Fan Jinghua: Lying beside a Woman, with a Jet Lag

　　　Lying beside a Woman, with a Jet Lag

Well, this woman is neither my wife nor my mistress or lover-to-be;
she is a friend, smart and glamorous, who believes in me
that I can be more than a casual friend.
In a country foreign to me, she chooses to act as a cultural hostess
to maintain my foreignness at a comfortable level.
She says she could do with a stay-away from her country house,
so she arranges a visit to the city “for the dirty air” as she says.
The fact is, both of us want to save money through not spending more,
therefore we decide to split the hotel bed and bill.

We are clever enough, of course, and we know even one night
of this luxury will make us closer than before,
which might be our unpronounced wish;
of course if we want to overdraw, a trip of a week is a little to short.
For a candlelight dinner on the hotel’s third floor,
we draw an advance on the savings from the impending night.
With two glasses of Bordeaux, I notice that the bosomy jazz vocal
sounds a little drunk, and her squeak throaty Empty Bed
goes even to my crotch. So bluesy gooood!
And I leave a handsome tip for the gay-look waiter,
and I usher her to the sightseeing lift.

Now is the time I become cooler as if by the night air.
I am a man, and of this I am fully aware.
My awareness also goes deep to my spine and scrotum,
but my heart shakes like a stretched smile.
The rising has a slowness—
the stately centenarian mansions become lower and lower,
the glass-and-concrete towers soar with us, higher and higher.
Now, my mind is an LCD, panorama,
upon which float scenes from a silent movie in technicolor.
Even if no one hears what I’ve said to myself,
it has already meant something beyond what I mean.

Over the lighted city and intimacy, the night sky is invisibly gray.
Tonight, we will lie down, somewhere, and we will not be etherized,
and we will tranquilly ramble from Bessie to Sivvy upon the double bed.
We will talk about words and words about words
and how men generically try to trap all the audience
by a mutual protocol of not letting words stand for the literal.
Therefore, I will have to distance from even myself
and learn to be at least another if not a Buddhist patriarch.
I agree there is something more than the superficial.
This is significant. Pause. Silence. Let it filter through.
This is like a mute witness who realizes words are spoken
to make the body going astray
like the mind that is easy to get paralyzed.

Outside, phallic structures are darkly hard, with splinters
ogling through the split fat curtains.
After bath, she wears a naked nightgown, kimono-style,
my eyes fall on her bare feet, the glossy toenails,
and my penis, I must say, stirs a little, despite of myself or itself.
Then I shower behind the translucent curtains, and soon
she comes in to dry her hair;
as I see her smiling at the erased vapor in the mirror,
I feel the after-kick of the wine.
But I am coming back to myself
as the soap foams rise and fall under the lotus seed head.
I am gallant like a Buddhist monk carrying a woman cross a river
and letting go at the other bank,
forgetting that there has been no bridge on the water.

Am I trying to drive the inert mind out of the excited body
or the inert body out of excited mind?
I am a man, heterosexual and married, now lying
beside a half-naked woman, in a hotel one-whole-day-flight away.
Can I claim to be a man of innocence and faith
when I am half-drunk with her female warmth in the air?
I realize my own skepticism toward this proposition,
and I also know assumptions always precede a question.

The TV is flickering, but it is the stereo that murmurs.
She is humming to the tune with a cozy laziness,
and I turn off the TV and the stereo as a compliment.
Then words naturally come in.
It must be sometime after 4 when she is too tired to comment,
eyes closed, hands still, and breath slackened,
and dusk is preparing to land in the country I come from,
but till morning I stay awake, lying as still as I can beside a woman
who is in deep sleep, beautiful and innocent like an infant.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　May 9, 2007


　　躺在一个女人身边因为时差而无法入睡

首先，这个女人既不是我老婆也不是我情妇或者潜在的情人，
她只是一个朋友，智慧而光彩耀人，
决定我可以信任得超过普通朋友。
对我而言，这是外国，而她要选择做一个文化主妇，
将我的外来感维持在某个舒服的程度。
她说她可以暂时躲开自己的乡村住宅，进城
呼吸一点“肮脏的空气”。
事实是，我们都想能够少花一点就少花一点，
于是我们决定分摊宾馆的账单，当然也就得分享床单。

我们都有足够智慧，明白哪怕仅仅一夜
豪华之后，我们会更加亲密，当然这只是无法说出的意愿，
而如果想要透支挥霍，几天的旅程又实在太短。
我们从即将来临的夜晚房费中预支了
宾馆三楼的烛光晚餐；
两杯波尔多红酒，一个大波的黑妹歌手
嗓子里带着醉意，好像转速偏慢的唱片，爵士老歌
《空荡荡的双人床》嘶哑地灌进了我的小腹。蓝调得如此到位！
我给那个同志侍应小生留下一笔潇洒的小费，
揽腰将她拥进了观光的电梯。

此刻我似乎因为夜风而变得清醒。
我是一个男人，这一点我明白得有点彻底，
彻底到我前裆和尾骨都能感到，
而我的心却有点颤抖，好像一个被撑开很久的微笑。
电梯的上升有一种缓慢——
庄严的百年大厦越来越低，
而玻璃的高塔却和我们一同成长，越来越高。
我的头脑犹如一只液晶显示器，环绕全景，
无声电影的片段一场场叠映，而且是人工加彩。
即使无人听见我对自己说了什么，
这一切已经超越我自己暗示给自己的意义。

在这被点亮的城市和亲密之上，夜空
是不可见的灰色。今夜，在这样的夜色某处，
我们将会躺倒，我们不会像被乙醚麻醉了的病人，
即使我们平静，我们还会闲聊，在双人床上从贝希聊到希薇。
我们将会谈论词语，还有有关词语的词语，
以及人们如何类属化地不让词语意指词语本身
从而将听众诱陷进一种彼此接受的协议。
所以，我将会暂时抽离自己，
即使不能成为一个高僧，起码也得学会做另一个人。
我也同意表面之外还有意义。
这一点就很有意义。停顿。沉默。让这一点沁入。
这就好像一个哑正人心里明白，人们的语言
总是被用来令身体误入歧途，
就好像头脑那么容易瘫痪。

窗外，阳具似的结构冷黑地坚挺着，点缀着晶亮的碎屑，
透过肥厚的窗帘缝隙送来媚眼。
沐浴后，她裸身穿着一件浴袍，日本和服的式样，
我的眼睛落在她的赤脚上，那些脚趾发出艳光，
而我不得不承认我的下面有点跳动，与我自己无关。
于是我躲进了半透明的浴帘后淋浴，而她很快便跟进来吹头发。
当我看到她对着被抹去水汽的镜子微笑，
我感到了晚餐时的红酒泛起了后劲。
莲蓬头洒下的热水将浴缸中的肥皂泡越激越高，
我看着他们轻声地此起彼伏，开始平静。
我简直就可以成为那个抱着女人过河的和尚，
到了对岸，就各奔东西，忘了刚才的水上并没有桥。

我是否正在试图将偏瘫的脑子赶出兴奋的身体，
或者相反，将偏瘫的身体赶出兴奋的脑子？
我是一个男人，异性恋者，已婚，此刻和一个半裸的女人
平排躺在十二小时航程之外的宾馆。
当我深吸这室内弥漫着的女性温暖，半醉，
我能否还能自称是个清白而忠贞的男人？
我知道所有的疑问之前都已经有了很多预设，
因此我已经意识到自己对这个命题本身的怀疑。

电视无声地闪烁，音响中传来耳语般的靡靡之音。
她跟着那调子轻轻地哼唱，慵懒而温厚，
于是我关掉电视与音响作为一种恭维。
然后言语自然跟进。
大概到了凌晨四点左右，她已累得无法插上一言半语，
轻闭的眼睛，静放的手，沉缓的呼吸，
而此刻黄昏刚刚开始准备在我的国度着陆。
直到天亮，我一直醒着，躺在一个女人的身边，尽量毫无动静，
看她沉沉的睡着，美丽而纯真，像一个婴儿。
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　2007年9月4日