Ha Jin - Waiting

"I–I went to buy a dish. You were home, why couldn't you keep an eye on it?"

"You didn't tell me, did you? Besides, I'm too sick to cook. Don't you know that?" With her fingertips holding the cuff of her sleeve, she swept the pot and the bowl off the cooking range; they crashed to the cement floor; beef and potato cubes and smoking rice were scattered about. The aluminum lid of the pot rolled away and hit the threshold, where it came to rest, leaning upright against two bricks piled together as a doorstop.

"Even pigs won't touch this," she added.

From inside the bedroom Lake broke out crying, then screamed at the top of his lungs. A few seconds later River started bawling too. Manna hurried back in to calm them. Without tending to the stove or cleaning up, Lin turned and stormed out. His green mittens, connected by a string, flapped wildly beside his flanks as he strode away. "I hate her! I hate her!" he said to himself.

He went to the hill behind the hospital grounds. It was a cold day. The orchard on the slope was deserted, the apple-pear trees thick and bulky, their frosty branches sprawling and looking feathery. For a while he couldn't think of anything, his skull numb and his temples tight. He climbed toward the hilltop, which was covered by snow except for two clusters of brownish rocks. Beyond the hill, on the riverbank, there was a village that had a deer farm and a boat house, which Lin for some reason wanted to watch from the crown of the hill. The scent of winter was clean and intense. It was windless, and the sun was glinting on the boulders here and there and on the tree trunks crusted with ice. In the distance a flock of rooks were circling and cawing hungrily.

As Lin calmed down, a voice rose in his head and said, Do you really hate her?

He made no reply.

The voice continued, You asked for this mess. Why did you marry her?

I love her, he answered.

You married her for love? You really loved her?

He thought a while, then managed to answer, I think so. We waited eighteen years for each other, didn't we? Doesn't such a long time prove we love each other?

No, time may prove nothing. Actually you never loved her. You just had a crush on her, which you didn't get a chance to outgrow or to develop into love.

What? A crush! He was taken aback and paused in his tracks. His sinuses became congested.

Yes, you mistook your crush for love. You didn't know what love was like. In fact you waited eighteen years just for the sake of waiting. You could have waited that long for another woman too, couldn't you?

I waited for Manna only. There wasn't another woman involved.

All right, there were only the two of you. Let's assume you and she loved each other. Were you sure that you both would enjoy living together as husband and wife?

We really loved each other, didn't we? Lin's temples were throbbing, and he took off his hat so that the cold air could cool his head.

Really? the voice resumed. What do you know about love? Did you know her well enough before you married her? Were you sure she was the woman you'd spend the rest of your life with? Be honest now, among all the women you've known, who are you most fond of? Isn't there someone else who is more suitable for you than Manna?

I can't tell. Besides her there's only Shuyu in my life. How could I compare Manna with someone else? I don't know much about women, although I wish I did.

Suddenly he felt his head expanding with a shooting pain. He was giddy with the intuition that this marriage might not be what he had wanted. He sat down on a rock to catch his breath and think more.

The voice went on, Yes, you waited so many years, but for what?

He found his mind blank and couldn't answer. The question frightened him, because it implied that all those years he had waited for something wrong.

Let me tell you what really happened, the voice said. All those years you waited torpidly, like a sleepwalker, pulled and pushed about by others' opinions, by external pressure, by your illusions, by the official rules you internalized. You were misled by your own frustration and passivity, believing that what you were not allowed to have was what your heart was destined to embrace.

Lin was stunned. For a moment he was at a loss for words. Then he began cursing himself. Fool, eighteen years you waited without knowing for what! Eighteen years, the prime of your life, gone, wasted, and they led you to this damn marriage. You're a model fool!

What's to be done now? the voice asked.

He heaved a deep sigh, not knowing what to do or whether he should try to do something. Tears were sliding down his cheeks and reached the corners of his mouth; time and again he raised his hand to wipe them off. His ears were freezing, so he put the fur hat back on and turned down its earflaps.

Then the image of Manna in her late twenties emerged in his mind. She had a vivacious face smiling radiantly; on her palm perched a tiny green frog, its mouth quivering. A few sky-blue drag-onflies were flying around her, their wings issuing a whirring sound. As Lin stretched out his hand to touch the frog's back, it jumped and plopped into the limpid stream flowing along the edge of an eggplant field. She turned and looked at him, her eyes dim with affection and kindness, as though full of secrets that she was eager to share with him. The end of her loose hair was thrown up a little by the warm breeze, revealing the silky nape of her neck. How different she was now from then! He realized that the long waiting must have changed her profoundly — from a pleasant young woman into a hopeless spitfire. No matter how he felt about her now, he was certain she had always loved him. Perhaps it was the unrequited love that had dragged her down. Or perhaps it was the suffering and despondency she had experienced in the long waiting that had dissolved her gentle nature, worn away her hopes, ruined her health, poisoned her heart, and doomed her.

The voice interrupted his thoughts. Yes, she has loved you. But isn't it this marriage that has been debilitating her?

He tried to answer, She wanted a family and children, didn't she? She must have been starved for human warmth and affection, any bit of which she might have taken as love. Yes, she's been blind to the true situation, always believing I loved her. She doesn't know what a true lover is like.

His heart began aching. It dawned on him that he had never loved a woman wholeheartedly and that he had always been the loved one. This must have been the reason why he knew so little about love and women. In other words, emotionally he hadn't grown up. His instinct and ability to love passionately had withered away before they had had an opportunity to blossom. If only he had fallen in love soulfully just once in his life, even though it might have broken his heart, paralyzed his mind, made him live in a daze, bathed his face in tears, and drowned him in despair!

What are you going to do? the voice kept on.

He could not think of an answer. Being a husband and a father, he felt he ought to carry out the responsibilities imposed on him by his marriage. What else could he do to alleviate his sense of guilt and convince himself that he was a decent man? What else could he do other than to endure?

He sighed. If only he had had enough passion and energy left in him so that he could learn how to love devotedly and start his life afresh. If only Manna were healthy and not dying. He was too old to take any action now. His heart was weary. He only hoped that before his wife died their sons would be old enough for kindergarten.

Down below, along the brick wall behind the hospital, a man and a woman were strolling eastward despite the cold weather. Both of them wore uniforms; the man was a head taller than the woman, who looked rather small and delicate. Every once in a while she would run a few steps to catch up with him. They looked familiar to Lin. Lin strained his eyes to make out who they were, but his sight failed him. It occurred to him that the rule that prohibited two people of opposite sex from walking together outside the wall had been almost abandoned in the past year. Few leaders would now bother to criticize young men and women who walked in pairs outside the compound. He had heard that some nurses had even gone into the woods with their patients. Yet somehow to him and Manna, there still seemed to be a wall around them. They had never walked together outside the hospital since they were married, and Manna still could not ride a bicycle.