Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts: Stories and Essays

Although this was a city surrounded by one range of mountains after another,¹ spring, like raiding enemy planes, entered it without the least difficulty. Sad to say, the arid mountain region was not suited to a luxurious growth of flowers and shrubs, so though spring had arrived, it had no place to take up lodging. Nevertheless, spring managed to create a vernal atmosphere in this mountain city with no other help than the fermenting effect of a damp and stuffy Lantern Festival² and of a few ensuing sunny days. The air of such bright, cloudless days was heavily laced with the busy dust of this mountainous region. Illuminated by the twilight of the setting sun, it imparted to the spring atmosphere a ripe yellow hue. They were the kind of days when one could dream while awake, become drunk without drinking. A wonderful season it was!

From a street where twilight still lingered, Manqian turned into an alley deserted by the sun. The early evening chill of spring alerted her to the fact that without realizing it she had reached her home. She had no idea how she had come home, but she knew her legs were very sore. The uneven gravel road hurt her feet and made her worry about her high heels, the last luxury she had bought two years ago when she passed through Hong Kong on the way to the interior. She was a little rueful that she had not allowed Tianjian to hire a rickshaw for her. But after what had happened today, could she continue to accept his gallantry? Wouldn’t that indicate tacit approval of what he’d done? He was just the type to interpret it that way.

Engrossed in thought, after wearily passing a few homes near the entrance to the alley, Manqian saw the mud wall that circled her own courtyard. In this area, where there was a shortage of bricks and tiles, mud walls were common. But contrasted with the neighbors’ brick and stone walls, this mud one was unsightly and had brought lots of embarrassment to its mistress. When Manqian first looked at the house, she was reluctant to rent it because of that ugly wall. Sensing her displeasure, the landlord offered to reduce the rent. It was precisely because of the wall that the deal was made. But only recently had she made her peace with the wall and become willing to accept the protection it offered.

Her husband, Caishu, not only accepted but also endorsed, bragged about, and praised the crude mud wall. That is, he was unwilling to accept it but used words to camouflage his true feelings. Whenever he had friends visiting him for the first time, Manqian heard Caishu say gleefully, “Its appearance is plain and simple, especially appealing for city dwellers long accustomed to Western-style homes. I took an immediate liking to it. There are so many kids who play in the alley, and my neighbors’ whitewashed walls are filled with their pencil scrawls and pictures. But my mud wall is dark and coarse—the kids can’t do a thing to it. After the last bombing raid, the police told everyone to paint their walls black. Our neighbors, terrified of bombs, scurried around getting their walls painted. But mine was naturally camouflaged already, which saved me a lot of trouble. Otherwise we would have had to hire people to paint it black. The landlord certainly wouldn’t have refunded the money for the job, so that we would have had to pay for it ourselves. And shortly after the neighbors’ walls were painted black, the kids went at it again and crisscrossed drawings in white chalk. It was just like setting up a big blackboard for the kids. It really wasn’t worth all the trouble.” At this point, Caishu’s guests would politely join him in laughter. And if his wife were waiting on the guests, she, out of a sense of obligation, would smile too.

What Caishu neglected to mention was that the kids, unable to write on his wall, had scrawled all over his front door many Xu Residence’s of different sizes, more or less in the manner of the two ideograms Caishu had written on the red strip of paper pasted at the top of his door. This was a fact that his guests would politely refrain from mentioning.

Manqian pushed open the door. The maid, a native of the area, asked gruffly in a loud voice, “Who is it?”

Manqian entered and asked casually, “Has the master come home yet?” The reply was negative. Of course, she had expected that answer, but today she felt relieved. She was timorous, afraid that her husband had come home before her and would ask her where she had been, and as yet she had not found the most succinct and effective lie to tell him. Lying to his face seemed much more difficult than being unfaithful to him. She knew very well that because of the noon air raids, offices opened at three in the afternoon and her husband would not be home until well after dark. But one could never tell—what had happened to her a while ago was a complete accident. Yes, indeed, the meeting she had with Tianjian this afternoon had gone beyond the expected. She was totally unprepared for what had happened. Yes, she had encouraged Tianjian to admire her, but it had never occurred to her that he would take the initiative and force her. She had only hoped for a tender, subtle, delicate emotional relationship with him, one ornamented with complications, filled with doubts and uncertainties, without verbal commitments or traces. In short, she wanted this relationship merely to enable them to touch each other’s souls with remote antennae. For a woman like Manqian, that was the most interesting form of recreation, and also the safest, with her husband a convenient buffer to prevent her and her lover from overstepping the bounds.

But who could have known that Tianjian would be so bold and direct? The substantial, physical love he had offered only frightened her, and somewhat disappointed her, since what she had obtained was more than she had hoped for—like someone with a weak stomach filled with greasy food. Had she known him to be that aggressive, she would not have gone to see him, or at least she wouldn’t have gone out without first changing her undershirt. The thought of her old undershirt, which should have been washed, still made her blush, even at this moment; in fact, this thought embarrassed her more than what had taken place.

Home. After walking through a small courtyard and through the room that served as both living and dining room, she entered her tiled bedroom. The maid went back to the kitchen to prepare dinner; like all household help from the countryside, the maid had no idea that now that the mistress was back it was time to bring her tea. But Manqian was too exhausted to speak to anyone. Her heart confused, she was unclear about what to think. Here and there, certain parts of her skin, such as her face and lips, that had been kissed by Tianjian seemed to retain some lingering impressions. Each place seemed to have a mind of its own, briskly alive, standing out from a feeling of general fatigue.

The room, with its old-style framed windows, had been dark for some time. Manqian preferred the darkness, as if under the cover of night her conscience would not be laid bare like a snail without a hiding place after it leaves its shell. So she did not turn the light on. In truth, the lights in the interior of China were only a shade better than darkness; the gleam they provided was so insubstantial that it seemed as if the color of night had been diluted with water. After she settled down in a chair, the heat generated from walking surged out of her body. She felt she just couldn’t believe what had happened; it could only be likened to a relief carved on the surface of a dream.

She wanted to lie down in bed, with her clothes on, for a little rest. But she was, after all, a woman. Tired as she was, she took off her street clothes and put on her housedress before she lay down. Her fur coat was shedding, and the color of her flannel-lined qipao³ was no longer fashionable. Ever since last summer, this place had been busy. Along with government offices evacuated to this city were numerous stylish married and single women, who dazzled the natives. What Maqian had, from her innermost underwear to her overcoat, was what she had bought for her wedding, and she wouldn’t have minded having some new clothes. But her dowry had been spent long since, when she and her husband fled their home; what Caishu earned was barely enough for monthly expenses, and there wasn’t any money left over for her to indulge in clothes. She was sympathetic to her husband. She never asked him for money for clothes, and she kept her yearnings to herself. Yes, in more than two years of married life, she had not had it easy; Manqian had to grin and bear the hardships of life with her husband, using her pride to sustain love, and never complaining to anyone. A wife like that had certainly done right by her husband.

It should be said, however, that her husband had not done right by her. Before their engagement, Manqian’s mother insisted that Caishu had cheated her of her daughter, and she blamed her own husband for having introduced Caishu to her. Some of Manqian’s girlfriends had also commented that, despite Manqian’s shrewdness, she had made a foolish mistake on such a vital matter as choosing a mate.

But what mother doesn’t object to her daughter’s choice of a mate? What woman doesn’t disparage her friend’s lover behind her back? At college, every young person, besides aspiring to a degree, must also aspire to a lover. In colleges that require students to live on campus, the distance between men and women is greatly reduced. Without the factor of their families, when men and women meet, they get to know one another. Thus this type of contact leads to what the families would call a mismatch. Moreover, love, as legend has it, is blind. It opens its eyes only after marriage. However, many students do not regard love as blind. They want to be loved, to offer their love, to beg to be given some residual love. But love seems to see them as totally unlovable and ignores them altogether. This proves that love is still blind, too blind to see their lovable traits. Thus coeducation not only increases the number of married couples through freedom of choice, but it also leaves behind many rejects from the love game, especially old maids. But the old maids, unlike Manqian, had at least not been willing to be mismatched!

Manqian was somewhat lethargic, and her image of herself was of a poised, refined young woman from a good family. Her long eyelashes, her egg-shaped face, her pale complexion, and her slim figure all contributed to an impression of gracious aloofness in her. She was especially known among her classmates for her love of art, and this caused her admirers to detect an indefinable elegance about her. Some men might consider her beauty too pure and lacking in sensuality, but her detractors, so vulgar in taste, would never have attracted the attention of her curved, slightly nearsighted eyes in the first place. By exploiting her inborn bashfulness, she developed self-appreciation. Some people called her arrogant, but arrogance in a woman is an enticement to a man’s spirit, just as wantonness in a woman is a stimulant to a man’s body. Thus, though Manqian was perhaps not as elegant as she perceived herself to be, she did have a few suitors. She was slow by nature, and her attraction for men was low-key and cumulative. Her admirers were schoolmates of many years. Precisely because they had been together for so long, she was used to their ways and bored with them. None of them could arouse a fresh reaction in her. Until the year of her college graduation she had had no lover. When she was bored and in low spirits, there was an emptiness in her heart that no one could fill. It must be said that she had failed to benefit from the opportunities of college coeducation. At this time, Caishu appeared, seemingly from nowhere.

Caishu was the son of an old friend of Manqian’s father’s. Because of the political situation, Caishu had transferred to Manqian’s school from a college in the south. In view of Caishu’s family’s straitened circumstances, Manqian’s father had invited Caishu to stay with them before school started; he even set up a couch for Caishu to use on weekends and holidays, the idea being to give Caishu a home away from home. Years of education in the city had not eradicated Caishu’s rusticity or his childishness. His naive rudeness, his unsophisticated civilities, and his native smartness made him look ridiculous and yet charming. Ever since the day when Manqian’s father told her to take Caishu to register at school, Manqian had vaguely felt that she was much more experienced than this big, newly arrived country boy, and she relished the joy of being the competent elder sister. On the other hand, Caishu felt strongly for her from the start and stayed at her home frequently. They became very good friends, almost as if they were of the same family. In his company, she forgot her usual reticence, partly overlooking the fact that he was, potentially, an attractive man. Her feeling toward him was like that of a comfortable foot that has forgotten that it still has a shoe on, a feeling she had never had with other men. What was at first companionship gradually turned to love, not passionate love, but a slowly and steadily growing intimacy. It was not until her girlfriends began to tease her that she realized how much she really liked Caishu.

When her parents found out about this, they quarreled with each other, and Caishu was too scared to come spend the night with them anymore. The mother blamed the father; the father scolded the daughter and blamed the mother; father and mother joined in scolding Caishu and in counseling their daughter, pointing out that Caishu’s family was poor and his prospects dim. Manqian shed some tears, but her parents’ chiding stiffened her resolve, like a piece of hemp rope that has become wet and so become stronger. At first her parents forbade her to see him; later they prohibited an engagement; they hoped time would erode her love for him. But love, like a habit, takes a long time to grow, and, like a chronic illness, even more time is needed to be rid of it. So, after two years, Manqian remained steadfast in her love for Caishu, who, of course, took everything in stride. It was because of the opposition of friends and relatives that their relationship, not nurturing itself as much as it should, began to turn into a unified force against outsiders and an alliance against snobbery. They had waited a long time when the war suddenly broke out, and political uncertainties easily divide families.

War, which traditionally produces many widows and widowers, ironically became the catalyst for Manqian and Caishu’s marriage. Her parents felt they had done their best by her and should stay out of her affairs. So Manqian and Caishu were married without too much ceremony, as they blandly listened to the usual wedding benedictions and to such clichés as “lovers eventually get married.” Soon afterward Caishu and his fellow employees were evacuated to this city.

Purchasing items hard to come by in the interior, packing their luggage, looking for affordable transportation and lodging, buying or renting furniture, hiring a maid, and returning courtesy calls to the wives of Caishu’s colleagues took up a lot of their time before they settled down. After the wedding they were so busy they had little time to savor any sweetness. Manqian, who had never paid any attention to domestic chores, now had to worry about daily necessities such as fuel, rice, oil, and salt. She was not extravagant, but she came from a respectable family. Caishu’s income was limited, and they felt the pinch even though prices in the interior were low at first. People had not become accustomed to poverty since it was the first year of the war; Manqian and her husband were just poor enough to want to hide theirs, and could manage to get away with their pretenses. It was really hard on Manqian. For this Caishu was both sympathetic and apologetic. Husband and wife both wished the war would end soon so they could lead a better life.

It was not long before Manqian discovered that Caishu was not an aggressive or enterprising person. He would never do more than to go to work at his square desk in the office. Even if the war came to an end, his prospects would not improve. His ignorance of the ways of the world made her feel vaguely the absence of anyone to support her. It intensified her fear that she alone had to take care of them both; that she would always have to be a gentle, protective mother to him. All the luxuries associated with being a woman—playing coy, being naughty, and throwing temper tantrums—were denied her, just like material luxury goods. Caishu himself was a child; he could not accommodate wanton coyness.

Except for some activities in the morning, there really wasn’t much for Manqian to do at home. After lunch Caishu would go to work; the maid would be washing clothes in the courtyard, and she would be sitting leisurely in the center of the room, gazing at the sun climbing the wall—a regular diet of ennui and silence that she could share with no one. She did not care to gossip with the wives of Caishu’s colleagues. In the same city lived a number of friends whom she had known before she got married. Those who were men she felt it would be improper for her to associate with anymore. As for women, some were married, and those who were single had jobs or were preparing to get married—all of them were busy with what they were doing. And, because she was trying to save money, she had few activities, and so her friends dwindled in number. Only in the evenings or on weekends would a few of Caishu’s friends occasionally stop by. She felt no desire to cultivate the friendship of those that didn’t come to see her. She loved to read, and her only regret was that there were few new books she could buy in the interior. The few old and tattered foreign novels she borrowed were not enough to fill up the hours in the day, nor the gaps in her soul. Knowing she must be bored, Caishu had suggested she take walks by herself. Out of extreme boredom she went to a movie theater once. She did not go to see the move per se, but to see what constituted a movie in the interior. It was a bizarre old foreign film, and the long benches in the movie theater were crowded with local moviegoers. Whenever a kissing scene appeared on the screen, the audience would clap their hands and yell, “Good, how about another one?” After chatting with her husband a bit after coming home from the movie, she went to bed, but was deprived of sleep by the fleas she had picked up at the cinema. From then on, she was afraid to go to the movies.

In this manner two years went by. And there was no sign of a baby. Every time the wives of Caishu’s colleagues saw her, they would say, “Mrs. Xu, you should have a baby by now!” Because Manqian was a woman with a modern education and a knowledge of science, the old-fashioned wives speculated wildly as to why she wasn’t pregnant. They would remark with a meaningful smile, “Young people these days sure put comfort first!”⁴

The previous spring enemy planes had bombed the city for the first time. Some houses were destroyed, and, as usual, some common folk who were not worth bombing got killed. But this was enough to frighten the citizenry of all social classes in the city. Even the most naive aborigines knew that bombers were not hens laying eggs in the sky, and they no longer dared gaze at the sky from the streets, clap their hands, and make noises after the air raid sirens had sounded. Air raid precaution measures suddenly became a matter of supreme concern; in editorials and readers’ correspondence columns local papers repeatedly stated the area’s importance for the War of Resistance in the interior and called for air protection. Protection by the air force, detractors argued, would only make the city a military target and induce the enemy to bomb; but such views were not expressed by the papers. After the summer, the city had its air force academy and its airports expanded, and the people began to get used to seeing their country’s planes flying in the sky.

One day late in September, Caishu came home to say that an acquaintance who was distantly related to him had moved to town. Earlier that day a cousin from the air force academy had visited Caishu in his office. This cousin had been a brat who refused to pay attention to schoolwork, Caishu told his wife. Not having seen his cousin for six or seven years, Caishu said he could barely recognize him. He was big and tall now, but just as naughty and flippant as ever. He added that the cousin, after learning Caishu was married, had joked that he would like to “get acquainted” with Manqian in a couple days.

“Should we invite him for a simple meal?” asked Caishu casually. Without much enthusiasm, Manqian replied, “We’ll see. Those guys in the air force are accustomed to good food and fun. He may not think much of our inviting him to dinner. You’ll spend lots of money, but he may not appreciate the dinner, or, worse yet, he may feel he’s been imposed on. Why bother? If you invite him for only a mediocre dinner, you’d be better off not inviting him at all. Most likely he just said he’d like to visit you. So long as he has seen you, that will probably be the end of it. Someone like that probably won’t spend the time to find your house.”

In view of his wife’s disdain for the whole matter, Caishu lost half his excitement and replied quickly, “We’d better wait. He said he would come. He asked for my address. He also said that he has heard you were beautiful and gifted, with both ‘talent and looks,’ and that he must see you. He had a good laugh with me about it.”

“Humph. Please ask him not to come. I’m old and ugly, nothing more than your housekeeper. If he sees me, wouldn’t we be embarrassed?”

“Come, come,” Caishu comforted his wife, fondling her hair. “If you saw him, you’d certainly like him. He’s talkative, funny, affable, and kind.” Then he changed the subject, wondering why his wife should turn so caustic when she was told she was both pretty and talented. In truth, Caishu was born to be a subordinate or assistant who would be allowed only to take orders and would be good at only that. As he never heard any complaints from his wife, who appeared complacent, he had taken her for granted. Now he was astonished, but dared not ask any questions. Hurriedly, he finished his dinner and dropped the matter.

It would be Sunday in a few days; Saturday night Caishu remembered that Tianjian might show up the following day, and he told his wife. On Sunday she bought a little more food than usual, preparing for Tianjian to come to lunch. Since Tianjian had not committed himself to coming, they prepared just a bit more than usual, so that if Tianjian showed up, he would not get the impression that they had prepared a special meal for him. They also supervised the maid, who swept the living room and the courtyard more thoroughly than usual. As husband and wife made preparations, they laughed to each other, stating that they really shouldn’t make too much of this, because the guest, if he showed up, was no one very important. Despite all that was said, Manqian put on a traditional Chinese dress, which she would hardly wear every day. She also put on a little more rouge, and even applied some lipstick, something she seldom did.

Shortly before noon, there was no sign of Tianjian. The maid, famished herself, urged them to eat. Since they had no choice, husband and wife sat across from each other and began to eat. An even-tempered man, Caishu said smilingly to his wife, “He was never that firm about coming. We were the only ones who were certain. Lucky we didn’t spend too much. The courtyard hasn’t been cleaned like that for some time. I wonder how the maid usually sweeps it?”

Manqian said, “It isn’t a question of the money, but rather of all the planning that went into it. A fine Sunday has been spoiled by him. If he was coming, he should have said so; if no, he should have made himself clear. He was noncommittal, and we’ve been kept busy for him. Only someone as naive as you would take a casual remark as a solemn promise.”

Her unpleasant expression made Caishu put in quickly, “Even if he comes, we won’t entertain him. That boy’s been inconsiderate since childhood. After lunch we can take a walk in the park. Since the weather is so nice, you won’t have to change your clothes.”

Manqian assented. In her heart she judged Tianjian to be genuinely disgusting.

Another week and more went by, during which time Tianjian did not come. After Caishu got home one day, he mentioned that he had seen Tianjian with a young woman. “He was very vague about the whole thing; he didn’t introduce the girl. Must be some new girlfriend of his. That kid is too much. The girl looks all right, except for the way she was dressed. Too provocative—definitely not a native of this area. When he heard we’d been waiting for him to come to lunch, he apologized. He said he had intended to come but couldn’t because something else had come up. He said he’ll visit us in a few days, and he wanted me to send his regards and his sincere apologies to you beforehand.”

“Come here in ‘a few days’? How many days, then?” Manqian asked coldly.

“Let him come whenever he likes; we don’t have to make any preparations anyway. He and I are relatives, and there’s no need for formality. I think he’s madly in love right now, and it’s likely he won’t have time to come in the immediate future. I’m afraid we’re getting old. For example, when I saw the young couple together today, I wasn’t jealous at all. For some reason I felt them naive enough to be pitied. There are so many ups and downs awaiting them; they have yet to be fooled and manipulated by fate. For us married folks, life has settled down—like a boat that has entered its harbor and no longer fears the storm. Though we’ve been married for only two years, we can consider ourselves an old married couple.”

Manqian smiled and said, “Don’t say us, just you!”—a line she borrowed from Heroic Sons and Daughters,⁵ spoken by Thirteenth Sister to a “faceless” woman. Manqian and her husband had borrowed and finished reading that novel, and they had appropriated expressions from it to tease each other. When Caishu saw his wife being naughty and teasing him, he begged for a kiss. Intoxicated with his own passion, he did not sense her indifference.

For better than half the night, Manqian could not fall asleep. The snores of a tired Caishu did not relieve the tense vibrations that permeated her whole body. Quietly she lay there wondering why at such a young age she should be so tired of love. No, not only of love, but of everything. She had been married for only a little over two years, but the marriage was as stale and boring as if she had been married a lifetime. “For us married folks, life has settled down,” was what he had said. Yes, the truth was that since meeting Caishu she had never experienced any fluctuations in her feelings. The fear of outside forces interfering with their love affair did once exist, but there had always been sufficient mutual confidence and assurance. Groundless suspicions, deliberate misunderstandings, and other assorted delicate torments associated with romance were wholly outside her experience. There never was any bitterness, spiciness, sourness, or harshness, but always the taste of clear tea.

Her relationship with him now was like fresh boiling water poured over old tea leaves—the tea gets weaker after each infusion. Days went by as if she had not lived them, eventlessly, as if time bore no relationship to her. Soon she would be thirty—the way she aged, it really wasn’t worth it. It would be better if she did have a baby, to reduce some of the emptiness of life; she might as well reconcile herself to being a mother. In the beginning she had a faint hope of getting a job so she could be part of society and not confined to her home. She was unwilling to lose her role outside the family after she got married. At first she feared a baby would be a hindrance to love and she’d rather not have one. Then she didn’t know if Caishu would want a baby; she was afraid he couldn’t afford it. When would this dreadful war come to an end?

Manqian rose late. By the time she had gotten up, Caishu had left for work. She had not slept for the better part of the night. Her head felt heavy and her eyelids too weighty to lift themselves, and she was afraid to take a good look at her long, sallow face in the mirror. After washing her face and rinsing her mouth, she had little energy for anything else. No one would come this morning, and she was too lazy to tidy herself up. After resting a bit she felt better. The maid had gone to the market and returned. Donning her plain green cloth apron, she helped the maid prepare lunch. While they were in the midst of this, they heard a knock on the front door. She wondered who could be visiting at this hour. The maid ran to open the door. Suddenly she remembered that she had not combed her hair, had not made up her face, and that she smelled of grease. She definitely could not receive a visitor, and she was sorry she had not told the maid so. She heard the maid running all the way to the kitchen yelling, “Madam, madam,” and saying that the man was surnamed Zhou, who said he was a relative of the master’s, had come to visit the master and mistress, and was standing in the courtyard. The maid wondered if she should invite the guest in.

Manqian knew the caller was Tianjian. Flustered and annoyed by the maid’s garrulousness, she did not know what to do. Scolding the maid, her first impulse, would not help matters. Should she go out to greet the guest? She felt ashamed of her condition, and since this was their first meeting, she did not want to be too embarrassed. If she were to put on some makeup and receive him, she must go to the bedroom and to go to the bedroom she must pass the courtyard, which was right outside the kitchen. Not wanting to be seen in her condition, and there being no chance to make up, she was forced to tell the maid to inform the guest that the master wasn’t home but would be informed of his visit and that the master would return his visit shortly. The maid answered in a loud voice, and left.

A wave of shame overtook Manqian, and she didn’t trouble to find out if the maid had relayed the message correctly. She felt she had been less than civil to her guest, who certainly knew she had been hiding in the kitchen, unwilling to come out. Perhaps he would have forgiven her for her less-than-neat appearance and for not having had time to make up properly. Yet it was truly disgraceful that the cousin’s so-called talented and beautiful wife had been unable to receive her guest because she smelled of kitchen smoke. Really it was Tianjian’s fault. Of all the times he could have called, why did he choose that time to come, and so abruptly? While she fumed, the maid came back to tell her the guest had said he’d come again on Saturday afternoon. Manqian, full of frustrations, scolded the maid for having yelled at the top of her lungs when a visitor called. The maid, peeved, threatened to quit. This only exasperated Manqian more. When her husband came home for lunch, she told him what had happened in the morning and blamed him for having a mischievous troublemaker from God knows where for a cousin.

Even though husband and wife said they didn’t want to go out of their way to entertain Tianjian, Caishu brought some pastries when he came home around noon on Saturday. And after lunch, Manqian herself spent some time making herself presentable. The last time she had made herself up, she had merely wanted to show her respect for her guest. Good manners dictated that she not be seen with her hair uncombed and her face unadorned. But this time, it was completely different, for she was still subconsciously very much affected by the shame and embarrassment she had felt two days ago when she couldn’t see Tianjian. Though Tianjian had never seen her, she felt he must have an image of her as a smoked-up, greasy, untidy woman working by the stove. So today she must pay extra attention to her appearance to restore her tarnished reputation. Unconsciously, she put powder on her face in a more obvious way, to appeal to someone with Tianjian’s crude sense of aesthetics.

A little after three, Tianjian came, with some gifts. On meeting him, Manqian was pleasantly surprised. Tianjian did not appear to be the slick, crude young man she had expected to dislike. Like all air force personnel, he was tall and strong, but his facial features were finely chiseled, and his manner of speaking seemed more refined than Caishu’s. What was more, his suit was well tailored without giving the impression of being either unsophisticated or slick. Even during their first meeting, his words of courtesy toward her seemed affectionate, and one could tell he was experienced in social relations. Of course, Caishu had much to say to him, but she could tell he didn’t want to spend all his time talking about his past with her husband and ignoring her. From time to time he broadened the conversation deliberately so as to involve her in it. Yes, the facts wouldn’t allow her to dislike Tianjian, unless she was offended by his frequent, sly glances at her. One time, when he was gazing at her, she was looking at him at the same time. She blushed instantly and her eyes blurred like a mirror someone had fogged with hot breath. But then he gave her a candid smile and asked casually what she did for recreation.

What a smart man Tianjian was! Since Tianjian’s gifts to them were quite expensive, husband and wife felt they had to invite him to eat with them the next evening. The long-scheduled dinner had to be given after all.

The next day Manqian was busy all afternoon until she felt she could entrust the remaining housework to the maid, and then went to her room to change. Tianjian came shortly, and since Caishu had not yet returned from visiting a friend, the job of entertaining the guest fell to Manqian alone. Trying to be calm, she searched the fringes of her brain for things to say. Fortunately, Tianjian was a good conversationalist. Whenever she, in embarrassment, ran out of things to say, he would subtly touch on something else as if erecting a floating bridge to connect the ever-widening cracks, so linking the threads of conversation. She realized that he knew her predicament and was sympathetic. As she pondered this she felt the situation was a bit amusing, and she also felt grateful toward him.

Tianjian said he wanted very much to try Manqian’s cooking, but he feared that would give her extra work, and hence he felt a conflict in himself. He added that he enjoyed cooking too and would demonstrate his culinary skills sometime.

Manqian smiled. “It’s lucky I didn’t know you were so talented. I don’t know much about cooking. Next time, if you come here to eat, I won’t dare prepare dishes for you—I’ll just have to serve you plain rice.”

Tianjian had the ability to make new acquaintances feel like old friends, and his enthusiasm was so infectious that it made social intercourse easy. Without being aware of it, Manqian relaxed.

When Caishu came home, he saw his wife and cousin in a happy mood, and his wife with some animation in her gentleness. He knew that her prejudices against his cousin had all dissolved and was very pleased. When they sat down to eat, the three cast formalities aside—especially Manqian, who had never known that being a hostess could be so easy and entertaining a guest so relaxing.

Tianjian told them about many of the things he had done before coming to town. He also said that a man from the same province had recently prepared a room for him at his house, and that sometimes when it was too late to return to the academy he would stay there.

Caishu then thought of Tianjian’s woman companion and asked, “I imagine you must have quite a few girlfriends. Who was the one I saw you with the other day?”

Taken aback for a moment, Tianjian asked, “Which day?”

Manqian interrupted wickedly: “What he meant was ‘Which one?’ I think he has girlfriends with him every day, and he doesn’t remember them all.”

Tianjian laughed, looking at her. “Now I can see for myself you’ve got a sharp tongue, Biaosao,⁶ but frankly, I don’t remember.”

Making a funny face, Caishu said, “Don’t play dumb. It was the day I met you around Sun Yat-sen Road. She was round faced and wore purple. With all the evidence, aren’t you going to confess?”

“Oh, that one,” Tianjian said. “That’s my landlord’s daughter.”

Manqian and Caishu thought they would hear more about this, but their guest paused and had no more to offer, as if a torrent of words ready to flow had been dammed and reclaimed by silence.

Unable to bear the suspense any longer, husband and wife commented simultaneously, “No wonder you want to live with her family!”

To explain himself, Tianjian said, “It’s like this. My landlord is an old lady, and her nephew and I were very good friends when I was in Sichuan. When I came here, her nephew wrote me a letter of introduction, and it happened that she had a lot of space, and she let me have one spare room.⁷ She has a son and a daughter. The son still goes to school, and the daughter, who graduated from college this past summer, works as a clerk in some office. She’s quite pretty and knows how to apply cosmetics and dress herself up. She loves fun so much that her mother can’t do much about her.” He stopped at this point; then he added, “Many colleagues from the air force academy go out with her. I’m not the only one.”

A clerk himself, Caishu realized that she was a “flower vase.”⁸ Before he could say a word, Manqian’s laughter exploded like bubbling water as she said, “You could call that girl an aircraft carrier.” Caishu laughed involuntarily. Tianjian seemed momentarily stunned by the remark, but he quickly regained his composure and started to laugh too.

Having made the remark, Manqian was irritated with herself for not having weighed her words before uttering them. As she looked at Tianjian she saw that his smile was perfunctory at best and was doubly unhappy that she might have offended him. After all, that girl might be his girlfriend. She felt she had spoken more than usual, and her garrulousness had caused her gaffe. As she mulled this over, she lost her enthusiasm and began to watch her words. At the same time she noticed that Tianjian had become inhibited. Maybe she was just being too suspicious.

The only one who remained unruffled was Caishu. He kept talking about this and that and eased the discomfort between host and guest. The dinner seemed interminably long. When it was finally over, Tianjian said good-bye to Caishu and Manqian, thanking her again and again and praising her excellent cooking. She, of course, knew this was his social routine, but from his repeated thanks she could see his respect for her and felt somewhat pleased. As she and her husband saw Tianjian out of the courtyard, her husband said, “Tianjian, if you don’t mind this place being shabby, just drop in and visit us when you have the time. In any case, Manqian is home most of the time, and she’s bored. You two can talk.”

“Of course, I’d love to come. But I’m afraid people like me are so crass that we aren’t qualified to speak to Biaosao.” Though a smile lessened the severity of his tone, his reply implied hostility and challenge. Fortunately, the dark night by the front door concealed their faces and allowed Manqian to blush in safety.

Assuming a normal tone of voice, Manqian said, “I’m only afraid you wouldn’t be willing to come. If you came, I’d be more than pleased. I’ve been a housekeeper for so long that I can only talk about homemaking. What’s more, I’ve never been a good conversationalist.”

“Don’t be polite, either of you,” Caishu interrupted. Thus, amid abundant “Goodbyes,” and “Take cares,” Tianjian left them.

Two days later, in the afternoon, Manqian was just planning to knit something new from the yarn she had unraveled from an old sweater, soaked, and hung out in the sun to straighten, when suddenly she heard Tianjian coming. She felt that he had come especially for her that day, because he knew it was too early for her husband to have returned from work. This knowledge made her very constrained and ill at ease. She said hello, she asked how he had found the time to come, and then she couldn’t think of another word to say. The friendliness of two days past seemed to have disappeared.

Spying the yarn on the table, Tianjian smiled. “I came especially to give you a hand,” he said. Hoping to ease her own unnatural reserve, Manqian suddenly became unusually bold and said, “You came at the right time. I was worried because there was no one to help me with this. Caishu’s wrists are clumsy and he can’t do this properly. Now I have a perfect chance to try you out, though I’m afraid you may not have the patience. First let me separate the yarn.”

So one stretched the yarn in both hands, while the other wound it into separate balls. Even when they said nothing to each other, the yarn maintained a continual contact between them and spared them the trouble of looking for things to say. When two or three balls of yarn had been wound, Manqian, afraid that Tianjian might have become bored, suggested he quit, but he refused and continued helping her until all the yarn on the table had been wound up. At this point he rose, commenting that he hoped his wrists and patience had passed her test. He said he must leave and couldn’t wait for Caishu to come home.

With great sincerity, Manqian apologized. “I’ve put you through too much! I’m afraid you’ll be scared to come back again after this punishment.”

Tianjian only smiled.

After that time, Tianjian would come to sit for a while every three or four days. Manqian noticed that, except for one Sunday when he invited her and her husband out to a restaurant, Tianjian had never come on a Sunday. When Tianjian came, Caishu was usually at work. She knew that Tianjian enjoyed her company, and his affection for her subconsciously improved her own self-image. Besides adding a bit of mild excitement to her humdrum existence, his interest also restored her shaky self-confidence—proving that she had not passed her prime and that life had not completely eroded her charms.

To prove to a woman that she is attractive, there is no better way than wooing her. For single girls in their prime, this type of proof is due recognition of their desirableness. For those who are married and approaching middle age, this poof is not only solace but also must be considered a compliment. Those women who, when young, set the highest standards in selecting their beaux frequently lower their standards when they find themselves at the twilight of their emotions. Persons who never could have become their husbands now have a chance to be just that.

Manqian had already reached a stage in life when she needed proof and compliments. She was certain that she and Tianjian would never fall in love—at least she would not love him with any passion. She was not worried about the future. She had a husband—that was her best security, her best defense against Tianjian. Her own marriage marked a line in her friendship with Tianjian that neither was to cross. Tianjian was a truly likable person. She kept that knowledge to herself, unwilling to give him any more definite signs of her liking by calling him “lovable.” No wonder Caishu said Tianjian was a lady’s man. When Manqian thought of Tianjian’s girlfriends, an inexplicable annoyance surfaced. Maybe he considered her one of his many girlfriends. No, she would never consent to be that type of girlfriend, and he would not treat her like that. He had never treated her flippantly, in a materialistic manner. His frequent visits with her fully showed his capacity for quietness. After Tianjian had visited her a number of times, she was often tempted to ask him if what her husband had said of him, that he was really “madly in love,” was true, but she was afraid to betray her secret, her vague sense of jealousy, by her tone of voice or choice of words. So she held herself back. This was also a secret she wanted to keep from her husband. Hence she never breathed a word to Caishu about Tianjian’s frequent visits. Gradually she developed a routine. Every other day she prepared (never admitting she hoped) for him to visit her. After lunch she would apply light makeup to her face. Despite their familiarity with each other, whenever she heard him come in she became excited, and it required tremendous effort on her part to dispel the involuntary flush on her face before she came in.

In this way a new meaning seemed to enter her life. A month or so later it was winter, the best season in the mountain-ringed city. Day after day of brilliant sunshine dazzled newcomers, who could not believe that the weather could be so beautiful, particularly those who had been used to dramatic seasonal changes. Daylight emerged in tender, rosy morning rays and disappeared in the rich yellow of evening, completely different from the winter in the north, which brought chilly gusts of wind. Because the city was located at a high altitude, it was said that a thin layer of fog surrounded it in winter and thus diminished the possibility of its being attacked by enemy planes. The streets, as a result, were thronged with more shoppers than before.

One day Tianjian came to visit Manqian as usual. After sitting for a while, he said he had to leave. When she asked him why he was in a hurry, since it was still early, he replied, “The weather is too nice to be true. How can you stay home doing nothing? Why don’t you take a walk with me.”

The question put Manqian in a dilemma. If she said she was willing to be bored at home, she would be telling an obvious lie. There wasn’t even enough truth in it to fool herself. On the other hand, to stroll with Tianjian in public, she felt, would be improper and might cause gossip. Wary of this, but unable to tell him her true feelings, she replied weakly, “If you’re bored, please suit yourself.”

Tianjian seemed to understand her. In a half-serious and half-joking tone he said, “It’s not me. It’s you who must be feeling bored sitting her all the time. I have lots of activities. What’s wrong with going out together? Would Caishu think I’ve abducted you?”

Manqian was in more of a dilemma. Ambiguously she murmured, “It’s not like that. You just go ahead. I won’t keep you.”

Knowing that he could not force her, Tianjian left. After he left Manqian felt disappointed for a while, with the knowledge that she had really wanted him to stay. It was only a little after three o’clock, a long time before evening—a stretch of time lay in front of her as impassable as a desert. At first, time had passed in blocks, but once Tianjian had left, the hours, minutes, and seconds, as if removed from their spines, loosened into countless tiny bits and pieces. No event could serve as a thread to string them together. She was used to lonely afternoons, but she couldn’t bear this one. She thought she really should have gone out with Tianjian because she needed small items like toothpaste and a toothbrush. Though he was not her husband, she could justify the trip as business, which would soothe her conscience and provide an excuse to anyone who asked. No one could say she had asked him to accompany her, nor gone along just for the sake of accompanying him.

The next day the weather became even more beautiful. The events of the previous day had left a residue powerful enough to vibrate in her heart, and Manqian could not sit still at home. In the morning there were some household chores for her to do, and because of the air raids, stores and shops would not be open until three in the afternoon. Not having been out for a few days, she noticed some new stores that copied the style of the stores in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Standing before a new drugstore and looking at the sample goods advertised in the windows, she pondered what to buy. Suddenly she heard a man’s voice behind her. It was Tianjian’s. Eyes fixed on the windows, she blushed. Her vision blurring, she could not tell what she was looking at. Her heart felt as if it were being pummeled, and for a moment she hadn’t the nerve to turn and call to him. Then as she began to turn, she heard a woman talking and laughing with him. Involuntarily she stopped herself. After the footsteps had passed her, she turned around and saw him and the woman enter the drugstore. Though the woman’s face was partly blocked by him, she did get a rear view of the woman, a woman shapely enough to make an onlooker want to run ahead and catch the front view. Manqian, awakening from a dream, realized the woman must be the “aircraft carrier.” All of a sudden she lost her courage to enter the drugstore and quickly left the place as if she were avoiding them. She no longer had any desire to buy sundries. Her heart and feet were as heavy as lead, and she could not walk home, so she hired a rickshaw.

Once she settled down, she fully comprehended how much anguish she had felt. She knew she had no reason to feel that way, but who could argue with a person’s heart? She didn’t hate Tianjian, but she felt uneasy, as if she realized the happiness of the past month really amounted to nothing. No, it did not amount to nothing. If it had, she wouldn’t be feeling the way she did. She yearned to see him at once to calm her much-confused soul. What she had witnessed that day she could not fully accept, and she wanted him to prove to her that what she had seen was an illusion. All in all, she felt he must explain things to her. Would he come that day? Probably not. The next day? The next day seemed so far away. She really could not wait that long. Also at the same time she felt conscience stricken, afraid that her husband might notice her agitated state.

That evening when Caishu came home, she was an unusually attentive wife, and she asked him this and that. Meanwhile, she valiantly tried to prevent her vexations from intruding into her consciousness and from making her answers to her husband appear incoherent. After they went to bed, dreading insomnia, she concentrated with all her might on removing thoughts of Tianjian, or at least on putting them aside. She did not want to think of them now. It was like putting fish and meat in a refrigerator overnight in hot weather.

The next day when she awoke, the agony of the evening before had slipped away with sleep, and she felt silly for having exaggerated matters. What did it matter to her that Tianjian had gone out with some woman? After all, he would be coming to see her soon, and she could subtly tease him about it. But as soon as noon passed, her heart fluttered, and she became fidgety, eagerly awaiting him.

Tianjian did not appear that afternoon, nor the next day. In fact, he didn’t come even on the fifth day. He had never stayed away for this length of time since they had come to know each other. Then a thought occurred to Manqian: “Maybe, through some uncanny telepathy, he has become aware of my attitude toward him and is afraid to come anymore. But how could he know my mind?” In any case, it was better to abandon hope, never to expect to see him again. Having tasted the ironic paradoxes that life offers, she knew how God fools everyone. To turn hope into reality, she concluded, the first thing to do was to stop yearning and prepare herself for a surprise later. This “abandoning of hope” lasted three days, during which period there was no trace of Tianjian. It seemed that God did not care to correct any error that had been made, pretending not to know that her “abandoning of hope” was only a debased form of hope and allowing her to be confirmed in her disappointment.

During those eight days Manqian seemed gravely ill and aged mentally ten years. All the emotions that accompany love she tasted in a double dose. Her weary body and mind were as tense as ever. Like an insomniac, the more exhausted she was, the tauter her nerves became. Several times she wanted to write Tianjian, having drafted the letter many times in her mind, but her pride prevented her from doing so. The thought “maybe he’ll show up today or tomorrow” stopped her from writing. In her husband’s presence, she tried her best to appear normal, but this required a lot of energy and effort. Therefore, she wanted her husband to stay out of the house so that she would not have to expend energy on him. But once he left the house, alone with herself, she felt defenseless and besieged by vexations. It was literally impossible for her not to think of the matter. Whatever she was doing, she inevitably thought of Tianjian—she was like an ox turning a grindstone. In these eight days the physical separation between her and Tianjian enhanced their mental affinity. Previously she had been unwilling to think of him and forbade herself to think of him. Now she not only missed him, she also hated him. The last time he said good-bye to her, they had been on speaking terms, but during these eight days it was as if her heart had been fermenting, intensifying her feelings for him. Her attempt to turn despair into hope had failed. It was so unfair that he had obtained her affection without wooing her. She blamed herself for being weak. She must discipline herself into not wanting to see him. At the most she’d see him once more. She’d have to be cool to him, and so let him know that she didn’t care whether he came or not.

Another day passed. After lunch Manqian was washing her silk stockings, which could not withstand the maid’s crude hands—a conclusion Manqian had drawn from past experience. At this time the maid told her she was going out. Her hands covered in soapy water, Manqian did not rise to latch the door, merely telling the maid to close it. Meanwhile, Manqian thought that Christmas would come in a few days, followed by New Year’s, and she wondered if she should send Tianjian a Christmas card—just a card with nothing else in it. Then she hated herself for being a fool, for not being able to forget him, for wanting to retain some contact with him. A little later, after washing the stockings and drying her hands, she was about to latch the door.

Then the door creaked open. When she saw it was Tianjian she felt so weak that she almost could not stand still. Dazed, she watched him close the door behind him and heard him laugh on his way in, yelling, “Why was the door left open? Are you home alone? I haven’t seen you for a few days. How have you been?”

The tension she had been under the last eight days was suddenly released. She discovered that the bitter tears she had stored up within her were now threatening to pour out. Her intention of giving him a perfunctory smile failed to materialize. Lowering her head she said in a hoarse voice, “What a rare visitor!”

Tianjian sensed something unusual in the situation. Stupefied for a moment, he kept staring at her. Suddenly a smile emerged, and he walked toward her, whispering, “You seem unhappy today. Who are you mad at?”

For some reason none of the vituperative words she had prepared for him could come out. She felt the weight of silence on her increasing every second. With considerable effort she finally blurted out, “Why did you bother to come? Such beautiful weather! Why didn’t you go out with your girlfriend?” After she said these words, she felt as if she had suffered many grievances, and it became even more difficult for her to hold back her tears. She thought to herself, “What a disaster! Now he sees through me!”

In her confusion, she discovered Tianjian’s cradling her neck with his hands and gently kissing her eyes. “Silly child! Silly child!” he murmured.

Instinctively Manqian struggled free of his hands and ran to her room, saying repeatedly, “Go away! I don’t want to see you today. Leave this instant!”

Tianjian left. But what happened that day completely changed his attitude toward Manqian. In his recollections of his dealings with her over the past month or so, he saw a fresh meaning that had wholly escaped him before. Looking back, he understood what had always made him come to see her. Like a lamp on a ship’s stern, his reflection suddenly lit up the path it had sailed. At the same time, he thought he had the right to request something of her and even the obligation to conquer her. Though he had no idea how far he wanted to go with her, his male ego told him he must pursue his course until she frankly and uninhibitedly admitted that he was her lover.

As for Manqian, she knew her secret had been compromised. There was no retreat. Her only regret was that she had allowed him so much leeway, allowed him to think everything would come so easily. Therefore, she decided she must be cool to him, to discount the degree of intimacy between them, so that he would not take her for granted or at face value. She hoped this strategy of reverse psychology would lead him to beg sincerely for her love. Only in this manner could she have vengeance for what had happened today and so even the score with him. Her only worry was that he wouldn’t come the next day. And when he did show up the next day, she had told her maid in advance that she was not well and so forced him to come some other time.

Tianjian assumed that Manqian was truly ill, and in his concern, immediately bought two small baskets of Chongqing tangerines and had a special messenger deliver them. Since it would not be appropriate to write a note, he attached his name card to the gift. A day later he sent a Christmas card and an invitation asking Manqian and her husband to Christmas dinner.

The reply was in Caishu’s name, but the writing was apparently Manqian’s. It said simply, “We dare not refuse your dinner invitation. Let us thank you in advance. See you on that day.”

Tianjian though about this carefully and concluded that Manqian had implied she did not want him to see her. People who are capable of defending themselves don’t shut their doors to callers. He thought he must behave with the magnanimity of a victor, as there was no present need to impose himself on her.

On Christmas evening Tianjian and Manqian met. Maybe it was because her passion toward him had cooled, or maybe she was emboldened by the presence of her husband. To his surprise, she was very calm. Many a time he had hoped to discover their mutual secret revealed either in her face or in her eyes, but he couldn’t find any indication of it. The dinner went smoothly, but he was nonetheless disappointed. Then the New Year holidays came around and Caishu remained at home. Tianjian went to visit Manqian once, but he had no chance to talk to her. Moreover, she seemed rather distant toward him and left the room a few times under false pretenses. At first he thought her behavior was due to her bashfulness and was a little pleased. But then, when she seemed to be totally indifferent to him, he felt uneasy.

Caishu went back to work after the holidays. Tianjian visited Manqian again. Like severed silk, their earlier friendship could not be rejoined. Her stern looks made him feel restrained, and he experienced the vexation of having something slip through his fingers. He could not decide what approach to use with her: to remain cool and detached or to be rude and passionate. Watching her knit a sweater with her head bent, the uncontrollable slight blush on her face, her long eyelashes covering her eyes like a lampshade over a lamp, he was tempted to kiss her. He even walked toward her. Her bent face appeared even more flushed.

“You shouldn’t be mad at me anymore,” he said half questioningly.

“Me mad at you? No such thing,” she replied, trying to appear calm.

“We get along quite well. Why must we hide our secrets and not say what’s in our hearts?”

She was silent, mechanically knitting with increased speed. Edging toward her, he put his hands on her shoulders. She struggled free and knit at a furious pace. In a low but commanding voice she said, “Go away. There’ll be a scandal if the maid sees us.”

He had no choice but to release her. In an aggrieved tone, he said, “I know I’m not welcome anymore. I’ve come too often and become a pest. Please forgive me this time. I won’t be a nuisance anymore.” As he was saying that, he realized he had been extreme in his choice of words. If she did not respond to what he said, he had allowed himself no room for other maneuvers, and he must consider the whole matter a complete fiasco. But Manqian continued to knit, giving no response. The few minutes that went by in total silence were nearly as painfully long as several lifetimes. Knowing he could not force anything from her, he was so exasperated that the following exploded from his throat: “Okay, I’m going now. I’ll never come again . . . and you just leave me alone too.”

As soon as that was said, he went to fetch his hat. Suddenly, Manqian raised her head. With a bashful smile she looked at the fiery-tempered Tianjian and said, with her head lowered again, “See you tomorrow then. I plan to go shopping. Would you have time to come with me tomorrow after lunch?”

Tianjian was bewildered for a moment before he realized that he had won. He was so ecstatic that he wanted to jump up and down. He felt he must kiss her to mark this moment of triumph. Then he realized she wouldn’t dare to do such a thing, and he must be wary of the maid. As he left her, he was elated, thinking another romance of his had borne fruit, except he had not celebrated this victory with a kiss, as was his custom. And that must be considered the only flaw in an otherwise perfect victory.

This feeling of something less than perfection persisted and increased in the three or four weeks that followed. Even though Tianjian and Manqian became closer, he discovered that she was always evasive about physical intimacy. Not only did she seem to make few demands on him, but also she would not try to please him. Even when there were opportunities for embraces, he had to struggle with her in order to kiss her. Their kisses were never passionate, full, or harmonious.

Not endowed by nature with stimulating or intoxicating sexual charm, Manqian was not easily aroused or carried away. During courtship she was always a cool and reserved woman. Her low-key approach, ironically, stimulated Tianjian greatly. Her indifference seemed to imply a contemptuous challenge to his passion. It stirred up even greater desire in him and intensified his temper. The situation was like the spilling of a drop of cold water on a coal-burning stove, creating a shee sound and giving off steam. Every time she rejected him, he invariably lost his temper and was on the verge of asking her if she ever allowed her husband to be intimate with her. But he thought such a question would only imply that he was obsessed with sex and too vulgar. He firmly believed that just as there was a code of honor among thieves, there were ethical rules governing extramarital relations. It seemed to him that a husband had the right to question his wife about her relationship with a lover, but never vice versa—the lover inquiring into his mistress’s relationship with her husband.

After several rejections, Tianjian gradually realized that his time and energy had been wasted. His efforts in keeping up appearances and his careful calculations to prevent suspicion by Caishu and others had all come to naught. He had, in fact, obtained nothing. It was like wrapping up an empty box and sending it by registered mail. This type of romance he could not drop and yet it was exasperating and boring. Something must come of it! He must find or make an opportunity to capture her body and soul. A few days after the Lantern Festival, his landlady’s family would be going to the country for a few days, and, taking the initiative, he told the landlady he would watch the house for her. He planned to invite Manqian over, and if he failed in this attempt, he decided that he’d end all dealings with her. It would be far better to break off the relationship than to keep it going in a lukewarm and noncommittal manner.

Who could have known that he would break the ice today? His passion temporarily weakened Manqian’s stubborn resistance. As if affected by his passion, she seemed to warm to him considerably. Their romance could be considered complete and concluded at this point. Nonetheless, Tianjian experienced the emptiness one usually feels after having achieved a goal. The restraint that Manqian exercised during her indiscretion seemed to suggest that she had not treated him fairly. So, in a way his success could be viewed as another failure. Because he was not happy with this outcome, he ended up feeling guilty for having cheated Manqian and grievously wronged Caishu. Since there were attractive women available, why must he dally with his biaosao? However, her abrupt departure afterward and her unwillingness to listen to his explanations and apologies made it easier for him to get out of this mess. He could now cast her aside completely on the pretext that he had affronted her and felt too ashamed to see her. And if she should seek him out in the future, he would think of some way to handle her then.

Without giving any thought to the future, Manqian ran home in one breath and collapsed on the bed. As sober as if she had just been splashed with ice water, she knew that she did not love Tianjian. She had desired him before because of her pride, which had now vanished without a trace. The romantic tryst of a moment ago left its ghostly shadows, which seemed imprinted with a thin impression of Tianjian. Those disgusting, lingering sentiments! When would they completely fade away? When Caishu comes home in a while, how can I face him? she wondered. That night, Caishu did not detect anything strange about his wife.

Manqian was worried that Tianjian would come back to her, like a bad habit that was difficult to break. But fortunately he didn’t show up for several weeks. Since he had had her once, he had obtained the right to have her again. If she were alone with him, she simply would not be able to cope with him. She knew he was a gentleman who would not betray her and would help her keep their secret. But what if the secret bore some kind of fruit that would be impossible to cover up? No, absolutely impossible! Could such a coincidence happen in this world? She was sorry she had been foolish, and she hated Tianjian for his impudence. She did not dare think about the matter any further.

The weather continued to be unbearably pleasant. It was as if Manqian’s heart were a tree hollowed out with worms and unable to show any sign of growth. But also for this reason she was spared the usual vexations that came to her each spring.

One day right after lunch, Caishu was about to take a nap when suddenly air raid sirens sounded, destroying the calm of that pleasant day. The streets filled with commotion. Because the city had not heard any sirens in three months, everyone panicked. Chinese fighter planes climbed into the sky, and the clouds were filled with the sounds of their engines as they flew away toward the city’s outskirts. The old maid, carrying a satchel on her back, demanded a few dollars from Manqian and breathlessly ran to the air shelter trench behind the alley for protection. Before she left, she said, “Madam, you and the master had better get going.”

Lazily lounging in bed, Caishu told his wife that it was most likely a false alarm and he saw no need to fight the crowd and dust in any air shelter trench. Like many people, Manqian had the peculiar notion that even though many had died in the bombings, she herself would never be among the victims. Her husband had often quoted her as saying, “The chance of being bombed to death are as slim as winning the first prize in the aviation lottery drawings.” A while later the second air raid warning siren sounded. The siren, with its long wails, was like a huge iron throat spewing cold air toward the blue sky. When the neighborhood sank into an eerie silence, Caishu and his wife became terrified. At first they had been too lazy to move; now they were too scared to move. Manqian stayed in the courtyard by herself. Holding her breath, she gazed at the enemy planes entering the air space above the city with contemptuous ease, as if taunting the antiaircraft guns.

The sound of the machine guns was like that of a stutterer, unable to express his meaning to the sky; or like phlegm stuck in the throat, unable to come out. Suddenly Manqian felt weak all over and did not dare to stand or look anymore. Quickly, she ran toward her bedroom. As she was about to step into the house, a noise constricted her heart and dragged it along into the abyss. As her heart began to sink, another explosion followed, lifting her heart from its depths and leaving her eardrums ringing with sound. The windows shook uneasily within their frames. The lidded cups on the tea tray clanked against one another, making their own music. So frightened was she that she fell into a chair and held her husband’s hand. Whatever resentments she felt against him all vanished so long as he was close by her now. Her head seemed to have been packed with the commotions of the whole sky. The noises of machine guns and of bombs, distinct from those of the airplanes, wreaked havoc in her mind. She could not dispel them.

No one knows how long it was before calm was restored. The birds in the trees, after what seemed a long period of silence, began to chirp again. The blue sky acted as if nothing had happened, and one lone Chinese fighter plane suddenly flew overhead. Everything was over. Sometime later, the warning was lifted. Though there were no immediate stirrings in the neighborhood, the city seemed to be coming back to life. The old maid returned with her satchel, and Caishu and his wife went to the main street to find out what had happened.

There was more activity than usual in the streets, people gathering to read the notice written on a strip of red cloth that had just been posted by the Air Raid Prevention Committee: “Six enemy aircraft bombed the city at random. Our casualties were extremely light. After a crushing counterattack from our planes, one enemy plane was shot down, and the rest fled the province. Another enemy plane was seriously damaged and was forced to land somewhere in the outlying area. We are still searching for it.” Caishu and his wife read the notice and simultaneously said they would be able to get more definitive information if they saw Tianjian. Then Caishu rather casually asked his wife why Tianjian hadn’t come to see them for some time.

At that point Tianjian and his plane had gone down in the rubble some forty miles from the city. He had obtained his cruel peace. A man who had been active in the air all his life could find rest only underground.

The news came to Caishu and his wife three days later. He shed some tears, which were mingled with pride for being a relative of the dead. For the first time Manqian felt Tianjian was truly pitiable. Her feelings were exactly those an adult had toward a naughty child who was sound asleep. Tianjian’s good looks, his ability, decisiveness, and smoothness were terribly attractive to women when he was alive, but in death all his qualities had now been shrunken, softened, jabbed through by death, as if they were those of a child and couldn’t be taken seriously. At the same time she felt the relief of having been set free. What about the secret she had had with him? At first she did not want to think about it, something she’d like to keep a secret even from herself. Now, the secret, having suddenly lost some of its repugnancy, was transformed into a souvenir worthy of being kept and preserved. It was like a maple leaf or lotus petal to be folded in a book, to be allowed to fade in color with time; but every time you open the book it’s still there, and it makes you shiver unintentionally. It was as if a part of Manqian’s body had been contaminated by death, as if a part of her body had been snatched away by Tianjian and had died also. Fortunately, that part of the body was far away from her, like skin that has been shed, or hair or nails that have been cut and no longer hurt or itch.

Soon, various city groups sponsored a memorial service for Tianjian, at which the remains of one enemy plane were displayed. Caishu and his wife attended the service. The sponsors had asked Caishu to give a talk or be responsible for some program, as was appropriate for the relative of the deceased. But Caishu staunchly refused to do anything. He did not care to appear in public on account of the deceased and was unwilling to cheapen his private grief by making a public exhibition of it. This attitude increased Manqian’s respect for him. After some hullabaloo, Tianjian’s name, along with his corpse, went cold and was forgotten. It was only after two or three weeks that Tianjian’s name was mentioned again between husband and wife. It was right after dinner, and they were chatting in the bedroom.

Caishu said, “All the symptoms are unmistakable. Since we’re destined to have a child, there’s no way to run away from it. We should have a child, and you shouldn’t hate having one. We can afford a child at the moment. Maybe the war will be over before your delivery date. If that’s the case, all the more reason for us not to worry about it. I say, if you have a boy, we should call him Tianjian, in memory of our friendship with him during those few months. What do you say?”

Manqian was looking for something. She walked to the window, pulled open the desk drawer, and, with her head lowered, fingered through all the items in it. Meanwhile she said, “I don’t want to. Didn’t you see the ‘Aircraft Carrier’ during the service? She was all tears and mucus, and she was dressed like Tianjian’s widow. You know what kind of person Tianjian was. The two must have known each other very well. Who knows if she hasn’t borne a child for him? Let her have a kid to honor him. I wouldn’t want to. And let me tell you something else. I won’t love this baby, because I never wanted it.”