英文小说：A Shadow in Surfers Paradise(60)天堂之影

何木

Chapter 60     1/2




Every month or two, the three families would go somewhere for a BBQ, which was the easiest way to enjoy the vast landscape of Australia. Sydney had a lot of beaches, as well as national parks or reserves, with BBQ facilities available to visitors. When half drunk, unlike Jim and Peter who liked to play cards, Bing would most of the time lie on the grass, where the light, fresh air, and the sounds of birds would lull him into half sleep. Then some of his memories would come and go, like butterflies, red, black, and white, swift and fugitive.

After Qiuyan’s mother went back China, his mother came over for assistance in looking after the baby. So another year passed with the same method of living. Adina, now two years old, was able to walk and tumble on her own feet. By this time, Jim had purchased a unit in Parramatta, so the idea of buying a unit was also on their agenda. And as soon as they had gathered the down payment, either by saving or borrowing, they bought a unit in Bankstown. But only a few months later, encouraged, or bombarded by the real estate agent, they sold the unit and purchased a house in Seven Hills.

A warming up party was being held. His friends, and her friends, and friends of friends, a total of sixteen were attending. Half way into the party, Bing, drunk, spontaneously picked his guitar, and played and sang his old songs. For the last four years he had not touched it, but his guests were surprised. Even Qiuyan was half stunned, who had not had a chance of watching his stage performances.

‘This is amazing, wonderful,’ his intoxicated friends clapped, demanding him to play more and more. So he played more and more, and felt like surfing the world. Those scenes, young, and burning, on Tiananmen Square, at Melbourne’s Chinatown, at Shangwai, came to say hello to him. His musical energy that had been saved and buried in his heart, was gushing out.  

‘Why, Wang Bing, you never mentioned you played guitar,’ Peter fervently patted his shoulder, ‘we have missed so much. We must have more parties. I like more guitar, rocking, and shouting. Piano is too soft, I am fed up with it.’

Rebecca, frankly excited, her face pink, her fingers clutching the thin stem of a wine glass, stood beside his husband. ‘Yes, next time come to our home. We will have a music party, you play guitar, I play piano.’

Bing, his modesty not yet drowned, said honestly, ‘Well, I haven’t touched it for so many years. I need some time to pick up.’  

‘Fair enough, you are excellent.’

‘Only after some drinks.’

The party lasted until midnight. After the guests had gone, Bing was suffering a hangover no less severe than what he had experienced many years ago in China. During the following month, he flinched from the thought of beer or wine, though Peter and Rebecca had twice proposed a party at their place.  

Then the parties and BBQs began again to occupy most of his Friday nights and weekends.  Like many Australians in their work-style or lifestyle, as soon as he left the office, he though very little about his work. Life would be boring if you couldn’t find a way to pass the time, seemingly so plenty in Australia.

Adina was a very active if not hyperactive girl. With her plump hands she messed up each item within her reach. Whenever she neared the video player, her mother, on the lounge biting the melon seeds and enjoying Chinese or Korean videos, would jump up from her comfort zone, to stop her from touching the buttons or pulling the cables. Adina also liked chocolate. She smeared her face with it, causing extra work and fun for the household. Sometimes she stayed alone by herself giggling, or amused herself with a fly swatter hitting the ground, or her mother’s leg, an act she must have learnt from her parents. When Bing was at home, she demanded piggyback rides, or hide-and-seeks. The front and back yards were spacious, with enough shrubs and trees for their activity. A beautiful park was hundreds of metres away, where the pair could go while the mother cooked the dinner.

After their daughter went to sleep, usually before 9pm, the parents would enjoy themselves in their own way. Qiuyan continued to watch those long video series; Bing would sit at his computer, chatting on ICQ, or OICQ, or MSN, that would fix him on screen for hours, and afterwards feel empty and exhausted. They made love roughly twice a week. She never demanded it, nor did he keenly desire it. But they slept together, flesh to flesh, so he would naturally become aroused, and want it. Occasionally she seemed to enjoy it, making some enticing noises, but most of the time, it was a type of exercise, like jogging, a healthy activity, worldly normal, dutifully and morally correct. He didn’t like using condoms, but he had to use them, and after his male-instinct was worn out by several tugging minutes of his body, he would invariably feel aghast at them. And ever since Adina had mastered the skill of walking, he had to dispose of them into the bin, carefully, deep under the cover of other rubbish, in case she in her way of curiosity play with them.

But generally speaking, he felt not bad, almost happy, and complacent, though he felt his life was somewhat disoriented. The car and house were bought, the job secured, and his daughter would grow as naturally as the time moved on. What else? Missing something, anything or nothing? Such as the passion he had experienced with his ex-lovers? Or a second child, like Jim and his wife were going to have? Alice was pregnant again, four months now. Indeed Australia was an ideal place to breed offspring, too big a land, too much space between house blocks, too few people, most places severely lacking the human smell. It would be good if Adina had a little brother to play with, and he might still endorse the tradition of having a boy to follow him, to carry his surname forward, after the day he himself was purged by time.

But no, no, it would be too much trouble and pain, though a son and a daughter would draw a perfect family picture. Thinking of Peter and Rebecca, who, without children, at least twice a year went abroad, back to China for their holidays. And Rebecca, only one year Alice’s junior, looked almost ten years younger than her. Qiuyan was okay, due to her good skin that had benefited from the Sichuan climate. But still, she seemed to be losing control of her weight. Was this because of her having borne a child, or because she was relatively short, easier to demonstrate the flesh around her waist and thighs, or because, watching the videos all day long, she did no exercise? Whatever it was, she couldn’t possibly lead a lifestyle like Rebecca’s, who often went swimming, or bushwalking, or anything that she took on to maintain her shape and vitality.

Or could she? Maybe she needed to study something, such as accounting, and become a professional as well? Would that change very much the pattern of their lives? He had never been a person desiring much money or fancying certain brands or luxuries. If she went to work, then childcare would be an issue; studying and then finding a job would be a struggle. If she herself didn’t feel like it, he wouldn’t have a reason to encourage her. She seemed very happy; why should he disturb her?
So, dropping the thought of having another child, his days and months as a father, as an employee, as a husband, went on, with the sort of motion on a treadmill. His weekday life was back and forth from two points, home and office. Compared to his home, his workplace was more boring, losing challenge now that he had learnt enough to do what was required.

Nevertheless, weekends and holidays were still enjoyable, if one had enough friends. For a Christmas holiday four families went to stay three days in the Hunter Valley, the prestigious Australian wine-producing region with a history of 180 years, so it was claimed.

The group of eleven, eight adults, three kids, were sharing a standalone cottage with many rooms and usual household facilities. The first afternoon, when they arrived, was spent chiefly on dealing with food and beds and kids. Jim would work as a cook, while the wives, except Rebecca who enjoyed more herself by shooting photos, would help him as kitchen hands. Bing was lazy, drinking a variety of wine without much taste, and gossiping with other lazy husbands on the porch. He sipped very slowly, not because he wanted to take time to sample the liquid as advised by those fussy wine brewers, but because he intended to control the progress of his intoxication. He didn’t want his senses growing numb too quickly, missing the fantastic sights and views around the place.

On the morning of the second day, Peter suggested gong to a place near Lake Macquarie to pick blood-clams, adding to their food supply.

‘Where is Lake Macquarie?’ Bing asked.

‘Somewhere close to Morisset,’ Peter said, giving a stranger name. ‘Less than two hours drive from here.’

‘Two hours, then the return would take four hours,’ Bing was reluctant.

‘Well, if we go the morning, we will come back in mid-afternoon, we will then have the most delicious, Australian-made blood-clams.’

Rebecca agreed, ‘They’re actually called cockle clams; with the wine, they taste fabulous.’

Her remarks were stimulating. Bing nodded immediately, ‘All right, let’s go.’

So, Bing, Peter, Rebecca, and Simon rode in Peter’s Land Rover, and went to the lake. The water, though rippling and lapping nicely, was as unclear as that in the Huangpu or Yarra River. The lake was very broad and wide; objects on the other side were hardly discernable.  

Rebecca stayed on the bank. Three men took off their shoes and socks, and rolled up their sleeves and pants, and waded into the water. At first, the bottom was soft but sandy, then soon it became unnervingly muddy. Bing hoped there was no glass, or eels, or snakes to hurt his feet.  But his dread was soon overtaken by the joy of detecting a clam between his toes. It was really big; he picked it up, declaring his discovery, waving to Rebecca who stood ashore taking photos.

Indeed, the clams were plentiful; sometimes, two or three or four clutched together. Their pails were filled very fast. The harvest was sensational. Then Bing heard Rebecca’s voice, ‘Look, there are swans over there.’

Bing straightened up. ‘Swans?’ Bing sounded doubtful, ‘they look like big ducks.’

‘No, they are swans,’ Rebecca said, firmly. ‘Haven’t you ever seen black swans?’

‘No, not even white ones.’

‘But you must have seen geese,’ she chuckled. ‘A swan has similar feathers and shape, yet of course more graceful.’

Bing strained his neck to verify her words, but couldn’t, as the flock were so far away. So he bent to resume his work.

‘I even see their red beaks,’ she said again.

But only silence attended her, as the other three were all busy in picking, filling up their pails.

Some hours later, they were eating the clams. Qiuyan couldn’t even tolerate the sight of them. ‘Oh, horrible, they look so raw, and bloody,’ she said, as if they were simply insects that always frightened her.

Bing was also hesitating. But Peter, especially Rebecca, ate them with gusto. So Bing tried, with a controlled grimace, and found it not necessarily disgust. It tasted like earth, and fresh, and tender. With the wine, it could be swallowed easily.

‘Is it safe to eat this?’ Bing asked, learning to pry a clam with a fifty-cent coin, recalling the Hepatitis A epidemic that had once paralysed the city of Shanghai.

‘Of course, all natural, no pollution in the water,’ Peter answered, eating it firmly, lifting and waving his wine glass. ‘Let’s drink.’

So they drank, and Simon made a comment, ‘I think there is a limit of what per person is allowed to pick, or it will be subject to penalty.’

‘Yes,’ Peter said, ‘last time we were fined $500 for picking white clams on a beach. It was bad luck or we were ignorant. A ranger stopped us as we carried the pail back to our car.’

Rebecca said, ‘But we were just stupid, quarrelling with the ranger like that. If we just poured them back to the sea, he might not have fined us.’

‘Well, who knows,’ Peter said. ‘It depends on his mood, or he might have been a bit of a racist, I believe. I doubt if he would fine those with white skin so harshly. After all, at the beach there was no sign stipulating the specific prohibiting rules.’

‘Well, I don’t think it is racist,’ Simon remarked. ‘It is true we Chinese like to eat a lot of things, and too many.’

‘You think other people don’t eat?’ Peter said quickly, ‘it is not the eating itself, it is who eats it. As soon as we Chinese eat the things they don’t eat, they think it is not normal. Therefore, it is not a matter of eating what, but who eats,’ he drank a mouthful of red wine, ‘therefore, it is racist.’

‘Well, very hard to judge whether it is racist or not,’ Bing was thinking to give an objective view.

Peter continued, ‘Once I was driving slowly in a car park, and noticed another car moving out from a parking spot. Immediately, I stopped, and believed the driver, a female actually, had already noticed my position and would also stop. But she didn’t, her car kept on moving towards mine. At a loss, I forgot to give her a warning, or act quickly enough to avoid the collision. It was only minor, for she stopped her car at once after realizing the accident.’

Peter took another sip. ‘You know what she, a woman at her forties, said to me when we both got out of the car?’

Without an answer he spoke on, ‘She shouted at me, “Bloody Asian, go back to your own country!” For a moment, I was dumbfounded, losing all the wits or words for a response, my face turning purple. In the meantime, she turned away from me, went to check and pat her car. Then as if realising the damage was not worthy of an argument, she walked away, seated inside her car, and readied herself to leave.

‘I recovered from my moment of speechless astonishment, strode to the front of her car, pulled open the door, and expressed my anger to her. “不雅 you,” I said, “不雅 you, bloody woman, 不雅 you, you such a racist, if you don’t move your ass out of there, I am going to 不雅 you, right here right now.” I stared at her, with hot blood surging to my lips and my tempers, recalling my best fighting days in Beijing.

‘It was her turn to be shocked. Her eyes grew dim, losing the anger she had a moment ago thrown at me. But she didn’t get out; perhaps scared, or holding on her stubbornness. But I stood there, firm, wedging myself between her and the door.
“A minute or two passed, my rage was easing. I said, very slowly, “So you are not coming out?” Then she began to move, and I gave her way. When she was steady on her feet, I noticed her hands shaking. Oh, my… what a weakling! But, honestly, my body was also shaking, because of fury.

‘She didn’t say anything. So I said to her, in a voice that was softening, “Okay, we need to exchange the information.” I returned to my car and fetched a pen. During the while she uttered no words. And leaving, I didn’t forget to say to her, “Please don’t say those words again, don’t test the weakest point of mankind.”’

The listeners were still digesting his story, while Rebecca spoke, ‘As I have said before, I think you were overreacting. What would have happened if she had not been that easy to be scared, or the driver had been a man? No doubt you would invite big trouble. It was even worse for a woman, because you can’t really fight with a woman. This is not Beijing, where you might fight and run away.’

Peter, born in Beijing, was a graduate of Beijing University, the best in China. It was well known that people in northern China tended to resort to violence to settle civil disputes. ‘I don’t care,’ he glared at his wife, emptying his glass. ‘I will 不雅 all the racists just the same.’

‘Really, those words can hurt so much,’ Simon said, ‘my daughter, year four in the school, one evening came back home crying, complaining some boys in her class had taunted her, saying her Chinese eyes were narrow and small like a pig’s. Very hard indeed not to resort to violence under the circumstances, although I might not react as strongly as Peter.’ Simon, from Wuhan, had lived in Sydney for five years. His daughter was three years old when he migrated here.

‘Not much we could do,’ Rebecca emptied her glass, ‘but, don’t you think the situation is getting much better now that China is economically more powerful than ten years ago?’

Bing emptied his glass, ‘That is for sure. It takes time for people to change the stereotype that was instilled in their minds for so many hundreds of years. I guess our next generation will find the place more harmonious.’


--To next post --

何木

Chapter 60    2/2



The sun was setting, retiring from the day. The golden light painted the cottage’s wooden surface, and the faces of people. The red wine in the glass reflected the slanting lights, like blood. A fantasy of heaven was glowing in Bing’s mind. The kids, and their mothers, the grass, and the plants, flourishing in the marsh water nor far away, wove softly in a picture. The furrows of grape vines, rolling, was a vast blanket, spreading submissively under the lazy, mellow and pink sky.

This was the best moment of alcohol influence for him, as he sank into the chair. Peter, Jim and Simon, and Alice decided to play cards. Qiuyan flitted among the kids in the yard. And Rebecca was there taking photos, in her desire to capture the dying sun; her figure, as slender as a ribbon, or as a lone and long cat ready to spring, was wavering, and thinning in his gaze.

Oh, what a woman, what a stark contrast to Vivian, to Pan, and his wife! Dealing with the dry numbers as an accountant, fingering her inspiration with piano keys, and now shooting with her camera the best moments of life, she was, in fact, an exceptional soul. And she ate a lot of blood clams, drank wine, and she wanted no children! Ah, her vagina must be very tight...What a miracle, what an imagination it would be if he could 不雅 her at this moment, crush her slender yet strenuous body unmatched by any other women...maybe, in the midst of the waves of vines! Under the bloody, Australian sun!

His fantasy flew on, and his member began to quiver.

He shifted his hips to relieve the strain, and poured himself a full glass of wine, and began to sip or suck, casting his eyes at her, paining himself with the distortion of her shape.

The light shrank, and her body was fading. She seemed to like him a bit, but he was not sure. She was a happy woman, independent, artistic, and attractive; she had not observably and particularly flirted with him. Her charm didn’t seem to appeal in any particular direction, not even to her husband, though superficially it had seemed so. Well, indeed, it was not as if Bing was someone worthy of her attention. In the eyes of a professional artist, his guitar thing was nothing. Yes, nothing, he knew himself very well. At best, it could only be a tool to lure a novice, such as Vivian, such as Pan, such as Fang. But not his wife who was more in need of a husband, of a man somewhat superior to her in terms of education, or whatever, but definitely not for his deceptive musical performance.   

Rebecca came back to the porch, her face and body now realized as she sat opposite him. ‘Beautiful sunset, isn’t it?’ she said, placing her camera on the table.

‘Yes,’ he eyed her. ‘How many photos have you taken so far, thousands of thousands?’

‘More than that,’ she said, pouring herself a glass of wine. ‘But the best ones, I mean, my favourite ones are about three hundred.’

Her eyes were beaming, like those of one who is asking for love. ‘Have you ever submitted any to magazines or somewhere for publication?’

‘No, I don’t bother,’ she sipped, her thin lips redder, that she licked briefly with the tip of her tongue. ‘Maybe one day, I will open an exhibition, for my circle of friends.’ She opened a clam; the flesh was bleeding, ‘Or, maybe when I am old, and begin to miss my time.’

‘Take a picture of me,’ he said, gazing at her.

‘Now?’

‘Yes.’

She took a piece of paper to wipe her hands, and grabbed her camera.

She was adjusting the lens, looked at him all the time, and his face was serious, looking at her with a serious mind.

‘Relax a bit,’ she said, pointing at a tree, ‘and look in toward that tree.’

He did as told, but in no way he could relax himself.

‘Yes, yes, now do not move.’ With a press, and a flash, she took his picture. She then handed the camera across the table to him, who perused it, and said, ‘Very good, very thoughtful, as much as a philosopher, and handsomer than myself.’
Keen to see more of her pictures, he pressed some buttons, but soon he found he couldn’t return to the right mode of her camera.

‘I think I am lost, couldn’t get back to browse again.’  

She rose, and walked around the table, and stood beside him, pressed some buttons and proceeded to show and explain her work, but he sensed the closeness of her body, and her tight jeans, and … a lot of things and fragrance, she must have been using some special perfume, which slightly lessened his desire. He had never liked perfume, unnatural it seemed to him.  

Then he blurted out, in a reckless but clear whisper, ‘Can I kiss you?’

She was taken back, staring at him, and he held her stare, unwavering. Then she whirled her head, and without seeing any eavesdroppers nearby, she muttered, incredulously, ‘What? You…kiss me?’

‘Now, I change my mind.’ His amorous gaze was unflagging.

‘What?’

‘I want to love you.’

She stiffened at once, and went quickly from him into the cottage.

Then, he released two waves of chuckles, stifled, his tummy writhing with amusement, and plain insanity.

Next day, the three men and two women went bushwalking. In her gear, she looked like an athlete. They walked for a long distance, drinking bottled water, greeting the drifting lights with their eyes. Then two of the men and one woman, puffing, breathing hard, said they needed a rest. But Rebecca said she was not tired, so she kept on walking, as did he.
They went into the depth of shrubs and trees, through which the sunshine dappled with beautiful streaks, and halos, and colours, when he caught up with her.

He felt her heart pounding more fiercely than his own, threatening to jump out of her breast. She made a little struggle in his arms. She could hardly stand on her own feet, so he had to pull her, drag her uphill. They must do it quickly.

He took off all the unnatural accessories from his body, used them as the sheet of their love bed, onto a flat side of a boulder. He laid her against it, and with his trembling fingers, removed her tight clothes. She was faintly weak, breathless, lending him no assistance in the preparation. So lazy a woman, not behaving as she should in his imagining. Maybe she was just a common woman, not at all as much as an passionate and self-assured soul in public eyes.

Oh, such lean legs and thighs, such a tiny, dipped belly button, and her breasts really have some muscles that form their shape. How much exercise she must have done to sustain this, for whom, and for what? Why does this woman have to pain herself to exercise so hard to maintain such posture and appearance? Indeed, she does have an extra mating desire, have a greed that well matches that of a man like him.

Under the splitting sun, her life was unfolding, beads of perspiration shivering on her forehead. He didn’t rush into it. He needed a minute or two to appreciate her surface, and her structure, to measure her secrets, slits and points. She closed her eyes, but he didn’t think she was feeling a shame under his scrutiny. She was confident, very proud of her body, which to her mind was a great asset that might have made other women envious of her.

Then he dug into it, without the nasty plastic, for she must have her own safe measure. It was impossible she would like any separation to discount the divine intimacy of intercourse.

Like two snakes, they were entwining their moments.

Then, quickly and frantically, they grabbed their clothes, as if they had committed a crime, as if the Chinese thunder-god were coming down from sky, to punish them, as if the clan authority were to put them into a pig-basket to be drowned, or stone them to death, in the eyes of their pathetic human fellows. This time, she drew on her clothes twice as fast as him. And after giving him a swift kiss, she rushed down to the path, leaving him alone on the hill pulling on his pants.

For the rest of the day, the two ugly people behaved as though nothing had happened, in front of their respective and respectable spouses. Or was there anything that had happened at all? How much was the difference between this act, and that act of bushwalking, which had also consumed quite an amount of movement and energy? How much had actually changed in their minds and souls after the minute interaction of their organs? Had she or he become bad, or worse because of that?

She was free, and she was not tied up with a baby, or even with her husband.

In his infatuation with her, Bing sought a number of more secret encounters after this incident.

Then she said to him, ‘Peter and I are going to live in Melbourne.’

‘Why?’ he was surprised.

‘Melbourne is more an artistic city, I like the atmosphere there better,’ she said, in a break from sucking his penis. ‘I have wished to live there for a long time.’

He halted her head with his hands, ‘So, what about me?’

‘You?’ she sat on his top. ‘What do you want? Trouble?’

‘Don’t tell me you’re leaving here because you fear we will have trouble.’

‘No, not that, but still, sooner or later, if we continue like this.’

‘Humph.’ he grunted, unhappy.

‘To tell you the truth, now that I treat you as a close friend, I actually miss a man over there.’

‘A man?’

‘Yes,’ she was composed. ‘My boyfriend, who abandoned me during his study in Melbourne.’

‘When was that?’

‘Before I came here,’ she said, brushing aside the lock of her hair on her forehead. ‘Part of my reason coming to Australia was because of him.’

‘Then why didn’t you go to Melbourne directly?’

‘Well, because of Peter, and also I thought I should forget him.’

‘Then, why now?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, ruefully, ‘just feel I need a change, and the idea of him intrudes more often than before.’

‘Don’t you love Peter?’

‘Well, he is a typical Beijing northern-big-man, crude, you know what I mean. And he had been after me so many years.’

‘That is not a good reason.’

‘There is no reason.’

‘Well, I don’t know.’

‘Unlike you, I won’t have any children, I have no security when I am getting old.’ She ran her fingers through her short vibrant hair. ‘I had to live as much as I can, otherwise, my life would be one of regret, and waste.’

‘You don’t have to fear your old days, do you?’

‘Of course, I do, every Chinese, or even non-Chinese worries about getting old, about sickness, about death.’ She lay her body beside him, and placed a hand on his belly. ‘Sometimes I imagine how miserable and dreadful it would be if there is nobody, no children, no close friends seeing me off when I leave the world.’  

‘Then, have a child.’

‘But I can’t sacrifice all that.’ With two hands she wrapped his body tight, applying a pressure that nearly choked him. ‘A compromise I have to make, but I have to enjoy better than the mothers.’

‘Don’t worry, you will have me to see you off, if I live longer than you.’ He allowed her to do whatever she wished to his body.

‘Hehe, will you?’ she paused to give him a slow kiss, ‘thank you.’

One month later, after Rebecca had found a job in Melbourne, in Bing’s house, they had a party bidding their farewell to the couple.


--End of Chapter 60--

Gone

Peter。。很有血性，虽然看上去是有些粗鲁。。
Bing。。真的。。。。很。。ugly。。
这就是中国男人吗？

何木

Gone 发表于 2014-9-10 23:39
Peter。。很有血性，虽然看上去是有些粗鲁。。
Bing。。真的。。。。很。。ugly。。
这就是中国男人吗？ ...

这就是中国男人吗？-- 这是男人吗？ --- 这是人吗？

Gone

何木 发表于 2014-9-11 10:11
这就是中国男人吗？-- 这是男人吗？ --- 这是人吗？

好吧。我败了。。
郁闷啊。发觉自己不是人了。。