I was determined to refuse. I felt the whole thing was very peculiar: the idea of dancing with a strange woman in a coffee shop. I didn’t dare think about it, let alone actually do it! But Huang Yiyi seemed fixated on the idea, and when she saw that I was absolutely resolute, she went over to the foreigner and asked him to dance with her. I don’t know if she was thinking of getting back at me in some way. The foreigner stood up smartly and said thank you to me, as if I had given him something. Before they started dancing, Huang Yiyi went over to the owner of the coffee shop and said something to her in Russian; the owner laughed and came out from behind the counter to sit with me. Her Chinese was pretty good: other than an ugly accent, she could actually speak quite fluently. She asked me if I was Carmen’s boyfriend. I asked who Carmen was, and she pointed at Huang Yiyi. I said I thought she was called Huang Yiyi. She laughed and said that clearly I wasn’t Carmen’s boyfriend. Then she explained to me that Huang Yiyi was her name, but that Carmen was her nickname, and that everyone here called her that. I asked why they called her Carmen, and she said, ‘Don’t you think she is adorable? Just like Carmen.’

To tell the truth, at that time I didn’t know that Carmen was a character in a novel, but I could certainly judge whether she was adorable, and as to that the answer was: No! Not at all! How could you say she was adorable? Mad, more like! A lunatic!

Seeing the two of them circle me like a pair of disgusting flies, I felt really uncomfortable; and so pretty quickly I got up and left. I didn’t say goodbye.

The following morning I went to find Party Secretary Wang because I needed to look at the files on my three candidates. I happened to mention Huang Yiyi, and the Party secretary explained her situation. As he spoke, I could tell that he was very impressed by both her erudition and her capacity for original research. She was directing research on differential mathematics and mass differentials, one of two ongoing projects at the institute that had received much praise from the international mathematical community. On the other hand, he didn’t seem to be too pleased with her free-and-easy, independent character.