The Moon Opera Read online

  The drums and gongs sounded. Yanqiu watched as Chunlai went to the door. The curtain went up, and Yanqiu saw the factory manager sitting in the middle of the third row, smiling amiably like a great man, applauding slowly like a great man. The sight of him sitting there strangely calmed her. She knew that this time her Chang’e was dead. Chang’e’s remorse ended on that snowy night in Xiao Yanqiu’s fortieth year, cause of death unknown, at the age of forty-eight thousand.

  Xiao Yanqiu returned to the dressing room and sat down wordlessly at the mirror. The applause from the theater made the room seem especially quiet. She stared at herself, her eyes unfocused, like moonlight on an autumn night. She had no idea what she was doing, as, zombie-like, she picked up the dress with water sleeves and draped it over herself. She squeezed flesh-colored foundation into her hand and dabbed it evenly over her face, her neck, and the back of her hands. Then she asked the makeup artist to raise her eyebrows, wrap her head, apply the bangs, and put on the headdress. Lastly, she picked up her flute. All this she did calmly, so eerily quiet that the makeup artist felt a chill, the fine hairs on her back standing up. Terrified, she stared at Xiao Yanqiu with unconcealed apprehension, but Yanqiu stood up without a word, opened the door, and walked out.

  Dressed only in a thin opera robe, Xiao Yanqiu walked out into the snow and arrived at the theater entrance, where she stood beneath a streetlight. She glanced at the snow-covered street, counted a beat, and waved the bamboo flute. She began to sing, the same Erhuang aria, slow and meandering to a lyrical rhythm, and then to a strong beat, leading to a crescendo. Snowflakes swirled around her, and suddenly there was a crowd at the entrance, causing traffic to stop. More and more people arrived, crowding the street, but nothing, no one, made a sound. The people and cars seemed to have been blown to her on the wind, falling soundlessly like snowflakes, but Xiao Yanqiu was oblivious to it all. Another round of applause erupted inside the theater. She danced and sang. Finally, people noticed something dripping from her pant legs to the ground. The drops, black under the street light, fell on the snowy ground and created a series of black holes.

  Glossary

  Chou

  the clown role in Chinese opera

  Dan

  the major female role in Chinese opera

  east wind

  a key element in Chinese lore

  Egg (Dan) Nest

  ‘Dan’, with one character, means ‘egg’; another character, with the same pronunciation, is the opera role

  Erlang

  nephew of the mythical Jade Emperor, a deity with a third, true-seeing eye

  bodhisattva

  in the West, a patron, an “angel”

  consciousness

  class consciousness; a Cultural Revolution slogan

  great man

  alludes ironically to historical figures, in particular Mao Zedong, who were referred to as “great”

  Hualian

  another name for a Jing, the male role with a painted face

  Jing

  the male role with a painted face in Chinese opera

  Mo

  the secondary male role in Chinese opera

  Sheng

  the major male role in Chinese opera

  water sleeves

  long, loose sleeves on opera singers that highlight stylized gestures

  Xipi, Erhuang

  tunes in the operatic repertoire are all named; the lyrics are added