在酒楼上 (In the Tavern)

Traveling from the north to the southeast, I had made a detour to visit my hometown and then arrived at S City. The city was only about thirty li from my native place. With a small boat, it could be reached in less than half a day. I had once worked as a teacher for a year in a school here. It was deep winter after a snowfall. The scenery was bleak and forlorn. Lethargy mingled with nostalgia, and I ended up putting up temporarily at the Luosi Inn in S City. This inn had not existed before. The city was not large. I sought out several old colleagues whom I thought I might meet, but not a single one was there. They had long since scattered to unknown places. Passing by the school gate, I saw its name and appearance had changed, becoming utterly unfamiliar to me. In less than four hours, my enthusiasm had already waned. I rather regretted coming here, feeling it had been unnecessary.

The inn where I stayed provided rooms but not meals. Food had to be ordered separately, yet it was tasteless, like chewing mud in the mouth. Outside the window, there was only a mottled, stained wall covered with withered moss. Above was a leaden sky, utterly devoid of brilliance, and a light snow had begun to dance once more. I had not eaten a full lunch, and with nothing to amuse myself, my thoughts naturally turned to a small tavern I had once been familiar with, called Yishi Ju, which was, by my reckoning, not far from the inn. So I immediately locked my room door and went out into the street, heading for that tavern. In truth, I merely wanted to escape the boredom of being a traveler for a while, not specifically to drown my sorrows. Yishi Ju was still there. The narrow, damp shopfront and the shabby signboard remained unchanged. However, from the proprietor down to the waiter, there was not a single familiar face. Here in Yishi Ju, I had become a complete stranger. Yet I finally ascended the familiar staircase in the corner of the room, leading straight up to the small upper floor. Up there were still the same five small wooden tables. Only the rear window, which had originally had wooden latticework, was now fitted with glass panes.

"One jin of Shaoxing wine. -- And dishes? Ten fried bean curd puffs, with plenty of chili sauce!"

I said this to the waiter who had followed me upstairs while walking toward the rear window. I sat down at a table by the window. Upstairs was "utterly empty," allowing me to choose the best seat, which commanded a view of the neglected garden below. This garden probably did not belong to the tavern. I had looked out at it many times before, sometimes on snowy days too. But now, seen through eyes accustomed to the north, it struck me as quite astonishing. Several old plum trees were actually in full bloom, braving the snow, as if utterly indifferent to the depth of winter. Beside a collapsed pavilion stood a camellia tree, showing a dozen or so crimson flowers amidst its dark green, dense foliage. They blazed fiercely in the snow, bright as fire, angry and arrogant, as if scorning the travelers who were resigned to their distant journeys. I then suddenly remembered the moistness of the accumulated snow here. It clung to things and would not leave, glittering with a crystalline light, not like the powdery dryness of northern snow, which a strong wind would blow into the air like mist or smoke...

"Sir, your wine...."

The waiter said lazily, setting down the cup, chopsticks, wine pot, and dishes. The wine had arrived. I turned to the table, arranged the utensils, and poured the wine. I reflected that while the north was certainly not my old home, coming south only made me a guest here. Whether the dry snow flew there or the soft snow lingered here, it had nothing to do with me anymore. With a touch of sorrow, yet quite comfortably, I took a sip of wine. The wine tasted pure. The fried bean curd puffs were also excellently cooked. It was a pity the chili sauce was too bland. People from S City never really understood how to eat spicy food.

Probably because it was the afternoon, although this was called a tavern, it had none of a tavern's lively atmosphere. I had already drunk three cups of wine, and apart from me, there were still four empty wooden tables. Gazing at the neglected garden, I gradually felt lonely, yet I did not wish for any other customers to come up. Hearing footsteps on the stairs by chance, I could not help feeling somewhat annoyed. Only when I saw it was the waiter did I feel at ease again. In this manner, I drank two more cups.

I thought, this time it must be a customer, for the footsteps sounded much slower than the waiter's. When I roughly estimated he had finished climbing the stairs, I fearfully looked up to see this unrelated companion and, at the same time, stood up in surprise. I had never expected to meet a friend here so unexpectedly-if he still allowed me to call him a friend. The one who came up was unmistakably my old schoolmate, also a former colleague from my teaching days. Though his appearance had changed somewhat, I recognized him at once. Only his movements had become exceptionally slow and deliberate, quite unlike the agile and vigorous Lü Weifu of the past.

"Ah-Weifu, is it you? I never imagined I'd meet you here."

"Ah, ah, it's you? I never imagined either..."

I invited him to sit with me. He seemed to hesitate slightly before finally sitting down. At first, I found this very strange. Then I felt somewhat saddened, and even displeased. Looking closely at his appearance, his beard and hair were still unkempt. He had a pale, oblong face, yet it looked worn and thin. His spirit seemed very calm, or perhaps dejected. The eyes beneath his thick, dark eyebrows had lost their sparkle. But when he slowly looked around, they suddenly flashed with the piercing light I had often seen during our school days, directed toward the neglected garden.

"We," I said cheerfully, yet rather unnaturally, "It must be ten years since we last parted. I knew long ago you were in Jinan, but I was simply too lazy-hopelessly lazy-and never wrote you a letter..."

"It's the same for both of us. But now I'm in Taiyuan. It's been over two years, with my mother. When I came back to fetch her, I found you had moved away long ago, and very thoroughly too."

"What are you doing in Taiyuan?" I asked.

"Teaching, in a fellow townsman's home."

"And before that?"

"Before that?" He took a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, put it in his mouth, watched the smoke he exhaled, and said as if lost in thought, "Just did some boring things, amounting to nothing at all."

He also asked about my circumstances since we parted. While giving him a rough account, I called the waiter to bring another cup and chopsticks first, so he could start drinking my wine. Then I ordered two more jin. We also ordered dishes. Previously, we would have been utterly unceremonious, but now we politely deferred to each other. In the end, it became unclear who had ordered what. We just specified four dishes from the waiter's oral report: aniseed beans, jellied pork, fried bean curd puffs, and dried black carp.

"As soon as I returned, I thought of how ridiculous I was." Holding his cigarette in one hand and resting the other on his wine cup, he said to me with a half-smile. "When I was young, I saw a bee or a fly settle on a spot. If something scared it, it would fly away immediately. But after flying a small circle, it would come back and settle on the original spot. I thought this was truly ridiculous, and also pitiful. Little did I expect that now I myself have flown back, only after circling a bit. And I never expected you'd come back too. Couldn't you have flown a little farther?"

"That's hard to say. Probably just circling a bit too," I also said with a half-smile. "But why did you fly back?"

"Also because of something boring." He drained his cup in one gulp, took a few puffs of his cigarette, and his eyes widened slightly. "Boring. But let's talk anyway."

The waiter brought up the newly added wine and dishes, filling the table. The upstairs room was now filled with smoke and the steaming heat from the fried bean curd puffs, as if it had become livelier. Outside the building, the snow fell more thickly.

"You may have known," he continued, "I once had a little brother who died at the age of three and was buried in this countryside. I can't even clearly remember what he looked like, but Mother said he was a very lovable child and got along well with me. Even now, when she mentions him, she seems about to shed tears. This spring, a cousin of mine wrote a letter saying the ground around his grave was gradually being soaked by water and might soon sink into the river. Something had to be done quickly. As soon as Mother found out, she became very anxious, hardly sleeping for several nights. She can read letters herself. But what could I do? No money, no time. At that moment, there was no way at all.

"I put it off until now. Taking advantage of the winter vacation, I finally came south to move his grave." He drank another cup dry, looked out the window, and said, "How could things be like this over there? Flowers blooming in the snow, the ground beneath the snow not frozen. Just the day before yesterday, I bought a small coffin in the city-because I expected what was underground must have long since decayed-and took cotton wadding and bedding with me. I hired four grave-diggers and went to the countryside to move the grave. I suddenly felt quite happy then, willing to dig up a grave, willing to see once more the bones of my little brother who had been so close to me. I had never experienced such things in my life. When we reached the gravesite, sure enough, the river water was encroaching, less than two feet from the grave. The poor grave, not tended to for two years, had also flattened out. Standing in the snow, I resolutely pointed at it and said to the grave-diggers, 'Dig it up!' I am truly a mediocre man. At that moment, I felt my voice sounded strange, and this command was the greatest command of my entire life. But the grave-diggers showed no surprise at all and set to work. When they reached the burial pit, I went over to look. Indeed, the coffin was almost completely rotted away, leaving only a pile of wood fibers and small splinters. My heart trembling, I went over myself to carefully push these aside, wanting to see my little brother. But unexpectedly! Bedding, clothes, bones-there was nothing. I thought, all these had dissolved. I'd always heard that hair was the most resistant to decay, perhaps there might still be some. So I bent down and examined the earth where the pillow should have been, meticulously. Nothing. Not a trace remained!"

I suddenly noticed his eyes were slightly red, but immediately realized it was the effect of the wine. He hardly touched the food, just kept drinking wine without stop. He had already drunk over a jin, and his manner and movements became more animated, gradually resembling the Lü Weifu I had seen before. I told the waiter to add another two jin of wine, then turned back, also holding my wine cup, silently listening to him face to face.

"Actually, there was no need to move it anymore. I could have just leveled the earth, sold the coffin, and that would have been the end of it. Selling the coffin might seem odd, but if the price was very cheap, the original shop might have taken it, or at least I could have recovered a few coins for wine. But I didn't do that. I still laid out the bedding, wrapped some earth from the place where his body had once lain with cotton, packed it up, placed it in the new coffin, transported it to the burial ground where my father lies, and buried it beside his grave. Because we built an outer brick casing, I was busy most of yesterday supervising the work. But this way, I finally finished the matter, enough to deceive my mother and set her mind at ease. Ah, ah, you're looking at me like that. Are you wondering why I'm so different from before? Yes, I also remember when we went together to the Town God's Temple to pull the beards off the idols, and argued for days on end about methods to reform China until we came to blows. But now I am just like this, muddling along, vague and blurry. I sometimes think to myself, if my old friends saw me now, they might not recognize me as a friend. Yet now I am just like this."

He took out another cigarette, put it in his mouth, and lit it.

"Judging by your expression, you still seem to have some expectations of me. Naturally, I've grown much more numb now, but I can still see some things. This makes me very grateful, but also very uneasy. I'm afraid I might ultimately fail the goodwill my old friend still holds for me." He stopped abruptly, took a few puffs of his cigarette, then slowly continued, "Just today, right before I came to this Yishi Ju, I did another boring thing, but it was something I was willing to do. My former neighbor to the east was called Changfu, a boatman. He had a daughter named A Shun. You might have seen her when you came to my house, but you certainly didn't pay attention, because she was still small then. Later, she didn't grow up to be pretty either, just an ordinary thin face with a pointed chin and sallow skin. Only her eyes were very large, with long eyelashes. The whites of her eyes were as clear as a windless night sky in the north. The ones here aren't that bright. She was very capable. In her teens, she lost her mother and had to look after her two younger siblings all by herself. She also attended to her father, managing everything thoroughly. She was economical too, so the family's circumstances gradually stabilized. Almost none of the neighbors failed to praise her, and even Changfu often expressed his gratitude. This time when I set out to return, my mother remembered her again-old people's memories are so long. She said she knew A Shun had once seen someone wearing a red velveteen flower in their hair and wanted one for herself. Not being able to get it, she cried, cried for nearly half the night, and then got a beating from her father. Her eyes remained red and swollen for two or three days afterward. This kind of velveteen flower is something from other provinces. Even in S City you can't buy it. How could she hope to get one? So, taking advantage of my trip south, Mother asked me to buy two and bring them to her.