On the evening of the day the children return, Granny Lin is asked to leave. Her things are packed and placed at the gate: a duffel bag, not heavy even for an old woman.
“The happiness of love is a shooting meteor; the pain of love is the darkness following.” A girl is singing to herself in a clear voice as she walks past Granny Lin in the street. She tries to catch up with the girl; the girl moves too fast, and so does the song. Granny Lin puts the duffel bag on the ground and catches her breath, still hanging on to the stainless steel lunch pail with her other hand. All the people in the street seem to know where their legs are taking them. She wonders since when she stopped being one of them.
Someone runs past Granny Lin and pushes her hard on the back. She stumbles and catches a glimpse of a hand before falling down; a man in a black shirt runs into the crowd with her duffel bag.
A woman stops and asks, “Are you all right, Granny?”
Granny Lin nods, struggling to recover from the fall. The woman shakes her head and says aloud to the passersby, “What a world! Someone just robbed an old granny.”
Few people respond; the woman shakes her head again and moves on.
Granny Lin sits on the street and hugs the lunch pail to herself. Hungry as people are, it is strange that nobody ever thinks of robbing an old woman of her lunch. That’s why she has never lost anything important. The three thousand yuan of dismissal compensation is safe in the lunch pail, as are several unopened packages of socks, colorful with floral patterns, souvenirs of her brief love story.
MR. AND MRS. SU ARE FINISHING BREAKFAST when the telephone rings. Neither moves to pick it up at first. Not many people know their number; fewer use it. Their son, Jian, a sophomore in college now, calls them once a month to report his well-being. He spends most of his holidays and school breaks with his friends’ families, not offering even the most superficial excuses. Mr. and Mrs. Su do not have the heart to complain and remind Jian of their wish to see him more often. Their two-bedroom flat, small and cramped as it is, is filled with Beibei’s screaming when she is not napping, and a foul smell when she dirties the cloth sheets beneath her. Jian grew up sleeping in a cot in the foyer and hiding from his friends the existence of an elder sister born with severe mental retardation and cerebral palsy. Mr. and Mrs. Su sensed their son’s elation when he finally moved into his college dorm. They have held on to the secret wish that after Beibei dies—she is not destined for longevity, after all—they will reclaim their lost son, though neither says anything to the other, both ashamed by the mere thought of the wish.
The ringing stops for a short moment and starts again. Mr. Su walks to the telephone and puts a hand on the receiver. “Do you want to take it?” he asks his wife.
“So early it must be Mr. Fong,” Mrs. Su says.
“Mr. Fong is a man of courtesy. He won’t disturb other people’s breakfast,” Mr. Su says. Still, he picks up the receiver, and his expression relaxes. “Ah, yes, Mrs. Fong. My wife, she is right here,” he says, and signals to Mrs. Su.
Mrs. Su does not take the call immediately. She goes into Beibei’s bedroom and checks on her, even though it is not time for her to wake up yet. Mrs. Su strokes the hair, light brown and baby-soft, on Beibei’s forehead. Beibei is twenty-eight going on twenty-nine; she is so large it takes both her parents to turn her over and clean her; she screams for hours when she is awake, but for Mrs. Su, it takes a wisp of hair to forget all the imperfections.
When she returns to the living room, her husband is still holding the receiver for her, one hand covering the mouthpiece. “She’s in a bad mood,” he whispers.
Mrs. Su sighs and takes the receiver. “Yes, Mrs. Fong, how are you today?”
“As bad as it can be. My legs are killing me. Listen, my husband just left. He said he was meeting your husband for breakfast and they were going to the stockbrokerage afterward. Tell me it was a lie.”
Mrs. Su watches her husband go into Beibei’s bedroom. He sits with Beibei often; she does, too, though never at the same time as he does. “My husband is putting on his jacket so he must be going out to meet Mr. Fong now,” Mrs. Su says. “Do you want me to check with him?”
“Ask him,” Mrs. Fong says.
Mrs. Su walks to Beibei’s room and stops at the door. Her husband is sitting on the chair by the bed, his eyes closed for a quick rest. It’s eight o’clock, early still, but for an aging man, morning, like everything else, means less than it used to. Mrs. Su goes back to the telephone and says, “Mrs. Fong? Yes, my husband is meeting your husband for breakfast.”
“Are you sure? Do me a favor. Follow him and see if he’s lying to you. You can never trust men.”
Mrs. Su hesitates, and says, “But I’m busy.”
“What are you busy with? Listen, my legs are hurting me. I would’ve gone after him myself otherwise.”
“I don’t think it looks good for husbands to be followed,” Mrs. Su says.
“If your husband goes out every morning and comes home with another woman’s scent, why should you care about what looks good or bad?”
It is not her husband who is having an affair, Mrs. Su retorts in her mind, but she doesn’t want to point out the illogic. Her husband is indeed often used as a cover for Mr. Fong’s affair, and Mrs. Su feels guilty toward Mrs. Fong. “Mrs. Fong, I would help on another day, but today is bad.”
“Whatever you say.”
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Su says.
Mrs. Fong complains for another minute, of the untrustworthiness of husbands and friends in general, and hangs up. Mrs. Su knocks on the door of Beibei’s room and her husband jerks awake, quickly wiping the corner of his mouth. “Mrs. Fong wanted to know if you were meeting Mr. Fong,” she says.
“Tell her yes.”
“I did.”
Mr. Su nods and tucks the blanket tight beneath Beibei’s soft, shapeless chin. It bothers Mrs. Su when her husband touches Beibei for any reason, but it must be ridiculous for her to think so. Being jealous of a daughter who understands nothing and a husband who loves the daughter despite that! She will become a crazier woman than Mrs. Fong if she doesn’t watch out for her sanity, Mrs. Su thinks, but still, seeing her husband smooth Beibei’s hair or rub her cheeks upsets Mrs. Su. She goes back to the kitchen and washes the dishes while her husband gets ready to leave. When he says farewell, she answers politely without turning to look at him.
AT EIGHT-THIRTY Mr. Su leaves the apartment, right on time for the half-hour walk to the stockbrokerage. Most of the time he is there only to study the market; sometimes he buys and sells, executing the transactions with extraordinary prudence, as the money in his account does not belong to him. Mr. Fong has offered the ten thousand yuan as a loan, and has made it clear many times that he is not in any urgent need of the money. It is not a big sum at all for Mr. Fong, a retired senior officer from a military factory, but Mr. Su believes that for each drop of water one received, one has to repay with a well. The market and the economy haven’t helped him much in returning Mr. Fong’s generosity. Mr. Su, however, is not discouraged. A retired mathematics teacher at sixty-five, Mr. Su believes in exercising one’s body and mind—both provided by his daily trip to the stockbrokerage—and being patient.
Mr. Su met Mr. Fong a year ago at the stockbrokerage. Mr. Fong, a year senior to Mr. Su, took a seat by him, and conversation started between the two men. He was there out of curiosity, Mr. Fong said; he asked Mr. Su if indeed the stock system would work for the country, and if that was the case, how Marxist