She didn’t want to, so we walked instead into the small park next to the National Art Museum.
Little Xi stopped suddenly. “Lao Chen, have you noticed anything?” she said.
I didn’t know how I should respond, but I knew I couldn’t say, “Noticed what?” She seemed to be testing me. If I gave her the wrong answer, it was unlikely she’d open up to me. As a writer, I like people to tell me their innermost thoughts. As a man, I wanted this woman to tell me her innermost thoughts.
I paused, feeling a little awkward, and she asked, “Is it kind of hard for you to express your feelings?”
I gave a small nod. I’ve often felt nothing at all when people have asked how I feel about a work of art or a piece of music. I hate this feeling of feeling nothing, but I’m pretty good at faking an acceptable response.
“That’s great, I knew it,” she went on. “When I saw you going down the stairs, I thought to myself, Lao Chen will understand. Then I sat there waiting for you to come back up the stairs.”
In Little Xi’s mind I’m probably a reasonable, mature, and fairly knowledgeable person.
At least, that’s what I’d like people to think.
“Let’s sit down on this bench,” I suggested gently.
It seemed to work, because after we sat down she relaxed, closed her eyes, sighed deeply, and said, “At last.”
Little Xi was definitely my type. After so many years, her looks and figure hadn’t changed much, but wrinkles had begun to appear on her face from neglect. She also looked pretty depressed.
She kept her eyes closed, trying to regain her composure. I looked at her intently and I suddenly realized how much I still liked this woman. I like melancholy women.
“I don’t have anyone to talk to. I feel like there are fewer and fewer people like us… There are so few of us left that life hardly seems worth living anymore.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “Everybody’s lonely, but no matter how lonely you are, life still goes on.”
She ignored my banal response. “No one remembers, except me. No one talks about it, except me. Does that mean I’m completely mad? There’s no trace of it, no evidence, so nobody can be bothered.”
I was enjoying the sound of her Beijing accent.
She briefly opened her eyes before closing them again. “Well, how about it? We were such good friends. Why haven’t I seen you for so many years? What happened?”
“I thought you’d gone abroad.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Well, it’s good that you didn’t. Now everybody’s saying there’s no country in the world as good as China.”
She opened her eyes once more and gave me a look. I didn’t really understand what she was getting at, so I didn’t react. She broke into a smile and said, “It’s unbelievable that you can still make jokes.”
I hadn’t been joking, but I immediately went along with her and smiled, too.
“You sound just like my son,” she added.
“Your son? You seem not to want to talk about him. What’s up between the two of you?”
“He’s doing really well,” she said in an ironic tone. “He’s studying law at Peking University and he’s joined the Communist Party.”
“That’s good,” I said vaguely. “It will be useful when he tries to find a job.”
“He wants to go into the Chinese Communist Party Central Propaganda Department!”
At first I thought I hadn’t heard her clearly.
“The Central Propaganda Department?” I ventured.
Little Xi nodded. “He says it’s his life’s ambition. He’s got big ideas! If you ever meet him, you’ll know what I mean.”
I was enjoying a feeling of happiness sitting there next to Little Xi. It was such a beautiful spring afternoon; the sun was so bright and warm that many elderly couples were strolling around the park. There were also a few smokers… smokers? Two of them were standing close by chain-smoking. I like to read detective stories and I’ve even written a few myself, and so this situation left plenty of room for the imagination. It could have been a surveillance scene, but as I was nothing more than a self-indulgent writer of very ordinary bestsellers, why would anyone want to spy on me? Wherever there are people in China there are smokers.
I listened as Little Xi continued to pour her heart out to me. “Am I causing trouble, making a fuss? I know it’s none of my business, but I can’t act just like nothing’s happened. How can things change just like that? I don’t get it and I can’t stand it.”
I was still wondering what had made her so upset. Her son, or the after-effects of her own nightmarish experiences?
“One day in a small restaurant in Lanqiying,” she said, looking directly at me, “I went on a blind date with one of you Taiwanese men-he was a businessman. He was a terrific talker, there was nothing he didn’t know: astronomy, geography, medicine, divination and horoscopes, finance, investments, and world politics, you name it, he just wouldn’t stop and I was bored to death. When I managed to get a word in edgeways about our government’s failings, he called me ungrateful and said I didn’t know just how good I had it. He made me furious. I really felt like giving him a good slap.”
“Taiwanese men are not necessarily all like him,” I said. I felt I had to stick up for us Taiwanese men. But I was also curious. “So what happened?”
She smiled broadly. “He was so busy leaning over to tell me off that his butt was barely on the edge of his chair. When a tall, muscular young guy from the table next to us walked by, he deliberately bumped into his chair and knocked him off onto the floor.”
“What about this young guy?” I asked, still curious.
“He was just a strong young man.”
“But did he say anything?”
“He just walked out. And I felt delighted.”
“Did you know him?”
“No, but I’d like to.”
I felt a twinge of jealousy. “You can’t go around being violent like that.”
“Well, I thought it was great. I seem to feel like slapping people in the face all the time these days.”
Little Xi had seen a great deal of violence in her life, and some of it must have rubbed off on her. I remembered then why I hadn’t dared get too close to her. “What did that Taiwanese guy do after that?”
“He got up, absolutely livid, and looked around for someone to swear at, but he couldn’t see anyone, so he just muttered ‘philistine’ under his breath. You see, you Taiwanese still look down on us.”
“Not anymore, we don’t.” I know there used to be a certain amount of mutual contempt between people from the mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, but I think all that has changed now.
I said, “So how are things for you now, Xi?”
She knit her brows and pursed her lips. “Things are okay, but the people around me have changed and I feel pretty low. I feel a lot better now talking with you. I haven’t had anyone to talk to for a long time…”
She suddenly turned her gaze into the distance, her expression quite blank. Her behavior puzzled me. What on earth was she looking at? The scattered shadows of the leaves on the ground as the slanting sun filtered through the branches? Or had she suddenly thought of something that threw her into a daydream? After a minute or so she abruptly said, “Oh, I’ve got to go, the rush-hour buses will be packed.”
I quickly got to my feet and gave her my card. “Let’s have dinner sometime, with your mother and your son.”
“We’ll see,” she said rather noncommitally. Then, “I’m off,” and away she went.
Little Xi still walked quite fast. I took a good look at her from behind-she could definitely turn heads. Her figure and swinging stride were still youthful. Xi left by the south side of the park while I happily ambled along toward the east-side exit. I suddenly remembered those two smokers, and looking back, I saw that they were already at the south-side exit. Little Xi turned right toward the National Art Museum and walked out of my line of sight. The two smokers waited a couple of seconds and then followed her in the direction of the museum.
Fat years in Sanlitun
