Ha Jin - The Crazed

“Well,” she said, “I don’t know him well enough to say that. Probably nobody really knows who he is. He seems to have different faces. But he’s talented and writes well.”

“So are some other men.”

“He’s a decent essayist, don’t you think?”

“All right, he is. But we’re talking about the man, not his pen. I can’t comprehend why you’re so interested in him. Believe me, Weiya, he’s not worthy of your attention.” I wanted to say, To me he’s just an unbearable horsefly that can’t bite but is always annoying. You mustn’t demean yourself this way. But I checked myself.

She said with a drawn smile, “I’m already thirty-one, tired of being an old maid. If I don’t get married soon, I’ll become a childless woman all my life.”

“So you want a home?”

“Yes. It’s a shame to hear this from me, isn’t it?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Pity rose in my chest as I realized that like me, she too must be a lonely creature in spite of her confident appearance. She too must have been starving for companionship, longing to rest in a pair of reliable arms. Nevertheless, I pleaded, “Don’t do this to yourself, Weiya. I’m sure you’ll find a better man.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Understand what?”

“Secretary Peng can hurt me. If I don’t obey her, there’ll be disastrous consequences.”

“In what way can she hurt you?” It felt odd to hear her say that; never had I seen her so apprehensive.

“Hmm, let me just say this: she can kick me out of the department easily.”

“So?” I wasn’t convinced. Why should she barter herself for a teaching position? This would ruin her life.

“I’m not like you,” she said. “If I were a man, I wouldn’t be afraid of her, and I’d go anywhere after graduation. I wouldn’t even think of marriage at all.”

I felt all at sea about what she was driving at. She was a well-educated woman, not only independent but also thoughtful. Why did she sound so timid? She went on, “Tell me, Yuman is just a scoundrel to you, isn’t he?”

“Not only that. If you marry him, he may not be able to give you a child.”

“You mean he may have physical problems?”

I nodded, unsure how to explain, though I knew for a fact that his ex-wife had never gotten pregnant.

“Well,” she said, “I’m quite sure that physically he’s fine.”

“Did you check him out?”

Ignoring my mockery, she replied, “He entered college in 1977, after the entrance exams were reinstated. This means he had to pass the thorough physical screening in order to get admitted to college. Let me tell you a secret: one reason that most young women want to marry college students is that the men are healthy and unlikely to have major physical problems. For us it’s a safer bet.”

I was amazed by such a shrewd answer, yet I told her, “Whether Yuman Tan is physically all right or not, you deserve a better man.”

“That’s not a reasonable thing to say. We all deserve a good marriage, a happy family, and a great career, but those blessings are not for everyone. I used to dream of having a bunch of kids and a white bungalow like the one my grandparents once had, but that was just a fantasy. Besides, where could I find a better man?”

“There must be one if you look hard.”

“Tell me where to find such a man.” She gave a sly smile and went on, “To tell you the truth, recently I’ve begun to believe the feminist argument that most Chinese men have degenerated.”

Without much thinking, I patted my chest and said almost flippantly, “Well, have you ever thought of someone like me? Of course I can’t give you a bungalow.” Although I kept my tone of voice nonchalant, my heart began pounding. My impromptu offer shocked me. Yes, I was attracted to her, but I had never intended to go this far.

Surprised, she looked me in the face, then turned away laughing as if in hysterics. “You’re crazy,” she said. “This isn’t a novel or a movie, and I’m not a young heroine who needs a prince or a knight riding a white horse to her rescue. You’re already engaged, so you can’t be serious about what you just said. You probably mentioned yourself only out of pity, but I don’t need your compassion in this situation. Even if you meant to help me, what made you think I’d do Meimei such a nasty turn? Besides, you’re five years younger than me.”

I was abashed but managed to counter, “Well, Karl Marx was four years younger than his wife Jenny, but they had a great marriage.”

She laughed again, this time ringingly. “You’re so funny. We’re in China, and we’re average people.”

I realized what a fool I had made of myself, yet I said in self-defense, “Then why did you bother to ask me about Yuman Tan?”

“If Mr. Yang were not ill, I’d ask him. Other than him, you’re the only man here I can trust. You’re like a younger brother to me.”

That shut me up. I was somewhat irritated by the word “trust,” of which I had had an earful. When I was an undergraduate at Jilin University, quite a few young women had said the same thing to me: they found me honest and trustworthy. But none of them had ever thought me loveworthy. That was why they often talked to me and even confided in me. I felt like a wastebasket into which they dumped whatever they had no place for. This made me think that a harmless man must be more unfortunate than a charmless woman.

“How’s Mr. Yang doing?” she asked a moment later, her voice full of concern.

“Crazy as ever.”

“How bad is he now?”

“He’s not himself anymore. Sometimes he blabbers like an imbecile, and sometimes he speaks like a sage. I wonder if he has some kind of dementia.”

“You think he’ll recover soon?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“I’ll come to see him.”

I wanted to say, Makes no difference, but I held my tongue. We walked to her dormitory, which was about three hundred yards away to the east, beyond a shallow pond overgrown with lotus flowers. From the murky water a lone frog croaked tentatively. All the way we remained silent. I was sulking, because it seemed to me she should never have considered Yuman Tan as a possibility. That man had divorced his wife the summer before; to be exact, she had run out on him. She used to be a singer in the Provincial Song and Dance Ensemble and always wore lipstick, eyeliner, and mascara. She left for the United States to join an American man, Alan Johnson, a widower from Chicago with muttonchop whiskers, who had taught linguistics in the Foreign Languages Department here. Alan Johnson had begun carrying on with her after a mutual acquaintance introduced them in a teahouse downtown. They often went to restaurants and the movies. Most of the time they had to meet off campus, because the old guards at the front entrance to the compound where the foreign experts lived would not let any Chinese visitor go in without official permission. One night last spring, the two of them were picked up by a police patrol in Golden Elephant Park while they were making out on a bench there. The affair was the first one in our school involving a foreigner, so a good number of officials got reprimanded for negligence, particularly those in the university’s Foreign Affairs Office and the heads of the song and dance ensemble. Later the Provincial Education Department revoked its two-year contract with Alan Johnson, and he had no choice but to return to the United States at the end of his first year here.

After his wife left him, Yuman Tan wept every night for a week. Then he filed for a divorce, which was granted him within five days, so that he could legally go about wife hunting. He soon began to dress foppishly — a three-piece suit, checkered ties, patent leather boots. He even wore a pocket watch with a gilt chain. He bought a Yellow River moped, which was so expensive that only two or three faculty members in our university owned one, and he rode that thing to school every day. On this account some people called him “Little Running Bug.” Rumor had it that his ex-wife had left him a tidy sum as a divorce settlement; this would explain why he had suddenly become rich.