“I understand this little principle,” I told Jiazhen.
But even though I knew what she meant, that didn’t change the fact that when I saw a woman who looked a little different on the outside, I couldn’t help thinking that she really was different. It was actually a hopeless situation.
Jiazhen would never let me know when she was upset with me — that was just the kind of person she was. But in her roundabout way she still would try to get me in the end. I, on the other hand, wouldn’t put up with either soft or hard tactics; neither my father’s cloth shoes nor Jiazhen’s cooking could stop me. I still loved going into town, and I still loved visiting the whorehouse. It was really my mom who understood a bit of what makes men tick. She said to Jiazhen, “Men are nothing but a bunch of gluttonous cats.”
When Mom said this she not only exonerated me, but also exposed some inside information about my dad. Dad was sitting nearby, and as soon as he heard this his eyes squinted like two little peepholes and he began to giggle. When Dad was younger he couldn’t contain himself when it came to the ladies. It wasn’t until he was too old to screw around that he began to behave himself.
The House of Qing was also where I usually gambled. I’d often play mah-jongg, nine card and dice. Every time I gambled I lost, and the more I lost, the more I wanted to win back that hundred mu of land my father lost when he was young. In the beginning I would pay up right there, and if I didn’t have money I’d just steal jewelry from Jiazhen and my mom. I even stole my daughter Fengxia’s gold necklace. Afterward I just set up an account on credit. The creditors all knew about my family’s wealth, so they let my debts ride. Once I started playing on credit I stopped keeping track of how much I lost, and the creditors didn’t remind me. But every day they were secretly scheming away my family’s one hundred mu.
It wasn’t until after Liberation that I finally found out the winning party had everything set up. No wonder I always lost and never won — they had been secretly digging a hole for me. At the time there was a Mr. Shen at the House of Qing. He was about sixty years old, and his eyes were as cunning and bright as a cat’s. He wore a long blue gown and would usually sit in the corner with his back straight. His eyes would be closed as if he were dozing off. Only after the action at the gambling table started to get exciting would Mr. Shen begin to cough and casually walk over, selecting a good spot from which to watch. He would never have to stand for long before someone would get up and offer him his place. “Mr. Shen, have a seat.”
Mr. Shen would lift his long gown as he sat down and address the other three gamblers: “Please proceed.”
No one in the House of Qing ever saw Mr. Shen lose. The blue veins in his hands would be practically popping out as he shuffled the deck of cards. All you could hear was the fluttering sound of wind as the deck became long and short, disappearing and reappearing in his hands. It made my eyes tired just watching.
Once when Mr. Shen was drunk he said to me, “Gambling relies entirely upon a good set of eyes and a quick pair of hands. You’ve got to train your eyes to open wide as a melon and your hands to be as slippery as an eel.”
After the Japanese surrender, Long Er came. He spoke with a mixed accent, and just by listening to him you could tell he was a rather complicated person. He was a man who had been to many places and seen the world. He didn’t wear a long gown; instead he wore clothes made from pure white silk. Two other men came with Long Er to help him carry a large wicker chest.
The games between Mr. Shen and Long Er that year were really amazing. The gambling room at the House of Qing was flooded with people as Mr. Shen gambled with Long Er and his men. Behind Long Er stood a waiter with a dry towel on a serving tray. From time to time Long Er would grab the towel to wipe his hands. We all thought it interesting that he didn’t use a wet towel to wipe his hands, but a dry one; he would wipe his hands as if he had just finished a meal. In the beginning Long Er would always lose. Although it didn’t seem to bother him, the two men who came with him could barely take it. One of them would curse under his breath while the other would take deep sighs. Mr. Shen always won, but the expression on his face was not that of a winner. Mr. Shen knitted his brow as if he had lost a bundle. He was getting on in years, and after gambling half the night he would start to breathe heavily, and the sweat on his forehead would drip down. His head hung down, but his eyes bore into Long Er’s hands like nails.
“This round decides everything,” Mr. Shen said.
Long Er took the towel from the tray, and as he wiped his hands one last time he said, “All right.”
They piled all of their money on the table. The money took up practically all the space, leaving just a small open area in the center. Each of them got five cards. After Long Er showed four of his cards, his two men instantly lost hope and, pushing the cards aside, said, “It’s over, we’ve lost again.”
But Long Er quickly said, “We haven’t lost, we’ve won.”
As he spoke, Long Er showed his last card — it was the ace of spades. When the two workers saw, they began to laugh. Actually, Mr. Shen’s last card was also an ace of spades — he had three aces and two kings. Long Er had three queens and two jacks. When Long Er showed his ace of spades, Mr. Shen seemed to be in shock for a while, then he finally put his cards away and said, “I lost.”
Both Long Er’s and Mr. Shen’s ace of spades had come from their pockets. One pack of cards can only have a single ace of spades, so when Long Er showed his first, Mr. Shen knew he had no choice but to admit defeat. That was the first time we ever saw Mr. Shen lose. Leaning on the table to stand up, Mr. Shen clasped his hands and bowed to Long Er and his men before turning to leave. As he approached the door he smiled and said, “I’m getting old.”
From then on no one saw Mr. Shen again. I heard someone say that he rode away on a rickshaw the next morning at the crack of dawn.
After Mr. Shen left, Long Er quickly took his place as the top gambler in town. Long Er was different from Mr. Shen. While Mr. Shen would never lose, Long Er would lose when the stakes were low, but never when the stakes were high. I used to gamble with Long Er at the House of Qing. Sometimes I lost and sometimes I won, but because of this I never really felt like I was losing. Actually, when I won it was always small change, but when I lost it was a fortune. I was left in the dark, all the while thinking that I was just about to bring honor back to my ancestors.
Jiazhen came looking for me on what would be my last night of gambling. When she arrived it was almost dusk — Jiazhen told me that later; at the time I had no idea if it was night or day. Jiazhen, who was seven or eight months pregnant with our son, Youqing, came to the House of Qing. When she found me she kneeled down before me in silence; at first I didn’t even see her. I was doing exceptionally well that day. We were playing dice, and, eight or nine times out of ten, the numbers were coming up in my favor. Sitting across from me was Long Er. As soon as he saw the numbers he’d giggle, “Well my friend, it looks like I’ve lost again.”
After Long Er beat Mr. Shen by pulling a fast one, no one in the House of Qing, including me, dared bet on cards with Long Er. Long Er and I would always play dice, but even at dice Long Er was an expert. He almost always won and rarely lost. But that day I had him in the palm of my hand — he kept losing to me. With narrow eyes and a cigarette dangling from his lips, he acted as if everything was all right. He would snicker whenever he lost, but as his thin arms pushed the money over to my side of the table, he couldn’t have appeared more begrudging. I thought, Long Er, you should suffer at least once. People are all the same: When they’re taking the money from someone else’s pocket, their faces light up and it’s all smiles, but as soon as it’s their turn to lose they all cry like they’re in mourning. I was ecstatic until I felt someone tugging on my clothes. I looked down and saw my wife. Seeing Jiazhen kneeling there made me mad. I thought, my son hasn’t even been born yet, and here she is kneeling. This really was too much. I said to Jiazhen, “Get up! Get up! Stand the fuck up!”