Glen had licked his lips as a bold female student corrected his pronunciation. He had tried again. Hongmei had barely been able to listen. The words had been raw, tender in his mouth, precisely because she couldn’t bear to hear them. So many years later, she still couldn’t explain how she felt. Was it that she couldn’t stand seeing a professor in his forties playing the fool in public, or was it the sight of his impenetrable innocence that she found impossible?

Everyone had laughed loudly. Hongmei had been silent. She had thought she must be bewitched by something. She’d never met a man like Glen, revealing so much of himself so quickly. After that, she had wanted to get close to him.

Words, when compared with feelings, are too concrete, too arbitrary, whereas feelings are richer but more elusive—ambiguous, if you will. Where words are muted, feelings begin.

* * *

She played Ping-Pong and tennis against him, fetched him alcohol from the infirmary when he needed it for a cheese fondue, led him on photo expeditions in hutongs, squeezed through the crowds of Xidan night market with him. She more or less forgot reality. Female classmates asked her presumptuously where she’d bought this or that new garment, and when she said it was secondhand, overseas discards from Xidan market, they exaggeratedly praised her powers of observation, clamoring for her to make another trip there, to pick up similar items for them too.

Once in the students’ canteen Glen came in and joined several female students. He said the foreign instructors’ cafeteria was out of food, and could they spare him a bite? The girls jostled to go stand in line a second time, returning with a dozen dishes for him. Then they noticed his eyes light up as he half rose from his bench. Turning around, they saw her walking in. All the while Professor Glen was bantering with them, he couldn’t take his eyes off Hongmei. They abruptly realized that he was in the students’ canteen to see her. Hoping to see a good show, they called her over to join them. She happened to be dressed simply that day, in a white blouse and olive-green trousers.

A short while later, Glen asked, “Did you get something on your sleeve?”

She replied, “It’s ink. It was there before.”