For the record, he did not consider that matters were beyond repair. All that had happened was that Liu Lian had informed his immediate superiors that she no longer wanted him as her cook. He could resolve the situation himself, he thought; he could win her over. Hatred for Liu Lian, and for himself, welled up inside. He was the one who had wrecked a perfectly workable status quo, and so he would have to be the one to make amends-as if, after flouting some basic rule of dining etiquette, he now had to down a cup of spirits as a forfeit. He would do whatever was necessary. And in any case, the actual forfeit in store was hardly a humiliation or punishment, but rather held out the promise of romance and promotion.
At this point in our story, the depths that his relationship with Liu Lian would later reach lay hidden in the shallows of his pragmatic calculations. In fact, in the majority of cases, emotional complications are no such thing. Pull a knotty problem apart and, as likely as not, you will find at its heart an equation of overwhelming simplicity. Wu Dawang's return to the Division Commander's house-a decision dictated by professional ambition and marital obligation-can be explained in terms just as straightforward.
As he left his company, the horizon to the east was beginning to glimmer orange and a milky brightness was spreading in the sky directly over the barracks. Heading toward the Division Commander's house through the dawn light, as he had done almost every day for the past six months, he encountered his company's Captain, on his way back after a patrol check. Though his eyes were still blurry with sleep, the Captain's mind was clearly operational.
'Off to work then?' he asked, stopping right in Wu Dawang's path.
Wu Dawang mumbled an affirmative as he saluted and bid his Captain good morning.
After returning the salute, the Captain turned to carry on his way, then stopped, as if he had suddenly thought of something. `Wu Dawang,' he asked, `what must you remember, above all else, when working for a senior officer?'
`Don't say what I shouldn't say, and don't do what I shouldn't do.'
`Wrong.'
To serve the Division Commander and his family,' he corrected himself, is to Serve the People.'
`Better. Now say it again, but shout it this time.'
After glancing around at the dormitories behind him, he repeated the sacred principle louder, but still way below full volume. To Serve the Division Commander and His Family is to Serve the People.'
`I said shout!' the Captain bellowed, glaring at Wu Dawang.
`They're all asleep.' He glanced back, a frustrated zeal flickering across his face.
If I tell you to shout, that's an order. There's an extra commendation in it for you if you manage to wake them up.' Then, as if drilling a new recruit, he retreated half a pace, tilted his head back and shouted, `One-two-three
And, just as if he were an eager new recruit, Wu Dawang roared out, with the relentlessly forceful rhythm of the drill ground: To Serve the Division Commander and His Family is to Serve the People!' He looked at the Captain, who beamed with pleasure.
'That'll do. Off you go now.'
Wu Dawang watched the Captain disappear into the barracks, before at last carrying on his way. Behind him, the soldiers he had startled awake were peering out through windows and doorways. Their looking done, they soon returned to their beds, as if all were right as could be with the world.
V
MOST OF THE SENIOR OFFICERS were already up and awake, each exercising in their private courtyards and waiting for reveille to sound and summon them to supervise the morning's drills. Entering the main compound, Wu Dawang exchanged nods and greetings with the sentry. After saluting the Deputy Division Commander, he took a key out of his pocket and opened the small iron gate that would let him into Number One. Latching it behind him, he turned back toward the house, intending to go around to the kitchen and start preparing Liu Lian's favourite breakfast of lotus seed rice soup.
Imagine his surprise, however, when he discovered that Liu Lian-whom he had never seen out of bed before end-of-drill had sounded-had chosen to rise today before reveille and had seated herself in the yard in front of the house, wearing the army uniform that had spent the past five years folded up in a cupboard. Wu Dawang had never once seen her in it. The stiff scarlet insignia on her collar threw her pallor into even greater relief. She looked as if she'd slept as badly as her orderly. On both men and women, army uniforms came up baggy, ill-fitting, and somehow had a levelling effect: they made the young look older and the old younger; the attractive plainer and the plain more attractive. There she sat in front of the house, her bleary-eyed face sagging with fatigue, as if she had) ust completed Mao's Long March of 10,000 miles, fighting the Nationalist enemy all the way.
Disconcerted both by her presence in the yard and by her mode of dress, Wu Dawang fixed a smile across his face. `How come you're up so early, Aunt?'
His arrival had clearly taken her just as much by surprise. She glanced at him a couple of times before answering his question, in a tone somewhere between chilly and freezing, with another question. Didn't your Political Instructor speak to you?'
He lowered his eyes. `Yes, he did, but I want you to give me another chance. If I fail to give satisfaction again today, I'll take myself straight back to barracks.'
He looked up at her stony face. That one night seemed to have spun a web of fine wrinkles out from the corners of her eyes. She was beginning to look her thirty-two years. A woman in her early thirties, of course, was still young enough to be his sister, to set hearts racing, to possess a ripe allure. But Liu Lian didn't normally look her age; it must have been the uniform playing tricks on her. Or her lack of sleep: perhaps she'd been sitting there all night, staring expressionlessly out across the courtyard. More than anything, he wanted to tell her she looked tired, that she should go back to her room and rest, but his courage failed him. Now that he had rejected yesterday's overture, an absolute darkness reigned between them. He gazed timidly at her, head slightly bowed as if awaiting judgement, which, after subjecting him to a long, steady stare, she eventually pronounced.
'Don't bother with my soup this morning,' she instructed dully, getting up from her chair. 'Just boil me a couple of eggs, then go back to barracks.' Without waiting a second longer for him to ask her anything else, she returned upstairs, alone. Her footsteps, the slam of the door behind her, pounded on his eardrums.
Things were turning out worse than Wu Dawang had expected. The reveille blared over the tannoy, plunging the barracks into fresh fits of overenthusiasm. Wu Dawang reminded himself that he'd been in the army five long years, that he had impeccable experience of Serving the People, that he was a paragon of political correctness, the pride of his company, a model Party member. He now recast his already deep understanding of `Serve the People' into a weapon for overcoming his present difficulties and the destiny they pointed to. After Liu Lian's footsteps had died away, he moved swiftly to the kitchen. There he set a pot of water to boil, broke two eggs into a bowl, whisked them together, added two spoonfuls of white sugar, then trickled the simmering water into the sweetened viscous mixture, beating and turning it with chopsticks as he did so. In much less than a minute, he had ready a piping hot bowl of golden egg-drop soup. While waiting for it to cool a little, fresh inspiration came to him. Taking up a pen and paper, he leaned over the kitchen table and quickly composed a searching statement of self-criticism, acknowledging the serious errors in his understanding of `Serve the People'. He then carried both soup and self-criticism upstairs.