As you all know, I live in the Huangpu East district of Shanghai. There is nothing wrong with the place, except that it is a bit of a pain to get anywhere from here. A tunnel under the Huangpu River, completed some ten years ago, links the district to downtown. The air quality in the tunnel is awful. Often, hundreds of idling vehicles sit inside unable to move an inch, each emitting its own fumes. What always strike me are the walls, through which water oozes, leaving behind grimy rings. The light is very dim. Every time my bus crawls out of the tunnel, even if it is raining outside, I feel that I am back in the sunlight again. Because of all this, I tell people of only passing acquaintance not to come see me at my place. Whatever business they might have, they can just tell me over the phone. When they do come, I have to make apologies for the tunnel. Such apologies pile up. It's no fun.
For a while, I enjoyed passing through the tunnel at night. At night, it is better lit than the streets, making it easier to recall its virtues. Sometimes you might not encounter another oncoming vehicle for the whole two miles. Those water rings still hang on the walls, like paintings by gods or ghosts. Occasionally, you see a deep crack. The Huangpu River is right above you, and a thousand-ton liner might be passing overhead. The tunnel is a rectangle, yet it meanders along. There is no light at the end. The road appears to hang in front of you, so quiet that all you can hear is your own engine. Not another soul for the whole two miles. The single eyes of the cameras on the walls stare at you coldly, one after another, as in a relay. Once my bus stopped in the middle of the tunnel, and all was deadly silent. There I was, on a bus with eight men and three women, every one of them sitting quietly as though waiting for some sort of visitation.
From my window above, I can see the tunnel exit on this side. Often when I have nothing else to do, I look to see if there is a traffic jam in the tunnel, if there are a couple of hundred cars stuck on the street. Whatever the season, beneath my window there is always the noise of cars and, occasionally, of tractors.
I live on the sixth floor, the top floor.
On my floor, there are four apartments, two on either side of the stairway. Once inside the cast-iron gate, you pass number 602 to reach my apartment, 601. There is rarely anybody living in number 602. It is a rather large two-room apartment, furnished only with a bed, a table, a couple of chairs, and some cooking utensils. The owner, who also has a nice apartment in the Huangpu West district, often lends this one to people passing through Shanghai, such as honeymooners.
Owing to the might of the cast-iron gate, I hardly ever run into 603 or 604. What we see of one another is the laundry we hang out to dry.
I rarely go out. Except to get a newspaper or to take out the garbage, I don't even go downstairs much. I live alone, a very quiet life. Sometimes the doorbell rings, and the door opens to old friends. Then I am happy. Sometimes the telephone rings; I am also happy then.
I have two rooms. There are some books in the study, and a full-length mirror in the bedroom. I rarely stand in front of the mirror, except when I shave. Beyond the bedroom is the balcony. Late at night, there is always a strong wind that makes spooky noises.
That's why I keep a knife by my pillow. When I wake up in the middle of the night and see the knife, my heart calms down, and I can go back to sleep.
I moved here half a year ago.
The day before I moved, I met someone at a friend's home who claimed he could tell fortunes. As soon as he saw me, he congratulated me on my pending move. I smiled. It was no big secret. Then I asked casually if there was anything else to congratulate me tor. He held my hand for a careful examination and said he saw a peach blossom, which meant lucky in love. After that, he stared intently at my palm for a long while.
This romantic good fortune of yours is really peculiar. Look here, it lies hidden in the lines of your palm." He stroked my palm with his index finger. "Also, there is major yin influence."
"Any harm in that?" I asked.
"Can't tell."
This amateur fortune-teller was the first honest man I had met, someone who would actually admit that he couldn't tell. Which must have meant that he could tell about the other stuff.
The next day, I moved.
I should make it clear that even after finishing the move, I didn't have any luck that was even remotely peachy.
A chrysanthemum I had planted in a flowerpot was blooming-yellow petals, the kind the woman poet Li Qingzhao liked to write about. The mums made my empty balcony look like a small cemetery.
Now back to my move. The building was finished only a few years before, yet I was already the third owner of this apartment. The day I moved in was dark and cloudy. Our truck was stuck in the tunnel for a whole hour, until we were all seeing stars. By the time we emerged, a storm had come and gone. But the sky remained gloomy. On the porch in front of my building was a stain, a light-brown one. At first, I didn't take any notice of it-until I stepped on it and slipped. I was puzzling over it when my friends started to carry my stuff upstairs. So I pulled myself together and followed them up.
The move was completed, and not a single neighbor had come out to watch the show.
It was dark by the time I saw my friends off. Standing at the curb, I looked at the building. Only a few lights were on, including my own two. Weeds grew amid heaps of construction material abandoned at the curb. The streetlight was broken, and there was darkness all around.
It was a bit of an effort to walk all the way up to the sixth floor. I opened the cast-iron gate and realized that someone was standing in the corridor, leaning over the banister to look down.
I cleared my throat.
"Are you the new tenant?" It was a woman with a very soft voice. Her door was half-open, and the light from inside lit up the tip of her nose. Some music wafted out, the kind with poor sound quality.
"Are you the owner of six-oh-two?" I asked.
"Oh, no. I used to live here, in six-oh-one. Just here to take a peek. No, I'm not the owner."
I couldn't very well pursue the matter, so after exchanging some pleasantries, I went back to my own apartment.
Inside the new place, even the four walls felt cold. I didn't plan to stay here for long, so I decided not to paint the walls. The noise from the tunnel drifted up. I stood on the balcony and looked around for a while; then I moved the chrysanthemum to the win-dowsill. The blossoms were no longer fresh.
I started to gather together some odds and ends, tripping all over myself. Just to boost my spirits a bit, I turned on all the lights in the apartment. Still, it didn't feel bright. The walls were beige, painted by the previous owner. There were drawings by a childish hand, friendly like. And a faint footprint. A couple of mosquito corpses. At this point, the doorbell rang.
As I strolled over to the door, I tried to guess who it might be.
The door opened, and there was the neighbor I had met just a minute ago. I asked if anything was the matter.
She answered, beaming a bright smile, "If you have any questions, or if there's anything you don't know, just come and ask me."
"All right. I won't hold back."
Under the light, her face seemed pale, her lips painted a bright red. She had a pretty neck. Her hand rested casually against the doorframe, a young-looking hand. We were standing so close that I didn't look at her figure. She had a sort of baby face, but there were tiny wrinkles in the corners of her eyes.
"This place is different from Huangpu West," she said. "You hardly ever see anybody, and it might take some getting used to."
She gave me another smile and went back to her own apartment.
At this point, I remembered the fortune-teller's peach blossom. When the mums were fading, would a peach come into bloom?
Alongside the beige walls, I resumed my unpacking, starting to feel very lonely. My stereo system was still packed away, so not a sound could be coaxed from it. I dropped what I was doing and walked over to the wall. I pressed my ear against the wall but couldn't hear anything. I opened the door-the corridor was pitch-black. The cast-iron gate was shut, the iron bars glistening under the faint light.
I smoked a cigarette in the corridor and went back inside, leaving my door open.
Then I sat down in a chair and lit up another cigarette, keeping my eyes on the open door.
She didn't close the door when she came in but walked straight to the study and, without saying anything, started putting my books into the bookcase. Her waist was like a young girl's, a nice figure. I watched her upper body as it rose and fell, and when she bent down, her buttocks, wrapped tight in jeans, looked like a twisted face wanting to speak. She had long limbs and elegant wrists. Her breasts were not prominent, barely discernible, and when she raised her arms to put the books into the bookcase, they were no longer even that.
I finished my cigarette. Still, I didn't move.
When she had filled two bookcases, she stopped, sat down in an armchair, and took a cigarette from the coffee table. I lit it for her. "Want something to drink?"
She nodded.
I went to the refrigerator for a beer and poured it into two glasses. "Cheers."
"Cheers." She downed half a glass in one gulp.
Then I finished mine. The beer was tepid.
"More?"
I nodded.
She came back with more beer, refilled mine, topped off her own. "Let's go outside."
I followed her out and leaned against the balcony. The cars had thinned, ducking into the tunnel or popping out. I thought of the tunnel walls, with their water rings.
"Huangpu East is like an island," I said. "And this building is an islet surrounded by an island."
Without looking up, she said she was a little cold. So we went back inside. The lights were bright.
"My bed, it used to be here, too," she stated out of the blue. "A bed is like an island. Or maybe a pool of water. When I lie on the bed, my body becomes a boat."
I understood that when she talked about the bed, it was just a metaphor, with no undertones of seduction. We continued with our beer.
"You've got a lot of books."
"Do you like to read?"
"No. I don't read much."
She looked like an educated woman-although even educated women nowadays, once they leave school, don't tend to read much. It's the same with men.
"The books I do read a lot are medical books," she said. "Every chapter is intriguing. Having an illness is like an art. Bacteria and viruses are the artists, the human body is the canvas, or the clay for sculpting." She continued, "I like to imagine myself living through one disease after another. I have now lived through every possible kind of disease. Every one has been painful but artistic."
I said, "I don't like being sick."
"Me neither. But I like to imagine myself being sick. I can really get into it."
"I don't even like to imagine it."
She said, "You and I are not the same kind of people."
I wanted to find a medical book in the bookcase for her. But by the time I found one, I realized she had already walked to the door. She noticed I was looking at her, gave me a smile, and vanished.
Slowly, I walked over and closed the door.
In the time immediately following, I sat in the armchair she had sat in and drank down the beer she hadn't finished. It was lukewarm, slightly bitter. I held the glass until I finished the last drop. Then I turned off the lights.
There was a noise on the balcony-shashasha-like footsteps. When I went to have a look, there was nothing but a rope dangling over the eaves, swinging to and fro in the breeze. It was raining outside again, a light rain. I stuck my hand out for a good while. It was barely wet.
The tunnel exit looked very faint and hazy.
I was exhausted and went to bed yet couldn't fall asleep. There was movement on the roof, as though someone were walking. I wished I could hear a cat's screech, that sort of piercing screech.
My stuff was spread all around the room, surrounding me. I remembered she said she was like a boat. Now I was a boat stranded on this island. At this point, all the boats in the world might be on an island. I wanted to make a phone call. I glanced at the clock; it was too late. I was overcome with the desire to call, the desire to listen.
"Twelve fifty-six a.m., twelve fifty-six a.m., twelve fifty-six A.M…"
I waited until "one a.m." before hanging up. The voice announcing the time was just like hers, my next-door neighbor's, very soft. She said we were not the same kind of people. She left right after saying that. Probably lying on her own island now, thinking about diseases of every possible kind. She said it was an art.
I decided I'd better get up and go knock on the door of 602. I could say I was locked out when the wind slammed the door shut.
The sound of the wind slamming the door shut was deafening. It frightened me.
I knocked softly. No response. I knocked for a long time; I was getting desperate. I figured she had no reason to open up. Maybe she was frightened, too. Or maybe she didn't hear it. I couldn't very well pound on the door. Late at night, any sound at all can be a soul-shattering experience.
I started to feel despondent. That's when the door opened.
"It's open." She gave it a jerk. I wondered if I should follow her into 602. "Come on in, you."
"I was locked out by the wind. I wanted to check with you to see if there's any way to cross the river at this time of night. Also, could you lend me some money?"
She took a look at my pajamas, shook her head, and smiled.
"Come on in." She closed the door behind me.
The light flickered on. I saw a bed, a table, and a few chairs. The blankets were spread out on the bed. The pillow displayed the imprint of a head.
"I'll go heat up some water."
I looked at the empty room, then moved the two chairs up to the bed, folded the blankets against the wall, and rested the pillow against the blankets. Then I leaned against the pillow, propped up my feet on the chair, and waited for her.
"Do you want an ashtray?"
I said no.
"I need a cigarette, but I'm out. Do you still have some?" she asked.
She put the ashtray on top of a book and placed it on the sheet near me.
"Not on me."
"Well, how about going back and getting them?"
By the time I got the cigarettes, she was leaning against the folded blankets, her feet propped up on the other chair.
"My place isn't as nice as yours."
"It's fine."
"I often don't sleep a wink the whole night. How about you?"
"I fall asleep after midnight."
"I'm used to it by now. How about you?"
"Me, too."
She kept at her cigarette, I at mine. We shared the ashtray between us. There was something peculiar about the way she smoked. The ash grew very long until it fell off; then she suddenly remembered to tap it.
"The water's boiling. I'm going to take a bath. Make yourself at home."
After she left, I pulled the book out from under the ashtray. It was a medical book, Internal Medicine, quite a thick volume, written by some American and translated into Chinese. The book opened to the section on hepatitis. Since I had no interest in anything to do with the liver, I closed the book and put it back under the ashtray.
The sound of water drifted in like waves. Listening to it made me feel lonely. I walked to the bathroom and gave the door a nudge. It yielded. She was squatting in the tub, soaping herself, her back slightly bent. I took the soap and lathered her up. Then I scrubbed her back and rinsed it off. I very much wanted to rub her shoulders, so I reached out my hand.
Her skin was very white, glossy, too. She had a very attractive body; the only imperfection was an ugly navel. And the navel is a person's core.
"Do you want to take a bath, too?"
"Not really."
I gazed at her while she washed, until she put on her nightgown.
We went back to the bed and sat down.
"What's the date?" she asked.
"I can't remember. It's Sunday."
"Today even God is taking a break."
Only God was taking a break. We mortals, how could we ever take a break?
There was the sound of soft footsteps on the roof.
"Don't be afraid. It comes every day. Once you've been here a while, you'll get used to it. Don't pay it any mind."
"What is it?"
"Don't know. Maybe it's a person. Then again, maybe not."
She took away the ashtray and covered us both with a blanket. "It's late. Sleepy?"
I closed my eyes and answered that if I could fall asleep, I would do it just like this, and she shouldn't wake me up.
"You won't be able to fall asleep."
"Then talk to me. About anything at all. I'm listening."
"I'm a virgin. Believe me?"
I shook my head.
"How could I be?" She stroked her own face. "Yet sometimes I like to think I am."
I nodded. "Then you are."
"For a while, I used to think that sexual differences were very interesting. I was moved by the whole idea of sexual differences among humans. Later on, I changed my mind."
"Same here."
"You and I are not the same."
I said we were in this respect.
"I'm a woman. How could you be the same as me?" She gave me a sly smile.
"But I'm human."
She said, "This bed hasn't been sat on by two people for a long time." She said, "The last time was half a year ago. A long time."
I listened.
She said, "Before me, the last person who sat on it was also a woman."
I had seen her emerge from the bath, seen her walk out of the bathroom, and I knew she didn't have any makeup on. Yet her face looked as though it were forever enveloped in a white fog. Her neck was lovely, a delicate curve rounded to her shoulders, which were wider than most other women's, not so slanting.
"Am I pretty?"
"Yes."
"Would you like to hold me?"
I ceremoniously held her for a moment, then let go.
The cigarette was bitter, the night too long. The rain was probably still coming down. Inside this room, I couldn't hear the traffic from the streets, couldn't hear anything. Except the intermittent footsteps on the roof.
She fetched another lamp and turned the shade toward the wall.
"Do you know where I was just now?"
I shook my head.
"I took a bus to Huangpu West and then walked back through the tunnel. It was very damp." She picked up the clothes she had changed out of. They were like the walls in the tunnel, with yellow water stains. "The tunnel is huge. It took me a good half hour, walking fast."
"Is it allowed?"
"There was nobody there. Altogether, only two cars went by. It was pitch-black inside the cars. Couldn't see a thing."
"Weren't you afraid?"
"How could I be? The ground was also damp, sort of slippery."
I was reminded of the old stain on the porch downstairs.
"Like that spot downstairs, sleek like?"
She glanced at me; her face fell. And she grew silent.
"Would you like to take a walk in the tunnel?"
"I don't think so."
"Whenever I'm unhappy, I go out walking alone. The tunnel is empty, abandoned. Many of the fluorescent lights overhead are broken, so sometimes a long stretch is totally dark. Walking in the dark and looking at the light ahead is very poetic. Sometimes a light flickers on above me, blinking on and off, on and off, making it easy to think about spooky things. Sure you don't want to come along?"
"I'm sure."
"Fine, whatever."
I was used to falling asleep in the small hours and was exhausted at this point. I looked for my key, wanting to be in my own bed. Although I'd be lonely in a dream, still it would be better to have that dream. I couldn't find my key. Maybe I left it behind when I went back for the cigarettes.
"I want to sleep."
"Go ahead."
She arranged the pillow and the blankets and let me sleep on the side next to the wall. Then she turned off the light and lay down beside me. The bed was very narrow. I could feel the chill of her skin. "How would it be if I held you?"
"Go ahead," she said.
I held her loosely.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
"That you're quite young."
"That's not what I meant. Do you feel better?"
"About the same."
"At least you're honest," she said. "I used to think you always feel better with someone in your arms. When I'm alone, I often make myself think that way."
"Even now?"
"Yes." She wrapped her arms around my waist. "Want to go further?" she asked.
"No." As soon as I said that, I changed my mind. "Why not? Maybe I'll fall asleep if I tire myself out."
"Come on, then."
"I need the light on. Do you mind?"
She turned on the bedside lamp.
I removed her nightgown and took off my own clothes. Then I lay on top of her and looked into her face. She was gazing intently at a distant spot on the ceiling, looking sort of vacant. There was the sound of those footsteps on the roof again. I embraced her tightly. She smiled and turned her eyes to that distant spot again. I ceremoniously fondled her breasts, then stroked her face. I lay down beside her again.
She asked, "Finished?"
"Yes."
It was too quiet in the room. I couldn't help but listen to the sound of the footsteps. They were moving very slowly, from this end to that, back and forth, back and forth. I could hear every single step.
"Don't be afraid." She patted my back. "If it stops, then you should be afraid."
The footsteps stopped. I waited for them to resume, but they didn't.
She sat up, looking for the cigarettes.
"What's the matter?"
"Go to sleep. I'll just sit for a bit. I thought I'd be able to sleep with you here. But it isn't working."
"Maybe I can help."
I tossed away her cigarette and pulled her under the covers, and I began stroking her attentively. In order not to see her face and thereby spoil my mood, I even turned off the light. Every part of her I touched felt nice. It was like stroking an ivory sculpture. I'm normally easily excited. Yet strangely at this point, I was quite calm. The sensations somehow stopped at my fingertips and would not go higher.
"Enough, that's enough," she said harshly. With a jerk, she sat up. "You're just wasting your energy." She climbed out of bed and switched on the overhead light. She put on the jeans and shirt still damp with water stains. Then she put on her jacket.
"I'm not mad at you. Just a little restless. I have to go and take a walk." Her voice had become soft again. She put her hand into her pocket and pulled out a key. "Here's your key. I thought I could use it to make you stay. I've been alone for too long. I'm glad you came tonight. All I wanted was to have a good sleep for a change. You tried, but it didn't work. Not your fault."
"It's late. Want me to come with you?"
"No. I always walk alone. You've let me have my way in everything. I want to thank you for that. Just let me go take a walk alone now. You can either sleep here or at your own place, whatever."
I heard the door shut, then the cast-iron gate. The sound of footsteps resumed after a long hiatus. I turned my eyes toward the ceiling; it suddenly seemed to have become transparent. Against the pitch-black sky, I could see a pair of feet rise up and then come down. As though through a translucent glass, the feet came down, turning from murky to clear until I could even make out individual footprints.
The feet walked straight on. Following them, I returned to my own apartment.
In my imagination, I stroked the feet walking over my head. Yet the only thing I could really make out was the sound. It was like her voice, very soft, very young, yet not tempting. She was beautiful, both her body and her voice. Yet rather than tempting, she repelled. I was tempted by the repulsion. At this very point, I tried to respond to her repelling footsteps with my own spirit, not with my voice or with my body. I had already tried that. It didn't work.
I don't know how long it took, but I finally fell asleep. Even the wavelike noise of the cars below didn't wake me up. In my dream I was trod on by the everlasting feet, every single step treading on me. Suddenly I thought, In the whole human body, only the basest things, the feet, always leave traces on the ground. The things that never leave any traces are the head and the sexual organs.
Thus I slept on in a daze until the doorbell started ringing insistently.
At the door stood a middle-aged woman. She was very friendly and very gossipy. She said she was my neighbor, the owner of 602. She happened to be in the neighborhood so dropped in to have a look.
"I don't know why, but my door was open," she said. "It's happened before."
"Did you give the key to anybody?"
"No, never."
I followed her into 602. I could smell the faint scent of cigarettes. The rooms were very neat. On the desktop, there was a thin layer of dust.
I asked, "Anything missing?"
"Nothing much is kept here. Nowadays, what thief would steal a blanket? I wanted to trade this apartment. I've looked but just haven't found the right one yet."
"Why trade it?"
"It's haunted." She glanced at me and then said mysteriously, "A young couple moved into six-oh-one, your apartment, right after the building was completed. The woman was pretty, a baby face. The man was handsome, too. He could carry a bicycle all the way up to the sixth floor without even being out of breath. Then the woman went on a long business trip to Xinjiang. The man jumped out of the upstairs window."
She led me to the corridor and pointed to a spot downstairs. From way up here, no trace was visible.
"Dead?"
"Of course he was dead. Six floors. How could he survive?"
"After that, a lonely single woman moved in. She had such white skin and a soft, gentle voice. Also a baby face. She never made a sound all the time she was here. Nobody even knew if she was in there."
"No friends ever came to see her?"
"Didn't seem to." She pointed to the tunnel. "One night, real late, a tunnel clean-up crew found her."
"Dead?"
"Dead. Hit by a car. They say she slammed into the wall. Internal bleeding. Maybe the liver was punctured. Hit-and-run."
I let out a deep sigh.
"That's why I had to move out of here. This building is unlucky. Used to be a cemetery."
I invited her in. She looked around, then said she had some business to take care of. Said she'd drop in some other time. Before she left, she remarked in a small voice, "They say that every night there's the sound of footsteps on the roof. I've never spent a night here. Did you hear anything last night?"
"I was exhausted by the move and was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Didn't hear a thing."
"True enough. Moving is hard work."
"Take care."
Over the past half year, I've paid close attention to next door but have heard nothing-except for one day when the light went on. I happily went to knock on the door. Out came a young man, then a young woman from the north. They were on their honeymoon.
Whenever it rains, the stain appears on the ground in front of the door. Rain or shine, I always avoid that particular spot. I've got used to the sound of footsteps on the roof. I feel lost if I don't hear it.
Once, I climbed onto the roof to take a look. A couple of TV antennas stood there like scarecrows. Out of the blue, I snapped the ground wire: it was very brittle. There was also a Coke can and a cigarette butt. I walked back and forth on the roof. It was big enough to hold a basketball court. Below me, not far off, cars were whizzing in and out of the tunnel. They looked tiny. The wind was strong up there.
Off in the distance, in Huangpu West, stood many tall buildings. I recognized one of them as either the Hilton or the New Jinjiang.
I stood on the roof for a long time, as though I, too, were a scarecrow.
While climbing down, I lost my footing and scraped my arm. The wound was red, with pink liquid oozing out. I opened the cast-iron gate and closed it behind me. Then I opened the door to my own apartment and closed it. I opened all the doors in my apartment: bathroom, bedroom, study, pantry, even the balcony door. I also opened all the windows.
Above the balcony, the rope was still swinging gently in the wind. Sunlight slanted through, casting its swaying shadow on the wall. My potted chrysanthemum had long since withered, leaving only the bare, brittle branches. Its shadow was also cast on the wall. The shadow, too, was dead, dead still.
I glanced downstairs. All of a sudden, I felt the urge to jump. I wanted to leave my own mark on another piece of concrete. Leave it with my head.
Jump. Just that.
I returned to my room and closed all the doors and windows. Then I sat in the armchair she had once used and poured myself a glass of beer. There was a lot of foam, which didn't go away until I finished a cigarette. The foam was this deadly white, like the tunnel entrance on a rainy day, like her neck.
While drinking the beer, I thought of a metaphor. Her ugly navel was just like the tunnel, upon which I depended for my coming and going.
I sat like that until late into the night. I knew that these few days would pass uneventfully. Then on a rainy night, I would take a walk. I would walk into the tunnel to breathe the damp foul air. I would study the grimy stains on the wall. Perhaps behind me would be the sound of footsteps on the roof. I would not look back. At this point, the doorbell rang.
Translated By Hu Ying