by Ken Liu
“I hear that the study hall sessions are pretty easy.”
“Sure, there’s no extra homework. I’m sure you work much harder in the cram sessions.”
Something was stuffed into her hand. Jiaming stopped and stared expressionlessly at the gift box from Lina: velvet, satin, exquisitely made. She opened it to find a brand-new Parker pen. “Lina?”
“We used to sit at the same desk, didn’t we? I happen to have an extra pen.” Lina’s smile was like a piece of chocolate about to melt.
*
“Looks expensive. Do you fill it with regular ink?” The pale woman uncapped the pen and tested the tip of the nib.
“I’m sure they sell fancy ink that goes with it. Probably comes with its own gift box.”
“Why did she give you this?”
Jiaming said nothing. She didn’t think one or two secrets were much of a burden to carry.
The pale woman lifted Jiaming’s face by the chin. “Give it back to her. I’m worried about you.”
“If I were to do that, you’d be worrying about me even more.”
The pale woman held her still and forced her to meet her gaze. “I’ve seen her stars. I don’t like them.”
“If I don’t accept her bribe, she’ll think that I’ve decided to betray her. Do you understand?”
The pale woman released her and moved away.
Jiaming walked over and sat down next to her. “Do you like my stars?”
“I do.” The woman’s eyes were as gentle as a sigh. “You’re a good child. The stars told me so as soon as you were born.”
A thought flitted across her heart like a shadow. Her chest tightened in the senseless, flickering light from the TV screen.
“Can the stars really talk?” She had never asked this question; she had never believed.
“Yes. Yes!” the pale woman said earnestly. “Yesterday, yesterday the stars told me that you would meet … someone very special. He would appear in water, and then disappear in fire. The stars also wished you good luck. I told you.”
“Then, what about today? What do the stars say?”
The pale woman opened her astrolabe. Jiaming paid attention to her every movement, scrutinizing the details of this process she had already witnessed countless times. The more she focused, the more she felt like she was elsewhere. She was here, but also not here. She had been abandoned by herself—somewhere in her body, there was unquestionably the emptiness left by abandonment. No matter how much she tried to ignore it, she could feel the nauseating chill as well as … the dizzying sweetness.
Those stars: the symbols drifting from the depths of the vast space appeared on the sheet of paper with unprecedented clarity.
“Tomorrow, there will be happiness. You’ll walk a path that you don’t normally walk, and make a date in the morning. The stars say that you’ll meet someone important, someone you’ll spend the rest of your life with. The date will change your destiny, so be careful of wrong turns. The stars are speaking. Listen, the stars are talking, all of them. Can you hear them? The stars want you to be happy.”
The pale woman’s speech sped up. She repeated herself. Because she was talking so fast, she couldn’t catch her breath, but still, she didn’t slow down. It was like a wheel spinning out of control, and speech lost meaning until, finally, the senseless, staccato syllables made the woman’s body convulse. Abruptly, the bony fingers locked onto Jiaming’s shoulders, and the woman let out a burst of crude, piercing laughter.
Jiaming hugged her tightly. “Stop acting crazy, Mama. Stop.”
3.
Jiaming couldn’t remember exactly when the pale woman first appeared. It was her sixth birthday, or maybe even earlier. She had been dreaming and opened her eyes at midnight.
There was a woman sitting at the head of the bed. Her skin was so pale that it looked uncanny, a radiant object in the darkness—a star.
She spoke to the pale woman. Strangely, she didn’t feel any fear. That was the most dream-like part of the whole experience.
“You’re so pale. Are you glowing?”
“Not me. It’s starlight. Quick, ask me who I am.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m your mother.”
“My mother is dead. You’re mad.”
“I am mad.” The pale woman covered her mouth and giggled.
She wasn’t afraid of her. Later, even on one of those nights when the pale woman acted crazed and tried to strangle her, she still wasn’t afraid.
Most of the time they were together, the pale woman was very quiet.
They talked like regular people. Jiaming told her what had happened at school, and from time to time the pale woman offered an observation. They held the same opinions concerning most topics. Sometimes the pale woman brought up the stars. She taught Jiaming to recognize the stars: their names, positions, colors, their pasts, and also, their speech.
“Listen carefully: you can tell who’s talking by the tone. To understand what they’re saying you have to interpret the words as well as the tones. The stars sometimes prefer to sing.”
Jiaming heard nothing.
The stars could not talk.
What did it matter? The stars disappeared during the day, like dreams.
*
Jiaming never imagined that she would one day believe the words of the deranged woman.
That morning, however, she decided to take the bus from the southern gate of her residential district to go to school. She hadn’t ridden the bus during rush hour for a long time, and she couldn’t even squeeze her way onto the first bus. When the next bus came, she got one foot onto the bus but couldn’t find any more space to move up. Just as she was hesitating, a hand reached out and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her onto the bus forcefully.
In the dense crowd of passengers, she recognized Zhang Xiaobo’s cold face.
He didn’t look like someone who would have helped her onto the bus.
The bus was truly packed. Each body lost its individuality and boundaries. Pressed against other bodies, the passengers endured pressure from all sides. Each torso was twisted into unimaginable poses and then fixed in place, like canned pieces of meat.
It shouldn’t be like this. She and he were too close together. Although a middle-aged woman stood between them, they were still too close. Jiaming had no choice but to look into that expressionless face. His eyes were black, like the water pooled at the bottom of an abyss; irresistible.
Don’t fall into those eyes.
She struggled to twist her head away so that she didn’t have to look at that face. Her cheek was crushed against the spine of the man in front of her, and it hurt. She didn’t care.
The bus slowed down as it approached the stop. Passengers who had to get off pushed and shoved their way to the exit, but Zhang Xiaobo didn’t move. He didn’t show any signs of wanting to leave.
The doors opened. Jiaming closed her eyes. Exiting passengers surged past behind her. She should be in their midst, easily carried off the bus by the current. She should not be dizzy.
Yet she endured the buffeting of the crowd, her fingers locked onto the handholds. Several times she was almost swept off the bus, but she struggled to hold her place until the doors closed. The drumbeats of dense African jungle once again struck her chest. She wanted to cry; she wanted to laugh.
“You’re going to be late.” She hadn’t noticed when Xiaobo came to be standing next to her.
Her mind was a blank. The bus started moving again, past the school. She could see the old man at the gatehouse; in another ten minutes he would close the gate. The school grew smaller in rearview and finally disappeared behind the row of Chinese parasol trees along the street. She closed her eyes. The dappled light of the leaves flitted across her eyelids. Something tickled at her heart.
“Now you’re really going to be late.” He was almost smiling.
They rode the bus to the terminal stop, where they got on another bus heading back. They sat in two separate rows, o
ne behind the other. They didn’t look at each other or talk.
As they approached the school again, he leaned forward and whispered into her ear. “What classes do you have in the morning?”
Things that seem crazy happened because they were fated to happen.
Jiaming turned around to look at Xiaobo.
The bus stopped; the doors opened; the doors closed. Neither of them moved.
It was already eight thirty.
*
It was noon by the time she was back at the school. She was about to go to the cafeteria to grab a bite when the Dean of Academic Affairs stopped her and took her to his office.
She wasn’t worried because she thought it was about skipping class. But she was wrong.
Once she emerged from the dean’s office, she took Zhu Yin to a remote corner of the cafeteria. Zhu Yin confessed before she even asked the question.
“That’s right. I told them about you taking the exam for Lina. It’s the truth.”
“They must have asked you for proof.”
“Yes …” Zhu Yin seemed to realize the problem and fell silent.
“And so you told them that I could confirm your story, that I took the mock exam for Lina in all four subjects.”
Jiaming walked in front of Zhu Yin so that she had to look into her eyes. “But you know very well that I’ve never said that I took the exam for Lina. I haven’t before and I never will. The dean already spoke to me.”
“Did you tell him—”
“I told him that Lina’s score was all due to her own diligence.”
“Why are you protecting that bitch? Why help her? I saw you.”
“You saw me help her pick up her exam when it fell on the floor. That’s all.”
“Why? Why? I can’t stand the way she struts around as though she has already been admitted to a top-tier college. I want everyone to know that she’s a fake, a nothing. If I had hard proof, I would have—”
“But you don’t. However, you’ve succeeded in convincing her that I’ve sold her out.” Jiaming was no longer angry. This girl had no idea how clever she had been.
She had helped because it was easy. She had thought nothing of it, not caring about test scores. As for herself, she had casually written out a few answers on her own exam in the time remaining.
She had treated the whole thing as a joke, but she seemed to be the only one who found it funny.
“Why are you helping her like that? For that pen? I saw that new Parker pen in your gym bag after PE. Don’t leave, Jiaming! We’re friends!”
Zhu Yin’s voice faded behind her.
*
Xiaobo caught her on the landing as she climbed the stairs. His face was dark.
“I need to see you.”
“I thought we were going to meet at McDonald’s after school.”
“Why are you spreading such malicious lies? Did you think anyone would believe you?”
Jiaming stared at him. “You think those are lies?” She leaned against the wall so he wouldn’t see her trembling.
The stars had said that he was a very important person.
“Who would believe that you took the mock exam for Lina? The dean already talked to her. She’s been crying ever since. How can you hurt someone just to satisfy your vanity?”
He already believed them, just like that.
Jiaming bit her lip. Something was stuck in her throat, burning, suffocating her. She didn’t want to speak because it would hurt too much. But … but he was an important person to her. Maybe he was worth it, worth her ripping the words from her chest.
“What if I told you that I really did take the exam for her?”
She stared into his eyes, hoping to find something familiar.
“You’re filthy,” Xiaobo said.
She twisted her face away. She did find something familiar, though it wasn’t what she wanted. She was in so much pain that she could not bear to look at him.
But, he was going to hear her explanation. They would be happy together. She just had to—
The bell rang.
“Let’s talk about it more after school, all right?”
Xiaobo rushed for the classroom. Jiaming followed and climbed up a few steps, stopped, and turned around to go back down.
She decided to leave; leave behind the trivial nonsense, the school. She was going to cross the street and go through the revolving door of the McDonald’s, where she would sit on a sofa chair and sip from a large Coke. She would do nothing and think about nothing, until school let out.
She had never told anyone about taking the exam for Lina. This evening, she was going to tell him the whole story as a joke. She would be lighthearted and not leave out any details. She would be careful with her phrasing. She didn’t want to make him feel guilty.
4.
The ice cubes slowly melted, gradually vanishing into the dark, sweet liquid. Very few people ever paid attention to how ice disappeared. What about the pale woman? Did she once focus on the inevitable fading away of things? What would her stars say?
The stars want you to be happy.
What kind of stars would make her happy? Jiaming didn’t know and didn’t want to figure it out.
The pale woman was still asleep. Jiaming didn’t wake her. The Coke she brought back for her was already warm, but she didn’t want to awaken her. She rarely got to see the pale woman so at peace.
“What time is it?” The pale woman woke up. She glanced at the TV; the anchor was reporting on the domestic news. “It’s so early. I thought you had a date. Did you get to meet him? You should have taken a path this morning you normally don’t.”
“I met him. We made a date for McDonald’s after school. There’s a Coke I bought you on the table.”
“How was the date? It ended too early.” The pale woman tilted her head and laughed. “Now do you believe me? Your mama isn’t mad! The stars tell the truth.”
“Mama, let’s look at the stars.”
The pale woman set down the Coke and happily took out her star chart. The spinning disk stopped and the symbols appeared clearly on the paper. The woman began to interpret.
Her mouth was open, but no sound emerged.
“What’s wrong, Mama? What do the stars say?”
The pale woman collapsed into the chair. She had never been as white as she was now.
“Why are you hiding in the shadows?” she asked Jiaming.
“You’re not going to like the way I look now.” Jiaming walked into the lamplight. “They got my clothes dirty.”
They had held her down on the beige-colored sofa at McDonald’s, where the Coke spilling from the cup they toppled on purpose flowed onto her pants from the table. Lina hadn’t been in the crowd; she had stood in the back, traces of tears on her face.
“Did they hit you?” the pale woman asked.
Her face felt swollen, and there were a few scratch marks. Jiaming licked her cracked lips. The taste of blood was a bit similar to Coca-Cola.
“They weren’t too fond of iced soda.”
The girl who had toppled the Coke had been the first one to slap her in the face. Then they had dragged her in front of Lina. Half a dozen pairs of hands had shoved her until she was kneeling before Lina, her knees striking the hard tiles. This was the price for betraying Lina.
They had then slapped her face: one, two, three. Right in front of the customers and employees gathered around them, in front of the pedestrians on the sidewalk looking in through the windows, in front of the teacher mixed in the crowd pretending to not know them, perhaps in front of other students.
Someone had held her by her hair so that she couldn’t lower her face. They wanted everyone to see her face. Jiaming had closed her eyes.
One of the girls had explained the scene to the spectators.
Look at this stupid bitch. She could barely get passing marks. How dare she make up stories about Lina, a model student?
“You know who they are, don’t you? Did you guess or did the st
ars tell you?” Jiaming wiped away the pale woman’s tears. “Don’t cry. Don’t you find the whole thing funny?”
Had she not shut her eyes tightly, had she been able to see the expressions on those faces, she would have laughed hysterically, unable to stop herself. The joke hadn’t reached the punch line until then.
“Did the stars tell you how many times they slapped me? Twenty-seven. I was so bored that I counted for them. But this wasn’t the real problem. There’s actually a really important question, something that I had to ponder before Lina left. Mama, how did they know I was at McDonald’s?
“Why did the man who’s so important to me take up their side? Ask the stars, Mama, ask them! Why did he treat me the same way that man treated you? Hurry up and ask the stars! We must have the same stars, Mama.”
The pale woman was curled up in the chair, biting her fingers instinctively. Only her eyes, independent of body and will, attracted by the star chart, stared without blinking at the figures on the sheet.
Jiaming walked over and pulled her fingers out of her mouth. “What do the stars say? My crazy, mad mother, tell me, what does this mean?” She pointed to one symbol.
“The Moon.”
“The Moon?” As Jiaming spoke, she moved her pen. The pale woman screamed and stretched out her bloody fingers to stop her, but it was too late. The symbol for the Moon disappeared in a dense storm of pen strokes. The pen moved and casually drew the symbol somewhere else. “It’s over here now.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“What about this one?” The nib pointed at another symbol.
“That’s Pluto.”
“It’s too crowded over here.” She scratched out Pluto and randomly set the nib down in a blank space elsewhere. “Isn’t this better?”
The pale woman howled, tearing at her hair.
“Don’t cry. Open your eyes. The stars and planets are no longer where they were, but the world remains the same. Nothing has changed. The stars do not speak; they don’t tell the future. The future, the past, the present—none of it has anything to do with your shitty stars.”
