Ha Jin - The Crazed

Mr. Yang countered, “This is my home. Why don’t you go?”

“All right, if you don’t, I’m leaving.”

As I wondered whether I should turn back, the door opened slowly and Mrs. Yang walked out. She was a small angular woman with deep-socketed eyes. Seeing me, she paused, her face contorted and sprinkled with tears. She lowered her head and hurried past without a word, leaving behind the rancid smell of her bedraggled hair. Her black silk skirt almost covered her slender calves; she had bony ankles and narrow feet, wearing red plastic flip-flops.

Mr. Yang saw me and waved me in. On the concrete floor were scattered a brass pen pot and dozens of books, most of which were opened and several with their spines loosened from their sutures. He grimaced, then sighed, shaking his head.

Silently I handed him his book. Though I didn’t know why they had fought, the scene unnerved me as I replayed it in my mind later on. Whenever I was with the Yangs I could sense an emotional chasm between my teacher and his wife. I was positive they had become estranged from one another. For some time I couldn’t help but wonder whether my fiancée had inherited her mother’s fiery disposition, or whether her parents’ fights had disturbed her emotionally. But my misgivings didn’t last long, as I was soon convinced that by nature Meimei was a cheerful girl, even more rational than myself.

A locomotive blew its steam whistle in the south like a mooing cow. The night had grown deeper and quieter. Having considered these happenings in Mr. Yang’s life, I felt none of them alone could have triggered his collapse. Perhaps they had joined forces to bring him down.

Nurse Chen put a thermos of hot water on the bedside cabinet in Mr. Yang’s room and asked me, “Was your professor educated abroad?” She looked perkier than two days ago.

“No, he’s a genuine Chinese product, homebred like you and me.”

“I heard him speak foreign words last night.”

“Really, in what language?”

“I’ve no clue, but it was definitely not English or Japanese. It sounded strange.”

“Was it like this, ‘Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?’ ”

She shook her head in amazement, then giggled. “What language is that? You sounded like an officer rapping out orders.”

“It’s German.”

“What does it mean?”

“It’s the beginning of a book of poems Mr. Yang often quoted, Duino Elegies. It means ‘Who, if I cry, would hear me among the angelic order?’ Something like that.”

“My, that’s deep, I’m impressed. Tell you what, he might have spoken German.”

Her praise embarrassed me a little, for that line was the only part of the long poem I had memorized. We often committed a passage or a few lines to memory not only because we liked them but also because we could impress others with them. That’s one of the tricks of the academic game.

Mr. Yang had never spoken foreign words during my shift. He could read German and knew some French. He loved Rilke and had once made me read Duino Elegies in a bilingual edition after he came to know I had studied German for a year. But I didn’t like the poems that much, perhaps because I hadn’t read them carefully.

Mali Chen raised her hand, looking at her wristwatch. “I should be going, the doc must be here already. Bye-bye now.” She fluttered her fingers at me as she made for the door. She left behind a puff of perfume like almond.

I knew she had come to see Banping, who had left fifteen minutes before. Although Banping appeared clumsy and dull, he had a way of getting along with others, especially with women. We had started caring for our teacher just a few days before, but already he was mixing with the nurses as chummily as if he had known them for months. I wondered whether this was due to his rustic looks and manner, which might tend to put most women at ease — they would drop their guard without fearing any emotional entanglement with him. By comparison, I must have seemed like an eccentric to them, a typical bookworm, high-strung and a bit morose.

Mr. Yang was quiet and stationary. I took out my textbook, Contemporary Japanese, and began reviewing some paragraphs marked in pencil. The exams were just a month away, and I had too much to study. Japanese would be a jinx on me; if only I had taken it up a few years earlier.

As I tried parsing a complicated sentence in my mind, Mr. Yang snickered. I raised my head and saw his lips stir murmuring something. I averted my eyes and made an effort to concentrate on the textbook, but in no time his words grew clear. He chuckled and said, “They look like peaches, don’t they?” He smacked his lips, his face shining.

My curiosity was piqued. What did he compare to peaches? I put down the book and listened attentively. He beamed, “I’m such a lucky man. He-he-he, you know, your nipples taste like coffee candy. Mmmm. . ah, let me have them again.” His lips parted eagerly.

I was amazed. He was talking to a woman! No wonder he looked so happy. He chuckled, but his words turned ragged.

Who was the woman? His wife? Unlikely. They two had been aloof toward each other in recent years; besides, she couldn’t possibly have that kind of breasts. In my mind’s eye I saw Mrs. Yang’s chest flat like a washboard. She was as thin as a mantis, so the peachy breasts must have belonged to another woman. Could he be having a fling with someone? That was possible. There was a fortyish woman lecturer in the Foreign Languages Department, named Kailing Wang, who had recently collaborated with him in translating Brecht’s Good Woman of Szechwan. She was quite busty, soft-skinned, and convivial. Mr. Yang and she had been pretty close and often teased each other playfully. Several times I had seen them together in his apartment working on the translation. They laughed a lot and seemed to enjoy each other’s company. Once I saw them chatting over a bottle of plum wine; another time I found her cooking a sausage dinner for him in his apartment. Besides her, a few women faculty members in the Literature Department were also close to him, though they dared not show their friendship overtly for fear of Professor Song’s notice.

On the other hand, the peachy breasts could belong to his wife, if Mr. Yang had in his mind an intimate moment from their early years. She might have had a full body when she was young. Or perhaps this erotic episode had occurred only in his dream, not in reality.

“Sorry, there’s no chamber pot in here,” Mr. Yang said. “He-he, you’d better peepee into the washbasin under the bed. .” Gleefully he imitated the urinating sound: “Pshhhhh, pshhhhh, pshhhhhh — yes, yes, use the basin.”

The thought came to me that he must have been in a dormitory or a guesthouse, since every home would have a chamber pot or a toilet.

“I can see you,” he piped, then grinned, baring his tobacco-stained teeth.

Who was the woman he was talking to? She might not be his wife, because the Yangs had a toilet in their apartment, which she could use at night. When did this happen? Long ago?

Then I began to revise my reasoning, since it was entirely possible that he and his wife had stayed a night somewhere other than their home and had had to resort to a washbasin in place of a chamber pot.

“My goodness,” Mr. Yang said with increasing relish, “how I adore your hips. Gorgeous, like two large loaves of bread fresh from a steamer.” He paused, chuckling, then went on, “Yes, I’m shameless, can’t help it, shameless and crazy. Come on, give me one on the mouth.”

I was all ears, but his voice was dwindling, though he still smiled mysteriously. I listened for another minute without understanding a thing, so I returned to my textbook.