One Man's Bible (11 page)

11

As he lay in Lin’s nuptial bed of not long ago, he opened his eyes wide, still finding it hard to believe he was not dreaming. Naked and beautiful, and looking down at him like this, Lin had taught him what it was to be a man. Lin led him from the sitting room down to the very end of the corridor to her bedroom. Thick velvet curtains hung to the floor, and the only light came from under the chrysanthemum-yellow shade over the tall vase-based table lamp. She sat him at the desk and brought out a big photo album with pressed-metal edging. As he turned the pages, he saw that the photos were all of her, either in sleeveless, low-cut dresses revealing her arms, shoulders, and legs, or else in wet bathing suits that clung to her body; her husband had taken these at Beidaihe just after they married. At this point, Lin leaned toward him, and he felt her hair brush his cheeks. He turned to put his arms around her slender waist and, as his face pressed against her breasts, he became aware of the fragrant warmth of her body. He straight away pulled down the zipper at the back of her dress, got her onto the bed, and started wildly kissing her on her lips, face, and neck, then, after removing her bra, her nipples. This was what he had sought in his dreams. He was in such a desperate hurry that he tore her delicate sexy panties that were not available in ordinary shops. But he was not able to get an erection and could not enter her. Again, it was Lin who eased his mind by saying that by this time of the night her parents would be asleep and that they do not come to her room anyway. Also, her husband’s hi-tech weapons research institute was far away in the mountains of the western suburbs; army discipline was strict, and he could not come home unless it was a weekend. He suddenly needed to urinate, so Lin put on a dress, went outside in her bare feet, and came back right away with a washbasin. He latched the door, but pissing so noisily into the enamel washbasin made him feel like a thief. Switching off the light, Lin helped him off with his shoes and socks, then got him to lie down naked in the bed. She pulled the bedcover over him just like a big girl in his teenage dreams, or like a kind nurse on the battlefield caring for him, cleaning his bleeding wounds with her gentle, firm hands. It was then that he suddenly had an erection. He turned, bore down on this spritely woman, and carried out his most important act since birth.

He left Lin’s room before daybreak. The courtyard was pitch-black, and above the branches of the old persimmon tree was a blue-black square of sky. Lin quietly removed the bolt, and the heavy door creaked open. He slipped out and, glancing back, watched the big ancient metal-studded door close, then wheeled his bicycle into the middle of the
hutong
. Not in a rush to get on his bicycle, he listened to his footsteps as he made his way through the maze of
hutong.
He did not want to go home immediately, and if his roommate Old Tan started asking questions, he would have to talk his way around things. As he was coming out onto the street, his footsteps were gradually absorbed by the noises and sounds of the city waking up. The first lot of empty electric trolleybuses rumbled by; then in both directions, the number of cyclists and pedestrians gradually increased. He took a few deep breaths, and, as his lungs relaxed, he felt an exhilarating freshness and a sense of quiet self-confidence.

At midday, he saw Lin in the big dining hall. She was wearing a long-sleeved dress and a silk scarf. Her collar was buttoned up. When her colleagues at the long table left, Lin glanced at him and quietly said, “My neck is all purple where you kissed me.”

It was hard for him to say if he was in love with Lin, but from that time onward, he lusted for her beautiful body. They arranged other meetings, but he could not go to her home on a regular basis. If her parents were at home, he was forced to listen reverently while they spoke passionately about national events. They were always lecturing him, and he had to put on an act of being good. It was as if he belonged to the generation of successors to the revolution, and, to agree, he had to say many hypocritical things. When the elderly couple started yawning and left the sitting room, Lin would signal with her eyes and they would start talking some nonsense about the office. When it grew quiet in her parents’ room, he would get up and say something in a loud voice to indicate that he was leaving. Lin would escort him out of the sitting room and take him into the courtyard where the lights were already out. He would quietly circle back into the corridor, wait by a post as Lin put out the sitting-room lights, then slip into her bedroom to spend the night in utter bliss.

He preferred to meet Lin outdoors: in a park, by the city wall, or among lilac and jasmine bushes. They would spread their overcoats on the ground, or have quick sex standing against a big tree. If Lin’s husband had to go away on an assignment to a military site, they would go to the hollows of Badaling and stay until sunset, then at twilight, in the night wind, grope their way down the mountain to catch the last bus back to the city. Sometimes they took a train further off to the Western Hills and got off at Mentouqi, where Peking Man was discovered, or some small station where the train stopped for only one minute. They took food with them, and would climb to the other side of the mountain and find some secluded spot where they would totally abandon themselves in the sun and the howling mountain wind. It was only at such times, lying on the grass in the
wilds and looking at the clouds floating in the sky—free of worries, free of danger, and making love—that he felt natural.

Lin, two years older, was a fireball of lust, and she loved with a burning passion. Sometimes she was quite unreasonable, but he needed to exercise self-restraint. Lin dared to play with fire, but he had to consider the consequences. Lin had no intentions of divorcing her husband, and even if she were to raise the matter of marrying him, her parents would not approve of taking into their revolutionary family a son-in-law with an ordinary family background, who was not even a member of the Communist Youth League. Also, Lin’s husband had the backing of a military family, and if the matter were taken up at the workplace, Lin would escape punishment. Disaster would fall on him alone. If such a time came, Lin would be level-headed. She would not break with her family and give up her elite status just to spend a life with him as one of the ordinary people. In addition to the marriage laws, a new regulation stipulated that workers of the state had to be twenty-six years of age before they were eligible to register for marriage. In the brand-new society, where unprecedented innovations were occurring every day, the new people loved and married for the sake of the revolution, and that was how the new plays and films of the time promoted it. The state issued tickets for performances, and attendance was compulsory.

One day, bypassing the department and section chiefs, Wang Qi’s secretary asked him to report immediately to the bureau chief’s office. He therefore knew it was not a work-related matter. Comrade Wang Qi, a wise and kindly middle-aged woman, was seated behind a big desk: the size of the desk denoted a cadre’s rank. Comrade Wang Qi rose to her feet and closed the door to her office. This was further indication of the irregularity of the situation. He started getting nervous. However, the bureau chief got him to sit on the long sofa and drew up a leather chair for herself; she was making a deliberate show of being friendly.

“I’m a busy person.” That was clearly the case. “I haven’t had
time to chat with university graduates like you who have recently arrived. How long have you been working here?”

He responded.

“Are you used to working here?”

He nodded.

“I’ve heard that you are bright, that you have become good at your work very quickly, and also that you even do some writing in your spare time.”

The bureau chief knew everything, someone must be reporting to her. She then warned, “Don’t let it affect your work here.”

He hastened to nod. Luckily, no one knew what he wrote.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

So this was the problem. His heart started pounding. He said no, and instantly felt his face turn red.

“It’s worth thinking about finding a suitable match.” The word “suitable” was emphasized. “But it is too soon for marriage. If your revolutionary work is done well, your personal matters can be easily resolved.”

The bureau chief said that they were just having a casual chat, and throughout spoke gently, but this conversation, too, was revolutionary work. She was not having an idle chat with him, and, before standing to open the door, she warned, “I have heard comments from the masses about your having too close an association with Lin. If it is just a comrade relationship because you are both working together, then it is all right, but you must be careful about the consequences. The workplace is concerned about the healthy development of young people.”

The workplace was of course, the Party, and the bureau chief’s asking him in for a talk naturally reflected the concern of the Party. She returned to Lin, “She is a simple woman, she is very friendly, but she lacks wisdom.”

If there happened to be an incident, the responsibility would naturally fall on him. The conversation, lasting less than five minutes,
ended at that point. It took place before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, before the bureau chief’s husband was declared an anti-Party black-gang go-getter, before Comrade Wang Qi herself was declared an anti-Party element, and while she still held an important position in the workplace. Whether it was a hint, an alert, or a warning, the message was clear. The heavy palpitations in his heart and the burning sensation on his face took a long time to subside.

He resolved to break up with Lin. After work, he waited downstairs for her, and they walked out of the building together. He knew they were being watched. He needed challenge, but with such a challenge he was keenly aware of his own impotence. They walked along the road, pushing their bicycles, for some time, before he eventually told Lin about this conversation.

“So what?” Lin didn’t take it seriously. “Let them say what they like.”

He said probably it was nothing for her, but it would not be so in his case.

“Why?” Lin came to a stop.

“It’s an unequal relationship!” he blurted.

“Why is it unequal? I don’t understand.”

“Because you’ve got everything and I’ve got nothing.”

“But I’m willing!”

He said he did not want favors, that he was not a slave! Actually, what he wanted to say was that under the unbearable circumstances, it was impossible to have an emotionally happy life. However, at the time, he could not make himself clear.

“So, who’s treating you as a slave?”

Lin came to a stop under the streetlight and glared at him. People passing by were stopping to look at them. He suggested going to Jingshan Park to talk. The park stopped selling tickets at nine-thirty and closed at ten. He said they would be out quickly, and the gatekeeper let them in. Normally, when they had a date, they would cycle to the park after work, go up the hill, and find a clump of
bushes away from the path, where they could see the lights of the whole city. Lin would casually take off her panty hose, and she did this very seductively. Her panty hose were luxury goods at the time and only available in service departments for people traveling overseas; they were not available in ordinary shops. There was not enough time to go up the hill, so they stopped in the shadow of a big tree by the path not far from the gate. His intention had been to make it quite clear that their relationship was henceforth ended, but when Lin started crying, he didn’t know what to do. He held her face in his hands and brushed away her tears, but she began to weep and then to sob loudly. He kissed her, and they embraced like a pair of heartbroken lovers. He could not stop himself from kissing her face, lips, neck, breasts, and belly. The siren sounded over the loudspeakers: “Comrades in the park, your attention, please!”

The park had powerful loudspeakers that made a person’s eardrums reverberate. At festivals, from morning to night, they were used for broadcasting revolutionary songs; they were also used at normal times to get people out of the park at closing time.

“Comrades in the park, your attention, please. It is closing time, and the park will be immediately locked up for cleaning!”

He ripped her panty hose under her skirt, thinking it was the last time. Lin hugged him tight, she was shaking all over. However, it was not the last time, but they no longer spoke at work. Each time before parting, they had to decide the location for their next date: in the shadows where streetlights did not reach, by which wall, or under which tree. Once on the street, they would get onto their bicycles separately, and cycle ten or twenty meters apart. The greater the secrecy the greater was the feeling that it was an illicit affair, and, more and more, he sensed that the relationship would end sooner or later.

12

The telephone wakes you and you wonder if you should answer it.

“It’s probably a woman, have you forgotten a date?” She is sitting propped against the pillow and turns to look down at you.

“More likely it’s for some reception,” you say.

“Someone was knocking while you were asleep.” She sounds tired.

You raise your head to look up. The sun behind the velvet drapes is shining through the gauze curtains onto the back of the sofa, a newspaper had been pushed under the door. You reach out to pick up the phone, but it stops ringing.

“Have you been awake long?” you ask.

“I feel rather hollow. You started snoring as soon as you fell asleep.”

“Why didn’t you give me a shove and wake me up? Didn’t you sleep at all?” You caress the curves of her shoulders; her body is familiar and intimate, even the warm smell of her body.

“You were so fast asleep. Go back to sleep, you haven’t had a decent sleep for two nights.” Her dull eyes have dark shadows beneath them.

“Isn’t it the same for you?” Your hands glide down her shoulders, grab her breasts and squeeze them hard.

“Do you still want to fuck me?” She looks at you with a wretched expression.

“What are you saying! Margarethe. . . .” You can’t understand.

“As soon as you had ejaculated, you fell fast asleep right on top of me.”

“That’s awful, just like an animal!”

“It’s really nothing, people are animals. But what a woman needs even more is a feeling of security.” She gives a weak smile.

You say you feel very relaxed when you are with her, she is very generous.

“It depends on who it is. Not everyone who wants it, gets it.”

“You didn’t have to say that!” You say that you are deeply touched by how kind she has been to you.

“But you will forget sooner or later,” she says. “The day after tomorrow, no, it should be tomorrow—another day has gone by and it’s probably already midday—I’ll go back to Germany and you’ll go back to Paris. We can’t live together.”

“We are sure to see each other again!”

“Even if we saw each other again it would only be as friends. I don’t want to be your lover.”

She takes your hands from her breasts.

“Why, Margarethe?”

You sit up in bed and look at her.

“You already have a woman in France, it’s not likely that you don’t.”

Her voice is harsh and you don’t know how to respond. The sun has moved from the back of the sofa to the armrests.

“What time is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“But surely you also have a boyfriend? You must.” This is the only response you can come up with.

“I don’t want to keep up this sort of sexual relationship with you, but I think we can be friends, no doubt, good friends. I didn’t think it would suddenly become so complicated.”

“What do you mean?”

You say that you love her.

“Don’t, don’t say that, I don’t believe it. Men always say that when they make love with women.”

“Margarethe, you are very special.” You want to reassure her.

“Is it because I am a Jew, and you’ve never had one before? It was just a whim, you don’t understand me at all.”

You say you want to understand her, but that she keeps everything to herself. You have told her a great deal about yourself, but she won’t open up. You remember how she kept mumbling something while you were making love.

“All you want is my flesh, not me.” She shrugs.

But you say that you really want to understand her, her life, her thoughts, you want to know everything about her.

“For something to write about?”

“No, as a good friend, if I don’t count as a lover.”

You say she has revived many feelings in you, not just sexual feelings. Memories you thought you had forgotten have come back to life because of her.

“You just thought you had forgotten, it’s just that you had not thought about them. However, pain can’t be obliterated and forgotten.”

She is lying on her back and her eyes are wide open. Without eye makeup, her eyes look a deeper gray-blue. Her nipples are pale red, and the aureoles an even paler red. She covers herself with the sheet and says not to look at her like that. She hates her body. She had said this while making love.

“Margarethe, you are truly beautiful and so is your body!”

You say you like the sensuous women in Klimt’s paintings and
that you want the sun shining on her so that you can see her more clearly.

“Don’t open the curtains!” she stops you.

“Don’t you like the sunlight?” you ask.

“I don’t want my body to be seen in the sunlight.”

“You’re really unusual. You’re not like a Western woman, you’re more like a Chinese woman.”

“That’s because you don’t understand me.”

You say you really want to understand her, totally, not just her body, or, as she puts it, her flesh.

“That’s impossible. A person can’t totally understand another person, particularly if it is a man regarding a woman. And when a man thinks he has the woman, he does not need to understand her.”

“Of course.” You are frustrated and, holding your head in your hands, look at her and heave a sigh. “Would you like to have something to eat? We could get them to bring something to the room or we could go to the coffee shop.”

“Thanks, but I don’t eat in the morning.”

“Are you on a diet?” you ask pointedly. “It’s already midday!”

“If you want to, get them to bring something. Don’t mind me,” she says. “I just want to hear you talk.”

This moves you. You kiss her on the forehead, then pull up your pillow, lean back, and sit next to her.

“You’re very gentle,” she says. “I like you, I’ve given you what you wanted, but I don’t want to fall too deeply, I’m afraid. . . .”

“What are you afraid of?”

“I’m afraid of longing for you.”

You feel sad and stop talking. You think you should have a woman like this, maybe you should live with her.

“Go on with your story.” She breaks the silence.

You say that, for the time being, you would like to listen to her talk
about herself, her life, or anything. She says she does not really have anything to tell. She has not had complicated experiences like you.

“The experiences of every woman, written up, constitute a book.”

“Maybe a very ordinary book.”

“But with unique feelings.”

You say you really want to know, particularly want to know, about her feelings, her life, her private life, and her psychological secrets. You ask her, “Were the things you said while we were making love true?”

“I couldn’t have said anything. Maybe.” She adds, “One day I’ll tell you. I really want to communicate with you, not just sexually. I can’t bear loneliness.”

You say you are not afraid of loneliness and that it was through loneliness that you were not destroyed. It was this inner loneliness that protected you, but at times you longed to sink, sink, into that hole in a woman.

“That isn’t sinking. To regard women as bad is a male prejudice. What is disgusting is that men use but don’t love.”

You are trying to get her to reveal her secrets.

“You think they love you then you find out it’s a fraud. When men want women, they say wonderful things, but once they’ve finished, that’s it. But women need to be deceived like this so that they can deceive themselves,” she says. “You still only think of me as a novelty and you haven’t had enough, I can tell.”

“The Devil is in everyone’s heart.”

“But you’re fairly sincere.”

“Not necessarily.”

She cackles with laughter.

“Now this is Margarethe!”

You also relax and start laughing.

“A prostitute?” she asks, sitting up.

“It was you who said that!”

“A slut who brought herself to your door?”

Her eyes are looking right at you, but you can’t see behind those gray-blue eyes. She suddenly starts laughing so violently that her shoulders shake, and her big, pendulous pearlike breasts tremble. You say you want her again and push her down onto the pillow. The phone rings as she closes her eyes.

“Take your call. Soon you will have a new woman,” she says, pushing you away.

You pick up the phone. It’s a friend inviting you to Lamma Island for dinner. You say to hold on and put your hand over the mouthpiece to ask if she will come. If not, you will postpone for a day, so you will be able to spend the time with her.

“We can’t spend all the time in bed! If we do, you will turn into a skeleton and your friends will blame me for it.”

She gets out of bed and goes into the bathroom. The door isn’t shut and there is the sound of splashing water. You put down the phone and lie there lazily. It is as if she is your partner, and you can’t be away from her. You can’t resist calling out loudly, “Margarethe, you’re a wonderful woman.”

“I offered you a gift, but you didn’t take it!” she shouts back above the sound of the splashing water.

You call out loudly that you love her. She also says she wants to love you but that she’s afraid. You instantly get out of bed to get into the bath with her, but the door slams shut. You look at your watch lying on the table and open the curtains. It is already after four o’clock.

Coming out of the underground at Sheung Wan station, you see a line of wharves along the coast. The air is crisp and fresh. The boats in the harbor are tinged with the gold of the setting sun and there is a bright glare. A barge with the waterline almost right up the sides is cutting through the waves and churning up white foam. The texture of the concrete and steel buildings on this side of the water can be seen clearly, and the outline of the buildings seems to be shining. You want to have a cigarette to confirm that it is not an illusion, and
you tell her everything underfoot seems to be floating. She draws close to you and gives a chuckle.

There is a row of food stalls below a huge Marlboro advertisement, but once through the iron gates, “No Smoking” posters are everywhere, like in America. Work has just finished, and every fifteen or twenty minutes, there is a ferry to each of the islands. Most of those going to Lamma Island are young, and there are quite a few foreigners. The electric buzzer sounds and is followed by the clatter of hurried but orderly footsteps. On board, people doze off or take out a book to read, and it becomes so quiet that only the sound of the motor can be heard. The ferry quickly leaves the noisy town, and the clusters of tall and even taller buildings gradually recede into the distance.

A cold wind starts up, and the boat gently rocks. She’s tired. At first she leans on you but then draws up her legs and lies down in your arms. You feel relaxed. She is asleep in an instant, docile and peaceful, and you cannot suppress a feeling of sadness. There are no signs in the cabin apart from the “No Smoking” signs and, with its mixture of races, it does not look like Hong Kong and it does not look like it is soon to be returned to China.

Beyond the deck, the night scene gradually grows hazy, and you become lost in thought. Maybe you should live with her on some island and spend your days listening to the seagulls and writing for pleasure, unencumbered by duties or responsibilities, just pouring out your feelings.

After disembarking and leaving the wharf, some people get onto bicycles. There are no cars on the island. Dim streetlights. It’s a small town with narrow streets, shops and restaurants one after another, and it’s quite lively.

“If you had a tea room with music, or a bar, it would be easy to make a living here. You could write and paint during the day and open for business at night. What do you think?” Dongping, who
comes to meet you, bearded and tall, is an artist who came from the Mainland a year or so ago.

“And if you felt weary, you could go to the beach any time for a swim.”

Dongping points to some small fishing boats and rowboats moored in the harbor at the bottom of the stone steps down the slope; he says a foreigner friend of his bought an old fishing boat and lives in it. Margarethe says she’s starting to like Hong Kong.

“You can work here; your Chinese is good and English is your mother tongue,” Dongping says.

“She’s German,” you say.

“Jewish,” she corrects you.

“Born in Italy,” you add.

“You know so many languages! What company would not pay a high salary to employ you? But you wouldn’t have to live here; Repulse Bay over on Hong Kong Island has many grand apartments on the mountains by the sea.”

“Margarethe doesn’t like living with bosses, she likes artists,” you say for her.

“Great, we can be neighbors,” Dongping says. “Do you paint? We’ve got a gang of artist friends here.”

“I used to paint because I liked it, but not professionally. It’s too late to start learning.”

You say you didn’t know she painted, and she immediately says in French there is a great deal you don’t know about her. At this point, she distances herself but still wants to maintain a secret language with you. Dongping says that he didn’t study in an art college and was not officially recognized as an artist: that was why he left the Mainland.

“In the West, artists don’t need official recognition and don’t need to have studied in an art college. Anyone can be an artist. The main thing is whether there is a market, whether one’s paintings can sell,” Margarethe says.

Dongping says there is no market for his paintings in Hong Kong. What the art entrepreneurs want are copies of impressionistic concoctions with a foreign signature for Western galleries, and these are bought at wholesale prices. He does a different signature each time and can’t remember how many names he has signed. Everyone laughs.

On the first floor, where Dongping lives, the sitting room adjoins the studio, and the residents are painters, photographers, poets, and columnists. The only person who is not an artist or writer is a foreigner, a good-looking young American. Dongping formally introduces the man. He is a critic, and the boyfriend of a woman poet from the Mainland.

Everyone has a paper plate and a pair of chopsticks, and they help themselves to the seafood hotpot. The seafood isn’t alive but it is very fresh. Dongping says he brought it all home just before you arrived, but now, in the bubbling hotpot, it’s curled up and no longer moving. The crowd is very casual. Some are walking about barefoot, and others are sitting on floor cushions. The music is turned on loud, it is a string quartet on big speakers, Vivaldi’s vibrant
Four Seasons.
Everyone is eating and drinking, talking all at once and not about anything in particular. Only Margarethe is reserved and dignified. Her fluent Chinese instantly makes the young American’s Western accent and intonation sound inferior, so he starts talking to Margarethe in English. He raves on to her and makes the young woman poet jealous. Margarethe later tells you that the guy doesn’t know anything, but he was taken by her and kept hovering around her.