One Man Read online

  "Dream is a beautiful name." She's chuckling, and the sound reverberates in her robust chest.

  You say it was, to some extent, a camouflage, otherwise you would have been hauled out for criticism long ago.

  "Did she also call you that? Did she fall in love with you just like that?" she asks.

  "Maybe."

  You say of course you were fond of her, and it wasn't just pure lust. You were very wary of women who had been to university, because they all gravitated toward the light and always tried to achieve a sort of angelic purity. You knew that your own thoughts were dark, but you had been taught a lesson by your little experience of love at university. If what you raved on about in private came to be confessed by the woman in one of the thought-report sessions set up by the Party or the work unit, you, too, would have been put on the altar for sacrifice.

  "But surely there were other women?"

  "If you haven't lived in that environment, you wouldn't understand."

  You ask whether she would want to make love with a Nazi who might expose her Jewish background.

  "Don't mention the Nazis!"

  "Sorry, but there is a similarity. They made use of the same psychology," you explain. "Lin, of course, wasn't like that, but she enjoyed many privileges because of her family. She didn't try to get into the Party; her parents, her family, were the Party. She didn't need to put on an act or go to report on her thinking to the Party secretary."

  You say the first time she invited you to a meal was in an elegant dining room that was not open to the public. To get through the door, a pass was needed. Naturally, she paid, you didn't have a pass and didn't have the money to pay, and felt bad about it.

  "I understand," she says softly.

  You say Lin wanted you to take her husband's military pass so the two of you could take a room in the holiday guesthouse for high-ranking cadres and their families in the Summer Palace. She said you could pose as her husband. You said what if you were found out? She said you wouldn't be, and, if you wanted to, you could wear her husband's uniform.

  "She was brave," she murmurs.

  You say that you, however, were not, and this recklessness made you very anxious. Anyway, you made love with her. The first time was in her home. Her home was a huge courtyard complex occupied by her parents and the old doorkeeper who swept the yard and lit the stove. At night, they all went to bed early, and it was very quiet in the courtyard. It was she who initiated you into manhood, and, no matter what, you're grateful to her.

  "That means you still love her." She props herself up on her elbows and looks at you in the dark.

  "She taught me."

  You reflect about it; rather than love, it was desire for her lovely body.

  "What did she teach you?"

  Her hair brushes against your face, and you see the faint gleam of the whites of her large eyes looking down at you.

  "She took the initiative. She had just become a married woman," you say. "Anyway, at the time, I was over twenty and still a virgin.

  Don't you think it's hilarious?"

  "Don't say that, at that time, in China, everyone was puritanical, I understand…"

  Her fingers play little games on your body. You say that you were not puritanical and that you also wanted her.

  "Was it because you were repressed that you wanted to indulge yourself?"

  "I wanted to indulge myself with a woman's body!" you say.

  "And you also wanted a woman to indulge herself, right?" Her velvety voice is right by your ear. "Then fuck me, like you did those women of yours in China."

  "Who?"

  "Lin, or that girl whose name you've forgotten."

  You turn and embrace her, lift her negligee, and slip into her…

  "If you want to ejaculate, go ahead…"-"Ejaculate in whose body?"-"A woman you want…"-"A wanton woman?"-"Isn't that what you want?"-"You're a prostitute?"-"Yes."-"Have you ever sold yourself?"-"Yes, and not just once____________________"-"Where?"-

  "In Italy…"-"Who did you sell yourself to?"-"Anyone who wanted____________________"-"You're cheap!"-"Not at all, you can't afford me, what I want is for you to suffer____________________"-"That's all in the past."-

  "No, it's right by you____________________"-"That deep place?"-"Yes."-"It's very deep, right inside to the end… maybe too deep… Is that why you're squeezing hard, sucking?"-"You've ejaculated! Don't worry…"-"Aren't you afraid?"-"Afraid of what?"-"What if you became pregnant?"-"I'd have an abortion."-"Are you crazy?"-"You're the one who's afraid, you want to indulge but you don't dare. Don't worry, I've taken something."-"When?"-"In the bathroom."-"Before coming to bed?"-"Yes, I knew you would fuck me."-"Then why did you torment me for so long?"-

  "Don't ask, if you want to, just use it… this body…"-"The body of a prostitute?"-"I'm not a prostitute."-"I don't understand."-"Don't understand what?"-"What you said just now."-

  "What did I say?"-"You said you had sold yourself."-"It would be impossible for you to comprehend, impossible for you to understand, impossible for you to know!"-"I want to know everything about you!"-"If you want to use me, go ahead, but don't hurt me."-"But aren't you a prostitute?"-"No, I'm just a woman, one who became a woman too early."-"When?"-"When I was thirteen…"-"Nonsense! Are you making it up?"

  She shakes her head. You want her to tell you about it! She mutters that she doesn't know anything and doesn't want to know…

  She needs to suffer and to experience ecstasy through suffering. You need women, need to ejaculate your lust and loneliness into the bodies of women. She says she pays because she, too, is lonely and longs for understanding. Pays for love and enjoyment? Yes, she just wants and so she gives and also pays. And sells herself? Yes. And is wanton?

  And cheap! She rolls on top of you and you see her eyes glinting in the dark before you close your eyes and start calling out…

  11

  As he lay in Lin's nuptial bed of not long ago, he opened his eyes wide, still finding it hard to believe he was not dreaming. Naked and beautiful, and looking down at him like this, Lin had taught him what it was to be a man. Lin led him from the sitting room down to the very end of the corridor to her bedroom. Thick velvet curtains hung to the floor, and the only light came from under the chrysanthemum-yellow shade over the tall vase-based table lamp. She sat him at the desk and brought out a big photo album with pressed-metal edging. As he turned the pages, he saw that the photos were all of her, either in sleeveless, low-cut dresses revealing her arms, shoulders, and legs, or else in wet bathing suits that clung to her body; her husband had taken these at Beidaihe just after they married. At this point, Lin leaned toward him, and he felt her hair brush his cheeks. He turned to put his arms around her slender waist and, as his face pressed against her breasts, he became aware of the fragrant warmth of her body. He straight away pulled down the zipper at the back of her dress, got her onto the bed, and started wildly kissing her on her lips, face, and neck, then, after removing her bra, her nipples. This was what he had sought in his dreams. He was in such a desperate hurry that he tore her delicate sexy panties that were not available in ordinary shops. But he was not able to get an erection and could not enter her. Again, it was Lin who eased his mind by saying that by this time of the night her parents would be asleep and that they do not come to her room anyway. Also, her husband's hi-tech weapons research institute was far away in the mountains of the western suburbs; army discipline was strict, and he could not come home unless it was a weekend. He suddenly needed to urinate, so Lin put on a dress, went outside in her bare feet, and came back right away with a washbasin. He latched the door, but pissing so noisily into the enamel washbasin made him feel like a thief. Switching off the light, Lin helped him off with his shoes and socks, then got him to lie down naked in the bed. She pulled the bedcover over him just like a big girl in his teenage dreams, or like a kind nurse on the battlefield caring for him, cleaning his bleeding wounds with her gentle, firm hands. It was then that he suddenly had an erection. He turned, bo
re down on this spritely woman, and carried out his most important act since birth.

  He left Lin's room before daybreak. The courtyard was pitch-black, and above the branches of the old persimmon tree was a blue-black square of sky. Lin quietly removed the bolt, and the heavy door creaked open. He slipped out and, glancing back, watched the big ancient metal-studded door close, then wheeled his bicycle into the middle of the hutong. Not in a rush to get on his bicycle, he listened to his footsteps as he made his way through the maze of hutong. He did not want to go home immediately, and if his roommate Old Tan started asking questions, he would have to talk his way around things. As he was coming out onto the street, his footsteps were gradually absorbed by the noises and sounds of the city waking up. The first lot of empty electric trolleybuses rumbled by; then in both directions, the number of cyclists and pedestrians gradually increased. He took a few deep breaths, and, as his lungs relaxed, he felt an exhilarating freshness and a sense of quiet self-confidence.

  At midday, he saw Lin in the big dining hall. She was wearing a long-sleeved dress and a silk scarf. Her collar was buttoned up. When her colleagues at the long table left, Lin glanced at him and quietly said, "My neck is all purple where you kissed me."

  It was hard for him to say if he was in love with Lin, but from that time onward, he lusted for her beautiful body. They arranged other meetings, but he could not go to her home on a regular basis. If her parents were at home, he was forced to listen reverently while they spoke passionately about national events. They were always lecturing him, and he had to put on an act of being good. It was as if he belonged to the generation of successors to the revolution, and, to agree, he had to say many hypocritical things. When the elderly couple started yawning and left the sitting room, Lin would signal with her eyes and they would start talking some nonsense about the office. When it grew quiet in her parents' room, he would get up and say something in a loud voice to indicate that he was leaving.

  Lin would escort him out of the sitting room and take him into the courtyard where the lights were already out. He would quietly circle back into the corridor, wait by a post as Lin put out the sitting-room lights, then slip into her bedroom to spend the night in utter bliss.

  He preferred to meet Lin outdoors: in a park, by the city wall, or among lilac and jasmine bushes. They would spread their overcoats on the ground, or have quick sex standing against a big tree. If Lin's husband had to go away on an assignment to a military site, they would go to the hollows of Badaling and stay until sunset, then at twilight, in the night wind, grope their way down the mountain to catch the last bus back to the city. Sometimes they took a train further off to the Western Hills and got off at Mentouqi, where Peking Man was discovered, or some small station where the train stopped tor only one minute. They took food with them, and would climb to the other side of the mountain and find some secluded spot where they would totally abandon themselves in the sun and the howling fountain wind. It was only at such times, lying on the grass in the wilds and looking at the clouds floating in the sky-free of worries, free of danger, and making love-that he felt natural.

  Lin, two years older, was a fireball of lust, and she loved with a burning passion. Sometimes she was quite unreasonable, but he needed to exercise self-restraint. Lin dared to play with fire, but he had to consider the consequences. Lin had no intentions of divorcing her husband, and even if she were to raise the matter of marrying him, her parents would not approve of taking into their revolutionary family a son-in-law with an ordinary family background, who was not even a member of the Communist Youth League. Also, Lin's husband had the backing of a military family, and if the matter were taken up at the workplace, Lin would escape punishment. Disaster would fall on him alone. If such a time came, Lin would be level-headed. She would not break with her family and give up her elite status just to spend a life with him as one of the ordinary people. In addition to the marriage laws, a new regulation stipulated that workers of the state had to be twenty-six years of age before they were eligible to register for marriage. In the brand-new society, where unprecedented innovations were occurring every day, the new people loved and married for the sake of the revolution, and that was how the new plays and films of the time promoted it. The state issued tickets for performances, and attendance was compulsory.

  One day, bypassing the department and section chiefs, Wang Qi's secretary asked him to report immediately to the bureau chief's office. He therefore knew it was not a work-related matter. Comrade Wang Qi, a wise and kindly middle-aged woman, was seated behind a big desk: die size of the desk denoted a cadre's rank. Comrade Wang Qi rose to her feet and closed the door to her office. This was further indication of the irregularity of the situation. He started getting nervous. However, the bureau chief got him to sit on the long sofa and drew up a leather chair for herself; she was making a deliberate show of being friendly.

  "I'm a busy person." That was clearly the case. "I haven't had time to chat with university graduates like you who have recently arrived. How long have you been working here?"

  He responded.

  "Are you used to working here?"

  He nodded.

  "I've heard that you are bright, that you have become good at your work very quickly, and also that you even do some writing in your spare time."

  The bureau chief knew everything, someone must be reporting to her. She then warned, "Don't let it affect your work here."

  He hastened to nod. Luckily, no one knew what he wrote.

  "Do you have a girlfriend?"

  So this was the problem. His heart started pounding. He said no, and instantiy felt his face turn red.

  "It's worth thinking about finding a suitable match." The word "suitable" was emphasized. "But it is too soon for marriage. If your revolutionary work is done well, your personal matters can be easily resolved."

  The bureau chief said that they were just having a casual chat, and throughout spoke gently, but this conversation, too, was revolutionary work. She was not having an idle chat with him, and, before standing to open the door, she warned, "I have heard comments from the masses about your having too close an association with Lin. If it is just a comrade relationship because you are both working together, then it is all right, but you must be careful about the consequences. The workplace is concerned about the healthy development of young people."

  The workplace was of course, the Party, and the bureau chief's asking him in for a talk naturally reflected the concern of the Party, he returned to Lin, "She is a simple woman, she is very friendly, but she lacks wisdom."

  If there happened to be an incident, the responsibility would naturally fall on him. The conversation, lasting less than five minutes, ended at that point. It took place before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, before the bureau chief's husband was declared an anti-Party black-gang go-getter, before Comrade Wang Qi herself was declared an anti-Party element, and while she still held an important position in the workplace. Whether it was a hint, an alert, or a warning, the message was clear. The heavy palpitations in his heart and the burning sensation on his face took a long time to subside.

  He resolved to break up with Lin. After work, he waited downstairs for her, and they walked out of the building together. He knew they were being watched. He needed challenge, but with such a challenge he was keenly aware of his own impotence. They walked along the road, pushing their bicycles, for some time, before he eventually told Lin about this conversation.

  "So what?" Lin didn't take it seriously. "Let them say what they like."

  He said probably it was nothing for her, but it would not be so in his case.

  "Why?" Lin came to a stop.

  "It's an unequal relationship!" he blurted.

  "Why is it unequal? I don't understand."

  "Because you've got everything and I've got nothing."

  "But I'm willing!"

  He said he did not want favors, that he was not a slave! Actually, what he wanted to say was that under
the unbearable circumstances, it was impossible to have an emotionally happy life. However, at the time, he could not make himself clear.

  "So, who's treating you as a slave?"

  Lin came to a stop under the streetlight and glared at him. People passing by were stopping to look at them. He suggested going to Jingshan Park to talk. The park stopped selling tickets at nine-thirty and closed at ten. He said they would be out quickly, and the gate-keeper let them in. Normally, when they had a date, they would cycle to the park after work, go up the hill, and find a clump of bushes away from the path, where they could see the lights of the whole city. Lin would casually take off her panty hose, and she did this very seductively. Her panty hose were luxury goods at the time and only available in service departments for people traveling overseas; they were not available in ordinary shops. There was not enough time to go up the hill, so they stopped in the shadow of a big tree by the path not far from the gate. His intention had been to make it quite clear that their relationship was henceforth ended, but when Lin started crying, he didn't know what to do. He held her face in his hands and brushed away her tears, but she began to weep and then to sob loudly. He kissed her, and they embraced like a pair of heartbroken lovers. He could not stop himself from kissing her face, lips, neck, breasts, and belly. The siren sounded over the loudspeakers: "Comrades in the park, your attention, please!"

  The park had powerful loudspeakers that made a person's eardrums reverberate. At festivals, from morning to night, they were used for broadcasting revolutionary songs; they were also used at normal times to get people out of the park at closing time.

  "Comrades in the park, your attention, please. It is closing time, and the park will be immediately locked up for cleaning!"