chair against the bookshelf behind the door while he sat sideways in the chair next to the desk, as he did when editors came to discuss his manuscripts. There was a cheap sofa in the little room, but it was winter and a stove heater had already been installed, so if the girl sat on the sofa, the metal chimney of the stove would have blocked her face, and it would have been hard to talk. Both were sitting at the desk when the girl began stroking the novels, formerly banned as reactionary and pornographic, which she had returned. It seemed that the girl had tasted the forbidden fruit, or that she knew what forbidden fruit was, and was therefore uneasy.
He became aware of the girl's flesh because her delicate hands, right next to him, were stroking the books. The girl saw him looking at her hands and hid them under the desk. She became even more flushed. He questioned the girl on what she thought of the protagonists, mainly the female protagonists. The behavior of the women in these books conformed neither to present social morality nor the teachings of the Party. But, he said, that probably was what was known as life, because life actually was without fixed measurements. If the girl wanted to report him later on, or if the Party at her workplace ordered her to confess her dealings with him, there were no serious errors in what he had said. His past experiences constantly reminded him to be sure of this. Ah, and that was also called life!
The girl later said Chairman Mao had lots of women. It was only then that he dared to kiss her. The girl closed her eyes and let him fondle her body, so electrically sensitive to his touch inside the big padded army uniform. The girl asked if she could borrow more of such books to read. She said she wanted to know about everything, that it was not terrifying. At this, he said if books become forbidden fruit, society becomes really terrifying. That was why so many people lost their lives in the so-called Cultural Revolution that had now officially ended. The girl said she knew all this and that she had even seen someone who had been beaten to death: there were flies crawling on the black blood from his nose. He was said to have been a counterrevolutionary, and no one would collect the corpse. She was only a child then. But don't think she's a child, she is an adult now.
He asked what did being an adult imply? She said don't forget that she is studying medicine, pouted, and gave a laugh. He then held her hand and kissed her lips that gradually yielded to him. Thereafter, she came often, returning books and borrowing books, always on Sunday, staying longer each time, sometimes from noon till dark. However, she had to catch the eight o'clock bus back to the military barracks in the outer suburbs. It was always in the evening, when the sound of vegetables being washed gradually died in the courtyard and the neighbors had shut their doors, that he shut his door and had some moments of intimacy with her. She would not take off her army uniform and always kept an eye on the clock on the desk, and, when it was almost time for the last bus, she would quickly button up.
More and more he needed a room to protect his privacy. With great difficulty, he had obtained a legal divorce, but the state ruled that for him to live with a woman, they had to be married. Furthermore, for a woman to register an application to marry him, he first had to have proper housing. Including the years he had worked on a farm during the Cultural Revolution, he had already worked for twenty years and, according to the regulations, he should have been allocated housing long ago. However, it took two more years of suffering, and many quarrels and angry outbursts with housing cadres, before he was finally allocated a small apartment. It was just before a leader of the Party, more senior than the head of the Writers' Association, targeted him for criticism. He got together all of his savings as well as an advance on part of the royalties for a book that it might or might not be possible to publish, and somehow secured a peaceful refuge.
The girl arrived at his newly allocated apartment, and the moment the spring lock on the door clicked, the two of them went wild with excitement. At the time, the painting wasn't finished, bits of plaster were everywhere, and there was no bed. Right there, on a sheet of plastic with bits of plaster sticking to it, he stripped her down to her slim young girl's body that had been hidden all this time under the loose army uniform. However, the girl begged him under no circumstances to penetrate her. The army medical college carried out a full physical examination once a year, and unmarried female nurses were tested to see if their hymens were intact. Before being enlisted, they had to undergo rigorous political and physical examinations, and, apart from routine medical duties, they could be sent at any time on missions to look after the health of senior officers. Her spouse had to be approved by her military seniors, and she could not marry before she was twenty-six, before which time she could not resign, because, it was said, state secrets would be involved.
He did everything but penetrate her, or, rather, he kept his promise. Although he didn't penetrate her, he did everything else he could possibly do. Soon the girl was dispatched on a mission to accompany a senior officer on an inspection of the Chinese-Vietnamese border. After that he didn't hear from her for a while.
Almost a year later, also in winter, the girl suddenly reappeared.
He had just come home late at night after drinking at a friend's home when he heard a quiet knocking on his door. The girl was wretched, crying, and said she had been waiting for a whole six hours outside and was frozen stiff. She couldn't wait in the hallway because she was afraid people would see her and ask who she was looking for. She had hidden in the workers' hut outside and it was awful waiting until she saw the light come on in the apartment. He quickly shut the door and had just drawn the curtains when the girl, still wrapped in her outrageously huge military overcoat and still not warm, said, 'Elder Brother, take me!'
He took her on the carpet, rolling backward and forward, no, crossing rivers and seas. They were like two sleek fish, or, rather, two animals tearing at one another in battle. She began to sob, and he said cry as loudly as you want, you can't be heard outside. She wept and wailed, and then shouted. He said he was a wolf. She said no, you are my Elder Brother. He said he wanted to be a wolf, a savage, lustful, bloodsucking, wild animal. She said she understood her Elder Brother, she belonged to her Elder Brother, she wasn't afraid of anything. From now on she belonged only to her Elder Brother, what she regretted was that she had not given herself to him earlier… He said, don't talk about it…
Afterward, she said she wanted her parents to somehow think of a way of getting her out of the army. At the time, he had an invitation to travel overseas but wasn't able to leave. She said she would wait for him, she was her Elder Brother's litde woman. He finally got a passport and visa, and it was she who urged him to leave quickly in case they changed their minds. He did not realize it would be a permanent separation. Maybe he was unwilling or refused to think about it so that the pain would not strike him right to the core of his heart.
He would not let her come to the airport to see him off, and she said she would not be able to get leave. Even if she got the first bus from the barracks into the city, then changed several buses to get to the airport, it was unlikely that she would get there before his plane took off.
Before that, it had not occurred to him that he might leave this country. On the runway, taking off at Beijing airport, there was an intense whirring as the plane shuddered and was then instantly airborne. He suddenly felt that maybe-at the time he felt only maybe-he would never return to the land below the window. This expanse of gray-brown earth that people called homeland was where he was born and had grown up, it was where he had been educated, had matured and had suffered, and where he never thought he would leave. But did he have a homeland? Could the gray-brown land and ice-clad rivers in motion under the wings of the plane count as his homeland? It was later that this question arose and the answer gradually became quite clear.
At the time he simply wanted to free himself, to leave the black shadow enveloping him, to be able to breathe happily for a while. To get his passport, he had waited almost a year and had made the rounds of all the relevant departments. He was a citizen of this country, not a criminal, and there was no reason to deprive him of the right to leave the country. Of course, this reason was different for different people, and it was always possible to find a reason.
As he went through the customs barrier, they asked what he had in his suitcase. He said he had no prohibited goods, just his everyday clothes. They asked him to open his suitcase. He unlocked it.
'What's in there?'
'An ink stone for grinding ink, I bought it not so long ago.'
What he meant was that it was not antique, that it was not a prohibited item. However, they could still use any excuse to detain him, so he couldn't help being tense. A thought flashed through his mind: this was not his country.
In the same instant, he seemed to hear, 'Elder Brother-' He quickly held his breath to calm himself.
Finally he was allowed through. He fixed his suitcase and put it on the conveyor belt, zipped up his hand luggage, and headed toward the boarding gate. He heard shouting again, someone seemed to be shouting his name. He pretended not to hear and kept going, but still he looked back. The official who had just searched his luggage had been checking a few foreigners in the sectioned-off corridor and was in the process of letting them through.
