“Jingwu is unlucky in love, so what will work wonders on him is a woman,” Zhuang announced.
Zhao laughed heartily and said he had decided to remain a lifelong bachelor. He stood up and took Zhuang by the arm.
“Don’t leave yet,” Niu Yueqing said. “Not till you’ve taken care of my business. Then you can stay away for three days and nights, for all I care.”
“What business is that?” Zhuang asked.
“I bought Mother a backscratcher at the Zhuque Department Store this morning because she says she has fleas. How can she possibly have fleas? Your skin starts to flake as you get old. Well, when I got home with it, I was surprised to see that our neighbor, Aunty Wang, had given Mother a backscratcher that was nicer than the one I bought. I want to return it, but I’m not sure I can. What should I do?”
“How much can a backscratcher cost?” Zhuang asked her. “Aren’t you overdoing it?”
“And who are you, the rich man Gong Jingyuan?”
“Your wife knows how to manage money,” Zhao said.
“I have to. If not, we’d be poor no matter how much he earned,” she said. “Zhidie is like a rake with no teeth, and I can’t let the spending get out of control. Jingwu, I think that when I go to the department store, I’ll need to tell them that I wanted to buy the backscratcher when I saw how well made it is, never dreaming that my husband had already bought one, also one of theirs. Does an old lady need two to scratch an itch? We have to work for every cent we earn, and having an extra one of these lying around would be wasteful, don’t you think? So I’d like to return this one. If they refuse to take it back, I’ll reason with them, stressing the need for fairness in business. If people these days are free to quit the Communist Party, who says you can’t return a purchase? A young clerk might not listen, and if she argues with me, what should I do? Argue, I guess. My question is, should I be genteel, or do I use the coarsest language I know?”
“Let’s hear the refined,” Zhuang said.
“You people are using lame arguments, so go screw your old lady, you bastards, no-good sons of bitches!”
“You’re so used to coarse language,” Zhuang said, “that a slip of the tongue turns your genteel words coarse. Instead of ‘screw your old lady,’ you should say ‘screw your mother.’ Much more cultured.”
“Jingwu,” she said indignantly, “you see what kind of man your Zhuang Laoshi is? He’s never taken my side in anything.”
“Young people worship Zhuang Laoshi, he’s their idol.”
“I married a husband, not an idol. Those people have given him a big head. Not one of those youngsters knows that Zhuang Laoshi’s feet stink, that his teeth are rotting, that he grinds them in his sleep, or that he farts while he eats, and won’t come out of the toilet till he’s read a newspaper from beginning to end.”
Zhao laughed. “Here’s what I think. If fighting with them doesn’t work, ask to see their supervisor. If that fails, call the mayor on his private phone.”
“That’s what I’ll do,” she said. “I’ll go now. Don’t leave till I get back.”
When she heard that Niu Yueqing was going out, her mother told her to put on some makeup, but Niu Yueqing ignored her and left. The old lady grumbled: “She won’t wear a mask and doesn’t like makeup. How can she let people see her real face?”
After Niu Yueqing left, Zhuang said, “In public I’m surrounded by admiring people, but here at home this is what I get.”
“She’s not so bad,” Zhao said. “She’s not terribly well educated, but you don’t find many women that virtuous.”
“When she loses her temper,” Zhuang said, “she could give a rock a headache. But if she likes you, she’ll stuff you with food even after you’re full.” Telling Zhao to stay put, Zhuang took the brick to the Literary Federation compound on his scooter.
When he returned, before he had even taken a sip of tea, Niu Yueqing came in and called her mother out for one of the still-warm stuffed buns she had bought. Her face glowed. “Guess what happened,” she announced.
“Back so soon?” Zhao said. “I’d say they wouldn’t take it back.”
“They took it back!”
“See, you did it. You have to be tough to get by in the world,” Zhao said.
“Not true,” Niu Yueqing corrected him. “I went up to the counter, and when the clerk asked me what I was in the market for, I just stammered, couldn’t say a word. She laughed and asked me if I was returning a purchase. I said yes. She took it, handed me my refund, and that was it.”
“That was it?” Zhao asked, clearly surprised.
“That’s what I’m saying. It couldn’t have been easier. A bit of a letdown, actually.”
No one spoke for a few minutes. “We often try to make complex matters simple,” Zhuang said to break the ice. “But we also frequently do the opposite.”
Niu Yueqing curled her lip. “Another object lesson from our writer.”
The old lady complained about the blandness of the stuffed bun, so she took it back to her room to add some vinegar from a large vat. When she removed the cloth cover, the aroma flooded the room.
“What’s that smell?” Zhao asked. “It’s very strong.”
“Did you stir the vinegar, Mother?” Niu Yueqing shouted. It had to be stirred with a clean paddle daily.
“No need,” she replied, “it’s ready.”
“You make your own vinegar?” Zhao said.
“Your Zhuang Laoshi won’t even taste the smoky vinegar they sell on the street. Nothing but white vinegar. So I made a vat of my own. It has a wonderful flavor, absolutely pure. I’ll send you home with some.”
“I’m not as picky as Zhuang Laoshi,” he said. “I’ll eat anything. But if you have pickled vegetables, I’ll drop by someday to try them.”
“You came to the right place,” she said. “We have pickled cabbage, salted vegetables, pickled sweet garlic and chili peppers, whatever you like.” At that, she fetched a plastic bag, filled it with a little bit of everything, and handed it to Zhao to take home.
Zhuang was talking about how they preferred the kind of food villagers eat when he was reminded of the shoes. He took them out of the scooter basket and handed them to Niu Yueqing.
“You bought these for me?” she said.
Zhuang did not tell her that Ruan Zhifei had given them to him. She did not like Ruan, thought he was a thug. So he told her that Xia Jie had given them to him the day before at Meng Yunfang’s home.
“My goodness!” she said when she examined the black leather shoes with stiletto heels. “These aren’t shoes, they’re instruments of torture.”
“I hate it when you talk like that,” Zhuang said. “If they’re instruments of torture, then why are all the women out on the street wearing them?”
Niu Yueqing took off her shoes and tried on the new ones. “You’re always hoping I’ll turn fashionable. Well, with these shoes, I won’t be able to do a thing around the house. Are you willing to wait on me?” She stood up and complained of pain caused by the bulge in front. Born with wide, fleshy feet, she wore only flats, which drew a sigh from Zhuang Zhidie, who said that feet are a woman’s most important feature. With unattractive feet, she loses three-tenths of her beauty. With a frown, Niu Yueqing said, “If I’m going to wear high heels, they have to be made in Beijing. I can’t wear shoes made in Shanghai.” Zhuang had no choice but to take the shoes back. Gratitude was one thing he did not want. He left with Zhao Jingwu, hanging the shoebox on his handlebars.
. . .
Zhao took advantage of Zhuang’s good mood to tell him about an entrepreneur named Huang who had opened a pesticide plant in Shilipu on the south side of town and had come looking for him three times, insisting that Zhuang write an article about the plant. Length was no problem, and he could write what he wanted, so long as it was published. “How much did you get?” Zhuang asked Zhao with a laugh. “You let me pull up the stake so you can steal the cow.”