Leave Me Alone Read online

  Although she had done nothing to be ashamed of, because of her conservative upbringing in a poor village, Zhao Yue couldn’t be candid about sexual matters. She’d always maintained that the incident in the woods was her first time, and insisted that it hadn’t entered fully. When you’re on someone’s side and they won’t admit the truth, it’s frustrating. In response I’d decided on the following strategy: to sympathise, educate, and then help Zhao Yue to understand the realities of intercourse.

  No matter if it’s the first time, or the hundredth time, it’s the same thing, I told her. You know numbers aren’t important. Whether it enters completely or just halfway, it’s still sex.

  Sociologists seem rarely to have researched the psychology of a husband being willingly betrayed. I often wondered whether my own many affairs came from a subconscious desire for revenge for that image of Zhao Yue that Bighead had luridly embellished for my imagination. But there was nothing to take revenge for because I’d had several women before Zhao Yue. That PE teacher was one of them. Even after I was going out with Zhao Yue, the teacher and I once had an extra-curricular workout on a weights machine after a PE class.

  Anyway, I didn’t believe Zhao Yue’s claim that she had a lover. Women always try to get attention by playing mind games, and so I wasn’t bothered about her imaginary entrepreneur. Zhao Yue later said she would introduce him to me. I said if she dared I would beat the crap out of him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  After our General Manager was fired, Head Office sent in a team to do an audit. At the same time they carried out a bit of ‘propaganda work’. They called us to a meeting — more than two hundred people crammed into an stuffy room. A stupid prick droned on for ages. He urged us to be loyal to the company, to give more and demand less, to work but not complain. He even came out with a saying from the classics: Diligent in our duty; indifferent towards individual profit.

  I thought, mate, we’re all wage-slaves; is there any need for such bullshit? Then I heard him mention my name.

  ‘Manager Chen is the backbone of the Chengdu branch,’ he said. ‘In the last few years he has made a big contribution. He’s not afraid to take responsibility. All we need is for everyone to follow Manager Chen’s lead and our company will achieve great things.’

  I had an ominous hunch that this was Fatty Dong’s trickery.

  That prat had naturally rushed to sit at the front with the eunuch from Head Office. He looked like an attentive grandson with his notebook spread on his knee, his fat face one big smile. When the time came to make his own report, he gave me another subtle jab in passing: ‘Manager Chen, your skills are great, but you’re not such a good team player.’ I looked at him: the arsehole was wearing an elegant pair of braces, and was bent over writing something in his notebook. I cursed him silently: Are those farts really worth writing down?

  After the meeting was finally done, Fatty Dong invited me to his office and set to work on me. He said that he’d never expected to be appointed General Manager and had protested several times that he wasn’t worthy. Apparently he’d recommended me for the position but the company had said that although I had ability, I wasn’t ready. ‘You still need more experience,’ he told me portentously.

  Spare me the bullshit, I thought.

  When Fatty had finished his spiel, he pretended he wanted to be friends. ‘I know you,’ he said. ‘You hadn’t even thought about the General Manager position.’

  ‘That’s way beyond someone ignorant like me,’ I agreed. ‘What I need, Boss Dong, is a man of experience like you to be my mentor.’

  Fatty Dong smiled magnificently, and I seized the opportunity.

  ‘Could you ask Head Office whether there’s any chance of a raise? I’m saving for a house and money is tight. Also, our sales department always exceeds its targets, so I don’t see why we should get less than admin staff.’

  His fat smile melted like an ice-cream on the beach.

  I called the sales team together and punched the air aggressively.

  ‘Brothers, good news! I’ve already applied to get everyone a raise. Damn you, Liu Three, if you’re handing round the cigarettes, give me one!’

  Liu Three laughed as he tossed me a Red Pagoda cigarette, then Zhou Weidong bent his head and lit it for me.

  ‘Boss Dong opposed the increase,’ I explained. ‘He made me beg three times before he finally agreed to take this to Head Office. Let’s all keep a close eye on Boss Dong.’ I gave those two words ‘Boss Dong’ a mean bite. Secretly I was thinking: Fatty Dong, there’s no way I can make this team of more than a hundred people like you. Getting them to detest you though would be just too easy.

  For so many people to get a salary increase at the same time would mean at least a twenty per cent increase in the Chengdu branch’s operating costs. If Fatty dared to make this request to Head Office and he wasn’t rebuffed then I’d get the credit. But if he didn’t even dare to ask, then how could he manage the sales department?

  The meeting room was thick with cigarette smoke as the news of a possible raise elated everyone. The steam repair department chief, Zhou Yan, one of the few women in our sales team, called out, Big Brother, if they really increase our salaries we’ll all chip in to get you a mistress.

  Liu Three said, ‘If you’re thinking about being Big Brother’s mistress, then just come out and say so, no need to be coy. It can be arranged.’ He grinned at me.

  My flunkies all laughed and Zhou Yan gave me a look, her face as red as paint. Actually I’d sensed all along that she had some kind of crush on me, but according to common sense values a rabbit doesn’t eat the grass near its own burrow. How could I have the face to give someone instructions by day and then at night stretch out my hand to take off her skirt?

  During lunch in a local noodle joint, my other university friend Bighead Wang called my cellphone and asked whether my company could get hold of government car plates. I said that it all depended who they were for.

  ‘Just get them,’ Bighead said. ‘It’s me that wants them.’

  ‘OK, let’s call Li Liang and go to Old Mother’s Hotpot restaurant for a few beers,’ I said. ‘We can talk about it then.’

  After graduation, Bighead Wang had joined the cops. From day one, he’d insisted that he didn’t want a desk job, he wanted to be on the beat. Li Liang and I both questioned his sanity. On the contrary, he replied, we were both dickheads, and then he gave the first exposition of his now famous ‘rights’ theory.

  ‘Cops on the beat have the right to be corrupt, but pen-pushers can only wag their tails obediently,’ he told us. He went on: ‘An inside section chief makes around 1000 yuan a month, whereas I hear that a cop on the beat can get several thousand in bribes. You tell me which type of public servant is more valued?’

  This foresight demonstrated Bighead’s genius because five years later he was already the head of a busy downtown precinct. He had a car and a house, and he weighed about 20 kilos more than at the time of graduation. I often taunted him that if he were a pig, twenty kilos would be enough to feed a family for a whole month.

  After work I drove my company Santana downtown to Old Mother’s hotpot restaurant, where I found Bighead established in a booth and hitting on a young waitress. Bighead laughably fancied himself as the literary type, just because he’d collected loads of books, mostly European and American. He bragged that he never forgot anything he read, and was always ready to give people his take on Duras’s The Lovers, as well as Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. When I arrived, the guy was quoting a proverb from the classics: Husband and wife were two birds in a forest, but when disaster came they both flew away. While you’re alive she’ll be loving, but when you’re dead she’ll leave with the others.

  I drank my tea and then said, ‘It works better as While you’re alive she’ll screw you every day, when you die she’ll screw other people.’

  The red-faced waitress beat a hasty retreat. I said to Bighead, ‘Yet again you’re schemin
g to ruin a girl from a good family.’

  Bighead patted his fat gut and told me that recently he’d seen Zhao Yue being intimate with some stud. ‘Now who is green with envy?’ he asked, looking at me closely with a strange expression in his eyes.

  A few days after we had rescued Zhao Yue from the gang in the woods, she had unexpectedly appeared in our dorm — dressed plainly without makeup — and said she wanted to treat us to a meal. That day she kept her head lowered the whole time and hardly spoke.

  ‘You’re being very quiet,’ I said to her, trying to cheer her up. ‘You’re putting us off our beer.’

  Zhao Yue, her eyes finally brimming with tears, just wanted to say one thing: ‘I won’t forget what you did, but if anyone finds out what happened, I will have to kill myself immediately.’

  Bighead Wang and I swore that we would never talk about it. On the road back to the dormitory, Bighead said something that moved me: ‘Zhao Yue really is a sad creature.’

  ‘Too right,’ I agreed, and even now, thinking about her tear-filled eyes I felt a little pained.

  Li Liang sent the restaurant door flying open. As he strode in he was making frantic hand gestures while yelling into his phone, ‘Quick, buy as many as you can.’

  To our amusement, we saw that he was wearing a neatly pressed business suit and his glossy hair was in a centre part.

  Bighead said, ‘The son of a bitch looks like a duck.’

  Li Liang told us that the outfit was to impress his mother-in-law. That very afternoon he’d visited his girlfriend’s family to set the date: they were getting married on 1 May.

  Surprised, I asked him which family’s daughter had unluckily fallen into his evil hands.

  He said, ‘You know her. Ye Mei.’

  My heart missed a beat and then I said, ‘Fuck me.’

  Of course, I wondered whether or not I should tell him what had happened that night I’d driven Ye Mei home.

  After toasting Li Liang with shots, I bought a round of beers. Li Liang’s expression was deliriously happy. He said that they planned to buy a villa by the banks of the Funan River. ‘We’ll live upstairs, and downstairs will be our mahjong parlour and games room.’

  I said, ‘After you get married will you join the wife-swapping club?’

  He shook his head, looking slightly wistful, but then conceded, ‘If you bring Zhao Yue along, I’ll swap with you.’

  I’d told Li Liang a few weeks ago about the wife swapping club run by Fatty Dong’s friend. Li Liang had moaned in admiration and, his mouth watering, he’d said that if he had a wife he would definitely take her there. Later though, Fatty Dong had warned me that his friend had links with both cops and gangs so we’d better stay away from the club.

  Meanwhile Bighead was hearing about the club for the first time: ‘How come you never told me?’ I placated him with vivid description, and his eyes gradually widened. Sucking in a deep breath, he sighed, ‘The world has such wonders!’

  Ye Mei called while we were eating and Li Liang sat in a corner cooing nauseatingly while continuing to put the beers away. After a while though he came over and said that Ye Mei wanted to talk to me for a minute. It was noisy in the bar — Bighead was watching football and refused to turn the TV down — so I had to go out to the passageway.

  It wasn’t much quieter there. I heard Ye Mei say something like, ‘She’s late.’

  I said, ‘Who’s late?’

  ‘Not who, what.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Ye Mei was suddenly furious. ‘Fuck you. I mean my period didn’t come.’

  Long silence. ‘Couldn’t this be Li Liang’s problem?’ I said eventually.

  Ye Mei let fly a barrage of invective, claiming that she’d never even touched Li Liang’s hand. I was angry too because no one had sworn at me like that for a long time.

  I said, ‘So what are you going to do?’

  She was tearful. ‘If I knew that, why would I be talking to you?’

  My brain calculated at lightning speed. I realised this couldn’t be done in Chengdu and so I said, ‘On Saturday we’ll go to Leshan. Think of something to tell Li Liang.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  On the streets of Chengdu any face can seem familiar, any casual look can contain a deeper meaning. A flash of the eyes, a casual turn of the head, can jemmy open the gates of memory and cause the past to flood out. Once, when I was buying cigarettes at the kiosk outside the entrance to Du Fu’s cottage, the old vendor addressed me by my childhood name: ‘Rabbit, you’ve grown so big.’

  She said that years ago she’d been my neighbour, but although I racked my brain for ages I couldn’t remember ever having a neighbour like her.

  Then there was the time I crawled drunk into a three-wheeled cab and the driver said, ‘When did it all go wrong, brother?’

  I said, ‘Who the hell are you? I don’t know you.’

  ‘I’m your primary school classmate Chen Three! We stole a girl’s bag together once. Have you completely forgotten?’

  I thought there had to be something wrong with my memory because from a certain point in time, the record of my life was being erased section by section. Whose bag had this impudent driver and I stolen? Who had I walked with hand in hand by the banks of the Funan River? Whose smile had driven me crazy all that time ago?

  I couldn’t remember.

  Then what did I remember?

  The events of my colourful past were vague, blurred like birds flying by. I could picture myself in countless drinking establishments, glass in hand. I could recall the smiles of people I’d once known, and see girls of every shape and size lying with me, awaiting dawn in the curve of my arm. A few details were still vivid — me in a smart suit sitting in the Diamond Entertainment City with my arms around a gaudily made-up hostess, getting her to guess how many of my fingers were tucked inside her skirt.

  ‘Three,’ she’d said.

  ‘Wrong!’ I’d said, making a fanfare and lifting her skirt. ‘It’s four.’

  Fatty Dong rapped on my office door. Since becoming general manager, Fatty was an even more magnificent sight, walking around very proudly just as a top official should.

  I said, ‘Boss Dong your graciousness, what words of wisdom do you have for me?’

  ‘Shut it, you prick. I’ll tell you some good news: Head Office has approved the raise for the sales team, but we can’t give it to everyone. At most, twenty per cent. Make a list of who should get the raise and have it on my desk by tomorrow.’

  I cursed as I watched his ungainly behind retreating. Fatty might be a pig but I’d forgotten that pigs have high IQs. Now it didn’t matter who got the raise, the rest of the sales team would naturally resent me. If Fatty Dong wanted to stir things up, he could put it about that those who got the increase were my mates, while those who didn’t were my enemies. The loyalty that I’d painstakingly cultivated in my team would be destroyed.

  Spreading malicious rumours was Fatty Dong’s speciality. Our last General Manager had been forced out as a result of one of Fatty’s letters. The letter alleged that our former boss had committed several offenses such as sexual harassment, accepting bribes, and spending company money extravagantly. No way was I going to let Fatty get me as well.

  I summoned the sales managers of the steam repair unit, the fittings unit and the oil materials unit to my office. I assigned the quota of names for the raise between them and I told each of them to submit me a list separately.

  Zhao Yan said, ‘Big Brother, forget about a mistress. It seems there’s only enough cash for a one-night stand.’

  Liu Three gave me a malicious wink. I didn’t respond, just smiled and watched Zhou Yan leave the room: large, ripe buttocks and two long and slender legs, with skin like snow.

  When I got home, I told Zhao Yue that I needed 5000 yuan.

  What do you need it for? she asked.

  I said that I’d been careless and got a girl pregnant and she had to have an abortion. This was part of my
skill in handling Zhao Yue: each time I told her the truth, she thought I was winding her up. The more I tried to cover things up, the more desperate she was to know what was really going on — many of the bowls in our house have got smashed that way.

  Zhao Yue said ferociously, ‘If you ever dare to mess up like that, I’ll cut it off.’

  When I held her tightly to my chest, she softened. I sighed and thought sadly that Zhao Yue really had no idea.

  ‘Why do you really need the money?’ she asked.

  ‘I have to go to Leshan on business this weekend.’

  ‘Why don’t you borrow from the company?’

  ‘I haven’t repaid the money I borrowed last time,’ I told her. ‘If you haven’t cleared the slate, then you can’t borrow any more.’

  As I spoke I felt a twinge of anxiety, reflecting that, unknown to Zhao Yue, in the past few years I’d run up a debt to the company of something like 200,000 yuan. Somehow I had to think of a way to clear that. When that eunuch from head office had come to do the audit, he’d spent ages grilling me about the debt issue.

  On top of that, Ye Mei’s pregnancy had me sweating like never before. In the past I’d got a few girls in the family way — for example, my breadstick lover, as well as a Sichuan University English department student. However, I just gave them a few thousand yuan and everything was sweet, they were content to take care of things themselves. They didn’t need me to be there. But this time, unexpectedly, it was my best friend’s fiancé and so the situation was particularly delicate.