page, a scorpion, its pincers stabbing toward the girl’s eyes. It had been six years since he retired as an art teacher, nearly forty since he last painted out of free will. Teacher Fei looked at the drawing. His hand was far from a shaking old man’s. He could have made the scorpion an arthropod version of the girl, but such an act would have been beneath his standards. Teacher Fei had never cursed at a woman, either in words or in any other form of expression, and he certainly did not want to begin with a young girl.
——
LATER, WHEN MRS . Luo, a neighbor in her late forties who had been laid off by the local electronics factory, came to sit with Teacher Fei’s mother, he went to a nearby Internet café. It was a little after two, a slow time for the business, and the manager was dozing off in the warm sunshine. A few middle school students, not much older than twelve or thirteen, were gathered around a computer, talking in tones of hushed excitement, periodically breaking into giggles. Teacher Fei knew these types of kids. They pooled their pocket money in order to spend a few truant hours in a chat room, impersonating people much older than themselves and carrying on affairs with other human beings who could be equally fraudulent. In his school days, Teacher Fei had skipped his share of classes to frolic with friends in the spring meadow or to take long walks in the autumn woods, and he wondered if, in fifty years, the children around the computer would have to base their nostalgia on a fabricated world that existed only in a machine. But who could blame them for paying little attention to the beautiful April afternoon? Teacher Fei had originally hired Mrs. Luo for an hour a day so that he could take a walk; ever since he had discovered the Internet, Mrs. Luo’s hours had been increased. Most days now she spent three hours in the afternoon taking care of Teacher Fei’s mother and cooking a meal for both of them. The manager of the Internet café had once suggested that Teacher Fei purchase a computer of his own; the man had even volunteered to set it up, saying that he would be happy to see a good customer save money, even if it meant that he would lose some business. Teacher Fei rejected the generous offer—despite his mother’s increasing loss of her grip on reality, he could not bring himself to perform any act of dishonesty in her presence.
Teacher Fei located the girl’s blog without a problem. There were more pictures of her there, some with her mother. Anyone could see the older woman’s unease in front of the camera. In her prime she would have been more attractive than her daughter was now, but perhaps it was the diffidence in her face that had softened some of the features which in her daughter’s case were accentuated by rage. Under the heading “Happier Time,” Teacher Fei found a black-and-white photo of the family. The girl, age three or four, sat on a high stool, and her parents stood on either side. On the wall behind them was a garden, painted by someone without much artistic taste, Teacher Fei could tell right away. The girl laughed with a mouthful of teeth, and the mother smiled demurely, as befitting a married woman in front of a photographer. The father was handsome, with perfectly shaped cheekbones and deep-set eyes not often found in a Chinese face, but the strain in his smile and the tiredness in those eyes seemed to indicate little of the happiness the daughter believed had existed in her parents’ marriage.
Teacher Fei shook his head and scribbled on a scrap of paper the man’s name and address and home phone number, as well as the address and number of his work unit, which were all listed by the girl. A scanned image of his resident’s ID was displayed, too. Teacher Fei calculated the man’s age, forty-six, and noted that on the paper. When he went to the message board on the girl’s website, Teacher Fei read a few of the most recent posts, left by sympathetic women
——
LATER, WHEN MRS . Luo, a neighbor in her late forties who had been laid off by the local electronics factory, came to sit with Teacher Fei’s mother, he went to a nearby Internet café. It was a little after two, a slow time for the business, and the manager was dozing off in the warm sunshine. A few middle school students, not much older than twelve or thirteen, were gathered around a computer, talking in tones of hushed excitement, periodically breaking into giggles. Teacher Fei knew these types of kids. They pooled their pocket money in order to spend a few truant hours in a chat room, impersonating people much older than themselves and carrying on affairs with other human beings who could be equally fraudulent. In his school days, Teacher Fei had skipped his share of classes to frolic with friends in the spring meadow or to take long walks in the autumn woods, and he wondered if, in fifty years, the children around the computer would have to base their nostalgia on a fabricated world that existed only in a machine. But who could blame them for paying little attention to the beautiful April afternoon? Teacher Fei had originally hired Mrs. Luo for an hour a day so that he could take a walk; ever since he had discovered the Internet, Mrs. Luo’s hours had been increased. Most days now she spent three hours in the afternoon taking care of Teacher Fei’s mother and cooking a meal for both of them. The manager of the Internet café had once suggested that Teacher Fei purchase a computer of his own; the man had even volunteered to set it up, saying that he would be happy to see a good customer save money, even if it meant that he would lose some business. Teacher Fei rejected the generous offer—despite his mother’s increasing loss of her grip on reality, he could not bring himself to perform any act of dishonesty in her presence.
Teacher Fei located the girl’s blog without a problem. There were more pictures of her there, some with her mother. Anyone could see the older woman’s unease in front of the camera. In her prime she would have been more attractive than her daughter was now, but perhaps it was the diffidence in her face that had softened some of the features which in her daughter’s case were accentuated by rage. Under the heading “Happier Time,” Teacher Fei found a black-and-white photo of the family. The girl, age three or four, sat on a high stool, and her parents stood on either side. On the wall behind them was a garden, painted by someone without much artistic taste, Teacher Fei could tell right away. The girl laughed with a mouthful of teeth, and the mother smiled demurely, as befitting a married woman in front of a photographer. The father was handsome, with perfectly shaped cheekbones and deep-set eyes not often found in a Chinese face, but the strain in his smile and the tiredness in those eyes seemed to indicate little of the happiness the daughter believed had existed in her parents’ marriage.
Teacher Fei shook his head and scribbled on a scrap of paper the man’s name and address and home phone number, as well as the address and number of his work unit, which were all listed by the girl. A scanned image of his resident’s ID was displayed, too. Teacher Fei calculated the man’s age, forty-six, and noted that on the paper. When he went to the message board on the girl’s website, Teacher Fei read a few of the most recent posts, left by sympathetic women
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