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Death Fugue
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DEATH FUGUE
OTHER BOOKS IN ENGLISH
BY SHENG KEYI
NORTHERN GIRLS
FIELDS OF WHITE (EBOOK)
SHENG KEYI
Death Fugue
Translated from the Chinese by Shelly Bryant
GIRAMONDO
FIRST PUBLISHED IN 2014
FROM THE WRITING & SOCIETY RESEARCH CENTRE
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN SYDNEY
BY THE GIRAMONDO PUBLISHING COMPANY
PO BOX 752
ARTARMON NSW 1570 AUSTRALIA
WWW.GIRAMONDOPUBLISHING.COM
© SHENG KEYI, 2014
ENGLISH TRANSLATION © SHELLY BRYANT, 2014
DESIGNED BY HARRY WILLIAMSON
TYPESET BY ANDREW DAVIES
IN 10/17 PT BASKERVILLE
PRINTED AND BOUND BY LIGARE BOOK PRINTERS
DISTRIBUTED IN AUSTRALIA BY NEWSOUTH BOOKS
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA
CATALOGUING -IN-PUBLICATION DATA :
SHENG, KEYI
DEATH FUGUE / SHENG KEYI
ISBN 978-1-922146-62-5 (PBK)
ISBN 978-1-922146-65-6 (EPUB)
ISBN 978-1-922146-64-9 (EPD)
895.16
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED, STORED IN A RETRIEVAL SYSTEM OR TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS ELECTRONIC, MECHANICAL, PHOTOCOPYING OR OTHERWISE WITHOUT THE PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER.
Dedicated to those born in the 1960s in China
Part One
1
Those who have suffered the mental strain of life’s vicissitudes often end up by becoming withdrawn. Their earlier zeal has died; their beliefs wander off like stray dogs. They allow the heart to grow barren, and the mind to be overrun with weeds. They experience a sort of mental arthritis, like a dull ache on a cloudy day. There is no remedy. They hurt. They endure. They distract themselves in various ways, whether by making money, or by emigrating, or by womanising.
Yuan Mengliu fell into the last group.
He was born in the 60s, though the specific year is not known. You might say he was an unidentified person. As for the circumstances surrounding his parentage, there are many versions of the story. In the more hair-raising one, his father was an orphan who later became a soldier. One night when he was on an assignment somewhere, he had a one-night stand, sowing his seed in the virgin soil of a girl who was later hidden away in a remote snowy mountain range. She gave birth to Mengliu, then went on her merry way back to the place from where she had come. Or perhaps she had died in childbirth.
What is certain is that Yuan Mengliu’s early life was like a river, with its source hidden high in the snow-capped mountains, meandering through the land of Dayang, flowing through countless provinces and cities until it finally ended up in Beiping. There his life took root and branched out into many tributaries, becoming the protagonist of many tales.
Lanky and pale, Yuan Mengliu resembled a Coca-Cola bottle in shape. His short, soft hair was gelled expertly in place, and his sideburns were meticulously trimmed. His complexion was smooth, without blemish. His scrubs were always bright white, flawless as new fallen snow, and the clothes he wore underneath them bright and fresh. When he performed surgery, he usually wore rimless glasses. It was his habit to be slow to speak. He didn’t have a temper. He never made trouble, and he had no bad habits. The only drawback to his character was that he liked to play with women. Of course, he did not count this as a fault himself. He liked to say, ‘If men are afraid to talk about their love of women, how can the state talk about hope for the future?’ One might guess that Mengliu had read Epicurus, who wrote that if a man were to give up the enjoyment of sex, he couldn’t even begin to imagine what was meant by ‘the good life’.
As a member of the silent majority, Mengliu was getting along just fine. Humanity moved along in a steady stream of disease, and Mengliu was born with gifted hands, so his use of the knife to carve out some advantage for himself was not surprising. It was whispered that he had been a poet, but the topic was taboo with him. He never mentioned poetry or acknowledged that he had once been a member of the literary group called ‘The Three Musketeers’. His personal record did not list him as a poet. It was as clean as his scalpel, free from even the slightest fleck of blood.
Mengliu had once done something else, but he did not consider it a bad thing to have done. In order to secure a girl’s favour, he had made use of the opportunity provided by surgery to kill her lover.
Of course, that wasn’t quite the whole story.
It happened in the years following the Tower Incident. At that time, Yuan Mengliu wasn’t quite himself, and wandered around like a lost puppy with his tail disappearing between his legs. Despite his bright new appearance, he secretly sniffed about the alleys for the scent of history. He looked forward to seeing the striptease act in which history’s body would finally be exposed. His expectation in this matter was as strong as his anticipation of the first time with a new woman. He was eager to know what it would be like to bed her – her voice, her face, the excitement and tremors she would send through his own mind and body. He was convinced that, once stripped of clothing, all women would go back to their true state. The body could not lie.
He began very early on to take care of his health, monitoring his calorie intake with scientific precision. Every day he pounded a few small garlic cloves, then allowed the amino acids, enzymes, vitamins and fibre to flow with the crude proteins in his bloodstream. As a healthy person, Mengliu did not suffer from haemorrhoids. He had no beliefs, no ulcers, no ideals, no gingivitis, and while his teeth may not have been white, they were clean, with never a hint of grain between them. He wasn’t talkative, and he always drank enough water to keep his lips full and moist. He ate garlic, but he also had his own remedy to eliminate halitosis. His secret recipe eventually became the gospel his patients lived by in their attempts to avoid their own bad breath.
Yuan Mengliu could also play the chuixun, an egg-shaped instrument made of clay. Since childhood, the little kazoo had never left his side. Self-taught, he played a variety of tunes on it. In later years, he could sustain a noble, elegant melody, a sentimental tune to make girls’ hearts tremble and heighten their maternal instinct. This became his fixed routine in foreplay with them.
Naturally, to feminine eyes, he was clean and charming. On the map, the country of Dayang is shaped like a paramecium, or like the sole of a right shoe. Its capital Beiping is a city surrounded by a wall, which offers it both protection from external harm and the means to excrete its waste, just like the paramecium’s wall. Beiping’s climate is poor, its land arid. During the annual autumn storms, the city is bombarded by sand. Everywhere you look, it’s a crumpled, disgraceful mess. The winters are extremely cold, the summers hot, and the air is always filled with an odd bready smell.
Beiping’s main road is like a satiated python lying flat on the ground, the five-hundred-thousand-square-metre Round Square its protruding abdomen. This is the heart of the city, and one of Dayang’s main tourist attractions. Some years after the Tower Incident, Round Square became home to the statue of a peace monument, a naked goddess with eyes as clear as diamonds, holding a torch in her outstretched hand. A red laser beam broke the night’s black canopy, broadcasting propaganda slogans, weather forecasts, and news of current events. Occasionally a poem might even appear there, giving instant fame to the poet who penned the verse.
Sadly, there was no beauty in the language of Beiping, and its writing was ugly. For instance, the words ‘Long Live Democracy’ were inscribed ‘WlOrj ldlNOr!’ The words looked like tadpoles, and the pronunciation was equally awkward, as if you had a mouthful of soup rolling about your tongue that was so hot it c
aused your jaw to cramp. You had to make full use of your facial muscles to speak the language. Even your nostrils needed to be flexible in order to achieve the heavy nasal quality. It made you sound like an asthmatic she-donkey.
Yuan Mengliu liked calligraphy, and he collected books to use for practice. He always practised on the eve of a major operation. He liked to write calligraphy in order to maintain a cool disposition – heart, eyes and hand always in perfect sync. His ten fingers were as alert as a watch dog. His senses of hearing and smell, along with everything else about him, responded quickly and deftly, allowing him to cut open a belly, and remove a tumour or an appendix with skilled strokes. He knew exactly where to start and just what to do next. Each finger applied just the right pressure. He was accurate, and rarely made a mistake.
‘The scalpel is more effective than drugs. Not many medicines are known to humans and few doctors really comprehend their uses, just as the truth only lies in the hands of a few,’ Mengliu said to the interns. They were often confused.
At that time, many men in their thirties and forties remained unmarried. Mengliu was clearly aware that, in his case, the problem lay with himself. When he encountered a girl who was not too boring, had both brains and breasts, with a tiny waist and rounded hips, smooth legs, slender arms, agreeable both in and out of bed, in public and in private…he just couldn’t do what was required to bring it all to fruition. It was not that he was committed to a life of solitude. The problem lay simply in a thought.
He believed that Qizi was still alive.
2
One summer, when Mengliu was in his mid-forties, temperatures reached a high of fifty degrees Celsius. The sun scorched the pale-skinned, and the streets were covered with dead insects looking like popped corn.
The streets of Beiping were wide and mighty, the river similarly open and indifferent. Anyone standing in the centre might feel a slight space-time disorientation. Round Square was like a living room kept squeaky clean under its meticulous master’s care. The flat ground had a yellowish lustre, created by the trampling of feet. Low-rise buildings stood guard at a distance around the square, surrounding it like a reef.
In those days, setting out from the square and walking east on Beiping Street, when you came to the museum on the left, there was Liuli Street, one of the more authentic old lanes. Both sides were lined with vintage stores full of aged items, windows filled with blue and white porcelain, busts, old swords, rusty daggers, bronze ware…In an enchanting moment, you could feel the ghosts and spirits floating in the streets, whispering their secrets. Sometimes you might come across someone wearing an aged, jaded expression mingled with the arrogance of youth, and looking rather lost. Their bodies were covered with a certain demonic light that did not invite close contact.
Liuli Street was originally the site of a famous old Catholic church, which had been destroyed during the Tower Incident. It was said that one of the faithful had hanged himself inside. The legend was that he had suffered from deep depression. Because it had not been set aside for protection as a heritage building, the church was soon uprooted and demolished. A tall commercial building was constructed on the site of the church, and the whole area converted into a pedestrian mall. In these modern times, the glory of the old street can only be seen in the archives.
Walking to the end of Liuli Street, you enter an area surrounded by relief sculptures fashioned in a mythic style. Beyond a stand of old trees, an imposing stone plaque displays an inscription reading ‘National Youth Administration for Elite Wisdom’ in the tadpole-shaped squiggles of the Beiping language. The administration building’s gate, constructed of Spanish granite in a classical style, stands next to two old pines that have been stripped bare by the scampering squirrels. The Spanish-style building is covered with grey roof tiles that extend out over long arcades. It is full of an air of mystery and a sense of history. The nature walks and the variety of entertainment facilities make the area feel like a resort. More widely known than the administration building is the attached amphitheatre surrounded by a wall decorated with frescoes on religious themes. There is a corridor on either side of the wall around the amphitheatre, extending to the grass. People call it the double-tracked wall. Originally the birthplace of an important school of thought, it has since become commercialised, filled with so many posters advertising random products that the wall has virtually disappeared. This seems to suggest that people no longer feel the need for such places, that all sorts of ideas and philosophies have simply become part of the daily lives of today’s citizens.
The Wisdom Bureau, as the National Youth Administration for Elite Wisdom was popularly known before the Tower Incident, had over 50,000 employees, arranged in departments with many branches and sub-branches. The nation’s intelligentsia numbered over 10,000, with a large number of elite members. The Bureau was extensive, with sub-departments for literature, physics, philosophy, music, medicine, and dozens of other professional branches. This intellectual institution might look idle from the outside, but the atmosphere inside resembled that of a battlefield.
At that time Mengliu, having just been assigned to the Literature Department, rented an old house with a few other people his age. The landlord, a skinny old man who wore a skullcap year-round, was fond of young people. He respected learning, and as long as you were a member of the Wisdom Bureau, he would offer cheap rental. In the volatile environment of the time, when resources were scarce, people held high expectations for the young elites. At the end of the day, everyone was willing to take care of these young people and to protect them.
The house was very old with green walls and timber latticed windows. Quiet and low-key, it had once served as quarters for government dignitaries. It offered the advantages of being clean, quiet, and conveniently located. Mengliu’s flat, situated on the west side of the building, was playfully dubbed the West Wing. With an area of about twenty square metres, it was not very spacious. It was just large enough for eating, sleeping, and studying in, with a small space for a sitting area. Of course, Mengliu had no need for the latter.
The potted rose bush on the windowsill was part of the original furnishings. It had never bloomed. At one time during the Tower Incident, when it was especially droopy, one of his female visitors provoked it into a show of life. It budded and eventually dropped, and only bloomed a few times after that.
The acacia tree in the yard was centuries old and covered with a dark, rough bark. Its branches climbed over the grey tiled roof. In summer its leaves turned yellow, and produced a lot of worms. They dangled there, bodies a bright transparent green, like pieces of amber or smooth jade. They climbed along the fine silk they spat out of themselves, swaying in the wind. A black train of faeces ran along the ground, releasing a pungent odour. Having travelled through the digestive system of the worms, the faeces smelled fresh and thick. Their fragrance was mesmerising.
Mengliu did not like to shave, and he often sat writing poetry all night long with his hair dishevelled. He was at an age when the mere sight of a girl aroused him. He banded together with two other vibrant young poets, Hei Chun and Bai Qiu, whose names meant ‘Black Spring’ and ‘White Autumn’, and the trio became known as ‘The Three Musketeers’.
When he had nothing else to do, Mengliu sat under the acacia tree playing the chuixun.
One day Mengliu awoke feeling that there was something strange in the air. The central heating seemed to have gone off. It was surprisingly cold. He glanced out of the window, and saw birds in the acacia tree, all of them tight-lipped and looking about vigilantly.
With a yelp, he got out of bed and dressed, listening to the news coming from the radio next door.
‘…Reports have come in this morning of excitement around Round Square, where a tower made of excrement was found in the early hours, drawing massive crowds to see the spectacle… For now, it has not been determined whether the excrement came from an earthly creature. The police rushed to the scene to protect the tower and maintain order…Expert
s are on their way to Round Square…If the small group of hostile elements in the capital take this opportunity to make trouble, they will be detained and severely punished!’
The announcer’s words were clipped, as if he had a mouth full of bullets. His tone was threatening, especially when he got to the phrase ‘they will be detained and severely punished!’ It was like he had fired into the air, spitting all the bullets out. There was a burst of static, followed by the sound of explosions coming over the radio.
Mengliu had a bad feeling. He washed hastily, using his hand to wipe the traces of water from his moustache, and hurried out the door.
The wind outside was biting cold. He had forgotten his scarf. All he could do was wrap his arms tightly about himself, put his head down and walk into the wind in the direction of the Wisdom Bureau.
The leaden sky watched indifferently, like a solitary pair of eyes. A crow voiced an assassin’s cry as it shot out of a bush and into the sky. The chill offered the promise of snow.
He found that every place he passed through was in a state of upheaval. People were talking about the strange pile of faeces. Their interest had already escalated to panic level. Heated comments had begun to appear on the double-tracked wall, criticising the government’s incompetence, saying its response to the excrement situation had been too slow and that it had taken too long to reach a conclusion in its discussions concerning the tower. It would be more efficient to invite the experts to eat the pile of shit.
When Mengliu saw that, he felt like laughing. Everyone was making a big fuss over nothing. It was just a pile of shit. Surely it did not portend the descent of some strange beast, intent on gobbling up Beiping. What was the fuss all about? Of course, he knew that people had been looking for a reason to vent their anger. For the past few years, everything had been in a mess. Times were hard, all over the country the rich were buying up villas while the poor could barely keep clothes on their backs. Pests had been gnawing at the fabric of society, and there were holes everywhere.