Shifu, You'll Do Anything For a Laugh

that vast garden, and to him that seemed almost miraculous. Now that he was in a good mood, he took another look at the rubble-strewn ground around him. The huge chiseled rocks were so famous, so evocative, had been framed in so many lenses and shown up in so many poems, yet now they were as common as rocks anywhere. They stood silently, yet somehow seemed to be unburdening themselves of thousands upon thousands of words. They were, in the end, silent stone giants. There in front of the ruins, a pond over which a fountain had sprayed water two centuries earlier was virtually covered by waterweeds, sweet flag, and reeds. Wild grasses he couldn't name flourished in the cracks between rocks.
    After helping one another down from the boulder, they went over and climbed another one that was even higher and bigger. Cool winds swept past, slowly drying the clothing that clung to their bodies. The hem of her black skirt began to flutter in the breeze. When he rubbed his hand over the rock, which had been washed clean by the rain, a clean, fresh aroma rose up to greet him. As if a deep, dark secret had been revealed to him, he said:
    “Smell this. It's the smell of a rock.”
    She was gazing fixedly at a stone column that had once supported some large edifice; she looked as if she hadn't heard him. Her gaze seemed capable of boring into the column to discover what was deep inside. At that moment he noticed the strands of gray hair by her temples. A long sigh rose up from the depths of his heart. He reached over and picked up a strand of hair that had fallen to her shoulder and said with heartfelt emotion:
    “The time just flies by, and here we are, getting old.”
    She responded by revealing what was on her mind:
    “The words carved on these rocks will never change, will they?”
    “Rocks change,” he said. “The cliché that seas dry up and rocks rot away, but the heart never changes is nothing but a beautiful fantasy.”
    “But in Shen Garden nothing ever changes.” She was still staring at the rocks, as if conversing with them, while he was reduced to being an inconsequential audience of one. But he was determined to respond to her comment. In a loud voice, he said:
    “Not a single thing in this world is eternal. Take this famous garden, for instance. Two hundred years ago, when the Qing emperor built it, no one could have imagined that in the short space of two centuries it would be reduced to ruins. Back then, the marble stones in the vast halls on which the emperor and his ladies took their pleasure might now be the rocks on which commoners have built a pigsty.”
    Even he sensed how dry and inane his comment was, little more than nonsense. He knew she hadn't heard a word, so he didn't go on. Taking a damp pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, he picked out one that was relatively dry and lit it with his lighter.
    A pair of magpies flew past above them and landed on the top of a distant tree, where they chirped noisily. He felt like saying, See how free birds are! But he'd gotten into the habit of swallowing his comments before they broke loose. Just then, a joyous squeal erupted from her mouth and sparks lit up the darkness in her eyes. He cast a surprised look at her, then looked where she was pointing. There in the gray-blue sky was a gorgeous rainbow. She was hopping around like a little girl and shouting at the top of her lungs:
    “Look, look!”
    Her joy was infectious. The multicolored bridge arching across the sky drove all thoughts of the dark realities of life out of his head, and he was instantly immersed in childlike delights. Without being aware of it, they had drawn close together, as they gazed intimately into each other's eyes. No evasions or sidesteps, no hesitation or wavering; first their hands joined naturally, and then they fell just as naturally into each other's arms. They kissed.
    The gorgeous rainbow had disappeared by the time he was sampling the light taste of mud on her lips. The vast ruins spread out around them, a dark purple light glinting off the rocks strewn about and lending a majestic air to the scene. Insects hiding in the waterweeds chirped and clicked, and the crisp honks of geese drifted over from somewhere far off. He glanced casually at her wristwatch. It was seven o'clock.
    “Damn!” he blurted out anxiously. “Doesn't your train leave at eight?”

Abandoned Child
    I HAD BARELY PICKED HER UP OUT OF THE SUNFLOWER FIELD WHEN I felt that my heart was clogged with gummy