The Republic of Wine (32 page)

‘Bull - fucking - shit!' I cursed savagely. Comrades, it wasn't easy for an elegant, refined scholar like me to utter such filth. She drove me to it. I was so ashamed. ‘Shit on your mother!' I cursed. ‘Why should I kill you? Why would I kill you. You never let me in on anything good, and now you come to me with something like this. Anyone can kill you, I don't care, as long as it's not me.'

Angrily, I stepped aside. I may not be able to deal with you, I was thinking, but at least I can get away. I picked up a bottle of Red-Maned Stallion and -
glugglug
- poured it down my throat. But I didn't forget to watch her movements out of the corner of my eye. I saw her get up lazily, a smile on her face, and walk toward the kitchen. My heart skipped a beat. Hearing the water running noisily from the tap, I tiptoed over and saw her holding her head under the gushing water. She was gripping the edges of the greasy sink, her body bent at a ninety-degree angle, her upturned backside skinny and lifeless. My wife's backside looks like two slices of dried meat that have been curing for thirty years, f d never compare those two slices of dried meat with the two orbs of my mother-in-law's derriere. But with those orbs jiggling in my mind, I finally realized that my wife's jealousy was not completely groundless. Snowy white, and obviously cold, the water poured down the back of her head, then crashed loudly like foamy waves. Her hair was transformed into shreds of palm bark coated with opaque bubbles. She was sobbing under the water, sounding like an old hen choking on its food. I was worried she might catch cold. For a brief moment, my heart was filled with sympathy for her. I felt I'd committed a grave crime by tormenting a weak, scrawny woman like that. I went up and touched her back; it was very cold. That's enough,' I said. ‘Don't torture yourself like this. It doesn't make sense to do things that anger our friends and please our enemies.' She straightened up in a hurry and glared at me with fire in her eyes. She didn't say a word for a good three seconds, frightening me so much I backed off. I saw her snatch the gleaming knife, just bought at a hardware store, from the rack, make a half circle across her chest, aim the point at her neck, and push down.

Without a thought for myself, I rushed up, grabbed her wrist, and wrested the knife out of her hand. I was disgusted by her behavior. ‘Damn you, you're ruining my life.' I flung the knife heavily onto the cutting board, burying it at least two fingers deep into the wood; pulling it out would have taken tremendous strength. Then I smashed my fist into the wall, which shook from the force. A neighbor yelled, ‘What's going on in there?' I was as enraged as a golden-striped leopard prowling its cage. ‘I can't take it any more,' I said. I can't fucking go on living like this.' I paced the floor, dozens of times, and concluded that I had no choice but to stay with her. Getting a divorce would be like checking myself in at the crematorium.

‘Let's clear things up right now,' I said. ‘We'll have your father and mother settle this once and for all. While we're at it, you can ask your mother if anything ever happened between her and me.'

She wiped her face with a towel and said:

‘Let's go, then. If you people who have committed incest aren't afraid, I certainly have nothing to fear.'

‘Anyone who refuses to go is a goddamned turtle spawn,' I said.

She said:

‘Right. Anyone who refuses to go is a goddamned turtle spawn.'

Dragging and tugging at each other, we walked toward the Brewer's College. On the way, we ran into a government motorcade welcoming foreign guests. On motorcycles leading the way sat two policemen in brand new uniforms, shiny black sunglasses, and snowy white gloves. We stopped quarreling for a minute and stood like a couple of trees alongside a locust beside the road. The powerful, reeking stench of rotting animals drifted over from the ditch. Her clammy hand was gripping my arm tightly, timidly. I sneered at the foreign guest's motorcade while feeling disgust over her clammy claw. I could see her incredibly long thumb, with green dirt packed under the hard nail. But I didn't have the heart to shrug off her hand, for it was seeking protection, like a drowning person clutching at a straw. Son of a bitch! I cursed. A bald old woman in the crowd moving out of the way of the motorcade turned to look at me. She was wearing a baggy sweater with a row of large white plastic buttons down the front. I experienced gut-wrenching disgust over those large white plastic buttons, feelings that went back to my childhood, when I had a case of the mumps. A smelly nosed doctor whose chest was embellished with large white plastic buttons had touched my cheeks with slimy fingers like octopus tentacles, making me throw up. The woman's big fat head rested heavily on her shoulders, her face was all puffy, her teeth yellow as brass. When she cocked her head to look at me, I shuddered. I was turning to leave when she rushed up to us in short, mincing steps. It turned out she was a friend of my wife. She grabbed my wife's hands affectionately and shook them hard, pressing her heavy torso upward until the two of them seemed about to start hugging and kissing. She was like my wife's mother. So, naturally, I thought about my mother-in-law and about the terrible joke of her having given birth to such a daughter. I walked alone toward Liquorland's Brewer's College; I wanted to ask my mother-in-law if her daughter was an abandoned child she had gotten from an orphanage or if she was switched at birth by nurses at the maternity hospital And what would I do if that really were the case?

My wife caught up with me. She was giggling as if she'd completely forgotten that she'd tried to cut her own throat only moments before. She said:

‘Hey, Doctor, do you know who that old woman was?'

I said I didn't.

‘She's the mother-in-law of Section Chief Hu of the Municipal Party Organization Department.'

I snorted.

‘What are you snorting about?' she said. ‘Stop looking down on people, and considering yourself to be the smartest person in the world. I want you to know that I'm going to be the head of the newspaper's Culture and Life section.'

‘Congratulations,' I said, ‘new Chief of the Culture and Life section. I hope you'll write an article describing your personal experience in throwing a tantrum.'

She stopped, shocked by my comment. 7 threw a tantrum? I'm as good as any woman who ever lived. If anyone else knew her husband was playing hanky-panky with her own mother, she'd have already poked a hole in the sky!'

I said, ‘Let's hurry up and go ask your father and mother to settle this.'

‘I'm such a fool,' she said, standing there as if she'd just awakened from a dream. ‘Why should I go with you? Why should I go to see you and that old flirt make eyes at each other? The two of you may be shameless, but not me. There are as many men in this world as there are hairs on a cow's hide, so why should I give a damn about you? You can sleep with whomever you want. I don't care any more.'

She turned and walked away nonchalantly. An autumn wind shook the treetops, sending golden leaves floating silently to the ground. My wife was walking among the poetry of autumn, her dark back making an uncanny connection with the notion of delicacy. Surprisingly, her nonchalance provoked a slight sense of loss in me. My wife's name was Beauty Yuan. Beauty Yuan and the falling leaves of autumn formed a melancholic lyrical poem, producing a bouquet like the General Lei liquor from Yantai's Zhangyu Distillery. I stared at her, but she didn't turn around, a case of pursuing justice without looking back.' In truth, I may have been hoping she would look back, but the chief-to-be of the Culture and Life section of the
Liquorland Daily News
never did. She was going off to her new position. Chief Beauty Yuan. Chief Yuan. Chief.

The chief's back disappeared among the red-walled, white-tiled buildings of Seafood Alley, from which a cluster of spotted doves fluttered into the blue sky, where three large yellow balloons floated, dragging bright red ribbons embroidered with big white letters. A man stood there in a daze. It was me, Doctor of Liquor Studies, Li Yidou. Li Yidou, you're not going to jump into the roiling, liquor-laced Liquan River, are you? No, why should I? My nerves were as tough as a cowhide that's been tanned with caustic soda and Glauber's salt, neither to be worn down nor torn to shreds. Li Yidou, Li Yidou, striding forward with his head held high, his chest thrown out, in an instant he had walked into the Brewer's College and was standing in front of his mother-in-law's door.

I really needed to get to the bottom of things. Maybe I'd have a fling with my mother-in-law - which, in fact, she might not be. It would be an ocean-draining upheaval in my personal life, no doubt about that. A note was posted on the door:

‘This morning's cooking lesson will be held in the lab at the Gourmet Section.'

I had long heard that my mother-in-law, with her superior cooking skills, was the shining star of the Culinary Academy, but I'd never seen her in class. Li Yidou decided to attend his mother-in-law's class, to witness his mother-in-law's awe-inspiring stature.

I walked through the small rear gate of the Brewer's College and entered the campus of the Culinary Academy. The fragrance of liquor still lingered, the aroma of meat now permeated the air. In the courtyard, many strange and exotic flowers and trees, with their eyelike leaves, squinted at me, Doctor of Liquor Studies, an ignoramus where plants are concerned. A dozen or so campus cops in blue uniforms moved about lazily in the yard, but when they saw me, their spirits were invigorated, like hounds spotting their quarry. Their ears, like thin pancakes, stood straight up, heavy snorts escaped from their nostrils. But I wasn't afraid of them, for I knew they'd return to their lazy former selves as soon as I spoke my mother-in-law's name. The structure of the campus was very intricate, similar to Suzhou's Rustic Statesman Garden. A gigantic rock the color of pig's liver stood in the middle of the path for no obvious reason, with an inscription in yellow that read, ‘Graceful Rock Points to the Sky.' After receiving permission from the campus cops, I strolled around until I found the Gourmet Section, then walked past row after row of iron railings, passing the exquisite building for raising meat boys, passing artificial hills and a fountain, passing the training room for exotic birds and strange animals, and finally entering a dark cave that led to a luminous spot. It was a restricted area. A young lady handed me some work clothes. She said, ‘Your people are videotaping the associate professor,' mistaking me for a reporter from the local TV station. As I was putting on the cone-shaped hat, I detected the fresh smell of soap. Just then, the woman recognized me. ‘Your wife, Beauty Yuan, and I were high-school classmates. Back then my grades were much better than hers, but now she's a famous reporter, while I'm a lowly doorkeeper,' she said, dejectedly, looking at me with resentment in her eyes, as if I were the one who had cut short her promising future. I nodded apologetically, but her sad face immediately turned proud. ‘I have two sons,' she boasted, ‘both smart as whips.' I replied viciously, ‘Don't you plan to send them to the Gourmet Section?' Her face turned purple, and since the last thing I wanted was to look at another purple-faced woman, I headed over toward the lab. I could hear her grind her teeth as she cursed, ‘One of these days, someone will give you cannibalistic beasts exactly what you deserve.'

The doorkeeper's comment sent shock waves through my heart. Who were those cannibalistic beasts? Was I one of them? I thought back to what the Liquorland dignitaries had said when the famous dish was being served: What we're eating is not human, but a gourmet dish prepared with special techniques. The creator of this gourmet dish was my beautiful mother-in-law, who was now lecturing to her students in a spacious, well-lit lecture hall. She was standing at the podium, framed by bright lamplight. I could see her large, round, moonlike face, which was as smooth and brilliant as a china vase.

Reporters were indeed videotaping her lecture. One of them, surnamed Qian, a fellow with a pointy mouth and monkey cheeks, was director of the special newspaper column. I'd drunk at the same table as him once. With a video camera on his shoulder, he was sauntering back and forth in the lecture hall. His assistant, a short, pale, fat fellow carrying lights and dragging black cords, followed Qian's orders to aim the white-hot lights, sometimes on my mother-in-law's face, sometimes on the chopping board in front of her, and sometimes on the students who were concentrating on her lecture. I found a vacant seat and sat down, feeling the tender, loving rays from her big grayish-brown eyes stop on my face for a couple of seconds. Slightly embarrassed, I lowered my head.

Five words carved deeply into the desk leaped into my eyes, ‘I 
WANT TO FUCK YOU.'
 Like five rocks dropped into my mind, they created surging waves. I felt my body go numb; like a frog given electric shocks, my limbs trembled, whereas a certain spot in the center began to stir … My mother-in-law's well-paced, pleasant talk, like tidal waves, rushed up closer and closer, wrapping my body in a giant warm current and sending spasms of excitation surging up and down my spine, faster and faster …

… Dear students, has it ever occurred to you that, owing to the rapid development following the four modernizations and the constant upping of people's living standards, eating is no longer simply something to fill one's stomach, but an esthetic appreciation? Hence, cooking is not simply a skill, but is also a profound art. A master chef these days needs hands more dextrous than a surgeon, a sense of color keener than a painter, a nose sharper than a police dog, and a tongue more sensitive than a snake. A chef embodies a blending of all the arts. Concomitant with this, the standards of gourmet diners are rising. Diners have expensive tastes, they like new things and despise old stuff, wanting one thing in the morning and changing their minds in the evening. It is extremely hard to please their taste buds. But we must study hard to produce new dishes that satisfy their needs. This is closely tied to the prosperity of Liquorland and, of course, to the bright future of every one of you here. Before we begin today's lecture, I want to recommend a special, rare dish to you -