I Live in the Slums Read online

  Something poked me from behind. It was the midget. Didn’t the midget belong to the world above? How had he gotten down here? “I took the elevator down,” he said. “It’s great because it allows me to be above and below at the same time. Hey, your skin is too white.” Was my skin white? My skin was khaki colored. Why did he speak such nonsense? Let me think. That’s right, he was color blind. Maybe people living in glass houses were all color blind. The midget and the black goat glanced at each other. I thought they were communicating. Maybe I was too jittery. “My parents were living down here,” he said. I was surprised to hear this. If he was from here, how come I had never seen him around? “Because I’m in the elevator. Ha-ha!”

  The midget called me “Rat.” I wasn’t at all happy with this form of address. How could I be considered a rat? I was much larger than a rat. He let me go inside with him. The man and his wife had disappeared, and the house was quiet. I started sneezing again. The midget said, “The master always sprays disinfectant because he’s so afraid of dying.” Then the midget suddenly made a weird sound and fell face upward on the floor. I bent down to look at him and discovered that his ankles were padlocked to the feet of the table. Who had done this? Under the table was the wooden box containing the several hundred keys that the man had made. I shifted the box to a spot in front of the midget. He sat up and tried to unlock the padlock with the keys. This room was making me very jittery. If it weren’t for the black goat outside bleating twice, I would almost have thought that he was the one playing tricks. The midget stepped up his pace, growing more and more impatient. He had already thrown dozens of keys on the floor. I became vaguely aware of something. I had to get out of here right away.

  I ran outside, and bumped into the old man. The old man was just the same—one foot bandaged with dirty rags and a cane in his hand. The difference was that quite a lot of blood was spattered on the pant leg of his good leg. He pointed at the house and told me to go inside and take a look. I pushed the door open carefully. I had barely looked inside when I became so frightened that I shot out. What was I afraid of? Nothing was inside—only an empty room. Even the furniture had been moved out. The old man came over and said, “The key. It’s here.” What key? I didn’t get it. He went on, “The key you’re looking for. Ayuan has it.” I peered in again. I didn’t see his grandson. Leaning on his cane, he crossed the street. Was he going to see the midget?

  I walked on—walked a long way. In the slums, the sun always came out suddenly and withdrew suddenly. Everything was dreary here—I mean outside the houses. The houses were generally dark inside. That was okay when one got used to the darkness. A child was lying sound asleep beside the road. He was a little like Ayuan, but he wasn’t Ayuan. Then who was he? I especially noticed his bare ankles where he was scarred from having been scraped by something. Wasn’t it a rope? I pushed his head, and he spat out a string of names of flowers. Then he laughed. A piglet ran up—the spotted pig that the old man was raising. The piglet smelled the boy and ran off. The boy laughed even louder. Was it a laugh? Gagagaga—it didn’t sound much like a laugh. Did he belong to the nearby home? The door to this home was open. I went in.

  All of a sudden, I felt sleepy and climbed up on the stove to sleep. Before long, the man came in and lit the fire. He was a butcher with a long beard. He pulled fiery red tongs out from the fire and waved them in front of me. The tongs brushed against the hair on my chest, and I smelled the charred odor. Just as I was wondering whether he would burn me to death, he tossed aside the tongs and sat down on the floor. In the room in front, his children were singing. A children’s chorus suddenly rose from that room. It was as if doomsday were coming. I looked at the butcher again; his beard was quivering. What scary memory had taken hold of him? I jumped down from the hearth. He didn’t move. It was as though he hadn’t seen me. When I slipped over to the room in front, the children had already left. I saw only a girl’s back. I thought, Did the butcher’s daughter dream every night of hot blood spurting from the sheep’s neck? Was that why she sang children’s songs? Who was poking me in the back? Hey, it was the midget again. He had finally unlocked the padlock. He said, “Look, he’s here, too.” The child who looked like Ayuan slid in. And then—bang!—the butcher bolted the door! The three of us were locked into the room. The little boy’s weeping was muffled. The midget covered the boy’s mouth with his palm and tried to calm him down. I wanted to cry, too, because I remembered the fiery red tongs. What was the butcher doing in the kitchen? Finally, the little boy stopped crying, and the midget said, “I’m really happy.” Maybe he was happy to see that we were done for, whereas he would soon be saved by the elevator. Now he was holding the boy and sitting on a chair. The child whimpered a little, his shoulders heaving. All of a sudden, I remembered: he was the one who gave me a popsicle when I was in the furnace-like area above. He was really a nice person.

  The butcher never did show up. The little boy (the midget called him Drum) was being held by the midget and talking in his sleep. He said he was the elevator, and all the people here had to rely on him. Without him, they couldn’t live. He was bragging in his dreams, and the midget chimed in. The midget said, “That’s true, that’s true, you cute little boy.” All of a sudden, Drum broke free of the midget and scratched the midget’s face with something. The midget fell over. Drum held up the thing, which kept flashing light. I was finally able to see it: it was a copper key. The midget moaned on the floor and kept saying softly, “Oh, Drum. Oh, Drum.” How could a key have so much harmful power? I thought of the man who filed keys. He was a taciturn man with a lined face. His hands were like an old tree’s roots. I had seen him break quite a large file! Holding up the key, Drum walked toward me. I considered hiding, but didn’t. I wanted to see exactly how much harmful power this little thing had. But what happened next surprised me. Drum handed me the key and motioned to me, indicating that he wanted me to stab him with the key. The key was large, much like a small knife. I stood there at a loss. We heard the butcher roaring in the kitchen, as though enraged. Was he pressuring us?

  When I was on the verge of stabbing Drum in the neck with the key, he took hold of it and thrust the key into his neck himself. Blood spurted out, and he collapsed weakly on the floor next to the midget. Nauseated, I turned and vomited. Just then, the butcher opened the kitchen door and entered. He was holding the fiery red tongs. He raised the tongs in front of me, and I hastily dodged away. And so I once more smelled my scorched hair. “Oh, Rat. Rat, this is a rare opportunity,” he said. This was so annoying. He was also calling me rat. He opened the main door, carried the midget out, and threw him out next to the street, and then returned for Drum. He carried him out, too. Then he bolted the door again. I thought he intended to come and deal with me, too, but he didn’t. After a while, those two guys rammed against the door, desperately wanting to enter. How had they recovered from their injuries so quickly? They were so strong that they were about to ram the door open. Taking advantage of my being distracted for a moment, the butcher jabbed me in the chest several times with the fiery tongs. At first I shook all over, and then I fainted. In my confusion, I saw myself on a burning mountain. The fire was burning my whole body, but I didn’t feel any pain. And I actually thought that I’d be fine after the fire burned out. There was a mountain across from me. It was on fire, too. Children were singing in the fire. Why did the voices sound familiar? That’s right! They were the butcher’s daughters—who else could they be? Their singing was so beautiful! I looked at myself: ah, my legs had been burned off! I couldn’t move now. Wasn’t this what he had whispered to me? “Oh, Rat. Rat, this is a rare opportunity.” He had pushed me, too, not letting me fall completely asleep. But I was afraid. I closed my eyes and fell asleep regardless.

  When I woke up, I saw a large gray eye gazing at me. That was the butcher’s daughter. Her eyes were asymmetrical: one was large, one small. I considered this large eye indescribably beautiful, so I never thought of her eyes being asymmetrical. She looked d
esolate: Was this little girl worried about me? When I moved, intending to touch her, she moved away a little. I was disappointed. “You—what are you?” she asked, her tone so desolate that I almost shed tears. I came to her home frequently: Why did she ask such a question? Was it my manner that made her feel desolate? Not until then did I take stock of myself. I was fine. Nothing had changed. Ah, one of my feet had a burn mark, but that wasn’t remarkable. I had just lost a little hair there, that’s all. What was I? Was this a decent question? I came to their home year after year. I stayed on the stove, and the butcher always treated me to delicious animal innards. After eating, I dozed on the stove. I was always drowsy when I stayed with this family and so I’d never gotten a good look at these girls. When they worked quietly in the kitchen, I thought they had never paid any attention to me. Now it seemed I was wrong: they had not only noticed me: they had also talked about me. Otherwise, why would she have asked that question just now? It seemed she still expected something of me. I asked myself again, What was I? But I didn’t know. How could I dispel this pretty little girl’s inner desolation? I didn’t dare make eye contact with her, for if I did I would start crying. “I’m the third child, the youngest,” she said suddenly. “Dad’s in the back nailing together a wooden cage.”

  Before I grasped what she had said and became aware of what was happening, a black net covered me from the head down, entwining me. Someone was pulling me to the back of the house. At one side, the girl said excitedly to that person, “Are you going to throw him into the well?” I had no way to struggle. I simply could not move.

  But the place where they threw me was definitely not the well. It was simply the small alley behind their home. Wrapped up in that fishnet-like thing, I couldn’t move, and the small alley ordinarily was deserted. They evidently meant for me to die here. What could I do? It would soon be dark, and night in the slums was always cold. I curled up. I heard the butcher’s daughters singing once again. I could tell that the one singing most resoundingly was the girl who’d been with me just now. It was so cold, so cold. My burned foot was numb. I uttered a shrill scream. Perhaps the people inside heard me, for the singing stopped and then resumed. Listening closely again, I could hear the dreariness of the songs. Captivated by the singing, I temporarily forgot the cold. As my mind wandered a little, the cold slashed my skin again like little knives. Perhaps all of my skin had swollen. I hoped my skin would soon be numb. What else could I hope for? I thought of the midget and Drum. Were they still in that room? Or had they been thrown out just like me? What kind of lives did the butcher and his three daughters live?

  I could see a ball of light through the net: it was people passing by with lanterns. “Why do they always throw their prey out on the street?” the one holding a lantern grumbled to his companion. They stopped when I squealed. Above me, they talked in low voices, hesitating about something. The first one to speak raised his voice suddenly: “How long has it been since we’ve passed through here?” The other one replied, “Fifteen years. Back then, it always rained at night, and icicles more than a foot long hung from the rafters. Now it’s a lot warmer. Why does he still make noise?” As they talked, they squatted down and freed me from the net. I lay on the ground, because I was numb all over and couldn’t move. What was going on? I realized that two people were helping me, but I didn’t see them. There was just that lantern all alone on the ground. It shone on the netting. Now I could see that the netting that had entwined me so strongly was actually thin and small, made from something that was a little like the membrane on some animals. I squealed again. I was thinking I would regain consciousness by squealing. Just then, the butcher’s little girl opened the door. I heard her greet the two people. She was wearing a cape. She looked very valiant and heroic in bearing. But I couldn’t see the two people. They went in and took the lamp with them. All around, it turned dark once more.

  I tried to roll over. With a scream that took all of my energy, I was finally able to move. I rolled to the corner of the wall of the butcher’s small house. It wasn’t as cold here as in the other place just now. I slowly recovered a little feeling. I could hear the conversation in the house very clearly. I heard the three girls fighting over who could kiss the two men whom I couldn’t see. They were swearing and making an uproar. Then the little girl probably hurt her two older sisters with some kind of sharp object. The two older girls let out frightening wails. But soon it was quiet inside again. Had the little girl achieved her goal? With a creak, the door opened a little and the lamp emerged. Looking malicious, the little girl stood at the entrance. Sparks of electricity flashed from her large eye. The lamp floated in midair and gradually moved far away. Finally it disappeared in a corner in the west. All of a sudden, the girl bent toward me and said, “Did you see it all? You little thing, you did see it all! Hey, I suffer too much hardship in my life, don’t I?” She covered her face with her hands and began crying. After crying for several seconds, she suddenly stopped and said fiercely, “Did I cry? No! I never cry. Just now, I was laughing! I laughed so hard!” She picked me up with both hands, lifted me to her shoulder, and carried me into the house. Throwing me onto the stove, she walked away. I saw the butcher sitting indifferently on a wooden stool and smoking a cigarette.

  I live in the slums. I was born here, and I grew up here. At night, I lodge with a family that has a stove. In the daytime, I poke around everywhere into people’s privacy. I know all kinds of secrets here, but I don’t understand the mysteries of these secrets. On the outside, these secrets look beautiful but terrifying. Is this why I’m always eager to poke around?

  Part Two

  I live in the tunnel under the slums in the lowlands west of the city. When you come to the wall around the chemical plant, you see a long, long staircase. At the foot of the stairs is our slum—a large area of simply constructed houses squeezed together in rows. I used to lodge in other people’s homes. Actually, I had stayed with all the families who had stoves in their homes. And then, on a gloomy day, I stumbled into the tunnel. That day, the owner had laced my food with poisonous mushrooms. Having spotted this, I fled in a hurry—like a refugee. It was midnight, and everyone’s house was locked. I didn’t dare knock on anyone’s door. As I continued walking in the cold, I bumped into a mutt. This cur wanted to kick me away. Frightened, I ran off, but the dog chased me. I ran as fast as my feet could carry me, paying no attention to directions, and then fell, confused, into the tunnel.

  When I first fell in, I couldn’t adapt because it was too dark to see anything. It was just like being blind. Everything was quiet at first, and then I finally noticed that this was a delusion: many little critters were grubbing around, chiseling endlessly. Strange to say, three people were sitting among them, doing absolutely nothing; they just said a few words now and then. I approached and listened closely: I heard a few vacuous empty words, such as “After a house is built, one doesn’t have to live there. It’s better to live in the wilderness.” Or “People, uh . . . People need to know themselves.” They took turns repeating these two sentences. It wasn’t a good idea to move around. I had to avoid bumping into any of these guys whose bodies seemed iron-hard. I had to sit motionless on the ground. Somewhere above, that cur still barked nonstop. Despite being far away, it was menacing. I looked up and saw a hazy light. That’s where I had fallen from.

  I squatted in the dark place, recalling what had transpired between the master and me. In the afternoon, as I napped on the stove, he had passed by. He patted me lightly on the back in a rather sentimental way. “Rat, ah Rat, what are you thinking?” he said hoarsely. I hated his calling me rat, and I despised his sentimental manner. I didn’t think this man was one bit masculine. He often sat in the open doorway and washed his pale feet. He was a narcissistic guy. I generally didn’t have my defenses up around people, but this time I must have had a faint foreboding. Who would have imagined that this person could be so sinister and ruthless? When he fried the poisonous mushrooms, I was sitting on the pile of f
irewood next to him. His hands shook, and his dejected, long face looked more wrinkled than usual. At the time, I still thought he was going to poison the rat with the mushrooms. It never crossed my mind that in fact I had become the “rat” that he spoke of. The three poisonous mushrooms were buried in the bottom of the rice. I saw them when I poked around in the rice. What in the world was he thinking?! Did he think I would meekly eat them? I already knew this man was mean—he had killed all the cockroaches in his home—but in general he had been quite good to me. He was a widower. When I stayed with him, instead of giving me the leftovers as the others did, he cooked for both himself and me. I couldn’t figure out what had happened to cause him to change. Maybe nothing at all. Maybe he was simply showing me how ruthless he was. An asthmatic old man who stayed at home—how ruthless could he be? Poison was a coward’s way. I knew, however, that just one of these mushrooms could kill a person. So he was determined to kill me, and I fled. This had happened in the afternoon. Now I sat in this hell awaiting fate’s verdict. In my mind, a voice kept asking, What in the world happened? I didn’t know. Really didn’t know. Everything was baffling. A person passed by. Although I couldn’t see him, I could sense his weight as he stepped in the mud. He stopped next to me and said, “After a house is built, one doesn’t have to live there.” This man was annoying, and I got up without a sound and moved away from him. It never occurred to me that the moment I moved, he would push down on my back. He was strong. All I could do was lie quietly on the ground. Words flashed through my mind: People, uh. People need to know themselves. But I wasn’t a person. I couldn’t speak.

  He pushed me against the ground, but then his attention wandered and he let go. Naturally, I slipped away at once. This place seemed to be a flat area packed with little animals that were excavating. I kept bumping into them in the dark. I knew they were small, but I had no idea what kind of animals they were. One of them was stuck halfway down in the hole he was digging. He screamed shrilly. I bent over and gripped one of his legs and mustered all my strength to drag him out. It didn’t occur to me that he would attack me insanely. Still, since I was several times larger than he was, I quickly overwhelmed him. I pounded his head against the ground more than a dozen times. I kept this up and then finally left him for dead. I was afraid of running into those people again, so I wanted to hide or join the ranks of the excavators. When I tried approaching the little animals, they were hostile, as if telling me this was no place for me. They pushed me hard and berated me mercilessly. I had nowhere to go. Every time I thought of squatting and resting for a while, some guy would come over, lay claim to my spot, and push me away. Why did they overreact to me? Frightened, I looked up at that spot where the light came in. Listening closely, I could still hear the cur’s barking. Maybe I should climb up and go back there. He hadn’t bitten me, so how could I have imagined that he would bite me to death? Now I regretted having acted so precipitately. Before giving it any thought, I had simply fallen into a place where I didn’t belong. I had spent so many peaceful nights on people’s stoves, and sure, maybe I was a little nosy, but this couldn’t have been why I was kicked out. And probably the poisonous mushrooms were meant only to scare me: he knew I was cautious and wouldn’t just blindly eat whatever was placed before me. Alas, there was no point in saying all this now.