Boy in the Twilight (3 page)

“They say we’re man and wife,” I said, “but a man and a dog can’t be husband and wife. The most we can be is companions.”

I sat down on the straw, next to my dog. It gave a couple
of barks. I smiled and laughed, and on hearing me it barked a little more. I smiled and laughed again, and it barked again. So we went on like that for a while, me laughing, it barking, until I remembered I still had candy in my pocket, so I got it out and peeled off the wrapper. “This is candy, wedding candy, that’s what they said …”

When I heard myself say it was wedding candy, I couldn’t help but smile. I peeled off a couple of wrappers, and put one candy in the dog’s mouth and one in mine. “How does it taste?” I said.

I could hear it chewing noisily, and I chewed my candy too, even more noisily. We chewed away and it made me laugh. As soon as I did that, it started barking again.

In our two years together, the dog went with me everywhere. When I lifted my load onto my shoulders it would run ahead barking, and when my baskets were empty it would trot along a step or two behind. Seeing us, people in the town would chuckle. They would point and say, “Hey, are you husband and wife?”

I went “Mm,” walking on ahead with my head down.

“Hey, are you a dog?”

When I went “Mm,” they would start shouting. “Hey, dummy! Hey, dumb dog! Hey, dogface! Hey, dog-fuck! Or is it dog-fucker? Hey, when are you going to be a dog-dad?”

I just went “Mm” to everything. “You’re a man, aren’t you?” Mr. Chen asked. “What’s all this about you and the dog being husband and wife?”

I shook my head. “Man and dog can’t be husband and wife,” I said.

“As long as you’re clear about that,” said Mr. Chen. “In the
future, if anybody calls you that kind of name, don’t do that ‘Mm, mm’ stuff.”

I nodded. “Mm,” I went.

“Don’t keep going ‘Mm,’ just remember what I told you,” he said.

I nodded and went “Mm” again. He waved me away. “Okay, okay, off you go,” he said.

I walked off, carrying my load, and the dog pattered along in front of me. It seemed to be putting on a bit more weight every day. Before long it had grown up big and strong, and it began to get ideas. Sometimes I wouldn’t see it for a whole day at a time, and I didn’t know where it had gone off to. It wouldn’t come back until after dark. It would scratch the door, I would open up, and it would slip in and lie down on the straw in the corner. It would put its head on the floor and look at me out of the corners of its eyes, and I would say, “The day before yesterday, when I got to the rice store, I turned around and you were gone, and yesterday when I got to the furniture shop I turned around and you were gone, and today when I got to the pharmacy I turned my head and you were gone …”

Before I finished speaking, the dog’s eyes would be closed. I had a think, and closed my eyes too …

As my dog grew taller, it got nice and plump, and when Pug-nose Xu Asan and the others saw me they would say, “Hey, halfwit, when are we going to slaughter the dog?”

They were drooling at the mouth. “When it snows,” they said, “we’ll slaughter it, add water and soy sauce, cinnamon and the five spices … Braise it slowly for a whole day. It’ll taste so damn good.”

When I knew they wanted to eat my dog, I quickly picked up my load and went on my way, the dog running along by my side. I remembered what they’d said, how they’d eat my dog when it snowed. “When is it going to snow?” I asked Mr. Chen.

“That’s a long time from now,” Mr. Chen said. “You’re still wearing a T-shirt. You need to wait till you’re wearing a padded jacket.”

When Mr. Chen said that, I didn’t feel so anxious. But what happened was, before I had started wearing a padded jacket, before the snow came, Pug-nose Xu Asan and the others already wanted to eat my dog. They got a bone and tricked it into Xu Asan’s house, and then they shut the door and closed the windows and started beating my dog with sticks, trying to kill my dog, so they could braise it on the stove for a day.

My dog knew they wanted to kill and eat it, so it hid underneath Xu Asan’s bed and wouldn’t come out. Xu Asan and the others poked it with their sticks, and it barked so loud I heard it when I was doing my rounds.

That morning I looked over my shoulder when I reached the bridge, and the dog was nowhere to be seen. In the afternoon I heard it barking furiously as I walked past Xu Asan’s house, so I came to a stop and was standing by the door when Xu Asan and the others came out. “Hey, halfwit, we were just about to look for you,” they said. “Hey, halfwit, hurry up and tell your dog to come out.”

They thrust a looped rope into my hands. “Put this around the dog’s neck and strangle it,” they said.

I shook my head and pushed the lasso away. “It hasn’t snowed yet,” I said.

“What’s the halfwit saying?” they asked each other.

“He says it hasn’t snowed yet.”

“What does he mean it hasn’t snowed yet?”

“No idea,” they said. “To know that, you’d have to be a halfwit too.”

I could hear the dog barking inside, and there were people poking it with sticks. Xu Asan patted me on the shoulder. “Hey buddy, hurry up and tell the dog to come out.”

They dragged me over there. “What are you calling him buddy for?” they said. “Cut the crap … Take this rope … and strangle the dog … You won’t? You’d better, or we’ll strangle
you
next.”

Xu Asan blocked their way. “He’s a halfwit. There’s no point in trying to scare him, he won’t understand. We need to trick him …”

“Tricking him won’t work,” they said. “He still won’t understand.”

I saw Mr. Chen walking over. He had his hands in his pockets and was walking slowly, step by step.

“Let’s just take the bed apart,” they said. “Then the dog will have no place to hide.”

“We can’t take the bed apart,” Xu Asan said. “The dog’s already in a panic. If it feels any more threatened, it’ll bite.”

“You dog, you mangy dog …,” they said to me. “Yeah, it’s you we’re talking to. Why don’t you hurry up and answer?”

I bent my head and went “Mm” a couple of times. Mr. Chen spoke up off to one side. “If you want him to help,” he said, “you need to call him by his real name. If you keep on using bad words and cursing him, he’s never going to help. You say he’s a halfwit, but he’s not always such a fool.”

“You’re right,” said Xu Asan, “let’s call him by his real name.
Who knows his real name? What’s he called? What’s this halfwit’s name?”

“Do you know, Mr. Chen?” they asked.

“Of course I know,” he said.

Xu Asan and the others surrounded him. “Mr. Chen, what’s this halfwit’s name?” they asked.

“His name is Laifa.”

When I heard that, my heart skipped a beat. Xu Asan came up to me and put his arm on my shoulder. “Laifa,” he said.

My heart began to thump. Xu Asan, his arm around me, walked me toward his house. “Laifa, we’re old pals … Laifa, go and tell your dog to come out … Laifa, all you need to do is walk over to the bed … Laifa, just call it nicely now … Laifa, just say ‘Hey’ … Laifa, I’m counting on you.”

I went into Xu Asan’s bedroom, squatted down, and saw my dog lying prone beneath the bed. There was blood all over it. I called it gently. “Hey.”

As soon as it heard my voice, it scurried out and threw its paws on me, butting me with its head and chest, so my face was smeared with blood. It gave a baying noise, a baying noise I’d never heard it make before, and that upset me a lot. I reached over to give it a hug, and no sooner did I hold it close to me than they put the rope around its neck. With a tug they dragged it out of my arms. Before I realized it, the hands that were hugging the dog were empty. I heard it give a little woof, just a little woof, that’s all, and I saw its four feet scrabble on the ground for a little, and then it didn’t move anymore. “It hasn’t snowed yet!” I said, as they dragged it away.

They looked at me and laughed.

That evening I sat by myself on the straw where the dog
used to sleep. I thought about the whole thing. I knew my dog was dead. I knew they’d poured water over it, and soy sauce and cinnamon and the five spices, and now they’d braise it over a fire for a day and tomorrow they’d eat it.

I thought about this for a long time. I knew that it was my fault the dog died. It got strangled because I coaxed it out from under Xu Asan’s bed. My heart thumped when they called me Laifa, and that was all it took to get me to do what they said. I shook my head when I remembered that, and shook it for a good long time. “Next time somebody calls me Laifa,” I said to myself, “I’m just not going to answer them.”

It was the middle of an autumn day. Sun Fu sat beside a fruit stand, his eyes squinting in the bright sunshine. He leaned forward, hands on his knees, and his grizzled hair seemed gray in the sunlight, gray like the road that lay before him, a wide road that extended from the far distance and then stretched off in the other direction. He had occupied this spot for three years now, selling fruit near where the long-haul buses stopped. When a car drove by, it shrouded him in the dust stirred by its passage, plunging him into darkness, and it was a moment before he and his fruit re-emerged, as though unveiled by a new dawn.

After the cloud of dust had passed, he saw an urchin in dirty clothes in front of the stall, watching him with dark, gleaming eyes. As he returned the boy’s gaze, the boy put a hand on the fruit, a hand with long black fingernails. When he saw the nails brush against a shiny red apple, Sun Fu raised his hand to wave him away, the way he would swat away a fly. “Clear off,” he said.

The boy withdrew his grubby hand and swayed a little as he shuffled off, his arms hanging slack at his sides. On such a skinny body his head looked oversized.

Others were now approaching the stand, and Sun Fu turned to look. They stopped on the other side of the stall and threw him a glance. “How much are the apples?” they asked. “How much for a pound of bananas?”

Sun Fu stood up, weighed apples and bananas on his steelyard,
and took their money. Then he sat down and put his hands on his knees. The boy had come back. This time he was not standing directly in front, but off to one side, his glowing eyes fixed on the apples and bananas, as Sun Fu watched him with equal attention. After gazing at the fruit for a while, the boy looked up at Sun Fu. “I’m hungry,” he said.

Sun Fu was silent. “I’m hungry,” the boy repeated, a note of urgency creeping into his voice.

Sun Fu scowled. “Clear off.”

The boy’s body seemed to give a shiver. “Clear off,” Sun Fu said again, more loudly.

The boy gave a start. His body swayed hesitantly before his legs began to move. Sun Fu took his eyes off the boy and switched his attention to the highway. A long-haul bus had come to a halt on the other side of the road, and the people inside stood up. Through the bus windows, he could see a column of shoulders crowding toward the doors; a moment later, passengers poured from both ends of the bus. Then, out of the corner of his eye, Sun Fu saw the boy dashing off as fast as his legs could carry him. He wondered why, and then he saw the boy’s flailing hand: it was clutching something, something round. Now he recognized what it was. He leapt to his feet and set off in chase. “Stop thief!” he shouted. “Stop that thief there.”

It was afternoon now. Dust flew as the boy fled along the highway. He heard shouting behind him, and looked round to see Sun Fu in hot pursuit. He floundered on desperately, gasping for breath, and when his legs began to go soft he knew he had no more reserves of energy. Looking back a second time, he saw Sun Fu still on his tail, yelling and waving his arms furiously. All hope gone, the boy came to a stop and turned
around, panting heavily. He watched until Sun Fu was almost on top of him and then raised the apple to his mouth and took a big bite out of it.

Sun Fu swung his arm and struck the boy, knocking the apple out of his hand and connecting so firmly with the boy’s chin that he collapsed on the ground. He shielded his head with his hands, all the time chewing vigorously. Sun Fu, incensed, seized the boy by the collar and hauled him to his feet. The boy’s throat was so constricted by the tight collar that it was impossible for him to chew; his eyes began to goggle and his cheeks swelled, some apple still inside. Gripping the collar with one hand, Sun Fu squeezed the boy’s neck with the other. “Spit it out! Spit it out!” he yelled.

A crowd was gathering. “He’s still trying to eat it!” Sun Fu told them. “He stole my apple and took a bite out of it, and now he’s trying to swallow it!”

Sun Fu slapped him hard on the face. “Come on, spit it out.”

But the boy simply clenched his mouth all the more firmly. Sun Fu put a hand on his throat and started throttling him once more. “Spit it out!” he cried.

As the boy’s mouth opened, Sun Fu could see chewed-up bits of apple inside. He tightened his viselike grip on the boy’s throat, until his eyes began to bulge. “Sun Fu,” somebody said, “look, his eyeballs are practically popping out of his head. You’re going to strangle him.”

“Serves him right,” Sun Fu said. “It serves him right if he’s strangled.”

Finally, he loosened his hold. “If there’s one thing I hate,” he said, pointing at the sky, “it’s a thief. Spit it out!”

The boy began to spit out the apple piece by piece. It was a
bit like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube, the way he spat bits onto his shirt front. After he closed his mouth, Sun Fu levered it open again with his hand, and bent down to look inside. “You haven’t spit it all out,” he said. “There’s still some left.”

The boy spat again—practically all saliva this time, but with a few crumbs of apple here and there. The boy spat and spat, until in the end there was just a dry noise, no saliva anymore. “That’ll do,” Sun Fu said.

He saw many familiar faces among the people who had gathered to watch. “In the old days we never locked our doors, did we?” he said. “There wasn’t a family in the whole town that locked its doors, was there?”

He saw people nodding. “Now, after locking the door once, you have to use a second lock as well,” he continued. “Why? It’s because of thieves like this. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a thief.”