Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused – Fiction From Today by Howard Goldblatt (Editor) Read Free Book Online

but as he curls up for the night, Shu Gong's bed begins to creak and keeps on creaking for a long time. "What are you doing?"
    "None of your business. Go to sleep, so you can wet your bed," Shu Gong snaps back spitefully.
    "I'm not wetting my bed anymore." Shu Nong sits up straight. "I can't wet it if I don't sleep!"
    No response from Shu Gong, who is by now snoring loudly. The sound disgusts Shu Nong, who thinks Shu Gong is more boring than anything, an SOB just begging to get his lumps. Shu Nong looks out the window and hears a cat spring from the windowsill up to the roof. He sees the cat's dark-green eyes, flashing like a pair of tiny lamps. No one pays any attention to the cat, which is free to prance off anywhere in the world it likes. To Shu Nong, being feline seems more interesting than being human.
    That is how Shu Nong viewed the world at fourteen: being feline is more interesting than being human.
    If the moon is out that night, Shu Nong is likely to see his father climbing up the rainspout. Suddenly, he sees someone climbing expertly up the rainspout next to the window like a gigantic house lizard. Shu Nong experiences a moment of fear before sticking his head out the window and grabbing a leg.
    "What do you think you're doing?" That is exactly how long it takes him to discover it is his father, Old Shu, who thumps his son on the head with the sandal in his hand. "Be a good boy, and shut up. I'm going up to fix the gutter."
    "Is it leaking?"
    "Like a sieve. But I'll take care of it."
    Shu Nong says, "I'll go with you."
    With a sigh of exasperation, Old Shu shins down to the win-dowsill, squats in his bare feet, and wraps his hands around Shu Nong's neck. "Get back to bed, and go to sleep," Old Shu says. "You saw nothing, unless you want me to throttle you. And don't think I won't do it, you understand?"
    His father's hands around his neck feel like knives cutting into his flesh. He closes his eyes, and the hands fall loose. He sees his father grab hold of something, spring off the sill, and climb to the top floor.
    After that, Shu Nong goes back and sits on his bed, but he isn't sleepy. He hears a thud upstairs in Qiu Yumei's room, then silence. What's going on? Shu Nong thinks of the cat. If the cat's on the roof, can it see what Father and Qiu Yumei are up to? Shu Nong thought a lot about things like that when he was fourteen. His thoughts, too, are like leaves floating aimlessly somewhere down south. Just before dawn, a rooster crows somewhere, and Shu Nong realizes he had fallen asleep-and had wet the bed. Mentally he wrings out his dripping-wet underpants, and the rank smell of urine nearly makes him gag. How could I have fallen asleep? How come I wet the bed again? His nighttime discovery floats up like a dream. Who made me go to sleep? Who made me wet the bed? A sense of desolation wraps itself around Shu Nong's heart. He slips off his wet pants and begins to sob. Shu Nong did a lot of sobbing at the age of fourteen, just like a little girl.
    Shu Nong asked me a really weird question once, but then he was always asking weird questions. And if you didn't supply a satisfying answer, he'd give you a reasoned reply of his own.
    "What's better, being human or being a cat?"
    I said human, naturally.
    "Wrong. Cats are free, and nobody pays them any attention. Cats can prowl the eaves of a house."
    So I said, "Go be a cat, then."
    "Do you think people can turn into cats?"
    "No. Cats have cats, people have people. Don't tell me you don't even know that!"
    "I know that. What I mean is, Can someone turn himself into a cat?"
    "Try it, and see."
    "Maybe I will. But I have lots to do before that. I'm going to make you all sit up and take notice." Shu Nong began chewing his grubby fingernails, making a light clipping noise:
chuk chuk
.
    As for Hanli, she was one of Fragrant Cedar Street 's best-known lovely young things. And she had a heart as fragile and tender as a spring snowflake. Hanli couldn't watch a chicken being