Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

blinded by wet, hot rays of sunlight. Almost immediately a handful of loose black mud came hurtling toward my face, like a slimy toad. I didn’t try to get out of the way; my subconscious wouldn’t let me. It smacked me square in the face.
    I wiped the mud from my face. Some had gotten into my left eye, which stung badly, but I could still see out of my right eye. It was my son, seething with anger, and his dog, which looked at me with indifference. The door and window were spattered with mud, scooped out of a mud hole in front of the steps. My son stood there with his schoolbag over his back. His hands were coated with mud, and there was plenty more on his face and his clothes. What I should have seen was a look of rage, but what I did see were the tears spilling from his eyes. My tears quickly followed. There was so much I wanted to say to him, but all that came out was a pain-filled:
    “Go ahead, son, throw it. . . .”
    I took a step outside, grabbing the door frame to keep from falling, and shut my eyes to await the next handful of mud. I could hear him breathing hard as handful after handful of hot, stinking mud sailed through the air toward me. Some of it hit me in the nose, some on the forehead, and some on my chest and belly. One handful was harder than the others; clearly doctored with a piece of brick or tile, it hit me right in the crotch; I groaned as I bent over in pain, fell into a crouch, and finally sat down.
    I opened my eyes, washed by tears; I could now see out of both of them. My son’s face was twisted like a shoe sole in a fiery oven. The mud in his hand fell to the ground as he burst out crying, covered his face with his hands, and ran away. After a few parting barks, the dog turned and followed him.
    All the time I was standing there letting my son vent his anger by flinging mud in my face, Pang Chunmiao, my lover, was standing beside me. I was the object of the attacks, but unavoidably, she received some of the wayward hits. After helping me to my feet, she said softly:
    “We have to accept this, elder brother. . . . I’m happy ... it feels to me like our sins have been lessened. . . .”
    Dozens of people were standing in the second-story hallway of the New China Bookstore building. I could see they were bookstore cadres and clerks. One of them, a young fellow named Yu, who had once asked Mo Yan to see if I’d help him get a promotion to assistant manager, was chronicling my troubles from a variety of angles and distances with a heavy, expensive camera. Mo Yan later showed me a bunch of the pictures the man had taken, and I was shocked by how good they were.
    Two of the observers came downstairs and walked timidly up to us. We knew who they were at once: one was the bookstore’s Party secretary, the other was the chief of security. They spoke without looking at us.
    “Old Lan,” the Party secretary said awkwardly, “I’m sorry, but our hands are tied . . . we’re going to have to ask you to move out. ... I want you to know we’re just carrying a Party Committee decision—”
    “You don’t have to explain,” I said. “I understand. We’ll move out right away.”
    “There’s . . . more.” The security chief hemmed and hawed. “Pang Chunmiao, you have been suspended pending an investigation, and you’re to move into the second-story security section office. A bed has been placed there for you.”
    “You can suspend me,” Chunmiao said, “but you can forget about an investigation. The only way you’ll get me to leave his side is to kill me!”
    “As long as we understand each other,” the security chief said. “We’ve said what we were supposed to say.”
    Arm in arm — to hold each other up — we walked over to a water faucet in the middle of the yard.
    “I’m sorry,” I said to the Party secretary and security chief, “but we need to use a little of your water to wash the mud off our faces. If you have any objections—”
    “How can you say that, Old Lan?” the Party secretary blurted out. “What do you take us for?” He cast a guarded look around him. “Whether or not you move out is none of our business, if you want the truth, but my advice would be to leave as soon as possible. The person in charge is boiling mad.”
    We washed the mud off our face and bodies and then, under the watchful gaze of the people at the windows, went back into Chunmiao’s cramped, muggy, moldy dorm room, where we embraced and kissed.
    “Chunmiao . . .”
    “Don’t