Boy in the Twilight (12 page)

“That’s right,” said Li Ping. “Otherwise, why would a woman as pretty and popular as Scarlet take a fancy to him?”

Wen Hong nodded. She put her hands in her lap. “Actually Scarlet is no beauty. From a distance she looks good, but when you get close up she’s not so pretty.”

“When did you get to look at her close up?”

“I haven’t,” Wen Hong said. “It was Li Qigang who told me that.”

Li Ping looked unhappy. “What did he say exactly?”

Wen Hong seemed pleased. “He said Scarlet isn’t as pretty as me.”

“Not as pretty as you?”

“Not as pretty as us.”

“Us?”

“You and me.”

“He mentioned my name?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not what you said in the beginning.”

Wen Hong looked at Li Ping in surprise. “Is something wrong?”

“Not at all.” Li Ping gave a quick laugh, then turned around and looked at herself in the mirror. She wiped the corner of her eye with her left hand.

“If the two of them spent the night in a hotel,” Wen Hong said, “what do you think they did?”

“I don’t know,” Li Ping said. “He didn’t tell you?”

“No, he didn’t,” Wen Hong said, inquiringly.

“Probably nothing happened,” Li Ping said.

“No,” Wen Hong said. “They put their arms around each other.”

“It was Scarlet who put her arms around him,” Li Ping blurted out.

The girls looked at each other, stunned. Li Ping was the first to laugh, and then Wen Hong. Just as Li Ping sat down, there was a knock at the door, and as she was about to get up again, Wen Hong said, “I’ll get it for you.”

She walked over and opened the door, to find a neatly dressed Li Qigang standing smiling on the doorstep. He gave a start, clearly not expecting to be greeted by Wen Hong. After a moment he tilted his head round the door and said to Li Ping, as she walked toward him, “You look terrific.”

Wen Hong heard a chortle from her friend, who walked past her and out the door, then reached back to grasp the
doorknob. Wen Hong suddenly realized what was what, and hurried out as Li Ping closed the door behind her.

On the sidewalk, Li Ping took Li Qigang’s arm. “Do you have a ticket?” he asked Wen Hong.

She shook her head. “No.”

Li Ping, her hand on Li Qigang’s arm, turned away. After a couple of steps, she looked over her shoulder. “Wen Hong, we’ve got to go. Drop by some time.”

Wen Hong, nodding, watched them stroll off. When they had gone twenty yards or so, she headed off in the other direction, giving a “Humph!” as she went.

There’s an expression that fits me to a T: timid as a mouse. That’s what my teacher said, back when I was in primary school. This was one autumn, I remember, in Chinese class. The teacher stood on the dais; he was wearing a dark blue cotton jacket over a clean white shirt. I was sitting in the middle of the front row, looking up at him. He held a textbook in his hand and his fingers were coated with red, white, and yellow chalk dust. As he read the lesson aloud, his face and his hands and his book towered above me and his spittle was constantly spraying my face, so that I had repeatedly to raise my hand and wipe it off. He noticed that his spittle was sprinkling my face and that I would blink my eyes fearfully when it came flying my way, so he stopped reciting and put down his book, then stepped down from the dais and walked over to me, stretched out his chalk-stained hand and patted my face, as though giving it a wash. Then he went back to the desk to retrieve his book and began to walk around the classroom as he recited the lesson. He had wiped dry the spittle on my face, but in so doing had left my face blotched with red, white, and yellow chalk dust. My classmates began to titter, because my face now looked as gaudy as a butterfly.

It was at this point that the teacher came to the place in the text where the expression “timid as a mouse” was introduced. He laid the upturned book against his thigh. “What
is meant by ‘timid as a mouse’?” he said. “It’s an expression, used to describe somebody who has no more courage than a mouse …”

His mouth stayed open, for he had something more he wanted to say. “For example …”

His eyes scanned the room. He wanted to find an analogy. The teacher loved analogies. If he was trying to explain the word “irrepressible,” he would have Lü Qianjin stand up and he’d say, “For example, Lü Qianjin—he’s irrepressible. It’s as though he’s got a straw stuck up his ass all the time—he’ll just never sit still.” Or when he came to the expression “if the lips are gone, the teeth are cold,” he would ask Zhao Qing to stand up: “For example, Zhao Qing. Why does he look so miserable? That’s because his father died. His father is the lips, and if the lips are gone the teeth will chatter.” That’s the way our teacher made his analogies: “For example, Song Hai … For example, Fang Dawei … For example, Lin Lili … For example, Hu Qiang … For example, Liu Jisheng … For example, Xu Hao … For example, Sun Hongmei …”

Now he spotted me. “Yang Gao,” he said.

I got to my feet. The teacher looked at me a moment, then waved his hand. “Sit down.”

I sat down. The teacher tapped his fingers on the desk. “All those afraid of tigers, raise your hands.”

Everybody in the class raised their hands. The teacher surveyed the room. “Put your hands down.”

We put our hands down. “All those afraid of dogs, raise your hands,” the teacher said.

When I raised my hand, I heard a lot of giggles. I found that the girls had raised their hands, but none of the other boys had. “Put your hands down,” the teacher said.

The girls and I put our hands down. “All those afraid of geese, raise your hands,” the teacher now said.

Once more I raised my hand. The whole classroom erupted in laughter. This time I was the only person to raise a hand—none of the girls had. My classmates were in hysterics. The teacher did not laugh; he had to tap sharply on the desk to restore order. He looked out into the room, not at me. “Put your hand down,” he said.

I was the only person who had to do that. Then he directed his gaze at me. “Yang Gao.”

I stood up. He pointed at me. “For example, Yang Gao, he’s even afraid of geese …”

He paused for a moment, then went on, in a loud voice, “ ‘Timid as a mouse’—that’s Yang Gao.”

It’s true I’m timid as a mouse. I don’t dare go near the river and I don’t dare climb trees, and that’s because, before my father died, he would often say: “Yang Gao, you can go play in the school playground or along the sidewalk or at a classmate’s house. Any place is fine—just don’t go near the river and don’t go climbing trees. If you fall into the river, you might drown. If you fall out of a tree, you might break your neck.”

That’s why I was standing there in the summer sun, watching from a distance, as Lü Qianjin, Zhao Qing, Song Hai, and Fang Dawei, along with Hu Qiang, Liu Jisheng, and Xu Hao, played about in the river, watching as they splashed water, watching their glossy black heads and shiny white behinds.
One after another they dived into the water and stuck their behinds into the air. They called this game “Selling Pumpkins.” “Yang Gao, come on in!” they shouted. “Yang Gao, hurry up and sell a pumpkin!”

I shook my head. “I would drown!” I said.

“Yang Gao, do you see Lin Lili and Sun Hongmei?” they asked. “See—they’re in the water. Girls get in the water, see? You’re a boy—how come you won’t join us?”

Sure enough, I could see Lin Lili and Sun Hongmei wading about in the river in their bright underpants and cheerful tank tops, but still I shook my head and repeated, “I would drown!”

Knowing I wouldn’t go in the river, they told me to climb a tree instead. “Yang Gao,” they said, “if you won’t come in, then go climb a tree.”

“I can’t climb trees,” I said.

“All of
us
can,” they said. “How come you’re the only one who can’t?”

“If I fall, I might break my neck,” I told them.

They stood in a line in the water and Lü Qianjin said, “One, two, three, shout …”

They shouted out in unison, “There’s a phrase ‘timid as a mouse,’ and who is it about?”

“Me,” I murmured.

“We didn’t hear that,” Lü Qianjin shouted.

So I said again, “It refers to me.”

After hearing this, they no longer stood in a line but went back into the water, and the water again began to roil and seethe. I sat down in front of a tree and went on watching as they fooled around in the river and sold those white pumpkins of theirs.

I am a biddable boy. That’s not my word—that’s what my mother says. She often sings her son’s praises to other people: “Our Yang Gao is just the most biddable boy. He’s so obedient, and such a hard worker. He’ll do whatever you tell him to do. He’s never got in trouble outside the house and never got into fights with people. Why, I’ve never heard him say any dirty words …”

My mother’s right. I never curse people and never pick a fight with anybody. But there are always people who like to come over and curse me or pick a fight. They roll their sleeves up above their elbows and their pants up above their knees, block my path, and poke me on the nose, spit in my face and say, “Yang Gao, have you got the guts to fight with us?”

“No, I don’t,” I tell them.

“In that case,” they say, “do you have the guts to curse us?”

“No, I don’t have the guts for that either,” I tell them.

“In that case,” they say, “we’re going to curse
you
. Listen up! You cretin! Cretin! Cretin! Cretin, and asshole too!”

Even girls—girls like Lin Lili and Sun Hongmei—give me a hard time. Once I heard other girls say to them, “You only know how to bully us girls. If you’re so tough, why don’t you go pick a fight with a boy?”

“Who said we’re afraid of boys?” they replied.

They came over and stood on either side of me, sandwiching me between them. “Yang Gao,” they said, “we want to pick a fight with a boy, so how about if we pick a fight with you? We won’t both fight with you, we’ll fight one to one. So pick between us, Lin Lili or Sun Hongmei.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m not going to pick between you. I’m not going to fight with you.”

I wanted to get away, but Lin Lili stretched out an arm and held me back. “You don’t want to fight with us?” she said. “Or you don’t have the guts to fight with us?”

“I don’t have the guts to fight with you,” I said.

Lin Lili let me go, but then Sun Hongmei grabbed me. “We can’t let him off that easy,” she said. “We need to have him say ‘timid as a mouse.’ ”

So Lin Lili put it to me, “There’s a phrase ‘timid as a mouse.’ Who does it refer to?”

“It refers to me,” I said.

When my father was alive, he would say to my mother, “This boy Yang Gao is too much of a sissy. Even when he was six, he didn’t dare talk to people. When he was eight, he was too scared to sleep by himself. Even when he was ten, he couldn’t summon up the courage to lean against the parapet on the bridge. Now he’s twelve, and geese still scare him.”

My dad was right. When I ran into a flock of geese, my legs would turn to jelly and there was nothing I could do about it. What frightened me the most was when they charged toward me, stretching out their necks and flapping their wings. I was forced to keep going in the other direction, past Lü Qianjin’s house. Past Song Hai’s house I went, and Fang Dawei’s and Lin Lili’s, but those geese just kept on chasing me, honk honk honk, in full cry all the way. Once they pursued me right out of Yang Family Lane and kept on my tail the full length of
Liberation Road, right up to the school. As they followed me across the playground, still honking away, people gathered to watch and I heard Lü Qianjin shout, “Yang Gao, give them a kick!”

So I swiveled around, took aim at a goose in the middle of the pack, and gave it a little kick. But that just made them honk more fiercely and lunge toward me more aggressively. I turned right round and kept on going.

“Kick them!” Lü Qianjin and the others were shouting. “Yang Gao, kick them!”

I kept on moving as fast as I could, and as I went I shook my head. “They’re not afraid of my kicks.”

“Throw stones at them!” Lü Qianjin and the others shouted.

“I don’t have any stones,” I said.

They laughed uproariously. “Then you’d better run for your life!” they shouted.

I shook my head again. “I can’t run. As soon as I do, you’ll laugh at me.”

“We’re laughing at you already!” they said.

I took a good look at them. They were laughing so hard their mouths were open and their eyes were closed and their bodies were bent double. I thought to myself, it’s true, they
are
laughing at me, so I began to run.

“Geese’s eyes are the problem,” my mother explained to me later. “Geese see everything as smaller than it really is, and that’s why they’re so bold.

“Seen through a goose’s eye,” she went on, “our front door is like a hollow in the wall, our window is like the opening in the crotch of your pants, our house is as small as a hen’s nest …”

What about me, then? That evening, when I lay in bed, I
kept wondering how big I was in the eyes of a goose. I decided the biggest I could possibly be was only as big as another goose.

When I was little, I often heard them talking about how timid I was. By “them” I mean Lü Qianjin’s mother and Song Hai’s mother, also Lin Lili’s mother and Fang Dawei’s mother. In the summer they would sit in the shade under the trees and gossip about other people’s affairs. They would chatter away, even louder than the cicadas in the tree above, they’d yak and yak until the conversation came round to me. They would talk about how often I’d been a coward, and once they talked about my father too and said he was just as much of a coward as I was.

I was upset when I heard that, and went and sat down by myself on the doorsill. I’d just heard something I didn’t know before. They said my father was the slowest driver in the world. They said nobody wanted to ride in his truck, because a trip that would take other drivers three hours my father wouldn’t manage to complete in five. Why? They said it was because my father was too timid. They said he got scared if he drove at all fast. Scared of what? Scared he’d crash and die.