Intersection (part 2) 

  Lin Yichang

   Translated by Nancy Li

 Ah Xing saw the black dog fat as a pig come waddling over. It stopped in front of a fruit shop and lifted its hind leg to urinate on a lamp-post. She saw this black dog often and often saw it urinate. She often saw this black dog trotting here and there. In fact, everything which unfolded before her eyes was familiar to her. She even remembered the footprints in the cement pavement.

The bus was speeding along

“Me?”

“Don’t you want to leave Shanghai?”

“I’d like to, but it isn’t that simple.”

“Have you ever been to Hong Kong?”

“No.”

“Many people have gone to Hong Kong, haven’t they?”

“Yes, many people have gone to Hong Kong.”

     Things were tense in Shanghai; the pulse of the whole city had accelerated. Everyone knew the importance of the battles in Xuzhou and Bengbu. The news in the papers might not be reliable and news passed by word of mouth was inevitable spiced up. Property prices suffered the worst fall; a house with a garden was worth only seven or eight gold bars. The rich all took flight. At first, Chunyu Bai didn’t want to leave Shanghai. But one day, a close relative from Nanjing whispered into his ear. “ The situation at the front isn’t too good. You’d better leave.” Only then did Chunyu Bai screw up his courage. He asked a friend to buy him an air ticket and left that never-racking, rumour-ridden city. When he arrived in Hong Kong, he was a total stranger. A fellow, also from Shanghai, who regarded himself as an “old Hong Kong hand” helped him and some others rent flats in Kowloon in a new building with flats of about three or four hundred square feet. They had to pay a commission; besides the first month’s rent, they had to pay an extra month’s rent as down payment. Premiums were very expensive in those days and people had to pay commissions to rent flats. In those days, there were just too many “refugees” swarming into Hong Kong from the mainland. Most of the new building were “crash-course graduates” or jerry-built; speed was all that mattered. The faster the buildings went up, the more money the others could earn. In those days, there were many new buildings in Kowloon; all four-skyscrapers. Nowadays, tall buildings tower everywhere in Hong Kong and Kowloon; all the downtown areas have become “skyscraper jungles”. Obviously, the old building Chunyu Bai had just seen was an exception, and it made Chunyu Bai think of the past. At that time, unable to find a suitable job, he went to the gold exchange almost every day to speculate. Now, sitting on the bus, he suddenly felt as if he were back there once again. He seemed to hear the voice reporting the market price, “3.5…3.75…4.0…4.25…” 

          All women love looking at clothes. Ah Xing was no exception. Her heart beat wildly when she saw a manikin a wedding gown in the window of a photographer’s studio. The gown was made of white gauze as thin as a cicada’s wing; it was beautiful. Ah Xing gazed at the wedding gown wide-eyed. She couldn’t help feeling jealous of the manikin. “Even the ugliest woman will turn into a goddess in this beautiful gown,” she thought. Staring at the wedding gown, her eyes filled with envy. After she’d been staring for some time, a smile appeared on the manikin’s face. A manikin couldn’t smile. The smiling woman in the wedding gown was actually herself. The window before her suddenly became opaque and turned into a mirror. Ah Xing saw herself in the “mirror”, dressed in a white gauze wedding gown, as beautiful as a goddess.

           The bus came to a halt. A sudden impulse prompted Chunyu Bai to get off the bus with the other passengers. He didn’t know why, but that was what he did.

           This was Mongkok. In the past, he had walked along this road innumerable times. There were too many people here. There were too many cars. Mongkok was always so crowded. Everybody seemed to have some urgent business on hand; the rushing, sweaty people were not necessarily all bent on striking it rich. The Japanese dolls in the department stores had lovely smiles. The songstresses at the opera house had eyelids with double folds produced by the plastic surgeon’s knife. A revolving restaurant. The registration for buying next year’s mooncakes by instalments had begun. A thirty-percent discount on all books put out by this publisher. Fresh-water crabs from Yangcheng Lake on sale at 3 p.m. tomorrow. Shrimp dumplings, spring rolls, taro croquettes, steamed rice dumplings, barbecue-pork buns….

         Next to the photographer’s studio was a toy shop; next to the toy shop was an optician’s shop; next to the optician’s shop was the gold and jewellery shop; next to the gold and jewellery shop was a restaurant; next to the restaurant was the grocer’s; next to the grocer’s was a shop selling the latest fashions. Ah Xing entered the clothing shop and saw some weird clothes in the latest styles. One blouse had two hearts printed on the bosom. Too many “ I LOVE YOU”s in English were printed on one outfit. Ah Xing was particularly interested by that outfit printed with the English words “I LOVE YOU”. “Mom doesn’t know English,” she thought, “I’m sure Mom won’t scold me if I buy it. In this outfit, I’d probably attract some strange man to come and talk to me.” Ah Xing hadn’t yet had a boyfriend. Walking out of the clothing shop, she had a strange feeling, it might have been happiness, but there was a touch of melancholy to it. Next to the clothing shop was a liquefied petroleum company; next to the liquefied petroleum company was a gold and jewellery shop; next to it was another gold and jewellery shop; and right next to that was yet another gold shop.

Standing in front of the window of the gold and jewellery shop, Ah Xing stared at the word “double happiness” and imagined what her own wedding would be like. It was the biggest restaurant in all Hong Kong and Kowloon, able to accommodate more that two hundred banquet tables. Hanging on the wall was a silk wedding banner with the words “double happiness” printed in gold. In front of it stood a long rosewood tabke with a pair of wedding candles on it. The tongues of the flames leapt upwards. She and her groom were sitting at a big round table in front of the rosewood table. The bridegroom was very handsome and looked like a movie star—a bit like Ke Junxiong, a bit like Deng Guangrong, a bit like Bruce Lee, a bit like Di Long, and a bit like Alain Delon.

The thud of footsteps brought her back to reality. A long-haired young man came tearing along the pavement and bumped into her; she lost her balance and almost fell down. She felt a sudden surge of anger and uttered some foul expletives. It was a vulgar curse, but by the time she uttered it, the young man had already disappeared into thin air. There was a disturbance in the vicinity, as if a large stone had suddenly been thrown onto the surface of a tranquil pond. Although she didn’t know what was happening, she felt a sense of alarm on seeing the police. The policemen’s legs pumped like pistons; they had guns in their hands. When they brushed past her, her anger suddenly turned into fear and she started to tremble. Her eyes were wide with astonishment. “Someone robbed the gold shop!” It wasn’t clear where these words had come from, but shock and fear made her heart miss a beat; then her heart-beats accelerated, thud, thud, thud, as if someone were pummeling her insides. The people around—Ah Xing included—panicked like a startled flock of birds. She was at a loss what to do. For a while, her reason failed her; she felt numb and wanted to leave the scene of the crime, but her legs refused to follow her will, so she just stood there in a daze. Two men were standing three feet away from her, talking loudly. “That guy has guts!” “Was he alone?” “He had a cleaver and a rock. He flashed the cleaver in front of the counter and smashed the showcase with the rock. He got away with jewellery worth tens of thousands of dollars!” “Tens of thousands of dollars!” “There were eye-witnesses. The robber only grabbed diamonds and jade.” “He sure has guts!” “If you’ve got the guts, you don’t have to pin your hopes on lottery tickets.” Ah Xing turned to look at the two men; one of them was holding a bamboo pole with lottery tickets fastened to it by clothes-pegs. He was a vendor of lottery tickets.

Chunyu Bai walked on. There were too many people on the pavement; there were always too many people in Mongkok. Some idiot was wriggling through the crowd like he was doing a dragon dance; he stepped on a woman’s foot and the woman cried out; he covered his mouth to conceal his smile.

Standing in front of an optician’s shop, Chunyu Bai admired the popular old-fashioned spectacle frames as if they were works of art. “I didn’t need spectacles a few years ago.” he thought. “Now, not only do I have to wear them while watching movies, I even have to have a different pair for reading.” His train of thought was interrupted by a conversation between two men. They were both middle-aged; one was fat, the other thin. The fat man had a tense look about him and when he spoke, his eyes grew round as longans.

  “Haven’t you heard?”

  “What?”

  “A gold and jewellery shop over there was robbed.”

  “Have the robbers been caught?”

  “They snatched some jewellery and disappeared into the crowd.”

  “How much did the shop lose?”

  “Some say tens of thousands of dollars.”

  “Was anyone hurts?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Hong Kong just isn’t safe anymore.”

  The fat man sighed; the thin man followed suit. The fat man said, “Goodbye.” The thin man also said, “Goodbye.” The fat man headed south; the thin man headed north.

Chunyu Bai walked on and saw a black dog. It was fat as a pig and came swaggering over; it trotted up to the bus stop, lifted its hind leg and urinated on the silver-cloured railings. The urine splashed onto a woman’s shoes; she pulled a long face and drove the dog away in a stern voice. Chunyu Bai couldn’t help smiling on witnessing this scene. He remembered a pug-dog called “Mary” and another pug-dog called “Lucky”. He had a pair of pug-dogs at home when he was in secondary school. Later, Mary died. Lucky also died, but by that time, Chunyu Bai had another five pug-dogs. When he left Shanghai, the five pug-dogs ran round him, barking incessantly….

He stopped in front of a clothing shop.

10    When her fear had dissipated, Ah Xing strode on: she glanced a the crowd of people gathered there, and glanced at the lottery ticket pole hoisted in the middle of the crowd like an umbrella. The lottery tickets were fluttering in the wind. The middle-aged lottery ticket vendor was still telling how he had witnessed the gold shop robbery. His voice was very loud. No one bought any tickets from him. Ah Xing thought, “When I win the lottery. I’ll buy three new flats; two in Mongkok, and the other in Mid-levels on Hong Kong island. I’ll live in Hong Kong with Mom, and give the two flats in Mongkok to Dad so that he can live on the rent.” –Ah Xing’s father was a strange man; he went out in the afternoon and didn’t come home until late at night. No one knew what he did, not even Ah Xing and her mother.

Ah Xing came to a halt in front of the gold shop which had just been robbed. A lot of people were standing there watching. The iron shutters of the shop were half-closed. Ah Xing could not see what was going on inside, so she stooped down to get a better look. Although she saw some legs moving about, she couldn’t tell what the people were doing. Some policemen had arrived to maintain order and to stop on-lookers from getting too near the shop. There was a lively discussion among the on-lookers, everybody trying to get a word in; each of them raised his voice in an attempt to drown out the voices of the others.

        There was a young couple in front of her. The young man had his left arm round the girls shoulder, while the girl’s right arm was around the young man’s waist.

         “Some day, when I have a boyfriend, I will walk with him this way on the street or in the park or in the countryside,” she thought, “But where can I find a boyfriend? Why haven’t I got one? The shop assistant in the grocery downstairs, Ah Cai, often smiles at me, but I don’t like him. His jagged teeth are so ugly. He has a brandy nose, so ugly. He has a scar on his temple, so ugly. My boyfriend must be handsome as a movie star.”

          After walking for a  while, she saw a young man, tall and thin, with long hair, wearing a pair of Levis, his right hand in his pocket. The jeans were blue but pocket was a square patch of red. Ad Xing stared at him; she couldn’t take her eyes off him. The young man had a long cigarette clenched between his teeth.

          Ah Xing walked up beside him and took a look at him.

          He turned and took a look at Ah Xing

          To her disappointment, the young man with the cigarette between his teeth refused to take a second look at her and strode off across the street. Ah Xing stared at his back, and felt as if someone had slapped her in the face, she wished a speeding car would knock him down

She continued along Nathan Road when, suddenly, she felt it was no fun loitering on the street, so she crossed the street and turned into a side street, heading home with a heavy heart. Unlike

Looking at his own reflection in the mirror, Chunyu Bai found that the wrinkles on his forehead had grown deeper and the white hairs on his head had increased. This was a clothing shop; one side of the shop window was fitted with a long narrow mirror. Chunyu Bai looked at himself greedily in the mirror. Gazing at his own image, he couldn’t help recalling the way he had looked in his youth.

Seeing the photograph, Ah Xing couldn’t restrain her curiosity; she stopped to pick it up. At first, she had no idea what it was; but once she had it in her hand and took a good luck at it, her heart started beating wildly. It was an obscene photograph of something Ah Xing never even dared think about. She knew it was something wicked. Suppose she took it home, she would certainly get in trouble with her parents if they discovered it. “I’ll tear it up,” she thought. But she was very curious. For her, the photograph was a source of excitement; each look at it stirred in her an indescribable sensation. “Why should I tear it up,” she thought, “I’ll be doing the same thing anyway when I get married.” She thrust the photograph into her handbag. “Back home, I can hide in the bathroom, and then take a closer look at it.” With this in mind, she entered the building and took the lift upstairs. When she got home, her mother was in the kitchen, so she took her pajamas, went into the bathroom and closed the door. She studied the photography closely; she felt so embarrassed that her face grew red hot. She took off her clothes, stood in front of the mirror and stared wide-eyed at herself.

Looking at himself in the mirror, Chunyu Bai thought about the battles raging about the International Concessions in Shanghai; he recalled the scene as three bombers flew over the Huangpu River and destroyed the ship Chunyun; he thought about the detachment besieged in the warehouse of the four big companies; he thought about how Shanghai became an isolated enclave, and the many assassinations which took place there. Then, the war in the Pacific broke out and Japanese tanks raced along

Whenever she looked into the mirror, Ah Xing thought she had a beautifully shaped face, one she could be proud of. Perhaps it was a kind of narcissism; whenever she had the chance she would admire her own beauty in a mirror as if it were a work of art. She didn’t much care what others thought of her.

When she observed herself closely in the mirror, she thought she was more beautiful than the movie star Chen Baozhu; there was no reason why she couldn’t be a movie star too.

When she observed herself closely in the mirror, she thought she was more beautiful than the singer Yao Surong; there was no reason why she couldn’t be a popular singer too.

Every time she thought about her own future, all sorts of strange notions came into her head; that was the kind of girl she was. Before this, although her thoughts were unrealistic, they were innocent; now having seen the photography she picked up in the street, her mind was suddenly filled with dirty thoughts. She had never had such an experience before but she knew what it was all about. She imagined that a man “a bit like Ke Junxiong, a bit like Deng Guangrong, a bit like Bruce Lee, and a bit like Alain Delon” was in the bathroom with her. Only “that man” and herself, no one else. As she dwelt upon that idea, she felt constricted, a constriction all over her body, as if the four walls were closing in on her, like mechanical traps in kungfu movies. Her face grew as red as the rising sun and she felt a prickling sensation all over her skin; her heart began to pound; it was on fire. A look into the mirror gave her a sudden boost of confidence. Losing all rational control, she did something totally inexplicable—she pressed her lips to the mirror and kissed her own image there.

This was a new thrill for her. For the first time, she had a lover; that lover was herself.

She didn’t dare take another look at herself in the mirror; nor did she dare to look at the photograph again. She was like an old-fashioned bride. In spite of her curiosity, she lacked the courage to steal a look at the groom whom she had never set eyes upon. She suddenly grew serious and tried to divert her thoughts to other matters. She thought she should start thinking about Chen Baozhu. She thought she should start thinking about Yao Surong. To her, Chen Baozhu and Yao Surong were happy women.

Stepping into the bathtub, she stared at her own body. This was something she had rarely done before; she had always felt that a woman’s face was the most important thing, without being aware of the importance of the body and its movements. The photograph had impressed her so deeply that her interest in her own body was aroused. She was young and still had a baby-face, but her breasts were developed. This was certainly not a new discovery for her, yet she was a bit surprised when she inspected her body carefully.