Page 138 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

Woman Wang remembered her pale arm and the blood flowing from her hand.
She was also a woman of the Catfish neighborhood, mysterious and
complicated, with a lot of stories.

A sudden impulse came over Woman Wang. She grabbed five coins, bent
over, and tossed them under the bed. The vats of kimchi all made slurping
sounds, as if they were surprised.
Woman Wang had eaten only half her meal when she heard firecrackers. It
was the building whose foundation had been laid first. That building was going
to transform the entire structure of Catfish Pit. She supposed that everyone here
was probably paying careful attention to the noise, just as she was. But the move
truly didn’t make any difference to Woman Wang—she did not belong to
Catfish, nor did Little Ping’s mother. Catfish neighborhood was too narrow to
hold their ambitious hearts. Watching the way Little Ping’s mother grabbed the
fish in the market, Woman Wang sensed that this woman’s body contained an
unusual vitality.
Someone knocked on the door. It was probably that mason again. Woman

Wang didn’t respond, and the person stopped knocking.
The mason was quite annoying. It was best to ignore him, but it was not easy
to do so. He was one of the city residents who didn’t sleep all night. Woman
Wang could always sense their existence. If she hadn’t gone out that night, she
wouldn’t have seen the mime performed at the outdoor snack bar. What an
upside-down change was happening to this world! She had run into them by
chance, yet they had been clinging to her ever since. Did this make any sense?
After tidying up the kitchen, she opened the door a crack and looked out. That
youth was standing across the street, apparently at a loss. Some people walked
past him. He approached them eagerly, wanting to talk with them, but they never
responded. It seemed he was not a local mason, but he didn’t seem to be a tramp,
either. That night, hadn’t the light at the restaurant’s entrance been turned on for
him? He wasn’t an outsider with no connection with Catfish Pit.
Woman Wang bolted the door. She was going to take her noon nap.
She slept under the mosquito net, her train of thought rising and falling like
waves. She thought of the mason who kept moving his home in dreams: What

had he been doing with the people in the bar at midnight? Woman Wang seldom
went out at night. Yet when she did, just once, Catfish had revealed itself
completely to her. What an exciting and boisterous nightlife there was here in
Catfish: even when it was quiet, the quietness was no different from the noise.
Woman Wang couldn’t help but break into laughter.

“Little Ping, we’re all going to move into those tall apartment buildings,”