Yiyun Li - Kinder Than Solitude

Once again, we would like to remind you that, since the day you were sent to us, you have been a chosen child of God. We trust that you understand your purposeful journey henceforth, and that you know how to live discerningly among people who do not understand this about you .

All is well here; hence no need for you to worry about us. Seeing our words is like seeing us in person .

Grandaunts

2nd of September, ’89

In separate rooms, Aunt and Ruyu read the letters that had arrived in the evening post. Both put the letters away afterward, yet neither was able to shake off the mood brought about by the correspondence. Instinctively Ruyu knew that the last — and the only — letter she had sent to her grandaunts had disappointed them. It was the first real letter that Ruyu had written — if one did not count the school assignments to write holiday greetings to conscripts at the local military camps or the House of Glory, where veterans from the Korean War and earlier conflicts aged and died. She would not have written had it not been for the repeated urging of Aunt.

Ruyu had not known what to say to her grandaunts, as they had never relied on her words to know her. In the end, she had sung the praises of her hosts and neighbors and asked about her grandaunts’ well-being, as she imagined a letter should. But her grandaunts’ words succinctly reminded her of her place in life, as they had always done when she had been younger and had been caught in an excessive expression of her feelings. With a gaze or a shake of the head, they would stop her from laughing or fussing or crying; any emotion — be it happiness or sadness, anger or contentment — was a sign of human arrogance. Think about how you appear to the eyes above us, they would say, neither gently nor harshly, and afterward they would direct her to a quiet corner. A moment of reflection, they said, was not a punishment but an opportunity for her to learn to put some distance between her and whatever triviality had made her laugh or cry. One is always watched, they explained to her; one’s life is lived under all sorts of eyes, but only one pair counts.

That she modified her behavior according to her surroundings, and wrote a letter that could only be written by someone like Moran, who seemed to consider it a paramount goal to please everyone around, must have dismayed her grandaunts. Ruyu wished she had had a stronger mind than a foolishly impressionable one: everyone she met in Beijing seemed keen to change her somehow, as though what mattered was not what she was but the possibilities she offered for others to imagine another person. Even Watermelon Wen’s twins had told her that she would look exactly like the young actress in a popular TV program for children if she smiled more. Sister Ruyu, maybe you could be a TV star and we could go on the program with you, the boys said aloud, and Ruyu wondered why not a single grownup in the courtyard would stop their nonsense.

But there was no need to fret about her grandaunts’ letter, as to dwell upon their reaction was to live again in human eyes. The truth was that what they thought of her mattered no more than what others thought of her. Their goal, her grandaunts had repeatedly told her, was to bring her to God; if she could stop living for them, suppose she could stop living for him, too? This notion, having never occurred before, took her breath away. Instinctively she closed her eyes, asking for his forgiveness.

At dinner, Ruyu was especially remote, and her silence, combined with Shaoai’s sullenness, unnerved Aunt. She had not shown her husband the letter from the two old women; she had to at some point that night, but she needed time to recover from their words. She could not really tell which sister had penned the letter, as both sisters, she remembered, had the same unfeminine penmanship in the old style of the Wei Dynasty. She herself had been trained, when she had been under their charge, to practice the same style of calligraphy by copying out the words inscribed on ancient tablets. She had not been a brilliant student; she had looked foolish in their eyes, ineducable. Earlier, when she had opened the letter, she had felt her heart race; the severe handwriting on the envelope, each stroke carrying the weight of disapproval, had made her feel small again, intimidating her into a mindless daze.

“Did you read your grandaunts’ letter?” Aunt asked Ruyu when the silence had become unnatural. “Were they happy to get your last letter?”

Ruyu nodded but did not offer anything more to continue the conversation.

“I do think they sounded happy,” Aunt said. “At least in their letter to us.”

Shaoai made a sound as though laughing through her throat, but Aunt did not yet want to turn her attention to her daughter. Since the beginning of the new school year, Shaoai had been to the university only a few times. It was the fourth year of her study, and she should be getting an assignment for an internship soon. Her parents’ fear, though, was that the school would not assign anything to Shaoai, thus disqualifying her for graduation and making it impossible for her to secure a permanent job.

“They asked about you,” Aunt said to Ruyu again after a thoughtful bite. “I think you like the school, no?”

“Yes.”

“And the coursework — is it heavy? Can you follow everything all right? If you have questions, ask Boyang and Moran. Well, Boyang is probably a smarter bet if you have questions about your studies, but Moran can help with everything else.”

Ruyu said all was fine. The first week of school had been a whirlwind; half of her classmates, like Ruyu herself, were new to the school, but Moran and Boyang — coming straight from the middle school section and knowing the school well — had been hovering around her the whole time, making certain that she would not feel left out. The school was about a thirty-minute walk away, but it seemed never to have occurred to Moran and Boyang that Ruyu would prefer walking to school by herself. Every morning they left the quadrangle together, three of them on two bicycles, and every evening returned the same way.

“And the accordion practice? Your grandaunts asked especially about that.”

She had had a lesson with Teacher Shu, Ruyu said, and he liked her playing all right. She had hoped to stay in the music room for practice as long as she could after school, but within a week, Headmistress Liu had gathered the incoming high school students and briefed them about an urgent political assignment: on the night of October 1—the fortieth birthday of mother China — the students were to participate in a celebration at Tiananmen Square with four hundred thousand of their fellow citizens. To prepare for this assignment, Headmistress Liu continued, all students were expected to stay after school for two hours each day, practicing group dancing and later attending dress rehearsals at the levels of subdistrict, district, and city.

“Do you have enough time for the accordion?” Aunt asked.

She practiced every day for half an hour after lunch, Ruyu said, and she hoped that after the month of dancing practice, she would have more time in the afternoons.

Shaoai raised one eyebrow. “So you are going to be one of the lucky citizens to celebrate our Communist victory? What an honor.”

Aunt looked at Uncle pleadingly. When he did not speak, she sighed. “Don’t speak in that manner, Shaoai,” she said. “Ruyu doesn’t have a choice.”

Shaoai leaned toward Ruyu as though she hadn’t heard Aunt’s words. “Have you thought of boycotting it?” Shaoai asked.

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Ruyu said.

“You know, skipping practice here and there, or, maybe better, skipping the celebration altogether,” Shaoai said. “My mother can get you an excuse note for a sick leave — don’t you think, Mama?”