英文小说：A Shadow in Surfers Paradise(31)天堂之影

洋八路

Chapter 31




In August 1989, Bing’s dad and his sister Ming, together called to inform him that Ming had been admitted into the Sichuan Police College in Luzhou, a neighbouring regional centre in Sichuan Province. It was a three-year vocational school; her major would be Management of Public Security. Although Bing had wished his sister to undertake university study like him, it was still a great news to the family, to the whole village. It meant that both of them had eventually secured a better future as a salary-earner, rather than as a soiled farmer who had to toil for the rest of their lives. They told him that, based on Ming’s performance, her teacher had advised her to take the college exam. Over the phone, Ming’s excitement was overwhelming, speaking the equivalent happiness matching his own two years back.   

Bing’s life in the university, with his love affair with Vivian, had never been so remarkable. It was only towards the end of the year when Shanghai’s cold and wet weather began to manifest itself, that Bing and Vivian went out less than in previous months. Vivian stayed at home more at weekends, and his roommates stayed in bed more for the warmth under the quilt, preventing the couple from using his only private space. Their meeting was thus reduced into a short time occurrence around the campus and dormitory buildings. Bing had more and more idle time for his books and his guitar although he preferred her company. He had to keep himself peacefully occupied when he was not with her.

Admittedly, Bing was a very jealous person. Vivian, in the classroom or on other occasions, was known to be a sparkling figure, an easy source of attraction to others. Bing understood she had always been like that, and wouldn’t possibly change to one only attractive to himself but other fellows. Sensibly he knew all about that, he knew Vivian loved him, particularly so when they were alone, when he could kiss her and take her, when she was willingly possessed by his dictatorial passion.
But still, he couldn’t transform himself to a better man in terms of jealousy. He was invariably agitated and afflicted whenever she was smiling her charm to other greedy eyes around her, although such fretfulness and resentment could usually be settled by a more aggressive love making that would naturally follow. Now due to the bad weather the chance of doing so occurred less and less, and his resentment was little by little bottled up, and he found it harder and harder to get it off his chest.

Such a struggle happened one night on campus, around the corner of the English Building. On the morning of same day, during the lesson break, he had noticed Mark, the handsome Shanghai boy whom he had always hated secretly, was talking endlessly in Shanghai dialect with her, and, during their entire conversation, Vivian had not thrown a single glance to him, who sat there in the corner pretending indifference.

So under the dim light, Bing crudely if not cruelly kissed her, his mind replaying the scene of her vigorous chattering with Mark in the morning. ‘Vivian, can we go to my room.’

‘Now? No, I am having my period,’ she kissed him, consolingly, ‘wait, in a few days… ’

But a desire, savage and aggressive, that he seemed unable to suppress, drove him to advance recklessly to her body. The uncontrollable, bad side of his nature was propelling a sort of evil energy. However, this time, Vivian was resolute, forcibly resisting him with her utmost feminine exertion; at one point, her hand was half way to slapping his face.  

Frustrated and desperate, he pushed her away abruptly, leaving her alone, paying no heed to her calls after him. He had pride and self-dignity, no less than hers; but his self was so easily injured, all because of her, because of her relentless demonstration of her beauty, of her big seductive eyes, in front of so many other men, who, in his eyes, were all handsomer, all better built, all better attired, all better suited to her…

Why did she have to publish herself so conspicuously to all other people? Considering that he had been always dedicated to her, even if quite a number of girls had expressed their interest in him? He, always, since day one, had set her as his idol, onto whom he would bestow all he had, all his emotions and manly resources. But no, she was not that way; all the time she was so happy if not happier with other boys around, never relinquishing a slight chance to make herself the centre of male attention.

The notion that she was his, she loved him no less than he her, had now proved to be a mere illusion. She, a Shanghai girl, didn’t seem capable of devoting the wholeness of her love, her charm, her womanhood to one person, to him only, even if she had once upon a time lost herself to him, had accorded a temporary vibration with him. She was still far, remote, aloof, distant, looking over him with her mocking eyes, looking over him as a poor country lad with her haughty eyes, assuming a sort of self-appointed status that nobody but Shanghainese themselves could have so much appreciated.

But why, why had he to do with her, if he loathed the Shanghainese so much? Why did he have to love her? There were quite a few pretty girls in other provinces, who had also shown a certain admiration for him. Wouldn’t he feel better, more comfortable, and more equal courting them?

For a number of nights, lying on his bed, he was entangled with his own thoughts, failing to find a way out. He was cornered by a paradox. Did she really love him, or not? If so, why did she seem so afraid of the public knowledge of their relationship? If not, why did she present herself as such a submissive girl before him whenever they were alone, in their own little world? She could even cry with tears when he occasionally lost his temper, and insulted her either with his rude words or with his crude sexual intrusion.  

He was even thinking of making her pregnant again in his hopeless desire to lock her in, to take the whole possession of her body and her mind. But then, Vivian, as smart as she was, had, during this struggle of their relationship, been more conscious and alert about his whims and recklessness in his evil tendency which had grown rampant of late.

One day he might determine not to see her again, but the next he could suddenly ridicule his decision and seek reconciliation with her. Their courtship was more and more ruled by his caprice. When he thought he was sober and sensible, he might understand fully his ill behaviour, but the irritation and disturbance to his nerves on a daily basis had never ceased to crack his now weaker form of self-control.

Of all the world, there was only Kang he could talk with and help him analyse his disquieted state of mind.

‘Cheer up, Bing, you have been recently very blue,’ Kang said, clanging his bottle with Bing’s, after tossing a peanut into his mouth. ‘Have you broken up with Vivian?’

Bing, tilting the bottle in his mouth, drank three mouthfuls in one go. Then still holding the beer, looking at Kang with his red eyes, he said, ‘I am very much wretched, you know, I am a fool.’

Patting his shoulder, Kang said, ‘Take it easy, it is not the end of world.’

‘I just couldn’t get rid of her from my mind.’

‘But she loves you, does she not?’

‘Who knows, the Shanghai women,’ he cursed, in a livid wrath not less influenced by alcohol, ‘they seem to love every man in the world.’

‘Hahaha, no, no, you are exaggerating, at least she doesn’t love me,’ Kang was laughing, hilariously, a little offensively.

Bing had to smile a little, ‘But you have Xiaodan dedicated to you, she doesn’t show off herself in every direction like Vivian.’

‘But, remember Fang? She was quite dedicated to you as well, I believe. Then you wanted Vivian, who was all different, far more glamorous than anyone else.’

‘So you mean I am too greedy?’

‘Of course, you are greedy. To think you have already taken her, what else do you want? Her soul? Her spirit?’ Kang eyed his friend, never so critically as this round of conversation, ‘or, do you want to marry her?’

‘Marry? Not yet thought that far.’

‘In my view, marriage is impossible.’

‘Why?’

‘Common sense, you will most likely go back to Sichuan after graduation, do you think Vivian would follow you there?’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, can you honestly imagine that Vivian would give up all that she has in Shanghai, and go to a place deemed so much under-developed and poor? And there is virtually no chance for you to stay in Shanghai, you won’t get a residence certificate here.’

Musing, looking at the ground, Bing drank his beer.

Kang continued, ‘And even if she wants to go with you, how about her parents? Is she the only child?’

‘Yes, she told me so.’

‘See, it is the hardest case, how will her parents let their only child go so far away?’

‘So, what can I do?’ Bing asked gravely, ‘end with her?’   

‘I don’t know. I am thinking you are just taking it too serious. You have made yourself so unhappy.’

‘But, are you serious with Xiaodan?’

‘Yes, because we are both from Northern parts, and even if not, I am sure she would follow me anywhere I go.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Well, I can’t explain it, I am sure of her, but I could never be sure of someone like Vivian. I don’t think Vivian is the type of girl who would give up much for something like love, so called love.’

‘So it seems to me Xiaodan loves you, and Vivian doesn’t love me, or not enough for her to follow me anywhere,’ his thought seemed to clarify a little in the course of the conversation, ‘and is she only temporarily interested in me? When she said she loved me, I couldn’t think otherwise but believe her. It sounded so true.’

‘Well, that is something I never quite understand,’ Kang said, ‘but, Bing, are you really in love with her?’

‘Yes, I am very, very sure that I love her. And put another way, I would follow her anywhere, if she let me do so. But the fact she that couldn’t do the same for me, makes me wonder if her love is different from mine, either in intensity or in dedication, not what I have for a long time understood. But there was a period of time during her pregnancy I truly believed in the strength of her affection, no less than mine.’

‘But people may change as the time goes on.’

‘You mean she has changed,’ he looked at Kang, ‘or she has always been the same, unchangeable?’

Kang chuckled, squaring his mouth, ‘You are confusing me, too much of a topic for me. Unlike you, I haven’t yet made any love to any girls.’

Suddenly intrigued, Bing asked, ‘Didn’t you try to make love with her?’

‘No, but we’ve kissed now.’

‘Tell me about that?’

‘Haha…’ Kang laughed aloud, never so happy in Bing’s memory.

….

They talked late as usual on the night. The friendship, to the contrast of his bizarre love relationship, had never failed to console him, to hold him up in the water of his trouble. Without Kang, how could he spend all those lonely days in the school? He wondered why he couldn’t make more friends like him? Such as other roommates or classmates? But, did he really need one more if he had already Kang? Why did love, so-called, give him so much trouble, while the friendship seemed to be all so pleasant and stable like a rock?

Next time, he needed to talk with Vivian about the matters of love they had touched upon tonight, he decided, while drifting slowly into sleep.



--End of Chaper 31 ---