CHAPTER XIV

The next evening he sat waiting for Ko Shan by her desk, staring down at her unstained bright pink blotter- In this work you learn to appreciate waiting, he thought. It's the only rest you ever get during the day.
He looked at the copy of the Liberation Daily News on her desk. The X-ray had found nothing wrong with his lungs, so he was very happy and easily amused. He read through the news story of some Italian priest who had just been arrested for espionage. There were two photos, one showing the lethal weapon in the priest's possession, a long bread-knife, and the other showing his "planned means cif escape", a swimming suit and a life belt- Was he going to jump into the Whampoo River when things got too hot for him, swim out to sea and follow the Chekiang-Fukien coast down south to Hong Kong? Liu's. own unit could have made a better job of it.
Ko Shan was a long time in the reference room. She had told him when he first came that they were planning a pamphlet tentatively titled "A History of the Aggression of China by the American Imperialists", the first in a series-
"It'll be a sort of summary of all the national disasters of the last century", she had explained. "And you trace them to the one country that's been at the back of it all the time. The facts are all there, but it'll take some analysis to dig them out. The American imperialists always have their clams tucked out of sight. Not like Japanese and Germans."
Together they ploughed through the material she had finally brought out, sheafs of yellowed newspapers and thin, old, virginal copies of grey-covered pamphlets no one had ever opened. It was a lot of work but it appeared to Liu that they were not really pertinent to the subject and would not be much use to him- "Maybe we ought to do a little more research on the subject," he suggested.
"This is the best we can do for you," she said smiling. "As I said, it's all a matter of having the right viewpoint and keeping to it. The facts are all there."
"I guess I'll take some of this home and go over it again," he said without enthusiasm.
"Sure, take it along. There's another book; I've got it at home. You might find it useful. It's about Chiang's betrayal of the Revolution. You know how the Anglo-American group had a hand in it all. We better go and get it right now. This has been held up long enough."
On their way out she looked at her watch and said, "It's almost nine- You haven't had supper yet, have you?"
"That's all right. I'm not hungry," Liu said smiling.
"Let's go and get something to eat. I didn't have supper either."
Liu hesitated, doing a swift calculation of the amount of money he had in his pocket. It was an embarrassing business to be a kan-pu in a backward city, living under the Communist system while the world around him was still operating on a capitalistic basis.
 "It's On me this time," she said smiling. "I want co. try the Park Hotel grill room. Haven't been there since they started to serve ta ping, yiu Ciao and bean milk." (Ta ping, big cakes, and yin Ciao, long fritters, are the classic combination that makes up a coolie's breakfast.. And bean milk is the cheapest drink.)
"Yes, I've also heard that they've Turned to Face the. Masses," Liu said, with a laugh-
They walked the few blocks to the towering Park Hotel with its ground floor of black glass. The grill room was practically deserted. It looked like a mausoleum. under the few remote fluorescent light tubes on the high. ceiling supported by huge square pillars. There were dusty potted palms-
"Sorry, we only have ca ping, yin Vino in the morning. You'll have to order from the supper menu tonight," the waiter told them.
So they both ordered noodle's- Liu said, looking around, "I'm sure they do better business than this in the mornings- Lots of people must come just for the. novelty."
"Oh, I don't know — when they can get the same ta ping, yin Ciao at the corner stall," Ko. Shan said.
"But it's more comfortable here, you can sit and talk.'
"Not many people have time to talk over breakfast. And if they come for the atmosphere, it seems to me rather oppressive. Too many ghosts-"
"Yes, this is really the tomb chamber of an era," Liu said, rather pleased with his neat turn of phrase even if it probably was not original.
They had a table by the window. The limp _white tablecloth was stained brown by soya sauce. A warm; strong breeze blew in from 'the black space of the Race. Course across the road. A chattering movie-going crowd streamed past the window against a background of flit. Ling, blinking lights made by passing pedicabs.
"How do you like Shanghai?" She offered him a cigarette.. "Most backward part of the country," Liu said smiling.
From the way she smiled he knew it was not quite the right thing to say. She made him feel that it was bad form to protest too much. Besides, he shouldn't talk as if he thought she was trying to Comprehend his State of Thought, gauging the degree of his Progressiveness or Backwardness, as the case might be. He felt reasonably sure that was not why she was having supper with him—although that would not prevent her from having n quick look at his State of Thought, as long as they were here.
"Nice picture they're showing here," she said, indica­ting the Grand. Theatre next door with a slight movement of her head- "The color is very good-"
"Yes, I like Soviet colored films," Liu said- Reddish brown tints predominated as in the paintings of old mas­ters. "They're very artistic," he said- "Not loud or cheap." He refrained from adding "like American Technicolor."
"You didn't see this one?"
"No, I didn't get to see it-"
"Is Old Tsui driving you too hard?" she said smiling. But she did not pursue the subject- It was a rare ex­perience for Liu to be talking to someone who was not pumping him about his superior and his superior's wife, nor interested in what he really thought of them, in order to tell on him- Still, Liu felt less at ease here than in the newspaper office where there were lots of people .around. Even their new privacy was only assumed; with the idly watching waiters as invisible as the ever-present stagehands on the stage of a Peking Opera.
He told himself that it was ridiculous to think that she was after him. .Did he fancy himself the beautiful maiden in melodramas who invited rape and seduction at every turn, he jeered. He had snuffed out his flicker of suspicion hastily, though he had also suspected — and had dismissed the thought just as hastily — that he had done so in order to be able to go on with a clear conscience. Then again he would ague that if he had wanted to go on,. it was just to see what all this was leading to — if any­where- Perhaps it's wise to "rein in your horse at the edge of a cliff." But to do that, he told himself, you have to get to the cliff first.
She was talking about the Native Products Exhibition that was going to open next month in the Race Course but she stopped and was smiling at him. The smile was, out of context. Did she think that it was he who had put his knee against hers on purpose? Or was she smiling because he had not been encouraged, by her gesture to put his hand on her leg? He told himself that she was prob­ably unaware of it, but would notice if he was to move away from her, and would then think that he was a young man of enormous conceit and tainted imagination-
He carefully took a deep puff on his cigarette and flicked off the ashes before he shifted his knee away, so that enough time had elapsed to show that he thought nothing of it.
The noodles came. When she called the waiter after they had finished eating and told him " Chong tang, close the account," the waiter seemed unsure of to whom to, bring the bill. Liu did not like to see Ko Shan do the paying- He. knew he ought not be affected by the conventions of the old society which always expected a man to pay, but he had a bad moment wondering if the waiter might think he was a kept man, especially as she was, older than he.
He had thought she might be a little angry with him. But when they came out into the street and passed ability board advertising a coming Korean film, she had turned and said, half-laughing, "You must see it and give it a nice write-up. I'll let you know when they show it in the pro­jection room- They're getting the sub-titles translated.'
She called a pedicab and he climbed in after her. The open cab slid with a silent flowing motion down the grayly lit flat broad road, facing the night wind. The back of the pedicab driver's blouse bellied out like a full sail.
"It gets quiet very early now," Liu said. There were few lights on and practically no neon signs.
"You should see what it's like after midnight. That's when I usually get home," she said. "Quite eerie."
"That's the trouble with newspaper work- You keep such late hours," Liu said, conscious of the slight contact of her slim hips. He caught himself half wishing that she were fatter so that there would be less room.
With a slight bump over the rise, the pedicab sailed into a dark lane lined with old foreign-style brick houses with high stoops. Ko Shan used a flashlight going up the steps. She pushed open the door and they stepped into the dimly lit hallway.
"It's an apartment house," she told him as they went up the stairs together. It seemed to be one of those old houses sub-let as furnished rooms- That must be the care­taker speaking on the telephone somewhere along the cor­ridor and calling raucously, "Number five, Miss Tung!" 'Then there was the high pitched loud slap-slap of leather slippers, Miss Tung coming to the phone and the caretaker going away from it. After a shrill, enquiring Wei-ei?" the talk over the phone quickly degenerated into cabaret girl-baby talk.
Ko Shan had a large room on the second floor. The walls were painted a medium shade of bluish green that somehow suggested a hospital ward. The few pieces of dark furniture were ill-assorted and nondescript. Clothes and towels and stockings were hung carelessly over the brown-painted bed-ends. A stack of folded blankets ran along the side of the bed. against the wall in Chinese fashion. There were covers; the stale white sheet was bared, somewhat disconcertingly, to the light of the hang­ing bulb. Used glasses stood everywhere, on the floor too, several in saucers with cigarette ashes in them- Liu saw something rather touching in the sloppy anonymity of the room. It spoke of the experienced Party member who was psychologically conditioned to the hazards of the under­ground days, when she and her comrade's never used to stay long anywhere and had to clear out at a moment's notice, leaving nothing of themselves behind. They were the ones who had really discarded all their luggage, whether material or sentimental, he thought with envy.
Ko Shan asked him to sit down and poured him a cup of tea- Then she found him the book. "You might as well look through it right now, so if there's any question we can have it out now, instead of waiting another day."
She went to open the window and draw the curtains of plain light green cloth- A strong breeze washed into the stale stillness of the room and the curtain passed softly over Liu's head and face, coming from behind his chair, muffling him for an instant in its fusty, ample' folds, cool and limp from the dampness.
"Your hair is all mussed," Ko Shan said. She straight­ened it for him, sitting perched on the arm of his chair.
"It doesn't matter," Liu said absently, his eyes on the book. He half raised his hand toward his head, then drop­ped it because hers was still there, smoothing' back his hair. He felt her eyes on him, as tangible as the hand. Then she also looked down at the book, bending to see how far he'd read.
The curtains again licked toward them with the wind. In warding them off she had to steady herself with her other arm stretched along the chair back. Liu could feel through his clothes the veiled glow of two half globes of light, warm against his back where her tunic touched him. The book began to talk nonsense. He saw his hand on her bare arm and heard her laugh- Her low laugh was so close
it was no more than a warm breath brushing against his face and yet it seemed to tinkle far away in a mist.
He half turned as if he wanted to look at. her. But instead he just watched his own hand slowly stroking her arm, moving upward. In spite of everything, he would not have been surprised to meet some kind of opposition- He was a bit startled though, by the vigor of her giggling
resistance- But the more she struggled, the more points of contact.
Liu gave her arm a tug, not hard, but it seemed enough to dislodge her from her perch and she slid onto his lap. Even then his cursedly stubborn sense of incredulity hung heavy over him, blunting and befogging all his sensations. She sat in his lap laughing, with her head bowed, one arm. around his neck- She apparently wore nothing under her Lenin suit. He found himself looking down into the deep
V collar, where the skin turned markedly from pale tan to white where he could see her breasts start.
"It's late. It's too late." He found it necessary to speak in short sentences-
"Why must you go?"
"It's late. And I live in a hostel," he said. She could not have helped noticing him swelling and his pulse throb­bing against her. It was so embarrassing that he felt quite angry with himself and with her. He pushed her off him, stood up and went over to the table, gathering his notes
and newspapers and pamphlets- She came over and pick­ed up his cap from the table and watched him smiling,
whirling the cap round and round on fingers held erect and close together.
"Why must you go?" she asked again.
Liu reached for his cap but she hid it behind her. He was smiling tensely, angrily, feeling ridiculous as he snatched at it again, reaching around her. She had passed it to her other hand. Then they heard somebody knocking
at the door.
She went swiftly toward it. Pulling himself together with an effort, he half turned from where he stood to see who it was- But instead of opening the door she turned the key softly in its lock, leaving it there- The click of the lock must have been audible on the other side of the door. After a pause the knocking was resumed with louder, more insistent raps.
She tiptoed back, whispering to him, probably feeling the need for an explanation, "You better wait till the per­son is gone, whoever it is, if you don't want to be seen-"
She spoke conversationally, with a pleasantly con­spiratorial air. But it became clear to him in a flash how far he would be implicated merely to be seen in her room at this hour of night. The conventions of the old society still hold good, it seemed. Sickeningly, the rule against "getting up man-woman relations" came to his mind.
He remained standing by the table, stacking up his books and papers- The knocking stopped and the room filled with a strained, listening silence-
She came close to him to .whisper "Don't talk unneces­sarily:,
Liu suddenly grinned at her and asked in a low voice, "Who is it?"
"How should I know? I'm inside the room as much as you are."
"Is it the man at the hospital? — who stood in line for you?"
"What?" she said vaguely. Then she laughed. "Could be. You open the door and look, if you want to know so much. I can't tell you. I can't see through wood.’’
"Well, I can see from the window when he goes out the front door," Liu said, going to the window. Suddenly it became very important to him to know whether there were many or just one.
"Don't be silly," she said. "You want to be seen?"
"It's all right, he can't see me," Liu said half laugh­ing- He leaned out the window, pulling the curtains taut behind him to block off the light in the room.
"Stand back, you devil! What is there to see?" Ko Shan kept laughing and tugging at him.
Looking down he saw a dark figure step out on to the faintly illumined high stoop. He could just make out that is was a man in uniform, and probably a; young man. The figure paused going down the steps. Liu thought he was .about to turn and look up, and show his face. Then Liu blinked and shied away from a beam of light that hit him across his eyes. For a confused second he had the idea that the man down there had trained a searchlight on him. But it was Ko Shan's flashlight. She was turning it straight on his face, almost pressing it to his cheek.
"Well, don't move!" she said laughing. • "You want to be seen, don't you? Don't you?"
In his keyed-up state the probing warm white light in his face, intimate and physical, was more than he could bear. He tussled with her for the flashlight, first bending it back to avert the beam from his face. The next moment he was holding her in his arms and kissing her- He did not realize he was holding her too tight. It seemed to him she was a beautiful and horrible nightmare, sitting heavy on his chest so he could not breathe.
The curtains flew high into the room behind them and returning, were sucked tight for a long moment against the window frame and against the bodies of the two of them at the window, hemming them in a private one-dimensional blackout. Then with a deliberate sweep the hood of darkness was lifted off them. The curtains were up and Liu was aware of the two of them standing framed in the lighted window. He looked down into the lane, then he quickly took a stub back, still holding her against him. "He's still there," he whispered- "He can see us."
"Turn out the light then, if you're really afraid of being seen- But I thought you didn't mind," she taunted.
Liu went immediately to the light switch. It did not occur to him that after the light went out she would not be anywhere near and he had to group through the un­familiar room, tripping over things. In his unreasoning, tearing impatience, mingled with a lingering disbelief, he thought it not impossible that she had slipped out of the room at the last minute- When he had caught her, he ran his hand hastily up and down over her clothes, scarcely pausing at the satisfying round weights of her breasts, to make -sure that all of her was there. She kept writhing andt making little protesting noises- Stupidly, he tried to thrust a rough hand through her belt and trouser band. It was fortunate that she wore exactly the same clothes as he did, so that in spite of the fumbling and tussling he did not have much trouble with the hooks and buttons. He had never been very enthusiastic about putting women in uniforms, whenever he gave the matter any thought at all, but now he could see a point to it.
Putting out the light seemed to have been a signal that immediately summoned the watcher in the lane- There was now a furious banging on the door.
"Ai, is the house on fire?" Liu whispered. They both broke out laughing.
"Maybe," she said.
Feeling childishly, innocently united with her in their laughter and the ridiculous but no less real sense of danger, Liu asked again in a new confidential tone, "Who is it anyway?
"Why do you keep asking? You scared?"
"Why should I be scared," he answered, briefly con­sidering the possibility of the old door giving way or being .cut open by an axe.
"Maybe just now when you were turning off the light you pressed the wrong button and rang the bell for the servants," she joked.
"I'm not that dumb," he said, slightly indignant-
"No, you're not dumb. You're smart- You know everything. Everything," she teased, because by now it was evident that he did not know everything, as she had already guessed. She liked that- It was always a good
feeling to be the first woman in the world to somebody. It was to be remade once again in all her mysteries and perfections.
The hammerings and kicks on the door sounded especially loud and close in the dark. In the besieged blackness of the room, which had grown small and thin-shelled under the thundering blows, it was like being shut in a trunk adrift over the booming heaving sea- But for Liu, Once he had muddled through his first moments. of confusion into some workable arrangement, the din had faded away and he alone was the sea, as he was the trunk riding on its waves and as he was also the man squeezed inside the velvet-lined case, luxuriously and deliciously stifled, tortuously tltilated by the soft fleshy suffocating narrowness that was the only world he had ever known, in which he had ever lived and moved.
Very soon he was at the end of his endurance and went helplessly frenzied with the joy of total abandonment as all his feeling and urgency drained out of him quickly in.a warm flood. He was dying and in dying was flying away  a Taoist spirit, rising lightly so that the grave could, not hold him and fell away, sucking the last flesh off him and he saw with a helpless detachment his soaring self dwin­dling in the sky.
Then there was nothing left but his nakedness per­spiring against hers, and against the folds of his pushed-up tunic. But he did not want to move off her. He slid his hand with incurious unquestioning content along the side of her body, past the delicate hip-bone and roundness of thigh- Then her body moved restlessly and hunched under him; she turned her face away and seemed to be fumbling under the pillow for something. There was the rustle of tinsel. Then the sound of a striking match grated on his drowsiness- The frustrated scraping was repeated several times on a matchbox slightly damp from the weather. A small yellow flame rimmed with blue mist leaped into being, lighting up her half-averted face with a cigarette between her lips. In its brief moment of materialization, her face with its fragile shallow curves of cheek and pro--file looked so untouched, it shamed and outraged him. And when it was dark again, after the match had been thrown away, he could see the faint gleam. of her wakeful eyes, as steady as the glow of the cigarette tip.
He put childishly demanding lips on hers to keep her from smoking- When she kissed, him back he could feel her mouth smiling. She stroked him soothingly, not want­ing to get him all excited again just yet, not when they had all night before them. She knew it was early yet because she  could still hear the trams and busses going. The knocking had stopped now.
Night passed slowly outside the window, tram bells tingling on her ankles,. her pale full skirt the curtains billowing into the darkness of the room.