Sheng Keyi - Death Fugue

Rania was bathed in sun, her hair pulled back into a bun, her forehead white and shiny, idealism crystallising in her features. Her arms lay on the armrests of her chair, as white as porcelain in the sunlight. She looked like she could break. Her fingers were plump as maggots, their nails rosy. Mengliu had never known their texture or their warmth, their desire or even their curiosity.

They had never known the plains of his body, and yet they belonged to him.

His eyes narrowed as he looked at Rania’s dazzling white face. It was a leering expression, as if he was calculating how he might seduce her. Since he could not do anything with his own legal wife, except perhaps one day escape with her to the forest for an illicit liaison, he now understood how seriously wrong the situation was.

‘Where did you put my bag of marbles?’ he asked, thinking of his diamonds.

‘I threw them away,’ she answered.

‘You tampered with my stuff again? That was a souvenir Shanlai gave me.’ He was angry, and distressed about the diamonds.

‘Are you still talking about “mine” and “yours”? Yours is mine. You forgot that this authority was conferred on me by Swan Valley,’ Rania said casually. ‘I was assigned to be your wife according to the document.’

Having nothing to say to that, Mengliu turned to the rubbish bin, but he could not find the bag of marbles. ‘You should marry your Swan Valley. It is more suitable than any man to be your husband. I want to annul the marriage right now.’

‘I know. If you had married Su Juli, you wouldn’t say this. But I should remind you that only genes can be a basis for annulment.’

‘You don’t need to bother about who I might have married… Swan Valley’s ban on sexual intercourse, its reliance on artificial insemination — creating geniuses — don’t you find these things contrary to human nature?’ Mengliu turned his back to the sun. His body was covered by a soft layer of dust motes. ‘Rania, as a human, as a woman, do you really not have an opinion about this?’

‘No. They’re the rules.’

‘There’s always a place not exposed to the sun. A little bit of shadow is nothing very unusual…but now, this sort of thing…’

Rania smiled quietly, as if to say he was making a fuss over nothing. She turned and went into the house, and when she came back out she carried a tea set. ‘Many years ago we had an artist who went to China and returned with many relics. Look at this purple clay teapot. It’s said to be a thousand years old. Try it and see what is different about our fermented tea when it is brewed from Swan Valley’s water in a Chinese purple clay teapot.’ She was very particular about her tea-making, not the least bit perfunctory as she spoke. ‘Smoking is bad for one’s health. Smoking is not allowed, and tobacco production is prohibited. Tea-drinking has been designated the national pastime because tea cleanses the heart, promotes goodness and fosters a peaceful environment.’

Rania did not speak like a big-hearted, empty-headed person, and Mengliu had some respect for that. ‘If people maintain a preference for a single flavour there will be nutritional imbalance. The provisions in the tea referendum seem a little overbearing.

‘In some places, good tea is ruined by common hands, just as a good landscape can be ruined by a mediocre artist, or good students made poor by inferior teaching. Swan Valley does not have such terrible problems.’ Rania took a sip of her tea, testing its flavour with her eyes closed. ‘Mr Yuan, don’t be a nitpicker. You have admitted that your own place is quite imperfect. Your pitiful attempt at democracy crushed by the government and left to die…’

‘You bitch, don’t try to change the subject,’ Mengliu interrupted rudely, having gulped down two cups of tea. ‘This tea isn’t so special. The one who brewed it didn’t put her heart into it, so there’s no soul in the tea.’

‘You’re right. I was distracted. I kept thinking of a question. Did you…’ she stared at his face. ‘Did you do that with Su Juli?’

‘Do what?’ He pretended to be innocent.

‘Okay, I’ll say it directly. Did you go to bed with her?’

‘No,’ he said coldly.

‘You are my husband. I will not betray you.’

‘It’s true. I didn’t.’

‘Then Esteban? Her relationship with him?’

This was something Mengliu also wanted to know, so he gave a mysterious knowing smile, deliberately provoking her. ‘I can’t say. You should ask the parties involved.’

‘Mengliu, I feel we should have no secrets between us.’ She had changed, and was now calling him by his given name.

‘What? No secrets? I hardly know you. I wouldn’t even count you as a friend.’ Mengliu suddenly wanted to mess with this woman.

‘You did not see the requirements in the files…Of course, we shouldn’t talk of requirements, but I really do want to be your friend…your confidante…your wife.’

‘You don’t need to offer sweet talk. Of course, if you have a good attitude, I will change my view of you.’ Then Mengliu added abruptly, ‘Let me ask you. What sort of place is the waste disposal site in the forest?’

Rania’s face darkened. She stammered, and said she really did not know, as she had never gone roaming about there.

‘You’re still not honest enough,’ Mengliu snorted. ‘I was testing you. You just missed a chance to earn my trust.’

Rania was embarrassed, and her face was mottled, as if crisscrossed with the shadows of tree branches. She looked as if she were suffering from vitiligo.

10

No one had given Yuan Mengliu a concrete idea of what the Head of a Hundred Households should do. Life in Swan Valley was based on virtue. They didn’t need to lock the doors at night, or keep watch on the roads. The more leisurely an officer’s life was, the more it proved that the society was stable, like a smooth surface on a deep lake, free of waves. There had never been sit-ins, poster campaigns, riots or any such thing. There was a regular flow of inactivity, with everything kept calm and quiet. Of course there could be no substantial change in Mengliu’s relationship with Rania either. They were still two unconnected wells, each with its own patch of sky. They always seemed courteous enough to each other. As for a marital relationship, Mengliu was secretly inclined to feel that marriage practices here were more civilised than in Dayang, and of a higher nature. Dayang’s marriage customs were more hypocritical. He remembered Suitang’s evaluation, how she had said that most married men kept another woman on the side. The wives’ forbearance, tolerance, magnanimity, and the so-called idea of their being sensible all allowed the root of their husbands’ vice to grow stronger and thicker. A wife had no power to lessen the drive of the male in her husband, and she certainly wasn’t attractive enough to increase it. And yet, she emphasised, this was society’s mindset, its immovable way of thinking, and marriage was its highest form of self-deception. The male temperament was never as humble as its root, aware as it was of the demands of the situation. His spirit was more like this wretched root, full of wrinkles and folds that would house filth. But men were never as frank and sincere as their own dicks. They could put on all the trappings of a eunuch — falsetto voice, ambiguous discourse and all — then read Playboy when they were alone and get off with the girl next door after dark. It was obvious that Suitang’s explosive verbal power was something Jia Wan had given her. But Mengliu thought that her argument, though a bit extreme, wasn’t unreasonable, and was useful in bringing him to terms with his own sense of absurdity.