by Bi Feiyu
‘We’re all blind,’ Wang said, ‘so who couldn’t see it?’
‘And what do you think?’
Wang hesitated before replying. ‘She doesn’t love you.’ He turned his head before adding, ‘Listen to me, old friend. Give it up. I can see that she’s all you think about, but you are not on her mind. It’s not her fault, is it?’
After this, anything he said would be cruel. Wang had spoken as gently as he could because he felt sorry for Sha, whose stomach began to ache and churn. The truth can be brutal, and this time it emerged from the mouth of his friend.
‘It would be better to think of a way to help her,’ Wang said.
‘I’ve been doing just that.’
‘No, you haven’t.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘You’ve only been suffering.’
‘Can’t I suffer?’
‘Of course you can. But only the selfish indulge in suffering.’
‘How dare you!’
Wang shut up and lowered his head; he began pawing the ground with his right foot, rapidly at first and then more slowly. He switched feet and did the same thing with his left foot. He eventually stopped and turned around to walk back inside. Sha reached out to grab hold of him, and even though he was holding on to only a trouser leg, Wang could sense that his arm was trembling, it was weeping.
‘Come have a drink with me, my friend,’ Sha said, ignoring the pain in his gut.
Wang crouched down. ‘We haven’t knocked off for the day yet.’
Sha let go of the trouser leg and stood up. ‘Come have a drink with me, my friend.’ He managed to drag Wang along with him.
Wang had barely stepped out of the door when Xiao Kong found an empty room and sneaked in. She’d wanted to phone Xiao Ma, but had never found the opportunity. Now here it was. He had left without saying goodbye. Why did he do that? Unlike everyone else, she knew the story, the whole story. It was because of her. As his ‘saozi’, she had a responsibility to phone him, if nothing else so that she could say goodbye.
She could not pretend that Xiao Ma hadn’t fallen for her. There had been times when she’d wished she could have been nicer to him, but she could not. In fact, she had been intentionally cold, not just for Wang Daifu’s sake, but for Xiao Ma’s sake as well. She’d been unfair to him. Strictly speaking, she had to take the blame for making the relationship with him so awkward. She’d been selfish, thinking only of herself, with no thought for his feelings. His falling in love with her was her doing. If she hadn’t flirted and carried on, this never would have happened. About that there was no doubt. Her behaviour had been improper and inappropriate. Ah! Why is life so full of dead ends, places you walk into out of carelessness?
Xiao Kong could call forever but never get through. His number was no longer in service. Apparently he had made up his mind to sever all relations with the Sha Zongqi tuina centre, but in fact he wanted to cut off ties to her. I hurt you, Xiao Ma, so go ahead, have a safe journey. I wish you the best. You should not have just up and left without saying goodbye to me. I owe you a hug. There are different kinds of farewells and those accomplished with an embrace are unique; we would part on solid ground and you would be on solid ground in the future. Take care, Xiao Ma. Take good care of yourself, you hear? Don’t get into trouble. You had feelings for me and I thank you for that.
Xiao Kong put away her phone and took out her Shenzhen phone. So much had been happening in recent days that she’d neglected to call home. She ought to give them a call. As she was taking out her Shenzhen mobile, it occurred to her that her parents had not contacted her for quite some time. Could something have happened at home? Her apprehension grew as she punched in the home number but there was no sound. Yet another problem – the battery was dead. She cleverly snapped off the back cover to take out the SIM card, which she would put in her Nanjing phone and hopefully continue to deceive her parents.
But the Shenzhen SIM card was gone. She checked again and again – it was gone. It was a lethal discovery, since no card meant no Shenzhen number, and her lie would soon be exposed. She broke out in a cold sweat. How could she keep the lie alive? She couldn’t. How could the card be missing?
Impossible. She still had the phone, and the card should be in it. Someone must have messed with her phone. Then she figured it out. Jin Yan. It had to be Jin Yan. It could be no one else. Wang Daifu had never touched her phone. Xiao Kong was outraged by the thought. We had our problems, Jin Yan, but since we made up, I’ve always treated you like a sister, as heaven is my witness. How could you do something so insidious, so mean? Slamming the phone down on the bed, she spun around, ready to confront Jin Yan. She’d ask her to her face: What do you want anyway? What do have in mind?
She paused at the door, as if she’d received some sort of mysterious hint. Turning back, she walked to the bed and took out her Nanjing phone. As soon as she dialled from this phone, her secret would be exposed, now that she’d lost the Shenzhen SIM card and could never get it back. In other words, sooner or later she would be found out; yet the exposure could be positive and might even be significant. She could lie, she could live a lie, but no one can lie all her life. No one.
So she punched in the number and the call went through. The word ‘Hello’ had barely got out, when a shrill cry from her mother erupted from the other end. Obviously they’d been waiting by the phone for days.
‘So you’re still alive, you crazy girl! Why has your phone been off? Crazy girl, your father and I have been worried sick. Tell us, where are you? Are you all right?’
‘I’m in Nanjing and I’m fine.’
‘Why are you in Nanjing?’
‘I’m in love, Ma.’
Being ‘in love’ is a peculiar term. So common and mundane, at a moment like this it turns lively, imbued with profound emotive power. She was just telling the truth, blurting it out, not realising that saying ‘I’m in love’ could be conducive to weeping. Two streams of hot tears ran down her face.
‘Ma,’ she repeated calmly, ‘I’m in love.’
‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ her mother blurted out after a momentary pause.
After not hearing from her daughter for so long, her mother, shocked and upset, asked the question without thinking. Apparently, they’d guessed that she was in a relationship and thought she’d had a baby. Ah! How parents dote over their inconsiderate children. Xiao Kong giggled.
‘A boy,’ she said like a proud new mother in a maternity ward, ‘and completely blind.’
It went quiet on the other end; a long time passed before she heard a voice again. This time it was her father, not her mother. ‘Little girl,’ he sounded exasperated as he shouted into the phone, ‘why won’t you listen to us?’
‘Pa, my love for him is one eye, his love for me is the other, so now we have two eyes. Your daughter is no princess, Pa, so what do you expect she’d get?’ She surprised herself with her own words. Since she began lying to her parents, she’d had to prepare over and over each time she called them, and the more she lied the harder it became. On this day she’d prepared no lies and had just said what was on her mind. She never thought she could be so open, honest and transparent. It sparkled, beams radiating everywhere.
Flipping her phone shut, Xiao Kong found it hard to believe that things could be so easy. Since falling in love with Wang Daifu, she had agonised over how to tell her parents. Now she’d finally told the truth, and her problems were solved, just like that, a simple fact untying all the knots. It was completely unexpected.
Jin Yan groped her way in at that moment with the important news that Du Hong was raising hell at the hospital, crying and demanding to leave. But she was barely inside the room before Xiao Kong wrapped her arms around her, not giving her a chance to share the news. Since Jin Yan was so much taller, Xiao Kong had to bury her face in Jin’s neck, where Jin Yan felt Xiao Kong’s tears. Xiao Kong patted her friend’s back with the hand in which she held the phone, which told Jin Yan everything she ne
eded to know; she breathed a sigh of relief and then reached out to rub the small of Xiao Kong’s back.
‘Little tramp,’ Xiao Kong whispered. ‘I’ll have to watch out for you all my life.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘You’re a thief,’ she whispered, ‘you steal.’
‘Stop it,’ Jin Yan said listlessly, pushing her away. ‘Du Hong refuses to stay in the hospital. So what do we do about her?’
Chapter Twenty-one
Wang Daifu
IN THE END, Du Hong left the hospital early, helped by Sha Fuming, who was in turn led by Gao Wei. She returned to the centre at noon, a time that Sha Fuming had chosen, since everyone was free then and available for a small welcome back ceremony. A ceremony was called for, not so much a means to express their sentiment as a display of the depth of their feelings. Sometimes, a ceremony can explain a matter better than the matter itself – Du Hong, welcome back to the Sha Zongqi tuina centre.
‘We’re back!’ Gao Wei made a point of announcing their arrival with a shout, bringing everyone running and creating a festive air. Crowded into the lounge, they clapped for Du Hong, a jumble of loud, warm applause mixed with a chorus of chatter. Sha Fuming was pleased, Zhang Zongqi was too, and so was everyone else, even more than the bosses, it seemed. Ever since the mutton incident, so many things had happened at the centre that the lounge had lost its carefree atmosphere. The pressure was constant; everyone was on edge, plagued by a sense of crisis. Now everything was fine. Their elation was not simply joy over her recovery, but it also had the effect of letting off steam. There was an exaggerated mood of excitement. The gloom that had loomed over them was swept away, refreshing and energising them all.
Sha Fuming was genuinely happy, and he had Wang Daifu to thank for that. Wang was not the boss, but he had been born with the natural traits of a leader, a man who was never flustered. When Sha was at the end of his tether where Du Hong’s future was concerned, Wang stepped up with two bits of advice. First, keeping Du Hong’s secret was the best thing he could do for her. If word got out that she had broken her thumb, no clients would come to her. If it was kept a secret, even if she left, she could find a decent job somewhere else. Wang reassured Sha that he would see to that. Second, Wang Daifu had closely examined Du Hong’s injury. Her thumb was indeed broken, but the other four fingers were undamaged. What did that mean? It meant that she was still able to do foot massage, which, though also requiring the thumb, relies primarily on the middle and index fingers. The only clients who would ever be able to tell were themselves tuina therapists. And no therapist would spend the money to get a foot massage. This would solve their problem. Du Hong would no longer be involved in tuina therapy, and all the foot massage business would go to her. She would work on five or six clients a day. Everything stayed the same. Nothing had happened.
Yes, things were back to normal. Nothing had happened. Du Hong’s thumb was never broken. It’s the same old Du Hong. Could anyone ask for a better outcome? No. An ecstatic Sha Fuming clapped his hands and announced, ‘Tonight I’m treating everyone to a late-night snack.’
His invitation was greeted by happy shouts as they gathered round Du Hong, all talking at the same time, quickly turning the centre into a small ocean of joy. Sha stepped outside, where he was overcome by his emotions. The lively atmosphere was wonderful. A sense of human energy surfaced. What exactly is human energy? In Sha’s mind, the lounge was alive with arms and hands that had risen out of the ground to swirl in the wind, carefree, light and cheerful. Without doubt, the most affecting, the happiest hands, belonged to Du Hong; he could see that they smiled in the midst of the crowd. The smile rippled and split into two, three, four. Yes, four altogether, wriggling off in different directions, all-encompassing, blanketing every space in a formidable array. Sha breathed a secret sigh of relief, as an indescribable calmness and sense of ease settled over him; he was like a feather drifting on the wind; even his bones felt lighter. Spring waters flow to the east.
He hadn’t felt this way for a long time. Too long. Blinking repeatedly, he tried his best to pretend that none of this had anything to do with him; that made him feel very good. He was the happiest of all, yet this had nothing to do with him, so he stood to the side to let the others cheer and celebrate. And for that, he must thank Du Hong, whose accident restored life to the centre. Except, of course, she had paid too high a price; it would have been better if it had happened to him instead.
If he had broken his thumb – if it had been him, would Zhang Zongqi have been the one who brought him back from the hospital? Yes. For sure. He’d have done the same for Zhang. With a full understanding of their relationship, Sha knew that the two of them might not be able to share in wealth and glory but they would definitely weather storms together. Maybe it was time they had a talk. Yes, they needed to talk. Sha’s lips moved as a new problem caught him by surprise.
For the blind, a mouth is not just a mouth, not only a combination of two lips; it is, in a way, upper and lower eyelids, between which the pupil resides on the tip of the tongue. Sha suddenly saw a light on the tip of the tongue; it was feeble, flickering and shifting, but a light nevertheless. It was illuminating. Raising his head, he opened his mouth and sighed, a sigh that became a straight, non-reversible light. Like a nail, it possessed unyielding power of penetration, it was invincible.
Sha quietly tugged on Wang’s sleeve and led him outside, where the two of them lit up and paced aimlessly. Wang said nothing, though Sha had hoped he would. But since he didn’t, Sha had to let him be. Finally, unable to endure the silence, Sha spoke up. ‘Old friend, I’m worried. There’s one thing I’ve yet to bring up with everyone. I’d like us all to leave foot massage to Du Hong. But what if they disagree? I can’t possibly order them to do so. I couldn’t do that.’
Wang smiled faintly as he recalled a cliché – people in love turn foolish. Sha was not in love; he had a one-sided infatuation, which made him an idiot, not a fool.
‘You,’ Wang said gravely, ‘you’re acting more and more like a sighted person. And I don’t like that. You don’t have to say anything. With how things are, it can only end one way.’
While they stayed outside doing nothing, Jin Yan and Xiao Kong were bringing the atmosphere in the lounge to an impossible high. Pushing her way through to Du Hong, Jin Yan raised her arms and said loudly, ‘Quiet, everyone. Be quiet.’ Knowing what was coming, everyone went silent, creating a cheerful, heightened sense of anticipation.
The sound of a zipper opening was endearing and tender, circumspect and gentle, short and brief, like an emotional chant. Jin Yan opened the purse strapped across her body and with one hand took out a thick packet of money in different denominations, and felt for Du Hong’s arm with the other. She laid the packet of money in Du Hong’s hand.
‘Du Hong,’ she said, ‘this is a small token from all of us. Just a little something, you know.’
Betrayed by her emotions, Jin Yan’s voice trembled, and everyone heard it, that and her laboured, emotional breathing. Holding the thick packet of notes, Du Hong stroked it with her injured hand.
‘Thank you, everyone,’ she said.
Jin Yan waited, so did Xiao Kong and everyone else, waiting for a climactic moment. They did not need Du’s gratitude, really, they did not. And yet it was, after all, a warm and touching scene that required intense emotion and plenty of hugs, as well as heated tears, flowing thick and fast. That’s how it’s written in novels and shown in movies and on TV, so it must be the same in real life.
After saying thank you, Du Hong repeated her thanks before adding, ‘I really, truly am grateful to all of you.’ She spoke in an even tone, calm and noticeably polite. So instead of the anticipated high point, the scene concluded in a matter-of-fact manner, which no one had expected. Reality is different from fiction, from film and TV, and from news reports. They did not know what would happen next, changing the mood of tranquillity into a sense of loss, not knowing what to do.
Luckily they had clients, three of them, anyway, spurring Du Li into making assignments. Loudly calling out names of therapists, she paired them with the clients in high spirits. Given the circumstances, this was the best diversion anyone could have asked for. Wang Daifu was outside and could not hear what was happening, so Du Hong went to the doorway and shouted, ‘A client for you, Wang Daifu!’
Wang Daifu, Zhang Yiguang and Jin Yan went to work. The atmosphere returned to normal. Du Hong walked over to the lounge, where she opened and shut the door, and listened to the pleasing sound of the stopper, over and over.
Before her discharge from the hospital, she had learned about the stopper via her Gao Wei hotline. It was funny how she actually knew more and in greater detail about what was happening at the centre when she was lying in a hospital bed. Gao had told her everything, until it was little different than if Du Hong had witnessed it with her own eyes. Gao was her personal news broadcast – comprehensive, detailed and all-inclusive, not just covering news but also including ‘editorials’ and ‘station recaps’. Little by little, Du Hong comprehended what Gao Wei was getting at, for the broadcasts carried her central idea, or mental orientation, which was for Du Hong to know how nice Sha Fuming had been to her. The purpose of her editorials and station recaps also became clear, which was for Du Hong to return the favour and be nice to Sha Fuming.
Du Hong had not needed those broadcasts. She was agitated and troubled, but she couldn’t block out Gao’s eyes or mouth. She had to admit that Sha had turned out to be different than she had pictured him; he was a good man, not just one with a burning desire for her. His feelings for her were sincere and genuine, but she did not love him. She just didn’t. She was grateful for all he’d done for her, but that was not love. The two things were not the same.
