"Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused - Fiction From Today`s China [редактор Говард Голдблатт]" - читать интересную книгу автора (Голдблатт Говард, Мэн Ван, Сюэ Цань, Фейю Би,...)

Wang Meng – A String of Choices

It all began with that toothache of mine. In the beginning, it was just a little nagging pain. At the time, I still believed in medicine as a science, in science leading the way on the path to freedom and happiness, that knowledge is power, and all the rest.

Believing is acting. Never doubting science, I had bestirred myself and sallied forth the night before to stand in line at the you-know-where. Umbrella over my head, galoshes on my feet, and raincoat wrapped around my shoulders, I stood in the line. I don't remember whether it was a starry night or a drizzling night or if it was pouring bucketfuls. The stronger shock to the nerves always drowns out the weaker. (You'll know what I mean if you keep on reading.) That particular dental clinic was famed far and wide for constructing removable root canals under your cavities. It had been written up in the papers for "exemplary performance," and since then the long lines outside its gates had grown even longer. A mountain-climber friend whom I had always admired offered me his tent and suggested that I install myself outside the registry office, right under its little window slot. He also made me a present of compressed biscuits fortified with vitamins and iron.

A formidable lady doctor, despite the fact that she did not seem to weigh over one hundred pounds, took custody of me and jabbed a needleful of Novocain into my upper jaw without wasting time on preliminaries. She vanished before I had time to make out if her eyes were double lidded. Following on her heels, a creature whom I deduced to be an intern shoved a coldly glistening pair of pliers into my mouth. From the viewpoint of patients, I would propound the view that interns are the fountainhead of all our woes. On this assumption, I deduced with dead certainty that that particular ultra-efficient muscle-rippling athlete was none other than a blasted intern. "Do you feel anything?" he asked.

I nodded. Would it be toothache if I didn't? Wasn't it on account of this particular feeling that I had undertaken to quarter myself in front of the registry office? Would anyone be spiritual enough to do it just for the sake of the experience? All living creatures are in possession of the senses, so who among the living would own to being so bereft? And anyway, when a formidable medical personage puts such an awesome question to you, what can you do but nod? One of the golden precepts of life is that nodding your head is always better than shaking it. To be more precise, taking into account all aspects of the problem, I might add that if the question hanging in the balance is whether or not to chop off a head, then shake your head by all means, and let the other head stay on. But as a general principle, I'd say that nodding is always better than shaking.

And thus he proceeded to pull out my tooth. He pulled at my chin, he pulled at my neck, he pulled at my head, he crashed through my cavities. And why not? It is not for nothing that dentistry here is formally categorized as surgery. It refuses to be designated as tooth extraction but must puff itself up as surgery. Under such a heading, it is transformed into something profound, refined, erudite. The pliers of surgery pulled my soul out of its internal sockets into the external light of day. I broke into a cold sweat, I saw sparks, I fainted.

What a sissy!

As I was gasping for breath, I thought to myself that I should bring in a piece of self-criticism within three days at the latest. Being a sissy was no laughing matter. It was a serious lapse. The proletariat are all offspring of the legendary Guan Yu, otherwise known as Yun Chang, who had his flesh cut open and his bones scraped of a poisonous infection while he played chess.

It was only on the bus on my way back that I felt the area where the pliers had attacked suddenly turn to wood. Praise be to anesthetics, fruit of science. The workers and businessmen who have brought you into the world have not stinted on the ingredients of the recipe, after all. After the dissemination of extreme pain, I then experienced the transcendence of numbness. God help my jaw!

Now you understand why I, a professor living in the twentieth century, squarely facing the problems of modernization, would cringe at the thought of tooth extraction. You now see why I look on the various branches of dentistry as the torture chambers of the Japanese military police, why I look on all dental clinics as versions of purgatory. Teeth, for the last dozen years, have been my supreme concern. To protect my teeth, to protect my wife, to protect my honor-the three-protect principle reaches tragic dimensions, tugging at my heartstrings. In compliance with this principle, I brush my teeth five times a day, once in the morning, once in the evening, and once after each of my three daily meals. I have tried countless brands of toothpaste. My monthly expenditure on toothpaste far exceeds my spending on cigarettes and wine put together. I have become a collector of toothbrushes: long handles, short handles, long bristles, short bristles, stiff bristles, soft bristles, a bristling little tuft. I never touch cold or underdone food; I gave up sweet-and-sour; I avoid hot soup and sticky porridge and everything hard on the teeth. I not only quit cracking melon seeds, I even keep away from roasted peanuts!

But, disaster of all disasters-one day, the toothache struck again! Oh the avenging heavens!

Now you can easily understand why with this new toothache, I moped about, dragging out my days. Should I go to the hospital? I just couldn't muster the courage. I was faced with a paradox. Why go to a hospital? Because of the ache. What, then, if you go to a hospital? It will ache a hundredfold, a thousandfold. But after the ache, there will be some relief. The power of medicine lies in the fact that it will concentrate your lifetime of suffering into twenty-five seconds of agony. Which is better? A mind-racking question. It all depends on the value system you live by. With the world as it is-beauty and ugliness mixed in a medley, old and new side by side, ideas scintillating, concepts chasing one another, east confronting west, north in dialogue with south, schools and trends as numerous as trees in a forest, a sea of flapping banners shutting out our view of the sky-when the multitude of views exceeds the sum total of all the teeth of the world population by who knows how many times-in such a world, at such a time, I felt the real dilemma of choice.

History raises a question only when the solution itself has ripened. Just as I was suffering unspeakable agonies from a toothache and the perplexity of indecision, the president of a certain tooth-ology association moved into our apartment building. We shook hands on the landing, and the wings of freedom fluttered on his back as if he were the archangel himself. He gave me his card: THE INTERNATIONAL TOOTHOLOGY SOCIETY CHINA CENTER. SHI XUEYA, PRESIDENT. ADDRESS: RUNNING IN PLACE. TELEPHONE: OOOOOOO.

Oh heaven-sent succor! Toothache, thy days are numbered! Armed with two packs of the famous ginseng and deer-antler kidney-enhancement mixture, I called upon President Shi. President Shi refused the gift offering with evident delight and then accepted most reluctantly. Then he proceeded to enlighten me. The aching tooth, he said, is divided into five categories, each category subdivided into five species. Five fives, that makes twenty-five. They are all but interplay of the elements: gold, wood, water, and fire. Or variations of inflammation, decay, heat, or cold. Or imbalance of calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium. Encompassing medicine and surgery, braces and orthopedics, dentistry as a field of medicine is divided into three schools, which in turn are subdivided into nine branches. West of Mount Tai, it forks out into two main schools, European and American. Busily pulling, drilling, and filling in deadly competition, stopping up with cement, substituting with glass beads, pouring in mercury, tinkering from inside and capping from outside, they are all out to enhance the beauty of youth. Ancient Chinese medical practice, he went on, traces the complaint to its source and then removes the manifestations. All forms of toothache, according to Chinese medicine, begin with heat syndrome: liver inflammation, stomach inflammation, heart inflammation, kidney inflammation, lung inflammation, and spleen inflammation. Inflammation rises from irritation. Water quells fire, but evil fires are resistant. The quelling of inflammation is an art, and one must seek a doctor. North, south, east, west-there are four famous practitioners. There are also folk prescriptions, which have their special folk flavor. Curing toothaches by the art of qi gong is to work through control of the vital energy and other paranormal functions. When teeth are pulled out by qi gong, new ones will sprout that can withstand heat or cold…

President Shi's eloquence flowed on; he was conversant with all the famous examples of toothache as well as all pertinent theories and schools of thought, from ancient to modern, native and foreign. From the fifth left upper molar of Napoléon to the auction of the dentures of Hitler's mistress, Eva; from the front teeth of the newly excavated female mummy of the Eastern Han dynasty to the qualities of the Buddha's tooth and its efficacy on various occasions-he was conversant with them all. Then he went on to the great controversy between the conservative and the radical schools in treating toothache, which has been raging for centuries. Just as he was at the height of his eloquence, I screamed, "It's killing me!" and fainted dead away.

President Shi was most apologetic. He was also modest. He declared that he was only the president of the Toothology Society and was not a practicing doctor at a dental clinic. He explained that the society was an academic organization and then proceeded to inform rne that all dentists at the county level were supervised by the Handicrafts Management Office of the county government and that their licenses were issued by Agricultural Market Control officers. He kindly pointed out to me that my toothache was too down-to-earth, too mundane for his own interests. He offered me the use of his collection, including The Toothache Encyclopedia, The Complete Guide to Toothache, Suggestions for Tooth Protection, and other reference books. As the ancient saying goes, The master points the way; the key to the cure is in your own hands. How could I have doubted it? I was reluctant to wear out my welcome. So, restraining myself according to the ancient rites, I picked up two volumes and left.

Reading those books plunged me into the depths of confusion. I realized with pain that teeth are mortal but knowledge boundless. In the act of pulling, the teeth are there, but after the act teeth are nonexistent. Lost in boundless despair in a toothless, boundless world, I woke up and found myself a modern man.

My wife's elder brother, who had just returned from research and study abroad, scolded me roundly for my ignorance and condemned President Shi for wallowing in useless words. He pointed out that fleeing the hospital with an aching tooth held hostage in my jaws was like Ah Q hiding from his own baldness. [2] He said that if Ah Q had taken steps earlier to treat his baldness, like taking vitamins and applying hair lotions, he might now be flaunting a mop of hair down to his waist. My brother-in-law warned that a toothache, if unattended, may develop from a single infected tooth to periodontal disease, to pulpitis, to osteomyelitis, to bone tuberculosis, and from there with one quick leap to cancer of the spinal marrow. Then if you're lucky, it's amputation. If not, you're a dead man. Examples were legion. In A.D. 1635, 5,488 people died of tooth disease in Europe alone. He pointed out with great perspicacity that there was no such branch of science as toothology, that none of the developed countries recognize it as such. He would recommend that a group of oral surgeons form a team to investigate the feasibility of toothology as a branch of dental science. I mildly objected to his way of setting up the non-native rhinoceros, metaphorically speaking, as a measure of all things. But I thanked him for his advice. The truth grates on the ears, as the saying goes. He had pointed out the stern effects of my dilatoriness in dealing with my tooth. As I did not want to lose a limb, much less my life, on account of one bad tooth, I decided to act.

I geared myself up for another pulling. That there might be anything else in that particular dental clinic apart from pulling teeth was beyond my wildest imagination. The chairman of the department where I teach told me that extraction is the fastest, the most pleasant, the most sanitary, and the most thorough way of dealing with a bad tooth and that drilling, filing, or filling is a much more painful process, with no end in sight. My colleagues at the department admonished me to make sure that I got hold of a male doctor for the operation, because tooth extraction is heavy labor. According to them, the grain allotment of dentists should be on a par with that of dockworkers. I took in everything gratefully, keeping to myself the fact that it was precisely a male doctor who had nearly killed me with his pulling. Friends and colleagues poured out their own experiences, lessons to be drawn, warnings for the future, tricks for an easy way out, rules to stick by, and so on, all relating to the art of dealing with the aching tooth. As the sayings go, The scholar offers words, the rascal offers gifts, and Birds of a feather flock together. Thus it may be deduced that both I and my community fell into the category of scholars. Alas for my scholarly tooth.

I stood in line for three days running, waiting my turn, but my turn never came. It was said that all the registry slips had slipped out by the back door. The masses at the front gate, tormented by bad teeth, were seething with anger. I wanted to make a scene then and there, but thinking of my status as a professor, I desisted. I would be in the middle of a scandal and still stuck with a bad tooth. I went home and told my wife everything. My wife said, "We have our own back door!" Back door, back door, enter ye who has the key.

I set out with two bottles of Maotai wine (don't blame me if they were fake; I can't tell the difference) to call on my wife's cousin many times removed, a certain Mr. Liu who was department head at one of the offices at the Ministry of Health. Mr. Liu told me first that he was supervisor for hospitals of Chinese medicine, that he had nothing to do with Western medicine, even less with dentistry and second that he disapproved of Western medicine on principle. The entire scope of Western medicine, he pronounced, was to take the human body apart for vivisection, a reflection of the outlook of the early days of the Industrial Revolution. If your tooth aches they'll attack your tooth; if your foot aches, they'll tackle your foot. All they can do, he continued, is to alleviate the manifestations. They're miles away from the root and source of the complaint. They resort to scalpels, forceps, hypodermics, saws, and clamps, treating people like machinery with so many parts. As to teeth, he added, all they know is to pull and fill, fill and pull, and they won't stop until they've rid you of your last tooth. With Chinese medicine, however, it's another story, and here Mr. Liu waxed eloquent. Chinese medicine treats the human body as an entity, a system, a construct of assimilation and dissemination, a system where the yin and the yang contend and supplement each other and the five internal organs move in unison. Even a puny little tooth has its roots in the heart, the lungs, and the kidneys, he assured me. And thus fuzzy mathematics, modern logic, total intuition, and sensory experience represent the postindustrial fifth wave. Mr. Liu informed me that famous physicians of the West had personally told Chinese medical students studying abroad that the future of medicine is embedded in China and will flourish in China, that it was preposterous for them to go west to study, that in fact it was scholars from the West who should make the pilgrimage to China to pluck the fruits of wisdom. He added that Picasso had owned up to Chang Ta-ch'ien that art is found only in China. Likewise, it is China, and China only, that is home to the genuine tooth. To sum up, Mr. Liu volunteered to help me get into the Hospital of Chinese Medicine for treatment.

I was so overjoyed that for the moment I even forgot my toothache. I have only myself to blame for my previous ordeal of that barbarous tooth extraction. Why did I have eyes only for Western medicine? I could kick myself. Mr. Liu went on to write a letter to link me up with a connection of his. I thanked him over and over again.

That first time I had trouble with my tooth, I had still believed in Western medicine as a science that would be the savior of my tooth. So infantile! Since then, times have changed, the years have chased one another down the aisle of history. As for myself, having passed through countless ups and downs, I have finally learned that science without philosophy or science plus philosophy but without the arm of backdoor connections will get me nowhere, cannot even save my tooth.

Department Chief Liu's letter, in his own calligraphy, read:

Dear Director Zhao:

How have you been? I have been terribly busy and thus remiss in paying my respects. Please excuse.

Regarding the affair entrusted to me, I have made arrangements. Please do not worry.

All these whispers about you-know-what, I think there must be some basis. Therefore please accept my early congratulations.

By the way, a friend-Professor Wang-has a toothache.

Thank you in advance for your attention to this little matter.

So this was the road to the salvation of my tooth!

There was a milling crowd at the Hospital of Chinese Medicine, not unlike Shanghai 's Temple Fair. There were even lines at the men's and women's rest rooms. People would exit still belting themselves up, such was the crush. I looked around in silent astonishment. Before liberation, Chinese medicine had been in such decline, but the scene in front of me now was bursting with activity. And to think that I alone had a letter for Director Zhao. This gave me a sense of superiority as I watched the crowd of patients rushing madly to and fro.

I said to a nurse, "I want Director Zhao. Show me the way to Director Zhao!"

She walked away, completely expressionless. Did she have an ear infection? I asked several other nurselike figures standing around in white jackets. No response either. Nobody seemed to have heard me.

"I have a letter from Department Chief Liu!" I shouted. But all to no effect.

I thought I had come to the wrong place and went out to check the sign at the gate. No mistake, it was the Hospital of Chinese Medicine. By the time I reentered the hospital grounds, I had lost my confidence and rushed about like the other patients. "I want Director Zhao. I have a personal letter from Department Chief Liu!" I insisted. But my demands gradually subsided into spineless whimpers.

While the hospital staff completely ignored me, the other patients turned on me with fury: "Go line up!" I looked around but could not find anyone in particular who had his eye on me. Just as I thought I was safe, again I heard the furious tones of patients shouting in one voice: "Go line up!"

In a sort of daze, I made my way to the registry office. Through the little window slot, I said to the nurse sitting on a raised seat, "I want Director Zhao!"

The window slot was tiny and situated very low. I had to bend and put my head down and then lift up my eyes to make out the (presumably) dazzling beauty of the nurse in charge. All I could make out was the fuzzy contours of someone high and mighty, looking down on the patients as so much trash. I shouted, "I want Director Zhao!" and waved my letter, which by now had become limp in my hands.

"Room seven," the unmoving, unmoved, and immovable figure behind the window slot mumbled. Was it one, or seven, or eleven? My neck had become stiff, as I was trying to bend my shoulders and lift my head at the same time.

I didn't have a second chance, for the people behind shoved me aside. I rushed to the consulting rooms, fighting my way through the crowd. I was continually pushed by other patients. This infuriated me, and I myself began pushing right and left, only to be swung to and fro by the human tide. I made my way into room i. A woman was sitting behind the desk. A woman? That could not be Director Zhao, I said to myself. I fought my way out through the mass of people craning their necks at the door. A young man was sitting behind the desk. No, that could not be Director Zhao either. Again I pushed and was pushed on my way out. Like a bubble on a boiling sea, I rolled into room 11. An elderly person with venerable white locks-"Director Zhao!" I shouted gleefully and was immediately shoved aside. I found myself in room 8. The doctor in room 8 was in a loud altercation with a patient, who pointed a finger at the doctor's nose and said in disgust, "I've never seen the likes of you!" The doctor pointed his finger at the patient's nose and reciprocated: "I've never seen the likes of you either!" I was sure this was not Director Zhao. Director Zhao would never quarrel with patients, nor patients with Director Zhao. But I had learned something in a flash of inspiration. It seemed that have never seen is a term of extreme opprobrium. What has never been seen is decidedly bad. But I had never seen Director Zhao, so why should I look so hard for him?

By now I had floated willy-nilly into room 9, and found myself face to face with a young fellow with long hair. Unlike the other crowded consulting rooms, this one was quite deserted. Obviously, he was not trusted by patients. I sat down and said hesitatingly, "I'm looking for Director Zhao…"

"I am Director Zhao," he said in firm tones.

I had no reason to dispute this, though I felt in my bones that something was wrong. Toothache, however, overcame my scruples. Leaving aside the verification of his identity, I began to tell him the history of my woes.

In friendly tones, the young fellow asked me to open my mouth. He began poking at my teeth with a steel prod. When he knocked on my bad tooth, I howled in pain.

The alleged Director Zhao nodded in sympathy and wrote out a prescription with many flourishes of the pen. I tried to make out his calligraphy on my way to the pharmacy. Suddenly, I deciphered: "Pain reliever 2 x 3 x 7."

Which means that all I was getting for my pains was pain-reliever pills to be taken three times a day, two at a time, for one week! Then I looked at the signature; it was even more undecipherable. It looked like Liu or Zhou or Xu; but whatever it was, decidedly it was not Zhao.

I had been cheated!

My pent-up feelings of anger exploded, and I made a scene then and there. Four individuals, male and female, young and old, all of whom claimed to be Director Zhao, tried to handle the situation. They said that Chinese medicine is quite all right, especially for chronic complaints, but for toothaches it is no panacea. Sad but true. Of course, this is only one view, for internal reference only, not for dissemination to the general public. All in all, Chinese medicine is superb, acknowledged by Western practitioners. But pain relievers are quite potent in relieving pain, they conceded and suggested I take some and go to a dental clinic. We are touched by your faith in Chinese medicine, they assured me. In theory, they continued, one cannot say that Chinese medicine is helpless when it comes to toothache. The root of toothache is an attack of sinister heat. For this, you may take the powder of crushed rhino horn, deer antler, and mountain-goat's horn mixed with mint and other medicines with cooling properties. But please remember first that these medicines require at least a month to take effect. Considering the pain you're in, can you afford to wait even a week? Second, all these medicines act as laxatives. If taken in small quantities, they don't work; if in great quantities, you will suffer from diarrhea. Considering the state you're in with your toothache, can your constitution tolerate an attack of diarrhea? Third, the most important ingredient among the cooling medicines is the powder of crushed rhino horn. The Ministry of Health has issued a document-x year, x month, x day-stipulating that rhino-horn powder be taken off the national medical-care program and paid for privately. It's a damned nuisance, as this medicine is very expensive. Of course, that was the point of the new regulation.

"Do you mean to tell me that I went through all this trouble, and even had to look up Department Chief Liu, just for a measly pack of pain relievers?" I shouted in anger.

"All right, all right, all right, we'll try acupuncture…"

They inserted a needle into the hegu acu-point between my thumb and index finger and another into my earlobe, and I had no choice but to leave with a pack of pain relievers in my pocket.

Actually, acupuncture and pain relievers did help. My symptoms were relieved, and so was I. What does it matter, Chinese medicine or Western medicine, so long as it works? Likewise, it doesn't matter, expensive medicine or cheap medicine, so long as it cures. On the problem of a toothache, there is no need for the differing schools of medicine to exclude one another.

Five days later, before I had finished my pills, the pain returned. This time, it was not only the tooth; one whole side of my head was throbbing. I could neither sleep nor eat nor even sit, much less work. I lay in bed groaning and moaning all night. Through the stillness of the night, our whole apartment building rang with the echoes of my lamentations. Much to my chagrin, I had disturbed the sleep of our neighbor on the floor above, President Shi Xueya of the Toothology Society.

President Shi came down to give me his personal attention. Dressed in a Western suit and leather dress shoes, with pin and tie and a matching handkerchief tucked into his breast pocket and exuding the faint aroma of Parisian cologne, President Shi had become a new man in a matter of days. I was impressed. He shook his head when he saw the state I was in.

"How could you let a petty little tooth reduce you to such a state? Our Toothology Society is an academic institution, now participating in an exchange program with the Royal Society of Holland. A complaint such as yours is beyond, as well as beneath, our concern. But your groans disturb my rest. This is a case of physical babblings interfering with metaphysical contemplations. Out of humanistic concern, I will alienate myself from my true identity and stoop to cure your toothache."

Then and there, as if in an epiphany, I realized that

President Shi got together a few old women, who prepared to scrape my back with copper thimbles steeped in vinegar. (Attention, readers, neither tin nor aluminum nor any other metal would do; it must be copper.) I exposed my back to their fingers. Up and down, up and down-the copper thimbles went the length of my back; from the neck to the tailbone, they left three blood-red trails. My whole body exuded the fragrance of vinegar, stronger than that of the sweet-and-sour fish at the Seafood Delight Restaurant, where the price had gone up three times running.

President Shi then went and procured a muscle-rippling qi gong master to instill vital energy, the qi, in me. First, the master placed his left foot lightly on the floor and slightly bent his right knee. Then he stretched his left hand toward me and withdrew his right hand as he proceeded to rally his vital energy, the qi. It is common knowledge that this kind of qi gong performance can split rocks; even iron swords have been made to bend under the influence. How, then, can a tooth withstand its spell? It occurred to me that its potency would crush my jaw or even my head into smithereens. The thought made me shake in fear, and surprisingly my toothache disappeared. President Shi pointed to me shaking in bed and said to my dear wife, "See how qi gong works. See how the evil negative qi inside him is quivering under the potency of the positive qi!"

The words were barely out of his mouth when the qi gong master rolled his eyes fiercely and, calling up the qi from his own dan tian acu-point under the belly button, cried in a loud voice, "Open!"

I was soaked in sweat, but my toothache was gone. I ate a bowl of egg custard and slept peacefully.

From then on, my toothache stopped bothering me. I was very touched by the experience and went about singing the praises of folk medicine. Looking sideways, it was better than Western medicine. Looking backward, it was better than traditional Chinese medicine. Reporters for an evening paper interviewed me and wrote up my story, "Magic Cure in the Hands of the People," which was later included in the pages of the popular After Eight Hours magazine and Reader's Digest. Ironically, my toothache has boosted my reputation. An elderly expatriate Chinese living in Los Angeles read my story and wrote to me, saying that he was suffering from a toothache and thanks to my story has decided to return to the motherland in hopes that I will put him in touch with the magic folk cure. My experience with toothache has actually contributed to attracting China 's sons back to the bosom of the motherland! The Ministry for the United Front was interested and also came to make a note of the case.

Pretty soon President Shi moved away from our apartment building. It was said that he had moved into quarters commensurate with his elevated position and his contribution to the Tooth-ology Society. Two months later, news got out that Shi Xueya was arrested and his society dissolved. It was said that he was a fraud and that many people had been his dupes. This news had me completely rattled. I couldn't help reflecting back upon my relationship with ex-president Shi. Had I been currying favor with the president for the sake of my tooth? Had I fabricated the records in his favor? Was my gift offering of ginseng and deer-antler kidney-enhancement mixture a form of bribery? Had I, consciously or otherwise, contributed to inflating his false reputation? Now he was arrested, and that of course was proof that he was guilty. If he was a con man, then what am I, given our close association? What had been my motive in associating myself with him? Apart from the urgency of my toothache, was there something else lurking beneath my consciousness? What about the exhilaration at seeing my name in the evening paper? Look inward! Was it not vanity and self-seeking? The more I thought about it, the more my tooth hurt. Oh, the pain was killing me!

This last attack was not limited to teeth; my whole body was affected. My head was spinning, I had nausea, I ran a high fever, and I trembled from head to toe. All my colleagues came to commiserate. They deplored my dilatoriness resulting from a fear of tooth extraction and advised me not to trust to luck anymore and to seek out an oral surgeon without delay. The chairman of my department was full of admonishments. The first rule in life, he said, is to be honest. If your tooth aches, let it ache in an honest, down-to-earth way. Take it to a hospital honestly and get it pulled out honestly. All that dillydally-shilly-shallying was due to your fear of pain. Fear drives out honesty, and without honesty you'll get nowhere. Now without some pressure, he said, how can you expect to cure your toothache? The matter was insignificant but the philosophy behind it profound.

I was completely bowled over. I made haste to concur that the honest attitude is the scientific attitude and that without science there could be no oral hygiene. I conceded that this was the principle of two negatives negating each other but that however you negate, you can't do without science! The problem with me, I confided to my chairman, was not that I rejected science but that science had persisted in eluding me-in a word, I couldn't get registered in the clinic. With only one dental clinic in a city of over a million, those of us without back doors must begin lining up the night before to get a registration slip. But now that my wife and I were advanced in years, I said, we did not have the inspired energy to start lining up the night before, as I had done on my previous visit many years ago. Without that kind of inspired energy, one could not pull off a great performance; without the required kind of great performance, the registration slip could not be had; and without the registration slip, any kind of scientific treatment was beyond our grasp. On the other hand, I continued, those with back doors could sit at home comfortably without having to line up at all. All they needed to do was greet their elder maternal uncle or second paternal uncle or third paternal aunt at the hospital gate, and they could sail in and get the best treatment at the least expense… But why am I saying this?

Actually, I was not familiar with the registration policies of the dental clinic and had no more grudge against the clinic than anybody else. But being blamed for rejecting science, I got worked up in spite of myself and recited a litany of grievances, ending with a tragic flourish. It always boosts your self-esteem to blame others.

The chairman of my department then said that a new mayor had just been installed, a certain Mr. Zhu, who made much of intellectuals and had helped many scholars with particular grievances. He advised me to write a letter to this man. His word of support, my chairman argued, would materialize in action, and then getting into the hospital would be child's play. An example of "spirit converting itself into material results," he added.

I hesitated. But my colleagues were keen. They offered to write the letter for me, seeing that I was incapacitated by illness. The words flowed easily from their pen, and in no time at all the letter was read out to me. It described the pain of my toothache with passion and eloquence and exposed the pernicious backdoor practices with indignation. As I could not raise any objections to the contents I was asked to sign. Just as I was deliberating as to whether sending such a letter was advisable, my wife took out my seal and stamped it on the letter. So there it was, my own red seal staring back at me from the sheet of paper. My colleagues snatched up the letter and promised to put it into the yellow-capped fast-service mailbox with stamp and everything. Such comradeship! I felt funny around the tear glands.

The letter was sent, but I was still uneasy. Should I have disturbed the mayor over such a petty affair as my toothache? It seemed an inglorious, unconscionable thing to do. Just think, the city's population numbers one million, and every one of them has thirty-six teeth, making altogether thirty-six million teeth. Supposing all thirty-six million teeth were to go and bother the mayor- how could the man do his work? Perhaps this was a vestige of the Cultural Revolution, a resurgence of the rebel spirit. I felt ashamed.

The day after my letter was mailed, I received a missive from ex-president Shi Xueya. He told me he was safe and sound and that what had transpired was all a misunderstanding. I was welcome to look him up if I had trouble with my teeth. He also informed me that he was about to chair the governing board of the Society for the Treatment of Scabies and that they had received academic support in the form of fifteen thousand deutsche marks. He asked me whether I had trouble with hair loss or scalp itch and said that help would be available. I was so alarmed I kept putting up my hands to check my scalp several times a day.

The very next day, in confirmation of ex-president Shi's words, news of the founding of the Society for the Treatment of Scabies appeared on TV, showing a lot of local celebrities in attendance. Mr. Shi Xueya was the most active on the scene, beaming with recovered glory. It was said he was a real pioneering spirit.

The following day, I received an official letter from the dental clinic. The gist of it ran thus:

Your letter to Mayor Zhu has been relayed to us. Your criticism of backdoor practices in registration is correct in principle and basically grounded in facts. Considering that you fall within the category of intellectuals over fifty years of age who have made contributions to society and, having been approved by the mayor's office, it is now determined that you are eligible for Special Services and assigned to the care of Dr. Zi Wu-tong, physician-in-charge. Please be at the Hospital before eight o'clock on the 28th and proceed straight to Special Services, room 54. You need not register on arrival. You will be charged after the consultation. Hoping for our further co-operation, you are welcome to offer more criticism of our work. Our clinic is the Best Choice for toothache sufferers.

I was exhilarated. Such a good mayor, loving the people as his own children, as the saying goes. And such a good clinic! Such modesty! Such efficiency! Immediate results! Better than Tokyo! And such a good doctor assigned to me, even his name sounded reassuring: Zi-"high qualifications"-and Wutong-"no pain"! Such heaven-sent good tidings. I had neither killed nor had I coveted my neighbor's wife, and now all the virtues I'd stored up in a life well spent were being rewarded.

But I was also frightened. Now that I was really going to the dental clinic to deal with my tooth, I began to have doubts. Could I avoid having it pulled? Inspecting it in the mirror, I saw that it had nearly all rotted away. Things having come to this point, how could I still cling to the forlorn hope that the remains might still be preserved? Or even think of putting off the pulling? Or hope for pulling without pain? Dental clinic or heavenly haven, Dr. No Pain or Dr. Screaming Pain, how could you avoid injections of Novocain? How could you avoid pliers and pincers? Or blood? Or a big black hole? I had spent the energy of nine bulls and two tigers, as the saying goes, and for what if not to avoid the pain of tooth pulling? And then I had spent another round of energy of the same dimensions, and for what but to undergo the pain of the ultimate pulling? Now the case was closed. There could be no more procrastination. The best choice was already made. How could a tooth have led me to such absurdities?

I reckoned the time hour by hour until finally it was the night of the twenty-seventh. Then I reckoned the time minute by minute and didn't sleep a wink all night. My thoughts roamed over the sufferings that teeth bring into the life of man. Born without teeth, sprouting front teeth at eight months, a full mouth of baby teeth at two years of age, and then another set of teeth in early childhood- all his life, man's sufferings are linked to teeth. Keeping them is a trial, but losing them is worse. Sprouting them is a pain, but eliminating them is torture. Even after death, when one's remains are stuffed into the ash container, the poor injured and insulted teeth are often disturbed in their last rest. Why do humans have such sharp and durable teeth?

Time dragged on until morning arrived at long last. My wife fed me fried eggs. We looked at each other dejectedly. The wife said, "Fear not! Be firm and firmer still!"

The repetition of firmness nearly drew tears to my eyes. I said to my wife in the tragic tones of a last parting, "I am on my way. Take care of yourself!"

How sublime! I had finally overcome the psychological obstacles, conquered the fear of pulling, the fear of pain. With head held high and swinging steps, I marched into the dental clinic; I swept past the gatekeeper with the dignity of a man about to meet his maker, stepped into Special Services, room 54, and stood before the nurse-I was a new man.

"Have you come for your teeth?" The smiling nurse flashed her teeth at me. I tried to smile back, with my hand on my aching, swollen jaw.

I explained my business and showed her the official letter. The nurse spread out her hands: "How unlucky. Dr. Zi Wutong had a stroke last night and is now in the emergency ward. The other doctors are not informed about your case. You know, of course, that our consultations are all planned beforehand. Please go home. You jnay leave the letter here; I'll make some inquiries, and let you know later…"

Was this possible? Treating me like dirt! But…

I made my way out of the hospital; I fought my way onto the bus, and after riding three stops, it suddenly occurred to me that my tooth was spared that particular day, that I need not go through that excruciating pain. It was not my fault; I had done all I could, but it was just not in the stars that I should have my tooth pulled on that day. What could I do? The tooth was willing, but the pulling was put off. What can it be but the will of heaven?

I was so overjoyed my bad tooth had even stopped hurting. Marvelous it was that although my tooth was not pulled out, I was just as gratified as if it were-actually, even more so. From the Taoist viewpoint of Laozi and Zhuangzi, pulling was not pulling, not pulling was pulling. From the Buddhist viewpoint, the tooth was the sorrow, the great sorrow was suffering, suffering was boundless; but turn back your steps, and salvation was at hand. From the Freudian viewpoint, pulling out the tooth was release. From the Keynesian viewpoint, pulling out the tooth was a process of value accumulation. From the Sartrean viewpoint, the aching tooth was the externalization of the essence. From the viewpoint of systems, pulling the tooth was system engineering. From the Nietz-schean viewpoint, a toothache was the proof of degradation and misfortune, was the pain of you not feeling my pain, the proof of the isolation of misunderstood greatness, proof that the culture of teeth was more unbearable than the aching tooth…

My tooth has not been pulled out yet, but it has acquired more profundity than if it had been.

Translated By Zhu Hong