death in the parlour | great leaps backward

anita pan

death in the parlour

FOR THE LONGEST TIME, Mr. Thead had heard, at certain intervals, a slight popping sound coming from the soft, rear part of his head. It happened anywhere: he’d walk with his wife, Lucy, down to the grocer’s, returning with bottles of chilled soda, waxed apples, and fresh laundry tablets just to hear—pop!—the back of his neck seizing, a sudden shake, rainbow dots in his vision, seconds later having recovered and shrank into nothing. Huh, he’d say. How strange. Other times, he’d drift into a warm, black sleep, then—pop!—he’d spend another disgruntled hour lying in the dark, listening to the fluctuations of Lucy’s breathing and the gentle rays of moonlight spilling over her arms.

The worst times for the popping, however, were not in public. Mr. Thead dreaded hearing it when he was alone. If he was isolated, say, in the bath, or on the road with both hands occupied by a steering wheel, he felt the pops in a deeper, sinister way: louder, harsher, more frequent, and he felt overcome by a force which was not his own. In the company of others, a pop was easily forgotten. But otherwise, the silence of the trees, the quiet of one’s breathing, and a suddenly sticky air forced him to confront an invisible enemy.

This morning, Mr. Thead glanced in the bathroom mirror at his plain, bloated image—turning left, turning right—heart swelling and pounding when he reached his protruding belly. And his hair! His blood rushed to his ears as he ran through a field of short, prickly strands, each receding gradually like a defeated soldier. His vision grew narrow, his breathing into panicked gasps, and the feeling he’d fought unleashed itself, spilling warmly and furiously over the sink as his neck seized and a large ping! blasted him forward.

He frowned. The last pop was yesterday. They usually occurred once a week.

He swept the thought away at breakfast until Lucy, while reading the newspaper, dropped her coffee and screamed.

“Oh, Jesus. What is it?” he said.

She threw the paper at him. MAN FOUND HEADLESS IN OWN PARLOR, the headline read, TWO WEEKS AFTER DEATH. Mr. Thead squinted at the large, glossy photograph underneath. There was a pair of shiny brown loafers, an angular tor-so, and an abrupt cutoff near the neck, where a brown, rotting puddle replaced the head. But the body was familiar. He almost imagined the face.

“How horrid,” Lucy shuddered. “His poor family.”

Mr. Thead continued. "Albert Langley: forty-three, divorced, and employed at Hellman's Insurance Company, disappeared for two weeks, beginning September 9th; yes, yes, alright, let’s see, reasons for the violent rupture of his head remain unclear. Seems like an accident to me.”

“Hellman’s?” Lucy said. “That sounds familiar.”

“Well, I suppose.”

“Honey, don’t you work there?”

There was a pregnant pause before Mr. Thead spoke.

“Oh, God.” Deep, hot guilt surged forth in successive waves.

“How could I forget? They’ll want to know. They have to know—we had no idea where Albert went!”

He grabbed his car keys, attacked by a strange sense of foreboding. Why couldn’t he remember Albert after the first line, nor the company he belonged to?

“I’m going out later, William,” Lucy called. “You’ll have to fix up lunch for yourself.”

The sky was a brilliant safflower blue. Clumps of clouds clung in puffy twos and threes, floating, curling, and sagging over a thickly drawn horizon. A soft, scented heat wafted from his neighbour’s mulberry trees, and then, only then, did Mr. Thead realize how dark he had kept the interior of his house.

Despite his worries, he drove patiently, never once speeding past intersections or walkways. He said things like “Poor chap, I hope he went in peace,” when he knew Albert didn’t, and “I wonder how it could’ve happened,” when he already nursed vague suspicions. Simply because—

He lurched forward, nearly driving off the road. Mr. Thead’s vision swam in multi-patterned swirls, his lungs shook, his arms flew, and a prickly fire engulfed the back of his neck as a pop grabbed him furiously and shook him like a rag doll. He recovered in time to pull over.

It took several minutes of staring into the rearview mirror for him to continue.

Hellman’s came gradually into view, beginning with a crowd of swarming colours and ending with a horde of sympathy spilling out the front door. Coworkers scrambled together, hushed and hurried, discussing travel arrangements for the funeral when he joined them.

“How do you think Albert died?” Mr. Thead said, aimed at no one in particular. A man in a gray flannel suit whom he scarcely recognized turned round.

“Strangely, that’s what. He complained all the time about hearing loud noises coming from his head. Albert ought to have gone straight to the doctor, I say.”

Mr. Thead’s throat tightened. “What kind of loud noises?”

“I’m not sure. He said he had spasms, and that they were occasional. Oh, right, apparently they were getting dangerously frequent.”

“Frequent?”

“Yes, which was why he hated being alone. I heard, also—” Mr. Thead never heard what the man had to say because a nauseating fear gripped him and sent him scurrying back to his car. Blossoming visions erupted: he pictured his head bursting, an eye rolling around on the front seat, and slick, warm blood coating his windows. He struck the ignition and sped past every traffic sign until the trees on either side of the road merged into one thick strip of green.

“Lucy, Lucy! Phone Dr. Dekels straight away. Straight away, you hear me?” But Lucy was not home.

“Lucy! Where are you?”

He ran into the parlour—thick walls, thick rug, thick flooring—which, despite the soft midday light, seemed cold and uninviting, as if the room’s thickness was compressing him. Mr. Thead swore he had seen a similar scene, but never mind that now, he needed the phone.

The back of his neck seized.

great leaps backward

IN HIS BLURRY BLANKET OF HOT, BLACK SLEEP, Wuzhī leaned against the living room window. He heard only three things: a sputtering motorcycle, cicadas, and cascading human steps, as the sun warmed his back. Somebody, he thought, is going for a walk. The steps multiplied, stopping at what seemed to be a floor below him. A door was wrenched open. He heard a crash and some shrill yelling. Wuzhī awoke.

He peered over the balcony and saw two young men—the lithe, skinny kind, tanned from spitting on the streets and skipping school—dragging Mr. Liu outside, away from his apartment. One was lanky and plainly dressed, while the other wore the Party’s signature red armband. They created an old-timey cartoon beating, expelling flurries of cloudy dust, spirited hollers, and thwack! sounds from plummets of fists and feet alike. Mr. Liu shrieked and struggled intermittently as his eyes bulged out of their sockets, and Wuzhī remembered a catchphrase from the radio: something Chairman Mao had said about ‘destroying the old.’

Wuzhī glanced at Mr. Liu’s door while the boys flattened his nose bridge, squashing the proud, aristocratic cheekbones into a slimy, dark-brown mush. They’d confiscated Mr. Liu’s things because he was reported wearing a pair of wire-rimmed glasses reminiscent of Nietzsche, and only those imitating Westerners collected bourgeoisie junk. But what junk, specifically? Wuzhī frowned. Mr. Liu lived in a private, three-room flat with enough room for, say, two gold-trimmed French rococo couches, a flowery English tea set with crumpets and fresh butter, some delicate, angel-pat-terned soap dishes, and expensive paintings of nature or naked women on every inch of his walls. He’d also have a stuffed deer mounted in the sitting room and a bathroom with clean, hot running water. Wuzhī was busy designing Mr. Liu’s wallpaper when the man’s screaming rose an octave higher.

Wuzhī stuck his head out. “This is a public space, you know! Yell quietly!”

Grumbling, he crawled back to his room and continued napping. Now that glasses and opulent home décore were signs of ‘capitalist moral decay,’ Wuzhī saw public beatings every week. The first time he had tried to interfere, but crowds around the future corpse swallowed him up and pushed him away, and as he witnessed more beatings, Wuzhī realized these things didn’t matter. Sure, people died, but as they passed, more people were born, so nothing was truly lost. He pulled the covers over his ears.

When Wuzhī awoke again, the air was sticky with the early evening—oily cars, meat-market shouts, crying children—and he sat up to a muggy sweat stain on the mattress. There was, however, no old man screaming, and no sign of the boys.

“Huh,” Wuzhī said. “I wonder if they killed him.”

He unlocked the front door with Ying’s spare key, hurrying down the steps with an urge similar to staring at a train wreck. He found the irresponsible sunbather quickly: Mr. Liu, face up, arms and neck slick from the fear and heat of early June, with hot purple patches blooming next to ridges of dried blood and spit. There was no dramatic pool of red spreading outwards in four directions. But Mr. Liu did have tufts of hair ripped and scattered on the pavement like strands of cat fur on a rug, intertwined with small bits and pebbles. His eyes stared directly at the sun.

Wuzhī edged closer.

“Are you alright?”

Mr. Liu’s hands slackened. “Can you walk?”

A ray of sun passed over Mr. Liu’s uncontracted pupils, and Wuzhī understood. He drew back. Alternating waves of disgust and pity rose in warm, prickly waves, each lapping further than the last before Wuzhī heard a shuffling from behind.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

The boy with the armband leered at him. “I was checking if he was dead.”

“Really?” The lanky one said, kicking Mr. Liu carelessly. Wuzhī winced.

“Well, go home now.” He grabbed Wuzhī by the shoulders and steered him away. “There’s another one we’re gonna get later.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. Wuzhī sprinted upstairs and cast a furtive glance downwards once safe. He couldn’t see them. Only Mr. Liu remained, turning blue.

He heard the door click. Wuzhī expected the entire Red Guard Movement to barge into his flat, armed with clubs and sticks and violence, but it was his mother, Ying: one hand holding her groceries, the other clutching a plastic bag. He practically beamed with joy.

“You’re home!”

He spotted a book in her bag, recalling the woman beaten last week for promoting intellectualism. “I’ll start dinner now,” Ying said, “but can you boil the water?”

“Yeah, sure.” Everything was bound to be disturbing after that body-viewing incident.

“Oh, and, did you hear about Mr. Liu?” Ying said. “I saw him carried out on my way here. Another demonstration. He was so old, too.”

Wuzhī mumbled, “Sorry, who?”

“Mr. Liu. Weren’t you here all day?”

There was a brief pause.

“I was asleep. I think they covered his mouth.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want you witnessing that anyway. It’s awful, what they’re doing.”

Wuzhī understood now: the sunlight had stunk with the scent of death.

They ate early. Ying’s cooking was delicious, but Wuzhī could only stare silently at the tablecloth, picturing Mr. Liu’s glassy eyes. Ying frowned.

“Come, come, don’t be picky.”

He cowered expectantly before he spoke.

“Mom, when you see one of those demonstrations—you know, the ones where they punish somebody, suppose you don’t care.”

“What do you mean, don’t care?”

“Well, suppose you could’ve done something but chose not to?” For a moment, Ting said nothing. Then she narrowed her eyes and grabbed her plastic bag. “If you’re not hungry, go to bed. I’ll be right back. I’m returning something. Lock the door.”

They did not look at each other.

Wuzhī lay in bed, counting the repetitions of his ceiling fan. The air had acquired a sticky, oppressive quality. Another com-motion rose outside. Someone shattered glass while someone else chanted about taking down filthy intellectuals, and as the dull thud of flesh reverberated and pounded at his floorboards, Wuzhī stuck a pillow over his ears. He crawled deeper into his blankets, imitating a corpse, and began to cry without knowing.

He woke the next morning expecting to smell breakfast wafting around the house. But yesterday’s dinner remained on the table. The flat was empty.

“Mom?”