Chapter 23
In the bathroom, under the fluorescent light, he was examining himself. His penis, now withered, spineless, was tinted a little pink, and amid the ugly and curly hair, he spotted red stains. It was so amazing, and such a novelty that he spent quite a while wondering at this part of his body. Then, with a basin of warm water, his rough mix of the cold from the tap and the hot from his thermos, he washed it slowly, reluctantly.
‘So this is her virgin blood,’ he remarked.
In the next morning of Saturday, he snuggled long under the quilt, and his already awoken mind replayed the minutes of the night before. A wave of fresh excitement went through him, and he felt as if he was still prodding at her body.
Then it came a fear that was real. What if she gets pregnant? He knew for a fact that doing that sort of thing would enlarge a woman’s belly. So, what then if the school finds this out?
The more he thought about it, the severer his dread grew, rendering him spiritless during breakfast.
‘Hey, you look blue, are you day-dreaming?’ asked Kang. ‘You came back very late last night? I didn’t hear you come back.’
He didn’t answer him, merely regarding his friend seriously, ‘Kang, I want to tell you something, can we go to the park today?’
‘I have a training this morning; but afternoon is free.’
So Bing waited anxiously a whole morning for his friend. After the lunch, they bought beer and peanuts, and took their way to the park.
‘Kang, I think I am in trouble.’
‘Trouble, what trouble?’
‘I did it with Chen Fang last night.’
‘What? You mean…?’ Kang stared at him.
‘Yes,’ Bing nodded.
‘Then she may get pregnant. What can you do if she does?’
‘How do I know?’ he replied, with an emphatic tone as if Kang was part of his trouble. ‘That is why I want to discuss with you. You are my best friend, and I can’t tell anyone else.’
Kang didn’t reply; they walked quietly until they reached the bench they usually sat in the park.
‘If only we know a doctor here,’ Bing said, despondently, then added suddenly, ‘Maybe we can ask the local Shanghai students for help?’
‘But you cannot tell them the truth, can you?’
‘How about telling the same story but of a different person, say, a friend of us, instead of me?’
‘Still, only a very close friend may help you,’ Kang replied, ‘can Mark and Brian help? I don’t think so, what if they don’t keep their mouths tight.’
They kept on drinking, in sombreness. Around their feet, a group of little sparrows were jumping up and down. Bing stamped hard on the ground to drive them away.
Bing scratched his head, ‘Maybe Chen Fang has some local friends?’
‘But she is a fresh student.’
‘Anyway, let me ask her.’
That same afternoon, Bing went to Fang’s building and told the guard, a man, at the entrance that he wanted to see her. The man looked at him suspiciously, then as if assured by Bing’s innocent, resolute eyes, he came out and shouted up to the windows, ‘Chen Fang of 303, please come down, someone is looking for you.’
He knew some boys would just call their girls themselves, but his face-skin was not as thick as theirs. Even standing in front of the female students’ building would sufficiently embarrass him. This was why he had never set his meeting with Fang at points around the dormitories, or any other places on the campus, where their courtship was bound to draw attention. But for the incident of last night that made him so fearful, he wouldn’t imagine he could put himself up like this under other people’s scrutiny.
For the moment, standing on the porch he was ill at ease; the girls, constantly steaming in and out, eyed him as if he were a thief. It was very likely some of them had already recognized him to be the one who played guitar at parties. The way they looked at him, and murmured to each other, was so disconcerting, that he had made up his mind more than once to leave the spot altogether.
At last, Fang was descending from the stairwell. She looked very happy, and indeed, with her rose face and beaming eyes, very beautiful. But, why? She doesn’t worry at all? he wondered.
Wary of the eyes of the passers-by, he motioned the way to go, without greeting her properly, and expected her to follow him tacitly.
After a while of their clumsy walking-together, with her a pace or two behind him, he turned and said, ‘We go to the park.’
‘En.’ Her answer was faintly heard. By now, affected by his air of seriousness, her happy expression had dimmed to one with gloom and wonderment.
No sooner had they sat down in the park than Bing began to express his concern. However, Fang didn’t show a concern as large as he had expected. ‘Well, I don’t think I will be so unlucky; and we can’t undo it now, can we?’ she said, then as if acting on an impulse, blurted, ‘or, do you regret doing it at all?’
‘Regret? ’ he screwed up his eyebrows, ‘what do you mean?’
‘I mean, if you have to be so worried about it, why did you do it last night?’ she stared at him wide, and in a split second, tears filling her eyes.
Oh, she was crying. What was wrong with her? Why did she have to cry? What was it for?
Highly perplexed, for a long while, her tears served to irritate him, annoy him, make him ever more fretful. But stop she didn’t, and with the back of her hand, she began to brush her teary eyes, in the same way his sister had used to do at her age of ten.
Oh, this was not going anywhere! He reached out his hand to calm her shoulder, ‘Please, don’t cry…’
But angrily, she pushed it off.
Oh, my… what was wrong with her?!
Resigning, he sighed a big sigh; he stooped forward, let his elbows stand on his knees, and his chin rest in his hands. When her sobbing had ceased, he sat up, and checked her face, and found it now clean, composed, and dejected.
‘Sorry, Fang…’ he stammered.
Without looking at him, nor did she say anything, she held his arm, involuntarily. Then, a quick, unfounded amusement knocked at his mind; a little smile appeared on his face, which also infected her, and made her release her own version of smile. ‘You… how could you laugh…’ She banged and shook his arm.
Her dimples were showing up again; under his humorous gaze, her face was shy and red. Oh, how lovely was she!
They began to kiss.
Only a little while, his desire started to creep and swell. Its strength was vital and quick. The worries and apprehensions which had clung to his mind since the morning, were set aside, now that her soft body was in full in his clutch.
Oh, what a tongue! What a pair of breasts! What a hot and dark and mysterious moisture!
Sheltered by his army-coat, they reached each other with a franticness as if in their first time, though only with four hands. His ejaculation was done in her palm. At its jerking, he couldn’t tell whether he grabbed her breasts harder, or she clasped his penis tighter. Simply, they were taken by a force, foreign and supernatural.
But the madness had to end, and the light of reality had to sober his eyes. The burning process had been the same, as the day before, but now in the embers, a tide of emptiness came to wash his heart, and, brought with it, a positive sadness and a vague disgust within his frame.
For the first time in his life, he felt he was separated into two, divided into two selves; both alive at the same time, antagonistic to each other, one half blaming the other.
And when he was undertaking his inner struggle, his face could show no sun but cloud, casting its shadow on every object under its spell: the murky water in the lotus pond; the dead leaves floating on its surface; the grey, sneaky, and meaningless sparrows, peeping with their little beaks; the stupid, heartless ants that crawled about his feet; and an old, listless Shanghai man, standing on the bridge older than himself, brooding upon the dead water underneath, awaiting his last breathing days, and, ah… he was spitting into the pond!
‘Do you have good Shanghai friends?’ he began, gravely, after a long silence that had haunted the two young heads.
‘No,’ she said bluntly, without looking at him, ‘why?’
‘Local people know things better, about doctors and hospitals.’
She didn’t reply, looking straight ahead. A longer silence fell. Then, suddenly she got up and snapped, ‘Stop bothering yourself about me,’ and walked away.
Bewildered, he stared at her back, and called after her. But she didn’t slow down, nor turning her head. He rose, and ran to catch up until he was beside her. He held her arm; she shoved him away.
Again, he saw tears in her eyes.
Nothing he could do but pace at her side, cautiously, and uneasily. Their strange partnership had already attracted every pair of passing eyes. Oh, they were looked at, speculated at, by those odd, and curious, and ignorant, and have-nothing-to-do people! Why does she have to make a scene like this? Why is she angry with him? Didn’t he try to help her, and of course, himself?
Coming out of the park, she calmed down a little, but still, paid him no heed. A number of times he called her name, but none had gained her response. Then his temper was also building up; he had an urge to force her stop, to face him, and talk to him. But his concern of making a worse public scene prevented him from doing so.
While passing the bridge, with the stinking smell swirling in the air from the filthy water, he began to slacken his steps. The gap between them was thus increasing, until he was carelessly strolling far behind, until she had disappeared altogether from his sight.
Gravely distressed, he arrived in his dorm. Nobody was in. It was the eleventh day of Spring Festival if he remembered right. Chinese people were still relishing their once-a-year celebration. On the lower bed, not on his own, he sat missing his home, his village, and all those people so far away yet so clear and vivid now in his mind. What are they doing now? Drinking rice-wine? Eating a lot of pig-meat? Oh, how delicious were the ducks, cooked by his dad, with ginger and onion, and his grandma, mother, sister, and Dan...
A surge of tears seemed to visit his eyes, he thought he had to cry, like Fang.
But the moment he was thinking of her, his trouble returned, overpowering his little nostalgic meditation. What could he do if she really got pregnant, and gave birth to a baby? And to think the baby would be theirs? What an incredible and unreal scenario it seemed to be! But he had heard of stories that students had been expelled from university, only because of courting on the campus, far from what he and Fang had so recklessly done. Though, these days, in most Chinese universities, students courting was more acceptable and common, the thought of having a baby or doing an abortion was still unimaginable and intolerable. Oh, why did he do it last night? Why did he have to really go into her?
At dinner, Bing told Kang about how Fang had behaved in the afternoon.
‘Maybe she was just too worried,’ said Kang.
‘But she was not worried about the matter, at least when I first saw her.’
‘Why did she cry?’
‘I don’t know, she just got angry, without reason,’ he protested. ‘I only asked her if she knows some local Shanghai students or not.’
‘Maybe you shouldn’t have asked her this? You should work this out yourself?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t understand. She simply left, and refused to talk to me any more, such a strange person.’
The food, comprised of tangled, hollow-hearted vegetables, and some fat lumps of pig-meat, looked stale and tasteless. Bing didn’t want to eat. His stomach, now empty and making strange noise, was as if filled with an air of distress and misery.
But Kang was enjoying his food. ‘Don’t worry too much. It is only a possibility that she may get pregnant.’
Bing didn’t respond to his friend’s consolation, dully poking his spoon at the long hollow-hearted stalks.
‘I will ask my country-fellows today to see if they know somebody,’ Kang said, ‘and, you only did it last night, we have plenty of time.’
‘When can we possibly know if she gets pregnant or not?’
‘I don’t know. I only know a woman needs ten months of pregnancy to have a child,’ said Kang, and added as an afterthought, ‘maybe there are some books in the bookstore? About these things?’
Inspired by Kang’s advice, the next morning Bing visited the Xinhua bookstore, where he searched the shelf for all books about sex and pregnancy. Either by the title or by the cover, he had found a number of them, and buried himself reading. The words and graphics in the ‘Manual of Sexual Knowledge’ were interesting; he first stood leaning against the shelf, then squatted down, and repeated the up-and-down enough times to gain the attention of a salesman, who came to pass him rather noisily, making him aware of the reading time limit in a bookshop. Quickly, he stood up, and went to the counter, where, his eyes shifty, his cheeks aflame, he made a purchase transaction that seemed to have taken too long.
Going out of the shop, he couldn’t find a safe and private place to read. Even reading it in the Lu Xun Park didn’t seem safe enough, someone may be peering over his shoulder. Indeed, there were many nasty illustrations in the book. So he decided to go back and read it thoroughly in his bed.
So, he read it in his bed. He read through, about masturbation, about puberty, etc, etc. Then remembering his real purpose, he browsed, and turned the pages over and again, in order to find something immediately useful. He got some idea, as how a girl got pregnant, about the stages of love-making. But the information was so very distracting, and when he finally finished the book, he was still unsure whether or not he had found what he wanted. But he did have learnt a concept, that, if a girl gets pregnant, her period won’t come the following month.
So from the book he learnt that one month, as a period of time, was important; so he thought he would know within a month whether or not Fang would get pregnant; so a solution must be found out within a month; and so, this one month would be his hard and painful waiting…
On the evening Kang came back, and informed him that one of his country-fellows, actually a girl in her senior year, had a very good friend from Shanghai. To this news, Bing’s face, for the first time since last night, showed a trace of gaiety. It was indeed the hope in a tunnel. Getting a local student was important, because with her, there would be more local friends, and then their parents, and then the hospitals and doctors. A whole little society was beginning to roll, offering him assistance one way or the other. They couldn’t just walk directly into a hospital, where too many questions may be asked, with the risk of the hospital contacting their university.
Repeatedly, Bing said ‘thank you’ to Kang, although, to a close friend like him, gratitude is supposed to be kept in the heart rather than on the lips. At once he wished to share the news with Fang, but he decided to see her the next day.
However, when he called her at her building, she refused to come down. He then resolved to intercept her at lunch, which he did, but she didn’t care his approach, and walked away with her friends, and left him alone, in his unspeakable disgrace and indignity. For the rest of the day, he wandered about the campus, and nurtured a sizable hatred against her. Oh, such an idiot, such an odd character! Why must she treat him like this? If she doesn’t care, why must he? After all, it is not him who may get pregnant.
He swore he wouldn’t see her any more.
Another week dragged by, he was still assuming an outward indifference, while inwardly, he was fretting each hour, about the possible, dreadful outcome of his conduct. No peace in his mind; no comfort could be derived from either his guitar or books.
Then classes resumed after the holiday; happy people were returning, babbling about their activities during the festival. Vivian, with a refreshing face, presented herself all the more showy and haughtily charming in front of the class. Why did this woman have to dress like that, and chuckle like that, and be born with a pair of eyes like that to make him so unhappy? What inside or outside of her should make him so much want her? Already, he had made love with another girl, so what was the difference? Really, what difference if he did it with all other girls at all? To imagine there were a total of nineteen girls in the class! To imagine one or two of them had more impressive breasts, or more impressive legs or bottoms. Even Vivian’s hair, if making a comparison more sensibly, was neither the blackest, nor the longest, nor the one of most lustre and shine. Then, why did her eyes have to attract him so much, instead of the other parts of a female’s body? He couldn’t make love purely with her eyes, could he? Had Vivian already made love with her boyfriend? If so, how did she manage the horrible matter of pregnancy? Did she cry? Did she resist? Did she tremble and make a noise and bleed like Fang?
During the first few days of the new term, with his dull, sickening face, and his enigmatic pupils, his wild thoughts seemed to grab each female’s body in the class. The indignation and ecstasy he had experienced with Fang, had now spread to Vivian, to other girls, regarding them all as his lovers and enemies.
A couple of days later, as his self-affliction had mounted to the edge of madness, Fang, sad and gloomy-faced, approached him, and asked him to go to the park after supper.
Bing felt that something, as feared, was about to fall; but on their way to the park, they exchanged no words, as if their matter was too serious to be talked about on the road.
On the bench, she began, ‘Bing, I am scared, my period didn’t come.’ She didn’t cry, but her eyes never looked so miserable.
‘Period?’ he asked, ‘it has not been one month yet?’ In his mind, one month of duration was needed for any good or bad news.
‘What do you mean one month? My period usually comes about this time of each month.’
‘So it didn’t come?’ he asked the obvious, stupidly staring at her face, so pale and desperate.
‘What can I do, what can I do? Oh…what can I do?’ she began to cry, her tears running quick. She turned and with her fists began to attack his arm, ‘all because of you, your fault… oh! …what can I do...’
Bing gave no speech, merely letting her treat freely his arm, nor did he try to comfort her tears as before. After all, he was no less a hapless and piteous person than she was.
Then a whimsical fury arose to affect him, he yelled: ‘What can I do, what can I do, why, I had tried to discuss with you at very beginning…and you so stupid…so only now you know the trouble...’
‘But I thought I wouldn’t have such bad luck. I knew one of my friends in the high school had done it, and nothing had happened.’
Without responding to her explanation, Bing’s mind turned quickly to the Shanghai friend Kang had mentioned. The hope was animating his face.
‘Please, can you stop crying, what use is your cry?’ he said, vehemently, wondering how her tears were so endless. ‘Last time, I tried to tell you something, but you didn’t even talk to me.’
‘Because you didn’t seem to like me, love me… how terrible was your look…’
‘But, I was only worrying about you, didn’t you know that? How silly…’
More effective communications between them began. And with more understanding they gathered about each other, their dialogue became more constructive in working out a course of action, to extricate themselves from their problem.
‘I will ask Kang to talk to his friend immediately...’ he said, resolutely. ‘Don’t worry too much, will you?’
He turned, looked at her, who appeared as weak as a lamb, so childish and vulnerable with the tears, which, though curbed at present, were still staining her eyes and cheeks. A sympathy, or a real affection, fresh and new in his living history, rose from him. At this moment, they were just like the couple in the sad ‘Love Story’ he had read in the library.
In this whole wide world, he felt they were only two souls there suffering. Their cores were connected for the first time in their lives. And now, all they could do was hold each other to tackle their common adversary that had struck them so suddenly.
On their way back to their residence, the intimacy between them was demonstrative; he hugged her all the time, and every now and then, he would turn to kiss her forehead, and her cheeks, and down to her lips.
She was smiling again, though weakly, in the shade of her former tears.
The reconciliation gave them the strength and courage, so necessary in the time of crisis.
In the evening, he immediately conveyed what she had told him to Kang, who at once called upon his country-fellow. The chain of Chinese connections began to work, and had progressed very well, for, two days later Kang informed them to see a doctor in Shanghai Tongren Hospital.
At the hospital, Fang went inside the room, while Bing stayed outside waiting.
Ten minutes had elapsed, but she still didn’t come out. Anxiously, he was inclined to believe she might be there doing the abortion. And when she came out minutes later, whole and complete, even with a smile on her face, his amazement was tangible. He strode to her, ‘So?’
She just muttered, ‘But, why…why…’
‘Why what?! What is the result?’ he urged, and for the moment wondered if she was not in fever or delirium caused by some bad news.
Then she, as if just waking up from her daydream, declared, ‘I am not pregnant!’, and threw him a noisy kiss.
On their way back, she passed to him what the doctor had explained to her that her period was very likely disrupted because of her careless behaviour.
‘Very likely?’ he asked in doubt.
‘She said it should come soon,’ she returned, ‘the important thing is that the test result was negative.’
‘Oh,’ he said, still not completely convinced of the good luck, as if the relief came too easy, rendering his weeks of distress worthless.
‘And she said we could have just bought the tester from the shop to test pregnancy ourselves,’ she said.
‘Really?’ he asked, ‘but why didn’t they just advise us about that? Instead of coming here?’
‘They might have thought that we were asking for an abortion,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what your friend had said to them.’
“Well, whatever,’ he smiled, ‘so you are not pregnant.’
‘What? You look strange,’ she eyed him archly. ‘You want me to get pregnant?’
‘Haha,’ he laughed, ‘no, haha, yes.’
Nevertheless, the true relief only came to him in another day, when she told him that her period had arrived at last, proving neither the doctor nor the tester was mistaken.
They decided to treat Kang, and their good news with a good dinner. On the evening, three of them went to a hot-pot restaurant in the Sichuan Bei Road, a popular street close to their university, where common goods were believably cheaper than other streets in Shanghai, and also a place they could get to by taking a shortcut through the park. Fang, from Chongqing, presumably richer than the other two, had insisted on paying for the dinner. She had also drunk a bottle of beer, while each of the two boys, doubling their regular intake, had taken two. A lot of toasts and thanks had been expressed, their laughter spilling over the table. The amount of beer was indeed necessary in their first formal dining out in Shanghai, especially to Kang, who had been coughing all the time, due to his low tolerance of chilli, and seriously needed the liquid to cool himself.
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