飛氘：魔鬼的頭顱

The Demon’s Head

By Fei Dao

Translated by David Hull

GENERAL XIN MAN—they called him Demon Xin Man—had been accused of

crimes against humanity and was being held in a little box that was placed in the

dock while he awaited trial at the international court.

Throughout history there have been many who have tried to alter the

course of war by eliminating a single person, but most have ended in failure.

Those desperados with lofty moral sentiments left behind nothing but a corpse

symbolizing their failure, along with a folk tale mixing terrorism with impassioned

patriotism. But there are always exceptions. General Xin Man’s luck came to an

end after he was in power for many decades, having committed all manner of

appalling crimes and surviving a number of legendary assassination attempts.

Several determined nihilists who were willing to lay down their lives put together

a meticulous plan and successfully blew up General Xin Man’s secret train in a

suicide raid. The general’s entire corps of fanatically loyal bodyguards followed

him to the netherworld. The scene of the explosion was too horrific for words.

Everyone had been blown to pieces, the righteous and the wicked intermingled,

although rather unevenly.

The course of the war changed markedly. In truth, before scholars had time

to produce an argument on an individual’s place in history, most people were

more worried whether or not the Demon himself had actually been blown up. The

General enjoyed going out in public, so people very quickly recognized Xin Man’s

epaulet on a portion of a shoulder, and thanks to the extraordinary measures he

took to protect himself, the general had luckily preserved most of his body. The

only regret was that his head had gone missing. Later, we learned from the Global

Times that the site of the explosion just happened to be—ah! History will drive

you crazy—situated near the International Neurological Research Institute where

Professor Ryan worked. The professor had just left the operating room and was

getting ready to go outside to breathe in the acidic and putrefied air of war when a

deafening sound was heard. The ground beneath him and the old-fashioned glass

windows of the hospital both shook. Ryan looked up and saw a semi-automatic

rifle fly toward him along with several Imperial Service Medals, a bloody

military cap and a not entirely perfect head. Out of professional habit, the

professor dodged the symbolism-laden objects, but caught the head in his hand

and ran his laboratory without further thought.

The professor later said that at the time he didn’t notice that the thing he had

acquired was the head that once ordered the massacre of tens of thousands of

dissenters. Without even cleaning the bloodstains off the face, Ryan immediately

began open cranium surgery and carried out a specialized examination. The

professor’s movements were precise and efficient, and the result came quickly:

although those lifeless eyes refused to close even in death, the brain inside

the skull was still alive. The professor carefully lifted out the shocked and

temporarily comatose brain tissue and placed it in a culture solution he had

prepared.

Professor Ryan found out what had happened in the evening paper. All of

the papers covered the assassination at great length. Demon Xin Man’s death

heartened persecuted people in all corners of the world. Even though there was

another ‘General Xin Man’ who immediately appeared to repudiate the rumour,

the Allied Forces sent out an official communiqué confirming that the man who

was killed was indeed none other than General Xin Man. The professor put the

paper down and returned to his laboratory to examine the now empty skull.

He concluded that only twenty-four hours previously, this organ now fated for

decomposition had given a tirade inciting a nationalist frenzy.

‘Oh, god.’ The professor crossed himself.

Ryan sat down and thought deeply. In the end, he concluded that there was

nothing improper in the rhetoric of the media reports of Xin Man’s death. As

a scientist, although committed to the truth of things, he also had to take

account the matter of peace for the human race. Based on the complexities of the

situation as well as considering his authority in this arena, it would be improper

to just rashly hand over this bomb to anyone else or to the public before making

some useful progress. He trusted that the allied forces would agree with his

decision.

The professor’s specialty was brain research on humans and all sorts of

animals. He had done quite a bit of work on brain physiology, encephelomechanics

and electrical engineering and mechanics. As he studied each day’s war bulletins,

Ryan busied himself arranging the necessary installations for the comatose brain.

General Xin Man was still appearing at various important places, putting out a

line of nonsense that no one believed any more. But people could easily make out

an air of apprehension and unease in his face. Everyone had long been passing

rumours that the Demon Xin Man had secretly prepared clones and set down

guidelines on important issues so that after he died another self could stand in

and fulfil his grand dream of an all-prevailing empire. But reality is always too

complicated: countermeasures for changes in the war situation weren’t something

a puppet could just look up in a few memoranda or manuals. In the end, the

Demon wasn’t so easy to impersonate.

To pull together a set of sensory organs during the most difficult time of war

was no easy task, so now there was a microcomputer connected to the black

box, for all kinds of signal translation processes. Ryan had found an old pair of

headphones in a storehouse, but the thought of having the Demon speak directly

to his eardrums in stereo made him choose a set of low-fidelity speakers instead.

A microphone would serve as ears. Because there wasn’t a device with good smell

recognition, the general would temporarily have to suffer not having a nose. One

way or another, the professor was able to complete his secret work, and he decided

to awaken this Demon who had been floating in the culture solution. He had slept

long enough.

The monitor showed that the Demon in the box had revived. After a bit of

thought, the professor chose his first words: ‘Can you hear me, General?’

Ryan waited uneasily. There was only a hissing sound from the speaker. Ryan

thought to turn up the volume, then worried that he might alert others, he just

spoke carefully again the mouthpiece, ‘Can you hear me, General?’

After a brief silence, a deep metallic voice came from the speaker. ‘Who are you?

Where am I?’

The professor explained the general’s condition to him with extraordinary care.

It was clear that General Xin Man was not happy with the new situation, but

throughout, he maintained an admirable military composure. After the professor

had things basically explained, the general said in a rather bored voice, ‘Ah, I see.

A plot.’ The professor didn’t argue with him.

When the general expressed concern about his body, the professor regretfully

said that it must have already decomposed. On this, Xin Man in the box gave a

long and meaningful silence. The professor was very interested in the general’s

own sensations. The general demonstrated an impressive insight, cutting to the

quick: ‘It’s mainly vision. I feel like I need bifocals, and I can’t move my eyes.’

The professor expressed profound apology and said that because of wartime

scarcity he could only find a low resolution camera. The general’s understanding

surprised the professor, ‘Oh? The people have indeed made huge sacrifices for

the fatherland.’ He followed up with a question about the professor’s views on the

war. After a brief hesitation, Professor Ryan decided to reply truthfully: ‘It’s a

catastrophe, General.’

Xin Man was very interested in this, but the sound from the speaker couldn’t

fully express it. ‘Surely a member of the elite such as yourself can understand the

great significance of the war?’

Ryan finally had the opportunity to sit down and calmly discuss this disaster

with someone involved in it. The professor said he couldn’t see how massacring

tens of thousands of innocents and eliminating those who hold a different belief

could compensate for the flawed consciences of those who survived. General Xin

Man played the same old tune, insisting that the flower of patriotism must be

watered by fresh blood and that men of vision have never pandered to the morality

of the masses and so on. When the professor didn’t argue with him, the general

asked a more substantive question: ‘What do you plan to do with me?’

The professor thought that it would be best to keep him there until the end

of the war. Demon Xin Man quickly objected and tried to invoke the professor’s

patriotism: ‘The people need me. I should be put back in a body as soon as possible.

You should also think of the glory of the Empire.’

The professor said calmly but firmly, ‘You have probably forgotten, I am a

scientist. I don’t take that sort of glory consideration.’

‘You are not one of those who naively think that by eliminating me you can end

the war, are you?’

‘Of course.’ the professor said flatly.

‘Slaughter doesn’t end with war. Hatred always exists.’

‘But that’s certainly no reason to let you go back.’

‘I still have successors. They even have my genes.’ Demon Xin Man threatened

finally.

‘Unfortunately your vile soul remains here.’

IT WAS TRUE: those cloned bodies with Demon Xin Man’s DNA lacked a

powerful brain. Those dregs put up a desperate fight, but the borders of the

empire contracted, prices rocketed, and the currency devalued. The long?suffering people became restless, and in the same way that they needed a war

in the beginning, they now wearied of it. A psychic epidemic was spreading. The

signs were clear: the empire was beginning to collapse on all fronts.

Professor Ryan told all of this to the general. Even though he remained firmly

opposed to freeing the general’s soul from its imprisonment, he did agree to read

the daily news to him to let him witness the empire that he built with his own

hands disintegrating piece by piece. ‘See?’ the professor said, taking off his glasses

after reading the day’s news, ‘No empire can survive forever.’

The general was perhaps heartbroken (if we can say that) at the shattering of

his lifelong dream. So in the following few days, the two men (let’s put it this way

for the time being) entered a very, very awkward silence. The incompetence of

his replacements and his own situation of residing impotently in a box no doubt

had a significant impact on the general’s self-respect. He therefore did not speak

and used silence to express his fierce condemnation of the professor and show his

extraordinary fury. In that insufferable environment, the professor felt he had

to add some pleasant music from a phonograph. These dreamlike songs of the

sweetness and sorrows of ordinary people instilled a sense of the commonplace

and made the professor so happy that over and over again he used these

saccharine folk songs to mediate the silence. It got to the point that one day

the general in the box finally couldn’t take any more of the vulgarity that ran so

counter to the sacred, the solemn and the elegant. He was forced to speak: ‘Would

you play some Mozart for me?’ From this point on, the two were on speaking terms

again.

The amazing thing was that from that point on, the general did not ask

about the empire, and instead spoke with the professor only on issues of history

and philosophy. The two often had rather interesting discussions on Napoleon

and Descartes, which surprised the professor. One day, he told the general that

the allied forces had taken the capital of the empire, but the general seemed

indifferent. The professor could not contain his curiosity. ‘It seems like you’re no

longer concerned at all about the fate of the empire.’

The box was silent for a moment before speaking: ‘Ah, let me tell you a secret. I

am not concerned at all. Everything is quite good now. I finally understand what it

means to be completely at ease. You have no way of experiencing the joy of having

cast aside the body. I think I understand a very important thing: the source of all

evil is in our bodies. Hunger, greed, lust, selfishness … all of these vile desires

come from that body of flesh and blood. Sin appeared when Adam and Eve became

aware of their corporeality. The implications of this story clearly need a new

interpretation. When I found out I was still alive, my first thought was to return to

a body and continue to live my fantasy. Looking at it now, I see that was nothing

but the inertia of desire. And now it would be hard for anything to entice me, as I

swear by God I have no desires any more.’

‘Are you telling me that since you were relieved of your body you have lost all of

your earlier passions?’

‘I think this would be a subject very worthy of your research.’

The professor was very surprised at this. He sighed after pondering for

a long time with his medically trained mind and said, ‘It would appear that

throughout history, all of humanity’s heroes and villains, honour and depravity,

great dreams and base conspiracies, were the product of nothing but bodily

hormones.’

THE WAR ENDED. Although there were still guerillas carrying out acts of

destruction and terrorism, the allies had begun to reestablish order. General

Xin Man was not interested in this at all. Infatuated with Paganini’s violin

performances, he even suggested that the doctor supplement his ‘Evils of the

Flesh’ theory, because now if he went a full day without hearing excellent music he

would lose all strength, (This was how he put it. The professor couldn’t understand

the true meaning.) becoming listless and depressed. The doctor realized that

under particular circumstances, music could induce a form of spiritual addiction

similar to that of amphetamines.

Professor Ryan was not good at disguising his emotions, particularly since the

low resolution image from his camera did nothing to diminish the general’s keen


试阅到此结束，如需查看全部内容请购买正版文献。
如因学习需要阅览全文，请联系站长。