No one worried that Lina was going to do something improper. She was as decorous as a cow elephant slowly maneuvering her enormous body, unmoved by everything around her. Only when the need presented itself would she deign to notice the boys’ existence, and she knew how to make use of the gazes always trained on her.
For instance, that note from the nurse’s office.
She also knew how to take advantage in other ways.
For instance, now she was grabbing Jiaming by the hand to get a snack from the campus store.
Lina paid for both of them. Jiaming let her and asked for two ice creams.
“I’m getting one for Zhu Yin,” she said.
Lina smiled. “My doctor—he’s a traditional Chinese medicine specialist—won’t let me eat anything cold, not even sashimi….”
The best thing about conversing with Lina was that you could let her talk without listening. Unlike other girls their age, she knew that one didn’t have to take everything so seriously all the time. Jiaming had always felt relaxed around her.
“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.