Chapter 28
After waving the last ‘bye, bye’ to their friends, Bing and Vivian milled about the station, in the midst of thousands of students waiting to flock back to their origin. As repeatedly broadcast, the martial law would be enforced, and the army was to clear the Tiananmen Square any time soon.
Obviously their trip was going to be a battle. If only for himself, Bing would mind the least. But how could Vivian cope with it?
‘Vivian, it is going to be very crowded,’ he said, carrying Vivian’s small suitcase. ‘I don’t think we can find a seat in the hard-seat section.’
‘No problem. I am okay standing,’ she said easily, who was today attired with a skirt, light blue, and a shirt of which stiff collar spoke much of her character.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, like all others, why do we have to be different?’
So they moved slowly on, among the passengers swelling like sea waves. In a while Bing hesitated again. He couldn’t tolerate the idea of Vivian being squeezed by this mass.
‘Vivian, this won’t do, ’ he said. ‘We had better go and buy the hard-bed tickets.’
‘Well, if you like,’ she chose to agree with him.
The ticket window was not as crowded as elsewhere, which was reasonable, for few students would like to spend money when they could board the hard-seats for free.
In the queue Bing was concerned whether he had enough money for two tickets. And his wonder must have been sensed by Vivian, who presently opened her bag and from it produced a fifty-Yuan note, and put into his hand. ‘Should this be enough?’ she said.
Bing’s replied, humorously, ‘No, I don’t think so. We need at least another fifty.’ He bared his palm as if begging.
Vivian, under his mischievous look, stood a moment shy. A thin colour seemed to tint her face. She thrust her hand into her bag, fumbling a while, before pulling it out as a fist, that she put directly into his palm. ‘Fine, fine, here you are,’ she said, granting him a chance to touch her hand and pry it open.
And Bing didn’t miss it. And from that moment onwards their hands, like those of lovers, often clasped each other. All the way through the throng, towards their hard-bed compartment, he acted as her protector, holding her closely to himself, feeling her softness against him.
But their beds were not at the same level. He let her take the lower one, to save her from climbing, while himself took the one in the middle of the opposite bunk. When the train finally rolled off, all the beds were occupied. He had once thought of swapping beds with the man under him, but to avoid the trouble he gave it up.
It was still early in the evening. No one could really sleep at this time. So Bing and Vivian sat on her bed. The man at their opposite was smoking, who was very bulky, with a mouthful of bad teeth and yellow fingers. And, probably excited for some reason, he sat up and lay down in frequent turns, making the sort of noise like rats’. The worst was he tended to glance, or more precisely leer at Vivian for a second too long.
So Bing was ill at ease.
Softly Vivian pressed his hand, and said, ‘You look a bit tired. Do you want to drink or eat something?’
Looking into her eyes, he was momentarily amused, and replied her playfully, ‘Yes, I am hungry, actually, starving.’
The truth was he had a lot of things to do with her, to tell her a lot of thoughts. So unexpectedly had they come to this delicious moment that more private time was necessary to enhance it, to water the seed of their love, to ensure his happiness was not a mere dream, not an illusion that had frequented him ever since he was attracted to her.
Now, his eyes turned to the little table at the window. A woman sat there, idle and expressionless, reflecting every attribute of the monotonous train. If she left, they could possess the two little seats, better than sitting in the bed.
But the woman stayed like a nail fastened to seat; so he had to wait, so did Vivian. They were trapped in a clumsy framework in which they couldn’t talk freely in lover’s words, let alone more audacious behaviour.
At length, the woman was gone. Immediately he grabbed Vivian’s hand, rose and moved to the window.
He couldn’t help but grin, in his imagination that the man must have been very disappointed with Vivian’s departure.
‘Why are you smiling? What now is in your mind?’ she asked, in a curious smile.
‘Well, I just try to rid my mind of anything else but you,’ he replied in English.
‘Only me?’ she asked, in disbelief.
‘Yes,’ he caught her eyes, ‘only you.’
‘Where are those girls with whom you have been together?’
‘They have left me,’ he said lightly.
‘They left you? Or you have left them?’
‘Is there any difference?’
She paused as if to ponder. ‘No, actually, no difference. If they left you, you must have treated them badly; if you left them, you as well have treated them badly. So there is no difference.’
For a second or two, he was dumb, not knowing how to respond to her so shrewd a comment. So Vivian picked up her own thread of thoughts. ‘See, either way, you are a bad person,’ she chuckled.
Then he laughed, narrowing his eyes, and looking at her amusedly. ‘Yes, I am bad, and may turn worse at any moment. Are you afraid?’
She didn’t reply. She was flushed. The air between them was pregnant with the notion of love. Her radiant eyes tried in a vague effort to evade his look. He reached out his hand and pulled her hand over and placed it on the desk. Then opening her palm he began to inspect it like a fortune-teller. He also with his fingertip drew little circles on her palm, or out of habit wrote ‘Long live Mao Tse-tung’s thoughts’ and ‘Long live the victory of great cultural revolution,’ again and again. The tickle would make her wriggle, but most of the time she endured it, without pulling it back or letting out her laughter. This pleasure lasted one or two minutes, before she said surprisingly, ‘Do you like me?’
He didn’t raise his eyes, but answered her clearly, ‘Yes.’
‘How, and when?’
‘A long time ago.’
‘Impossible!’
Bing stopped drawing, and held her hand, and looked at her mysteriously, while Vivian said more, ‘You have never talked to me. You have a lot of girl friends. Ha, look at your fans, with their eyes watching you, so greedy.’
‘Did they? I hardly noticed that, not quite seeing the audience when I play.’
‘You know last night, after you have left, we all talked about you.’
‘About me?’
‘We guessed you are either in love, or you have just lost love.’
‘Really?’ he smiled, ‘So what do you think?’
But Vivian went on hastily, ‘Tell me then, have you just broken up with your girlfriend, which was the reason you went to Beijing?’
‘No, although I did have a girlfriend, if that is the right word, a few months ago.’
‘You mean you are not with anybody now?’
‘Now? Of course I am; I am with someone,’ he said, and leaning forward, he took her hand again.
Then quite a while they did not talk. He pulled the little curtain open, and looked outside. It was dusky. The landscape was subtle, as if in mist or dream. The trees were still, and the houses flitted by, and his heart seemed to echo the rumbles of the train.
‘Why don’t you ask about me?’ she said.
Returning his eyes to her, he replied, ‘I don’t need to.’ He paused to let his eyes sink further into hers. ‘And I know you like me, from yesterday, or precisely, from last night.’
‘Oh, Wang Bing,’ she said, a little blushed, ‘You are kidding.’
He didn’t give her an answer. Instead, he sent out his hand, reached over and up to her ears. ‘You know it, don’t you?’ he whispered.
No answer. Her eyes were dissolving him.
He got up and led her to the carriage junction. The air was cool, or cold. There was a man standing at one side, so they took the other.
They began to kiss, with Bing’s back leaning against the solid glass, and his hands cupping her face as if to drink. And he drank slowly, and carefully, well matching the rhythm of the moving train. Her lips were like two warmed-up rose petals; her breath steamed his cheeks. The tongues tipped each other; they probed, and entwined, like two swans in a lake.
The embrace took its time, until they loosened each other to make a valley above their waists.
‘Are you tired?’ he said.
‘No,’ she rolled her eyes. ‘And yes.’
He touched her lips, and said, ‘Your mouth is very ambiguous.’
She opened her mouth, and caught his finger, and bit him. ‘But my teeth are very unambiguous.’
‘Ouch…’ the pain was real. He pulled it out, and kissed or sucked it himself. ‘It is bleeding,’ he mumbled, ‘I taste blood.’
Her eyes seemed to pity him. She took his finger out of his mouth, moved it back towards her own. He feared she was to bite him again, and wished to withdraw. But it was too late, for it was already between her lips.
She didn’t bite him; she treated it the same way as himself.
‘My finger is dirty,’ he said.
She released it, so as to speak, ‘Yes, it makes my mouth dirty.’
He smiled, with an affection arising for her. She caressed his finger, and asked in a voice that must be the tenderest in the world, ‘Still pained?’
‘Yes, still,’ he said. ‘And forever.’
And the valley was closed again.
When they finally came back to the bed, the man was snoring. But Bing preferred his snoring to his creepy ogling.
Bing said to Vivian, ‘You take a rest, so shall I.’
He climbed to his bunk, where he unfolded the provided blanket, and lay down. But without a pillow he was not comfortable. Other passengers, now all asleep, used their luggage to prop up their heads. But the small bag he had, with the washing gear in it, was not suitable for the support.
He turned to Vivian, who, with her hands under her head, was staring upwards. Then she turned to him, as if she had sensed his gaze. He made a gesture of kiss, and shaped his mouth for ‘Good Night’ and, turning aside his body, he found himself in serious need of slumber.
Kissing was indeed a tiring business. So he slept well.
Or not, for he woke up to find it was not in the morning. It was so quiet. The monotonous voice of the train, and the passengers’ low or high snoring, and some murmurs at the far end of the carriage, didn’t count. His first thought was for Vivian. His eyes turned to her bed. In the dim light, he saw only a thin, crumpled blanket on it. At one moment, he was not clear enough to comprehend anything unusual, but at the next, he was alarmed, ‘Where is she?’ A pang of loss seemed to clutch his heart. It was as if all his remembered happiness with her was nothing but one of his wishful dreams.
He sat up, and immediately coming to his eyes was her profile at the desk of the window. The curtain was half open. There was only the darkness outside, but she was looking into it. Her face was obscured by her hair. Her chin was rested on her hand, which stood by her elbow on the desk. Unaware of his attention, she sat quiet, with a special charm in her unusual solitude.
He shifted his body about the small bed, and went down gingerly the side-stairs to sit also at the desk.
‘You didn’t sleep?’ he asked.
Smiling, she said, ‘I couldn’t sleep. Could you?’
‘I thought I had some.’
She gazed at him, and then with a feminine softness so touching, and so poignantly appealing, she repeated, ‘I couldn’t sleep.’
He touched her cheek. His heart beat fast, and faster. She lifted her hand to hold his, which was for the moment fondling her ear. He caught her fingers, and kissed them gently. Her fingers trembled, with his lips.
They went to her bed.
She lay on side, with her face to the wall. He pulled the blanket to cover them both. Then he embraced her full from behind, with his arm placed under her head as a pillow for her, and for himself.
The snuggle somehow assuaged his excitement. It was soft and warm. He hugged her in this position for what seemed to be an eternity. It was both calm and persistent inflation of life.
Then, as if bearing no more her facing only the wall, she was turning, with a wriggling effort due to the limited room. At last, her face reached his.
The tiny bed was being used in a most economical manner. And soon, even more economical, was his lying with his belly upon hers. Now, a love, more serious than any in the books he had read, was being made in the dim light, in the snoring and rattling sound, in an air of musty smell not being smelled, in a train that was carrying thousands of students at the time of China’s long-lasting turmoil.
He wondered, while hovering above her field, whether he should yield to his sensible call, and not to really plug himself into her. But his sense gave way to his sensuality. Nervously, or savagely, he dived in. For now, even death was not a matter to fear, let alone a child. It was like cutting a mountain with his penis, perhaps the Everest, into two halves.
Nevertheless he was still alert very much like a human being. Whenever he heard some feet moving about the floor, or a snore dramatically changing its volume, or its frequency, he would immediately stop his motion on top of her, to feign sleep, and to resume, as soon as the environment was deemed friendly and harmless, their audacious love.
He couldn’t see her expression clearly, for his kisses smothered her face all the time. Under him, she was like a lamb, amazingly submissive, to the greatest contrast to his former estimate about her, who had always been exceptionally proud, and haughty, more than an ordinarily conceited Shanghainese.
However, at certain points of time, she did demonstrate the exertion of her vitality, when her hands gripped his back so hard that he felt a hurting yet delicious pain.
And it seemed to last unusually long. Whether it was due to his slower and more cautious movements in the confinement, or due to his truer and purer love, he didn’t know. It was indeed the first time he had so much desired for a permanent connection with another soul.
When he came at last, he felt, absurdly, like a tyrant, like a merciless brute on her and inside her; and even more absurd, was that he had a dramatic vision of the Great Wall collapsing in front of him.
But they were not dying like Meng Jiang Nu and her husband. Amid the ebbing tide of his ardour he continued to kiss her, with all the compassion in his heart, as if he had injured her, or even killed her.
They arranged their clothes and sat up. It was still night time. The air was like nothing had ever happened.
‘I love you,’ he breathed to her ears, in English.
She turned, and held his head with her hands, and kissed him.
‘You can sleep now,’ he said.
She made a face, ‘No, still not.’
‘Then come up to my bed,’ he said, playfully.
She leant against his shoulder. ‘Let me sit sleeping like this. I don’t know how to sleep without a pillow.’
This gave him an idea. He got up and took the blanket from his bed, folded it and laid it on her bed. So they lay together, now with a proper pillow. Vivian, tired as she must have been, was slowly into perhaps a beautiful dream. He placed his arm under her head, and kept his position unchanged in case she might be disturbed, until the pale dawn began to creep into the train. The man, and other men and women, one after another, were evidently affected by the light. They were fidgety, bustling like hens in an early morning.
The noise must have interrupted Vivian’s dream, for she suddenly lifted her eyelids.
He said, ‘Good morning,’ and with his fingers caressing her eyes, he added, ‘did you have a dream?’
She blinked, ‘No, I heard only a rooster crowing.’
‘Haha, this is marvellous, I am thinking of a hen, and you of a rooster.’ He stooped to give her a morning kiss, and at the same time freed his arm that had been strained under her head for hours. ‘If you think I am a rooster, then you are…’
She kissed him.
He noticed the man, and some others were peering at them more openly. But after the night, Bing was turned into a bold, and practical, and shameless, and thick-skinned person.
Because of her.
