Five Spice Street

An explanation was attached to each application, and they were framed and hung below pictures of our elite citizens in the meeting hall. We hoped that Madam X would continue to write applications. What more could she desire than such an understanding and receptive community? She was terribly fortunate. From her first day on Five Spice Street, she must have decided not to move even an inch from this place that could satisfy all her desires. After quietly gaining advantages, and fearing jealousy, she wrote applications to express her firm relationship with the people. We needn’t pay much attention to the contents of her applications (she herself didn’t seem to care, for she hadn’t once come by to insist on any of them). Though half her house collapsed, didn’t she still live there comfortably? If she had received material help, she might have ceased her spiritual pursuits. We wisely ignored her requests, enabling her to redouble her efforts and achieve even more.

Madam X lived in that small, shabby, half-collapsed house. She reminded people to pay attention to her applications so that she could remain isolated from the crowds. She became as proficient in writing applications as she had been in using microscopes. She also called them creations. Initially, she began each document with distinctively large characters to indicate what she was applying for. Thus, we knew the contents of her application. But once her applications became ‘‘creations,’’ no one could understand them. They were full of disconnected, broken words and phrases. They were repetitive and excessively long. Luckily, nobody walked into the trap. Why would we want to understand those absolutely meaningless things? It was simple: almost every day, Madam X submitted applications; she had finally realized that she’d made the mistake of isolating herself. This was advantageous to us: we welcomed it. Sometimes, she wanted to complain a little, and put these complaints into her applications. This was all right. In any case, nobody would read them. We certainly didn’t read her applications, so how could we use old impressions to judge a person? Maybe there actually weren’t any complaints in her applications. Maybe they were filled with praise? Why not? From the position she had achieved (without expending the slightest effort), from the caring the people felt for her, she certainly could have written some praise: this should have been the wellspring of her inspiration. We wished she would come up with even more witty remarks and even odder ways of organizing her words to write her praise. We would preserve what she wrote for our descendants decades and centuries hence.

As a result of our encouragement, Madam X wrote even more applications, a new one almost every day. So as not to sway her, and to heed her request that others not bother her, we didn’t go to her home to pick up her applications but sent someone to her shop to pretend to buy beans. She tacitly understood: she would wrap the beans in the application sheets and give them to the person. The writer confirmed that she deeply appreciated the profound consideration of the community. Once when buying beans, the writer (this time, as it happened, he went himself) saw that Madam X’s ‘‘eyes were watering.’’ After receiving her applications, the people couldn’t help but sigh again and again: Madam X was terrific! Using the applications as bean wrappers was a splendid idea! A ‘‘post-future’’ creation! Even more wonderful was her carefree attitude-she actually was carefree as she wrapped beans with the application sheets! Our Five Spice Street had characters; all of us had become characters!

The more applications she wrote, the more ardent she became. She wrote not only on paper but also on the whitewashed wall of the small half-house. Dr. A’s gaze pierced her wall like a knife and found it dotted with tadpole-like little characters. It seemed that X didn’t abstain from her nighttime activities. She frequently told her patrons: ‘‘Last night, I had insomnia and wrote until dawn.’’ Her tone was as casual as if she had said, ‘‘I sold another ten pounds of peanuts.’’ Once she linked writing applications and selling peanuts, her private life no longer interested us. Her half-collapsed house also kept visitors away. Even such an enthusiastic person as her husband’s good friend didn’t have the guts to go into the dangerous house to ‘‘steal a look at her ID card’’ (even though X herself had asserted that ‘‘she could live there at least five more years’’).