Yu Hua - Boy in the Twilight - Stories of the Hidden China

Lin Hong was weeping now. The hand came out of the pocket and reached for her shoulder, but it retreated when her shoulder shrank back. Li Hanlin rubbed his forehead. “That’s the sum total of my interaction with her. Even if you hadn’t found out, she and I wouldn’t have gone any further. Our marriage is very precious to me. I would never break up this home of ours.”

Lin Hong sprang to her feet, strode into the bedroom, and slammed the door. Li Hanlin didn’t move. After several minutes, he walked over to the bedroom and tapped lightly on the door. “I won’t see Qingqing anymore,” he said.

LIN HONG THOUGHT, he didn’t beg me to forgive him, he didn’t fall on his knees, he didn’t slap himself in the face, he didn’t pledge oaths, and he didn’t even apologize.

He did sleep on the sofa, however. Shen Ning was right on that score, at least. He had lingered by her bedside, standing there like a businessman weighing the pros and cons, and finally he had opted for the sofa.

By opting for the sofa, he had opted for silence, opted for a life where he and she lived separately.

Now that his life and hers had parted ways, he said nothing further on the topic of Qingqing, and naturally he no longer acted as a husband would. He was careful and circumspect. As he moved about the apartment he did his best to make no noise, and he did not turn on the television. He limited his activities to the sofa, where he either sat or lay, reading. He never used to read at all, but now he always had a book in his hand.

Whenever she appeared, he would put down the book he was reading and look at her, partly to get some sense of her state of mind, partly to make his own position clear: he had not lost himself in the pleasures of reading; he was still fidgeting uneasily in the real world.

His silence infuriated her. Did he think that by eliminating all sound from their home, he could muddle his way through the crisis? It wouldn’t work, because she wouldn’t stand for it — she wouldn’t allow him to have a quiet life. He had betrayed her, and now he thought he could make up for it by pussyfooting around?

She began to provoke him. Seeing him sitting on the sofa, with his feet on the floor, she walked toward the balcony, giving his feet a kick as she passed, as though they were blocking her way. She went out onto the balcony and waited for him to react, but he didn’t. Not even pain could force him to make a sound. There was nothing for it but to return to the bedroom. This time she noticed that he had now withdrawn his feet and put them on the sofa.

She persisted with her provocations. In the early evening she walked over to the sofa and dumped his bedding, clothes, and books on the floor, then sat down and turned on the television.

He just sat there on the sofa as she cleared away his things, but once the TV was on he stood up and went out to the balcony. He sat on the floor of the balcony and read his book. He did this to demonstrate his modesty, his belief that he didn’t deserve to sit next to her, didn’t deserve to watch television with her. He continued to sit on the hard balcony floor, getting up from time to time to stretch, then sitting back down. Only after she had returned to the bedroom did he go back to the sofa, reclaim the items she had flung on the floor, and lie down to sleep.

His boundless silence left her at a loss. All her provocations were like stones cast into the ocean.

The next night, she abandoned the bed and lay down on the sofa to watch television. She fell asleep there with the TV on and didn’t wake up until morning. This was part of her scheme, but it seemed natural as well. She had occupied his sleeping area, and at the same time conceded her bed to him, expecting the soft bed to entice him and lull him into unwary slumber, thus giving her an opportunity to engage in further hostilities. But when she woke up on the sofa, she found him sitting on a chair, his head cushioned on the dining table, fast asleep.

He was going around the house with his tail tucked between his legs, as though he were punishing himself. The problem was that this kind of punishment punished her as well. She couldn’t shed the tears she wanted to shed, couldn’t yell the things she wanted to yell. A fiery rage consumed her, but it could only smolder in her heart. By now she was no longer waiting for him to fall to his knees and beg her forgiveness: she had given up hope of getting the reaction that Shen Ning had predicted. What she wanted now was a huge row. Even if they came to blows, it would be better than this.

But he refused to provide her with this opportunity: that is, he rejected the punishment she had selected for him. He passed judgment on himself and punctiliously submitted to this judgment, making her feel, in the end, that he was now quite comfortably reconciled to his life of deprivation. Each morning he would leave before she did, and in the evening return from work after her. There was really no bone to pick here. He had a much longer commute than she did, and he had always left early and come home late. He ate lunch at his office, she knew, but where he was eating dinner in the evening she had no clue. When he came home at the end of the day, he didn’t go into the kitchen, didn’t even glance in that direction, so she knew he must already have eaten. He sat on the sofa and picked up a book. He had disrupted her life, thrown her into turmoil, but he had adjusted perfectly.

One evening, she was standing on the balcony when she caught sight of him coming out of a restaurant below, and it suddenly became clear where he had been eating his dinners. She was so angry she began to shake. For her, every day seemed like a year, but there he was, in and out of restaurants, treating himself to a life of luxury. She marched downstairs. She had already eaten, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her from stuffing herself again. When they passed each other on the landing, she marched straight by him without looking his way and continued down the stairs and into the restaurant he had just left. She ordered several dishes and some wine, but could not stomach more than a couple of mouthfuls.

After three meals in the restaurant, she began to feel distressed about all the money she was spending. She was making inroads into their savings. They didn’t have a lot of money in the first place, and there were plenty of basic things they still needed. Indignation, however, impelled her back to the restaurant, until the day that they happened to be there at the same time. She saw him as soon as she walked in, huddled over a bowl of noodles. She sat down at a distant table and watched the other people enjoying their extravagant meals, while he ate his wretched noodles. Suddenly she felt heartsick.

The next day, while cooking her dinner, she prepared a serving for him, too. She placed an empty bowl on the most conspicuous spot on the dining table, and a pair of chopsticks on top of the bowl, and the food she’d made beside it. She hoped he would notice as soon as he came in, and in this he did not disappoint her. His eyes lit up right away, and then he looked at her quizzically to confirm that the dinner was intended for him. Even though he’d already had his noodles, he sat down at the table and consumed the entire meal she had cooked.

By the time he had finished, she had gone into the bedroom and closed the door behind her. She lay on the bed and listened as he opened the door and walked over to her. After standing there for a while, he sat down on the edge of the bed. “Can we talk?” he asked.

She did not say anything. After a moment, he asked again, “Can we talk?”

Still she said nothing, hoping that a torrent of words would flood from his lips. In her view, he needed to take himself to task. Even if he didn’t burst into tears, he should at least beat his breast and stamp his feet; he should get down on his knees the way Shen Ning had said he would; he should pledge solemn vows, he should say everything she wanted to hear. She would ignore him just the same, but these were things he had to do. Instead, all he could say was “Can we talk?”