He pulled out his chuixun, thinking he would play for a while. He changed his mind, rubbed the instrument a few times, then slipped it back into his pocket. He peeled off a few garlic cloves and went for a walk along a secluded road as he chewed them.
The houses were scattered. The signs of people gradually disappeared. Birds flew low overhead, beneath brilliant clouds.
He continued to walk, passing over several hills and into less hospitable terrain. After a sharp turn in the road, he saw the white walls and grey roof tiles of a house. There were some domestic animals at its door, and a boat with its sail rigged was moored nearby.
There was something a little different about this lake and mountain scene. The lake’s surface was an endless sketch of muddy yellow, a vast expanse. A white bird fell from the sky and struck a graceful pose on the sail of the boat. A spotted eagle dived into the water and speared a silver fish. When the clouds burned away, the water also seemed to burn, and the fishing boats in the distance could hardly be seen in the blaze.
Mengliu suddenly heard the screech of birds as they whizzed by like bullets overhead. He ducked quickly.
Now the scenery at the lake was beautiful and quiet. The path was overgrown with wild grass. The air was humid. The gardenia bushes were full of plump white flowers. Thin gourds dangled on the loofa vine, alongside pink hibiscus blooms and bamboo shoots. Smoke hung over the house like the billowing sleeves of Chinese opera performers.
A pungent smell diluted the poetic effect of the scene. A fish hung on a bamboo pole, its eyes protruding. It wore the look of one who had died without finding happiness.
A fisherwoman in bright red garb stepped toward Mengliu, holding a harpoon. The blood-red colour she wore had a dizzying effect. Her rough skin and dark complexion were in stark contrast to the colour of her clothes. Her face, a black spot on a crimson bed, was that of a person who was content with poverty. Perhaps it was because of the dust, or maybe it was just a trick of the light, but her messy hair looked as if it were silver-plated, like a lazily floating reed.
The fisherwoman first looked frightened, as if she had never seen a stranger before. But once she realised that he wanted to charter her boat, she moved her bamboo chair over and offered it to Mengliu, then boiled him a strong brew of the fragrant local leicha, a green tea blended with sesame, peanuts, and herbs.
The house was old, and seemed to sag just a little. The exterior wall was painted with red-lettered slogans.
In the distance the lake had a bewitching appeal. The breaking waves faded in and out. Waterfowl flew exuberantly into the line of fir trees which stretched to the horizon until it disappeared from view. The reeds formed an ashy clump of down that scattered in a thick cloud when the breeze blew.
The sun had ascended to its full height. Huge geese flew up like seeds sown in the sky.
Mengliu finished his tea in a single gulp. He was still chewing on the residue left from the brew as he boarded the boat. The rope was released, and the boat slipped out into the lake.
The sun was majestic, the white clouds puffy against the sapphire sky. Mengliu steered the boat past a wetland covered with a large patch of duckweed, blooming with flowers that flowed by like gold, slowly passing the low bushes, reeds, water hyacinth and other plants whose names he did not know, stretching out into the distance. He could see a bird’s nest in the reeds. The chicks sat there undisturbed by his presence, picking at each other’s feathers. At intervals, he caught sight of cranes nesting on a single leg, curled up for a nap. Water snakes swam in lazy figure of eights.
With the boat drifting in the breeze, he pulled out his lady-charming chuixin and played a tune in the face of that vast lake. It was melancholy, solemn, and mysterious, and the water trembled.
When he grew sleepy, he found relief by reclining his head. He lay down in the boat, closed his eyes, and breathed in the pungent smell of fish.
4
Outside, flurries of downy snow began to fall. The basement windows were quickly sealed with snow, and the room in which their interrogation was taking place became even dimmer. Mengliu was so hungry that a constant rumbling sound came from his belly, making him feel uneasy. By now he had learned that the short-haired girl’s name was Qizi. She was from the Physics Department, and was twenty-three years old. Everything she said was interesting. When they asked her why she had joined the procession, she said it was because she’d broken up with her boyfriend and was feeling down. She had absent-mindedly stepped into the street. Anywhere that there were lots of people suited her just fine. She didn’t care anything for this shit everyone was talking about. She joined the procession because of love, and so she could breathe freely.
With the way that Qizi transformed filth into love, the atmosphere in the room suddenly became more relaxed. Even their captors started chatting idly about love. But before long they felt that they were getting carried away, so they turned back to the problem of the excrement.
The freckled woman said that ever since she was small, she’d heard her father talk about the animal kingdom. She knew a lot about hundreds of different species of animals, and understood them better than she did humans. She said that gorilla manure was shaped like a fried twist of dough, not like a pagoda. Furthermore, the gorilla’s excrement was important for the environment, so any attempt to protect the forest without protecting the gorillas was a mistake…
‘Growing up with a father who talked so much about the animal kingdom must have been pleasant,’ said the first man.
The second, catching hold of the crux of the issue, ignored this proposition. ‘Why did that pile of dung shrink by ten percent after it was first reported in the news? Surely it didn’t suddenly dry up?’
Everyone took this as a licence to laugh. They wanted to ask the father of the freckled woman to offer his testimony. She said her father was just a humble scholar of the working class, not someone with a real academic background. Nor did he have any professional ties, so no one would believe anything he had to say. His speech and the belief of others would alike be of little use.
The first man’s face squeezed itself into a worried expression. ‘If it’s not gorilla shit, then what sort of trick are they trying to pull on us?’
The freckled woman knocked on the table, warming the two men to keep their roles here in mind.
After a while, some food was brought. There was only bread and water. The farmer, unused to eating bread, chewed at it awkwardly as he complained about the government’s unreasonableness. ‘A man can’t say a few words without being punished. All I did was carry a sack of peanuts into the city to sell, and I said just one word to support them…and now you’re starving me to death, giving me nothing more than this rotten thing to chew on. My wife is still waiting for me to bring back the meagre earnings from that sack of peanuts so she can attend a wedding reception. We need to buy clothes for the banquet, and I was on my way to the market to get a little fabric for my wife. We haven’t finished with the arrangements, and now it’s getting so dark that I can’t go home anyway. I’m sure she’s sitting at home cursing me, saying I went out squandering the money, drinking too much and passing out on someone’s doorstep…I just want to go back and tell her all about this shit business. She’s sure to jump to her feet and give me a good telling-off for talking such rubbish!’