The lamps around the dormitory were not functioning; it was pitch-black. Stepping lightly, the group moved so silently that the only sound was their heavy breathing, which they were having trouble keeping in check.
When they reached the darkened room, Wei stopped, turned around, and raised his hand to make sure that no one made any noise. The group stood still, like a grove of breathing trees. Wei curled the index finger of his right hand and tapped gently on the door, as if afraid to startle a child on the other side. Nothing stirred, so Wei craned his neck and whispered, “Teacher Peng, please open the door.” As if making a deal with the door frame, he repeated, “Teacher Peng, open the door now.”
He waited, and then said, “Teacher Peng, I have a key, and I’ll use it if I have to.” Still nothing stirred inside. So Wei took out his key and inserted it into the hole, but the door remained shut—it was locked from the inside. Now everyone took a deep breath as Wei retrieved the key and raised his voice. “Smash it!”
He snapped on his flashlight, nailing the wooden door with a blindingly bright light. There was a thump on the other side, followed by the flickering of a fluorescent bulb. Peng opened the door, but he hardly resembled the Section Three homeroom teacher or the people’s teacher of dialectical materialism, historical materialism, political economics, and the brief history of social development. Seemingly devoid of human form and skeleton, he looked like a chicken thrown into the pot or a dog fished out of the water.
The separate interrogations began that night. Pang Fenghua refused to talk until three in the morning, when, exhausted from crying, she confessed and took responsibility for everything, as if she were the one who had done all the unspeakable acts. Then she clammed up and resumed crying.
By comparison, the homeroom teacher had a better attitude. After seven or eight cups of boiled water, he responded to every question. But his interrogation was interrupted when he began spitting blood, thanks to the boiling water he’d gulped down.
How careless could someone be? How had he not sensed how hot the water was? And how had he managed to gulp it down like that? He must have been scared out of his wits. Fortunately, he cooperated by telling them everything, including the first kiss, the first embrace and who had initiated it, whose tongue had first entered the other’s mouth, whether they had fondled each other and how, and who had begun fondling first and where. He told them everything, sometimes more than once because Wei kept repeating his questions, and Peng had to repeat his answers.
Wei’s eyes lit up each time Peng responded, and Wei’s skin twitched as if he were in pain or, perhaps, in ecstasy. He seemed to be enjoying himself, but Peng was less forthcoming when it came to sex. He hemmed and hawed, trying to evade the issue. Naturally, Wei would not let him off the hook, and he followed up with tough, carefully crafted questions, not giving Peng a chance to deny anything.
“When did you first go to bed together?” Wei asked.
“We didn’t,” Peng replied.
“The two of you had to be in bed because everyone saw how the sheets, the blanket, and even the pillows were all rumpled. How can you deny it?”
“We did go to bed, but not like that,” Peng insisted.
“Like what then?” Wei was relentless.
“We were in bed, but we didn’t do it. Honest, we didn’t go to bed like that.”
“Oh? What do you mean by ‘like that’?”
“I mean sleeping together. We didn’t sleep together.”
“Who said you were sleeping? If you were, you wouldn’t have been able to get up to open the door.”
“I don’t mean going to sleep. I mean having a relationship.”
“What kind of relationship?”
“Between a man and a woman.”
“And what is that?” Wei demanded.
“A sexual relationship. You can have her checked at the hospital,” Peng said. In order to prove his innocence, he took a small box out of his pocket and opened it to show the contents—condoms, which he counted in front of everyone. There were ten, not one less.
In a burst of anger, Wei banged the table but was stopped by Director Qian, who signaled him with his eyes to keep the proper attitude.
“What does that prove?” Wei thundered. “I ask you, just what do you expect that to prove? Do you mean to say you can’t have sex without one of those?”
Peng looked up. That’s right. How could he prove he didn’t do it by simply showing them that he didn’t use the condoms? He couldn’t stop blinking. Suddenly he fell to his knees in front of Wei and knocked his head on the floor repeatedly.
“It’s true,” he pleaded. “I’m not lying. We wanted to, but you showed up before we could do it.”
“Did you two talk about it?”
“Yes.”
“Who brought it up?”
Peng thought quietly for a moment before finally saying, “Not me.”
“Who then?”
“She did.”
“Who is she?” Wei was relentless.
“Pang Fenghua,” Peng replied.
Five o’clock Sunday morning. The disappointing news came just before sunrise. The homeroom teacher had gotten away. He’d been guarded by two students of the school security team, but they were, after all, young and inexperienced. They’d dozed off and let the homeroom teacher of Section Three of the class of ’82 sneak away right under their noses.
The security team searched everywhere on campus, even the toilets, but he was nowhere to be found. At 6:10 A.M., Wei Xiangdong gave a self-critical report to Director Qian, who quietly heard him out and then, instead of a reprimand, consoled him: “He didn’t escape. How could he? He has simply fallen into the vast ocean of the people.”
The homeroom teacher “had fallen into the vast ocean of the people.” At 10:45, Yuyang heard Director Qian’s pronouncement from a classmate. Having never seen an ocean, Yuyang tried hard to imagine what it was like, but by lunchtime she still had not conjured up an image of an ocean. But she was convinced that, generally speaking, it must be vaster than she could envision. It must be infinite and boundless. She was sure of that.
About the Author
BI FEIYU is one of the most respected authors and screenwriters in China today. He was born in 1964 in Xinghua, in the province of Jiangsu. A journalist and poet as well as a novelist, he has been awarded a number of literary prizes, including the prestigious Lu Xun Prize. He co-wrote the film Shanghai Triad, which was directed by the internationally renowned director Zhang Yimou. His first novel is the critically acclaimed Moon Opera.
Copyright
Jacket design by Alex Camlin
Author photograph © Thomas Langdon
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt