Five Spice Street

It seemed she had ulterior motives. Everything Madam X did- her so-called adultery-had little to do with Q. It could have been Q, or Y-whoever. Hadn’t she threatened to ‘‘create miracles out of thin air’’? This was precisely what she meant by miracles! Some of our best minds were too conventional-they focused on her secret room and her microscope, assuming her ‘‘miracles’’ were created there. A slight shift in perspective would have puzzled them. Madam X used this as the opportunity to act speedily: she changed the place, the time, the methods, and objective and went to that dark, gloomy place to ‘‘create miracles’’! She crowed over it: ‘‘This is way more brilliant than using the microscope!’’ (She said this to her sister.) She drew her curtains, making the room airtight to prevent anyone from hearing or seeing a thing. She told her husband to pretend to guard the door. If an outsider charged in, she confused him with dream talk. Even the writer almost fell for her trick, while ordinary people absolutely believed in her feint.

The writer still remembers that one person waited outside her window for three days and kept whisking with a broom at the black curtain Madam X called a ‘‘miracle.’’ That person did this seriously and diligently. He asserted that he was doing ‘‘the most significant work.’’ When he grew lightheaded from sleepiness, he pounded his temples with a stone so that his spirit would rebound! If he had known that no one was behind the curtain, and that Madam X was at the granary, location unknown-‘‘creating a miracle’’ out of the male body and feeling extremely happy about her evil actualization — how disappointed he would have been! ‘‘All rivers lead to the sea.’’ After tracing so many other people’s routes, we still have to go back to our conclusion: creating miracles was one facet of murder. Madam X didn’t care a whit about Q or Y. All she cared about was revenge. When certain people fell for her plot and waited beneath her window, she lit up with pleasure! Her announcement on the street was not motivated by how much charm Q held for her, but by her wish to ‘‘smash to smithereens’’ everything in this world.

According to her husband’s good friend’s disclosure, one day Madam X’s son, Little Bao-doubtless under his mother’s influence — overturned a blackboard on the ground and then swiftly fled back home. Madam X strove to conceal her obvious joy and with a straight face gave her son a dressing-down. This dressing-down was unique: ‘‘if that board fell over and hit you on your little head, you might die,’’ ‘‘if other people discovered you did this, your parents would be fined or locked up in jail,’’ ‘‘you’re just a kid-you mustn’t interfere in adult matters; it’s better for you to hang out with other children-playing marbles, catching birds, and so forth-that’s much more interesting for you,’’ and so on and on. She didn’t mention that his behavior was evil or stupid, because she knew very well that her son had been influenced by what he’d seen and heard at home. The same kind of murderous psychology was gradually coming into being in his little body. And because of this, she saw her son’s future ‘‘gradually taking shape’’ (she said this to her husband, smiling as she did so, just like a loving mother).

Though only seven years old, it was already evident that he was replicating Madam X’s childhood. He was even more audacious- ‘‘passionate’’ in Madam X’s words-because he had never been disciplined at home. When his mother’s adultery began, he was called a ‘‘whore’s kid’’ by the other children. He didn’t bat an eyelid, as if he hadn’t understood. He inherited his mother’s inane, dream-like expression, which enabled him to recover and rapturously return to his companions. This child’s mold was already set at the age of seven; his whole body was soaked in toxins. Nothing could have shaken him. However much zealous adults tried to enlighten him (Madam X’s husband’s good friend exhausted nearly all his energy on this until, once, ‘‘the tip of his tongue was blistered’’), he didn’t change at all: ‘‘My mama, my papa, and even Uncle Q are all wonderful people.’’ If you asked him why, he said, ‘‘Mama can see things in the sky in her mirror. At midnight, she can also fly. The peanuts that Papa fries are fragrant and crisp. No one can do this better than he does. Uncle Q can dribble a ball more than a thousand times in a row. I can do this only fifty-seven times.’’ He had an inspiration and suggested to his mother: ‘‘Ask Uncle Q to move to our home. If the four of us lived together, wouldn’t this be even more interesting?’’ These words were like a heavy slap in the husband’s good friend’s face, so much so that his face was partly purple and partly pale for a week.