Ha Jin - Ocean of Words

The meeting had nothing to do with him. When Jiang asked Shi Wei to confess what he had done in the small hours, Kang at last felt relaxed. But like Shun, he was baffled about what had happened. Shi protested that he had not done anything wrong.

“You’re dishonest, Comrade Shi Wei,” the chief said.

“No, no Chief Jiang.” Shi looked worried. “I did all the work well.”

“You know our Party’s policy: Leniency to those who confess, severity to those who refuse. It’s up to yourself.”

“Why?” Shi seemed puzzled. “This policy applies only to the class enemies. I’m your comrade, am I not?”

“Stop pretending you’re innocent. Tell us the truth.”

“No, I really didn’t do anything wrong.”

“All right, let me tell you what happened.” The chief’s voice grew sharper. “You were caught by the monitoring station. You thought you were smart. If you didn’t want us to know, you shouldn’t have done it in the first place. Look at the report yourself.” He tossed the internal bulletin to Shi and handed Shun and Kang each a copy.

The title read: “Radio Operators Proffered Love in the Air.” Kang’s heart tightened. He turned a page and read “From February 3 on, from 1:00 A.M. to 5:00 A.M., a radio operator in the Fifth regiment and an operator at the 36th station of Shenyang Military Region have developed a love affair in the air.…”

Kang was stunned, and his thick lips parted. He could never imagine Shi would make such an unlawful move. A small part of their love talk was transcribed in the report:

I am Shi Wei. Your name?

Lili. Where are you from?

Dalian. And you?

Beijing.

Your age?

Twenty-one. And you?

Twenty-two. Love your hand.

Why?

It is good.

Why? Not love me?

Yes, I do.

!

Love me?

Maybe.

……

Kang wanted to cry, but he controlled himself. He saw Shi’s face turn pale and sweat break out on his smooth forehead. Meanwhile Shun bit his lower lip, trying hard not to laugh.

“Now, what do you want to say?” Jiang asked.

Shi lowered his eyes and remained silent. The chief announced that the Communication Company had decided to suspend Shi Wei from his work during the wait for the final punishment. From now on, Shi had to go to the study room during the day and write out his confession and self-criticism.

Though he was working two more hours a day to cover for Shi, Kang no longer expected to meet Lili, whose family name was not revealed in the bulletin. Obviously she was also suspended from her work and must have been doing the same thing as Shi did every day in the company’s study room. But the tune created by her fingers and her charming voice were still with him; actually they hurt him more than before. He tried cursing her and imagining all the bad things that could be attributed to a woman in order to pull her out of himself. He thought of her as a “broken shoe” which was worn by everyone, a bitch that raised her tail to any male dog, a hag who was shunned by all decent men, a White Bone Demon living on innocent blood. Still, he could not get rid of her. Whenever he was receiving a telegram, her voice would break in to catch him. “Sorry, don’t take it to heart. I was teasing you.…” It was miserable. The misery went so deep that when he spoke to his comrades he often heard himself moaning. He hated his own listless voice.

Shi’s punishment was administered a week later. Both Shi Wei and Wang Lili were expelled from the army. This time the woman’s full name was given. To Kang’s surprise, Shi did not cry and seemed to take it with ease. He ate well and slept well, and went on smoking expensive cigarettes. Kang figured there must have been two reasons why Shi did not care. First, with the help of his father, he would have no problem finding a good job at home; second, the expulsion gave him an opportunity to continue his love affair with Wang Lili, since they were now two grasshoppers tied together by one thread. Lucky for Shi, he didn’t lose his military status for nothing. It seemed he would go to Shenyang soon and have a happy time with her.

The station planned to hold a farewell party for Shi Wei. Though it was not an honorable discharge, they had worked with Shi for almost a year and had some good feelings about him. For days Kang had been thinking what souvenir he should give Shi Wei. He finally chose a pair of pillow towels, which cost him four yuan , half his monthly pay. In the meantime his scalp remained numb, and he still could not come to himself. Not only did the task of receiving a telegram frighten him, but any telegraphic signal would give him the creeps. He had developed another habit — cursing himself relentlessly for his daydreaming and for having allowed himself to degenerate into a walking corpse for that fickle woman, whose name he would now murmur many times every night.

Four older soldiers from the Wireless Platoon were invited to the farewell party. Chief Jiang presented an album to Shi, and Shun gave him a pair of nylon socks. When Kang’s pillow towels were displayed, everybody burst out laughing, for on each towel was embroidered a pair of lovely mandarin ducks and a line of red characters. One said: “Happy Life,” and the other: “Sweet Dreams.” Peanut shells and pear cores fell on the floor because of the commotion the garish towels caused.

“You must be joking, Big Kang,” Shi said, measuring one of the towels against his chest. “You think I’m going home to get married?”

“Why not?” Kang smiled. “Won’t you go to Shenyang?”

“For what? I don’t know anyone there.”

Kang stood up. The floor seemed to be swaying beneath his feet. Tears welled up in his eyes. He picked up a mug and gulped the beer inside, his left hand holding the corner of the desk. He put down the mug, then turned to the door.

“Where are you going?” Chief Jiang asked.

Without replying, Kang went out into the open air. He wanted to bolt into the snow and run for hours, until his legs could no longer support him. But he paused. On the drill ground, a dozen soldiers from the Line Construction Platoon were practicing climbing telephone poles without wearing spikes. Behind the brick houses stood the thirty-meter-tall aerial, made of three poles connected to one another, which had been raised for their station by these fellow men. In the northeast, the Wusuli River displayed a series of green, steaming holes along its snow-covered course. On the fields and the slopes of the hills, a curtain of golden sparks, cast by the setting sun, was glittering. The gray forests stretched along the undulating mountain ridges toward the receding horizon. The sky was so high and the land so vast. Kang took a deep breath; a fresh contraction lingered in his chest. For the first time he felt a person was so small.

That evening he wrote a letter to the company’s Party branch, imploring the leaders to transfer him to the Line Construction Platoon. He did not give an explicit reason, and merely said that somehow his mind was deteriorating and that he could not operate the telegraphic apparatus anymore. The letter ended as follows:

If I can no longer serve the Revolutionary Cause and our Motherland with my brain, I can at least work with my hands, which are still young and strong. Please relieve me from the Wireless Platoon.

After writing the letter, he wept, filling his hands with tears. He used to believe that when he was demobilized he could make a decent living by working as a telegrapher at a post office or a train station, but now he had ruined his future. How painful it was to love and then give it up. If only he could forget that woman’s voice and her telegraphic style. Whether he could or not, he had to try.