Ken Liu - Broken Stars

Jiaming saw Zhu Yin waving at her from one of the back rows—she had saved Jiaming a seat by the window.

“So many people here tonight! I’m guessing they’re still renovating the pool hall?”

“It’s gonna rain,” Zhu Yin mumbled. She held a bunch of rubber bands between her teeth while her hands danced like butterflies flitting through her hair. Zhu Yin excelled at fancy braids, and her hands were rarely free for anything else.

“You’ll have to write out this problem for me.” Zhu Yin lifted her chin to indicate the two workbooks on the desk. “Your handwriting is so messy that I can’t even copy your solution.”

“It’s just adding two complex numbers.” Jiaming pushed the workbooks back to her.

Sometimes she helped Zhu Yin copy her homework, but not always.

Zhu Yin scowled as she continued to braid. She was still angry at Jiaming for what had happened.

“Jiaming, I’m your best friend, right? The best?” she asked.

“Uh-huh.” Jiaming’s gaze roamed around the lecture hall.

“Out of everybody in the world?”

“Sure.”

“Why?”

Jiaming laughed. She turned to look at Zhu Yin— she’s so pretty . “Because I want to be just like you,” she said.

“Liar!” But Zhu Yin was pleased. Her black eyes twinkled, and the scene in front of her was reflected in those dark mirrors, perfect in every detail. Jiaming really did like Zhu Yin, liked the ease with which she could be cheered up in an instant.

Jiaming yawned. It was going to rain, a big thundershower. The outside was unusually dark, but no one in the lecture hall seemed to have noticed.

Playing with phones, copying homework, reading comic books or gossip magazines, napping smoking giggling eating… Like the slips of paper being passed around the room, the students shuttled about, changing seats without cease. Those who preferred quiet were concentrated in the first two rows so they could focus on working out supplemental problem sets for three hours. It was the same every day. The mercury-vapor lights dulled the colors and outlines, while restless, bulging, youthful bodies agitated under their clothes. The chaotic, low-background white noise was interrupted occasionally by a shout or peal of laughter. Various aromas mixed together in harmony: Little Raccoon brand dry crispy noodle snacks, ham sausage, hair spray, rain boots. She enjoyed the sensation of being immersed in her surroundings, idle.

Her heart was filled with affection for everyone.

“Did you not sleep well?” Zhu Yin asked.

“Had too much to eat,” Jiaming replied.

“I’ll help you fix your hair later. How could you let it get so messy?”

“Sounds good.”

Bang! The door slammed open. Before anyone in the room had time to react, the sand and pebbles blown in by the gust of wind struck their bodies, accompanied by flapping workbook pages and screams. Chaos reigned in the lecture hall. The gale preceding the rain careened around violently, sweeping away everything in its path. The windows creaked in their frames, the glass panes threatening to crack.

Jiaming got up to close the window; it would take but a moment.

She saw Zhang Xiaobo, even though she didn’t yet know his name.

He stood on top of the cement wall around the schoolyard, his footing uncertain in the howling wind. The wall was tall, and had grown taller every year. From where Jiaming stood it was hard to tell if he intended to jump. She thought he might. Maybe not now; maybe someday in the future.

She saw the boy bend down to sit on top of the wall and retrieve his lighter. He flicked it until it was lit but didn’t light anything; instead, he simply stared at the flickering tongue, shielding it from the wind with his hand. The tongue licked at his palm, painfully, and illuminated his face.

The windowpane before Jiaming’s face fogged up.

Strictly speaking, he wasn’t Jiaming’s type. He was too pale, too thin, with eyes that were too large and sunken in dark circles. However, he appeared serendipitously on the school wall that night.

The summer of 1998. The squall coming from over the sea brought the warm, moist scent of salt and fish. The shadows cast by the trees shifted—Jiaming had never seen the trees move so wildly, as though they craved to dance. She pressed her face against the glass and gazed at their dark outlines: perhaps someday they would uproot themselves and run madly away from here. Just then, perfectly timed, the boy had appeared on top of the only part of the wall not hidden by the shadows of the trees. The tongue of flame in his hand trembled wildly, illuminating the brown bloodstains on his white shirt. From a distance, the drumbeats of dense African jungle struck against Jiaming’s body, riding on the wet, violent blasts of the storm.

The fire went out.

Rain poured.

“What are you looking at?” She heard Zhu Yin’s voice behind her.

“The rain is so heavy.”

“I brought an umbrella. How about you come home with me first….”

“Where did you get that umbrella?”

“A friend.”

“You should go change.”

Jiaming went to her room and changed into fresh clothes, the wet bundle at her feet like shed snakeskin. The rain was so heavy that the umbrella hadn’t done much good.

She returned to the living room, where silent images danced on the TV screen. She picked up the remote and clicked through the channels, pausing at each briefly. In their home, no one ever unmuted the TV, but no one turned the TV off, either.

“Do you have any homework?” a voice asked from behind the piles of architectural plans.

“All finished.”

“I’ll get off work early the day after tomorrow. We can go out for dinner together.”

For a second, Jiaming was silent as she stared at dozens of Mk 82 bombs dropping from the sky on TV; the next scene showed burning fields. She remembered.

“Your birthday is in two days,” she said.

“What would you like as a gift?”

“Isn’t it a bit bizarre to give me gifts when it’s your birthday? Do you have something to tell me?”

The man ignored this.

“A Sarah Brightman CD then.”

“Write it down for me. It’s time for bed.” The man went into the kitchen and returned with a glass of milk; he handed it to Jiaming and watched as she drank it down.

Every night, before bed, her father gave her a glass of warm milk so that she could sleep soundly.

“So ugly!” The pale woman stared at the hairband in her hand, shocked. “Who would buy this?”

“They sell very well, in every color. Lots of girls at school wear them.”

They glanced at each other and laughed at the same time.

“Long hair is too much trouble.”

“But I like you with long hair. You look particularly well behaved.” The pale woman caressed Jiaming’s short hair. Her hand was so white that it looked like a beam of moonlight was shining on Jiaming.

“I prefer it like this.”

“How’s school?”

“Same old same old. It rained yesterday.” Her voice softened, but returned to normal almost immediately. “I didn’t bring an umbrella, so Zhu Yin lent me hers.”

She waited for the pale woman to ask her, Does Zhu Yin still act really petulant sometimes? Then she would know what to say next.

But the pale woman didn’t.

“It rained yesterday,” she repeated what Jiaming had said.

“The day after tomorrow is Dad’s birthday,” said Jiaming.

The pale woman was quiet.

The woman reached into her pocket. “Let’s look at the stars,” she said.

She retrieved a folded-up sheet of paper and began to spread it, infinitely patient and gentle. Each time she opened another fold, her skin grew brighter, as if lit from beneath with a pure white light, of which, like her joy, it was impossible to say whether it was warm or cold. The paper, which had appeared about the size of her palm at first, gradually expanded and spread out in every direction under her careful, repetitive movements until the edges could no longer be seen.