Cocoon, page 32
Was Yin Zheng right? Does confessing and pointing out sin purify the soul? I don’t know. Still, it’s a ray of hope, and I hope Grandpa will see the light before he departs. But that’s his business, and no one can force him to do it, or do it for him. Which means I’m only here as a witness. All I can do is wait.
Seeing you yesterday, I suddenly understood that the destination of this journey wasn’t Grandpa, but being reunited with you. A lot of things will end here, but this is also a beginning. Our connection won’t be severed once Grandpa is gone. It will always be there, tight as ever. And after today, it will be completely in our hands.
The Morning After
The sky is bright and the wind has stopped rattling the window. Gray light fills the room. On the table are two empty wine bottles and two glasses. Li Jiaqi goes to the window and looks out.
“The snow’s not so heavy now,” she says.
“I should go,” says Cheng Gong, but he does not move.
Jiaqi looks into the distance. “I think I can see Dead Man’s Tower.”
“There was a fire a couple of years ago. It got burned down.”
“There aren’t any trees around there, how did the fire start?”
“Not sure. Kids setting off fireworks, I think.”
Cheng Gong goes to the window.
“Kids like it there,” says Jiaqi.
“All the bones were burned to ashes. Maybe that’s what they wanted—the dead people, I mean. To not leave any traces in this world.”
“Mm.”
They look out the window. Snow covers the jagged rocks of Central Gardens, the winding pathways, patiently wrapping everything in the world, softening its angles.
Jiaqi turns to Cheng Gong. “Your spirit intercom. What happened to it?”
“Can’t remember. I think it’s in one of the boxes on our balcony. Why?”
“Wanted to have a look,” she said. “Maybe it still works.”
Cheng Gong shrugs. “It never worked.”
“I remember once we were playing house, and when I sang a song, your granddad blinked. I thought I could use the spirit intercom to sing to him …”
The man in the bed stirs. As Jiaqi and Cheng Gong go over, he opens his eyes.
“Everyone’s here,” he mumbles.
Jiaqi looks at Cheng Gong. “Maybe you should fetch the pastor.”
“The pastor died two years ago.” Cheng Gong looks out the window, frowning, trying to bring something into focus. His hand sinks into his pocket. “I’m going out,” he says. “Cigarette.”
Jiaqi watches him go, then turns back to her grandfather, Li Jisheng.
“The nail. Do you remember the nail?” she asks.
The man in the bed looks at her. An enormous force seems to be pulling him into a world behind him, a world whose gates will soon be shut forever. She strokes his forehead gently.
“Do you feel guilty?”
He stares at her, though his gaze passes right through her to some cavernous space.
“Turn off the light, it’s too bright,” he says.
Jiaqi goes over to the wall and puts her hand on the switch, but doesn’t press it. The light is already off. In the gloom, she hears the man sigh. She goes back towards the bed, but pauses in the middle of the room. She listens. Silence here, silence outside. The walls vanish, the room is limitless. Jiaqi kneels and buries her face in his side. Through the blanket, her temples sense the shape of his hand. Jutting bones, which might conceal strength that hasn’t yet ebbed away.
Jiaqi stands. On the TV is a village dirt road, a dog standing by a field. Subtitle: In 1921, Li Jisheng was born to a farming family in this village. His mother had been widowed three months before this. All the villagers knew about her was her name, Liang. The dog turns to glance at the camera then sprints away. A black-and-white shot of scattered village houses, which could still be in 1921. They’ll dub this with a baby crying, Jiaqi thinks. It’s so quiet in here. She hears another sigh, or maybe that’s the wind shaking the curtains.
She walks out and sees Cheng Gong standing in the corridor, an unlit cigarette in his hand.
“It’s all over,” she says.
Cheng Gong lights his cigarette, saying nothing.
“I’ll phone Peixuan later. She should still come back,” says Jiaqi.
“Yes, I’m sure the funeral will be a big production.” Cheng Gong stares at the flame in his hand.
“Hang on, I need to close the windows.”
She comes back out, and shuts the door behind her. They go down the stairs. At the ground floor, Cheng Gong pauses and looks around the empty hall. “The social dance we saw that time—that was here?”
“Yes.”
“The music teacher liked sitting by the east window. The overhead light made her look like she was in a Rembrandt painting. She must have known, that’s why she always chose that seat.”
“You boys all thought she was beautiful.”
“And the girls?”
“We thought she was so-so.”
“She got esophageal cancer later. I tried to see her while she was dying, but she didn’t want any visitors.”
“She didn’t want to say goodbye in those circumstances.”
“Now I feel that every time I saw her in the dance hall, under that light, it was a sort of goodbye.”
“It’s all over,” Jiaqi says. “Did I already say that?”
“Yes.”
They reach the front door. Jiaqi reaches for the umbrella leaning against the wall.
“You don’t need to walk me out,” says Cheng Gong.
“I could do with some fresh air, I’ve been indoors too long.”
The snow is ankle-deep. Ahead of them is a blur of white.
“I was thinking, you could actually stay at the white mansion for a while,” says Jiaqi. “No one will know you’re here.”
“What about you? Will you stay too?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go when I’ve dealt with everything.”
“Where to?”
“The south.” She smiles. “Somewhere warm, where I won’t have to think of anything.”
They keep walking till they reach the crossroads.
“Let’s toss for it.” Jiaqi pulls a coin from her pocket and hands it to him. “Heads you go to the train station, tails you stay in the white mansion with me. I’ll bring you food. I’ve learned how to make egg fried rice.”
“Can I have noodles?”
“No, I don’t like noodles.”
“Zhajiang noodles. Learn how to make them. It’s really easy.”
“Deal? Flip the coin, then.”
Cheng Gong runs his finger over the coin and sends it spinning into the air. It lands in the snow without making a sound. They stare at each other. When they look down, the falling snow has completely covered the coin. He and Jiaqi stand there, listening to distant noises: a car engine starting, a dog barking, children shrieking with laughter. Sounds of early morning. Cheng Gong smells the aroma of frying meat. Thick sweet sauce bubbling in a wok. Wait, then wait a moment longer. Scoop it from the wok, mix with shredded cucumber, ladle it into a pure white bowl.
END.
Zhang Yueran is one of China’s most influential young writers. Her novel Cocoon sold more than 120,000 copies in China and has been translated into several languages. In France it was nominated for the Best Foreign Book Prize 2019 and won the Best Asian Novel of the Prix Transfuge 2019. Zhang has been chief editor of Newwriting since 2008 and teaches literature and creative writing at Renmin University in China. She was chosen by Asymptote as one of 20 Sinophone writers under 40 to look out for.
Jeremy Tiang has translated over twenty books from Chinese, including novels by Shuang Xuetao, Lo Yi-Chin, Yan Ge, Yeng Pway Ngon, Chan Ho-Kei, and Geling Yan. His novel State of Emergency won the Singapore Literature Prize in 2018. He also writes and translates plays. Originally from Singapore, he now lives in New York City.
Book Club Discussion Guides are available on our website.
Author
“Years ago, around the time I started writing Cocoon, I was slowly beginning to understand that I didn’t know how to love, or perhaps I’d lost part of my ability to love. As I wrote, and at length my father slipped into my words without me realizing it, I started to grasp that many issues of love had to do with him. Even so, it was only with this novel that I truly understood that perhaps his temperament wasn’t something he was born with, but a product of his history, his generation.”
Translator
“When Cocoon was published in 2016, I was blown away by the verve and delicacy with which it treated the lingering aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. Although I’d already translated two books by Zhang, this felt like such an evolution in her writing style that I needed to find a new voice in English for her. It’s been a pleasurable challenge meeting the demands of this bold, heart-wrenching novel, with its reframing of recent Chinese history from a millennial perspective, and I can’t wait for Anglophone readers to come under its spell.”
Publisher
“Years ago, I read Jung Chang’s Wild Swans, and was blown away by that story of three generations of women in twentieth-century China. Chang’s book was a wonderful voyage into a country that until then had been relatively unknown to me. After that initial encounter I read many other novels set in China, but none of them excited me as much as this captivating generational novel by Zhang Yueran. Cocoon is an unbelievably mature work, full of psychological depth and written in a style that is fresh while also being precise and sensitive. Zhang is without a doubt one of the most promising and unique voices in contemporary Chinese literature.”
Praise for Cocoon
“The twists and absurdities of Chinese history circle each other across time. In the most personal way, Cocoon charts a pathway through individual and collective memory, through the most hidden fissures and bonds between young people and their parents. With exquisite, precise, and lyrical language, the novel sets the benchmark for younger authors seeking to write about history and individuals, proving once again that Zhang Yueran’s writing surpasses and distinguishes itself from that of her contemporaries.”
YAN LIANKE
“An irresistible siren-song of a novel by one of our most original voices … A grandfather lies in a coma, his brain destroyed by a nail, and two friends reach across time and the gaps between them to unravel the mystery of that nail, a mystery that has haunted and tormented both their families. A transcendent novel that suggests that family secrets and family crimes are the nation from which none of us can ever fully escape.”
JUNOT DÍAZ
“Zhang Yueran is one of the most exciting new Chinese writers. Her work is original and thought-provoking, and her writing style is of a mature, well-rounded nature. The world needs an engagement with China more than ever at the moment that goes beyond the stereotypes and well-trodden genres, to develop genuine links and understanding.”
FRANCES WEIGHTMAN, Director of The Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing
“This novel on the ghosts of the Cultural Revolution reveals a talented young Chinese writer in Zhang Yueran.”
Transfuge
“A great and beautiful novel, from one of the promising pens of contemporary China.”
Image, Demain le monde
“With finesse, and mastery of the two-voiced storytelling technique, Zhang Yueran unlocks, pries open, explores the intricate depths of broken couples, of imploded families, and of scarred generations who inherit the abuses of their ancestors.”
Libération
“With mastery of the art of suspense, Zhang Yueran skilfully brings together the pieces of a scattered puzzle.”
Télérama
“This book is a raging fire.”
Le Nouveau Magazine Littéraire
“Without ever falling into pathos, Zhang Yueran paints an incisive portrait of a generation scarred by decisions made in the dark hours of history.”
Le Courrier Suisse
On the Design
The title is in Virtuose by Changki Han from Seoul. The letters grow thicker towards the bottom, narrowing the negative space and making them more like cocoons. They are stacked to form the shape of a water tower and to evoke the traditional orientation of Chinese script. The font of the author’s name is Colonel Serial by SoftMaker from Nürnberg. The image is of marbled paper. The shapes are determined by the chemical reactions of the marbling process, not the artist, much like the individuals in Cocoon are subject to the whims of state power.
Published in the USA in 2022 by World Editions LLC, New York
Published in the UK in 2022 by World Editions Ltd., London
World Editions
New York/London/Amsterdam
茧 © Zhang Yueran, 2016
English translation copyright © Jeremy Tiang, 2022
Author portrait © Li Jinpeng
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data is available
US ISBN 978-1-64286-105-1
UK ISBN 978-1-912987-28-3
Ebook ISBN 978-1-64286-104-4
First published as 茧 in China in 2016 by People’s Literature Publishing House, Beijing. This translation has been slightly abridged from the original, in agreement with the author.
This book has been selected to receive financial assistance from English PEN’s PEN Translates programme, supported by Arts Council England. English PEN exists to promote literature and our understanding of it, to uphold writers’ freedoms around the world, to campaign against the persecution and imprisonment of writers for stating their views, and to promote the friendly cooperation of writers and the free exchange of ideas. www.englishpen.org
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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Zhang Yueran, Cocoon
