Sheng Keyi - Northern Girls - Life Goes On

This spring, Zhu Dachang accompanied his wife, the dark-skinned teacher, to the hospital. He was lucky — his wife had given birth to three sons all at once. She was unlucky — she had given birth to three sons all at once, so had to submit herself for the operation.

As it turned out, her luck was not all bad. The doctors reported that she had a rare condition that made her unable to go under the knife. She felt as if a glimmer in the dark of night had burst forth into the bright light of morning.

Dachang said at once, ‘Don’t you think I’m done here? I’ve got three boys. Even if you paid me to do it, I wouldn’t want to father anymore!’

‘No one can say for sure. But if you’re slated for an operation, you’ve got to have the operation. It’s official policy.’

While his wife was resting and the three babies were asleep, Dachang left the milky-smelling ward behind and went out for a walk. The smell of milk lingered even on his own body. He wandered out onto the lawn. Red and gold banana trees blazed, as brightly coloured as a bride in her heavy makeup.

Dachang suddenly remembered that some time back, Xiaohong had called and told him she was going to work in a hospital. He had been very pleased for her. He could not remember which hospital she was at, nor did he know how things were going with her. As he thought about it, he felt some regret. He should have taken care of this girl who was so far away from home. Even if his wife was jealous and even if he had promised not to speak to Xiaohong, all the same, he should have taken more care of her. Thinking back to the first time he had met the pathetic girl in the detention centre, Dachang felt that, in the face of the hard realities of the world, she really was too small and too weak. In Shenzhen, there were many small, insignificant people like Xiaohong. It was hard to see how these blind little girls overcame the difficulties they faced in life.

Walking round the lawn, Dachang looked up and saw a head sticking out of one of the windows in the hospital, looking at him. Then a hand came out next to it, desperately waving. He looked round to see who the person in the window was beckoning to and realised he was the one being hailed. Only then did he notice that the person looked like Xiaohong. Just like her.

‘ Zhu Ge , I was looking for you. You have triplets! It’s all over the hospital. Everyone is envious.’ Xiaohong was like a wind blowing over him.

‘I’m happy for both of you, too,’ she slowly added.

‘It’s going to be a real hassle,’ Dachang said, conflicting emotions playing on his face and in his voice. As for what kind of trouble, he was too embarrassed to say. For a man to undergo this sort of operation, it was as humiliating as suddenly being castrated. Although the physicians had constantly reaffirmed that the procedure would not affect the normal functions of life, who believed that?

Xiaohong also didn’t ask what sort of hassle he meant. She only wanted to show herself to be quiet and thoughtful with Dachang. She was a bit stiff. It was a strange thing. She couldn’t explain it. A few years had passed and then they met like this, stood face to face like this, chatted like this. There were traces of sadness about each of them and they were left not knowing how many years would pass before they met again. Perhaps a lifetime. It was a sadness that hinted at autumn and the end of comedy.

‘You’re… alright? Looks like a good place to work. You need anything, I’ll do my best to help,’ Dachang stammered.

‘It is good. Really good. I always remember the help you gave me.’

‘There’ll be a typhoon in a couple of days. Remember to secure the windows. It’s best to stay indoors. Don’t go out.’

‘Alright.’

‘You need to apply for your temporary resident’s permit?’

‘No. The hospital took care of that for me.’

‘If you need anything, call me.’

‘OK. Oh, do you know anything about the case of the girl who worked at the Qianshan Hotel, Julia Wilde? I don’t know if there’s been any resolution to that.’

‘From what I heard, there haven’t been any leads.’

‘I guess there’s no hope. Oh well.’

‘You take care of yourself. Don’t worry too much.’

‘You too.’

II

Several months flew past and, before he knew it, autumn had arrived and Dachang found himself at the hospital again. The shadows of two figures were visible on the other side of the screen. Zhu Dachang sat facing Dr Chen Fangyuan, answering her queries, under diagnosis.

‘Stand up. Take off your trousers,’ Dr Chen said in sanctimonious, majestic tones.

Dachang had gone under the knife in the spring, but his wife had recently become pregnant again. Suspecting the worst, Dachang decided to first go for a check up himself. He thought that if there were a few guerrilla forces lurking in his own body, he could do nothing but laugh it off. But if it were confirmed that his troops had indeed been defeated, then it was a big problem and his happy marriage and peaceful family life would face a severe test.

Dachang listened tensely to Dr Chen’s instructions, holding his breath as her hands prodded and pinched at him.

‘Has it had any effect on your relations with your wife?’ Dr Chen’s expression was like that of a blind fortune teller.

Dachang wanted to say it hadn’t but he sort of felt it had, so he answered noncommittally. The screen was suddenly pulled a bit and another female doctor came in, obviously on urgent business.

‘How can you just come in like that?’ Dachang, startled, quickly covered his most sensitive parts.

The doctor looked at him with a pair of panda eyes and said, ‘I’m a doctor! Is there any real reason to cover that thing up?’

The doctor muttered something at Dachang. Then turning a backside as round as a panda’s in his direction, she left.

‘Female doctors are still women, aren’t they?’ he said, as if in a trance.

Dachang reluctantly uncovered his nether regions once again, returning to face the reality of a check up by Dr Chen. Using the fingers to pinch and confirm that the vas deferens had in fact been cut was a particular strength of Dr Chen’s, but she seemed to be encountering some problems this time. After spending about ten minutes prodding about, she gave a depressed sigh. ‘Strange, it’s not standing up. I can’t reach the vessels at all.’

Dachang had not thought that she might want it to stand. Why wasn’t it erect? He didn’t understand it either. But he did know it would be difficult to manage much of an erection when faced with Dr Chen.

In the end, she said, ‘We’ll test the semen.’

Dachang felt insulted. He thought she could have avoided the embarrassment of making him remove his trousers and just taken some samples of his bodily fluids.

‘It’s not the same thing,’ Dr Chen said. ‘We need a multifaceted check up.’

She arranged for a small room for Dachang. Inside was a small colour TV and VCR. It was a very professional setup.

She turned on the video but didn’t leave right away. Two naked people started kissing on the screen. Turning a blind eye, she handed him a plastic cup and said, ‘You just enjoy the show.’

Dachang stared blankly at the cup. It suddenly hit him what it was for and he began watching earnestly. But the more he watched the blue movie, the limper he became. This upset him so much that he turned positively soft. After fifteen minutes, Dr Chen knocked and came in to have a look. The video was rewinding, the cup was empty, and Dachang’s face was unhappy.

‘Oh, you got so involved in watching that you forgot about the real thing, huh? Then how will we do the tests? If the video’s no use, would you like us to call a prostitute for you?’ Obviously, Dachang was wasting too much of her time. She added, ‘I’m serious about the prostitute. Once we had a guy who came in for a check up and he couldn’t squeeze out a thing, not to save his life. His wife wasn’t here to help extract anything either. In the end, we had to call a prostitute before he could manage it.’