Five Spice Street

The young coal worker and the husband’s good friend also put up articles on the blackboard newspaper. In their articles, which were as long as ten thousand characters (taking up more than ten blackboards), they told of their close relationship with this present representative. Their words moved people to tears. In the articles, they stated that they had contributed to Madam X’s enlightenment and had almost ‘‘paid with their lives for today’s beautiful scene.’’ Look where they lived, look at what they ate: you’d have to be a stone not to be moved! They were down-to-earth, practical workers. In writing his tracts, even such a high-level theorist as Dr. A could not be without the fine materials they offered. They didn’t want glory. They were willing to be invisible. This gave them even greater pleasure. Now, seeing the lady they loved and esteemed throw off her burden and stride forward buoyantly toward a beautiful tomorrow, how could they not feel relieved from the bottom of their hearts! They had been looking forward to this special day for a long time!

After the blackboard newspaper was published, they embraced tightly and shed hot tears. They were now doubly devoted to Madam X for having thought up such a brilliant pretext. They hoped she would think up even more and write even more applications so they would be able to exert their ability and wisdom even more. ‘‘To apply for help when the wall is weathered but still far from collapse is romantic. To apply when it is on the brink of collapse is merely pragmatic.’’

But two weeks later, the people saw that wall of Madam X’s home facing the street had become a heap of rubble. Luckily, Madam X had taken precautions and had moved all her valuables to a room in the back whose four walls were still very strong. They could ‘‘last at least another fifty years.’’ She seemed happy. She told others, ‘‘I foresaw this a long time ago. I submitted the application in order to watch them contradict themselves.’’

After the collapse, she enjoyed a long period of quiet. The people on Five Spice Street were concerned about Madam X’s thoughts, of course, for they were directly related to everyone’s destiny. But they hesitated about whether to rebuild her house. Was this necessary? Would they be pampering her too much? Would this make her haughty? Would she forfeit her small achievement? They had to think carefully because their reaction would affect the future. Thus, they pretended to be ignorant of the problem of the house. The people said they hadn’t seen the application or hadn’t gotten a good look at it. ‘‘That isn’t our responsibility. Our Ph.D. can take care of everything. We hear that he has an original idea about this problem.’’ The people remained concerned about Madam X, but no one visited her. If you wanted to find her, you had to go around the rubble to her room. But then she might latch on to you and suggest you work as a coolie-and that wouldn’t be great. To make a little effort was okay, but we couldn’t wreck principles. In addition, we’re all extremely busy. The best thing is just to think about Madam X. We don’t have to go to her door every day and disturb her. Later, they’ll substitute a code-‘‘T’’-for the house problem. ‘‘The T problem,’’ they would say. ‘‘Dr. A will take care of it.’’

Madam X gained experience: sometimes, to achieve oblivion, you have to be noticed. Then people will start leaving you alone. She experienced this several times and gained spiritual pleasure from it. Later, she made use of this experience. It’s said that ‘‘it all succeeded.’’ No matter what Madam X’s intention, submitting the application made it clear that she was on normal terms with everyone. Whenever an outside delegation arrived, we pointed to Madam X’s application as evidence that on our Five Spice Street impossible things became realities.

Madam X submitted five applications in a row. In addition to the one to repair her house, the others were: (1) a request for financial aid; (2) a request to relieve her of civic activities (the reason was that she had too many callers; receiving them was the same as taking part in civic activities); (3) a request to renovate the front of her shop (it was already old, and the red-painted sign was dingy); and (4) a request to provide her with a quiet environment (because she wanted to concentrate on studying the wave of the future, she didn’t want anyone to enter her house). We looked upon her applications as symbolic. Each time she submitted an application, everyone felt inexpressibly gratified, warm, and magnanimous.