Cocoon, page 28
It was the women of fifty or so who got sent to the old building, bad-tempered and fraught from menopause. Food and medicine were delivered irregularly, and the sheets changed more seldom than they should have been. Patients who lost control of their bodily functions got shouted at. Relatives complained, but the resultant reforms were purely symbolic and ineffective. The director preferred to put his energy into opening more branches and applying for medical awards; no matter how well the old block was managed, it wouldn’t help his advancement. Better to keep one eye shut, as long as they didn’t actually lose any patients through negligence.
Everyone called it the ghost block. Auntie and I knew Granddad was being treated badly, but it’s not like he could complain. They probably weren’t moving him, wiping him down, or changing his diaper as often as they should, and he might have bed sores or atrophied muscles by now, maybe a weakened heart. Neither of us went to check on him, nor did we dare tell Granny, in case she picked a fight with those fierce nurses. Besides, living among the gossips of Southern Courtyard, could she really not know? Like us, she was probably only feigning ignorance. Knowledge would have meant confrontation, because her reputation for taking no nonsense wouldn’t have allowed her to let this slide. She was old now, and didn’t have as much energy for scrapping, especially over something so trivial. It made no difference to her whether Granddad lived a few years more or less. The whole family made a tacit agreement not to mention Room 317. Maybe we were just waiting for news of his death.
This news never came. In the fall of 1995, I went back to the room. I’d just had an argument with Granny—I was almost fourteen, and frustrated that I still had to share a room with Auntie. I’d asked her to move some of the boxes from the living room so Auntie could sleep out there with her. Granny refused—the boxes weren’t going anywhere, and she couldn’t afford another bed. Auntie, meanwhile, was sulking at what she thought was my rejection of her.
In a temper, I decided to run away from home. The next day was Saturday, and I set out first thing in the morning with my rucksack. At the long-distance bus station, I stared at the unfamiliar names on the signs, watching the buses disappear one by one in clouds of dust. Noon arrived, and I still hadn’t mustered enough interest in any distant place. I felt more and more fearful, and a voice mingled with hunger and exhaustion urged me to go home—but it felt shameful to retreat so soon. It only counted as running away if you stayed out at least one night. Where could I go? Granddad’s face floated into my mind, like a bodhisattva materializing.
It was evening by the time I got to the third floor and walked to the room at the far end. The door to 317 was ajar, and in the light spilling across the floor I thought I saw a woman’s silhouette. I looked inside and there actually was a woman there, giving Granddad a sponge bath. She lifted his sweater and gently wiped his chest and belly with a damp cloth, then turned him over to do his back. When the sweater had been carefully smoothed back into place, she raised him a little so she could pull his loose white thermal trousers down to his ankles. Grabbing the towel that had been draped at the foot of the bed, she ran it over his calves. As her hands, through the towel, slid along his shins, I noticed his legs quiver, even though they’d been motionless all these years. She fetched the flask from the window sill and crouched down on the other side of the bed. A cloud of steam rose into the air—she must have poured the hot water into a basin to rinse the towel. The splashing and her being momentarily out of sight made me anxious. Eventually, she stood again and spread the hot towel, which the twilight dyed scarlet in its haze of vapor. She folded it into a rectangle and passed it from hand to hand until it had cooled down enough, then ran it over his groin and inner thighs. Lifting his limp penis, she tenderly wiped it, her damp fingers stroking its purple-brown surface and hungry folds of skin. Slowly, she set it down into its thicket of white fur. I was breathing so fast I thought I might drown. My heart was beating somewhere outside my body. She got a tube of ointment from under his pillow and rubbed it into his bum, then held him up till it had dried.
I’d seen women wiping Granddad before, but these had been nurses doing a rushed, sloppy job. This was different—unimaginably patient, as if she wished she could go even more slowly, to prolong the task. Although she faced the door, she was too absorbed to notice me. Nothing in the world mattered more to her than cleaning Granddad.
When she was done, she returned the flask to the sill and pushed the window open. Only then did I realize it had been shut, probably to prevent Granddad catching a chill while he was damp. Leaning against the sill, she got a pack of cigarettes from her trouser pocket and lit one. A pigeon took off and she turned her head to watch it soar.
As she smoked, I made myself calm down and studied her carefully. She looked about Auntie’s age, though her baby face seemed more suited to a younger woman—her dull eyes, slack jowls, and drooping lips seemed tragically out of place. Her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, leaving long strands dangling from behind her ears down to her shoulders. She wore a baggy indigo denim shirt, its sleeves rolled up unevenly.
She wasn’t wearing a white coat and didn’t look like a nurse. Besides, I’d never seen any of the nurses in this building behaving so tenderly. Who was she? A good-hearted volunteer? Someone from the church? I didn’t really want to know. Better to remain in the scene I’d just witnessed, recalling each of her movements and how they made me feel.
I left when she put out the cigarette—that might have meant she was ready to go. Bumping into her would have meant explaining that the person in the bed was my granddad, and she might stop coming if she knew he still had family who visited. So I had to leave, if I ever wanted to see her again. I didn’t go far, just to the fruit stand by the entrance, where I hid and waited for her to appear. She walked slowly to the bus stop across the road. The number 11 bus came and took her away. More people came along, and someone took her spot. I waited some more before heading home. Would I see her again? The uncertainty tormented me. I was almost home before I remembered why I’d gone to 317 in the first place—to run away from home, because I’d wanted my own room. But that wasn’t important anymore. My mind was on higher things, and these annoyances now seemed minuscule.
She showed up at four every afternoon, and stayed about half an hour. After giving Granddad his sponge bath, she also tube-fed him, and changed his clothes and diaper—everything the nurses ought to have done. I watched her from the doorway, then lurked by the fruit stand till the number 11 pulled away. After two weeks of this, I got there a little early and ran into her in the corridor, on her way to fetch hot water. Flustered, I blurted out that the man in the bed was my grandfather. She said, Cheng Shouyi is doing very well, you can go. I’d like to stay, I said, I haven’t seen him in a while. She said, Weren’t you just here yesterday? I was silent. Give me a hand, kid, she said. Go get some hot water. I took the flask from her and said, My name is Cheng Gong. She nodded but when I got back with the hot water, she said, Put it over there, kid. I hustled to pour the water and hand her the towel, scared she’d tell me to go away. Standing this much closer when she cleaned Granddad, I felt my heart throb with warmth. I said, A bad person did this—my granddad was a sharpshooter in the Liberation Army, and he’d have dealt with anyone coming for him openly. She ignored me, and I wasn’t sure if she’d heard. Before leaving, she said, Don’t let anyone know I was here. I nodded, Sure, good deeds should be anonymous.
I saw her every afternoon after that. After a while, I started skipping study hall and brought my homework to Room 317. I treasured the moments after she was done, when she would linger by the window for a while, and I would stand beside her. I had a lot I could have said to her, but silence was fine too. Sometimes she would produce an apple and peel it with her little knife, thumb on the back of the blade, the skin coming off almost transparent, round after round, a single unbroken strip. Her eyes never left her hand, enjoying this process. Then she’d slice it in two and offer me half. Is it sweet? she always asked, as if she couldn’t taste it herself. It’s sweet, I would say. I’ve loved apples since then.
As I walked her to the bus stop one evening, I couldn’t resist asking where she lived. Far away, she said. I asked if anyone was waiting for her to have dinner, and she shook her head. Before I could ask any more, her bus arrived. She was wearing a woolen coat with orange and green checks that day, a beautiful garment, but from behind she looked sad and lonely.
In early spring the following year, Granddad had a high fever that resisted medication. His body twitched, his face turned purple, and there was white foam on his lips. The woman said, I’ll stay with him tonight—this is just a hiccup and he’ll be better soon, don’t tell your family. I agreed—I hadn’t planned to tell Granny or Auntie anyway. I didn’t want them coming to Room 317 or going to see the director and demanding Granddad get moved to the new block, where there were too many nurses for the woman to intervene. Besides, I somehow trusted her to save Granddad, even though all she was doing was pressing ice cubes to his face and alcohol rubs over his body. When his temperature spiked, she cooled him every half hour all night long. I stayed very late, and skipped all my afternoon classes. Not only did I fetch her hot water, I also brought her food, including an apple from the fruit stand. It took a week for the fever to go down. Now Granddad had been miraculously healed, she fell ill and stayed away for two days. For two long afternoons, I paced the room, realizing I didn’t even know her phone number. If she’d vanished, I had no way of tracking her down. When she showed up on the third day, my eyes dampened and I almost ran over to hug her. Instead, I shook her icy hand. She pulled away and said, Quick, go get some water before the line starts forming by the dispenser.
At the end of March, the university announced that your grandfather had been made a medical fellow. The happy news was plastered all over the campus noticeboard, along with a photo of your grandfather staring sternly ahead with pursed lips. I stuck a piece of gum on his forehead. The university held a grand ceremony for him. The middle school got half a day off so the students could attend. Everyone went except me—I got to Room 317 early and waited for her. When she showed up, she said, It’s quiet here today, I went to get a new tube from the nurses but the office was locked up. I told her everyone was in the science auditorium because a professor—I refused to say his name—had been made a fellow. Oh, she said, absorbed in arranging Granddad’s blanket. Then she paused and asked, That professor, what’s his name? Li Jisheng, I said. She stood there absolutely motionless. After a while she said, A fellow, that’s good.
She didn’t say a word for the rest of the afternoon, and though she carried out her usual tasks, she seemed distracted. When I came back from fetching hot water, she’d finished feeding him, but the tube was still in his nose. She was staring at him, as if she’d forgotten the next step. She poured too much water into the basin, and though I tried to warn her, she scalded herself reaching in to test it. When I tried to help, she shoved me away.
Afterwards, she leaned wearily against the sill, but didn’t light a cigarette as usual. She was staring at something in the distance through the window, and when I asked what, she said, Is the ceremony over? There are a lot of people walking around. I looked towards the campus, but the science auditorium wasn’t visible, just a clump of grayish buildings melted together by dusk. Normally she’d be waiting at the bus stop by now. Her eyes remained fixed on that spot and her shoulders shook. I thought she was about to burst into tears.
She only stepped away and put on her coat when it had gotten completely dark. At the door, she turned and said, Could you do me a favor, kid? I immediately nodded. She paused for a while before saying, Go to Li Jisheng, tell him Wang Luhan wants to see him. Tell him to come here tomorrow or the day after. I’ll be here all afternoon.
After she’d gone, I went to the grove and sat for a while. Overhead the tree canopies were like dark clouds with chunks bitten out of them by the wind, suspended in the night sky. I felt as if a blindfold was gently slipping from my eyes. Who was she and why was she here? I’d been avoiding these questions since I first saw her. I was supposed to have a keen nose for secrets—how come I’d never sniffed out the suspicion on her? I’d turned off my sense of smell. Answers to these questions might destroy a lot of things. I had to protect my feelings for her, to keep them from harm. I learned that from you. Your departure made me grow up a lot.
Secrets become secrets and get hidden away because they have the capacity for destruction. That’s what drew us to them, two kids who loved digging up secrets. It’s hard to say what it was that suppressed our childhood creativity, but we couldn’t create, only destroy. Or maybe it’s because in this country, destruction is always seen as the highest form of creation. It felt exciting to light the fuse of a secret and blast a hole in the world. Such mysterious joy in the instant of explosion. I was hooked, and even if the thing lay buried close by, between the two of us, I would still detonate it. A moment’s pleasure, like taking revenge. Then I’d find myself standing in a shattered ruin. Your removal from my life might have seemed like chance, but I knew it was because of me, because I hadn’t taken sufficient care of our friendship.
You once asked me, in the undergrowth behind the library, what a secret smelled like, and I said sweet, like a melon split open by ripeness.
On this spring evening, however, I thought I detected the true aroma of secrets: ancient and perilous, reminding me of lava and meteorites. Not sweet at all. My first impulse was to tell you, then I understood that would never be possible again.
The next day, I went to your grandfather’s office in the new admin block, on the same floor as the school directors. He was there, but his doorway was crammed with people and cameras—two TV stations, one interviewing him, the other shooting a documentary called A Day in the Life of a Fellow. I left still holding my note—Come tomorrow afternoon to Room 317 in the long-term patients block, Wang Luhan wants to see you.
In the end, I had to go to his apartment—but what if your grandmother answered the door? Though Wang Luhan hadn’t said so, I’d sensed this message needed to be kept secret. I perched on the rear rack of a bicycle parked across the road, idly ringing its bell. Finally, he showed up on his battered old bike. I followed him up the stairs, thrust the note into his hand, and fled. He probably hadn’t had time to see who I was, and I didn’t manage to catch a glimpse of his expression.
It was gloomy the next day—the dawn fog didn’t dispel till afternoon, when it was already getting dark. The sky was the gray of a pigeon’s wings, as if it had been painted for camouflage. Looking out from the third-story window, the steel-colored buildings looked large and flat, like a poorly executed sketch. Luhan and I had planned to air out Granddad’s bedding, but this wasn’t the weather for it. The heating hadn’t been turned off for the season yet, and the gusts of warm air made me drowsy. We opened the door and windows a crack to let some of the heat escape. Luhan worked in silence. She was wearing a moss-green sweater I’d never seen before, which emitted crackles of static electricity when her arms brushed her torso.
A gust of wind swept into the room through the window, making the door creak. I jumped to my feet and Luhan swung around. We stared at the door, waiting for it to be pushed open.
But no one was there. He didn’t come that day, or the next, or the next, or the next.
After a week of fog, we finally had a sunny day. Luhan said we should take advantage of the good weather to wash the sheets. It was as if we were back to a week ago, and she seemed just as focused, even a little frantic, once again treating these tasks as if nothing else in the world mattered. I followed her to the window, feeling a sort of happiness bloom in my heart. All my suspicions of her had gone like the dark clouds, and I hoped they’d never come back. I was suddenly very afraid Granddad would die, because he was why we got to hang out. If he wasn’t around, we wouldn’t be connected any longer, and would have no reason to meet. I lifted Granddad’s bum in the air so Luhan could pull the sheet out from under him. His pupils gleamed in his swollen eyes, and a very faint smile appeared at the corners of his mouth. I hadn’t looked closely at him for a long time, but he’d always been able to find ways of getting my attention and making me notice his existence. I understood now that this sealed body had unthinkable power locked up inside. There’d always been at least one member of our family who didn’t want Granddad to die. First my dad, so he could extract ever more compensation from the hospital, then Granny, so she could get herself a bigger house, then Auntie, so she could keep her job. And now me, so I could keep seeing Wang Luhan. He seemed able to attract these things we wanted, and in order to get them, we’d have to sincerely pray for his continued survival. I had no idea if our prayers worked, but he looked healthier than any of us, as if he might go on forever, a living fossil.
The year passed quickly, and it was Christmas before I knew it. For a couple of years now, this imported holiday had been gaining traction with kids. Christmas cards, snow globes, white baubles adorned with red hats. Some of my classmates bought thirty or more cards, wrote identical messages in all of them, and handed them out like playing cards. Dabin was one of them, even though more than twenty of his thirty-odd recipients had never really spoken to him before. He liked giving gifts and pleasing people; no matter the outcome, he was satisfied. One Saturday before Christmas, he went shopping for gifts at Dongmen Market and dragged me along. The market was packed. People were grabbing greeting cards by the dozen—turns out the world was full of kids as generous as Dabin. Amid this chaos, Dabin opened a pop-up card that played a carol. Standing behind him, my attention was caught by another stall’s glittering display. I picked up a leaf-shaped lavender barrette, its veins studded with gemstones that of course I now know were just plastic, but to a kid’s eye they looked like shiny jewels. I held Luhan’s face in my mind, then turned to a rack of earrings. Passing over the oversized loops and dangly ones, my eye lighted on a pair of pearl studs the size of my small fingernail, perfectly round with a milky sheen.
