Ocean of Words (6 page)

“Too many telegrams this morning. I’ve been copying for three hours and can’t handle it anymore.”

“All right, I’m coming.” It was almost eleven o’clock anyway. Kang got up and wiped his face with a wet towel.

There she was! He had hardly entered the office when Kang froze stock-still. The pleasant signal, for which he had been yearning for days, was singing proudly as though to a large audience. The dots and dashes sounded like amorous messages inviting him to decode their secret meanings. How magnificent her telegraphic style was in broad daylight. Kang lost himself in an imaginary melody composed of both the electric signal and the tingling voice — “Hello, this is the Military Region Station. Wake up, comrade. Have you heard me on the machine?…”

“What’s the matter with you?” Shi rapped him on the shoulder.

“Oh nothing,” Kang muttered, moving to the desk. “Never met such a good hand.”

“True, he has gold fingers.”

There was no time to tell Shi that it was she, not he, because the receiver was announcing: “Please ready.”

Kang started writing down the numerals rapidly. In the beginning it went well, but soon his attention began to wander. He was distracted by his desire to appreciate the rhythm and the personal touch in the sounds, and he had to drop some numerals now and then. More awful, that voice jumped in to trouble him — “Sorry, don’t take it to heart. I was teasing you.…”

“Repeat?” she asked, having finished the short telegram.

“Yes, noise,” Kang pounded nervously. “Group eight in line four, from group three to eight in line six …”

Meanwhile, Shi Wei watched him closely. He was surprised to find Kang, a better transcriber than himself, unable to jot down the telegram sent out so clearly. There was no noise at all; why did he tap “noise” as an excuse? Kang was aware of Shi’s observing and was sweating all over. He rushed to bring the receiving operation to an end.

“Are you all right?” Shi asked, after Kang signed his name on the telegram.

“I don’t know.” He felt sick. He got up and hurried out of the office.

Another fruitless evening and another sleepless night. Kang could no longer contain himself. On Sunday evening, he revealed the truth to Shi and Shun, who happened to be in the office.

“Shi Wei, you know, the Shenyang operator with ‘gold fingers’ is a woman, not a man.” He had planned to say a lot, to make a story, but he was bewildered, finding that he completed the project in just one sentence. He blushed to the ears with a strange emotion.

“Really?” Shi asked loudly. “No kidding? Why didn’t you tell me earlier, Brother Kang?”

Kang smiled. Shun was not sure who they were talking about. “Which one?”

“The best one,” Shi said with a thrill in his voice. “I can’t believe it. A girl can telegraph so well. Tell me, Big Kang, how did you get to know her?”

“She called me, because she couldn’t hear me,” he declared proudly.

“What’s her name?” Shi asked.

“I have no idea. Wish I knew.”

“Must be a good girl. I’ll go to Shenyang and get her.”

“Come on, don’t brag,” Shun said. “I want to see how you can get her.”

“You wait and see.”

Kang was shocked that Shi was also interested in her. He regretted telling them the truth. If Shi made a move, Kang would have to give ground. Shi was an excellent basketball player and had in his wallet the pictures of a half dozen young women, who he claimed were all his girlfriends. In addition, his father was a divisional commissar in the navy; Shi had grown up in big cities and knew the world. Most important of all, he spent money like water. How could Kang compete against such a smart, handsome fellow?

It was this new development that made him fidgety that evening. He paced up and down in the office, chain-smoking for two hours. Finally, he decided to investigate who she was. He picked up the telephone and called the Shenyang Miliary Region. It took half an hour for the call to get through.

“Hello, this is Shenyang, can I help you?” an operator asked sleepily.

“Ye-yes,” he struggled to say. “I want to speak to — to the wireless station, the one that communicates with Hutou?”

“What’s ‘Hutou’? A unit’s code name?”

“No, it’s a county.”

“Oh, I see. Please tell me the number of the station you want to speak to.”

“I don’t know the number.”

“I can’t help you then. We have hundreds of stations, and they are in different cities and mountains. You have to tell me the number. Find the number first, then call back. All right?”

“Uh, all right.”

“Bye-bye now.”

“Bye.”

It was so easy to run into a dead end. All the clever questions, which he had prepared to ask the radio operator on duty about that woman, had vanished from his mind. How foolish he was — having never thought there could be more than ten stations in the Regional Headquarters. What was to be done now? Without an address, he could not write to her; even with an address, he didn’t know how to compose a love letter. Why was Heaven so merciless? It seemed that the only way to meet her was through the air, but he had not figured out her capricious schedule yet.

It did not make much difference after they rotated the shifts. Now Kang worked afternoons. No matter how exhausted he was when he went to bed at night, he would lie awake for a few hours thinking of one woman after another. His dreams ran wilder. Every night the pillow, which contained his underclothes, moved from beneath his head, little by little, into his arms. He was tormented by endless questions. What was it like to kiss and touch a woman? Did women also have hair on their bodies? Was he a normal man? And could he satisfy a woman? Was he not a neurotic, drenched in sweat and burning away like this in the dark? Could he have children with a woman?

Whenever he woke up from his broken sleep that mysterious voice would greet him, “Wake up, comrade. Have you heard me on the machine?…” The sounds grew deeper and deeper into him, as though they were sent out by his own internal organs. During these frantic nights, he discovered that Chief Jiang had to rouse Shi Wei at least three times every night. Shi worked the small hours.

Kang’s skull felt numb in the daytime. He was convinced that he was a lunatic. How panicked he was when receiving a telegram, because that melodious signal and that tender
voice, again and again, intruded themselves into his brain and forced him to pause in the middle of the transcribing. How good it would be to have peace once more. But peace of mind seemed remote, as though it belonged only to a time that he had outgrown and could never return to. Even the exercises in the mornings became a torture. He used to be able to write down 160 numerals per minute with ease, but now he had to struggle with no. When they sat together reading documents and newspapers, his comrades often waved their hands before his eyes to test if he could see anything. Somebody would say, “Big Kang, why do you look like you lost your soul?” Another, “What do you see in your trance? A goddess?”

On these occasions Kang would let out a sigh. He dared not tell anybody about the ridiculous “affair.” He was afraid that he would be criticized for having contracted bourgeois liberalism or become a laughingstock.

One morning during the exercises, the telegraphic instructor, Han Jie, looked at Kang’s transcription and said under his breath, “No wonder the Confidential Office complained.”

Suddenly it dawned on Kang that he had become a nuisance in the Wireless Platoon. A pang seized his heart. No doubt, the confidential officers in the Regimental Headquarters were dissatisfied with his work and had reported him to the company’s leaders. It was this stupid “affair” that had reduced him to such a state. He had to find a way to stop it — forget that woman and her bewitching voice — otherwise how could he survive? Although in his heart he knew he had to get rid of her, he didn’t know how. Neither did he want to try.

On Thursday evening two weeks later, Chief Jiang held an urgent meeting at the station. Nobody knew what it was about. Kang was scared because he thought it might be
about him. The secret would come out sooner or later. Had he babbled it during his sleep at night? He regretted drawing three pictures of women on the back of a telegram pad. Chief Jiang must have seen them. What should he say if the chief questioned him about those drawings?

The meeting had nothing to do with him. When Jiang asked Shi Wei to confess what he had done in the small hours, Kang at last felt relaxed. But like Shun, he was baffled about what had happened. Shi protested that he had not done anything wrong.

“You’re dishonest, Comrade Shi Wei,” the chief said.

“No, no Chief Jiang.” Shi looked worried. “I did all the work well.”

“You know our Party’s policy: Leniency to those who confess, severity to those who refuse. It’s up to yourself.”

“Why?” Shi seemed puzzled. “This policy applies only to the class enemies. I’m your comrade, am I not?”

“Stop pretending you’re innocent. Tell us the truth.”

“No, I really didn’t do anything wrong.”

“All right, let me tell you what happened.” The chief’s voice grew sharper. “You were caught by the monitoring station. You thought you were smart. If you didn’t want us to know, you shouldn’t have done it in the first place. Look at the report yourself.” He tossed the internal bulletin to Shi and handed Shun and Kang each a copy.

The title read: “Radio Operators Proffered Love in the Air.” Kang’s heart tightened. He turned a page and read “From February 3 on, from 1:00
A.M.
to 5:00
A.M.
, a radio operator in the Fifth regiment and an operator at the 36th station of Shenyang Military Region have developed a love affair in the air.…”

Kang was stunned, and his thick lips parted. He could never imagine Shi would make such an unlawful move. A small part of their love talk was transcribed in the report:

Kang wanted to cry, but he controlled himself. He saw Shi’s face turn pale and sweat break out on his smooth forehead. Meanwhile Shun bit his lower lip, trying hard not to laugh.

“Now, what do you want to say?” Jiang asked.

Shi lowered his eyes and remained silent. The chief announced that the Communication Company had decided to suspend Shi Wei from his work during the wait for the final punishment. From now on, Shi had to go to the study room during the day and write out his confession and self-criticism.

Though he was working two more hours a day to cover for Shi, Kang no longer expected to meet Lili, whose family name was not revealed in the bulletin. Obviously she was also suspended from her work and must have been doing the same thing as Shi did every day in the company’s study room. But the tune created by her fingers and her charming voice were still with him; actually they hurt him more than before. He tried cursing her and imagining all the bad things that could be attributed to a woman in order to pull her out
of himself. He thought of her as a “broken shoe” which was worn by everyone, a bitch that raised her tail to any male dog, a hag who was shunned by all decent men, a White Bone Demon living on innocent blood. Still, he could not get rid of her. Whenever he was receiving a telegram, her voice would break in to catch him. “Sorry, don’t take it to heart. I was teasing you.…” It was miserable. The misery went so deep that when he spoke to his comrades he often heard himself moaning. He hated his own listless voice.

Shi’s punishment was administered a week later. Both Shi Wei and Wang Lili were expelled from the army. This time the woman’s full name was given. To Kang’s surprise, Shi did not cry and seemed to take it with ease. He ate well and slept well, and went on smoking expensive cigarettes. Kang figured there must have been two reasons why Shi did not care. First, with the help of his father, he would have no problem finding a good job at home; second, the expulsion gave him an opportunity to continue his love affair with Wang Lili, since they were now two grasshoppers tied together by one thread. Lucky for Shi, he didn’t lose his military status for nothing. It seemed he would go to Shenyang soon and have a happy time with her.

The station planned to hold a farewell party for Shi Wei. Though it was not an honorable discharge, they had worked with Shi for almost a year and had some good feelings about him. For days Kang had been thinking what souvenir he should give Shi Wei. He finally chose a pair of pillow towels, which cost him four
yuan
, half his monthly pay. In the meantime his scalp remained numb, and he still could not come to himself. Not only did the task of receiving a telegram frighten him, but any telegraphic signal would give him the creeps. He had developed another habit — cursing himself relentlessly for his daydreaming and for having allowed himself to degenerate into a walking corpse for that
fickle woman, whose name he would now murmur many times every night.

Four older soldiers from the Wireless Platoon were invited to the farewell party. Chief Jiang presented an album to Shi, and Shun gave him a pair of nylon socks. When Kang’s pillow towels were displayed, everybody burst out laughing, for on each towel was embroidered a pair of lovely mandarin ducks and a line of red characters. One said: “Happy Life,” and the other: “Sweet Dreams.” Peanut shells and pear cores fell on the floor because of the commotion the garish towels caused.

“You must be joking, Big Kang,” Shi said, measuring one of the towels against his chest. “You think I’m going home to get married?”

“Why not?” Kang smiled. “Won’t you go to Shenyang?”

“For what? I don’t know anyone there.”

Kang stood up. The floor seemed to be swaying beneath his feet. Tears welled up in his eyes. He picked up a mug and gulped the beer inside, his left hand holding the corner of the desk. He put down the mug, then turned to the door.

“Where are you going?” Chief Jiang asked.