Strange Beasts of China, page 16
The girl was unmoved, and tilted her head to one side while she considered him for a moment. ‘You want to protect me?’
This caught him off guard. Before he could reply, she went on, ‘But I’m in no danger at all.’
How could he manufacture some danger to make her feel in need of protection? The beast wrestled with this question all night, and finally decided that the next day, he would sit on her doorstep, and whenever a customer approached, he would block the entrance with his legs, twisting around to say to the girl, ‘Protection money.’
It wasn’t a bad plan, but as it turned out, business at the provision shop wasn’t that great. He stayed there till three o’clock, and not a single customer showed up. The beast leaned against the door frame, listening to the girl’s spoon scraping the block of sugar. He almost fell asleep several times. Then the girl had asked, ‘Are you hungry?’
All of a sudden, he was ravenous, but he answered, ‘No, just a little sleepy.’
Nonetheless, she insisted on making him a bowl of sweet soup with twenty dumplings in it, some filled with brown sugar and sesame paste, others with chopped peanuts.
The beast devoured them with gusto.
‘Tasty?’ asked the girl, then without waiting for an answer, she murmured as if to herself, smiling, ‘Girls eat these dumplings when they’re about to get married. It’s very auspicious.’ She smiled, her unbeautiful features lighting up.
He almost choked.
‘I think I’m falling in love with you,’ he said abruptly.
‘Hang on!’ Zhong Liang cried out. ‘I can’t stand this anymore. Why do you make all your male characters so ridiculous? Also, haven’t you ever gone out with anyone? Since when do things move so fast?’
‘Who’s the author, you or me?’ My eyes remained glued on the TV show I was watching, and I sipped at a glass of milk. ‘First of all, that’s how you tell a story. And secondly, I only get three thousand words per issue. I need to move fast.’
He had nothing to say to that, poor boy. Finally, he muttered, ‘No matter how I look at it, I always feel like you’re exploiting me somehow.’
I finished my milk, pressed pause, and turned my attention to him. ‘Dear boy, you saw how badly injured I was last night. Twelve stitches in my right hand! You think I’m faking it?’
He was silent for a second. ‘Did you get a close look at the guy? If you can give me a rough description, I promise I’ll drag him out from whatever rock he’s hiding under—’
‘Thrash him to within an inch of his life, and hang him from the city gate?’ I interrupted, shaking my head. ‘My dear young master Zhong, I’m afraid your strongman services won’t be required in this matter. I didn’t see his face. Anyway, sometimes a loss of money can be auspicious. It prevents disaster.’
Zhong Liang snorted. ‘You lost money, sure, but disaster came anyway. That bastard really roughed you up. When I saw you yesterday, I thought someone had done a hit job on you. You were covered in injuries…’ He slapped a hand across his mouth, turned to look at me, and after some hesitation, finally said, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to mention it again.’
‘It’s fine.’ I had to smile at how guilty he looked. ‘I’ll spare you the death penalty, but you still have to be punished. Go to the kitchen and cook me fifteen dumplings. Five peanut, five brown sugar, and five sesame. Not one less!’
Zhong Liang sparked back to life. ‘You’ve been eating solidly for three hours now, you pig! So you got mugged – you don’t get to sit around gorging yourself! Don’t give up on yourself just because you’re a spinster.’ But he was already heading into the kitchen.
‘I think I’m falling in love with you,’ he said abruptly.
‘Boil the dumplings till they’re soft,’ I yelled after him.
‘You think what?’ said the girl. She often seemed distracted and didn’t hear things, as if her mind was perpetually on another planet.
‘Nothing,’ said the beast hastily, his heart jumping like crazy. ‘So when can you pay the protection money?’
‘How much is it?’ she finally asked.
‘I honestly hadn’t thought of that.’ He turned it over in his mind for a full five minutes. ‘How about fifty?’
‘Fifty?’ she exclaimed.
‘Yes, fifty.’ His voice was uncertain.
‘So cheap? If I give you fifty, will you really protect me forever?’ The beast felt dizzy. What an alarming situation, a thug collecting protection money for the first time, encountering a small business owner who’d never paid it before. ‘Where did you live before this?’ he couldn’t help asking.
‘I was at school, but then there was some family trouble, so I came out here to look after the shop,’ she explained. Then as if she couldn’t help going back to the subject, ‘Really, you’ll protect me for just fifty? And you’ll help me change the gas cylinder?’
‘No, I meant fifty a month,’ said the beast.
‘Well, then that’s too expensive,’ she pouted.
‘What do you think is fair?’
‘How about twenty?’
‘Twenty-five.’
‘All right,’ she said, ‘But you have to help me change the gas.’
‘Fine.’
She rummaged in her bag and found a hundred yuan bill, which she handed to the prime beast.
‘Don’t you have anything smaller?’ said the beast, a little shamefaced. ‘I don’t have any change.’
She looked again and found some coins. ‘I have 23.50.’
The beast forced a smile and took the cash. ‘That’s okay, call it an introductory discount.’
‘Great!’ She grinned and ate another spoonful of brown sugar.
Her smile was so beautiful, the beast felt unsteady on his feet. The thought went through his mind: had she short-changed him on purpose?
Before he could ponder the question more fully, the beast found himself being sent out with the girl for a new gas cylinder, two streets away. Between the rain and the roadworks, they were practically wading through mud. There were slogans painted in black ink on the telegraph poles. The prime beast was very tall, and walked in front with the cylinder on his shoulder, while the young woman followed behind, skipping between puddles. After a while, she got bored and walked beside the beast, studying him intently. ‘What’s that on your neck?’ she asked abruptly.
‘Gills,’ said the beast.
Many years ago, he’d glided silently through the Lotus River, away from Yong’an City. He’d only just been born, but already, he knew how to breathe. The icy water passed through the gills in his neck and into his body. Having left his mother’s body, he experienced cold for the first time. There were five of them, five children, like tiny, feeble fish. They left the city along with the plastic bags, fallen leaves and beer bottles in the water, but even at such a young age, he knew he would be back.
‘Why did you leave? And why did you come back?’ asked the girl casually, as she stood behind the counter rearranging new stock.
He didn’t know how to answer her. She was a human woman, different from him, with her pale skin, fine bones and flat Chinese face that only grew animated when she smiled. Just as he had that thought, she smiled again, and walked over to touch his knotted hair. ‘Why?’ she asked.
And that’s when he kissed her.
‘What’s wrong?’ said Zhong Liang. He put down the laptop and came over to touch my forehead. ‘What is it? Are you in pain? Why are you crying?’
I looked up at his face, which was lowered and in beautiful shadow. ‘What is it?’ he said again. The night before, I’d phoned him because there was no one else in this vast city that I could ask. ‘Zhong Liang,’ I’d said, ‘Come over, quick, I’ve been mugged.’ He was there in five minutes, standing in front of me just as he was now, head hung, and asking, ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
I’d looked at him and burst into loud sobs.
I wanted to be as innocent as him, as clear and unruffled. If only I could ask my professor and my mother, what is it, what’s wrong?
I couldn’t say the words, and neither of them would be able to answer me in any case.
Through a combination of threats and promises, I’d inveigled my editor into using his contacts to put me in touch with an elderly prime beast, apparently one with a high standing in his community. Few prime beasts ever reached his age – and he knew several generations’ worth of stories. He had a pension of 1,000 yuan a month, and lived in a residential care home where he kept a hwamei bird. His existence was circumscribed, but fairly happy.
He came to visit one day. He sat across from me, just the two of us. I regarded him cautiously. He was still strapping, with an aquiline nose and the genetically encoded good looks of a beast, warm as a sunny afternoon. I felt compelled to speak first. ‘Have you heard anything about a prime beast marrying a human woman?’
He looked at me as if I hadn’t spoken. Only his gills fluttered lightly in the breeze.
I repeated the question.
‘I don’t know anything about that,’ he said.
Growing agitated, I grasped his hand and blurted, ‘I know this may be a secret you beasts keep among yourself, but please tell me!’ After a moment, I added quietly, ‘I’m their child. I have a red crescent moon mark on my back, the sign of mixing.’
Startled, he gripped my hand and looked into my eyes. ‘What did you say?’ His voice shook.
‘I’m their child,’ I said again, choking. ‘My mother told me my father was a prime beast, but I couldn’t tell anyone. No one would have anything to do with me if they knew. She made me promise not to ever meet a prime beast, not a single one. I promised, and now I’m betraying her, just as she betrayed me by dying.’
The old beast stared at me for a very long time, then he laughed. ‘You’re lying.’
‘I’m not, I can show you my birthmark. I don’t have gills, but I do have the mark—’
‘No,’ he interrupted. ‘Go now. I don’t want to see you again.’
Was I lying, or was he? No one could say.
Did my mother lie to me, or did my professor? I had no way of knowing. The dead are separated from the living. If the child in this story wasn’t me, then who was it? Where was she now?
I needed answers. I had to ask every person who could possibly separate the truth from the myths for me.
‘What’s this about?’ Zhong Liang sat down, hugging me and stroking my back, comforting me like my professor used to do. ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry.’ His voice went husky. ‘I’m here, aren’t I? No matter what, I’m here. Shh…’
‘Show some respect for your elders,’ I muttered as he patted my head energetically. ‘You’re knocking out all my sense,’ I said.
‘Be quiet,’ he said sternly, then folded me into a vehement embrace.
‘Can I be with you?’ said the beast. ‘Can I?’
She looked at him for a while. ‘Will you help me change the gas cylinder?’
‘I will.’
‘And you’ll stop charging me protection money?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Then yes.’ She grinned.
The beast decided to stop collecting protection money altogether. He packed his small bag and moved into the provision shop. There was a little room behind the shop, then an airwell, and finally a kitchen. With the new gas cylinder they’d fetched that afternoon, they cooked dinner, then sat in the airwell to eat it. The girl said, ‘Do you beasts often get together with humans?’
He was silent for some time. ‘I don’t think so,’ he eventually said.
‘Then why are you with me?’
‘Because…’ He paused to think about it. ‘Because your smile is so delightful.’
She tried hard to hold back her laugh, but it broke out anyway. ‘You’re lying,’ she said.
‘It’s true.’
It was true. Even much later, years after the beast had vanished from her and everyone else’s lives, she never doubted that he’d loved her. There was no reason for this, no logic. The moment he’d laid eyes on her, he’d fallen in love.
The following month was the prime beast matchmaking ceremony that took place once every three years, but he couldn’t wait for that, nor for the female beast looking forward to his return – she’d surely have on an enormous wig, which blocked out the sun entirely. Instead, he went off the rails, and fell in love with this girl.
She was a very adorable girl. She stared into space all day long, flinging all sorts of questions at him, like, ‘Why is your hair so long?’
‘No reason,’ said the beast. ‘Many things are so just out of habit. The poor female beasts in my tribe have to shave their heads, and wear these ridiculous wigs. Just as how I suddenly fell in love with you, there’s no reason for it.’
She blushed and ate more food. ‘Such a glib tongue,’ she scolded him, putting a piece of braised pork on his plate.
‘I’ll cut it off next month,’ he said.
‘Does that mean you’ll stop loving me next month?’
He sighed long and hard, and rapped his knuckles on her head. ‘Why would you think such a thing?’
‘Come to think of it, why do male prime beasts keep their hair so long?’ asked Zhong Liang. ‘I know they cut it off when they come of age, then the tribe arranges for them to mate with a female beast. Could their hair be some sort of switch to turn their desire on and off?’
He turned to look at me dubiously. ‘You have long hair. Is that because you’re afraid no one will marry you?’
I threw my cup at him.
He caught it nimbly, and went on, unrepentant. ‘No wonder our professor kept his hair so short. His head was prickly, like a hedgehog—’
The plate caught him unawares. He yelped, and protested, ‘No need for that. Can’t I criticise him for once without you throwing flatware at me?’
‘I’m just trying to stop you talking nonsense,’ I said. ‘All that time with him, and you have no academic rigour at all.’
‘As if you do,’ he said, quick as a flash. ‘You haven’t done a thing with yourself. I have no idea why he missed you for so long.’
‘He missed me?’ I couldn’t help it, the words came to my mouth.
‘Yes,’ he said, not noticing my expression, eager to gossip. ‘He was always mentioning you. If I so much as picked up a mug, he’d say, “That was her favourite mug.” The whole lab was a shrine to you.’ It took him a moment to realise this hadn’t struck the right note. ‘I mean, he missed you the way a dad misses his daughter when she gets married and moves out,’ he said awkwardly.
My face was white. ‘You think he was like a father to me? Really? The man who smiled and smacked my cheeks, and said, “You give me more headaches than any other woman on earth.” That man?’
Only now did Zhong Liang notice the pain in my voice. After so many years in the lab, even he had heard the rumours floating on the wind. He tried to cover up with a joke. ‘Well, you know, he was the emperor, and I’d be just the old minister sent by him to look after the bratty princess.’
‘Old minister?’ I sneered. ‘I can still smell your mother’s milk on you. You’re too young to even be a stable boy.’
He lost his temper at that – I must have injured his male pride. ‘You stupid woman, your moods change faster than the weather. Weren’t you just crying? And now you’re making fun of me for being young – but I’m only seven months and three days younger than you, you know.’
In the heat of argument, I didn’t have time to be astonished that he knew my birthday. ‘Oh right, I forgot,’ I said, reaching for the angriest words I could muster. ‘You’re not a prodigy like me. They probably kept you back a year.’
‘Say one more word,’ he growled, ‘And I’ll delete every line you wrote today.’
Well. There was nothing I could say to that. ‘Oh, please don’t, dear grand lord Mr Zhong Liang, long may your noble life be.’ I was two weeks late with this manuscript, and my editor had threatened to cut off my electricity and water if I didn’t hand something in. Onwards.
The prime beast ended up going to the gathering anyway. One night, he got a phone call telling him where to go the next day. ‘All right,’ he said, and hung up.
The woman reached out for him drowsily from the bed. ‘Why are you still up?’
He lay down, but couldn’t get to sleep. After a while, she asked, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘If I wanted to leave this place,’ he said, ‘would you come with me?’
‘All right,’ she replied, her voice slurred. She frowned. ‘Come and warm me up, I’m cold.’
Whenever she frowned, he felt as if the sky was caving in. He rolled over and embraced her small, icy body. Just like his mother before she died, in his arms, looking up at him, her entire person withering before his eyes.
They had steamed buns for breakfast. When he left, she said, ‘Can’t I come with you?’
‘No,’ he said, smiling.
She understood. Yong’an was a huge, filthy, ungovernable city, full of all sorts of beasts of unknown origin, and secrets, likewise. Everyone tacitly accepts this, and gets on with their lives.
So she sat in her provision shop. There were no customers that day, so she kept scraping at the brown sugar, spooning the stuff into her mouth, spitting out the coarser grains. She’d got through half the block when he showed up. His hair had been cut off. It was a cold day, and he had a scarf over his mouth. Puffs of white floated out of his nose. He looked like a tall, handsome human man. Without saying a word, he walked over, knelt, and hugged her tight. In a low voice, he said, ‘Do you love me?’
