The Republic of Wine (13 page)

Everyone laughed as Ding Gou'er gobbled up the arm. The Mine Director and Party Secretary urged the red serving girls to toast their guest. The coquettish red girls managed to coax Ding Gou'er into downing another twenty-one glassfuls. He was stuck to the ceiling when he heard Diamond Jin say his good-byes. From his vantage point on the ceiling he watched Diamond Jin walk tranquilly out of the dining hall and heard him tell the Mine Director and Party Secretary to attend to something on his way out. The spring-hung naugahyde-covered doors were opened by two red girls, one on either side, respectful and attentive. He noticed how their hair was coifed atop their heads, he noticed their necks, and he also noticed the swellings on their chests. He immediately castigated himself for being such a degenerate voyeur. He saw the Party Secretary and Mine Director say something to the leader of the red serving girls on their way out. Now that all the men had left the room, the red serving girls crowded around the table and dug in, stuffing food into their mouths with both hands. They ate like barbarians, a far cry from their demeanor of a moment before. He saw the shell of his body, slouched in a chair like a hunk of dead meat, his neck pressing against the chair back, his head flopping to one side, liquor dribbling out of his mouth like an overturned gourd. From his vantage point on the ceiling, he wept over the half-dead body he had left behind.

Once they finished eating, the girls wiped their mouths with the tablecloth. One of them picked up a pack of China cigarettes when no one was looking and stuffed it into her bra. He sighed in commiseration for her breast, which had to share its cup with cigarettes. He heard the girl in charge say:

‘Come on, girls, carry this drunken kitty over to the guest house,'

Two girls tried lifting him up by the arms, but had trouble holding him, as if he were a rag doll. He heard a girl with a mole behind one ear grumble, The damned dog! That angered him. He watched as one of the girls picked up his briefcase, unzipped it, and took out the pistol, turning it over in her hand to get a good look at it. He cried out in alarm from the ceiling: Put that down! It could go off. But they might as well have been deaf. God help me! She shoved the pistol back into the briefcase, then unzipped an inner pocket and removed his mistress's photograph. Come look at this! she said. The red girls crowded round and happily voiced their opinions. His anger reached its peak, as a stream of filthy language spewed from his mouth. The girls were oblivious to it all.

At long last, the red serving girls managed to hoist up my body enough to drag me out of the dining room and onto the hallway carpet, as if they were disposing of a corpse. One of them kicked me in the calf- intentionally. Slut. My flesh may be insensate, but my spirit isn't. Hovering three feet above their heads, I flapped my wings and began to glide through the air, following behind my useless corporeal body and gazing at it with deep sadness. It was, it seemed, a very long hallway. I watched the liquor seep out of my mouth and run down my neck. It stank to high heaven, and the red girls plugged their noses to avoid it. One had an attack of the dry heaves. With my head slumped on my chest, my neck looked like a wilted stalk of garlic. No wonder my head lolled back and forth. I couldn't see my face, but had a bird's-eye view of both my pale ears. One of the red girls followed along carrying my briefcase.

At long last we made it to the end of the seemingly endless hallway, where I saw a familiar large hall. They dumped my body on the carpet, face up. The sight of that face shocked me: eyes squeezed shut, skin the color of old, torn window paper. My parted lips revealed a motley mouthful of teeth, some white, some black. A foul, boozy breath spilled out, and it was all I could do to keep from throwing up. Shivers wracked my flesh, and my pants were soaked. What a pity, I'd wet myself.

After resting to catch their breath, the red girls carried me out of the hall. A sea of sunflowers lay beneath a blood-red sun, the golden yellow blossoms exuding warmth against the scarlet background. A gleaming silver sedan was parked on a smooth cement road that cut through the sunflower forest. Diamond Jin climbed into the back seat of the car, which drove off slowly, the twin gentlemen waving as it passed by and picked up speed. The red girls dragged me down the road to the accompaniment of a barking dog beneath a sunflower plant whose stem was as thick as a tree trunk. Its glossy black body, topped by white ears, lurched back and forth each time it barked, accordion-fashion. Where were they taking me? Lights all around shone like shifty eyes. All the machinery was just as it had been that morning, including the windlass at the mouth of the mine. A gang of black-faced men in hard-hats came walking up. For some unknown reason, I was afraid to meet up with these men. If they had friendly intentions, well and good, but if not, I was in for it. The men quickly lined up on both sides of the road, forming a gauntlet past which the red serving girls carried me. My nostrils picked up the smell of sweat and damp mine-shaft stench. The men's eyes bored through my body like drills. Some hurled curses as I passed by, but the red serving girls held their heads high and thrust out their chests proudly, ignoring the men. Then I realized that the curses, filled with sexual innuendo, were directed at them, not at me.

They carried me into a remote little building, where two women in white sat across from each other at a writing desk, their knees touching; some words had been carved on the desk. Their knees moved away slightly when we entered the shack; one of the women pressed a button on the wall, causing a door to open slowly. An elevator, apparently. After they carried me inside and closed the door, I saw
Vd
guessed correctly. The descent was meteoric, and I followed my body down the shaft, like a kite being tugged by its string. Down and down we went. A coal mine, I thought admiringly, which meant that all the activity would be underground. I was convinced they could have built an entire Great Wall underground if they had wanted to. The elevator shuddered noisily three times - we had reached the bottom. A blinding white light filled my eyes as I was carried into a sumptuous grand hall on whose watery smooth marble walls human shadows danced; the relief patterns on the ceiling were illuminated by hundreds of exquisite little lamps. Flowers and potted plants were arrayed around four enormous angular columns with marble facing. The sight of scabby goldfish swimming in an ultra-modern aquarium made my skin crawl. The girls placed my body in room 401.1 had no idea how the number 401 was arrived at, and wondered what kind of place this was. Manhattan's high-rises stretch up to Heaven; Liquorland's reach down to Hell. The girls stripped the shoes off my feet before laying me on a bed; my briefcase wound up on a tea table. They left. Five minutes later, a cream-colored serving girl opened the door and walked in to put a cup of tea on the table. Some tea for your honor, I heard her say to my body.

My body did not reply.

The cream-colored girl wore heavy makeup; her lashes were as thick as hog bristles. Just then the telephone at the head of the bed rang. She reached out and picked up the receiver with tapered fingers. The room was so quiet I could hear a man's voice on the other end.

'Is he awake?'

‘He hasn't moved. He's scary.'

‘See if he's got a heartbeat.'

She laid her palm on my chest; a palpable look of disgust on her face.

‘He's got one,' she said.

‘Give him some sobering-up tonic'

‘OK.'

The cream-colored girl left the room. I knew she'd be right back. She returned with a metal syringe, the kind veterinarians use. Since the tip was made of soft plastic, I didn't have to worry about an injection. After inserting the tip between my lips, she forced some medicinal liquid through the syringe.

Before long, I heard the sounds of my body coming to and saw its arms move. It said something. It emitted a powerful force that tried to snag me. I struggled, turning myself into a sort of suction cup on the ceiling to resist being drawn downward; but I sensed that a part of me had already fallen prey to the force.

With difficulty, it sat up and opened its eyes, staring blankly at the wall for a long time. It picked up the teacup and drained it thirstily before falling backwards on the bed.

Quite a while later, the door opened softly and a barefoot, bare-chested boy wearing only a pair of blue shorts walked in; about fourteen or fifteen years old, he had scaly skin. He was light on his feet, making no sound at all as he approached me, like a black cat. I watched him with considerable interest. He looked familiar; I'd seen that boy somewhere before. A knife shaped like a willow leaf clenched between his teeth gave him the appearance of a black cat with a fish in its mouth.

I was scared, believe me, scared for that half-dead body of mine. At the same time I was puzzled over how a demon like that could have found his way into this hidden underground spot. The door closed by itself, creating a silence that pounded against my eardrums. As the scaly boy drew up next to me, I smelled a fishy odor, that of a scaly anteater that has just crawled out from under a rock. What was he going to do? His hair, matted and filled with burrs, smelled like little snakes, which slithered into my nostrils and headed straight for my brain. My body sneezed, sending the little demon crashing to the carpeted floor. He scrambled to his feet and touched my throat with his claws. The knife in his mouth emitted a cold blue glint. Oh, how I wanted to warn my body, but I couldn't. I wracked my brains - squeezed them dry is more like it - to recall how, when, and where I'd done anything to offend this little demon. He reached out again, this time to pinch that area called the neck, like a master chef preparing to slaughter a chicken. I could feel his terrifying, hard claw, and still my body lay there helpless, snoring away, oblivious to the knowledge that the Grim Reaper hovered mere inches away. I found myself wishing he'd take the knife from his mouth and plunge it into my body's throat to bring an end to my suffering there in my ceiling perch. But he didn't. Now that he'd had his fill of pinching my throat, his claw moved down to touch my clothing and go through my pockets. He removed a Hero-brand gold fountain pen, took off the cap, and drew some lines on the back of his hand. There were scales there too. After drawing a line, he pulled his hand back, and his lips parted in what might have been a grin and might have been a pained look. I guess the nib made his skin itch, a sensation that either brought him pleasure or rekindled a fond memory. Over and over he drew lines; over and over his lips parted. Each line produced a scratchy sound, and I knew that my top-of-the-line Hero 800 gold fountain pen was a goner. It had been awarded to me as a model worker. This idiotic game went on for half an hour at least, until finally he laid the pen on the floor and recommenced his search of my pockets. He removed a handkerchief, a pack of cigarettes, an electronic cigarette lighter, my ID card, a remarkably lifelike toy pistol, my wallet, and a couple of coins. By the looks of it, this treasure trove had a dizzying effect on him. Like a greedy little boy, he laid it all out on the floor between his legs and began playing with each item as if he were the only person in the world. The fountain pen, of course, no longer interested him. Naturally, instinctively, he picked up the toy pistol and held it in front of him. The chrome barrel glinted in the artificial light. It was a perfectly crafted imitation of the real thing, the kind American military officers wear on their hips. It was beautiful. I knew there were still some caps in the chamber, ready to explode as soon as the trigger was pulled. Joy and excitement made his eyes sparkle enticingly. I was worried he'd give himself away if he pulled the trigger. How much difference was there between the boy's arm and the fresh lotus root? Was my body being tricked? But it was too late to do anything.
Pow!
He pulled the trigger. I saw blue smoke and heard the explosion in the same instant. I held my breath, waiting for the sound of hurried footsteps outside the door and for the cream-colored girls and their guards to come bursting into the room. What could a gunshot in the middle of the night mean but murder or suicide? I began to worry about the plight of my scaly visitor, not wanting him to be caught. I must be honest -1 was intrigued by the little fellow, but not because of his scales. There are plenty of scaly creatures - fish, snakes, anteaters - and all but the anteaters, those clumsy, somewhat affected, animals, give me the creeps; I don't care for cold, smelly fish, and dreary serpents disgust me. But my conjectures proved groundless. The gunshot changed nothing: no one came barging into the room, nothing. My visitor fired another round; in truth, this second explosion was unspectacular, commonplace, at least in that soundproof room, with its thick carpet, protected ceiling, and papered walls. He sat there undisturbed - no fear, no shock; either he was deaf or was a seasoned veteran, unfazed by such things. Having tired of the pistol, he tossed it aside and picked up my wallet, removing its contents - money, grain rations, cafeteria coupons, and expenditure receipts I hadn't yet turned in for reimbursement. He fiddled with the cigarette lighter, from which a bright tongue of flame erupted. He smoked a cigarette. He coughed. He flicked the cigarette onto the carpet. My god! The carpet caught fire, and the stench of burning material rose in the air. Then it hit me: If my body was reduced to ashes, I'd be nothing but a puff of smoke. Its extinguishing would herald mine as well. Wake up, my body!

I hate you, you scaly demon!

No, I don't hate you, I want only to laugh. But I can't, as a matter of fact. He noticed the fire on the carpet and stood up slowly. Lifting one leg of his shorts, he reached in with two fingers, grabbed hold of his water hose, which was pretty big for his size, hard but not erect, and as scaly as the rest of his body, and took aim at the burning carpet. A loud spray of water produced an equally loud sizzle. It was a gusher, powerful enough to put out two such fires. I relaxed as I breathed in the mixed odor of urine and a drenched fire.