by Yu Hua
“I’ll always love you,” I replied.
She started crying. “I’ll write you and call you,” she said.
“Don’t write and don’t call,” I said. “That will just upset me.”
She got into the cab and as it pulled away she didn’t look at me but brushed away her tears. That’s how she left, heading off on the path of life that fate had chosen for her.
For my father, my sudden divorce was a bolt out of the blue. He looked at me with a face of pure shock as I briefly explained the reasons for the divorce. I said that our marriage was a misunderstanding from the start, because I was simply not good enough for her. He just kept shaking his head, unable to accept what I was saying. “All along I thought she was a good girl,” he lamented. “I misjudged her.”
My father’s coworkers Hao Qiangsheng and Li Yuezhen, a married couple, were equally shocked when they heard the news. Qiangsheng insisted categorically that the man was a confidence trickster and would dump Li Qing without batting an eye. In his view, she didn’t know what was good for her and would be sure to end up regretting her decision. Yuezhen had always been fond of Li Qing, saying she was smart and pretty and understanding. But now Yuezhen was convinced Li Qing was a gold digger, and she bemoaned the fact that there were more and more such women in this society where you get more respect if you’re a whore than if you’re poor. Yuezhen tried to comfort me, saying there was no shortage of young women better than her—she knew a good half dozen. She introduced me to several, sure enough, but none of these possibilities went anywhere. I take most of the responsibility for that: in our time together Li Qing had gradually and imperceptibly reshaped my expectations, until she achieved a peerless position in my mind. On dates with those other girls, I couldn’t help but compare them to her and always ended up disappointed.
In the months and years that followed, I sometimes saw her interviewed on television or read stories about her in newspapers and magazines. She seemed to me both familiar and foreign: familiar in her smile and demeanor, foreign in the content and tone of her conversation. I got the feeling that she was the prime mover in the company’s operations and her husband was just playing a supporting role. I was happy for her, for on TV and in the press she was as pretty as ever, and she was using that travel permit for herself at last. But then I was sad for myself, for our time together had just been a detour in her life and only after leaving me did she get on the true path.
In the hollow silence I heard once more the call of that unfamiliar woman’s voice: “Yang Fei…”
I opened my eyes and looked all around. The rain-snow mix was now falling less heavily. To my left there approached a woman very much like Li Qing, wearing a nightdress that was dripping with water. She came up to me and studied my face and then my pajamas, on which she saw the now-faded characters for “Li Qing.” “Yang Fei?” she called inquiringly.
She had to be Li Qing, I felt. But why did her voice sound so different? I sat on the bench looking at her silently.
A strange expression appeared on her face. “You’re wearing Yang Fei’s pajamas,” she said. “Who are you?”
“I’m Yang Fei,” I said.
She looked at my peculiar features in perplexity. “You don’t look like Yang Fei to me.”
I put my hand to my face. My left eye was on my cheek and my nose next to my nose and my chin below my chin.
“I forgot to get my face fixed,” I said.
She reached out her hands and carefully put my eyeball back inside its socket and moved my askew nose back to its original position and pushed my wandering chin up with a firm click.
Then she took a step back and studied me carefully. “Now you look like Yang Fei,” she said.
“I am Yang Fei,” I said. “You look like Li Qing.”
“I am Li Qing.”
We both smiled, and in smiling our familiar smiles we recognized each other.
“You’re Li Qing,” I said.
“You really are Yang Fei,” she said.
“Your voice is different.”
“So is yours.”
We looked at each other.
“Your voice is like that of someone I don’t know,” I said.
“Your voice is like that of a stranger,” she said.
“It’s so strange,” I said. “I know your voice so well, and even your breathing.”
“It seems strange to me,” she replied. “I ought to be familiar with your voice….” She paused and then smiled. “Just like I’m familiar with your snore.”
Her body leaned over and her hand patted my pajama top, patted my collar. “The collar is still in good shape,” she said.
“I never wore these after you left,” I said.
“So how come you’re wearing them now?”
“They will serve as a shroud.”
“Shroud?” She didn’t really understand.
“How about your pajamas?” I asked.
“I didn’t wear them, either,” she said. “I don’t know where I put them.”
“You were right not to wear them,” I said. “They’ve got my name on them.”
“That’s true,” she said. “I married someone else.”
I nodded.
“I kind of regret it.” A mischievous smile appeared on her face. “I should have worn them, just to see what his reaction would be.”
Then she became sad. “Yang Fei, I’ve come to say goodbye.”
I saw how water droplets were still trailing from her nightgown. “Were you wearing that when you lay down in the bathtub?” I asked.
Her eyes glinted, in an expression I knew well. “You know what happened, do you?” she asked.
“I know.”
“When did you hear about it?”
“Yesterday”—I thought for a moment—“or maybe the day before.”
She studied me carefully and seemed to realize something. “You died too?”
“Yes,” I said. “I did.”
We exchanged mournful looks.
“It looks like you’re grieving for me,” she said.
“I have the same feeling about you,” I said. “It’s as though we’re both grieving for each other.”
She looked around in perplexity. “Where are we?”
I pointed at the old building that appeared dimly behind the rain and snow. She gazed at it intently, recalling the apartment that had once recorded the humdrum minutiae of our life.
“Do you still live there?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I moved out after you left.”
“You moved in with your dad?”
I nodded.
“Now I know why I came here.” She smiled.
“It must have been in our destiny,” I agreed. “We both had to make our way back here.”
“Who lives in the apartment now?”
“I don’t know.”
She shifted her gaze, clutching her wet gown tightly to her chest. “I’m tired—I walked a long way to get here.”
“I didn’t walk far,” I said, “but I feel tired too.”
Her body bent over once again, and she started to sit down on the bench, to my left. She felt it sway precariously. “This bench seems about to collapse,” she said.
“You’ll get used to it in a minute,” I said.
She sat down gingerly and her body tensed up. But after a moment her body relaxed. “It won’t collapse anymore,” she said.
“It feels like sitting on a rock,” I said.
“That’s right,” she agreed.
We sat quietly together as though sitting in a dream. A lot of time seemed to pass before her voice regained its strength.
“How did you get here?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” I thought of the last scene I remembered. “I was in a restaurant and had just finished eating a bowl of noodles. The newspaper on the table carried a story about you. The kitchen seemed to catch on fire and many people fled outside. I didn’t move but just kept on reading the story in the p
aper. Then there was an explosion and I don’t know what happened after that.”
“This happened yesterday?” she asked.
“It might have been the day before,” I said.
“It was all my fault.”
“Not your fault,” I said, “the newspaper’s.”
She leaned her head on my shoulder. “Do you mind if I lean on your shoulder?”
“You’re already doing that,” I said.
She seemed to smile and her head trembled a couple of times on my shoulder. She saw the black armband on my left arm and reached out a hand to touch it.
“Are you wearing this for me?” she asked.
“For myself.”
“Nobody is wearing black for you?”
“No.”
“How about your dad?”
“He died, over a year ago now. He was very ill and knew there was no cure, and so as not to burden me he went off quietly by himself. I looked for him everywhere but couldn’t find him.”
“He was an excellent father, and very kind to me as well.”
“The best father there could be,” I said.
“How about your wife?”
I didn’t answer.
“Do you have a child?”
“No, I don’t. I never married again.”
“Why not?”
“I wasn’t interested.”
“Was it because you were so hurt?”
“No,” I said. “It was because I never met another woman like you.”
“I’m sorry.” All this time she had been gently patting my black armband.
“Do you have a child?” I asked.
“For a while I did want one,” she said, “but later I gave up on the idea.”
“Why was that?”
“I got an STD—picked up from him.”
I felt droplets in the corners of my eyes, droplets different from rain and snow, and I stretched out my right hand to wipe away these drops.
“Are you crying?” she asked.
“I guess I am,” I said.
“Crying for me?”
“Probably that’s what it is.”
“He kept a mistress outside and also went to clubs to pick up women, and I split up with him after I got infected.” She sighed. “Do you know something? I would think of you at night.”
“After you broke up?”
“That’s right.” She hesitated. “After being with someone.”
“You fell in love with another man?”
“I didn’t love him,” she said. “He was an official. After doing it with him, I would think of you.”
I smiled ruefully.
“Are you jealous?”
“It’s a long time since we were married.”
“Each time he left, I would lie in bed thinking of you. When we were together,” she said softly, “I had to do a lot of entertaining. You would never go to sleep, however late it was, but would stay up waiting for me. I would be exhausted when I got home and just want you to hold me in your arms. It was when I leaned on you that I could relax at last….”
Water droplets again appeared in the corners of my eyes and my right hand again wiped them away.
“Did you miss me?” she asked.
“I was constantly trying to forget you.”
“Did you succeed?”
“Not completely.”
“I knew you wouldn’t forget me,” she said. “He probably has.”
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“He went to Australia,” she said. “As soon as he heard rumors they were going to audit our company, he upped and ran—without telling me.”
I shook my head. “He didn’t act much like a husband.”
She smiled thinly. “I married twice, but only had one husband—and that was you.”
Once again my right hand went up to rub my eyes.
“Are you crying again?” she asked.
“It’s because I’m happy,” I said.
She spoke of her final moments. “I lay in the tub and heard the people who had come to arrest me kicking the front door and shouting my name, like bandits. I watched as clouds of blood swam about in the water like fish, slowly expanding until the water became redder and redder….Do you know something? I was thinking of you the whole time, thinking of that little apartment where we lived.”
“So that’s how you come to be here.”
“That’s right,” she said. “It’s been a long trip.”
She raised her head from my shoulder. “Were you still living at your dad’s place?”
“We sold the apartment so we could afford to pay for his treatment.”
“So where are you now?”
“In a cheap rental.”
“Take me to see it.”
“It’s very small and run-down—dirty too.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I would feel uncomfortable.”
“I’m very tired. I’d like to lie down on a bed.”
“All right.”
We both stood up. The rain and snow, scanty just a few minutes earlier, were now once more densely filling the air. Then she took my arm and it was as though our love affair was rekindled. We walked close together along a vague road, for I don’t know how long, until we came to my rental. As I opened the door, she saw the two notices demanding I pay the electricity and water bills and I heard her sigh.
“Why do you sigh?” I asked.
“You still owe money.”
I ripped the notes down. “I already paid these bills.”
We entered my untidy little apartment. She seemed not to notice the chaos and lay down on the bed while I sat on a chair nearby. After she lay down her gown opened—it must have been just as exhausted as she was. She closed her eyes and her body seemed to float on the bed. After a moment her eyes opened.
“Why are you sitting there?” she asked.
“I’m looking at you.”
“Come and lie next to me.”
“I’m fine just sitting.”
“Come.”
“No, I’ll just stay where I am.”
“Why?”
“I’d be a bit embarrassed.”
She sat up and reached a hand out toward me. I gave her my hand and she pulled me onto the bed. We lay there shoulder to shoulder, our hands clasped, and I heard her even breathing, like little ripples spreading across a calm lake. After a while she talked softly and I too began to talk. Once again I was gripped by an odd sensation: I knew that I was in bed with a familiar woman, but her unfamiliar voice gave me the feeling that I was lying with someone I had never met before. I shared this feeling I had with her and she said she felt the same way, that she was lying with a strange man.
“How about this?” She turned toward me. “Let’s face each other.” I turned toward her. “Does that feel better now?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
Her wet hand stroked my damaged face. “The day we broke up,” she said, “when you saw me into the taxi, I hugged you and said something to you—do you remember?”
“Yes, I remember,” I said. “You said you still loved me.”
“That’s right.” She nodded. “You said something to me too.”
“I said I’d always love you.”
She and the gown together climbed on top of me and I didn’t know quite what to do. I raised my hands but didn’t dare hug her. Her mouth said wetly into my ear: “My STD is cured.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Hug me.”
I hugged her.
“Caress me.”
My hands caressed her back, waist, and thighs—I caressed her everywhere. Her body was wet and my hands seemed to be caressing her in water.
“You’ve put on some weight,” I said.
She smiled faintly. “I’ve gotten a little thicker around the waist.”
My hands caressed her restlessly, and then it was my body caressing her body while her body caressed my body and it was as though our bodies d
eveloped cords that connected us….
I sat up in bed and saw her standing by the bed, tidying her hair with her hand.
“You woke up.”
“I never slept.”
“I heard you snoring.”
“I really didn’t sleep.”
“All right,” she said. “You didn’t.”
She fastened her belt. “I’ve got to go. Friends have prepared a big funeral for me, so I need to hurry back.”
I nodded.
She walked over to the door and looked back at me as she left. “Yang Fei, I’m off now,” she said disconsolately.
I roamed on the borderline between life and death. The snow was bright and the rain was dark. I seemed to be walking in morning and evening, both at the same time.
More than once I walked toward my bedsit. Yesterday Li Qing and I had left traces there of our reunion, but today there was no way to get close to it. However much I walked, I seemed to be stationary and never got the least bit nearer to my building. I remembered how I had taken my father’s hand when I was small, thinking to walk until we stood right underneath the moon, but, though we walked a long way, the distance between us and the moon did not change in the slightest.
Just at this moment two shining rails grew up beneath my feet and swirled ahead of me. They appeared tentatively, like rays of light that had lost their way, but they led me to the scene of my birth.
I was delivered between two rails as a train sped off in the night, and I gave my earliest wail not amid howling wind and pounding rain, but under a sky full of stars. A young switchman heard my feeble sobs and came to rescue me, while another train made the adjacent track quiver as it rushed toward me from the far distance. No sooner did the switchman clutch me to his chest than that train raced past with a deafening roar, and that is how, between the time it took for the first train to go one way and the second train to go the other, I acquired a father. A few days later, I had acquired a name as well—Yang Fei. This father of mine was called Yang Jinbiao.
I entered the world through the strangest of channels, for my delivery was effected not in a hospital’s obstetric unit or at my mother’s home, but in the cramped toilet of a train in motion.
