She gave a deep sigh. “Let’s get a divorce.”
“All right,” I said.
After saying this, I couldn’t help shedding a few tears. Although I didn’t want us to break up, there was nothing I could do to make her stay. She raised her head and saw me crying, and she wept too. She wiped her tears away with her hand, saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
I rubbed my eyes. “Don’t say sorry,” I said.
That morning the two of us went to the office together as usual. I requested a day’s leave and she handed in her notice, then we went to the neighborhood registry office to attend to the divorce paperwork. While she went home to pack her bags, I went to the bank and withdrew all our savings, which came to sixty thousand yuan — the money we had set aside to purchase an apartment. Once I got home, I handed her all the cash. She hesitated a moment, then took twenty thousand. I shook my head and urged her to take the full amount. Twenty thousand was enough, she insisted. That’ll make me worry, I said. She bowed her head and said I didn’t need to worry, I should know how capable she was; she could handle everything perfectly well. She put twenty thousand yuan in her bag and left the rest on the table. Then she gazed fondly at the home we had shared. “I should go now,” she said.
I helped her collect her clothes and other belongings, which we stuffed into two large suitcases, and I carried the cases down to the street below. She was going first to his hotel and then the two of them would go to the airport, so I hailed a cab and put her cases in the trunk. The moment of parting had now arrived. I waved goodbye to her, but she came forward and hugged me tightly. “I still love you,” she said.
“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 misunderst
anding 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.