The Pearl Jacket and Other Stories. Shouhua Qi
of frosty hair. The page number read: 109.
(1981)
Nest of Oat Stalks
Cao Naiqian
All is quiet under the sky. The bright Moon Granny shone on the threshing ground. On the side of the oat stalks stack facing Moon Granny he made a nest for her and himself.
“After you.”
“After you.”
“Then let’s get in together.”
Together he and she crawled in. The nest collapsed. The collapsed stalks fell over their heads.
He raised his arms to hold the stalks. “Forget about them. It’s not bad.” She nestled in his arms and said: “Ugly Brother must hate me so.”
“No, I don’t. Darkie Kiln is richer than I am.”
“Who cares about his money? All I want is to save money so Ugly Brother can marry a woman.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“But I want to save for you.”
“I don’t want it.”
“You have to want it.”
He could hear she was on the verge of crying and didn’t say another word.
“Ugly Brother,” she said a while later.
“Yes?”
“Ugly Brother, give me a smooch.”
“Don’t do this to me.”
“I want to.”
“I’m not in the mood.”
“I want to.”
He could hear she was on the verge of crying again and bent to kiss her cheek. Silky, soft.
“Wrong place. Here!” she pouted. He bent and kissed her lips this time. Cool, moist.
“What does it taste like?”
“Oat cake.”
“Wrong, wrong. Why don’t you try again.” She pulled his head low.
“Still like an oat cake,” he considered and said again.
“Nonsense. I’ve just had candy. Try again!” She pulled his head low again.
“Candy! Candy!” He exclaimed right away.
Neither said anything for a long while.
“Ugly Brother.”
“Yes?”
“How about . . . how about me doing that with you today.”
“No, no. Moon Granny is watching outside. That won’t be right. Our Weng Kilnville girls never do that.”
“Okay, we’ll wait then. Wait till I’m back.”
“Okay.”
Neither said anything for a long while. All was quiet except for the footsteps and sighs of Moon Granny outside.
“Ugly Brother.”
“Yes?”
“It’s kismet.”
“Kismet.”
“Our kismet is not good.”
“Mine is not good. Yours, good.”
“Not good.”
“Good.”
“Not good.”
“Good.”
“Not good at all!”
He heard tears in her voice this time. Tears rolled out of his eyes, strings of big warm teardrops, and fell on her cheeks.
(1989)
July 28, 1976
Yuan Bingfa
“You are something!” My wife muttered angrily when I came back home after a day’s work. “Jazzing up your life with a little romance . . . an affair with this Yan woman from Tangshan!”
I was puzzled and said with a smile on my face: “Thank you for trying to flatter me, but I would never have such guts. When you and I were dating, it was you who made the first move, remember?”
My wife wasn’t pacified by my lame joke: “Don’t pretend to be an innocent lamb. When men are bad, they have more guts than a stag in heat!”
I knew it was more serious and asked: “What on earth has happened?”
She tossed me a slip of paper, which I opened right away. It read:
My Dear:
Perhaps it was destiny that you and I met during that long, lonesome trip. You gave me not only company but also so much precious comfort which I can never forget. If you desire to keep in touch with me, please write me at the address below:
Four-Horse Street
Building 2, Apartment 201
Nankai District
City of Tangshan, Hebei Province
Love,
Yan
I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry when I finished reading the note. “From what trash can did you find this?” I asked my wife.
“Trash can? I wouldn’t have bothered you if I had picked it up from a trash can. It’s from inside one of your books, of all the places in the world!”
“Inside a book? Which book?”
“That novel, Extramarital Affairs, by a Taiwan author, Li.”
“How can that be?”
“I was puzzled, too. How could my honest, beloved husband have done something like this? Yet how can I argue with this solid evidence in front of my eyes? Do you have a good explanation, Mister?”
“No, I don’t.”
After a pause I said: “Although I can’t explain, I am willing to swear to Heaven that if I am having an affair I would be a dog, a chicken, a duck, a buffalo, a horse, a poop, a pee, a nothing, or an anything but a human being!”
At this my wife laughed, bitterly: “I don’t care what you are. All I care is to find out about that Yan woman in Tangshan!”
I was speechless.
She then said: “I’ll go to Tangshan tomorrow to look for the Yan woman at the address in the letter.” I thought she was being carried away by her anger at the moment and didn’t take her seriously. So I went to work as usual the next day. When I came back from work in the afternoon, I saw a note from my wife on the writing desk saying that she was indeed on her way to Tangshan.
At this I was furious. Woman! Impossible woman!
Then, I thought, this trip might do her some good. If she could really find that Yan woman in Tangshan, the cloud of suspicion would be cleared.
Unfortunately, the next morning, I was dumbfounded to hear this news from the radio: “At 3:40 this morning, a severe earthquake occurred in the eastern part of Hebei Province. According to the National Earthquake Information Center, the magnitude of this earthquake was 7.8 on the Richter Scale, as powerful as 400 nuclear bombs the size of the one dropped on Hiroshima, all exploding at the same time about 16 kilometers deep inside the earth.”
I was drenched in sweat. I knew that the worst might have happened to my beautiful and beloved wife. Based on time nd distance, my wife must have arrived at Tangshan the very night right before the earthquake happened.
That day, with a heavy heart, I went to ask for