carving their names in the bamboo. They didn’t return to their house until very late. She was so sad that she couldn’t go to sleep the whole night through. Sitting up she told him the story touchingly. She said that the woman had disappeared thirty years ago. Sitting by the window she finished reading one letter, then she walked out and disappeared amidst a vast sea of men. Left over on the windowsill were two glasses, one blue, one white, with tea marks inside.

“Thirty years is not that long,” Ru Shu tried hard to explain patiently. “That woman would come every day because she belonged to a kind of eternity. Time had long ago stopped for her. Is it kind of dull to talk about this?”

She became very nervous and stared at the doorway. She was waiting for the knock on the door.

There does indeed exist a strange kind of brain damage. I have a friend who is a housewife in her thirties. When she talks with others, her left eye will not stop blinking.

One morning several years ago, this friend stopped at my door to tell me, “I’m suffering from some kind of illness. Unfortunately, nobody has noticed this. May I call this illness a form of brain damage? In my opinion, this is a special kind of affliction.”

She leaned close to me and began fervently to describe her symptoms. More exactly, she was describing her daily routine. To be honest, I heard nothing unusual or even interesting in her discourse. She was the virtuous wife of a husband who had an impressive income, and she had two sons. Her family had attained a middle-class standard of living. These were things I had already known for a long time. I was puzzled by the effort she put into detailing that which was commonly known.