英文小说：A Shadow in Surfers Paradise (39) 天堂之影

洋八路

Chapter 39          1/3




‘Give me your Medical Record Book,’ the doctor said, as he sat down in front of her.

He gave it to her.

She inspected the book, then opening an amiable smile, ‘So you are an English teacher.’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you new?’ she asked. ‘I never saw you before.’

There was an obvious fault in the logic of her question, but he answered her just the same, ‘Yes.’

‘Just come here?’

‘No, nearly one year.’

‘Oh,’ she said, as if she had to suspect it. ‘Okay, now, is it about your hand?’

‘Yes, I cut myself.’

‘Put the hand onto the table,’ she ordered. ‘Let me look.’

She took his hand, slanting her head, to the left and to the right, like a bird’s head in making up its mind where to peck.

‘The wound is very long,’ she remarked, after a consideration. ‘How did you do it?’

He was about to tell her the story, then withdrawing, he said, ‘I cut it when cooking.’

‘Cooking?’ she frowned, ‘you mean when you were cutting the meat?’

‘Yeah…’

‘Yeah?’ she eyed him in disbelief. Then, without more response from him, she resumed her professional attitude. ‘I need to clean it first, to see clear the cut, before deciding what to do.’

She rose to her feet and went to a basin, signalling him to come after her. ‘Come here, and sit on the stool.’
He walked over and sat on the stool.

The doctor held his hand and, using a cotton swab which she had dipped wet in a bottle of liquid, dabbed about the place. For the moment, her caring attention was as tense as that of his grandma’s.

At first, it was only tickling, then as it neared the real gash, he felt the sharp and tingling pain. However, he maintained his strained position, refraining in great effort his hand from trembling, or instinctively withdrawing from her nerve-inflicting brushing.

Entirely absorbed in her task, she didn’t seem to be aware of his enormous pain and distress. However, the way she worked so carefully and gently on his hand awed him greatly. To an extent, she was not unlike treating her own hand, or a baby’s. He face was slightly long, her features were soft and harmonious. She wore a pair of elegant spectacles and was clothed by the doctor’s white gown which made her dark, curly hair tendrils look even darker. Admittedly, she a good looking woman, though the appeal was not in a fresh, vivacious way like what she must have been ten years younger.

The taut minutes of her treatment were thus passing, and the quiet warmth he was able to draw from her charm and care was such a nice distractive comfort.

Finally, it was finished, and she said, ‘I will have to do a few stitches; otherwise, it will leave you an ugly scar.’

‘What?’ he exclaimed, ‘stitches? Are you serious?’ The most he had anticipated was a cleaning and a gauze wrapping.

‘Yes, it is serious, can’t you see it yourself? It even hurt the vein,’ she said sternly. ‘Without stitches, the wound will take much longer to heal, and worse, it may catch further infection.’

In her undisputed voice of doctoring, he expressed no more protest but a nervous inquiry. ‘Then how many stitches? How would you do it? Anaesthetic?’

She was smiling, half gloating over his piteous response, ‘Are you afraid? Haven’t you done with stitches before?’

‘No.’

‘Then you are not doing as much sporting as others.’

‘Well, not me.’

‘Which university did you graduate from?’

‘Shangwai.’

‘Shangwai?’ she was confused.

‘Shanghai International Studies University.’

‘Oh, that must be a good one.’

Then she asked him to enter a separate section, where he saw many little tools, such as scissors and gauzes and bottles, on the table.

She pointed at a stool, ‘Sit down.’

He sat down, and she went on with her words, ‘Now, for this cut, I would usually give it six stitches, but if you fear pain, I will do just four.’

‘Pain?’ he raised his eyes, ‘can’t you use anesthesia?’

‘Anesthesia? No, we don’t do that with such minor operation,’ she answered, without any room for bargaining.

Upon this, as if he had to be brave in front of her, he spoke out his courage, ‘Fine then, six stitches.’

However, no sooner had he said it than he regretted for his quick answer, and wanted to change his mind, but no sooner had he wanted to change his mind than he changed his mind again, and said no more. For the moment, he was like a goat being challenged and threatened. He held his face grim and miserable, watching nervously her preparing her tools.

At last, she was ready. She threw him a long steady gaze, plus a little wicked smile as if she was to enjoy something. ‘Okay, now, are you ready?’

‘Yes…’ he faltered.

She moved over a stool, took a pair of hooked scissors with threads, and asked him place his hand over a pad of cotton cushion. ‘You can look away if you like.’

He looked away, awaiting the moment, which seemed to have taken many seconds longer, in the meanwhile he heard her still pulling and playing about things.

Now, something cold and sharp pierced the skin, he flinched. ‘Don’t move,’ she said.

He didn’t move, but all his nerves gathered at the cold tip jolting about the skin piece. The pain was never so excruciating when the thread was running through it. Then at the second stitch, out of curiosity, he turned to see the operation, watching his flesh being pieced by her. Again, she was all absorbed in her minor yet intensive task, in a manner of perfecting a line of artwork. For a moment, in spite of his feebleness, she was reminding him of his mother knitting a sweater for him. The concentration was almost the same.

He shuddered, when another stitch was dragging through.

When at last she told him the operation was complete, he could hardly feel any relief, for his stress was still full on the nerve. At any rate, he made an effort to see the result. Covered with streaks of blood, and with threads in and out along the line, it looked very ugly.

Feeling slightly faint, he remained seated, while she went to get the gauze, and came back to wrap for him. When the last strip wound around his palm, she declared, with a smile of relaxation, ‘All done.’      

He arose to go, then all the sudden, he felt dizzy and had to support himself on the edge of the table.

‘Are you all right? You look so white,’ she said, immediately supporting him by his arm and leading him towards a bed. ‘Lie down, take a rest, let me fetch you a cup of sugar water.’

He made an effort in raising his feet, and lay on his back, and closed his eyes.

Then he heard her coming over, propped up his head with her arm and fed him with the water. He drank, and lay down again. ‘Rest a while, you will be fine.’ She went out of the room.

In a couple of minutes, he sensed he had fully recovered. He sat up slowly, moved his feet off the bed, shook his head a bit to verify his stability, and standing, walked himself out.  

Sitting on her chair, she turned, and smiled to him, ‘You are like a child, fearing so much pain.’

He said, timidly, ‘Well, I have never done this before, maybe next time, I will...’

‘You want next time?’ she short cut his words with a pending smile.

He watched the mirthfulness in her face, discerning truly or falsely first time, apart from her kindness and gentleness as a doctor, a special feminine attention towards him in her now humorous expression.

He was just smiling.

‘Now, come over, sign on it,’ she called, ‘in about a week, maybe the next Saturday afternoon, you come over again for me to remove the stitches.’

Bing took the chance to talk, ‘See, there is a second time, to endure the pain.’

‘Haha,’ she was delighted, her teeth as white as her gown. ‘Hope you won’t faint over again, otherwise, I will.’

‘Hehe...’

He signed on the paper, ready to go. ‘Thank you…’ he said, and then added, ‘Sorry, I didn’t get your name.’

‘I have a surname same as you.’

‘Thank you, doctor Wang,’ he said, ‘So, see you next time.’

‘Bye.’

At the door threshold, he turned to give her another look. She was now treating another patient on the waiting room. She must be nearing thirty, ten years older than himself.

Slowly strolling along, and feeling the throbbing pain of his hand, he soon reached and began descending the famous 157 Steps, which was a steep stone-staircase taken as a shortcut from the Western Hill district to the rest of the campus. To its end was linked an old-fashioned, arched stone-bridge, which was longer, higher, and bigger than the one in Shangwai. Under the bridge was a stream, where the clear and clean water was singing, running itself into the pebbles, pushing up white splashes in its course. Past the bridge was another zigzag staircase upwards the building he lived in. The district was called Mirror Lake Hill, probably referring to a lake in the northern east of the campus.

On Monday, his students asked him what had happened to his hand, and he told that he had been bitten by a monkey in his weekend tour to Emei Mountain. None of the students had the least doubt about his second invention after the first one he had told Doctor Wang. And, at the end of class, he gave a narrative writing task to the students. The title was ‘Mr. Wang and the Emei monkey’. The enthusiasm shown to the assignment was evident with the waves of rippling laughter in the classroom. There were about sixty fresh, year 1991 students from the two classes majored in Electric Locomotive.

Though it was his first job, without a chance to make a sensible comparison, he thought he liked his teacher’s role fairly well. In the class, in the midst of the young faces, he had less chance to be gloomy and pessimistic. Most of the students came from poor villages like him; he talked to them, looked at them, reflecting upon his own university life four years earlier. It was true he hadn’t planned to be a teacher, rather than assigned by Shangwai out of Jiaoda’s application. But he couldn’t have wished for anything better.

Founded in year 1898, originally in Shanhaiguan in Heibei province, and then named as Imperial Chinese Railway College, Jiaoda was the first school in China specially set up for the purpose of railway construction. Since then, the school had been constantly moving and seeking an ideal location for a final establishment, adopting numerous names under different authority of various governments, having a history mirroring the turbulent China during the last one hundred years. Tangshan was the place where it had stayed most of the time, while Shanghai, Hunan, and Guizhou were other places it had been forced to migrated to. It had even ended up homeless for some period during Japanese invasion. In 1964 it was moved to Emei and had ever since stayed there for 25 years. In its expanding plan in year 1991, the same year of Bing’s arrival, the school decided to move its headquarter to Chengdu, with the Emei campus remaining as a branch. Because of the expansion, it was understandable the university was short of many teachers.

The migration or duplication of faculties from Emei to Chengdu had been happening for some time. The two-bedroom unit he was living in, was actually vacated by some other teachers who had lately gone to Chengdu. It was a luxury with only one instead of two taking the room, but it could be changed at any time to accommodate two single teachers, which was the usual living condition provided by the university.  

Like many other teachers who were still in Emei, Bing was likely required to move to Chengdu, depending on how the resources were to be balanced between two campuses.  

However, he didn’t very much favour the idea of living in Chengdu, for it was just another crowded city though to lesser extent compared to Shanghai. But there were a couple of advantages staying in the capital city, one was that his childhood friend Kai was also in Chengdu, the other being that it would take less time for him to go back home. Otherwise, Emei was a perfect place for his current disposition, even though most of his off-class time would see him wandering about like a lone and sentimental wolf, or like a tramp who has to miss the cosiness of a home settlement he was passing.

Consciously or unconsciously he was yearning for the sort of warmth and care like what he had received from doctor Wang. During the week, he was thinking of her, almost impatient for his chance to see her again. The way she handled his hand, the closeness and strange intimacy ensued between her and him were something new and luring in his current vacancy of being. It was indeed the first time, since the miserable end with Vivian, that he had begun to feel a wanting for someone to fill his lonely hours.     

So, after a week’s stirring in his manhood, he went to see her with an excitement and a certain expectation, to watch her doing her little but no less sensational surgery again. In the Saturday morning, he dressed the best as he believed, loitering on the pretty campus, before heading for his lunch.

Then after the two hours of noon break as the usual Chinese work routine, the afternoon came. With a heart that had been sufficiently stimulated and stewed up to the minute, he went in the medical centre, asking for her at the reception counter.
He was told she was not in today, and he felt like the one with a face heated a while by the sun, then cooled by a pour of rain. But he was bold enough to ask when she would be in, and was told she would be in on Sunday.

So next day he walked again into the room. At his first sight of her smiling face, he found her a woman of good attraction, especially her lips, which were rich and sensuous, and curved, and nicely shaped, thick in the middle…

He was interrupted by her, ‘How are you feeling?’  

‘Tickling all the time.’

‘That is good, healing well,’ she said. ‘Sit down, let me check it.’

Both of them seated, she started peeling off the strips, his hand responding with a mixture of feelings, pain and exciting.
The wound was exposed, the threads were darkly stained with the solid blood. He had actually checked himself two days before, knowing it had been going well. Yet at this moment, under her keen eyes, held by her fingers, under her rich lips, he fancied it being loved and kissed by her.

‘Good,’ she said, raising her head, and regarding him with a challenging smile as if he was a child in kindergarten. ‘Now let me take off the lines.’

‘What if we don’t take them off,’ he said, designing more talks between them, ‘will they become a kind of flesh?’

She was half amused, grinning, ‘Yes, it will, but no matter how long, they will not become Your flesh, understand?’

‘Understand,’ he assented, but in his mind, it sounded more like ‘No matter how long she is with you, she will not become part of you.’

She set to work: cut the lines into short sections, picked the thread with tweezers, and pulled it out one after another. It was tingling, but more like bitter-joy than the pure pain he had experienced last time.

It had finished too fast.

That done, she asked him to sign on the paper again. ‘Keep it dry as usual, until it is fully well.’ was her last plain, doctoring advice to him.

He was out. Less than five minutes, the hopeful appointment he had seriously meditated for a long week had completed. Now, his face was not cooled by the rain but chilled by the ice of dejection.


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洋八路

Chapter 39     2/3




His days wore on, until the summer holiday of the following year. He went back to his village, celebrating his sister’s graduation from her college, as well as her assigned employment in Mianyang Public Security Bureau. She looked fabulous in her uniform, attracting the uttermost admiration from villagers, especially from the kids. He did the wrist wrestling again with her, but this time, she was able to win and lose half and half.  

So with two children who had finally secured their jobs and begun to lead the decent lives, his parents were appearing ceaselessly happy. And his father seemed to smile all smiles he had missed in his other years. Although it was still at early stages, the prospect of better lives for also their parents was within sight. Encouraged by the happy eaters around the celebrating banquet, Bing and his sister began to persuade his mother to gradually reduce the fieldwork by lending their family rice fields to Dan, or other relatives. She would then either choose to stay in the County with his father in the repair shop, or eventually, both of them go to Mianyang to live with Ming or, taking a longer stride, with Bing when he was married with his own family.

Nevertheless, for the time being, Bing was still more like a careless youth himself, and the fact he was living much farther away from his parents than his sister meant that he wouldn’t be a better candidate for exercising the traditional Chinese filial piety than Ming. And to large extent, he, living alone at the foot of Emei Mountain, was worried and cared more by his parents than the other way around.  

Another half year had elapsed in his peaceful yet empty life. At the second year of his employment, he taught the same sixty students as the first, following the growth of students as well as his class experience. His department had actually offered him an opportunity to work in Chengdu, but he declined the offer. In his once visit there, he felt the Chengdu campus too noisy.

One day he received a letter from one of his students now at sophomore year. He thought he vaguely remembered her. The letter read as this:


‘Dear Mr.Wang,

I am Lin Cui, in your class.

I think I have been, since your first lesson last year, in love with you. Please don’t laugh at me. I made up the mind to write you this letter, after many, many wondering days and sleepless nights. I know I am naïve and silly, but I couldn’t help being what I have been through.

Mr. Wang, you know, I am crying, only myself in the dormitory, writing this letter to you. I am not sure if this letter will eventually reach you, because I may lose the last minute of required courage to post it to you. But I have to write to you, otherwise, I think I can’t live, I will die.

My English is no good. I concentrate more on you, your gesture, your seriousness and your humour and your laughter, and you are a very happy teacher.

But sometimes, when I came across you on the road, you were alone, quiet, and very composed, never much looking around. I even twice followed you to where you live, and you never looked back, and seemed to have no intention to greet the people who may come to you. At that time, I thought you must be an unhappy person, as much as me.

Can you write me back, Mr.Wang?

Lin Cui.

My address, Room 305, No.3 Building, Xishanliang Students Residence.’


Reading it twice, Bing was so moved that he had an impulsive to write her straight back, to smooth over her suffering, not without a momentary tendency to love her. Compared to his own first love letter to Vivian, which was only a vague and indirect poem, this one was written rather directly, and very eloquent in her way of expression.

He thought for a long time, as how he was going to handle this incident. This girl must be as sensitive as himself, so he ought to be cautious, exercising the best possible discretion. Finally he wrote, and it read like this:


‘Classmate Lin Cui,

I was very surprised in receiving your letter. I have to say this was the first letter I have ever had in which an honest love had been so well expressed and articulated, although I doubt very much I have the credits you had regarded me that should deserve such an attention from you.

No, I won’t laugh at you. I can understand you, and even feel the young pain and helplessness you have been feeling, because I, very much like you, had once fallen in the kind of fruitless love in my university.

However, you are not right in your thinking I am not happy after class. As a matter of fact, I am in love with a girl, a teacher in Sichuan University I have known for some years, and most of my spare time is calling her and writing letters to her.

I wish I have any spare room in my heart to love you, but even so, it is not morally right for a teacher to love a student. You are still young, and without doubt, you will find your love in your bright future.

I hope to see you happy in the class.

Sincerely yours,

Wang Bing’

He inserted the paper into an envelope. No need to post it, he delivered himself, during one of his evening walks, to the building she had enclosed in her letter.

In following lessons in the classroom, he thought he had caught many wistful glances from her, but he remained calm and firm. Nevertheless, the incident seemed to have closed rather lingeringly, like a drizzle, sombre, lasting, and not without a certain aesthetic sentiment being involved, but which was destined to vanish quickly by the first wave of sunrays.   

Then in one evening, in the small food market nearby the bridge, he ran face to face into doctor Wang.

He recognized her immediately, and just as she had nearly passed him over, he called, ‘Doctor Wang.’

Startled, she looked at him, with a pair of eyes studying a stranger.

‘Don’t you remember me?’ he asked, a trifle disappointed. ‘I am the one who had once cut my hand, and you did the stitches, more than half a year ago.’

He raised his left hand, turned over the back of it and showed it to her, as if there were still enough evidence to prove their once upon a time acquaintance.  

Her eyes were flashing, a light of intelligence then on display, ‘Oh, now I remembered, you are an English teacher, cutting your hand when cooking, and fainted after the stitches.’

Not wearing her doctor’s white gown, she appeared today even handsomer, exhibiting a woman of fine maturity. In her yellowish wool sweater, her breasts were more apparently enclosed with an outline, warm, and soft, and comfortable. One of her hands carried a bag of cauliflower, the other a live fish. She was smiling at him, in her caring charm and amiability he had well remembered.

‘Yes, see, you still remember,’ he said, and then added in tone akin to a good old friend. ‘I thought you have forgotten me a long time ago.’

‘No, actually, I thought of you,’ she said, inspiringly, ‘when I had a student who had some stitches in his leg.’

‘A student?’

‘Yes, he was even worse than you, he fainted just after the first stitch,’ she said. ‘So you are not the only one who fears so much of pain.’

‘Haha, so I am a brave person, if I do it again, I am sure I will be able to walk and run straight after the surgery.’

To his boasting, she responded, ‘Well, we won’t know until you cut yourself again,’ then, in another moment, ‘Do you come here to get something to cook?’

‘Yeah, I am thinking of making a soup, with mushroom.’

‘Mushroom, soup?’ she tightened her brows, which, besides her thick lips, was an extra charm under his secret study. ‘It sounds odd to me.’

‘Well, I like mushroom and want to keep its shape when eating, so cooking it as a whole in the soup is the only way retaining its umbrella form.’

‘I see, haha, if you so much like the shape, why don’t you just eat it fresh?’

‘Indeed, you gave me a new idea. But you have to promise to cure me if I have a stomach-ache.’

‘Haha, you are so funny,’ she said, then perhaps feeling her arm strained with the weight, she bade him farewell. ‘Well, well, enjoy your mushroom soup, I have to hurry, a lot of things to do.’

‘Okay, see you later,’ he said, realizing the street-conversation must have been too long for her, but too short for him.

‘Bye.’

So, they parted, she bought more of her things; he went to shop for his mushroom.

Yet by another turn in the little market, they met each other again. He was only smiling at her, and not expecting for any more gossips.

He was about to walk on and bypass her, then she called him, ‘Wei, Wei, sorry, I forgot your name.’

‘Wang Bing.’

‘Okay, Wang Bing, I wonder if you can help me.’

‘Of course, I will with what I can,’ he said, ‘what is it?’

‘You know, I am writing a thesis, for my professional qualification appraisal, which requires an English version…’

Quickly knowing what the helping nature was, he said before she finished her sentence, ‘No problem, I can translate it for you, but you need to resolve the medical vocabulary yourself.’

‘No, no, you don’t have to do the whole translation, just help me do the proofing, grammar, and expressions.’

‘Fine, either way, it is my pleasure,’ he said, then grinning, he added, ‘You helped my hand, and I help your English, hehe…’

‘Thank you, thank you,’ she thanked in verily thankful words, ‘then how I give it you once it is ready?’

‘I am living in Mirror Lake Hill, building 2, room 207.’

‘Really? Then we are living in the same hill, I am in the building 4, room 410.’

‘Is it so? I wonder why I never saw you?’
….

So, at the end of gossip-like communication, he got her room number, and she his. It was agreed that, once she got her paper ready, she just went and knocked at his door.

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洋八路

洋八路 发表于 2014-5-16 10:03
Chapter 39     2/3

Chapter 39    3/3




However, two weeks had thus gone by, her knocking at his door had not yet occurred. Bing was just losing the hope, then the hopeful knock arrived in two days, and his gladness was all over his face.

‘Come in, come in, doctor Wang,’ he ushered her into the room, which had been tidied up and maintained in order since he had been expecting her visit. ‘I just wonder if you still need my help any more, you had said within one week.’

‘Well, it took me one more week to get the translation done.’ She placed her paperwork, and a floppy disk on the desk.

He asked her sit down on a chair, and went to prepare the tea.

‘No, don’t bother with the tea.’

But he went ahead with the tea. In a short while, two large cups, with green tea leaves elegantly floating and sinking in it, were ready, one for her, one for himself.

‘Thank you,’ she said, cupping her hands around her cup.

‘My pleasure,’ he replied, ‘it is a bit cold, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, don’t know why this winter is so cold.’

She then sipped a little of hot tea; Bing did the same. For a moment or two, neither she nor he had succeeded in fumbling for more words to talk, in such an intimate room condition. And moreover, she was somehow different from her usual outgoing character as a doctor. Sitting there, and with her waistcoat enclosing very much her feminine attractions, she was of course just a civilized, reserved and conservative woman, who had come here asking a bit of his help.

‘Just yourself live in this unit?’ she ventured to speak.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but I was reminded that another teacher might come to live here, probably very soon.’

‘Oh, you don’t move to Chengdu?’   

‘Professor Chen talked to me, giving me the option, but I like better here.’

‘Why? A lot of teachers want to leave.’

‘I went there last summer, and it didn’t impress me much, not as beautiful as here.’

‘Of course not, but that is Chengdu.’

He sipped his tea, ‘How about you?’

‘I may very likely go, with my husband.’

He was not surprised. ‘Is your husband a teacher here?’

‘Yes, he is in Civil Engineering Department.’

‘I see. So he wants to go there? Or his transfer is a compulsory?’

‘I think, like you, he had an option, but we have a child, and need better schools.’

‘Oh,’ he acknowledged, and after sipping once more the tea, didn’t try for more topics.

Then voluntarily she made more of her introduction, ‘I graduated from Sichuan Medical University, assigned here six years ago.’

‘Where is your hometown?’ he asked.

‘Mianyang.’

‘What? I am from Mianyang too,’ he said aloud. ‘I meant, I was from a village of Sangton county.’

Her face was there shining, but probably more due to the warming up by the hot tea. ‘What a coincidence, so amazed that we are country-fellows.’

‘So, why didn’t you go back to Mianyang after your graduation?’

‘Why, you should know we were very much assigned by the school, and didn’t have the freedom to choose where to go.’

‘Hehe, right, I was also assigned by my university.’

‘Which university did you graduate from?’

‘Shanghai International Studies University,’ he, again, gave her the full name.

From then on, feeling more relaxed and natural as the country-fellowship was entitled to be, they talked and gossipped more extensively about the trivial matters happening around the university, until late in the afternoon when she realized the time of cooking. She rose up, and ready to go.

During their roughly one hour of talking, both of them had not mentioned anything about her English paperwork.

At the doorstep, he said to her, ‘You can come to get the paper in two or three days.’

‘Oh, I almost forget, then bother you with it, take your time, no rush,’ she said, then after a few steps down, turned her head to him and said, ‘thank you, country-fellow.’

He waved at her, humorously wondered how much magic the ‘Country-Fellow’ could play in everywhere in China. It almost worked as a token of friendship and brotherhood. Now that Bing was her country-fellow, asking him for the help was no longer a big deal as before.

Her English version done by herself was one of the typical awkward Chinglish, which was rather monotonous, stiff, oftentimes out of logic, without the context. He worked hard at it, a ten-page medical thesis. Some of the paragraphs had to be completely rewritten after he had guessed painfully the real theme within the words. He was sure he had spent much more time than what he had originally expected, in his intent to make it good if not perfect to his best knowledge of English.
He had been waiting for her on the third evening as he had indicated to her, but she didn’t come. She came over two days later, and this time she brought some apples and a bunch of banana with her.

‘Why do you bring that,’ he said. ‘We are country-fellows, no need being so ceremonious.’

‘I just bought some today, and thought to share it with you,’ she said lightly.

He was about to prepare the tea, but this time she stressed on her declining, saying she really needed to go, because his husband was on business, and she needed to go back to her son quickly.

He had to let her go, and accompanied her to the steps. Then she waved the thesis paper and the floppy. ‘Thank you, Wang Bing, I will treat you a dinner another time.’

Well, it was just an expression of politeness, he thought, but he couldn’t expect any more than that, could he?

He had to forget her.

In one evening a couple of weeks later, while he was taking his after-supper walk, he noticed, from quite a distance, that she and a man and a child were strolling towards him. His first native reaction was keep on going, and give her family a gallant greeting, but his second was to avoid them all together. Among the two courses of action, he whimsically chose the later. He turned and escaped uneasily to a flight of stone stairs. Whether she had seen him or not he didn’t know, until two days later when she knocked her door the third time.

‘Wang Bing, I saw you yesterday,’ she said, as soon as she sat in the chair, ‘I was about to call you, but you turned.’

‘Oh,’ he said, then telling one of his many clever lies. ‘Really? Where was it? I didn’t see you.’

‘Hehe, you have a colour, you are lying,’ she said. ‘Are you afraid of me?’

‘Hehe, no, not at all, why, afraid of you?’ he stammered a bit, now really feeling a colour on his face. ‘Unless, unless you are going to do more stitches to my hand.’

‘Haha, you are so funny,’ she laughed, her face never so gleeful, ‘I have been so busy, but I haven’t forgotten my promise to treat you a dinner. And your proofreading was so good that my colleagues had been asking me who had done it, but I should keep it a secret, shouldn’t I?’

‘Hehe…never mind.’

‘But seriously, I need to thank you for it.’

He looked at her, and fixed his eyes on hers for a longer moment than a friendly average. Then playfully, he repeated her words in his own version, ‘But seriously, you need to thank me for it.’

Instantly her face was affected, with a light colour, which rendered her more than five years younger.

But there was not much delay in resuming her composure. ‘Wang Bing, why don’t you have a girl friend? May I introduce one for you?’

‘Ha…how do you know I don’t have a girl friend?’

‘Well, I don’t know, but you don’t look like you have a girl friend, or she is not here?’

‘Well, no, she is actually in Shanghai.’

‘What? You are kidding.’

‘Not kidding, she is in Shanghai,’ he said it again, in a more serious manner. ‘But she doesn’t love me any more, or she had never loved me at all.’

She was regarding him steadfastly, believing, suspecting, and pitying, ‘Hehe, don’t you tell me it was a sad story.’

He shrugged, ‘It is okay, not sad at all. Now, seriously you should introduce a girlfriend to me, otherwise…’ He let his voice trail off in a suspense.

‘Otherwise?’ Her mouth, now looked very sexy, hasted to follow the trap, her eyes in a widening wonder.

He grinned, taking his moments and patience. Then in a tone with a gravity, he said, ‘Otherwise I may miss you all the time.’

She was slightly flushed, but inwardly gasped, her bosom noticeably heaving. ‘You are kidding, I am a married woman.’

Then she stood up, in a teasing yet unsteady voice, ‘Really and seriously, I need to introduce you a girl friend.’

‘Yes, you may…’ he said diffidently.

He accompanied her to the stairs, and this time she didn’t make a gesture to him on her departure.

Later in the night he thought he might have slighted her, and thought he should regret for saying those words; but the next day, he thought it was not a big deal, he would just let it pass.

After two weeks without any updates from her, he relapsed into his usual fixed pattern of life. However, on a Saturday morning, she came to his door, her arms carrying a chicken, and eggs, and mushrooms, and a bunch of spinach.

She said, she wanted to cook a lunch for him, and she said, she was leaving for Chengdu tomorrow.

She cooked the chicken for a long time, and made a mushroom soup mixed with the egg-flower which was flowering beautifully on the surface.

During the course of the special lunch, which had lasted more than three hours, he had taken four bottles of beer, while she had drunk less than half a bottle.

Then in his single bed, they made love.

She said, as he worried about a condom because he had none in his room, that he didn’t need one, for she had done ligation.

She buried his head between her breasts, stroked his hair with both of her hands, and said, ‘You said you missed me…’

He looked a little up from the middle, from the point closest to her heart, and said, ‘Yes.’ Then he sank in again.

‘I am going,’ said she, wistfully, ‘after today, you won’t miss me any more.’

‘I will,’ he promised, in a voice muffled by her swelling flesh.

For the next minute or two, no words passed between the two. Quietly and affectionately, her hands crossed his hair like two combs.

Then he moved himself up to her mouth, without separating from the length of her body. He kissed her; he felt her hands moving from his head, down to his shoulders, then to his back, then to his waist, then stopped there, massaging his flanks.

It was tickling.

His kiss was suspended, giving way to a breath of laughter. He had to pull one of his hands out from under her head, and reached down to push her hands away.

She withdrew her hands and moved up back to his head. ‘You are so prone to tickling?’

‘What do you think?’ he said, turning over, letting himself lie side by side with her. ‘I fear tickling more than the pain.’

‘Haha, but you fainted last time from the stitches, didn’t you?’

‘No, that was incorrect. I rather believed I fainted because of the terrible tickling you had induced to my hand.’

She picked the very hand and made a doctor-like inspection, then kissed the place where she had done her skilful operation. ‘I felt the same pain when you shuddered.’

‘Did you?’ he turned to her, and smiling, ‘I suppose you feel the pain every time you do the surgery?’

She inserted her hand underneath his head, pulling him over to her, and ruefully, she said, ‘No, just you.’

In a while, she said again, ‘Will you see me when you are in Chengdu?’

He evaded her question, ‘Do you want to see me?’

She looked at him, suddenly tapping his tummy with her skilful fingertips, like playing a piano. ‘You are sly.’

Laughing and writhing for a while, he turned over.



--End of Chapter 39--

Gone

这就开始堕落了。。

洋八路

Gone 发表于 2014-5-16 14:15
这就开始堕落了。。

呵呵，我对人，人物不作任何道德评判。。 人的方方面面，象外科手术，剥掉面纱，面对真实。。之所以这样，那肯定是那样，之所以那样，那肯定是这样。。。

Gone

洋八路 发表于 2014-5-16 15:06
呵呵，我对人，人物不作任何道德评判。。 人的方方面面，象外科手术，剥掉面纱，面对真实。 ...

只是觉得那个年代人还没有这么开放吧。。
这好像是2000年之后的节奏。。
这样容易误导老外。。个见。。

洋八路

Gone 发表于 2014-5-17 00:06
只是觉得那个年代人还没有这么开放吧。。
这好像是2000年之后的节奏。。
这样容易误导老外。。个见。。 ...

你这倒提醒了我
不过你是指发生这个事情本身呢，还是过程中的某个细节？
这个年代应该1994，1995年左右
这个事情我想应该太正常不过，一个个体隐秘行为，而且她也算保守，在离开峨眉山前夜
或许她的言语不太象那个时代的人？不过那个时候说的做的，他们自己也明白今后不可能怎么样的...

写这个主要最低限度填充王斌三年在学校的“情感生活”，否则一个年轻人，太空，读者有疑问，遇到他妻子又是一两年以后了...

或许什么地方可以修饰一下...

呵呵，个见..

Gone

洋八路 发表于 2014-5-17 08:16
你这倒提醒了我
不过你是指发生这个事情本身呢，还是过程中的某个细节？
这个年代应该1994，1995年左右

是觉得那时没有这么开放。几面之缘就上床。。那时那个年纪的女人不应当这么开放吧。。

Gone

不知道你想传达的思想是什么。。斌的谎言令人感到悲哀，他还这么年轻就这么油滑。。而王医生，那么容易被勾引。。这不是一个人堕落，像是社会的堕落。。可是，事实是这样吗？。。至少那个年代，年轻人还是充满激情和理想的，还没有沦为欲望的奴隶。。个人感觉。。

洋八路

Gone 发表于 2014-5-17 08:22
是觉得那时没有这么开放。几面之缘就上床。。那时那个年纪的女人不应当这么开放吧。。 ...

有道理...

不过，她请她吃饭，本来应该是没有那种想法，只是表示感谢...

过程如何，这里忽略了，或许是酒后发生的...

让我想想哪里应该可以修饰一下，更贴近那个时代的心理

这个只是一个小插曲，只是觉得三四年空空的直接谈到妻子快了点

谢谢

Gone

洋八路 发表于 2014-5-17 08:33
有道理...

不过，她请她吃饭，本来应该是没有那种想法，只是表示感谢...

不好意思，是我多事了。。如果你的小说是中文写的，或许我就沉默了。但是你用英文写，面对的读者是外国人群体，我觉得应当慎重吧。。那一代人是中国现在的希望。。他们没有那么堕落，至少他们年轻的时候，没有生活压力的时候很美好。。我较真了。。抱歉。。

洋八路

Gone 发表于 2014-5-17 08:43
不好意思，是我多事了。。如果你的小说是中文写的，或许我就沉默了。但是你用英文写，面对的读者是外国人 ...

说的很有道理

我觉得可以在对话那边补充一下她和他的内心“纠结”，使她们形象好些，符合时代一点..

非常感谢

Gone

洋八路 发表于 2014-5-17 09:04
说的很有道理

我觉得可以在对话那边补充一下她和他的内心“纠结”，使她们形象好些，符合时代一点..

应当谢谢你的小说。。也让我多一些思考。。
我觉得一个人可以堕落，但是必须有力量反弹回来。。斌的这种堕落让我看不到上升的希望，至少到现在是这么感觉。。只是我个人的感受，或许别人不这么看。。因为你的题目是天堂之影，我很喜欢这个题目，你定下的基调应当是很高的，但是斌这个人物的塑造。。离天堂有点远。。
个见。。真是不好意思，打扰你写作了，以后尽量少发言。。

洋八路

Gone 发表于 2014-5-17 08:30
不知道你想传达的思想是什么。。斌的谎言令人感到悲哀，他还这么年轻就这么油滑。。而王医生，那么容易被勾 ...

我也在想，小说的思想是什么呢？我还真没有想太多深层次的问题

这本小说基调是灰色的，阴暗的，厌世的，嘲讽的，黑色的，无意义的，无国界的

在自然界面前，想把人的高高在上的自我感觉打碎，重新审视这种比其他生物物种更麻烦的一种存在

它不主动代表某个民族，它不主动涉及社会意义和伦理

象一个人，或一只猴子独自冥想，好奇生命的方方面面....

可能看完，或许就是。 “ S h--, 还有这么一个人，是那么的......”

她不容易被勾引，说明她是可以被勾引的，任何时代人是一样的，会无聊空虚不满等等， 只是程度不一，有多难因人而异...也就是一种状况...那个飘的Scarlett 不断有肉体交易行为，但读者或许不觉得她是堕落的，或许觉得她是，这只是读者的评判，作者只是写出有这样的事情，并且是很个体的事情...

洋八路

Gone 发表于 2014-5-17 09:37
应当谢谢你的小说。。也让我多一些思考。。
我觉得一个人可以堕落，但是必须有力量反弹回来。。斌的这种 ...

没有打扰啊，我非常感谢这样的评论

天堂是点滴的，遥遥不可及的，人生和人类是影子

他同Vivian 恋爱的时候是一点“天堂”，但kang癌症死了反衬人生的灰色和短暂

....

希望你不介意这种讨论....

Gone

洋八路 发表于 2014-5-17 10:10
我也在想，小说的思想是什么呢？我还真没有想太多深层次的问题

这本小说基调是灰色的，阴暗的，厌世的， ...

明白了。谢谢你的回复。。

Gone

洋八路 发表于 2014-5-17 10:18
没有打扰啊，我非常感谢这样的评论

天堂是点滴的，遥遥不可及的，人生和人类是影子

多说点吧，我觉得有光才会有阴影。。有耀眼的光才会照见更深的阴影。。
飘里的光是对土地的热爱，也是对人之根本的热爱，还有斯佳丽对阿什利的痴情，瑞特对斯佳丽的包容和等待。。斯佳丽是做了交易，不过都有婚姻这件世人接受的外衣遮体，那不是堕落，是真正付出了相应的代价。。个见。。
你说无国界，而斌恰恰是有国界的。。鲜明的国籍：中国。。
我只是想说，作品里斌这一代人，现在处在中年时期，他们迷茫过，甚至也堕落过，或许依然在堕落着，不过，他们依然具有反弹上升的力量，理想主义在他们身上依然存留着，他们仍然担负得起未来中国的希望。。
其实我说这么多有什么用呢。。或许只是你的因为英文写作激起了我的逆反心理。。希望你不介意我说这么多。。

洋八路

Gone 发表于 2014-5-17 11:32
多说点吧，我觉得有光才会有阴影。。有耀眼的光才会照见更深的阴影。。
飘里的光是对土地的热爱，也是对 ...

说的很好。。有光就有影。。这本书也是有光（虽然这个希望读者自己去体会）-- 自然，亲情，田园，呼唤干净没有污染的社会。。其中的‘堕落’只是一个表达媒介，很刺眼，象喜剧演员的挖苦表达方式，但背后才是本意。。

我的没有国界是指斌这个人只能代表他自己，他无法代表任何其他的人，他偶然来到这个世界（因为一头猪的原因），偶然在中国，澳洲，在这个或者那个城市，但他只能代表他自己。。读者只能象看一只蚂蚁一样，看他的行走。。。而不必要它代表一群蚂蚁种类，或者某一个窝。。


飘的Scarlett, 我本人对她没有道德评判，只觉得她很有意思，在那个社会背景下，她的性格让她做了很多特别的事情。。

假设我是另一个读者，或许结论是： 她热爱土地，大于热爱人类，是irlish的一种偏执狂。。唯一可以例外的是，Ashley和她的母亲。。她为了这个土地和钱，抢走妹妹的未婚夫，可以忍受肮脏的性爱（那个糟老头），可以委身做Rhett的情人(没做成，因为发现他当时他也没钱）。只有Ashley可以让她‘暂时’忘掉土地，可以同他私奔，要知道，这个时候Ashley已经是她老公妹妹的丈夫，基本是等于‘乱伦’。。他们没有做成，是因为Ashley控制住了，不是她有什么道德禁忌。。Scarlett是完全没有考虑任何道德的人。。。连上帝都是要有用才需要祈祷。。。其实作者有意无意暗示，她同那个妓女差不了多少（当然，作者意图主要是写战争的苦难，这些人物只是媒介，是为了刺激读者去读）。。。再说，Rhett对她的‘爱’。。这种爱就是一种扭曲的‘欣赏’，欣赏她的自私，不顾一切，不择手段。。这种所谓的‘爱’同中国人，或者韩国人那种‘爱’应该差老远了。。所以，他可以抛弃她在回家的危险的路上。。而Rhett有多少滥交史也是很清楚的。。。

至于理想主义，我本人不是理想主义，是虚无主义。。觉得中国或者人类从不缺少理想，也不缺少为之奋斗的人。。但人仍然是一个可怜的物种。。挣扎，衰老死亡丑陋腐烂。。只能在掩耳盗铃的世界里等待宿命。。

中国的希望，这个题目就更大了。。或许会涉及政治。。而我不涉及政治，只涉及人性，那种贪欲，那种或有或无的人性光辉。。

不过，每次坐飞机，当飞机这个庞然大物腾空而起的时候，我觉得人类还是非常的伟大。。

Gone

洋八路 发表于 2014-5-17 14:06
说的很好。。有光就有影。。这本书也是有光（虽然这个希望读者自己去体会）-- 自然，亲情，田园，呼唤干 ...

谢谢你回复这么多，有好多光。。这么好的中文，为什么不用中文写呢。。再次感谢。。周末快乐。。打扰了。加油。。