ONCE UPON A TIME, WHEN THE PRINCE MET THE MERMAID PRINCESS... 從前從前，當王子遇上人魚公主⋯⋯
   By YANG Mei-hung 楊美紅
   Translated by Michelle M. WU 吳敏嘉

    It was late spring and that silk cotton tree was still there, and though the fallen flowers were killed in part trampled underfoot by the pedestrians, they still displayed their martyr’s colors. Soon the seedpods would burst and the cotton floss would scatter like a thin fog. She loved this tree, which was both gentle and heroic. So heroic, it fell and died vigorously; so gentle, it was calm as if there was nothing to say.
    If she had not seen the silk cotton tree, she might not have recognized the street. Twenty years before, the very place had been dominated by a quilt shop and a motorcycle repair place. An old soldier and his wife sold Danzi noodles at the entrance to the alley. The area was rundown and attracted a group of old people, tramps, or young people who had left home. A breath of spring emanated only from the room they rented on the second floor facing the street. They were nineteen years old at the time and were like two children of a tribal chief on their very first night hunt, each of whom carried a short knife at their waist and a torch in hand.
    They were poor. The twenty-square foot room they rented contained only a desk, a chair, a plastic wardrobe, a single bed and an electric kettle. He said that one day they would have a 200-square foot house with front and back yards where they would plant twenty silk cotton trees, since you women like it! What do you mean “you women”? How many wives are you going to have? Tell me! She pinched his neck, bit his shoulders, and cried because she couldn’t take being wronged in the slightest. She felt that love should be complete and monopolizing, like a walnut in its shell in the stomach that would take an entire lifetime to be digested.
    One chilly winter morning, she melted butter with the steam from the kettle. For breakfast they had six slices of toast, each coated with small spoonfuls of butter. They were poor but happy. She even wondered if the cotton floss from one tree was enough to make two pillows. But she always felt insecure. One time she boiled peanuts and suggested to him to compete in memorizing telephone numbers, one peanut for each number remembered. She memorized every number he told her. In this fashion she would find out about those nights on which she was unable to control his whereabouts.
    The silk cotton tree flowers would be falling soon. After quarreling, she told him, “Let me do one thing.” He agreed. Holding a bowl of water, she got on top of him and with a double- edged razor concentrated on shaving him. Bits of beard floated and sank in the bowl. Something was missing. She knew she only had to turn the blade and the clear water in the bowl would be transformed into a holy red liquid. She stopped what she was doing and urged him to go. She knew then that their first love was destroyed.
    The street was now a flourishing commercial district. The silk cotton tree was shorter. She recalled the dying love of twenty years before, as if a thirty-nine-year old mother had secretly read her nineteen-year old daughter’s diary. It was hard to tell if her smile was one of forgiveness or envy.