"Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused - Fiction From Today`s China [редактор Говард Голдблатт]" - читать интересную книгу автора (Голдблатт Говард, Мэн Ван, Сюэ Цань, Фейю Би,...)Duo Duo – The Day I Got to Xi'an From a good distance away, I spotted the medical academy's sign, but then another sign leaped into view next to it-the business school's. I was about to stop one of the students to ask directions when I heard-no, saw her coming toward me with a "Hey!" Relieved now, I eased out of the big manic strides I had been taking. I walked along beside her. Suddenly, I felt as though someone had been added in between the two people here and that this other someone was me. Whatever this feeling was, it trapped inside me everything I had intended to say to her. All I said as we walked through the medical academy was her name, Xiao Tong, in a flat, dry voice. Was I afraid of never being able to call her name again? Inside the dormitory, clothes were hung up all over the place to dry. I had to push through at least three or four layers of laundry before I could make out the door to the inside room. Once inside, we stood there, facing each other, then sat down. A bed, a desk, two chairs (one for me, one for her), a radio-cassette deck, four bare walls, and a table, which would have been bare as well if it hadn't been for the dust. Just then I noticed I'd forgotten to bring cigarettes. I hardly asked anything about her. None of the usual "How's it going?"-a commonplace I'm sick of. What does that mean, So that was about it. Then from somewhere or other, out popped that little gem of a phrase, "Oh really?… Is that right?" When did I start humoring her like this, I wondered. It probably got this way because she had no interest at all in anything I could have said to her but was perfectly content with the way her own life was going these days. Compared with someone like me, who is always criticizing himself, who tries hard to straighten himself out, she came across as being as neat and composed as could be. I had the feeling, though, that she treated everyone as if he or she were her doctor. That would explain why everything we talked about had to do with pathology and why I suddenly found myself playing psychiatrist, racking my brains to come up with the most pedestrian advice: "No, that won't do… No matter what, you can't go on like that… You've got to do something, anything, just do it… Do it along with other people…" This was leading nowhere. For two hours, it was as though she were someone perpetually waiting at a bus stop, and I was the bus. No cigarettes, no water-just me trying to help an overweight, imperturbable woman try to figure out how to get her life together. I mean, I was trying to think it through for her: one way is to see that people are different, that they behave differently. She didn't make that derisory little sniff when I got on the subject of behavior, or at least I don't think I heard one, but even so the second I said the word I told her how I had rescued myself-that is, how I had admitted to myself that I had a problem: lonely to the edge of madness, disgusted, hiding from everyone. I told her how I missed my cat so much after it ran away that I spent a month looking for it; how every night coming into the stairwell, I would stare ravenously at my mail slot, though I couldn't remember having written to anyone, not even a simple card; and how after work, I let myself pedal my bicycle on and on, oblivious to where I was headed; and then how I finally understood something. "You should…" You should help others, abandon the idea of self-worth-or rather, making your own life more worthwhile is what it's all about. One day around noon at a greengrocer's stall, I saw a boy dragging his younger sister along the ground. I broke through the crowd of indifferent onlookers, shoved the little brat away, helped the girl to her feet, and ordered the boy to take her home. I told Xiao Tong about the throb of joy I felt at doing this good turn, how from then on, I kept on doing good turns, and how I felt happier than ever before. Then I couldn't take it any longer: "Can I-may I have a glass of water?" She was a long time registering my request. First, she said she'd run out of tea; then she said there wasn't any water ready boiled and the fire in the stove had gone out. She talked on and on, sitting there in her chair. Finally, she said, "Love?" For the seventy-second time, I thought to myself, I've got to go. But somehow I couldn't make myself get up. The sun, three hours of whose light I'd squandered while sitting in there, had sunk down past her kitchen. In that room in the fading light, I noticed her foot had gotten fatter, too, cocked up on her knee and squeezed into a sneaker. Still, there was no way I could bring myself to say, I've got to go. In the silence, I could almost see her after I'd gone, still sitting there. I finally did get the drink of water. I was the one who lit the stove. When the water was just about to boil, I broke the silence: "How about a stroll over to Wild Goose Pagoda?" She said it was all the same to her whether she went or not. Then another half hour of silence before I suggested again that we go to the pagoda. In the meantime, she had turned on some music, let it play for about a minute, and turned it off again. At last, I found the strength to stand up and say, "I've got to be going." Her eyes (they looked fatter, too) seemed to say that she wouldn't oppose the wishes of anyone in the world. In other words, I was free to come and go as I pleased. We went out, and she escorted me across the campus. Some students were playing volleyball. I said I had to use the rest room. She gave me directions on how to get there. It seemed so complex: I had to turn several corners and go all the way inside some building. When I came back, she had changed her mind. (I thought that it was fine for her to have made up her mind in the first place; if she changed it back again, all the better.) I told her what I had just been thinking, and she told me that we could take a shortcut to Wild Goose Pagoda, that there were a lot of vendors selling Xi'an-style snacks near the pagoda, and that we could have for dinner some things I couldn't find in Beijing. That interested me. I didn't remind her, though, what a terrific gourmand she used to be. I practically had to force her to decide whether or not she was going to climb the tower, and then I had to tell her three times, "If you don't want to climb it, you can wait for me at the bottom." As far as I recall, this was all we said along the way. Walking together, riding the bus, stepping off the bus, and continuing to walk on, we were locked into an acute awkwardness. She said she may as well climb the pagoda, so I went to buy a couple of tickets. Going up (seven stories in all), I wasn't sure if I should give her a hand or if we should each make our own way. I figured I'd let my elbow bump hers on the way up-that way, she could decide what to do. I kept thinking that's what I was going to do, but I may not actually have done it. Through the four windows of the pagoda's top story, we gazed out at the city and suburbs of Xi'an, spreading out as far as the eye could see… If it had been just me going up the pagoda, that last phrase wouldn't have stuck in my mind. We left Wild Goose Pagoda and walked along at a moderate pace. "Shall we get something to eat?" She seemed to have forgotten about the eating part. Neither of us was hungry at all, but we each had a deep-fried dried persimmon. All I could think about was rushing to the bus station and getting away from her as soon as possible. Then of all things, she started going on about how there used to be so many snack vendors around this place, but now there's hardly anything except for stuff like bean noodles. As for me, I was still thinking of the twenty cents I'd spent on those two dried persimmons. She said she knew of a good restaurant near Dachai Market but didn't say if she thought we should go or not. I said, "Let's head over there." We headed over. Dachai was bustling and brightly lit. She led me into a food shop selling pastries. I asked her, "What's the point of coming in here?" So we went right out again and started on a search for that unfindable restaurant. Already it was seven-thirty, and most of the restaurants had shut down. Red faces of drinkers careened out of restaurant doors. We kept on, walking from street to street with no idea what we were after. All I could think of was hurrying to a bus stop so I could get away from her. But the city buses were so crammed full of people that we didn't feel like getting on any of them. The stores all sold cassette players, leather jackets, shampoo- stuff like that. We walked into yet another restaurant, a dumpling place, where everybody was eating standing up. We walked right out again, but as we did, she kept looking over her shoulder, back inside. Then there was another place, which had run out of everything but pig organs. She said she just couldn't remember where that one good restaurant was. We slipped into a wonton place and had a bowl apiece; I paid, of course. Then I asked her if she was taking the number 3 bus or the number 1. I figured if she took the 3, I'd take the 1. She said either would do. I said I wanted to go to the long-distance bus station to order a ticket and asked her if she wanted to come along. Why I had to suggest that to her, I don't know. We went all the way through the night market again, through all the boiling and frying and clouds of steam, through all the people milling around and bumping into me. I had no idea, none, what the connection was between her and me or why we absolutely had to walk along here, getting shoved and elbowed, or if I really had to buy a long-distance bus ticket. When she saw me actually holding a bus ticket for early the next morning, she pointed to a shop next door selling southern-style foods and then pointed inside the place at some kind of soft, fluffy cake. I ignored her. Then we stood in a corner of this city where I didn't know a soul, waiting for the local bus to come. It came. I managed to grab an empty seat for her. "Bye," I said when I got to my stop (which came before hers). She turned her face toward the window. I got off the bus but wasn't relieved at all. Nine-thirty in the Xi'an suburbs, walking through mud, suddenly I was hungry. As luck would have it, there ahead of me stood a place selling meat pastries and, incredibly, it was still open for business. I had a couple of the pastries (good ones, too) and washed them down with a bowl of hot sticky-dumpling soup. When I walked outside, I thought I saw the bus carrying Xiao Tong still coming toward me down the road, and I wondered whether I really "Next stop Xi'an -end of the line. One of our nation's renowned ancient cities, Xi'an has served as capital for more than ten dynasties over the long history of the Chinese people…" Xi'an. The woman conductor had just yanked the woolen blanket out from underneath my pillow. I hopped down from the upper berth. Xi'an. No need for the woman on the PA system in that tiny one-and-a-half-square-meter booth (every time I went to the toilet, I saw her sitting there, right next door to the toilet) to make the announcement; from the train's deceleration, I already knew Xi'an was coming up. Just like all the other times I had shouldered my satchel and prepared to step into the press of disembarking passengers, I thought perhaps I ought to make some sort of parting remarks to the acquaintances I'd made on the trip. But I didn't. I did, however, make a rough calculation of my expenses since I'd started out just the day before: two box lunches, one beer, a cold plate of beef, and the noodles for breakfast. Altogether… The comrades sent to greet me had the sign for the conference held high, so I spotted it from a good distance away. I relaxed when I saw it. The first words spoken by the first comrade to shake my hand gave me a start: "Say, didn't you run into trouble on the way?" What trouble? What was this all about? It seemed someone had passed the word that my train had been delayed by a flash flood in the mountains, which is normally no big deal. This comrade, though, for some reason couldn't believe that I had managed to arrive in one piece. He gave me a good firm handshake but left me stuck with a grim thought: The conference was to open the following day, and we were going to drive out there bright and early in the morning. The plan, meanwhile, was to take the afternoon to do some sightseeing. I got a clear idea of the arrangements and checked my watch: still just a bit past ten in the morning. A van hauled us from the train station to the hostel, where we were to spend the night before heading off to Luxian and the conference. I went over to the check-in desk to make a phone call. I gave her a call. Xiao Tong. As soon as I began thinking of Xiao Tong, that summer three years ago drifted back into view. I was separated from my wife, feeling low and foul, as if she and I were involved in some sort of warfare. (I had no heart for fighting it out. We could have been happy together-if only, that is, I hadn't become what I am now.) It was in a gray fifties-era building that I had first met Xiao Tong. I was there with some journalist friends at a get-together called the Journalists' Trust, as we were all in the same line of work. But since each of us was either already divorced or in the process, it might have been better named the Singles' Club. I think it might have been I who came up with that Singles' Club tagline while proposing a toast. As for a good journalistic subheading to go with it, no one ever came up with anything. The opening speech was called "The Independent Woman." The speaker was Xiao Tong. She had recently got a divorce from a husband dead set against splitting up. Originally an athlete, she was powerfully built, proud, and bursting with an unreasoning drive to go out and take on her new life. (I have to admit that for me, it wasn't like that at the time.) She had prepared the lunch: fried sausages, ham, pickles, even cheese, and a ginger nutcake she herself had baked. And then that magnificent chicken. Even the way she carried it out to the table: unforgettable. She knew how to live and live well. The talk she gave, delivered in a strongly speculative vein, left a lasting impression, too. I remember only one phrase from it, when she said, "If a woman can love only one man, then she's not affirming the emotion of love but the man; only if a woman loves continually does she give affirmation to love in and of itself." At the end of the get-together, our friends left Xiao Tong and me behind on our own; each one of them shook our hands as if wishing the two of us well in some unstated sort of way. I can't remember what she and I talked about then, except that she seemed to want me to stay for dinner (the get-together had been a lunch party), and I felt that wasn't really necessary. We met several times after that. She told me how she wrote compositions in English and how she spoke French in her sleep. She was the one who recommended that I read some of the world's most abstruse books. (I think I still have two that I bought after consulting the list she wrote out for me.) Later on, mutual friends were always filling me in on the latest about Xiao Tong: Xiao Tong's in love again, or Xiao Tong's gone through another breakup. The explanations of why she went to Xi'an conflicted. I tended to believe the one I could accept most readily: that she switched job assignments with a teacher who wanted to get back to her husband and child in Beijing. Then, of course, there were other factors in the background: after another frenetic breakup, Xiao Tong, in a huff, had stopped talking with her family. This was where it stood when I arrived in Xi'an and gave her a call. She would be happy to have me over for a visit but made it clear that she had nothing to offer me as her guest. So after lunch at the hostel, I started out. The medical academy would be easy to find, I was given to understand, but even so I kept trying to talk myself out of going there right away: should I rush to get a quick look at the sights of Xi'an first, or should I spend the entire afternoon seeing Xiao Tong? Then again, we could take in the sights together. I decided on the latter. Walking alongside a muddy road, at last I spotted the sign at the gate to the medical academy, and then I saw Xiao Tong. A half month later, I'd finished the conference report and gone to see the terra-cotta soldiers, Empress Wu Zetian's Tomb, and the Tomb of the Yellow Emperor. Getting ready to leave on my return flight to Beijing, I wondered if perhaps I ought to make another trip to Wild Goose Pagoda or perhaps see Xiao Tong again. I decided on the former. No-I went to Xiao Tong's place first and then to Wild Goose Pagoda, because at her dormitory I saw a big padlock on the door. I knocked at the next-door neighbor's, but no one even knew who she was. When I said I'd been here a half month ago to see her, the neighbors suggested I go to the dean's office to check the personnel files. Check the files, or trust my memory? I decided on the latter. When I got back to Beijing, would I tell my friends about Xiao Tong, or keep it to myself? I decided on the former. So I told a friend about what happened with Xiao Tong. He smiled. Xiao Tong had been back in Beijing for over three months, he said; he saw her almost every day. He could take me to her right away, too, since she was still around. Really? Terrific. It looked as if I'd really done a good turn-I'd deceived my own memory, or maybe my memory had deceived me. In any case, I didn't care to talk about it anymore. I started in telling my friend about my experience on the trip back from Xi'an, how I had had to stand up on the train for twelve hours straight. He interrupted-which number train had I taken? "Number one twenty-six, of course." He smiled again, almost laughed this time: "Then you've come from Nanjing." He was right. I must have taken the plane back to Beijing! But that sensation of standing on the train still lingered in my legs. As soon as the train pulled up to the platform, I used my usual trick of flashing a journalist's ID and an interview-approval letter until I located the head conductor. To get a sleeper, you have to move in fast-you can't wait until after you've claimed a hard seat in third class. Unless you've made reservations four days ahead of time or waited five hours in line, this is the only chance there is to get some sleep on the trip. The head conductor very civilly led me to the dining-car corridor, pointed to a ten-centimeter-wide ledge along the wall, and said, "Sorry, but that's the best I can do-the sleepers are full. How about the third-class seats?…" I looked over and realized that I had no choice but to sit on the little ledge. The adjacent hard-seat car was impassable-this train was more of a city bus, what with people pressed up against one another so tightly that even turning around was impossible. The head conductor took me toward the door leading into the next car and, after making me promise three times not to let anyone into the dining car from the hard-seat section, let me have the spot. I promised and sat down. It felt like sitting on the rim of a toilet. I'd boarded the train at ten in the evening. It was due in Beijing at seven-thirty the following morning. For nine and a half hours, I would have to sit here, stuck in the position of someone taking a crap. Half an hour after the train started moving, I went to see the head conductor again. He let me know that he'd already explained how things stood, that sleepers were out of the question that night, although something might be available tomorrow morning (which would be two hours before reaching Beijing). I said, "Then how about giving me a hard seat?" He said that would be more difficult than getting a sleeper. ("We can't pull someone out of his seat to make room for you. Take a look around, and if you see one, take it.") The third time I went to talk to the head conductor, he guided me out of the dining car, took his keys, and "clack," locked the dining-car door. I was left for good with the people standing in the hard-seat car. It dawned on me that I was being held close by a mass of warm, sweaty bodies. All the connecting doors were open, allowing me to see straight to the back of the train, about a quarter of a mile away, people standing all the way to the end. We stood like horses, staring at one another, breathing into one another's faces. Next to us was a boiler room, so that with the dining-car door locked tight, the car I was in warmed up like one gigantic boiler. The windows were sealed shut, and there wasn't much air to begin with. At every stop, a few more people squeezed on, swelling the ranks of the standing passengers. No one was getting off the train. I had to grip the floor with my feet to keep myself upright, as there was only enough floor space for about half of either foot. I wondered how long I'd be able to keep this up. A little over two hours into the ride, someone came up with the idea of getting off at the next station and waiting to get on the following train, which would probably be less crowded. Someone else said that was right, seeing as our train had left at ten at night and there wouldn't be anyone else getting on the trains after midnight. Sounded reasonable. But when a group of us climbed down onto the platform at the next stop and asked around, a short, fat platform attendant flatly advised that we get back on our own train. He couldn't guarantee we'd be better off on the later trains. In fact, he insisted that the next train through, the one we hoped to catch, would be even more crowded than this one. The only slight hope was a train coming out five hours later. "On the whole," he said with a wave of his hand, "you may as well stick with what you've got." When we climbed onto the train again, the conductor asked why we were back. We told him what had happened. He immediately dismissed the platform attendant's remarks as a pack of lies. By then, the train had been moving for ten minutes. Nothing left to do but check and recheck the time on my watch: six and a half hours to go, six and a quarter hours to go, six hours and fourteen minutes to go, six hours and thirteen minutes to go… It reminded me of a long-distance bus trip I'd taken two years before in Henan… I was sitting right behind the bus driver. Anytime a pig or chicken crossed the road or when we came up on a bicycle rider, he would blow the horn. The horns on those buses are as loud and harsh as they come. Every blast lasted about ten seconds, and then the sound rang in my ears for at least another fifteen seconds. Each time he hit it, I thought my heart was going to heave up out of my mouth. By a rough calculation, I figured that the two-hundred-mile trip would take around seven hours. With the driver blowing the horn about once every two minutes, that meant 210 horn blasts, each ten seconds long, plus the fifteen seconds of ringing in my ears… But why go on? I thought. Ten minutes into the bus trip and my nerves were shattered. What would be left of me after half an hour? I realized I didn't care anymore-my ears had already hardened like iron… In much the same way, I passed the nine and a half hours of that night numb to all feeling. The train didn't stop until seven in the morning. Just a half hour to go, but I felt sure I'd be able to stand for another nine and a half. Someone stuck his head out the window and reported that the train was temporarily held up. "Clack." After being locked all night, the dining-car door opened. A conductor gave us an update: the train wouldn't be signaled into the station before ten-thirty. This meant that even though Beijing was only twenty-five minutes away, the train had to stay put for three more hours. No one's eyes registered any disappointment or anxiety, and no one said a word. The interior of the car was silence itself; everyone had to wait and endure. The connecting doors were locked-no one was allowed off the train even though all anyone had to do was walk to the nearest bus stop and catch a bus into the city… It's a feeling I have, that even now I'm still on that train. My feet seem to be planted on the floor of that railway car, regardless of whether the train is stopped or moving, regardless of whether it's going anywhere at all. I have no way of telling this to my friends in Beijing -that I don't know when that arrival will ever come about… By that I mean I may have never been to Xi'an at all. Translated by John A. Crespi |
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