One Man Read online

  "What are you looking at?" she asks.

  "I'm looking for a lifeguard."

  "Aren't you looking for a beautiful woman?" she asks, giggling. She is shivering and covered in goose pimples.

  "There was a blond here just now, sunbathing on the sand."

  "Do you like blonds?"

  "I also like brunettes."

  "You rascal!" she softly berates you, but this pleases you.

  You have dinner in a little Italian restaurant, where a white Santa Claus is chalked onto the glass window of the kitchen. Above the tables hang paper streamers in the form of dark-green pine needles. It will soon be Christmas, yet it is almost summer here in the southern hemisphere.

  "Your heart's not in it. Coming with you for a vacation is really no fun," she says.

  "But isn't a vacation just having a rest? There doesn't have to be a specific goal," you say.

  "Then there wasn't any need to bring a specific woman, any woman would have done." She stares at you from behind her glass of wine.

  "On the beach, I was frantic and about to call the police!" you say.

  "It would have been too late." She puts down her glass and, stroking your hand, says, "I deliberately gave you a fright. You're really very silly. Let me show you what living is all about!"

  "All right," you say.

  That whole night, you and she make wild, passionate love.

  50

  In this small town, the electricity was often cut, so he had lit a kerosene lamp. Writing in the light of the lamp made him relaxed, less inhibited, and so it was easier to pour out his feelings. There was a quiet knocking on the door. No one in the village knocked like that. They called out first, or called out while pounding on the door. He thought it must be a dog. The headmaster's sandy-colored dog sometimes sniffed the meat he had stewing, and would lie by his door to beg for bones, but, for days, he had not lit his stove and had been eating in the school dining room. He gave a start, quickly stuffed what he was writing into the basket of wood and charcoal by the wall, then stood behind the door to listen, but the knocking had stopped. As he turned to go back to his chair, he again heard the knocking.

  "Who is it?" he asked loudly, as he opened the door a crack to look.

  "Teacher." It was a woman's hushed voice, and the person was standing in the dark by the door.

  "Is that you, Sun Huirong?" he had recognized her voice and opened the door.

  This girl had graduated after two years of schooling and was now working in the fields in one of the villages. Official documents said that all town children, even if they were not from peasant families, had to settle in the villages, and it was up to the school to implement this. He was Sun's class teacher, so he chose a production brigade only a couple of kilometers or so from town, and where he knew Hunchback Zhao, the Party secretary. He also found her lodgings with a family where there was an old woman to keep an eye on her.

  "How is it? Is everything all right?" he asked.

  "Everything is fine, Teacher."

  "You have become quite dark from being in the sun!"

  In the dim light, the girl's face seemed black. Just sixteen, her chest protruded, and she looked healthy and strong. Unlike most city girls, she had been doing manual labor from the time she was a child, and was used to hard work. Sun Huirong came into the room, but he left the door wide open to avoid arousing suspicions.

  "Is there a problem?"

  "I've just come to see my teacher."

  "Fine, sit down."

  He had never let her come into his room on her own but she had now left school. She stood there looking behind her, looking at the door.

  "Sit down, sit down, I'll leave it open."

  "No one saw me come." Her voice was still very hushed.

  He was in an awkward situation. He recalled being moved by a touch of sadness in her voice when she had told him that her home was a women's domain. She was the best-known girl in town. After the student propaganda team visited the nearby coal mine to stage a performance, a group of young miners came and hung around outside the classroom window, craning their necks and looking in. They started clamoring and shouting that they had come to see Sun Huirong! The principal came out of the office and chastised them, "Why do you want to see her? What's there to see?" The young hooligans mumbled, "So what if we take a look at her? She's not going to disappear if we look at her, is she?" They all jeered as they slunk off. "This is where Sun Huirong had her tits felt" had been scrawled in chalk on the stone embankment by the river, and the boys in the class were summoned one by one into the principal's office and interrogated. All of them said they didn't know anything about it, but, out of the office and in the corridor, they were sneakily guffawing. The village girls mature early, and a lot of silly talk went on among the girl students. Often there was fighting and crying, but whenever he questioned them, they would blush and say nothing. The propaganda team had to put on makeup for the performance, and Sun Huirong turned this way and that, looking in a little round mirror. She knew how to use her feminine charm. "Teacher, does my hair look good like this?" "Teacher, could you help me with this lipstick?" "Teacher, come and have a look!" He corrected a corner of her lips and said, "You look great, it's fine!" and sent her on her way.

  The girl was sitting in front of him right now in the dim light of the lamp. He went to turn up the lamp, and the girl said, "It's fine like this."

  She was trying to seduce him, he thought, so he started to talk about something else. "Tell me about the family." He was asking about the peasant family with the old woman, which he had chosen for her.

  "I left that place a long time ago."

  "Why did you leave?"

  At the time, he had arranged for her to share the room with the old woman in the family.

  "I'm looking after the storehouse."

  "What storehouse?"

  "The production team's."

  "Where is it?"

  "Near the road, by the bridge."

  He knew the lone building by the little bridge at the edge of the village, and asked, "Are you living there on your own?"

  "Yes."

  "What are you looking after?"

  "Some heaps of paddy-rice hay and a few plows."

  "Why do they need looking after?"

  "The Party secretary said that later on he wanted me to do the accounts and that I would need a room."

  "Aren't you afraid?"

  She was silent for a while, then said, "I'm used to it now, it's all right."

  "Isn't your mother worried about you?"

  "She can't keep looking after me, I've got two younger sisters at home. When people grow up, they have to fend for themselves."

  She was silent again. There was moisture in the kerosene, and the lamp suddenly spluttered.

  "Do you have time to read?" As a teacher, he felt he had to ask this.

  "How can I do any reading? It's not like working in the little vegetable garden at home. I have to earn work points. It's not like when I was at school; it used to be so good here!"

  Indeed, school for her had been a paradise.

  "Then come by and visit the school from time to time. You're not far away, and when you come home, you can stop by." He could only console her like this.

  The girl bent her head over his desk and ran a finger along a join in the wood. He suddenly stopped talking, he could smell the aroma from her hair, and he blurted out, "If nothing is the problem, then you had best be going back."

  The girl looked up and said, "Go back where?"

  "Home!" he said.

  "I didn't come from home," the girl said.

  "Then go back to the brigade," he said.

  "I don't want to…" Sun Huirong's head bent low again, and her finger went on running over the join in the wood.

  "Are you frightened of staying on your own in the storehouse?" he asked. The girl's head bent lower.

  "Didn't you say you were used to it? Do you want to go back to that old woman's family? Do you want
me to talk to them so that you can go back?" What else could he do but ask her again.

  "No____________________This____________________"

  The girl's voice was even more hushed, and her head was almost on the table. He moved closer, but, smelling the warm, sour sweat of her body, sprung to his feet and, almost angrily, shouted, "Do you or don't you want me to go and talk to that family?"

  The girl gave a start and stood up. He saw the bewilderment in her eyes, and tears glistening. She was on the verge of crying, so he quickly said, "Sun Huirong, come now, you must go home!"

  The girl slowly bowed her head and stood there, motionless. He recalled that he had virtually pushed the girl out of his room. He took her by her sturdy arms and turned her around. She still wouldn't move, so he said softly into her ear, "If you've got something to tell me, come during the day! All right?"

  Sun Huirong did not come again, and he never saw her again. No, he did see her once, at the beginning of winter. The night she came to the school was at the start of the autumn chill, so it was probably three months later that he passed by the Sun family house and the girl was in the main hall. She had clearly seen him, but, unlike in the past, when, without fail, she would shout out for him to come into the house for a rest and a cup of tea, she turned around straight away and went to the back of the hall.

  Just after the New Year, a girl in his class was crying and had her head on the desk even after the bell for the start of class. He asked why she was crying. None of the boys would say, but when he asked one of the girls, she told him that at the end of the previous class the boys said to her, "Why be so stuck up? When the time comes, you'll be just like Sun Huirong. Just wait until Hunchback gets you pregnant, then you'll do as you're told!"

  After the class, he asked the principal, "What has happened to Sun Huirong?"

  The principal mumbled, "It's not easy talking about it, I don't really know the details, but she's had an abortion! Whether or not it was a case of rape, I would not hazard to guess."

  It was only then that he thought back to when the girl had come to see him, maybe she was trying to get him to save her. Had it already happened prior to that? Or did the girl sense that it was about to happen? Or had it happened, but she hadn't yet become pregnant? She had not said anything of what she wanted to say, because she didn't know how to say it. It was all in the girl's eyes, she wanted to say it, but she had stopped herself. It was all in her hesitation, in the sour sweat of her body, in her movements. She kept looking at the door of his room, what was she looking at? What was she looking for when she avoided his eyes to size up his room? She could have had a very clear plan. She had come on the night when there was no electricity, so that she wouldn't be seen. She said nobody had seen her coming, so clearly she had been on the alert. Was there some secret she wanted to tell him about? If, at the time, he had shut the door and had not been so careful-she clearly wanted him to shut the door-would she have told him everything, and this tragic event have been averted? She didn't want him to turn up the lamp, could she only talk about it in the dark? Or did she have something more complicated on her mind, something that would get him to sympathize with her and save her, stop or interfere with what was about to happen or had already happened?

  The people of the small town all knew that the Sun girl had been raped by Hunchback, and that her mother had taken her to get an abortion, but that was all he could find out. There was a big brass padlock on the Sun house. He visited the police station. In the past, he'd had drinks with the public security officer, Old Zhang. Zhang was chastising an old peasant who had been selling sesame oil, and had confiscated the man's little galvanized bucket and his basket.

  "Grain and oil are goods that are bought and sold exclusively by the state. Do you understand that?"

  "Yes, yes."

  "Then why are you selling it? Don't you know it's against the law?"

  "But I grew it in my own garden!"

  "How can I tell if you grew it yourself or stole it from the production brigade?"

  "If you don't believe me, then go and ask!"

  "Ask who?"

  "Ask in the village, the brigade leader knows."

  "All right, all right, get the brigade leader to write a note and then come to collect these things!"

  "Comrade, let me off this time, I won't sell it again, all right?"

  "The state has laws about this!"

  The old man squatted on his heels, refusing to budge. While he sat watching all this, he finished smoking a cigarette and thought it was unlikely that the matter would be resolved soon, so he got up and said he would come around some other time. However, Zhang was very polite, and stopped him to ask, "Did you want to see me about something?"

  "I'd like to find out about the case of my student Sun Huirong," he said.

  "The dossier is right here; if you want to, take it and have a look. Even if you are a teacher, you can't do anything in these matters. She's a local girl, and there are many more such happenings with girl students who have come from elsewhere. If the person and the parents don't make a legal complaint, and no one is killed, every effort is made not to take matters any further."

  Zhang opened the document cupboard, found a dossier folder, and handed it to him, saying, "Take it with you, the case is already closed."

  He examined every scrap of paper in the dossier. There were handwritten records of the separate testimonies of Sun and Hunchback. Hunchback had his thumbprint to his, and Sun had both signed and put her thumbprint on hers. There was also a record of the interrogation of Hunchback's wife. Attached to it, was a letter in a girlish handwriting, written to Hunchback. It had been written on paper torn from a student notebook, and there was a postmarked envelope addressed to the commune for a certain comrade who was Party secretary of Zhao Village Brigade: Hunchback's name was written there. The letter started off with "Dear Elder Brother." Hunchback was over fifty, but the girl was not yet an adult. There were only two lines in the letter, but the gist of it was as follows: I love my elder brother but it is impossible for me to see him. What happened has ended like this, but I will never have regrets. The word for "regret" had been written incorrectly, but the letter clearly bore Sun Huirong's signature, and it was dated after the matter had become public.

  The record of the interrogation of Hunchback's wife said: "That slut seduced my man, the shameless hussy even wrote him a letter. The little whore only wanted to get herself merit points so that she would be able to get a work permit." Hunchback's wife had intercepted the letter and was so angry that she delivered it to the commune! However, the matter became a problem because of Dr. Wang at the commune health clinic. The record of the interrogation of Dr. Wang stated that the girl's mother had begged him to come to her home to induce an abortion. She said that if the girl went to the clinic to have it done, the whole neighborhood would know, then how would the girl find a husband later on? Dr. Wang said that he did not do illegal work like that. If word got out that he had not followed proper procedures and had privately carried out an abortion, how would he be able to continue in his profession? What was more, wouldn't rumors spread through the village and people think that he was involved with the girl himself? Dr. Wang put it quite bluntly that he was not going to do anything illegal.

  How the matter came to be public was not mentioned in the materials on the investigation. Hunchback's testimony was very simple: Rape? Rubbish! He never did wicked things like that! It wasn't just his wife, sons, and daughters, that he'd have to face, how would he be able to face going on being Party secretary? Also, he couldn't sabotage the Red Flag Brigade, and he had to live up to the expectations of the various levels of leaders of the Party who had nurtured him over the years! This girl student is cunning, don't be fooled by the fact that she is young, her scheming is very adult. She was clearly inside, taking a bath, and there is nothing wrong with taking a bath. But the latch is on the inside, and the door is very solid, so if she didn't open the door herself, how could someone charge in? I
f she wasn't willing, why didn't she scream? How many times did it happen? Best ask her, every time it was in her bed! It wasn't in the fields. Now, can such a big latch drop off by itself? If she'd been raped, why didn't she report it earlier instead of waiting until her belly started to get big? She was trying to get a work permit, and you can't blame her, what young student doesn't want to get a job instead of working a lifetime in the fields? If a person wants merit points for a work permit, it's not an offense to give a gratuity now and then. It's the same for everyone, the brigade can only make a recommendation, it's the commune that issues the permit, he can't, can he?

  As to Sun's own testimony, it was a thick wad of paper. They had interrogated her in great detail, from the cheap bath soap she used to how she was taken all wet to her bed behind the pile of hay. The interrogation could not have been more detailed, and amounted to her having been raped yet another time. The verdict on the case read: "It was the capitalist thinking of the young educated girl that was playing havoc, so she was not satisfied with working as a peasant. She should be transferred from the brigade to do manual labor in another commune, and her thought-reform should be intensified." The Party's verdict on Hunchback read: "Decadent lifestyle, bad influence on society, but the memory of the Party is more severe than punishment. For the time being, position to be retained, but subsequent behavior to be observed."

  After hesitating for a few days, he eventually spoke to Secretary Lu and asked him to do something for Sun Huirong.

  "Her mother has already come to me," Lu said. "The girl has had the abortion, a contact in a county hospital was found, and her mother took her to have it done. The matter has been dealt with, and there is no need for you to be involved."

  "But she is not yet an adult-" he tried to argue.

  "Don't get involved!" Lu interrupted him, then followed with a stern warning, "There are very complicated relationships among the villagers. Does an outsider like you want to go on living here?"

  This silenced him but it made it clear that he was merely eking out an existence under the protection of Lu.