英文小说：A Shadow in Surfers Paradise(56) 天堂之影

何木

Chapter 56        1/2




The interview he did over the phone with a software company in Sydney, was a success. And only one week later he packed his things up and made his move.

Pan had a Beijing country-fellow in Sydney, and she had advised him to stay in his house until he could find his own place. His name was Jim Wu, a taxi driver, married with a baby boy of just five months. His wife, Alice Li, who worked as a company account assistant and was presently on her maternity leave, was also from Beijing.  

Needless to say, every piece of Bing’s initial knowledge essential for a starter’s living, was obtained from the friendly and communicative couple. But their baby was a real noise. Every night he would wake up wailing at least four times, and each time, the parents, mostly Jim, would get up to feed him, or walk him, or change him, or whisper to him, doing everything they could to settle the little devil.

Because of his lack of sleep and his laborious hours on the run, Jim’s face was invariably haggard. But the spirit of a father was never low. For he had a son, which, to a Chinese man, to a lonely couple in a foreign land, was paramount.

As a person reaching everyday into Sydney’s nooks and crannies, Jim knew a lot of things about the city. Not only the roads, but also the scenes on the roadside, the faces of the passengers, and the news or gossip that constantly circulated in the veins of an urban society, that even the prime minister or the mayor wouldn’t know of. All this benefited Bing greatly, even if he had only slept, or merely dozed in their spare room for three days, before he rented a two-bedroom unit in a flat near the Northmead railway station.

Two weeks later, Bing, in Jim’s taxi, went to the airport to pick up Qiuyan.

It was Sunday. Her arrival had to be on the weekend; otherwise, Bing wouldn’t have had the time to fetch her. He was new to the company; he needed to behave, trying his best to present himself as a loyal, industrious, obedient employee before his manager, a software genius of Indian origin.  

She came out of the exit channel. A little bewildered, her eyes was browsing about, not unlike a lamb entering an open space uncertainly. But he had caught sight of her as soon as her small face emerged around the corner. He waved to her, then her eyes glinted with a light of one who has just spotted water in a desert.

‘Bing,’ she called, her face blooming.

So, at Sydney’s international airport, and on the ground polished mirror-like by the Australian people, and among many Chinese-looking faces, they touched each other. He pushed the trolley, and she pushed his waist. She was excited; he was excited too, and humorous. ‘Oh, first time in a plane, and first time out of China,’ he said, ‘don’t suppress your happy tears, let it go free, hehe...’

‘Why should I cry?’ she said, her hand reaching up to pat the back of his head, ‘did you ever cry on your first time?’
‘I certainly did,’ he was serious, ‘but my tears were not happy ones, because I had nobody to pick me up, and it was raining, as I remember, not like today, look, please look at the blue sky, and the clouds, and everything you won’t easily see in Sichuan, in your Happy Mountain.’

She raised her head, let the sunshine touch her watery face. For a moment too long, she seemed to enjoy it.

Then with his fingers he brushed her cheeks, ‘No, no, don’t show off your face to it for so long. Otherwise your skin will be steaming, and burning.’

She lowered her head at once, ‘I heard Australians have to use sun cream everyday to prevent skin cancer.’ She looked at him questioning, ‘have you brought cream for me?’

He laughed, and spoke importantly, ‘Not just people, all the trees and birds and flowers here, even the cars, have to be protected by the sun cream, that is why they all look so shiny.’

It took a while for her to detect his false statement. She pursed her lips, which to Bing, was more like asking for a kiss, which he was about to do, but then interrupted by Jim, whose hand was over there flagging.

The car was parked at the other side of the building. Jim admiringly but not quite overtly looked at Qiuyan several times. So that Bing was very proud, so that although he didn’t sit together with her on the back seat, he turned his head several times to check, to confirm her beauty. Her eyes, under her husband’s gaze, grew unnecessarily shy, less defiant and more acquiescent, which further enhanced her charm as well as his own pride.     

Weeks had passed by. The reunited couple, like two swallows dwelling in a new nest, were breeding love, indulging in the warmth and plenty of soft whispers. Every day, he looked forward to coming home, where she was waiting, with hot dinner and cool body, for him. Compared to his experience in Melbourne, the life was principally different, she was his wife; enjoying her was absolutely legal; the shame, or guilt would never sneak out to dim his moments.

Then, at the dinner of one day, she said, ‘I think I am pregnant.’

He halted his tongue, but soon resumed its rotation, ‘What news! Things do come one after another.’   

In that moment, her face was tenderer, even fatter, her eyes talking as if in a dream, in which a baby had already reached up to suck her breast.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

‘Yes, it has always been regular.’

‘But maybe the Australia, or your long trip has disturbed it a bit?’

‘No,’ her expression was changed, ‘what, what do you mean? Aren’t you happy?’

‘Of course, I am,’ he said, innocently, surprised by her tone that was chafing, ‘I mean we need to see a doctor.’

For the moment, he felt the woman across the table was not the same as a minute before. He smiled at her, but his mind was toying with a whim. Has she already switched to the instinctive nature of mother, touchy and jumpy, defending her baby even before it exists?

But then, to agree with her motherly instinct, the test result was positive. At once the news was wired back to China, across the Pacific Ocean. The voices of their parents were satiated with happiness; even those dolphins who happened to swim about the submarine cable might have sensed its cheerful pulse. Advice and knowledge, accumulated from many a generation in Chinese context, as how to rear an all-round and sound baby, began to busy the line and crowded her mind.

‘Where to buy the Chinese herbals?’ she asked.

‘Let’s go to Chinatown this weekend, there must be something there. And you haven’t visited there yet.’

So on the Saturday they got up early, though not as early as they had planned the night before, for they both found it rather difficult to forsake the comfort of the bed. Then they had to hurry each other; she had to spend too long in front of the mirror, while he, after closing the door, had to open it again, as he felt or imagined a need to go to the toilet.

When they reached the Opera House, a place he had advised going to before doing their business in Chinatown, the sun was very high. The cloudless sky was all but one colour - blue, but not as blue as the water of the sea, or pale, but not as pale as the wings of the gliding seagulls.

It was not the first time he had visited the Opera House, but to a new resident like him, the place was, in each of his city-bound trips, too prominent to miss. Every time it seemed to give him a fresh impression. Today, its surface was reminding him of something. He squeezed his memory to ooze an answer.

‘The wall is very like that of a building in Deakin University,’ he said to her.

‘You mean your university in Melbourne?’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘the white-plate building on the campus.’

‘Is it as good as the Opera House?’

‘Of course not, the Opera House is the pride, the crown, the icon of Australia.’

She mocked, ‘You talk like it is the pride, the crown, the icon of yourself.’

He chuckled, ‘Not yet, I am just a resident, a permanent tourist in the country.’ Then he challenged her, ‘How about you? Every time you talk about your Happy Mountain, the giant Buddha, isn’t it as if your crown and icon?’

‘Of course, that is the greatest Buddha in the world.’

‘Hehe,’ he grinned, grabbing her long fingers, ‘but, that surface…’ he trailed off the rest ‘is stained, blackened, and dirty.’

But she was determined to defend her iconic building, ‘What are you trying to say?’

‘I mean, well,’ he stammered, estimating her spicy eyes and her bony nose, ‘I mean it is not as clean and shiny as your face.’ So she let him go, but then he went on further, ‘And even the Opera House is not as pretty as…’ Her interest was piqued again, her eyes checking him intensely, to spur his words on; but on that particular moment, he had a sudden idea flaring up, ‘as your buttocks.’

She was shocked, ‘Oh my…Mr. Wang…’ She had to ease a bit her amused indignation, before she could proceed, ‘how could you… oh, you such a bad-egg!’

And predicting she was going to hit him, he rushed away, and she was after him, and she caught his arms so that they walked hand in hand again.

‘Now, I seriously suspect something,’ she said, without looking at him.

‘Something?’

However, her upcoming answer was stemmed by a Chinese lady in Chinese, ‘Comrade, can you take a photo for us?’

Of course, I can, he thought but didn’t speak out. He simply took over the camera from her, and began to do a favour for his country-fellow. It was a group of Chinese tourists, from the way they were dressed, and from their cool to cold, authoritative expressions, with which he had not been unfamiliar, they looked like some mid-rank officials, whose flight tickets, and many other things, must have been paid for by public funds.

Yet, as soon as they had readied their posture for the imminent shoots, they all began to smile, some more natural than others, some teeth awfully black under the sun. A young man, not handsome at all, was hitching up his fingers for a ‘V’ behind a very beautiful head. Bing was adjusting the focus, his mind reckoning the young man must have been desiring that beautiful head, but not yet successfully.  

Finally, he pressed the button. Then a number of mouths in the group noised together asking him to take another shoot, ‘in case the first…’ they said. So he pressed again, even if he was absolutely certain the first one was good enough for their once-in-a-lifetime touring experience. Why did they want a second one, to be safe? Because two was better than one? Oh, what logic! A greedy logic…You either live, or not live, as soon as you can live twice, you will have more trouble. Because now that your greed is fired up, you want the third, the fourth, and better and better, and at the same time, your dissatisfaction and unhappiness will also be escalating tirelessly…But, if the first one is a failure, we will have at least the second to back it up, is it not? Say, you have two women, if…But, if the first one is a failure, how do you know the second will not be?…But, two would make the possibility of failing far less than one? … Well, if you want so much safety and security, why don’t you do it three or four or ten times? …But, that won’t be necessary, and maybe unviable. Under the circumstances, twice is the best and most economical number. Say if we ask you to press the camera more than three times for us, you will be less willing to do that, and even if you are not, we may lose our own patience, so…

‘What are you thinking?’ his wife, one of his women, interrupted him. ‘Now I am suspecting…’

‘What?’ he recovered from his little micro debate. ‘You suspect?’

‘I suspect you are thinking of some other person.’

‘How did you get such an idea?’

‘Your tongue is sometimes very oily, I wonder how many girls you might have talked into something, for example, your classmates in the university?’

‘Well,’ the figure of Pan came to his mind, as well as others whose faces were for the moment blurred. ‘Of course, I have talked to quite a number of people.’

‘Tell me, hehe..’ her smile was vicious.

‘I will introduce them to you when we find time to visit Melbourne,’ he said, ‘but you are not serious, are you? See I am the best husband in the world.’ He tossed her a convincing kiss.

She relented, ‘Is Melbourne good?’

‘Of course, good, that is my hometown in Australia.’

‘I mean the city.’

‘Well, everything is good, except for the likes of the Opera House.’

‘No iconic building?’

‘Don’t know which, but there is a station, a bridge, and twelve apostles,’ he said, then decided not to pursue it further, ‘But, really, I am almost as fresh as you to Sydney, not in a position to make comparisons.’

‘What is that arch thing over there?’ She was pointing to an arched entrance with a huge gaping mouth at the other side of the bridge.

‘Don’t know,’ he said, ‘maybe a park, or something.’

The water sparkled, heaving enormously as vessels boomed past. The air was clear, the clarity was second to none. The buildings on the distant banks glinted and shone in front of his eyes. The dark Harbour Bridge that spanned the waves was exuding a masculine quality, in contrast to the whitish, feminine Opera House. The pair must have lived together for many years, and surely they would go on, as long as the people and the land could last.   

The wife and husband leant on the rail; his arm embraced her body. Against the bank, the waves were bobbing, to occupy their ears and minds. The breeze stirred strands of her hair, as well as her eyelids. And the seagulls, with all the freedom in the world, burst into the flesh of air, pricked the skin of water; they walked, they cried, they hissed, they also attacked people’s food. But still, they were not as good as the swallows in his memory.

She said, ‘I am hungry.’ He replied, ‘I am hungry too.’ She said again, ‘I just realized I haven’t put on sun cream,’ and complained, ‘why didn’t you remind me?’

He turned, and with two hands held her face, ‘Why, because it is more beautiful so.’ He kissed her heated cheeks, one after another, seriously.



-- To Next Post ---

何木

Chapter 56      2/2




They then strolled back, meandering through the jovial faces of tourists, and entered McDonalds at Circular Quay. A lot of hungry people; the waiting queue was very wide, but as short as the length of the small shop. They joined the queue, not very certain if it was the tail, or just a gap between the knots of people, who were very tall, taller than him, and much more so than his wife. In this place, Qiuyan was tiny, like a little girl, but, ah…she was pregnant, and he was the father. He amused himself, looking over her head, and up towards a number of young faces with prominent brows and eye sockets, with outstanding noses and cheekbones. Why do people grow to be shaped so different? And how must such differences, of the same human species, mark so much diversification in grace and personality and superiority? These people were looking so confident, so able on their foot and mind and will, that they could be imagined to live perfectly well even on Mars.      

She said the chips and burgers tasted the same as in China, and he replied they couldn’t possibly be the same because of the ingredients grown in different countries, and she said he was as fussy as a woman, and he replied he was just as sensible as a man.

They sat on the bench outside the shop, feeding the gulls with their chips. One gull, in competing for the food, was ruffling its wings, cocking its angry head with its red-rimmed beady eyes, scowling and pecking at its fellows. But when it was quiet and calm, it looked little different from the others. Then how could it be so much more aggressive? Was there a sort of destructive chemicals born in its body?

But anyway, they were indeed a beautiful species, more appealing than ravens, at least in many people’s eyes. He turned to look at his wife: if she had not been as pretty she was, he wouldn’t have married her, and then she wouldn’t today be sitting here in the most beautiful city in the world.  

So it was an important issue! But how did a person define ‘beauty’? Why did people have to think the Opera House was good and attractive, while the muddy house in his village was not? Looking at the woman sitting on a bench across the yard, she was very big, her large breasts claiming much of her front space; her belly, her bottom, her limbs were all very abundant, her nose elegantly large, her mouth delicately thick and wide, but why could he not regard her as a ‘beauty’? Why couldn’t his system generate a quick mating desire as it might often react to other ‘nice’ females? Or, maybe he could, or should, after all? Supposing he were in an island where no females were available but her…?        

This is ridiculous, such a condition of living! Such a torture to beauty-obsessed humankind! Such a brain washing definition in its society! The gull doesn’t seem to have such a troubling notion of ‘beauty’. It just fights, and eats, and mates to any one by a smell of gender. Well, is it so? Possibly!

After lunch, guided by a map, they walked towards Chinatown. On the way, they passed Hyde Park. It had a lot of high trees; the corridor under the majestic canopy was grand and dimmed and cool. There was some water, a fountain, where a few dark and naked sculptures were fighting each other. A man was gripping the horn of a bull-headed and human-bodied and much stronger beast, like he was winning the battle. But, if I were that beast, how easy it would be for me to jump and beat and devour the man, the absurd conceited little standing man! The whole thing didn’t make sense to him. And they were all naked, with their testicles shamelessly flapping in the mist. But for the sake of an indiscriminate sex balance, why didn’t they put the female organs also on display? It was not as if a man’s stuff was more demonstrative than a woman’s... I was a man, I was all too familiar with the thing, it was certainly much more desirable if…

‘I am very tired,’ she said, interrupting him. So he replied, ‘I am tired too,’ and added, ‘but if you don’t mind, I can carry you on my back.’

‘You think I don’t dare?’

‘No, I think you dare,’ he bent his back down, waiting for her. Yet her body didn’t climb on his back but her fist. He felt a pain. But he let her go; he would never revenge himself on a woman.

‘How silly we are!’ he said, ‘why don’t we just sit down and rest?’

‘But the benches are all taken.’

‘Look at those people on the grass, they sit, they lie, they drink, they open their mouths, and legs. Let’s go there.’

‘No, it is wet and damp, and I …’

‘I what?’

‘I am pregnant, how can I do that?’

‘Did your mother tell you so?’

‘No, common sense.’

‘So, what can we do?’

They looked around, and noticed an old ugly red-nosed man just leaving a bench not far from them. He trotted to it, in the same manner as he would approach a bus in Shanghai. After he took possession of the bench, he waved to her, who had been walking slowly all this afternoon. She was protecting her baby, he knew.

‘My feet are sore,’ she whinged as if that was his fault, and began to massage her calves. He decided to do her a favour, carrying both of her feet on to his lap, ‘Let me serve you, like a good Chinese husband.’

She was giggling, like a little person, and allowing him to manage a good portion of her legs. He did his job solicitously, for a couple of minutes, then he felt his penis began to grow.

This was obscene, no good.

He pushed her feet down to the ground. She complained immediately, ‘Why stop? You a lazy Chinese husband.’

Sorrily, he smiled, ‘I will let you know why tonight.’

She caught his hint a second later, then broke out in astonishment, ‘Oh, my… you are seriously, seriously a bad-egg,’ she looked at him frankly, as if he was really, really a bad-egg. ‘Seriously, can’t you stop thinking of the thing?’

‘What thing?’

‘The thing.’

‘What thing?’

‘The thing.’
….

They were at the entrance of Chinatown, which was an arch, the universal thing for Chinese characteristic. He didn’t like it, because the arch made him feel old and aged and musty. All the poor, ugly, crooked parts of Chinese history seemed condensed into that structure, in that mix-coloured paint and that meticulous subdued adornments.

And inside the road, it was again, a universal Chinese characteristic, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat,…until one ‘eat’ attracted the eyes of his wife. It was ‘Sichuan Grand Restaurant.’

‘Wooho, look at that…?!’ she pointed her slender fingers, evidently elated, her cheeks glowing, a pinkish eating desire lighting her lips. ‘Sichuan Grand Restaurant,’ she placed her emphasis equally on each word.

‘So what, haven’t you ever imagined of a Sichuan restaurant in Australia?’

‘Well, that is the first one I have seen so far in the city.’

‘Ok, then, let’s go in to taste the spicy food?’

‘No, no, it must be too expensive,’ she declined hastily, ‘and we have to buy things before it is too late.’

So they wandered along and, after passing the gold-capped, dead but dripping a little water, penis-like stick, erected from the ‘pelvic’ floor, they were out of Chinatown, or more precisely the China alley, which was wider but much shorter than the one in Melbourne, of which length made little difference to him.

There in Dixon Street, they found a grocery where Qiuyan, and of course he who had to accompany her and carry the things, buried themselves for nearly one hour.

‘Nearly fifty dollars,’ she said, then doing her first monetary conversion in Australia, ‘times six, oh, that is about three hundred yuan,’ then more comment, ‘too expensive, I should have bought these things while in China,’ then more comment, ‘if only I had known of my pregnancy before coming here.’

Later, on the train, he was tired enough for a nap. He closed his eyes, holding her body close to him. But Qiuyan was rather active, a number of times whispering to his ears her comments on the skin colour and body size of other passengers. But when a big pregnant woman stepped on the train, his eyes were forced to open.

Qiuyan said carefully, in Sichuan dialect, ‘Ah, how big, so ugly, wonder how ugly I will look.’

‘Come on, it is not ugly,’ he controlled his voice, ‘it is gracious and lively.’

‘Promise you will still love me when I am that big,’ she said.

‘Not just still, but love you more,’ he cooed. ‘Don’t you think her tummy has the shape of a banana?’

‘What?’

‘I mean, the shape of her tummy.’

‘You, ugly man, bad-egg,’ she chided, ‘but I don’t think I will grow that big.’

‘Who knows, if he is a boy, he will be as big as me, then he will stretch you extremely hard.’

‘Then I will make it as a girl,’ she said.

‘Too late,’ he laughed a little, ‘unless we make a change tonight.’

This time, she with her long thin fingers nipped his flesh until he cried, ‘Okay, okay, I won’t do it any more, are you then happy?’

Evidently she was not, for she nipped him harder than ever, though on another spot.  

Yes or no, in the business of handling a woman, he had to suffer.



-- End of Chapter 56 ---

Gone

撒谎不眨眼。。呵呵，是不是所有出轨的男人都这样。。他想到Pan时竟然毫无感觉。。

雄鹰展翅

楼主是什么木？

何木

Gone 发表于 2014-8-18 21:33
撒谎不眨眼。。呵呵，是不是所有出轨的男人都这样。。他想到Pan时竟然毫无感觉。。 ...

是所有出轨的男人都这样，还是所有的男人都这样？这又是一个表现形式的问题...pan是一个标准好女人...或许只有她看得透人生...爱情放在时间的尺度，强弱不一，或许爱情本是孤独人生的临时点缀？友情亲情更加真实？如果没有了性，还有爱情么？探讨一下...

何木

雄鹰展翅 发表于 2014-8-18 22:31
楼主是什么木？

朽木....老乡好..

Gone

何木 发表于 2014-8-18 22:42
是所有出轨的男人都这样，还是所有的男人都这样？这又是一个表现形式的问题...pan是一个标准好女人...或 ...

斌对 pan是爱吗。。

雄鹰展翅

何木 发表于 2014-8-18 22:44
朽木....老乡好..

老相好？

Gone

何木 发表于 2014-8-18 22:42
是所有出轨的男人都这样，还是所有的男人都这样？这又是一个表现形式的问题...pan是一个标准好女人...或 ...

没有性未必不是爱情。爱有太多的表现形式了。。性。。只是说明相爱的人彼此完全拥有。。。

Gone

斌真正地爱过谁呢。。问一下。。。。

何木

Gone 发表于 2014-8-18 22:53
斌真正地爱过谁呢。。问一下。。。。

好像没爱过，有迷恋过那个上海的Vivian...他当时是觉得“爱”的，但后面（的章节）说明那也不是爱，所以他是不明白的...其实我个人觉得有太多的人明白又不明白，一直爱到底，并且坚信这一点的估计在文学作品中居多...

Gone

何木明白什么是爱么?:)

Gone

Gone 发表于 2014-8-18 23:25
何木明白什么是爱么?:)

这样问，因为你是作者。作者一般都有明确的观点。。尤其这么长的著作。。。

何木

Gone 发表于 2014-8-18 23:25
何木明白什么是爱么?:)

不明白...爱是一种虚幻，它不能成为一个独立的概念，再说男女视角不同..

如果一道菜是“爱”，我更喜欢说这个菜是有什么组成的，因为不同的人食料不一样...但感觉可以一样疯狂..所以不要说爱，说这个东西里有什么，这样会清楚一些？比如年轻是激情性，老了是亲情和习惯，依赖的时候是经济和安全感，有了小孩是责任和亲子情感，孤单时候是一个人说说话，找一个有共同兴趣的人，等等...

Gone

叹气。。

Gone

何木 发表于 2014-8-18 23:37
不明白...爱是一种虚幻，它不能成为一个独立的概念，再说男女视角不同..

如果一道菜是“爱”，我更喜欢 ...

昨天看了你的回复忽然很惆怅，忘了说，谢谢你的回复 ..

何木

Gone 发表于 2014-8-19 09:12
昨天看了你的回复忽然很惆怅，忘了说，谢谢你的回复 ..

谢谢你的阅读。。其实，我觉得作者应该尽量不给出自己的观点，或者什么道德价值观等。只是呈现人物在那个时间和空间下的生活状态，让读者自己评判。。这个世界人实在太多，什么样的都有，制度规则往往是为了规范社会，限制人的自由。。但小说的人是应该是自由的。。应该是反映人性的。。比如，安娜那个小说，她爱还是不爱呢？飘里的是爱还是不爱呢？泰坦尼克号那个呢？。。。有些人出了轨还更爱了，才明白过来了。。难说。。

crystal11520

耐性不好的人路过...

Gone

何木 发表于 2014-8-19 14:37
谢谢你的阅读。。其实，我觉得作者应该尽量不给出自己的观点，或者什么道德价值观等。只是呈现人物在那个 ...

哈哈,所以我特地又上来说声谢谢。那本来是玩笑。。你没有斌油滑。。
不管怎么说,你笔下的斌是一个真实的男人。只这一点,你就是成功了。。
多谢你的分享。。

拙泥

'Touchy and jumpy, defending her baby...'
I see myself in this portait

拙泥

"我觉得作者应该尽量不给出自己的观点，或者什么道德价值观等"
Yes and No...
It is true that art exists in the viewer's mind and any preaching would leave no space for it. However, a literature would invariably reflect the authors view and value. I rather see it a way that the author express himself/ herself. Just like a painting, through which the artist show the viewer a picture. This picture, however, would certainly have been taken from a particular point of view and is often an expression of the artist emotions.

何木

拙泥 发表于 2014-8-21 18:41
"我觉得作者应该尽量不给出自己的观点，或者什么道德价值观等"
Yes and No...
It is true that art exists  ...

说的对，作者观点肯定是有，否则写作就没有意义了...观点的表达是隐性的，读者是潜移默化的。同时对“违规”人物赋予同情，因为不是恐怖分子或者战争小说....当然读者会根据自己的经历去解释，赋予其他的意义，或左或右，增加了作品的色彩...如果作者很明显表达是非观点，会影响读者阅读的积极性，或者产生逆风心理，说到底人是环境的人，放在同一个条件下谁都不一定就好坏多少...