The Crazed by Ha Jin

the bliss a little longer.
    I turned a page of my dictionary and resumed reading while his mouth writhed and a smile broke out on his face. From time to time I’d watch him.
    Outside, a siren started screaming. There must be a fire somewhere nearby. I couldn’t tell which direction the siren came from, because the mountain of anthracite outside the window had put me out of my bearings. As the siren squealed louder and louder, Mr. Yang stirred, whispering, “Fire, fire, that’s the holy fire. Burn them, burn those devils!”
    I listened closely. He sighed, “Yes, fire and rose are one.” He opened his eyes and looked around. He noticed me and gazed at my face intently for a moment. Then he made an effort to turn to face the window, but he couldn’t move his left shoulder. I got up and went over.
    “Give me a hand, please,” he said.
    I lifted his back and made him sit up. Supporting his back with my right arm, I grasped the pillows and put them behind him. He seemed eager to talk, so I returned to the chair, ready to give him an ear.
    But before he could start, somebody knocked on the door. I went to answer it. To my surprise, Vice Principal Huang’s white head emerged. Since Mr. Yang was hospitalized, no school official had ever come to see him. The tall vice principal took a step forward, holding a string bag of yellow apples, some of which had russet flecks on them. He wore a double-breasted jacket with peaked lapels, which was too large on him and made his triangular face appear thin and small. “How are you, Comrade Jian Wan?” he asked, his walleyes looking me in the face.
    I was amazed he knew my name. “Fine, thank you for coming,” I said and stepped aside to let him in.
    He went up to Mr. Yang. Although over sixty, he looked well preserved, his waist robust but not rotund, and his legs so thin that he was hipless. He said heartily to my teacher, “How are you doing, Old Yang? Do you feel better?” He patted Mr. Yang’s hand.
    My teacher made no reply. The leader said again, “I came to see you. Look, I brought you some fresh fruit. How are you?” He lifted the apples up and put them on the bedside cabinet.
    “I’m good, won’t die for a couple of hours,” Mr. Yang grunted. I was puzzled by his sullenness, wondering why he showed no respect for the vice principal.
    Huang turned to me and put on a smile, saying, “I’m going to talk with your teacher.” I realized he meant I should make myself scarce, so I walked out and carefully closed the door.
    I loitered in the corridor for a few minutes, then sat down on a long straight-backed bench. I was a bit groggy, my temples aching. The previous night I had pored over a textbook on dialectical materialism and hadn’t gone to bed until 3:00 A.M. Now, eyes closed and arms folded, I soon drifted off to sleep.
    I had a bizarre dream, in which Meimei and I stayed in an inn at a sandy beach. I was sick with a stomachache, lying in bed and shivering all over. Wearing a white cap and a knee-length skirt, Meimei was cooking crucian carp soup for me on a small alcohol stove we had brought along. Five of its six wicks were afire, hissing softly as the flames licked the bottom of a stainless steel pot. Turning over the fat fish gingerly with a spatula, Meimei crooned a folk song in a soothing voice. Outside, on the bulging sea, a couple of gray sails glided almost motionlessly while a conch horn was tooting somewhere on the shore.
    The soup was done. It looked milky and smelled like steamed mussel, but I was too sick to eat it by myself. Meimei tried to feed me with a spoon like a small ladle, which turned out to be too broad for my mouth. She piped into my ear, “Open wide, open wide, my little groom.” But my mouth was too narrow for the spoon, and a few drops of broth spilled on the front of my shirt. Tittering, she said, “You have such a tiny mouth, like a pretty girl’s.”
    No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t open my mouth wider, as if my lips