Once he’d dried her face, he held the coffee cup in both hands. “Here, drink this, young lady, please.” She gave him another flirtatious look; it hit him like ten thousand arrows piercing his heart, opening up ten thousand little holes that were home to ten thousand wriggly worms. With the look of someone who was lightheaded from crying, she leaned against Jintong and took a sip of coffee. The crying stopped, but she was still sniffling, like a little girl, and Jintong, who’d spent fifteen years in a labor reform camp and another three in a mental institution, was starting to get angry over her performance. “Young lady,” he said as he tried to drape her raincoat over her shoulders, “it’s getting late, time for you to be going home.” Her lips parted in a grimace, the coffee cup in her hand followed the contours of her breast and abdomen as it crashed to the floor. Wahl She was crying again, this time louder than ever, as if she wanted the whole city to bear witness to her grief. Flames of rage ignited in his heart, but he didn’t dare let so much as a spark emerge. Happily, there were a couple of chocolate drops wrapped in gold foil on the table, like a pair of tiny bombs; he picked up one, peeled off the foil, and stuffed the dark candy into her mouth. “Young lady,” he said, clenching his teeth to keep his tone passably gentle, “don’t cry. Eat the candy …” She spit it out; it landed on the floor, where it rolled around like a little turd, dirtying the wool carpet. On and on she cried. Jintong peeled the foil off of the second piece of chocolate, and stuffed it too into her mouth. In no mood to be an obedient soul, she was about to spit it out, when he covered her mouth with his hand. So she doubled up her fist and tried to slug him. He ducked, putting his face directly opposite the blue bra, beneath which her milky white breasts jiggled. Jintong’s anger melted away, replaced by feelings of pity. Now that reason had taken flight, he wrapped his arms around her ice-cold shoulders. Then came the kissing and petting, the melted chocolate drop serving to fuse their lips together.
A long, long time passed. He knew there was no way he could get rid of this woman before sunup, especially now that they’d kissed and held each other tightly; accompanying an increase in mutual feelings was a greater sense of responsibility. “What have I done to make you dislike me so?” she asked through her tears.
“Nothing,” Jintong protested. “It’s me I dislike. You don’t know me. I’ve served time in prison and in a mental institution. Bad things await any woman who gets close to me. I don’t want to bring harm to you, young lady.”
“You don’t need to say anything,” she said as she covered her face and sobbed. “I know I’m not good enough for you … but I love you, I’ve loved you in secret for the longest time … there’s nothing you need to do except allow me to stay with you for a while … make me a happy woman.”
With that she turned and walked across the room, paused briefly, and opened the door.
Deeply touched, Jintong cursed himself for his pettiness and for having such bad thoughts about the woman. How could you let someone with such a pure heart, a widow who’s suffered so much, walk away in the grip of sadness? What makes you so great? Does an old lecher like you deserve a woman’s love? Can you really let her leave in the middle of the night, in the rain? What if she catches her death of cold? Or what if she meets up with one of those gangs of hooligans?
He rushed out into the corridor and caught up with her. Still teary-eyed, she put her arms around his neck and let him carry her back to his room. The smell of her oily hair made him wish he’d let her go after all, but he forced himself to lay her out on his bed.
With eyes like a little sheep, she said, “I’m yours. Everything I have is yours.”
10
Jintong could not have felt worse as he applied his fingerprint to the marriage certificate, but he did it anyway. He knew he didn’t love this woman, hated her, in fact. First, he had no idea how old she was. Second, he didn’t know her name. And third, her background was a complete mystery. As they walked together out of the civil administrator’s office, he asked her, “What’s your name?”
She grimaced angrily as she opened the red marriage certificate binder. “Take a good look,” she said. “It’s written right there.”
There it was, in black and white: Wang Yinzhi and Shangguan Jintong, having expressed their desire to marry, and having satisfied all the requirements of the Marriage Laws of the People’s Republic of China
“Are you related to Wang Jinzhi?” he asked her. “He’s my father.”
Everything went black — Jintong swooned.
Like an idiot, I’ve boarded a ship of thieves, but what can I do? Getting married is easy; getting unmarried is not. Now I’m more convinced than ever that Wang Jinzhi is behind all this. Damn that Unicorn, just because he suffered at the hands of Sima Liang, he dreamed up this sinister scheme to punish me. Where are you, Sima Liang?
With tears still wetting her eyes, she said, “Jintong, I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong. I love you. This has nothing to do with my father. In fact, he’s even threatened to disown me because of it. He asked me what I saw in you, reminding me that it was public knowledge that you served time for necrophilia and spent several years in a mental institution. So what if you have a nephew who is rolling in money or a niece who is mayor? he said. We may be poor, but not in spirit or integrity … it’s all right, Jintong,” she continued, looking at him through the mist in her eyes, “we can go file for divorce if you want, and I’ll pick up the threads of my life …”
Her tears fell on his heart. Maybe I was letting my suspicions get the better of me. What’s wrong with knowing that someone loves you?
Wang Yinzhi was a managerial genius. She set to work revising Jintong’s business strategy by building a factory behind the shop to produce top-quality “Unicorn” brassieres. Suddenly little more than a figurehead, Jintong spent most of his time in front of the TV set, where he was treated to ubiquitous ads for Unicorn Bras:
“Wear a Unicorn and life starts anew.”
“In a Unicorn fortune smiles on you.”
A third-rate actor was waving a bra in front of the camera:
“Put on a Unicorn and your hubby will flip.
Take it off and your fortunes will slip.”
Disgusted by what he saw, Jintong turned off the TV and began pacing back and forth along the rut he’d created in the lush wool carpet. His pace quickened, his excitement rose, his thoughts grew confused, like a starving, penned-up goat. Soon tiring, he sat down and turned the TV back on with the remote control. The Unicorn Hour was in progress. The program featured interviews and biopics of Dalan’s most influential women. Lu Shengli and Geng Lianlian had both been featured.
The familiar theme music, the pleasant strains of Fate knocking at the door, preceded the voice of the announcer: “This program is brought to you by Unicorn Lingerie. Wear a Unicorn and life starts anew. The unicorn is the beast of love. It warms my heart day and night.” The Unicorn logo filled the screen. The image: a cross between a rhinoceros and a nippled breast.
“Today’s guest is Wang Yinzhi. Thanks to Ms. Wang’s aggressive marketing, the young men and women of Dalan take great pride in wearing Unicorn products. No longer limited to women’s lingerie, the line now features caps and socks, and everything in between.” The microphone moved over to the heavily lipsticked mouth of Unicorn’s general manager, Wang Yinzhi.
“Madam General Manager, my first question to you is, how did you come up with the unusual name ‘Unicorn’ for your shop, your factory, and your line of clothing?” Her smile exuded confidence. One look at her told you she was educated, intelligent, rich, and powerful — a woman to be reckoned with. “It’s rather a long story,” she replied. “More than three decades ago, my father adopted the pseudonym Unicorn. According to him, the unicorn is a magical beast that resembles, to some degree at least, a rhinoceros. It is the ‘magic horn of the heart’ that signifies a coming together in ancient texts. Lovers, spouses, friends, aren’t they all a magic horn of the heart? That is why I chose it fo
r the name of our shop. Turning it into a product name was the next logical step. Magic horn of the heart, yes, magic horn of the heart, doesn’t the sound just carry you off into a world of blissful emotions? But I’m afraid I’ve gotten carried away myself, and all our magic horn of the heart friends out there don’t need me to offer an explanation.”
Why don’t you just shut up! Jintong sputtered indignantly. How dare you take the credit for that! I’ll “Unicorn” you one day!
Seated across from the hostess, a woman with protruding front teeth, Wang Yinzhi talked on and on. “Of course, my husband played a significant role in the early days of the business, but then he fell ill and is now convalescing, leaving it up to me to fight on alone. The unicorn is a true fighter in the wild, and I consider it my duty to carry on the unicorn’s fighting spirit.” “What, may I ask,” the bucktoothed hostess asked, “is your goal?” “To turn Unicorn into a nationally known product line within three years, an international one within ten, and, ultimately, the world leader in apparel.”
Jintong flung the remote control at the televised image of Wang Yinzhi. Have you no shame at all? The remote control bounced off of the TV set and landed on the floor. Meanwhile, on the screen, Wang Yinzhi, her falsies protruding like little umbrellas beneath her thin blouse, captivating a vast audience of youngsters, talked on and on. “Madam General Manager, in recent years, young women in the West have gotten caught up in a breast liberation movement. They say that brassieres are no different than the harmful corsets women wore in the seventeenth century. What’s your opinion?” “It’s ignorance, pure and simple!” Wang Yinzhi said categorically. “Those corsets were made of canvas and bamboo splints, like a suit of armor, so of course they were harmful. I’d say you can equate the European women’s love affair with the corset with the way Chinese women bound their feet. But you can’t compare either the corset or bound feet with a modern bra, especially our Unicorn product. A brassiere meets the needs of beauty and health. At Unicorn we take both aspects into account, doing everything possible to satisfy both aesthetic and biological requirements.”
Jintong picked up a teacup to fling at the TV set, but at the last moment he aimed it at the paper-cushioned wall; it hardly made a sound as it bounced harmlessly onto the carpeted floor, sending a few mildewed tea leaves and some red tea splashing onto the wall and the TV set.
A single limp tea leaf stuck to the 29-inch TV screen, like a beard just beneath her mouth. “May I ask, Madam General Manager, are you wearing a Unicorn bra?” the bucktoothed hostess asked, trying to be witty. “Of course I am,” she said as she reached up and shifted her false breasts — seemingly subconsciously, but actually quite intentionally. A bit of free advertising there. “How about your home life, Madam General Manager. Would you say it’s happy?” “Not really,” she replied candidly. “My husband suffers from a psychosis. But he’s a good and decent man.”
That’s crap! He jumped up off the sofa. This is all a plot against me. Honeyed words to my face, then you stab me in the back. You’ve got me under house arrest. The camera caught Wang Yinzhi at an angle that showed her sinister smile, as if she knew that Jintong was home watching her on TV.
He got up, turned off the TV, and began pacing the floor anxiously like a caged simian, hands clasped behind his back, anger mounting by the second. Psychosis? You’re the one with the goddamned psychosis! You say I can’t manage the business? I’m saying I can! You daughter of a whore, you just won’t let me. You’re not a real woman. You’re a stone woman, a hermaphroditic toad spirit! Overcome by a welter of emotions, an exhausted Shangguan Jintong lay down on his faux antique carpet on that spring evening in 1993 and began to sob uncontrollably.
By the time his tears had soaked a spot the size of a bowl, his Fil-ipina servant entered. “Dinner’s ready, sir,” she said as she placed a basket of food on the table, then took out a bowl of glutinous rice, a platter of stewed lamb and turnips, another of tiny shrimp and celery, and a bowl of sweet-and-sour soup with snakehead fish. She handed him a pair of imitation ivory chopsticks and urged him to eat.
Jintong had no appetite for the steaming food arrayed in front of him. Turning to the servant, his eyes puffy from crying, he shouted in anger, “What am I? Tell me that!”
The poor girl was so frightened she just stood there with her arms hanging loosely at her side. “I don’t know, sir …”
“You damned spy!” He flung his chopsticks down on the table. “You’re working undercover for Wang Yinzhi, you damned spy!”
“I don’t understand, sir, I don’t know what you mean …”
“You put slow-acting poison in this food. You want to see me dead!” He picked up the dishes and dumped their contents on the table. Then he flung the bowl of soup at the servant. “Get out of my sight, you spying bitch!”
She ran out of the room howling, her clothes wet and sticky.
Wang Yinzhi, you counterrevolutionary, you enemy of the people, you bloodsucking insect, you damned rightist, capitalist-roader, reactionary capitalist, degenerate, class outsider, parasite, petty scoundrel tied to the post of historical disgrace, bandit, turncoat, hooligan, rogue, concealed class enemy of the people, royalist, filial daughter and virtuous granddaughter of old man Confucius, feudalism apologist, advocate for the restoration of the slave system, spokeswoman for the declining landlord class … Calling up every degrading political term he’d learned over several turbulent decades, he launched a verbal attack against Wang Yinzhi. Tonight you and I are going to have it out once and for all. Either the fish dies or the net breaks. Only one will be left standing. When two armies clash, victory goes to the most heroic!
Wang Yinzhi opened the door, a ring of golden keys in her hand, and stood in the doorway. “Here I am,” she said with a scornful smile. “Let’s see what you’re made of.”
Mustering up his courage, Jintong said, “I’m going to kill you!”
“Well,” she said with a laugh, “a spark of life, finally. If you really have the guts to kill anyone, you’ve earned my respect.”
She walked unafraid into the room, gave the filth on the floor a wide berth, and stopped in front of Jintong. She smacked him on the head with her key ring. “You ungrateful bastard!” she cursed. “I’d like to know what you’re so unhappy about. You live in the finest hotel in town, you’ve got a servant to prepare your meals. Stick out your arms and you’ll be clothed, open your mouth and you’ll be fed. You live like an emperor, so what the hell else do you want?”
“I want… my freedom,” Jintong muttered.
She froze for just a moment, before bursting out laughing. “I don’t restrict your freedom,” she said after she’d had a good laugh. “In fact, you can leave right this minute. Go!”
“Who are you to tell me to go? It’s my shop, and if anyone’s going to get out of here, it’s you, not me.”
“Like hell!” Wang Yinzhi said. “If I hadn’t taken over the business, you’d have gone under even if you had a hundred shops. And you have the nerve to say this shop is yours! You’ve lived off me for a year already, which is all anyone could expect. Now it’s time to give you back your precious freedom. There’s the door. This room is reserved for someone else tonight.”
“I’m your lawful husband, and I’m not leaving until I’m good and ready.”
“Lawful husband,” Wang Yinzhi repeated mawkishly. “Husband. Do you think you’re worthy of the term? Have you fulfilled your husbandly duties? Are you really up to it?”
“Yes, if you’d do as I say.”
“How dare you!” Wang Yinzhi exploded. “What do you take me for, a whore? You think you can order me around any way you want?” As her face turned bright red, and her ugly lips began to twitch, she flung the keys in her hand at his forehead. A sharp pain drilled its way into his brain and a hot, sticky liquid soaked his eyebrows. He reached up to touch it and pulled back a bloody finger, just as a couple of men he knew burst into the room. One was wearing a police uniform, the other was in a judg
e’s robe. The policeman was Wang Yinzhi’s younger brother, Wang Tiezhi; the judge was her brother-in-law, Huang Xiao-jun. They went straight for Jintong. “What do you say, Brother-in-law?” the policeman said as he drove his shoulder into him. “Anyone who takes advantage of a woman isn’t much of a man, wouldn’t you say?” The judge kneed him in the back. “My sister’s been good to you. Don’t you have a conscience?”
But just as Jintong was about to speak up in defense, a punch in the stomach drove him to his knees and sour liquid shot out of his mouth. Then the policeman leveled him out with a mighty karate chop in the neck. This brother-in-law, the judge, was a onetime military official who’d been a scout for ten years and had such a powerful hand he could break three bricks with a single chop. Jintong was grateful he’d held back a bit; if he hadn’t, he’d have been lucky to keep his head on his shoulders. Cry, he told himself. They won’t hit a man who’s crying. Crying is what weak people do. Crying is a plea for mercy, and real men never ask for mercy. But they kept hitting him, even as he knelt on the carpet, weeping and sniveling.