That day's play was about love, and the actors performed with wild intoxication. A man poured out his heart to a woman as beautifully as if he were lying, and a woman lied to another woman as beautifully as if she were telling the truth. I was totally immersed in the story and the passion on stage. When the curtains closed and the lights came on, I was dragged back to the theater from somewhere within my heart by the noise of movement around me, and once again I saw his focused yet limpid eyes.

I said thanks.

He also said thanks.

We walked out together. We made our slow way through the excited crowd, his arm shielding my back to protect me from being jostled. From time to time, his arm was pushed up against my back or waist by the crowd, and to me it felt like a gentle, comforting caress. When we reached the exit, he helped me with my coat. This act, subtle and natural, made my coat warmer and more velvety.

To get from the theater to the bus stop, we needed to pass down a narrow lane with buildings on both sides. I had already thought about the hidden dangers in the cramped space on the way to the theater, but since it had not yet been entirely dark, the imagined danger had been no more than a fleeting concern. Now the darkness was thick as ink as we left the theater, and the moon, like an eroded boulder, showed only a tiny sliver. Completely caught up in the dangers of the long, narrow, dark passage, I asked him to stand at this end of the lane and wait until I ran to the other end and said good-bye to him.

He laughed. "Why so complicated? I'll go with you."

"No."

"I don't mind. Really."

"There's no need. I… really no need…"

"But why?"

"I'm just afraid… suddenly somebody might…"

"Oh! Including me?"

"Um…"

"You really are a little girl. You need me, but you're also afraid of me. OK, you go first, then shout, and I'll come over and see you home."

I accepted happily.

I ran the whole way without taking a single breath, as if it were a hundred-meter dash. His eyes and silhouette remained behind me, exactly where I'd left them. As soon as I reached the other end, I shouted, "I made it."

And from the other end, his footsteps sounded.

When we were together again, he earnestly guaranteed my safety. I felt I could trust him. This trust originated from a shared memory, which I cannot reveal here.

As we walked, reluctantly we recalled that event. I told him how impressed I had been by his eyes and by his voice-the low, gentle voice of a cello filtering out from behind closed doors and windows. Unexpectedly, every detail of the event, including my manner and behavior, remained fresh in his memory.

"I knew then that you'd never return," he said.

Walking slowly along the deserted night street, we talked about things far and near, including the romantic play we had just seen. I said I didn't agree with one of the leading man's lines. The "rib theory" is ridiculous, I said. However intimate the original Adam and Eve or their future replacements might have been, they each had their own heads, their own thoughts, and their own spirits. Women were independent.

He agreed.

"Maybe that's why I have no religious beliefs," I said. Five years ago, I talked about love as earnestly as I did about death.

We parted a short distance from my house.

He stroked my hair gently and said, "You talk like an adult." He emphasized the word like, implying that I was really only a little girl.

"There's no contradiction." I ignored his implication.

"Contradictions are beautiful. You're a contradictory girl."

His silver-gray raincoat softly flapped against my body, and I felt a sort of moist tenderness. He leaned toward me slightly, but that's as far as it went.

The moon was full, and the pale yellow streetlamps shimmered at the tips of our shadows. Feeling his breath caressing my cheek, I lowered my head, not knowing what to do.

I freed myself from the embrace of his flapping raincoat and said, "Don't."

"Don't be nervous. I just want to hear your story."

I looked into his face; I felt safe and relaxed.

The Reappearing Shadow

Miss Dai Er is sitting in the dental chair of Dr. Kong Sen, her head tilted slightly backward, her left leg stretched out straight, her right knee bent inward and tucked under her left calf. Her hands lie stiffly on her flat abdomen. A slight tremble causes her shapely breasts to jiggle like a pair of startled little heads. The young dentist is gazing absorbedly at the nervous body of the young woman, who seems solitary and helpless under the strong light of the lamp.

Watching the approaching Dr. Kong Sen, who is holding a full hypodermic, Miss Dai Er is in a great panic. She opens her mouth wide, and the brutal syringe, which is about to stab her upper jaw, makes her pale and sends her out of control.

"No! No!" she screams.

The young dentist puts down the syringe and says indifferently, seemingly devoid of sympathy, "If you don't feel comfortable, we don't have to do it now."

Dai Er's face is cold; the corners of her mouth and the tip of her nose twitch uncontrollably, making it impossible for her to open her eyes. Her mind is a blank; her body, enfolded in leaden clouds, is spinning upward and upward…

One dense, heavy cloud followed another, as though the sky were covered by the dark-gray wings of a multitude of birds. The air was damp. The huge birds, hovering in the universe like fine steeds, swooned earthward. Their feathers were shot down one by one by peals of thunder and thudding raindrops, and the dark-grayness fell at a leisurely pace to stick on the window. On that rainy day in that damp and gloomy room, what the seven-and-a-half-year-old little Dai Er saw was as tangled as matted hair. In the dim light, little Dai Er was shocked to see a huge hypodermic, growing in the body of a man, pointing right at her face. The scene has remained in a secret place of her memory; on all rainy days, a dark mass of birds always swoons…

There is a commotion in the dentist's office. Beyond the window, it sounds like rain, and a dark-green mildewy smell rises into the sky. She feels her chair being tipped backward by someone, forcing her head down.

"It's all right. Nothing serious. Just a case of nerves." She hears the young Dr. Kong Sen's voice.

Following the brief commotion, she senses that the blurred white shadows around her have dispersed and that the office has resumed its normal order.

Miss Dai Er feels the pressure of the young dentist's fingers on her cheek, and her twitching facial muscles gradually relax. It is raining outside, the watery threads flowing softly down the win-dowpanes, as if stroking her cheek. With a white towel, the young dentist is wiping away the cold sweat on her face. Vaguely, she sees a patch of white like a junk sailing into view from the far edge of the sky. The junk now hangs at the window, peering inside and questioning the dim light. She breathes hard, feeling her lungs being tinted a dirty yellow, bit by bit, by the fouled air in the room. She gazes at the white junk as a thousand thoughts swirl through her mind. Making an effort with her arms and both eyes, she strains to grasp the fleeting white.

Miss Dai Er opens her eyes and takes a deep breath, recovering gradually.

"Feeling better?" asks the dentist.

Dai Er sits up with difficulty, "I… I'm fine."

The young dentist smiles. (Dai Er can only imagine his smile since all his expressions are hidden by the gauze mask.) "Did you faint because of the needle?" he asks.

"No. Not exactly. The hypodermic… makes me think of something else."

"This is not a good day for you. Why don't you come back in a couple of days, when you feel better?"

Ashamed and remorseful, Miss Dai Er steps down from the dentist's chair on rubbery legs. She knows she will never come back here. She looks at the young dentist, who has touched her cheek and whose limpid eyes have already been carved in her mind; the feeling of profound loss is so dominant that she doesn't even say good-bye to this young dentist who has fired her imagination and made her want to stay longer with him. She leaves amid the gloom of disappointment.