Really? You have no desire for her at all?

I can control my desire. At this point of my life I must treat her as a comrade only.

That's a lie. Why don't you talk and walk with another comrade every day? You and she have already formed a special bond, haven't you?

All right, that's true, but the bond doesn't have to be sexual. We love each other. That's enough.

What? You're too rational.

I'm a doctor and an officer. My profession demands that I be a rational man.

Don't you think you might have hurt her feelings by refusing her offer?

I'm not sure. If I did, it couldn't be helped. I didn't hurt her on purpose. She can forgive me, can't she? Can't she see I had her interest in mind as well when I said we shouldn't do this?

The voice fell silent, and soon sleep claimed him. His mind drifted to a distant place reminiscent of the countryside where he had grown up. He then had an extraordinary dream, which would trouble him for weeks. He was walking along the edge of a vast wheat field on a fine summer day. The sun was gentle and the breeze warm. He was whistling at leisure, with a fishing rod on his shoulder. "Lin, Lin, come here," a sugary voice called. He turned and saw a young woman in the field, her head veiled in a red gauze mantilla, but her breasts were naked and full like a pair of white muskmelons. Around her the wheat ears were rustling briskly. Without hesitation he dropped the rod and walked up to her. The luxuriant wheat reached his waist and gave out a sweetish scent. Approaching her, he found a tiny clearing covered by dog-tail grass mixed with dried rice straws. Stark naked, she was lying on the grass with her knees spread open, her hand beckoning him. She no longer had the mantilla on, but her face was concealed by her long glossy hair. He found her midriff a little plump, but her limbs were so youthful that the sight of them made his heart skip a beat. Her pubic hair was thick, a few dewdrops in the downy tuft. Breathing hard, he took off his sweater and shorts and dropped them to the ground.

They began rolling on the grass. Her hands kept caressing his back, rib cage, and thighs while he was wriggling atop her. Then she embraced him firmly against her chest, her belly rocking under him with a rhythmic motion as if she were swaying to some music. She was groaning like an animal; her ecstatic voice was so invigorating to him that he felt his blood seething in his loins. A skein of ducks flew past, calling wildly. Their harsh cries made his arms shudder a little; he held her tightly, like a man incapable of swimming gripping a life buoy in the ocean.

He copulated with her for a long time until exhaustion overcame him and he lay down alongside her. His hand went on massaging her quivering hips, whose size had somehow tripled in the meantime. A moment later she rolled over, raised herself up on her elbow, and hooked her arm around his neck, moaning, "More, more, let's do it again."

He reached for his clothes buried in the grass. The back of his hand hit the iron bedpost, and he woke up, soaked with sweat. He realized he had just had a wet dream. He was deeply stirred by the experience, which was his first time. Who was that woman? he wondered. She had waist-length hair and a shapely body, smelling of fresh peanuts. There was a birthmark on her left forearm, as large as a button. He tried to recall all the women he knew, but couldn't match her with anyone. If only he had caught a glimpse of her face.

Across the dark room Ming Chen was snoring like a bellows. Lin sat up noiselessly, opened his pillowcase, and took out a change of underwear to replace the one he was wearing, which was soiled on the front. For many years he had often heard other men talk about having a wet dream and wondered what it was like. Before his marriage, he had even doubted his manhood, because unlike other men who were crazy about women, he had never fallen in love with a woman. After his daughter was born, he was finally convinced that he was a normal man. Still, what did a wet dream feel like? Why had he never had one? Was there something wrong with him? Those questions would pop up in his mind whenever he heard his comrades bragging about their virility and wild dreams. Now finally he had experienced one, which was quite thrilling to him. Yet the sensation was not unadulterated. Deep in his heart he wished that the woman in the wheat field had been somebody he knew.

He got up at 5:30 when the reveille was sounded on a bugle. Hurriedly he put on his clothes, folded up his quilt, and placed his pillow atop it. Then he saw a yellowish stain on his white sheet. There was no time to wash it off because he had to leave for the morning exercises immediately, so he covered the spot with the current issue of the pictorial The People's Liberation Army. Then he rushed out into the cold dawn together with Ming Chen.

The two-mile run was more exhausting to him today, and he sweated a good deal, huffing and puffing all the way. His head was spinning a little.

When Lin returned to his dormitory, Jin Tian, who hadn't gone to the morning exercises because he had been on duty the night before, greeted him with a quizzical grin. "Hey, Lin, you had a wet dream last night, didn't you?" His wide eyes were winking and his stubby nose was wrinkled as though sniffing something delicious in the air.

Flushing to his neck, Lin rushed to his bed, pulled off the sheet, and thrust it into his washbasin, which was half full of water.

"Come on, don't blow off like that. It's a natural thing," said Jin Tian, chuckling.

Ming Chen chimed in, "Of course it's natural. I have it every week. When too much of that stuff has accumulated in you, it will flow out by itself." He turned to Lin. "You don't need to wash your sheet like it caught a virus or something. Look, I don't bother about the splotches on my sheet."

"Me neither, " said Jin Tian.

Lin wished they had left him alone, but with a smirk on his face Jin Tian went on to say to him, "Well, I can guess who you dreamed of. "

"I did it with your sister," Lin snapped.

"Oh, that's not a problem. If I had one like Manna Wu, you'd be welcome to ride her like a wild pony as long as you please, but only in your dreams."

His two roommates roared with laughter. Wordlessly Lin took a bar of soap out of his bedside cupboard, picked up his washbasin, and left the room. He was still confused by the dream. In real life he could never imagine lying with an unknown woman in a wheat field and coupling like an animal. He felt a little sick.

9

On Lin's desk lay a sheet of paper, half torn in the middle. It was a telegram from his elder brother, which said, "Father passed away. Return immediately."

Thinking of his father, who had toiled in the fields all his life but grown poorer each year, Lin was tearful again and kept massaging the inner corners of his eyes with his forefinger and thumb. If only he had been able to go home and attend the funeral. He had asked the leaders to allow him to take an early leave, but they hadn't approved, because throughout the spring of 1969 the hospital was in combat readiness. There had been conflicts between the Chinese and the Russian troops on the Amur and the Wusuli rivers in the winter. Though the ice on the rivers could no longer support the Russian tanks and personnel carriers, the Chinese troops would not slacken their alertness until May.

Lin had sent two hundred yuan to his elder brother, Ren Kong, who lived nine miles away from Goose Village, and asked him to give their father a proper burial. Before he died, the old man had bequeathed the farmhouse to Lin because he had been grateful to Shuyu, who had looked after his wife and himself with diligence for so many years.

For months Lin had been in a dark mood. He became taciturn and read more in his free time. When walking with Manna in the evenings, he often looked absentminded. She asked him whether he was gloomy because he couldn't go home for his father's funeral. He said probably. In reality his mind was full of other thoughts. Now that both his parents had died, his need for his wife had changed; now she was only caring for their baby daughter. In his heart he felt for Shuyu, who had never lived an easy day since their marriage, but he didn't love her and was unwilling to spend the rest of his life with her. He wanted a marriage based on love and a wife whose appearance wouldn't embarrass him in the presence of others (to his mind, Manna would be a fine choice). Yet the feelings of guilt, mixed with compassion for Shuyu, were draining him.