Yiyun Li - Kinder Than Solitude

“I don’t think it’s particularly this person, or her death. I suppose I’ve always been puzzled,” Ruyu said. “Well, let’s forget about it.”

“Let’s not, yet. Is this why you want to go back now, to find out if she was murdered or she killed herself?”

“No, it has nothing to do with her,” Ruyu said.

“Then why China? Why now?”

“It’s just a mood. It’s been quite a long time since I last saw the country.”

“When was your last visit?”

“I haven’t been back since coming to America.”

“That’s what I remembered you told me,” Celia said. “And how long ago was that?”

“I came in ’92.”

“What a shame!” Celia exclaimed. Ruyu wondered what the shame was, exactly — to be gone for so long, or to be gone for so long yet still not thoroughly gone.

Celia handed a mug to Ruyu, and they carried their coffee to the table. “Now, you must say something good about this coffee. Edwin roasted the beans himself, the first batch.”

“When did he start getting into coffee?”

“Only about two weeks ago.”

“What happened to beer making?” Ruyu asked. For the past two years, Edwin had been experimenting in the basement with his home-brewing kit; there were a couple of bootlegging tales about his granduncles he liked to tell at parties, and Ruyu was certain she was not the only one to have heard them more than once. She had wondered why no one ever told him not to repeat the tales, but perhaps others, kinder than herself, believed that having anything to say was better than having nothing to say.

“Going well,” Celia said, “though a man is always in need of new things. Or else he’ll feel stale. A man is not like a cat that you can leave to its own entertainment. You have to help him find things to do. Speaking of cats, where’s Scooter?”

“He was by the garage door when I came in.”

“I just warned him this morning not to bring another dead bird into the house, though I’d bet ten dollars he didn’t hear me. Sometimes I think my problem is that I’m outnumbered in this household,” Celia said with an exasperated glance at the framed family pictures on the sideboard — a look that could only belong to a contented woman. “Technically speaking, Scooter can’t be called a man anymore, but he’s in every sense your average male. And how they can make you talk all the time without hearing a word you say. If you decide to stay quiet just for one moment, they say, Mom, you didn’t tell me where my gym clothes were, or, You didn’t say the violin lesson was rescheduled. Or, like last night, Edwin said you looked terrible. I said, Oh, did she, and he said it surprised him that I hadn’t noticed your mood, or asked you more about your friend’s death. What friend, I said, and he said you told him yesterday that a friend in China died. He said he thought I had heard all about it, but wouldn’t I have told him if that had been the case?”

Ruyu sipped the coffee. It occurred to her that she would one day miss Celia’s company — or perhaps she had already begun to miss Celia, and the time sitting at this table, listening to Celia talk about her family trips and this or that complication with her sister and parents. Scenery that Ruyu had not seen with her own eyes she had seen through Celia’s; people Ruyu did not know — and did not mind not knowing — she had met in Celia’s tales. But all the same, the thought of leave-taking, once formed, pointed in one direction only; she had left plenty of people behind, and it did not bother her to add Celia and her family to that roster. Though Celia, the most unsuspicious one among them, gave Ruyu an odd feeling that she was burying something alive.

Celia observed Ruyu’s expression. “Is the coffee not so good?”

“It’s good.”

“You don’t look like you’re impressed.”

“You can’t rely on me for any judgment,” Ruyu said.

“That I already know,” Celia said and leaned closer, propping her head on her hand. “Seriously, is the dead woman an enemy of yours or something?”

Ruyu thought about it. “Not really. I don’t think I care enough about the world for anyone to be my enemy,” she said honestly.

Celia shuddered — or was it only Ruyu’s imagination? — and at once recovered. “But with her gone, are things going to be easier in China for you? Is that why you want to go back now?”

“What do you mean?”

Celia sat up abruptly, as if she could not contain her excitement. “So, this is my hypothesis — and you can correct me if I’m wrong, but this is the most reasonable version of the story Edwin and I could come up with.”

“Whose story?”

“Yours. But before I start, you have to know I’m not the judgmental kind, so you don’t have to feel uncomfortable. For all I care, you could be anyone, or anything, and I would be your friend.”

Ruyu looked at Celia curiously. “For all I know, I’ve always been nobody and nothing.”

Celia ignored Ruyu’s words. “I’ve read in the newspapers that rich people and high-ranking officials in China keep their mistresses in California — have you heard of such a practice?” Celia said, looking into Ruyu’s eyes.

“Or New Jersey,” Ruyu said. “Yes, I’ve heard of it. But carry on.”

“You’re not uncomfortable where I’m going.”

“No.”

Celia nodded and said she was only making sure. “So my guess is that, however it happened, you met a married man when you were young — eighteen? nineteen? — and got yourself involved, but when things became complicated, he arranged for you to come here. And now, this woman — whoever she was, the wife most likely — died, and the hurdle is gone.”

“Did you and Edwin come up with this last night?”

“No, I always wondered, but Edwin never bought my theory until he saw you yesterday. I suppose what you said about the dead woman convinced him that I was right. Why, which part doesn’t make sense?”

“It all makes sense,” Ruyu said. “Except, how do you fit my two ex-husbands into the story?”

“Were you really married twice?”

“I see that you have started to question everything I’ve said.”

“We only have your word about the marriages.”

Ruyu sighed. “Why did you help me move if I looked so suspicious in the first place?”

“I didn’t know then!” Celia said. “But I wouldn’t have minded helping in any case. I thought you were only trying to move out. That arrangement with your former employer did look suspicious to me, though.”

“So how do you fit that part into your story?”

“That seems to make more sense than your marriages. I would say, unless you show me evidence, I prefer to believe that your marriages are not real.”

“Why? Do I look like the kind of woman who could only be a mistress?”

Celia laughed.

“No, I meant it as a serious question,” Ruyu said.

“What does a mistress look like?” Celia asked and studied Ruyu. “I don’t know, but I do think you look like someone who doesn’t know she deserves better.”

Ruyu wondered if part of her problem was that she could not imagine herself as a wife. Moran, for instance, always had that wifely look about her — she would never become anyone’s lover; she was born to be someone’s wife. “Carry on with your detective work. How do you explain the man in Twin Valley?”

“I thought the man in China stopped supporting you, so you needed to find someone else to support you, but Edwin said that the man might be a business partner of your man in China and only served as a guardian. But I would prefer that you’d moved on from the man in China — am I not closer than Edwin?”

“From the kept woman of a Chinese official to the kept woman of an American politician?”