This Block Corner
(My very first short story. Please tell me what you think.)
I have lived for 80 years. Poverty, deaths, and loneliness make these eighty years seem a little bit too long. Among all the miseries I’ve been through, one became a huge stone in my throat, torturing me on countless nights without sleep. I still remember that day with a clarity that hurts my nerve. The day my granddaughter died.
*
My granddaughter Xia started to live with me when she was six. The two of us lived in my apartment alone. This neighborhood in Anhui used to be the most popular, developed district twenty years ago. Now it became a shabby urban village, like a rotten speck eaten by moths on a juicy, growing apple. It quickly became prostitutes’ favorite living place — -the rent was only fifty yuan a month and gig workers lived here apparently had a lot of desires. Sometimes I heard husky moans coming out of grime-thickened windows, like dying cows’ howl.
Xia was curious about the world she lived in. Friday afternoon after I picked her up from school as usual and walked with her back to our apartment, she wanted to know why those “women with heavy makeup and short skirts” were standing at the block corner every day.
I was worried that Xia could be influenced by these prostitutes. I heard my neighbor’s most beautiful daughter eventually ended up entering the sex industry. I guess beauty can also harm girls — once they find what their face and body can do, they just stop caring about other things. Although Xia just entered primary school, there were already some little boys giving her candies and letting her copy their homework.
“They are looking for jobs because they didn’t study hard when they were at your age,” I said, squeezing Xia’s little palm moistened by early April’s dampness. “Don’t talk to them if they want to talk to you.”
“Are they bad people?” Xia frowned.
“Yes, very very bad,” I said. “Just don’t be close to them.”
“Really…? I think they seem nice, and they seem nice to passersby, always smiling at people.”
“Let me tell you something,” I lowered my voice and tightened my grip.
“Decades ago, there was a crazy, homeless woman living at the end of the seafood market. She used to be the kind of woman wearing short skirts too. No one knew, or cared, why she went nuts. Then, one day, that crazy woman started to eat shit! She just snatched people’s manure buckets, poured them down to the cement road, and started to swallow. The whole seafood market was immersed in that disgusting stink. Someone called the police, expecting them to put the woman in asylum elsewhere.”
“But that crazy woman somehow died at the asylum. She became an ugly ghost and came back to this neighborhood to stir chaos because she thought the neighborhood made her die. At midnight, she would secretly sneak into other women’s rooms, clinging to their bodies and giving them the most horrible nightmares.”
Xia drew a breath of cold air. I continued.
“Some women working the same profession as she eventually became her puppets, luring young girls to enter their profession as well. Very terrible. So just don’t get close to them.”
A thin layer of sweat broke out on Xia’s forehead. She opened her mouth and raised her eyebrows, unable to speak a word. We stood on the street for a minute, staring at each other. Finally, she broke the silence: “Are those women standing there really puppets?”
“They might be.”
“That’s terrible grandpa. How can we tell they are ghost’s puppet or not?”
“Just stay away from all of them.”
“What if they want to catch me?”
“Then run away! Run, Run, Run!” I took Xia’s hand, starting to dash through the streets.
Xia giggled hardly. Her soft, fresh, young ponytail swept over my hands.
I remembered how my wife used to run like this with me. Back when we just moved into this place, she was a local reporter, and I was a primary school Chinese teacher. I often walked to her workplace, waiting for her to get off work. We weren’t rich enough to buy a motorcycle, but we enjoyed using our feet to the fullest. Tat, tat, tat…her low-heel leather shoes made crisp and beautiful sounds, as pleasant as the dripping sound of water from the tip of the ice pick hung below the eaves — a steady, firm, rhythmic sound that tells you it’s going to be warm again.
What I told Xia was a fake story, but I had to protect her from these people. The true story is that my wife died because of them, or more precisely, she died for them.
The prostitute did go crazy. But it was the local police who made her die — they beat the whore up whenever she started to show madness. My wife, who was a local reporter back then wrote a story about police brutality in the newspaper. The paper was censored. The death story became an “unfounded and illegal rumor.”
Police came after my wife while she was reporting outside. According to my wife’s colleague, all he could see was a flock of police officers crowding up to her. They were tall, on average half a head taller than my wife. The colleague said he heard various curses accompanied by spittle but did not hear woman’s scream. He could only see a group of black shadows twisting around, like a black tornado, but could not see my wife. When the tornado dissipated, he saw my wife with one elbow propped up on the concrete floor and another at her wais. Then she just collapsed. The doctors at the ICU said my wife’s kidneys have never been good and all the beating made them worse. She passed away a few days later.
Police here had never been nice, but killing a reporter was just too much. The government fired some scapegoats in the police department to ease the public. And when the officials brought a bouquet of white daisies to my apartment, they said a lot of nice things about my wife — courageous, kind, beloved. Then they asked me not to “make the thing bigger.” I agreed. The official handed me two thousand yuan, but I didn’t take that money.
I didn’t take that daisy either. It was like they wanted me to grow flowers in a garden where her body was buried. You know…flowers may grow, but corpses don’t sprout. They do not come back to life. I might be a weak man, but I wasn’t heartless.
*
The seafood market is located in a narrow alley connecting the block corner to the main street edged with restaurants. Most Main Street diners will never know that their croaker noodle soup comes from the shady world of the seafood alley. Some old fellows might recognize the smell, the salty ocean smell which Xia and I adored.
At the end of the muggy seafood market covered by red burlap was the block corner where prostitutes and gamblers frequented. It’s the dirtiest place in this town — shattered glass bottles and footprinted poker cards were never cleaned. People here didn’t dress decently. Men always rolled up their T-shirts and proudly showed their beer bellies full of hairs like burnt weeds. Women put on unnatural red blushes, as they were growing hives on their cheeks.
But to my granddaughter, the neighborhood was a lively place bustling with joyful clamors. Every early morning when I walked her to school, vendors would spread a large piece of hemp cloth on the right side of the alley, fill their Styrofoam boxes with ice cubes, and neatly put the wriggling croakers and muddy crabs on the box. At around 11:30, when I picked her up from school to have lunch at home, the whole cement road within the alley was tainted with fish scales and guts. The nice ocean smell became a stench of blood. Xia and I bought seafood for dinner, because the price went down at dawn after the fat and fresh ones were bought by others.
Xia asked me to play Erhu once we got home. I was a terrible Erhu player — my wife used to complain about that — but Xia enjoyed the shrill and sad sound of this instrument. As I pressed the string, pulled the pole, plucked, and waited for the string to bounce back, Xia swayed. It was like someone with a thin throat was crying beautifully.
I pulled the pole in the wrong direction, with a sharp sound piercing my eardrum, which reminded me of what happened five years ago. I was also playing Erhu when Xia’s mom, my daughter, leaned on the door and announced her departure. She handed me the one-month-old Xia in a yellow burlap cloth.
“Take care of her until we establish ourselves in Shanghai,” my daughter said, kissing gently on Xia’s forehead, leaving a shallow pink circle on it. Since then, my only wish was that my daughter and her husband could make some money in that big, modern city, and she can provide Xia with a better future. Xia shouldn’t be staying here. This neighborhood in rural Anhui was abandoned by our times. Only seniors like me and bitches lived here.
Now I know there is a general term for kids like Xia. They are called the “left-behind children”: kids who stay in undeveloped region while their parents leave to work in big cities.
*
After I played Erhu for Xia, our daily entertainment activity, we decided to eat bruised fish noodle for dinner. I might add too much salt which made Xia desperate for a lollipop after dinner.
“Can I go to the snack shop?” she asked. “It’s not dark yet, grandpa. I’ll be quick, five minutes.”
From the kitchen window where I stood, I could see the back wall of the snack shop. The afterglow of sun glittered the cement road, like there were a thousand pieces of golden foil paper covering it. The block corner was quiet and peaceful around dinner time — everyone went home for food. It seemed safe. Besides, I was able to track Xia from the kitchen window. “Yes, honey, bring me a bottle of soy sauce as well,” I replied, stuffing five yuan into her sweaty palm.
As I looked at her shimmering silhouette becoming smaller, I couldn’t stop imaging my granddaughter’s bright future in Shanghai. She would live in the most developed city in China, become a well-educated woman, and would visit me once a year with her boyfriend… Xia disappeared from my vision for a minute, then reappeared from the snack shop with a lollipop in her mouth and a bottle of soy sauce. I was relieved and started to wash my dishes, glancing at her once a while. Suddenly, the corner of my eyes saw Xia running fast. I heard the irregular rhythms that were coming out of my chest.
Suddenly, a rattling sound of breaking glass burst out. Then I heard the sound of high heel hitting ground followed a shrill swear of “Holy shit!”
I ran down, wearing slippers. Dishes’ foams were still on my hands. One woman stood beside a swerve manhole without a cover, and another woman kneeled down to look inside.
I soon recognized that kneeling woman, an old prostitute near the snack shop. She looked at my expressionless face and announced the news. “That little girl fell into the manhole.” I kneeled down too. The manhole is dark, so dark that I could not see anything. I only smell. Smell the mixture of shit, urine, soy sauce, decaying vegetables, cigarettes, dead fish.
“Xia! Xia!” I cried and screamed into the shit-smell dumpsite, many many times as I remembered. But the only sound that got back to me was some terrified rats’ chattering. I stared into the darkness and the darkness stared back at me too. I called the firefighter and ambulance. When the firefighter fished out my granddaughter with a thick twine, her face was covered in brown muddy stuff. The lollipop in Xia’s mouth fell to the ground and broke into pieces, and several rats ran over to lick it. The firefighter announced another news: the little girl who fell into the manhole was not breathing anymore.
I suddenly thought of my wife, not herself, but those bizarre stories she once reported, something like “Dead man found under manhole cover had been there for three weeks.” I usually just sighed and said to her, “Die like this is not uncommon here.” Then I saw her kneeling down beside the pit too, pulling out her notebook and asked me: what’s your relationship with the dead girl?
“I was just reminding that she dropped one coin,” the prostitute suddenly said. “She was so scared of me and ran.”
“She was so scared of me. Her face turned pale as if I was some kind of children-eating monster!”
“Then she ran. When she turned around to see if I was still following her, she fell into that pit!”
Immediately I knew I was the one to blame.
“no…no…don’t run.” I just murmured.
*
I buried Xia’s body in the same place as my wife’s. It was an open space upon a small hill — very quiet and safe. No police, no blade, no running, no beating. Only the rustle of leaves and birdsong accompany their long, long sleep.
My daughter hates me. They disappeared from my life after her death. I don’t know where they live and work right now, but we ran into each other twice on the hill. From their clothes and all the fancy stuff they bought for Xia and their mom, I can tell they are living a pretty good life.
I now play Erhu every day. Sometimes the instrument brings me back to the times when my loved ones were still alive. Old people don’t need much sleep, so I often take long walks under the moon. I start from the block corner, stroll to Xia’s school, and walk back through the seafood market. I look through the narrow alley curving to the main street, can’t hear the sound of Xia’s pencil case hitting her school bag, can’t feel her sweaty little palm. Moonlight spilled over the alley. The whole cement road seemed to be sprinkled with salts.
