A Loyal Character Dancer

shouting the political slogans, and in reading Quotations from Chairman Mao, their only textbook at the time. So she was really more like the rising sun to him, and he was content to admire her from afar.
     
    That year his father was admitted to a hospital for eye surgery. Even there, among the wards, Red Guards or Red Rebels swarmed like raging wasps. His father was ordered to stand to say his confession, blindfolded, in front of Chairman Mao’s picture. It was an impossible task for an invalid who was unable to see or move. So it was up to Liu to help, and first, to write the confession speech on behalf of the old man. It was a tough job for a thirteen-year-old boy, and after spending an hour with a splitting headache, he produced only two or three lines. In desperation, clutching his pen, he ran out to the street, where he saw Wen Liping walking with her father. Smiling, she greeted him, and her fingertips brushed against the pen. The golden top of the pen suddenly began to shine in the sunlight. He went back home and finished the speech with his one glittering possession in the world. Afterward, he supported his father in the hospital, standing with him like a wooden prop, not yielding to humiliation, reading for him like a robot. It was a day that contained his brightest and blackest moment.
     
    Their three years in high school flowed away like water, ending in the flood of the educated youth movement. He went to Heilongjiang Province with a group of his schoolmates. She went to Fujian by herself. It was on the day of their departure, at the Shanghai railway station, that he experienced the miracle of his life, as he held the red paper heart with her in the loyal character dance. Her fingers lifted up not only the red paper heart, but also raised him from the black puppy status to an equal footing with her.
     
    Life in Heilongjiang was hard. The memory of that loyal character dance proved to be an unfailing light in that endless tunnel. Then the news of her marriage came, and he was devastated. Ironically, it was then that he first thought seriously about his own future, a future in which he imagined he would be able to help her. And he started to study hard.
     
    Like others, Liu came back to Shanghai in 1978. As a result of the self-study he had done in Heilongjiang, he passed the college entrance examination and became a student at East China Normal University the same year. Though overwhelmed with his studies, he made several inquiries about her. She seemed to have withdrawn. There was no information about her. During his four years at college, never once did she return to Shanghai. After graduation, he got a job at Wenhui Daily, as a reporter covering Shanghai industry news, and he started writing poems. One day, he heard that Wenhui would run a special story about a commune factory in Fujian Province. He approached the chief editor for the job. He did not know the name of Wen’s village. Nor did he really intend to look for her. Just the idea of being somewhere close to her was enough. Indeed, there’s no story without coincidences. He was shocked when he stepped into the workshop of the factory.
     
    After the visit, he had a long talk with the manager. The manager must have guessed something, telling him that Feng was notoriously jealous, and violent. He thought a lot that night. After all those years, he still cared for her with unabated passion. There seemed to be a voice in his mind urging: Go to her. Tell her everything. It may not be too late.
     
    But the following morning, waking up to reality, he left the village in a hurry. He was a successful reporter, with published poems and younger girlfriends. To choose a married woman with somebody else’s child, one who was no longer young and beautiful—he did not have the guts to face what others might think.
     
    Back in Shanghai, he turned in the story. It was his assignment. His boss called it poetic. “The revolutionary grinder polishing up the spirit of our society.” The metaphor was often quoted. The story must have been reprinted in the Fujian local newspapers. He wondered if she had read it. He thought about writing to her, but what could he say? That was when he started to conceive the poem, which was published in Star magazine, selected as one of the best of the year.
     
    In a way, the incident was like a grinder rasping at his illusions about a career in journalism and contributed to his decision to quit. His timing could not have