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Once you lean back in the chair and the lamp lights up the area around your lips, you clench your fists nervously and lay them in your lap. The young dentist presses up close to your face from the right. You open your mouth wide and let him work on your teeth with probes, forceps, and scalpel. His large, strong fingers move ceaselessly in the cramped space of your mouth. Because of the narrowness of the oral cavity, there is tremendous cohesive force as he pulls your tooth. He exerts all his strength, and you exert all yours. If you are a young woman like Miss Dai Er and have a vivid imagination, it will be easy to associate this with another activity.
Dr. Kong Sen leans over to a patient in the chair beside Dai Er to give the gray-haired woman a shot of Novocain in her upper jaw. Then he turns back to Miss Dai Er.
He asks, "Any physical problems?" His voice is low and deep, as if sealed in an underground tu
"No," she says.
"Heart trouble?"
"No."
"High blood pressure?"
"No."
"OK, let's begin."
His comments are terse and precise. She gains a dialectical fascination from such an either-or dialogue.
He turns to get the Novocain. To Dai Er, the ailments he has mentioned pertain to old folks, not to her. But knowing that the questions are routine, she smiles her gratitude to him.
He has fetched the syringe filled with Novocain, the needle pointing upward. He lightly pushes the injector, and tiny droplets spurt from the tip of the needle. The spray fans out in an exaggerated arc; white mist, curling upward, drifts out of the room and into the corridor, then slowly descends the staircase. It glides over twenty-eight stairs, passing through more than a decade, and on toward the internal medicine ward. There Miss Dai Er was barely seven and a half years old.
Dai Er, front teeth missing and two terrified eyes staring out at a white world, was a weak, sickly child. She had just come out of a fever-induced coma caused by meningitis.
"Do you recognize Mommy?" A young woman about the same age as the present Miss Dai Er sat beside her seven-and-a-half-year-old daughter, expecting a response as if awaiting a fateful verdict.
"Do you recognize Mommy? Where is Mommy?" the young woman repeated.
Dai Er struggled to open her eyes, which seemed dried out and enlarged by the debilitating illness; she searched the confines of the room. The walls were white; a hovering sound was white; a smile at the upturned corners of the mouth behind the sound was white. Over there stood a large man holding a hypodermic syringe in his right hand; the needle was pointing upward, like a bleak wilderness, awaiting the passage of humans. Long and hollow, it would enter her buttock. He may have been smiling at his young patient, but his expression was changed into cold indifference by the gauze mask.
"Can you recognize Mommy? You see, Mommy is smiling at you!"
Dai Er remained motionless as her eyes followed the movements of the needle. Concentrating all the strength in her little body in her eyes, she was trying to ward off the approaching instrument.
"Mommy is right here, don't you recognize me?" The young woman was losing her composure.
The needle kept coming, with its cold glint and tiny shriek.
"Mommy, I don't want a shot." Dai Er sat up suddenly and draped her arms around her mother's neck. "Mommy, I don't want a shot," Dai Er cried loudly.
The young woman burst out crying, her sobs punctuated by laughter: "My baby's alive again. She's not a mindless vegetable, she's alive again…"
The white uniform and the needle had moved up next to little Dai Er.
"Put her down, and leave us alone, please. It's time for her injection," the mouth above the white uniform said. The huge hypodermic in his hand was cold and hard, like a pistol.
To Dai Er's chagrin, the young woman put her down, shedding tears of happiness, and left the room.
She knew that her mother, too, was afraid of the man. Her leaving was testimony to this. She could not protect Dai Er. Now Dai Er was alone. She stopped crying, for she knew she had to face the cold needle by herself.
"Lie on your stomach, and pull down your pants."
It was useless to resist. Even Mommy obeyed him. She rolled over obediently and pulled down her pants.
For two whole months, the seven-and-a-half-year-old Dai Er experienced the world through the unvarying command of "Lie on your stomach, and pull down your pants." She learned that no one else could take that resonating needle for her. Everyone had his own needle to face.
The long needle entered her buttock and stabbed at her heart. She grew up with that needle.
The dental office resounds with the provocative screeches of teeth being drilled and scraped. They grate on Miss Dai Er's nerves and make her shudder.
The stocky, young dentist approaches her, holding a hypodermic syringe.
"No!" Miss Dai Er's scream disturbs the rigid operating protocols of the dental office.
A Fortuitous Encounter
That I actually met him was certainly the will of heaven. It happened five years ago. One day at dusk when the feeble face of evening had already faded, night's curtain fell in a rush, allowing no explanation. At that time, my persistent nostalgia invariably led me from a stage pieced together by historical fragments to a theater displaying the passage of time. On that day, I walked alone into a grand theater decorated with a mix of luxurious splendor and religious decline. It was at the entrance where I ran into him; to be precise, at first I was captivated by the eyes of a handsome, bright young man, and then I recognized him by his voice.
"Is it really you?"
I collected myself and looked at him, able to identify the focused yet limpid eyes. The space beneath the eyes, however, appeared only in my imagination; except that in my imagination, the chin had been broad, with sharp edges and corners, whereas the one before me was steep yet smooth. The Grecian nose was just as I had imagined, belonging to the right person.
"Yes, it's me. I know you… part of you, anyway." To be acquainted with a handsome man in this way-how could I help but smile?
He was smiling, too. He stroked his chin with his right hand, and the large palm slid along with a lively whistle. Neither of us mentioned the event we had experienced together.
"Are you… alone?" He asked.
"Yes."
"If you don't mind, I happen to have two tickets."
"I've got one." I showed him the ticket in my hand.
"But mine are in the front row."
"Um… aren't you going to wait for her any longer?"
"Who?"
"Um…" I turned and looked around.
He took my arm gently before I turned back around. "I'm waiting for a girl just like you."
I smiled and shook my head but followed him nevertheless.
The heavy curtains opened, the lights dimmed, and all was quiet. I've always thought that the biggest difference between an office and a theater is that an office is a stage and that even if you don't like to perform, you must play a role regardless of how unimportant it is. There is no escape. Even though your office is tranquil as still water and only one or two people-actors-are around you, you are still unable to indulge in your i