Vertical Motion. Can Xue
be exaggerated in ugly rumors? It was also possible that he wouldn’t say anything bad about me to an outsider. Could it all be that third party’s imagination? Normally, the family members (especially I) treated him quite well. You could say that, compared with most elderly people, he had nothing to complain of. Then who could this malevolent, backbiting guy be? My impression was that Father had never gone out, and that all of his friends and relatives had broken off relations with him years ago. I thought hard, yet I couldn’t think of anyone who was still in contact with him. But Father had definitely met someone. It was this person who had spread gossip and slander among my colleagues.
I sat in the grove for a long time. Perhaps I fell asleep, or perhaps I dozed off from time to time. Anyhow, I didn’t see anyone go to Father’s room. The door was still half-open, letting out faint light from inside. After midnight, I saw Father walk to the door. He stood there talking with someone in the room as his broad back blocked the door. That person must have slipped in while I was dozing! I crept over to the window and kept close to the wall. Father’s voice was rather hoarse. I could tell that he was quite excited.
“. . . They’re all only too anxious for me to die soon. When I say ‘they,’ of course that includes Rushu. She’s still the main player. Whenever we eat, they’re all acting. Rushu comes to see me on a set schedule. Why? She and I both know, and so I cut those things into pieces and destroyed them. This way, I’m leaving no traces behind. Who could really figure me out? Recent occurrences have alarmed all of them, especially Rushu. It absolutely never occurs to her that someday the corpse in the corner will come back to life. It doesn’t occur to her, either, that some things that the outside world can never know will be exposed in this manner. The last two days, she has been distinctly haggard.”
The person was talking with him in quite a low, hesitant voice, as if his nose were stopped up by a cold. I didn’t get what he was saying, but he didn’t pause. Sometimes, he even blubbered like a child. While the person talked, Father was smirking. His laughter was larded with the cough of the aged.
The plan I had originally worked out in the grove called for me to confront this person, but the situation caught me by surprise, because the malevolence didn’t come from the outsider but from Father. I wasn’t sure of that person’s attitude, either. If I rushed in, I’d be on the horns of a dilemma. Father wasn’t easy to deal with. Now I had definitely learned my lesson. Formerly, I had been so remiss and reckless.
Just then, Father walked from the door to the window, and he was talking just above my head, his voice both urgent and focused and evidently accompanied by gestures. When his words grew heated, he stamped his feet.
“While I’m still alive, I still have to do some things that I want to do. No one can stop me! I sit in this forgotten corner, thoughts thronging my mind. I’ve sat here year after year, year after year. Great changes have occurred in the outside world! They’re busy with their own plans all day long. They all think I was done for long ago. Of course they can’t imagine! Actually, this has been taking place for a long time. They’re inwardly terrified. I know this just by looking at Rushu’s face. It’s so quiet at night: this is just about the best time . . .”
I stole back to my room. I wasn’t brave enough to continue eavesdropping. At dawn, I was still thinking. Had that person left? Had he left? This midnight visitor: When and how on earth had he and Father gotten mixed up together? People are so hard to fathom!
=
Day after day passed, and at last the rumors gradually subsided. Although my colleagues still looked at me the same annoying way at work, I’d grown accustomed to it and so I wasn’t as scared.
One day I was exhausted when I went home. As soon as I entered the door, my brother started in on the patriarchy thing again. He said that Father’s position in the family jeopardized his life. Whenever he braced himself to do something, he saw Father’s face floating before him. So he became dejected and didn’t want to do anything. This had been going on for a long time and he couldn’t bear it. Sometimes he even thought he might as well do something really outrageous and then “run off without further ado.”
Without the slightest hesitation, I said to him:
“Your absurd argument boggles my mind! That’s total nonsense. Father stays in his room, and you guys never visit him: Isn’t this the same as his not existing? Can’t you at least overlook his existence? Sure, he eats with us every day, but he eats fast and he never sticks around long. And especially recently, he eats hardly anything. He just sits there going through the motions and then he leaves. How can he affect you so much? I think you’re inwardly depressed and you can’t do anything, so you want to extricate yourself and you blame others for this. But whom do you blame? An old man approaching death, the least important person in the family, a loner who has never meddled . . .”
“Hold on!” my brother interrupted me, and staring me in the face, he said, “Do you really think—do you really think that’s what our father is like? You don’t need to act so arrogant. I can’t figure out what’s going on between you, but at meals, I see your knees trembling.”
“What have you heard?” I asked tensely.
“What could I have heard? None of this concerns me. The only reason for telling you what’s on my mind is for our mutual benefit. Why can’t you understand even this? Of course I don’t intend to plot anything. What can I do? To be precise, all I’m doing is grumbling about the status quo.” Moving closer, he whispered to me: “There were some suspicious sounds in his room just now.”
I shrugged my shoulders and glanced at him scornfully. All of a sudden he blushed, and his eyes opened wide. Pointing straight ahead, he shouted: “Look! Look!”
At the end of the dim hallway, Father—wearing gray underwear—was wobbling as he stood on a square stool. He was pounding a nail into the wall. His bare arm—only skin and bones—was extended from his unbuttoned sleeve, and he held a rusty hammer in his hand.
Faltering, Father got down from the stool and frowned as he said earnestly to me: “I want to hang a notebook here, or it could be called an account book, so that everyone will know where things stand. Rushu, you’re good at keeping accounts, so of course you know: I’ve been retired all these years and have turned over all of my money to you and your siblings, but how much have I actually spent? You’ve noticed that I never go out. Except for food, I have no expenses, and recently I’ve eaten very little. Yet you tell me that you can barely make ends meet. Where has my money gone? These clothes—” With that, he pulled at the front of his undershirt. “These are my best clothes. All of you figure that since I don’t go out, you don’t need to make outerwear for me. This never even crosses your minds. The two jackets I have were both made by your grandma fifteen years ago when she was still alive!” He almost shouted this last sentence.
I was totally defeated. I was looking frantically in all directions. I was looking for my brother, but this slippery fellow had glided away without a trace. Father was holding the hammer high, as if preparing to fight.
“Papa! Papa! What are you saying?” Tears were mixed with my shouting.
“Rushu, help me hang that account book on this nail.” His voice was composed and strong.
“No.” I retreated a few steps and glared at him in desperation. “Father, don’t force me. I can’t do it.”
“Okay. I’ll do it myself.”
He went back to his room and took the black notebook out of a cupboard. The book was fastened with fine hemp rope. As he entered his room, I noticed that all of the old books and letters had disappeared. The floor had been swept clean. Even the space under the bed was empty. When he walked out, he staggered again onto the square stool. The fine ropes on the book were tangled together, and it took him a long time to straighten them out and hang the notebook on a nail. While he was doing this, the stool kept swaying and creaking. I don’t know why he hadn’t steadied the stool before stepping onto it. His actions made me feel extremely tense, like an arrow held in a bowstring.
None of us knew what was recorded in the black notebook. We