by Fan Wu
Along with most of the students, the rats were gone. Mosquitoes seemed much fewer and some nights I didn’t even need to hang up my mosquito net.
There was no laundry on the clothesline outside Miao Yan’s room. I once went there to see if she had left her contact information on the door. She hadn’t.
Since my tutoring wouldn’t start until a week later I set up a schedule to keep myself busy. My time was divided between violin practice, writing Miao Yan’s dissertation, reading, writing poems or book reviews, and jogging around the campus—I began to like jogging. It felt good to have time under my control. Sometimes, when I was jogging through the quiet woods, I had a strange feeling that time had stopped and that I was jogging on the same spot, at the same speed. The sky, the winding roads, the bees and snails, the pine needles on the ground, the leaves rustling under my feet seemed to be part of a huge, still picture. It wasn’t until I emerged from the woods and heard people talking that the feeling began to fade, and then the world came back to me.
One day I saw a small sign on the poster board, an advertisement from a newly opened bookstore downtown, claiming to have a wide collection of fiction. After lunch I took the bus there. A traffic jam due to a multiple-car accident caused the bus to stop often. The driver, obviously new, operated the bus with abrupt movements. I had to hold the sides of the seat in front of me tightly to avoid falling. By the time I got off I felt sick.
The bookstore was close to the bus station, in the middle of a long brick bungalow. Outside, a bunch of balloons was tied to a stack of books on a desk. The owner was in his forties and wore a white shirt and a tie. He greeted me at the threshold with a five-yuan coupon. “I just opened the store, please buy your books here,” he said in Mandarin, bowing deeply.
The bookstore had one room, slightly bigger than my dorm room. Two rickety bookshelves displayed the so-called wide collection of fiction, more than half of which consisted of Kung Fu novels. The rest of the bookshelves held magazines, comic strips, or popular books about Qi Gong or investments. Two seven-or eight-year-old boys were reading comic strips. A young man in a black T-shirt stood in front of the magazine section, humming I Have Nothing, the biggest rock hit that year. An old man held a Qi Gong book, his eyes narrowed.
Not wanting to disappoint the owner, I bought Lao Se’s Rickshaw Boy, which I had read before. I was thinking I would give it to Miao Yan—she might like this humorous yet tragic novel. Since she had read Fortress Besieged, she had asked me to recommend other books to her. I suspected that this change in her had something to do with the male friend she had mentioned. If this person had read a book like Fortress Besieged he must have been very different from the other men Miao Yan went out with. A thought suddenly crossed my mind: he might be Miao Yan’s new boyfriend. Perhaps she was with him right now. I felt a little jealous and sad but decided not to be bothered by my speculation.
I didn’t go back to the university right away but walked about the neighborhood to get over my travel sickness. As I passed by a house with an open door I saw an old man in traditional clothes performing Cantonese opera inside. He moved his arms and legs slowly yet with a lot of strength. People—perhaps a dozen of them—sat on stools watching him and applauded when the old man finished an extremely long recitation. I had heard about this local art, which was said to be disappearing because few young people were interested in it.
I had been watching only a short time when a tall woman in the audience waved me in. I sat on a stool near the door and looked around—I was the only young person in the room.
Though I spoke little Cantonese, I could understand quite a bit. After watching for five minutes it was clear to me that the story was based on Mu Lan, a heroine who, dressed as a man, substituted for her father to fight in a war. It was boring to watch it since there was no music and the old man was extremely slow—he could stay in the same position more than a minute. Fortunately, he soon took a break and the woman who had waved me in earlier went to the center of the room and began to talk about nutrition for old people. She said pig-lung soup could prevent cancers and fish-head soup could help the eyesight. At this point I left.
I kept walking and quickly arrived at a busy street. It had been a long while since I had walked downtown by myself. When I walked with Miao Yan I seldom paid attention to my surroundings; I just let her take me where she wanted to go.
The street was filled with people. They passed by me—pretty, ugly, fat, thin, freckled, scarred, powdered, happy, weary—like a river. Each face was unique but I knew I wouldn’t remember them. I suddenly had the odd thought that if I saw Miao Yan’s face among all these others, I wouldn’t be able to recognize it.
I followed the crowd across the street toward the bus station. A black sedan with an army license plate ignored the traffic light and divided the crowd, almost knocking down a pedestrian. The moment I stepped onto the footpath I heard a roar from the cars as they got a green light.
Under a tree by the roadside an old woman was selling used books on a piece of soiled plastic cloth. She wore a straw hat with a broken rim, her thin, tanned legs crossed underneath her. She stared intently at the pedestrians as if her eyes could somehow lure them to come to her shabby stand. I picked up a few books—they were all pirate copies of the most popular romance novels on the market.
While waiting for the bus I noticed a job fair going on inside a high school a little distance ahead. With the slight hope that I might come across Miao Yan there, I went in. A few companies, having failed to get space inside, had set up their stands at the entrance. Wherever I looked I saw job seekers, standing, squatting, or sitting, with a briefcase or folder in hand. Most were speaking Mandarin. Two uniformed security guards, both holding night sticks, pushed their way into the crowd, one yelling, “Stand in line!” the other, “Beware of pickpockets!” I almost felt relieved not to find Miao Yan in the mess.
When I returned to the university I was genuinely happy to see the familiar scenes on campus: the glittering greenery, the stately historical buildings, and the strolling people on the wide roads.
When I walked into my room the next morning, I saw Yishu lying on her bed, reading Zhang Ailing’s Red Rose and White Rose. Though I didn’t read Zhang Ailing, I knew she was most famous in the 1940s for her complicated love stories.
“You’re here!” I said, surprised to see her. I had just returned from the library where I had been doing some research for Miao Yan’s dissertation—I had decided to write about the library system’s reform after the Cultural Revolution. It was boring to read those reference books but I was glad to be making good progress.
Yishu nodded, almost apologetically. “I’m waiting for a friend,” she said, then went back to reading. She maintained a poker face when she was reading and I could never tell if she was interested, excited, moved, or saddened.
Yishu was an old-fashioned beauty. Her eyes were almond-shaped—the traditionally preferred shape for a beauty. They were bright and calm with two neatly plucked dark eyebrows arching above them. The tip of her nose was slightly upturned, giving her a Western look, even adding a touch of mischievousness to her oval face. She had long legs, not bony like Pingping’s but well proportioned, with lean muscles. She said her muscular legs came from ballet practice in primary school. She was about Donghua’s height but looked at least a few inches taller.
I sat at my desk and began to organize my drawers and bookshelf. When I took a textbook from the bookshelf, a photo slipped out and landed faceup on the floor. I picked it up. It was a picture of Miao Yan in traditional Miao costume. She must have been no more than seven years old when the picture was taken. She was dancing with a group of kids her age in front of a bamboo house, arms waving above her head, one leg kicking high in the air. Her round and smiling face was half covered by a tall and oversized black hat decorated with colorful embroidery. Around her neck was a shining neck ring on top of two elaborately embroidered silk ribbons tucked like a V into her belt. This picture was the on
ly one in her album with her wearing Miao costume. But she disliked it and often said she would destroy it. I had stolen it from her in case she decided to throw it away one day.
“Who’s the girl?” Yishu had obviously noticed the picture when it fell out of the book.
“My best friend. She’s Miao and her name is Miao Yan, which means ‘wild goose.’ Her family lives in Yunnan. She’s a library and information science student.” I was surprised that I was willing to disclose so much to Yishu. Maybe I had been wanting to talk with her, since she was quite different from the other girls in my class. Or maybe I felt lonely being in the dorm alone.
“I didn’t know she was a minority. I thought she was a Han like us. I’ve seen her a couple of times in West Five. She ’s pretty.”
“She is,” I said. “But she doesn’t like this picture of her in Miao costume.”
“She looks really cute in that picture.”
“I think so, too. But she thinks she looks like a country girl. She likes to wear sexy clothes.”
“Just like a good friend of mine then. She knows she has a good body and always wants to show it.”
“I’ve never seen her.”
“She’s not a student here.” Yishu sat up and put the book in her lap. “How do you know that Miao girl?”
“Oh,” I hesitated, not feeling like telling her about the rooftop. “We met through a mutual friend. How did you meet your friend?”
“Same. Through a mutual friend,” she replied quickly.
Silence set in. We both felt ill at ease. Yishu looked back at her book. She flipped over a few pages, closed the book, then opened it again.
I noticed there was another book on Yishu’s bed. It looked brand-new.
“Did you go to a bookstore?” I pointed to the book.
“Oh, that one.” Yishu picked up the book and handed it to me. “It’s Marguerite Duras’s The Lover. I got it from a friend as a birthday gift last week. She said I can read this kind of book now that I’m nineteen.” She laughed.
I read the cover blurb and thumbed through the pages: a love affair between a Chinese man and a fifteen-year-old French girl in Vietnam.
“I just finished reading it for the second time. It’s a beautiful book. You’ll fall in love with it as soon as you open the pages,” she said, then asked, “Do you think this kind of love is possible? I mean, for a man to love such a young girl?” She stared at me with her glimmering eyes.
I didn’t know how to reply. “I guess so. I’ve never read anything like this,” I said, thinking it was a stupid answer. Yishu must have expected me to say something more intelligent. I gave the book back to her.
“Love is mysterious, isn’t it?” She took the book and stroked its cover gently.
I recalled Yishu once claiming that she believed in true romance, which she defined as knowing about each other, understanding each other, and entertaining each other. This definition sounded to me more like a description of bosom friends than a romance.
Pingping had told me that Yishu had a boyfriend and they had been together for years, but neither Pingping nor I had met her boyfriend or seen a picture of him. There was only one five-by seven-inch picture on her desk, secured in a crystal frame beside her glass vase. There were two girls in the picture. One was Yishu and the other, according to her, was her best friend since kindergarten. The picture had been taken in the Eastern Entertainment Park in Guangzhou just before she entered university. They were sitting on the edge of a pool back to back, holding hands. Both were wearing patterned swimsuits and were smiling broadly. The other girl had short-cropped, almost boyish hair, prominent dimples, and an elegant neck.
I felt the urge to ask Yishu about her definition of romance. I moved my chair a little closer to her bed but at this moment the speaker blared—someone was waiting for her downstairs. We exchanged a quick smile and Yishu left.
I ran into the girl in the photo on Yishu’s desk a few days later. She looked pretty much the same as she did in the photo, though her face was a little thinner and her hair was now well below her shoulders. I had skipped my noon nap to run errands on campus. As I passed by the stadium I saw her strolling with Yishu on the main road outside the stadium. The girl, much taller than Yishu, was wearing a short white skirt and a bright yellow tank top, a big red handbag hanging from her right shoulder. A black crystal necklace, in the shape of a cross, glittered against her white neck. I wouldn’t have noticed them if not for the girl’s eye-catching outfit.
Yishu didn’t see me until the girl nudged her in my direction—I was waving at them. When Yishu saw me she smiled softly. I said hello and the girl greeted me with a light nod. Yishu didn’t introduce us. The two of them immediately walked away, passing the white statue near the stadium, across a green lawn, and disappearing into a small wooded area. They weren’t standing as close to each other as they had been earlier. Before bushes and trees blocked my view, the girl looked back over her shoulder. Our eyes met. Both of us turned away at the same time. I was too far away to see her expression clearly.
My student lived in an old neighborhood in Yue Xue District. Since the bus there only ran till 10 pm, I had no choice but to take my bike. Though I had never bicycled outside the university campus, I didn’t think it would be difficult. Miao Yan once told me that in her first year she biked downtown every day to work as a waitress. “I was riding in high-heeled shoes and a tight skirt,” she had said proudly.
My first class was on a Thursday evening. The streets around the university were wide with a separate bike lane, but downtown the bike lanes disappeared and I had to swerve around buses, cars, scooters, and pedestrians. Scooters were the worst. They came from nowhere and never obeyed the traffic lights. I often had to look over my shoulder to avoid them when making turns. At the intersection of Yue Xiu South Road and another small street, a scooter carrying three passengers—one in front, two behind—whizzed by from the rear and almost hit me. On the really busy roads, when riding was just too dangerous, I had to get off the bike and walk.
When I arrived at the neighborhood where my student lived I got lost. The alleys were dark and narrow. Though it hadn’t rained for days the ground was slippery—people living here dumped their dirty dishwater in the street. All the apartment buildings looked run-down and many had no street number, just like the typical neighborhood in my hometown. I never thought there would be this kind of place in Guangzhou. I had to keep reminding myself that I needed money to visit Yunnan, otherwise I would have found a phone and called off my appointment.
After a lot of asking around, I finally found my student’s apartment—a brown-brick, six-story building. I locked my bike and walked up the stairs to the fifth floor. Apartment 504 was in the middle of a narrow hallway and had two doors—outside a green security one, inside a wooden one with a peephole at head height. I pressed the buzzer next to the doorframe and listened for sounds from the inside.
The wooden door opened a few inches and a middle-aged, short-haired woman in pajamas appeared. “Are you Chen Ming?” she asked, a suspicious look on her thin face. I said yes but still had to show her my student identity card through the security door before she would let me in. I took off my shoes and sat where she asked me to—on a faded, saggy black leather sofa without much support either underneath or behind. There were two big windows in the living room, both covered with dark linen curtains that fell halfway between the windowsills and the floor. It was a hot evening. The air conditioner was running like an old motor that might break down at any time.
The woman asked me to call her Aunt Li and, while pouring iced water for me, yelled in Cantonese, “Ar Yu, come out to see your teacher!” Three doors led off the living room. The door on the left cracked open immediately and a man’s half-bald head appeared through the crack. He introduced himself as Ar Yu’s father, said he was busy, and asked his wife to make me feel at home. With a polite smile, he closed the door.
A few minutes later the door on the right opened and out
came my student: medium-sized, wearing thick-framed glasses, a polo shirt, and khaki shorts. He greeted me with “Hello, Teacher Chen” in a lazy voice, hands folded on top of his head. His mother asked him to sit down next to me and proceeded to tell me how smart he was and how he wanted to get into the best university and how she and his father expected me to improve his English grade from a C to an A. I listened, observing my student from the corner of my eye—he was looking at the ceiling, his feet tapping lightly.
When the clock struck eight—the scheduled starting time for the class—the boy’s mother abruptly stopped talking and let Ar Yu and me start the lesson in his room, which was small and cramped with a single-size bed, a plastic four-drawer dresser, a desk, a floor fan, and two chairs—the leather one for him and the wooden one for me.
As soon as his mother left the room and closed the door behind her, Ar Yu turned the floor fan to the highest setting. A loud humming immediately filled the room. “Now it’s safe to talk,” he said. He jumped onto the bed, crossed his legs, and took off his glasses. “Do you study literature?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Girls in your class must be romantic.”
“I don’t know about that. Let ’s start the lesson.”
“Absolutely, Teacher Chen.” He raised his hand and gave me an army salute.
I suppressed a laugh. “So, what do you want to learn?”
He swung his leg up and down. “I don’t really need an English teacher. If I wanted I could become an A student tomorrow.”
