Pow!

crafty door's plan to send me flying.

    I immediately spotted Father and the pretty girl he and Aunty Wild Mule had created—my little sister. Thank God they hadn't left yet.

    Someone—I don't know who—flings a bloody, foul-smelling army uniform through the door, and it lands between the Wise Monk and me. I stare at the ominous object, startled, and wonder what's going on. There's a coin-sized hole in the uniform, right where the rank smell is the strongest. I also detect the faint odour of gunpowder and cosmetics. Something white is tucked into one of the pockets. A silk scarf? Filled with curiosity, I reach out to touch it but just then a pile of mud and rotting reeds, loosened by shards of roof tile, falls from the sky and covers the bloody clothes, and there, between the Wise Monk and me, a tiny grave is created. I look into the rafters, where a sun-drenched skylight has broken through the blackness. I'm terrified that this temple, forgotten by the world, is about to come crashing down, and I begin to fidget. But the Wise Monk doesn't budge, having regulated his breathing so as to appear absolutely still. The haze outside has cleared and bright sunlight covers the ground, turning the dampness in the yard into steam. The leaves on the gingko tree have an oily sheen, radiating life. A tall man in an orange leather jacket, drab olive wool pants and bright red calfskin knee-length boots, his hair parted in the middle, wearing a pair of small, round sunglasses and gripping a cigar between his teeth, materializes in the courtyard.

POW! 13

    The man stands straight and stiff; his dark skin, with its reddish glow, reminds me of one of those arrogant yet brave US army officers you see in war films. But he's not one of those—he's Chinese through and through. And the second he opens his mouth to speak I can tell he's a local. Despite his familiar accent, his clothes and the way he moves tell me there's something mysterious about his origins, that he's no ordinary man. He's been around. Compared to him, our resident VIP, Lao Lan, looks like a country bumpkin. (As I think this I can almost hear Lao Lan say: ‘I know those urban petty bourgeois look down on us, think we're a bunch of country bumpkins. Crap! Just who are they calling country bumpkins? My third uncle was a pilot in the Chinese Air Force, a drinking buddy of Chennault, the Flying Tigers leader. Back when most Chinese hadn't even heard about the US, my third uncle was making love to an American woman. How dare they call us bumpkins?’) The man walks up to the temple and smiles, a mischievous, childlike gleam in his eyes. I feel as if I know him, that we're close. He unzips his pants and aims a stream of piss at the temple door, and some of the drops splash onto my bare feet. The man's tool does not suffer in comparison with that of the Horse Spirit behind the Wise Monk. He must be trying to humiliate us, but the Wise Monk doesn't so much as twitch; in fact, a barely perceptible smile appears on his face. There's a direct line between his face and the man's tool, while I can only see it out of the corner of my eye. If he can look straight at it and not be upset, why should I let a sideways glance upset me? The man's bladder holds enough to drown a small tree. The urine bubbles, like the foam on a glass of beer, as it pools round the Wise Monk's tattered prayer mat. Finally finished, he shakes his tool contemptuously. Realizing that we're ignoring him, he turns his back, stretches his arms and throws out his chest and a muted roar emerges from his mouth. Sunlight shines through his right ear, turning it as pink as a peony. I catch sight of a crowd of women who look like 1930s dance-hall socialites, in form-fitting qipaos that show off their curvaceous, slim bodies, their hair permed in loose or tight curls, their bodies glittering with jewellery. The way they carry themselves, the way they frown and the way they smile—modern women would have trouble keeping up. Their bodies give off a stale but regal odour, and I find it deeply moving. I have a feeling that we are somehow related. The women are like brightly feathered birds, warbling orioles and trilling swallows—chirp-chirp, tweet-tweet—as they rush to surround the man in the leather jacket. Some of them tug at his sleeves, others grab his belt; some sneak a pinch on his thigh, others stuff slips of paper in his pockets; some even feed him sweets. One of them, of an indeterminate age, seems more