I Live in the Slums Read online

  I Live in

  the Slums

  BOOKS BY CAN XUE

  IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION

  I Live in the Slums

  Love in the New Millennium

  Frontier

  Vertical Motion: Stories

  The Last Lover

  Five Spice Street

  Blue Light in the Sky and Other Stories

  The Embroidered Shoes: Stories

  Old Floating Cloud: Two Novellas

  Dialogues in Paradise

  I Live in

  the Slums

  STORIES

  CAN XUE

  TRANSLATED FROM THE CHINESE BY

  KAREN GERNANT AND CHEN ZEPING

  YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW HAVEN & LONDON

  The Margellos World Republic of Letters is dedicated to making literary works from around the globe available in English through translation. It brings to the English-speaking world the work of leading poets, novelists, essayists, philosophers, and playwrights from Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East to

  stimulate international discourse and creative exchange.

  English translation copyright © 2020 by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping unless otherwise indicated on the credits page.

  Most of the stories in this book were originally published in Chinese. For details

  of original and first Chinese publications, see the credits page.

  The credits page constitutes a continuation of the copyright page.

  All rights reserved.

  This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from

  the publishers.

  Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business,

  or promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. office)

  or [email protected] (U.K. office).

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  Printed in the United States of America.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019950943

  ISBN 978-0-300-24743-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

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  Contents

  Story of the Slums

  Our Human Neighbors

  The Old Cicada

  The Swamp

  Sin

  The Other Side of the Partition

  Shadow People

  Crow Mountain

  Catfish Pit

  Euphoria

  Lu-er’s Worries

  Her Old Home

  I Am a Willow Tree

  The Outsiders

  The Queen

  Venus

  Translators’ Acknowledgments

  Credits

  I Live in

  the Slums

  STORY OF THE SLUMS

  Part One

  I live in the slums. I didn’t settle firmly on one place to live. I could stay anywhere as long as it had a stove. This area produces coal: all the homes used coal to keep fires burning at night. I just lay in a corner of the kitchen stove to keep warm. I was afraid of the cold at night.

  At the bottom of the steps was a large expanse of lowlands. The slums were in this low-lying land. It was torture for people to live here. Even children were disturbed at night—so much that they couldn’t sleep. They would cry out in fear, spring out of bed, and run out the door barefoot. They would run and run in these confined alleys, because if they stopped, they’d be frozen stiff. Their parents had to wait until daylight to go out and bring them back. These parents were all skinny and very dark. One could see only the two whites of the eyes swiveling in their faces. I observed that they seldom slept at night; they just lay in bed and dozed. And even though they were only dozing, they dreamed a lot. Not only did husband and wife converse in dreams, neighbors also conversed through the flimsy walls woven of thin bamboo strips. From what I overheard, I was sure they were dreaming. Sometimes they argued in dreams, or fought, but they didn’t come into physical contact with each other. They brandished their fists in the air.

  I forgot to comment on the houses. The houses were rowhouses, attached to one another. Was it out of fear that these people built their houses this way? As I saw it, one could live in any of these homes and actually be living with everyone. Each home had a main entrance, but there weren’t many windows in the rooms inside, and the windows were small and dark. In the winter, I couldn’t quite remember which homes had stoves and which didn’t. If I made a mistake and entered a home without a stove, the children in that home would pull on my feet and refuse to let me leave. I would struggle so hard to break loose that the skin on my feet would be scraped. The families without stoves probably ate their food raw, and that’s why they were so wild.

  I got acquainted with the house mice during the daytime. During the day, the houses were much lighter than at night. Hearing something gnawing bones, I thought it was the cat. I jumped down from the hearth and ran over to have a look. Ah, it wasn’t the cat; it was a house mouse—twice as large as ordinary house mice. Damn, it was chewing the old man’s heel! I saw the white bones, but no blood. The house mouse was excited, chewing loudly—kakaka—as if nibbling the world’s most delicious bones. I knew this old man well. He was raising two pigs behind the house. The pigs were squealing with hunger in their pen. Could he have died? I circled around to take a look at him in bed. He hadn’t died. He was fiddling with his glasses. He generally sat in the doorway wearing these glasses and looking at the design on a piece of paper that he held up to his face. He looked at it for a very long time. If his heels had been gnawed off, how could he go out and feed the pigs? At last the house mouse ate its fill and turned around. He gave me a slight nod of his head, and at the same time his protruding tummy hit the floor with a thump. I was very curious, wondering how he could still burrow into a hole. This room didn’t have such a big hole, and the house mouse didn’t burrow into any hole. Instead, it lazily circled the room once, as though in pain from overeating. When I thought of what he ate, I wanted to throw up. After circling the room, he felt sleepy from his meal and dozed along the wall. He paid no attention to me.

  The old man sat up in bed, about to bandage his heel with a rag. He had prepared the rags earlier for this purpose. He made a lot of noise tearing up cloth. He seemed to be strong. He kept wrapping his foot until it was encased in one large package. The pigs squealed more and more insistently. They were on the verge of leaping out of the pen. He got out of bed and stepped on the floor without putting a shoe on his injured foot. He went outside to feed the pigs. What was this all about? Why did he let the house mouse bite his heel? Was there a tumor in there and he was letting the house mouse perform surgery? What admirable willpower!

  When I looked at the house mouse again, I noticed he was even more swollen. Even his legs had thickened. Was this because he had eaten something toxic? He was asleep. I felt oppressed. With a heavy heart, I walked out the door for some air. Winter had passed, and the children playing outside didn’t want to go home. Some slept next to the road. Their parents weren’t worried about them, either, and let them sleep outside as much as they wanted. The children didn’t have to do anything, anyhow. Aside from running around, all they did was sleep. Some probably couldn’t even distinguish between day and night. And they didn’t care. They cared about only one thing: the arrival of the wheelbarrows. Wheels creaking, the wheelbarrows carrying food passed through from small al
leys. The children ran up, each one leaping onto a wheelbarrow—sitting with high and mighty expressions on top of the flour. The wheelbarrow operators from other provinces smiled a little and didn’t shoo the children away. People said they came from the icy, snowy plains. When they unloaded the flour, the children ran off. The frowning adults opened their doors and feigned lack of interest in the food. “What’s the weather like in the north?” they asked the men pushing the wheelbarrows. “There’ll be one more cold snap.”

  Generally speaking, I didn’t live very long in any one home, lest they consider me a member of the family. Still, as soon as I appeared, they took note of me. They placed leftover food on the hearth, and I ate it in the still of the night. In great contrast to the house mice, I always felt ashamed of eating. I ate quietly, doing my utmost to make no sound. In fact, I still ate greedily, even licking the dishes clean. All the families treated me fairly: whatever they ate, they would leave some for me. Of course it was always leftovers. What kind of thing did they think I was? I rarely heard them talk about me. They merely spoke briefly, indicating their awareness of me: “Here yet?” “Yes.” “Eaten?” “Everything.” They were very aware of me, but they didn’t want to say so. To me, their brief conversations in the dark were as loud as thunder. It took a lot of strength for me to jump from the floor to the hearth. Noticing that, they placed a short stool next to the stove. They were so considerate of me that it weighed on my mind. I mustn’t get too close to them, and I especially didn’t want to be drawn into their family disputes. What I mean is the children’s roughhousing at around midnight. What kinds of demons were frightening the children? Did they think demons were hidden inside their home? And so they felt safe when they stayed outside? At such times, the mother would stand at the open door and say repeatedly, “Come back, my dear. Where can you flee to?” The mothers’ legs were all shaking. Were they awake?

  I had climbed the steps many times in the past, intending to get away from this confusing place. The sun was so radiant that it would crack the tender skin of my back. I actually had no shadow on the highway. Oh! My mouth and tongue dry, I walked and walked on the blacktop road. All I could think of was finding a dark place where I could rest and drink some water. But where was there any dark place in this city? The outer walls of buildings were made of glass, and the roofs were metal. When the sun shone on them, it was like fire. People moved soundlessly in the rooms. Although they wore something like clothing, I could see their innards and their bones. I pushed a glass door open and went in—and immediately felt as if I had walked into a large furnace. The surging waves of heat would dry out all the fluids in my body. I hurriedly turned and ran toward the door. Just then, I ran into him—that house mouse. The house mouse was holding the door watchfully, as though ready for battle. His hair was glossy and his eyes shining. He apparently had been born especially for this glass house. I recalled how he had gnawed the old man’s heel, and I didn’t dare cross swords with him. Pretending nothing was wrong, I walked away. But how could I feel that nothing was wrong? All of my skin was going to fall off. Many echoes resounded in this hallway. I was dizzy from the vibrations. I mustered my last bit of courage to look up. Ah—I saw . . . I saw that dream—the dream that was behind all other dreams at night. I began crying. But my two little eyes were dry. I had no tears. Would I die soon? People walked back and forth constantly in the hall: they were transparent. Sometimes, they brushed past me, and I smelled their dry, clear fragrance and sensed that these people’s bodies contained no fluids. And so they didn’t have to worry about drying out. I was very smelly. Though I was going to die soon, the stench from my body kept assailing my nose. Just then, I heard the door: it was the house mouse opening it. I stumbled out as fast as I could. The house mouse looked scornful. How had such a short, tiny mouse managed to open the door?

  It was much better outside. Although I was being sun-dried, the temperature was much lower. A midget gave me a popsicle. I finished it in a few bites. Along the blacktop and cement roads, there were only glass houses like furnaces. I had no place to hide. Passersby wearing black clothing walked past in a hurry. They looked composed, and no one was perspiring. You could almost say that a chill passed through their gazes. I also remembered those people in the glass houses. Were they a different species or did they become transparent when they entered these houses? An old saying came to mind: “Rich and poor live in different worlds.” I had to go down the steps. I had no way to stay up here.

  Walking with my head down, I ran into a passerby. That person stumbled over me and slowly fell. Rolling his eyes toward the sun, he said, “It’s cold, so cold.” He didn’t want to get up. What was he thinking about? I couldn’t keep watching him, for I had to hurry along. Otherwise, I’d fall as he had. Behind me, that person shouted, “You’re so ugly!” Was I ugly? I didn’t know. It was a novel thought.

  Ah, I was home! Good. First I went to the old man’s slop basin and dunked myself, moistening my skin. It was really comfortable and relaxing! But why were the two pigs howling incessantly? Had something urgent occurred again? I walked into the old man’s room; he was bandaging his foot. His grandson was sitting next to him making a fuss, asking to see the old man’s wound. That thin little boy was furtive, and I had never had a good impression of him. As soon as the old man started bandaging his foot, the boy ripped the bandage off and rolled around on the floor. He said if he wasn’t allowed to look at it, he’d kill himself. Finally, the old man finished bandaging the wound and stood up. He went to feed the pigs. The boy sat in a dark spot, his eyes wide open. What was he looking at? Hey, he crawled under the bed. Was he hiding? I heard the old man pouring feed into the trough and heard wheelbarrow operators passing in front of the house. Today this home was making me feel insecure. I needed to find a different place to rest. With that, I left quietly and slipped into the home across the street.

  This family didn’t raise pigs, but it did have an emaciated black goat tied up behind the house. It was gnawing a radish. What did they usually feed him? The black goat sized me up and stopped nibbling on the radish. Although his feet were tied and he couldn’t walk even a few steps, he didn’t feel at all inferior. His bright gaze was such that I began feeling inferior. I thought of the food that people ordinarily prepared for me—all set out nicely in dishes, but they gave him only a small radish that was no longer fresh. Was it this that he was proud of?

  The man of the house filed keys by the light of a lamp. A small vise was on the table. He filed very quickly, and the bright lamplight shone on his savage face. He was like a ghost. The keys he had filed were packed into a wooden box. There may have been several hundred keys. What locks did these copper keys open? I hadn’t seen these locks. Perhaps there weren’t any. The room smelled of sulfur, and I began sneezing—one sneeze after another. Mucus dripped into my mouth. Finally, I grew used to it. I didn’t go up to the stove. I just squatted on a stool and rested. Just then, I heard the man talking with his wife. She was sitting in a dark spot trimming vegetables to cook. Her voice was faint. At first, I didn’t see her.

  “I bent down and picked it up. Who cares what it was? I just brought it back.” Her voice was a little exultant.

  “You did the right thing,” the man said, in a low muffled voice.

  “I used to walk very far, as if a ghost were pulling on my feet.”

  “That ghost was me, wasn’t it?”

  “The rooms are full of these things.”

  “It’s good to go back and forth among them.”

  “The thing! Very, very scary! One year, after I brought one back from Long County . . .”

  All of a sudden, they stopped talking. And the man stopped filing. Something puzzled me: Were these two people talking in their dreams? Not long before, I had heard them talking about this in their dreams. What were they doing? They were listening closely to that goat. The goat apparently was ramming the wall outside—time after time. Had the rope snapped? This couple was evil. After ramming the wall for a
while, the goat stopped. Perhaps it was injured. The man resumed filing keys. The file made a rasping sound against the copper. It gave me a headache. I was going crazy. Holding my head, I dashed outside.

  The hemp rope on the black goat’s foot had broken, but he hadn’t run off. He craned his neck in the direction of the dark house. The goat was a slave by nature; no matter what, he couldn’t leave his owner. Just then, the woman of the house came out with a new rope coiled on her arm. The goat wanted to run, but the woman clamped down on him with hands like iron tongs. As he cried sorrowfully, his leg was tied up again. The rope was tied on top of the old injury; I couldn’t bear to look at it. The woman returned to the house, and the black goat seemed to lose all his energy. He lay torpidly on the ground without moving. I couldn’t bear this scene. I squatted down facing him. I wanted to bite the rope and break it for him. The rope was new hemp and very strong. Still, my teeth weren’t bad, either. I squatted there, biting and daydreaming. I imagined I was guiding the black goat to escape to the east end of the slums where there was an empty pigpen. People had once raised a spotted pig there, and then it died of poisoning. He and I could take refuge there and depend on each other. Wherever I went, I would take him along and not let him sink into slavery. As I was thinking this, I was hit hard on the head and nearly fainted. He had kicked me with his free leg. I hurt so much I couldn’t even describe it. I rolled around in the mud for a long time. When the pain subsided a little and I held my head and moaned weakly, I noticed the black goat standing there as if nothing had happened. This guy was extremely wicked. How could this kind of animal be raised in the slums? Hard to say. Weren’t there also the house mice? If one had no contact with them, one wouldn’t know how ruthless they were. Really, he was standing there basking in the sun as if nothing had happened. Now and then, he also took a few bites of that small smelly radish. He was as complicated as the couple inside the house: there was no way to tell what was in his mind.