by Geling Yan
After a month’s leave to see his family, Zhang Jian returned to work at the factory, where the Party secretary of his section told him that his application to join the Party had been approved: passed pretty much unanimously, as all agreed that Zhang Jian kept his head down and worked hard, with a plain and simple attitude to life. Zhang Jian was prone by nature to choosing the easy way out, those above and below him could all find good points in him. Sneaky people found that it was very easy to loaf on the job with him, he would not quibble, but just do a bit more himself. Difficult, quarrelsome people thought that he was slow: you could have a bit of fun at his expense without getting a reaction, knock off his hat and he wouldn’t lose his temper, cut in front of him on your bike and he would just let you hit him. From his taciturnity leaders could tell at once that he was steady, which showed he was a hard and willing worker. When they gave him the happy news of his admission to the Party, he said: ‘How can I be worthy?’
As he went out through the main gate of the factory it was drizzling. He rode his bike as if his pedals had wings. When he ran into acquaintances on his way, he almost changed his usual greeting of ‘Come off work?’ into ‘Joined the Party?’ Joining the Party was a good thing, a very good thing indeed. If you were not a Party member you would never get a chance to be head of a work section. Zhang Jian did not crave high office, but he wanted to earn a bit more, so the family could have a slightly better life.
He bought a bottle of spirits for six jiao on the way. A jiao more extravagant than usual. After this he let his feet take him round the corner into the free market. They were packing up, and the only thing he could find to wash down the wine was boiled peanuts in five-spice.
He wrapped the peanuts in a handkerchief, caring nothing for the fact that he would shortly have a five-spiced handkerchief, and got on his bicycle, but just as he was about to set his foot on the pedal, he jumped off again. The free market was held in a very long, arched shed of reed matting, and he was at the far end, when a familiar figure walked through the bright and tender light. He had never been one for fancy talk, but this time he could not help himself. That form was truly very beautiful. He got back on his bike, and wobbled leisurely out of the shed, following that figure. Slowly he got closer, until gradually they were shoulder to shoulder. He turned his head to one side, she gave a start, and then immediately a smile.
Why had being away for over a month made all memories count for nothing? In his memories she did not stand out from the crowd. But then again, when had he ever seen her in a crowd? Her dense, black hair, cut level with her ears, and her thick fringe were enough for him to tell at a glance that she was no local, she did not belong there. The marks her days on the road had left would never disappear from the lines of her body. But the miscarriage and operation more than two months ago had added a layer of smooth plumpness to her clear lines. Her cheeks were glossy like a growing girl. And her white shirt with its pattern of thin blue checks set her off so well: to look at her, she was the cleanest person in the world, just out of the water. She was truly beautiful. Zhang Jian recalled the few books he had read in his life, so he was not left completely without words to express his sighs of emotion and appreciation towards her. Of course, none of these words reached his mouth, he just asked her where she was going and whether she had got caught in the rain just now.
Duohe said she was on her way to Girlie’s school. Girlie had left her wellies and umbrella behind. She was going to find them and bring them back for her. And Xiaohuan? Xiaohuan was punishing Girlie, keeping her standing in the corner, she couldn’t get away.
It was now half past six in the evening. The days were already getting longer, and as it fell behind the mountains, the setting sun was leaving its last traces of red on the tops of the newly planted poplar trees.
They walked together in silence. He did not say that he was going with her to the school, she knew as a matter of course that he was accompanying her. Their silence made both of their hearts feel tired. He tilted his head, looking at her eyebrows, her eyes, the bridge and tip of her nose and her lips peeping through the black hair … how could it have taken him until his thirties before he gave her a proper, thorough look, and saw what made her different?
She also inclined her head. It was as if the left side of her face was sore from all the looking, an uncomfortable sensation.
Their eyes met, and both were scared stiff. He thought, had he loved any girl before he met Xiaohuan? Had he had those kinds of presumptuous thoughts all men have about the young female leads when watching the opera? What was the matter with him, that someone he had known for eight or nine years could cause his heart to pound in this way? Did that mean he had never known her? She could see that his heart was pounding, for her own heart was leaping too.
They had only just looked at each other, but she was starting to seek out his eyes again. First she looked from his hands to his arms with their rolled-up sleeves, then to his shoulders. When her eyes crept up to his face, he looked back at her. This time they gazed for a little bit longer. Both of them were very greedy for this exchange of glances. Every time he looked at her, he noticed a peculiarity about her eyes: the black part was unusually black, the whites unusually white; the front was very round, almost without corners, but then they narrowed, and the outer corners were two long, curving folds. You could not call this pair of eyes pretty, but they were distinctive and unusual. Another careful look revealed the thickness of her eyelashes; two black circles that formed a frame for her eyes.
He looked and looked, and his heart continued to leap and lurch. But all the same, he was no longer terrified like last time. Last time he had been so panicked that he had actually abandoned her. That truly was the kind of thing a beast would do. He did not want to think about how such a beast should be punished.
The more they looked at each other, the greedier they became. They took twenty minutes to walk what should have taken them five. On the road they met an old lady selling gardenias, and Zhang Jian got out five fen and bought a flower. He told Duohe to hang it from the button of her shirt. He was not at all taken aback by his abnormal behaviour, it was like he was born to be a pampered official’s son, frittering away his money on women and romance. He would need to wait until he had the leisure to analyse this behaviour before it could surprise him. Right now his mind was desperately busy, busy receiving every amorous look and gesture, busy with his own affectionate glances or quietly fondling her hand, waist or shoulders to return her affection. There are so many things that can be done between a man and a woman. Far more than just the usual business. On the street with the people coming and going, just quietly fondling the palm of her hand was making his heart soft and prickly. That palm was so supple and tender, and there was an inexpressible sweetness to it, like all stolen things. Compared to when he was lying beside her carrying out their official business, the ecstasy was greater by far.
When the two of them arrived at the school the sky was already darkening. Once the gatekeeper had ascertained their reason for being there he let them in. Zhang Jian remembered that Girlie was in the third class of the first year. The first-year classrooms were in a row of Soviet-style rooms next to the playground. The school was brand new, just like the city, and if you did not understand the definition of ‘socialism’, all you had to do was take a look at the cream-coloured school buildings, and then this new city’s red-and-white blocks of flats and iron-grey blast furnaces.
The big glass window of Class 3’s room overlooked the gatehouse; look hard and you could see the old gatekeeper eating supper at his post. Zhang Jian asked Duohe if she knew Girlie’s seat number. She did not. Mostly, pupils were seated in classrooms in order of height, the tall ones sitting at the back and the little ones in front. Girlie was of middling height, so her seat should be in one of the middle rows. They opened and checked all the middle desks, but did not find a thing. Then let’s look in all the desks, one at a time.
Just as they were about to leave, they b
oth came to a halt at the door, as if they had left something behind.
In the warm-hued darkness, full of the colours of the setting sun, they looked each other over very clearly: every little detail, each hair, each freckle that they had seen just now, had become an intimate secret between them. They embraced gently. Gradually, they leaned all the weight of their bodies into each other’s arms, savouring the delicious taste a little at a time. A good flavour tasted in secret was like a delight piled on top of delight.
Zhang Jian carried Duohe in his arms to the desk closest to the door. Duohe said in a quiet voice: We can’t, we can’t, the gatekeeper is so close, he’ll see us.
Zhang Jian undid her buttons, and fastened his mouth on hers. It was precisely the fact that enemy forces might appear at any moment that made his whole body catch fire. His hand touched her midriff, and his emotions gave another lurch. This time it was in the deep places of his lower abdomen. He was deliberately tantalising himself, so that the swinging, lurching feeling in his groin swung ever higher only to leave him dangling in mid-air, and the more it went on the more ingenious tricks he was forced to come up with in order to keep going. He felt as though his whole body was flying through the air on a swing. What was this thing that was tormenting him? This torment was like heaven.
He felt that she too was completely different from the way she used to be. In the past she had only taken him as a male body, a male body that could mate with a female body, but now it was different, she took him as something unique in the whole world, something unique that belonged to her alone. It was a uniqueness that one could miss out on so easily in the vast sea of people. At this moment everything was different; caresses became caresses unique to them, every touch sent her into fits. Who said that women could not take the lead? Her body was drawing him over from a very long way away, pulling him in. That patch of fertile ground seemed to have buried him and hidden him within.
He closed his eyes and rode the swing as it rose and fell, his heart full of the alluring glances Duohe had cast left and right. She was both amorous and barbaric, and that was what Zhang Jian found the most novel and stimulating of all.
How could the flavour be so fine? A person’s heart could fall in love with another heart; could his fleshly body have fallen in love with her body?
When it was over both their bodies were soaked through, yet they could hardly bear for it to end. As she was putting on her clothes she asked what time it was. Who cares about the time? I suppose it must be after eight? Never mind the time.
As they were walking past the sentry post, the old gatekeeper looked them up and down, concluding that they had been up to no good in there. If not stealing things then sneaking an assignation. The latter, by the looks of it.
When they reached the entrance to their building, the two of them exchanged glances. Zhang Jian jerked his chin. Duohe understood, and walked briskly up the stairs. Halfway up, she plucked the gardenia from her button. The crumpled flower had already become a sacrifice to flesh grinding against flesh, but she still hated to throw it away, so she tucked it in the pocket of her shirt. When she went into the apartment she gave Xiaohuan a panic-stricken smile. Xiaohuan was chatting with Xiao Peng and Xiao Shi, and paid her no heed. Xiao Peng looked at Duohe with a resentful expression in his eyes, as if he was reproaching her.
Xiao Shi greeted her very easily, saying: ‘Oh, you’re back, Auntie.’
Duohe looked at the three sleeping children. On Dahai’s and Erhai’s necks, a day’s worth of prickly-heat powder, mixed with sweat and dust, was stuck in the fatty folds, making rings of greyish-white concrete. Girlie too had gone to bed without washing herself, but she had washed her white shirt, and hung it on the light bulb to dry without wringing it out, so it was dripping a big patch of water onto the straw mat. Duohe sat down in the middle of the sleeping children, and listened anxiously for the slow, heavy clump of Zhang Jian’s big shoes in the stairwell. He had made her go home first, while he stayed back to be bitten and stung by flies, idling away enough time. That’s to say, he wanted to conceal what had just taken place between them from Xiaohuan. Did she not want to conceal it too, hiding the gardenia in her pocket? It was not like the gardenia could tell on her. But when people treasure their secrets, and are loyal to their secrets, they feel that nothing can be depended upon, that anything could give them away.
Zhang Jian had become her secret lover. They had lived under the same roof for eight or nine years, eaten thousands of meals out of the same pot, and been man and wife to each other on the kang over a hundred times. But this new unfamiliarity had washed away all the old scars, and given them a new beginning. Without this unfamiliarity, how could there have been today’s encounter in that dark classroom? From now on, they might be at home in the flesh, but their minds could elope every day.
All the while she was listening for the sound of Zhang Jian coming up the stairs. And all the while she could not hear it. His betrayal was more complete than hers. From the room next door came conversation and laughter. Could those three really not see anything strange about this? Duohe had gone out to look for an umbrella and been away for two or three hours, and Zhang Jian had quite simply vanished.
Soon after nine the two guests took their leave. On the communal walkway they bumped into Zhang Jian, carrying his bicycle upstairs on his shoulder. Duohe heard Xiaohuan say, Hey, why did you carry the bike up here? Where are we supposed to put it? Duohe thought, Zhang Jian’s mind must have been elsewhere, preoccupied with making up lies, and he had carried the bike upstairs without noticing it.
Duohe thought that for a man like Zhang Jian, telling such a lie was a hundred times better than coming right out and singing a love song. And he was lying to Xiaohuan. When she had first entered the Zhang household Duohe had seen that the two of them were so close they were practically the same person. If Zhang Jian told a lie to Xiaohuan, it was like lying to himself.
They met in the empty classroom, and discovered that there was no need to use the main gate at all; the school’s boundary wall was low enough to get over with minimal effort. They met in bushes in the park as well, and in the reed-filled ditches by the railway, and the pine woods on the slopes of the mountain. One day, he put her on his bicycle, and they rode for two hours, until they reached a graveyard, planted thickly with cannas and dahlias. He laid a sheet of newspaper down behind the flower beds for their marriage bed. It was always after he came off the night shift that he took her to these places. If he was on the day or afternoon shift, he would take her up the mountain behind the town. One time, when the two of them were all over each other, a group of children out playing on the mountain appeared from nowhere; he hurriedly flung his clothes over her, as he pulled out all the money from his pockets, and threw it at the children.
They did nothing to give themselves away to Xiaohuan, who never noticed a thing. Duohe had picked up a few new skills after her month as a vagrant, and was now capable of going out to buy coal, grain or vegetables. Xiaohuan was happy for her to do these tasks, which held no enjoyment for her, and gradually it became normal for Duohe to go outside for a walk when she was bored. Xiaohuan knew that Duohe always pretended to be deaf and dumb when away from home, because the way she spoke had caused trouble for her in the past. Anything she could not get across, Duohe would write down: Coal too damp, make it cheaper; Meat too lean, other people buying fat meat – same price! No good! … With a bit of thought and guesswork, anybody could understand her.
Sometimes Zhang Jian would bring things he had prepared as an alibi for Duohe: a bundle of dried yellow flowers for soup, a handful of preserved eggs, or a few baozi dumplings, which he got her to take home after their assignations, so that Xiaohuan would think that Duohe had been wandering about all that time for the sake of buying a few baozi.
One day Girlie was off school with a reaction to her smallpox vaccination. Xiaohuan tried to get Duohe to come out for a stroll, leaving Girlie in charge of Dahai and Erhai, but Duohe had arranged to meet Zhan
g Jian that morning, as his night shift ended at eight. By this time, Duohe had become an accomplished liar. She said she wouldn’t feel easy in her mind, leaving Girlie in charge of her two brothers when she wasn’t feeling well.
Xiaohuan was scarcely out of the door before Duohe left, hard on her heels.
Zhang Jian caught sight of her when she was still a long way off, and the hands that he had been holding clenched at his hips immediately relaxed. Above his head, an enormous Japanese pagoda tree spread over him like an umbrella, from which dangled a bead curtain of insects, cocooned in leaves.
He took her to the factory Workers’ Club on his bicycle. By now, love had driven away all his caution. The club was showing a film at nine. Their assignations had taken them to all sorts of places, but they had never yet been in a cinema. It did not bother him that she did not understand any of the Chinese coming from the loudspeakers; he went right ahead and took her to the pictures anyway, just like all the other people in China who were courting or carrying on secret affairs. And like the other courting couples watching the film, he bought two bottles of fizzy drink, a bag of honeyed Chinese dates and a packet of melon seeds.
It was the first screening of the morning. There were not that many people about, mostly university students home for the holidays. There were a few pairs of young lovers too, all with fizzy pop, dates and melon seeds, the only three items available at the club’s small shop.
The lights went down, and all the courting couples started to become restless. Zhang Jian’s and Duohe’s hands sought each other out, twining and twisting back and forth; nothing could satisfy them, but nothing could stop them.
The fizzy drinks and snacks were getting in the way. Zhang Jian put them down on the vacant seat beside him, but they were precariously balanced, and in the end he left them on the floor. They seemed to have discovered a thrill that was different from normal. Actually, they would always find a different satisfaction every time they discovered a new location – the more down at heel and rough and ready it was, the bigger the turn-on, and the more intense the satisfaction. The cinema was a turn-on of an entirely new kind, and Zhang Jian’s touch was driving Duohe wild.
