Frog

Should I go up and say hello? Invite him to join us for dinner? Little Lion and I couldn’t make up our minds. And I could tell from his look of indifference and the way he was staring at the buck’s head on the wall, not even glancing out of the corner of his eye, that he couldn’t decide if he should come over to our table. The memory of him coming to our house that year on the night we sent off the Kitchen God — Chen Er with him, wanting to take back Chen Mei — floated into my mind. A large man back then, he was wearing a stiff pigskin jacket. He’d threatened to toss our garlic press into the pot on the stove. He was breathing heavily and seemed ready to explode from frustration, like a raging bear. That was the last time we’d seen one another till this day. I’m sure we weren’t alone in thinking about the past, that he was too. Truth be told, we never hated him; in fact, he had our deepest sympathies over his misfortunes. The main reason we did not go up and say hello to him was we couldn’t decide how. Why? Because we were making it, as the locals said, and he wasn’t. How does someone who’s making it deal with a friend who isn’t? We simply didn’t know.

Sensei, I’m a smoker. It’s a bad habit that encounters strict constraints in Europe, North America, even there in Japan, and makes us feel vulgar and ill bred. But not here, not yet. I took out a cigarette and lit it with a match. I love that brief burst of sulphur smell when striking a wooden match. Sensei, I was smoking Golden Pavilions then, a very expensive local brand. Two hundred yuan a pack, I’m told, which is ten yuan a smoke, while a jin of wheat sells for eighty fen. In other words, you’d have to sell twelve and a half jin of wheat to buy a single Golden Pavilion cigarette. Twelve and a half jin of wheat produce fifteen jin of baked bread, enough to meet a person’s needs for ten days or more. But a single cigarette’s life lasts no more than a few puffs. The resplendent cigarette packet reminded me of the Ginkakuji in your esteemed city of Kyoto, and I had to wonder if the Golden Pavilion had in fact been the model for the packet design. I knew how much my father detested the idea that I smoked this brand, but he limited his comment to: It’s degenerate! I nervously tried to explain: I didn’t buy these, they were a gift. His chilly response? That makes it obscene! I regretted telling him how much they cost, but that just shows how shallow and vain I was. How was I any different from the nouveau riche who parade their purchases of brand name products and crow about their new, young wives? But I couldn’t throw away such expensive cigarettes over a single critical comment by my father. If I did, wouldn’t that be even more degenerate? Golden Pavilions are enhanced with a special fragrance that produces intoxicating smoke. I could see that Chen Bi was getting fidgety. After sneezing loudly, over and over, he let his moody gaze move slowly from the stag’s head — hesitantly, timidly, and tremulously at first, then eagerly, greedily, even a little menacingly — to us.

The man stood up at last, Sensei, and hobbled our way, dragging his sword as if it were a crutch. The light inside the café was muted, but bright enough to see his face. The complex expression created by the totality of his features and facial muscles is hard to describe. I couldn’t be sure if he was looking at me or at the smoke coming from my mouth. I stood up so quickly the legs of my chair scraped the floor noisily. Little Lion stood up.

He stood in front of us. I stuck out my hand and pretended to be surprised to see him. He accepted neither my greeting nor my extended hand, keeping a respectable distance as he bowed deeply, then rested both hands on the handle of the rusty sword and said: Honourable Lady, Honourable Sir, I, the Spanish Don Quixote, knight of La Mancha, extend my deepest respect and humbly offer my unswerving desire to serve you.

Quit fooling around, Chen Bi, I said. Who are you pretending to be? I’m Wan Zu and this is Little Lion.

Honourable Sir, Respected Lady, for a loyal knight, no enterprise is more sacred than preserving peace and upholding justice, sword in hand.

Okay, pal, knock off the play-acting.

The world is a stage, one on which the same drama is played out every day. Sir, madam, if you could see fit to reward me with a cigarette, I will demonstrate my duelling skills.