The Real Story of Ah-Q (40 page)

Still no response.

‘And Mother’s not here to ask. So, looks like you never had measles. Well, there’s a funny thing!’

When Peijun woke up in his own bed, the sun was beaming in through the window paper, pricking at eyes still hazy with sleep. He found himself unable to move: his limbs paralysed, his back sticky with cold sweat. A child stood before his bed, face dripping with blood. Peijun was seized with the desire to strike him.
^*

In an instant, the child vanished: Peijun was alone, in bed, in his own room. He removed his pillowcase to wipe the sweat off his chest and back, got dressed and walked over to check on Jingfu. It must have been late: his opera-loving neighbour was up and about in the courtyard, rinsing out his mouth.

Jingfu, too, was awake, lying on the bed with his eyes wide open.

‘How do you feel today?’ his brother quickly asked.

‘A little better.’

‘Is the medicine here yet?’

‘Not yet.’

He sat down by the desk, directly opposite the bed, and studied Jingfu’s face, which was no longer as scarlet as it had been the previous day. His mind felt foggy still, assaulted by fragmentary dream sequences:

Terrified by his subconscious, desperate to run out of the room, he tried to sit still and suppress his visions. But like goose down in water, they soon floated back to the surface:

He suddenly came to, exhausted, a chill skittering up his spine. Jingfu was lying opposite him, perfectly peaceful. Although his breathing was a touch hurried, it drew regularly in and out. The alarm clock on the table seemed to tick louder than ever.

He looked about him: at the layer of dust over the desk, at the window paper, at the wall calendar announcing in an ancient script the arrival of the twenty-seventh.

The houseboy brought the medicine in, along with a package containing a book.

‘What’s in there?’ Jingfu asked, opening his eyes.

‘Medicine,’ Peijun replied, shaking himself awake.

‘No, the other package.’

‘Don’t worry about that for now. Take your medicine first.’ Once this had been administered, he checked the note on the book. ‘From Mr Suo. Must be that Ruskin you wanted to borrow off him,
Sesame and Lilies
.’

Reaching out for the book, Jingfu merely glanced at the cover, ran his finger along the gold text printed on its spine, then placed it next to his pillow, and silently closed his eyes.

‘When I’m better,’ he murmured happily, ‘I’ll translate a few pages, and send it off to the Culture Press, to earn us a bit of money. See if they’re interested…’

That day, Peijun didn’t make it into the office until the afternoon, by which point the place was thick with Qin Yitang’s pipe smoke. Spotting him approach, Wang Yuesheng came out to meet him.

‘Well, hello! Is he better, your brother? I shouldn’t worry too much: these epidemics, they come and go every year. We were just wondering where you’d got to – but you’re here now, so clearly nothing to worry about! I must say, though, you look, well, different from yesterday.’

Everything looked different, even unfamiliar to Peijun, too: the office, his colleagues. Even though it was at the same time so familiar: the broken coat hooks, chipped spittoon, the dusty chaos of files, the defective divan with Qin Yitang sprawled across it, coughing, shaking his head and sighing into his pipe.

‘At it again, all the way out to the gate…’

‘As I was saying,’ Yuesheng returned to his reply, ‘I think you should tell them about Peijun, get them to take a leaf out of his book. They’ll drive you to an early grave, or into the madhouse, if you’re not careful.’

‘Number Three’s still insisting Number Five should pay back the family money he’s… he’s…’ Yitang bent double with coughing.

‘Different strokes, different folks…’ Yuesheng tailed off, turning back towards Peijun. ‘So everything all right at home now, with your brother?’

‘He’s all right. The doctor said it was measles.’

‘Measles? That makes sense. There’s a lot of it about. The three children who live in my courtyard all have it right now. Absolutely nothing to worry about. But we all felt for you, the way you were yesterday. Now that’s what I call brotherly love.’

‘Did the bureau chief come by yesterday?’

‘Ha! Does he ever? Just mark yourself down as present in the logbook.’

‘He says he should make it good,’ Yitang went on, as if to himself. ‘These government bonds are terrible things, I don’t understand them at all. Once you’re in, there’s no getting out. All evening, they rowed, right out to the gate. Then Number Five was saying Number Three’s dipped into the family pot to send two more of his children to school. I’m so angry I could – ’

‘What a mess!’ Yuesheng remarked despairingly. ‘That’s why you and your brother are so special, Peijun. I really mean that – I’m not just saying it.’

Making no response, Peijun watched the office boy bring a document in then went over to take it from him, Yuesheng following smartly behind.

‘ “Citizen Hao Shangshan and his neighbours request that the Bureau of Public Welfare order its local branch office to arrange a coffin and burial for an unknown male corpse in the eastern suburbs, in the interests of maintaining public hygiene and welfare,” ’ he read out. ‘I’ll take care of this. You go home early – check on your brother. It’s just wonderful how you look out for each other.’

‘No!’ Peijun kept fast hold of the document. ‘I’ll do it.’

Yuesheng did not press the point. Peijun quietly moved over to his own desk, studying the document as he lifted the top of his ink box, speckled with green rust.

3 November 1925

‘Happy New Year, Uncle Mu! Let’s hope it’s a good one!’

‘Well met, Basan! Happy New Year!’

‘Happy New Year! And to you, Aigu.’

‘Hello, Mr Mu!’

As Zhuang Musan and his daughter Aigu stepped down on to the boat at Mulian Bridge, they were met by a great clamour of greetings, some accompanied by cupped-hand salutes. At the same moment, four seats fell conveniently vacant along one side of the boat. Returning salutations as he parked himself down, Zhuang Musan propped his long pipe up against the side of the boat, while Aigu took the seat to his left, opposite Basan, arranging her sickle-pointed feet into an inverted V.

‘Off to town?’ asked a man with a face as round and pink as a crab shell.

‘No,’ Mr Mu sighed, his gloom concealed within the folds of his brown, crumpled face. ‘To Pangzhuang.’

Silence fell over the boat, as every passenger turned to look at them.

‘The old trouble, is it?’ Basan eventually inquired. ‘With Aigu?’

‘Yes. Three years it’s been going on now – it’s driving me mad. All those fights, all those meetings, nothing ever settled.’

‘So, back to Mr Wei’s, is it?’

‘That’s right. He’s tried sorting this mess out a couple of times now, but I’ve never agreed to his terms. Right now, though, all his relatives are gathered for the New Year – even Mr Qi, from town.’

‘Mr Qi?’ Basan’s eyes widened. ‘He’s going to get involved, is he? Well, I’ll be… Anyway, we taught them a lesson or two when we smashed their stove up
¹
last year. Ha! That gave them something to think about. I don’t really know why Aigu’s so keen on going back, actually…’ He looked down at the floor.

‘I’m not going back for the fun of it!’ Aigu tossed her head angrily. ‘I’m going back because someone’s got to pay. That pig of a husband of mine jumped into bed with that young widow, then threw me out of my own home – think I should just lie down and take it? Then that pig of a father of his’ll play any tune his son tells him to. Well, I’m
not
going to lie down and take it! And now Mr Qi’s become bosom pals with the magistrate – does that mean he’s too high and mighty to talk to people like us? He can’t do much worse than that old fool Mr Wei, waffling on about “letting them go their separate ways”. I’m going to tell Mr Qi myself what I’ve had to put up with the last few years. Then we’ll see whose side he takes!’

Basan fell silent, fully convinced.

Quiet returned to the interior of the boat as the waves lapped against the side. Zhuang Musan reached out for his pipe and filled it.

Diagonally opposite him, a fat man next to Basan fished a flint out of his waist pocket, struck it against the tinder, and held it to the top of Musan’s pipe.

‘Much obliged,’ Musan nodded in thanks.

‘We’ve never met, but your reputation precedes you,’ the man of stature politely began. ‘Every village along the coast’s heard of you, Mr Zhuang. And we know all about your son-in-law, the Shi boy’s affair with that widow, too. Known all about it for years. Everyone was right behind you when you and your six sons flattened his family’s stove last year… You’re a big man round here, you’re friends with all the best people. You’ve nothing to be afraid of.’

‘You’re very well informed,’ Aigu enthused, ‘though I’m afraid I don’t know who you are.’

‘Wang Degui,’ the fat man hastened to inform her.

‘No – I won’t be thrown aside like a piece of old rubbish. Not by any of them – not even by Mr Qi. I’ll fight them to bankruptcy, the grave and beyond! Four times that old fool Wei tried to get me to give it up. Even Father lost the plot when he saw how much they were offering.’

‘Shut the – ’ Musan muttered.

‘I heard the Shis threw a banquet for Mr Wei just before the New Year,’ the man with the crab-shell face interjected.

‘Nothing to worry about,’ Wang Degui said. ‘People don’t lose their sense of right and wrong after one meal. If a man can be bought off with an ordinary New Year’s dinner, what would he give you after a proper feast? These educated people, they’re always on the side of justice. They’ll always speak out for the underdog – whether or not they’ve been wined and dined. Last year, Mr Rong from my own humble village came back from Beijing – he’d mixed with the best there, he’s no peasant, like us. Now, he said the one person you had to meet was this Mrs Guang, who – ’

‘Wangjia Quay!’ hollered the boatman as the boat prepared to moor.

‘That’s me, that’s me!’ the substantial Mr Wang snatched up his pipe and leapt out of the middle cabin on to the bank. ‘Excuse me!’ he nodded to those remaining in the boat.

The boat glided on in renewed silence, the water still lapping against the sides. Basan dozed off, his mouth hanging slowly open opposite the sickle toes of Aigu’s shoes. Two old women in the front cabin began muttering Buddhist chants, fingering their rosaries and glancing at Aigu, then at each other, lips pursed, nodding significantly.

Aigu stared up at the boat’s awning, probably plotting how to drive the family to bankruptcy, the grave and beyond; how she would show no mercy – to her pig of a husband, her pig of a father-in-law and all their swinish clan. She didn’t even waste her mental energy on that round-headed dwarf Mr Wei she’d already met twice. There were plenty like him in her own village – slightly darker in the face, but otherwise identical.

His tobacco burnt down, Zhuang Musan smoked on through the tar that remained, sputtering at the base of the bowl. Now they were past Wangjia Quay, he knew, the next stop would be Pangzhuang – the Pavilion of the Literary Spirit on the edge of the village was already in sight. Pangzhuang, which he had been to more times than he cared to remember, was a complete backwater, and Mr Wei a perfect nobody. He still remembered how his daughter had wept as she returned home, how disgracefully his in-laws had behaved, how badly they had treated him and his daughter. As he went back over the past, he didn’t give his usual bleak smile on recalling how he had taken his revenge on their stove. This time, everything else was obscured by the expansive form of Mr Qi, hustling his thoughts into nervous confusion.

The boat glided quietly on, the only sound the rising hum of prayers. Everyone seemed as abstracted as Zhuang Musan and his daughter.

‘It’s your stop, Uncle Mu,’ the boatman startled Zhuang’s party awake. ‘Pangzhuang.’ The Pavilion of the Literary Spirit lay directly before them.

Musan stepped ashore, Aigu following behind. Once past the pavilion, they went on towards Mr Wei’s house. Heading south they left some thirty dwellings behind them, until one more turn brought them to the Weis’ dark lacquered gate, next to which four boats, each with black awnings, were moored.

On stepping through the main entrance, they were ushered into the house itself. Two tables of boatmen and farmhands were sitting just inside the door. Glancing nervously at them, Aigu found no evidence of the two pigs.

As they were served their New Year’s dumplings in soup, Aigu began to feel inexplicably edgy. ‘Surely Mr Qi’ll still listen to people like us – even now he’s pally with the magistrate?’ she thought. ‘Educated people are always on the side of justice. I’ll tell him the whole story, starting from when I got married at fourteen.’

She finished her soup; soon, her chance would come. Sure enough, a farmhand promptly arrived to escort her and her father across the great hall and, after one more corridor, into the guest hall.

The room was full of objects and guests – a shimmering blur of red and blue satin mandarin jackets. But she picked out Mr Qi straightaway. Though his face had the same moonlike roundness as Mr Wei’s, he towered majestically over his host and the other guests. Two narrow eyes and a scanty black beard punctuated the circular landscape of his face. Aigu was particularly struck by the ruddy shine to his bald crown and face – he must have polished them with lard, she quickly deduced.

‘Now this – this is an “anus-stopper”: used by the ancients in burials, to stop up the anus of the deceased.’ Mr Qi was wielding a long, thin object, which seemed to be made of some kind of corroded stone, rubbing it against his nose as he explained its purpose. ‘A recent excavation, unfortunately. Still quite a buy, though; no later than Han dynasty,
²
I would say. Look, you can still see the mercury stain…’

A number of heads clustered around to observe, Mr Wei among them of course, together with a few of the younger scions of the house, previously obscured from Aigu’s notice, like squashed bedbugs, by Mr Qi’s tremendous charisma.

She had no idea what they were talking about – and neither did she have the desire, or the courage, to investigate this mercury stain. She took advantage of this lull to look about her: just behind, she discovered, by the door, were her swinish in-laws – father and son. She honoured them with only the briefest of glances – enough to notice how much greyer and older they looked since their last meeting six months ago.

The mercury huddle dispersed, leaving Mr Wei the lucky custodian of the anus-stop, which he now sat down with.

‘Just the two of you, then?’ he turned to Zhuang Musan, stroking the stopper.

‘Yes.’

‘What about your sons?’

‘They’ve no time.’

‘This business should have been dealt with a long time ago – saved you a trip so early in the New Year. I think you’ve caused quite enough trouble. Two years, it’s been – isn’t that right? So let’s sort out this quarrel once and for all. Now, Aigu’s husband never got on with her. And his parents didn’t care much for her, either. Much the best thing they both go their separate ways, like I said before. But you wouldn’t listen to me. Now, we all know that no one’s a better judge of anything than Mr Qi – and he’s in complete agreement with me. Let’s see a bit more give and take on both sides, he’s said, and another ten dollars from the Shis, to take it up to ninety.’

No response.

‘Ninety dollars! You wouldn’t get terms like that out of the emperor himself! But that’s Mr Qi for you – generous to a fault.’

Opening his narrow eyes as wide as he could, Mr Qi fixed them upon Zhuang Musan and nodded.

Sensing that matters were getting critical, Aigu began to resent her father’s silence. He was practically a god around this stretch of the coast – why was he holding back? Although she hadn’t followed everything Mr Qi had said a few minutes ago, he struck her as a kindly sort – not nearly as intimidating as she had imagined.

‘Mr Qi is an educated man,’ she bravely intervened. ‘He understands the situation – not like us simple country types. I’ve been treated wrong, and no one else will hear me out. That’s why I’ve come here today. I entered this house like a good daughter-in-law, and left it in the same way – I never broke a single family rule. And still they did everything they could to make my life difficult, to find fault. When that weasel killed the cockerel, was it me who left the door to the coop unlocked? No – that stupid mutt of theirs had pushed it open to steal the chickenfeed. But I still got slapped, round both sides of my face, by that stupid pig of a husband.’

Mr Qi glanced at her.

‘And I know full why. And so does Mr Qi – people who can read know everything. It was that wicked whore who seduced him into throwing me out. I’m his wife – carried in on a bridal chair, with all the proper ceremonies! And you don’t get rid of me that easily. Oh, they won’t forget me in a hurry: I’ll fight them all the way, through the county courts, up to the prefecture if I have to – ’

‘Mr Qi knows all this,’ Mr Wei looked back up at her. ‘You’ve nothing to gain by taking this any further, Aigu. Why do you and your brothers always have to look a gift horse in the mouth? Your father understands how things are. All right, you take it up to the prefecture – then they’ll probably ask Mr Qi what he thinks, anyway. Then everyone’ll have their dirty linen hung out to dry, no feelings spared, you’ll be – ’

‘I’ll fight you to the death!’

‘Come, come,’ Mr Qi finally spoke up. ‘You’re still young. Let’s be calm and reasonable. Peace brings prosperity – does it not? You’ve me to thank for your extra ten dollars – this is already over and above. If his parents are telling you to go, you don’t have much choice. Whichever court you go to – the prefecture, Shanghai, Beijing, abroad – they’ll all say the same thing. If you don’t believe me, ask him – he’s just back from one of those foreign academies in Beijing.’ He turned towards a young man with a pointed chin: ‘Am I right, or am I wrong?’

‘Right as rain,’ the young man reverently muttered, quickly sitting up.

Aigu felt completely isolated. Her father had nothing to say, her brothers were too scared to come, she knew whose side Mr Wei was on, and even Mr Qi had clearly crossed the room himself, dragging that squeaky runt with a pointy chin with him. And yet she resolved, amid the confusion of her thoughts, to make one last stand.

‘I can’t believe it,’ her eyes shone with disappointment and disbelief. ‘Even Mr Qi… People like us, we don’t know how things work. Father doesn’t have a clue – he’s always let us get taken advantage of. That pig of a husband and pig of a father-in-law have pulled everyone’s strings, they’ll stoop at nothing, scraping and bowing – ’

‘See what I mean, Mr Qi?’ the pig of a husband now piped up from somewhere behind her. ‘See what I had to put up with? No one ever got a moment’s peace – not even the animals. “Pig” this, “pig” that, “bastard” the other.’