Before he was promoted to the Youth League Section, few girls had shown any interest in him. He was squat and nondescript, with narrow eyes and a round, pimply chin. These days, however, he found that once in a while a girl would shoot him a glance, but not those tall nurses, whose shoulders he could barely reach when standing in the same line with them to buy food. Yet his recent promotion had boosted his confidence to some extent, because it partly corroborated the prophecy, made by a fortune-teller in his hometown, that eventually he would rise above thousands of people. Indeed, his section was in charge of over a hundred branches of the Youth League, all together more than five thousand young men and women working along the railroads. What’s more, the section didn’t have a vice director yet. Several times his boss, Chang Bofan, had said to him in private, “You’ll have a bright future, Manjin. Work hard, our section will be yours. I shouldn’t be here.” True, Bofan was already forty-three, too old to run the Youth League.
Bofan also advised him to improve his handwriting, because the Political Department always needed cadres who could write well. Handsome penmanship would give him some leverage in his career; following the director’s advice, Manjin often stayed in the office after dinner and practiced his handwriting.
One evening in early July, after a hot bath at the guesthouse, he returned to his office and began copying the pen calligraphy of Chairman Mao. The window overlooked the vast square in front of the train station. The dusk was turning purple, and some automobiles passing by had their lights on. A few food vendors gathered at the roadside, shaking bells and crying for customers.
Manjin hadn’t copied half a page when the door opened. In came Bofan, Shuwei, and four other men. One of them wore a pistol and two carried wooden sticks under their arms; they all held long flashlights. “Manjin,” Shuwei said, “are you going to join us?”
“For what?” asked Manjin.
“It’s already eight o’clock. Liu Benchou and Wang Tingting are still in her office. We’re sure they’ll do something tonight, and we mean to catch them.” Shuwei’s mouth bunched up like a snout, his gray mustache spreading fan-shaped.
Manjin took a flashlight out of his desk drawer, but they didn’t leave immediately, as they were waiting for the right time. He wondered why on earth Tingting was so attracted to Benchou, a married man who was old enough to be her uncle. How could this dark fellow be superior to those young dandies with powerful fathers?
The door opened again. A slender clerk tiptoed in, reporting with a grin, “They went down to his office.”
Two men stood up, about to make for the door. “No rush,” Bofan said. “Let them warm their bellies down there for a while.”
So they waited another ten minutes.
When they were approaching Benchou’s office with their shoes in their hands, they heard half-smothered giggles coming from inside. Shuwei looked through the keyhole, but no light was on in there. Then came Tingting’s panting and moaning. “Yes, yes, like this! Oh, my fingers and toes are all tingling.”
“Ah, you’re so good,” Benchou groaned. He chuckled some, then hummed the obscene tune of “Little Girl, Grow Up Quick.”
Bofan whispered to Shuwei and Manjin, “Go to the backyard and wait at the window. Don’t let them get away.”
They left noiselessly along the corridor as Bofan pounded on the door and yelled, “Open the door, open it now!”
Something crashed in there. Bofan shouted again, “If you don’t open the door, we’ll force it. Comrades Liu Benchou and Wang Tingting, you’ve made a mistake, but it will be a matter of a different nature if your attitude is so stubborn.”
Manjin, Shuwei, and another man hurried out of the building and ran toward the window. The second they arrived there, the window popped open and out jumped a person, who landed on the ground and began crawling away. “Don’t move,” Shuwei shouted.
Three flashlight shafts were fixed on the person, who was Tingting. She rolled under a Yellow River truck parked nearby. At this moment all the lights in the office were turned on. Manjin heard Bofan, inside, order loudly, “Hold him! Take his belt off.”
Tingting was trembling, covering her eyes with one arm, her other hand on the ground supporting her upper body. Apparently she saw the stick in Shuwei’s hands and was afraid he would strike her. “You come out,” he said. “We won’t hit you.”
“I, I. .” Her teeth were chattering and she couldn’t speak. They pulled her out while she was sobbing.
“Stinking broken shoe!” the other man cursed.
Manjin felt uneasy, seeing that Tingting had lost all her charm, her permed hair bedraggled. She looked much older, as though in her forties, five or six wrinkles on her forehead.
They took her back to Benchou’s office, where a man was busy shooting photographs of the tangled sheets, quilts, and pillows on the cement floor. A used condom was lying beside Benchou’s blue cap; the photographer took a picture of that, too. On the tip of a stick held by a man were Tingting’s panties, which were decorated with white fringe and a swarm of lavender butterflies. Benchou hung his head, holding his pants with both hands; his face was marked with reddish patches; obviously they had slapped him. As Shuwei was putting the condom and a few pubic hairs into an envelope with a pair of chopsticks, Bofan said, “All right, we have the adulterer and the adulteress and the evidence. Let’s take them to the Cadre Section.”
Benchou and Tingting were led into different rooms. The interrogation didn’t start immediately. Manjin wondered why Bofan and the others wouldn’t hurry to interrogate them. They were smoking, reading newspapers, and drinking tea in another office, where three men were playing checkers.
When Director Tan Na arrived an hour later, Manjin was told to join in questioning Tingting. His task was to take notes. Tan Na presided over the interrogation, at which Bofan and Shuwei were also present.
“Comrade Wang Tingting,” Tan Na started huskily, “you made a grievous mistake, but don’t panic. You still have a chance to redeem yourself.”
Tingting nodded, her thin lips bloodless and her eyes dim and sheepish. She dared not look at anybody.
Tan Na went on, “First, tell us how many times you and Benchou had sexual intercourse.”
“I’m not sure,” she muttered.
“Does this mean more than once?”
Tingting remained silent. Tan Na said again, “Come on, Wang Tingting, the honey season isn’t over yet. How can you be so forgetful?”
Seeing that she was too stubborn to answer, Bofan rose to his feet, picked up a sheaf of paper filled with handwriting, and told her, “Look here, Liu Benchou has already confessed everything. Why should you still try to protect him? Now it’s up to you to show us a good attitude. We don’t have to hear anything from your mouth.” He sucked his teeth, two of which, the front ones, were rimmed with stainless steel.
Tingting trembled. Her large eyes turned around, looking from one face to another. Manjin could tell she was terrified by Bofan’s words. He was surprised too, because the other group hadn’t begun interrogating the adulterer yet.
“That’s right,” said Director Tan, whose doughy face and slit eyes were absolutely still. “We just want to see your attitude. Now, tell us how many times.”
“Four.”
“Where did they take place?”
“In his office.”
“All four times?”