The Pearl Jacket and Other Stories. Shouhua Qi
I asked: “So, you’ve heard about Tangshan?”
Young Zhang nodded: “A woman I love lives in the city that has been leveled by the earthquake.”
I blurted out: “Is her name Yan?”
Young Zhang’s eyes brightened up at the mention of the name: “Yes! You. . . . ”
“Did she write you a letter?”
“Yes!”
“Goddamn it! How did that note get into one of my books?” I asked angrily.
“Oh!” Young Zhang slapped himself on the thigh. “I borrowed books from you.”
Now everything was clear. I gripped Young Zhang’s collar and hollered: “You turtle’s son, give me back my wife!”
My wife never returned. It was later officially confirmed that she became one of the 242,419 that perished in the Tangshan earthquake.
The date of my wife’s death is July 28, 1976.
(1996)
The Girl in the Red Skirt
Yue Yong
Early this year I started to work as editor of a magazine in Guangzhou. Since there is quite a bit of distance between my apartment and my office, I pedaled my bike to work every morning.
One morning my alarm clock didn’t go off and I overslept for 15 minutes. The minute I had washed my face I jumped on the bike and pedaled like mad to the office.
I was flying toward an intersection when the red light came on suddenly.
I applied the brakes hard but still managed to bump into the back of the bike ahead of me. “Sorry! Terribly sorry!” I apologized as I wiped away the sweat on my forehead. On the bike was a girl in a red skirt. She turned, smiled, and shook her head, meaning she wasn’t hurt. On her pretty face were two cute dimples. What a beautiful girl! I murmured to myself. Just then, the green light was on. The girl in the red skirt stepped on her bike again, made a left turn at the intersection, and vanished.
Strangely enough, almost every day after that accident I’d see the girl in the red skirt on my way to work. She would ride alongside me for a while before turning left at the intersection.
When we met every morning we would greet each other with a “Hi,” a nod of the head, or a simple smile, like two old friends.
One beautiful sunny morning we were both stopped again by the red light at the intersection. She nodded to me, somewhat awkwardly. Right before the green light came back, she stuffed an envelope into the basket in the front of my bike, stepped back on her bike, and disappeared like the wind.
Confused and curious I opened the letter:
Hi, Yue Yong:
How are you? I’ve seen your picture and work in many magazines and like your writing a lot. Can we be friends? If you are interested, please drop your reply in the basket in the front of my bike.
I was elated, and wrote a reply that very evening—“Yes, I am very interested!”—and dropped it in her basket the next morning.
On the morning after that, she dropped another letter in my basket.
After that I wrote her another reply. . . .
We went back and forth like this for a while until we became very good friends between whom there wasn’t anything we couldn’t “talk” about.
It turned out that she was very interested in literature. Sometimes she would give me an envelope containing her submissions. She had a unique style in writing, reflective and exquisite. I published them all.
One morning three months later, she asked in a letter, out of the blue: Do you have a girlfriend?
My reply: No.
The letter she gave me the following day had only one line: Can I be your girlfriend?
I almost jumped for joy! This was what I had been dreaming of for quite some time.
The day after that I asked for a half-day leave so I could go and buy a bunch of blooming red roses. However, I never gathered enough courage to present the roses to the girl in the red skirt at the intersection, and cursed myself when I watched her turn left and continue on her way.
Not ready to give up, I turned left, too, and followed her so I could present the flowers to her when she stopped at her destination.
Not knowing she was being followed, the girl in the red skirt turned into a large gate of what appeared to be a school.
I pedaled harder toward the gate and was about to make a desperate dash when I stopped suddenly, stunned by what I saw on the nameplate above the gate:
LOVING HEART SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF-MUTE
So this was the reason why I had known the girl in the red skirt for so long yet she had never spoken a word to me. . . .
All that passion inside me was gone instantly. The flowers slipped out of my hand, too.
After that I would go to work via a detour and I never saw that girl in the red skirt on my way to work again.
It was about half a year later when I saw her on a live Loving Heart Charity Fundraising TV show. She looked stunningly beautiful under the limelight in that same red skirt, and her song “Love’s Labor” brought everyone in the audience to tears.
She was introduced as an outstanding sign language teacher at this deaf-mute school.
(2001)
Odd Day, Even Day
Ling Rongzhi
Xiao Ju became a mistress at a very young age. Pretty and bright, Xiao Ju never thought she would be a mistress one day, but many things happen not because we want them to happen, but because they are destined to. Xiao Ju’s family was poor. She passed the college entrance exams, but didn’t have the money to pay tuition and fees. She got acquainted with a fat cat who paid for her college. Before a year was over, she became his “beauty hidden in a gold house.”
Xiao Ju didn’t want it to be like this at first, but one time she had a glass of wine, which went to her head, and she consented. Once he had got what he wanted, he was worried that she might be lured away while in college. So he bought this house for her to live in.
Xiao Ju wasn’t quite settled emotionally, though, because in her heart was someone else, her high school sweetheart, Ah Fu. Ah Fu was poor, but he was honest and was as nice to her as she was to him. But Au Fu had no money to pay for her college, let alone to support her. The fat cat, however, could not only support her, but support her extravagantly and toss her lots of money for her to spend, too.
So Xiao Ju was sheltered in this villa, and everything seemed good: good food, good clothing, yet one thing wasn’t good: boredom. The fat cat was still married with a son and a daughter. His wife was quite sharp and watched him closely. Every time he came, it was on an odd day. He would sneak here from work. He would spend two hours here at the most. When he finished he would toss some money and leave no matter how badly Xiao Ju asked him to stay.
Every day Xiao Ju had nothing to do but take care of the flowers and plants in the garden and her cat and her dog to kill time. Xiao Ju had endless amounts of money to spend. Her cat and dog ate better food than most average people. She played with her dog often, which she named Ah Fu, because the young man was still in her heart.
One day the dog fell into a ditch and couldn’t climb back out. Desperate, Xiao Ju called aloud: “Ah Fu! Ah Fu!”
Ah Fu, the young man, happened to pass by on his way home from work. When he saw who it was calling his name, he almost jumped for joy. “Xiao Ju, is that you? Why are you here?”
“Ah Fu?” Xiao Ju held Ah Fu’s hands and wouldn’t let go. “Why are you here, indeed?”