Peter Liu - Watering Heaven

V. Subway During Rush Hour

Every day during rush hour, a mass of people swelled into the subway station. I stood in line, seeing there were way too many waiting to get on board. Within seconds, I was pushed, pulled, then swarmed into the train. I’d thought there was no way I was even going to get on and somehow, I was in the middle of it, frozen with hundreds of others. If ever I had suffered claustrophobia, the Beijing subways forced me to come to terms with the inevitability of spatial impossibilities.

I was meeting Faye for the video game concert I’d wanted to see. The Beijing Symphony was going to perform classic game melodies like Super Mario and Zelda. In front of the concert hall, she ran towards me and hugged me.

“Sometimes, a relationship is like coffee,” she said.

“How?”

“After a long day, you need a jolt to keep you awake.”

I laughed. “I thought of it more as a subway ride.”

“What do you mean?”

I tried to explain my allegory, the way it pushed the boundaries of what you’d normally expect. I noticed something was bothering her.

“You okay?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I saw a car accident today. Two kids on a bike got run over… I could hear them crying in pain, there was blood all over… I never told you about my friend Zhuqing, did I?”

“No.”

“She was my best friend in junior high, but she was killed in a car accident. I still remember she was carrying milk for our class project because she loved giving milk to crows. She thought milk could make them talk.”

“Crows talk?” I asked.

“There’s a legend about two lovers who met in a dream. The man transformed into a crow and fell in love with a female crow who was part of his dream. Eventually, he had to wake up and go back to reality. Since heavenly law forbade a dream from being with someone from the waking world, they were separated.”

“What happened?”

“The crow loved the man so much, she turned into a human by drinking a special milk. But she had to give up her existence as a dream to do it.”

The bell for the concert started to ring.

“We don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” I said.

“No, I want to go in.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

We entered the concert hall. There were people in Mario hats, Halo costumes, Warcraft masks. She grabbed my hand, excited. “Do you know if they’re going to play Tetris? Tetris is my favorite song. I used to play that everyday! Doo doo doooo dooo .”

I laughed. “I’m pretty sure they are.”

“ Doooooooooo !” she exclaimed.

VI. The Ruins of Yuanmingyuan

We decided to visit the ruins of Yuanmingyuan the day before my departure. It was a series of palaces that’d been burnt down by European invasion forces over a century ago. Since most of the buildings had been constructed of wood, little remained. But at the Xiyanglou site, the buildings had been European-styled pavilions made of stone materials that’d withstood the fires, preserved to remind the people of their national humiliation. As we walked through the debris, hints of its past immensity echoed. This sepulcher of civilization reminded me of the brittleness of immortality, and I thought of the towns I’d never hear of because there was nothing left. Faye was somber, listening to its history from the guide. Each brick had a story, and she was mesmerized by the tales of Daoist wizards who used magic to walk through walls and call spirits down from the moon.

We finally came across Huanghuazhen, a garden that was modeled after a European maze. In the old days, the walls were very high with shrubbery stacked on top. The king sat in the octagonal pavilion at the center and watched as one hundred maidens were released inside. Holding candles in the dark, they’d navigate their way through the labyrinth, their goal being to uncover the path to the king so they could win a suit of distinction.

All around us, couples of different nationalities were making their way through the maze. Everyone took a separate path and even though the goal seemed obvious, we kept on coming across a dead end.

“This way,” she said. Dead end.

We went left, then right, that way in a circle, ending up right where we’d started.

I was vexed, sighing angrily. “How can we be lost? This should be easy.”

“It’s this way. I’m sure of it.”

I followed. We came across a tree and a wall.

“At least it’s different,” she said.

“This is so stupid!” I exclaimed. “How come we keep on getting lost? Let’s just skip over the walls.”

She looked at me, surprised by my anger. “We’re just having fun,” she said, holding my hand. “We’ll make our way through. Trust me, all right?”

I took a deep breath, surprised too by my outburst. “I just hate that we have to be separated.”

“You could stay.”

“But I’m almost out of money… you could come to America.”

“Visas are almost impossible to get for a single female in China. And besides, what would I do out there?”

I sighed, exasperated that most people took their relationships for granted while I couldn’t be with Faye even if I wanted.

“C’mon, let’s finish the maze,” she said.

“But…”

“C’mon, we can do it.”

We walked methodically, left, right, straight, several more dead ends. She took me this way, pulled me from one direction, took a few more turns.

“Close your eyes,” she said.

“Why?”

She jumped and spread her arms. “’Cause it’s magic!”

After one last turn, we’d found our way out. I smiled, laughing because she was so joyous.

“Come on, let’s go again!” she shouted.

I obliged willingly.

VII. The Notebook of Love

It was early the next day when we arrived at the airport. I couldn’t believe how quickly the week had passed. I held Faye, didn’t want to let go. I knew it was in my best interest to go back to make a living as a computer technician, slaving away to make millionaires billionaires.

Our last meal together was a disappointing breakfast at the airport Burger King. Whoppers and french fries as our love feast.

“One minute,” she said.

I checked the watch, confused. “I still have thirty minutes.”

“One minute,” she said. “That’s how long it took for me to know I was in love with you.”

I stared at her, stunned. “One second,” I finally mustered.

She burst into laughter. “One second?”

“The moment I saw you,” I said.

She held my hand. “Will you come back?”

“I swear it.”

As I took off in the airplane, I realized we’d be separated by the biggest ocean in the world. Before I left, we’d agreed to start a notebook. Faye and I would jot down our feelings, any expressions of love we had, then share them upon our reunion. I started on the plane, writing down my random musings on the chimera of love. Over the years, all my conceptions had been undergoing a drastic mutation, one abortive idea melting into another. What I’d started as a series of juvenile declarations became a book of questions, an inquiry into love’s very anatomy. But I felt so ill-prepared, like all I had was a dulled scalpel and an unfocused magnifying glass. I carried the book everywhere. Over a month, jam stains, drips of syrup, and ketchup marks bore the ubiquity of my musings. I pasted in business cards of favorite restaurants, interesting news clippings, the uncanny happenings of the world. I could feel myself becoming invisible, the depths of my loneliness, unfathomable, except through the inscrutable sextant for the soul. As it turned into three months of separation, I felt like a stump of a person, cauterized, then stitched together, a mannequin held by flimsy band-aids.