Ride Me Up To Heaven
by Zhenglong Yang
Ma Dan’s husband was working the night shift that Friday night and wouldn’t come home until Sunday morning. The seven o’clock news was over. She had called earlier. He didn’t answer. Twenty minutes later, he called back. The sound of playing cards was in the background. There were other occasions when a man addressed her husband as darling and the line went dead suddenly. Her husband was not the type of man who was good at hiding things, and she was not the type of wife who was good at making a fuss, and saw no reason to.
When the street became quiet and she had nothing to do, she went to bed. Winter was over, but the sheets remained cold. The street was muffled by April rain and warmth, but they were kept out of doors. Lying in bed, she gazed at the jelled dildo for a while, pushed it into her body, the foam clucking; she let out a moan. She knew it was not the pleasure but the anger that made her quiver.
Outside, a heavily polluted river rose and rolled southeast, turbulently. A spidery chain bridge stretched across it. Many times she heard that people had jumped from it; many nights she dreamed of that bridge, of leading her husband to its edge; she nudged him and he fell. Waking, she wouldn’t call it a nightmare. Nothing could frighten a lonely woman unless it were the loneliness itself.
If doubts about her husband came across her mind at midnight, she did not allow herself to dwell on them for long. Spring was coming, she could get up to change the quilts, wash the winter jackets, or throw herself into every possible activity that needed a concentrated mind. This evening routine unchanged for the past seven years. For a lonely woman like her, daylight always came too late. Sometimes in the morning she found herself watching children play and chase one another, feeling happy that a red-cheeked boy bumped into her arms, asking for candy. And then it pained her as she realized she didn’t have her own child.
On weekends, she had time to do whatever she wanted, having no parents to take care of. Her father died of heart disease when she was a teenager, and her mother, throwing away her life’s labor, died two years later. In her memory, her mother was always in the kitchen, preparing food. Her father had lost his taste on account of medical malpractice. Everything her mother cooked, he would say, was too bland, and he would ask if there was anything else. Ma Dan was never allowed to eat her father’s food. “Piggish girl, you should learn to cook for your man someday, or else there’s the Buddhist nunnery waiting for girls who can’t cook,” her mother said, as if that explained everything.
It was the education she inherited from her mother that she needed to manage her own family one day, though now, except for housework, nothing needed her management, and the family, which consisted of herself most of the time, was no family at all. In Ma Dan’s upbringing she would have so many notions about marriage set in concrete. She was a wife, a daughter-in-law, a cleaner, a shopper, a cook, an ornament to the home, and a woman of ten thousand uses.
But it wasn’t that once you married, you became someone’s woman; you were no one’s woman, then a lesser woman, and eventually, you felt you were no woman. Ma Dan no longer wore nice high heels and fancy bras to appeal to her husband or any men. What had she become? She even lost the courage to think of it.
Last Tuesday night, she took a different route home. It was lovely to make a bit of change and spend some time outside. Down the street, she paused at a fruit stand, saw an elderly woman asleep on her stall, and a vagrant pilfered four pears and fled. She had wanted to call out to someone to catch the thief, to wake the elderly woman, and to tell her what she had witnessed. As soon as Ma Dan’s hand approached the owner’s shoulder, she knew she couldn’t do that. She quickly placed twenty yuan on the stand and walked down the narrow road.
A flickering slogan, ‘Ride me up to heaven’, lured her into a sex toy shop. On the ceiling a globe of painted glass glistened and spun, throwing beams of light. There was music playing in the background. She stood quietly at the doorway, looking at the various sex organs displayed on the wall-mounted racks; her mind was racing, her throat craving water. Above all, a voice inside her told her to leave, but her feet seemed, of their own accord, to take her inside the shop.
“Anything you’re interested in, let me know,” said a man, coming out of the back room. He had a buzz cut and bloodshot eyes, and a tiger tattoo was on his left shoulder. It might be due to the purple light that his skin looked cold, white, and sexy.
Standing there, she couldn’t think of anything to say.
“There’s nothing to feel embarrassed about,” the man said. “Women sometimes do come to my shop, and some become return customers.”
“What do you sell to ride men up to heaven?” She asked the question before she knew she was asking it, and the fever rumbling in her head drowned her immediately.
The man, laughingly, turned out to be eloquent about his shop and the products, about his customers from prepubescent boys to grandfathers, about men and women, cars and houses, and his philosophy. The music relaxed Ma Dan and provoked her now and then into behavior that resembled nothing of herself.
“My whole life feels like an impotent penis,” he said.
“You’re very funny,” she said.
“And you’re laughing.”
“I’m just smiling.”
“Woman like you should laugh out loud.”
Most of the time the man was doing the talking, cracking jokes, and she was listening and smiling, and her eyes, which before had been dull, sported a ripple of spark when she choked back giggling. When she was about to leave, the man wrapped up the dildo she had randomly chosen and gave her a special discount.
She thought she must be crazy.
When she came home, her husband was curled up on the sofa, checking his cell phone. He stayed there all night until he was called to sleep. There was very little talk in the bed, but that little consisted of the information that he would be on a five-day business trip, and she, in an attempt at intimacy, pressed her face on his shoulder, but he fell asleep very fast.
The next morning when her husband was in the bathroom, she noticed a brand-new pair of swim trunks and an unopened bottle of suntan oil in the open suitcase.
“What are you bringing the swim trunks for? Isn’t it still cold in Beijing?”
“In case the hotel has a swimming pool.”
“And in case the hotel has a sun so that you can use your suntan oil.”
“Did you eat gunpowder for breakfast?”
All she had the following days was, again, herself and this empty room. She was annoyed with herself for always trying to find the good aspects of her marriage. Why would she expect him to change? She had married a man who had no feelings for women at all. There was no love. For the first time she thought about leaving him; she thought about money, her age, her educational background, and the elderly woman at the fruit stand. The idea died. Having been trapped in marriage for this long, she realized she could go nowhere and to nothing.
In the household as in any other place, men had the upper hand. Her mother, a country woman, had spent her life serving her father day and night so that when her father woke up at 3 a.m., demanding chicken soup, dumplings, and hot tea, her mother would jump on her feet and run to the kitchen. The clanking and clattering and the scent of fire would wake her up; she would force her eyes not to open, not to listen to her father’s displeasure with the food.
Every time Ma Dan felt the need to get up and defend her mother, she dared not. Her mother had told her not to. When the noise faded, they went into the bedroom, and she knew they had sex, though they’d made no sound. It was only a few minutes. She was still awake, listening to her mother in the bathroom, washing; sometimes there was cigarette smoke, sometimes there was sobbing. The next morning her mother killed a crucian carp, slapping its head with the back of the knife even after it stopped wriggling, as if easy death were too good for the fish. She turned around, startled, to see her daughter.
“Did I say you could scare me like this?”
“The chicken soup is too salty to eat.”
“Didn’t I tell you you should not eat your father’s food?”
“You didn’t make any breakfast this morning.”
“You’ll never eat your father’s food again. Do you hear?”
“Yes.”
Then her mother went outside to the yard, leaving the fish in the sink. She strode back in a moment later, a boiled egg in her blood-stained hand.
“Tell no one about the soup. Do you hear?”
“Yes.”
When the street became quiet and she had nothing to do, she went to bed. Winter was over, but the sheets remained cold. The street was muffled by April rain and warmth, but they were kept out of doors. Lying in bed, she gazed at the jelled dildo for a while, pushed it into her body, the foam clucking; she let out a moan. She knew it was not the pleasure but the anger that made her quiver.
Outside, a heavily polluted river rose and rolled southeast, turbulently. A spidery chain bridge stretched across it. Many times she heard that people had jumped from it; many nights she dreamed of that bridge, of leading her husband to its edge; she nudged him and he fell. Waking, she wouldn’t call it a nightmare. Nothing could frighten a lonely woman unless it were the loneliness itself.
If doubts about her husband came across her mind at midnight, she did not allow herself to dwell on them for long. Spring was coming, she could get up to change the quilts, wash the winter jackets, or throw herself into every possible activity that needed a concentrated mind. This evening routine unchanged for the past seven years. For a lonely woman like her, daylight always came too late. Sometimes in the morning she found herself watching children play and chase one another, feeling happy that a red-cheeked boy bumped into her arms, asking for candy. And then it pained her as she realized she didn’t have her own child.
On weekends, she had time to do whatever she wanted, having no parents to take care of. Her father died of heart disease when she was a teenager, and her mother, throwing away her life’s labor, died two years later. In her memory, her mother was always in the kitchen, preparing food. Her father had lost his taste on account of medical malpractice. Everything her mother cooked, he would say, was too bland, and he would ask if there was anything else. Ma Dan was never allowed to eat her father’s food. “Piggish girl, you should learn to cook for your man someday, or else there’s the Buddhist nunnery waiting for girls who can’t cook,” her mother said, as if that explained everything.
It was the education she inherited from her mother that she needed to manage her own family one day, though now, except for housework, nothing needed her management, and the family, which consisted of herself most of the time, was no family at all. In Ma Dan’s upbringing she would have so many notions about marriage set in concrete. She was a wife, a daughter-in-law, a cleaner, a shopper, a cook, an ornament to the home, and a woman of ten thousand uses.
But it wasn’t that once you married, you became someone’s woman; you were no one’s woman, then a lesser woman, and eventually, you felt you were no woman. Ma Dan no longer wore nice high heels and fancy bras to appeal to her husband or any men. What had she become? She even lost the courage to think of it.
Last Tuesday night, she took a different route home. It was lovely to make a bit of change and spend some time outside. Down the street, she paused at a fruit stand, saw an elderly woman asleep on her stall, and a vagrant pilfered four pears and fled. She had wanted to call out to someone to catch the thief, to wake the elderly woman, and to tell her what she had witnessed. As soon as Ma Dan’s hand approached the owner’s shoulder, she knew she couldn’t do that. She quickly placed twenty yuan on the stand and walked down the narrow road.
A flickering slogan, ‘Ride me up to heaven’, lured her into a sex toy shop. On the ceiling a globe of painted glass glistened and spun, throwing beams of light. There was music playing in the background. She stood quietly at the doorway, looking at the various sex organs displayed on the wall-mounted racks; her mind was racing, her throat craving water. Above all, a voice inside her told her to leave, but her feet seemed, of their own accord, to take her inside the shop.
“Anything you’re interested in, let me know,” said a man, coming out of the back room. He had a buzz cut and bloodshot eyes, and a tiger tattoo was on his left shoulder. It might be due to the purple light that his skin looked cold, white, and sexy.
Standing there, she couldn’t think of anything to say.
“There’s nothing to feel embarrassed about,” the man said. “Women sometimes do come to my shop, and some become return customers.”
“What do you sell to ride men up to heaven?” She asked the question before she knew she was asking it, and the fever rumbling in her head drowned her immediately.
The man, laughingly, turned out to be eloquent about his shop and the products, about his customers from prepubescent boys to grandfathers, about men and women, cars and houses, and his philosophy. The music relaxed Ma Dan and provoked her now and then into behavior that resembled nothing of herself.
“My whole life feels like an impotent penis,” he said.
“You’re very funny,” she said.
“And you’re laughing.”
“I’m just smiling.”
“Woman like you should laugh out loud.”
Most of the time the man was doing the talking, cracking jokes, and she was listening and smiling, and her eyes, which before had been dull, sported a ripple of spark when she choked back giggling. When she was about to leave, the man wrapped up the dildo she had randomly chosen and gave her a special discount.
She thought she must be crazy.
When she came home, her husband was curled up on the sofa, checking his cell phone. He stayed there all night until he was called to sleep. There was very little talk in the bed, but that little consisted of the information that he would be on a five-day business trip, and she, in an attempt at intimacy, pressed her face on his shoulder, but he fell asleep very fast.
The next morning when her husband was in the bathroom, she noticed a brand-new pair of swim trunks and an unopened bottle of suntan oil in the open suitcase.
“What are you bringing the swim trunks for? Isn’t it still cold in Beijing?”
“In case the hotel has a swimming pool.”
“And in case the hotel has a sun so that you can use your suntan oil.”
“Did you eat gunpowder for breakfast?”
All she had the following days was, again, herself and this empty room. She was annoyed with herself for always trying to find the good aspects of her marriage. Why would she expect him to change? She had married a man who had no feelings for women at all. There was no love. For the first time she thought about leaving him; she thought about money, her age, her educational background, and the elderly woman at the fruit stand. The idea died. Having been trapped in marriage for this long, she realized she could go nowhere and to nothing.
In the household as in any other place, men had the upper hand. Her mother, a country woman, had spent her life serving her father day and night so that when her father woke up at 3 a.m., demanding chicken soup, dumplings, and hot tea, her mother would jump on her feet and run to the kitchen. The clanking and clattering and the scent of fire would wake her up; she would force her eyes not to open, not to listen to her father’s displeasure with the food.
Every time Ma Dan felt the need to get up and defend her mother, she dared not. Her mother had told her not to. When the noise faded, they went into the bedroom, and she knew they had sex, though they’d made no sound. It was only a few minutes. She was still awake, listening to her mother in the bathroom, washing; sometimes there was cigarette smoke, sometimes there was sobbing. The next morning her mother killed a crucian carp, slapping its head with the back of the knife even after it stopped wriggling, as if easy death were too good for the fish. She turned around, startled, to see her daughter.
“Did I say you could scare me like this?”
“The chicken soup is too salty to eat.”
“Didn’t I tell you you should not eat your father’s food?”
“You didn’t make any breakfast this morning.”
“You’ll never eat your father’s food again. Do you hear?”
“Yes.”
Then her mother went outside to the yard, leaving the fish in the sink. She strode back in a moment later, a boiled egg in her blood-stained hand.
“Tell no one about the soup. Do you hear?”
“Yes.”
*
It was Friday night once more. Lin Guofeng took a night off but didn’t tell his wife. Sitting by the road and staring absently at the traffic for a long time, he forgot why he was there. At dusk, streetlamps lit up all of a sudden; old men were setting up tables under trees to play mahjong. He could hear their murmurs, complaining about their wives, but his concern was always of a different sort.
For a moment, Guofeng thought again of begging his boyfriend, who had discovered his marriage, to come back, and then, exhausted, he wanted nothing. Just hours earlier his boyfriend had moved out of the apartment he had rented for him. Guofeng was at work at the time and received the message—the key was on the hook behind the mailbox. Three months ago, on their trip to Hainan Island, the boy decided that if he did not leave his wife, he would leave. That trip was supposed to be a celebration of their anniversary, and it was Guofeng’s first time seeing the sea. There, they had walked along the beach, pressing their toes into the soft sand as waves bubbled around their ankles; and they went into the sea, letting the immense wave rock their bodies. The view was beautiful, but the tension was all wrong.
The moon, bright and fresh, had crossed the sleepy river and mounted the highest building in the southeast. Putting his hands in his pants pockets, Guofeng immediately felt the key his boyfriend had returned to him. He took it out and flung it into the river.
He thought about his wife. To marry a woman was a decision he made; it was not due to his parents’ power or relatives’ opinions. He was then thirty-four and saw no point in living a gay life. On the other hand, he began to wonder, even consider, whether a woman could bring him the stable life he wanted. He distrusted boys but couldn’t help falling for them.
So the woman, who had no parents and who had little experience with men, became the ideal choice, and with the stable life she provided, Guofeng could pursue his secret hunting.
For a moment, Guofeng thought again of begging his boyfriend, who had discovered his marriage, to come back, and then, exhausted, he wanted nothing. Just hours earlier his boyfriend had moved out of the apartment he had rented for him. Guofeng was at work at the time and received the message—the key was on the hook behind the mailbox. Three months ago, on their trip to Hainan Island, the boy decided that if he did not leave his wife, he would leave. That trip was supposed to be a celebration of their anniversary, and it was Guofeng’s first time seeing the sea. There, they had walked along the beach, pressing their toes into the soft sand as waves bubbled around their ankles; and they went into the sea, letting the immense wave rock their bodies. The view was beautiful, but the tension was all wrong.
The moon, bright and fresh, had crossed the sleepy river and mounted the highest building in the southeast. Putting his hands in his pants pockets, Guofeng immediately felt the key his boyfriend had returned to him. He took it out and flung it into the river.
He thought about his wife. To marry a woman was a decision he made; it was not due to his parents’ power or relatives’ opinions. He was then thirty-four and saw no point in living a gay life. On the other hand, he began to wonder, even consider, whether a woman could bring him the stable life he wanted. He distrusted boys but couldn’t help falling for them.
So the woman, who had no parents and who had little experience with men, became the ideal choice, and with the stable life she provided, Guofeng could pursue his secret hunting.
*
Ma Dan, lipsticking her mouth in front of the mirror, was about to go to the sex toy shop. Friday nights had become an expectant part of her life. She texted the man earlier and asked if he had time to chat. He told her he had the entire night.
“I thought you wouldn’t come today,” the man said. Cigarette smoke hung in the air.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“It’s already midnight.”
“Better for me to do something at night than to wait for the sunrise,” she said, realizing her mother had said this.
“That’s where we’ve got something in common.”
Then she described to him a friend of hers. She referred to the woman as her friend and tried to be as unemotional as she could in the telling, and all the time, the man was smiling.
“Do you think my friend is stupid?”
“I thought you were beautiful when you were talking about her.”
And because he had said she was beautiful, she wanted him to keep that impression tonight. In fact, she had lost the habit of dressing up, almost forgot she was still in her thirties. Of her dresses, all that was not suitable for a housewife’s look remained in the drawer, wrinkled and faded, and when she put on a floral dress that she had been unwilling to sell to secondhand stores, it made her smell like the drawer that hadn’t been opened for a hundred years.
The man flicked the stub of his cigarette, “Let’s walk.”
He shut the rolling door and led the way down to the empty street. Always, he asked if she was tired and if they could go to his place. She said she would prefer to walk. He said he’d always wanted to walk like this because he was lonely most of the time, “just like your friend,” he added.
If she hadn’t lied, if lying wasn’t always her first option, she would have told him she was the woman and that she was doing terrible. But she wasn’t in the mood for another story tonight. They walked toward the direction of the river, through an underground passage, and emerged in an abandoned construction site.
“Come on,” the man said, gripping her hand. “Be adventurous,” he whispered in a tone of encouragement, and before she said yes, he led her in.
They walked through the tall grass, passed a dead pond, and came to a halt in front of the unfinished building. She could hear, not see, stray cats by some disturbance in the bush. This might be the place where they sheltered at night, mated when they were in heat, and died of natural causes at the end.
“Let’s get out of here; I’m thirsty,” she said.
At that, he hugged her, his tongue moisturizing her lips and parting them, invading new territory. His hand slid up the back of her dress and found its way between her legs. His fingers, like dry wood, were dampening her pubic hair. She sniffed the cigarette odor from his neck, deeply into her chest, drank it into her stomach. She felt the galloping of blood in his neck.
She surprised herself by making an orgasmic groan; she never thought such a sound could be made by her throat. She used to fake that sound to please her husband, though he never really enjoyed it. The door of her body had been unconditionally opened. Now she only wanted that finger to crash her body, to battle, to wrestle.
Afterward, the man walked her home. At the front gate of the apartment complex, they hugged. The man gave her a long, wet kiss. The wind howled in the darkness and threw petals onto their skins. How strange and soft his tongue was.
She could see the bedroom window from where she stood, and it scared her, as if someone was watching in the dark. She buried her face in the man’s chest. They had taken their time; he stroked her head and made her promise she would never do this with other men.
“We can meet every Friday night.” She was not sure whether she really meant it, but it seemed the atmosphere demanded her to say that.
“I want to meet you every day!”
“I only have Friday nights.”
“Oh, that’s sad. I have every day and night.”
When she went back home, she saw the lamplight glow in the bedroom and wondered if she had forgotten to turn it off. Tentatively, she pushed the door; her husband was smoking on the unmade bed. He raised his eyes, with something at once hard and yet a little impatient in the glance, and then no more.
When she was about to speak, he got up, put out the smoke, and asked if there was something to eat. She said she could cook, then went to the kitchen and heard her husband coughing. It sounded like he wasn’t really coughing.
While he ate the noodles with gravy, the wife went to the bedroom. She had cooked this before, but he couldn’t remember when. Ma Dan changed into pajamas, loosened her hair, and came out to sit beside her husband.
“You wear makeup in the middle of the night.” Such a strange thing to say, such a strange laughter he let out.
She sat in silence, staring out the window, unable to see anything outside except a woman, a man, and a sulfur lamp projected on the window. If only he had asked her straight out, she wouldn’t deny anything. With such performative silence between them, the stone in her heart grew heavier.
Guofeng had never thought that his wife was attractive to other men, that such a country woman would use his money to buy makeup. To keep his mouth busy, to give himself a moment of peace, he reached out for another cigarette and fiddled with a matchbox and then pulled an ashtray, making all rattle and jar. The ashes fell onto the ground. He tried to make things difficult for her, demanding a cup of hot tea and asking her to take out the trash right away.
He didn’t know what to do with his feelings and didn’t understand what the feelings were. Tomorrow he might spend some time in another apartment, call the landlord, and cancel the lease, or he might leave it until the end of this month. After all, everyone needed time to think.
Another day came as usual, hot and damp. Guofeng got up very early. When he went out, the wife turned on the air conditioner and slept until the afternoon. In bed, she thought about the man and his kiss. His words echoed in her head as she clutched the pillow tightly in her arms. She also remembered her mother telling her that any man who said love so easily wanted something else from her.
Guofeng spent more time at home, even on weekends when he didn’t have to work. He praised her cooking, began going to the supermarket with her, and sometimes spent money on expensive Japanese seafish and Chilean cherries. When autumn came, he bought Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs, despite his wife saying she had no idea how to handle them.
So much of his life had revolved around things that he would doubt, but never his marriage. Sometimes, lying in bed and listening to the breath of his wife, Guofeng wondered if he really had no feelings for women; he tried and failed, as he always did.
The other night when Guofeng was about to sleep, he discovered a dildo, which was wrapped in a plastic bag and placed in the bottom of the drawer. He looked at it with doubt; he didn’t remember buying it himself, but on second thought, he knew it belonged to his wife. It was a mockery, a slap in his face. When he went in search of Ma Dan, he found the door to the bathroom locked and no sound was in it, and a half hour later when he called out her name, heard only the water flushing in reply.
“I thought you wouldn’t come today,” the man said. Cigarette smoke hung in the air.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“It’s already midnight.”
“Better for me to do something at night than to wait for the sunrise,” she said, realizing her mother had said this.
“That’s where we’ve got something in common.”
Then she described to him a friend of hers. She referred to the woman as her friend and tried to be as unemotional as she could in the telling, and all the time, the man was smiling.
“Do you think my friend is stupid?”
“I thought you were beautiful when you were talking about her.”
And because he had said she was beautiful, she wanted him to keep that impression tonight. In fact, she had lost the habit of dressing up, almost forgot she was still in her thirties. Of her dresses, all that was not suitable for a housewife’s look remained in the drawer, wrinkled and faded, and when she put on a floral dress that she had been unwilling to sell to secondhand stores, it made her smell like the drawer that hadn’t been opened for a hundred years.
The man flicked the stub of his cigarette, “Let’s walk.”
He shut the rolling door and led the way down to the empty street. Always, he asked if she was tired and if they could go to his place. She said she would prefer to walk. He said he’d always wanted to walk like this because he was lonely most of the time, “just like your friend,” he added.
If she hadn’t lied, if lying wasn’t always her first option, she would have told him she was the woman and that she was doing terrible. But she wasn’t in the mood for another story tonight. They walked toward the direction of the river, through an underground passage, and emerged in an abandoned construction site.
“Come on,” the man said, gripping her hand. “Be adventurous,” he whispered in a tone of encouragement, and before she said yes, he led her in.
They walked through the tall grass, passed a dead pond, and came to a halt in front of the unfinished building. She could hear, not see, stray cats by some disturbance in the bush. This might be the place where they sheltered at night, mated when they were in heat, and died of natural causes at the end.
“Let’s get out of here; I’m thirsty,” she said.
At that, he hugged her, his tongue moisturizing her lips and parting them, invading new territory. His hand slid up the back of her dress and found its way between her legs. His fingers, like dry wood, were dampening her pubic hair. She sniffed the cigarette odor from his neck, deeply into her chest, drank it into her stomach. She felt the galloping of blood in his neck.
She surprised herself by making an orgasmic groan; she never thought such a sound could be made by her throat. She used to fake that sound to please her husband, though he never really enjoyed it. The door of her body had been unconditionally opened. Now she only wanted that finger to crash her body, to battle, to wrestle.
Afterward, the man walked her home. At the front gate of the apartment complex, they hugged. The man gave her a long, wet kiss. The wind howled in the darkness and threw petals onto their skins. How strange and soft his tongue was.
She could see the bedroom window from where she stood, and it scared her, as if someone was watching in the dark. She buried her face in the man’s chest. They had taken their time; he stroked her head and made her promise she would never do this with other men.
“We can meet every Friday night.” She was not sure whether she really meant it, but it seemed the atmosphere demanded her to say that.
“I want to meet you every day!”
“I only have Friday nights.”
“Oh, that’s sad. I have every day and night.”
When she went back home, she saw the lamplight glow in the bedroom and wondered if she had forgotten to turn it off. Tentatively, she pushed the door; her husband was smoking on the unmade bed. He raised his eyes, with something at once hard and yet a little impatient in the glance, and then no more.
When she was about to speak, he got up, put out the smoke, and asked if there was something to eat. She said she could cook, then went to the kitchen and heard her husband coughing. It sounded like he wasn’t really coughing.
While he ate the noodles with gravy, the wife went to the bedroom. She had cooked this before, but he couldn’t remember when. Ma Dan changed into pajamas, loosened her hair, and came out to sit beside her husband.
“You wear makeup in the middle of the night.” Such a strange thing to say, such a strange laughter he let out.
She sat in silence, staring out the window, unable to see anything outside except a woman, a man, and a sulfur lamp projected on the window. If only he had asked her straight out, she wouldn’t deny anything. With such performative silence between them, the stone in her heart grew heavier.
Guofeng had never thought that his wife was attractive to other men, that such a country woman would use his money to buy makeup. To keep his mouth busy, to give himself a moment of peace, he reached out for another cigarette and fiddled with a matchbox and then pulled an ashtray, making all rattle and jar. The ashes fell onto the ground. He tried to make things difficult for her, demanding a cup of hot tea and asking her to take out the trash right away.
He didn’t know what to do with his feelings and didn’t understand what the feelings were. Tomorrow he might spend some time in another apartment, call the landlord, and cancel the lease, or he might leave it until the end of this month. After all, everyone needed time to think.
Another day came as usual, hot and damp. Guofeng got up very early. When he went out, the wife turned on the air conditioner and slept until the afternoon. In bed, she thought about the man and his kiss. His words echoed in her head as she clutched the pillow tightly in her arms. She also remembered her mother telling her that any man who said love so easily wanted something else from her.
Guofeng spent more time at home, even on weekends when he didn’t have to work. He praised her cooking, began going to the supermarket with her, and sometimes spent money on expensive Japanese seafish and Chilean cherries. When autumn came, he bought Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs, despite his wife saying she had no idea how to handle them.
So much of his life had revolved around things that he would doubt, but never his marriage. Sometimes, lying in bed and listening to the breath of his wife, Guofeng wondered if he really had no feelings for women; he tried and failed, as he always did.
The other night when Guofeng was about to sleep, he discovered a dildo, which was wrapped in a plastic bag and placed in the bottom of the drawer. He looked at it with doubt; he didn’t remember buying it himself, but on second thought, he knew it belonged to his wife. It was a mockery, a slap in his face. When he went in search of Ma Dan, he found the door to the bathroom locked and no sound was in it, and a half hour later when he called out her name, heard only the water flushing in reply.
*
One night when Guofeng was crossing the chain bridge, he saw all the lights in his apartment were turned on. At the door, he recognized his parents’ shoes; there was a draught coming from inside—judging from the smell, it must be chicken soup. On the table, a hot pot cooker was spewing steam into the ceiling. Guofeng, wondering why they were here so late, took his shoes off and went to the kitchen.
“Don’t touch anything,” his mother said, rinsing millet in a bowl. His father lifted the lid of the pot, put the pitted date and sliced Chinese yam into the soup all at once, smiled to Guofeng, revealing his tawny teeth.
He ladled up some soup and asked his son to taste it.
Guofeng blew the broth, sipped it, and smacked his lips, “Did you forget to put salt?”
“Salt isn’t good for her; there’s no need,” his mother said.
“It isn’t your birthday today, is it, mother?”
The old woman laughed out loud, “Your wife is pregnant.”
When the dinner was ready, his mother woke Ma Dan up.
“I feel nauseated and have no appetite to eat,” she said, her voice husky as if she’d sobbed.
“It’s for the baby; now you eat for two people.” The mother giggled.
During the dinner Guofeng’s father talked about names, saying he would consult a reputable fortune-teller.
“According to our genealogy, the baby should have the character Zheng in his given name. How about Lin Zhengyi?”
“Who still believes that?” Guofeng said as he turned to face his wife.
Ma Dan only stared at her bowl, not saying anything.
“I’m so happy to have my grandchild before I go to heaven. Dan, you’re the big hero of our family,” Guofeng’s mother said.
“My mother didn’t have the luck to see my baby,” Ma Dan said. Now she really missed her mother and could think of no one else but her mother to tell her what to do. The mention made her nose twitch.
“Your mother should be so proud of you,” Guofeng’s mother said, picking up a piece of pork and placing it into her bowl. “I kept thinking about my youth. I was twenty-two and working in the cotton mill. Then the child was born, then your father joined the army, then the State-owned enterprises were restructured, layoffs began, and I lost my job. My parents were old, and there were three hungry mouths to feed at home. I was on my own; no one could help. I wasn’t sure why this baby arrived so late, I thought perhaps you weren’t ready, but every time I came and saw how you kept this old apartment clean and neat, and I saw the food in the kitchen and things, I knew you’re a good wife and you’ll be a responsible mother.”
Ma Dan was quiet. She held back her story, feeling the mother’s kindness in her eyes. You couldn’t blame a good mother for everything, she thought.
Guofeng, without a word, buried his head into the bowl, eating. His parents kept on the subject of names for a while, then the subject of the hospital, and then of school. There was some bickering here and there, but in the bickering was laughter, was satisfaction, was pride.
Guofeng spent every day at work. Some nights when he got back, his wife was not home. He called, but her cell phone rang on the sofa. He took a hot shower and watched TV until it was late and he realized he needed to find her. He stepped out onto the street and discovered it had snowed.
The wind had rubbed away all signs of autumn; frost had carpeted the ground. No one would come out on such a cold night. Ma Dan felt tired. She felt that she hadn’t slept for a very long time, and now her body was light as if the baby was leaving her. She put her hand on her belly and felt nothing. She came to the very edge of the river, unbuttoned her coat, closed her eyes, and remembered the tall grass, the summer heat, and how cool his breath felt on her skin. Let me get sick, she thought, and she cursed her baby.
She had told the man about the baby and waited for his love. He said business was slow and that his shop had come to an end. He told her he was leaving for Guangzhou, where there were more opportunities.
“When I get settled and make some money and everything, I’ll take you and the baby to live with me,” he said.
She pressed no further, knowing, with an unexpected sense of shame, not to jeopardize her hope.
In the moonlight, they walked along the river, the man’s eyes gleaming in a way that she once recognized in her husband. They hugged, his back to the river, and she felt a cold breath on her neck. When she led his hand to touch her belly, he seemed not to want to touch it. He didn’t stroke her head or kiss her as he used to. In certain light, she saw herself in the man’s eyes; in certain light, she looked so much like her mother. She knew that their relationship was a nocturnal thing that never survived daylight. Behind them, the river was rapidly freezing. And an absurd voice in her mind told her to push the man into the river. “Push him! It’s easy,” she thought, “Just push him! Go after him, you and your baby.” She listened to the crack of the ice, unsettling.
She had this recurring dream during the day while dozing off on the sofa. Waking up, she heard children skating on the ice, and her back was all wet. Since being pregnant, she began to look ill, kept the chopsticks suspended when eating, and came down with frequent fevers. The only sound Guofeng heard her make the whole day was when she counted the fetal movements and she would groan Lambkin.
Guofeng was smoking on the balcony; cold air drifted back into the living room, where there were baby posters on the walls. He stood there watching mothers or grandmothers absorbed in their kids, who were throwing snowballs at each other, and imagining the lives of three people in this apartment. He was a little nervous; small creatures made him afraid. He never failed to kick a toy or a snowball out of his way fiercely, had waited until his wife stopped going out at night before he felt secure enough to begin loving the baby. He liked the name his father suggested from the genealogy, though it sounded unfashionable.
At the bottom of his heart, he could not help worrying that one day the baby would find out he was not his father. He wouldn’t explain anything, but he would give him as much of the world as he had. Just that. He would hold in private how it felt when a father did not want his child to be born into this world.
He wondered what story the mother would tell the child. He wouldn’t want her to tell the truth, because truth had the power of ravaging. But that was not the matter at hand. The coldest day of January was coming, making the night shift more difficult. When the baby was born, his superior at the Railway Bureau agreed to transfer him to another post so that he could spend every Friday night at home.
He lingered on the balcony for a while and considered enclosing it with casement windows and buying some foam pads for the floor. When he went in, he saw his wife lying on the couch, eyes to the ceiling, tears on her face. She quickly wiped them away as she saw him. He went to the kitchen and poured her a cup of warm water, holding it with both hands as if there was no turbulence in his heart.
She drank the water in one gulp. Rubbing his hands warmly, Guofeng put her right leg on his knee, took off her long socks, and began to rub her swollen calf. She flinched at first, but he insisted. It was the first time he touched her feet. He noticed the faded toenail polish, knowing she had done so to please the man.
A small life was living in her body; he didn’t feel it real until he touched her rapidly growing belly and the baby gave back movements. The boundaries of skin seemed gone.
He kept on massaging the knots that appeared on her instep, his thumb pushing deep toward the collateral channels. The tension in her legs began to loosen, as if something locked inside was oozing out. Without any warning, tears started to roll down her cheeks.
“Does that hurt?” he asked.
She shook her head, swallowing the sob.
“You can let it out; there’s no need to hold back.”
She had her head buried in the cushions, her Venus dimples now exposed when she curled herself up.
He got up, drew down all the curtains, and snapped off the light. The day shifted to night.
“Does that feel any better?”
Guofeng didn’t know that one can cry so much and can contain so much. He caught up her hand in his and she inhaled deeply. When her breathing became easier, she decided to tell her story. She started with the night in the sex toy shop, and then the dildo, telling him how it slid into her body, giving her a taste of happiness, and how it gently, slyly crashed her life.
“Don’t touch anything,” his mother said, rinsing millet in a bowl. His father lifted the lid of the pot, put the pitted date and sliced Chinese yam into the soup all at once, smiled to Guofeng, revealing his tawny teeth.
He ladled up some soup and asked his son to taste it.
Guofeng blew the broth, sipped it, and smacked his lips, “Did you forget to put salt?”
“Salt isn’t good for her; there’s no need,” his mother said.
“It isn’t your birthday today, is it, mother?”
The old woman laughed out loud, “Your wife is pregnant.”
When the dinner was ready, his mother woke Ma Dan up.
“I feel nauseated and have no appetite to eat,” she said, her voice husky as if she’d sobbed.
“It’s for the baby; now you eat for two people.” The mother giggled.
During the dinner Guofeng’s father talked about names, saying he would consult a reputable fortune-teller.
“According to our genealogy, the baby should have the character Zheng in his given name. How about Lin Zhengyi?”
“Who still believes that?” Guofeng said as he turned to face his wife.
Ma Dan only stared at her bowl, not saying anything.
“I’m so happy to have my grandchild before I go to heaven. Dan, you’re the big hero of our family,” Guofeng’s mother said.
“My mother didn’t have the luck to see my baby,” Ma Dan said. Now she really missed her mother and could think of no one else but her mother to tell her what to do. The mention made her nose twitch.
“Your mother should be so proud of you,” Guofeng’s mother said, picking up a piece of pork and placing it into her bowl. “I kept thinking about my youth. I was twenty-two and working in the cotton mill. Then the child was born, then your father joined the army, then the State-owned enterprises were restructured, layoffs began, and I lost my job. My parents were old, and there were three hungry mouths to feed at home. I was on my own; no one could help. I wasn’t sure why this baby arrived so late, I thought perhaps you weren’t ready, but every time I came and saw how you kept this old apartment clean and neat, and I saw the food in the kitchen and things, I knew you’re a good wife and you’ll be a responsible mother.”
Ma Dan was quiet. She held back her story, feeling the mother’s kindness in her eyes. You couldn’t blame a good mother for everything, she thought.
Guofeng, without a word, buried his head into the bowl, eating. His parents kept on the subject of names for a while, then the subject of the hospital, and then of school. There was some bickering here and there, but in the bickering was laughter, was satisfaction, was pride.
Guofeng spent every day at work. Some nights when he got back, his wife was not home. He called, but her cell phone rang on the sofa. He took a hot shower and watched TV until it was late and he realized he needed to find her. He stepped out onto the street and discovered it had snowed.
The wind had rubbed away all signs of autumn; frost had carpeted the ground. No one would come out on such a cold night. Ma Dan felt tired. She felt that she hadn’t slept for a very long time, and now her body was light as if the baby was leaving her. She put her hand on her belly and felt nothing. She came to the very edge of the river, unbuttoned her coat, closed her eyes, and remembered the tall grass, the summer heat, and how cool his breath felt on her skin. Let me get sick, she thought, and she cursed her baby.
She had told the man about the baby and waited for his love. He said business was slow and that his shop had come to an end. He told her he was leaving for Guangzhou, where there were more opportunities.
“When I get settled and make some money and everything, I’ll take you and the baby to live with me,” he said.
She pressed no further, knowing, with an unexpected sense of shame, not to jeopardize her hope.
In the moonlight, they walked along the river, the man’s eyes gleaming in a way that she once recognized in her husband. They hugged, his back to the river, and she felt a cold breath on her neck. When she led his hand to touch her belly, he seemed not to want to touch it. He didn’t stroke her head or kiss her as he used to. In certain light, she saw herself in the man’s eyes; in certain light, she looked so much like her mother. She knew that their relationship was a nocturnal thing that never survived daylight. Behind them, the river was rapidly freezing. And an absurd voice in her mind told her to push the man into the river. “Push him! It’s easy,” she thought, “Just push him! Go after him, you and your baby.” She listened to the crack of the ice, unsettling.
She had this recurring dream during the day while dozing off on the sofa. Waking up, she heard children skating on the ice, and her back was all wet. Since being pregnant, she began to look ill, kept the chopsticks suspended when eating, and came down with frequent fevers. The only sound Guofeng heard her make the whole day was when she counted the fetal movements and she would groan Lambkin.
Guofeng was smoking on the balcony; cold air drifted back into the living room, where there were baby posters on the walls. He stood there watching mothers or grandmothers absorbed in their kids, who were throwing snowballs at each other, and imagining the lives of three people in this apartment. He was a little nervous; small creatures made him afraid. He never failed to kick a toy or a snowball out of his way fiercely, had waited until his wife stopped going out at night before he felt secure enough to begin loving the baby. He liked the name his father suggested from the genealogy, though it sounded unfashionable.
At the bottom of his heart, he could not help worrying that one day the baby would find out he was not his father. He wouldn’t explain anything, but he would give him as much of the world as he had. Just that. He would hold in private how it felt when a father did not want his child to be born into this world.
He wondered what story the mother would tell the child. He wouldn’t want her to tell the truth, because truth had the power of ravaging. But that was not the matter at hand. The coldest day of January was coming, making the night shift more difficult. When the baby was born, his superior at the Railway Bureau agreed to transfer him to another post so that he could spend every Friday night at home.
He lingered on the balcony for a while and considered enclosing it with casement windows and buying some foam pads for the floor. When he went in, he saw his wife lying on the couch, eyes to the ceiling, tears on her face. She quickly wiped them away as she saw him. He went to the kitchen and poured her a cup of warm water, holding it with both hands as if there was no turbulence in his heart.
She drank the water in one gulp. Rubbing his hands warmly, Guofeng put her right leg on his knee, took off her long socks, and began to rub her swollen calf. She flinched at first, but he insisted. It was the first time he touched her feet. He noticed the faded toenail polish, knowing she had done so to please the man.
A small life was living in her body; he didn’t feel it real until he touched her rapidly growing belly and the baby gave back movements. The boundaries of skin seemed gone.
He kept on massaging the knots that appeared on her instep, his thumb pushing deep toward the collateral channels. The tension in her legs began to loosen, as if something locked inside was oozing out. Without any warning, tears started to roll down her cheeks.
“Does that hurt?” he asked.
She shook her head, swallowing the sob.
“You can let it out; there’s no need to hold back.”
She had her head buried in the cushions, her Venus dimples now exposed when she curled herself up.
He got up, drew down all the curtains, and snapped off the light. The day shifted to night.
“Does that feel any better?”
Guofeng didn’t know that one can cry so much and can contain so much. He caught up her hand in his and she inhaled deeply. When her breathing became easier, she decided to tell her story. She started with the night in the sex toy shop, and then the dildo, telling him how it slid into her body, giving her a taste of happiness, and how it gently, slyly crashed her life.