He picked up his pen. Whatever happened, he knew he had to write. Two peasants who had asked him to draw up a complaint were standing patiently by his side. They had travelled into town to report that their village Party secretary had murdered a widow and her children. After the street writer finished the letter, he helped them post it and invited them for a meal. When the peasants looked up at him gratefully from the restaurant table and squeezed the white dumplings in their trembling black hands, thoughts filled his mind once more. He had seen many peasants like them before, on the trains he took back to his hometown. They lived like cockroaches, scuttling from one place to the next, struggling to make a living. He thought of how, when they sat in the trains, the smells of rancid food wafting from their fake leather bags would merge with the stench from the toilets at the end of the carriage.
Whenever he returned home, he felt as frail and vulnerable as a silkworm that had just shed its cocoon. His residency permit would forever be fixed to his place of birth; he had no back-door connections to help him apply for a transfer. The only way he could survive in this coastal town was to melt into the background. He seldom entered shops, and only visited the public showers once a month, making sure to sneak in just before closing time. He only dared fetch water from his outside tap in the middle of the night. To avoid washing his clothes and then having to hang them out to dry, he just scraped the oil and dirt from shirt collars every four days with the blade of his letter knife. He took his meals at one dumpling stall whose owner he trusted. He always left his shed early in the morning, before any of his neighbours were up. He was amazed he had managed to survive all these years without raising any serious alarms.
‘Look at her make-up! She looks like a painted eggshell!’ he mumbled, staring at a woman passing by on the street. He was shocked by this comment. He buried his head in his hands, grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled: ‘I really have gone mad this time. Nothing seems real.’ As the nib of his pen scratched across the page, the image of himself as a child flashed through his mind again. He saw himself aged six, climbing out of a box, looking up with large moist eyes and crying, ‘Let go of me! I can get out by myself.’ He grabbed the child and placed him down on the ground. The boy crawled across the floor, and suddenly one of his legs fell off. Then his head fell off, and rolled towards the beam of light slanting through the window. ‘You’re not real,’ he said, walking over to the child and digging out the eyes from his face. He then saw the child’s eyes displayed in a shop window. A fat woman bought the eyes and walked off with them, and he chased after her through a maze of narrow streets. It was a dream that had recurred for thirteen years.
‘Those eyes see everything,’ he often sighed, when he woke up from this dream. ‘When I rise into the sky, I will fly like a bird.’
Walking home at night in the lamplight, he often saw the dismembered child falling to the ground like a feather. But tonight, as he approached the intersection in the centre of town, the old hag’s words still racing through his mind, his thoughts cleared, and a terrible sense of guilt descended upon him. He felt ashamed of his dishonest profession, and all the love he had helped destroy. He had wanted to lead an honest life, but there was no place for honesty in this town.
In the silent hours before dawn, he was still awake, writing at his desk.
‘Only through suffering can man gain wisdom. People who have never suffered are incapable of growing up. Happiness is a wooden cabin one finds after a long and difficult journey; people who take the easy path never get to see it. The unhappiness I’ve suffered in the past has been other people’s unhappiness. It has left no mark on me.’
When the rake-thin street writer saw the truth at last he laughed out loud. He thought about what the mother of the actress had told him, and about the hundreds of love letters he had written. Although his clients had exploited his creative skills, they had supplied him with a great deal of knowledge. The women’s intimate revelations had allowed the virginal street writer to mature gracefully. He realised that he had finally overcome his shyness and embarrassment, and that it was now time for him to seek out his own love. Stunned by this idea, he jumped onto his bed and stood still for a moment. He was elated. He would never have believed that the day might come for him to embark on a real love affair of his own.
‘But whom shall I love?’ he asked himself. Blushing, he thought of Chi Hui, the young woman from a distant province to whom he had written passionate love letters for an entire year. A fortnight ago, he had been ready to strangle his client for all the pain he had caused her. The love that had fallen from her letters like snowflakes had made him dizzy with confusion.