He was increasingly aware of his need to have a home, but not just so that he could possess a woman. What he wanted first of all was a roof that kept out the wind and rain, and four soundproof walls. But he did not want to marry again. Those ten years of futile, legally binding marriage were enough. He needed to be free for a while. Also, he was suspicious of women, especially young, pretty, seemingly promising girls with whom he could easily become besotted. He had been betrayed and reported more than once. At the university, he had fallen in love with a girl in the same class whose looks and voice were so sweet. But this lovely girl was ambitious, so she wrote a voluntary confession of her own flunking for the Party branch secretary, including in it his negative comments on the revolutionary novel Song of Youth, which the Communist Youth League was promoting as compulsory reading for young people. The girl had not deliberately set out to harm him, and in fact had feelings for him. The more passionate a woman, the more she had to confess her emotions to the Party: it was like the religiously devout needing to confess the secrets of their inner hearts to a priest. The Communist Youth League considered his thinking too gloomy, but the charge was not too serious, and, while he could not be admitted to the League, he was allowed to graduate. In the case of his wife, the matter was serious. If what she had reported had been substantiated with a fragment of what he had written in secret, he would have been labeled a counterrevolutionary. Ah, in those revolutionary years even women were revolutionized into lunatics and monsters.

He could not trust this girl in an army uniform. She had come to ask him about literature. He said he was not permitted to be a teacher, and suggested that she go to night classes at a university. There were literature courses she could enroll in for a fee, and she would be issued with a certificate after a couple of years. The girl asked what books she should read. He told her it was best not to read textbooks; most libraries had reopened and all the books that had formerly been banned were worth reading. The girl said she wanted to study creative writing, but he urged her not to, because if she messed up it would set back her future prospects. He himself was having endless troubles, whereas a simple girl like her, in an army uniform and studying medicine, had a very secure future. The girl said that she was not so simple and that she was not what he thought. She wanted to know more, she wanted to understand life, and this didn’t conflict with her wearing an army uniform and studying medicine.

It wasn’t that the girl failed to attract him, but he preferred casual sex with uninhibited women who had already wallowed in the mire at the bottom of society. There was no need for him to waste his energy teaching this girl about life. Moreover, what was life? Only Heaven knew.

It was impossible to explain what life was and, even more so, what literature was to this girl who had come to learn. It was as impossible as explaining to the Party secretary who managed the Writers’ Association that what he considered literature didn’t require the direction or approval of anyone. That was why he was running into trouble all the time.

Confronted by this refreshing and lovely girl dressed in an army uniform, he was unmoved and certainly did not have any wild thoughts. It had not occurred to him to touch her, and certainly not to go to bed with her. The girl was returning some books she had borrowed from his shelves to read. Her face was flushed and, having just come in the door, she was still slightly out of breath. As usual, he made her a cup of tea, then got her to sit on the chair against the bookshelf behind the door while he sat sideways in the chair next to the desk, as he did when editors came to discuss his manuscripts. There was a cheap sofa in the little room, but it was winter and a stove heater had already been installed, so if the girl sat on the sofa, the metal chimney of the stove would have blocked her face, and it would have been hard to talk. Both were sitting at the desk when the girl began stroking the novels, formerly banned as reactionary and pornographic, which she had returned. It seemed that the girl had tasted the forbidden fruit, or that she knew what forbidden fruit was, and was therefore uneasy.

He became aware of the girl’s flesh because her delicate hands, right next to him, were stroking the books. The girl saw him looking at her hands and hid them under the desk. She became even more flushed. He questioned the girl on what she thought of the protagonists, mainly the female protagonists. The behavior of the women in these books conformed neither to present social morality nor the teachings of the Party. But, he said, that probably was what was known as life, because life actually was without fixed measurements. If the girl wanted to report him later on, or if the Party at her workplace ordered her to confess her dealings with him, there were no serious errors in what he had said. His past experiences constantly reminded him to be sure of this. Ah, and that was also called life!

The girl later said Chairman Mao had lots of women. It was only then that he dared to kiss her. The girl closed her eyes and let him fondle her body, so electrically sensitive to his touch inside the big padded army uniform. The girl asked if she could borrow more of such books to read. She said she wanted to know about everything, that it was not terrifying. At this, he said if books become forbidden fruit, society becomes really terrifying. That was why so many people lost their lives in the so-called Cultural Revolution that had now officially ended. The girl said she knew all this and that she had even seen someone who had been beaten to death: there were flies crawling on the black blood from his nose. He was said to have been a counterrevolutionary, and no one would collect the corpse. She was only a child then. But don’t think she’s a child, she is an adult now.

He asked what did being an adult imply? She said don’t forget that she is studying medicine, pouted, and gave a laugh. He then held her hand and kissed her lips that gradually yielded to him. Thereafter, she came often, returning books and borrowing books, always on Sunday, staying longer each time, sometimes from noon till dark. However, she had to catch the eight o’clock bus back to the military barracks in the outer suburbs. It was always in the evening, when the sound of vegetables being washed gradually died in the courtyard and the neighbors had shut their doors, that he shut his door and had some moments of intimacy with her. She would not take off her army uniform and always kept an eye on the clock on the desk, and, when it was almost time for the last bus, she would quickly button up.

More and more he needed a room to protect his privacy. With great difficulty, he had obtained a legal divorce, but the state ruled that for him to live with a woman, they had to be married. Furthermore, for a woman to register an application to marry him, he first had to have proper housing. Including the years he had worked on a farm during the Cultural Revolution, he had already worked for twenty years and, according to the regulations, he should have been allocated housing long ago. However, it took two more years of suffering, and many quarrels and angry outbursts with housing cadres, before he was finally allocated a small apartment. It was just before a leader of the Party, more senior than the head of the Writers’ Association, targeted him for criticism. He got together all of his savings as well as an advance on part of the royalties for a book that it might or might not be possible to publish, and somehow secured a peaceful refuge.

The girl arrived at his newly allocated apartment, and the moment the spring lock on the door clicked, the two of them went wild with excitement. At the time, the painting wasn’t finished, bits of plaster were everywhere, and there was no bed. Right there, on a sheet of plastic with bits of plaster sticking to it, he stripped her down to her slim young girl’s body that had been hidden all this time under the loose army uniform. However, the girl begged him under no circumstances to penetrate her. The army medical college carried out a full physical examination once a year, and unmarried female nurses were tested to see if their hymens were intact. Before being enlisted, they had to undergo rigorous political and physical examinations, and, apart from routine medical duties, they could be sent at any time on missions to look after the health of senior officers. Her spouse had to be approved by her military seniors, and she could not marry before she was twenty-six, before which time she could not resign, because, it was said, state secrets would be involved.