AFFAIR: WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW 外遇你所不知道的事

CONTENTS

	MOUNTAIN SPIRIT AND HUMAN SPIRIT 山鬼與山人─山居週年記事 By LIAO Chih-yun 廖之韻 Translated by David van der Peet 范德培

	SIGNIFICANT OTHER 貴人 By Ching Hsiang-hai 鯨向海 Translated by David van der Peet 范德培

	SOLEMN ATMOSPHERE 莊嚴氣氛 By Ching Hsiang-hai 鯨向海 Translated by David van der Peet 范德培

	DIALOGUE 對話 By SEN Kim Soon 辛金順 Translated by David van der Peet 范德培

	ON DEATH ROW 死囚獄中─死刑者 By WANG Chi-chiang 汪啟疆 Translated by David van der Peet 范德培

	I BELIEVE 相信 By Hsiang Ming 向明 Translated by John J. S. BALCOM 陶忘機

	LOST 迷路 By Jiao Tong 焦桐 Translated by David van der Peet 范德培

	COMPLICATIONS D’AMOUR: LOVE LETTER 愛情併發症─情書 By HSU Shui-fu 許水富 Translated by David van der Peet 范德培

	TAMSHUI SKETCHES: FISHERMAN’S WHARF 淡水采風─漁人碼頭 By Lo Ti 落蒂 Translated by David van der Peet 范德培

	A BACKWARD GLANCE AT THE DUSKY STREETS 街影回眸 By LAI Yu-ting 賴鈺婷 Translated by Adela JENG 鄭秀瑕

	TO COMPREHEND 領悟 By Yin Dih 隱地 Translated by Jonathan YING 殷立仁

	MIRROR 鏡子 By Yin Dih 隱地 Translated by Jonathan YING 殷立仁

	WHEN THERE’S NO NEED TO TAKE BETRAYAL SERIOUSLY 當背叛無須沉重以對的時候 By YEN Na 顏訥 Translated by Darryl STERK 石岱崙

	AFFAIR: WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW 外遇你所不知道的事 By YUAN Chiung-chiung 袁瓊瓊 Translated by Patrick CARR 柯英華

	MY ROAD TO CERAMICS 我的陶瓷之路 By SUN Chao 孫超 Translated by SUN Yilin 孫逸齡

	NEWS & EVENTS 文化活動 Compiled by Sarah Jen-hui HSIANG 項人慧

	PUBLICATIONS BY TAIPEI CHINESE PEN MEMBERS 會員新書

	NOTES ON AUTHORS AND TRANSLATORS 作者與譯者簡介

	APPENDIX : CHINESE ORIGINALS 附錄：中文原著

	2009 INDEX

	FACING MOUNTAINS IN THE DISTANCE, NO. 3 千里碧山對之三, ceramic slab, 138 × 66 cm, 1994........................................................................Cover

	RETURN FROM PARIS, NO. 6 巴黎歸來系列之六, ceramic slab, 52 × 72 cm, 1990..............Back Cover By SUN Chao 孫超

YUAN Chiung-chiung 袁瓊瓊

AFFAIR: WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW
外遇你所不知道的事*

Translated by Patrick CARR 柯英華

    His erection slowly grew in front of her.
    The two of them looked on as that bulging thing poked up
from between his spread legs like a little fist beneath his trousers.
    It showed no signs of subsiding any time soon.
    His eyes glistened. He was drunk and having trouble
focusing. He fixed his gaze on her and grabbed her hand, as if
he wanted to force her to touch him, but immediately let go
again, gave her a cheeky grin and said: “You’ve got me really
horny.” He grabbed her hand and squeezed so tightly she almost
swore. In an obvious attempt at a beguiling voice he whispered
“Come with me, I’ll take you somewhere special.”
    Mei Heng smiled: “What, a hotel?”
    He didn’t catch what she said: “What?”
    “A love hotel? A motel?”
    He slowly broke into a stupefied smile, looking not so selfassured all of a sudden.
    It was at this moment that Long Shu appeared from behind
the privacy wall that hides the entrance to the toilets.
    Mei Heng snatched her hand away from the man’s clutches
and straightened herself up against the bar.
    The man hadn’t a clue what had happened and still wore
the same stupefied grin. Without looking at him Mei Heng said:
“My husband just walked in.” The man looked the other way as
he understood the gravity of what she had told him. He picked
up the glass in front of him and took a sip.
    The pair of them sat side by side woodenly. After a while,
the man stole a casual glance in Long Shu’s direction.
    Long Shu hadn’t come over. He’d been stopped by an old
acquaintance at the other end of the bar and was standing with
an arm on the man’s shoulder listening with a faint smile of disinterest.
    Long Shu was very handsome. Tall, with a shaved head, he was a sculptor and thus had huge rounded shoulders and arms like tree trunks. He always wore sleeveless vests to show off his toned physique. Tonight he wore a faded black vest and a pair of stone washed jeans. He looked good. He wasn’t actually showing off. He had long since got used to his own appearance, which had somehow fed Mei Heng’s vanity. The fact that such an outstanding man belonged to her she took as evidence that she had hidden virtues beyond the superficial. When it came down to it. In comparison, Mei Heng was nowhere near as good looking as Long Shu.
    Without looking at her the man said casually: “Give me your phone number.”
    Mei Heng smiled and said to herself, without looking at him: “No way.” She picked up her glass and took a sip.
    The man turned towards her and looked brazenly into her eyes. Half smiling he said: “You can’t just ignore me now. You’re the one who started all this!”
    This caused Mei Heng to look in his direction again. That little fist was still poking up in his trousers.
    She looked up and caught the man’s gaze. He still had a smile on his face, staring daggers dead straight at her. But he really was drunk and his eyes had glazed over slightly, tending towards the vacant, as if he was looking at something from his own imagination.
    Mei Heng felt as though she didn’t exist. Even though this man had been flirting with her all this time she didn’t really exist. Or maybe she was simply an object. An object to satisfy this man’s desires. But at the same time, at that moment, he was also echoing the existence of a certain desire within her.
    Even though his desires were so completely different from hers.
    Long Shu came over and sat at the stool next to Mei Heng. Mei Heng quizzed him about the person he’d been chatting with: “Who was that?”
    Long Shu chuckled: “I can’t remember! He says he knows me; must be someone I met in the bar.” He looked back over at the man he’d just been talking to and suddenly yelled in his direction “This is my wife!” He put his arms around Mei Heng and reminded her: “Hey, he’s toasting you.”
    Mei Heng fixed a smile and tipped her glass in the direction of the distant man standing at the other side of the bar.
    At moments like these when she and Long Shu were being observed as a couple Mei Heng felt that the two of them were being surrounded by a gigantic picture frame, as if the two of them had been picked out on stage by a spotlight. Around them was nothing but pitch black. Everyone else had vanished. There was no one but the two of them and the circle of light.
    It was just her and Long Shu. Her not worth a second glance, and Long Shu attracting every pair of eyes in the house. Put together, they complemented each other. Her a foil for his good looks, him a foil for her plainness. Together the two of them depicted the existence of opposites.
    Right after this, from the darkness outside their spotlight she would begin to hear a commotion. The first whispers, murmurings, stifled laughs and gossip. How odd they looked together, their verdict on Long Shu, their verdict of her. She began to hear the exclamations of pity, the sighs and the regret at seeing the two of them together.
    Of course, there wasn’t really any such talk and in the real world no one would ever say these things to her face, but Mei Heng couldn’t find a way to stop herself imagining it. This inevitable commentary and gossip she always believed she had heard, touched, absorbed even, like the tiniest particles of dust floating in the air, that one only had to take a breath to assimilate. She knew, she just had no way to prove it.
    They had been married for nearly six years, and throughout she had always been gripped by this feeling. She had never figured out why Long Shu had married her. He was such a catch. She didn’t even know why she had married him. She probably simply couldn’t think of a reason not to marry him. He was such a catch.
    After so many years she was still continuously searching for the reasons they were together. That was all.
    That man who had been next to her had vanished.
    Mei Heng suddenly felt intensely agitated. She searched all four corners of the bar until she finally caught sight of him making a phone call. After a while he came back over,...

*	From In-ke wen-hsueh sheng-huo-chih 《印刻文學生活誌》(INK Literary Monthly), No. 64, December 2008: 148-151.