Vertical Motion

The Brilliant Purple China Rose

Mei lived on a small, lonely side street in the downtown area. The five-story building had been constructed in the 1950s. Mei and her husband Jin lived in a three-room apartment on the first floor.

Mei’s home was a little unusual: except for the kitchen, all the appliances and furniture were covered with cloths of various colors, as if the two of them were about to go traveling. It was only when they wanted to use these things that they uncovered them. For example, at mealtimes, they removed the heavy tablecloth, and when they drank tea, they uncovered the tea table and sofa. Even the two large mirrors hanging on the walls were covered with embroidered cloths. Only when they looked in the mirrors did they uncover them. Because of these cloths, the rhythm of Mei’s daily life was much slower than that of ordinary persons.

Mr. Jin seldom took off these covers, for Mei handled everything for him. All day long, he lay on a chaise lounge — the only piece of furniture that wasn’t covered with a cloth — and read a thick book, A Collection of Illustrations of Wild Plants, and looked repeatedly at the pictures in it. Lying on the chaise lounge, he was staring with his left eye at the book’s illustrations of humid euphorbia while at the same time glancing sideways at the shoe rack. He said loudly, “The cat has pulled the cloth on the shoe rack down to the floor!” From the kitchen, Mei heard him and rushed over to re-cover the shoe rack. Jin was obviously a sensitive person, too.

In the small garden outside, Mei grew neither flowers nor trees. From strips of bamboo and plastic film, she created an awning — a long one which looked ridiculous. Inside the plastic awning, she raised a strange plant from seeds that Jin had bought through a relative who lived in another place. The seeds were a small, purple crescent shape. Jin dug a furrow one foot deep and buried these seeds in it. He told Mei that this plant was the rare “underground plant.” None of it was on the surface. After the seeds were buried, they would grow straight down. He also fertilized and watered their plants, and then Mei covered them with the plastic awning. Jin said, After this, you don’t need to tend them. You only need to keep this plastic awning in shape, that’s all. When this plant grows underground, it makes strict demands of the environmental conditions. In short, the less environmental change the better.

“Mei, what kind of treasure are you growing?” the neighbor Ayi asked.

“The China rose.”

“Why don’t I see any buds?”

“They grow downward, and the flowers also blossom underground. It isn’t the China rose that we’re accustomed to seeing. The flowers are only as large as grains of rice, and the petals are stiff.”

Mei blushed. She was repeating what Jin had told her. In her own mind, she didn’t have a good grasp of it. With her goldfish eyes bulging, Ayi looked at her for a moment and then silently entered the apartment.

Mei told Jin that their neighbor Ayi didn’t believe they were growing the China rose. Jin was shaving just then, and lather covered his face. Blinking his little triangular eyes, he said he hadn’t believed it either, at first. Whether people believe it or not has no bearing on the China rose’s growth. With that, he went into the bathroom. Holding a mop, Mei stood there thinking. Presumably, Jin had a clear understanding of this. When the seeds were seen under lamplight, they did look like a singular variety. She remembered that two nights ago the two of them had put their heads together and taken stock of these seeds. She bent over and mopped the floor. When she reached the desk, she noticed a seed that had been left next to a leg of the desk. She quietly picked it up, wrapped it in crepe paper, and put it in the kitchen cupboard.

In the afternoon, Jin napped on the chaise lounge. As for Mei, she sat on the sofa. She could rest just by leaning against the back of the sofa and dozing a little. When her eyelids grew heavy, she heard someone knocking on the door. Twice. Not continuously, but with an interval between them. Who would knock this way? Was it a child playing a prank? She didn’t open the door. She heard Jin snoring softly. After a while, just as her eyelids were growing heavy again, the knock came again — this time, twice in a row. Still light and hesitant. Mei had no choice but to go to the door.

Ayi was standing outside. Her face was pale, as if she’d been frightened.

“I’d also like to grow a little of that variety — that variety of China rose. Do you have any extra seeds?”

“No. Old Jin brought them back through a relative. If you want some, we can ask someone’s help again.”

Ayi looked terribly disappointed. Then her expression changed to spiteful probing — she impertinently stuck her head in and looked into the room. Mei generally did not invite neighbors into her home. Ayi’s unusual behavior made her a little nervous.

“I just remembered. I still have one seed. Do you want it?” She looked almost ingratiating.

“You have one? Sure, I’d like it. Let me have it.”

Taking the seed wrapped in crepe paper, Ayi gave Mei a hard look.

When Mei turned around to close the door, what she saw in the room startled her: a rat was sneaking back and forth under the tablecloth on the dining table. There had seldom been rats in their home. Was it really a rat? Pouncing, she covered the tablecloth with her hands, but the little guy still slipped away. She had pounced on air. She looked on helplessly as the gray rat climbed up the window and glided outside. Shaken, Mei stood in the room and said, “Rat.”

Jin’s gaze left his book, and he glanced at her. Then he returned to the book and said:

“The rat is Ayi. You needn’t worry too much.”

Recovering, she replaced the tablecloth and went to the kitchen. After cooking for a while, she rushed back to the bedroom because she was afraid of the rat. Luckily, she didn’t see the little guy again. But she noticed that the lower part of the cloth on the dresser had been gnawed on, so it seemed this problem was real! When Mei was in primary school, the city was overrun with rats. People had employed all kinds of ways to get rid of them: blocking their paths, poisoning, tracking, pouring water on their nests, and so on. From then on, there had been no problem.

As she chopped radishes, she savored what Jin had said. Jin had said the rat was simply Ayi. This made some sense. Although the two families were next-door neighbors, and their children had played together, their socializing had been limited to simple greetings made in passing after the children grew up and moved away. So she’d been a little surprised when Ayi had asked for flower seeds. Judging by Ayi’s expression and movements, she was taking this matter quite seriously. But why? It couldn’t be merely for a few flower seeds.

At mealtime, Mei said to her husband:

“Will Ayi really grow the seed she took with her? What do you think?”

“No, because that one is fake; it’s one I culled to throw away. Altogether, quite a few are fake. As soon as she looks at it, she’ll realize that. It isn’t a flower seed; it’s a beautiful pebble.”

Jin winked at her complacently. Mei whispered to herself: “You cunning bastard!” She was a little worried that Ayi would hold a grudge against her because of this. Ayi’s husband was a sullen, one-eyed man. Would the couple think she had played a trick on them? Perhaps she should explain to them. Jin argued against this. He said it would be a case of “confusing the issue with more talk.” He also said, “Since she’s interested in this underground plant, it’s okay to make fun of her a little.”

=

Because of insomnia, Mei and Jin had started sleeping in separate rooms ten years earlier. In general, Mei could sleep from midnight to a little after one o’clock. After awakening, she couldn’t sleep again until after three o’clock. She would wake up again about five o’clock, and at close to seven o’clock she slept again for a while. She arose at sometime after eight o’clock. Every day was much like this. Mei’s nights were long. At first, this was hard to put up with. Between periods of sleep, she was drowsy. After awakening at one o’clock at night, dressed in her pajamas, she always made the rounds of each room. While doing this, she didn’t turn on any lights. And so, one night she fell — frightened of the sudden glare on the large mirror in the living room — and bumped against the side of the dining table. She broke her collarbone. Looking back on it, she thought the subtle sparkle had been caused by a passing car. Afterward, Mei had covered everything with cloths. After getting better, Mei ceased her nighttime rounds. She still got up during the night and sat on a low kitchen stool. Leaning against the wall, she would doze for a while. She sat in the kitchen because she could look out the window and see the sky and the trees. This was relaxing. At such times, recalling the long-ago days when she and her children had been together, she was astonished at the well-being she felt: Was that really the life she had experienced? The sense of well-being, however, came from her present contentment. Thus, after a long time, she started enjoying her insomnia. She imagined that she had become a large white goose waddling in the woods looking for food.

Unless he was greatly disturbed — for example, the time that Mei was injured — Jin did not wake up at night. According to him, he slept lightly: whenever something happened, he was aware of it.

“People like me are bound to die early, because we never have any real peace.”

He made a long face when he spoke of his situation, but Mei knew he was inwardly satisfied. Wasn’t light sleep much the same as wakefulness? If a person was always waking up, wasn’t this the same as living two lifetimes? Jin’s lifetime had been a really good bargain! What’s more, he was so healthy that he never fell ill: How could he die prematurely? He also said that he had never dreamed, because he was essentially always conscious and so there was no way to dream. As Mei listened, she thought: When she sat in the kitchen and dozed, she had one dream after another. The two of them were really not much alike.

Jin supported Mei in covering the furniture and other articles, because he also hated the glare from these things at night. “Even though I do sleep, now and then I open my eyes and see that eerie scene.”

The city had more and more cars, and people’s night life lasted longer and longer, and so cars had recently been passing Mei’s home all night long. After the furniture and other articles were covered, Mei felt that her home was “as solid as a huge rock.” The lamplight that swept past from the cars looked fleeting and insubstantial, and could no longer scare her. Jin was happy, too. He kept saying, “This is great, just great.” He added that although he didn’t wake up at night, he was quite aware of the cars’ rudeness.

“People call this herb ‘snakehead king.’ It can cure snakebites. In the past, it grew all over outside our old home. There were also numerous snakes there. This is the law of combating poison with poison.”

Jin placed the book on his chest, closed his eyes, and lay there. Mei saw only that his mouth was moving. Amused by this, she couldn’t help but interrupt:

“The herb’s scientific name is ‘yizhi huanghua!’”

“Oh, you know this, too. When did you read my book?!”

“At night. My eyesight keeps improving. I can read by the faint light that comes through the windows from the street lamps.”

A slight smile floated up on Jin’s face. Mei wondered how far down the China rose had grown. Maybe Jin should have studied botany when he was young, but instead he had been a salesman. But if Jin had really become a botanist, could he have lived the kind of life he had now? Would the room be filled with plant specimens hanging everywhere? In recent years, he had read this same book about wild plants every day; he had never collected specimens. Not long before, Jin, who seldom went out, had rushed to the city center and brought back these China rose seeds. He had vaguely mentioned a relative’s name, so it seemed that this person had sent them to him.

Mei read Jin’s book in order to search for clues to Jin’s thinking. She admired him greatly. He was so calm! Even though a rat had sneaked into their home, he wasn’t fazed. By contrast, Mei had gone through a period of despair after breaking her collarbone. Along with an aunt who came to help out, Jin silently took responsibility for some of the housework. He seldom consoled her. Perhaps this was because of Jin’s composure. Mei recovered through struggling by herself. As soon as she regained her strength, Jin lay down on his chaise lounge again. He said with a smile that he was “about the same as a paralyzed person.” Mei thought his smile was one of contentment.

The accumulation of water in front of the door was something that happened all of a sudden. It had rained for two days and two nights, and mud had clogged the sewer. By midnight, the front of the apartment had turned into a pool. Just then, Jin had jumped out of bed and rushed barefoot into the rain. The battery-powered light on the windowsill was shining on the plastic awning over the flowers. Wielding a hoe, he worked hard in the rain. After about two hours, he had dug a trench to divert the accumulated water. It had never occurred to Mei that Jin could still be so energetic. It was as though he were fighting for his life.

When he returned, he was too tired to talk. He slowly removed his wet raincoat and slowly lay back down. Mei rubbed his hair with a dry towel.

“The flowers are safe now. They’d all be dead if I hadn’t saved them. We can’t imagine what the growing environment underground is like. We can only infer what it is. I learned about this once. ”

With that, he went to sleep. As he snored, his lips moved slightly. Mei wondered what he was saying. Was he talking with the underground plants?

In the morning, the sun came out. Standing at the plastic-film awning, Ayi was looking around suspiciously.

“Mei, nothing is growing in here. Could we dismantle the awning? They’re interfering with the drain, and they don’t look good, either.”

“Ayi, how can you say this? I planted them myself. I told you they’re the China rose, a special variety that grows underground. During the night, Jin brought them back from the brink of death.”

“Huh. You’re really stubborn and deluded. Some people are still really pleased to live this way.”

Ayi’s husband called out to her from their home. When she went home, she turned around again and looked at the flowerbed a few times. Mei thought her expression was filled with curiosity; that’s to say that Ayi certainly wasn’t convinced of what she had said. Then, she heard Ayi and her husband arguing in loud voices. What they were arguing about, however, she couldn’t hear.

When Mei entered the apartment, she saw that Jin was still sleeping. He was so calm. Suddenly, Mei wondered: What if all the flower seeds they had planted were beautiful little pebbles? She thought back for a while: it seemed this was really possible. When she had held them in her hand, they had felt cold and had also made a ding ding sound! Was it because of this quality that they could grow downward and blossom? Ayi had evidently misunderstood. If you believed in something like this, it was true; if you didn’t believe in it, it wasn’t. Ayi evidently didn’t believe in it.

More than thirty years ago, when the newly married Mei and the newly married Ayi had moved to this building, it was desolate here. Mei frequently noticed her neighbor take a small stool outside and sit at the entrance to watch the setting sun. When, little by little, the last rays turned dark, the view of this woman’s back gave her a sense not only of loneliness but also of stubbornness. When they saw each other, they were courteous, as were the two husbands. Mei seldom saw Ayi’s husband. He was a steelworker, and he always stayed inside after work. A gloomy atmosphere hung over their home. Mei thought that Ayi and her husband were well suited; they never quarreled. Then what were they arguing about today? The flower seeds? Now the setting sun couldn’t be seen. Life went on indoors, but the view of her back in the past had lasted until today. In the past, when the setting sun could be seen, the future was still hidden entirely in confusion.

=

“My relative lives at No. 3 Youma Lane. It’s a distant relative, so we ordinarily don’t see one another. If you’re interested, you can go to see him. Because that place has undergone reconstruction, it’s a little hard to find.”

Jin was speaking of the relative who had given him the flower seeds.

“If I go to see him, I’ll have to find an excuse,” Mei said.

“You can ask him how to grow the brilliant purple China rose.”

Mei was excited. After eating lunch, she skipped her nap, tidied up a little, and went out.

In the clusters of new construction in the city center, Youma Lane had disappeared. Mei asked several persons before learning that the old building at No. 3 Youma Lane had been demolished, and all the former residents had been resettled in a row of simple single-story houses. An old tire repairman told her that Teacher Bing now lived in the westernmost building.

At first, Mei was startled by Teacher Bing’s appearance. He was like a wild man: a mass of gray whiskers covered his face, and gray hair fell below his shoulders. He was bleary-eyed.

“Ah, the brilliant purple China rose.” His voice buzzed out from his whiskers. “This is a variety that used to exist, but now no one can grow it successfully. The rules for growing it are simple: it grows only when you forget it.”

“How does one forget it?”

“Each person has his own ways. For example, I scatter seeds everywhere at random — next to the ditch, in holes people dig for trees, in the holes of new house foundations, in the earth on old thatched roofs, and so forth. One day, I saw a bulge in the earthen wall of a thatched hut. After I moved the mud on it, my plant was revealed. After thinking about it, I finally remembered that I had sown seeds on top of the wall. Mei, it’s better if you don’t look into this too much.”

As he talked, Teacher Bing was frowning, as if displeased by her presence — and also as if he were disclosing his secret only because he had no alternative. But still, he told Mei that this bungalow where he lived was originally No. 3 Youma Lane.

“The ground beneath this land is overgrown with many varieties of flowers: it’s like floral fossils. People who live here are all old hands at this. I’ve heard that the foundations of the high new buildings are very deep. That doesn’t matter. Our plants have all vanished from the surface of the earth, as if they had never existed. ”

After leaving the relative’s home, Mei walked two or three minutes in confusion and then lost her way. She wanted to ask directions, but there was no one to ask: she could see only the remains of demolished houses. In the blink of an eye, the city had disappeared.

“Teacher Bing!!” she shouted.

The caw of a crow answered her — there were still crows here, calling to mind the former city.

“Jin!!” she shouted.

Jin appeared on the distant horizon and, carrying a wooden bucket in one hand, he slowly approached her. Breathing heavily, he placed the wooden bucket on the ground. The water sloshed out.

“What kind of fish are these?” Mei asked.

“Deep-water fish. The pile-driver over there startled them, and they mistakenly scurried up. River water isn’t suitable for these creatures. I want to free them. Why don’t you go home first?”

Carrying the bucket, Jin walked far away. At first, Mei considered catching up with him and then gave up this idea, because she could see the city once again. Teacher Bing’s house was just ahead, wasn’t it? She entered that side street and reached the main street. She thought to herself: In the past, could Jin also have lived in Youma Lane? And Ayi, too?

=

At night, Mei saw dazzling light swaying again on the portiere. It was a strange sight. Later, light appeared on all of the furniture’s cloth covers: now and then, the interior of the apartment turned brilliant. The stream of cars on the road was unceasing. Mei thought all her efforts had been in vain. Sometimes, ill-mannered drivers would blow their horns. When the horns suddenly sounded, Mei sometimes would instantly lose consciousness.

Breaking with precedent, Jin didn’t sleep that night. He said, “Those deep-water fish get on everyone’s nerves.” Lying on the chair, he kept sighing and called the phenomena that had manifested themselves in the daytime “perverse.”

“Actually, I acted unnecessarily. They all died. See, an ordinary person like me can’t see their purpose. Their existence in and of itself scares people, doesn’t it? Listen!!”

Mei saw that the right side of Jin’s face was alight. The sound of the cars’ horns was tumultuous.

He stood up and walked around, greatly stimulated. Mei saw that the light was following him constantly. For a second, the light stopped at his eyes, and his eyes then turned green and strange-shaped. Mei shouted from fright and lost consciousness again.

After Mei came to, she heard dili, dili. It was Jin fiddling with the flower seeds. It was a little warm in the room because he had drawn the thick drapes. All the lights were out except for a small reading lamp on the desk. All of a sudden, Mei felt as if she were living in a cave. She groped her way toward the study.

“Have a seat,” Jin said, pointing to a chair beside him. “This is something I asked Teacher Bing for today.”

Ah, it wasn’t flower seeds. It was a beautiful gem.

“He no longer has anywhere to plant seeds. He gave it to me. I was really baffled.”

In the lamplight, Mei picked up a jade-green seed, and the light immediately penetrated it. She noticed a dark little spot floating inside it. She couldn’t keep from saying:

“These are all stones; they aren’t plants.”

“Hmm. Could be. Anything is possible, isn’t it?”

In the lamplight, Jin’s eyeballs became two blank dots. He turned around.

Mei took stock of his back, which reminded her of how he looked when he appeared on the horizon of the ruins today. She heard two people digging outside. It must be Ayi and her husband.

“I gave them seeds,” Jin said without moving.

Mei wanted to get up and go outside, but Jin checked her, saying:

“Don’t look. It’s something private — just between them.”