The Bridegroom by Ha Jin Page B

claiming that he had attempted to attack or kidnap her. Cold sweat broke out on his back, and he began shivering. Looking out, he saw below the window two pairs of power lines stretch along the street. He was on the third floor, impossible to escape.
    Half an hour later, the door opened and his boss, Chang Bofan, stepped in. With him were three policemen; one of them was fat with a beer belly, another skinny and bald, and the other so young that he looked like a teenager. They sat down and began interrogating Manjin. Bofan said, “Comrade Shen Manjin, you know this is a very serious charge. I have always believed you to be a good man. You must tell us the truth. If you committed the crime, admit it before it’s too late.”
    Manjin burst into tears and for a minute couldn’t say anything. Meanwhile, the bald policeman took a leather flyswatter out of a drawer and, one by one, brought down the droning flies.
    The fat man snapped at Manjin, “Stop it! You just pawed the girl, where’s your spunk now?”
    “No. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
    “All right,” Bofan said. “Shen Manjin, explain it to us. You will go to jail if you can’t prove your innocence.”
    Manjin stopped sobbing. Gradually he began to tell them what happened. The boyish man was writing down his words in a large folder. From time to time Manjin was interrupted by the policemen’s chuckles. He tried to remain coolheaded so as to convince them of his honesty. To make the unknown woman resemble the girl more, he insisted that she had worn white clothes too, and that he had seen her hurry away to the front gate. But when he finally said, “From behind I thought the girl was the woman in white,” all three policemen shook their heads.
    “What did the woman look like?” asked the bald man.
    “I couldn’t see her face in the dark.”
    “If you can’t identify her, how can we believe you?”
    “That’s true,” the fat man chimed in. “The sentence for attempted sexual assault is three years, minimum. We don’t believe any woman would do such a thing in a public place. This sounds like a joke.”
    “Please, I really mistook the girl for the woman.” Manjin realized that at any cost he must cling to the story of the mysterious woman, whether he could prove her existence or not. This was his only way out.
    “Wait,” Bofan broke in, raising a red folder. “Here’s what the girl said.” He read it out: “He grabbed me and said, ‘Honey, let’s do that again.’ ”
    “So?” The fat man shrugged.
    “It seems something
had
happened in the theater before he approached the girl. Or else why did he use the word ‘again’?”
    The fat man took the folder from Bofan and looked over the paragraph in question while exhaling a puff of smoke, a jade cigarette-holder clamped between his teeth. Then he said, “He has to tell us who the nymphomaniac is. If not, how do we explain this to the girl’s family? She’s Vice Mayor Nan’s daughter.”
    The last sentence almost paralyzed Manjin. Things turned foggy before him, and he closed his eyes, too giddy to think or answer their questions.
    “Let him rest for a while, all right?” Bofan suggested.
    The policemen got up and went into another room for tea. Bofan moved closer and patted Manjin on the shoulder. “Little Shen, you must take this incident seriously. Even if you don’t go to jail, your political life will be over if you can’t clear your name now. You are lucky they called me. Otherwise, who knows what would happen.”
    “Director Chang, I really don’t know who the woman is.”
    “Try to remember who you met in the theater.”
    “I saw nobody but Wang Tingting.”
    Bofan’s eyes lit up. “Did she sit beside you?”
    “I don’t know where she sat.”
    “What kind of clothes did she wear?”
    “A white shirt and a pink skirt.”
    “Good. You must tell them this. It’s an important clue.” Bofan stood up and went into the adjacent office.
    Ten minutes later the three