Shutdown

The tram driver drove the tram. In the sun, the tramlines looked like glistening earthworms fresh out of water. They stretched and contracted, stretched and contracted, making their way forward, slippery-smooth, on and on they stretched, without end . . . . The tram driver stared steadily at the two slithering rails, and didn't go mad.
If not for the shutdown, the tram could have gone on for an eternity. Shutdown! Bells rang: `Ding-ling-ling-ling . . .', every `ding' a cold dot in the air. Dot after dot, the sound of the bells cut a dotted line through time and space.
The tram stopped. But the people on the street started to run. People on the left side of the street ran to the right side. Those on the right ran to the left. The metal grilles of stores rasped shut. Women shook them hysterically, screaming: 'Let us in, I have a child here; there are old people out here!' But the grilles didn't budge. People behind the grilles and people outside eyed each other, all of them frightened.
The people on the tram were relatively calm. They had seats to sit on. Though the fittings were rudimentary, they were a sight better than most passengers' homes. The street too gradually quieted down, not to total silence, but people's voices became more distant, like the rustle of a rush pillow heard through your dreams. The vast city dozed off in the sunlight, its head resting heavily on people's shoulders, its drool trickling down their clothes. An unimaginable heaviness pressed down upon every person. Shanghai had perhaps never been this quiet-and in daytime too! A beggar took advantage of the hush to broadcast his plea, 'Won't somebody masters, mistresses, misters, misses-do a good deed, and save a poor soul! Won't somebody please . . .' But he gave it up before long, cowed by the ponderous silence.
There was another, braver beggar from Shandong, who was determined to break the silence. 'Have pity! Have pity! Pity a poor penniless soul!' His full voice, loud and clear, raised the age-old chant which had rung down the centuries. Its lilt affected the tram driver, also from Shandong, who heaved a long sigh. He leaned against the door of the tram, hugging himself, and started to sing along, 'Have pity! Have pity! Pity a poor penniless soul!'
Some passengers got off the tram. Those who remained exchanged a word or two now and again. The men sitting near the door, who had just come from their offices, resumed their conversation. One of them snapped open his fan and delivered himself of a pronouncement: 'Ultimately, he has only one real problem. He has no social graces and that's why he loses out.' Another snorted, and said coldly, 'You say he has no social graces. He seems to do a pretty good job of pleasing the higher-ups!'
A middle-aged couple, who looked rather like a brother and a sister, were standing in the middle of the car, hanging on to the straps. The woman suddenly cried, 'Watch you don't dirty your trousers!' The man jumped and raised higher the hand which held a bag of smoked fish. He carefully kept the greasy package two inches from his trousers. His wife rattled on, 'Do you have any idea what it costs to dry-clean a pair of trousers these days? Or to have one made?'
Lü Zongzhen, an accountant with the China Trading Bank who was sitting in a corner, saw the smoked fish. It made him think of the spinach buns his wife had asked him to get from a noodle stand next to the bank. That's women for you! They think the best and the cheapest buns can only be bought at a food stand tucked away down some winding alley. She hadn't given a second thought to how ridiculous he would look in his smart Western suit with his tortoiseshell glasses and his briefcase, walking around carrying steaming hot buns wrapped up in newspaper! However, if this shutdown should go on for a while, and make him late for dinner, the buns would come in handy. He looked at his watch. It was only four-thirty. It must be all in his head, but he felt hungry already. He gingerly lifted a corner of the newspaper and peered inside. Each bun was white as snow and gave off a faint smell of sesame oil. Some of the newspaper was stuck to the buns, so he carefully peeled it off. The print had come off on the buns, in reverse, a mirror image. Zongzhen had the patience to bend his head and try to make out the words one by one: 'Obituary . . . Classified ... Chinese Stock Market News . . . A Grand Performance . . .' Serious words all, but somehow risible printed in reverse on the buns. Since eating is such a serious business, perhaps everything else becomes a joke in comparison. As Zongzhen read, he could see that it was absurd, but he did not laugh. He was a solid citizen. From reading the writing on the buns, he proceeded to the writing on the newspaper, and in this way, he got half-way down the page of the old newspaper. If he turned the newspaper over, the buns would tumble out, so he had to stop there. The moment he started reading the newspaper, everyone else on the tram followed suit. Those who had newspapers read them. Those without perused receipts, or schedules, or name cards. Those who had no printed matter of any sort read the street signs. They had to fill up this terrible emptiness, or else their brains might start working. Thinking is a painful business.
It was all right for the old man sitting across from Lü Zongzhen who was rolling two smooth, polished walnuts round and round, click-clack, in his palm. This rhythmic little exercise replaced thought. His head was shaven, his skin was reddish and his face oily. It was heavily lined too, which made his whole head look like a walnut. His brain was like walnut puree sweet, rich, but rather uninteresting.
On the old man's right sat Wu Cuiyuan. She looked like one of those churchy matrons, only as yet unmarried. She was wearing a white linen cheongsam, with thin blue piping all around. The dark blue and white might have been announcing a funeral. She held a blue and white gingham parasol. Her hair­style was nondescript, as if she was afraid of attracting attention. But there was really no risk at all of that. She was not unattractive, but her prettiness was of the wishy-washy sort, the kind that was afraid of giving offence. Everything about her face was pale, limp and without definition. Even her own mother would have been hard pressed to say whether her face was long or round.
At home, she had been a good daughter. In school, she had been a good student. After graduating from university, Cuiyuan worked at her Alma Mater as an English tutor. She planned to use the time of the shutdown to correct student papers. She turned to the first paper; it was a male student's, filled with strident cries of protest and righteous anger against the sins of the city. In rather ungrammatical and halting phrases, he inveighed, 'The red-lipped prostitutes . . . the Great World .. . seedy dance clubs and bars.' Cuiyuan pondered for a moment, took out her red pencil, and put down, 'A'. Usually, once she put down a grade , that was it. Today, she had too much time to think. She started asking herself why she had given him such a good grade. It was a question better left unasked. The moment it was asked, she started to blush. She suddenly realized that it was because this student was the only male who dared to use such words to her without scruple.
He treated her as a woman of the world, as if she were a man, a confidant. He respected her. Cuiyuan always felt that no one in school respected her---from the principal to her fellow teachers, to the students, to the servants . . . the students were especially indignant: 'The university is getting worse and worse by the day. Hiring a Chinese to teach English is bad enough, but a Chinese who has never even been abroad . . . !' Cuiyuan was pushed around in school; she was pushed around at home too. The Wu family was a new-style, model family of Christian background. They encouraged their daughter to study diligently and climb the social ladder, step by step to the pinnacle. A woman of twenty-something teaching in college-that was record-breaking among professional women. Yet now her parents were losing interest in her. Now they wished she had been a bit less diligent in school, and had spared some time to find them a rich son-in-law.
She was a good daughter, a good student. The people in her family were good people. They bathed every day, they read the newspaper and when they listened to the radio, it wasn't to Shanghai songs or comic Peking operas or things like that, but to the symphonies of Beethoven or Wagner. They did not understand them, but they listened anyway. Good people outnumbered real people in this world . . . . Cuiyuan was unhappy.
Life was like reading the Bible. It was translated from Hebrew to Greek, Greek to Latin, Latin to English, and English to Mandarin. When Cuiyuan read the Bible, she had to translate it once more in her head, into Shanghainese. Something was sure to be lost in the translation.
Cuiyuan put away the students' papers and sat with her head in her hands. The boiling hot sunlight beat down on her back.
Sitting next to her was a nanny cradling a small child. The child's feet pressed firmly against Cuiyuan's thigh. The little red tiger shoes hugging the soft but strong little feet . . . this at least felt real.
In the tram, a medical student had taken out his sketch-book and was diligently revising a drawing of the human anatomy. The other passengers thought he was sketching the person dozing across from him. With nothing better to do, they began to gather round to watch in twos or threes, hands on hips or behind their backs. The man holding the smoked fish said to his wife, 'I really have no patience for this modern cubist school or the impressionists.' She whispered back, 'Your trousers!'
The medical student carefully labelled every bone, every nerve and tendon. One of the homeward-bound businessmen whispered behind his open fan to his colleagues, 'Influenced by Chinese painting. It's fashionable these days to add a few lines of poetry to Western paintings. It's now a case of "the East wind blowing to the West"!'
Lü Zongzhen took no part in the goings-on; he sat on alone where he was. He decided he was really hungry. Now that everybody had moved away, he could eat his buns in peace. But when he looked up he saw a relative sitting in the third-class carriage. It was the son of his wife's cousin. He deeply disliked this Doug Peizhi. Peizhi was the ambitious son of an impoverished family. He was determined to marry a young lady of some financial substance as a springboard to his upward climb. Lü Zongzhen's eldest daughter was only thirteen, but had already been spotted by Peizhi, who had worked out his scenario, and was stepping up his pursuit of her. When he caught sight of this young man, Zongzhen cursed his luck, 'Oh, no!' He was afraid that Peizhi might see him and use this golden opportunity to work on him. To be trapped with Peizhi during a shutdown was unthinkable. He hurriedly picked up his briefcase and buns, and bolted over to the row of seats across from him. Now he was conveniently blocked from view by Cuiyuan, sitting next to him. There was no way his nephew could see him. Cuiyuan turned her head to shoot him a look. Bother! Now this woman thinks that since he changed his seat for no apparent reason, he must be making a pass at her. He recognized the look women get—their faces go taut and expressionless: their eyes don't smile; their mouths don't smile; even their noses don't smile. But a smile trembles somewhere and can break out at any time. Feeling so irresistible, beautiful, they can't help but smile.
Damn and blast! Peizhi had spotted him after all and started to move towards the first-class carriage: he was already humbly bowing to him from far away. He had a long, flushed face and wore a grey cotton monkish gown a long-suffering, a virginal young man, the ideal, upwardly mobile son-in-law! Zongzhen swiftly decided to exploit his opportunity and beat his nephew at his own game. He stretched out one arm and rested it on the window-ledge behind Cuiyuan, silently announcing his amorous intentions. He knew that this would not scare Peizhi off, because Peizhi thought that he was an old reprobate anyway. In Peizhi's eyes, everyone over thirty was old, and all old people were nasty. If Peizhi saw his lechery today, he would be sure to tell his wife all about it. Oh well, it wouldn't hurt: to ruffle her feathers a bit. Serve her right! Who asked her to saddle him with a relative like that.
He did not really like this woman sitting next to him. It was true her arms were white, but it was the white of toothpaste squeezed from the tube. In fact, the whole of her looked like squeezed out toothpaste no distinguishing marks.
He said to her softly, 'I wonder when this shutdown will be over. What a bother!' Cuiyuan jumped. She turned her head and saw his arm behind her. Her body stiffened. No matter what, Zongzhen would not let himself withdraw his arm. His nephew's keen gaze was fixed on him from across the way, an understanding smile on his face. If their glances met, maybe the young fellow would cower-like an embarrassed virgin; but perhaps he would give him a knowing wink instead—who could tell?
He gritted his teeth and resumed his advances toward Cuiyuan. He said, 'Are you bored too? Let's chat a little, no harm in that, after all. Let's let's talk.' He could not keep the pleading out of his voice. Once again Cuiyuan was startled, and turned to look at him. He remembered now, he had watched her get on the tram. It had been a very dramatic moment, but the drama was purely accidental, none of her doing. He said softly to her, 'You know what? I saw you getting on the tram. The advertisement on the glass at the front of the tram has a strip torn off it. I saw part of you through the tear, just the chin.' It was an ad for milk powder, with a baby's plump face on it. And then suddenly, beneath the baby's ear, a woman's chin had appeared. Thinking back on it, it had actually been quite startling. 'Then you bent your head to look for change in your purse and I got to see your eyes, your brows, your hair.' Taken part by part, she did have a kind of charm about her.
Cuiyuan smiled. She had not expected such a pretty speech from someone like him—and she had thought him the very model of a strait-laced businessman! She gave him another look. A ray of sunlight shone right through the soft cartilage at the base of his nose, turning it red. The hand that extended from his sleeve and rested on his newspaper was yellow, sensitive--a real, live person! Not very honest, nor very bright, but a real, live person! She suddenly felt eager, happy. She turned her face away and said softly, 'You shouldn't say such things.'
Zongzhen said, 'Oh?' He had already forgotten what he had said. His eyes were fixed on his nephew's retreating back—that tactful young man had realized his presence was not wanted. Better not offend his relative. They would be meeting again in the future. After all, even a sharp knife can't sever family ties. He went back towards the third-class carriage. Once Peizhi had gone, Zongzhen immediately withdrew his arm. His conversation, too, straightened up. Trying to find something to say, he looked at the exercise book on her lap, `Shenguang University . . . you're a student there?'
Did he really think she was so young? That she was still a student? She laughed but said nothing.
Zongzhen said, 'I am a Huaji graduate. Huaji.' She had a small brown mole on her neck as if someone had given her a sharp pinch there. Zongzhen unconsciously rubbed with his right hand the finger-nails of his left hand, coughed and continued, 'What field are you in?'
Cuiyuan noticed that his arm wasn't behind her any more and thought that his change in attitude had been brought about by her own example of rectitude. With that thought, she felt obliged to answer him, 'Literature. What about you?' Zongzhen said, 'Business.' He suddenly felt that their conversation had got too stiff and formal, so he added, 'When I was in school, my time was taken up with student movements. After graduation, my time was taken up with earning my bread and butter. I never studied all that much.' Cuiyuan said, 'Does your work keep you busy?' Zongzhen said, 'So busy I don't even have time to think. Every morning I take the tram to work; every afternoon, I take it back home. I don't know why I go, and I don't know why I come back. I don't have the least bit of interest in my work. It's supposed to be for making money, but I don't even know who I'm making it for.' Cuiyuan said, 'Everybody has family responsibilities.' Zongzhen said, 'You don't understand my family ah, I don't want to talk about it!' Cuiyuan thought to herself, 'Here it comes! His wife doesn't understand him. It seems that every married man in the world needs understanding from another woman.' Zongzhen hesitated, then, hemming and hawing, began, 'My wife she—doesn't understand me at all!'
Cuiyuan frowned to show her sympathy. Zongzhen said, 'I really don't know why I go home every day when that time rolls around. What home? I really don't have a home to go to.' He took off his glasses, held them to the light and wiped the moisture away with his handkerchief. `Ah, all I can do is muddle on regardless. I can't let myself think-I really can't think about it.' Cuiyuan always found it repulsive when a short-sighted person took off his glasses. It was like taking off one's clothes in public. It was indecent. Zongzhen continued, 'You -you have no idea what kind of a woman she is.' Cuiyuan said, `Then why did you . .?' Zongzhen said, `I was against it in the beginning. It was my mother who chose her. I, of course, wanted to choose someone for myself, but she was very beautiful . . . I was young then . . . a young man, you know . . . Cuiyuan nodded.
Zhongzhen said, `And then she turned out like this even my mother can't get along with her and then she turns around and says I shouldn't have married her! She's so . . . she did not even finish elementary school.' Cuiyuan could not help smiling, `You seem to put a lot of importance on diplomas. Really, for a woman, what difference does it make whether she's educated or not?' She didn't know why she said that -putting herself clown. Zongzhen said, 'Of course you can afford to be flippant-- you've been to university. You don't know what kind of He ran out of breath. He took off the glasses he'd just put on, to wipe the lenses again. Cuiyuan said, 'You are exaggerating, aren't you?' Zongzhen held his glasses in his hands and gestured awkwardly. 'You don't understand, she ' Cuiyuan quickly responded, 'I understand, I understand.' She knew that if the couple wasn't getting along, you couldn't just blame the wife. He was an uncomplicated sort of person. He needed a woman to forgive him, to accept him.
A disturbance arose on the street. Two truck-loads of soldiers rumbled towards them. Cuiyuan and Zongzhen both peered out of the window at the same time, their faces unexpectedly close. At such a short distance, people's faces look different, they have the intensity of a close-up shot in a movie. Zongzhen and Cuiyuan suddenly felt that they were seeing each other for the first time. To Zongzhen, her face was like a peony, sketched in a few quick strokes, straying strands of hair on her forehead like stamens in the wind.
He looked at her, and she blushed. He caught her blushing and he was glad. Her blush deepened when she perceived his gladness.
Zongzhen had not thought that he could make a woman blush, make her smile, make her look away, make her turn to him. Here, he was a man. Normally, he was an accountant, a father to his children, the head of a family, a passenger on a tram, a customer in a store, a citizen. But to this woman who knew nothing about him, he was simply a man.
They began to fall in love. He told her many things about himself: his work at the bank, who was friendly with him, who hated him behind his back, the quarrels at home, his secret sorrows, the aspirations of his student days . . . his words flowed on and on. But she did not mind. A man in love likes to talk. A woman in love, unlike her usual self, does not talk much. This is because, subconsciously, she knows that a man won't love her any more if he understands her too well.
Zongzhen had decided that Cuiyuan was a lovable woman—pale, fragile, warm—like a breath on the winter air. If you do not want her, she will silently vanish. She is part of yourself. She understands everything. She forgives you everything. If you speak from the heart, she will feel sad on your account. If you tell lies, she smiles, as if to say, 'You can't kid me!'
Zongzhen was quiet for a moment. Suddenly, he said, 'I am thinking of getting married again.' Cuivuan's expression immediately turned to one of alarm, and she cried, 'You want to divorce your wife? That's . . . impossible!' Zongzhen said, 'I can't divorce her. I have to think about my children's happiness. My oldest daughter is already thirteen this year; she's only just got into high school. Her grades are pretty good too.' Cuiyuan thought to herself, 'What does this have to do with what he just said?' She said coldly, `So, you plan to take a concubine.' Zongzhen said, 'I mean to treat her like a wife. I . . . I will take care of her. I won't make things difficult for hen' Cuiyuan said, `But a woman from a good family will never agree to be a concubine. You will get into all kinds of legal problems with that . . Zongzhen sighed, 'You're right. I don't have the right to do that. I should not even have thought about it. I am too old. I'm thirty-five already.' Cuiyuan said deliberately, 'Actually, you are not old at all by today's standards.' Zongzhen was silent for a while, then he said, 'What about . . . you?' Cuiyuan looked down: 'Twenty-five.' Zongzhen paused, then said, 'Are you free?' Cuiyuan did not answer. Zongzhen said, 'Even if you were and even if you agreed, your family would never let you. That's it, isn't it? Isn't it?'
Cuiyuan pursed her lips. Her family—all of them holier­than-thou—she hated them! She had been living their lies too long. They wanted her to find them a rich son-in-law Zongzhen had no money, but did have a wife that would rile them! Serve them right!
The tram was filling up again. Probably word was out that the 'all clear' was going to go. Passengers got on one after another and sat down, squeezing Cuiyuan and Zongzhen together. They sat a little closer, then closer still.
Zongzhen and Cuiyuan wondered why they had not thought of sitting closer earlier. Zongzhen felt that he was just too happy, he had to resist. In an agonized voice, he said, 'This is impossible. Impossible! You're a well-bred woman, well educated . . . and I, I don't have much money. I can't ask you to bury yourself like this.' It always comes down to money, doesn't it? His words were not unreasonable. She thought, 'It's oven' She would probably marry one day, but her husband would never be as lovable as this man she had met by chance----a man on a tram during a shutdown .. . it would never again be this natural. Never . . . . Oh, how foolish he is! How foolish! She only wanted one part of his life, the part that nobody else wanted. He was throwing away his own happiness. What a stupid waste! She burst into tears. But they weren't refined, ladylike tears. It was as if she was spitting them onto his face. He was a good man so there was one more good man in the world.
How could she explain to him? If a woman has to rely on words to move a man, she's a really sad case.
Zongzhen was dismayed, and found himself tongue-tied. He shook the parasol she was holding. She ignored him. He shook her hand. 'Hey . . . hey . . . there are people here! Don't! Don't be this way! We can talk this out over the phone later. Give me your number.' Cuiyuan didn't answer. He pressed her, 'You've got to give me a telephone number.' Cuiyuan said it once, all in a rush, '75369: Zongzhen said, '75369?' Again, she would not answer. Zongzhen muttered a few times, '75369', then reached into his pocket for a pen, but the more anxious he became, the more he fumbled around, unable to find one. Cuiyuan had a red pencil in her bag, but she would not take it out. It was only reasonable that he should remember her telephone number. If he could not remember it, it meant he did not love her. Then there would be no reason for them to continue.
The shutdown was over. Bells rang: 'Ding-ling-ling-ling . . every 'ding' a cold dot in the air. Dot after dot, the sound of the bells cut a dotted line through time and space.
A wave of cheers rippled through the vast city. The tram moved forwards, bell ringing. Zongzhen suddenly stood up, pushed into the crowd and disappeared. Cuiyuan turned her head away and pretended not to care. He was gone. For her, it was as if he had died. The tram accelerated. On the dusky sidewalk, a hawker selling chunks of smelly beancurd set down his pannier. A priest, eyes closed, shook his alms box briskly.'" A big-boned blonde woman with a straw hat on her back smiled at an Italian marine, revealing a row of big teeth, and said something cheeky to him. All the people Cuiyuan's eyes fell on came alive, just for that one moment. As the tram went on its way, bell ringing, they all died one by one.
Cuiyuan closed her eyes in annoyance. If he phoned her, she would not be able to control her voice. She would be very eager, because he would be a dead person come back to life.
The tram lights were switched on She opened her eyes and saw him sitting far away in his old seat! She was shocked he had not gotten off after all! She understood now. Everything that had taken place during the shutdown hadn't happened at all. The whole of Shanghai had fallen asleep and dreamed an absurd dream.
The tram driver raised his voice to sing, 'Have pity! Have pity! Pity a poor penniless soul! ' A poor old seamstress in a panic ran across the road in front of the tram. The driver shouted at her, 'Pig!'

Translated by Janet Ng with Janice Wickeri