Wuzhuan is a yellow girl

Author: Yan Geling / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: Someone misses me. They say they miss me badly, can't stop thinking about me. In this great metropolis once prosperous with the slaughtering industry, blood flowing like a river, called "Chicago," a person is walking, wanting to see me. Are they afraid of chaos? There are already enough scandals about Chicago. And there are enough scandals about me too. But they are all well kept between me and another group of people. In spy terminology, each of us is in a single line of contact. Therefore, no matter how sensational the scandal is, the other party and I keep it secret just like me. In one of the towering high-rises of Chicago's, lives a person who wants to see me. Will the story be different from now on? What kind of people miss me? They are clean, fragrant with cologne, carefully shaven male bodies, spread out fresh and smooth under white towels. First, there is the false exchange of words: How are you? – Excellent, how about you? Perfect. Did you enjoy it last time? Superb! Shall we start? – Of course. There are also female bodies occasionally, honest trade. I sell labor, they buy service. Now, there is someone who misses me so much that they call what I do every day "massage." I pretend to wear an apple-green monk's robe, and this profession, hidden beneath the disguise, is called a "massage therapist." There is more hidden beneath the disguise. Men want these delicate hands to pamper them. This makes things simpler. Both he and I are on the outside, it's just about this slender hand and that organ coexisting. After it's done, there is no progress or deterioration in our relationship. This is something the person who misses me doesn't know. I walk on the street like a person, thinking about the person who wants to see me. All the letters are in my briefcase. The briefcase is heavier than anyone else's luggage because it must carry so many messy things. Such as letters, bills, makeup boxes, diaries. Letters are a heavy part of it. The rambling of the letters is always about one thing: asking me to visit the person who misses me. Because the letters are so rambling, I grow colder and colder toward them. The person who writes the letters is in Hong Kong, named Lai Rona, three months short of sixty. Yes, Lai Rona corrected a dog-and-girl relationship twenty-six years ago, married again for the second time, and left with nothing. The only things she brought were a few picture frames and an album. She didn't even bring her homemade underwear. She left behind a lot: a gold necklace, old shoes, a bunch of old silk underwear sewn with silk, and me. So I know I am no more valuable to her than the old underwear. The old underwear and I are evidence of her other private life. My grandmother asked seven-year-old me: Who is Lai Rona? Until one day, after she asked, I asked her back: "Who is Lai Rona?" Only then did she feel relieved and stopped asking. That year I was nine. Cleaning up the memories and influence left by Lai Rona was considered her greatest achievement in life. She was like a female fetus who never lived in the womb, a beautiful girl with a head full of black hair who never emerged from between her legs, who no longer spoke, cursed, or felt sad. Except when she saw the burn scars on my body, when she saw me learning to knit and roll dumpling wrappers behind other women's mothers, she would pull me aside, hug me for a while, tapping my back or head gently, and suddenly whisper, "Poison!" She meant what she pointed at, and you'd understand immediately. You'd understand what she had been thinking too. If you were unlucky, you would receive three letters from Lai Rona in a week. So useless, yet you still opened them, letting Lai Rona ramble word by word. These words, Grandma didn't even read, but she said: "Shameless." She said: "Don't smile like that, it's just like being shameless!" She said, "If you dare to walk like that again—Lai Rona walks like you, wherever she goes, she'll ruin it!" From then on, I couldn't laugh genuinely, couldn't speak in my real voice, or else Lai Rona would win, and she would live forever in me. Who has such teeth, hair, corners of the mouth, and eyes? They are Lai Rona's, they must flirt and fidget, you say, what can I do with them? When I was seven, I sang a song with a line saying, "Invincible in the world!" Grandma said: "Dream on, who is invincible, you have enemies too. Your enemy is Lai Rona." I walk outside a Citibank in Chicago, with such a great enemy—Lai Rona— in my body. The bank is already closed. It doesn't matter, I'm used to everything closing in on me. My face appears in the mirror of the ATM. In this light, everyone is a figure in the scandal. Are my hands still young? The tender fingers of my youth, stuffing five checks into an envelope. Because I provided special services, the checks are all quite large. Eighty, one hundred. This young hand knows how many lonely males there are in the gun-and-robber-ridden Chicago. They pay high to have these hands trample them. They emit rotten groans, gradually reaching climax, reaching the peak. This hand and they, I don't know who is destroying whom. Can you imagine where these hands have just been? Another person comes, you can tell at a glance they are here to hide income from shady sources. The machine hums, devouring my five checks. Then comes that dark and long secret passage, they must walk through it in the dark, and when they reach the end, they will be as clean as newborns. I turn around, in the eyes of the two people behind me, I am a decent woman for a moment. Chicago becomes a ghost town in an instant. At eight o'clock in the evening in autumn, the skyscrapers in the financial district approach like nightmares. All the decent people are sneaky, dodging, walking fast like thieves, while all the villains stride boldly, the gunfighters wake up, the prostitutes glow, and the drunkards flex. In an instant, they become the occupiers of the city. My steps are steady, if they have a good show, at least I am an audience. Even McDonald's is holding a beggar party. I buy a chicken salad. The chicken is from the day before yesterday, the lettuce is from yesterday. To betray Lai Rona, I must eat garbage. Grandma's understanding of things is like this: a greedy woman is greedy in every way—eyes, hands, body. Lai Rona engages in dog-and-girl affairs, starting at a cake shop. Lai Rona has exquisite tastes, no food is better than death. Grandma's evolution: stealing a bite—stealing things—stealing people. P1-2