Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

once lived in our apartment had subsequently retired and moved into the county capital. Completely furnished, the place came equipped with a bag of flour, another of rice, some cooking oil, sausage, and canned goods.
    “You can hide out here. Give me a call if you need anything, and don’t go outside unless you absolutely have to. This is Party Secretary Pang territory, and she often makes unannounced inspections.”
    And so we began our dizzying days of happiness. We cooked, we ate, and we made love.
    Your son could not resist Pang Fenghuang’s charm, and so, in order to help her carry out her plan to punish her aunt, he told your wife a lie.
    I pursued the fused smells, like a braided rope, of you and Pang Chunmiao, with them right behind me; I unerringly followed your trail to the pier at Yutong Village, where we boarded the same boat.
    “Where are you two young students going?” the friendly boat owner asked from the rear of the boat, her hand on the rudder.
    “Where are we going, Dog?” Pang Fenghuang asked me.
    I turned to look downriver and barked.
    “Downriver,” your son said.
    “Where downriver?”
    “Just take us downriver. The dog will let us know when we get to where we’re going,” he said confidently.
    The woman laughed as she pushed out into the middle of the river and headed downriver like a flying fish. Fenghuang took off her shoes and socks and sat on the boat’s edge to dip her feet in the water.
    Before we went ashore at Lüdian Township, Fenghuang generously gave the woman more than she expected, which made her nervous.
    We had no trouble finding where you were living, and when we knocked at your door, we were greeted by looks of shame and shock. You glared angrily at me; I barked twice out of embarrassment. What I wanted to convey was: Please forgive me, Lan Jiefang, but since you left home, you’re no longer my master. That role has been taken over by your son, and it’s my duty to do as he says.
    Fenghuang took the lid off a little metal bucket and splashed the contents — paint — all over Chunmiao.
    “You’re a whore, Aunty,” Fenghuang said to Chunmiao, who stood there dumbstruck. Then she turned to your son and, like a commanding officer, waved her hand in the air and said: “Let’s go!”
    I accompanied Fenghuang and your son over to the township Party office, where she located Du Luwen and said — ordered is more like it:
    “I am Pang Kangmei’s daughter. I want you to call for a car to take us back to the county town.”
    — Du Luwen came over to our paint-spattered Eden and stammered:
    “In my humble opinion, I think you two should get as far away from here as possible.”
    He gave us some clean clothes and an envelope containing a thousand yuan.
    “This is a loan, so don’t say no.”
    Chunmiao just looked at me, wide-eyed and helpless.
    “Give me ten minutes to think this over,” I said to Du as I offered him a cigarette. We sat down to smoke, but my cigarette had barely burned down halfway when I stood up and said, “I’d appreciate it if you’d pick us up at seven o’clock tonight and drive us to the Jiao County train station.”
    That night we boarded the Qingdao-Xi’an train. It was 9:30 when we reached the Gaomi station. Pressing our faces up against the grimy windows, we gazed out at all the waiting passengers, most carrying their heavy belongings on their backs, and a smattering of station personnel with blank expressions on their faces. Lights in the distant city sparkled, while in the square in front of the station, drivers waited by their illegal taxis amid the shouts of food vendors. Gaomi, will we ever be able to return as proper citizens?
    In Xi’an we went to see Mo Yan, who had taken a job as a journalist for a local newspaper after graduating from a special writer’s workshop. He set us up in the run-down room he rented in the Henan Villa, saying he could bed down in his office. With a wicked grin, he handed us a box of Japanese extra-thin condoms and said:
    “I’m afraid this is all I have, but it’s a gift from the heart. Please take it.”
    Over the summer holidays your son and Fenghuang again ordered me to follow you, so I led them to the train station and barked in the direction of a train heading west: the scent, like those railroad tracks, stretched far off in the distance, too far for my nose to be of any use.

51

Ximen Huan Tyrannizes the County Town
Lan Kaifang Cuts His Finger to Test Hair
    By the summer of 1996,