'You'll Do the Job with Skill and Ease'
From The Unfilial: Four Tragic Tales from Modern China by Yao Emei, translated by Martin Ward, pp. 204-207, published by Sinoist Books
Over time, he reached the point at the mahjong table where he could be very flustered and yet maintain a calm disposition. Sometimes he had an unlucky hand all night long, to the point that he could no longer pay what he owed, to which the other players just magnanimously said, "It’s all right, let’s just make a note of what you owe.” After that, whenever he could not pay, he made a note of it. Bookkeeping blurred his sense of how much he was winning and losing, and also blurred his sense of shame. He even consoled himself with the thought that it was just a game and just a way to keep track of winning and losing.
He was thus saddled with a huge gambling debt, a figure so large that Mum’s jaw dropped. Then she unexpectedly laughed and said, “No way, how could you have lost so much? It would be hard for a person to even count such a large figure while sitting at the table.” It wasn’t until a visitor presented a signed IOU and Dad lowered his eyebrows and looked away as he admitted it was true, that she was somewhat convinced.
One night a group of strangers broke into our house, pinned Dad’s hands to the table and raised a machete high in the air ready to chop. Dad was already scared witless, and his voice became like the distressed lowing of a cow as he cried and begged Mum, “Let’s just give them the house, let’s just give it to them.”
Mum made a disdainful face at him and asked the man who wanted to cut off his hand, “If this hand is given to you, can I have the IOU back?”
"You wish!” the man replied. “What use would I have for his unlucky hand? If I cut off this hand, the most you’ll get is a three-month extension.”
I don’t know what Mum was scheming at the time, but with unprecedented bravery, she took a step forward and suggested to them: two hands cut off for all my dad’s gambling debts forgiven. The man laughed, and said, “I’m not here to bargain with you. You reckon my knife is fake, right?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, one of Dad’s fingers was cut short. Dad stared at the finger that had left him and froze for a good five seconds before he screamed in horror. I still remember that scream which was more from fear than pain, and what was even more horrifying was the knife being positioned again at the ready.
Mum, who had just been bargaining calmly, collapsed and fell to the ground instantly as if her spine had been broken, saying, “Take it, we’ll give you everything, take it all.”
She wrapped the severed finger in cling film and the three of us rushed to the hospital. The medics attached the end of the finger back on, but not well, leaving it at an odd angle.
The house was sold, the gambling debts and loan paid off, and medical bills paid, and there was even a little left over. Dad put that money in Mum’s hand, saying, “I swear, I’ll earn it back for you.”
Strangely, Mum had no expression on her face. I really thought she was going to make a scene, but she didn’t. Ever since she took Dad to the hospital, she had been as expression‐ less as a plasticine model.
Only afterwards when I heard my grandma talking to my mum did I understand why she hadn’t made a scene. Grandma said, “I didn’t expect him to be such an unstable person, unstable on his bike, unstable in his work, having a poor family and a small home, and gambling to boot. It’s what happens to many respected, affluent families who have lost their fortunes.”
“Things have to be seen in the round,” Mum replied. “If we didn’t pay for my sister to receive medical treatment, we wouldn’t have had to take out a loan. And if we hadn’t taken out a loan, he wouldn’t have tried to win money and lost the family fortune in the process.”
“I wouldn’t dare let your sister hear that, we had to plan and replan that several times. You really can’t blame your sister. Women in their fifties and sixties are fine on an electric moped. He is such a big man, but he is not even as good as a woman.”
“I wasn’t blaming her, who could?” Mum replied. “I only blame myself. How can I live so long and yet go backwards and be penniless again?”
But a bigger disaster was just around the corner. Word about what had happened to Dad somehow reached the school, so the headmaster spoke to him. Before long, officials from the education committee came to the school and Dad was approached by one group of people after another. Finally, he was given a document headed in red letters with the words: “Regarding the expulsion of a certain Mr You”.
Dad must have been a bit out of sorts at that time, as he arranged for me and Mum to go to my grandmother’s house. The house had only one bedroom and one living room, but the so-called living room was only the size of two dining tables and contained a stove and sink as well. We had to sleep in shifts while we were there, with my grandmother and aunt sleeping during the day because they were not working, and my mother and I sleeping at night. As a result, I often smelled food in my dreams and also whispered during the night that my grand‐ mother and aunt were having their “daytime”. As for Dad, roamed around outside all day, and he even once vanished for a while.
But this situation was not to last long, as Mum and I were bringing in new germs from outside every day and my aunt had started to develop symptoms that she had never had before.
Once I heard Mum on the phone with someone, and I happened to overhear a few words: “…that won’t work, right? What will people think of me, divorcing my husband when he has no money? How would I be able to maintain my integrity in the future? No, I can’t do such a thing… Divorce is better for the child, you say? Not necessarily. I think I should take it as a test sent from above. But really, this test is too brutal. If this is because of my karma, I can’t escape it even if I want to.”
A month or so later, Dad came to us in high spirits having checked into a room in a hotel, and he called us to join him and leave the stuffy atmosphere at Grandma’s house.
He said he had been to many places, met many people, broadened his mind and refreshed his thinking. He claimed to have seen a new way of life that we had never thought of before, in which it was possible for people to escape from being controlled by material things, or at least being controlled by houses. He also said the same went for fame and fortune, which people pursue only to exchange for material things, and that in the end, they live only for the pursuit of material pleasures, having long since thrown their spirit away somewhere unknowingly.
He said a lot, but when Mum still didn’t respond, he got straight to the point. He said our house had not been sold but taken away by some unseen force – and it was this force which was compelling us to give up material things and live a spiritually pure life.