Waiting (28 page)

To loud applause Lin and Manna got up and turned around to face the people. Bareheaded, they both had on brand-new uniforms, with a red paper flower on their chests. Manna wore shiny patent-leather shoes while Lin was in big-toed boots, the standard army issue made of suede and canvas. She seemed nervous, not knowing where to put her hands, and kept smiling to a few nurses from her ward. Then at the request of Ming Chen, together the couple bowed to the audience, some of whom stood up and whooped while others applauded. More people were coming in from the doors at the back. A few women whispered about the bride's complexion, which had turned rather sallow the last few weeks. Someone said, "Look at Doctor Kong's face. He's such a gloomy man that you never see him in high spirits."

Director Chen announced again, "Now, the bride and the groom pay tribute to the Party and Chairman Mao."

The couple turned to face the side wall, on which hung a portrait of the late Chairman and a pair of large banners carrying the emblem of a crossed sickle and hammer.

Ming Chen began chanting: "The first bow…"

The couple bowed to the banners and the portrait, keeping the tips of their middle fingers on the seams of their trousers.

"The second bow…"

They bowed again, lower than the previous time, almost eighty degrees.

"The third bow…"

Done with the homage, the couple turned to face the audience again. For a few seconds the echoes of the director's chanting kept ringing in the room and the corridor. People remained quiet and seemed muted by the sheer volume of Ming Chen's voice. Then the director announced, "Now I declare Lin Kong and Manna Wu are man and wife. Let us congratulate them."

People applauded again; some boys whistled.

When the audience quieted down, the couple were asked to sing a song. Manna was good at singing, but Lin knew few songs, so they sang "Our Troops March Toward the Sun," which was so outdated that some of the young officers had never heard it. Their singing was unpleasant to the ear. The bridegroom's voice was too low and soft, while the bride's was rasping thanks to the cold she had. A few nurses couldn't help smirking; one said, "This gives me a toothache. "

The moment they finished singing, a young officer raised his fist, shouting, "Eat a bobbing apple!"

"Yes, let them eat a bobbing apple together," several voices cried out. What they demanded was an apple strung by a thread in the air, so that the couple couldn't avoid kissing each other while eating it.

Director Chen held up his hands and calmed them down. He said, "We're revolutionary officers and soldiers, and the army isn't your home village, so the bobbing-apple stuff is not appropriate here. Now, enjoy yourselves."

As people were standing up and moving around, Ming Chen clapped his hands for the attention of the children. He cried, "Small friends – boys and girls – you can eat as many goodies as you want, but don't take any home. Understood?"

"Yes sir," a little girl shouted back.

Laughter followed. At once the room was filled with noise again. A baby burst out crying in a back corner. A young officer set off a firecracker; the explosion made a few girls scream; immediately he was prohibited from doing that again. The two doors at the back were opened to let out the smell of gunpowder.

One by one the leaders walked up to the bride and groom to clink glasses and give their congratulations. When Commissar Ran Su approached them, he seemed very moved. Unlike others, he didn't hold a glass of wine. He looked like an old man now – though he was merely fifty-one – with sparse hair and a gray mustache. Furrows spread on his forehead and at the corners of his eyes, whose lower lids hung down a little. He grasped Lin's and Manna's arms and drew them aside, saying in a somber voice, "You two must cherish this opportunity in your lives. Love and take care of each other. Don't forget that yours is a bitter love." He paused and said " bitter love" again, as though to himself.

His words touched the bride. After Ran Su left, she was unable to restrain herself anymore and broke out sobbing. Lin took her glass away. With his arm around her waist he steered her to a corner and tried to calm her down, but she was inconsolable, her mouth trembling and her face bathed in tears. She bit her lip, sniffling, her eyes shining at the happy crowd moving about under a 300-watt bulb.

"Don't be so upset, dear," Lin said.

She was still biting her lip, tears trickling down her chin and falling on the front of her jacket.

"Come, sweetheart," he said again, "this is our wedding. Try to put on a happy face. "

She raised her face, which looked so contorted that for a moment he didn't know what to say. He touched her forehead; it was wet and hot.

He asked, "Is this too much for you?"

She nodded.

"Would you like to go home?"

She nodded again. He turned and saw Nurse Hsu sitting nearby with a few little girls and cracking hazelnuts for them with a pair of pliers. He asked her to take his bride home, since he couldn't extricate himself. Then he found Manna's fur hat and overcoat and brought them out to the corridor. There he helped her on with them, saying he would join her at home soon.

When he returned to the crowd, the room was full of noisy music. The tables were all pushed against the walls, and young nurses and officers were dancing together. After being banned for almost two decades, ballroom dancing had just come back into fashion. The young men and women were wheeling and swaying passionately as though they knew no fatigue. The older officers and doctors stood by, watching the dancers and chatting. Suddenly a nurse slipped and fell on the floor, having stepped on a pear core. Her fall brought on waves of laughter.

Haiyan and her husband Honggan came up to Lin and congratulated him. They were a middle-aged couple now. Honggan wore civilian clothes and glasses, which made him resemble a ranking official; Haiyan was moonfaced and a little stout, wearing a saffron neckerchief. She beckoned to their son. "Come here, Taotao, and meet Uncle Kong."

"No, I don't want to," whined the eight-year-old boy. He skipped away with a wooden carbine in his arms and disappeared among his pals. His parents and Lin all laughed.

"You and Manna should never have a boy," Haiyan said to the bridegroom. "It's much easier to raise a girl. By the way, where is the bride?"

"She didn't feel well and went back home. She has a cold."

Honggan patted Lin on the shoulder and said, "My friend, I'm very happy to be here. Listen, from now on if you need any help, just let me know." His left hand was twirling an empty glass.

Lin looked at his flat face, trying to make sense of his words. He was amazed to see that Honggan had turned into a happy, healthy man and had shed all traces of his peasant stock. His face was quite smooth; only two small pinkish boils on his forehead reminded Lin that the face used to be carbuncular.

"Don't be polite, Lin," Haiyan said. "He has power and pull now. His company owns twelve trucks."

"Oh, thanks," he managed to reply. In his heart he still couldn't embrace them as friends.

"If you need to bring home coal or firewood," Honggan said, " just give me a call. "

"Thanks."

Silence set in. The summer before last Honggan had been demobilized and had become the vice-chairman of a lumberyard in Muji. Like her husband, Haiyan had also made progress in life; after one and a half years of training in Changchun City, she had become an obstetrician. They had moved to downtown Muji so that their son could go to a better school. Though Haiyan and Manna had made up long ago, Manna still wouldn't trust her with any secret. Now Lin hoped the couple would leave him alone.

But Honggan was in a talkative mood. He said in a low voice, "Lin, have you heard anything about Geng Yang?"

Lin was perplexed by the question and shook his head, wondering why he mentioned that name at this wedding. Thank heaven, his bride wasn't around.

"Well, I don't mean to annoy you," Honggan went on, "but I heard he got rich, filthy rich. You know, a bad dog is always lucky."

Lin didn't say a word, his cheeks coloring.

Seeing the bridegroom's flushed face, Haiyan pinched her husband's neck and asked angrily, "Why the hell did you mention that thug here, moron?" She then gripped his ear and tweaked it.

"Ouch! Let go."

"Apologize to Lin," she ordered.

"All right, all right, Lin, I'm sorry."

Lin said with a bland smile, "Let him go, Haiyan. He meant no harm."

"He's stupid, such a killjoy. " She released his ear. "As if he hadn't done enough damage and hadn't hurt Manna at all." She turned to her husband and asked, "Why did you try to spoil this wedding?"

Honggan realized his blunder. "Sorry, Lin, I didn't mean to do anything nasty. There was an article on Geng Yang in
Role Models
a month ago. I just want to say it's unfair that son of a bitch is doing so well."

"I understand, " Lin said. He didn't read that magazine and had no idea how rich Geng Yang was.

"We should be going," Haiyan said to her husband.

"Yes." Honggan turned to the bridegroom. "Don't forget I'll be happy to help you. Any heavy work."

"I'll remember that." Lin wondered if the couple had drunk too much.

"Bye-bye." Honggan waved, then grasped his wife's arm. Together they merged into the crowd.

Most of the dancers were in sweaters or shirts now. The room seemed to Lin like a large cabin on a ship, foggy and swaying. This feeling made him giddy.

He couldn't dance, so he stayed with the older officers and their wives, receiving congratulations and answering questions. By now, most of the children had left with candies and fruit in their pockets and with all the balloons, so the room became less noisy and the tables were stacked with empty platters, plates, jackets, hats, mittens. Lin was tired and couldn't stop wondering how his bride was doing alone at home. How bored he was by their wedding.

Manna turned out to be a passionate lover, and her passion often unnerved Lin. He wasn't as experienced in bed as she had expected. He tired out easily, most of the time before she could calm down. At night when taps was sounded, they would go to bed immediately. They would make love for half an hour, not daring to remain awake longer because they would have to join the morning exercises at daybreak. If it snowed, they would get up early as well to clear roads with their comrades.

Manna seemed frustrated sometimes, but never lost her temper. One Saturday night she joked with Lin, saying good-humoredly, "I wonder how you could have made a baby with Shuyu. In just three minutes?" Her chin was resting on his chest while her eyes were dreamy and half-closed.

"I was young then," he muttered.

"So you had a different pecker?" She chuckled.

"She wasn't like you. "

"In what way?"

"She didn't make me feel like an old man."

"Come on, you are still my young groom." She started kissing his mouth again and swung her leg across his belly.

"Sweetheart, I need more time," he said.

"Okay, take it easy. " She lay still alongside him, but her hand went on caressing his thigh. It took a while to get him ready. They made love for an hour that night, since they wouldn't have to rise early the next morning.

Before the wedding Lin had feared that the rape of a decade ago might continue to trouble Manna, especially in bed; so he had often reminded himself to be gentle with her. But she showed no sign of discomfort. Every day she insisted they make love before going to sleep. Sometimes they even went to bed after lunch. What a woman, he would say to himself.

To satisfy her was not easy, yet he tried his best. Exhausted every night, he wondered if he should use an aphrodisiac – getting some ginseng or angelica roots or seahorses and steeping them in a bottle of wheat liquor. But he decided not to concoct such a drink, believing those things would help burn him out sooner. He hoped Manna could slow down a little, but she was passionate as ever. Are other newlyweds like us? he asked himself.

In bed, at the climax, Manna often moaned, "Oh, let me die. Let's die like this, together." At times she would weep and even bite his nipples or shoulders. In the beginning her words and tears frightened him, and he thought he must have hurt her. But she said he hadn't, claiming she was happy, so happy that she wished they could lie together in bed forever.

Once, however, she confessed to him, "I don't know why I feel so sad. If only we had married twenty years earlier." He gave thought to her words, but was unsure what they meant exactly. Did she imply that if he were younger, he would have been more virile?

Every time after sex he found her slightly different – tired and older, although pink patches would appear on her cheeks and make her a bit more charming. But the flaccid flesh on her stomach and arms, her soft breasts, and the small crinkles on her throat, all indicated that youth had left her. He would wonder how her body could generate so much desire, which seemed ageless and impossible for him to meet. He felt old and begged her not to indulge herself too much, but she didn't seem to care.

In two months he began to have a numb pain in the small of his back, and a soreness was developing in his right sole. He knew that too much sex might have hurt his kidneys, but he wouldn't shun it, feeling obligated to satisfy her in any way she wanted, because she had waited so many years for him. A large dose of vitamin Bi was injected into his foot, around the sore spot, to soothe the nerves. It alleviated the pain to some extent.

His colleagues noticed he had grown thinner. Since the previous summer he had lost fifteen pounds, and his chin jutted out further. When there was no woman around, his comrades would outdo one another poking fun at him. Shiding Mu, the head of the Propaganda Section, said one afternoon in the recreation room, "My goodness, Lin, you've been married for just three months. Look at yourself, you're running out of sap."