“No, we were at another place once.”
“Where was that?”
“On the train to Changchun.”
“You mean in a berth?”
“Yes.”
“Weren’t you afraid of being caught?”
“It was in the middle of the night.”
Tan Na pointed two fingers at her and said sharply, “What I mean is, don’t you feel ashamed to do such a thing in a public place?”
Tingting didn’t answer but gave a sob instead. Bofan and Shuwei smirked; Tan Na remained expressionless. She went on. “Was that the first time?”
“No, the third time.”
“All right, tell us why you had such an abnormal relationship with him. Didn’t you know he was married? Didn’t you know it was illegal for him to sleep with you?”
“I knew, but. .” She wiped the tears off her cheeks.
“But what?”
“He said he’d help me know what a man was like.”
“When did he say that?”
“Toward the end of May.”
“Where?”
“In his office.”
“Why did you go to his office alone? To deliver yourself?”
“No. That afternoon we all pulled up grass in the backyard. After the work, I went to his office to return a hoe.”
“And that’s when he started?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He explained why the male organ was called a ‘cock.’ ”
“What did he say?”
“He said that by nature it was always restless and about to fly.”
For a moment nobody said a word. Tan Na’s eyes moved to Shuwei, who was wheezing, trying hard not to laugh. Then she returned to Tingting and asked, “What did he do next?”
“He, he held me, fondled my breasts, and drew up my skirt.”
“Why didn’t you stop him?”
“How could I? You don’t know how much strength he has.”
Bofan and Shuwei covered their mouths with their palms. Tan Na asked, “What else did he say?”
“I was scared. He said he wouldn’t hurt me. I was afraid his wife might know. He said he didn’t go to bed with her very often, and she couldn’t know because she was so cold.”
“What did he mean by that? What exactly did he say?”
“He said she, she had a cold pussy and couldn’t feel anything.”
Shuwei chuckled, but stopped at Director Tan’s stare. Manjin was shocked by Tingting’s words, wondering why she divulged so much. She wouldn’t betray Benchou on purpose, would she? Heaven knew why she made a fool of him and his wife like this. Maybe she did this to protect herself, or maybe she was mad at him.
Tan Na asked again, “How did you two have sexual intercourse the first time?”
“What do you mean?” Tingting’s eyes flapped.
“Who was atop whom?”
“He was on me.”
“From the front?”
“Yes.”
“From the behind?”
“Yes.”
“How deep did he get into you?”
“Hmm — I don’t know.” She blushed, her eyes fixed on the floor.
“Give us a guess.”
“Maybe four or five inches.”
“How was that for you?”
She answered almost inaudibly, “It was all right.”
Tan Na thumped the glass desktop with her palm and stood up. Pointing at Tingting’s face, she said, “Your file says clearly that you were a virgin when our company hired you. Didn’t you lie to us? You were already a broken thing, weren’t you?”
“No. He was my first man,” she groaned. “I swear to heaven that I was a virgin then. You can ask him.” Her right hand pointed back at the empty office behind her, as though Benchou were in there.
“All right,” Bofan put in, “Wang Tingting, you seem pretty honest. You understand the nature of your mistake, don’t you?”
“Yes, I think so.”
Tan Na said, “I don’t understand why you’ve become such a rotten thing. All right, let’s stop here for tonight. You go back and write out your confession about the four times. Write down everything you remember and examine the bourgeois nature of this affair.” Beads of sweat dotted Tan Na’s puffy cheeks.
“May I ask the Party a favor?” Tingting said timidly.
“What?”
“Please don’t let my home village know of this. My younger sister’s going to be engaged soon.”
“Okay, but you must show us your regret and a sincere attitude.”
Manjin felt disgusted with Tingting, who was so gullible and had fallen for a middle-aged man so easily. Was she the same girl who had turned his breath tight whenever he ran into her? According to her own words, Benchou had hardly done anything unusual to seduce her. Why was she so cheap? If this had been just for sex, why hadn’t she done it with one of those younger men?
The interrogation of Benchou didn’t go smoothly, because he was experienced in this sort of thing. However hard they tried to coax him into confessing the truth, he would insist he had slept with Tingting only once, and he thanked the Party and his comrades for stopping him in time. Finally when they showed him her confession with her signature and thumbprint on the last page, he shuddered in sweat, sniffling and cursing her. “Oh,” he moaned, rubbing his temples with both hands, “I should’ve made the slut bleed, virgin as she was! She swore she wouldn’t tell.”
Manjin stuffed Tingting’s panties into an envelope, sealed it, and put it in her file, together with the confession. He helped Bofan draft a lengthy report on the affair. Within five days, orders were issued regarding the adulterer. Because of his stubborn attitude, Benchou was sent to work as a loader in the Cargo Service at the train station. It was said that his wife was filing for divorce. These days Tingting kept the door of her office shut; the typewriter no longer clicked with a crisp rhythm but with a slow, broken clatter. None of those dandies came to see her anymore. Three weeks later she was removed from the staff and assigned to the Telegram Station to be an apprentice in telegraphy.
A new typist came, a homely girl, bony and with a mouth like a catfish’s. Word went out that the leaders meant to have an unattractive typist in the Political Department from now on, so that no man would fall into the same trap as Benchou and be beguiled by beauty. As a result, the usual gossip about the typist soon disappeared.
Many people were not satisfied with the punishment Tingting had received. In the long run, telegraphy would be a better profession than typing; you could send and transcribe telegrams for thirty or forty years before retirement, whereas you could type well only so long as you were young and had good eyesight. Chang Bofan often said to his clerks, “This is unfair. In our new society, men and women must be equal — equal in work, in pay, and in punishment.” Sometimes he insinuated that Tingting must have had unusual connections among the top leaders of the company.
At the dormitory, Manjin’s roommates asked him to tell them about Tingting’s affair. They had heard he’d taken part in the interrogation. But whenever they tried to make him talk about it, he would either remain silent or change the topic. Dahu, a bricklayer in the Construction Brigade, even proposed to treat him to a lamb dinner if Manjin told him everything, but Manjin refused, saying, “Come on, you’re only interested in matters inside the pants. Nothing is so extraordinary as you’ve imagined.” He despised those brazen, uneducated men.
In the Workers Dining Hall he found that more and more girls would glance at him. The tall basketball center once even smiled at him. He noticed she had a good appetite — eating half a pound of rice or steamed bread or corn pancakes at a meal — but he was never brave enough to speak to her. He admired her long fingers, large feet, shapely bust, and strong legs. Whenever her team played on the company’s sports ground, he would go and watch. He liked seeing the girls in blue shorts and red T-shirts. He felt attracted to almost every one of them. If only he were four inches taller.