Night Zoo

Author: Zhang Chi / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2001-01-01
Features: It was also on a similar evening that Old Shi Kang, after revising the script for the entire day, took his granite head for a walk by the sea. By "granite head," there was absolutely no derogatory intention. Old Shi Kang was my friend, and I used this term merely to illustrate the numbness of his brain. For someone who makes a living writing, numbness is more frightening than stubbornness, and far worse than being filled with Sichuan peppercorns in one's head. That day, the director told Old Shi Kang that due to flight reasons, the play would not have synchronized sound recording. Therefore, some changes would need to be made to the environmental sound descriptions. Fortunately, what was being filmed was a life drama, not one that relied heavily on sound. Although Old Shi Kang appeared indifferent on the surface, he felt quite uncomfortable inside. According to his original plan, even a needle falling to the ground should have been audible. After getting off the taxi, Old Shi Kang saw Xiao Li E. Against a backdrop of shimmering waves, she initially appeared as a blurry shadow. Old Shi Kang took a few more steps forward, and the shadow gradually became clearer. At that time, she was standing alone by the sea, gazing at the setting sun and the depths of the ocean. The following conversation was somewhat like spies meeting.
"Miss, why are you standing alone by the sea? Did something happen in your hometown—was there a flood?" Old Shi Kang asked.
"It's true. How did you know?" Xiao Li E replied.
"I also know that your mother passed away at a young age, and your greedy stepmother betrothed you to a fool in the neighboring village. Ever since, you've worn clothes to sleep at night, with a Zhang Xiaoping knife pressed under your pillow. But as far as I know, your hometown has been prosperous year after year, except for a hailstorm no bigger than green beans, no other disasters have occurred." Old Shi Kang said.
"You're so funny. Are all Beijing people like this?" Xiao Li E asked.
Before Old Shi Kang answered Xiao Li E, I must make a correction. Earlier, I said this conversation was like spies meeting, but only half of that was true. Because, according to Old Shi Kang, this was their conversation during sex. That is to say, they first exchanged information before giving the signal. Old Shi Kang remembered Xiao Li E him with her body while eating sugarcane, completely oblivious to what was happening. Meanwhile, Old Shi Kang himself felt a surge of vitality being drawn out from the soles of his feet in no time. He reluctantly paid Xiao Li E. According to Old Shi Kang's own words, he took a taxi for ten yuan but only traveled one kilometer. He instructed me never to tell anyone about this, let alone turn it into a story.
"However, after that, my state did indeed improve significantly," Old Shi Kang added. "If I were to write about it, I should emphasize the positive aspects. Love is different from other things—you the more you feel unfair, the harder it is to let go." Later, Xiao Li E also became fully engaged, completely unlike someone driven by desperation.
Through that conversation, Xiao Li E concluded that Old Shi Kang had been in H City for quite some time, otherwise he wouldn't be so familiar with the place. Old Shi Kang, on the other hand, told Xiao Li E that even after being in H City for two years, she still couldn't tell the difference between palm trees and coconut trees. Although Xiao Li E was taken aback by the question, Old Shi Kang still confessed that the night he arrived by plane, he was taken to a place called the waiting room. Seeing that the room was filled with prostitutes, Old Shi Kang's heart raced. He didn't even catch the cigarette the camera operator offered him. The cigarette fell onto a madam's foot, burning her silk stocking and leaving a blister on her instep. Old Shi Kang admitted that he had never seen such a scene in his life, but among all the prostitutes, none stirred him like Xiao Li E did. Xiao Li E expressed disbelief in Old Shi Kang's story.
"I can't believe a word you're saying," Xiao Li E said. "Besides, we prostitutes don't deserve you." Hearing this, Old Shi Kang fell silent. Xiao Li E then told Old Shi Kang that besides the elephant at the logging camp, she had no friends in H City, so she knew some interesting habits of the elephant. She promised to take Old Shi Kang to see the elephant someday. Hearing this, Old Shi Kang sighed softly and hugged Xiao Li E.
From then on, Old Shi Kang always took Xiao Li E with him wherever he went, completely indifferent to the team's teasing about him bringing his own "food." One night, Xiao Li E took Old Shi Kang to the sea for a nude swim. Xiao Li E told Old Shi Kang that in the past, there was a boss who was particularly fond of her. The man was married, and he promised to divorce his wife and marry Xiao Li E. But after he left, he disappeared without a trace. Old Shi Kang began to suspect that the day before, at the sea, Xiao Li E might have been waiting for that man.
When they returned to the room, Old Shi Kang felt as if he were covered in sand all over his body. He washed it off more than ten times but couldn't get it completely clean. Xiao Li E asked him why he wasn't speaking—was he angry?
"Why should I be angry?" Old Shi Kang asked.
"Then let me tell you some dirty talk," Xiao Li E said.
"Please, no," Old Shi Kang said.
For a while, Old Shi Kang considered teaching Xiao Li E to read, but he quickly realized his enthusiasm was wasted. Xiao Li E not only knew the phrase "The river flows eastward," but also knew that the abbreviation for Adidas was AIDS.
When I met Old Shi Kang, he had already been in H City for over a month, the script was nearly perfect, and the television drama was about to begin. I arrived and stayed in the room next to Old Shi Kang. Some of the things he told me about his relationship with Xiao Li E came from him himself, while others came from the team members. Based on my keen insight and understanding of Old Shi Kang, I believed some things were true, while others were either completely fabricated or exaggerated.
The production director hoped I could write a few substantial articles to help promote and distribute the television drama. He introduced me to others several times as a reporter from a major Beijing newspaper specializing in entertainment. Last year, he gained fame by exposing a scandal in which a troupe used pandas' pelts to impersonate pandas in performances, which kicked off the reform of cultural organizations. To be honest, his introduction was out of good intentions, and it was true. This made me even more torn. I wasn't used to having people hold high hopes for me before I completed a task. And the reason I came to H City was entirely because of Old Shi Kang's recommendation.
Old Duck was certain her mother, my mother-in-law, had turned into a butterfly. It was an afternoon in April when, after several days of unconsciousness, my mother-in-law finally passed away. At that time, sunlight was shining on an empty patch of ground in the yard, and a white butterfly fluttered in the sunlight, reluctant to leave for a long time. I was also very sad about my mother-in-law's death, especially when I thought of all the care she had shown to my wife and me while she was alive. Therefore, I tended to believe my wife's kind superstition, and whenever I saw a butterfly later, the first thing that came to my mind was that this butterfly might be my mother-in-law. I can guarantee that my feeling was genuine, without any sarcasm. But I must admit that my grief was fragmented from the moment I arrived in Jiang County to the end of the funeral.
First, the arrangements for the funeral made my feelings intermittent. Of course, these arrangements were very thoughtful and meticulous, yet they also had a and continuity, just like day and night, or the twenty-four hours in a day—no one would object to it (since the funeral is not the focus of this story, I plan to write a separate story about it).
What I want to illustrate is that as a newcomer, I was unfamiliar with the local funeral customs, so I felt somewhat lost. Especially when I saw my mother-in-law's younger brother arguing with the fortune-teller about which arrangements were more appropriate, I realized that grief was a complex matter, whether for the living or the dead. In this complexity, my mother-in-law's younger brother and the fortune-teller were both authorities in their own right. The appearance of authority distracted me, preventing me from grieving wholeheartedly. In other words, they told me when to cry and when not to. I believe people who have lived in the countryside for a long time have had similar experiences, but for me, this was the first time.
If the appearance of authority distracted me, then the following incident captured my attention. After I kowtowed in front of my mother-in-law's coffin and entered the inner room, Old Duck pulled me aside, dressed in mourning clothes. She didn't blame me but urged me to quickly lock my suitcase.
"There's a thief," she said. "This morning, my sister had fifty yuan stolen, and her clothes were hanging on this rack." Old Duck pointed to the clothes rack in the corner, where a few pieces of clothing were still hanging. Hearing this, I was genuinely shocked—someone would actually rob people at a time like this. Shocked, I couldn't help but become more vigilant and thoroughly checked my suitcase, which was already on the ground, to make sure there was nothing valuable inside before I felt slightly at ease.
To be honest, I have a natural interest in topics like this. In the few novels I've written, they all tell stories of similar events: a son suspects his father is a traitor; a wife suspects her husband of having an affair; a taxi driver who was robbed might actually be the thief; a colleague at work might be hiding a murderous intent. But all of these cases ended up being resolved without much consequence. For this reason, I briefly explained the reasons: what I was fascinated by was not the crime itself, but the mysterious atmosphere surrounding it, which allowed my imagination to run wild. To my surprise, this actually happened to me. I couldn't afford to miss this opportunity—I had to find the thief. Based on my judgment, this was a bold thief who wouldn't have robbed only once. There were many people coming to the yard every day, not counting the helpers, there were over twenty. This made my investigation more difficult. But after careful observation, I found that among these people, only three often stayed in the house: Teacher Wang, the fortune-teller, and my mother-in-law's younger brother. The fortune-teller and my mother-in-law's younger brother had already been mentioned earlier, and I will elaborate on them later. Here, I will focus on Teacher Wang.
Teacher Wang had taught at the same high school as my mother-in-law. My mother-in-law taught Chinese, while Teacher Wang taught painting. The first time I saw Teacher Wang, he was applying varnish to the coffin. He was very meticulous, never looking up at the people around him. It was said that he had a good relationship with my mother-in-law and had taken time off from school specifically to help with her funeral. I arrived in Jiang County in the afternoon, and soon after, Teacher Wang left without even eating dinner. The next day, when I saw Teacher Wang, he had already drawn dragon and phoenix patterns on both sides of the coffin with chalk powder and was painting a cloud with watercolors. The cloud had already been painted white, and adding blue paint gave it a layered effect. Later, I heard some more things about Teacher Wang from Old Duck. What left the deepest impression on me was that during the Cultural Revolution, Teacher Wang had painted Chairman Mao's portrait and had placed the mole on the right side of his chin on the left side. In fact, he had painted it according to the official portrait of Chairman Mao, and his technique was excellent, but he didn't understand the corresponding relationships between objects. Seeing the mole on the left side of the portrait, he painted it on the right. Fortunately, my mother-in-law noticed this and immediately pointed it out to him. Teacher Wang nearly fainted. After all, the portrait had been hanging in the schoolyard for two weeks. From then on, Teacher Wang believed that my mother-in-law had saved him. Whether this was true or not, the dragon, phoenix, clouds, and lotus flowers he painted would be flawless. From the way Teacher Wang worked on the coffin, it was clear that he was using his art to express his grief for my mother-in-law, so he would never have thought of stealing anything.
On the day of my mother-in-law's burial, a total of five funerals were held, each representing the school where my mother-in-law worked, the prosecutor's office where my father-in-law worked, the county education bureau, the neighborhood office, and relatives and friends. Like Teacher Wang, many people were both colleagues and friends of my mother-in-law, so the five funerals had some overlap in form and content. Before this, I mentioned that I wouldn't discuss the funeral. But if I didn't discuss the funeral, I had to talk about the stolen items, because after Old Duck's sister lost money, ten pounds of pork were also missing from the kitchen. While the theft of money was known only within the family, the theft of meat expanded the scope from relatives to everyone in the yard.
This incident was discovered by Aunt Yu, who was helping in the kitchen before lunch. My mother-in-law had hired five cooks, and with over twenty people eating at each meal, two large pots were set up in the yard, along with five or six tables. When there weren't enough seats, they had to eat in shifts. Even while eating, Old Duck reminded me not to forget to check the house, especially the inner room, because it contained not only the family's clothes but also many things like cigarettes and liquor, which were to be used on the day of the burial. Without the meat, there was no meat for lunch, and the fortune-teller seemed quite displeased. He kept smoking and, when he wasn't smoking, he gave orders to his followers to do this and that. I could tell that he wanted the funeral to last as long as possible so it could be connected to the next one. So, I believed his displeasure was feigned. Compared to the fortune-teller, my mother-in-law's younger brother seemed too grief-stricken. He would suddenly stop what he was doing, like copying epitaphs, sit in front of my mother-in-law's coffin, staring blankly, and sometimes even burst into tears without warning. However, the origin of this younger brother was unclear even to my mother-in-law's family. According to Old Duck, my mother-in-law had trusted this younger brother deeply during her lifetime and had been busy taking care of everything after her death, exhausted from the effort. He often argued with the fortune-teller over small matters, but in the end, my father-in-law stepped in and wrote a funeral duty schedule, which was posted on the wall of the yard. Everyone followed this schedule, and the two of them finally stopped arguing.
Everyone knew that my father-in-law was a calm person. The passing of my mother-in-law must have deeply affected him. He locked himself in his bedroom all day and only came out to use the bathroom in the yard. Seeing his grief, I didn't want to disturb him. My father-in-law had worked in Beijing but was wrongfully labeled a rightist in 1957 and sent to Shanxi. From then on, he settled in Jiang County. He and my mother-in-law had four children, two boys and two girls. The youngest daughter, Li Old Duck, was raised by her uncle in Beijing and later became my wife. Since the family was already large, and with numerous relatives and in-laws coming from elsewhere, I stayed in a nearby guesthouse the night I arrived in Jiang County. So during the day, I stayed at my mother-in-law's house, and at night, I returned to the guesthouse to sleep.