Strange Beasts of China, page 2
It seemed a new type of hormone was being invented that would leave the beasts unable to remember anything of their origins, even when the moon was at its roundest, ensuring they would remain human all their lives. They’d still be unable to smile, though, let alone laugh – if they did, they wouldn’t be able to stop, and then they’d die.
I phoned my professor and asked if there was really any such thing. He flew into a temper and yelled, ‘If there isn’t, then who wrote that article for you? The one on this topic, just three months ago? I can’t believe I taught a loser like you. Imagine ending up as a novelist!’
I quickly hung up, then picked up the receiver again, meaning to call Lefty, but I couldn’t make myself do it.
Nights in Yong’an City were full of animal cries of no discernible origin. I was born here, and got used to it early on. My mother used to tell me, ‘You can’t be sure that beasts aren’t people, or that people aren’t just another type of beast.’
But that wasn’t how things were. People would always be scared of beasts.
I put down the phone again. Someone was sobbing quietly, someone was hugging me tightly and weeping. Someone was saying, ‘Hello, hello, hello.’
I lived alone on the seventeenth floor of Peach Blossom Villas, the Splendid River visible in the distance. My spacious flat was empty, but still I heard crying. ‘Stop that,’ I said.
But it continued.
* * *
—
THE PAINTER LEFTY WAS BEHAVING A LITTLE ERRATICALLY. She kept calling to tell me stories about her and the beast. I understood she had no one to talk to, and asked, ‘What do you want in return for these tales?’
She didn’t want anything, she already had everything, and she’d never get anything again.
Now and then, I’d see her in the papers. A beautiful artist will always have someone to love her. A young, wealthy human male, his eyes full of exuberance. On the phone, she sobbed, ‘I’ve been getting these headaches recently, I’m always so confused, I don’t know who I am.’
She couldn’t find her sorrowful beast, the one who belonged to her. She’d tamed him. He’d stayed with her, mostly silent, drawn to dark and damp places, fond of ice cream, sweet-natured, empty-eyed, preferring to go without clothes, to wander naked around the flat – and she’d painted every one of his movements, the mesmerising green patch on his belly that somehow seemed to be expanding.
She said his body was cool, which made it hard to keep your hands off him on summer nights. At times he’d let out a low moan, at times he spoke, but mostly he preferred the former. He was a beast. The scales on his leg gave off such a dazzling light.
Perhaps he really was the descendant of a poet, melancholy by nature.
I went back to the gallery where she’d held her exhibition, but all the portraits of Cloud had already been sold. I asked the owner who’d bought them. He stammered and refused to tell me, so I deployed Charley’s name.
‘It was Mr He,’ said the owner. ‘He Qi.’
He Qi. He Qi. I quickly found the face – I’d just seen him in the papers. He was Lefty’s boyfriend, the prominent Yong’an construction magnate’s son.
* * *
—
MR HE QI TURNED OUT TO BE A READER OF MY BOOKS. I SAT IN his vast reception room, clutching a cup of Blue Mountain coffee, my attention somewhat unmoored. I asked, ‘Did you buy all the paintings of that beast?’
‘Yes,’ he answered, nothing evasive about his beaming face.
‘Why?’
‘I’m in love,’ he said, still smiling.
‘In love?’
‘Yes.’
I hesitated. ‘Do you mean with the beast,’ I said, ‘or the painter?’
He smiled, not responding.
‘He died, you know,’ I said.
‘Who?’
‘The beast.’
‘Did he die? He didn’t die, his soul is immortal.’
‘I mean…’
‘Does it really matter? I’m looking forward to your next novel.’
* * *
—
THE PING LE COTTON MILL STOOD ALONG THE LOWER reaches of the Peacock River. It produced well-stitched blankets, bed sheets and towels to be shipped far and wide. Because the male beasts were so skilled with their hands, they held sway here, more or less dominating the market in Yong’an City. But their lives were hard, because the government imposed such high taxes on them. Charley whispered to me about what our leaders were saying behind the scenes. He claimed they were relying on the placid natures of the sorrowful beasts, otherwise there’d have been a revolt long ago!
At the entrance to Leye Estate was Yong’an’s largest ice cream distribution centre. A gang of young male beasts hung around, staring at the attached shop. I asked one of them if I could buy him a cone. He nodded eagerly. Sitting across from me as he slurped his ice cream happily, he said, ‘Auntie, you’re a good person.’
‘Why don’t you call me Big Sister instead?’
He obligingly switched. ‘Big Sister,’ he murmured.
I asked how old he was. He said he was five.
We sat in a little park outside Leye Estate. The walls were covered in layers of ivy, making the buildings look like countless enormous trees, birds of paradise resting on their branches after long migrations.
‘What are you looking at?’ he asked.
‘It’s so pretty.’
The little beast seemed startled. ‘What’s that on your face?’
‘A smile,’ I said.
‘Smile?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why can’t I do that?’
‘You can’t smile,’ I told him. ‘You’d die if you did.’
‘I see,’ he said. ‘How interesting.’ He looked relaxed, while it was I who felt uneasy. ‘You call that a smile, but we call it pain. My daddy says when the pain reaches its end, we die.’
‘Would you like another ice cream?’ I said, to change the subject.
‘Yes, please.’
I bought him another one, which he attacked with delight, until a long cry came from the distance, like the roar of nature itself.
He said he had to go home. ‘Bye-bye Big Sister. You’re such a nice person, when I’m grown up I’ll marry you.’
I smiled again. ‘You’re too young. Besides, you can’t marry me, I’m human.’
‘I can. My daddy says I can, but if I do, you’ll laugh.’
‘Laugh?’
He turned, his silhouette like a god in the gloom. ‘That’s right. You people would say, you’ll die.’
* * *
—
THE NEXT TIME I SAW OUR RESIDENT TROUBLEMAKER CHARLEY at the Dolphin Bar, he had a different girlfriend. I said, ‘Did you know He Qi bought all of Lefty’s sorrowful beast paintings?’
Charley looked sidelong at me. ‘Of course I know. Why the big fuss? No wonder you’ve never amounted to anything.’
He went on, ‘I was the one who brought the two together. He Qi saw those paintings and came pestering me for an introduction to Lefty. I gave him her phone number.’
‘And then?’
‘And then the same old story. He Qi called and said they’d finally met in person. He was enchanted by the beast.’
‘The same beast?’
‘Yes. He Qi said he loved him.’
That night, Lefty phoned me. She and He Qi were sparking like crazy and she’d forgotten all about the beast. I said, a little angrily, ‘I thought you were so in love with Cloud.’
She was quiet, then asked, ‘Is love possible between humans and beasts? Not the ones who marry rich men, the ones who have so much surgery and hormone shots, they believe they’re people. The ones who’re still beasts. Can they be in love with humans?
‘I love He Qi,’ the painter concluded.
* * *
—
AS THE LEGENDS TELL US, SORROWFUL BEASTS ALREADY existed in ancient times. Thousands of years ago, they came to Yong’an City in the south of China. This city was beset on four sides, facing sandstorms to the south and west, and humidity to the north and east – so the beasts settled in the north-east, becoming an isolated community that married off its attractive females to the highest bidders, splitting the proceeds forty-sixty with the local government. As our city acquired skyscrapers and elevated highways, they continued in their dilapidated estate, at peace with the world, placid and mild.
When I was at university, my professor told me, ‘All beasts have a beastly nature. Please take care around them.’
I phoned and told him about my latest discoveries. ‘Don’t dig any further,’ he said seriously. ‘It won’t do you any good.’
‘I want to know how he died.’
My tutor sighed. ‘Stubborn as ever. There are things it’s better to forget.’
But I couldn’t forget this: the night before graduation, my professor brought me to see his collection of beastly specimens, soaking in long vitrines, their faces so human. I remembered the male sorrowful beast. The green patch on his belly had been cut open. Inside were two rows of tightly packed teeth, and between these two rows, a gaping void. My tutor had said, ‘That’s his true mouth. His beastly mouth.’
I couldn’t stop retching. I ran out of the lab, and never went back.
Every beast has a beastly nature. At the full moon, human children ought to stay at home.
My mother would say, ‘The beasts all want to eat people, just as people eat them.’
Mutual destruction is the only way to survive. That’s the circle of life. That’s truth.
But scientists said they’d invented and put out a brand-new hormone that could completely suppress the beastly nature of female sorrowful beasts. Even at the full moon, they would no longer screech their birdlike cries.
They held clinical trials, and the results were undeniably successful. The drug was mass produced, with a hefty price tag – after all, the wives of rich men had someone to foot the bill. Charley was outraged at the time. ‘This disrupts the ecological equilibrium!’ he’d yelled, as his latest girlfriend gazed worshipfully at him.
I took a deep drag on my cigarette. It was easy to imagine a Yong’an many years from now with no beasts left, all of them dead from the hormones. Or else completely under control, stuffed full with humanity, passing between the skyscrapers, hopping in and out of lifts, dating and getting married, reproducing but stopping at one child, never mind if it was a boy or girl.
When that time came, surely all novelists would have hormone injections to turn us into computer programmers, and all zoologists would undergo surgery to become bus conductors. Everyone would give up their hollow pursuits, and there’d be no myths, no beasts, no history, no fantasy. The government would rattle along, printing money. Yong’an would truly become an international metropolis.
Therefore, historians of the future ought to thank the female beast Rain. She was allergic to the hormone shots, which turned her skin bright red, leaving her screeching nonstop. Most Yong’an residents saw the horrifying scene on TV: Rain’s skin scarlet and almost transparent, the human foetus faintly visible through the bare skin of her belly, her hair flying wildly as she ran naked through the streets, the TV station’s van careening after her.
People saw a terrified, tormented sorrowful beast, and just like the little beast said to me, she was smiling. Sorrowful beasts don’t smile from joy, but only because of sadness, because of pain. Once they start, it’s impossible to stop, until they die.
Her smile was so beautiful, even I wept for her. The whole city was captivated. As she sprinted, she shrieked like a bird. Old people said they’d die without regrets now, having lived to see the smile of a sorrowful beast.
She smiled down the entire length of Yanhe Street, then climbed the statue of the ancient hero in Victory Square. Her foetus stared helplessly through the translucent skin of her belly.
She let out a final, shattering cry, her smile as dazzling as the peach blossoms. Nearby witnesses said seeing her was like looking upon a goddess.
Then she died. Once sorrowful beasts smile, they die.
* * *
—
PRODUCTION OF THE NEW HORMONE WAS BROUGHT TO A SUDDEN halt. The sorrowful beasts of Leye Estate went on a protest march, roaring as they paraded down the street. Humans ducked out of their way, terrified. The mayor came forward to speak. He offered his apologies, and arranged a funeral for Rain, the most lavish public ceremony ever seen.
On TV, her husband sobbed heart-rendingly, his shoulders heaving. A moving sight. Charley brought me to the funeral. Outside the ceremonial hall, we ran into Lefty and He Qi.
Lefty looked at me with a strange expression. She was even lovelier than ever, but so fragile, unsmiling, her expression pensive, her figure frail. He Qi clutched her hand tightly.
Not one of us said a word about Cloud. We nodded sombrely and went inside. Lefty wanted to see Rain’s body. He Qi held her back, but she said, ‘I want to take a last look, I didn’t take good care of her.’
He Qi said, ‘Don’t go over there, it’ll make you sad.’
But no one could have expected what happened next.
Lefty ran over like a madwoman, shoved the coffin lid open, and stared at the body inside. She reached out, as if to touch the body, but before making contact, she smiled.
It was a radiant smile, and everyone was momentarily enchanted. Charley, standing beside me, let out a meaningless exhalation, a typical man’s grunt. Lefty was smiling, and now she couldn’t stop. He Qi stumbled over to tug at her. ‘You mustn’t smile.’ he murmured. ‘She’s dead, but don’t smile!’
He wept, and still she smiled. He said, ‘I love you so much, please don’t leave me. It took so much for us to be together. Stop smiling!’
Still smiling, she let out a peal of proud, beautiful birdsong. Her voice rose up, startling everyone present.
Then she died.
And that was how the artist Lefty met her end.
* * *
—
IN YONG’AN CITY’S DOLPHIN BAR, ONE OFTEN RAN INTO THE resident busybody Charley. His most recent gossip was of the artist Lefty and her sorrowful beast.
The way he told it, the government carried out an autopsy on her corpse, and in her faintly green belly, they found the teeth that hadn’t yet broken down, and the half-digested remains of the real Lefty’s body.
My professor phoned to scold me. ‘I warned you not to dig any deeper.’ Then he asked if he should come and see me, but I said there was no need.
Much later, I ran into He Qi at a party. He’d grown more feeble-looking. Pulling at my arm, he asked, ‘You’ve written so many stories, you tell me, can humans and beasts love each other? Can they be together?’
I felt cold all over, and suddenly thought of the artist Lefty, or perhaps by then she was already the sorrowful beast Cloud, asking me sadly on the telephone, ‘Can humans and beasts love each other? Is it possible?’
‘I love He Qi,’ she’d said.
I’d once thought I knew the whole story. I thought it was him and her. Who’d have guessed it was a tragedy of him and him? They’d thought they could be together, but in the end, it lasted no longer than flowers in a mirror, the moon reflected in water. It ended because her smile was so beautiful.
* * *
—
THE SORROWFUL BEASTS LIVE IN THE NORTH-EASTERN QUARTER of Yong’an City. Guileless by nature, they prefer the cold. Since ancient times, no calamity has weakened them. At the full moon, the female beasts let out long mating calls, and the males hasten to them. There are fewer male sorrowful beasts than female, for on nights when the moon is full, a male is able to mate with a human woman, and at the moment of greatest pleasure, he opens his green belly-mouth wide and swallows her whole. He then takes on her likeness, slowly digesting her consciousness, finally becoming a new female beast. And so the species perpetuates, generation after generation.
These beasts are faithful, and only seek one mate in life. But they never smile. If they do, they die – hence their name.
JOYOUS BEASTS
JOYOUS BEASTS ARE AN ANCIENT BREED; THE GOD OF thunder’s steed was named Joyous. They only have a single gender, and their short stature makes them no different in appearance from a human child of six or seven, apart from a slightly longer left arm with five to seven claws at the wrist.
Joyous beasts love breakfast cereal and plain water, and dislike greasy, strong-tasting foods. They enjoy fantasy novels, and hate maths.
Joyous beasts are auspicious creatures. They live alone, and their movements are mysterious. Anyone who lays eyes on one is destined to prosper and rise above the herd. There are legends of emperors in ancient times encountering these beasts, hence their name, joyous.
The first sighting in Yong’an City was fifty years ago. A record of this incident can be found in the municipal library.
Five decades ago, a Yong’an Chronicle journalist snapped a picture of one such beast. In this colourised image, the tiny thing appears malnourished, with huge eyes, short hair, and thick fringe. Its skin has been tinted a peculiar shade of pink, and its tracksuit is green. It looks panicked, standing at the edge of the frame, smiling with eyes that look like they’re about to weep.
