Ran Chen - A Private Life

For a moment, feeling absolutely dreadful, I turned away from him.

As I did so, Yin Nan very softly put his arm around my shoulder, so softly that it seemed weightless, independent of his body, as if it had no connection with him. It was as if the arm had feelings of its own. But that exploratory action aroused a strong reaction in my body. I was helpless before a subtle force, like an irresistible drowsiness, that kept pulling me.

Slowly I let myself go and leaned against his shoulder.

When his hand felt my response, its strength returned and it grasped my arm, its fingers squeezing me. Then his other hand encircled me. But his movements were extraordinarily gentle. There was no unrestrained lust, but there was an impassioned and uneasy curiosity. Perhaps it was because he lacked experience, perhaps he felt awkward, but for a long time he was content simply caressing my arms, my neck, and my cheeks, his actions all highly restrained. I noticed that he was struggling to keep his breathing normal. He didn't want me to see him suddenly lose his self-control.

We continued like this for a long time, until finally he slipped his hand down over my breasts and began undoing my buttons.

He did this very slowly, like a general who was all confidence leisurely leading his troops to retake territory that had been momentarily lost, with none of the impetuosity of a young man blind with passion. His shy dignity stirred me, deeply filling me with a tender warmth as I helped him undo the last few buttons. I felt a breath of cool air touch my breasts. Glancing up into the rearview mirror, I saw one of my ripe, young breasts bob into view, joggling in the sunlight, like a plump, firm apple bursting with juice. I watched as one of Yin Nan's hands moved to touch it ever so lightly, then quickly covered it with my sweater as if he were afraid that someone else might be furtively watching. Then the hand fastened every single one of the buttons on my sweater, ceasing its movement only after it had pulled my collar closed as well. But it didn't move away from my breasts. It was as if it was only resting for a moment, as if it couldn't bear to have such a good show end too quickly.

I say this because the subsequent scene bore it out.

After pausing for a while, the hand began undoing my buttons afresh. When the "apple" bobbed into sight in the rearview mirror again, the hand touched it tentatively, then covered it with my sweater again. It seemed as if he were intoxicated with this kind of fleeting but deeply prized visual and tactile gratification, as if he didn't want to let unbridled desire ruin the feeling of aesthetic appreciation that I had stirred in him.

When I recalled this scene after I had gone home, it still moved me deeply. It seems to me that the feelings involved in this kind of innocent behavior run much deeper than those generated by undisciplined self-indulgence, whether you look at it from the physical or psychological point of view. I found myself irresistibly drawn back to that scene again and again, with every detail played out in slow motion out of fear that I might at some point forget something. For a long time, I steeped myself in naive, romantic reveries, longing for my life to unfold.

That day, we stayed there in the car for about an hour. Finally Yin Nan, with an unexpected, almost reverential seriousness, placed a very light but very long kiss on my left earlobe, then pulled away from me, and sitting there behind the wheel as primly and sweetly as a little boy, he started the car.

We drove along the bare winter road between the fields. In front of us, patterns of sunlight danced on the black pavement, beckoning us onward. Holding the hand Yin Nan had put in my lap, I immersed myself totally in the pastoral scenery around us.

As we drove he repeatedly turned to look at me, his eyes lingering affectionately on my face and my body. He would stare at me a while, give a little laugh, then focus his attention on the road again. But after a moment he would turn to look at me again, the desire in his eyes like fingertips exploring my body.

I was afraid that we might have an accident if he continued like that, and finally, unable to contain myself, I said, "You mustn't look at me all the time. You'd better watch the road."

He didn't say anything, but he gave a little laugh, then didn't look at me anymore. But his hand again slid from the steering wheel into my lap and cupped itself around mine.

We were silent again for a long time, the only sound the faint noise of the car as it moved along the uneven road, like a boat on an undulating sea.

The rural scenery swept past my eyes. The piles of gold-colored straw, the withered, bare trees, the farming villages dotting the vast landscape, and the waving fields of winter wheat all had a wonderful appeal quite unlike anything the city could offer.

At last, unable to contain myself, I said, "I love the countryside."

Yin Nan said, "You mean the scenery?"

I said, "It's not just a matter of enjoying it from afar. I would love to live in the countryside."

"Living in such a place would be peaceful, all right. Nobody'd know who you were," he said.

"I don't want anyone to know who I am," I said.

Yin Nan hesitated for a moment, then said, "You're saying you'd like to be a hermit? Whatever for? We're young – the world is calling us."

I said, "It's too exhausting to live among people, and too dangerous. Living in China is like being dropped into a monstrous labyrinth. To get through it, it isn't knowledge, talent, or intelligence that you need; it's something else. I can't handle it."

"You're right on. If we want to achieve anything of significance in life, aside from accumulated knowledge, to survive we have to learn to recognize opportunities and to ignore what other people think. I've just been reading up on this. They say that in Japan the final training for anyone who wants to do something significant in life, whether in business or politics, is standing on the street and shouting, 'I'm a scumbag! A bastard!' Think about it. What can you do to a person like that?"

"So it's like you're saying that ultimately it's the person who has no sense of honor, who turns his back on friends and family, who gets ahead. But do you know how much that person has to bear in his heart?"

"That's exactly why I say we have to learn this lesson."

"But why exhaust yourself like this? It's far better just to hide."

"Oh, is that so? Well, it's different for a man. You can hide yourself away out here, but I can't hide. I have to get involved."

In all the time we had known each other, this was the first time I had seen the determination that lurked beneath his shyness.

A bit surprised, I watched him for a while, then said, "Of course. Of course I understand that."

He turned to me, and as if he were trying to get away from some unpleasant line of thinking, he abruptly switched the thread of our conversation. "All that stuff is so boring. Why waste our time talking about it? Mmm, do you know…" He turned away from me again to watch the road.

"Do I know what?"

He didn't answer me directly. He stared at the road ahead, increasing our speed.

"Do I know what?" I repeated.

He said softly, "I… like you."

I didn't quite know what to say, so I didn't say anything.

"Like you… an awful lot. Don't you know?" he added.

"Of course… I know."

I don't like it when two people always want to talk about their relationship. I think a relationship is a natural thing, not something you talk into being.

So I shifted the direction of our discussion. "How come you never told me you knew how to drive a car?"

"There's lots of things I haven't told you," he said, as he took his driver's license from his shirt pocket. "Look, I passed my driver's test last summer during the holidays. It's my big brother's car. He doesn't know I took it today. He's got lots of money. It's just that he doesn't have any real goal in life. So he's pinning his hopes on me."