Ha Jin: Ocean of Words

“What’s the matter with you?” Shi rapped him on the shoulder.

“Oh nothing,” Kang muttered, moving to the desk. “Never met such a good hand.”

“True, he has gold fingers.”

There was no time to tell Shi that it was she, not he, because the receiver was announcing: “Please ready.”

Kang started writing down the numerals rapidly. In the beginning it went well, but soon his attention began to wander. He was distracted by his desire to appreciate the rhythm and the personal touch in the sounds, and he had to drop some numerals now and then. More awful, that voice jumped in to trouble him — “Sorry, don’t take it to heart. I was teasing you.…”

“Repeat?” she asked, having finished the short telegram.

“Yes, noise,” Kang pounded nervously. “Group eight in line four, from group three to eight in line six …”

Meanwhile, Shi Wei watched him closely. He was surprised to find Kang, a better transcriber than himself, unable to jot down the telegram sent out so clearly. There was no noise at all; why did he tap “noise” as an excuse? Kang was aware of Shi’s observing and was sweating all over. He rushed to bring the receiving operation to an end.

“Are you all right?” Shi asked, after Kang signed his name on the telegram.

“I don’t know.” He felt sick. He got up and hurried out of the office.

Another fruitless evening and another sleepless night. Kang could no longer contain himself. On Sunday evening, he revealed the truth to Shi and Shun, who happened to be in the office.

“Shi Wei, you know, the Shenyang operator with ‘gold fingers’ is a woman, not a man.” He had planned to say a lot, to make a story, but he was bewildered, finding that he completed the project in just one sentence. He blushed to the ears with a strange emotion.

“Really?” Shi asked loudly. “No kidding? Why didn’t you tell me earlier, Brother Kang?”

Kang smiled. Shun was not sure who they were talking about. “Which one?”

“The best one,” Shi said with a thrill in his voice. “I can’t believe it. A girl can telegraph so well. Tell me, Big Kang, how did you get to know her?”

“She called me, because she couldn’t hear me,” he declared proudly.

“What’s her name?” Shi asked.

“I have no idea. Wish I knew.”

“Must be a good girl. I’ll go to Shenyang and get her.”

“Come on, don’t brag,” Shun said. “I want to see how you can get her.”

“You wait and see.”

Kang was shocked that Shi was also interested in her. He regretted telling them the truth. If Shi made a move, Kang would have to give ground. Shi was an excellent basketball player and had in his wallet the pictures of a half dozen young women, who he claimed were all his girlfriends. In addition, his father was a divisional commissar in the navy; Shi had grown up in big cities and knew the world. Most important of all, he spent money like water. How could Kang compete against such a smart, handsome fellow?

It was this new development that made him fidgety that evening. He paced up and down in the office, chain-smoking for two hours. Finally, he decided to investigate who she was. He picked up the telephone and called the Shenyang Miliary Region. It took half an hour for the call to get through.

“Hello, this is Shenyang, can I help you?” an operator asked sleepily.

“Ye-yes,” he struggled to say. “I want to speak to — to the wireless station, the one that communicates with Hutou?”

“What’s ‘Hutou’? A unit’s code name?”

“No, it’s a county.”

“Oh, I see. Please tell me the number of the station you want to speak to.”

“I don’t know the number.”

“I can’t help you then. We have hundreds of stations, and they are in different cities and mountains. You have to tell me the number. Find the number first, then call back. All right?”

“Uh, all right.”

“Bye-bye now.”

“Bye.”

It was so easy to run into a dead end. All the clever questions, which he had prepared to ask the radio operator on duty about that woman, had vanished from his mind. How foolish he was — having never thought there could be more than ten stations in the Regional Headquarters. What was to be done now? Without an address, he could not write to her; even with an address, he didn’t know how to compose a love letter. Why was Heaven so merciless? It seemed that the only way to meet her was through the air, but he had not figured out her capricious schedule yet.

It did not make much difference after they rotated the shifts. Now Kang worked afternoons. No matter how exhausted he was when he went to bed at night, he would lie awake for a few hours thinking of one woman after another. His dreams ran wilder. Every night the pillow, which contained his underclothes, moved from beneath his head, little by little, into his arms. He was tormented by endless questions. What was it like to kiss and touch a woman? Did women also have hair on their bodies? Was he a normal man? And could he satisfy a woman? Was he not a neurotic, drenched in sweat and burning away like this in the dark? Could he have children with a woman?

Whenever he woke up from his broken sleep that mysterious voice would greet him, “Wake up, comrade. Have you heard me on the machine?…” The sounds grew deeper and deeper into him, as though they were sent out by his own internal organs. During these frantic nights, he discovered that Chief Jiang had to rouse Shi Wei at least three times every night. Shi worked the small hours.

Kang’s skull felt numb in the daytime. He was convinced that he was a lunatic. How panicked he was when receiving a telegram, because that melodious signal and that tender voice, again and again, intruded themselves into his brain and forced him to pause in the middle of the transcribing. How good it would be to have peace once more. But peace of mind seemed remote, as though it belonged only to a time that he had outgrown and could never return to. Even the exercises in the mornings became a torture. He used to be able to write down 160 numerals per minute with ease, but now he had to struggle with no. When they sat together reading documents and newspapers, his comrades often waved their hands before his eyes to test if he could see anything. Somebody would say, “Big Kang, why do you look like you lost your soul?” Another, “What do you see in your trance? A goddess?”

On these occasions Kang would let out a sigh. He dared not tell anybody about the ridiculous “affair.” He was afraid that he would be criticized for having contracted bourgeois liberalism or become a laughingstock.

One morning during the exercises, the telegraphic instructor, Han Jie, looked at Kang’s transcription and said under his breath, “No wonder the Confidential Office complained.”

Suddenly it dawned on Kang that he had become a nuisance in the Wireless Platoon. A pang seized his heart. No doubt, the confidential officers in the Regimental Headquarters were dissatisfied with his work and had reported him to the company’s leaders. It was this stupid “affair” that had reduced him to such a state. He had to find a way to stop it — forget that woman and her bewitching voice — otherwise how could he survive? Although in his heart he knew he had to get rid of her, he didn’t know how. Neither did he want to try.

On Thursday evening two weeks later, Chief Jiang held an urgent meeting at the station. Nobody knew what it was about. Kang was scared because he thought it might be about him. The secret would come out sooner or later. Had he babbled it during his sleep at night? He regretted drawing three pictures of women on the back of a telegram pad. Chief Jiang must have seen them. What should he say if the chief questioned him about those drawings?