The next evening when they were walking on the fringe of the sports ground, she sighed and said to Lin, "Life is such a precarious thing. Today we're alive, tomorrow we may be gone. What's the point in trying so hard to live like a human being every day?"

"Don't be so pessimistic. If we think that way all the time, we can't live."

She stopped and leaned against the flaky trunk of a birch. Her right hand held her left wrist, twisting it back and forth, and her eyes dimmed staring at him. She said in a choked voice, "I can't bear this anymore, Lin. This is stifling me. Why don't you do something?"

"What are you talking about?" He looked puzzled.

"We can't continue to be like this. Who am I? Your fiancee or your concubine? You must do something to change this situation."

"What could I do?"

"Ask Shuyu for a divorce." She looked close into his eyes, her lips pursed up.

His head turned away. "I can't rush. I have to figure out a good way. This is not an easy thing to do."

"Why is it so complicated? Tell her you want a divorce and see how she takes it."

"No, you don't understand."

"I don't understand what?"

"I can't just dump her like a pair of outworn shoes. I have to give a good reason, or else everybody will condemn me and I won't be able to get a divorce."

"What's a better reason than that you don't love her?"

"No, no." He gasped.

"Listen, Lin, it's time for you to decide. I'm tired of waiting like this. Who am I to you? I'm not even your mistress." She broke out sobbing and turned around, about to walk away.

"Listen to me, Manna. Wait a moment, please!"

"I've heard enough."

"Please be reasonable!"

"I'm sick of being reasonable. If you do nothing, it's over between us," she said loudly, hurrying away with her palm over her mouth. Her head bent forward and her legs looked shaky while her body kept convulsing a little. A sc.r.a.p of birch bark was clinging to her hair. She crossed a pile of dried gra.s.s and pa.s.sed the holly hedge.

With a numb heart he watched her disappear at the corner of the lab building. Around his head a few midges were flitting. A pair of magpies clamored in a tall elm, tossing their mottled tails. In the distant sky a squadron of jet fighters were banking away noiselessly like silver swallows.

From that day on, an emotional tug-of-war was waged between them. Lin was accustomed to being alone, so he didn't go and look for Manna. He wanted peace of mind. Yet whenever she came into sight, he couldn't help looking at her. She seemed aware of his attention and always kept her face away from him. She laughed more than before, especially in the presence of other men, and her neck grew straighter. She wore shirts of bright colors and a pair of new leather shoes. Like some other young nurses, she began using Lily Lotion, the most expensive kind of vanishing cream. In the evening she often played badminton with others in front of the bathhouse, as though all of a sudden she had become a young girl again, full of energy and life.

Never had Lin thought she could be so headstrong. He felt miserable and often breathed with difficulty, as though a weight of lead were jammed into his chest.

He was at a loss, wondering if she really loved him. When his colleagues asked him what had happened between him and Manna, he would say, "I shouldn't keep her waiting. She has to make her choice. I'm a married man."

"So you two broke up?"

"I think so."

For all his calm appearance, Lin felt feverish. Whenever he was reading a book, his mind would wander. He couldn't sleep well at night, sighing and thinking of his life and the women he knew. Some of them were better-looking and tenderer than Manna, but they all seemed beyond the grasp of his mind, which would roam through them one after another and gradually return to Manna. How sorry he felt for her. She had been waiting, waiting, only for a beginning or an ending between them. But his life seemed to have been caught in a circle that he could not escape so as to establish a starting point again. Love did not help. The possibility of love only filled him with despondency and languor, as though he was sick in the soul. If only he had never known Manna; if only he could get back into his old rut again; if only he could return to an undisturbed, contented life.

During the day he tried working harder and even undertook the project of recataloguing all the medical records in his office, just as a way to wear himself out, so that he wouldn't think too much when going to sleep at night. As long as he kept himself busy, he felt in control and self-sufficient. He needed no woman.

10.

National Day came. The hospital gave its staff a dinner. In the mess hall, Commissar Zhang, a short paunchy man, spoke before the banquet started. He thanked the nurses who had helped the cooks in the kitchen that morning and talked briefly about the significance of this anniversary to the Chinese nation and to the revolution. Then he spoke about the principle that the Party always commands the gun. After that, with a wave of his hand, he announced, "Now enjoy the meal."

He went to a corner and sat down at the table reserved for the leaders, which had an unlimited supply of dishes and wine.

People began to propose toasts and raise chopsticks to eat. At once the room echoed with laughter, chattering, and the clatter of bowls, plates, ladles, mugs. Eight courses were served. There were smoked flounder, sweet-and-sour ribs, sauteed pork with bamboo shoots, scrambled eggs with tree ears. Each table was given two bottles of red wine, a jar of wheat liquor, and a basin of draft beer.

Lin and Manna didn't sit at the same table, but she was within his view and earshot. Unlike the other men at his table, who were feasting heartily, Lin felt as if his stomach were full, although like most people he too had skipped lunch that day to save his appet.i.te for this banquet. He turned his head and saw Manna's right arm resting on the broad windowsill behind her while her left hand was holding a green enamel mug.

"The wine's divine," she said loudly to Lin's roommate Jin Tian sitting next to her, then she giggled. She removed her arm from the windowsill and touched her nose with her fingertips.

Her words made Lin's cheek muscle twitch. A middle-aged woman doctor at his table said kindly, "Try a meatball, Lin. They're delicious."

He held out his chopsticks absently and picked up a meatball, which, though made of ground pork, tasted like tofu to him. He didn't like the insipid beer either, but he drank some from his white blue-rimmed bowl. Instead of attacking the meaty dishes and the fish like the others, he ate radish salad seasoned with sugar and vinegar. Now and then he let out a small burp.

Meanwhile, at the other table, Manna was laughing jovially, the tops of her cheeks red as if rouged. She lifted her mug and clinked it with others, and with her head tilted back she drained the remaining wine in one gulp.

"You're quite a drinker!" Jin Tian complimented her in a thin voice, then ladled beer into her mug, filling it to the brim.

"Stop," she cried cheerfully. "You want it to overflow?" She laughed again.

"Why not?" Jin Tian said. The head of the beer spilled over.

A ceiling fan chopped away vigorously above Lin's head, yet he was sweating. He didn't feel like eating anymore, so he finished the rice in his bowl, stood up, saying he had forgotten to put out the lights in his office, and made for the door. Pa.s.sing the table at which Manna was sitting, for some reason he stopped to say, "Manna, don't drink too much. It's bad for your health."

"Am I drinking anything that's yours?" she said, simpering. She raised the mug, whose green surface had peeled off in places, and downed a large gulp of beer. The people at her table paused to watch.

Without a word Lin hurried out, his cap crumpled in his fist. How he regretted having shown his concern for her! A voice began speaking in his mind. Stupid, you've never learned your lesson. Why can't you forget her? Why not let her drink to death? Leave her alone. Let the alcohol burn up her insides! Serves her right.

The large quadrangle of the compound was quiet. n.o.body was in view except for the sentry at the front entrance, holding the muzzle of a rifle that stood beside him with its bayonet raised. Lin went directly to the orchard behind the barracks. The apple-pears had just been harvested, but there was still some fruit left on the trees here and there. Three ponies, one pied and two sorrel, were grazing on the slope. In the depths of the orchard a young man was singing an aria from the revolutionary opera Taking the Tiger Mountain by Strategy, Taking the Tiger Mountain by Strategy, "These days I have probed into the enemy's positions / And gotten quite good results...." A flock of wild geese, in the form of a V, appeared pa.s.sing the tip of the hill, flapping south, honking, and stretching their necks. As they flew past, their wings whistled faintly. "These days I have probed into the enemy's positions / And gotten quite good results...." A flock of wild geese, in the form of a V, appeared pa.s.sing the tip of the hill, flapping south, honking, and stretching their necks. As they flew past, their wings whistled faintly.

Lin sat down on a boulder and lit a cigarette. The hospital sprawled beneath him, a few windows of the medical building flickering in the setting sun. From the hill slope, the compound looked like a large factory encircled by a thick line of aspens planted along the brick wall. In the east some red rooftops were obscured by wisps of smoke. The humming of the traffic in the city could be heard vaguely. Lin sighed, his heart aching, and he began thinking about what had happened just now. Why had she made a spectacle of him on purpose? Did she hate him so much? She should have appreciated his concern for her health, shouldn't she? A woman's heart was so unpredictable. What a shame it was to be humiliated in front of so many people.

It serves you right, he thought. You're a husband and a father; you shouldn't have started this affair. You asked for trouble and deserve this kind of humiliation. Why can't you wash your hands of this woman? Why do you allow her to clasp and yank your heart like an octopus? You are so cheap that the more distant she is from you, the more you're attracted to her. Enough of this insanity! You must pluck her out of your chest, or she'll eat up your insides like a worm.

As he was smoking and thinking, Manna emerged from behind an apple-pear tree, striding toward him. Her breathing was heavy and her face carmine. He got to his feet, puzzled, wondering how he should greet her.

Before he knew what to do, she rushed over and embraced him. Racked with sobs, she buried her face in his chest.

"I can't stand this anymore!" she moaned. "I can't. I didn't mean to do that."

"Don't, don't cry."

"I'm bad, so bad," she whimpered. She held him tighter, her arms trembling with the strain. Her hair smelled of ginger and scallion; obviously she had worked in the kitchen before dinner.

"Manna, it's not a big thing," he said. "You see, I haven't taken it to heart. I forgot it already." He looked around, fearful of being seen, as the thought came to him that they had broken the rule that prohibited such a meeting outside the wall.

She raised her eyes, which were radiating an intense light. Then she lowered her head and giggled hysterically. "I'm an old maid, a thirty-year-old virgin, do you know?"

"Don't talk like this."

"That's why I'm so cranky, I guess."

"You've drunk too much."

"No, I just had two mugs."

"That's more than you can hold."

"By the way, don't you want to know I'm still a virgin? Never been touched by any man."

"Manna, you've lost your mind. You shouldn't-"

"Come on, can't you deflower an old maid? Don't you want to do it to me?" She let go of him and broke out laughing, which turned into coughing and more sobbing.

"Let's go back, dear." He slipped his arm under hers.

"Can't you do it to me?" she cried.

"Don't, don't-"

"Are you a man or not? You have a fearful heart like a rabbit's. Come on, do it to me!"

"All right, it's all my fault. I'm a good-for-nothing. Let's go back."

Despite her struggling and sobbing, he pulled her down the slope, holding her upper arm with both hands. All the way down she kept whimpering, "Do it, do it to me. I want to give you a baby."

He dared not take her to the dormitory by the front way, so he pulled her through the neat rows of aspens to the back door of the dormitory house. Coming out of the grove, they ran into a group of nurses who had just left work and were heading for the mess hall. Before the young women could greet them, Lin said, "Manna has drunk too much." Hurriedly he dragged her past. The nurses turned around and watched the couple staggering away.

For a week Manna was the topic of the hospital. She had set a record: For the first time a woman on the staff had gotten drunk at a holiday dinner. The word was that she could easily outdrink most men.

After being shaken by this holiday incident, Lin began to think seriously about getting a divorce. He decided to bring it up with Shuyu the next summer.

11.

After telling Lin that she would be back around mid-aftenoon, Shuyu left for their family plot with a short rake on her shoulder and a straw hat on her head. She grew pumpkins, taros, corn, and glutinous millet on their squarish half-acre of land, about five hundred yards west of the village. The soil was fertile, and the produce was more than she and Hua could use, so her brother Bensheng would sell the surplus for her in Wujia County and Six Stars, which was a nearby commune town. Shuyu seldom worked in the production brigade's fields, since she had to take care of the child and the home. The money Lin sent back each month helped her make ends meet.

Lin was reading a picture-story book under their eaves with Hua sitting on his lap. The baby girl held a thick scallion leaf, now and again blowing it as a whistle. The toots sounded like a sheep bleating. In front of the house was a deep well walled up with bricks to prevent the child and the poultry from falling into it. Because of her bound feet, Shuyu couldn't fetch water from the communal well with a shoulder pole and a pair of buckets as others did, so Lin had had the well sunk in their yard four years before. To the right of it stretched a footway, paved with bricks, leading to the front gate. Beside the pigpen, a white hen was sc.r.a.ping away dirt and making go-go-go sounds to call a flock of chicks, the smallest of which was dragging a broken leg. It was warm and windless; the air reeked of dried dung.

Without Lin's noticing, Hua opened her mouth. Her cracked lips clamped on the front of his T-shirt and pulled. He lowered his eyes and looked at her in puzzlement. She said, "Daddy, I'm hungry." Her soiled palm touched his chest, fondling its left side.

He gave a laugh, which baffled her. She looked up at him without blinking. He said, "Hua, a man can't feed a baby like your mom. I have no b.r.e.a.s.t.s, see?" He pulled up the T-shirt and showed her his flat chest. A mole like a tiny raisin was under his right nipple. She looked confused, her dark eyes wide open.

"Would you like some cookies?" he asked.

"Uh-huh."

He put aside the book, picked her up, and set her astride his neck. Father and daughter went to the village store to buy cookies.

At dinner that evening Lin described to his wife how Hua had wanted to suck his nipple. Shuyu smiled and said, "Silly girl."

"She's almost four," he said. "You should stop breast-feeding her, shouldn't you?"

"Mother's milk keeps a baby healthy, you know." She took his bowl and refilled it with pumpkin porridge. "Have some more," she said.

"Does Hua often mention me when I'm away?"

"Yes, of course. Sometimes she says, 'I miss daddy.' It's the blood tie, she doesn't know you that well."

He turned to his daughter. "Did you really miss me?"

"Yeah."

"Can you show how you missed me?"

The baby placed both hands on her stomach, saying, "Miss you here."

He laughed, then tears came to his eyes. He held his daughter up, set her on his lap, and moved her bowl closer so that she could reach it. Before she could go on eating, he smacked a kiss on her chafed face and then wiped her nose clean with a piece of straw paper.

Though Shuyu and Lin slept in different rooms at night, he enjoyed being at home, especially playing with his daughter. He liked the home-cooked food, most of which was fresh and tasty. The multigrain porridge, into which Shuyu always urged him to put some brown sugar though she wouldn't take any herself, was so soft and delicious that he could eat three bowls at a meal without feeling stuffed. The eggs sauteed with leeks or scallions would make his belches redolent of the dish even hours later. The steamed string beans seasoned with sesame oil and mashed garlic gave him a feeling of ease and freedom, because he would never dare touch such a homely dish in the hospital for fear of garlicky breath. What is more, it was so relaxing to be with his family. There was no reveille, and he didn't have to rise at 5:30 for morning exercises. When their black rooster announced daybreak, Lin would wake up, then go back to sleep again. The morning snooze was the sweetest to him. He had been home four days already. If only he could stay for a whole month.

His brother-in-law Bensheng came that evening and asked whether Lin could lend him some money. He was a scrawny man in his mid-twenties and he had just gotten married; the wedding had cost him eighteen hundred yuan and thrown him deeply into debt. As if burdened with thoughts, he sat at the edge of the brick bed, chain-smoking. His deep-set eyes flickered nervously, and his mustache spread like a tiny swallow. From time to time he expelled a resounding belch.

While the two men talked, Shuyu sewed a cloth sole with an awl and a piece of jute thread. She didn't say a word, but kept glaring at her brother.

"Why do you need money so badly?" Lin asked Bensheng. His daughter was on his back, her arms around his neck.

"I got in trouble at the marketplace and was fined." Two tentacles of smoke dangled under Bensheng's nose.

"What happened?"

"Bad luck."