A Private Life Page 12

  Late one evening an unexpected guest suddenly arrived at the door of my new apartment.

  I assumed that it was Ho coming to see me, so when the bell rang, stuffing my feet in my slippers and slipping into a cotton T-shirt that reached to my thighs, I went to open the door.

  When I opened it, I was caught completely off guard.

  Tall and handsome and dressed to the nines, Mr. Ti was standing there holding a bouquet of fresh flowers. His flashing eyes betrayed a kind of confusion, but he had a stiff smile fixed firmly on his face.

  For the two months prior to the university entrance exams the students studied at home and no longer attended classes, so I had not seen him for three months.

  Ti's sudden appearance left me confused, especially the unexpected bouquet of flowers. I had no idea what I should do. A cold chill ran through me to my very fingertips, which felt like icicles.

  For many years, Ti and I had apparently been caught in some kind of subtle entanglement or relationship, but it had always been like a balloon pushed beneath the water's surface, lurking there where I wasn't quite conscious of its existence. Perhaps it was our uncertainty and blindness that had exasperated him to the point where he was at times rude and contemptuous toward me, and at other times affectedly solicitous and understanding.

  This abrasive, confrontational, even antagonistic relationship had gone on this way for many years.

  My feminine intuition had made me dimly aware that these years of confrontation and antagonism perhaps stemmed from some latent, unspoken danger that had always had a secret existence between us, even though I couldn't clearly identify it. So I instinctively avoided him, keeping him at a distance.

  When I opened the door and suddenly saw him again, after we had already parted, it felt like the huge door that had been closed between us had been reopened, catching me completely by surprise.

  Standing there at the door, I was nonplussed for a moment; then I moved aside and invited him in, while I very self-consciously pulled down on my big T-shirt.

  Ti said, "I've come to congratulate you."

  I was terribly embarrassed, my face flushed hot, and for a while I could think of nothing to say.

  Finally, when he was already in the living room, with a great effort I managed to say, "Sit down."

  He again said, "I"ve come to congratulate you!" and the stiff smile on his face seemed to relax a bit.

  Awkwardly and a little coldly, I said, "For what?"

  "For all that you've managed," he said.

  After he sat down on the sofa, since I still hadn't gone over to take the flowers from him, he very casually put them down on the tea table in front of him. I sat down in the chair facing him.

  He rattled on about whatever he could think of, not at all like the urbane teacher at the front of the classroom. I responded somehow or other, not really thinking about what I was saying.

  I felt very uneasy sitting there, because my thighs were almost completely exposed.

  Eventually I drummed up enough courage to stand up and say, "I'm going to put on something more suitable."

  "It's not necessary, Niuniu. I like you the way you are." He paused a moment, then went on, "Your legs are slim and shapely. They're extremely beautiful." As he spoke, he stood up as if he were going to stop me, as if he were afraid I was going to leave to change my clothes.

  I hesitated a moment, then went to the bedroom.

  When I had taken off my T-shirt and before I had time to get my dress from its hanger, the bedroom door groaned as it was pushed open.

  With a hopeless look on his face, Ti stood at the door, breathing hard, with tears welling up in his eyes and streaming down his face. His tall, strong frame looked like a crumbling stone monument that was about to collapse in ruins.

  I was so stunned I didn't know what to do or say.

  He walked unsteadily toward me, and without uttering a word he wrapped his arms tightly around me.

  Locked firmly in his arms, I whispered desperately, "Don't do this, don't do this," as I twisted angrily in an attempt to get away. But his arms were like fetters, and the more I struggled, the tighter they became.

  His body, as hot as a stove, was all over mine. He cried out softly, "Niuniu, Niuniu, I beg you, stay in my arms." Because he was so tense, the sound of his voice had changed.

  "No. I don't like you." And again I tried to get away from him. "I have always, always loved you, Niuniu. I swear it." His lips were trembling so much that he could hardly speak.

  "You're lying!" I answered angrily. "I've always hated you." I was gasping for breath from my struggle to get away.

  Ti's tears were spotting my shoulder like rain. Unable to speak, he clasped me even tighter in his arms, pumping his groin hard against mine, as if he were suffering muscle spasms.

  Staring at him with hostile intensity, all I could see was that his usually arrogant face was as pale as a girl's, and that a seemingly uncontrollable and dangerous grief and longing shot from his eyes and from every pore on his body. It was as if this apparently sturdy, handsome male had crumpled into a great heap of garbage around my shoulders.

  This made me recall the scene on the army cot in the inner room at Yi Qiu's and the sudden spurt of lightning from between Xi Dawang's legs.

  I began to feel a bit frightened.

  His rapid and heavy breathing gave an indication of how long he had been tormented with desire. There seemed to be a deep hurt lurking beneath his expression of sexual passion.

  Gripping me tightly by the shoulders, he murmured brokenly, "Niuniu, you're a very seductive girl. Do you know that? Everything about you, your body, your face, has a special attraction. You're like a garden filled with exotic flowers and grasses that allows me no exit, that tortures me. Why can't you see how I…"

  My shoulders hurt in his grip. Tears were streaming down his face and he was sobbing uncontrollably.

  This was the first time I had ever received praise from a male. And what stunned me was that it came from a male whom I had detested for many years.

  Only after living through many different experiences did I discover that women (including myself at that time) are highly susceptible to praise. Such praise is an ingenious weapon that can make women lose their sense of judgment and their sense of place, reducing them to mindless little girls, to the point where they are nothing more than female animals who subserviently do what they are told, becoming praise's willing prisoners and slaves, the spoils of battle. It is only the most mature of women who can remain cool and rational in the face of this invincible weapon.

  That day Ti's sobbing frightened and disgusted me, but at the same time I felt an obscure kind of pity for him. His intense grief, in fact, placed a restraint on my own feelings, suppressing my resistance to his pleas.

  Twisting this way and that way around the bedroom, with me trying to get away from him, we looked like a pair of combatants in a mixed-sex wrestling match.

  I was gradually losing strength in my struggle to get away.

  His tears of despair fell without cease on my face, and I could feel their coolness penetrating into my body, where wondrously it was transformed into a feeling of languor, which in turn passed outward through my skin, to be drawn in by the intense heat of his body.

  Eventually, I stopped resisting him.

  All the time I was touching him, I kept seeing animated images of Yi Qiu and Xi Dawang's entwined bodies, which further stimulated my imagination and my senses. I felt a delicate shuddering spreading outward through my body to my skin, leaving me feeling faint.

  So I closed my eyes.

  Then in the darkness behind my eyelids I dimly saw that the image of Yi Qiu and Xi Dawang entwined together had suddenly changed. The stage properties and the set were still the same. It was still the inner room of Yi Qiu's house, and the same old army cot was still there in the semidarkness. But it was not their bodies twined together on it. Hand in hand, Yi Qiu and Xi Dawang had risen from the bed, and, smiling slyly, Xi Dawa
ng was saying, "It's your turn on stage. What a beautiful thing it is!" Yi Qiu turned to me and said, "Don't be afraid. You have to step onto this stage sooner or later anyway." Then the two bodies on the cot turned into Ti and me.

  When this cartoon image in my mind changed, something even stranger happened. As if I had been hypnotized, my body suddenly possessed a demonic strength. The terrible fatigue that I felt as a result of the struggle to free myself was suddenly transformed into a new and opposing strength, and I pressed myself rigidly against Ti…

  In the twilight of that summer evening in August, as the light in the room slowly faded, the passionately hot body of Mr. Ti, a mature male, was grinding against the almost naked body of his female student, his chest pressed helplessly against her breasts. It seemed that an agonizing pain was mounting in his lower groin. The warmth of his hot breath washed past her cheek, over her neck, down her spine, and into her loins, where she started to feel a tingling sensation.

  He held her tightly by the waist so that they were pressed as close together as possible. She felt what seemed to be something like a hand increasing in size in the front of his trousers. This "third hand" was vigorously and wildly probing, as if trying to find a way to reach within her body. The student was straining her upper body away from him as much as possible, trying to leave a little space between them. But he inclined his head toward her to press the tip of his tongue in her ear and into the hollow of her neck. Then he buried his face between her breasts and began kissing and sucking their nipples and marble-white skin. Her eyes slowly closed as she lay there, unable to resist.

  Then she felt him thrusting violently as something hot seeped through his trousers, soaking her groin…

  It was twilight outside, and the last warmth of the day flowed languidly into the room through the open window. Ti and I, soaked with perspiration, could both hear our hearts beating as fast as the second hand of my watch.

  When I extracted myself from his embrace, I saw that the crotch of his trousers was all wet, and that my stomach too was all sticky. It was disgusting.

  I was angry and at the same time embarrassed by my own behavior.

  I said to Ti, "Please go. I want to have a bath."

  His face was filled with shame, guilt, and loving tenderness, all at the same time. Looking rather awkward, he said, "Niuniu, Niuniu, I'm not a playboy who chases after women for the fun of it. I'll be good to you, I'll take care of you."

  I said, "Please go. I want to have a bath."

  "Why don't we go out for dinner?" he suggested.

  I said, "No. I'm having dinner with my mother. Some other time, perhaps. I have to think about it."

  "Niuniu, please don't think badly of me. I've always yearned for you, hoping that someday maybe you and I…"

  "Nonsense." The moment he started to talk this way, my anger flared and, heedless of everything, I confronted him. "You have always made life difficult for me, always criticizing me, making me feel embarrassed!"

  "But I never wanted to be like that. I have no idea why I treated you like that. Niuniu, I swear it. I need you, I want you, I love you."

  I persisted, "You have to go now. My mother will be calling me for dinner in a little while."

  Ti heaved a sigh and said resignedly, "All right, Niuniu. I'll come to see you again tomorrow."

  "I don't want you to come again," I answered in haste.

  "I won't touch you, I swear, Niuniu. I just want to see you, to take you for dinner, to talk to you," Ti said, his damp eyes downcast. He paused a moment, then continued, "Niuniu, I apologize for my crude behavior today."

  He had jettisoned all his former stiffness of manner.

  A fly buzzing around in circles by the bedroom window made it seem like the glass in the window was undulating and my bed beneath the window was swaying unsteadily. From that moment on, it seemed, the entire room would never feel safe and secure again.

  Ti's eyes turned toward the big bed, its flax-colored sheets like some spotless, forbidden zone denying him the fulfillment of his desire. The last rays of the setting sun cast a pink glow on the center of the bed like the warm color of flower petals staining a milk-white skin, or the still-warm blood flower of a just-taken virgin.

  Unable to stand steadily and gasping for breath, he collapsed on the bed.

  The bed gave out a forlorn and bitter cry.

  13 Yinyang Grotto…

  He made the events of their past die quickly in her body. Working like a bolt of lightning, he frightened her, hurt her, made her aware that her body had another mouth she didn't know about that also breathed and moaned. Slowly developed commitments were his enemy; the quick heat of friction was his friend. Penetrating the void within her, terminating her deep, obscuring sleep, he conquered time, driving it deep into the channel of her being…

  Friction let him see the light of the sun. Friction made her smell the odor of death.

  With some experiences, it is only afterward that I become aware of the extent of their effect upon me.

  On that occasion, however, all that I could think of was getting out of this city, getting away from the chaos of my feelings…

  The day after Ti's unexpected appearance, I hurriedly packed some things to go away.

  I hardly slept at all the night before I left. The pressure of Ti's body against my skin and in my thoughts was with me constantly. I was enmeshed in a contradiction of denied desire and rejected yearning and at a loss to explain my needs or my actions.

  By early morning, I had decided that I would get rid of my confusion by thoroughly distancing myself from its source.

  Making use of the then current notion of "getting back to nature" (nothing more than an excuse), I told my mother that for the past several years I had been almost suffocating under the weight of books, living like a lifeless wooden puppet absurdly manipulated on the sticks of the university entrance exams and my future. Living in a city far away from nature had left me exhausted beyond measure. I needed to go somewhere to unwind, to clear my head.

  When out of the blue I mentioned that I was going on a trip, Mother, quite taken aback, said, "You want to closet yourself away in some country village?"

  "I'm going with Yi Qiu and some of our classmates. It's just for a few days, for a change of scenery," I lied.

  Exceedingly anxious, and dubious about my travel plans, Mother trotted out something from her reading to dissuade me.

  She said, "Those people who see nature find it wherever they are; those who cannot see it can never find it, no matter where they might be. Even if genuine nature were all around you, it doesn't necessarily mean that you would enjoy it. Your surroundings are not the source of your problem."

  "But all I want to do is get some fresh air and sun," I said. Not about to let anything dissuade me, as I was speaking, I stubbornly continued stuffing my clothes into a canvas backpack.

  Looking at my pale face and the dark circles under my eyes with an aching heart, my mother heaved a sigh and gave up trying to stop me.

  I wasn't at all interested in looking at scenery or in having company. I liked traveling by myself because being with someone else or with a group interfered with my private thoughts.

  Sitting by the window on the bus, looking at the hazy green mountains in the distance, the loess hills, the low-lying scattered villages, the quiet streams in the brown mountains, and the bare valleys, I began to feel an unexpected tranquility.

  I took a room in a small, out-of-the-way inn outside the city. It was dim, gloomy, and simply appointed, but clean and quiet. A long path through lush grass and bright wildflowers connected it with the bus station. A few mournful steam whistles echoing melodiously in the evening mist provided a musical backdrop, and the evening breeze brushing my shoulders induced in me an expansive, relaxed happiness. The air carried a rich scent of lavender; and roses, strawberries, and a variety of flowering shrubs enclosed this otherwise rather bleak country inn in a confusion of color.

  Several low green hedges willy-n
illy formed an enclosure for a tiny park. I sat down on a secluded stone bench, a jacket around my shoulders, looking as if I were waiting for someone. In truth, there was no one for me to be waiting for, but I didn't feel the least bit lonely, because I was enjoying a moment of happiness that I myself had created.

  Sitting there, I for some reason felt an urge to write someone a letter.

  So I went back to the inn, where I sat cross-legged on the clean enough bed, placing the writing pad I had brought with me on my knees, with a book underneath for support.

  But who was I going to write to? The first person to come to mind was Ho. Since we had never written to each other before, I thought that it would be perfect to write to her now that we were separated, using my imagination to draw a scene for her. She would no doubt find the most beautiful and the warmest landscapes of my spirit in the letter. I imagined her propped up in her big bed, her slender, delicate figure draped casually on it, like a piece of lustrous, soft silk. When she got my letter she would be surprised and overjoyed. She would touch every word as carefully as if she were touching my eyes.

  I realized at that moment that I missed her very much.

  After that, I wrote a letter to Ti, fiercely denouncing him for all the ways he had mistreated me over the years, telling him how much I hated him, how I couldn't stand living under the same sky, that I didn't want to see him again, that I never wanted to see him again, ever! But in the close of the letter I contradicted myself, saying that should the opportunity arise, perhaps I might see him again. But I knew that I would see him only to make him suffer out of his desire for my body. I would take great delight in seeing his torment.

  Writing letters gives me extreme pleasure. There is no more effective way of experiencing the pleasure of getting away from people and living by yourself. All those faraway moments of sorrow and joy are so close you can reach out and touch them, while when you are actually among the people you know, such feelings can often elude you.