Cassiopeium

–>

Luca说

我觉得有点疲倦了
很多杯金汤尼也不醉
记忆潮湿拥挤
夜晚业已凋零
而酒筵散场后
我在人群中认错了她

于是生活变得
美丽的一团糟
对她的爱慕也融化了
抹在华丽的桌布上
印满猩红吻痕
与悲伤的朱古力

龙舌兰丢入啤酒杯中
眼神迷离且信信自语
是酒筵未结束
还是你从未出席？
可旁白从未对我述说
“又何妨？都是梦一场”

                    The night’s still young,
A heart jaded.

Cold was the day that you came and
Spoke of the mundane, these
Tiny shadows scattered by your dances–
The ups and downs as you
Wavered, drifting away in deliberation.

Then, as though playing hopscotch,
Jumped out in a tantalizing way.
Till you parted far,
Dissolving into the histrionics,
Did I realized it was my own bantering
Affectations like none other.

And so That was that,
No harbingers whatsoever.
That’s all I tell myself
I sat tittering, I saw
Through an accuser’s eye
That all was well
The day cold like any other.

–>

中文的语感越来越差，基本上构思故事都在用英文，前两篇中文故事，很多时候在脑中将英文叙述往回翻译。写札记也在用英文，似乎构思是来得更容易些，更加impersonal，仿佛叙事电影里的男中音旁白。无聊时会继续一篇翻译了很久的英文故事。

Kindle里的书越来越多了，220多本，好像美国欠下的国债一样，旧债未还、新债又添。读一本书需要数日，获得一本书却只需几秒钟的数据传输。

有人推荐说迟子建的文笔不错，就读了她的短篇（中篇？）《世界上所有的夜晚》，觉得不过如此，甚至不能令人思考，很多比喻也于俗套。她那本得了茅盾文学奖的书怕是暂时不会去读了。

有人说写东西很像拳击比赛，独自一人在四方的围栏里面对着唯一的对手——自己。

而写作的动力又何在呢？其过程是无比耗神、甚至是痛苦的。

在过去压抑与抑郁是我写作的原因与动力，而今我仿佛试图在写作中找到存在的价值。

曾几何时不停地写下去是我生活的必需，现在却成为了我的工具？

生活充诉着某种暗含荒谬的快乐，即使从未面对自己，也永远无法逃避对于其中意义所在的最终疑问。

在夜晚，冷眼观望周围的人事，不禁大失所望起来。

物质的文明已超越一切——而我所憧憬的另一条蹊径何在？或许在上海这座物质主义的天堂我将寻得足够的反讽，我将重回两级的世界，而非苟活在黑白之间的灰色地带。

有些怀念朋友很少的日子，生活寂寥、冷静，充满了反思与挣扎。

雪意涔涔，一路独行。

–>

她微笑的憔悴
一瓣一瓣凋零

我注视她的身影
在我心中
缓缓下沉

她充满疑虑的眼神
好像桥洞里孤寂的天使

我在车中路过
车窗外雨夹雪、淅沥不停

留下往事
        雨幕后的灰色汪洋
与晨雾中轻吟的诗句

别关起窗——她说
隔绝我的玫瑰色梦幻

于是你我在玫瑰园里追逐
一生也无法赶上彼此

–>

They called me a hedonist
Only I knew,
It’s because I’ve left home for too long
Lost in my way, bruised,
And woke up to a dream I dreaded

Running down the nightly streets barefoot
My toes drenched in scarlet rainwater
Puddles of penumbra I stumbled upon
Splashing simulacrum all over
My body, needed not to know whether it was
Substantial. Indeed, someone was chanting about it,
Therein something brutal
But dying only made my indulgence worse

Her lips were enough though
Cajoling me all these years–
Our bodies fondled a bit
Souls already too far apart
Like this generation of ours
Dazed in a peculiarity
As though we’d know better
Than a conversation in silence
A parody still

Remembering how once
We sat and watched the river
And I wanted to tell the story
To those who knew
But refused to believe.

–>

[一]

我送给自己的生日礼物是张单程机票，航班号AC6851。此刻飞机处于万米高空，我身旁石化般坐着个行将入木的老头儿，七个小时之内嘴中只冒出一个词：“咖喱鸡饭。”靠过道的座位上是位某三流大学的留学生，就是那种智商不济却觉得自己饱览群书的主儿，对世上的一切拥有自以为独特的见解。他一路都歪着脖子，和后排那个在多伦多读语言学校的小妞聊得火热。本指望邻座会是位寂寞的性感少妇，最好要赶着回国办理离婚手续，那样或许我也能加入“the Mile High Club”。

默默注视着机窗外，脚下的金色云海一望无垠，可其中仿佛充满喧嚣。显然我耳中的嗡鸣来自于飞机引擎，或是心里。不知过了多久，飞机似乎改变了飞行高度，耳膜中的压力增加，噪声像脑袋被套上塑料袋子般被隔绝开来。空姐推着餐车来发放晚餐，娇声细气地对我说了句话。我摇摇头，闭紧嘴，捏起鼻子用力吹气，才听到她说：“请放下机窗挡板，系好安全带。”

吃罢晚餐，想起清理屋子时发现的那本数年前的《纽约客》杂志，便从包中抽出，抹平卷起的页角，翻到一个短篇故事，似乎读过，但记不清了。故事背景设在华沙，描写中年男人与爱写诗的年轻女子阿歌妮诗卡之间的婚外恋。她最喜欢的诗人是茨维塔耶娃。她在做爱时总说，“We’re like mayflies. We only live for an afternoon.”

反复读了这句话，心中有梗在喉般难受。这是什么意思？我们都是朝生暮死的泛泛之辈罢了。就因为必死的命运，我们便有了放纵并犯下罪过的理由。而无论怎样的挣扎都无法逃离死亡这个最终乐符奏出刺耳的嘲讽。这想法令我愤怒不堪，却一时无法反驳自己。我又想起上飞机前托付给同学的那箱书，在去机场的路上还一度担忧，受托者不是个爱书之人，书到了他手中，便与一箱白菜无异了，或许论斤卖更有价值——这又如何？自己曾相信书中有一切答案，更喜欢读书来麻醉独处时的孤独感。直到有一天卡米利娅让我告诉她，究竟从这些书中学到了什么？我竟无言以对地恼怒起来。或许我始终热爱的文学与这脚下的层积云一样，自己的身体则飘在云层的另一端。若像飞机失事般坠下， “噗”一声刺穿云层，双眼大睁，耳边风声呼啸，面朝下凝视着大地，看到了世界的本来面目，那种感觉定会真实到令人痛彻肺腑吧。想到这里，我的思维猝然而止，将杂志丢下，侧过身去，感到手脚冰凉。我试图脑袋贴着窗板，就此昏昏入睡。但那句话却像耳边的嗡鸣一样萦绕着我。

“我们就像蜉蝣一样。我们只活一个下午。”

难道这就是为什么卡米利娅与我彼此决定要在一起？因为一时的空虚？她的长相不属于能令我心动的类型，也不喜欢她齐耳的短发，及旁若无人的笑声。甚至初次见面时很快将她归纳为“那一类人”，那类附庸风雅，看似无比快乐，实际空壳般存在的生物。但卡米利娅是个执着的顽固分子，认定一件事后会不懈的追逐。我认为这样活着太累，她却说我是个虚无主义者，铁了心要消灭我的悲观。真是玩笑，我甚至无法向她解释自己驾信的哲学。悲观何错之有？人生的意义难道仅在及时行乐，别无其它？是的，太多问题上我无法给出满意的结论，但我更加反感她的偏执。

虽然有时我也质疑自己与卡米利娅的关系是否过于依赖纯粹的肉欲。但和她一起至少强过于各种场合用蓄谋已久的手段去接近那些陌生女孩儿，在大谈文艺复兴或达达主义时实际觊觎着她们年轻的身体。只是最近，我开始愈加痴迷她用纤细的双腿缠绕着我；炙热的双唇在我腰间游走；感触她那对小巧而坚挺的乳房；还有她如冰川之下的暗河般冰凉、潮湿的肌肤。但这不足为惧，最令我恐惧不已的，是逐渐习惯她的陪伴。有时，在一起晚餐时，她会放下手中的餐具，抬起头来，用力咽下口中的食物，然后欲言又止地看着我。我会故作不耐烦地反问，又怎么了？她就会告诉我，没事，我吃饱了，接着起身离去。我决定不给她机会提出那个最终无法逃避的问题。

下了飞机，转上南行的高速列车。车厢内宽敞明亮，豪华的装璜却好像家居杂志中的时尚卧室，令人毫无归属感。思索半晌，发现没人可联系。最终用网络电话拨通了沫沫的号码。一个外语学院法语专业的女孩儿，朋友的朋友，沫沫是她的网名。

“你回国了？”她话中带有有一丝惊喜，我无法辨别其真实性。

让她帮我在她家附近的酒店订一间房间，几小时后在大堂等我。

我听起了手机中的Trance音乐，都是些过时的歌曲。这年头van Burren 和Tiesto都不再流行了，毕竟相比歌手，转两盘碟子的手艺没有太多技术含量，末落的也更快。其实听什么都无所谓，需要的只是令自己停止思索，就好像服用再吸收抑制剂那样。只是我和卡米利娅同居后已戒掉处方药，也无意在海关遇到麻烦，于是便反复听那几首旋律单一地敲击着耳膜的音乐，并时刻留意剩余不多的电量。

[二]

两年前，当生活中还没有卡米利娅时，我终日漂浮在某种强迫症式的，由酒精，整夜的派对狂欢，以及橙色小瓶中的胶囊所构建的快乐之上。那年的圣诞夜我接到一个电话，是之前在摄影协会相识的法国交换生。她呢喃着说，自己很孤单（seule），但我没听明白，也可能是喝醉了（saoul），只听清最后一句话，“Va chez moi。我从床上坐直身子，屏住呼吸，好像在陌生城市的茫茫人海中发现一个无比熟悉的身影。将她短信给我的地址输入地图，距离地铁终点站蒙莫朗西不远，单程40分钟。看看表，最后一班地铁5分钟后到达。我抓起大衣，夺门而去。

从圣马修大街走出，左转走上拉方丹大街，以往彻夜不眠的繁华街道上夜店、酒吧、咖啡馆全部大门紧闭，偶有几张亮起的霓虹灯牌，在冬夜的死寂中发出啮齿动物般呲呲的低鸣。昏暗的灯光在覆满街道的积雪上折射出诡异的红色。预报说今夜气温摄氏零下二十八度，空气吸入肺内，让人联想到在冷库中速冻的虾。预报还说夜里有大雪，不知几时会落。

我气喘吁吁地跳上最后一班地铁。车厢内除我之外，只有另一侧上车的流浪汉，口袋里背着回收品。空气闷热，还飘着一股若隐若现的发霉甜面圈味。在下一站上来几个人：占据两个座位的肥胖黑人妇女，怕被人抢劫般紧攥着手中的挎包；一对卿卿我我的年轻男女，哥特式打扮，看起来不像情侣，或许是妓女与皮条客。女子身上一股地下街贩卖的劣质香水味阵阵袭来，令人作呕。我戴上耳机，Ibiza的靡靡之音如地中海潮水般涌来……

沫沫见了我，笑靥如花。上来就给我个法式亲吻，左右脸各来一下。

“mon cheri, 怎么一个人回来了？”

“本是一群人，刚下飞机就走丢了”我调侃说。

她故意压低声音，似要跟我分享什么秘密：“其实是想我了吧？”那表情纯粹是赤裸裸的调戏，不过确实可爱的很。

在名叫“托斯卡纳”的意大利餐厅吃晚餐。沫沫穿着一条米色的cocktail dress，长发在头顶盘成髻，一缕青丝从脸右侧垂下来。她左肘支在桌上，左手拖着下巴，右手将高脚杯逆时针旋转着，杯里倒满了那瓶比她一身衣服还要值钱的法国红葡萄酒。她不时将双眼从酒杯转移到我脸上，又努努嘴，唇上沾了酒，格外猩红。

“Mon cheri，我真的很喜欢法国的东西，Château Haut-Brion，听起来都这么haute classe。”

我咧嘴陪笑，什么这个堡那个堡的，20美元与200美元的红酒对我来说从没任何区别。但为了最高尚的目的，妥协是必须的，何况我还蛮享受这过程，只是暗自心痛的要死要活。

我说是啊，最近还认识了一个越南裔，名叫让·巴普蒂斯特。

她说，“一定是拥有法国血统的南越流亡贵族吧？”

我说不是，家里是卖越南米粉的。

“你真坏”沫沫伸手打我，那小手臂纤细的让人心悸。

我非常喜欢恰如其分地讽刺并被认为是良好的幽默，以至于我怀疑这已成为某种癖好。让·巴普蒂斯特是卡米利娅的前男友。

在酒店房间里，沫沫抱着酒瓶往杯中倒，暗红的液体随着她“吃吃”的笑声来回摇晃。我看着酒顺着酒杯边沿流进她的指缝中，又顺着手腕一路流下。然后手机响了，是我妈。

沫沫冲我说，这可是国际漫游。喝醉了都比我会精打细算。

我打开电脑用网络电话回电，不耐烦地说自己正在餐厅吃早饭，咖啡，牛角面包，还有新鲜的奶酪；湾区的餐馆不贵；加州红酒也很好喝；嗯嗯，安迪和她未婚妻都很好。沫沫终于忍不住笑出声来。我赶紧挥手让她收声。对，安迪讨了个好老婆，小姑娘可开朗了，行，改天一定把结婚照给您发过去。

挂了电话，沫沫笑得更凶了，黑色高跟鞋丢在地毯上，两只白皙的小脚赤裸着，而身体在墙角的沙发上缩成一团，好像受惊吓的小刺猬一样颤抖着。我从她手中接过酒杯，知道她是醉了，却倍生反感。

“为你叫辆车吧，不早了”

“嗯？”沫沫从凌乱的头发中探出脸，仿佛没听清。

“我送你回去。”我站起身。

沫沫利索地站起来，理了理裙子。走到门口停下脚步，回头看着我。

我及时反应过来，用力拉住她的手，她吃惊地叫出声，在说出话之前，身体便陷入我怀中，双唇被我封住。

她激烈地迎上来，嘴中充满了红酒的芬芳，令我呼吸困难，在恍惚中我竟想起卡米利娅，她喜欢吃菠萝，嘴中总有股淡淡的涩。

[三]

车随着一阵剧烈摇晃骤然停下，睡梦中的我差点将脸裱在车窗上。睁开眼，车厢内再次只余我与老头两人。车门对向站台大敞着。头顶模糊不清的广播声被老头翻弄易拉罐的刺耳声响盖过。

我冲他喊：“C’est òu?” （这是哪里？）

他眯起眼端详我半天，然后讲出一大堆法语，还附带肢体语言。枯枝般的手来回指点着，像在施展某种诅咒。

头顶的广播还在像卡壳的唱片机一样不依不饶地重复着那段话。那个尖锐的女声在句子结尾说“抱歉”时声调上扬，仿佛要忍不住笑出声来。

我走出车厢，站台墙上写着橙色的大字：“布哈萨”。

顺着停滞的电梯台阶往上走，手机哀鸣三声，彻底没电了。我站在公车站前，头顶一盏孤零的路灯投下圆锥装的光芒，照亮了我脚下的几平方英尺地面，寒风狂怒地将地上的雪花撩起，如无数细小飞蛾般在灯光下碰撞。

沫沫紧拽着我，我们一同目送人群匆匆踏上列车。不识他们是急着赶向各自的目的地，还是迫不及待地要逃离此处。想到这里，我掰开沫沫的手，不别而去。

睡在我下铺的是个魁梧的男人，民警，笑声与呼声同样爽朗。我们一起喝着劣质的白酒，吹嘘彼此的见闻。末了，他问我此去金城何事，我未做犹豫便答道：“回家。” 心中却仿佛撒了个谎般空虚。他说自己去拜访外地多年未见的战友。他和老婆争吵多年，离婚协议书写过一沓纸。但他的老婆上个月死了。

“她活着的时候一直没有机会去外地，现在终于能走脱了。”话中带有笑意，好像悲剧中的喜剧穿插。

我想起不久前与卡米利娅开始的无尽的争吵，吵闹声逐渐在记忆中盖过了所有美好时光。唯有最后，当我们开始搏斗般地做爱至精疲力尽，注视着彼此在黑暗中闪烁的眼睛，累得说不出一个字，心中才能获得一丝安宁。

此后我常暗自悔恨，最初不该灌她那两杯朗姆酒兑可乐，更不该和她同上一辆出租车。

火车到站后民警的战友来接。我搭上他们的北京吉普，去吃肉，喝了更多的酒。他们将车停在国道旁的荒野之中，夜空中没有星光，大地漆黑茫茫。我们在酒瓶中点燃了纸，放在十步开外。他们掏出六四手枪，一枪一枪地射击着酒瓶。打完了一梭子弹，将发热的枪递在我手中。我盯着枪发呆，突然害怕起来，又躁动不已。在这里，如果我们谁给对方来一枪，那他就像木桩一样悄无声息地倒下，荒谬而毫无意义地死去了。

战友大喊一声，“发啥子楞？！想你女朋友呢？”两人大笑起来。

这样的夜晚，很好。我不再想起她了，我的心和肉体都如瓶中的火苗般乱窜着，尝试逃脱那墨绿色玻璃的桎梏，直至扳机扣下，一枚子弹将枷锁击的粉碎。

[四]

我不知奔跑了多久，黑夜延绵着黑夜，路牌都看不见。暴雪悄无声息地拍打着我的大衣和脸颊。唯有脚下踩过的积雪“吱吱”呻吟着。我有种随时要跌倒的感觉，却更恐惧跌倒后再也无法爬起。于是继续漫无目的地恐慌而逃，在一条街的尽头转向另一条，甚至不知是否在兜圈子。没有路灯，甚至没有民居内亮起的灯火。想大声尖叫，又想起每年都有人被落下的冰柱刺死。我怕声波震断了头顶屋檐下的冰柱——面朝夜空、双臂挥舞着，一根巨大的冰柱笔直落下，刺穿我的胸膛，刺破我的肺叶，那样我便无法再呼喊，而只能发出“嘶嘶”的哀叫。冰柱会一路撕裂我，透过我的脊椎，将我钉在积雪的街道上，像一尊雕塑。

几小时后，我终于碰到一辆收工回家的出租车。黑人司机说暴雪压断了高压线，大面积停电。我钻入车中，不顾一切将口袋内全部的现金钱都塞给他。

开，去皇家山顶，不要停下。

我去金城肮脏喧闹的火车站接到了沫沫，她执意在那个上大下小的站牌下合影。她整日抱怨自己申请的法国大学毫无前景，反复试探问我那里的法语学校如何申请，倘若能转入英文大学，就再好不过了。对此我毫无怨言，甚至对她有所愧疚。我们一起的时光大多在床上渡过。我愈加痴迷她柔软的身躯。在没有她拥抱的夜晚，我甚至无法感到自己的存在。

沫沫在我怀中慵懒地说，cheri，你说签证好办吗？听说要担保人？

手机响起。看到来电显示的人名后，我彻底僵滞。而电话并未转入语音信箱，持续叫唤着。

沫沫不耐烦地推着我的手臂。你干嘛老是不接电话。我紧闭起双眼，任凭铃声不依不饶地永远响下去，像在进行某种报复。

那晚，我费尽力气，不知摔倒多少次，双手淌着鲜血，最终站在皇家山顶。我面朝山脚下没有一丝光亮的城，面朝破晓前最终吞噬了一切的黑暗，面朝我试图逃离的北方的布哈萨，跪倒在矗立于身后的巨大十字架之下，丧失了甚至是哭泣的力量。十字架放射出昏暗诡异的光芒，将我与整个世界染为一片血色。

–>

All is well. Yet I do beseech you,I beg for your audience, for it’s not a question of morality, as the frivolities in our lives. As I’ve heard well enough. So asking myself, what of it? How significant must it be? Many times a day I ponder, If there’s wine, poetry, and souls mates, mustn’t life be well enough already? Do not disavow me of your frailty, for at times my weakness does not eschew me, nor do I deny it of its debilitating agony. Torn, burnt, but moving on nonetheless. What lessons have been learned? None other than being able to fall yet deeper, more gently. This shall not do…it cannot..such dramaturgy, such travesty. To travel further into darkness, before seeing the light of the day. Or perhaps, haven’t you considered, that day may never arrive, and there’s not ending of this except to learn to live in darkness.  And sooner or later, all appears to be a lie; a grand scheme set for perpetual condemnation at this dooming masquerade, this carnival of indulgence that’s soon to call an end, whence I’m disconcerted, tempestuous like the day; kept up at nights, drowning ever more quickly. It wasn’t because nothing could be of help, but for I’ve shun my salvation. It angers me to say so, as if a choice could be made. If there wasn’t agency to begin with, how shall blame be laid upon me, fingers pointed sanctimoniously?  But why, for I shall ask, really? Your being here, mumbling somewhat, ferreting for things unbeknownst to you, to us both. How I could’ve saved your soul! Did I not claiming with an effrontery already faltering. Least needed is my blandiloquence and my chivalrous endeavoring. And memories suffocates me, time’s been smithereening, carving pieces of it deep into the flesh of souls, mine included. I dare not to haste in my postulation lest I am once again bereft of hopes. Much misgivings it has been, much affectations too. Still nothing has been changed, until I’ve crossed my Rubicon…Or has it been so already? Such is another puzzlement yet. I could only dream again, of a nebular one lingering by, but never impetuously intimate–like that girl in the film who whispered, half playful half solemn, “Kill all my demons, and my angels might die too.”

–>

She got up early, when the Prussian blue of daybreak had yet to wane. She shuffled around barefoot, waking him. He opened his eyes, his mind strangely clear. Yet as he looked around the room, the sight of their studio apartment startled him completely, as though he’d forgotten where he was. For maybe twenty seconds, or maybe much longer, as it seemed, he rewired his mind around the humming noise of the booming metropolis that permeated the window pane. The noise had been subtle but unsettling and incessant, like the electro music his college dorm room neighbor used to play all night long. He’d noticed it the moment he stepped off the airplane. As he walked under the endless jungle of cranes and steel beams, around the asphalt conglomeration choked in serpentine smog, he’d tried to reminisce, like right now, whether there’d been such noise in his childhood memories. He found no answer, as that part of his past had been sitting inside him like a foreign country where he’d been denied any access.

The room darkened as she went up to the window. Her naked shoulder tensed as her arm reached to pull the blind, the curl of her silhouette twisting like that of a rose petal. He thought of the Dance of Flying Apsara she’d been performing on stage—her body rose to the sky, the silk ribbons entwining her torso flicking, and the sapphire between her brows glistening.

He was going to see about his new job at a law firm later today. Mother’s old colleague was a partner there, and had agreed to do her a favor by hiring him as an interpreter. The thought made his head hurt. Yes, it was probably much better than tutoring English conversational classes at that third-tier high school, where the agony on the students’ faces depressed him. He’d felt as though he wasn’t teaching but was doing them a disservice, like partaking in a state-sponsored torture.

But he didn’t come back to be a nine-to-five cubicle creature. He’d returned from America to pursue his “artistic aspirations.” He was also concerned with losing connection to his own culture after years abroad, a feeling like he’d been transfixed by a giant, invisible syringe, and sucked dry of his substance, day by day.

Yet so far he’d proven to this society that he was good for nothing other than his fluent English. Such is life, full of irony, he thought, fucking ironies. At least it was a full time job, and he needed money to pay the bills. He’d been unexpectedly caught up in the travail of moneymaking, which irritated him above all things and made him feel helpless.

Yin’in never complained, though, and that was what’s disconcerting about her. She’d always been the one in the background, like those lone girls you’d see in a fading Polaroid photo. It made him unsure whether to take her usual obedience as acquiescence, or apathy.

She was naked on her way to the shower. She’d always been so at ease with her own body, half of which was wrapped underneath that long black hair of hers. The hair shone under the pale light like strands of obsidian beads.

Her beauty was daunting. Sometimes it unnerved him. He used to believe there was always some vanity in pretty girls, because in his college years he’d seen much indulgence and vanity in those unscrupulous young souls. Not in her.

The sound of splashing water caught his attention, and he thought of when they’d first met. He was schmoozing around in a suburban loft saturated with wanna-be Parisian décors and people who admired it. He wore a navy blue Lacoste tee and pair of Hugo Boss grey wash jeans, a bottle of wine in his left hand and a half-filled goblet in his right. She was standing in the corner, confabulating with one of the rich boys whom he’d marked as a philistine. She seemed rather amused—perhaps by his effort. Soon the guy gave up, and he approached. She’d been expecting him, and smiled as they shock hands cordially. Right away he thought—out of randomness—of a white poppy. He immediately found such thought ludicrous—the same way after he found himself secretly in love with the young wife at Sushi Shop off-campus. Yet there wasn’t a better way to describe her. She wore a rice-colored tunic and casual khaki-green flax pants, probably shopped from venues on Xiushui Street. These were two colors that no Chinese girls would wear together, but she did anyway because her skin was pale like that of an untanned Scandinavian girl. Her hair was coiled up and pinned with a cloisonné hairpin, her makeup plain like the colors she wore. At first he’d thought it was her way to catch eyeballs, but later he learned that she never wore makeup off-stage and never shown her hair loose in public. When she laughed her head lifted a little, exposing the fine clavicle.

When he’d first returned, he tried hard to get along with those artists who gathered around the 49th District—a place deluged with works that made travesties out of the Maoist Era. Soon he saw that these people were not only narrow-sighted and fame-thirsty, and their works piles of bromides perpetuating the Orientalist conceptions of Western collectors, but they’d lost all integrity and given hedonism a whole new definition. And the benefactors he’d had to deal with, whom he first thought, being more educated, were more agreeable, soon appeared to be a bunch of mere loaded riffraff. People he knew were conformists back in America, but at least there were some genuineness to be found. But here, these fair-skinned bon vivants…he couldn’t go on thinking, such realization was much too painful.

Yin’in came out of the bathroom dressed in t-shirts and jeans. Her hair, still dripping water, was tied back in a ponytail. She began searching for something on the bureau, which made him look up from the bed, the muscles on his neck tightened; he felt the artery on his neck popping.

“What are you looking for?” He asked.

“The door keys.”

“First drawer on the left.”  He didn’t want her to see the airline booking information he’d brought home two days ago. Father had called last week, said enough with your illusions so now get your ass back to the States and get a job, while Mother sighed deeply on the side.

He was twenty-five, an age still imbued in ambitions, thinking you could take your dreams and go far and beyond, but meanwhile, already realized that some doors were shut to you, and that you’d have to go around with an incubus of reality on your shoulders. He’d been good at telling stories without particularly trying to impress, and she liked it. In fact, when he tried to impress he did it absentmindedly, casually adding flavors to the tales and claiming others’ deeds under his own belt. He’d always taken pride in his talented storytelling, yet he got nothing but rejections, coldhearted disinterest.  A kind-hearted screenwriter eventually told him the truth: They wanted something American but in essence localized, like selling Chinese donuts at MacDonald’s, because people can’t accept anything more than a Western facade.

He’d whined to Yin’in, and she’d listened attentively without comments. He thought she’d never understood him fully. After all, she’d been a dancer all her life, didn’t speak English, and didn’t even get much schooling. The night they’d met, she didn’t give him her number, but her email. He’d gone on to find her blog online and read it. She wrote almost daily, in succinct, poetic lines that pertained to the bagatelles of her life：

You came along with Solitude, I loved you both

You left, but Solitude left his shoes here

No matter how I opened the window

Letting my fingers go

How many times

I couldn’t throw them away…

…Whatever guise you come up with in my world, it must be happy

This is my monomania…

He spent the entire night reading her blog. It was never talked about afterwards.

His parents found out about her soon as she came back to his hometown with him. They disapproved of their relationship: She didn’t have a decent college degree, and was six months older. Not to mention that she was from a modest family in Shanghai, and what had Mother been telling him? Never involve yourself with Shanghainese girls.  But she’d given up her career in Beijing to come back with him, when he’d hit the lowest point of his life and needed support the most. Did she do it, like some had warned him, only because she knew he’d soon go back to America, and take her with him? Men had always fallen for women’s beauty. Was this his hamartia, too?

No! Of course not! He gasped at the thought. In the days with her he no longer felt distressed and insecure. He’d always felt that something was rotten in this state, but couldn’t tell in exact words, just like that noise he’d always heard. His beloved motherland had long become faithless, so was he. There was something soothing about her, not intimately, but kept in a fair distance, like she’d been watching him from afar all these time, and understood. He was unsure what drove him to this obsession with her, it kept him up at night. No, wasn’t her body, he’d had other beautiful girls, younger and better educated than Yin’in. So what was it? Was she really an opiate, like he’d jokingly thought of her in the very beginning?

He’d seen poppies once when he was seventeen. His uncle drove him to Blue Mountain Plantation, where the state-owned commune grew 600 acres of opium. He saw the flowers from miles away, behind the car window and a row of sand jujube trees. It was a vast expanse of white and red so much more vivid than any color he’d seen in his life that he felt a twinge in the eyes.

He remembered walking amidst the white poppies, whose beauty was no less soothing and addicting than the opiate they’d give birth to. The palm-sized flowers were blossoming in an audacious and reckless enchantment, bending their branches. When zephyr blew by, the ocean of bone-whiteness waved gently, calming and ominous.

She came up to him, bent down, and kissed him on the forehead. When Mother was still young she kissed him twice every day, before school and before bed.  He disliked it when Yin’in kissed there, too. It seemed to unravel his shells of manhood, exposing that unfledged boy within.

He asked quietly, “where are you going?”

And before she could answer, he held her in his arms, kissing on her naked clavicle.

He closed his eyes and whispered,

“Not going anywhere, Yin’in. Not going anywhere.”

–>

It was twenty-one years ago in the midst of a hazy day. The sun had just mounted high above the Gobi horizon, casting rings of murky halo that rendered the cityscape restless in a khaki glare. Mother was lying in a sickbed at Women and Children’s Hospital of J City. She’d arrived early in the morning, after months of battling with preeclampsia and the thought of getting an abortion for her career in the more prospective South. The bed on Mother’s left was vacant, and in a scarlet Red Cross sign splattered in the center of the clean white bedsheet like a pool of fresh blood.

She waited, tremulous in impatience. The air reeked of formalin, and the tacky viridescent of the wall paint that was ubiquitous in public buildings somehow bothered her more than usual. Grandma was sitting next to her in a military armchair; her hands sat on the worn-out armrest, holding on to a red “Double Happiness” thermos. She asked intermittently whether Mother wanted hot water, and Mother answered “No” each time.

The hospital was located on Beijing Avenue, then the only asphalt-paved street in town. Herds of industrial workers, unemployed farmers, and canny businessmen from the South (Southern Flatheads, as locals called them) flooded the streets, searching for their own share of fortune in this booming mining town. Everything was new, and makeshift. When Mother revisited the town years later, she saw a KFC restaurant swarmed with middle-class consumerists. The hospital had long been demolished, melted into the smelter of time together with the nickel ores. Trios of single-child families waited in queue. The children’s faces were filled with anticipation for a taste of American junk food. Amid the neon-lit venues and metropolitan ecstasies, Colonel Sanders chocked in the industrial smog, his smile ever unrelenting.

The subtle, spasmodic pain was becoming more palpable, Mother tried to remain still and supine. Outside, a bicycle reeled by, its bell tinkling loudly. It was followed by the sound of rushing footsteps from end of the aisle. The noise grew louder and more rapid, like water heating to boil in a kettle. Then the door smashed open, a group of middle-aged men and women escorted a pregnant woman inside onto the bed beside Mother’s. Their hands were all stretched out, almost lifting her up like a group of eunuchs lifting the Empress Dowager.

Soon the group began chattering in an indistinct southern dialect. Mother examined the woman: She was chubby and appeared almost twice Mother’s age.  Exhausted by either her debilitating condition or by her boisterous family members, she laid quietly on her side, her lips dry and bloodless. Yet mother saw on the woman’s weathered face the once-striking beauty that’d become hardly discernible. She had eyes and nose resembling finely-carved porcelain—a typical Southern beauty. Her husband had a somewhat aversive complexion of a typical parsimonious merchant, his face distorted in vexation. The group seemed more anxious than the woman, whose pale face was covered with perspiration.

Two young nurses came in, dismissing the loquacious crowd, and whined to Grandma after they’d left.

Around noon, the woman gave birth to her child safely.

It was the most beautiful baby girl Mother had ever seen, with willow-leaf-shaped browns and her mother’s nose grown immaculately on her ruddy, cherubic face. She cried very little, as if afraid of this new world she’d just arrived in.

Her father dashed in with the others. He eagerly held the infant up. Then, suddenly, the fire in his eyes extinguished altogether. His body rocked tremendously in spite of himself. The relatives yelled out: “What is it!? A BOY?!”  (The law had prohibited the disclosure of infants’ gender before their birth). He dropped his daughter back to the cradle, turned around without uttering a word and walked to a corner of the ward. The once loquacious cohort of siblings and in-laws fell completely taciturn. The man reached into his pockets for a cigarette. He made a great effort to put his trembling hand onto his lips. His void eyes stared into distance. Soon as he’d realized that no smocking was allowed, he held the cigarette in his mouth and walked out of the door. His family members, one by one, followed him out in reticence.

Mother looked at the women, she’d already passed out.

An hour and half later, Mother delivered a nine-pound boy. Grandma joyously ran out to make phone calls. Mother regretted a bit beneath her faint smile, because she’d always wished for a girl.

Later that day relatives came and took turns to scrutinize the chubby newborn. Behind them the older woman wept alone silently, the stretcher that carried her in was abandoned, leaning on the wall next to her sickbed. Grandma tried to sooth her and feed her food, but she kept on crying as if she’d not just had a child, but had lost one. The baby slept serenely beside her, rarely making a sound.

The man eventually came back and brought his wife some food. He looked as though he’d aged five years in an afternoon, his eyes bloodshot. His wife hurriedly ate and breastfed the baby girl. Then the guy sat by her feet while she stared at his hunched back.

To break the silence, Grandma spoke,

“You should be happy, look how beautiful your daughter is. Raise her like a piece of treasure.”

The man gave out a long sigh and spoke in heavily accented Mandarin, his voice low and hoarse, “Old Sister, you’ve no idea. I have three brothers; all four of us each had three daughters, which make it twelve girls, no boy. Now all the wives were ordered to get sterilization by the government. This one was our last hope.”

Mother said: “This girl is so pretty.  She won’t be less than any boy.”

“Ein, back in our hometown, if you have no sons in your family, you couldn’t even build a new house. People will point at your back. With all these money we make, we can’t lift our heads up in the village.” The room fell back in silence.

Soon it was bedtime, the hospitals then endorsed the policy of letting babies staying in the same room with their mothers. So the two mothers and their two newborns stayed in the same ward.

Mother could not sleep. She saw the women’s envious gaze from the bed across, fixed onto the boy, as if  the woman would make up her mind any moment and jump up to snatch Mother’s son away. The woman gazed on for hours without moving, she gazed with a desire like one desired her life.

Mother hoped she could see Father, who was then a college lecturer working 300 miles away and whose monthly salary came short to buy a last-minute bus ticket.

But she was there along in the dark, too scared that she might lose her only child. She tried to talk to the woman without a stop.

“You should really be happy, nowadays people love girls more. I’ve always loved girls…”

The woman gazed away, biting her lips hard. She asked abruptly:

“You wanted a daughter?”

Mother’s heart quivered. She cried out: “NO.” Her fragile body trembled, but her eyes filled with bravery.

The woman said nothing for the rest of the night. Early next morning her husband came and they checked out of the hospital.

A month later, when Mother took her son back for a physical checkup, the head nurse, an old lady in her 60’s, asked Mother if she remembered the woman in her delivery room.

Mother nodded, that night’s image was still hauntingly eidetic.

The head nurse shook her head and signed,

“Such a pity, you should have asked us to report your son and her daughter as twins.”

Mother was bewildered.

A young nurse said heartbreakingly,

“The couple, they’d given the girl away to a farmer.”

Mother gasped. She was in one of the most impoverished region on this land. A farmer to this day made 300 American dollars a year on average.

The head nurse kept on moaning,

”Ein, such a sin, such a sin…”

Mother held her son and walked down of the limestone stairs of the Soviet-style hospital building. She went out on the street; the wind was dry and dusty, cutting at her pallid face. Further away, Father was coming toward her, pushing their rusty “Forever” bicycle.

I cried, mewing and puking in Mother’s arms.

–>