THAT NIGHT, AFTER MR. LI ARRIVED, Line had him wash his face and brush his teeth. Mr. Li kept an open mind and did as he was told. As Line studied his stubbly mouth, she thought: if he tries to kiss me, I can just refuse, no need to make him brush his teeth. But when she heard the wind howling outside, she felt bad for what Mr. Li had gone through to see her. She didn’t have the heart to refuse him so she made him brush his teeth after all. There was soot in Mr. Li’s teeth. A kiss from him would have dyed her black.
Line judged her own actions based on if she was “keeping it real” or not. During the Cultural Revolution, we all used “keeping it real” as a criterion. It was slightly different from the American standard of “be reasonable.” The American’s reasonableness is like the standard used by two businessmen, whereas our “keeping it real” is more like honor among thieves. Applied to Line’s specific case, her attitude toward Mr. Li needed to be as “keeping it real” as that of a gangster woman to a gangster man.
In terms of what “keeping it real” meant to Line, I offer the following anecdote. In the summer of ’68, it was trendy to trade commemorative Mao pins (the term “commemorative pin” was rather strange, he wasn’t even dead yet, what was there to commemorate?—Wang Er’s note). Around Beijing’s Haidian District, there were gatherings everywhere, like flea markets. Line was always going to them. In addition to trading Mao pins, it was also a place to pick up girls. When someone caught sight of Line and wanted to hit on her, she would put on a smug smile and unfurl the folding fan in her hand. On the fan was a word written in calligraphy (written by me—Wang Er’s note), Taken! That was twenty-two years ago. Line was an elegant maiden with a beautiful smile.
If the suitor continued to pester her, Line would change into her mean face and command: “Wang Er, get him!” Wang Er would jump out of nowhere and kick some troublemaker’s ass. If the troublemaker had brought a buddy, Wang Er would also bring a buddy, which was Xu You. Xu was out for blood; his bellicosity was well-known throughout Haidian. After that, we would take the wounded to the hospital. If the injury was serious, we would have to treat the patient to a meal. That would have been “keeping it real.”
As Mr. Li brushed his teeth, Line knew she had to “keep it real.” But she also realized that “keeping it real” meant having limits. It was a blurry line. If he had gotten gropey, she would definitely refuse. But there also had to be the possibility of consent, so Line mentally prepared herself. If Mr. Li had wanted to encroach on her chastity, that would have been a red line. If he pestered her, she would beat his ass. At the time, Line wanted to play with men, but she also wanted to remain a virgin forever. For her, that would have been the ideal situation.
When Mr. Li finished washing up, they sat down on the beds. At first, Line sat on her own bed and Mr. Li sat on the other bed. But then, she called him over to sit down next to her. She could tell that Mr. Li was tired. The dirty blanket was only big enough to protect the bed from Mr. Li’s butt. Had he lain back, it would have been a disaster. Then, she began to study Mr. Li. Her first takeaway was this: Mr. Li had big monkey ears. The second was that there was coal dust in Mr. Li’s pores. Just as she was about to point out her observations, Mr. Li said: let me lie down for a minute. With that, he leaned to a side and fell asleep before he even hit the mattress. Line later said, “I wanted to kill him right then and there (mariticide!—Wang Er’s note)!”
As soon as Mr. Li hit the bed, he began to snore. Line wanted to cry. But eventually, she settled down and thought: fine, go ahead and sleep. Mama’s gonna have her fun with you! She took off his shoes and laid him out flat on the bed. She unbuttoned his shirt, took off his belt and reached in with her hand only to feel a bunch of cotton patches (a bachelor’s shirt—Wang Er’s note). Later, she would describe her first experience caressing her lover in the following way: if you tied Blood-swollen Turtlehead to a pole, you’d end up with a mop.
Still, Blood-swollen Turtlehead wasn’t entirely a mop. As she reached in farther, she felt Mr. Li’s chest. In that moment, she almost screamed. Of course, she became accustomed to it eventually, but the first touch was something else. Mr. Li’s chest was sparsely populated with thick, coarse hair that ran down the length of his sternum like the mane on a pig’s back. By pig, I mean Chinese pigs, the mane on foreign pigs aren’t bristly enough to make brushes with. But whether or not Mr. Li’s chest hair was bristly enough to make brushes with, Line was having fun. She kept feeling her way down until she found an object, like a big sea cucumber. At that point, she paused and pondered for a bit until she finally remembered Mr. Li’s moniker. As she chewed on her fingernails, she thought: oh dear, how can this be an organ, it’s clearly a murder weapon.
As soon as she touched it, Mr. Li woke. He was in the middle of a dream. He had just gotten out of the mine shaft and was going to take a bath. The public bath was a pot of soot stew. Several butt-naked miners would jump into the muck one at a time. Everything in his dream was true to his real life. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing then, but he also had trouble believing what he was seeing now in his dream. How could there be so many male genitals crowded together under one roof? He suspected that he was dreaming; he also suspected that he was gay. Only if both of these conditions were true could he have seen what he saw.
Mr. Li said, when he woke up and found Line touching him, he was startled. Line’s face was red, with a big smile. He had just woken up from a dream, so he figured what he was seeing wasn’t a dream. He didn’t want it to be a dream. It was his years as water flowing, not mine. Time flows like the moon arcing across heaven, shining down upon each of us, but we each live a different life.
After that, Line made Mr. Li solemnly swear that he wouldn’t have any unwarranted ideas, that he would stop the moment he was told. Under such conditions, she would let him reach in from under her blouse. This was their second tryst, one week after the first one. Line said, Mr. Li’s hands were as rough as if they had fish scales. But through those hands, she was able to feel how thin her waist was, and the roundness of her breasts, the flatness of her abdomen. Furthermore, she also felt pleasure (with a bit of fear). It was a lot more fun than chitchatting in class.
Meanwhile, I was at the farm in Yunnan stealing pineapples. In the middle of the night, I felt my way around and cut down pineapples one at a time. With each pineapple, I first took a sniff to see if it smelled good. If it smelled good, I put it into the sack behind me; if not, I tossed it. The two of us were made from the same mold, incapable of sticking to the straight road. The straight-thinking folks of those years were busy reflecting on the suffering of two-thirds of humanity, even in their dreams. But I had to ask: do I know who these suffering people are? Besides, wasn’t I also suffering? That night, I stepped into an ant colony. I had gotten such bad athlete’s foot from walking in the rice paddies that the skin between my toes had rotted away. When the colony of ants bit me, it felt like a barrage of arrows piercing my heart.
Of the three of us, Mr. Li was clearly having the best time, but he just had to overthink it. He felt suspicious. When a person gets to be that paranoid, even drugs won’t help much. His fingers slid past Line’s breasts. Her nipples felt icy cold. In his encyclopedic brain, he wondered: this thing is cold—that can’t be right, can it?
In his stupor, Mr. Li’s hands moved down her body. Line reacted quickly and broke away. She gave Mr. Li a shove and said: how dare you! Mr. Li said: sorry, sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean it. Line replied: I don’t care what you mean, she’s (her roommate, the girl from Henan) getting off work soon, you should go.