Waiting

by Ha Jin

  “Do you absolutely trust her?”

  “Well, I can’t say that.” She shook her head. Something stirred in her chest, and tears came to her eyes, but she controlled herself. “What should we do with this?” She waved the key, which glinted in the last sunlight.

  “Return it to Haiyan before this weekend. It’s crucial to show her that we won’t use the place.”

  His words made her ashamed, and in silence she blamed herself for yielding to her passion. She was overcome with doubtful thoughts. Why did he refuse to spend time with her alone in town? Did he have another woman in his mind? Unlikely. Pingping Ma had left the army the year before, and Lin had treated her merely as a tomboy; he and that girl had just been book pals. Whom was he close to these days? No one except Manna herself. Still, he might’ve been seeing another woman. No, if so, it couldn’t escape her notice since she saw him every day. Then why did he seem to have no desire for her at all?

  Manna feared that in his eyes she might be a different woman now. How she regretted having listened to Haiyan.

  They passed the medical building, which looked like a green knoll because of its mossy tiles. Two lights flashed on inside. There was a meeting at seven o’clock to study a document recently issued by the Central Committee, which demanded that all the revolutionary rebels fight with words instead of force. Lin would have to attend the meeting, while Manna should get ready for the night shift.

  Haiyan was surprised when Manna handed the key back to her. Manna explained that they had to keep their promise made to Ran Su and that they shouldn’t break the rule.

  Haiyan said, “Hmm, I didn’t know Lin Kong was such a loyal friend. A good man indeed. No wonder somebody called him ‘a model monk.’ ”

  “Like I said, he isn’t a bold man.”

  “But doesn’t he love you? Maybe he’s no good in bed.”

  “Come on, he made a baby with his wife, a very healthy one.”

  Haiyan sighed feebly and clasped her hands. “To be honest, Manna, perhaps he doesn’t love you enough to run the risk. Are you sure you know his heart?”

  She didn’t respond, still uncertain why Lin wouldn’t go to bed with her. She felt that there must have been something more than the reason he had given. Many men broke rules for the women they loved, and some did not regret having done that even when they were punished. How come Lin was so different from others? Did he really love her? Why was he so passionless? Did his refusal mean he was reluctant to get embroiled with her?

  Gradually Haiyan’s words sank in.

  8

  In spite of his calm appearance, Lin was quite disturbed by Manna’s boldness. That same night, lying in bed, he reviewed the details of their meeting in his mind and felt he was right to ask her to return the key to Haiyan. If he had not opposed her wish, there would definitely be disastrous consequences. Ever since he made his promise to Ran Su, he had tried to cool down his passion for Manna, always reminding himself that he must not fall too deeply in love with her. To his mind, it was still unclear whether their relationship could develop fully and end in marriage, which would require him to divorce his wife first. He had better not rush it.

  Outside the window, raindrops were dripping from the eaves, producing a light ding-ding-ding sound. With his eyes closed tight, Lin tried to go to sleep. But a voice rose in his head, asking, Don’t you want to make love to Manna?

  He was startled by the question, but replied, Not now. Sex is out of the question. It would ruin both of us.

  You really don’t want to sleep with her? the voice persisted.

  No, honestly no. I love her and am attached to her, but that has nothing to do with sex. Our love is not based on the flesh.

  Really? You have no desire for her at all?

  I can control my desire. At this point of my life I must treat her as a comrade only.

  That’s a lie. Why don’t you talk and walk with another comrade every day? You and she have already formed a special bond, haven’t you?

  All right, that’s true, but the bond doesn’t have to be sexual. We love each other. That’s enough.

  What? You’re too rational.

  I’m a doctor and an officer. My profession demands that I be a rational man.

  Don’t you think you might have hurt her feelings by refusing her offer?

  I’m not sure. If I did, it couldn’t be helped. I didn’t hurt her on purpose. She can forgive me, can’t she? Can’t she see I had her interest in mind as well when I said we shouldn’t do this?

  The voice fell silent, and soon sleep claimed him. His mind drifted to a distant place reminiscent of the countryside where he had grown up. He then had an extraordinary dream, which would trouble him for weeks. He was walking along the edge of a vast wheat field on a fine summer day. The sun was gentle and the breeze warm. He was whistling at leisure, with a fishing rod on his shoulder. “Lin, Lin, come here,” a sugary voice called. He turned and saw a young woman in the field, her head veiled in a red gauze mantilla, but her breasts were naked and full like a pair of white muskmelons. Around her the wheat ears were rustling briskly. Without hesitation he dropped the rod and walked up to her. The luxuriant wheat reached his waist and gave out a sweetish scent. Approaching her, he found a tiny clearing covered by dog-tail grass mixed with dried rice straws. Stark naked, she was lying on the grass with her knees spread open, her hand beckoning him. She no longer had the mantilla on, but her face was concealed by her long glossy hair. He found her midriff a little plump, but her limbs were so youthful that the sight of them made his heart skip a beat. Her pubic hair was thick, a few dewdrops in the downy tuft. Breathing hard, he took off his sweater and shorts and dropped them to the ground.

  They began rolling on the grass. Her hands kept caressing his back, rib cage, and thighs while he was wriggling atop her. Then she embraced him firmly against her chest, her belly rocking under him with a rhythmic motion as if she were swaying to some music. She was groaning like an animal; her ecstatic voice was so invigorating to him that he felt his blood seething in his loins. A skein of ducks flew past, calling wildly. Their harsh cries made his arms shudder a little; he held her tightly, like a man incapable of swimming gripping a life buoy in the ocean.

  He copulated with her for a long time until exhaustion overcame him and he lay down alongside her. His hand went on massaging her quivering hips, whose size had somehow tripled in the meantime. A moment later she rolled over, raised herself up on her elbow, and hooked her arm around his neck, moaning, “More, more, let’s do it again.”

  He reached for his clothes buried in the grass. The back of his hand hit the iron bedpost, and he woke up, soaked with sweat. He realized he had just had a wet dream. He was deeply stirred by the experience, which was his first time. Who was that woman? he wondered. She had waist-length hair and a shapely body, smelling of fresh peanuts. There was a birthmark on her left forearm, as large as a button. He tried to recall all the women he knew, but couldn’t match her with anyone. If only he had caught a glimpse of her face.

  Across the dark room Ming Chen was snoring like a bellows. Lin sat up noiselessly, opened his pillowcase, and took out a change of underwear to replace the one he was wearing, which was soiled on the front. For many years he had often heard other men talk about having a wet dream and wondered what it was like. Before his marriage, he had even doubted his manhood, because unlike other men who were crazy about women, he had never fallen in love with a woman. After his daughter was born, he was finally convinced that he was a normal man. Still, what did a wet dream feel like? Why had he never had one? Was there something wrong with him? Those questions would pop up in his mind whenever he heard his comrades bragging about their virility and wild dreams. Now finally he had experienced one, which was quite thrilling to him. Yet the sensation was not unadulterated. Deep in his heart he wished that the woman in the wheat field had been somebody he knew.

  He got up at 5:30 when the reveille was sounded on a bugle. Hurriedly he put on his clothes, fol
ded up his quilt, and placed his pillow atop it. Then he saw a yellowish stain on his white sheet. There was no time to wash it off because he had to leave for the morning exercises immediately, so he covered the spot with the current issue of the pictorial The People’s Liberation Army. Then he rushed out into the cold dawn together with Ming Chen.

  The two-mile run was more exhausting to him today, and he sweated a good deal, huffing and puffing all the way. His head was spinning a little.

  When Lin returned to his dormitory, Jin Tian, who hadn’t gone to the morning exercises because he had been on duty the night before, greeted him with a quizzical grin. “Hey, Lin, you had a wet dream last night, didn’t you?” His wide eyes were winking and his stubby nose was wrinkled as though sniffing something delicious in the air.

  Flushing to his neck, Lin rushed to his bed, pulled off the sheet, and thrust it into his washbasin, which was half full of water.

  “Come on, don’t blow off like that. It’s a natural thing,” said Jin Tian, chuckling.

  Ming Chen chimed in, “Of course it’s natural. I have it every week. When too much of that stuff has accumulated in you, it will flow out by itself.” He turned to Lin. “You don’t need to wash your sheet like it caught a virus or something. Look, I don’t bother about the splotches on my sheet.”

  “Me neither,” said Jin Tian.

  Lin wished they had left him alone, but with a smirk on his face Jin Tian went on to say to him, “Well, I can guess who you dreamed of.”

  “I did it with your sister,” Lin snapped.

  “Oh, that’s not a problem. If I had one like Manna Wu, you’d be welcome to ride her like a wild pony as long as you please, but only in your dreams.”

  His two roommates roared with laughter. Wordlessly Lin took a bar of soap out of his bedside cupboard, picked up his washbasin, and left the room. He was still confused by the dream. In real life he could never imagine lying with an unknown woman in a wheat field and coupling like an animal. He felt a little sick.

  9

  On Lin’s desk lay a sheet of paper, half torn in the middle. It was a telegram from his elder brother, which said, “Father passed away. Return immediately.”

  Thinking of his father, who had toiled in the fields all his life but grown poorer each year, Lin was tearful again and kept massaging the inner corners of his eyes with his forefinger and thumb. If only he had been able to go home and attend the funeral. He had asked the leaders to allow him to take an early leave, but they hadn’t approved, because throughout the spring of 1969 the hospital was in combat readiness. There had been conflicts between the Chinese and the Russian troops on the Amur and the Wusuli rivers in the winter. Though the ice on the rivers could no longer support the Russian tanks and personnel carriers, the Chinese troops would not slacken their alertness until May.

  Lin had sent two hundred yuan to his elder brother, Ren Kong, who lived nine miles away from Goose Village, and asked him to give their father a proper burial. Before he died, the old man had bequeathed the farmhouse to Lin because he had been grateful to Shuyu, who had looked after his wife and himself with diligence for so many years.

  For months Lin had been in a dark mood. He became taciturn and read more in his free time. When walking with Manna in the evenings, he often looked absentminded. She asked him whetherhe was gloomy because he couldn’t go home for his father’s funeral. He said probably. In reality his mind was full of other thoughts. Now that both his parents had died, his need for his wife had changed; now she was only caring for their baby daughter. In his heart he felt for Shuyu, who had never lived an easy day since their marriage, but he didn’t love her and was unwilling to spend the rest of his life with her. He wanted a marriage based on love and a wife whose appearance wouldn’t embarrass him in the presence of others (to his mind, Manna would be a fine choice). Yet the feelings of guilt, mixed with compassion for Shuyu, were draining him.

  In the meantime, Manna began to insinuate that he should seriously consider divorcing his wife. He tried evading the topic whenever she was about to bring it up.

  One night in early June, a section chief in the Military Department of the City Administration died of a heart attack. He had been a stalwart man, in his mid-forties. At nightfall he had heartburn and took some medicine, but the symptom persisted. He told his wife that he was going to the hospital to see the doctor. He set out with a flashlight and an umbrella, since it looked like rain. Before he reached the hospital, the heart attack felled him. He lay in a ditch and couldn’t climb out to get on the road. When people found him before daybreak, he was dead, his lower lip bitten through and his face smeared with mud and husks of grass seeds. He left a widow and three small children. His death disturbed Manna profoundly, as she had known him by sight.

  The next evening when they were walking on the fringe of the sports ground, she sighed and said to Lin, “Life is such a precarious thing. Today we’re alive, tomorrow we may be gone. What’s the point in trying so hard to live like a human being every day?”

  “Don’t be so pessimistic. If we think that way all the time, we can’t live.”

  She stopped and leaned against the flaky trunk of a birch. Her right hand held her left wrist, twisting it back and forth, and her eyes dimmed staring at him. She said in a choked voice, “I can’t bear this anymore, Lin. This is stifling me. Why don’t you do something?”

  “What are you talking about?” He looked puzzled.

  “We can’t continue to be like this. Who am I? Your fiancée or your concubine? You must do something to change this situation.”

  “What could I do?”

  “Ask Shuyu for a divorce.” She looked close into his eyes, her lips pursed up.

  His head turned away. “I can’t rush. I have to figure out a good way. This is not an easy thing to do.”

  “Why is it so complicated? Tell her you want a divorce and see how she takes it.”

  “No, you don’t understand.”

  “I don’t understand what?”

  “I can’t just dump her like a pair of outworn shoes. I have to give a good reason, or else everybody will condemn me and I won’t be able to get a divorce.”

  “What’s a better reason than that you don’t love her?”

  “No, no.” He gasped.

  “Listen, Lin, it’s time for you to decide. I’m tired of waiting like this. Who am I to you? I’m not even your mistress.” She broke out sobbing and turned around, about to walk away.

  “Listen to me, Manna. Wait a moment, please!”

  “I’ve heard enough.”

  “Please be reasonable!”

  “I’m sick of being reasonable. If you do nothing, it’s over between us,” she said loudly, hurrying away with her palm over her mouth. Her head bent forward and her legs looked shaky while her body kept convulsing a little. A scrap of birch bark was clinging to her hair. She crossed a pile of dried grass and passed the holly hedge.

  With a numb heart he watched her disappear at the corner of the lab building. Around his head a few midges were flitting. A pair of magpies clamored in a tall elm, tossing their mottled tails. In the distant sky a squadron of jet fighters were banking away noiselessly like silver swallows.

  From that day on, an emotional tug-of-war was waged between them. Lin was accustomed to being alone, so he didn’t go and look for Manna. He wanted peace of mind. Yet whenever she came into sight, he couldn’t help looking at her. She seemed aware of his attention and always kept her face away from him. She laughed more than before, especially in the presence of other men, and her neck grew straighter. She wore shirts of bright colors and a pair of new leather shoes. Like some other young nurses, she began using Lily Lotion, the most expensive kind of vanishing cream. In the evening she often played badminton with others in front of the bathhouse, as though all of a sudden she had become a young girl again, full of energy and life.

  Never had Lin thought she could be so headstrong. He felt miserable and often breathed with difficulty, as tho
ugh a weight of lead were jammed into his chest.

  He was at a loss, wondering if she really loved him. When his colleagues asked him what had happened between him and Manna, he would say, “I shouldn’t keep her waiting. She has to make her choice. I’m a married man.”

  “So you two broke up?”

  “I think so.”

  For all his calm appearance, Lin felt feverish. Whenever he was reading a book, his mind would wander. He couldn’t sleep well at night, sighing and thinking of his life and the women he knew. Some of them were better-looking and tenderer than Manna, but they all seemed beyond the grasp of his mind, which would roam through them one after another and gradually return to Manna. How sorry he felt for her. She had been waiting, waiting, only for a beginning or an ending between them. But his life seemed to have been caught in a circle that he could not escape so as to establish a starting point again. Love did not help. The possibility of love only filled him with despondency and languor, as though he was sick in the soul. If only he had never known Manna; if only he could get back into his old rut again; if only he could return to an undisturbed, contented life.

  During the day he tried working harder and even undertook the project of recataloguing all the medical records in his office, just as a way to wear himself out, so that he wouldn’t think too much when going to sleep at night. As long as he kept himself busy, he felt in control and self-sufficient. He needed no woman.

  10

  National Day came. The hospital gave its staff a dinner. In the mess hall, Commissar Zhang, a short paunchy man, spoke before the banquet started. He thanked the nurses who had helped the cooks in the kitchen that morning and talked briefly about the significance of this anniversary to the Chinese nation and to the revolution. Then he spoke about the principle that the Party always commands the gun. After that, with a wave of his hand, he announced, “Now enjoy the meal.”

  He went to a corner and sat down at the table reserved for the leaders, which had an unlimited supply of dishes and wine.