Toward the North Read online

  Maybe Timid Huang doesn’t want people to see her lick the injury, Xiaokai thought.

  “How is your English? Can you follow the course?” Shangjie asked hesitantly.

  A moment later, Xiaokai realized the question was not related to the cat, but to her. Not ready for his question, she was momentarily speechless, knowing that if she spoke, she would cry. And, she didn’t want to burst into tears in front of him.

  The air got heavy in Xiaokai’s silence, and it was like rocks were piling up on Shangjie’s shoulders. Unable to stand it, he left. At the door, he turned his head. “Call me if Timid Huang doesn’t get better.” She nodded, still silent. The open door was closed again. He became a grey figure disappearing down the staircase. In fact, had she peeked from the corner of her eye, she would’ve seen another person waiting for him, but she didn’t. She’d had heard a little about his affair, but she had never questioned him about it, not even during their heartbreaking quarrels. In her stubborn viewpoint, if that person was not in her sight, then that person never existed.

  Shangjie moved out after his graduation. He had been eager to leave a long time ago, but he hadn’t. Instead, he waited until Xiaokai got her landing papers. She knew that he was like a piece of string attached to a kite. Others saw the end of the line in her hand, but only she saw the split threads of the line clearly.

  The evening Shangjie officially moved out, he took with him several books, as he had already moved some of his other items at different times. Her head buried under the blanket, Xiaokai lay in bed, listening to his footsteps outside the door. The quilt was her nest, her cocoon, and her protection. The outside world that she didn’t want to face was risky. She couldn’t leave the safety of her bed. If she did, she would be swallowed up by monsters. The quilt kept her far away from the world, and the inside of the quilt was clean. And safe. Outside she heard him say, “The bank account has been changed into your name. If you have any questions, you could talk to the teller who speaks Chinese,” he paused. When there was no response from Xiaokai, he left.

  The sound of his footsteps faded as he descended the staircase and Xiaokai felt as though a sharp needle had chiselled a hole in her chest. Her soul squeezed through the hole, floated to the ceiling and then looked down on her body from a high position. It repeated: run after him! Ask him to come back! Her body was like a lump of rotting flesh lying on the bed, with no strength at all. Her soul couldn’t make her body move. Her soul and body debated all the night. At day daybreak, she got up, but felt as though her legs remained on the bed. Her legless body rolled through the room and into the washroom. She took a cup of water to brush her teeth. Suddenly a dirty yellow stone dropped into the cup. Staring at it, she realized that it was her tooth. One of her teeth had come out.

  She took her tooth out of the cup and clenched it tightly in her hand. Dizzily, half awake, she went to the balcony. The sun was strong and burning her skin. The noise from the street, mixed with the heat of the sunlight, almost knocked her down. The street beneath the building looked like a sheet of sun-dried, grey fabric stretching to a very far place. Only a few insects crawled on it—they were cars. Xiaokai pulled a stool over to the railing and climbed onto it. Suddenly she felt a pull.

  It was Timid Huang.

  The cat bit Xiaokai’s pant-leg tightly, hanging from the seam. Xiaokai kicked her so strongly that the cat was thrown back, hitting a corner of the coffee table. Timid Huang lay on the floor, crying her eyes out. Meow! Meow! Her tears were red. Blood!

  Xiaokai suddenly awoke. Her soul dropped back into her body. She felt her weight again.

  She walked toward Timid Huang, and tried to hug her. But the cat didn’t want her. As Xiaokai moved one step forward, the cat retreated one step back. The distance between them remained one step apart, neither more nor less. Timid Huang panted, her eyes like knives sharply fixed on Xiaokai. Xiaokai felt as if these eyes had cut through her body, leaving many holes.

  Bending her head, Xiaokai looked for something. She found an abandoned flower pot, got her fallen tooth, and buried it. She made a card, just as she used to do as a student at a forestry university, and inserted it into the pot soil:

  Planting date: June 7

  Plant family: lonicera

  Environments: dark

  Spacing in the rows: helpless

  Flowering date: never

  Best fertilizer: fending for itself

  The following morning, she called her neighbours and said she could no longer babysit their children. Then she took a streetcar to Chinatown, where she bought an electronic English dictionary. With its help, she searched for information on the internet. A week later, she found a morning job making sandwiches in a café. In the afternoon, she took an English class at an immigration center. Six months later, she enrolled in a horticulture program funded by the government at Seneca College in the evening.

  Soon she was in her second year of studies. The following semester, the students in the program had the opportunity to apply for internships. Xiaokai had submitted her resume to a job placement centre, but she still needed to write the exam. So many students were applying for jobs, and the employers would only take the candidates who had the best grades. Knowing its importance, Xiaokai took the exam seriously. She had a slice of bread and a cup of tea for lunch, and then buried herself in books and practise exercises behind the closed door of her room. By suppertime she was so hungry that she decided to cook a meal. Walking to the kitchen, she suddenly remembered that she hadn’t fed Timid Huang for a whole day. She looked at the cat, who was stationary and standing in the corner of the apartment, exactly where she had been that morning. Xiaokai picked her up and found her weightless. Her finger in the cat’s mouth, she asked Timid Huang if she was on a hunger strike, or if she was being mistreated. The cat bit her finger lightly. She knew the animal wanted to talk to her. Poor thing, you are sad too, but you can’t speak. Xiaokai released the cat and offered her some dry food. Timid Huang sniffed at it and licked some into her mouth. She chewed for a second and then spit it out. “You picky cat. Okay, don’t eat the cookie. You don’t want something hard. Okay, if you want to starve. It’s your choice.” But as she said this, she opened a can of cat food and spooned some of the meat near the dry food. The cat took a few bites, but didn’t finish it.

  That night Xiaokai was awakened by a strange noise. When she climbed out of bed, she saw Timid Huang squatting on the floor in a puddle of urine, trembling with fear. It seemed that while going to the bathroom, she had fallen and tipped the litter basin so that the litter was scattered everywhere. Xiaokai was about to curse when she suddenly remembered that people in her hometown had always said that cats had an excellent ability to keep their balance, so they seldom fall. Is something wrong with Timid Huang’s balance? The thought drove her sleep away. Early in the morning, she wanted to call the vet in the emergency room at the animal centre right away, but she couldn’t find the phone number. Instead she had to ask Shangjie. He said he would go with her and hung up before she could respond.

  The two brought the cat to the animal hospital together. Timid Huang went into the examination room and they waited outside. Xiaokai’s mind felt like it was full of cotton balls and she had trouble understanding sentences in the book she held in her hand, even though she recognized each word. She heard Shangjie ask if the cat had eaten something poisonous. Timid Huang had never gone to the bathroom anywhere except the litter box. Xiaokai wanted to say: Nothing was wrong with the cat during the week she stayed with me. How come she’s like this now, after coming to me from your place? But she held back, squeezing only a neutral hmm through her pursed lips.

  The vet finally came out of the examination room. He slowly removed his gloves and mask and rubbed his eyes. He looked exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept for a couple of nights.

  “She has a brain tumour. Huge. Due to the breakdown of her visual and auditory nerves, she’s blind and d
eaf. So that’s why she is always falling. In addition, her swallowing nerves are causing her to have difficulty eating. The tumour is slowly killing her, like a blunt knife cutting through flesh. It’s painful. Of course, she may die before being killed by pain. But, if you love the cat, you allow her to die peacefully as soon as possible. It’s hard for you to imagine what kind of pain she’s going through now.”

  A nurse carried Timid Huang out. The cat shivered and curled into a ball as she sank into Xiaokai’s lap. Xiaokai lifted her up, and touched the cat’s nose to hers. Cold. She meowed in a whisper. More likely Xiaokai imagined her meow rather than hearing an actual sound.

  “If you have made up your mind, you’d better make an appointment as soon as you can. Lots of animals are waiting.”

  Xiaokai watched the vet’s mouth moving. His words, like needles, flew out to her, and her body turned black and blue all over.

  On the way home, Xiaokai unbuttoned her coat and wrapped the cat inside. Timid Huang calmed down. She was no longer shivering, but Xiaokai started trembling. From tooth to tooth, muscle to muscle, and joint to joint, she felt each piece of her body falling apart as if she were losing her mind.

  She definitely did not want to cry in front of Shangjie. Not crying was the only way to hide her weakness.

  Shangjie gave her a ride home. As he parked his car, neither of them spoke. Finally, hesitating, he asked, “Maybe I should make an appointment?”

  “Fuck your grandma!” Xiaokai cried out, using the dirty and vicious slang that men from her hometown used. She walked away with Timid Huang still tucked inside her coat.

  The appointment was unexpectedly quick. It was on the following Saturday.

  Friday night, Xiaokai bathed Timid Huang. The cat’s hair had become thin, and some skin was exposed. Only the hair on the back of her head and neck was still thick. She combed her hair out and braided what was left into two pigtails tied with pink ribbons. Not used to it, the cat rubbed her head against wall and removed the ribbons. She sighed. Timid Huang, you dislike makeup the same way I do. “Who will marry you in the future?” she said out loud, even though she knew Timid Huang no longer had a future.

  At about nine o’clock, the doorbell rang. Shangjie had come to keep the cat company. He brought his own sleeping bag to stay overnight in the living room. The cat, lightly snoring, had already fallen asleep on Xiaokai’s bed. She was hardly eaten anything anymore, and slept most of the time. Xiaokai heard a noise in the living room and knew Shangjie was arranging his sleeping bag. After a while the rustling sound approached the door, but Xiaokai turned the light off. The whole world became dark. All sounds died out. A moment later, the rustling sound rose, but drifted away.

  Xiaokai woke at midnight. As she pushed the door open, she immediately noticed a tiny red flash. She turned the light on and discovered Shangjie sitting on the floor, smoking. He quickly butted out the cigarette and coughed. He said he couldn’t sleep. Bring Timid Huang out for me, can you?

  Xiaokai was wondering when he started to smoke, but she didn’t show her surprise. Silently she went back to her room, carried the cat out, and placed her on his lap. He held the cat’s head with one hand and gently caressed her bony body with the other, one light stroke, then another one.

  “Xiaokai, I didn’t move out because of someone else.”

  She covered her ears tightly with her hands. I can’t hear. I’m not listening! I don’t want to! She repeated these words to herself in her heart, but his words squeezed between her fingers and into her ears.

  “Those days were tough, but you didn’t want to grow up. You were unwilling to face the hard situation. You didn’t want to walk. You wanted me to carry you. I was unable to; you were too heavy.”

  She heard a bubble break in her heart that made her eyes water.

  No. I definitely can’t cry in front of him. She bit her lip tightly, but it did not work this time. Out of her control, the tears erupted and streamed down her face. At the beginning, she felt tears coming from her eyes, but later the tears seemed to be water drops unrelated to her, flowing over her face.

  The following morning, when Xiaokai got up, she rummaged through the dresser drawer until she found a cat collar. It was white. Shangjie’s name and address was printed on the back. In the middle was a sky blue bow. A pair of little bells dangled beneath the bow. They had bought it after they adopted the cat. But after they separated, the collar was removed. A year later, the collar had become very loose because the cat’s neck had gotten so thin.

  The cat was still asleep. Xiaokai heated a bottle of milk to feed her. Timid Huang opened her eyes. One sip made her cough, her nose pink and wet, and the milk spilled over. Xiaokai dried her nose and wanted to try and feed her again. But Shangjie said, “Let her have a good sleep.”

  Throwing the bottle on the floor, Xiaokai asked, “Are you afraid she isn’t getting enough time to sleep?”

  He said nothing, but bent down to pick up the broken glass. Staring at the bits of glass on the floor, Xiaokai felt a little embarrassed. Shangjie cleaned it up, then placed the cat into a carrying box, and closed the cover. Timid Huang was no longer visible.

  He turned and went downstairs. Xiaokai rushed to the window and pulled the curtain open. It was snowing heavily; Shangjie walked alone in the parking lot. She noticed that his back was a little crooked.

  “Timid Huang, farewell! You take care of yourself,” Xiaokai called out in a low voice. She felt her throat crack, like a piece of dry wood attacked by the wind. Suddenly a sound rose, riding with the wind, across the rows of houses and buildings, ending in her eardrums where the noise echoed for a long time.

  It was the sound of Timid Huang’s bells.

  At lunchtime, Shangjie returned. In his hands, the box was covered by a thin layer of snowflakes. She took the box and opened it. The collar and a strand of golden hair were inside.

  “She left peacefully, as though she were asleep,” Shangjie said.

  “Let me stay by myself,” she murmured.

  She closed the door and heard his steps recede as he reached the bottom of the staircase. She knelt down, pressing her face to the box. The snowflakes melted; but her face and the box were both wet.

  Timid Huang, for three years, you’d tried to escape. Finally, you couldn’t escape this box.

  Timid Huang, you lived three years longer in order to save me. You taught me how to walk on my own, didn’t you?

  An echoing sound hummed inside the box, like the one heard from a hollow seashell. Xiaokai felt a warmth flowing softly into her ears and moistening the untouched dry spots on her face. She heard joyful sounds from her dry heart, as if water had kissed the cracked earth after a drought.

  The following morning, when Xiaokai went to wash her face, she discovered that a tiny three-leaf plant had sprung up in the flower pot in the corner, where she had buried her fallen tooth.

  Translated by Zoë S. Roy.

  “The Abandoned Cat, Timid Huang” was originally published in Fiction Monthly, No. 1, 2007.

  West Nile Virus

  HE CHEN

  AT THE TIME, we were renting an apartment in a huge building in Toronto, which was home to many people from many different backgrounds. Some were drug dealers. Consequently, there were often inspections in the halls using police dogs. One day, shots were fired in a dispute between two rival gangs, and several people were killed. When we saw that the drops of blood that trailed past our very own door, we decided to move away as soon as possible.

  Two years earlier, my wife and I had just immigrated to Toronto and had already decided to buy a house, so we had stacks of Chinese-language newspapers in the apartment. There were numerous real estate brokers in the newspapers, but I finally found a Chinese woman called Lily Liu. I phoned her, and we met that very day. Lily was petite and every bit as cute as her name.

  I still recall the day that Lily took us to
see the first house. It was a split-level home with a circular arched window. There were two large kitchens, four washrooms, and too many rooms to count. As soon as I saw it, I was strongly attracted to the Italian cantina, where many bottles of thick jam were stored. The backyard, with its fruit trees heavy with cherries and pears, made my heart leap. At that moment, I imagined that this house would soon become my happy home. However, my wife threw cold water on my dreams when she said, “I could never live here! The round arched window of this house looks just like a tomb cave in Southern China.”

  Then we went to visit another house. The outside wall was covered with ivy, and inside there were two majestic cats. There was a log sauna in the basement. From the living room, you could look out into the backyard and see exotic flowers and rare herbs, and when you lifted your head, you could see all the way to picturesque Lake Ontario in the distance. Cupping her hand to her eyes to avoid the light, my wife looked around and saw the railway tracks for the Scarborough Rapid Transit. She told me that whenever the SRT train passed, the whole house would shake, and the noise of the trains at night would be even more deafening. And to top it off, she didn’t like the big lake. “It’s easy for water demons to come to the shore,” she explained. “And then what would we do?”

  Throughout the next few months, Lily took us to see dozens of other houses. We didn’t know why, but the more houses we saw, the less interested we became. Soon we could no longer tell one house from another.

  One particular afternoon in July, Lily called us to say that a single-family home in North York had just been put on the market. The house was large and the location was excellent, but the price exceeded our original budget. Lily asked if we wanted to take a look. At that time, I was just starting a new business and money was tight, so I refused outright when I heard the price.