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  The red-faced man returned to his seat amid tumultuous applause. Now everyone started clapping hands in time.

  “Who’s next?”

  “Let us have more!”

  It seemed they would continue the Song of Bear’s Wood.

  The bearded man moved to the centre of the room.

  “Yea! It’s me now!”

  That alone was enough to set off eddies of laughter.

  The bearded man started to dance in a way that differed just slightly from the red-faced man’s effort. In a rich, deep voice he sang:

  Nanjoray Kumanocky!

  Kanjoray Eenocky!

  Yockay Yottaraka,

  Ockay Ottaraka,

  Kockay Ko-ko-ko-ko-ko!

  Well, this was so funny that even I was gripping my belly. The men, and even the women, were bent double with laughter, tears streaming down their cheeks. The children were upturned on the floor, feet shaking uncontrollably in the air. Not only was the song out of tune and utterly nonsensical, but the dance was so completely absurd as to be from another world. Whoever sang or danced it, guffaws of laughter would surely ensue.

  With the opening “Nanjoray Kumanocky!,” the dancer would arch his upper body to the right, as if to depict a great mountain. Then, with “Kanjoray Eenocky!,” he would depict a mountain to the left. Then he would hop to the right and adopt a pose, then hop to the left and adopt the same pose in reverse. Finally, he would lift one leg, screw up his face, and hop along like a chicken.

  “Who’s next? Who’s next?”

  At last the laughter died down, and the clapping started again. They all seemed to be in some kind of frenzy. I began to feel carried along with it myself.

  A lightly built, affable old man moved to the centre of the room. He resembled the Village Elder, though not such an imposing figure.

  Everyone burst into laughter again. The women and children shrieked with merriment as they clapped to the rhythm. The old man must have been particularly popular with them. Baring his gnarled old arms and legs, he danced with great skill and sang in a husky voice:

  Nanjoray Kumanocky!

  Kanjoray Eenocky!

  Sockay Sottaraka,

  Mockay Mottaraka,

  Dockay Do-do-do-do-do!

  Some laughed so much they were gasping for breath, clutching their chests. Others were in convulsions, still others had collapsed on the floor. The din was so loud that the house seemed ready to burst. I had tears of mirth in my eyes, and my head was starting to feel numb.

  The clapping started again.

  “Who’s next, who’s next?!”

  “Let us do the whole hog!”

  “All do it in turns, all in turns!”

  The driver of the train danced out from his place in the corner to the centre of the wooden-floored room. The mere sight of that was so comical that the women were already laughing hysterically. He was obviously an accomplished buffoon. As I reeled with laughter, a thought flitted dimly across the back of my mind. If this funny man were to dance the same dance as the others, I might just die laughing, or failing that, go stark raving mad.

  The train driver started to dance, singing in a crazy high-pitched voice:

  Nanjoray Kumanocky!

  Kanjoray Eenocky!

  Kuckay Kuttaraka,

  Zockay Zottaraka,

  Pockay Po-po-po-po-po!

  I was pole-axed, laughing so much I could hardly breathe. Some of the women just couldn’t bear it any longer. They ran across the wooden floor, jumped down to the earthen floor, crossed to the hearthplace and crouched down there for comfort. Next, the young man sitting next to the driver was urged out by the clapping, and moved to the centre with a sheepish look. It really seemed that everyone would have to sing and dance in turn. As I clapped time with the others, I wondered if I would have to join in as well. Because if that were the case, I would be next in line. The young man started to dance, singing in a woeful voice:

  Nanjoray Kumanocky!

  Kanjoray Eenocky!

  Sickay Sittaraka,

  Gockay Gottaraka,

  Kackay Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka!

  By now, they’d repeated the song so many times that even I knew more or less how it went. As long as you started with “Nanjoray Kumanocky! Kanjoray Eenocky!,” you could change the second part as you felt fit.

  The young man returned to his seat, accompanied by a thunderous ovation. Now they all started clapping the beat again, and smiled over at me. I hesitated for a moment. Perhaps it would seem a bit impertinent of me, a stranger, to sing and dance in front of these people. But they were evidently expecting just that. And besides, I’d been so generously wined and dined. It would have been rude not to dance for them.

  As I dithered, the Village Elder, still clapping to the beat, suggested: “Well. P’raps our dance is a bit too hard for the guest.”

  That got me up on my feet. “No, no. I’ll do the dance!” I said.

  Everyone applauded. “The guest will do the dance!” they exclaimed.

  “Good old guest, good old guest!”

  Luna and the other women now came closer, and watched with looks of expectation.

  This dance was funny, whoever danced it. So the same should be true for me. First, I moved to the middle of the room. Then, after swaying two or three times in rhythm with the clapping, I started to sing the song and dance the dance.

  Nanjoray Kumanocky!

  Kanjoray Eenocky!

  Buckay Buttaraka,

  Yackay Yattaraka,

  Bockay Bo-bo-bo-bo-bo!

  I finished the song, I finished the dance. Laughing aloud at my own foolishness, I waited for the plaudits. And then I noticed.

  Not a single person was laughing.

  All of them – the Village Elder and the other seniors, the bearded man, the women – they’d all stopped clapping, and now cast their heads down with uneasy looks. The red-faced man and the train driver, visibly paler now, examined the bottoms of their liquor cups and scratched their heads in embarrassment. Even Luna, standing there on the earthen floor, looked down awkwardly at her feet.

  I knew I shouldn’t have done it, I thought as I flopped down onto the floor. I, a stranger, had danced the dance badly and ruined the wake.

  With trepidation, I turned to the Village Elder to apologize. “I really am very sorry,” I said. “I, a stranger, have danced your dance badly and ruined your wake.”

  “No, no. That’s not the problem.” The Village Elder lifted his face and looked at me with pity, shaking his head. “You sang and danced most well. Almost too well, in fact, for an outsider.”

  “Oh?” I said. Maybe I was wrong to dance too well! “In that case, why did no one laugh as they did before?”

  “The words you sang were not good.”

  I looked at him in disbelief. “The words? But all I did was sing nonsense, like everyone else!”

  “That’s true,” the Village Elder replied. “The others all sang nonsense because they were trying not to sing the real words. But you, intending to sing nonsense, accidentally sang the real words.”

  “The real words?!” I said, aghast. “You mean, what I sang was the real Song of Bear’s Wood? That Bockay Bo-bo-bo-bo-bo?”

  The very sound drew gasps and moans from the villagers as they squirmed in their seats.

  “Why?” I asked the Village Elder as if to cross-examine him. “What is wrong with singing the real words?”

  The Village Elder started to explain. “The Song of Bear’s Wood, it’s taboo. We’re forbidden to sing it. It’s been passed down since olden days here in Bear’s Wood, but we’re not allowed to sing it out loud in front of folk. For if we sing it out loud, something terrible will surely happen to this country of ours.”

  “Oh?” I said with mounting incredulity. “You mean this whole country we’re living in?”

  “That’s right.”

  Superstitious nonsense! I just wanted to laugh it off. They’d all ganged up to make a fool of me. But as I looked arou
nd again, it didn’t seem like a joke at all. They all wore genuinely gloomy expressions and looked quite crestfallen.

  I felt a shudder. Then I turned again to the Village Elder. “Please don’t make fun of me!” I begged. “I’m quite superstitious, you know, for my age!”

  “There’s nothing superstitious about it,” said the Village Elder, looking at me sternly for the first time. “Whenever someone from this hamlet accidentally sings the song, something terrible happens to this country of ours. So we take special care to tell everyone, adults and children, not to sing it. But every now and then, some parent, through lack of care or attention, lets a child sing it, for whatever reason. And every time that happens, some awful disaster or misfortune afflicts this country. Well, until now, it’s only been children, so the punishment has not been too bad. It’s never been so bad that the whole country has gone to ruin. But tonight, a fine young man like yourself has come, and has sung the song, so loudly, so well. The punishment will surely be severe.”

  “I just didn’t know.” An involuntary cry of anguish issued from my throat. “All I did was sing nonsense. I didn’t know what it meant! Will there be punishment even for that?”

  “There will,” the Village Elder replied with horrible certainty.

  I buried my head in my hands. “Why did you let me do the dance?” I cried. “If the song is so taboo and dangerous, why did everyone urge me to sing it? You’re all responsible too, you know! And anyway, why did you start singing the Song of Bear’s Wood in the middle of a wake?! Didn’t you think someone might just sing the real words by mistake?”

  “It’s true. We’re partly to blame as well,” said the red-faced man, who’d been the first to dance. He spoke with true remorse, and shifted uneasily in his seat.

  “Yes. We’d be wrong to put all the blame on you,” echoed the Village Elder, looking at me with sorrowful eyes. “The reason why we do so enjoy singing the Song of Bear’s Wood is that, one day, someone might just sing the real words by accident. It’s so miraculously funny, because the singer puts us all in a state of nervous excitement. And deeper down, there’s a feeling of pride that our clan holds the key to this country’s fate. That makes the song even funnier. On top of that, we all got a bit carried away tonight. When you said you would do the dance, I had a bit of a foreboding. I’ll wager the others did too. But none of us could ever have imagined, not even in our wildest dreams, that you would go and sing the real and proper words, sound for sound, without a single mistake from beginning to end. We were all just enjoying the thrill, the sense of danger. And now it has ended in this.”

  I was almost crying. “Is there no way of purging it?” I asked.

  They all shook their heads as one.

  “No. There’s no way,” the Village Elder replied. “Well, what’s done is done. Let us not think too much about what might happen to our country now.”

  “Yes, let us not think about it,” echoed the others, doing their best to console me.

  “There’s no point tormenting yourself, thinking what might happen.”

  “Put it out of your mind.”

  “Do not concern yourself.”

  Could I help concerning myself, I wondered.

  The driver stood up. “Right, then,” he said. “Had we better be on our way? It’s half-past three.”

  “Yes. You send the guest off, will you,” said the Village Elder.

  “Goodbye then,” I said.

  I got up with a heavy heart and bowed to them all.

  The men and women all bowed back in silence. Luna, half hiding behind the middle-aged woman who looked remarkably like her, nodded to me from the earth-floored room.

  I climbed back into the cable car. The young driver took me back down to the foot of the mountain, and from there to the little station at Deer’s Wood.

  Just as he was leaving, the driver turned to me. “Would you kindly not say anything to anyone about this Bear’s Wood Main Line, or our Bear’s Wood clan, or the song just now?” he asked.

  “Of course,” I replied. “I have no intention of telling anyone at all.”

  Two days later, I finally returned home. And ever since then, I’ve been waiting, nervously waiting, wondering every day what terrible catastrophe will befall our nation. So far, to the best of my knowledge, nothing seems to have happened at all. Sometimes I think they were just making fun of me after all. But maybe, just maybe, something awful might just be about to happen. Or perhaps it already has happened, and I’m the only one not to know about it. Perhaps something really, really terrible is happening to our country at this very moment…

  The Very Edge of Happiness

  As I returned home from work one day, my wife looked up from her woman’s weekly magazine, opened her mouth until it was almost as big as her face, and started to scream at me.

  “What a fool I was to marry you!”

  “What?! What are you talking about?”

  She smacked the open page of her magazine with the back of her hand. It was yet another ludicrous article – this time, ‘Measure your husband’s sex rating’.

  “It says here your erection is the size of an eleven-year-old’s. Your staying power is no better than a chicken’s, and your technique is Grade C average. You do it as often as a fifty-year-old, yet you’re still in your thirties and I’m only in my twenties! What are you going to do about it?! You’ve been deceiving me until now, haven’t you! What a fool I’ve been!”

  “Don’t be so bloody stupid! It’s just a lot of sex-obsessed nonsense!” I pulled the magazine from her hands and tossed it away. “Sex, is that all you’ve got left to think about? Shame on you! It was my payday today, and I’ve come straight home just to bring you the money. Well, I’m not going to buy you anything now. You can think what you like!”

  She gasped, and a look of regret flitted across her face. Then, with a coquettish smile, she apologized most submissively.

  “I’m sorry, dear. I had no right to say such things. Did I, dear?”

  “No, you didn’t. You had no right to say such things,” I replied. “You’ve never wanted for food, nor ever had to cry because you’ve nothing to wear. We have everything that most other families have.

  And all provided by me. You should be happy. That’s it! You’re so happy that you’re desperately trying to find a reason to be unhappy. So you try to find fault with your husband. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes, dear. I apologize,” she said, gazing at me with eyes full of expectation.

  Faced with such unconditional submission, most husbands would lighten up, give a big smile and hand over the pay packet. But not me. I hate that sugar-sweet family sitcom behaviour. No, I’m not ready to sink into such phoney pre-fabricated happiness. If I suggested I was happy, I’d be falling into a TV drama stereotype of a husband, as other husbands do.

  I was getting changed in the bedroom when my sixty-five-year-old mother came in from the kitchen.

  “It was payday today, wasn’t it son,” she said, sidling up to me suggestively. “Go on, give us a bit of cash. Shigenobu keeps asking for a pedal car. Let me buy one for him!”

  “No!” I shouted. Filial affection was not for me, either. “Go and get the dinner ready. Go on, you stupid cow! Before I kick you out!”

  But still she stood there grumbling. So I kicked her out, and she shuffled off to the kitchen crying. Served her right.

  I went back to the living room.

  “Could you give Shigenobu his bath, dear?” said my wife.

  Our son, nearly two, was sprawled across the floor watching a soap opera on TV. How much does he understand, I wondered. Ignoring his moans, I got him out of his clothes and carried him off to the bathroom. Shigenobu still spoke in a baby voice, and it was sometimes hard to know what he was on about. But I found that really loveable. So loveable, in fact, that I hated myself. I hated myself for finding my own child loveable. Partly out of embarrassment, I would even ill-treat him sometimes – telling myself, all the while, that boys ar
e best treated rough.

  As I opened the bathroom door, white plumes of steam wafted up from the bath tub. I lifted Shigenobu and plunged him in up to the waist. To check the temperature, you understand.

  It was scalding hot. Shigenobu issued a loud scream and started to cry. When I lifted him out of the water, his lower body was lobster-coloured.

  “Shigenobu!”

  “Whatever’s the matter?!”

  My wife and my mother came rushing up and peered at me through the open doorway.

  “It’s nothing,” I pretended, laughing casually. “Just testing the water, you know.”

  “How could you do such a thing?!” said my wife, picking the boy up. “There, there. Poor little thing. Look how red he is!”

  “Mummy! Mummy!”

  My wife hugged him tightly as he continued to cry. “Couldn’t you have tested the water yourself?!” she said, glaring at me with tear-laden eyes.

  “Shut up! It’s a wife’s job to test the water before her husband has his bath. Fool!” I slapped her full on the side of her face. “Do you want me to sit naked in cold water so I can catch my death of cold?!”

  My wife started to cry. My mother started crying too, and desperately tried to calm me as I stood there shouting and raving like a madman.

  Luckily, Shigenobu wasn’t burnt. An ointment was enough to ease the pain. I got angry again at my own sense of relief. I was angry all the way through dinner. And the cause of my anger was obvious. It was this “phoney little happiness” of ours.

  After dinner, Shigenobu and my mother went to sleep in the next room. Our apartment consists of three rooms, plus kitchen and bathroom, on the 17th floor of Block 46 in a massive housing estate. The rooms are all small. One of them is our bedroom, one is used by my mother and the other is our living room. Each room is filled with the most fashionable furniture. In fact, with a massive colour TV and a coffee table in the middle, there’s hardly any room at all in our living room.

  I sat at the coffee table and peeled a tangerine as I watched a foreign film on TV. My wife sat next to me, sewing some clothes for Shigenobu.

  “You know,” said my wife as I made for my sixteenth tangerine. “We could do with a new television, couldn’t we dear.”