Boy in the Twilight: Stories of the Hidden China

WHY DO I HAVE TO GET MARRIED?

When I decided to visit those friends of mine, I was with my mother, arranging things in the kitchen of the new apartment, and my father was calling me again and again from his study, wanting me to help him organize his huge pile of musty books. I’m their only son. The kitchen needed me, the study needed me, both my parents needed me, but there was just one of me. “Better get a cleaver and chop me into two,” I said.

“Take this box of kitchenware we don’t use and put it up there out of the way,” my mother said.

“Come and help me move this bookcase,” my father called from the study.

“Better get a cleaver and chop me into two,” I kept on repeating, while I put the box of kitchenware away for my mother and helped my father shift the bookcase. After repositioning the furniture, I became Father’s property. He grabbed me by the arm, wanting me to take books that he’d sorted out and set them down row by row on the bookcase. My mother called to me from the kitchen, wanting me to bring down the box of unused kitchenware that I had just put away, because she was unable to find a spoon that she needed and she wondered whether it could be in the box. Just at this moment my father handed me another pile of books. “Better get a cleaver and chop me into two,” I said.

It was then I realized neither of them was listening to what I was saying. I had made this remark several times, but I was the only person who seemed to have heard it. I made up my mind to leave, for I felt I just could not keep muddling through like this. A week had passed since we’d moved from our original home to this new apartment, and every day I was spending all my time getting things organized, and the whole place was full of the smell of paint and the dust was getting up my nose. I am just twenty-four, but here I was, busy the whole week through like someone in middle age. I can’t be parted too long from the youthful life, so I took up a position halfway between the kitchen and the study and announced to my parents, “I can’t help you any further. I have to go out and attend to some business.”

They heard this all right. My father came to the door of the study. “What business?” he asked.

“Something important, of course.”

For the moment I was unable to find a compelling justification for leaving, so I could only make this evasive response. My father stepped out of his study and persisted with his question. “What’s so important?”

I waved my hand and persisted with my vague excuse. “Whatever it is, it’s important.”

At this point my mother chipped in. “Are you trying to get out of things?”

“He’s trying to get out of it,” she told my father. “He’s always been like this. After dinner he wants to go to the bathroom, and it’ll be two hours before he comes out. Why? To avoid doing the dishes.”

“This time it has nothing to do with going to the bathroom,” I said.

My father smiled. “Tell me, what is it you have to do? Who are you going to see?”

At that moment I really didn’t know how to respond. Fortunately, my mother did something silly. She forgot what she had just been saying. “Who else could it be?” she blurted out. “Apart from those guys Shen Tianxiang, Wang Fei, Chen Liqing, and Lin Meng, who else could he be going to see?”

I took advantage of the possibility presented. “Lin Meng,” I said, “is precisely the person I need to go and see.”

“What do you need to see him about?” My father was not about to do anything silly. He was going to carry on grilling me.

I began to spin him a line. “Lin Meng got married. His wife’s name is Pingping …”

“They’ve been married three years already,” my father said.

“That’s right,” I said. “The thing is, they’ve been happy together all this time, but now there’s trouble …”

“What kind of trouble?”

“What kind of trouble?” I thought for a minute. “You know, the kind of trouble that happens in a marriage …”

“What kind of trouble in a marriage?” My father still wouldn’t let me off the hook.

It was my mother who spoke up then. “They’ve got to be quarreling over something.”

“That’s right, they’re quarreling,” I said.

“If the two of them are quarreling, what’s it got to do with you?” My father grabbed me by the sleeve and tried to pull me into the study.

I resisted. “They’ve started to fight,” I said.

My father loosened his grip, and he and my mother looked at me. At this point I was suddenly inspired and began to explain things with effortless fluency:

“It was Lin Meng who first slapped Pingping in the face. Then she fell on him and took a big bite out of his arm. She bit a big hole in his shirt and must have done a lot of damage underneath, because her canine teeth are sharper than bayonets. She must have spent a full three minutes biting him, and Lin Meng was in such pain he was screaming like a stuck pig the whole time. When those three minutes were up, Lin Meng gave Pingping a taste of his fist and his foot. He punched her in the face and kicked her on the leg, and Pingping was in such pain she collapsed on the sofa and couldn’t say a word for ten minutes. After that, she really lost her marbles, picking up everything she could lay her hands on and throwing it at Lin Meng. She was so crazy, now it was his turn to be frightened. When she smashed a chair against his midriff, it didn’t actually hurt that much, but Lin Meng pretended to keel over in agony, collapsing on the sofa and clutching his belly. He thought Pingping would change her tune when she saw him in this state, that she would stop hitting him, that she would run over and hug him and burst into tears. But what happened was that Pingping, seeing his eyes were closed, picked up an ashtray and smashed it on his head. Now Lin Meng really did faint …”

Finally, I said to my stupefied parents, “As a friend of Lin Meng, I should go and see him, don’t you think?”

THEN I WAS WALKING along the street, on my way to see these two old friends of mine. I had gotten to know one of them when I was five, the other when I was seven. They were both four years older than me. When they married three years ago, I gave them a blanket as a present, and they sleep under this blanket in the spring — and in the autumn too — so sometimes before they fall asleep they will suddenly think of me and say, “It’s almost a month since we last saw so-and-so …”

I hadn’t seen them for a month, and now as I walked toward them I began to miss them. First of all, I thought of their little home with its cute decorations, the dozen or so balloons that they tied to the windows, from the ceiling, and beside the chest of drawers. I didn’t have a clue why these two loonies were so fond of balloons — and pink ones too. I remembered once, when I was sitting on their sofa, I happened to notice there were three pink panties hanging on the line on the balcony, practically the same color as the balloons, and I figured these had to be Pingping’s panties. My first impression had been that they were three balloons, and I was almost about to say that there were balloons hanging on the balcony too. Fortunately I didn’t say that, for I’d realized on closer inspection that they weren’t balloons at all.

I liked them both. Lin Meng is the kind of person who talks and laughs very loudly. Nine months of the year he wears a brown jacket, and the other three months, because it is so hot, he wears something else. Then his bones stick out and his arms dangle loosely as he walks along the street, so it always seems as though there’s empty space inside his clothes.

He is the kind of person who doesn’t know his own weaknesses. He has a tendency to stutter, for example, but he himself doesn’t realize this, or at least he has never acknowledged it. His wife, Pingping, is a good-looking woman. She has long hair, but most of the time she wears it up. Aware that her neck is slender and pretty, she sometimes wears clothes with high collars, and once her neck is concealed it is even more beautiful, for the high collar looks like a flower petal.

Four years ago, there was nothing going on between them, they were just acquaintances. None of us had any idea how they got together. It was me who made the discovery.

That particular evening I was really bored. First I went to see Shen Tianxiang, but his mother said he had gone out at lunchtime and was still not back. Then I went to see Wang Fei, and found him lying in bed all flushed, burned to a frizzle by the soaring temperatures. Finally I went to Chen Liqing’s home, and he was pounding the table and having a big row with his father. My foot never crossed his threshold, because I didn’t want to get involved in other people’s quarrels, especially not one between a father and son.

I went back out onto the street again, and just as I was wondering where to go next, I caught sight of Lin Meng. He was walking along under the trees with a quilt under his arm. Although the leaves obscured the light from the streetlamps, I recognized him immediately and called his name. I was so pleased by our fortuitous meeting that my voice seemed unusually loud. “Lin Meng,” I said, “I was just about to go and see you.”

Lin Meng’s head swiveled in my direction, then turned away. I quickened my pace to catch up with him. “Lin Meng, it’s me,” I called once more.

This time his head kept looking straight ahead, and I had to run forward and clap him on the shoulder. He glanced at me and gave a bad-tempered grunt. It was only then I realized Pingping was walking by his side, a bottle of water in her hands. She gave me a little smile.

Later, they got married. Their married life was happy, so far as I could tell. In the early days we would often run into each other on the steps of the cinema, or sometimes at the entrance to a shop, when I was passing by and they were coming out.

In the first two years of their marriage, I visited their home a few times, and each time I would run into Shen Tianxiang or Wang Fei or Chen Liqing, or all three of them at the same time. We felt very much at home at Lin Meng’s place. We could sit on the sofa, or sit on their bed with their quilt folded up behind us for comfort. Wang Fei would often go and open the door of their refrigerator to see what was inside — not, he said, because he was hungry, but simply to have a look.

Lin Meng is a cheerful kind of guy. He uses as his teacup a large glass jar, the kind designed to hold instant coffee, and he likes to plunk a chair down next to the door and sit there with his back against the door, holding that big jar in his hands and laughing his head off as he talks. In no time at all he starts to bullshit. Often he would divulge indiscreet details about his and Pingping’s private life, and he got a kick out of this. He’d laugh so much he’d knock his head against the door with a resounding thump.

At such moments Pingping would scowl at him and say, “Don’t talk about that.”

When there were a lot of people in the room, Pingping would sit on a little round stool, her hands on her knees, watching us talk with a smile on her lips. When we felt maybe we were neglecting her and asked, “Pingping, why don’t you say anything?” she would say, “I enjoy listening to you guys talk.”

Pingping liked to listen to me summarizing the plot of some recent movies, or Shen Tianxiang telling fishing stories, or Wang Fei comparing different brands of refrigerators, or Chen Liqing singing one of the latest hit songs. What she did not enjoy was Lin Meng’s conversation. It wouldn’t take long for her husband to say, “Pingping wants to fall asleep in my arms every night.”

Pingping’s eyebrows would arch in a frown. We would burst out laughing, and Lin Meng would point at his wife and say, “If I don’t take her in my arms, she won’t be able to sleep.

“But once I take her in my arms,” Lin Meng would continue, “she starts breathing down my neck. It tickles …”

At this point, Pingping would say, “Don’t talk about that.”

“Then it’s me who’s unable to sleep.” Lin Meng would give a big laugh and finish what he wanted to say.

The problem was, Lin Meng’s comments on this subject would continue, and would not stop so long as we were there. He’s the kind of guy who likes to have us gathered round him, rolling about in stitches, and he would stop at nothing to achieve this kind of effect. He would recite the complete catalog of nicknames that Pingping gave him when they were in bed, leaving us doubled up in laughter.

The list began with “Darling,” followed by “Precious,” “Prince,” “Knight,” and “Horsie.” Those were the more refined names. Then there were the ones inspired by food items, like “Cabbage,” “Tofu,” “Sausage,” and “Potato,” and also some names that we found peculiar, like “Perky” and “Droopy.”

“Do you know why she calls me ‘Perky’?”

He knew we didn’t understand, so he stood up when he asked us this, very full of himself. Pingping got to her feet also. She looked furious and had gone completely pale. “Lin Meng!” she cried.

We were expecting her to really let loose, but all she said was “That’s enough.”

Lin Meng sat back down with a long belly laugh and looked her in the eye. She returned his gaze, then turned and disappeared into another room. All of us felt very uncomfortable, but Lin Meng acted as though nothing had happened, waving his hand dismissively. “Never mind her,” he said.

He then returned to his question. “Do you know what she means by ‘Perky’?”

Not waiting for us to shake our heads, he pointed below his belt. “This guy here.”

We began to laugh. “And ‘Droopy’?” he asked.

This time our eyes automatically fixed on his crotch, and he pointed at the spot again. “Same thing.”

It’s true what they say, you just have to be prepared to make adjustments when you’re married. After Pingping had lived with Lin Meng for a couple of years, she had gotten used to her husband’s bullshitting, and when his tongue was wagging she would no longer say to him “That’s enough,” but would look down and play with her fingers, already resigned, it seemed, to Lin Meng’s indiscretions.

Not only that, but on occasion she would make some similar comments herself — of a much more restrained kind, needless to say. I remember one day when we were sitting in their house and everybody was saying how charming Lin Meng looked when he laughed, Pingping broke in: “It’s when he’s happy at night that he looks his best.”

We didn’t immediately pick up on what she meant, and we looked at Lin Meng and then at Pingping, unsure whether to laugh. “When he needs me,” she added, for clarification.

We had a good laugh at that, and Pingping, realizing she had said something she shouldn’t have, flushed bright red. Now that he had become the object of amusement, Lin Meng gave a weak, embarrassed chuckle, and he did not knock his head against the door as usual. He went quiet whenever somebody made a joke at his expense.

So we knew one or two things about their sex life, and even more about other aspects of their marriage. Lin Meng was a lucky man, in our view. Everyone agreed that Pingping was an attractive woman, and it was obvious how understanding and capable she was and we had never seen her get into an argument with Lin Meng over anything. When we visited them, she would always be prompt in pouring water into our teacups and quick to deliver matches to any pair of hands that was preparing to light up a cigarette. After Lin Meng got married, his leather boots were always shining and he dressed with increasingly good taste, all thanks to Pingping. In the past, he had been the most slovenly member of our circle.

SO THERE I WAS, recalling these vignettes of them as a couple, and when I arrived at their apartment on this particular morning, it seemed to me it had been a long time since I had last visited. When Pingping opened the door, I found that she had changed. She had put on some weight, it seemed, or maybe she had lost some.

It was Pingping’s hand I saw first. A slender hand grasped the frame, and then the door opened. When Pingping saw me she seemed to give a start — because she hadn’t seen me for a long time, I assumed. I walked in with a smile on my face, only to discover there was no sign of Shen Tianxiang or Wang Fei or Chen Liqing — no sign of Lin Meng, even. “Lin Meng?” I inquired.

Lin Meng was not at home. He had left for the factory at seven thirty in the morning. Shen Tianxiang, Wang Fei, and Chen Liqing would also be at work at this hour. There was only me and Pingping … “Is it just the two of us?” I said to her.

In the apartment, was what I meant. I noticed how Pingping’s face tightened when I said this and I thought to myself, Is that a smile? “What’s the matter?” I asked.

Pingping looked at me uncomprehendingly. “Were you smiling at me just now?” I said.

Pingping nodded. “Yes.”

Her skin tightened once again. It was me who smiled then. “Why do you smile in such a strange way?” I said.

All this time Pingping had been standing in the doorway. She had never closed the door and her hand was still clutching the doorframe. Her posture seemed to indicate she was simply waiting for me to leave. “Do you want me to go?” I said.

At this, she detached herself from the doorframe and turned to face me, her hands moving this way and that as though she couldn’t find a suitable place to put them. I had never seen Pingping in this state, standing completely rigid, her smile unrecognizable as a smile. “What’s up with you today?” I said. “Are you about to go out or something?”

She shook her head helplessly. “If you’re not in a hurry,” I said, “I’ll sit down.” I sat down in the sofa but she kept on just standing there. I laughed. “What are you doing?” I asked.

She sat down in a chair, her face angled away from me. She was breathing heavily, it seemed, and her legs stirred restlessly, as unable to find a comfortable position as her hands had been just a minute before. “Pingping, what’s the matter with you?” I said. “Today I come to visit, and you don’t pour me a glass of water and you don’t peel me an apple — are you tired of me, or what?”

Pingping shook her head vigorously. “No, not at all. Why would I be tired of you?”

She smiled, and got up and fetched me a glass of water. This time her smile looked like a smile. “We don’t have apples today,” she said, passing me the glass. “Would you like a prune?”

“I don’t eat prunes,” I said. “That’s something you women like. Just water is fine.”

Pingping sat down in the chair again, and as I sipped my water I said, “In the past, every time I came to your house, I would always find Shen Tianxiang and the others here, or if they weren’t all three here, at least one of them was bound to be. Today, not one of them has come, and even Lin Meng is not at home, so it’s just the two of us, and you’re not a great talker …”

Pingping was all keyed up, I suddenly realized. Her head had swiveled round in the direction of the door, and she was listening to something, listening, apparently, to the footsteps of someone coming up the stairs. They walked with a very slow step. They seemed to be in no hurry. They reached the landing just outside, then continued up the next flight of stairs. Pingping exhaled, then turned to look at me. Her face was so pale it gave me a shock. She smiled again, the way that made her skin tighten. I couldn’t stand to look at her smile, so instead I glanced around the room. The balloons had disappeared. No pink colors anywhere, so far as I could see, and I couldn’t help but take a quick glance at the balcony, but Pingping had no panties hanging there, so there was no pink there either. “Do you not like balloons anymore?” I asked.

Pingping’s eyes were watching me in a way that gave me a feeling she heard my voice but didn’t hear what I was saying. “The balloons are gone,” I said.

“Balloons?” She looked baffled.

“That’s right, balloons,” I said. “Didn’t you used to have lots of balloons hanging in your apartment?”

“Oh …” She remembered.

“I get the feeling,” I said, “that today you’re acting a little … How shall I put it? A little strange.”

“No, I’m not.” She shook her head.

Her denial didn’t seem very confident. “I wasn’t originally planning to come and see you, did you know that?” I said. “We’ve moved to a new place, and I was helping my mother to get things sorted out in the kitchen and helping my father to get things sorted out in the study, and they were both driving me crazy the way they were bossing me about, so I hotfooted it out of there, and at first I had the idea of going to see Shen Tianxiang, but he and I were together just a couple of days ago, and I often hang out with Wang Fei and Chen Liqing, so you two were the only people I hadn’t seen for a long time. That’s why I came to your apartment, not realizing Lin Meng wouldn’t be home. I’d forgotten he’d be at work today.”

I didn’t reveal that I had made up a story about her and Lin Meng having a fight. Pingping was a serious person. “It didn’t occur to me you’d be at home on your own …”

Finding Pingping alone and so preoccupied, I thought I really should leave. I stood up. “I’ll be off now,” I said.

Pingping got to her feet at once. “Why don’t you stay a bit longer?”

“No, I should go.”

She said nothing more and simply stood there waiting. It looked increasingly as though she wanted me out of there right away, and I took a couple of steps toward the door. Then a thought occurred to me. “I’ll just use your bathroom. There are no public toilets on your street,” I added, closing the door behind me.

Originally I was just going to have a pee, but after I’d finished peeing I felt like having a crap, so it was going to take me a while. Just after I squatted down, I heard a thudding outside as though someone was running upstairs at high speed. There was a cry of “Pingping, Pingping!” as he reached the door to the apartment.

It was Lin Meng. I heard Pingping saying, with a quiver in her voice, “How come you’re back?”

The door must have opened; Lin Meng had come in. “Today I was sent out to pick up a shipment,” I heard him say. “I was desperate for a pee, but I couldn’t find a toilet anywhere on the road, so I had to rush back home.”

Lin Meng seemed to charge like a wild boar toward the bathroom. As he tugged at the bathroom door, he suddenly went quiet. He must have been shocked to find the door locked, and I heard him ask Pingping in a flustered voice, “Is there someone in there?”

Pingping must have nodded, for the next thing I heard was Lin Meng bellowing, “Who’s in there?”

Inside the bathroom, I couldn’t help but grin. Before I had the chance to reply, Lin Meng started kicking the door and shouting, “Come out of there!”

At this stage, I had only just squatted down and had had no time to do my business, but given how the door was shuddering under the impact of his kicks I had no choice but to pull up my pants, fasten my belt, and open the bathroom door. When Lin Meng saw it was me, he was dumbfounded. “Lin Meng, I haven’t finished yet,” I said, “but you were kicking the door so loud. I was about to dump my load, but with you kicking like that, it went back in again.”

Lin Meng stared at me, his eyes as big as saucers. “I never expected it would be you!” he said, through clenched teeth.

His expression made me laugh out loud. “Don’t look at me that way,” I said.

But Lin Meng just carried on staring, and pointed at me, as well. I kept my distance from his extended forefinger. “You’re giving me the shivers,” I said.

“It’s you who’s giving me the shivers!” Lin Meng roared.

His shouting so alarmed me that I began to take his indignation seriously. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

“I had no idea you would carry on with my wife,” he said.

“Carry on?” I said. “What do you mean ‘carry on’?”

“Cut out the playacting,” he said.

I threw a glance at Pingping, hoping to get some idea of what Lin Meng was on about, but I found her face had gone completely white, like a sheet of paper, with just a trace of gray around her lips. The way she looked made me even more uneasy. Now I understood what Lin Meng had in mind. He thought I had slept with Pingping. “Lin Meng,” I said, “you’re making a big mistake. There’s absolutely nothing going on between me and her.”

I saw that she was nodding, but Lin Meng seemed not to have the slightest interest in my declaration or in her nod. He pointed at me. “You can give up trying to deny it,” he said. “As soon as I came in the door, I could see she was acting strange. Right away I knew there was something fishy going on.”

“No,” I said. “What you think happened didn’t happen at all.”

“It didn’t happen?” He took a step forward. “Why were you hiding in the bathroom?”

“I wasn’t hiding in the bathroom,” I said.

He pointed at the bathroom. “What’s this — the kitchen?”

“It’s not the kitchen, it’s the bathroom,” I said. “But I wasn’t hiding there, I was having a crap.”

“Bullshit!” With this, he ran over to the toilet and took a look down, then stood triumphantly by the door. “Why don’t I see any crap?” he said.

“I didn’t have time to do it,” I told him. “The way you were kicking the door, it wouldn’t come out.”

“Who are you trying to kid?” He waved his hand contemptuously, and then spun on his heel and dived into the bathroom, slamming the door shut, and I heard him saying inside, “The two of you have got me so mad I’m losing my senses. I practically forgot I was dying for a pee.”

I could hear his urine splattering on the toilet. I took a look at Pingping. She was now sitting on a chair. Her face was buried in her hands and her shoulders were trembling. I went over to her. “What on earth is happening?” I asked. “I still don’t get what’s going on.”

Pingping raised her head and looked at me. There were tears on her face now, but what really struck me was her look of sheer panic. It seemed as though she wasn’t really clear what was happening either. At this moment the bathroom door was thrown open. When Lin Meng came out, it was as if he were a different person, calmed by his peeing. “Sit down,” he said to me.

I remained standing. He gave a smile that I didn’t expect. “Have a seat,” he repeated. “Why not?”

He spoke in a tone that would have made you think nothing at all had happened. My thoughts in an uproar, I sat down next to Pingping. Next thing, Lin Meng came over with pen and paper in his hand and sat down too. “You’ve let me down,” he said to Pingping.

She looked up. “No, I haven’t.”

Lin Meng ignored her. “You’ve let me down,” he continued, “but I’m not going to beat you, and I’m not going to call you names.”

“I haven’t,” Pingping repeated. “I haven’t let you down.”

Lin Meng was losing patience. He waved his hand in the air. “No matter what you say, I’m sure you’ve let me down, so stop all this nonsense! Just keep quiet and listen to what I’m going to tell you. We can’t go on living together, do you understand?”

Pingping looked at him, bewilderment on her face. He glanced at me and went on. “Is that clear? You and I have to get divorced, there’s no other way out.”

Tears streamed down Pingping’s face. “Why do we have to get divorced?” she said.

Lin Meng pointed at me. “You’ve gone to bed with him. Of course I’ve got to divorce you.”

“I didn’t,” she said.

At this stage, Pingping was still presenting her rebuttals in just the faintest of voices. I wasn’t at all happy about that. “You need to say it more forcefully,” I told her. “Say it to him loud and clear, there’s nothing going on between you and me. Bang the table if you like.”

Lin Meng laughed. “It’s useless, no matter how loudly she says it. How does it go? With right on your side, you can get anywhere; without it, you’ll get nowhere.”

“In this case it’s we who’re in the right,” I said, “you who’s in the wrong.”

Lin Meng gave another laugh. “Did you hear that?” he said to Pingping. “He’s saying ‘we,’ you and him. After I have divorced you, the two of you can get married.”

Pingping raised her head and looked at me. Her glance seemed like that of a woman who has just spotted a new partner. I waved my hand. “Pingping, don’t listen to his bullshit,” I said.

Pingping looked at her husband. He had begun to make marks on the paper with his pen. “I’ve worked it all out,” he said to her. “Our entire savings and cash on hand amount to 12,400 yuan. We each get 6,200. You take your choice of the TV or the VCR, and you can have your pick of the refrigerator and the washing machine …”

Seeing as how they were now discussing the division of property, I thought I shouldn’t hang around. “I’ll leave you to it,” I said. “I’m off.”

As I headed for the door, Lin Meng seized me by the arm. “You can’t leave now,” he said. “You’ve ruined our marriage, and now you have to face up to your responsibilities.”

“I didn’t ruin your marriage,” I said. “I haven’t ruined anyone’s marriage. What responsibilities do you want me to face up to?”

Lin Meng stood up and pushed me back into the chair where I’d just been sitting. Then he continued to discuss the division of property with Pingping. “Our own clothes, we take with us. The furniture we also divide equally. Of course, we need to apportion them reasonably — we can’t split the bed and the table in half … This apartment we don’t divide — it was yours before we got married, so you get to keep it.”

Then he turned to me and issued the following instruction: “After I have divorced Pingping, you have to marry her within a month.”

“You’ve no right to say that to me,” I said. “Whether you and Pingping divorce or not has got nothing to do with me.”

“You seduced her, you corrupted her, you induced her to commit adultery, and you’re telling me it’s got nothing to do with you?”

“I didn’t seduce her,” I said. “Ask Pingping: Did I or did I not seduce her?”

We looked at her. She shook her head back and forth. “Pingping, say it,” I said. “Did I or didn’t I?”

“You didn’t,” she said.

But she said this in the feeblest of voices. “Pingping, when you say this kind of thing,” I told her, “you need to be assertive. You mustn’t be so weak. When Lin Meng humiliates you in front of us, all you do is murmur, ‘That’s enough.’ You should stand up and issue a stinging rebuke.”

At this point, Lin Meng patted me on the back. “As a friend,” he said, “I want to give you some advice. Don’t try to convert Pingping into a shrew, because you’re going to be her husband in the future.”

“No, I’m not.” I said.

“You’re going to have to be.”

Lin Meng said this with such firm assurance that it quite unnerved me. Once again I turned to Pingping. “Just what is going on here? When I left my house, I had absolutely no idea of bringing a wife back with me — a woman, what’s more, who is the wife of a friend of mine. That would be bad enough, but what’s worse is that the woman is previously married and four years older than me. My parents would go ballistic …”

“That’s not true,” Lin Meng said. “Your parents are educated people. They wouldn’t be concerned about such things.”

“You’re wrong there — it’s educated people who are the most conservative.” I pointed at Pingping. “There’s no way my parents would accept her.”

“They’re just going to have to accept Pingping,” Lin Meng said.

“Just what is going on here?” Again I turned to her. “My brains are turning to mush. This is driving me crazy.”

Pingping was no longer weeping. “You shouldn’t have come here today,” she told me. “Having come, you should have left right away.”

Pointing at Lin Meng, she went on, “Although you guys are his friends, you don’t really know him at all.”

That was all she said, but it was enough to make things crystal clear. Now I understood why, as soon as I came in the door, Pingping was at such a loss what to do — it was because Lin Meng was not at home. Pingping was a bundle of nerves because I — a man who was not her husband — was alone with her. At the same time, I realized what kind of person Lin Meng was. “I used to think you were a broad-minded and generous person,” I told him. “But what you really are is small-minded and jealous.”

“You slept with my wife,” he said, “and you expect me to be broad-minded and generous?”

“I want you to know,” I said, pointing at his nose, “I’m completely sick of you. No matter what kind of garbage you spout, I can’t be bothered to argue with you. Pingping is the only person I’m worried about. I feel I’ve got her into trouble. I shouldn’t have come here today …”

Having said this, I started to get excited and waved my hand in the air. “No, I did the right thing by coming today! Pingping, it’s good that you and he are getting divorced. It’s just a disaster to live with this kind of guy. By coming today, I’ve rescued you. If I were your husband: one, I would respect you and never say things that would make you uncomfortable; two, I would be understanding and do my best to consider your needs; three, I would be genuinely broad-minded and generous, and not just put on a show; four, I would share the responsibility for household chores and not swagger around like a lord as soon as I get home, the way he does; five, I would never tell anybody else the nicknames that you give me; six, when you fall asleep in my arms every night, I wouldn’t be bothered by your breath on my neck; seven, I’m a lot stronger than he is, he’s all skin and bones …”

I kept going until I’d reached fifteen. After that I ran out of things to say and had to stop. When I took a look at Pingping I found her gazing at me with tears in her eyes, clearly moved by my words. Then I looked at Lin Meng. He was sniggering. “That’s good,” he said. “You put it so eloquently. I can relax now. I know you’ll be good to my ex-wife.”

“In saying these things, I don’t have any special agenda,” I replied. “It doesn’t mean I would definitely want to marry Pingping. Whether I marry her is not something just for me to decide. Is that what she would want? I don’t know. All I meant was, if I were her husband.”

I looked at her. “Pingping, isn’t that so?”

The trouble was, she mistook my meaning. “I’ll be your wife,” she said, with tears in her eyes. “After hearing what you said just now, I’m happy to be your wife.”

I was struck dumb. What an idiot, I thought. I had laid a trap for myself and jumped right into it. When I saw relief blossoming on Pingping’s face, I knew my chances of getting out of this were growing more and more remote. Her beauty was now on full display, her lovely eyes glistening as she gazed at me, the tears still flowing. “Pingping, don’t cry,” I said.

She raised a hand and brushed away her tears. My head was about to explode, I was so carried away. I was out of my mind now. I found myself saying to Lin Meng, in the tone of Pingping’s husband, “It’s time you left.”

He nodded in agreement. “Right, I should be going.”

I watched him as he jubilantly made his escape, and a thought occurred to me. I got the feeling that for ages now this guy had probably been looking forward to this very moment — he just hadn’t anticipated it would be me who would take over from him. After Lin Meng left, Pingping and I sat there together for a long time, neither of us saying a word, just thinking. Later, she asked me if I was hungry and whether she should go to the kitchen and prepare something. I shook my head. I wanted her to stay sitting. We sat there silently for a while, and then Pingping asked me if I regretted marrying her. I said no. She asked me what I was thinking about. “I feel as though I’m psychic,” I told her.

Pingping didn’t understand, so I explained. “When I was leaving the house, I made up a story for my parents about how you and Lin Meng had been in a fight, how you had knocked Lin Meng around until he was black-and-blue, how Lin Meng had knocked you around until you were black-and-blue … and now the two of you really are getting divorced. Wouldn’t you say I was psychic?”

Pingping made no response. I knew she still didn’t understand, so I explained more fully, giving her all the details of the story I had cooked up for my mom and dad, including the one about how she had smashed an ashtray on the top of Lin Meng’s head. When she heard this, Pingping waved her hand in protest, saying she would never do something like that. I said I knew that, I knew she wouldn’t, I knew she wasn’t a battleaxe. I was telling her these things only so she would realize I was psychic. Now, she understood. She nodded her head and smiled. But as she nodded I was shaking my head. “Actually, I’m not really psychic,” I said. “Though I predicted the discord between you and Lin Meng, I didn’t foresee I would end up as your husband.”

I looked at Pingping pathetically. “I haven’t a clue why I have to get married.”