Vertical Motion

Cotton Candy

The thing I love watching most is the swirling cotton candy. The contraption for making it is like a flat-bottomed pan. One puts sugar in it, turns the crank, and after a while, a large shimmering ball emerges; it’s like cotton — and like silk, too. Indeed, there’s nothing lovelier.

The old woman with bulging eyelids who was selling cotton candy was so absorbed in the operation that she never looked up at us. We crowded around the contraption, staring at it with our mouths watering. We secretly hoped that more and more people would show up to buy cotton candy, so that we could watch longer. Still, this didn’t mean that we could eat the cotton candy: the old woman had never been that generous. We stood there to feast our eyes. None of the balls of cotton candy was the same; each one had a special beauty of its own. Only our eyes — kids’ eyes — could tell them apart. After the cotton candy was shaken out, the old woman spoke in a sharp, crisp voice to the child who had paid for it: “Here you go!” And then our gazes turned toward the thing in the child’s hand. We weren’t jealous of him. We shared his enjoyment of the delectable food — with our eyes.

Ah, this lovely thing has run through my entire life! That treasure sparkling in the sunlight, that magic-like spinning, brought me so much joy. At the time, I secretly planned to become a cotton candy vendor when I grew up. This old woman’s absorption and calmness while she worked were mystifying. Even with my enthusiasm running so high, I was sometimes distracted — for example, when an old crow flew past, or when my parents yelled at us to go home for dinner. But this old woman: after she set up her “black pot” and her customers lined up in front of this contraption, she lowered her eyes and never looked up. I thought that each ball of cotton candy was so marvelous because it was inseparable from her frame of mind. What kind of person was this old woman with hands like bark?

I’ve eaten cotton candy just twice. It was the most mystifying experience on earth. When I put that soft, transparent, fluttering white thing in my mouth, it vanished like air. It had no taste. I knew I’d seen that cotton candy was made of sugar, so why didn’t it taste sweet? I asked Amei and Aming, but they both laughed at me and said I was “miserable.” In my anger, I started ranting and raving, and they ran off.

But the cotton candy that those children ate certainly was flavorful. If they were eating only air, they wouldn’t make such a scene in front of their parents, demanding a few pennies to enjoy this kind of thing. I understood them. Maybe something was wrong with my taste buds. Later on, I brazenly asked my parents for a few cents, and this time I bought a small pear-shaped one. I tasted it gingerly. I saw this thing melt little by little on my tongue, and still I tasted nothing. It was so unfair: Had the old woman played a trick on me? It didn’t seem so. She treated me the same as everyone else. And, after all, she didn’t know me: she had never laid eyes on any of us.

My extreme dismay touched off endless daydreams. If I amassed some capital someday and became a vendor, maybe I could shake cotton candy out of the air. I was excited about my brainchild: at midnight, I smiled happily. I would shake out the most beautiful cotton candy, and it wouldn’t be white, either. It would be a color I couldn’t even imagine. It would be many times more beautiful than the rainbows in the sky or the coral in the sea. And the flavor certainly would not be a sugary taste, but would be a sweetness that had never existed before. It would be better. No, I couldn’t imagine what it would be better than.

=

The old woman finally went bankrupt. She had made so much money every day, how could she have gone bankrupt? I didn’t get it. She still came to our street to make cotton candy. Children lined up in an orderly fashion. When the first one in line paid his money, she bent her head and started shaking her contraption. She no longer had any white sugar. She was shaking air. Everyone started guffawing. Distracted for a moment, she brought her other hand — the one that was gripping the money — up to her face and stared at it carefully. The child who had given her the money quickly grabbed it from her and took off. She wasn’t angry: she just clutched the crank again and shook the air. She didn’t even look at us.

Feeling sorry for her, I rushed home and pilfered a small jar of sugar. I shoved my way through the crowd and placed the jar of sugar on the old woman’s chopping board. I had barely turned around when I heard a sound: the old woman had swept the jar to the ground. In a frenzy, the children grabbed the sugar that had fallen on the ground. The old woman was still shaking her contraption, her wooden face expressionless. The children whispered that she’d gone “crazy.”

As the days passed, fewer and fewer children crowded around. Finally, no one came any longer to watch her crazy activity. I was the only one who was reluctant to leave, and I observed from one side. Sure, I also ran off sometimes, because I had to help out at home and because of other temptations. But for some reason, I kept thinking about this. I felt vaguely that if the old woman would just go on shaking her contraption, a shiny white treasure would surely emerge from it. Perhaps she hadn’t really gone so bankrupt that she couldn’t even buy sugar. Maybe she had deliberately chosen not to use sugar. Otherwise, why would she have knocked the sugar jar I gave her to the ground?

=

One day, after I had helped my family fetch water, I came here. She looked like a fossil sitting motionless on a wooden stool. This was a rare sight. It was drizzling, and she was drenched. In the past, she would move her contraption under the tea shop’s awning as soon as it began raining. I felt nervous. What on earth had happened? Could she have died? I moved closer to get a better look at her face.

“No matter how much energy you put into your work, the hungry ghosts will eat everything you make.”

She said this abruptly, but even her mouth was motionless. How had she spoken? Maybe these words were just the thoughts in her head and I could actually hear her thoughts.

The contraption was already thick with rust, and a hole had rusted out in the sheet iron. Scared stiff, I shook the rusted crank. Suddenly, that crank made a frightening vibrating sound, and my mind went blank. I fell down on the ground. I tried hard to remember, but I had no idea what that sound was. It felt as if I’d been shut up in a secret metal room and someone had hammered on a piece of armored plate. No, this sound was even worse: it could make a person lose his mind.

It took a long, long time for me to recover. When I looked up, the old woman had disappeared. Under the contraption was a large ball of multi-colored cotton candy. A dirty hand grabbed it right away and took off. The owner of the hand was the little girl Amei — that sick little kid. She ate it as she ran off. In the blink of an eye, the cotton candy dissolved in her mouth. When I caught up and seized hold of her, she opened her big mouth and started crying.

“Shake out one just like it and give it to me!” I ordered.

Whimpering, Amei nervously went back to the contraption. She was short, so it was only by standing on tiptoe that she could reach the crank. I stopped up my ears with my fingers.

The strange thing was that Amei wasn’t the least bit afraid of the sound that the contraption made. She kept shaking it as hard as she could. Perspiration beaded her face. When she stopped, however, no cotton candy appeared. Standing on the small bench and manipulating this contraption, Amei was the picture of health — as if she weren’t sick at all. She was like a little hero — arms akimbo — looking at me.

I peered under the contraption and saw that a few gears and screws had fallen off. I concluded that this contraption was ruined, so I paid no more attention to Amei. I lazily dragged myself home. Dad was at the front door scolding me, for I was supposed to be helping carry the groceries.

=

It was a long time before I could figure out what had happened. I kept seeing the old woman sitting, unmoving, in front of a pile of rags. If I approached her, a sound came out of her chest. By fits and starts, that sound sometimes spoke of her past glory, and sometimes it was only a string of curses. Once, I smelled an odor on her body. Startled, I felt her forehead. She lifted her eyelids to look at me. Her strange gaze frightened me. In the deep recesses of my dark memories a lot of little jars were being opened, and floating in the air was the fragrant scent of honey. I opened my mouth and said an irrelevant word: “Chasing.” The word interrupted my memories. Just then, the old woman’s gaze fell away, and she didn’t look at me again.

I saw Little Zheng and the others take the gears from beneath the contraption. They said they could make tops to play with. And so one day, in the strong sunlight, we played with the tops until perspiration ran off us like rain. But even this exciting game couldn’t satisfy me. In the evening, we grew tired of playing with the gears and threw them into the river. “This is boring! This is boring!” Little Zheng and Little Ying were wailing. I suggested that we visit the old woman. But when we arrived, she wasn’t there. Only then did I remember that every time I’d seen her, I’d been alone. When I asked Little Zheng if he had seen the old woman, he was baffled. He said they hadn’t seen her for a long time. They didn’t believe that the old woman could sit on a pile of scrap iron every day. They said something must be wrong with my eyes. Long after Little Zheng and the others had left, I stood there examining the scrap iron. I even considered appropriating it and taking it home. Naturally, I didn’t dare; if I did, Father would kill me.

The next day, the old woman was sitting there again.

“Hey, Little Qing. Hey, Little Qing. You’re out of your mind,” Amei taunted me.

I thought the children were all on to me: they must be jealous of my desire to become a vendor. Somebody might secretly sabotage my plan. But where could I raise the money? I had to force the old woman to divulge her secret recipe for shaking cotton candy out of thin air. I also had to ask her how to get rid of the strange, frightening sound that the contraption made. If it weren’t for that sound, wouldn’t I have already shaken out lots of multi-colored cotton candy?

Ah, she beckoned to me! From a long way away, I saw her beckoning to me! After setting down my dinner bowl, I ran toward her, even though Mother was scolding me from behind. I ran over to the old woman. How strange. She’d reverted to the way she was before: she was like a fossil, motionless.

=

“Granny — quick! Please teach me your secret recipe.”

I said this three times in a row.

She pointed at the contraption. I looked, but it was no longer there. There were only some flies licking the syrup that had fallen to the ground. The old woman stood up, pretending to turn the crank. I heard the tremendous sound again. After shaking it for a while, she looked disheartened and sat down heavily on the wooden stool. She uttered a crisp sound from her mouth, but not from her throat: “Take it!” I looked at the ground: nothing was there.

My hopes had been dashed: How could I reconcile myself to this? For so many years, my only goal had been to be a vendor — one like this trickster. Not only did I want to shake cotton candy out of thin air, but I also wanted to shake out little golden bells. First, I had to amass capital and buy a contraption and practice. But I had no capital. With no capital, I had to shake a treasure out of thin air that could turn into money for real. The old woman was my only hope. With my own eyes, I’d seen her empty hands shake out cotton candy. I couldn’t let this hope be dashed. As I reasoned with myself, I came up with a bizarre, audacious plan.

That morning, while the adults were at work at the bamboo-ware factory, Little Zheng and I began putting our plan to kidnap the old woman into effect. Everything went smoothly: we didn’t even need our rope and chair, because the old woman made no sound as we manipulated her. Little Zheng and I carried her, letting her old legs drag on the ground. She was heavy. After we dragged her to the custodian’s tool shed, we were ready to pass out from exhaustion. When we flung her to the ground, we also fell down and couldn’t get up for a long time.

“Let’s starve her and see if she opens her mouth or not!” Little Zheng said angrily.

We knew that she had only an alcoholic son at home, so there would be no problem for a while.

When we glanced at her, we saw that she was coiled into a ball on the ground. She was pawing at the dust with one hand and rubbing her face with it. Her face was now as black as the bottom of a pot, and her crocodile-like eyeballs were turning slowly. Little Zheng and I felt uneasy: Could she have some sinister motive?

“Granny, do you want something to eat?”

I had no sooner said this when my eyes were blurred by dust; they hurt too much to open. The old woman had thrown a handful of dust — accurately and ruthlessly. I had never expected this. I heard Little Zheng kick the old woman.

“Water! Water!” I shouted wildly.

=

In unbearable pain, I had no recollection of how Little Zheng got me home. The next day, my eyelids were swollen. Although I couldn’t go out, I was still thinking about the tool shed. How was she getting along there? I had a hard time waiting until afternoon when my parents left. Then I got out of bed. Covering my eyes with a washcloth, I moved to the door. From outside came the sound of running footsteps. Someone came in.

“Little Qing, little Qing, the floor of the tool shed is heaped with cotton candy. She’s almost buried in it!” It was Little Zheng.

“Really? Really?”

“Alas, we were really dumb. Why didn’t we wait and watch her sorcery?”

“She wouldn’t let us.”

“It’s too bad that all of the sugar is filthy. Otherwise, we could sell it for a lot of money. The custodian swept it all into the garbage can. What a shame.”

When Little Zheng and I finally went over there, we saw the door of the tool shed standing open. She was sitting on top of a pile of brooms. I kept wiping my eyes with the washcloth. I despised this old woman. I heard a bunch of children coming this way: after a while, they formed a long line at the door.

“Here you go!” the old woman said to the little boy at the head of the line.

The little boy was holding the air with both hands; he went out rapturously.

“Here you go!” the old woman said to the second child — a little girl — in line.

The little girl was also holding the air with both hands; she, too, went out rapturously.

Like the head of a household, the old woman sat smugly on the brooms. Little Zheng and I were dumbfounded. Some of these children were from our neighborhood, others from elsewhere. What were they doing together with the old woman? Each child took ten or twenty cents from his pocket and gave it to her. The money was all real. After taking the money, she carefully put it into a pocket in the front of her garment. Soon, the pocket was bulging. When I looked outside, I was startled: I couldn’t see the end of the long line. The custodians didn’t mind postponing their work. They were looking on with interest, as if they were celebrating a holiday.

Little Zheng was seized by a whim: he also joined the line and waited. When it was his turn, the old woman — without even lifting her eyes — said, “Get out of here.”

Little Zheng wasn’t willing to move out of the way, and the other children angrily set upon him and threw him to the ground. He was like a drowned mouse. I helped him up, and in the midst of hisses from the other children, we left.

We went back to my home, where I lay down on the bed. I was still plagued by the same question: How could I amass enough capital to become a vendor? Sitting next to the bed, Little Zheng brainstormed: we could rob the old woman; in any case, she had earned her money fraudulently. I vetoed that idea. Unconvinced, he said, “She got the money through fraud.”

I didn’t think the old woman had been cheating people. I’d seen the multi-colored cotton candy, and I’d seen Amei eat it. The children’s excited expressions had persuaded me that something I hadn’t seen was real. I couldn’t rob her. And it was useless to kidnap her. So how would I get the capital?

“What if we establish good relations with the other children, and make them do as we say and hand money over to us?” Little Zheng was talking nonsense.

In reality, the children not only wouldn’t listen to us, but they had thrown Little Zheng down on the ground. Maybe the key was to gain their trust and then do what we wanted. For years, the old woman had shaken so much cotton candy out of that contraption that everyone believed she was a cotton candy vendor. Later, she used neither machinery nor sugar. Yet, everyone was still accustomed to the notion that she was a vendor. She had practiced this for years and years. We were just little kids; it was evident that no one would trust us. Even if we did trick people, no one would take the bait. We gave it a lot of thought. We couldn’t figure out what to do, and yet we weren’t willing to give up.

Someone came in. I thought it was my parents, and so I lay there very still. Little Zheng left the room to take a look. When he returned, his face was flushed. He poked me, meaning that I should get up right away.

I looked: the old woman was sitting in the outbuilding.

When Little Zheng and I walked over to her, she held out her hands. Each of us took hold of one hand and stood there waiting for her to speak.

“You can’t cheat people,” she said with her shriveled mouth.

Little Zheng and I nodded our heads earnestly.

We thought she wanted to say something else, but she seemed tired of talking. She just lowered her eyes again and started snoozing. We were still holding her hands. I was afraid my parents would return and question us, so I had to urge her to leave my home. As soon as I made this clear, she opened her eyes and angrily called me “fickle.”

Then my parents came back. They looked at the old woman sitting at the table, but said nothing. Weary of hanging around, Little Zheng went home.

When it was time for dinner, the old woman ate with us. My parents didn’t seem to think this was unusual; it was as if the old woman were part of our family, not the vendor from two streets away. After eating, she rose to leave. When she reached the door, she suddenly turned around and said to me: “Every day, I sleep and dream amidst the cotton candy.”

As she spoke, her breath and body both smelled sour. When I watched her walk into the distance, I was still tasting her words. Right up until Mother called me.

“You finally have some ambition. We feel reassured,” Mama said.

This time, Father broke precedent and didn’t scold me; rather, he stared at me questioningly for a long time.

The next day was another bright, sunny day. After I fetched water and dried vegetables, I walked over there. From a distance, I saw a long line of children, but the old woman wasn’t at the head of the line. I saw Little Zheng again; he was sitting where the old woman used to sit. He and the children were exchanging knowing looks. He beckoned to me, and I sat side by side with him on the bench. One by one, the children came and solemnly smacked our palms. Although they didn’t give us money, I felt utterly content. Little Zheng, the children, and I were immersed in daydreams about the multi-colored cotton candy. One after another, the honey jars in the depths of our memories were opened up: the strong fragrance overflowed into the air.