The Noodle Maker(26)

‘That’s a terrible thing to say.’ A look of rage flashes across the writer’s swollen face.

‘You two had broken up by the time I started going out with her. Or at least, you were having arguments all the time.’

‘Is that what you call breaking up?’ The writer remembers the day Su Yun told him she never wanted to see him again.

‘Of course, I’ve always said it’s best to break up with women gradually. After she dumped you, I advised you to stay away from her, but you continued to see her on the sly. That’s how things were. We were all to blame.’

‘So, what do you think is the best way to break up with a woman then?’ the writer asks with a smirk. In his heart he knows that Su Yun’s only motive for getting involved with them was to make the painter jealous.

‘You should take her to a concert, or to the cinema.’

‘Yes, but most of us can’t manage that.’ The writer looks away and thinks to himself: Su Yun and I were both following paths that were contrary to our nature, and in the end we had to return to the place we started from. Men keep their jealousy hidden, but women need to act it out. Was it us who destroyed her? Did she really exist? My memory of her is like a shard of broken glass that reflects back to me the occasional spark of love. ‘Did you think she was pretty?’ he asks after a long silence.

‘No more pretty than any nice-looking woman you see walking down the street,’ the blood donor says, lighting another cigarette. ‘Women are very pragmatic. If you notice one standing before you with a cold, blank look on her face, you should leave her at once.’

‘Her eyes never lied,’ the writer says. ‘Women’s eyes only light up when they want you. Once they’ve got their hands on you, the light starts to fade.’ The writer looks as though he has just emerged from a dark study. His eyes are glazed. The blood donor is used to this distracted manner of his. ‘There’s nothing so ridiculous as thinking love can be eternal,’ the writer adds. ‘Eternity is a bronze statue caked with green rust. Eternity is death.’

‘We delude ourselves into thinking love will make us happy,’ the blood donor replies. Suddenly the lights go out. In the dark, the men are like two smoking radio sets. The one on the left continues: ‘We divide women up into the beautiful and the ugly. We only ever fall in love with a face.’

‘So you really loved her then …’ The man on the right sounds as dark and hollow as the wall behind him.

‘I loved her in a different way from how you did. She said I was able to give her things you never could.’

‘What things?’

‘Do you have a motorbike? Do you have tickets for next week’s concert? Do you have FECs? Can you take a woman into a hotel where foreigners stay? You have probably never even stepped inside the Friendship Store. Your year’s salary isn’t enough to buy one pair of Italian shoes. But look at me! Not only can I go into the Friendship Store and look at those Italian shoes, I can buy them with my own FECs. What do today’s women want? The answer is everything that you don’t have.’ The voice on the left sounds as gravelly as a rusty bucket. ‘Look, this cigarette lighter of mine is imported,’ he adds, flicking it on with a ttssaa.

Four balls of light gaze at the foreign, blue flame. Then suddenly the flame goes out.

‘How much did that cost you?’ the voice on the right asks.

‘It’s filled with gas. If you meet a woman who smokes, just light her cigarette with it and she’s yours.’

‘We should think of women in the same way as we think of cigarette lighters,’ says the voice on the right. This lighter of mine is too old, he thinks to himself. It’s time I got myself a new one.

The two shadows fall silent in the black room. The darkness drags them back to their memories. A picture of the actress flashes before their eyes, or through their bodies.

The one on the left says: ‘Sex is a good thing. It turns love into an action.’

‘I don’t think women attach more importance to sex than men. They are emotional creatures. If they feel no affection for you, their bodies become as hard as wood.’

‘Not everyone can see things like you do. But if I could write, I’m sure I’d be a better writer than you. I know about the real world. You just write in order to fill your inner void, you have no experiences to draw from. You see life in terms of tragedy and myth. You are obsessed by your fear of death. But death is something everyone has to go through, there’s nothing particularly interesting about it.’

‘Corruption and secrecy have become the only laws in this country.’