Five Spice Street

‘‘It isn’t that I don’t understand self-reflection. I’ve asked myself countless times: Is my faith a product of my imagination? If I persist, will I dream my life away? I’ve already experienced a lot of trials, but none was life-threatening. Just this one time was unique, a time of wondrous glory. Only after this did I feel a fresh and flowering vigor-all my abjectness was swept away-like an old tree in early spring. No, like bearing a child at the age of one hundred. I mean a great mind maturing slowly! All along, I had a premonition that this uncommon life of mine held an opportunity; I told my poor mother this three times. I said this under a pine tree on a hill in the suburbs. There were two birds’ nests in the tree. Looking at the nests, I spat the words out one by one from the cracks between my teeth: ‘There will always be an opportunity.’ That’s how I said it! Everything that happened later proved this true. Even I was greatly surprised, and it’s too late to analyze it! What striking potential I had! What a dazzling blossom came from the silent seed of my childhood! If I had talked of this with people in the past, who would have believed me? The opportunity finally arrived, arrived so swiftly and ferociously that it almost caused me to lose my head: I looked on helplessly as it rolled away, my response as futile as fetching water in a bamboo basket. Of course, this was only ‘almost.’ In fact, I reacted quickly and grasped my opportunity for all I was worth. I saw the new situation clearly, adjusted my pace, and took action. I grabbed as much as I could, and all at once changed the prejudices of the people of Five Spice Street and established a new image in their minds. Here’s an example. Have you noticed Zhou Sanji at the grocery store next door? The same one who every day for several decades, after having a bowel movement, purposely blocked my doorway while he fastened his dirty trousers? He engaged in this indelicate behavior to keep emphasizing that he-Zhou Sanji-is thousands of times more brilliant than I; he thinks the whole world should know this, and if some people still don’t know, then it’s his responsibility to publicize it. I endured the humiliation and-like a mouse-drew back into the room. How many years went by like this? Years without justice. Not until this one time when the clouds parted and the fog vanished did this situation reverse itself. This one time was brilliant, epoch-making, pioneering work.’’

Having said this, Old Woman Jin held her tongue to keep the listener in suspense. Shaky, she hobbled to the stove, picked up a poker, and wildly stoked the fire until coal dust flew all around the room and choked them, all the while hanging on to the young coal worker with her other hand. By now, the coal worker had figured out what she was intending and was twisting back and forth on the worn-out cane chair, breathing heavily, and blushing. All at once, he was sexually aroused. Though he had no object for his arousal, he couldn’t control himself: it was unbearable. Old Woman Jin seemed to want to dig a hole in his flesh with her long fingernails. Every few minutes, she chanted in a low voice the name that made people quake: ‘‘X?’’ She felt that the secret hopes of her life, the remote and beautiful or gorgeous illusions, would all be realized. This reality was a reaction to the stirring name X, so she repeated this name over and over. It was like a lunatic’s game. While she stared hard at the coal worker, her old eyes gradually lost focus and then turned into two fluctuating blood-red orbs, all at once bulging out of her eye sockets and then all at once drawing back in. The young man felt an irresistible pressure. In the grip of self-contempt and a confusion of unreal emotions, he quickly reached the most astonishing decision of his life: he would ‘‘fool around’’ with this witch.

When they finished fooling around, the door of the house suddenly opened. The two bare-assed people on the bed saw the respectable Zhou Sanji. He stuck his head inside and then stood hesitating for some time next to the door, looking very excited. When he left, he said something hard to figure out: ‘‘A new era has begun. The worries of winter have been swept away.’’