Sheng Keyi - Death Fugue

Mengliu kicked the base of the wall, knocking a shower of white plaster loose. He imagined the frozen lake, the sun shining on it, and Qizi’s face like amber, with her dark eyes, looking irritated but lovely and innocent at the same time. The sky was a monotonous grey, and the trees were withered. Only she was alive with colour. It was like an image from a film, developed in the darkroom of Hei Chun’s mind.

‘Qizi, everyone is very supportive of you. If I withdraw, it will be good for the Unity Party. Anyway, I’ve already achieved my goal.’

‘Goal? What have you achieved?’

‘…Actually, it’s not exactly a goal. I do things out of interest.

There’s no reason. I don’t have to be responsible to anyone.’

‘I won’t be the chairperson. I oppose your resignation.’

Qizi’s recorded speech was like a newly-unearthed weapon. Mournful, bleak, poignant and tragic, it made spring at the Wisdom Bureau extraordinarily dreary.

Mengliu and Shunyu each carried a bundle of cloth, paint, and a bag of jingling objects. As they listened to the broadcast, they walked toward the basketball court, where there was plenty of space for them to work.

‘Qizi’s actually a very talented performer. Can you hear how sensational she is? She makes me want to cry.’ Shunyu pricked up her translucent jug ears and pursed her thin lips. ‘She is possessed. Her father is angry and wants to disown her.’

Mengliu had slowed his pace, and was looking at a speaker attached to the trunk of a tree. He began to envision angels running barefoot from the speaker, elves, roaring lions, snorting horses. Out of the dark forest came the thundering sound of thousands of horses and soldiers, the sad howling of wolves, the honking of a lone goose, and the whimpering of the north wind.

‘On this sunny day, we are on a hunger strike. In the beautiful days of our youth, we cannot help but resolutely cast aside everything that’s good. However, we don’t really want to do that. We refuse to take it lying down!’

‘…’

‘Democracy is the greatest impulse for the survival of human life. Freedom is an inherent, natural right. Everyone has a right to know the truth…

‘We do not want to die! We have a vision for the future, because we are at the most beautiful age of our lives. We do not want to die! Our motherland is still so impoverished, and we do not have the right to cast it aside. Death is not our aim! But if an individual’s death, or the death of a few, will enable more people to live a better life, and to create prosperity for the motherland, then we have no right to hold on to our own lives!

‘When we are hungry, our mothers and fathers, do not mourn. When we say farewell to this world, our uncles and aunties, do not shed tears. We only have one hope, and that is for you to have a better life. We only have one request: please don’t forget, we are definitely not pursuing death!’

‘What are you looking at? Idiot!’ Shunyu swatted Mengliu with the cloth.

‘I was listening to the speech. It was really good. Earth- shattering.’

‘A talented literary work? Did you play any part in it?’

‘She has plenty of talent to deal with this sort of thing.’

‘What’s going on with the two of you? Are you still planning to go overseas?’

Mengliu could not answer Shunyu’s question. He thought back to what had happened two days earlier, when he had worked overnight assisting the Unity Party. His stepfather had come and could not find him, and had lain on his doorstep all night, waiting. As soon as he saw Mengliu, he caught hold of him, but in his anxiety he could not get his words out. He wanted Mengliu to go back to the village and lie low until the trouble was over. He said, ‘Don’t join this damn rebellion.’

Mengliu asked him, ‘Who’s rebelling? It’s just a petition. But I’m not even signing that.’

His father had scolded, picked up a book, and started to hit him with it. After a while, his attack weakened, leaving him tired and helpless.

Mengliu was overcome by a burst of sadness.

‘Why are you in a daze? Why don’t you say something?’ Shunyu said, elbowing him.

‘If Qizi starts to create literary works, she will certainly be an excellent writer,’ he said.

‘She’s very smart. It’s like she’s from another world.’

‘Both of us have low IQs. Why don’t we get together?’

‘Don’t flatter yourself. My IQ is much higher than yours! Someone as beautiful as me is only fit to be with a hero. Who wants to make do with you, Mengliu?’

He knew her hero was Hei Chun, but even though it was just a joke, it still stung. They had idled the time away together in mutual sympathy. They no longer felt like going to the theatre, and they had no interest in concerts. They bumbled around a few antique markets, and finally grew tired of that too. They were bored with the blandness of it all, watching their friends rush like soldiers to the front line of revolution. In the end, they were conscience-stricken, thinking they should at least show their sympathies. It was because of this feeling that they had begun doing these errands for the Unity Party.

With Mengliu’s excellent penmanship and Shunyu’s nimble handiwork, they stitched up banners and wrote slogans, listening to the radio as they worked. After Sixi’s theme song, the Freedom Forum came on air. The guest, a well-known intellectual, brought explosive inside information, saying there was an intense internal struggle in the Plum Party, which had split into two factions. One of the factions wanted to take advantage of the demonstrations to raise a public outcry, hoping bigger trouble would be stirred up.

Mengliu spread out the cloth, indicated his approval of the tailoring, and took up his paint brush and began writing. The paint fumes caused him to sneeze and his eyes to water, but by the time the Freedom Forum ended, the words had emerged from the black background he had created for the banner.

‘These are the biggest words I’ve ever written in my life.’ Mengliu stood up and massaged his knees, feeling like he was no bigger than a toothpick in front of the black banner.

‘Will you go to Round Square tomorrow?’ Shunyu looked at the black banner spread out on the ground.

‘We’ll see.’

‘When you were doing the poetry reading at the bar, do you remember what you and Hei Chun were fighting about?’

‘I didn’t fight with anyone.’

‘Hei Chun said it doesn’t matter if poetry is romantic and graceful, so long as it is passionate.’

‘Since when have you become his spokesperson?’

‘The Three Musketeers should unite for the power of poetry. It boosts morale.’

‘Poetry, apart from inviting trouble for yourself, is utterly useless. Aren’t Bai Qiu’s poems banned now? What use are a few lines of rhetoric?’

Mengliu thought of Bai Qiu’s death. He was like a bird, flying down from the roof of the Wisdom Bureau, his last words folded neatly in his pocket. His death had nothing to do with anything, except that he despaired over this damned generation, confused between right and wrong.

‘Bai Qiu was always a poet.’ The wind lifted a corner of the banner reflected in Shunyu’s eye. She whispered, ‘I admit that I like Hei Chun, but I don’t have the courage to stand with him. I am weak.’

‘Your loneliness serves you right, then.’ Mengliu used stones to weigh down the corners of the banner, then checked to see if the paint was dry.

‘I kind of hate Qizi.’

‘What do you hate her for?’

‘She always plays hard to get with men.’

‘Doesn’t seem so to me.’

‘Why don’t you apologise to her?’

‘I…didn’t do anything wrong.’

‘A man should be a little more magnanimous.’