Yiyun Li - A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

“There’s an open spot there,” Boshen said. “Do you want to stand there?”

Sasha nodded, and Boshen followed her. Apart from the brief encounter at the party in Beijing and a few phone calls, he did not know her. He had thought about her often after she had called him about the pregnancy. What kind of girl, he had wondered, would’ve made Yang a father? He had imagined a mature and understanding girl. Beautiful, too. He had made up a perfect woman for Yang and for his own peace of mind, but Sasha had disappointed him. When they settled along the curb, he said, “So, what’s your plan after the operation?”

Sasha stood on tiptoe like a child, and looked in the direction where the parade would start. Boshen regretted right away speaking with such animosity. Seeing nothing, she turned to him and said, “What’s your plan in America? Where’s your new wife, anyway?”

Boshen frowned. He had told Yang that the marriage would be used as a cover, and his departure was meant only to be a temporary one. He had promised Yang other things, too, money he would send, help he would seek in the overseas Chinese community for Yang’s return to the stage. Not a day since he had arrived did he forget his promises, but Sasha’s words stung him. His marriage must have been an unforgivable betrayal, in Sasha’s and Yang’s eyes alike. “I can’t defend myself,” Boshen said finally.

“Of course not. You were the one sending him back to the street,” Sasha said.

“It’s been a troubled time,” Boshen said, struggling over the words. “It’s been difficult for all of us. But we certainly should try to help him out.”

Sasha turned to look at Boshen with an amused smile. “You speak like the worst kind of politician,” she said. “Show me the solution.”

“I am thinking.” Boshen hesitated, and said, “I’ve been thinking — if we can tell him that he’ll be able to perform in America, maybe he would want to leave Beijing?”

“And then?”

“We will try here. There’s a Nan Dan master in New York. Maybe we can contact him and ask for his help. But the first thing we do is to get Yang out of the country.”

“Does that ‘we’ include me?”

“If you could marry Yang, he would be here in no time. I know him. If there’s one percent chance to go back to the stage, he’ll try.”

“A very nice plan, Boshen,” Sasha said. “But why should I agree to the proposal? What’s in it for me?”

Boshen looked away from Sasha and watched a couple kiss at the other side of the street. After a long moment, he turned to Sasha and tried to look into her eyes. “You must have loved him at least once, Sasha,” he said, his voice trembling.

SASHA HAD NOT planned for love, or even an affair. The friendship was out of whimsy, a convenience for the empty days immediately before graduating from college. The movie they watched one night in July was not planned, either. It was ten o’clock when Sasha purchased the tickets, at the last minute. Yang looked at the clock in the ticket booth and wondered aloud if it was too late, and Sasha laughed, asking him if he was a child and if his lover had a curfew for him.

The movie was Pretty Woman, with almost unreadable Chinese subtitles. When they came out to the midnight street, Sasha said, “Don’t you just love Julia Roberts?”

“What’s to love about her?” Yang said.

Sasha glanced at Yang. He was quiet throughout the movie — he did not understand English, but Sasha thought at least he could’ve enjoyed the beautiful actress. “She’s pretty, and funny, and so — American,” Sasha said. “America is a good place. Everything could happen there. A prostitute becomes a princess; a crow turns into a swan overnight.”

“A prostitute never becomes a princess,” Yang said.

“How do you know?” Sasha said. “If only you could come with me to America and take a look at it yourself.”

After a long moment, Yang said, “Every place is a good place. Only time goes wrong.”

Sasha said nothing. She did not want to spend the night philosophizing. When they walked past a small hotel, she asked Yang if he wanted to come in with her. Just for the fun of staying out for a night, she said; he needn’t have to report to his lover anyway, she added. Yang hesitated, and she grabbed his hand and pulled him into the foyer with her. A middle-aged woman at the reception opened the window and said, “What do you want?”

“Comrade, do you have a single room for two persons?” Sasha said.

The woman threw out a pad for registration and shut the window. Sasha filled in the form. The woman scanned the pad. “Your ID?” she asked.

Sasha handed her ID to the woman. The woman looked at it for a long time, and pointed to Yang with her chin. “His ID?”

“He’s my cousin from Inner Mongolia,” Sasha said in a cheerful voice. “He forgot to bring his ID with him.”

“Then there’s no room tonight.” The woman threw out Sasha’s ID and closed the window.

“Comrade.” Sasha tapped on the glass.

The woman opened the window. “Go away,” she said. “Your cousin? Let me tell you — either you have a marriage license and I will give you a room, or you go out and do that shameless thing in the street and let the cops arrest you. Don’t you think I don’t know girls like you?”

Sasha dragged Yang out the door, his lips quavering. “I don’t believe I can’t find a room for us,” Sasha said finally.

Yang looked at Sasha with a baffled look. “Why do we have to do this?” he said.

“Ha, you’re afraid now. Go ahead if you don’t want to come,” Sasha said, and started to walk. Yang followed Sasha to an even smaller hotel at the end of a narrow lane. An old man was sitting behind a desk, playing poker with himself. “Grandpapa,” Sasha said, handing her ID to the old man. “Do you have a single room for my brother and me?”

The old man looked at Sasha and then Yang. “He’s not fifteen yet so he doesn’t have an ID,” Sasha said, and Yang smiled shyly at the old man, his white teeth flashing in the dark.

The old man nodded and handed a registration pad to Sasha. Five minutes later they were granted a key. It was a small room on the second floor, with two single beds, a rusty basin stand with two basins, and a window that did not have a curtain. Roaches scurried to find a hiding place when Sasha turned on the light. They stood just inside the door, and all of a sudden she did not know what the excitement was of spending a night together in a filthy hotel. “Why don’t we just go home?” Yang said behind her.

“Where’s the place you call home?” Sasha snapped. She turned off the light and lay down on a bed without undressing. “Go back to the man who keeps you if this is not a place for a princess like you,” she said.

Yang stood for a long moment before he got into the other bed. Sasha waited for him to speak, and when he did not, she became angry with him, and with herself.

The next morning, when the city stirred to life, they both lay awake in their own beds. The homing pigeons flew across the sky, the small brass whistles bound to their tails humming in a harmonious low tone. Not far away, Tao music played on a tape recorder, calling for the early risers to join the practice of tai chi. Old men, the fans of Peking Opera, sang their favorite parts of the opera, their voices cracking at high notes. Then the doors down the lane creaked open, releasing the shouting children headed to school, and adults to work, their bicycle bells clanking.

Later, someone turned on a record player and music blasted across the alley. Sasha sat up and looked out the window. A young man was setting up a newspaper stand at the end of the alley, making theatrical movements along with a song in which a rock singer was yelling, “Oh, Genghis Khan, Genghis Khan, he’s a powerful old man. He’s rich, he’s strong, and I want to marry him.”