ally, he said, “Don’t give me that act.” Her parents lived in another province, and after such humiliations she would call them up in a tearful mood, but then force herself to be cheerful, telling them that everything was fine and not to worry.
Her story made me feel sad. I took her face in my hands and kissed her eyes, tickling her until she smiled. She said she had noticed me from early on and realized that I was a hard worker, observing too that when an office slacker claimed credit for my achievements, I never made an issue of this. I told her there were times when I was really angry and wanted to give him a piece of my mind, but I found I just couldn’t get the words out.
“Sometimes I hate how weak I am,” I told her.
“You won’t get tough with me, will you?” she said, caressing my face affectionately.
“Certainly not,” I said.
When the other young men in the company pursued her in their various fashions, she told me, I seemed to remain completely cold. That’s what got her curious and that’s why she came over to ask questions and study my reaction; she found that I gave her a simple, friendly glance quite different from the way her other male coworkers looked at her. Later, that incident of the suitor declaring his love on his knees left her with a positive impression, for she quietly observed how amid the laughter I collected the man’s possessions and delivered them to him. She paused for a moment, and then said that the more favor she enjoyed in the business world, the more lonesome she felt when she returned at night to her rented room — that was when she really wanted to be with someone she loved. When we happened to meet in the elevator and my eyes got wet, she suddenly felt the warmth of another person’s concern, and in the days that followed she became more and more convinced that I was the right man for her.
Then she pinched my nose. “Why didn’t you pursue me?”
“I just lack ambition,” I said.
We married a year later. My father’s dorm unit was too small to accommodate all three of us, so we rented a one-bedroom apartment as our new home. My father was overjoyed that I was marrying such an able and attractive wife. And Li Qing was good to him: on weekends, when he stayed overnight with us, we would both go meet him, and after we all crowded onto the bus she could always somehow find him a seat. This reminded me of the first time I saw her, and I would smile at the thought. During Spring Festival we took the train to see her parents, who worked at a state-owned factory. Kind and down-to-earth, they were happy that their daughter had married a solid, dependable man.
Our married life was calm and happy. She continued to escort the boss to business dinners, however. After dark I would wait at home alone and often she would get back very late and very tired. I would smell alcohol on her breath when I hugged her, and she would rest her head on my chest for a bit before we went to bed. She hated these boisterous banquets but found it impossible to decline such invitations, for by this time she was the deputy head of public relations. She didn’t care for this position, which in her words amounted pretty much to “deputy head of swigging and swilling.” “Beauty is a woman’s travel permit,” she once said to me. But she was using the permit for the company’s benefit, never for herself.
After a couple of years we began planning the purchase of an apartment of our own, and at the same time decided it was time to have a child — she thought that then she would have a compelling reason to turn down those tiresome engagements. So she stopped using contraception. It was precisely at this point, however, that events took a different course. A chance encounter on a business trip drove home to her the difference between us: she was the kind of person who could shape her own destiny, whereas I could only be carried along by my own fate.
The person sitting next to her on the plane was a Ph.D., recently returned from the United States. Ten years older than she, with a wife and child, he had just started up his own business, and during their two-hour flight he spoke with passion about his glowing prospects. I think it must have been her looks that first attracted him, inspiring him to wax so eloquent and say so much, and having attended so many functions with our CEO she was well-positioned to give him helpful advice. Enchanted by her beauty, he must have soon been impressed by her acuteness of observation and attention to detail, and so he issued an invitation right there on the plane: “Why don’t you join me?”
When they reached their destination, he didn’t stay at the hotel that he had booked but moved to the one where she was staying, to show how much he valued her advice. That’s what he said, at least, but I suspect it was something else he was after. During the day they worked separately at their jobs and in the evenings they sat down at the hotel bar to discuss the challenges of entrepreneurship. She was full of ideas. Not only did she brainstorm new business strategies, she also briefed him on the subtle arts of getting things done in China, like how to cozy up to government officials and supply them with perks. After all those years in America, he was a bit out of touch with the unspoken rules that govern Chinese realities. When the two went their separate ways, he again expressed his interest in working with her. She smiled and did not answer, but gave him her home phone number.
In her heart, a change was taking place. To our CEO, she had good looks and a good head on her shoulders, but he never realized the full extent of her talent and ambition. Now, at last, she felt she had found someone who could truly understand her.
After she got home, she resumed her use of contraception, saying it was too soon to have a child. Then every evening he would call and she would talk to him on the phone, sometimes for an hour, sometimes twice that. At the beginning it was often I who answered the calls, but later I stopped picking up when the phone rang. Initially, it was all about business: he asked her questions, she pondered for a minute, then answered him. Later, she would just hold the phone and listen to him talk, saying very little herself. After hanging up she would fall into deep thought, and it would be a while before she realized that I was sitting there and forced a smile. I could tell that their topic had moved on. I said nothing, but my heart was racked with pain.
Six months later he arrived in our city, by which time he had already finalized his divorce. After dinner that day she told me she was going round to his hotel. I sat on the sofa the whole evening, my mind completely blank, as though I’d lost the capacity for thought. She didn’t return until dawn. Expecting me to be asleep, she opened the door carefully, only to find me sitting on the sofa. She gave a start, then came over timidly and sat down next to me.
She had always been such a confident woman, and this was the first time I had seen her so ill at ease. Her head bowed, she told me shakily that the man had got divorced for her sake. She felt she belonged with him — they were such an ideal match. I said nothing. He had divorced his wife for her, she repeated. I noticed the emphatic tone in her voice and I thought: Any man would be willing to get divorced for your sake. But I said nothing, knowing I had lost her. With me she would only have a humdrum, uneventful life, whereas with him she could build up a whole business. In fact, six months earlier I had already had the faint awareness that she would leave me, and this sensation had only grown stronger during the intervening time. Now that premonition had become fact.