Boy in the Twilight (8 page)

The surgeon lay on a makeshift bamboo lounge chair, his wife sat in an adjacent rattan chair, and my brother and I sat next to each other on a bench. We listened as our father
explained how everyone had an appendix in their belly and how every day he had to remove, at the very least, twenty or so appendixes. His fastest time was just fifteen minutes—fifteen minutes to perform the operation and cut off the appendix. We asked him what he did with it afterward.

“Afterward …” my father waved his hand dismissively. “Afterward we throw it away.”

“Why’s that?”

“An appendix isn’t worth a fart,” he answered.

Then he had a question for us. “What are the lungs for?”

“For breathing in,” my brother replied.

“What else?”

My brother thought for a moment: “And breathing out.”

“And the tummy? What’s the tummy for?”

“The tummy? The tummy digests things you have eaten.” Again it was my brother who answered.

“And the heart?”

This time I beat him to it. “The heart beats, thump thump!”

My father glanced at me. “That’s true, you’re both right. The lungs, the stomach, the heart, as well as the duodenum, the colon, the large intestine, the rectum, and whatnot—they all have their various functions. It’s just the appendix, the appendix at the end of the cecum … Do you know what the appendix is good for?”

My brother had the answer ready. “The appendix isn’t worth a fart.”

My father laughed and our mother, sitting next to him, laughed too. “That’s right,” my father continued, “the appendix isn’t good for anything. When you breathe, when you digest your meals, when you’re sleeping, none of these activities
involves the appendix in the slightest. Even when you eat so much that you burp or have a tummyache and give a fart, this doesn’t have anything to do with your appendix either.”

My brother and I tittered when we heard our father talking about burping and farting. Then he sat up. “But if the appendix gets inflamed,” he told us gravely, “the tummy will ache more and more, and if the appendix is perforated it will cause peritonitis, and that can be fatal. Fatal, you understand what that means?”

My brother nodded. “It’ll kill you.”

I gasped when I heard that. Seeing my reaction, my father patted me on the head. “Actually, removal of the appendix is a minor procedure,” he said. “So long as there’s no perforation, there’s no danger … There was a British surgeon …”

As my father spoke, he lay back in his chair. We knew he was going to tell a story. He closed his eyes and gave a contented yawn, then turned to face us. He said that one day the British surgeon arrived on a little island. This little island had no hospital and no doctor and not even a medical kit, but his appendix became inflamed and he lay underneath a palm tree, racked with pain for a whole morning. He knew if there was any further delay in operating, his appendix would perforate …

“And what happens if the appendix perforates?” My father propped himself up.

“He’ll be a goner,” my brother said.

“It will turn into peritonitis, and then he’ll be a goner,” my father corrected him.

“The British surgeon had no choice but to operate on himself,” he went on. “He had two natives hold up a big mirror and, looking at himself in the mirror, in this particular spot …”

My father pointed at the right side of his stomach. “In this very spot he made an incision in the skin, pushed the fat aside, put his hand in, searched for the cecum—you need to find that first before you can find the appendix …”

A British surgeon operating on himself: this incredible story left us spellbound. We looked at our father, our eyes gleaming, and asked him if he could operate on himself too, just like the British surgeon.

“That depends on the situation,” he said. “If I was on that little island and my appendix was inflamed, to save my own life I would operate on myself too.”

Father’s reply made the blood flow hot in our veins. We had always thought him to be the strongest, most capable man in the world, and his answer further confirmed us in this belief. It also gave us the confidence to brag to the other boys. “Our Dad operates on himself,” I would say. “The two of us hold up a big mirror,” my brother would add, pointing at me.

That’s how the next couple of months passed. In the autumn of that year, our father’s appendix became inflamed. It was a Sunday morning. Our mother was about to go off to the factory to put in some overtime when our father returned from the night shift. He came in the door just as she was leaving. “I didn’t get any sleep at all last night,” he said. “There was a head injury, two fractures, and a penicillin toxicosis. I’m so worn out, my body’s aching.”

Patting his chest, he lay down on his bed to sleep. My brother and I were in the other room. We put the table on top of the chairs, and then put the chairs on top of the table; three or four hours passed as we moved the furniture around this way and that. When we heard our father groaning in his room,
we went over and put our ears to the door. After a moment we realized he was calling our names, so we pushed the door open and went in. We found him curled up like a shrimp, looking at us with clenched teeth. “My appendix …,” he said. “Ahhh! … it’s killing me … acute appendicitis. Hurry up and go to the hospital. Ask for Dr. Chen … or Dr. Wang would do … quickly, go …”

My brother grabbed me by the hand and we went downstairs, out the door, and along the alley. Now I realized what was happening. Father’s appendix was inflamed, and we were going to the hospital to fetch Dr. Chen or Dr. Wang. Once we’d found them, what would they do?

When I thought of Father’s appendix all inflamed, my heart pounded. I thought to myself: So, at last, Father’s appendix is inflamed. Now he can operate on himself, and my brother and I can hold up the big mirror.

My brother stopped when we reached the end of the alley. “We can’t go and fetch Dr. Chen, nor Dr. Wang either.”

“Why not?” I said.

“Well, look, if we find them, they’ll do an operation.”

I nodded. “Don’t you want to see Dad operate on himself?” my brother asked.

“Yes, that
is
what I want,” I said.

“So we can’t look for Dr. Chen or Dr. Wang. We’ll go to the operating theater and nab a surgical kit. As for the big mirror, we have one of those at home …”

I was so happy I shouted. “Yes! This way we can let Dad do the operation himself.”

When we got to the hospital, practically all the staff was having lunch in the cafeteria and there was just one nurse in
the operating theater. My brother told me to chat her up, so I went over and called her Auntie and asked her how she could possibly be so pretty. As she smiled and simpered, my brother stole a surgical kit.

Then we went back home. Father heard us come in. “Dr. Chen, Dr. Chen! Is that you, Dr. Wang?” he called in a low voice.

We went into his room. Father’s forehead was bathed in sweat. The pain was getting to him. He could see there was no Dr. Chen, and no Dr. Wang either, just his two sons, my brother and me. “What about Dr. Chen? Why isn’t Dr. Chen here?” he asked hoarsely.

My brother told me to open the surgical kit, while he brought over the big mirror our mother used to check her outfit each morning. Father didn’t know what we were up to. “And Dr. Wang?” he asked. “Dr. Wang wasn’t there either?”

We laid out the surgical kit on Father’s right. I clambered on top of the bed and together we lifted up the mirror. My brother made a point of leaning forward and taking a peek in the mirror, to check that Father could see himself clearly. “Dad, get on with it!” we said excitedly.

By now he was in such pain, his features were contorted. Gasping, he stared at us, still peppering us with questions about Dr. Chen and Dr. Wang. We were getting desperate. “Dad, hurry up,” we cried. “Otherwise it will get perforated!”

“Hurry up … with what?” he asked, weakly.

“Dad, hurry up and operate!” we said.

Now, finally, he understood. He glared at us. “You bastards!” he cursed.

I was shocked, not knowing what we’d done wrong, and
looked inquiringly at my brother, who was equally taken aback. Father was in such agony he couldn’t speak, and he stared at us in silence. Returning his gaze, my brother realized at last why Father had cursed us. “We haven’t taken Dad’s pants off yet,” he said.

My brother had me hold the mirror while he tried to pull down Dad’s pants, but our father slapped him across the face and, straining with effort, cursed us again. “Bastards!”

This frightened my brother so much that he scurried off the bed, and I followed suit, quickly crawling over Dad’s legs and onto the floor. We stood there side by side, looking at him as he lay there in a powerless rage. “Can it be Dad doesn’t want to do the operation?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

Tears welled up in our father’s eyes. “Be good boys,” he moaned, struggling to get his words out. “Hurry … hurry and fetch … Mom. Tell Mom to come …”

We’d been hoping Father would operate on himself like a hero, and now here he was, crying! We looked at him a moment longer, and then my brother took my hand and we ran out the door, down the stairs and along the full length of the alley. This time we didn’t think up our own plan of action—we went to fetch Mom.

By the time our father was carried into the operating theater, his appendix was perforated and his stomach was filled with pus. He developed peritonitis and had to spend weeks and weeks in a hospital bed, and then convalesce at home for another month before he could again don a white smock and resume his job as doctor. But he could never again be a surgeon, for his energy was spent: if he were to stand at the
operating table for an hour he would grow faint and his eyes would blur. He had gone thin overnight and never regained the weight he lost. When he walked, there was no longer that spring to his stride, and though he might take a big first step he would only go half as far with his second. When winter came, he seemed to have a constant cold. So from then on he could be only a doctor of internal medicine, and he would sit at a desk every day, chatting idly with the patients, scrawling routine prescriptions. After he got off work he would walk slowly homeward, rubbing his hands with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol. When we went to bed in the evenings, we would often hear him grumbling to our mother. “People think you have given me two sons, but appendixes are all they are. At the best of times they are of no worldly use, and when push comes to shove they are practically the death of you.”

On an evening in August, the room was stifling hot. My wife and I were sitting in front of a rattling electric fan. I held the remote in my hand and changed the channels one by one, and then ran through them again in reverse sequence. My back was soaked in sweat and I was in an irritable mood. My wife, on the other hand, was quite composed, sitting there perfectly still. On her shiny forehead I couldn’t see even a bead of sweat, and she seemed to be illustrating the old saying “Your body feels cool, mind calm as a pool.” But I wasn’t happy with things: since I’d got married, in fact, I had begun to be
unhappy
with things. Cursing under my breath, I banged away at the keys, converting the TV picture into a series of flashes, making my young eyes go blurry. I cursed the summer heat, the TV programs, the lousy rattling fan, the dinner I had just eaten, the underwear drying on the balcony … My wife kept her composure: so long as I was in this room, so long as I was keeping her company, then however much I cussed, whatever crazy thing I did, she would be perfectly at ease. If I were to walk out of this room, leave her and go off on my own, she would be singing a different tune. She would feel uneasy, she would be miserable; she would make a song-and-dance, all upset and tearful. That’s marriage for you. I can never leave her for a second. That’s my job as a husband, till ripe old age and death us do part.

My friend Morning Tang knocked on the door. He used his fingers, his fist, his feet, maybe even his knees—at any rate he
made a hammering noise on the door. It was as though I heard a bugle call or a rooster crow, for I jumped up from the floor, opened the door, and saw before me Morning Tang, whom I hadn’t seen in over a year. “Morning Tang, you rascal!” I cried.

Morning Tang was looking very dapper in baggy pants and a rust-colored jacket, but he had a funny smile on his face. He took a step forward, but stopped short. “Come on in,” I said.

He entered cautiously, peering around the narrow hallway as if walking in such pitch-darkness he couldn’t see his own fingers. I knew he was trying to establish my wife’s whereabouts. It was because of her that he hadn’t been to my house for over a year. In her words, Morning Tang is a jerk.

Actually, that’s not true. Morning Tang is a good-hearted fellow, generous and kind to his friends, it’s just there are too many women in his life, and that’s why my wife said he was a jerk. In the past, he would often drop by with a woman in tow. Nothing wrong with that—the problem was, it would be a different woman every time, and this is what made my wife start to feel nervous. She’s firmly convinced that men are influenced by the company they keep, and she felt it was really too dangerous for me to continue to interact with him, or—to be more precise—she felt it was too dangerous for
her
. She forgot that I am a decent and dutiful husband and began to issue frequent warnings, and her warnings were full of threats: she would tell me that if I behaved like Morning Tang, I would have disaster staring me in the face. She described all the details of what it would be like once disaster struck, or all the details she could think of. The trouble was, she always had a rich imagination in this area, and as a result I was growing more and more timid.

But Morning Tang is a careless, clumsy fellow, and he completely
failed to pick up on the fact that my wife was so wary of him. Although I’d dropped hints lots of times, it made absolutely no impression on him. He could be quite obtuse. So it was that one day he sat down on our sofa and said loudly, “I see my friends getting married one after the other. You were first, and then Chen Lida, then Fang Hong, and then Li Shuhai. All four of you did exactly the same thing, marrying the first woman you met. I don’t understand why you were all in such a hurry to get married. Why didn’t you go out with a few more women first? Why not enjoy a free and independent life, like me? Why do you want to find a woman to tie you down, tie you down so tightly you can’t even breathe? Now, all I need to do is just think of you guys and I can’t help bursting out laughing. As soon as you open your mouths now, you’re all so anxious about the reaction, especially you—you can’t say two sentences without looking at your wife. Don’t you get tired of that? But there’s still time—you’re not old yet, after all. You’ve still got a chance to meet other women. Shall I introduce to one sometime?”