Only then did Madam X finally twitch, and opening her pupil- less eyes, she asked, ‘‘What children?’’
‘‘The ones you summon here every day.’’ Tapping X’s knee with a crutch, the lame woman said, ‘‘Don’t play innocent!’’
‘‘There aren’t any children,’’ she said succinctly and definitely. ‘‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Perhaps there were some shadows that came into this room.’’ Everyone stared openmouthed.
‘‘I absolutely don’t care if some things enter while I’m experimenting. It is trivial, absolutely irrelevant. Maybe the shadows you mentioned just now were the children?’’ she added, her pure- hearted pose irreproachable.
There was just one thing: no one could find the pupils in her eyes. From the next room, Madam X’s husband heard the noise and thought the women were making trouble. He thrust his way through the crowd and blocked his frail wife with his broad back. In a low voice, he bellowed at the women: ‘‘What are you up to?’’
The women began backing off, looking at each other in despair. Though the gutsy widow yelled, she didn’t have the courage, either, to take on this burly man. Finally, they left, and the husband slammed the door with a peng. He stuck his head out the window and yelled that if anyone came to make trouble for his wife in the future, he would ‘‘knock her teeth out.’’ He also said that ‘‘no civic activities’’ had ‘‘anything’’ to do with them. On the way home, the women ran into a large crowd of teenagers. They tried to block their way, but the youngsters were as slippery as fish. You couldn’t get hold of them. Laughing and joking, they broke away.
‘‘We lost.’’ They sat down dejectedly at the side of the road.
‘‘Let’s wait until summer,’’ Ms. B said, ‘‘the time for discussing national political issues. People’s feelings run high, and then perhaps the situation we saw during the lecture will be repeated. We mustn’t lose our self-confidence.’’
6. MADAM X TALKS ABSTRACTLY OF HER EXPERIENCES WITH MEN
In her gloomy room, Madam X frequently talked about her experiences with men, mainly to her younger sister and the female colleague. It was her favorite topic. At such times, she looked as hesitant as a little child. Her voice was uncertain and her gestures feeble. She kept looking around, as if worried that someone would sneak in like a shadow. Nevertheless, according to what the two listeners leaked, what she said was shameless and crude. She could talk for a long time about each part of her ideal man’s body (of course such a person didn’t exist; according to Madam X, even the listeners didn’t exist). She talked of the significance of all sorts of behaviors and actions: among them, of course, were eye color and voice, which she said she blended into the body.
Here are two of her shocking examples: ‘‘The instinctive movements of the hands and lips coalesce into the feelings of a person’s entire life. We needn’t waste time understanding a man. It’s enough to see how he moves. Indeed, it isn’t even necessary to see. We can wait and taste them.’’ ‘‘Strength and duration are the clearest indicators of his individuality, but this must also be realized through a woman; otherwise, it’s self-deceptive and unmasculine.’’ She said some even more devilish words that we don’t feel comfortable repeating. When she talked of these things, she spoke like a slut. She was absolutely shameless. If anyone mentioned this, she’d curl her lip and say she wasn’t the one who should feel shame and then denounce the other for ‘‘being perverted.’’ No one could understand her aloof expression when she talked or the entrancing little smile at the corners of her mouth. If we don’t think of this as a performance, then we have to deal with her sexual problem, and that gives us a headache. In the Five Spice Street community’s recollections, the first person and also the last person who talked of men in such dirty language, observing no taboos, was Madam X. Even the female colleague who knew her well sometimes couldn’t stand it.
This colleague was also greatly interested in men and had a lot of experience. Not only did she have intercourse frequently with her husband (after their son left, even more frequently), she also took great pleasure in talking about it-fantasizing all kinds of titillating details as she talked, reliving the experience and reviewing it. She was really expert, but she didn’t like Madam X’s vague way of talking about intimacies between men and women, which kindled her secret emotions and made her impatient for the sequel but provided no real stimulation. In the end, she just drew a blank, as if she’d been made a fool of-she was ashamed and embarrassed. It was damnable! Arbitrary! If they were talking about men, they must have names; they must have bodies and relationships, so that people could grasp them. Madam X’s insubstantial remarks were idiotic nonsense, a hodgepodge. Using a child’s tone of voice, she feigned a great deal of experience. She talked and talked, but it was nothing but nonsense-or, rather, a hoax. Her steamy language became insipid. She talked as if reading a document. It was boring and tiresome.
When the colleague left, she ran into her fat husband. She stamped her feet and shouted abuse. Her husband drew her into his arms and patted her rump, hoping to calm her down.
‘‘I’ve been robbed! I’ve been fleeced!’’ She jumped up and slapped her husband’s face. She still hadn’t vented all her hatred and was shaking all over.
‘‘By whom?’’
‘‘A thief!’’
‘‘Where?’’
‘‘Help!’’
Although Madam X didn’t quite sense the people around her, she learned from various channels of the wrath they felt for her, and logic, too, told her the whole world was hostile. She’d known for years that if she told people her true feelings she’d be laughed at, because everyone saw things precisely opposite from the way she did. Even if it was the most ordinary, imperceptible feeling, she was absolutely different. Yet she’d been herself for a long time, and there was no way to change. Who was at fault? Madam X stubbornly believed it was everyone else. To go her own way, she not only didn’t look around her with her eyes, she also didn’t talk with people. Sometimes it seemed that she was chatting with you earnestly with an attentive expression, and then you noticed that she wasn’t talking to you at all, but talking over your head-or, even worse, talking to herself. She would be annoyed if you reminded her you were there. She was used to this kind of conversation. It was her weapon for dealing with the world. You couldn’t see this weapon, but it was awesome. It always left the crowds on Five Spice Street unsure whether or not they wanted to talk with her again. They also wondered whether she secretly laughed at them. Were her empty generalities a kind of jeering? If they couldn’t figure this out, weren’t they fools? Time after time, they secretly made up their minds that they must figure out Madam X’s ideas, but their efforts were always futile: it was always exhausting to talk with Madam X, and you ended up losing your self-confidence.
Someone asked Madam X about this, and she very simply told the person: she certainly didn’t have any intrigues and wouldn’t bother to laugh at anyone-that’s the only way she could talk with people. Since she held ‘‘different views’’ from everyone else and was like this by nature, she had no choice but to deal with people this way lest both sides be ‘‘unbearably anguished.’’ Let’s bring up an example: she called the carnal relationship between men and women sexual intercourse. Everyone felt this was too ‘‘frankly revealing,’’ too unpoetic. It should be called something like ‘‘recreation,’’ but this term ‘‘nauseated’’ her. So, since the crowd stuck to its opinion and she didn’t intend to change, if neither interfered with the other, perhaps they could live in peaceful coexistence.
Madam X acted this way toward the crowd but not with her younger sister. The two were birds of a feather. Their conversations always had to ‘‘exhaust’’ the subject. Sometimes, they closed the door and talked most of the day. Their passionate conversations generally were devoted to the composition of eyes, the differences between men and women, and astrology. Madam X always gave her opinions freely, and her sister respected her, believing that these matters consumed every minute of her day. Madam X told her that, on the contrary, she didn’t consider them, and that it was precisely for this reason that she was able ‘‘to keep a clear head’’ from start to finish. As soon as someone took the evil path of ‘‘considering,’’ he would become muddle-headed and lose his original appearance and ‘‘become a parrot.’’ If no one ‘‘considered,’’ if they were all as simple and pure as she, then everyone would be much more free and easy together. It was only because people learned from birth to ‘‘consider’’ that everything became so singularly complicated and she was thought ‘‘abnormal,’’ able only to float like a balloon in midair. Of course, her sister didn’t understand all this talk. She had always respected her big sister unconditionally and never tried to reason it through. She had just one comment: ‘‘She can fly!’’ Whether innate or influenced by her sister, her logic was just as weird. When they talked behind the closed door, now and then you could hear their husky voices drifting from the window, singing a duet, ‘‘The Little Lonely Boat.’’ They always sang the same song, but each time the sentimental meaning seemed different. If people came to visit at times like this, the husband solemnly kept them outside and told them in hushed tones, ‘‘They’re singing inside- shh!’’