Five Spice Street

Two examples would illustrate Madam X’s shameless ways, but they would provide too much of a digression, because what we want to talk of now is Madam X’s nighttime occupation. We’ve said so much but haven’t come close to the true picture. It’s all a mist. Of course we can also assert that there isn’t a true picture, because it’s all merely smoke and mirrors. Putting it this way is expedient, saves trouble, and eliminates difficulties and annoyances. But the effect of Madam X’s nighttime occupation is also clearly present. You can’t see it, you can’t touch it, but every resident of Five Spice Street can feel it. Sometimes it’s like a radioactive substance or shock waves, and sometimes like insect bites. It’s said that after one night of conditioning at Madam X’s home, the son of Madam X’s colleague suffered a sudden worsening of his temperament: he became an alcoholic and a tramp, loitering and sleeping in the street and imperiling public safety. He boasted to everybody: begging (in fact, it was plundering) was wonderful, as if ‘‘the whole body is alight.’’ Before this, he had thought of suicide. But now he wanted ‘‘to live forever, walk everywhere, look around, fight with anyone he wanted to fight with, fall in love with and have sex with any young woman he happened to run into.’’ Driven to distraction, Madam X’s colleague chased after this ‘‘unworthy son’’ with a long bamboo pole; the result was that he hit her with it and broke her arm. It was too horrible to look at. This brat is now in a barbaric region to the north.

With nothing to eat, he ‘‘ate the raw flesh of birds and beasts’’ and even drank a dead man’s brains. He was living ‘‘very comfortably’’ and planned ‘‘never to return.’’ After he left, his mother fell ill for a short time and was taken care of by Madam X. Madam X not only didn’t try to save this son but, on the contrary, advised her female colleague to ‘‘move on with her life,’’ ‘‘just act as if she’d never had this son.’’ She said ‘‘this would be best for him.’’ After the colleague recovered, she fought this malicious woman like a mother tiger. If Madam X hadn’t been light and agile, her colleague would have ‘‘broken her legs.’’ Over time, however, though the colleague didn’t acknowledge it publicly, inwardly she realized the advantages of her son’s running away, because at home he had never been on good terms with the family. He had threatened to ‘‘kill them’’ over trifling incidents, and even when his parents were making love at night, he would kick the door open and barge in and make some teasing, cynical remarks. Because of him, the family lived in fear and trembling, always on the verge of a nervous breakdown. With him gone, they were ‘‘free of worries.’’

The colleague had reaped benefits, yet not only was she not grateful to Madam X, she also rushed to the police station to report that Madam X ‘‘corrupted the youth,’’ engaged in ‘‘prostitution,’’ and ‘‘had grown rich from this.’’ The trouble she caused was the talk of the town for quite a while, but finally the investigation ended for lack of evidence. Our Five Spice Street’s view was that ‘‘you had to catch adulterers with their pants down!’’ But no one had caught Madam X ‘‘with her pants down.’’ And the so-called ‘‘prostitution’’ was merely private guesswork, an individual judgment. So, as you can see, in general our people were not as presumptuous and impulsive as the colleague. When all is said and done, people in general are quite even-tempered and defer to the facts. They would rather ‘‘wait and see.’’

They had some views about the colleague’s impatience. Beginning in May of that year, after she used a microphone to air the widow’s secrets on the street, everyone had some unfavorable things to say about her, especially the middle-aged and young men, who privately called her ‘‘a black-headed housefly.’’ Now she had suddenly rushed to the police station to make an indiscreet report: she wanted to be the first to take the credit, to be in the limelight. Everyone was even more disgusted. She created the whole mess. Had anybody asked her to do so? No! She had to put her finger in the pie because she thought she was clever! Had she gone crazy? If it went on like this, maybe she’d even want to centralize power in her hands, ride roughshod over the crowd on Five Spice Street, and lord it over them! Since when was she given the right to speak for our crowd? You have to realize that ‘‘nobody had ever respected her’’ (the widow’s words)! Just think of how much harm she caused our respected widow, whose reputation still hasn’t recovered. What a painful lesson. Should we still refuse to come to our senses and tolerate her continued troublemaking?

3. MADAM X'S AND THE WIDOW'S DIFFERING OPINIONS ABOUT "SEX''