While awaiting the pronouncement of the death sentence, I was in this state of nothingness, looking at the autumn sun outside the window, silently intoning Namo Amitofu, over and over, in my heart.
My old schoolmate, who couldn’t wait any longer, knocked and went into the darkroom. My brother followed him in but was sent out and had to stand by the window where the X-rays came out. Soon my schoolmate also came out and went to the window to wait. They had transferred their concern for the prisoner to the documentation of his sentence, an inappropriate metaphor. Like an onlooker who had nothing to do with it, I watched as they went into the darkroom, keeping in my heart Namo Amitofu which I silently intoned over and over again. Then, suddenly I heard them shouting out in surprise:
“What?”
“Nothing?”
“Check again!”
“There’s only been this one side chest X-ray all afternoon.” The response from the darkroom was unfriendly.
The two of them pegged the X-ray onto a frame and held it up for inspection. The darkroom technician also came out, looked at it, made an offhand remark, then dismissed them.
Buddha said rejoice. Buddha said rejoice first replaced Namo Amitofu, then turned into more common expressions of sheer joy and elation. This was my initial psychological reaction after I had extricated myself from despair, I was really lucky. I had been blessed by Buddha and a miracle had taken place. But my joy was furtive, I did not dare to appear hasty.
I was still anxious and took the wet X-ray for verification by the head doctor with the glasses.
He looked at the X-ray and threw up both of his arms in grand theatrical style.
“Isn’t this wonderful?”
“Do I still have to have that done?” I was asking about the final X-ray.
“Still have to have what done?” he berated me, he saved people’s lives and had this sort of authority.
He then got me to stand in front of an X-ray machine with a projector screen and told me to take a deep breath, breathe out, turn around, turn to the left, turn to the right.
“You can see it for yourself,” he said, pointing to the screen. “Have a look, have a look.”
Actually I didn’t seen anything clearly, my brain was like a great blob of paste and the only thing I saw on the screen was a blurry rib cage.
“There’s nothing there, is there?” he loudly berated me as if I were deliberately being a nuisance.
“But then how can those other X-rays be explained?” I couldn’t stop myself asking.
“If there’s nothing there, there’s nothing there, it’s just vanished. How can it be explained? Colds and lung inflammation can cause a shadow and when you get better, the shadow disappears.”
But I hadn’t asked him about a person’s state of mind. Could that cause a shadow?
“Go and live properly, young man.” He swivelled his chair around, dismissing me.
He was right, I had won a new lease of life, I was younger than a new-born baby.
My brother rushed off on his bicycle, he had a meeting to attend.
The sunshine was mine again, mine again to enjoy. My schoolmate and I sat on chairs by the grass and started discussing fate. It is when there is no need to discuss fate that people talk more about fate.
“Fate’s a strange thing,” he said, “a purely chance phenomenon. The possible arrangement of the chromosomes can be worked out, but can it be worked out prior to falling into the womb on a particular occasion?” He talked on endlessly. He was studying genetic engineering but the findings of the experiments he wrote up in his dissertation differed from those of his supervisor who was the head of the department. When called up for a discussion with the party general-secretary of the department, he had an argument, and after graduating he was sent to raise deer on a deer-breeding farm on the Daxinganling Plateau of Inner Mongolia.
Later on, after many setbacks, he managed to get a teaching position in a newly-established university in Tangshan. However, how could it have been foreseen that he would be labelled the claws and teeth of anti-revolutionary black group elements and hauled out for public criticism. He suffered for almost ten years before the verdict “case unsubstantiated” was declared.
He was transferred out of Tianjin just ten days before the big earthquake of 1976. Those who had trumped up the case against him were crushed to death in a building which collapsed, it was in the middle of the night and not one of them escaped.
“Within the dark chaos, naturally there is fate!” he said.
For me, however, what I had to ponder was this: How should I change this life for which I had just won a reprieve?
13
A village lies up ahead. At the bottom of the terraced fields and the mountain, the same black bricks and tiles dot the riverside. A stream flowing right in front of the village is spanned by a long flat slab of rock. Once again you see a black cobblestone street with a deep single-wheel rut leading into the village. And again you hear the patter of bare feet on the stones, as wet footprints guide you into the village. Again, just like the one in your childhood, it’s a small lane with mud-splashed cobblestones. You discover through gaps in the cobblestones that the lapping stream flows under the street. At the gate of each house a flagstone has been lifted so that the water can be used for washing and scrubbing, and bits of green vegetable float along the glistening ripples. Behind the front gates you make out the noisy pecking and flapping of chickens squabbling over food in the courtyards. There is no-one in the lane, there are no children, nor are there any dogs about. It is strangely quiet.
The sun over the tops of the houses shines onto a whitewashed heat-retaining wall and produces a lot of glare, but it’s quite cool in the lane. A mirror flashes from a lintel, the Eight Trigrams are etched around the border. When you go up and stand under the eave by the door you notice that this Eight Trigram mirror is directed at the curled roof of the heat-retaining wall opposite to deflect the evil forces emanating from it. However if you position yourself here to take a photograph, the visual contrast of colours — the golden glow of the wall in the intense sunlight, the grey-blue shadows of the lane and the black cobblestones on the road — is pleasing and gives a sense of tranquillity, while the broken tiles on the curled roof and the cracks in the brick wall evoke a feeling of nostalgia. If you reposition yourself you can photograph the door, the Eight Trigram mirror and the stone threshold, worn and shiny from the bottoms of the little children who have sat upon it, all with great authenticity yet showing no trace of the animosity existing for generations between the families living in the two houses.
You tell barbaric and terrifying tales and I don’t want to hear them, she says.
Then what would you like to hear about?
Talk about nice people and nice happenings.
Shall I talk about the zhuhuapo?
I don’t want to hear about shamans.
A zhuhuapo isn’t the same as a shaman, shamans are wicked old women. A zhuhuapo is a beautiful young woman.
Like Second Master’s bandit wife. I don’t want to hear cruel stories like that.
A zhuhuapo is charming and kind hearted.
She’s walking in leather shoes on moss-covered rocks and you say she doesn’t have a hope of getting very far, so she lets you hold her hand. You’ve warned her but she slips. You grab her and draw her into your arms, saying you didn’t do this on purpose. She says you’re bad and frowns but there’s the hint of a smile at the corners of her tightly pursed lips. You can’t restrain yourself and you kiss her, her lips relax and surprise you with their tenderness. You enjoy her warmth and fragrance and say that this often happens in the mountains. She entices you and you succumb and she nestles in your arms, closes her eyes.
