Lin sat down on a boulder and lit a cigarette. The hospital sprawled beneath him, a few windows of the medical building flickering in the setting sun. From the hill slope, the compound looked like a large factory encircled by a thick line of aspens planted along the brick wall. In the east some red rooftops were obscured by wisps of smoke. The humming of the traffic in the city could be heard vaguely. Lin sighed, his heart aching, and he began thinking about what had happened just now. Why had she made a spectacle of him on purpose? Did she hate him so much? She should have appreciated his concern for her health, shouldn't she? A woman's heart was so unpredictable. What a shame it was to be humiliated in front of so many people.
It serves you right, he thought. You're a husband and a father; you shouldn't have started this affair. You asked for trouble and deserve this kind of humiliation. Why can't you wash your hands of this woman? Why do you allow her to clasp and yank your heart like an octopus? You are so cheap that the more distant she is from you, the more you're attracted to her. Enough of this insanity! You must pluck her out of your chest, or she'll eat up your insides like a worm.
As he was smoking and thinking, Manna emerged from behind an apple-pear tree, striding toward him. Her breathing was heavy and her face carmine. He got to his feet, puzzled, wondering how he should greet her.
Before he knew what to do, she rushed over and embraced him. Racked with sobs, she buried her face in his chest.
"I can't stand this anymore!" she moaned. "I can't. I didn't mean to do that. "
"Don't, don't cry."
"I'm bad, so bad," she whimpered. She held him tighter, her arms trembling with the strain. Her hair smelled of ginger and scal-lion; obviously she had worked in the kitchen before dinner.
"Manna, it's not a big thing," he said. "You see, I haven't taken it to heart. I forgot it already." He looked around, fearful of being seen, as the thought came to him that they had broken the rule that prohibited such a meeting outside the wall.
She raised her eyes, which were radiating an intense light. Then she lowered her head and giggled hysterically. "I'm an old maid, a thirty-year-old virgin, do you know?"
"Don't talk like this."
"That's why I'm so cranky, I guess."
"You've drunk too much. "
"No, I just had two mugs."
"That's more than you can hold."
"By the way, don't you want to know I'm still a virgin? Never been touched by any man."
"Manna, you've lost your mind. You shouldn't – "
"Come on, can't you deflower an old maid? Don't you want to do it to me?" She let go of him and broke out laughing, which turned into coughing and more sobbing.
"Let's go back, dear." He slipped his arm under hers.
"Can't you do it to me?" she cried.
"Don't, don't – "
"Are you a man or not? You have a fearful heart like a rabbit's. Come on, do it to me!"
"All right, it's all my fault. I'm a good-for-nothing. Let's go back. "
Despite her struggling and sobbing, he pulled her down the slope, holding her upper arm with both hands. All the way down she kept whimpering, "Do it, do it to me. I want to give you a baby."
He dared not take her to the dormitory by the front way, so he pulled her through the neat rows of aspens to the back door of the dormitory house. Coming out of the grove, they ran into a group of nurses who had just left work and were heading for the mess hall. Before the young women could greet them, Lin said, "Manna has drunk too much." Hurriedly he dragged her past. The nurses turned around and watched the couple staggering away.
For a week Manna was the topic of the hospital. She had set a record: For the first time a woman on the staff had gotten drunk at a holiday dinner. The word was that she could easily outdrink most men.
After being shaken by this holiday incident, Lin began to think seriously about getting a divorce. He decided to bring it up with Shuyu the next summer.
11
After telling Lin that she would be back around mid-aftenoon, Shuyu left for their family plot with a short rake on her shoulder and a straw hat on her head. She grew pumpkins, taros, corn, and glutinous millet on their squarish half-acre of land, about five hundred yards west of the village. The soil was fertile, and the produce was more than she and Hua could use, so her brother Ben-sheng would sell the surplus for her in Wujia County and Six Stars, which was a nearby commune town. Shuyu seldom worked in the production brigade's fields, since she had to take care of the child and the home. The money Lin sent back each month helped her make ends meet.
Lin was reading a picture-story book under their eaves with Hua sitting on his lap. The baby girl held a thick scallion leaf, now and again blowing it as a whistle. The toots sounded like a sheep bleating. In front of the house was a deep well walled up with bricks to prevent the child and the poultry from falling into it. Because of her bound feet, Shuyu couldn't fetch water from the communal well with a shoulder pole and a pair of buckets as others did, so Lin had had the well sunk in their yard four years before. To the right of it stretched a footway, paved with bricks, leading to the front gate. Beside the pigpen, a white hen was scraping away dirt and making go-go-go sounds to call a flock of chicks, the smallest of which was dragging a broken leg. It was warm and windless; the air reeked of dried dung.
Without Lin's noticing, Hua opened her mouth. Her cracked lips clamped on the front of his T-shirt and pulled. He lowered his eyes and looked at her in puzzlement. She said, "Daddy, I'm hungry." Her soiled palm touched his chest, fondling its left side.
He gave a laugh, which baffled her. She looked up at him without blinking. He said, "Hua, a man can't feed a baby like your mom. I have no breasts, see?" He pulled up the T-shirt and showed her his flat chest. A mole like a tiny raisin was under his right nipple. She looked confused, her dark eyes wide open.
"Would you like some cookies?" he asked.
"Uh-huh."
He put aside the book, picked her up, and set her astride his neck. Father and daughter went to the village store to buy cookies.
At dinner that evening Lin described to his wife how Hua had wanted to suck his nipple. Shuyu smiled and said, "Silly girl."
"She's almost four," he said. "You should stop breast-feeding her, shouldn't you?"
"Mother's milk keeps a baby healthy, you know." She took his bowl and refilled it with pumpkin porridge. "Have some more," she said.
"Does Hua often mention me when I'm away?"
"Yes, of course. Sometimes she says, 'I miss daddy.' It's the blood tie, she doesn't know you that well."
He turned to his daughter. "Did you really miss me?"
"Yeah."
"Can you show how you missed me?"
The baby placed both hands on her stomach, saying, "Miss you here."
He laughed, then tears came to his eyes. He held his daughter up, set her on his lap, and moved her bowl closer so that she could reach it. Before she could go on eating, he smacked a kiss on her chafed face and then wiped her nose clean with a piece of straw paper.
Though Shuyu and Lin slept in different rooms at night, he enjoyed being at home, especially playing with his daughter. He liked the home-cooked food, most of which was fresh and tasty. The multigrain porridge, into which Shuyu always urged him to put some brown sugar though she wouldn't take any herself, was so soft and delicious that he could eat three bowls at a meal without feeling stuffed. The eggs sauteed with leeks or scallions would make his belches redolent of the dish even hours later. The steamed string beans seasoned with sesame oil and mashed garlic gave him a feeling of ease and freedom, because he would never dare touch such a homely dish in the hospital for fear of garlicky breath. What is more, it was so relaxing to be with his family. There was no reveille, and he didn't have to rise at 5:30 for morning exercises. When their black rooster announced daybreak, Lin would wake up, then go back to sleep again. The morning snooze was the sweetest to him. He had been home four days already. If only he could stay for a whole month.