Translated by Ana Padilla Fornieles

阿乙 A Yi achieved his prominence in contemporary Chinese literature with a determined combination of inimitable talent and penchant for the bizarre. In the vein of Kafka or Gogol, this fragment of his short story, “The Younger Cousin”, disturbs and distorts a pedestrian reality to apply a mythical logic to our animal desires and routines. Rife with potent descriptors, this text is A Yi at the heights of his own brand of disconcerting tension.

To read more from A Yi, check out Spittoon Literary Magazine Issue 7, available in early April.

  

表妹

小谈发现她的头发显得蓬松，应该是用他晾在外边的擦脚毛巾擦干了。眉毛画了浓浓的两道。眼角和两颊涂上了胭脂。她坐在床的一边时，另一边的床板翘起来。小谈只好用他的体重把它压下去。这样他们就得聊天了。小谈说话时，云霞抬头看着窗外漆黑的暮色，有时低头。小谈每说完一句她都回应：“是吗？”有时她也偏过头来，用一对丹凤眼看自己的表哥。小谈很快说完一堆话，于是静静坐在那里，等待脑子里像储水一样储好新的一堆话。他自忖这些话没有什么是不重要的。后来他发现云霞放在床沿的左手手背上有一只死蛾。他俯身吹走它，同时用自己的右手盖住她的左手。嗣后又捏住或者说握住她的这只手。她没有抽开它，而是面不改色地听他继续说话。小谈几乎将她的手捏出汗来，仍然在郑重其事地讲话。即使呀，他鼓足勇气挨过去，抱着她要亲嘴了，还要把那没说完的事说完。她闭上眼，往床上躺，从床板那里发出咯吱咯吱的声响。这块床板盛起小谈绰绰有余，现在躺着两个人，就像架在沟渠之间的跳板，因为无法承重，而弯起来，变得颤颤晃晃。在云霞的协助下，小谈脱掉她的衣裤。她的两只乳房有脸盆那么大，乳晕隆起，像一块因为发霉而变黑的柿饼。上面长满小凸点。下身没什么阴毛，就是几根稀疏的黄毛，东倒西歪地翘立着。起先她捂着，不让他看粉扑扑的那里。后来移开手。但在移开的同时，她揿灭了灯。

小谈感觉自己扑上的是床上的另一张床，棉被上的另一层棉被。扑进去的是深不见底的棉花、海绵或者沼泽。他在里面坠落，直到被一种力量顶住。他每次往下压，身体都会自动往上弹回来一点。她在下边老气横秋地哼叫着。哼了一会儿，大概因为旅途劳瘁，睡过去。过一会儿又醒过来，抱住小谈，用指尖轻刮他的脊背，一遍又一遍。交配时，小谈管不住自己的嘴，频繁许诺和唱赞。比如“我说你怎么长得这么好，（这）都是有根的。皮肤这么白，都是有根的。熊家山的水那么好。俺们谈家的遗传也好”，比如“俺俩要是结婚，亲上加亲。生一个小孩一定又漂亮又可爱”，比如“我一定常年守着你，和你过日子。你做老板娘我去打货”，还比如“我从来冇这样喜欢过一个人，你看我撑在床上的两只手臂，不住地在打抖呢”。他就是这样，为了一场小小的性爱而许下比天还大的诺言。云霞有时会回答：“是吗，你说的都是真的吗？”小谈举起手，说：“我以救我命的牛发誓，这都是真的。我要说半句假话，情愿让雷劈死。”大概坚持了有七八分钟，自忖够一个男人的标准，小谈射精了。也就是在射精后，一股失落、空洞、厌腻的情绪在他心里升起。他弯着背坐在床边，将手指插进湿透的头发。传来她用卫生纸擦肚子和下身的声音。她从一卷卫生纸上揪下来一块，擦好后揉成团，嗅嗅，丢到床下。大概丢了几十颗。她抓着他的手，让它去摸自己的肚皮。他象征性地摸了几遍，把手收回到自己身边。“睡吧。”他说。

The Younger Cousin

Xiao Tan noticed that her hair looked puffy; she’d probably wiped it dry with the feet towel he left airing outside. She’d also drawn two thick lines over her eyebrows. Rouge was painted onto the corners of her eyes and her cheeks. When she sat on one side of the bed, the other side flipped into the air. Xiao Tan had no choice but to use his weight to press it back down. Like this, they started chatting. When Xiao Tan spoke, Yunxia raised her head, looking at the pitch-dark dusk outside the window, lowering it too sometimes. She had the same answer for each sentence he finished: “Oh, really?” Sometimes she turned her head, looking at her cousin with a pair of feline eyes. Xiao Tan quickly spat out a pile of words and sat there quietly, waiting for new words to well up in his head like water in a tank. He suspected that it mattered that his words should have some significance. Later, he realised that there was a dead moth on the back of Yunxia’s left hand, resting at the edge of the bed. He bent down to blow it away, simultaneously using his right hand to cover her left. After that, he squeezed, or rather, gripped her hand. She did not pull it away, and betrayed no change while continuing to listen. Xiao Tan, still talking in earnest, squeezed so tight that sweat almost dripped out. Ah, even though he mustered up the courage to lean over, holding her close enough to kiss, he still had to finish what he was saying. She closed her eyes, lay back on the bed, and a groan erupted from the bedframe. The frame was more than sufficient for Xiao Tan, but now, holding two people, it resembled a diving board propped up between an irrigation canal and a ditch. Unaccepting of such a weight, it bent, becoming a quivering, wobbling thing. With Yunxia’s assistance, Xiao Tan peeled off her underwear. Her two breasts were the size of washbasins, the nipples swelling like pieces of dried persimmon, darkened by mold, filled with little bumps. She had barely any pubic hair, just a few sparse yellowish strands, flinging up here and there at odd angles. At first she held her hands there, not letting him look at her powder puff mound. Later on she moved her hand away, but at the very same time, she turned off the light.

Xiao Tan felt as though he had thrown himself on a bed on top of the bed, a quilt on top of a quilt. He had dived into a bottomless pit of cotton or sponge, a swamp. He drifted within it until a certain force blocked him. Every time he pressed down, his body automatically bounced back some. Beneath him, she groaned decrepitly. After a while, likely out of exhaustion from her journey, she fell asleep. Shortly afterwards she woke up again, held Xiao Tan close, and lightly scratched his back with her fingertips, over and over again. As they copulated, Xiao Tan was unable to control the stream of promises and praises coming out of his own mouth. Like, “What I’m sayin is, you grew up so well, there must be somethin (behind it). Such white skin, there must be somethin. Somethin in the water in Xiongjiashan. Must be you n I’s blood.” Like: “If you n I got married, it’s blood mixin blood. If we get a kid, it’s gonna be for sure beautiful and cute.” Like: “I’ll keep you forever, we got all the time in the world. You be the old lady and I’ll work,” or: “I never liked nobody like this, look at my two arms up on the bed here, I’m shakin.” Making promises bigger than the sky for just a little bit of sex, that’s just how he was. Yunxia sometimes replied: “You really mean all this?” Xiao Tan would raise his hand and say: “Swear by the cow that saved my life it’s true. If even half a word I’m sayin is false, thunder strike me dead.” Xiao Tan lasted for about seven or eight minutes, about what he deemed enough to meet a man’s standards, until he came. Right after, a sense of loss, emptiness, and self-hatred arose in his heart. He sat on the edge of the bed with his back bent, combing his fingers through his hair. The sound of her wiping her belly and lower body with toilet paper came through. She tore a piece from the roll, rolled it into a ball after having rubbed herself clean, sniffed it, and tossed it under the bed—tossed about a few dozen. She grabbed his hand, letting it touch her belly. He groped it symbolically several times, then withdrew his hand to his side.

“Let’s go to sleep,” he said.

  

 

 

阿乙，生于1976年，出版有《鸟看见我了》《灰故事》等四部短篇小说集、《模范青年》等三部小说单行本及两本随笔集，其中长篇《下面，我该干些什么》被翻译为英、法、西、意等十个语种出版，译者获“英国笔会翻译奖”，另根据中国图书海外馆藏影响力报告统计，长篇《早上九点叫醒我》为2019年海外馆藏最多中文文学图书。

A Yi, born in 1976. Works include four short story collections including Niao kanjian wole (The Bird has Seen Me) and Hui gushi (Grey Stories), three novels including Mofan qingnian (Model Youth), and two collections of essays. Among the novels, Xianmian, wo gai gan xie shenme (What Should I Do Next) has been translated into English, French, Spanish, Italian, and ten other languages. The translator was awarded the PEN Translation Award. According to the statistics relating to the international impact of Chinese-language literature, his novel Zaoshang jiudian jiaoxing wo (Wake Me Up at Nine AM) ) accounted for the highest number of volumes of Chinese-language novels in overseas collections in 2019.

Ana Padilla Fornieles (Spain) graduated from the department of Translation and Interpreting Studies at the University of Granada, and is currently based in Beijing, where she combines her job with her literary and artistic career and her involvement with Spittoon Cultural Collective. Her Spanish translations from both Chinese and French have been published in spaces such as China traducida y por traducir, Mil Gotas, and La Tribu. Her English work has been featured in Spittoon Literature Magazine, and her translation of Chinese author Zhe Gui’s short novel《跑路》was published as Fleeing Xinhe Street in 2019 by Penguin Random House. Her contribution to the English translation of the series The General History of Chinese Art is forthcoming with De Gruyter. Her prose and poetry have been featured in The Shanghai Literary Review, Womanhood, A Shanghai Poetry Zine, and Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine, while her comics and linocut prints have appeared in Shaving in the Dark and F*EMS.