Fat Years - Chan Koonchung [60]
But as Fang Caodi went on talking, a few bells rang in Lao Chen’s mind and he began to pay closer attention.
“It’s very strange for a month to go missing, Lao Chen. Haven’t you noticed that everybody around you has changed in the last couple of years?”
This sounded just like what Little Xi and Little Dong had told him.
“Before and after that month, all China changed and so did the Chinese people,” Fang said.
Lao Chen always believed that Fang Caodi greatly exaggerated things.
“China is now divided into two types of people,” Fang continued. “One type forms the great majority, and the other type is a very small minority.”
“How many people are in this very small minority?” asked Lao Chen.
“I only know about two people up to now,” answered Fang. “Myself and Zhang Dou, my sworn brother—but we’re confident there are others. We’re hoping that you’re one of us, too.”
“Why do you think I’m one of your minority group?”
“Because you’re not happy, you look terrible, wet, and bedraggled like a drowned cat.”
“Just because I’m not feeling good—does that make me a member of your minority?”
“That’s only an outward indication,” Fang said. “The key element is whether or not you remember the events of that missing month.”
Lao Chen decided to sound Fang Caodi out. “Old Fang, have you been using some kind of drug for a long time, like maybe—”
“So you are one of us!” exclaimed Fang in surprise.
“Don’t get so excited. Answer my question first,” said Lao Chen.
“Zhang Dou and I both have chronic asthma, and we’ve been taking corticosteroids for many years.”
“Aha!” exclaimed Lao Chen.
“Don’t say ‘aha’ yet,” said Fang. “I did a survey and found that the great majority of people who take corticosteroids for their asthma don’t fit in our small minority. To this day, I only know of myself and Zhang Dou.”
“Perhaps taking some other kind of drug might yield the same result?” Lao Chen suggested.
“What do you mean, Lao Chen?”
“Corticosteroids, antidepressants, painkillers, other analgesics,” Lao Chen went on speculating. “Taking illegal drugs or some other type of medicine … maybe they all have this same effect. But not everyone who takes drugs or medicine for a long time will turn out this way. It’s just that taking drugs or pills may increase the probability. And then we have to look at other variables—for example, what drug someone takes, or what someone’s normal diet is, or personality, or just luck. All these things could influence whether or not a person turns out that way. And so what if you do? If you are that way, firstly, you’ll feel everyone around you has changed; secondly, that so-called change will be that everyone around you has become happy and may even experience a constant small-small high; and, thirdly, at least one part of the condition is that you will remember things that everyone else seems to have forgotten.” Lao Chen was thinking about how Little Dong remembered so much, while Little Xi did not.
“That’s it exactly,” agreed Fang Caodi. “We really are just like that. We can actually remember many things that other people have forgotten, especially the events of that lost month.”
“That lost month?” Lao Chen finally got it. “So what you’ve been saying is that a whole month has disappeared and been completely forgotten?”
“Exactly. It’s a case of collective amnesia.”
“Which month, exactly?” asked Lao Chen, narrowing his eyes.
“It’s precisely the month when the world economy went into crisis and China’s Golden Age of Ascendancy officially began,” said Fang. “Strictly speaking, it was in fact twenty-eight days.”
Lao Chen’s mind wandered a bit as he recalled the detective novel Thirteen Months that he had written at that time. Then, regaining his composure, he asked, “But didn’t those two events occur at the same time, not one after the other, with no gap in between?”
“Lao Chen, you’re really funny,” said Fang, laughing.
Lao Chen fell silent while he racked his brains trying to remember that period, but his memory was a complete blur. This whole