Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

done before, and as soon as our tongues met, they frolicked together. I could feel her heart beating against my chest as she wrapped her arms around my neck. My mind was wiped clean of everything but her lips, her tongue, her smell, her warmth, and her soft moans. I don’t know how long we stayed like that, until a ringing telephone intruded into our world. We separated as I went to answer the phone, but I immediately fell to my knees. I felt light as a feather, all because of a single kiss. I didn’t answer the phone, after all. I pulled the plug and stopped the ringing. She was lying on the sofa, faceup, so pale and her lips so red and swollen a person might have thought she’d died there. Naturally, I knew she hadn’t, and not just because tears were rolling down her cheeks. I dried them with a tissue. She opened her eyes and wrapped her arms around my neck. “I feel dizzy,” she murmured. I stood up and brought her up with me. She rested her head on my shoulder, tickling my ear with her hair, as the voice of the office clerk suddenly filled the corridor, and I quickly came to my senses. I gently pushed her away, opened the door a crack, and, rather hypocritically, I think, said, “Forgive me, Chunmiao, I don’t know what came over me.” Still teary-eyed, she said, “Does that mean you don’t like me?” “Oh, no,” I sputtered, “I like you very much…” She came up to me again, but I took her hand and said, “Dear Chunmiao, the janitor will be coming in to clean in a minute. You go now. I have so much to say to you, but it will have to wait a few days.” She walked out of my office, and I collapsed in my leather swivel chair, listening to her footsteps until they died out at the end of the hallway.

41

Lan Jiefang Feigns Affection for His Wife

Dog Four Watches over a Student

If you want to know the truth, when you came home that evening you had a new smell, one that could make man and dog happy. It was nothing like the one you brought home after shaking a woman’s hand or sharing a meal or dancing with a woman. It wasn’t even the way you smelled after sex. Nothing got past that nose of mine. Big- head Lan Qiansui’s eyes lit up when he said this.

His expression and the look in his eyes made me realize that at that moment it wasn’t Pang Fenghuang’s exceptional child, with whom I had such an unbelievably complicated relationship, talking to me; no, it was my long-dead dog. Nothing got past that nose of mine, he’d said.

That fresh, new smell merged with your personal odor and changed the way you smelled altogether. That told me that a deep and abiding love had developed between you and that woman. It seeped into your blood and your bones, and no power on earth could separate the two of you after that.

The show you put on that night was, in truth, wasted effort. After dinner you went into the kitchen and washed the dishes, then you asked your son what he’d learned in school that day – both things you almost never did. Your wife was so touched she went in and made you a cup of tea. You had sex that night. By your count it was the twentieth time; it would also be the last time. From the strength of the odor I could tell that the sex wasn’t bad, even though it held no real meaning. In the midst of your sense of moral obligation, guilt feelings temporarily overwhelmed the physical revulsion you normally felt for your wife. Meanwhile, the smell of that other woman was beginning to germinate, like a seed in the ground, and when its buds burst to the surface, no power in the world could drag you back into the arms of your wife. My nose told me that you’d experienced a rebirth, one that portended the death of this family.

Seven years had passed from the day I arrived at your house up to the day of your and Pang Chunmiao’s first kiss, during which time I’d grown from a little puppy into a large, powerful dog. Your son had grown from a little baby into a fourth-grade student. Everything that happened over that period was enough to fill a novel, or it could be written off with a single stroke of the pen.

Now I think it’s time to talk about your son.

He was a filial boy, no doubt about that. When he started school, your wife took him there and picked him up on her bicycle. But the school schedule interfered with her work schedule, which put a strain on her. And whenever something put a strain on your wife, she started to complain; and when she started to complain, curses flew at you; and whenever curses flew at you, your son frowned. So you see, he really did love you. “Ma,” he said, “you don’t have to take me to school or pick me up. I can go by myself.” She’d have none of it. “What if you got hit by a car or were bitten by a dog or got picked on by bullies or got taken off by a slap-lady or were kidnapped for ransom?” Five ugly scenarios in a row, without taking a breath. Public safety was a big problem in the early 1990s. People knew there were some women from the south – known on the street as slap-ladies – who traded in children. Pretending to be selling flowers or candy or shuttlecocks made with colorful chicken feathers, they hid a spellbinding drug in their clothes, and when they saw a good-looking child, they slapped him or her on the head, and the child walked off with them. Well, your son slapped his own face, right on the birthmark, and said, “Slap-ladies only deal in good- looking children. If someone looking like me volunteered to walk off with them, they’d shoo me away. And what could you, a woman, do if someone tried to kidnap me? You can’t run away-” He looked at your injured hip, which made your wife so sad her eyes reddened and she began to sob. “Son,” she said, “you’re not ugly, your mother’s the ugly one, with half her buttocks missing…” Well, he threw his arms around her waist. “You’re not ugly, Mother, you’re the most beautiful mother anywhere. Really, you don’t have to take me to school. I’ll take Little Four with me.” They turned to look at me, and I rewarded them with a couple of authoritative barks as a way of saying: I’ll do it. No problem, leave everything to me!

“Little Four,” your son said as he wrapped his arms around my neck, “you’ll take me to school, won’t you?”

Arf! Arf! Arf! I barked so loud, the leaves on the parasol tree rustled and scared the wits out of a pair of ostriches our neighbor was raising. My meaning was clear: No-prob-lem!

Your wife rubbed my head. I wagged my tail for her.

“Everybody’s afraid of our Little Four, isn’t that right, son?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“Little Four, Kaifang will be your responsibility You’re both from Ximen Village and grew up together, so you’re like brothers. Isn’t that right?” Arf arf! That’s right. She rubbed my head again, looking sort of melancholy, before removing my chain-link collar and signaling for me to follow her. When we reached the front gate, she stopped and said, “Little Four, listen carefully. I have to be at work early in the morning to fry oil fritters. I’ll have your breakfast ready for you. At six thirty get Kaifang up. At seven thirty, after you’ve had breakfast, start out for school. Don’t take shortcuts. Stay to the main streets. It’s okay if it’s a bit farther, since safety is the most important. Walk on the right side of the streets, look both ways before you cross the street and then to the left when you’re halfway across, looking out for motorbikes, and especially, motorcycles with riders in black leather jackets, since they’re all members of gangs and act like they can’t tell the difference between red and green lights. After you’ve left Kaifang at the school gate, head east, cross the street, then go north straight to the bus station restaurant. You’ll find me out front frying oil fritters. Come up and bark twice, and I’ll know everything’s fine. Then go back home. This time you can take a shortcut. The door will be locked, so you’ll have to wait at the gate till I get there. If it’s a hot day, you can cross the lane and lie beneath the pagoda pine on the other side of the wall. You can doze off in the shade, but don’t fall asleep. With all the thieves around, you need to keep an eye on our place. They carry master keys, and if they find an empty house – they first knock at the door as if they were normal visitors – they walk in and take what they want. You know all our relatives by sight, so if you see a stranger going into our house, don’t hesitate, run over and bite them. I’ll be home by eleven thirty, so you can come in and have some water before taking the shortcut back to school to bring Kaifang home for lunch. Then back you go in the afternoon, but this time, after you’ve reported to me, run home to make sure everything’s okay, then run to school, since there are only two classes in the afternoon. Come back home with him and watch while he does his homework. Don’t let him play till he’s finished. Do you understand all that, Little Four?”

Arf arf arf, Un-der-stand.

Before your wife went to work in the morning, she always put the alarm clock on the windowsill and smiled at me. A mistress’s smile – a pretty thing. I’d watch her walk out the door. Arf arf, Bye-bye, arf arf, Don’t worry. Then I’d make my rounds in the yard, feeling like the master of the house. When the alarm sounded, I’d run into the boy’s room, where the smell of youth was strong. Not wanting to