Sheng Keyi - Death Fugue

He jumped up and tried to reach the dragonfly, following it as it flitted away.

‘Señor Esteban, Shanlai…does he know what he is saying?’ Mengliu asked cautiously.

The gentleman once again offered an impeccable, sly smile, but this time something new was added to the platter — a look of disdain that was like a worm after feasting, lying on the leaf, mind blank while it basks in the sun and wind, lazily squeezing out a few blobs of black shit.

To link insect shit to the smile on that perfect, youthful face did not seem quite decent, but it was how Mengliu felt. Later, he came to understand that Esteban’s smile held a much deeper meaning. In Swan Valley, a child of seven or eight often had the intellectual capacity of an adult. Their thoughts were fully mature before they turned ten years old. This was an amazing rate of brain development. It proved that Swan Valley’s approach to genetic development was correct.

15

Swan Valley, with its pleasant and impeccable environment, was a good place to live. It was full of fine women and men of excellence. In Beiping, it was only at upscale nightclubs that you would see such neatly turned-out people — highly educated good-looking call girls, busy young gigolos with qualities that surpassed those of Alain Delon or Gregory Parker. If you were not a big spender their supercilious gaze might sometimes float by you as gently as a feather. Of course Mengliu was not a patron of such establishments. His interest in places of pleasure fluctuated, and though it sometimes grew into an addiction, it also became jaded after a while. Once, a patient whose outlook took a rapid turn after having his gall bladder removed, decided that he should seize the day and enjoy life, so he invited Mengliu to ‘a very special place’ as a reward. It was a man’s paradise, providing a range of services that included threesomes, foursomes, bondage, suspension, inversion, water treatment, air treatment, and of course the deflowering of a virgin. But when men come into contact with women who possess a cold charm combined with beauty, and topped by an overwhelmingly elegant disposition, they are reduced to the state of a weak country facing a superpower. Under such enormous psychological pressure, they often become impotent.

Mengliu was drawn to a particularly stunning woman and planned to take a room with her. When she told him that she drove a Ferrari, he found he wasn’t up to the task. He couldn’t muster the courage to engage such an extravagant and alluring creature, so he dug out all the cash he could for the woman and slunk away. From that moment on, he knew that he would always be like a fish out of water in Dayang’s high society. It was infected with skin disease, and seriously ulcerated inside.

This was why he liked Swan Valley so much, its fresh fertile nature, its simplicity, innocence, and peace. Even the breeze seemed to bring with it a nourishing power. His skin felt moist and smooth, his mood was like a wandering shapeless cloud, free of the burden of the past. At the side of this beautiful woman, accompanied by an intermittently racing heart and the secretion of hormones, he lived every day as if in the early stages of love. A noble temperament was slowly taking over his whole being. The prospect of leading a selfless magnanimous life, away from worldliness and beyond the mundane, permeated the atmosphere. He found it in Su Juli’s neat appearance and style of conversation, and in the calmness and accomplishment of the people of Swan Valley.

In the morning, like a married woman who had spent all night amusing and pleasing others, the sun was late in rising. It was nearly nine before it roused its lazy body, fatigued and weak, to glance at the world, before going quietly back into hiding to wash and dress.

Esteban had invited Mengliu to watch the rice-planting ceremony. The scenery as they walked along was glorious, and Esteban urged him to compose a pastoral idyll, in the hope that he would slowly recover his identity as a poet. He even recited one of his own, and invited Mengliu to critique his composition.

Looking back at his own messy footprints as he trod along the muddy path, Mengliu thought what a foolish suggestion that was — to rattle off a few simple pastoral stanzas and recover his fucking poetic identity. Only the people of Swan Valley had the idle time to treat poetry — a bold and powerful mastiff — like a pug. Poetry was a raging fire, not a rhetorical game. When the Dayangese composed verse, they never went about it like a girl with her embroidery.

Saying nothing, he bent his head and continued walking. He had no power in his lungs to say anything.

The scenery was like nothing he’d ever seen, heard about, or imagined. It was perfectly suited to a dissatisfied government official turned hermit or recluse, putting up a hypocritical show of farming while, at the same time, waiting to hear the hoof-steps of a courier from the imperial government. On both sides of the road, the hedgerows were covered with tiny blossoms, punctuated by the occasional fiery-red wild rose. The sides of the ditches were scented with wild celery. The distant hillside was covered with flowers and grasses and white mushroom-shaped houses which popped up in the landscape here and there.

Mengliu refused to discuss poetry with Esteban. They had nothing to talk about. They silently passed a lotus pond full of blossoms, and came to a gathering of fruit trees. Here in a sea of flowers, bees, butterflies and birds fluttered about busily. The orioles were warbling, filling the air with the scent of pollen. It was like a produce market or some sort of meeting place; in the midst of the dazzle, all that was left to Mengliu’s ears was a roar, the sound growing more intense and more immediate, as if it was pressing closely towards him, and would soon roll over his body. Ashen-faced, he reached out and steadied himself against a tree, then leaned his whole body against its trunk. The petals upset by his movement dropped like snow, there were so many of them.

‘Mr Yuan, you don’t look good. Is something wrong?’ Esteban’s voice didn’t hold concern for Mengliu’s person, though he seemed interested in the cause of his discomfort.

‘Sorry, I’m just allergic to pollen.’ Mengliu recovered, pretended to sneeze, and tears started to form in his eyes.

Esteban turned up the corners of his mouth, putting on a smile that seemed to indicate an insight into how things really were.

Mengliu guessed that the other man must have seen through his lie. It wasn’t that difficult, really. After all, he hadn’t had any problem with the pollen at Su Juli’s house.

Esteban continued to walk at a leisurely pace, as if he were deliberately torturing his companion. He picked a flower, curled his upper lip, placed it beneath his nose, and took a long sniff at it.

Wiping the tears from his eyes, Mengliu continued with an affected casualness, ‘It’s not an allergy to every kind of flower. I’m not even sure which flowers are my natural enemies. It might not be just one kind, but perhaps a combination of several kinds. I haven’t been tested…But it’s nothing serious, just an allergy. It’s not a big deal.’

Esteban lifted the edge of his robe and strode across a gully. ‘From what I know, allergies are the body’s exaggerated reaction to stimulation. Of course, that also includes mental stimulation.’ He stood across from Mengliu, looking at him with stormy eyes.

Just then the raccoon-like child jumped out of the forest in front of them. He stood in the middle of the path, hair strewn with petals and body covered in pollen. In his right hand he held a long stick, sharpened to a point. A fire wheel made out of green bristle grass wound around his left elbow. He wore an expression of superiority.