I searched quickly through the kitchen cupboards. I couldn’t stop myself, even though I knew they would be empty. Just a large, worn pot was placed at the bottom of a cupboard. Otherwise nothing.
The chest of drawers was also empty, except for some old cables and a telephone with a cracked dial pad in the bottom drawer.
Then I walked into the bedroom. The closets gaped, the doors seemed to have been opened randomly, as if somebody hadn’t had time to close them after they were emptied. On the walls were some empty nails, and the shadow of the pictures that had once hung there.
A narrow double bed was placed along one of the bedroom walls. Just a mattress, the blankets and pillows were gone. They had slept there, read, argued, laughed, made love. Where were they now? Still together?
Along the other wall was a child’s bed. It could have belonged to a child of preschool age, was longer than a cot, shorter than an adult bed. It could have belonged to Wei-Wen. A small pillow was left behind. There was a dent in the middle, where a head had rested.
Suddenly my legs gave out from under me. I collapsed onto the child’s bed, remained seated for a few seconds. Not a soul, just me, for miles around. Everything was abandoned. Empty. And I was just as abandoned as this flat.
No.
A craving in my chest. Was it yearning? I’d barely thought about Kuan, avoided it, held him at a distance, every time his face popped up in my brain, I forced it away. Forced myself to think just about Wei-Wen, about finding my child.
I stood up, went back to the sitting room, pulled the telephone out of the cupboard and looked around me quickly. There, beside the sofa, was a telephone jack. It couldn’t be connected, not here, so far away from everything.
I rushed over and shoved in the plug. Then I lifted the receiver.
A faint dial tone could be heard.
Quickly I dialed my home number on the cracked dial pad.
At first all I could hear was a crackling sound, noiseless signals being sent mile after mile through old, virtually crumbling cables.
And then it rang.
Once.
Soon a voice would fill me, Kuan’s voice. I had no plan for what I would say, just had to hear him.
Twice.
Because perhaps there still was an “us.” Perhaps there could be, now that there was such a great distance between us.
Three times.
Wasn’t he there?
The seconds passed.
Four times.
But then.
“Hello?”
His voice in my ear.
I gasped with relief. “Hi.”
“Tao!”
I couldn’t answer, tried to hold back my sobs, but they forced their way out.
“What is it? Has something happened?”
“I’m… I don’t know where I am.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s nobody here.”
The sound became scratchy, the signals disappeared.
“Kuan? No!”
The telephone hummed faintly. Then the line went dead.
I tried again, dialed his number. Waited.
Nothing.
I took out the plug, put it in again.
The telephone remained silent.
I put the receiver in place, put it down on the floor. I stood up and looked down at it.
Suddenly my foot jerked out and kicked with all of its might. Again and again. The old electronics flew in all directions, along with cracked pieces of plastic.
Then I went into the bedroom, and over to the child’s bed.
I remained sitting there, while the room grew dark. The feeling of loneliness hit me so hard that I gasped. The moment became everything, the moment was an eternity. Me, alone in an abandoned flat. There was nothing else. I had lost everything. Even the money was gone.
Our second child. Who would it have been? Another boy? A girl? Like me? Awkward, calm, one of the outsiders. I would never get to know this child. I had sacrificed it, and nothing was left. Life stopped here.
I lay down on my side, pulling my legs up beneath me. Blindly I found the little pillow, grasped it, pulled it against me, embraced it, pressed it against my body, against my breast.
That’s how I fell asleep.
Wei-Wen’s hair smelled of a child’s sweat and something dry, like sand. I pressed my lips against it, captured a few strands of hair with them and tugged a little.
“Ouch, Mommy. You’re eating my hair!” I released the strands and laughed. Found his cheek and put my mouth against it instead. So soft, surprisingly soft, such soft cheeks children can have. It was as if I could press my lips against them and never, no matter how hard I pressed, encounter resistance. Just lie like this and have all the time in the world.
“My baby. You’re so sweet.”
He sniffled vigorously in response. Stared at the ceiling, where some fluorescent star stickers made up the solar system. I’d had them myself when I was a little girl, had begged for them, when my parents actually wanted to buy a doll. So when I grew up and moved out on my own, I carefully picked them off the ceiling of my childhood bedroom. I put them in a bag, packed them in the very bottom of a suitcase of childhood memorabilia, and when Wei-Wen was finally born, stuck them up again. It was as if I’d created a bond between my own childhood and his, between us and the world, between the world and the universe.
I’d helped him to learn the names of all the planets by heart, so he would understand how small we were—that we were also a part of something larger even though he was still much too young to take it in. The stars and the planets were still just stickers up there on the ceiling. He could only understand that the moon and the sun really existed because he saw them in the sky with his own eyes. But that the moon didn’t even have its own sticker, hadn’t been worthy of it, up there on the ceiling, that he couldn’t understand. It was almost as big as the sun.
“There’s Jupiter.” He pointed.
“Mm.”
I sniffed his hair, couldn’t restrain myself. But he didn’t seem to notice.
“It’s the very biggest.”
“Yes. It’s the biggest.”
“And Satum. That’s the one with the rings.”
“Saturn,” I said.
“Satum.”
“Yes. That’s the one with the rings.”
“That’s the nicest one.”
He thought for a little bit.
“Why doesn’t the earth have rings?”
“Well, I don’t know.”
“I think it should have some. That’s the nicest.”
I buried my nose in his cheek. He twisted a little, turned his face away from mine.
“You can go now, Mom.”
“I can lie here a little longer.”
“No.”
“Till you’ve fallen asleep?”
“No. You can go now.”
He was ready, the bed had been made safe for the night. My job as mother had been carried out.
I kissed him on the cheek, one last time. He didn’t even have the patience to wait, pulled the duvet over himself hard.
“Go on. I’m going to sleep.”
“Yes. I’m leaving now. Nighty-night. See you tomorrow.”
“Nighty-nightseeyoutomorrow.”
I wanted to stay there, underneath the solar system, underneath Saturn’s fluorescent, neon-green plastic rings, but woke up at the first hint of daylight. The window had no curtains and the light of dawn spread slowly across the room. I lay in the same position, tried to find my way back, to the other room, the other child’s bed, but didn’t manage.
This morning, in this strange bed, the first thing I thought of was the same as all the other mornings: his name.
Wei-Wen. Wei-Wen.
My child.
The softness. His face.
I didn’t want anything else except to hold it tightly. But another face forced its way to the surface. A face from this world. The boy, the tall, gawky boy, with the package of biscuits in his hands. His eyes on me, ready to attack.