Cocoon, page 3
“Such flashy bras—I guess they’re for men to look at?” she said glumly once, while I was changing.
“For men? Don’t you look at yourself in the mirror?”
But she rarely did—probably because of her scar. This kept her in a state of ignorance. Sometimes I thought her expression was the same as when we were little, except that now she’d lost her luster. I remembered how every Monday morning she’d walk to the flagpole with the flag in her arms, skin pale and dazzling, slender figure full of a young woman’s vigor. I thought every boy in the school must be in love with her.
One evening we began talking more openly. Nothing that would have been out of place between most cousins, but I felt I was crossing a line.
I asked if she had a boyfriend. She said no.
“A fuckbuddy, then?”
“I don’t need one,” she said, blushing. “My life is very full.”
The right man hadn’t shown up yet, she said, but he was out there. Someone from a good family with an excellent education and a respectable job, with eyes only for her. She would wait patiently for him.
“And you?” she asked awkwardly.
“Yours hasn’t shown up yet, mine has already gone. Now, I think men are all about the same, neither good nor bad. I’d be fine with any of them.”
“Your worldview is problematic.”
“I have no worldview. I’m just getting through life one day at a time.”
Over the next two weeks, Peixuan was busy with endless production meetings, getting ready for the shoot. I’d wake up at noon and, finding her gone, make myself something to eat, then sit at the computer to work on my manuscript, look for jobs online, and email out my CV. She’d usually come back around dinner time, as I was getting ready to go out. It was summer, and friends would ask me out to bars every few days. I always said yes, no matter who called. Peixuan would be sound asleep by the time I returned. We barely saw each other despite living under the same roof, which was just as well. I’ve always done this, adjusted my body clock to avoid people I don’t get on with.
One rainy night, I came home after twelve, soaking wet. She was still awake, arranging neatly folded clothes into her suitcase. My heart grew heavy. Was the shoot over? Now I’d have to find somewhere else to stay—an exhausting thought. But no, she said, she was just going to Yunnan and Myanmar for a few days with the production team.
“Yunnan? Since when is this a travelogue?”
“Did you know Grandpa was in the expeditionary army? Qilu University moved to Chengdu during the Anti-Japanese War. He joined up there, and was deployed to Yunnan and Myanmar. I found him in a photograph with General Sun Li-jen and the rest of his company.”
I’d had no idea about any of this, of course. I didn’t even know who General Sun Li-jen was.
Peixuan handed me a book about the expeditionary army that had been sitting on the table for a few days now. I flicked through and put it down. She grabbed it back and swiftly found the right page: a young soldier in a blurry photograph, from a distant time and place. It could have been anyone.
“He was a medic, then when British troops came over to help, he served as an interpreter too.” Peixuan was flipping through the book again.
“Okay, whatever. I’m still not going to be in your documentary.”
“You think I’m telling you this to persuade you?” she said frostily, closing the book. “I thought you ought to know, that’s all. Whether or not you admit it, Grandpa is the glory of our family. I wanted to share this glory with you. If you accept that, it will enrich you and give you strength.”
What, like the holy spirit? It wasn’t glory she wanted to share with me, but faith. Her belief in Grandpa was religious. Hence the proselytizing, though she must have known I was a lost cause. She looked at me like I was a lost lamb.
“Peixuan, you’re the one who’s lost,” I murmured, shaking my head.
I suddenly remembered the day you and I were on the wall around Dead Man’s Tower, and she came to summon me home. I refused, instead describing the corpses inside in vivid detail. She blanched, started trembling, and walked away. Then she turned back and said very distinctly, “Li Jiaqi, your life is going to end up a tragedy.” Her voice was weird, as if these weren’t her words, and she was just passing on a prophecy.
“You mean your life, right?” I snarled back.
It seems we cursed each other. All these years later, my life is definitely tragic. And isn’t Peixuan’s too?
She’s living for Grandpa and the rest of the clan. They’ve bound her like that retainer she wears, molding her into shape. Even as an adult, she doesn’t dare take it off in case any gaps appear. No gaps between her teeth. No freedom.
“Peixuan.” I broke the silence. “Don’t you think family glory is ridiculous?”
“Don’t.” She slowly stood up. “You may not understand, but there’s no need to be hurtful.” Her scar was quivering.
I looked away. Before I could think of a response, I heard her door slam.
Alone on the sofa, sitting in dangerous silence, I imagined myself charging into her room and saying, “Peixuan, let me tell you something.”
Perhaps she’d expect violence, but with me and my shadow filling the doorway, she’d have no escape. Curling up, she’d stare in terror. I’d open my pocket, and the truth would escape like a vicious dog barking wildly, lunging at her and shredding her glorious armor, gouging out her heart, licking away her sugarlike faith with a slobbery tongue. Just like that, she’d lose the thing most precious to her. I’d watch her destruction calmly, telling myself I hadn’t done anything. It wasn’t me ruining her, but the truth—all I’d done was unleash it.
Was that really how it was? I felt dazed. I’d seen how many people the truth had hurt. I was passive. All I’d done was accept it. But now I held something in the palm of my hand: the power to harness the truth. I could hurt Peixuan, I could pretend not to see the harm I was doing, cloak it in righteousness, maybe even persuade myself it was my duty.
My emotions abruptly diminished. All I wanted was to be kinder. Peixuan’s faith in family glory might be delusional, but it sustained her. There was no virtue in this belief, but it purified her heart and made her virtuous.
If Peixuan were an ordinary friend, or even a stranger, it would be easier to treat her with kindness. We’re born kind, but it slips away as we age. Remember how fervently we searched for the truth when we were kids?
I sat and stared through the window of Peixuan’s twelfth-floor apartment. Lightning sliced through the stormy sky. A bolt of light reached for me and tenderly stroked my hair. I can’t explain it, but in that moment I decided to keep these past events firmly in my pocket; I missed you enormously.
Peixuan’s trip took longer than she’d planned. She phoned to say she had to head back to the States—her college needed her back urgently—so she’d bought a ticket, and was leaving via Hong Kong. She wouldn’t be back in Beijing, but I could stay in the apartment for another month—she’d already paid the rent.
“I hope you find a job soon, and quit drinking.” She was at the China-Myanmar border, where the strong wind made her voice sound like a passing flock of pigeons.
“You take care too.” I hung up.
I actually did start going to bars less often, found a job in a bookstore, and moved into a small apartment with a friend. In the autumn, Mom came to stay with me for a few days. The stove wasn’t working, so we sat in my tiny room eating takeout. She shoveled rice into her mouth, not saying a word. I knew she was disappointed. She’d always wanted me to marry young, buy a house, and let her move in. She’d been living with my aunt all this time and was tired of having to depend on others. Soon after she went back to Jinan, she called me at two in the morning to say she didn’t know what was going on with Grandpa. I was surprised—she hadn’t mentioned him for years. He was living in the house that the university had given him, she said, and they wouldn’t take it back even if he was gone, right? He’d like it if I came back to take care of him—maybe he’d even leave me the house. I said forget it, I wasn’t going back. But the idea had bewitched her, and she kept calling every few days. Eventually I forgot her original plan, and only heard her repeated plea, Come back, come back. I remembered my childhood and missed Southern Courtyard. Last week, I dreamed I was in a train that swayed from side to side. A red matryoshka doll rolled towards my feet. I picked it up and a woman’s voice said shrilly, Open it. Inside was a smaller doll, and inside that an even smaller one. I tore open doll after doll, faster and faster, sweat dripping into my eyes. I couldn’t stop. Half-doll shells tumbled around my feet. The voice said, Open it, open it. My pillow was soaked when I woke up. I had the same dream again, like a summons. I knew I had to come back. Grandpa might soon be dead.
Cheng Gong
My aunt doesn’t know I’m leaving. She’s probably in bed right now, listening for movement outside. Her nerves have been weak for a couple of years, and she spends more time trying to fall asleep than actually sleeping. If I get home late, she’ll still be awake, straining in the dark to hear the door. Only when I’m safely inside is she able to drop off. She’ll think I’ve gone out for a drink, as usual. She doesn’t care if I drink, not even if I get smashed. Maybe she likes it that way. A man who gets drunk every night probably won’t find love easily. Drunkards don’t need much sex, so they lose the ability to love. I’ll probably age quickly, catch up with her, and we’ll leave this world together. That’s for my own good. She doesn’t want me to be alone.
She’ll stay up all night waiting, maybe doze a little at dawn, but then she’ll jerk awake, check the lock, try calling me, and pace around the room when I don’t answer. That’s when she’ll realize I’m not coming home. When sunlight first spills into the room, I can imagine how scared she’ll be. Everything familiar will become strange. I know how that feels.
This is the first time I’m leaving Jinan to live somewhere else. Many years ago, Auntie had her fortune told—apparently she needs to spend the rest of her life at home, because traveling is dangerous for her. She decided that my birth numbers are close enough to hers that the same thing must apply to me. We’ve shared this fortune for some years, and I really am getting more and more like her. Now I’m scared of leaving too. A strange superstition. I believed I had to stay here, as if I were waiting for something.
Granny was admitted to hospital this May with a persistent fever and weight loss. They diagnosed late-stage liver cancer—the doctors said she had less than three months left. Her mind wasn’t clear. She insisted that Auntie and I wanted to hurt her and refused to be discharged. The hospital’s always full to bursting, but because of Granddad’s stature and because Auntie still works there, she managed to get herself a room in the side ward, the same building where Granddad was. It’s practically a retirement home these days—just old people waiting to die. The nurses are legendarily nasty—she’ll have suffered there. She brought her jewelry and savings book with her, so Auntie and I couldn’t get at them, then stayed awake at night because she was afraid they’d get stolen.
“Don’t touch anything at home,” she said, “I’ll be out in a day or two.” We watched her get weaker, fading before our eyes.
They put her in intensive care in June. She was still lucid when we went to see her, and asked to remove her oxygen mask. “Do you think your father is waiting for me on the other side?” she asked Auntie, who hesitated. Granny shook her head. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
She was gone a couple of days after that. The funeral was poorly attended—after everything that had happened, no one in Southern Courtyard wanted anything to do with her. It was raining heavily when Auntie and I got the bus back with her ashes. We took shelter by the post office. The rain didn’t look like it was stopping anytime soon. Auntie burst into tears. Cheng Gong, she said, I’m an orphan now, please be nice to me.
We buried Granny’s ashes on a hill outside the city, all alone, no family around her. We couldn’t send them to her ancestral home because Auntie only knew she’d come from Cao County, but not which village. She hadn’t been back since leaving at seventeen. On the way back, Auntie said, We have an ancestral grave here now, we can finally call this city home.
When a dictator dies, they leave behind a terrifying void. Resistance had become our whole lives, and we didn’t know how to do anything else. Freedom had fallen from the skies, and we could only hold it like some complicated object we had no idea how to handle. For the next week, Auntie and I carefully went on living like usual. She went to work, I bought groceries, and at dinnertime we sat across from each other at the dilapidated table. The overhead light flickered like a twitching eyelid. Auntie overcooked the food, as usual. The greasy plastic tablecloth still stank of Granny’s drool. I could still see her sitting between us, gnawing on a rib. On Sunday, at my suggestion, we bought a water dispenser and the juicer that Auntie had wanted for a long time. That was the sum of it, the new life we’d hoped for.
I didn’t know what I was sticking around for, and decided to tell Auntie a friend had found me a job in Shanghai. When I got home that evening, all the lights were on, and she was sitting in the living room. I headed to my room, but she called my name and told me she had something to say.
“I don’t know why …” She began sobbing. “Ever since your granny died, I haven’t been able to sleep at night. My mind keeps turning. All those things that happened, they’re like a play. Sometimes I’m in the audience, sometimes I’m on stage … Do you know, I have a strange feeling”—she kept her face lowered, shaking her head—“your grandfather is still alive.”
“No one could survive in that condition for forty-two years.” I surprised myself by knowing exactly how many years it had been. We hadn’t spoken about him for a long time. It’s been almost two decades since he was spirited away from his hospital room in the middle of the night.
“What if it’s a miracle? Your granny asked about him in the ICU. She must have sensed something. People know more when they’re about to die.”
“You’re just guessing. You have no proof.”
“I do,” she said. “When I was making the arrangements to have your granny cremated, I had to produce documents to show I was family. They wouldn’t do it otherwise. So what do you think they did with your grandfather’s body? Buried it? Dumped it? That’s illegal. The only thing they could have done is snuck it back.”
“They kidnapped him—that’s illegal too, isn’t it? Why risk bringing him back?”
“Our building is mostly empty. If they brought him to our door at night, no one would see.”
“So you’ve been hoping one day you’ll open the door, and he’ll be there.”
“Not me, but that’s what your granny was waiting for,” said Auntie. “I understand now—that’s why she refused to move away.”
“Yeah, right. She couldn’t wait for him to die.”
“We don’t always know what we want. I’d thought all along that I would leave here, find somewhere bigger, with a room of my own. But now … I feel like I should stay. Your grandfather’s story isn’t done yet.” She was crying again.
“That’s enough.”
She’d hit on a truth: our waiting hadn’t ended just because Granny was dead. We were waiting for something else, though I wasn’t sure if it was Granddad’s return. Like Auntie, I didn’t believe it was all over. Not that there were any mysteries left to unravel—we knew everything there was to know—but something was hanging over our emotions.
We didn’t say any more. Auntie kept weeping as I pulled a dish of fried peanuts towards me and devoured them by the handful.
Since then, Auntie’s been scared to be alone. I even have to keep her company while she’s cooking. She doesn’t let me go out at night—I have to sit with her on the couch, watching some boring TV serial and eating watermelon. She’ll be sweating nonstop, knitting a thick cardigan. She needs to do something with her hands to feel less anxious. I think she’s going through the change, and she’s burning up all the desire left in her body. Like a furnace about to be decommissioned getting hotter as it uses the last of its coal. Menopause hit her right after Granny’s death, as if to slot her into the “old woman” role that had now opened up. She’s also inherited Granny’s traits—she’s becoming twisted, domineering, suspicious of everyone. Of course no one can help ageing, but this seems particularly cruel. She might still be a virgin. A lifetime’s worth of blood, shed in vain.
Li Jiaqi
Is it cold in here? A few drinks will warm us up. I’m not great at holding my liquor, I’ll get drunk in no time. Don’t worry, I won’t talk nonsense. My mind actually gets clearer. Alcohol helps me remember. You know what I mean? A lamp shining into a dark, dusty corner.
Sometimes I wonder how Peixuan and I come from the same family, yet took such different things from it. Honestly, that probably started the generation before. Her father, my uncle, treated Grandpa like a god, as if everything he said was infallible. Grandpa claimed he never forced his children to do anything, but his opinions held the same authority as the prescriptions he wrote his patients. Dad, the family rebel, pushed back.
From a young age, I’d sensed the tension between them. Whenever they were together, the air thickened as if something was about to blow up. They almost never spoke, and when they did, it was through Grandma. Grandma would say stuff to Dad and finish with, “That’s what your father thinks.” I thought there was bad blood between them because Dad married Mom. Later, I would discover it was the other way round—Dad chose to marry her out of defiance.
When my parents met, Mom was still a country maiden with rosy cheeks. No one in her family had left Eighteenth Mile Village for generations. If he hadn’t been sent down to the countryside, Dad would never have met her. That is to say, if not for the policy of “sending Educated Youths to the farming villages,” I wouldn’t exist. Knowing I was only born as the result of a political slogan has always made me feel my life was a bit random. Really, though, I should feel fortunate—in this country, as the result of another slogan, many more children never got to be born.
