Director Wang maintained a high standard of behavior where drinking was concerned. He could never be accused of trying to get anyone drunk, but he often remarked that one must drink, and his favorite sayings were “The key is to never lose your fighting spirit” and “Drinking is a good test of that fighting spirit.” For him, it was something a man cannot do without, which was why Guo Jiaxing had to join in.
Something had come over Guo in recent days. When he reached a certain level of inebriation, he wanted to make love as soon as he was home in bed. If he was still relatively sober, the desire would not be strong enough, and if he’d had too much to drink, sex never entered his mind. But when he had reached that precise point and not gone beyond, he was ready to go home and perform. Just where that point was he could not say, but he knew when he reached it.
On this particular night, he’d had just enough to drink—he’d reached that point—and he was feeling potent. Everyone was asleep when he got home. He turned on the light and silently studied Yumi as she slept. After a moment she woke up to the sight of her husband with a peculiar grin on his face. She did not have to guess what he had in mind. At times like this that grin would go through several unique phases—his cheeks would move a bit, then stop, then move a bit more, and stop again, before finally settling into a real smile. And that smile told her he was ready to do it.
With her head resting on the pillow, Yumi experienced a bit of awkward difficulty. She had no interest in dousing his passion, but thought about what the doctor had said a few days before. “Everything is fine, Mrs. Guo,” she’d said, “but you must avoid pressure on your abdomen.” If her husband was not to be denied, the doctor went on, make sure he went about it “lightly” and “not too deeply.” Yumi understood perfectly, but blushed nonetheless. No wonder everyone says that doctors are coarse people, Yumi said to herself. That seems right to me—the woman didn’t even try to be tactful.
Yumi chose not to tell Guo Jiaxing what the doctor had said. Nothing in the world could have made her say those words. He’d fathered two children so this was something he ought to know.
He did. That night he did not press down on her, he didn’t actually “do it” in the full sense of the word. But his hands and his teeth were so savage, so sharp and painful, that he broke the skin on her breasts in several places. Yumi kept opening and shutting her mouth from the pain, but she didn’t try to make him stop. Experience told her it was a bad idea to make a man lose his temper in bed. So she let him have his way. He was soon breathing so hard it sounded painful. He touched and kissed her over and over, but nothing worked, so he groped and kneaded in agony in the dark.
“This is no good,” he muttered, breathing his liquor breath on her face. “This isn’t working.”
Yumi sat up and thought long and hard before deciding to put him out of his misery. She got out of bed and took off his pants. Then she knelt on the edge of the bed, leaned over, and took him into her mouth. This came as a shock. He had known lots of women and had plenty of experience in bed. But this was a first for him. He thought about making her stop, but his rebellious body would not let him. Meanwhile, Yumi’s determination did not slacken as she moved along with him. Guo Jiaxing was powerless to stop this scene from being played out; that night Guo had sex in what for him was a very strange way.
Yumi, her lips pressed tightly together, turned, lifted the lid of the chamber pot, and vomited loudly. Her husband’s problem had been solved, and the effects of the alcohol had evaporated. Nearly paralyzed with euphoria, he loved her with all his heart at that moment. He took her in his arms like a father holds his child. Gazing up at him and wiping the corners of her mouth with toilet paper, she smiled and said, “A bit of nausea, I guess.”
When Guo awoke early the next morning he saw that Yumi was awake and that she’d been crying; her cheeks were wet with tears. Thoughts of the stirring events of the night before ran through his mind as he gazed at her and wondered if it had all been a dream. “Let’s not do that again,” he said as he patted her on the shoulder. “No more of that.”
She buried her head in his chest and said, “What do you mean, no more of this or that? I’m your woman.” That simple comment moved him in ways he’d never felt before.
“Then why are you crying?” he asked as he looked into her tear-streaked face.
“For myself,” she said. “And for my foolish little sister.”
“What does that mean?”
“Yuxiu keeps pestering me about getting her a job at the grain-purchasing station. She says it wouldn’t be any trouble for someone as powerful as her brother-in-law to arrange. That made sense to me, so I said okay without checking with you first. Over the past few days I’ve been thinking that no one has the power to blot out the sky. You already found me a job at the co-op, and now I’m asking you to find one for your sister-in-law. That would be too high-handed. She can swear at me for all I care, but the thought of my family looking down on me is something I could not stand. They’d say that when she married the director of the revolutionary committee, she forgot where she came from and wouldn’t even help out her own sister.”
With thoughts of the previous night in his head, Guo knew he could not deny his wife’s request. He tilted his head and blinked a time or two. “Wait a few days,” he said thoughtfully. “A few days. It would look bad for her to get a job so soon after you. I’ll put in a word for her one of these days.”
The private conversation between Yuxiu and Guo Zuo came to a sudden halt, plunging the room into total silence, for neither wanted to begin talking again, as if there was a fuse in the air that would send up smoke if they weren’t careful. They did not know how or when it started. Yuxiu stole several glances at Guo Zuo, as their gazes turned into wary mice that were sticking their heads out at dusk, each one scaring the other and sending them both scurrying around. The night before, after intuiting what was on his mind, she sneaked a look at Spartacus and saw that he’d stopped at page 286. That morning he had resumed his reading, engrossed in the book for over an hour before getting up for cigarettes. The moment he left, she tiptoed over and picked up the book only to see that he was still on page 286. This discovery made her heart flutter with unease. Obviously he was pretending to read, though his mind was elsewhere, and she assumed that he was thinking of her. She’d thought she would be happy to learn how he felt, but no, the realization actually produced a sharp pain; with tears brimming in her eyes, she tiptoed back to the room behind the kitchen, where she sat lost in thought on the edge of her bed.
Except for mealtimes, Yuxiu avoided the living room; she was, after all, the aunty. That went on for several days and everything seemed fine, but Yuxiu was, in fact, waging an intractable war with tranquillity—a silent, lethal, and exhausting war. She wished there could be someone else in the house to liven it up and bring real peace to her. But her sister and brother-in-law had to work. After they left, the house was empty except for Guo Zuo and, of course, her. The house turned as still as the glass in the windowpanes, bright yet hopelessly fragile. Besides the steam generator at the mill, she heard nothing but her own heartbeat.
Shortly before noon what was making her so anxious finally occurred. Guo Zuo came into the kitchen unannounced. She felt her heart tighten and pound shamelessly. He stood there quietly and awkwardly, not looking at her. Then he took out an emerald green toothbrush and laid it on a stool, saying, “Don’t use your sister’s toothbrush. Sharing a toothbrush is unsanitary.” His voice carried palpable concern. He then left the kitchen and resumed reading in the living room.