The Bathing Women. Tie Ning

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СКАЧАТЬ accent bravely in that ancient, xenophobic city. Beijing! Beijing had never known there were several young women like this who had tried in vain to bring their culture to a strange city. Even though Beijing had never needed and would never need their sacrifice, Tiao and her friends insisted on such devotion. But the man in front of her, this man, what had he done for Beijing? He already considered himself a Beijinger. Besides, his mention of her graduation assignment annoyed her. How could she discuss personal business like her graduation assignment with a stranger? In short, nothing felt right. She resented the attitude of her roommate and her own silliness—she very much wanted to use this word to describe herself. She felt a bit sad, for the way she had thrust herself forward without any idea of the direction she should take; she also felt a bit awakened: she suddenly realized that her youth wasn’t flowing away in the current, that what she herself treasured was still precious, and she felt lucky to be able to hold on to it. She was as good as her roommate in many ways, and if she couldn’t keep up with her in this way, she was content to “fall behind.”

      As she waited for the last bus to come, her thinking became clearer and clearer. There were many people on the bus. She flashed a farewell smile at the editor, ran to catch it, and then tried with all her might to force her way onto the already packed bus. The editor had followed her, apparently not wanting to leave until he made sure she’d got on. She turned around and yelled at him, “Hey, can you give me a push?” He gave her a push, and she was crammed on board. The door shut behind her with a swoosh.

      Standing in the last bus, she suddenly smiled to herself. She realized “Give me a push” was actually what she had most wanted to say tonight. She also realized the editor was a nice, honest man. But just as she wasn’t attracted to him, he also wasn’t at all attracted to her.

      4

      It wasn’t as though she didn’t want to write back to Fang Jing; she put off writing because she didn’t know what to say. Maybe everything had happened too quickly. In any case, she couldn’t treat Fang Jing’s letter from San Francisco as a casual note. She carefully read the letter over and over, and time and again it brought her to tears. She’d never read such a good letter, and she had no reason to doubt the author’s sincerity.

      So she started to write back. “Mr. Fang Jing, how are you?” she wrote. Then she would tear the letter up and start over. He was so important and she was so insignificant. She lacked confidence and was afraid of making a fool of herself—but how could she write a letter of the same quality as a celebrity like Fang Jing? It was impossible; she had neither the writing talent nor the emotional maturity his letter displayed. Just based on the letter alone, Tiao felt that she had already fallen in love with him. And she had to fall in love with him because she believed he had fallen in love with her—and it was her good fortune to be loved by him, she thought selflessly. At her age and with her lack of experience, she couldn’t immediately tell the difference between admiration and love, or know how quickly a feeling driven by vanity might get the better of her. Maybe at those times she thought about her senior-year roommate. Compared to Fang Jing, who was that writer of her roommate’s, with his “overflowing talent”? How could her love affair match Tiao’s secret life now? College life, the flare of red-hot emotion that came and went quickly.

      Once again she started to write a reply to him, but finally could only come up with those few words, “Dear Mr. Fang Jing, how are you?”

      She went out and found a second-run cinema to watch a movie of his, to meet him on the screen. She listened to his voice, studied his features, and savoured his expressions. She tried very hard to memorize his looks, but when she returned home and lay in her bed, she found she had completely forgotten. It frightened and worried her, and seemed like a bad sign. The next day she took the opportunity to watch the movie again. She stared at him on the screen, as if she had found a long-lost family member. She still couldn’t compose the letter. Then she received his phone call at her office.

      He phoned at a time that everyone was in the office. The chief editor said to her, “Tiao, your uncle’s calling.” As soon as she walked to the phone and picked up the receiver, she recognized his southern-accented Mandarin. He said the following paragraph in one breath, with some formality and a tone that left her no room for contradiction: “Is this Comrade Yin Xiaotiao? This is Fang Jing. I know there are a lot of people in your office. You don’t have to say anything. Don’t call me Mr. Fang Jing. Just listen to me. I’ve returned to Beijing and haven’t received a letter or phone call from you. It’s very likely that you’re laughing at me for being foolish. But please let me finish. Don’t hang up on me and don’t be afraid of me. I don’t want to be unreasonable. I just want to see you. Listen to me—I’m at a conference at the Beijing Hotel. Can you arrange to come to Beijing to solicit manuscripts? I know editors come to Beijing all the time. You come and we’ll meet. I’ll give you my phone number for the conference. You don’t have to respond to me right away, though of course I want to have your immediate response, your positive response, very much. No, no, you should think it over first. I have a few more things I want to ramble on about, I know I don’t seem very composed, but I have somehow lost control of myself, which is very unusual for me. I would rather trust my instincts, though. Please don’t be in a hurry to refuse me. Don’t be in a hurry to refuse me. Now I’m going to give you the number. Can you write it down? Can you remember it …?”

      She was very bad at memorizing numbers, but she learned Fang Jing’s number by heart even though he said it only once. She went to Beijing three days later, and saw him in his room at the Beijing Hotel. When she was alone with him, she felt he seemed even taller than when she had first met him. Like so many tall people, he stooped a little. But this didn’t change his bearing, that arrogant and nonchalant attitude he was famous for. Tiao thought she must have appeared affected when she walked into his room, because Fang Jing seemed to catch an uneasiness from her. He gave her a broad smile, but the easy, witty manner of the conference was gone. He poured her a cup of tea but somehow managed to spill the hot tea, scalding Tiao’s hand as well as his own. The telephone rang endlessly—that was the way the celebrities were, always pursued by phone calls. He kept picking up the phone, lying to the callers without missing a beat: “No, I can’t do it today. Now? Impossible. I have to go see the rough cut in a minute. How about tomorrow? Tomorrow I’ll treat you at Da Sanyuan …”

      Sitting on the sofa listening quietly to Fang Jing’s lies, Tiao sensed an unspoken understanding grow between them, and in herself a strange new feeling, dreamlike. She was grateful for all those smooth lies, thankful that he was turning those others down for her, with lies made for her, all of them, for the sake of their reunion. She started to relax; the phone calls were precisely what she needed to give herself the time to regroup.

      Fang Jing finally finished the calls and came over to Tiao. He crouched down right in front of her, face-to-face. It was a sudden movement, but the gesture was quite natural and simple, like a peasant tending crops in the field, or an adult who needs to crouch down to talk to a child, or a person who crouches down to observe a small insect like an ant or beetle. With his age and status, the crouching gave him an air of childish naughtiness. He said to Tiao, who was sitting on the sofa, “How about we go out? Those phone calls are pretty annoying.”

      They left the room and went to the hotel bar. They chose a quiet corner and sipped coffee. He was holding his pipe. After a short silence, he began to speak, saying, “What do you think of me?”

      She said, “I respect you very much. Like so many people, I admire your movie A Beautiful Life. Like me, a great many people hold your talent in high regard. In our editors’ office, you’re often the topic of discussion. We—”

      He interrupted her and said, “Are you going to talk to me in this sort of tone all night? Are you? Tell me.”

      She shook her head and then nodded. She’d wanted to restrain her excitement in this way. She СКАЧАТЬ