Gao Xingjian - One Man

It was a blind alley, a narrow corridor with a wall on the one side and hemp bags stacked higher than a person on the other. He had escaped into a warehouse. When he stopped to catch his breath, he heard a noise, and, turning around, he saw the young woman slumped against a pile of hemp bags, also trying to catch her breath.

"What happened to the others?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"Where are you going?"

The woman did not answer.

"I'm going to Beijing."

"I… am too," the woman said after a pause.

"You're not a local, are you?" he asked, but the woman didn't answer.

"University student?" he asked, but again she didn't answer.

It gradually grew dark, and a cool breeze started blowing. He felt his sweat-soaked shirt clinging to his back.

"We'll have to find a place to spend the night, it's not safe here," he said, walking out of the warehouse. He looked back and saw the woman quietly following but keeping a few paces away. He asked, "Know of anywhere to stay?"

"Near the station, but it's too dangerous to go back. There are places along the river, close to the wharf, but it's a very long walk," the woman said quietly. She was clearly a local, so he insisted that she lead the way.

Sure enough, below the big embankment, along the river, in a little street of old houses, youths were standing outside or sitting in doorways, chatting with one another across the road and asking about the battle. Until the bullets hit them in the head, they couldn't help being curious, even excited, by it all. The shops and little eating places were all closed, but two places with lights on the doors were old-style inns, where traveling traders and craftsmen used to stay. One of them was full, but the other one had a small room with a single bed.

"Do you want it or not?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, waving a fan.

He immediately said yes and took out his identity card. The woman took it and made an entry in the register.

"What's your relationship?" the woman asked as she wrote out the entry.

"Husband and wife." He winked at the woman beside him.

"Surname and name?"

"Xu-Ying," she answered after a pause.

"Work unit?"

"She hasn't got work yet, we're going back to Beijing," he answered for her.

"There's a five-yuan deposit. It's one yuan per day, and the account is settled when you vacate the room."

He paid the money. The woman kept his identity card and came out from behind the counter with a bunch of keys. She opened a small door by the stairs and pulled the light cord inside. A light bulb hung from the sloping ceiling. Having squeezed into this little nook, a storage space under the stairs that had been converted into a small room with a single bed, they couldn't straighten up. At the other end of the room was a washbasin stand and nothing else, not even a chair. The fat woman shuffled off in her slippers, waving her bunch of keys.

He shut the door. He and this woman, Xu Ying, looked at one another.

"I'll go out soon," he said.

"There's no need," the woman said, sitting down on the bed. "It's all right."

It was only then that he took a good look at the woman. She was very pale, so he asked, "Are you very tired? You can lie down and rest."

The woman remained seated and didn't move. Footsteps clattered overhead. Someone came down the stairs, then, outside, there was the sound of splashing water, most likely the person was having a wash in the courtyard. The little room had no window for ventilation, and it was unbearably hot and stuffy.

"Would you like the door open?" he asked.

"No," the woman said.

"Would you like me to get you a basin of water? I'll wash outside," he said.

The woman nodded.

When he came back later on, the woman had washed and combed her hair. She had changed into a round-neck sleeveless top with little yellow flowers, and, shoes off, was sitting on the bed. She had replaited her hair tightly, and the color had returned to her face; she had a girlish look. She bent her knees to leave half the bed clear, and said, "Sit down, there's room here!"

For the first time, the woman smiled. He also smiled, relaxed, and said, "I had to say that." He was, of course, referring to when they registered and he had put them down as husband and wife.

"I understood, of course." The woman's lips scrunched up into a smile.

He then bolted the door, took off his shoes, sat cross-legged at the other end of the bed, and said, "I can't believe it!"

"What?" the woman asked, tilting her head to one side.

"Do you need to ask?"

This woman called Xu Ying again scrunched up her lips into a smile.

Afterward, many years later, when he thought back to that night, there was also flirting, seduction, lust, passion, and love. It was not just a night of terror.

"Was that really your name?" he asked.

"I can't tell you right now."

"Then when will you?"

"You'll know when the time comes. Wait and see."

"See what?"

"Isn't it clear to you yet?"

He stopped talking and felt cozy and comfortable. The footsteps on the stairs had stopped, and there was no more splashing out in the courtyard. A sort of tension began to coalesce, and it was as if something was about to happen. It was only some years later, when he thought back to that time, that he again experienced such a feeling.

"Is it all right to put out the light?" he asked.

"It is a bit too bright," she said.

When he felt his way back to the bed after putting out the light, he bumped her leg, and she immediately moved away but let him lie beside her. He was very careful, and lay on his back very straight on the outside part of the bed. However, in the single bed, their bodies inevitably touched, and, if she didn't move away, he didn't try too hard, either. The woman's clammy warmth and the stifling heat in the room made him sweat all over. In the dark, he could vaguely make out the sloping ceiling that seemed to press down on him and made the heat feel even more oppressive.

"Would it be all right if I took off my clothes?" he asked.

The woman didn't respond, but didn't indicate that she objected. When their bodies touched after he'd removed his shirt and trousers, she didn't move away, but she was obviously not asleep. "Why are you going to Beijing?" he asked.

"To see my maternal aunt."

Surely this wasn't the time to be visiting relatives? He didn't believe her.

"My aunt works in the Ministry of Health," the woman added.

He said he also worked in a state workplace.

"I know."

"How do you know?"

"When you took out your identity card."

"And do you also know my name?"

"Of course, didn't you register just now?"

In the darkness, he seemed to see, or, rather, sense that the woman had her lips scrunched up in a smile.

"Otherwise, I wouldn't…"

"Be sleeping with me, right?" he said it for her.

"As long as you know!"

He detected something gentle in her voice, and when he unavoidably put his hand on her thigh, she didn't try to move away. But then he thought she trusted him and he didn't dare do anything else.

"Which university are you at?" he asked.

"I've already graduated, I'm waiting to be assigned work," she said, evading his question.

"What did you study?"

"Biology."

"Have you dissected corpses?"

"Of course."

"Including human corpses?"

"I'm not a doctor, my studies are theoretical, but, of course, I've done practical work in hospital laboratories. I'm just waiting to be assigned to a work unit. The project was set up, if it hadn't…"

"If it hadn't what? This Cultural Revolution?"

"It had already been settled that I would go to a research institute in Beijing."

"Are your parents cadres?"

"No."