From the piles of paper on her desk, she picked up a few pages of script and started reading them aloud. It was a scene in which her alter ego, Su Su, is visited by Li Liao and Old Xing – two characters based respectively on the professional writer and the blood donor.
A small single room in the actors’ quarters above the Jiefang District art centre.
LI LIAO: [Knocks on the door.] Su Su! [Knocks again.] It’s me! [SU SU gets up slowly from her chair and walks towards the door.] I waited two hours for you in the restaurant. I thought something must have happened to you.
[LI LIAO walks in and stands beside SU SU’s chair. His lined face resembles a walnut. SU SU averts her gaze and links her hands across her chest.]
LI LIAO: What’s the matter? [He notices the awkward expression on her face.]
SU SU: Old Xing’s just been round.
LI LIAO: So?
SU SU: I said yes to him. I said I would marry him.
[The actor playing LI LIAO can improvise on his expression here, but should not resort to knocking the chair over.]
LI LIAO: We’ve been seeing each other for nearly a year now, and we’ve never had a row. Why would you want to marry him?
SU SU: The fact is, I don’t love you.
LI LIAO: But you told me you loved me.
SU SU: So what? Why do you believe everything I say? Didn’t you say yourself that women are incapable of telling the truth?
LI LIAO: I have grown used to the way your words differ from your actions. In fact, I’m starting to find it quite sweet.
SU SU: I’m sorry, women are made of salt, not sugar …
Su Yun carried the pages to her bed and lay down. In the rehearsal room below, the art centre’s orchestra was tuning up. She lit a cigarette with one hand and continued reading the script.
LI LIAO: How can you marry him? Do you really think he’s better than me? When he stands up straight, he doesn’t even reach your shoulders. Is it because he’s got money, and his pockets are stuffed with Foreign Exchange Certificates and egg ration tickets? Or are you playing one of your little games? Is this just another act?
The orchestra below swelled in a sudden crescendo. It sounded like an earthquake. Above the roar, a soprano belted out flirtatiously: ‘The girls are as pretty as flowers. How the men love to gaze upon them! …’
Su Yun could no longer hear herself speak. She repeated: ‘Is this just another act?’ at the top of her voice, but the words were drowned by the music.
She listened to the French horns and trombones struggling to play in unison. The drums were so loud they made the floorboards shake and the old lamp on her desk flicker. She noticed an eye of the white cat in the framed picture on her wall turn from blue to red.
LI LIAO: What did I do wrong?
SU SU: Don’t ask, don’t ask. [She is almost shouting now, but her expression is still calm.] We should call it a day. I stopped loving you ages ago. I only said I loved you when I was caught in the heat of the moment. It didn’t count.
LI LIAO: Does what you say now count?
SU SU: Yes.
LI LIAO: I don’t believe you! I’ve heard you say all this a hundred times before.
[They glare ferociously at one another. SU SU’s fierce expression is out of keeping with her flowery nightgown. The stagehands should prepare to turn the dials to eleven when the clock strikes the hour.]
SU SU: It’s getting late, you should be on your way.
[Just as LI LIAO is about to storm off stage, OLD
XING walks through the door. This man is short and deathly pale. He is dressed in a Western suit and platform heels. Standing next to him, LI LIAO looks like a tramp in his tattered shirt and scruffy plimsolls. OLD XING leans down, pulls out a present from his bag and, with both hands, offers it to SU SU.]
OLD XING: This is for you. It’s a pack of imported cigarettes.
SU SU: Thank you. Don’t bother taking your shoes off. Come in, come in!
‘Our glorious Motherland. The place I grew up. On this infinite expanse of . . .’ As the soprano paused for breath, Su Yun shouted out again: ‘Come in, come in!’ The soprano belted out a final ‘Aaaah’ as the drums rolled into a frenetic climax, then suddenly a magical calm descended upon the room – a calm similar to the relief one feels after revealing one’s naked body to another person for the first time. Su Yun lowered her voice to a whisper.
LI LIAO: So when did you accept his proposal?
SU SU: An hour ago.
LI LIAO: Well that’s that then.
SU SU: I have the right to choose my own path in life.
LI LIAO: Yes, but you have no right to lie.
‘This is not true,’ Su Yun scribbled fiercely across her script, under the words ‘I said I would marry him’.
In fact, she had never loved either of these two men. She had only got involved with them because she wanted to make the painter jealous and stir him from his apathy. But her acting skills were still quite rudimentary at the time, and she had little understanding of her role. In reality, all she wanted was a chance to flaunt her female charms and entwine men in her web of lies. In this world, lies are unavoidable, and are sometimes very useful. Men presume that women only cry when they are upset, but women know very well that their tears fall as easily as piss.