BUYING A FISHING ROD. FOR MY GRANDFATHER. GAO XINGJIAN. A Puke (TM) Audiobook

BUYING A FISHING ROD.
FOR MY GRANDFATHER.
STORIES.
GAO XINGJIAN.

Translated from the Chinese by Mabel Lee.
Reformatted for Machine Text, PukeOnaAPlate 2023.

THE TEMPLE.

We were deliriously happy: delirious with the hope, infatuation, tenderness, and warmth that go with a honeymoon.
Fangfang and I had planned the trip over and over, even though we had only half a month off: ten days of wedding leave, plus one week of additional work leave. Getting married is a major event in life, and for us nothing was more important, so why not ask for some extra time? That director of mine was so miserly: anyone who went to him requesting leave had to haggle; there were never instant approvals. The two weeks I had written in my application he changed to one week, including a Sunday, and it was with reluctance that he said, “I’ll expect you to be back at work by the due date.”
“Of course, of course,” I said. “We wouldn’t be able to afford the salary deduction if we stayed any longer.” It was only then that he signed his name, thereby granting us permission to go on leave.
I wasn’t a bachelor anymore. I had a family. I would no longer be able to go off to restaurants with friends as soon as I got paid at the beginning of the month. I wouldn’t be able to spend so recklessly that by the end of the month I wouldn’t have the money to buy a pack of cigarettes and would have to go through my pockets and search the drawers for coins. But I won’t go into all that. I’m saying that I, we, were very happy. In our short lives, there hadn’t been much happiness. Both Fangfang and I had experienced years of hardship, and we had learned what life was all about. During those catastrophic years in this country, our families suffered through many misfortunes, and to some extent we still resented our generation’s fate.
But I won’t go into that, either. What was important was that we could now count ourselves happy.
We had half a month’s leave, and although it was only half a honeymoon, for us it couldn’t have been sweeter. I am not going to go into how sweet it was. You all know about that and have experienced it yourselves, but this particular sweetness was ours alone. What I want to tell you about is the Temple of Perfect Benevolence: “perfect” as in “perfect union,” and “benevolence” as in “benevolent love.” But the name of the temple is not really of great importance. It was a dilapidated ruin, and certainly not a famous tourist attraction. No one knew about it other than the locals, and I suspect that even the locals who knew what it was called were few. In any case, the temple we happened to visit wasn’t one where people burned incense or prayed, and if we hadn’t carefully examined the stone tablet with traces of writing in the drain of the water pump we wouldn’t even have known that the temple had a name. The locals referred to it as “the big temple,” but it was nothing compared with the Retreat for the Soul Temple, in Hangzhou, or the Jade Cloud Temple, in Beijing.
Situated on a hill beyond the town, it was little more than an old two-story building with flying eaves and the remnants of a stone gate in front of it. The courtyard walls had collapsed. The bricks of the outer wall had been carried off by peasants to build their houses or construct pens for their pigs, and only a circle of unfired bricks remained, overgrown with weeds.
However, from a distance, from the small street of the county town, the glazed yellow tiles sparkling in the sunlight caught our eyes. We had come to this town quite by accident. Our train was still at the platform after the announced departure time, probably waiting for an express that was behind schedule to pass through. The chaotic scramble of passengers getting on and off had settled and, apart from the conductors chatting at the carriage doors, there was no one on the platform. Beyond the station was a valley with an expanse of gray roofs. Farther still, a chain of heavily wooded mountains gave this ancient town an exceptional air of tranquillity.
Suddenly I had an idea. I said, “Should we take a look at this town?”
Fangfang, sitting opposite and looking at me lovingly, gave a slight nod. Her eyes seemed to speak, and, sensitive to each other, we communicated on the same wavelength.
Without a word, we took our bags from the luggage rack and rushed to the door of our carriage. As soon as we had jumped onto the platform, we both laughed.
I said, “We’ll leave on the next train.”
“I don’t mind if we don’t leave at all,” Fangfang answered.
After all, we were traveling, and it was our honeymoon.
If we fell in love with a place, we would go there, and if we went on liking the place, we would stay longer. All the time, wherever we went, the happiness of newlyweds accompanied us. We were the happiest people in the world. Fangfang was holding my arm; I was holding our bags. We wanted the conductors on the platform and the countless pairs of eyes on the other side of the train windows to look at us with envy.
We no longer had to drive ourselves mad trying to get transferred back to the city. Nor did we have to keep begging our parents for help. And we didn’t have to worry about our residential status or our jobs anymore. We even had our own apartment, our own home; it wasn’t very big, but it was comfortable. You belonged to me and I belonged to you, and, Fangfang, I know what you want to say: Our relationship was no longer immoral! And what does that mean? It means that we want everyone to share in our happiness.
We’ve had so many problems, and we’ve troubled all of you with them, and you have all worried because of us.
How can we repay you? With some candies and cigarettes after our wedding? No, we are repaying you with our happiness. There’s nothing wrong with what I’m saying, is there?
That was how we came to this quiet old town in the valley.
But it turned out that the town was nowhere near as tranquil as it had seemed when we were looking out the train window. Below the gray roof tiles, the lanes and alleys throbbed with activity. It was nine in the morning, and people were selling vegetables, rock melons, and freshly picked apples and pears. Streets in county towns like this one aren’t wide, so mule carts, horse carts, and trucks were all jammed together, with drivers cracking their whips and honking their horns. Dust filling the air, dirty water tossed out beside vegetable stalls, melon rinds all over the ground, squawking hens flapping in the hands of their buyers: these were sights that made us feel close to the town.
It all felt so different from the time when we were graduates sent to work in the countryside. Now we were just visitors passing through, tourists, and the complicated relationships between the people here had nothing to do with us. Inevitably, this made us city dwellers feel somewhat superior. Fangfang clutched my arm tightly and I leaned close to her, and we could sense people’s eyes on us. But we didn’t belong to this town; we were from another world.
We walked right past them, but they didn’t gossip about us; they only gossiped about the people they knew.
Eventually, there were no more vegetable stalls and very few people. We had left behind the bustle and din of the market. I saw from my watch that it had taken us only a half hour to walk the length of the main road from the railway station. It was still early. It would be an anticlimax just to return to the station and wait for the next train, and Fangfang was already thinking about spending the night here!
She didn’t say so, but I could see her disappointment.
A man was heading toward us, ostentatiously swinging his arms as he walked. He was probably a cadre.
“Excuse me, could you tell me how to get to the county hostel?” I asked.
He looked at Fangfang and me for a moment, then enthusiastically pointed it out to us. “Go that way,” he told us, “then head left. The red three-story brick building is the county hostel.” He asked whom we were looking for, and seemed to want to take us there himself. We explained that we were tourists passing through and asked if there were any sights worth seeing. He patted his head: this, it seemed, was a problem.
After giving the matter some thought, he said, “There actually aren’t any scenic spots in this county. But there’s a big temple up on the hill to the west of town, if you want to go there. You’ll have to climb the hill, though, and it’s steep!”
“That’s not a problem. We’ve come here to do some hiking,” I said.
Fangfang hastened to add, “That’s right. We’re not afraid of climbing a hill.”
At this, the man led us to the corner of the street. The hill was now directly in front, and at the top was the old temple, its glazed tiles sparkling in the sun.
But then the man glanced at the high-heeled shoes Fangfang was wearing and said, “You’ll have to wade across a river.”
“Is the water deep?” I asked.
“Above the knees.”
I looked at Fangfang.
“That’s nothing. I’ll manage.” She didn’t want to let me down.
We thanked him and began walking in the direction he had indicated. When we turned onto the dusty dirt road, I couldn’t help but feel bad as I looked at the new highheeled shoes with thin straps that Fangfang had on. Still, she charged ahead.
“You’re really a crazy little thing,” I said, catching up with her.
“As long as I’m with you.” Do you remember, Fangfang?
You said this as you nestled against me.
We followed a path down to the riverbank. On both sides, corn grew straight, taller than a man, and we walked through the green gauze canopy, with no one in sight either ahead or behind. Taking Fangfang in my arms, I gently kissed her. What’s wrong with that? She doesn’t want me to talk about that. So let’s go back to the Temple of Perfect Benevolence. It was on the other side of the river, at the top of the hill. We could see tufts of weeds growing between the glistening yellow tiles.
The river was clear and cool. I held Fangfang’s shoes and my leather sandals in one hand and Fangfang’s hand in the other, while she scooped up her skirt with her free hand. Barefoot, we felt our way across. It had been a long time since I’d walked barefoot, so my feet were sensitive to even the smooth stones on the riverbed.
“Is it hurting your feet?” I asked Fangfang.
“I like it,” you replied softly. On our honeymoon, even having sore feet was a happy sensation. All the misfortunes of the world seemed to flow away with the river water, and we returned for a moment to our youth. We frolicked in the water like mischievous children.
As I steadied her with one hand, Fangfang leaped from rock to rock, and from time to time she hummed a song.
Once across the river, we started to run up the hill, laughing and shouting. Then Fangfang cut her foot and I was very upset, but she comforted me, saying that it was all right, it would be nothing as soon as she put on her shoes.
I said that it was my fault, but she replied that she’d do anything to make me happy, even let her feet get cut. All right, all right, I won’t go on about it. But because you are the friends we value most, who have shared our anxieties with us, we should also share our happiness with you.
It was in this manner that we finally climbed to the top of the hill and arrived at the outer gate in front of the temple. Within the collapsed courtyard wall was a gutter with pure water from the pump running through. In what had been the courtyard, someone had planted a patch of vegetables, and next to that was a manure pit. We recalled the years we had spent shoveling manure with production units in the countryside. Those difficult times had trickled away like water, leaving some sadness but sweet memories as well. And there was our love, too. In the glorious sunlight, no one could interfere with this secure love of ours.
No one would be able to harm us again.
Near the big temple was an iron incense burner. It was probably too heavy to move and too thick to break apart, so it continued to keep the old temple company, standing guard in front of the main door. The door was padlocked.
Boards had been nailed over the rotten wooden lattice windows, but they, too, had rotted. The place was probably now being used as a storehouse for the local production team.
No one else was around, and it was very peaceful. We could hear the mountain wind moaning in the ancient pines in front of the temple, and as no one was there to disturb us, we lay down on the grass in the shade of the trees. Fangfang rested her head on my arm, and we looked up at a thread of cloud about to disappear into the blue sky. Ours was an indescribable happiness, a true contentment.
Intoxicated by this tranquillity, we would have gone on lying there, but we heard heavy footsteps on the flagstones.
Fangfang sat up, and I got to my feet to have a look. A man was walking along the stone path from the gate toward the temple. He was a big fellow, with a mass of tangled hair on his head and an untrimmed beard covering his cheeks. He was scowling. From beneath bushy eyebrows, his stern eyes surveyed us. The wind had turned cool. Probably noticing our curious looks, the man raised his head slightly in the direction of the temple. Then, squinting, he studied the weeds swaying among the shiny tiles.
He stopped in front of the incense burner and, striking it with one hand, made it ring. His fingers, gnarled and rough, looked as if they, too, were made of cast iron. In his other hand he held a tattered black cotton bag. He didn’t seem to be a commune member who had come to tend the vegetables. He was sizing us up again, looking at Fangfang’s high-heeled shoes and our travel bags in the grass.
Fangfang immediately put her shoes back on. Then, unexpectedly, he addressed us.
“Are you from out of town? Are you enjoying yourselves here?”
I nodded.
“It’s good weather,” he said. He seemed to want to talk.
The eyes under those thick eyebrows had become less stern, and he appeared well meaning. He was wearing leather shoes with soles made from rubber tires, and the seams had split in places. The legs of his trousers were wet, so it was obvious he had come across the river from town.
“It’s cool, and the view is quite beautiful,” I said.
“Sit down. I’ll be leaving shortly.”
It seemed that he was offering a kind of apology. He, too, sat down on the grass beside the flagstones.
He opened his bag and said, “Would you like a melon?”
“No, thanks,” I immediately said. But he threw me one anyway. I caught it and was about to throw it back.
“It’s nothing. I’ve got half a bag of them here,” he said, raising the heavy bag to show me and taking out another melon as he spoke. I couldn’t say no, so I took a parcel of snacks from my travel bag, opened it, and held it out to him. “Try our snacks,” I said.
He took a small piece of cake and put it on top of his bag.
“That’s enough for me,” he said. “Go on, eat it.” He squeezed the melon in his big hands, cracking the brittle skin. “They’re clean. I washed them in the river.” He tossed away a piece of rind and shouted in the direction of the gate, “Take a break! Come and eat some melon!”
“But there are long-horned grasshoppers here!” A boy’s voice came from beyond the gate; then the boy himself appeared on the slope, holding a wire cage.
“There are plenty of them. I’ll catch some for you later,” the man replied.
The little boy came toward us, bouncing and jumping as he ran.
“Is it school vacation?” I asked, and, copying the man, cracked our melon into pieces.
“It’s Sunday today, so I brought him out,” he replied.
We were so engrossed with our own holiday that we had forgotten what day of the week it was. Fangfang took a bite of the melon and smiled at me to indicate that he was a good man. There are, in fact, many good people in the world.
“Eat it. It’s from Uncle and Auntie over there,” he said to the boy, who was staring at the cream cake on top of his bag. The boy had grown up in this town and had clearly never seen such a cake. He took it and ate it right away.
“Is he your son?” I asked.
The man didn’t reply, but said to the boy, “Take some melon and go play. I’ll catch grasshoppers for you later.”
“I want to catch five of them!” the boy said.
“All right, we’ll catch five.”
The man watched as the boy ran off with the wire cage in his hand. There were deep creases at the corners of his eyes.
“He isn’t my son,” he said, looking down and taking out a cigarette. He struck a match and dragged hard.
Then, sensing our surprise, he added, “He’s the child of my paternal cousin. I want to adopt him, but it depends on whether he’s willing to come and stay with me.”
Suddenly we understood that this stern man’s heart was churning with emotion.
“What about your wife?” Fangfang couldn’t help asking.
There was no reply. He puffed hard on his cigarette, got up, and left.
We felt the chill of the mountain air. On the brilliant yellow tiles, the fresh grass that had sprouted in the spring was as tall as the old, withered stalks, and both swayed in the breeze. In the blue sky, a floating cloud that seemed to hang on the corner of a flying eave created the impression that the temple itself was tilting. A broken tile at the edge of the eave looked as if it were about to fall. Probably it had sat that way for years without falling.
The man was standing on a mound that had once been a wall, and for a long time he just stared out at the mountains and valleys. In the distance the ridges were higher and steeper than the hill we were on, but on the mountain slopes there were no terraced fields and no houses to be seen.
“You shouldn’t have asked him,” I said.
“Oh stop.” Fangfang looked upset.
“There’s a grasshopper here!” came the boy’s voice from the other side of the hill. It seemed far away but was quite clear.
The man strode off in that direction, swinging the bag of rock melons as he disappeared from sight. I put a hand on Fangfang’s shoulder and pulled her toward me.
“Don’t.” She turned away.
“There’s a bit of grass in your hair,” I explained, removing a pine needle that had stuck to her hair.
“That tile is about to fall,” Fangfang said. She, too, had noticed the broken tile hanging there precariously. “It would be good if it fell. Otherwise it might injure someone,” she mumbled.
“It might be a while before it does fall,” I said.
We walked to the mound where the man had been standing. In the valley there was a stretch of farmland, dense crops of luxuriant green barley and broomcorn millet, waiting for the autumn harvest. Below us, on a level part of the slope, stood a few mud huts, their bottom halves newly coated in brilliant white lime. The man was holding the boy’s hand as they made their way down a small winding track, past the huts and through the crops.
Suddenly, like a colt that had broken free of its reins, the boy bolted off, dashing ahead, then turning and running back. He seemed to be waving the cage at the man.
“Do you think the man caught grasshoppers for him?”
Fangfang, do you remember asking me that?
“Of course,” I said. “Of course.”
“He caught five of them!” you said cheekily.
Well, that’s the Temple of Perfect Benevolence that we visited on our honeymoon, and which I wanted to describe for all of you.

IN THE PARK.
“I haven’t strolled in a park for a long time. I never have the time to spare, or the inclination anymore.”
“It’s the same with everyone. After work, people just hurry home. Life’s always a rush.”
“I remember when I was a child, I really liked coming to this park to roll around on the grass.”
“I used to come with my father and mother.”
“I really liked it when there were other children.”
“Yes.”
“Especially when you were there as well.”
“I remember.”
“At the time, you had two little plaits.”
“At the time, you always wore dungarees, and you were very cocky.”
“You were unfriendly, always haughty.”
“Really?”
“Yes, nobody would dare antagonize you.”
“I don’t remember, but I liked playing with you and I even used to kick a rubber ball with you.”
“Nonsense, you didn’t ever kick a rubber ball! You used to wear little white shoes and were always afraid of getting them dirty.”
“That’s right, when I was little I was really fond of wearing white sneakers.”
“You were like a princess.”
“Sure, a princess wearing sneakers.”
“Then your family moved.”
“That’s right.”
“At first you often came to visit on Sundays, but later on not as much.”
“I had grown up.”
“My mother really liked you.”
“I know.”
“There were no daughters in our family.”
“Everyone said we looked alike, like an older sister and a younger brother.”
“Don’t forget we’re the same age, that I’m two months older.”
“But I seemed older than you; I was always taller by a hand, as if I were your older sister.”
“At the time, girls got tall earlier. Enough of that, let’s talk about something else.”
“What will we talk about, then?”
The path under the trees has clipped Japan cypresses growing on both sides. On the slope behind the cypresses, a young woman wearing a dress and carrying a red handbag sits down on a stone bench.
“Let’s sit down awhile, too.”
“All right.”
“The sun’s about to set.”
“Yes, it’s beautiful.”
“I don’t like this artificial sort of beauty.”
“Didn’t you say you liked going to parks?”
“That was when I was little. I’ve lived in the mountain regions. I was a woodcutter for seven years in primitive forests.”
“You managed to survive.”
“Forests are really awesome.”
The young woman wearing a dress gets up from the stone bench and looks to the end of the shady path beyond the neatly clipped cypresses. Several people are coming from that direction, among them a tall youth with hair over his temples. Beyond the treetops and the wall, the sky is infused with brilliant red and purple-red colors of the sunset, and rippling clouds begin to spread overhead.
“I haven’t seen a beautiful sunset like this for a long time. The sky seems to be on fire.”
“It’s like a wildfire.”
“Like what?”
“It’s like a forest wildfire.”
“Well, keep talking.”
“When there’s a forest wildfire, the sky is just like this.
The fire spreads swiftly and with a vengeance, and there’s not time to cut down the forest. It’s really terrifying. All the felled trees fly into the air, and from a distance they look like bits of straw drifting up in a fire, and crazed leopards come out of the forests to throw themselves into the rivers, swimming right at you.”
“Don’t the leopards attack people?”
“They’re past thinking about that.”
“Can’t you use your rifles on them?”
“People are also traumatized; from riverbanks they just stare vacantly at the fire.”
“Isn’t there anything that can be done?”
“Mountain streams can’t stop it. The trees on the other side get scorched, start crackling, and suddenly they’re alight. For a distance of more than several li around it’s so smoky and hot, you can’t breathe. All you can do is wait for the wind to change or for the fire to get to the river, exhaust itself, and burn out.”
The young woman in the dress sits down again on the stone bench; her red handbag is beside her.
“Tell me some more about your experiences during those years.”
“There’s nothing much to tell.”
“How can there be nothing much to tell? All that was very interesting.”
“But there’s not much point in talking about all that now. Talk about what you’ve been doing all these years.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“I’ve got a daughter.”
“How old?”
“Six.”
“Is she just like you?”
“Everyone says she’s just like me.”
“Is she like you when you were little? Does she wear white sneakers?”
“No, she likes to wear leather shoes. Her father buys her one pair after another.”
“You’re lucky. He sounds like a nice person.”
“He’s quite good to me, but I don’t know if I’m lucky or not.”
“And isn’t your work also quite good?”
“Yes, compared with what many other people my age do, my work’s all right. I sit in an office, answer the phone, and take documents to my superiors.”
“Are you a secretary?”
“I’m looking after documents.”
“That sort of work is confidential, it shows that they trust you.”
“It’s much better than being a laborer. Didn’t you also manage to get through a hard time? Since you went to university, I suppose you’re doing some kind of professional work now?”
“Yes, but it was all through my own efforts.”
The colors of the sunset vanish. The sky is now a dark red, but on the horizon, above the treetops, there is an orange-yellow glow on the edge of a dark cloud. On the slope it is becoming dark in the grove and the young woman on the bench is sitting with her head bowed. She seems to look at her watch and then stands up. She is holding her handbag but decides to put it down again on the bench, as she looks at the path beyond the cypresses. Apparently noticing the moon by the clouds, she turns away and starts to pace, her eyes looking at the ground.
“She’s waiting for someone.”
“Waiting for someone is awful. Nowadays it’s the young men who don’t show up for dates.”
“Are there too many young women in the city?”
“There’s no shortage of young men, it’s just that there are too few decent young men.”
“But this young woman is very good looking.”
“If the woman falls in love first, it’s always unlucky.”
“Will he turn up?”
“Who knows? Having to wait really makes a person go crazy.”
“Luckily we’re past that age. Have you ever waited for someone?”
“It was he who first sought me. Have you ever made someone wait?”
“I’ve never failed to show up for a date.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“I seem to.”
“Then why don’t you get married?”
“I probably will.”
“It seems you don’t really like her.”
“I feel sorry for her.”
“Feeling sorry is not love. If you don’t love her, don’t go on deceiving her!”
“I’ve only ever deceived myself.”
“That’s also deceiving the other person.”
“Let’s talk about something else.”
“All right.”
The young woman sits down. Then she immediately stands up again, looking toward the path. The last smudge of faint red on the horizon is barely visible. She sits down again but, as if sensing people are watching, she puts down her head and appears to be fiddling with her skirt at the knees.
“Will he turn up?”
“I don’t know.”
“This shouldn’t happen.”
“There are too many things that shouldn’t happen.”
“Is this girlfriend of yours pretty?”
“She is a sad case.”
“Don’t talk like that! If you don’t love her, don’t deceive her. Just find yourself a young woman you truly love, someone good-looking.”
“Someone good-looking wouldn’t necessarily like me.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t have a good father.”
“Don’t talk like that, I don’t want to listen.”
“Then it’s best not to listen. I think we should leave.”
“Will you come to my home?”
“I should bring your daughter a present. It will also count as my best wishes to you.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“You’re always hurting me.”
“That’s never been my intention.”
“I wish you happiness.”
“I don’t want to hear that word.”
“Then aren’t you happy?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. It’s been hard just to meet this once after all these years, so let’s not talk about depressing things like that.”
“Very well, then let’s talk about something else.”
The young woman suddenly stands up. Someone is coming along the path, walking very quickly.
“Well, at least he’s turned up.”
It’s a youth carrying a canvas satchel. He doesn’t slow down and keeps walking. The young woman looks away.
“It’s not the person she’s waiting for. Life’s often that way, oddly enough.”
“She’s crying.”
“Who?”
The young woman sits down with her hands over her face, her hands are raised and seem to be covering her face, but it can’t be seen clearly. Birds are twittering.
“So there are still birds here.”
“Not only forests have birds.”
“Well, there are still sparrows here.”
“You’ve become quite arrogant.”
“That’s how I managed to survive. If I hadn’t kept that bit of arrogance, I wouldn’t be here today.”
“Don’t be so cynical; you’re not the only person who has suffered. Everyone was sent to work in the country.
You should realize that it was much worse for the young women sent to the country where they had neither relatives or friends. The reason I married him was because I had no better option. His parents arranged for my transfer back to the city.”
“I wasn’t blaming you.”
“No one has the right to blame anyone.”
The streetlights have turned on and produce a wan yellow light among the green leaves of the trees. The night sky is gray and indistinct; even the stars can’t be seen clearly in the city sky, making the light from the streetlights among the trees appear too bright.
“I think we should leave.”
“Yes, we shouldn’t have come here.”
“People might think we are lovers. If your husband finds out, he won’t misunderstand, will he?”
“He’s not that kind of person.”
“Then, he’s a pretty good person.”
“You can come and stay at our place.”
“Only if he invites me.”
“Won’t it be the same if I invite you?”
“Too bad I didn’t know your address. That was why I went to look you up at your workplace. Otherwise, I would have gone directly to visit you at home.”
“You don’t have to go into all that nonsense.”
“There’s no need for us to snipe at each other like that.”
“You’re the one who is saying one thing and meaning something else.”
“Let’s talk about something else.”
“All right.”
It has become dark in the grove and the young woman can no longer be seen. However, with the light shining on them, the lustrous green leaves of a white poplar seem to glow. There’s a hint of a breeze, and the trembling leaves of the white poplar shimmer like satin.
“She hasn’t left yet, has she?”
“No, she’s leaning against a tree.”
A big tree stands a few paces from the empty stone bench, and someone is leaning against it.
“What’s she doing?”
“Crying.”
“It’s not worth it!”
“Why not?”
“It’s not worth crying over him. She won’t have a problem finding a good man who loves her, a person worthy of her love. She should just leave.”
“But she’s still hoping.”
“Life’s road is wide and she will find her own way.”
“Don’t think you know everything; you don’t understand how a woman feels. It’s just so easy for a man to hurt a woman. The woman is always weaker.”
“If she knows she is weaker, why doesn’t she try to learn to be stronger?”
“Fine-sounding words.”
“There’s no need to look for things to worry about.
There are enough worries in life. One should be able to accept things.”
“There are so many things that should be.”
“I’m saying that people should only do the things that they should do.”
“That’s the same as saying nothing.”
“Quite right. I shouldn’t have come to see you.”
“That’s also saying nothing.”
“All right, we should go. I’ll buy you dinner.”
“I don’t want to eat. Can’t we talk about something else?”
“What about?”
“Talk about yourself.”
“Let’s talk about the next generation. What’s your daughter’s name?”
“I wanted to have a son.”
“Having a daughter is the same.”
“No, when a boy grows up he won’t have to suffer as much.”
“People of the future won’t have as much suffering, because we’ve already suffered for them.”
“She’s crying.”
The sound of rustling leaves is in the breeze overhead, but the sound of weeping is clearly in it, and coming from the direction of the stone bench and the tree.
“We should go and console her.”
“It wouldn’t help.”
“But we should still try.”
“Then you go.”
“In such a situation it would only be appropriate for a woman to go.”
“She doesn’t need that sort of consolation.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t understand anything.”
“Best not to. Once you do, it becomes a burden.”
“Then why do you want to console others? Why don’t you just console yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t understand how other people feel. If feelings are a burden, it’s best for you not to understand.”
“Let’s leave.”
“Will you come to my home?”
“There’s no need.”
“Are we going to say good-bye just like that? I’ve already invited you to come for dinner tomorrow. He’ll be there, too.”
“I think it would be best if I didn’t come. What do you think?”
“That’s entirely up to you.”
In the darkness, the sound of weeping becomes more distinct. Intermittently, stifled sobs mingle with the sound of leaves trembling in the evening breeze.
“When I get married I’ll write you a letter.”
“It’s best that you don’t write anything.”
“If I pass through for work later on, I might come to visit you again.”
“It’s best that you don’t.”
“Yes, it was a mistake.”
“What mistake are you talking about?”
“I shouldn’t have come to see you again.”
“No, it wasn’t a mistake for you to have come!”
“Neither of us is to blame. The mistakes of that era are to blame. But all that’s in the past and we have to learn to forget.”
“But it’s hard to forget everything.”
“Maybe with the passing of more time.”
“You had best go.”
“Don’t you want me to see you onto a bus?”
The two of them stand up. From behind the gray tree trunk near the barely visible empty stone bench, there is a sob that couldn’t be stifled. However, the person can’t be seen.
“Do you think maybe it’d be best that we urge her to go home?”
The silky, tender, new green leaves on the white poplar shimmer in the glow of the streetlight.

CRAMP.
Cramp. His stomach is starting to cramp. Of course, he thought he could swim farther out. But about a kilometer from shore his stomach is starting to cramp. At first he thinks it’s a stomachache, that will pass if he keeps moving.
But when his stomach keeps tightening, he stops swimming any farther and feels it with his hand. The right side is hard, and he knows it’s a cramp in his stomach because of the cold water. He hadn’t exercised enough to prepare himself before entering the water. After dinner, he had set off alone from the little white hostel and had come to the beach. It was early autumn, windy, and at dusk, few people were going into the water. Everyone was either chatting or playing poker. In the middle of the day men and women were lying everywhere on the beach, but now there were only five or six people playing volleyball, a young woman in a red swimsuit, the others young men.
The swimsuit and the trunks were all dripping wet, they’d just come out of the water. On this autumn day, the water was probably too cold for them. Along the whole coastline no one else was in the water. He had gone straight into the water without looking back, thinking that the woman might be watching him. He can’t see them now. He looks back, toward the sun. It’s setting, about to set behind the rehabilitation hospital’s beachfront pavilion on the hill.
The lingering brilliant yellow rays of the sun hurt his eyes, but he can see the beachfront pavilion on top of the hill, the outline of the hazy treetops above the coast road, and the boat-shaped rehabilitation hospital from the first floor up; anything below can’t be seen, because of the surging sea and the direct rays of the sun. Are they still playing volleyball?
He is treading water.
White-crested waves on the ink green sea. The surging waves surround him, but no fishing boats are at work.
Turning his body, he is borne up by the waves. Up ahead on the gray-black sea is a dark spot, far in the distance. He drops down between the waves and can no longer see the surface of the sea. The sloping sea is black and shiny, smoother than satin. The cramp in his stomach gets worse.
Lying on his back and floating on the water, he massages the hard spot on his abdomen until it hurts less. Diagonally in front, above his head, is a feathery cloud; up there, the wind must be even stronger.
As the waves rise and fall, he is borne up and then dropped between them. But just floating like this is useless.
He has to swim quickly toward shore. Turning, he tries hard to keep his legs pressed together and, by so doing, counteract the wind and the waves to enhance his speed. But his stomach that had gained some slight relief again starts hurting. This time the pain comes faster. He 3 6
Cramp feels his right leg immediately become stiff, and the water go right over his head. He can see only ink green water, so limpid and, moreover, extremely peaceful, except for the rapid string of bubbles he breathes out. His head emerges from the water and he blinks, trying to shake the water from his eyelashes. He still can’t see the coastline. The sun has set, and the sky above the undulating hills glows with the color of roses. Are they still playing volleyball? That woman, it’s all because of that red swimsuit of hers. He’s sinking again, surrendering to the pain. He rapidly strikes out with his arms but, taking in air, swallows a mouthful of water, salty seawater, and coughing feels like a needle being jabbed into his stomach. He has to turn again, to lie flat on his back with his arms and legs apart. This way he can relax and let the pain subside a little. The sky above has turned gray. Are they still playing volleyball? They are important. Did the woman in the red swimsuit notice him entering the water, and will they look out to sea? That dark spot back there in the gray-black sea, is it a small boat?
Or is it a pontoon that has broken loose from its mooring, and would anyone be concerned with what has happened to it? At this point, he can rely only upon himself. Even if he calls out, there is only the sound of the surging waves, monotonous, never ending. Listening to the waves has never been so lonely. He sways, but instantly steadies himself.
Next, an icy current charges relentlessly by and carries him, helpless, along with it. Turning on his side, with his left arm stroking out, his right hand pressing against his abdomen, and his feet kicking, he massages. It still hurts, but it’s bearable. He knows he can now depend only on the strength of his own kicking to fight his way out of the cold current. Whether or not he can bear it, he’ll just have to, because this is the only way he’ll be able to save himself.
Don’t take it too seriously. Serious or not, he has a cramp in the abdomen and he’s one kilometer from shore, out in deep sea. He’s not sure anymore if it’s one kilometer, but senses that he’s been floating in line with the coast.
The strength of his kicking barely offsets the thrust of the current. He must struggle to get out of it, or else before too long he’ll be like that dark spot floating on the waves, and vanish into the gray-black sea. He must endure the pain, he must relax, he must kick as hard as he can, he can’t slacken off, and above all he mustn’t panic. With great precision he has to coordinate his kicking, breathing, and massaging. He can’t be distracted by any other thoughts, and he can’t allow any thoughts of fear. The sun has set very quickly, and there is a hazy gray above the sea, but he can’t see any lights on the shore yet. He can’t even see the coast clearly, or the curves of the hills. His feet have kicked something! He panics, and feels a spasm in his stomach, sharp and painful. He gently moves his legs; there are stinging circles on his ankles. He has run into the tentacles of a jellyfish and he sees the gray-white creature, like an open umbrella, with thin floating membranous lips.
He is perfectly capable of grabbing it and pulling out its mouth and its tentacles. Over the past few days he has learned from the children living here by the sea how to catch and preserve jellyfish. Below the windowsill of his hostel window, there are seven salted jellyfish with their tentacles and mouths pulled out. Once the water is squeezed out, all that remain are sheets of shriveled skin, and he too will be just a piece of skin, a corpse, no longer able to float to the shore. Let the thing live. But he wants to live even more, and he will never catch jellyfish again, that is, if he can return to shore, and he won’t even go into the sea again. He kicks hard, his right hand pressed against his stomach. He stops thinking about anything else, only about kicking in rhythm, evenly, as he pushes through the water. He can see the stars, they are wonderfully bright, in other words, his head is now pointing in the direction of the coast. The cramp in his abdomen has gone but he keeps rubbing it carefully, even though this slows him down.
When he emerges from the sea and comes onto the shore, the beach is completely deserted. The tide is coming in again and he thinks he was helped by the tide. The wind blowing on his bare body is colder than it had been in the seawater, and he shivers. He collapses onto the beach, but the sand is no longer warm. Getting to his feet, he immediately starts running. He’s in a hurry to tell people he’s just escaped death. In the front hall of the hostel the same group is playing poker. They are all looking intently at the faces or at the cards of their opponents, and no one bothers to look up at him. He goes back to his own room, but his roommate, who is probably still chatting in the room next door, isn’t there. He takes a towel from the windowsill, aware that the jellyfish, with a coat of salt on them and squashed under a rock outside his window, are still full of water. Afterward, he puts on fresh clothes and shoes and, feeling warm, returns alone to the beach.
The sound of the sea is all-embracing. The wind is stronger and lines of gray-white waves are charging onto shore. The black seawater suddenly spreads out, and because he doesn’t jump in time, his shoes get soaked. He walks a little farther off, following the shore, along the dark beach. There is no longer any starlight. He hears voices, male and female, and the figures of three people.
He stops. They are pushing two bicycles, and one of them has a girl with long hair sitting on the pillion. The wheel sinks into the sand and the person pushing seems to be struggling. But they keep talking and laughing; the voice of the girl sitting on the pillion is particularly happy. They stop in front of him, holding their bicycles. A young guy takes a big bag from the back rack of the other bicycle and hands it to the woman. They start taking off their clothes.
Two skinny boys, stark naked and waving their arms, prance about, yelling: “It’s really cold, it’s really cold!”
There is also the happy, cackling laughter of the girl.
“Do you want to drink it now?” asks the girl leaning on the bicycle.
They go over, take a wine bottle from the girl, take turns drinking from the bottle, pass it back to the girl, then run toward the sea.
“Hey! Hey!”
“Hey.”
The tide noisily charges forward and keeps rising.
“Hurry back!” The girl screams out, but it is only the crashing of the waves that respond.
In the faint light reflected on the sea surging up to the shore, he sees that the girl leaning on the bicycle is supporting herself on crutches.

THE ACCIDENT.
It happened like this.
A gust of wind swept up a pile of dirt from the roadwork outside Xinhua Bookshop on the other side of the road, swirled it up in an arc, then dumped it everywhere. The dust has just settled. It is five o’clock in the afternoon, right after the fourth beep has sounded on the radio in the radio repair shop in Desheng Avenue. It isn’t the dust storm season and the weather is only starting to turn warm. Some cyclists are still wearing short gray cotton coats, although on the pavements there are already young women in pale blue spring clothes. There are endless streams of cyclists and pedestrians, but it isn’t at a time when everyone is finishing work and traffic congestion is at its worst. However, inevitably there are people who are finishing work early, as inevitably there are people on work leave, so there are busy and idle people coming and going on the street. At this time of day it’s always like this. The buses aren’t too crowded even if all the seats have been taken and some people are standing, holding on to the handrail as they look out of the windows.
A bicycle fitted with an extra wheel for a baby-buggy with a red-and-blue checkered cloth shade is crossing diagonally from the other side of the road, and a man is riding it. Coming from the opposite direction is a two-carriage electric trolley bus that is going quite fast, but not too fast.
It is clearly going more slowly than the small pale green sedan car about to overtake the bicycle, but neither is necessarily exceeding the city speed limit. The man on the bicycle arches his back, pedaling hard, and the little green car overtakes him on the other side. On this side, the trolley bus is heading toward him. The man hesitates but doesn’t brake, and the bicycle with the buggy unhurriedly continues to cross diagonally. The trolley bus sounds the horn but doesn’t reduce its speed. As the man crosses the white line in the middle of the road, the dust from the gust of wind has already settled, so his vision isn’t obscured. Unblinkingly, he looks up; about forty, he is not a young man, and his hat, tilted slightly to the back of his head, shows that he is balding. He must be able to see the trolley bus coming toward him, and hear the horn. He hesitates again, seems to brake, although not hard, and the bicycle with the buggy clumsily continues crossing the road diagonally. The trolley bus is now close and the horn is sounding nonstop. However, the bicycle keeps going, as before. Sitting in the buggy under the shade is a child with rosy cheeks, barely three or four years old. Suddenly there is the screech of brakes and the horn sounds louder and louder as the trolley bus fast approaches. The bicycle’s front wheel continues heading diagonally toward the bus, slowly, as the horn grows louder and the screeching of the brakes turns shrill. The bus has reduced its speed, but the front of the bus keeps moving ominously forward, closing in like a wall. The bus and the bicycle are about to collide and a woman on the pavement on this side of the road starts screaming. Pedestrians and cyclists alike all look on, but no one seems capable of moving.
As the front wheel of the bicycle passes the front of the bus, the man starts pedaling hard, maybe he will just make it, but he reaches forward to touch the red-and-blue checkered shade, as if he is trying to push it down. As his hand touches the shade, the buggy flies off, bouncing on the single wheel. The man’s legs are caught as he throws up his arms and falls backward off the bicycle. In the clamor of the horn and brakes and women screaming, before onlookers have time to gasp, the man is instantly crushed under the wheels. The bicycle he was riding, completely twisted, is thrown ten or so feet along the road.
The pedestrians on both sides of the road are aghast and cyclists get off their bicycles. It is quiet all around, and only the gentle singing from the radio repair shop can be heard:
You may remember Our meeting in the mist, under the broken bridge.
It is probably a record of some post–Deng Lijun singer from Hong Kong. Front wheels in a pool of blood, the bus comes to a halt. Blood on the front of the bus is dripping back down onto the body. The first to approach the body is the bus driver, who has opened the door and jumped down. Next, people from both sides of the road also come running, while others surround the overturned buggy, which has rolled into the gutter. A middle-aged woman takes the child from the buggy, shakes it, and examines it all over.
“Is it dead?”
“It’s dead!”
“Is it dead?”
Talk in low voices all around. The child, drained of color, has its eyes shut tight, and blue veins can be seen through the child’s soft skin. But there is no sign of external injury.
“Don’t let him get away!”
“Hurry, call the police!”
“Don’t move anything! Don’t go over there. Leave everything as it is!”
A crowd several layers deep has surrounded the front of the bus. Only one person is curious enough to lift the twisted wreck of the bicycle. The bell rings as he puts it back down.
“I clearly sounded the horn and braked! Everyone saw it; he was intent on getting himself killed by charging into the bus, how can you blame me?” It is the strained voice of the driver trying to explain, but no one takes any notice.
“You can all be witnesses, all of you saw it!”
“Move aside! Move aside, move aside, all of you!” A policeman with a big hat emerges from the crowd.
“We’ve got to hurry to save the child’s life! Quick, stop a car and get the child to a hospital!” It is a man’s voice.
A young man in a coffee-colored leather jacket runs to the line in the middle of the road, waving an arm. A small Toyota sedan sounds its horn nonstop to make its way through the pedestrians who have spilled onto the roadway.
Next, one of those 130 light trucks comes along, and it stops. Inside the windows of the bus involved in the accident, passengers are bickering with the conductress.
Another trolley bus pulls up behind. The doors of the one in front open and the passengers surge out, blocking the trolley bus that has just arrived. There is a loud clamor of voices.
I will never, never be able to forget.
The singing on the stereo is drowned out.
Blood is still dripping, and there is a stench of blood in the air.
“Waaa.” The child’s repressed wailing finally breaks out.
“It’s a good sign!”
“It’s still alive!”
There are sighs of happy relief. As the wailing grows louder, people also come back to life: it is as if they have been liberated. They then all rush to join the crowd surrounding the body.
Screaming sirens. A police car with flashing blue lights on the roof has arrived, and the crowd parts as four policemen quickly get out. Two of them are wielding batons, and people stand back immediately.
Traffic has come to a standstill and long queues of vehicles are waiting at both ends of the street. Honking horns have replaced the din of voices. One of the policemen goes to the middle of the road and waves his white-gloved hands to direct the traffic.
The police summon the conductress from the second trolley bus. She tries at first to make excuses, then reluctantly takes the child from the middle-aged woman and gets into the 130 light truck. A white glove signals. The truck drives off, taking with it the child’s shrill screams and wailing.
As the police wielding batons shout at them, the onlookers move back to form a rectangle that includes the twisted wreck of the bicycle.
What is happening to the driver can now be seen from this side of the road. He is wiping off the sweat with his cotton cap. A policeman is questioning him. He takes out his driver’s license in its red plastic folder, and the policeman confiscates it. He immediately protests.
“Why are you making excuses? If you’ve run over the man, then you’ve run over him!” A youth pushing a bicycle yells out.
The conductress wearing sleeve-protectors comes out of the bus and rebukes the youth. “He was trying to get himself killed. The horn was sounding and the bus had braked, yet the man wouldn’t give way. He just went under the bus.”
“The man was in the middle of the road and had a child with him. It was broad daylight, so he must have seen him!” someone in the crowd says angrily.
“What does it matter to drivers like him if they run over someone? He won’t have to pay for it with his life.”
This is said with derision.
“What a tragedy. If he didn’t have the child with him, he would have got across long ago!”
“Is there any hope for the man?”
“His brain came out?”
“I just heard this plop.”
“You heard it?”
“Yes, it went plop.”
“Stop all this talk!”
“Ai, life’s like that, a person can die just like that.”
“He’s crying.”
“Who?”
“The driver.”
The driver, sitting on his haunches with his head down, has covered his eyes with his cap.
“He didn’t do it deliberately.”
“If this had happened to anyone, they would.”
“The man had a child with him? What happened to the child? What happened to the child?” someone who has just arrived asks.
“The child wasn’t hurt, it was very lucky.”
“Luckily the child was saved.”
“The man was killed!”
“Were they father and child?”
“Why did he have to hook a buggy to his bicycle? It’s hard enough not to have an accident even with just one person on a bicycle.”
“And he’d just picked up the child from kindergarten to take home.”
“Kindergartens are hopeless, they won’t let you leave children for a whole day!”
“You’re lucky if you can get into one.”
“What’s there to look at! From now on, if you run without looking across the road.” A big hand drags away a child who is trying to squeeze between people in the crowd.
The Hong Kong star has stopped singing. People are crowded on the steps of the radio repair shop.
Red lights flashing, the ambulance has arrived. As medical personnel in white carry the body to the ambulance, the people in doorways of all the shops stand on their toes.
The fat cook wearing an apron from a small eatery nearby has also come out to watch.

“What happened? Was there an accident? Was someone killed?”
“It was father and son, one of them is dead.”
“Which of them died?”
“The old man!”
“What about the son?”
“Unhurt.”
“That’s shocking! Why didn’t he pull his father out of the way?”
“It was the father who had pushed his son out of the way!”
“Each generation is getting worse, the man was wasting his time bringing up the son!”
“If you don’t know what happened, then don’t crap on.”
“Who’s crapping on?”
“I wasn’t trying to start an argument with you.”
“The child was carried away.”
“Was there a small child as well?”
Others have just arrived.
“Do you mind not shoving?”
“Did I shove you?”
“What’s there to look at? Move on! Everyone move on!”
On the outer fringes of the crowd people are being arrested. Traffic security personnel with red armbands have arrived and they are more savage than the police.
The driver, who is pushed into the police car, turns and tries to struggle, but the door shuts. People start to walk away and others get on their bicycles and leave. The onlookers thin out, but people keep arriving, stopping their bicycles or coming down off the pavement. The second trolley bus leads a long line of sedans, vans, jeeps, and big limousines slowly past the buggy with the torn red and-blue checkered shade in the gutter on this side of the road. Most of the people standing on shop steps have either gone inside or left, and the long stream of cars has passed. At the center of what has become a small crowd in the middle of the road, two policemen are taking measurements with a tape measure, while another makes notes in a little notebook. The blood under the wheels of the bus has begun to congeal and is turning black. In the trolley bus with its doors open, the conductress sits by a window staring blankly across to this side of the street. On the other side of the street, the faces in the windows of an approaching trolley bus look out and some people even poke their heads out. People have finished work: it is peak traffic time, and there are even more pedestrians and people riding bicycles. However, shouts from the police and traffic security personnel stop people from going to the middle of the road.
“Was there an accident?”
“Was someone killed?”
“Must have been, look at all that blood.”
“The day before, there was an accident on Jiankang Road. A sixteen-year-old was taken to the hospital, but they couldn’t save him, they said he was an only son.”
“Nowadays, whose family doesn’t have only one son?”
“Ai, how will the parents survive?”
“If traffic management isn’t improved, there’ll be more accidents!”
“Well, there won’t be any fewer.”
“Every day after school, I worry until my Jiming gets home.”
“It’s easier for you with your son, daughters are more worry to parents.”
“Look, look, they’re taking photographs.”
“So what if they are, it’s not going to help.”
“Did he deliberately run over the man?”
“Who knows?”
“It couldn’t have been attached, otherwise it would have been hit for sure.”
“I was just passing by.”
“Some drivers drive like maniacs, and aggressively. If you don’t get out of the way, they certainly won’t make way for you!”
“There are people who work off their frustrations by killing people, so anyone could be a victim.”
“It’s hard to guard against such occurrences, it’s all decided by fate. In my old village there was a carpenter.
He was good at his trade but he liked to drink. Once he was building someone a house and, on his way home at night, rotten drunk, he tripped and cracked his head open on a sharp rock.”
“For some reason, the past couple of days my eyelid has been twitching.”
“Which one?”
“When you’re walking you shouldn’t be so engrossed in thought all the time. Quite a few times I’ve seen you.”
“Nothing’s ever happened.”
“If something had, it’d be too late and I wouldn’t be able to bear it.”
“Stop it! People are looking at us.”
The lovers look at one another and, holding each other’s hands even more tightly, walk off.
They finish taking photographs of the scene of the accident, and the policeman with the tape measure takes a shovelful of dirt and spreads it over the blood. The wind has died down completely and it is getting dark. The conductress sitting by the window of the trolley bus has put on the lights and is counting the takings from the tickets. A policeman carries the wreckage of the bicycle on his shoulder to the car. Two men with red armbands get the buggy from the gutter, put it into the car, and leave with the policemen.
It is time for dinner. The conductress is left standing at the door of the trolley bus and looks around impatiently while waiting for the depot to send a driver. Passersby only occasionally glance at the empty bus stopped for some reason in the middle of the road. It is dark and no one notices the blood covered with dirt in front of the bus that can no longer be seen.
Afterward, the streetlights come on and at some time the empty bus has driven off. Cars speed endlessly on the road again and it is as if nothing has happened. By around midnight hardly anyone is about. A street-washing truck slowly approaches from the intersection some way off where traffic lights flash from time to time next to an iron railing with a blue poster. There is a row of words in white:
FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY AND THAT OF OTHERS, PLEASE OBSERVE TRAFFIC RULES.
At the spot where the accident had occurred, the truck slows down and, turning on its high-speed sprinkler jets, flushes clean any remaining traces of blood.
The road cleaners don’t necessarily know that a few hours ago an accident had occurred and that the unfortunate victim had died right here. But who is the deceased?
In this city of several million, only the man’s family and some close friends would know him. And if the dead man wasn’t carrying identification papers, right now they might not even know about the accident. The man probably was the child’s father, and when the child calms down, it will probably be able to say the father’s name. In that case, the man must have a wife. He was doing what the child’s mother should have been doing, so he was a good father and a good husband. As he loved his child, presumably he also loved his wife, but did his wife love him? If she loved him, why wasn’t she able to carry out her duties as his wife? Maybe he had a miserable life, otherwise why was he so distracted? Could it have been a personal failing and he was always indecisive? Maybe something was troubling him, something he couldn’t resolve, and he was destined not to escape this even greater misfortune. However, he wouldn’t have encountered this disaster if he had set out a little later or a little earlier. Or, if after picking up the child he had pedaled faster or slower, or if the woman at the kindergarten had spoken longer to him about his child, or if on the way a friend had stopped him to talk. It was unavoidable. He didn’t have some terminal illness but was just waiting to die. Death is inescapable for everyone, but premature death can be avoided. So if he hadn’t died in the accident, how would he have died? Traffic accidents in this city are inevitable, there are no cities free of traffic accidents. In every city there is inevitably this probability, even if the daily average is one in a million; and in a big city of this size there will always be someone encountering this sort of misfortune. He was one such unfortunate person.
Didn’t he have a premonition before it happened?
When he finally encountered this misfortune what did he think? Probably he didn’t have time to think, didn’t have time to comprehend the great misfortune that was about to befall him. For him, there could be no greater misfortune than this. Even if he was that one in a million, like a grain of sand, before dying he had clearly thought of the child. Supposing it was his child, wasn’t it noble of him to sacrifice himself? Maybe it was not purely noble but to a certain extent instinctual, the instinct of being a father.
People only talk about a mother’s instinct, but there are some mothers who abandon their babies. To have sacrificed himself for the child was indeed noble, but this sacrifice was entirely avoidable: if he had set out a little later or earlier, if at the time he had not been preoccupied, and if he were more resolute by nature, or even if he were more agile in his movements. The sum total of all these factors had hastened his death, so this misfortune was inevitable. I have been discussing philosophy again, but life is not philosophy, even if philosophy can derive from knowledge of life. And there is no need to turn life’s traffic accidents into statistics, because that’s a job for the traffic department or the public security department. Of course a traffic accident can serve as an item for a newspaper. And it can serve as the raw material for literature when it is supplemented by the imagination and written up as a moving narrative: this would then be creation. However, what is related here is simply the process of this traffic accident itself, a traffic accident that occurred at five o’clock, in the central section of Desheng Avenue in front of the radio repair shop.

BUYING A FISHING ROD FOR MY GRANDFATHER.
I walk past a new shop that sells fishing equipment. The different fishing rods on display make me think of my grandfather, and I want to buy him one. There’s a tenpiece fiberglass rod labeled “imported,” though it’s not clear if it’s the whole rod that’s imported or just the fiberglass, nor is it clear how being imported makes any of it better. All ten pieces overlap and probably retract into the last black tube, at the end of which is a handle like a pistol’s and a reel. It looks like an elongated revolver, like one of those Mausers that used to be in fashion. My grandfather certainly never saw a Mauser, and he never saw a fishing rod like this even in his dreams. His rods were bamboo, and he definitely wouldn’t have bought one.
He’d find a length of bamboo and straighten it over a fire, cooking the sweat on his hands as he turned the bamboo brown with the smoke. It ended up looking like an old rod that had caught fish over many generations.
My grandfather also made nets. A small net had about ten thousand knots, and day and night he would tie them nonstop. He’d move his lips while he knotted, as if cou