Yiyun Li - Kinder Than Solitude

That night, Shaoai returned earlier than Ruyu had expected. Moran and Boyang had come into her bedroom only twenty minutes earlier — often at the end of the night they would come in, quizzing one another on the spelling of English vocabulary for the next day, or just chatting. Aunt welcomed these visits, and Ruyu had let herself become used to them, as she rarely agreed to visit the other two at their houses.

Moran stood up when Shaoai entered the room, but the older girl signaled for Moran to stay where she was sitting with Ruyu on the edge of the bed, and told Boyang not to vacate the only chair. Ruyu had noticed that both Moran and Boyang idolized Shaoai, who treated them with a respect mixed with teasing familiarity. “So, how is high school after all?” Shaoai asked, sitting on the edge of the desk.

Ruyu listened as Moran and Boyang shared tidbits with Shaoai — nicknames of teachers inherited from the older students, a strange new classmate, the construction projects planned for the campus.

“And how is it with this epic political assignment you’ve got?” Shaoai asked.

Moran looked carefully at Shaoai’s face and then turned to Boyang, who shrugged and said it was all right. The dancing was tolerable, and in any case it was only for a month. When Shaoai did not comment, Moran added that not many students were really into it, and some of them talked about wearing all black for mourning on the evening of the celebration.

“Are they serious, or are they just being boastful?” Shaoai asked with interest.

Moran looked embarrassed, and Ruyu wondered if she had lied. Ruyu herself had not heard such conversations, but then she did not have any friends; news and gossip about the school all came from Moran and Boyang.

“Or should I ask if it’s only your wishful thinking that such a thing would happen?” Shaoai said.

“Moran and I talked about wearing black as a protest with a few of our friends, but somehow the teachers got wind of it,” Boyang said.

“And?”

“Headmistress Liu talked to us,” Boyang said.

“And intimidated you into acquiescence?”

“Not really,” Boyang said. “She only made us see how childish a protest like that would be.”

“Childish? Is that the word she used?” Shaoai said.

Boyang shrugged, and said that in any case Headmistress Liu made it clear that their talk had to stop. Moran looked nervously at Boyang and then at Shaoai, and when the latter did not speak, Moran said that Headmistress Liu meant that their behavior would only hurt themselves and the school, which, Moran said, was not what they wanted.

“What do you want?” Shaoai asked.

The question seemed to put Moran into confusion. Shaoai stared at her, and then laughed cheerlessly. “I don’t blame you,” she said. “I didn’t know what I wanted at your age. Imagine, I had thought of becoming a spy for this country.”

When Shaoai did not say more, Moran explained in a lower voice to Ruyu that Shaoai had been approached once, before she had entered college, by a secret agent who had met her at the English Corner near Tiananmen Square. He said he had been watching her for a few weeks, and had been impressed by her personality; he had asked her if she would be interested in becoming a secret agent — she would have to give up going to college, but they would give her other training.

Ruyu was aware that Shaoai had been listening to their conversation, waiting for Ruyu to be impressed perhaps, but she refused to meet the older girl’s eyes, and barely nodded when Moran finished the story.

“Imagine, I could’ve known how to drive a jeep or put a silencer on a pistol or concoct all kinds of poisons by now,” Shaoai said, but before anyone could comment, she changed topics abruptly, asking other questions about school. The atmosphere in the room became more relaxed. A few times Boyang broke into laughter. Moran seemed more cautious in her cheerfulness, yet Shaoai seemed to have made up her mind to be amiable for the moment.

Later, at bedtime, Shaoai still seemed amicable. “Do you like Boyang?” she asked as Ruyu settled into her side of the bed.

“Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. You look comfortable with him.”

“I like him as much as I like Moran,” Ruyu said carefully, feeling her muscles tense. She never knew where conversations with Shaoai would go.

“Or do you mean that you dislike them equally?”

“Why does it matter? They don’t need me to like them.”

“We’re not talking about what they need,” Shaoai said, and leaned over to stare at Ruyu. “What I want to know is if you like them — or anyone, for that matter.”

“Why should I?”

“Why indeed!” Shaoai said. “What is it like to have so much contempt for the world?”

“I don’t have any contempt for anyone,” Ruyu said.

“Do you feel anything?”

“I don’t know why you are asking, and I don’t know what you are asking,” Ruyu said, and when Shaoai did not turn her stare away from Ruyu’s face, she shut her eyes.

“Only because I find your unfeeling attitude toward the world most extraordinary. Do you know a person like you cannot be trusted?”

Ruyu opened her eyes and did not avert them when Shaoai continued studying her face. “I didn’t ask you to trust me,” Ruyu said. “So why don’t you leave me alone?”

“I didn’t ask you to come and live here. I didn’t agree for my parents to take you in,” Shaoai said, her voice all of a sudden hoarse. “Leave you alone? Why don’t you spare all of us that judgmental attitude? Why don’t you leave me alone?”

At such a close distance, Shaoai’s face looked as though distorted by pain. “If you tell me how to leave you alone, I’ll do it just as you would like,” Ruyu said. “I didn’t know I was in your way. Your parents told my grandaunts that you would be living in the university dorm during the school year.”

“So the fault is mine?”

“I don’t have another place to be.”

“You’ve left me no place to be.”

For a split second Ruyu had the impression that Shaoai, enraged implacably, would strangle her. She willed her body to stay still and said in a calm voice that she was sorry if that was how Shaoai felt. And it was late, she said, and she had a weekly exam tomorrow morning. Before Shaoai could reply, Ruyu switched the light off. She had not yet had a moment of free time to pray, but she was too tired to worry about that now.

For a while Ruyu stayed awake, and she knew that Shaoai was awake, too. Ruyu was vaguely aware of a power she held over the older girl, but what it meant she did not want to understand; to some extent she preferred to believe that it was the same power she held over Boyang and Moran, though the latter two were transparent, while Shaoai was, despite being a nuisance, a mystery. Yet the mere thought of understanding that mystery struck Ruyu as sordid. Besides, she would never allow herself to be outwitted in what she excelled at: the habit of being opaque allowed her to be a mystery in people’s eyes. To want to know any person better requires one to give up that position and to become less inscrutable.

Three days passed, but the conversation Ruyu had begun to dread, in which Celia would request an explanation as to why Ruyu had told Edwin but not Celia about the death of a friend, had not occurred. The person who’d died wasn’t close, Ruyu would have said, but that would not have sufficed. For Celia, any death, be it that of a stranger she’d read about in the newspapers, a passing acquaintance’s distant relative, or an aged neighborhood pet, was relevant, the grief she felt on other people’s behalf leaving her constantly bruised yet acutely alive. To deprive Celia of an opportunity to mourn was to deny her the right to feel.