I Live in the Slums Page 18

  Then she picked up a long bright-red hot pepper and placed it carefully in the bottom of the crock. She added two pieces of fresh yellow ginger.

  “What do you think of the proposed compensation?” the young man asked.

  “Fine. Whatever. Please leave.”

  The man stole away like a cat. Bending her head, Woman Wang continued working. She added greengage plums, beans, gherkins, Sichuan pickles, and other things to the kimchi crock. Every time she added something, she closed her eyes and imagined what it would taste like. Of course, she wasn’t making the kimchi just for herself—she would never be able to eat everything in such a large crock. See, weren’t those two kids sneaking a look? They were the Pao brothers from the neighborhood—two gluttons.

  Woman Wang dragged out another, smaller crock from underneath the bed. She took the lid off and quickly picked out a sword bean. The two kids ran over at once. Woman Wang broke the sword bean into two parts.

  “I want this part!”

  “Give it to me!” They both wanted the larger part.

  “Close your eyes!” Woman Wang said strictly. “All right. Off with you.”

  The two brothers ran like the wind.

  After a while, another person showed up—a little girl named Little Ping. She walked slowly over to Woman Wang, her eyes sliding around.

  “Granny Wang, I’d love a red pepper. One with the sour flavor of greengage plums. That kind.”

  “Tell me first how much money you’ve collected.”

  “Two cents.”

  Woman Wang had taught Little Ping to keep watch in front of the candy shop counter. If a customer dropped some small change, she had to step on it right away and pick it up after the customer left. Little Ping never tired of this game; she’d been playing it for several months.

  “Here’s a red pepper.”

  “Thank you, Grandma Wang.”

  Little Ping took the red pepper, but didn’t eat it right away. Nor did she intend to leave. Grown-ups had said there was a ghost in Woman Wang’s home. She wanted to see that ghost; the more she feared it, the more she wanted to see it.

  Woman Wang shoved the pickle crock underneath the bed, stood up, and turned into the kitchen in the back. She washed her hands, intending to rest in bed for a while. All of a sudden, she noticed Little Ping standing behind the mosquito net hanging on her bed. Her mouth kept moving—nibbling the hot pepper a little at a time. Woman Wang couldn’t help but laugh: this little girl was good at enjoying herself.

  Woman Wang lay down on the bed. Eyes half-closed, she asked Little Ping, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

  Little Ping didn’t answer. Woman Wang felt the wooden bed swaying in the shadows. No, that wasn’t right: it was the floor swaying. She sat up in a hurry and got out of bed, put on her shoes, and ran outside. She stopped at the door, turned around, and shouted, “Little Ping! Little Ping!!”

  But Little Ping wasn’t in her home. Woman Wang thought and thought, and then went back to bed.

  Woman Wang looked at the window. On the top left side, it had turned a rose color. This was Woman Wang’s secret: each time she looked at the window, the same pane of glass turned rose. Woman Wang thought that Catfish Pit had a peculiar climate. This didn’t necessarily affect other people, but she was constantly aware of it, mostly because of her kimchi crock. At midnight, she clearly heard the glub-glub sound of the water coming out of the rim of the crock’s cover. She smelled the faint aroma of the kimchi. She imagined the delicious little gherkins walking and walking on Mother Earth, walking until they came to the sun setting over the horizon and then finally stopping, fading gradually into a very long dark shadow. At times like this, she would murmur to herself, “Ah, Catfish Pit—my home.”

  But Catfish Pit would soon vanish. Woman Wang thought, If Catfish Pit disappeared, Woman Wang of Catfish Pit would no longer exist; she would become Woman Wang in those tall apartment buildings. This was a big deal. Was it because of this that Little Ping had hidden just now behind the mosquito net? This little girl knew almost everything. She understood everything.

  Another child showed up. First he knocked politely on the door, and then quietly pushed the door open. His name was Little Yao. He was always wary, like a little adult.

  “Granny Wang, I miss your gherkins. The ginger- and pepper-flavored kind.”

  Woman Wang looked at him sleepily, and then bent down and opened a green crock and took out a gherkin for him.

  As he ate it, he smacked his lips and looked all around with his big eyes.

  “What are you looking for, Little Yao?”

  “I saw Little Ping come in, but I didn’t see her go. Is she still here?”

  “Good question,” Woman Wang said.

  Woman Wang urged Little Yao to leave. The boy hadn’t yet left when a bell echoed somewhere inside Woman Wang’s head. She looked up: the rose color on the window had disappeared, and everything in the room had returned to its usual gray color. The ringing sound came and went. It was far away.

  “Granny Wang, is Little Ping calling you?” Little Yao asked, staring at her.

  “Maybe. Have I forgotten something?” Woman Wang was a little nervous.

  “Did you cover the kimchi crock?” Little Yao asked earnestly.

  “You’re really watchful. But this time it was another kind of thing.”

  “I’m leaving. Good-bye, Granny Wang.”

  He hurried out, as though afraid that Woman Wang would ask him something else.

  Woman Wang lay down again. The boy’s reminder had sharpened her hearing. She had a good idea of what was happening in her home. In the daytime, when she went out to buy groceries, she had seen the bulldozer. The demolition wouldn’t start for another three months. Why had the bulldozer shown up so soon? Little children probably liked this kind of thing a lot. When the tall apartment buildings were constructed, the unfinished rooms would be a great place for them to play.

  Woman Wang closed her eyes. She felt that her thoughts could penetrate five hundred meters underground, where there was a layer of quartz. There were cavities in the quartz, and some harmless gases had accumulated in those cavities. She said, “What a wonderful place—right here in Catfish Pit!” She felt another earthquake. This time, she knew what it was. The children in this place were so smart—she hadn’t been that smart at their age. She was no longer alarmed; she didn’t even open her eyes. She just enjoyed the pleasant sensation of the wooden bed swaying. The swaying wasn’t very strong, and it stopped quite soon.

  A rose-colored light skimmed over the window, and then once more it became an ordinary window. She heard the old woman Yun, who lived upstairs on the right side, coming downstairs. She was always like this—taking two steps down, then stopping; taking another two steps, then stopping. From the staircase, she looked at the scenery on the back streets. Woman Wang thought, The inhabitants of Catfish Pit are all expert observers. Even the children. At this moment, she was hoping for another earthquake. She wanted to see—what did she want to see? Was she just hallucinating? She was also waiting expectantly. Some things take time to become clear.

  Woman Wang ate dinner later than usual because there was something on her mind that she couldn’t let go of.

  She finished eating and was nearly finished with cleaning up when a sound came from under her bed. Excited, Woman Wang grabbed a flashlight to take a look. From behind the kimchi crock, Little Ping was gazing at her.

  “Little Ping, did you pick up some money?” Woman Wang’s voice quivered a little.

  “No—I mean yes, I got two pennies. Look!”

  She held up two pennies. In the dark, they glinted silver white.

  “Are many people out on the street?” Woman Wang asked.

  “Just me. Actually, I didn’t go anywhere. I’ve been hiding under here. I explored with my hands and found these two coins.”

  She crawled out slowly, stood up, and said she had to go home.

  “I’ll come back and find some more
coins. There’s as much money under your bed as there is outside the candy shop. I’m patient. I can feel around in the cracks . . .”

  “Did you find the quartz?” Woman Wang asked her.

  Stunned, Little Ping immediately fell quiet and nodded her head firmly. She said, “Yes. Yes! Quartz, and also granite—mostly bits of gritty damp earth. Why is it so wet under there?”

  Without waiting for Woman Wang to reply, she hurried away.

  After Little Ping left, Woman Wang shone the flashlight under the bed again. There seemed to be a hole at a spot to the right. Looking more carefully, she decided there wasn’t a hole. All the floorboards were in place. Woman Wang washed her hands and face and went back to bed. How strange—Little Ping had left, and yet the wooden bed was vibrating a little. She’d been startled by the girl’s words. How the hell had she seen through her secret? Woman Wang counted the years: she figured the girl should be eleven. She’d been coming here for years and begging for kimchi. Didn’t this make her a conspirator? She liked money, and so Woman Wang had suggested that she pick up money in front of the candy counter. Who knew that the child would play the same trick under her very own bed? When was that? It seemed it was the year her father died. She was then a student in the girls school. She had arranged ahead of time to run up the mountain with her desk mate after school and make her way into that grotto. While they were playing with flashlights and shining them on the cliff path, the girl told her earnestly of her aspirations. This had startled the young Miss Wang greatly: she wanted to be a pilot. Miss Wang thought she was bragging because actually she was so cowardly that she even screamed when a bug fell onto her clothing. How could somebody like this dare to fly? But the girl’s actions proved that she was bold. She suddenly started running and disappeared deep into the grotto. Miss Wang waited and waited, but she didn’t reappear. Now she was the cowardly one. Retreating from the grotto, she went home in a daze. The next day in school, they didn’t greet each other. She didn’t even meet the girl’s eyes. Thus, Woman Wang had realized early on that she herself wasn’t a brave person.

  She made up her mind that she would be one who waited. And so she waited. She waited until she was old. Over the years, some things that she waited for did happen to her. She moved into this wooden building when she was forty years old, intending to stay here forever. But now all of a sudden it was going to be demolished. At first she had been indifferent. Gradually, she had started paying attention, because there were some procedures to deal with. That girl hadn’t been able to realize her dream of flying; instead, she married a biscuit-shop owner and ran a barber shop herself. Apparently, she expected more out of life than Miss Wang did.

  It was Little Ping’s suspicious behavior that had led Woman Wang to think of her former desk mate. The little girl was even more enthusiastic. None of the boys her age could be compared with her. Woman Wang had seen her potential a long time ago. Who could have imagined there was small change under her bed, yet Little Ping had been searching under there for a very long time, crawling around back and forth. Sooner or later, her “dream would come true.”

  Woman Wang didn’t fall asleep until late that night. Before she did, the kimchi crock made noises four or five times, but nothing happened. Later she walked over to the side of the pit. Aware of the risk of falling in, she still hesitated to retreat right away. She heard someone down there saying, “Just close your eyes and jump and you’ll be free!”

  Then she fell asleep. But she woke up before long. She turned on the light and saw some smog in the room. Had something caught fire? She got dressed, put on her shoes, and walked out to the street. Then she turned and looked at the wooden building. No, there was no fire. But there was firelight in Woman Yun’s apartment. Maybe she was burning some documents before she had to move. Woman Wang knew that some people wanted to burn certain old things in their homes so as to leave no trace behind. Woman Yun must be that kind of person.

  Woman Wang had no destination in mind. The lights of the nearby snack bar were on. A man was sitting alone at an outdoor table, absorbed in drinking from a bowl. When he looked up, Woman Wang saw that it was the neighborhood mason. It was late at night, and the bar was closed. Nobody was inside. How could he have been served?

  “Woman Wang, our good days are almost over. I was too troubled to sleep and came to sit here for a while. Then someone just handed me a bowl of sweet rice wine. I didn’t notice who it was. It couldn’t have been a ghost, could it? Anyhow, at a time like this, drinking sweet wine and sweating all over, you feel all right again!”

  He took a matchstick out of his pocket and picked his teeth. He was staring at the door.

  “What do you mean by ‘good days’? You must really like living in Catfish, don’t you?” Woman Wang asked. The middle-aged man was at a loss.

  “Do I like living here? I’ve never thought about it that way. I’m just scared. I’m used to living here, and now I have to move. It’s normal to be afraid, isn’t it?”

  “But aside from being afraid, do you really not want to move?”

  “Me? I don’t know. In my dreams, I’m always moving—moving over here, moving over there—back and forth. This made me sweat all over in my dreams. Now, finally, I’m going to move for real, but I have cold feet.”

  They laughed together. Woman Wang felt that the laughter was particularly strident in the darkness.

  The mason kept staring at the door. Maybe he thought someone would come out and give him something to eat. He was the kind of person who always wanted more. All around, it was dark. This was the only place with a light on. Walking past him, Woman Wang merged into the darkness.

  There were a lot of little noises in the darkness, sometimes loud, sometimes soft. The mason rose from the table. He was lurching, as though he would bump into the door. Was he drunk? The door creaked. From where she was standing, Woman Wang couldn’t tell if the door was open or not. After a few seconds, the mason rushed inside. The light at the entrance went out. Woman Wang thought, Probably it was only when the mason saw her walking over that he had made a point of coming out of the diner and sitting at that table. Under the dark cloud of the impending move, all kinds of schemes were faintly discernible.

  Circling the alleys, she headed home. Someone approached her hurriedly. Under the dim streetlights, Woman Wang saw a stranger’s face.

  “Do you think there are a lot of opportunities inside? Could it be the opposite?” he asked.

  “Are you a mason, too?” Woman Wang asked.

  “Sort of. I always want to leave a way out, but I can’t. The neighborhood is too old. Bugle calls are everywhere. Everyone has to forge ahead.”

  “You’re right.” Woman Wang stopped, looked at this person, and nodded her head. “After moving, what will you do? Will you open a tile shop or something like that?”

  “No, I won’t do that. All I’m good for is selling that kind of invisible thing.”

  Just then, Woman Wang realized that she was at the door of the diner again; the door was half-hidden, and it was very dark inside. When the stranger sat at a table, the light at the entrance came on again. The stranger seemed tired. He rested his head on his arms, and he looked at the door with wide-open eyes. Woman Wang thought he was struggling with himself over something.

  She decided to go home. She walked fast without looking back.

  When she finally got home, she turned on the light and sat at the table to rest for a while.

  All of a sudden, she sensed that someone outside was trying to remove the latch of her door. Though it was only a slight noise, it was persistent. Woman Wang was annoyed because she had intended to go back to sleep.

  She walked over and opened the door. Standing there was the second mason, looking quite awkward.

  “I’d like to talk with you, but I don’t know what to talk about.”

  As he spoke, he looked over Woman Wang’s head. He was really arrogant.

  “Talk about your business,” Woman Wang answered quickly. “What
do you actually sell?”

  The young guy had no manners. She didn’t invite him in.

  “I sell some old things. I can’t explain. Every few months, people come to talk with me about business. They pay me some money. My words are the only things they buy from me. Sometimes I wonder if I’m selling the Catfish.”

  He looked bewildered and stared blankly.

  “That’s what I wondered. Maybe you are selling the Catfish,” Woman Wang said loudly.

  The mason panicked. He turned around and ran off. Woman Wang covered her mouth and began laughing.

  She bolted the door. It was as if a movie of the earth cracking were playing in her mind: small cubes of bright crystal quartz clanked as they rushed up from the cracks. Her scalp felt numb. She fell asleep.

  She slept until dawn. After she awakened, she was still thinking about what the mason had said. Did he live here in the Catfish neighborhood? And if so, why had she never seen him? This wasn’t a big place: it wasn’t even one kilometer in circumference. The night before, she had smelled quartz on his body; it had made her hair stand on end. She believed he wasn’t a real mason.

  After she got up, she remembered that Woman Yun upstairs had burned documents. She walked outside and looked up and saw that all the doors were tightly closed.

  When Woman Wang was selecting a carp in the market, out of the corner of her eye she noticed Little Ping’s mother.

  Little Ping’s mother kept stirring the fish around with her pale hands. Suddenly she was stung by fish fins. She cried out in alarm as blood gushed from the back of her hand.

  “Oh my!” shouted Woman Wang.