Yiyun Li - Kinder Than Solitude

“It’s a political assignment,” Aunt said. “I don’t want you to give Ruyu wrong ideas about things.”

“I’m teaching her to use her own brain to think,” Shaoai said. “She’ll never learn that from school.”

Uncle sighed and placed his chopsticks next to his bowl, adjusting them so that they were perfectly paired. “Let me ask you a question, Shaoai,” he said. So rarely did he participate in the dinner conversation between Shaoai and Aunt that the room seemed to suddenly take on an unfamiliar mood. “There will be four hundred thousand people at the Square for the celebration. According to your estimate, what percentage of those people have the ability to think independently?”

“Zero, if you ask me,” Shaoai said. “The ones who do will find ways not to go.”

“So suppose Ruyu listened to your advice and did not go to the celebration. How could her absence affect the celebration?”

“I know where you’re leading me. No, if she did not go, nobody would notice. But what if those four hundred thousand people all had the guts not to go?”

“Practically speaking, what is the probability of that happening?”

“Well, if not four hundred thousand, how about four hundred, or four thousand?”

“Let’s say four thousand boycott the celebration. What difference do you think their action would make? The live broadcast would still show four hundred thousand people gathering to celebrate. Yet those four thousand would probably face disciplinary actions afterward. Who do you think their action would harm but themselves and their families?”

“Yes, you’re absolutely right. We should all stay obedient, follow orders, and let cowardice direct our lives,” Shaoai said, adding after a moment of hesitation, “just like you.”

Aunt’s face looked intense. She opened her mouth as though she were about to say something but caught herself just in time. She left the table to close the only open window in the room, and then brought out a fan from her bedroom and switched it on.

Uncle’s face, calm as always, seemed unaffected by Shaoai’s words. He looked down at his chopsticks and readjusted them. “When I was a little younger than you, the civil war was still going on, and there was no telling which side was going to win. I remember going to teahouses with Grandpa, and on the wall of every teahouse was posted this single rule: Do not talk about politics . Grandpa pointed it out to me and said it was a lesson any responsible person should learn. Now, if you think about the different governments and revolutions he has been through, what better lesson could he have given his children?”

“But have you thought that it’s people like him, and people like you, who have made this country impossible for our generation? That’s why we have to do the fighting: because you haven’t.”

Ruyu felt all of a sudden tired. Bored. She wished she could tell Shaoai to stop being a clown who took herself too seriously. At school when Headmistress Liu had announced the political assignment, some of the students had bemoaned the loss of time for playing basketball or Ping-Pong after school, but Headmistress Liu had no patience for any of the complaints. “When we talk about a political assignment, we’re talking about a political assignment, not a children’s game,” she had said. “Be positive. Consider it an opportunity to get to know your new classmates. Enjoy the dancing for the sake of dancing.” Oddly, those who had complained the loudest seemed to have come to enjoy dancing the most. Indeed, just as Headmistress Liu had predicted, the dancing practice after school became a daily party for the three hundred first-year students, the outer circle of boys and the inner circle of girls rotating in different directions, giving the boys the opportunity to hold each girl’s hands.

“Every generation recognizes easily what they are owed by the last generation,” Uncle said. “Every generation thinks they can achieve what the last generation have not. We’ve had enough revolutions in our lifetime because of that thinking.”

“But this is going to be our revolution. It’s going to be completely different from yours. All your revolutions came from following the lead without thinking.”

Uncle nodded, looking exhausted. When he did not speak up again, Aunt said tentatively, “Of course we understand what you’re saying. But young people tend to forget about their own welfare. As your parents, we consider it our responsibility to remind you not to go to extremes.”

“So that you will have a daughter safe-at-hand to see that you’re well taken care of when you grow old, like Grandpa has you and Baba?” Shaoai asked. “If that logic stands, it’s even more reason for Ruyu to become a revolutionary. Who could be better fit for the job than an orphan?”

Aunt took a sharp breath, and Uncle frowned, but neither said anything right away. Tauntingly, Shaoai looked at Ruyu, despising her, the younger girl thought, because Shaoai had a pair of parents and she had the luxury to disregard their love. Ruyu looked straight into Shaoai’s eyes and smiled disarmingly. In a courteous voice, she said that she was afraid she was a disappointment to Sister Shaoai, as she did not have an ounce of revolutionary blood in her.

Shaoai pushed her chair backward and stood up. “I don’t think you’ll ever understand me, nor will I accept your view, so let’s forget about this,” she said to her parents, though her eyes had not left Ruyu’s face.

Uncle and Aunt watched Shaoai pick up her bicycle key and walk out to the yard, greeting Boyang’s grandmother in a falsely pleasant voice. Watermelon Wen said something across the courtyard, and in a moment several neighbors joined in. How was the beef stew, someone who must have seen Aunt cooking earlier asked Shaoai, and she replied that it was the same as always. Count yourself lucky to have beef to eat, Boyang’s grandmother said. In 1958, her husband’s family in Henan Province couldn’t even find good tree bark to stuff themselves with.

Aunt fidgeted. She looked at Uncle’s bowl and said that if he’d finished, there was no need for him to wait for her. Aunt worried when she and Uncle were late to the courtyard gathering after a meal, as though their absence would be taken as a negative statement. Uncle nodded and said he would go out and represent the family in a minute. The courtyard was a stage that neither Aunt nor Uncle could imagine missing, and both made their best efforts to be good participants — he by quietly smiling and nodding, she by always talking about the positive side of any issue at hand.

When Uncle joined the neighbors, Aunt seemed to relax a little. She turned to Ruyu and said she was sorry that Shaoai was sometimes unpleasant. Ruyu could tell that Aunt wanted to say more, but as she continued to watch her, Aunt balked and changed topics, asking Ruyu if the desk lamp was bright enough for her study in the evenings. Ruyu smiled and said that of course it was, and then pointed to the clock on the wall, saying it was late, and Grandpa must be hungry for his supper.

The girl was a better fit for her grandaunts than she herself had been, Aunt thought as she spooned mush into the old man’s mouth. She had felt like a piece of defenseless sponge when she had lived with the two sisters, absorbing their criticism, and her porousness had not changed since. In contrast, Ruyu seemed immune to that fate of being perpetually bogged down by the sogginess of the world. Aunt sighed. She wondered what kind of woman Ruyu would grow up to be.

Sitting at the desk, unable to focus on her studies, Ruyu reread the letter from her grandaunts. From the defeat she had seen in the faces of Uncle and Aunt, she knew that, however outrageously Shaoai might throw herself against the world, they would love her all the same, wishing that they could offer their flesh as a cushion between her and any danger. But neither of you can do anything for her, Ruyu thought; you can never save her. This thought comforted Ruyu. Against her will she had begun to like Aunt and Uncle, yet that seemed more of a reason for her not to tolerate their foolish love for their daughter.