Page 108 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

To be safe, I waited until late to slip out of my home—it was probably midnight.
I felt my way into the kitchen and saw those three monsters’ red eyes again. I
climbed up from one of the cold stoves—climbed to the top of the wall. It was
very quiet on the other side of the partition. I crouched on top of the wall and
explored below with one leg. But it was useless: the ladder was gone. Damn that
Xiaoyi. I was tired and afraid and filled with regret. But I didn’t want to go back
to the kitchen, either. Then I heard a voice rise in midair: “You may just walk
down. It’s okay.”
This alluring voice belonged to the girl who had given me the soybeans. I

couldn’t help it: my center of gravity lurched. God! With one step, I touched
solid ground. I steadied myself.
The room was still hot, still suffused with the faint aroma of soybeans, still
dark. I couldn’t see anyone. For some reason, tears filled my eyes. Luckily, no
one saw this. I knew that people were all around, but they didn’t make any noise.
No sound came from the soybeans, or the iron wok either. Now there was a
sound. It came from the kitchen. It seemed that my neighbors were frying
vegetables in the kitchen. They were talking in loud voices, and their voices had
turned pleasant. Was it already daytime over there?
A hand pulled me down, and I sat once more on the rough stone bench. My
butt hurt a lot.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” a voice close to me said, “in order to learn
what things are like over there.”
“Are you interested in what goes on in the kitchen over there?” I asked. I was
surprised.
“You mean you aren’t?” that person asked in return.

And then no one said anything. With no one speaking, I couldn’t tell how
many people were in the room. Maybe four or five, maybe twenty or thirty.
What was certain was that they were listening attentively to the sound—the
variable rolling clamor that came from the kitchen on the other side of the
partition. Someone over there was laughing out loud: it seemed to be my sister.
And then the others laughed, too. I should have been in the kitchen as well, but I
was sitting here in the dark because it made me feel vaguely excited. These
people who didn’t show their faces were just like conspirators, and I kept feeling
that something big was about to happen. Just think about this: I had descended
from midair. This kind of thing had actually happened! I loved this kind of
gathering so much. But why were these mysterious people interested in the
vulgar things going on in the kitchen that I knew so well?
Later, when I ran into Xiaoyi, I told him my thoughts. He listened without

saying a word. Then he sighed and said that this kind of question was rather
abstruse, and he wasn’t the right person to ask.