Five Spice Street

To return to Madam X: Had she been born with her notions of sex? Had she ever experienced true success and failure? If not, then we can say only that her idea of sex is nothing but a mannerism. According to Madam X’s younger sister, however, her ideas ‘‘have gone from being blurry to being focused and have changed over time to what they are today.’’ There’s not much chance of getting anything from analyzing what the sister said: we’ve already tried that. We’d be better off reasoning for ourselves: we could scour our eyes and could also think it through logically. From the way Madam X behaves, we can be sure she used to be a desperate slut. She’d ‘‘gone to bed’’ countless times (the proof is in the way her eyes light up when she mentions ‘‘going to bed’’). With such a frightening sexual appetite, she must have destroyed quite a few men’s careers and even caused someone’s death. Sure, some women are a little dissolute-others won’t mind very much when they ‘‘ease up’’ a little now and then- but we’ve never seen a woman like Madam X, who takes people’s lives. It wasn’t until she became notorious and was dismissed from the government office and drifted over to Five Spice Street that she had to exercise a little self-restraint. After a few months, she felt robbed of good times and wanted to make it up to herself. Before long, she showed her true nature. She emphasized that she ‘‘knew herself thoroughly and was very discreet,’’ that she had now entered a ‘‘phase of sober reckoning with herself,’’ and that her ‘‘dispel boredom’’ activities allowed her to ‘‘eliminate all worldly interference.’’ She ‘‘could see her desire directly.’’ From the standpoint of Madam X’s welfare, it would have been better if she’d been mixed up all her life and never had to be awakened. She became so aggressive that she scared men away-who would dare risk his life? At the same time, she indulged in hopeless self-admiration and couldn’t get along with people. (She claimed that men no longer meant anything to her.) Who knows what was in her mind? What did it have to do with men? She shouldn’t have had such a high opinion of herself, because it was all a misconception that counted for nothing. If men meant nothing to her, why did she seek them out? Wouldn’t it have been much more impressive to ‘‘keep herself as pure as jade,’’ as the widow did? Madam X had no answers and stressed that since she started her occult activities, her body had become fresher by the day. Every time the big bell in the city tolled and the first light of morning broke, she leapt lightly from the crook in her husband’s arm to the window, where she stood for a long time, feeling-as she told her sister-that ‘‘her breasts were so full, her buttocks rounded, her thighs long and supple, her whole body like swaying willow branches.’’ One morning, our widow witnessed the entire drama and reported that there was ‘‘no way to describe’’ her reaction. She also said that Madam X’s husband actually ‘‘abetted this behavior.’’ Maybe her precious husband had been ‘‘in cahoots’’ with her all along.

Once aroused, Madam X’s body would stir up endless trouble. She could have displayed her magic power anywhere, but unfortunately chose Five Spice Street, where people had lived in an orderly fashion for generations. No one imagined that a woman like this would ever show up here-not even Old Meng, the eighty-three- year-old fortune-teller at the pharmacy. Madam X had dropped down like an alien from outer space, started a snack shop with her husband, and made it clear they were here to stay. Only after a long time did we become aware of their presence. The ordinary Five Spice Street people were realists: though at first confused, they narrowed their eyes and took the measure of this couple. They accepted the facts and quickly worked out countermeasures. This couple was tolerated as a ‘‘dissident element.’’ All along, the Five Spice Street people had been good at tolerating different ideas and individuals. It wasn’t unprincipled compromise but a gradual assimilation in which over the years others fused into a single unit with themselves. From ancient times onward, this method had generally produced the desirable result. But not with Madam X.

From the day she landed on Five Spice Street to the present (about two or three years), Madam X’s cancer-like stubbornness endangered others. It was as if it wasn’t she who should be assimilated, but everyone else. Wasn’t this what she pursued with clenched teeth? Of course, this was no big deal to a community with such a long tradition. This healthy organism might even benefit from producing antibodies. But, when all is said and done, mosquitoes are loathsome: they buzz and suck people’s blood. Madam X was just such a loathsome spotted mosquito. We just hoped she wouldn’t annoy people too much with her buzzing so that our kind people wouldn’t have to kill her. Her notions were deeply at odds with the traditions of Five Spice Street.