While he had played a role in spurring on the troops on frontier battlefields, he couldn't shift these peasants' carts, and the chaos simply got worse.
From noon until dark, cart after cart had finally removed all the people, but the platform was still piled with furniture and crates. He and a few others were told to stay behind and guard these. The others all went into the waiting room to get out of the wind. However, he stacked some crates and wardrobes into a wind shelter, and bought himself a bottle of liquor as well as two steamed buns. The buns were made of a mixture of corn flour and wheat flour and were frozen solid by the cold. In his little corner that he had covered with a sheet of canvas, he gazed at the weak yellowish lights on the platform and thought about finding a wife. With a wife and a child, he would be the same as the others with families and children, and he would be able to get lodgings in a peasant home in one of the villages. He would still be working on the land, but at least he would have a small mud hut and be able to get away from the collective lodgings where people were staring right at one another all the time, and one was afraid of being overheard while having a dream.
He thought back to the previous year, when armed battles were raging, before the army took control of the factories and schools, to that night in the small inn on the embankment of the Yangtze he spent with a university student when there was nowhere else to stay. "We are the generation that fate has decreed should be sacrificed." When the woman had the courage to write this in her letter, he knew that her situation must have been hopeless.
There were no battlefields now, but enemies were everywhere. Defenses were up all over the place, but defense was impossible. He could retreat no further. No longer wildly hoping for anything more, all he wanted was a house in a village, where he could settle down with a wife, but even that possibility was about to vanish.
Before dawn, he got the bicycle back to the village. Huang and his wife had waited for him and didn't go to sleep; they were dressed. The coal stove they had brought with them from Beijing was burning, and the house was warm. Huang's wife had prepared dough and was making soup noodles for him. He didn't decline. Having had no dinner, he had pedaled hard and fast for forty kilometers, there and back, and he was utterly famished. They watched him devour a big bowl of noodles. Before leaving, he waved to them and said that he hadn't been there. They said, of course you haven't, of course you haven't. He had done all he could, the rest was up to fate.
14
"So you weren't declared the enemy?" she asks as she stirs her coffee.
"It was close." But you managed to escape. What else could you say?
"How did you escape?" she asks, still in an offhand manner.
"Do you know what 'to simulate' means?" you ask, forcing yourself to smile. When an animal is in danger, it pretends to be dead or else puts on a fierce look. It does not panic and lose control. But, in your case, you had to be very calm as you waited for a chance to escape.
"So, you're a wily fox?" she laughs softly.
"Yes," you admit. "When dogs were all around hunting you, you had to be more wily than a fox or they would have ripped you to shreds."
"But people are animals, you and I are animals." She sounds hurt. "But you aren't a wild animal."
"When everyone had gone crazy, one turned into a wild animal."
"Are you also a wild animal?" she asks.
"What do you mean?" It is your turn to ask.
"Nothing special, I was just asking." Her eyelashes lower.
"To keep a patch of clean soil in one's heart, one had to work out a way of escaping from the arena."
"Did you escape?" she asks, her eyelashes moving up.
"Margarethe!" The smile goes from your face. "Stop talking about Chinese politics. You're leaving tomorrow and there are other things to talk about."
"I'm not talking about China and I'm not talking about politics," she says. "I want to know if you are a wild animal."
You pause to think, then say, "Yes."
She does not respond but looks hostile. After returning to the hotel from Lamma Island, she said in the elevator that she didn't want to go to bed straight away, so you and she came to this coffee shop. The lights are low and the music is soft, in another corner two gays are drinking wine. There is no sugar in the bit of coffee in her cup, but she stirs it with the spoon from time to time. She must have something on her mind that she doesn't want to talk about in bed. The gay lovers call the waiter, pay, and go off hand-in-hand.
"Do you want something else? The man is waiting to close." You are talking about the waiter.
"Are you treating?" She tilts her head back and has a strange look.
"Of course, it's not that much."
She orders a double scotch, then says, "Will you join me?"
"Why not?" You order two double scotches.
The waiter wearing a tie is polite but gives her a look.
"I want to have a good sleep," she explains.
"Then you shouldn't have had coffee just now," you point out.
"I'm tired, tired of living."
"What are you talking about? You're young, so beautiful, in the prime of life, you should enjoy yourself to the full." You tell her that it is she who has again filled you with lust, and you put your hand on hers.
"I hate myself, I hate my body."
Her body again!
"You, too, have used it. Of course, you're not the first and you won't be the last," she says, pushing away your hand.
Your confusion passes and, with a sigh, you withdraw your hand.
"I also want to be a wild animal, but I can't escape…" she says, head bowed.
"Escape from what?" It's your turn to question her, and this is more comfortable. Being interrogated by a woman is stressful.
"I can't escape, I can't escape from fate, I can't escape from this sort of feeling…" She takes a big mouthful of scotch and tosses back her head.
"What feeling?" You go to push back her hair so you can see her eyes, but she brushes it away herself.
"Women, a woman feels… you wouldn't understand." She laughs softly again.
It seems probable that this is what is causing her pain, and, looking searchingly at her, you ask, "How old were you at the time?"
"At the time," she pauses, then says, "I was thirteen."
The waiter is standing behind the counter with his head down, probably preparing the bill.
"That's too young," you say. Your throat feels tight, and you gulp down a big mouthful of scotch. "Go on!"
"I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to talk about myself."
"Margarethe, if you want mutual understanding, not just a sexual relationship, then it isn't just a matter of what you want. We should be able to talk about anything," you protest.
She is silent for a while, then says, "It was early winter, a dull day… Venice is not always sunny, and there were not many tourists on the streets." Her voice seems to be coming from far away. "From the window, a window that was very low, I could see the sea and the gray sky. Usually, when I sat on the windowsill, I could see the dome of the church…"