When I finished reading the story, I felt I had stumbled upon a rare treasure, so I quickly made a copy at the service desk, which I took to my father-in-law’s place to present it to him. It was an evening three years ago. When I arrived, my father-in-law and my mother-in-law were having a quarrel over dinner. A storm raged outside, with thunder and lightning. Blue bolts of lightning, like long, crackling whips, beat on the windows and rattled the glass. I shook the water out of my hair. My nose stung from being pelted by hailstones mixed with rain, and tears welled up in my eyes. My mother-in-law took one look at me and said angrily:
‘A married daughter is like spilled water. You solve your own problems. This isn’t civil court.’
I knew she’d gotten the wrong idea, but before I could explain, I was interrupted by a powerful sneeze. In the midst of my nasal spasm, I heard my mother-in-law grumble:
‘Are you one of those men who treat liquor as their wives? Are you…’
I didn’t understand what she meant at the time, but, of course, I do now. Back then I just saw a grumbling woman whose face was turning reddish purple, her heart apparently filled with loathing. She seemed to be talking to me, but her eyes - stiff, focused, frozen, and cold as snake eyes - were fixed on my father-in-law. I’d never seen a look like that before, and even now, when I recall it, a chill skips across my heart.
My father-in-law was sitting properly at the dinner table, maintaining the airs of a college professor. Under the warm lamplight, his gray hair looked like the fine threads of a silkworm, but with each bolt of blue lightning outside the window, it was transformed into strands of cold, green soybean noodles. He ignored my mother-in-law and kept drinking alone. It was a bottle of Italian Widow Champagne, a golden liquid like the smooth, warm bosom of a western girl, strings of tiny bubbles sizzling like the sound of her whispers. The fruity bouquet of the wine was elegant, pleasant, and refreshing; the more you smelled it, the longer the aroma stayed with you. It was magnificent beyond imagining. Gazing at this kind of wine was better than staring at the naked body of a western girl; smelling this kind of wine was better than kissing a western girl; drinking this kind of wine…
He lovingly caressed the smooth, green, jadelike bottle with one hand and fondled a tall-stemmed glass with the other. His long, slender fingers toyed with the glass and the bottle with erotic tenderness. He raised the glass to eye level to let the bright lamplight shine on the softly tinted liquid, and as he admired it, a hint of impatience showed in his eyes. Holding the glass under his nose to sniff it, he held his breath and opened his mouth joyously. Then he took a tiny, an absolutely tiny, sip, barely moistening the tip of his tongue and his lips, as rays of excitement shot from his eyes. Pouring the glassful into his mouth and holding his breath, he kept the liquid in his mouth without swallowing for a moment. Puffed-out cheeks made his face rounder than usual, his chin pointier. I was surprised to note that he had no beard, not a single whisker. Those weren’t the lips and chin of a man. He swished the liquid around in his mouth, which must have brought him great joy. Red spots appeared on his face, like unevenly applied rouge. The way he held the liquor in his mouth so long affected me physically - I heard the sound of rushing water. A bolt of lightning turned the room green. Amid that green spasm, he swallowed the wine, and I watched it travel down his throat. Then he licked his lips, and his eyes moistened, as if he were crying. I'd seen him drink in class before, and there was never anything unusual about it. But at home, he turned sentimental, and that was quite unusual. Watching my father-in-law caress his glass and admire the liquid in it somehow spawned images of a gay man; although I’d never actually seen a gay man, I believed that what gay men did when they were alone must be similar to how my father-in-law treated his bottle, his glass, and his wine.
‘Disgusting!’ My mother-in-law threw down her chopsticks and cursed aimlessly, then stood up, went to her room, and locked the door behind her. I was embarrassed. At the time I had no idea what had disgusted her, but now I know.
His enjoyment ruined, my father-in-law stood up by holding the edge of the table. Staring at the green bedroom door, lost in thought, he didn’t move for the longest time. But the expression on his face kept changing, from disappointment to agony and finally to anger. The look of disappointment was accompanied by a long sigh; he recapped the bottle and sat down on a sofa by the wall, looking like the shell of a man. Suddenly feeling pity for the old man, I wanted to console him, but didn’t know what to say. Then I thought about the strange story tucked in my briefcase, which reminded me of the purpose of my visit. I took the story out and handed it to him. I’d never gotten into the habit of calling him ‘Papa,’ always addressing him as ‘Teacher.’ While this bothered my wife, fortunately he didn’t mind. He said it was easier and more natural for me to call him ‘Teacher,’ and that it was hypocritical, even sort of creepy, for a son-in-law to call his father-in-law ‘Papa.’ I poured him a cup of tea, but the water was lukewarm, and the leaves floated on the surface. I knew that tea didn’t interest him much, so it didn’t really matter whether the water was hot or not. He pressed down on the cover with his palm as a way of thanking me, then asked in a half-hearted manner:
‘Did you have another fight? Well, go on, just keep fighting!’
From that brief comment, I could sense his feelings of helplessness regarding the married lives of two generations of the family. A halo of sadness shrouded the small living room. Handing him the copy of the story, I said:
‘Teacher, I found this in the library today. It’s very interesting. Please take a look’
I could tell he was uninterested in the article and in this son-in-law who stood there in his living room. He probably wanted me to leave, so he could be free to collapse on the sofa and lose himself in the aromatic aftertaste of the Italian Widow Champagne. It was only out of courtesy that he didn’t drive me away, and also out of courtesy that he reached out a languid hand, like a sexually overindulgent man, and took the paper from me.
‘Teacher,’ I said encouragingly, ‘it’s an article about apes making alcoholic beverages. And not just any apes, but the ones on White Ape Mountain near Liquorland.’
Reluctantly, he raised the paper and lazily skimmed it, his eyes like old cicadas squirming on a willow branch. Had he stayed that way, I’d have been sorely disappointed, knowing that I didn’t understand him at all. But I did understand him, and I knew the article would pique his interest and lift his spirits. I wanted to make him happy, not to benefit myself, but because I felt that deep inside the old man’s mind hid an innocent little animal, which was neither a dog nor a cat, one with smooth, shiny fur, a short snout, big ears, a bright red nose, and squat legs. This little animal held my attention, as if it were my own twin brother. Of course, these feelings were absurd, groundless, and incomprehensible. As I figured, his eyes lit up, his languid body stirred, and excitement showed through his reddening ears and trembling fingers. I thought I saw that little animal leap out of his body, jumping and gliding in the air three feet above his head, along tracks like strings of silk. I was truly happy, I was truly delighted, I was truly ecstatic, I was truly elated.
He took another quick look at the sheets of paper, then closed his eyes, his fingers unconsciously tapping the paper in a series of tiny clicks. He opened his eyes and said:
I’m going to do it!’
‘Do what?’
‘After all the years you’ve been with me, you have to ask?’
‘Your student lacks talent and knowledge, and cannot fathom the profundity of your words.’
‘Clichés, all clichés!’ he said unhappily. ‘I’m going up to White Ape Mountain to search for Ape Liquor.’
As excited and uneasy emotions raged through my subconscious, I sensed that a long-anticipated event was about to occur. Tidal waves were about to engulf life as calm as stagnant water. A fascinating story just made for drinking parties would soon spread throughout Liquorland, and would immerse the city, the Brewer’s College, and m
e in an atmosphere of romance formed by the integration of elite and popular literatures. And all this would come about as a result of my accidental discovery in the Municipal Library. My father-in-law would soon depart for White Ape Mountain in search of Ape Liquor, followed by throngs of the curious. But all I said was:
‘Teacher, you know that stories like this are usually fabrications by idle literati. We should treat them as fantasies, and not take them too seriously.’
He had already risen from the sofa and was pulling himself together, like a soldier setting off for the battlefield. He said:
‘My mind’s made up, so say no more.’
‘Teacher, it’s such a momentous decision, shouldn’t you at least discuss it with my mother-in-law?’
He cast me a cold glance and said,
‘She has nothing to do with me anymore.’
He removed his watch and eyeglasses, walked to the front door as if heading off to bed, opened it with determination, and slammed it shut behind him. The thin layer of wood sent the two of us into two separate worlds. The sounds of wind and rain and thunder and the cold, damp air of a rainy night that entered the house when he opened the door suddenly stopped with the sound of the door slamming shut. Dumbfounded, I stood there listening to the disappearing sounds of his slippered feet scraping against the sand and scraps of paper on the cement stairs. The sound grew weaker and weaker, then died out completely. His departure left a gaping hole in the living room. I was still standing there, big and tall, but felt somehow that I had stopped being human and was less significant than a cement pillar. It had all happened so fast it felt like an illusion; but this was no illusion, for his watch and his eyeglasses, still warm, lay on the tea table, the two sheets of paper I’d handed him were still lying on the sofa where he’d thrown them, and the bottle and the glass he’d been caressing still stood forlornly on the dining table. The filament in the fluorescent lamp was hissing; the old-fashioned clock hanging on the wall continued to mark time - tick-tock tick-toch Even though there was a door between us, I could hear my mother-in-law breathing, as, I assumed, she lay in bed, her head cradled in her arm, like a peasant woman slurping hot porridge.
After considerable thought, I decided to tell her everything. I tested the door first, then knocked loudly. In between the raps, I heard rustling noises that quickly turned into a loud sobbing intermingled with the snorts of nose-blowing. Where, I wondered, did she deposit the stuff from her nose? This highly insignificant thought bounced stubbornly in my head, like a pesky fly that wouldn’t be shooed away. It occurred to me that she must already know what had happened out here, but still I said uneasily:
…he’s gone … said he was going to White Ape Mountain for Ape Liquor …’
She blew her nose again; where did she wipe the snot? The sobbing was replaced by rustling sounds. I had a picture of her getting out of bed and staring at the door or at the wall, where their engagement picture, which I had so admired, hung. Framed in ornate black wood, it looked like a portrait of an ancestor that is passed down from generation to generation. At the moment frozen in the frame, my father-in-law was still a handsome man whose lips curled up at the corners to reveal a humorous, engaging personality. His hair was parted down the middle, a white line like a scar left by a sharp knife that divided his head in two. His neck invaded the space above my mother-in-law’s head, his pointy chin no more than three centimeters from her sleek, neatly combed hair, thus symbolizing both the authority and love of a husband. Under the oppression of the indispensable authority and love of her husband, her face was round, with bushy eyebrows, a silly little nose, and a firm, exuberant mouth. At the time, my mother-in-law looked a bit like a handsome young man dressed in women’s clothes. Her face still showed some of the rash qualities of her nest-gatherer lineage - undeterred by hardships, undaunted by any cliff - contrasting sharply with her present lazy, sensuous, pampered self, akin to the Imperial Consort Yang Guifei. Why had she turned out like this? And how had the two of them produced such an ugly daughter, one who could shame the whole Chinese nation? The mother was carved out of ivory, the daughter molded from mud. I believed that sooner or later I’d find the answer to this question. It had been so long since the glass in the frame had been cleaned that a succession of stealthy spiders had weaved their delicate webs over it. Fine dust was caught in the lattice-work. What was my mother-in-law thinking as she stared at this relic? Was she recalling bygone happy days? But I didn’t know if they’d ever had happy days. It’s my theory that any couple that has stayed married for decades must be calm people who are in complete control of their emotions. At best, the happiness experienced by this type of couple is dusk-like: slow, ambiguous, acrid, and sticky, a bland, murky happiness like sediment at the bottom of a liquor vat. Those who get divorced three days after their wedding are more akin to red-maned stallions; their emotions burn like a prairie fire, enough to light up the world around them and bake it until it oozes grease. The cruel sun at high noon, a tropical storm, a razor-sharp sword, strong liquor, a paint brush dipped in a full palette. These marriages are the spiritual wealth of the human race, while the former become gooey mud, numbing the human ability for enlightenment and slowing down the process of historical development. That is why I had second thoughts about what my mother-in-law was thinking; instead of recalling bygone happy days, it was far more likely that she was recalling my father-in-law’s unsavory behavior, which had disgusted her over the decades. The facts would soon prove that my speculation was correct.
I knocked on the door one more time.
‘What do you think we should do?’ I asked. ‘Bring him back or report to the school authorities?’
There was silence for a minute, absolute silence; even her breathing stopped, making me very uneasy. Suddenly she let out a loud, piercing cry, her voice like a sharpened bamboo stalk, totally incompatible with her age, her identity, and her usual dignity and elegance. The incompatibility created a powerful discrepancy, which terrified me. I was worried she might go so far as to hang her naked self from one of the nails in the room, like a cooked swan. Which nail would that be? The one from which the picture hung? Or the one holding the calendar? Or the one for hats? Two were too flimsy, the other both flimsy and short; since none could sustain my mother-in-law’s budlike body, with its snowy white skin, my fears were superfluous. But her remarkable cry had sent a chill down my spine, and I thought that the only way to still her voice was to keep rapping on her door.
As I continued, I tried to explain things and comfort her. At the moment, she was like a ball of tangled camel hair, and it was essential to console her with patient, rhythmic knocks and smooth talk like Wujia herbal liquor, which has a soothing effect and aids the body’s circulation. What exactly did I say? I guess it was something along the lines of: My father-in-law had embraced a lifelong desire to rush up to White Ape Mountain one night. He was willing to sacrifice his life for liquor. I told her that his departure had nothing to do with her. I said that he would very likely find his Ape Liquor, thereby making a great contribution to mankind, enriching an already splendid liquor culture, turning a new page in mankind’s distilling history, bringing glory to our nation, making a name for the Chinese, and generating revenue for Liquorland. I also said, ‘No one can catch a cub without entering the tiger’s lair.’ How could he obtain Ape Liquor if he didn’t go up the mountain? Besides, I told her, I believed that my father-in-law would return one day, whether he found the ape liquor or not, to live out his years with her.