As the affair went on, the Serve the People! sign seemed to grow legs. An instant after she decided she wanted him, it would lodge itself in a blossoming shrub as he weeded a flower bed. Or, as he pruned the vines, it would suddenly appear hanging from a branch, nudging at his shoulder. While he was out shopping for food, the slightest thing could set him off on fantasies, which on discovering the sign lying in wait for him back at Compound Number One-would swiftly become reality. Sometimes, of course, his thoughts would be elsewhere-with his wife and son, for example-but one glimpse of the sign obliterated everything except Liu Lian's glorious body and his desire for it. They would come together whenever and wherever: the sitting room, kitchen, bathroom, study, the Division Commander's conference room; even, under cover of darkness, beneath the vine trellis.
In a few short weeks, they'd become both the masters and slaves of instinct, allowing sex to dominate all other aspects of life. Between them, they could make the sexual act simple one minute, elaborate the next; now perfunctory, now ceremonious; now civilized, now decadent; now relaxed, now painstaking. But it was not until their last week together that their affair attained a truly extraordinary, climactic intensity.
Shortly before this, the Division had left on camp and field training. For days, trucks loaded with firewood, coal, clothes and grain had been parked in front of each company barracks. The poems, essays and lists of commendations that usually filled noticeboards had given way to posters urging their readers to Prepare for War and Natural Disasters, to Dig Holes That Are Deep and Amass Grain Stores That Are Large; to Triumph over US Imperialism and Soviet Revisionism on the Path to Victory in World War III, while constantly bearing in mind that Hegemony Must Not Be Sought. Battle challenges were exchanged; councils of war proposed. As slogan piled upon slogan, so the entire Division worked itself up into a revolutionary frenzy. Tucked away in the Division Commander's compound, Wu Dawang had almost forgotten what it was to be a soldier; how a single spark of propaganda could set the barracks alight. On the day of the Division's departure, he was pushing his bicycle out of Compound Number One after almost a week spent exclusively behind its reinforced steel fence, en route to market, when suddenly, what looked like the entire Division jogged past him in full battle dress toward the drill ground.
His body tensed with the nervous excitement of mobilization. `What's going on?' he asked the sentry.
`Camp and field training,' came the reply. `Haven't you heard?'
Without pausing to answer, he cycled quickly over to his barracks, where he discovered that his whole company-bar a skeleton staff left behind to look after the pigs and the vegetable garden — had left the evening before. He was told that his company had been sent off as an advance party, but the Captain and Political Instructor had issued him with a permit to stay. Retrieving it from the office, Wu Dawang saw it contained only one sentence: `Your task is to remember at all times that to serve the Division Commander's family is to Serve the People.' The instruction hit him like cold water in the face, filling him with a sense of unhappy abandonment.
Midsummer was now past. Though the dry heat persisted, its roasting intensity had gone, tempered by an edge of coolness that signalled autumn was not far off. After folding up the permit, Wu Dawang rode resentfully on to market, filled his baskets with chicken, fish, peanut oil, sesame oil, MSG and ground pepper for the house, then went on to the post office to send thirty yuarz back home.
In the normal run of things, he was in the habit of posting seven or eight yuazz back home at the end of each month, to help with the housekeeping. And yet here he was, sending money long before the end of the month, and much more than usual. This was one of the few blots-blacker even than his adulterous liaison with his supreme superior's wife-on Wu Dawang's otherwise unsullied army record. The year he joined the army, at a little over twenty-two years old, he'd received six yuaa as a monthly allowance, the second year seven, the third eight and so on, enjoying an increase of one yuazz each year. Five years on, he still received only ten yuazz, every cent of which — beyond the one or two yuaiz he spent each month on toothpaste and soap-he sent back home. How he'd managed to save up the staggering sum of thirty yuan was therefore information he was anxious to keep classified.
He'd scrimped the money together from odds and ends of petty cash — only cents, not whole yiiaii — left over from the food shopping he did for the Division Commander's household. Although he knew this was no hanging offence, Wu Dawang was aware that embezzlement-however minor-was still embezzlement. As a result, whenever he bought anything he would up the price by one or two cents on the official record. His accounts were thus never anything less than perfectly square, for which both the Commander and Liu Lian had commended him. This thirty _yuan now in transit to his wife was the culmination of months of careful planning and scheming. It went some way toward relieving his troubled marital conscience, enabling him to pursue his recklessly passionate affair with Liu Lian with a lighter heart.
As he left the post office, the sun shining bright in a cloudless sky, a file of troops was marching along the main street, waving flags and banners and shouting abusive slogans at some new enemy of the state. After a month of the cloistered, underground existence he'd been leading with Liu Lian, the raw, revolutionary zeal of everyday life now struck him as unfamiliar, even alarming. He stood at the side of the street, watching, as if trying to work out whether the demonstration was in any way an attack on his degenerate entanglement with the Division Commander's wife. When, at last, the marchers had passed noisily on, he set off again on his bike.
By the time he arrived back, the Division was long gone. Only the lonely footsteps of the relief patrol echoed up and down the road that cut through the deserted barracks. Although the sparrows and cicadas were no louder or more numerous than before, their voices now seemed to reverberate deafeningly across the drill ground. Marching up and down, the patrols left behind now struck him as oddly unconvincing, as if they were playacting, the guns on their shoulders no more intimidating than flags or placards. As Wu Dawang approached the Division Commander's gate, a careless sparrow happened to shit on his cap, an event duly reported to him by the compound sentry from his duty platform. Wu Dawang paused, still holding on to his bicycle. `Do you know who I am?' he asked irritably. `I'm the company's Model Soldier. How dare you speak to me like that?'
I know who you are, Sergeant Wu,' the sentry replied. But there really is shit on your cap.'
As soon as he'd taken off his cap to see for himself, Wu Dawang smiled and wiped it off. `I'm the Division Commander's Orderly. Just let me know if there's anything you need help with.' Saying these few simple words made Wu Dawang's heart fairly sing with happiness, because the sentry thanked him for them as profusely as he would have the Division Commander himself.
In fact, since the start of his affair with Liu Lian, a subtle, psychological change had been taking place in Wu Dawang: sometimes he would catch himself imagining he was indeed Liu Lian's husband, the master of the household he served. Many times he had felt a secret, boastful urge to divulge to others some of the details of his relationship with Liu Lian. Only his revolutionary self-discipline-together with the fact that no one would have believed him, and the impossibility of guaranteeing his confidant's discretion — had so far sealed his lips.
As Wu Dawang wheeled his bike around to the back door, some of this new complacency must have shown on his face and in his manner, unwittingly triggering a startling new turn to their affair. Throwing his purchases into the kitchen, he glimpsed Liu Lian coming in the front door, carrying a few everyday toiletries toothpaste, soap, powder, face-cream, and so on. When she reached the doorway to the dining room, she glanced over at the Serve the People! sign on the dining table. But,) ust as she opened her mouth to speak, Wu Dawang tugged off his sweaty uniform and held it out to her. `Go and give that a wash.'