Shen Haobo
Wenlou Village Accounts: The Mute Speaking
When we arrived there,
the mute’s family were holding a funeral,
as his mother died
of AIDS.
The mute saw us,
suddenly rushed out of the crowd,
holding our hands,
shaking them ceaselessly.
If he could speak
at that time,
he would have said,
Comrades,
you are here at last!
The mute stood in the yard,
surrounded by the mourners.
He guided them
to the coffin to kowtow,
while his eyes
never went away from us.
I felt the mute
wanted to speak.
The mute, holding his mute daughter,
walked towards us at the yard gate.
People followed him.
They seemed all to know
what the mute was going to say.
The mute and his mute daughter,
with a plop,
kneeled down before us.
He looked up at us,
one hand pointing to his own house.
Oh, I understood.
He was saying,
I’m really poor;
please give me some money.
I nodded,
drawing him to a corner,
pulled out a 100-yuan note from my pocket.
The mute shook his head
with a dismal look.
Oh, not enough.
I took out another 100.
The mute’s face turned more ill-looking
like an angry ninja
who would suffocate me.
He stared at me for a minute,
produced his hand crisply,
showing five fingers.
Mute, mute,
I clearly heard you speak.
The vicious voice –
Five hundred.
Don’t fucking bargain with me!
Translated from the Chinese by Liang Yujing
哑巴说话
我们去的时候
哑巴家正办丧事
母亲死了
因为艾滋
哑巴看见我们来
突然从人群中冲出
一把握住我的手
不停地摇晃
如果此时
哑巴开口说话
一定会是：
“同志
您可来啦！”
哑巴站在院里
被来吊丧的人们围着
带着他们
到棺材旁边磕头
但他的眼睛
一直没有离开我们
我感觉哑巴
想说话
哑巴拎着他的哑巴女儿
向站在院门口的我们走来
人们跟在哑巴后面
他们看起来
都知道哑巴要说什么
哑巴和他的哑巴女儿
咕咚一声
跪在我们面前
指着自己的屋子
抬头望着我们
哦，我明白了
他是想说：
“我家很穷
给我点钱”
我点点头
把哑巴拉到角落里
从兜里掏出100块钱
哑巴摇摇头
脸色十分阴郁
哦，嫌少
我就又掏出100块
哑巴脸色更难看了
像一个愤怒的忍者
令我窒息
盯着我看了一会儿
刷的伸出右手
亮出5个指头
哑巴哑巴
我分明地听到你在说话
那恶狠狠的声音
——“五百
少他妈讨价还价”
Translator’s Note: Wenlou Village is one of China’s AIDS villages, due to a 1991-1995 plasmapheresis campaign by the Henan provincial government. According to official statistics, there are 38 such villages in Henan Province. “Wenlou Village Accounts” is a sequence of seven poems written by Shen Haobo after his visit to the village in the early 2000s. “The Mute Speaking” is the final poem is the sequence, and this translation is not previously published.
Shen Haobo, born in 1976, is considered one of the most controversial voices among the new generation of Chinese poets for being both wickedly erotic and politically satirical in his poetry. His first collection, Great Evil in the Heart (2004), was banned and he went abroad for a few months to escape arrest. As the leading poet of the Lower Body group, he is the author of five poetry collections.
Liang Yujing grew up in China and is currently a PhD candidate at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He is the Chinese translator of Best New Zealand Poems 2014 (Wai-te-ata Press) and the English translator of Zero Distance: New Poetry from China (Tinfish Press).
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