The Noodle Maker(23)
SU SU: I will hire a wild tiger from the zoo. It will chase me across the stage, I will run away from it, and in the end I will die between its jaws.
MANAGER: Aren’t you afraid of tigers?
SU SU: I was born in the Year of the Tiger, but of course I’m as afraid of tigers as anyone else.
MANAGER: You’re incredible! I will let you do it. I too was born in the Year of the Tiger.
SU SU: So you’ve lived twenty-four years longer than me.
At this point, the manager suddenly came to his senses. He stared at the ‘dead’ person sitting before him, and asked her: ‘How much money do you want for this?’
‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘I will give my life away for free. If any part of my body happens to be of interest to you though, you’re free to make use of it tonight. Tomorrow it will be good for nothing.’
The wrinkles on the manager’s forehead suddenly smoothed out.
Three days later, a notice unlike any other that had appeared before was nailed to the entrance post of the Open Door Club.
TONIGHT OUR CLUB IS STAGING THE MOST GROUND-BREAKING SHOW IN THE WORLD: SUICIDE! IMPORTED FROM THE HIGHLY DEVELOPED NATION JAPAN, THE ACT IS BASED ON THE JAPANESE CONCEPT OF HARA-KIRI. THE PERFORMANCE WILL BANISH ALL SENSE OF SOLITUDE FROM THE SUICIDE VICTIM’S HEART. THERE IS NOW A WAITING LIST OF PEOPLE REQUESTING TO KILI. THEMSELVES BEFORE AN AUDIENCE THAT RUNS UNTIL 1997. TONIGHT, THE ACTRESS IS COMRADE SU YUN. DESCENDED FROM A POOR PEASANT’S FAMILY, SHE IS A LEAGUE MEMBER, IN THE PRIME OF HER YOUTH — A STARTLINGLY BEAUTIFUL YOUNG WOMAN. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE THIS CHARMING LADY TAKE HER OWN LIFE, HURRY UP AND BUY A TICKET!
TICKET PRICE: I YUAN
TIME: 3 AM, JUNE 4TH
That night the club was engulfed by tens of thousands of hopeful spectators. Anyone who managed to buy tickets at the booth squeezed themselves into the crowd and sold the tickets on for ten times the price. Various impromptu street stalls sprang up on the margins of the crowd. One man selling nylon jackets held up a sign that read: IF YOU WANT TO SQUEEZE A PATH TO THE TICKET BOOTH, THESE NYLON JACKETS WILL EASE YOUR WAY, and the tracksuit tops on his fold-up table were sold in a matter of minutes. Soon customers who bought his nylon jackets could be seen swarming through the crowd like red cockroaches. Everyone squeezing out from the ticket booth emerged half their previous thickness. Five unfortunate ticket holders were dragged out from under the crowd’s stamping feet. Four of them were already dead.
Su Yun hurriedly ran through the plot of the play in her mind as she stepped onto the stage in the basketball court. The audience exploded into rapturous applause, drowning the song ‘Kill the Tiger and Climb the Hill’ that was booming from the loudspeakers. The wild tiger entered the stage on its hind legs and waved at the audience; a team of athletes then strode confidently onto centre stage, and the audience continued to cheer and whistle. The tiger soon grew tired, and had to go back down on all fours, but it still managed to raise its front paw to the audience and wave cheerfully. Su Yun was wearing a clean white tracksuit. She had attached a plastic flower behind her right ear. Her skin looked rosy against her white clothes. She looked good enough to eat. Those in the know could tell from the blue piping that her tracksuit was imported and cost at least fifty FECs – domestically produced trousers didn’t have that distinctive blue piping.
She glanced about her with a fixed smile on her face, trying to adopt the expression the Chinese women’s volleyball team wore on their triumphant return from the Olympics. Unfortunately the tiger was looking the other way, and didn’t see her confident grin. As the applause rose in a crescendo, Su Yun scanned the audience for the painter’s face. She knew where he would be sitting. The day before, she had gone to see him at the municipal museum. She gave him a ticket, and told him it was for her one-woman show. When he asked her what act she was performing, she told him it was a suicide show. He smiled and said, ‘That sounds very intriguing.’ She searched the crowd once more, and at last caught sight of his panic-stricken eyes.
‘He thinks I’m lying again,‘she said to herself, ‘or playing a game. When the tiger sinks its teeth into me though, he will feel sorry. But it will be too late. He will be upset to see my foot go, or my ear. That will bring him to his senses. The moment the tiger pounces on me, he’ll scramble over the wire cage and come to my rescue.’ She waved to him again, and he waved back. The noise of the crowd slowly died down. For a moment, she lost her will to perform, but her professional instincts took over. Twelve years of life as an actress enabled her to keep calm and move gracefully to centre stage.