In the Pond Read Online Free

furniture,bricks, and sand to their homes; allowing their wives to meddle with administrative affairs; at every Spring Festival, allotting themselves an extra sack of polished rice, ten pounds of peanut oil, a crate of liquor (sixteen bottles), a hamper of apples, a block of frozen ribbonfish (fifty pounds), and two large bundles of potato noodles.
    Of course, the most atrocious crime they had perpetrated in the plant was to suppress different opinions and try to get rid of the dissidents. The letter concluded with these questions:
    Who are the masters of this plant? The workers or the two corrupt leaders? Where is their Communist conscience? Why are they more vicious and more avaricious than landowners and capitalists in the old China? Should they still remain in the Party? Are we, the common workers, supposed to trust the parasites like Liu Shu and Ma Gong? As a citizen of a great socialist country, do I still have the right to speak up for justice and democracy?
    Bin had been wondering whether he should mention that there must have been an affair between Liu Shu and Hou Nina, but he was uncertain how to discuss the problem of Liu’s lifestyle.
    The summer before last, by chance he had seen Nina doing the splits in the secretary’s office. One afternoon Bin went there to hand in his application for the Party membership. At the door he heard a female voice tittering inside, so he stopped to see what was happening. Through a crack in the door, he saw Nina spreading herlegs on the floor; her body was sinking lower and lower while her lips bunched together as though she was in pain. Yet she was smiling, her eyes blinking. With her pink skirt wrapped around her waist, she put both hands on her thighs to force them to touch the floor. Bin thought Liu would move over and do something unusual — make a pass or pinch her thigh or hip, but the secretary didn’t budge, merely chuckled and said, “Get up, girl. Don’t hurt yourself. Enough.” He was drinking tea and cracking spiced pumpkin seeds.
    “See, see I still can do it!” she cried, her entire legs on the cement floor. Her chin was thrown up at Liu.
    Bin knocked at the door, and without waiting he went in. His intrusion startled them; they both stood up.
    “What do you want?” Liu asked.
    “I came to hand in my application for Party membership, Secretary Liu.” Bin put the writing on the desk.
    “All right, I’ll read it.” Liu looked disconcerted.
    Bin turned back to the door, giving Nina a long stare that revealed his knowledge of what had just happened. He went out without a word.
    Now, Bin suspected Liu had probably been so mean to him because he had spoiled his luck with Nina that day. How he regretted that he had not witnessed the whole episode. If only he had waited outside a little longer to find out the true relationship between them. Then he would have possessed firsthand evidence. O Impatience, the enemy of any achievement, and the sin of sins. All hecould do now was add a postscript to the accusation, saying he believed there must have been an affair between the two. He asked the superiors to investigate.
    After breakfast the next morning, he sealed the letter and cycled to the Commune Administration at the corner of Bank and Main streets to deliver it personally, also to save postage. Secretary Yang hadn’t arrived yet. After waiting ten minutes to no avail, Bin left the letter with Yang’s aide, Dong Cai, a slim, middle-aged man with a toothy face, wearing a green sweater.
    “Secretary Yang will read it as soon as he has time,” Dong assured him with a grin, flicking the Grape cigarette Bin had given him.
    “Thanks for the help. Thanks,” Bin said with a bow.
    Because of delivering the letter, he was one hour late for work that morning. But who cared? He felt he had done something more meaningful than maintaining machines.

Three
    A FTER TWENTY-FOUR FAMILIES moved in, Workers’ Park became livelier than before. A hot-water room was built near