One day in August, when lining up to buy lunch, he overheard some nurses talking about a North Korean movie, The Village of Blooming Flowers. One of them assured the others that it was a good movie and was being shown at the company’s theater, and a few said they would go see it in the evening. Manjin seldom went to the movies, but that day, out of curiosity, he decided he would go. If lucky, he might meet the tall center and her friends there.
At seven he set out for the theater. In the dusk a swarm of large dragonflies were flitting about to catch gnats and mosquitoes. Old people sat before their homes, chatting and enjoying the cool air, some waving a palm fan. On the sidewalk shaded by maples and drooping willows, a middle-aged man held the carrier of an Everlasting bicycle, on which a child, obviously his daughter, was learning how to pedal. A company of soldiers was marching past, singing a battle song and heading toward the train station. They left behind a thin mist of dust. Assuming the movie would start at seven-thirty, Manjin strolled without hurry.
At the corner near the company’s hospital, he saw Wang Tingting walking ahead of him. She wore a white, short-sleeved shirt and a pink skirt. Viewed from behind, she looked thinner, her long braids swaying a little. She reached the front entrance of the theater and then disappeared beyond the gate. He had heard she was engaged to a serviceman in the navy. After the scandal, whenever he ran into her she would lower her head and hurry away.
The movie had already started. The theater was not full, a lot of empty seats on both sides and in the front. Manjin sat down at the back, because he was a little farsighted. Though the audience chuckled and laughed as the movie progressed, he didn’t feel it was interesting. Looking around, he couldn’t find the nurses. He wondered if he should leave.
A few moments later a female figure appeared, sliding like a cloud along the unoccupied seats on his right. Noiselessly she came close and sat down beside him. He turned to see who she was but couldn’t make out her face. She wore light-colored clothes emitting a lilac scent. Strange to say, he clearly saw a bump on an old man’s neck five or six feet ahead; why couldn’t he see the face of this woman who was so close? Yet he could tell she was young and slim. He felt uncomfortable and kept wondering why she sat here. More than half the seats in the row were free. Why did she want to be so close to him? Was she not afraid of the people behind them?
Hesitantly she placed her hand on his leg, stroking it as though uncertain that he would allow her to do so. He remained motionless, puzzled but eager to see what she wanted.
As she went on caressing his leg, he began to squirm. She then took his hand and pulled it toward her. He, as if in a trance, allowed her to take control of his hand, which landed on her leg. She lifted his wrist and made his fingers caress, back and forth, the soft inside of her thigh. He got the message, and his hand turned bold and went farther inward. She didn’t wear underpants, which surprised him. His breathing grew heavy and his heart was thumping. Never had he been so intimate with a woman. He felt dizzy, his temples so tight that he couldn’t think of anything except what his hand was touching. How desperately he longed to see what it was like down there. But he dared not move, afraid to attract the attention of the people sitting around.
His fingers opened her fleshy folds, which were surprisingly warm and wet. He wondered why she was sweating so much. One of his knuckles rubbed her stiff kernel; uncertain of what it was, he twisted it gently with the tips of his thumb and forefinger. She began gasping and whining softly, so he let go of it. His hand proceeded to explore around her lips, tracing the valleys, caverns, gullies. How thick and abundant her hair was, like a forest. If only he were able to see everything. If only he could have embraced her and kissed every part of her body, but he dared not budge. Suddenly the human figures, the buffaloes, and the lush paddies on the screen changed, merging and turning into a huge vulva, golden and bushy, throbbing and steaming. Something stirred in his stomach, and, ducking his head below the back of the seat in front of him, he began retching.
This scared the woman. She hurriedly pulled out his hand and wiped it with a handkerchief. She leaned over and whispered, “Sorry. Thank you.” Then she stood up, turned, and faded into the darkness.
As he stopped retching, the thought came to him that he must follow her, find out who she was, and do something more. He rose to his feet and moved to the gate.
At the front entrance stood a girl in a white blouse, with her back toward him. There wasn’t another person around. It must have been her that he had caressed just now, so without a second thought he hastened toward her. The plaza in front of the theater was lit bright by mercury-vapor lamps. The elm crowns formed a skyline, beyond which stars were blinking.
The girl heard footsteps. She turned around, stared at him with her mouth half open. Although her eyeteeth protruded, she looked rather sweet and delicate, perhaps a college student. He rushed over and threw his arms around her, moaning, “Honey, let’s do that again!”
She gave a piercing scream, which almost collapsed him. Two men ran out, shouting, “Hold it there!”
“Help!” she yelled. “Catch the hoodlum, he attacked me!”
Manjin dashed away on shaky legs. “Stop, stop!” the men shouted. They followed him, their leather shoes thumping the cement ramp.
After two turns, Manjin reached the brick wall of the hospital. He scaled it and landed in a flower bed, sending up a cloud of pollen and dust. He jumped to his feet and sprinted away. The men climbed over too and continued pursuing him, shouting to people ahead, “Stop that bastard! Stop him!” Manjin rushed through the cypress bushes and turned toward the front gate.
Seeing a security guard raising a pistol and running toward him, Manjin stopped and put up his hands. The two men grabbed him from behind and pinned him to the ground. One of them kicked him in the face; his nose began bleeding. “It was a mistake!” he moaned. “I mistook her for another person. I meant to do her no harm. Oh, don’t, don’t beat me, brothers!”
“Shut up!” The taller man chopped his neck with the edge of his hand. “Let’s go to the police station.”
Manjin knew it was useless to beg, so he made no noise while they were binding his thumbs together from behind with a shoelace. His mind was busy trying to figure out what had actually happened. Heavens, how could he convince the police that he hadn’t intended to assault the girl? He was afraid the policemen would beat him too.
Fortunately one of the men on duty at the company’s police station knew Manjin, so they unbound his hands and didn’t slap and punch him as they would ordinarily do to such a criminal. Instead, they locked him in a small office, whose walls were decorated with framed certificates of merit; then they returned to the girl and the two male witnesses in another room and asked them questions. Looking at the blood on the front of his gray T-shirt, Manjin couldn’t help weeping. In his heart he was cursing the unknown woman for getting him into such trouble. If only he hadn’t gone to the movies. If only he hadn’t been lazy this evening and had stayed in his office to finish his daily handwriting exercise. A few flies buzzed furiously around him, eager to land on the bloodstains on his neck; he went on waving his hand to keep them at bay. Despite his self-disgust, time and again he sniffed his fingertips; a unique smell, something like raw chestnuts, still emanated from his nails.
He heard the girl sobbing in the adjoining office and claiming that he had attempted to attack or kidnap her. Cold sweat broke out on his back, and he began shivering. Looking out, he saw below the window two pairs of power lines stretch along the street. He was on the third floor, impossible to escape.