Ma Jian - Red Dust

I reach Yanan at last, and decide to stay a few days. Mao Zedong’s ten-thousand-kilometre Long March came to its end here. He chose to build his communist stronghold in this town, because he knew that once he controlled China’s heartland the empire would be his.

My doss-house is in a cave in the hills above the town. The tap in the yard leaks and the frozen puddle below is dotted with tea leaves and melon seeds. When the ice melts at midday I have to throw down a path of cabbage leaves before I can walk over to wash my face. At night the yard is pitch black. When I finish cleaning my teeth on the second night, a cold wind blows me back to the room. The light in the cave is dim but I can see each face clearly.

The middle-aged man stirring the pot of noodles on the stove is still wearing his nylon jacket, his shirt collar is black with grime. He sells cats for a living. There are three cages of them stacked by the door. I ask how much they cost and he says he buys them for two yuan each, and sells them for ten.

‘Why do people need cats?’ I ask. Behind the chicken wire, the cats’ eyes sparkle like glass balls.

‘Rat poison can kill farm animals so it’s safer to use a cat.’ He asks me what I do for a living and I tell him to take a guess.

He glances up from the pan of noodles and says, ‘You sell nylon rope.’

I remember the rope seller I saw in the market today, and can think of nothing that was particular about him.

The cat seller says you can buy rope wholesale from government depots at two mao a metre, and make a fortune selling it in the markets.

The peasant on the brick bed removes his padded jacket and starts squeezing his fleas.

‘Aren’t you cold like that?’ I ask him, scratching my legs.

‘It’s boiling in here. This is the hottest room I’ve been in.’

Next to the fire under the brick bed are bags of rice and pork scratchings, and a horse’s bridle that stinks of urine. There is a mound of quilts on the bed, but I prefer to sleep in my coat. The bed is only big enough for four, but there are five sharing it so we have to sleep diagonally. I will do what I did last night and wait for the others to nod off then stretch out on top of them.

The room warms up once the door is closed, but the smell of charcoal smoke and dirty feet is so strong I have to soak my nostrils in tiger lotion. The man in the purple jumper sells peacock feathers for a living. He says business is bad.

I advise him to hawk them outside universities, or the hotels where foreigners stay. He says he tried selling them on Mount Hua, but was arrested by the police and fined twenty yuan. He says he has a hundred feathers left and when they are sold he will start selling women instead.

The boy warming his hands over the stove is still chain-smoking. I ask him to show me his calendars and he passes me one with a photograph of a blonde woman standing on a beach in a swimming costume.

The peasant has never seen a foreign woman before. He examines the picture, and mumbles, ‘She won’t get a husband now — flashing her arse like that.’

‘You can have one for two yuan. It has Western and Chinese dates.’ The boy fails to mention it is last year’s calendar. I want to say something, but keep my mouth shut.

‘I have nowhere to hang it,’ the peasant says. ‘Besides, if the police saw it they would put me in handcuffs.’ His fingernails are filled with the blood of squashed fleas.

The calendar seller is not ugly exactly, but there is something not quite right about him. He looks as though he was moulded by a moron. It is hard to pinpoint the problem. Perhaps his chin is too large for his shoulders. The uncertainty makes one long all the more to squash him into a ball and start again.

The peacock-feather trader cleans his teeth with some scouring powder he has stolen from the kitchen.

‘That’s for scrubbing saucepans!’ I tell him.

‘Never mind,’ he says. And suddenly I think of a way to make money.

The peasant snuggles under the quilts and laughs. ‘City folk only wash their teeth because they eat too much good food!’

‘Brushing keeps teeth clean and white,’ I say. ‘Haven’t you noticed what white teeth the city people have?’

The conversation soon dries up. My roommates have little to talk about, as their only concern is to make money and stay out of trouble. An hour later, I stretch over the snoring bodies and let my mind drift to Hangzhou. I picture myself sipping brandy in Wang Ping’s room. I am sitting on her chair, wearing her slippers. I wake up to find someone’s dirty sock stuffed up my nose.

In the morning I buy two mao’s worth of scouring powder and a sheet of red paper. I fold the paper into a hundred small envelopes and fill each one with a pinch of powder. Then I amble through the street and quietly tout my wares. Three university students in sun hats who are travelling in search of their roots buy two envelopes from me. I tell them it is particularly effective against tobacco staining. I only sell ten that day, but I find the street inspector, give him a pack of cigarettes and he says I can set up business on the pavement tomorrow.

The following day I come equipped with toothbrushes and a cardboard box which has pictures of smiling faces cut from a magazine stuck on the sides and the words MIRACLE TEETH WHITENER painted on the front. As I sit behind it and shout my wares, I understand why the Mizhi tooth puller had such an unnerving gaze, because I too just stare at people’s teeth now when I speak to them. A middle-aged man with a scraggly neck sidles up and demands a demonstration. His teeth are black with nicotine. I brush the two front ones for free. By the end of the day my entire stock is sold. I count my earnings and decide to move to the People’s Hotel.

My room has four beds, a desk, a coat stand and a broken mirror with a sticker that says NO GAMBLING OR WHORING.

After a hot shower I lie in bed with a cigarette. A guest walks in and sits down on the next bed. It is the man whose two front teeth I brushed this morning.

‘That powder you sold me was lethal. My teeth may be clean, but my mouth is all swollen.’

‘It is a French product. Perhaps the formula is little strong for Chinese gums.’

I ask him what he does for a living and he says anything that keeps him away from his village. He says he has been to Beijing and seen Mao’s Mausoleum, and I tell him he is the first person I have met this month who has travelled to the capital.

We chat for a while, then in the evening we go out for a meal. His name is Liu Jingui.

I notice him staring at the waitress and ask if he is looking for a girlfriend.

He gives a loud cackle that sounds like a branch breaking from a tree. Then he whispers, ‘I run a little business, brother. It’s top secret. If the police find out I’m finished.’

Hoping to find out more, I chat about women and ask if he has had any luck recently.

He sniggers. ‘Can’t play around, brother, I have a wife at home.’

‘You sell women, don’t you? Never mind, you don’t have to tell me. I just thought we were friends, that’s all. I was obviously mistaken.’

He presses my hand. ‘You are an educated man, brother. It is an honour for me to call you my friend.’ He moves closer. ‘I don’t have many skills, I’m just trying to get by. If I can go home with a thousand yuan in my pocket at least I won’t have disgraced my ancestors. All right, might as well tell you, I am a — how shall I phrase it — coil remover. I give discounts to the poor.’

‘What type of coils do you remove?’

‘The ones placed inside women after their first child. I help take them out again.’

‘Have you had medical training?’

‘No, but no one has died yet. Some women bleed a little but they are fine after a couple of days. First I removed my wife’s coil, then she told her friends and soon everyone in the village wanted theirs out. I made a lot of money, but then someone reported me to the family planning officer and I had to run away.’