Madeleine Thien - Do Not Say We Have Nothing

On the other end of the line, Big Mother had grown quiet and Sparrow thought she was done speaking.

He was in the middle of saying goodbye when Big Mother interrupted to tell him she had news. Last week, she had received a letter from Aunt Swirl and Wen the Dreamer.

“Ma,” he said.

“Don’t interrupt!” she shouted. And then, sighing, “I’m getting old. I keep losing my train of thought.”

Now Big Mother filled in the years, speaking rapidly as if she were running across a narrow beam. Back in 1977, Wen had nearly been rearrested. If it weren’t for his friend, Projectionist Bang, they could never have gotten away. They had retreated deeper into Kyrgyzstan. Last year, word finally reached them that Big Mother’s petitioning had been successful: during the reforms initiated by Hu Yaobang, the convictions against Wen the Dreamer had been overturned and his criminal label had been removed. “It only took ten years,” Big Mother said bitterly. Swirl and Wend were coming home. In the letter, Swirl said they’d already crossed Inner Mongolia and reached Lanzhou. After nearly twenty years in the desert regions, they wanted to visit the sea. They planned to stop in Beijing before continuing on to Shanghai and Cold Water Ditch. Big Mother had already given them Sparrow’s address, even though it would be another few months before the official paperwork reached them. He should expect them in the winter.

“Will you recognize Swirl?” his mother asked.

“Always,” he said. Sparrow shifted the phone to his other ear. “Do they know everything that’s happened?”

He feared he had inadvertently pushed his mother off the balance beam and that she had toppled over and fallen into the quiet. But Big Mother’s voice, when it came back, was steady. “She knows. They both know.”

Over the line, the faint echoes of other conversations broke through and fell back.

“My son, have you been writing music?”

Sparrow, surprised by her question, answered truthfully, “Yes.”

“Well, what is it?”

“A sonata for piano and violin.” He wanted to tell his mother about an entirely different recording, Bach’s six sonatas for the same two instruments. Throughout his life, Bach had returned to these six pieces, polishing and revising them, rewriting them as he grew older. They were almost unbearably beautiful, as if the composer wanted to find out how much this most of basic of sonata forms-exposition, development, recapitulation-could hold, and in what ways containment could hold a freedom, a life.

His mother sounded illogically near. “What did you name it? I hope you didn’t just give it a number.”

Sparrow smiled into the phone. He was aware of Mrs. Sun staring up at the ceiling, at a particularly large spider. “I called it The Sun Shines on the People’s Square .”

“Did you?” She gave a big, round pop of a laugh.

He couldn’t help but laugh as well. “Yes, I did.”

“You’ll find a way to play it for Swirl and Wen the Dreamer?”

“Of course.”

“It’s a joyful title, isn’t it?” his mother said.

He nodded, surprised by the grief that overtook him. He remembered something Zhuli had once said. Luckily, joy seeps into all your compositions . Some part of him had always existed separately, it had continued even after he had ceased to listen. “Yes.”

—

The next day, Saturday, Ai-ming slept until noon. It was so hot, even the bed felt as if it were melting. Last night, she and Yiwen had stayed late at Tiananmen Square, where the rock star Hou Dejian had given a concert, his voice reverberating up to Chairman Mao’s portrait like a dream they were all letting go.

Now Ai-ming sat up, sweaty, nauseous, the whine of electric guitars pulsating in her head. She felt as if she had not slept at all. The racket of the helicopters continued, they were circling Beijing again, dropping pamphlets. She sat up. The calendar said June 3, the month of May had vanished, dissolved by history. Today, Ai-ming would copy Chapter 23 of the Book of Records as a birthday present for Yiwen. This evening, she would go to Tiananmen, but she would come home early, she would have a good rest.

—

At home that afternoon, Sparrow fell into a deep sleep that went undisturbed by the loudspeakers, whose broadcast repeated stubbornly: Beginning immediately, all Beijing citizens must be on high alert! Please stay off the streets and away from Tiananmen Square! All workers should remain at their posts and all citizens should stay at home to safeguard their lives . What did he dream? Later on, Ai-ming often wondered because, when Sparrow came out of his room around dinner time, he was calm, even elated. He was carrying a small bundle of papers that were taped together and folded, accordion style. He sat down on the sofa beside Ling, oblivious to the broadcaster’s repeated warnings. Perhaps Sparrow, like Ai-ming, did not believe that the army would re-enter the city. Sparrow was humming a piece of music, an enlargement of the pattern of notes he had been humming for weeks. Directly above him, the Spring Festival calendar showed two plump goldfish: good fortune gliding over his head like clouds.

Ai-ming listened to his humming. The music was not a lament, and yet it had a lifting, altering sadness impossible to pin down.

Ling was reading yesterday’s paper. She stared, as if hypnotized, at the same page. Side by side, Ai-ming’s parents appeared joined at the hip, although Ling leaned slightly away, as if to make space for another person. Ai-ming studied her father closely. His bad haircut had grown out a little, making the Bird of Quiet look like someone who had once been very handsome.

She stretched out her hands. After three hours of copying Chapter 23, when May Fourth arrives in Hohhot and begins her journey into the desert, all the little bones in her fingers hurt.

The noise of the helicopters was maddening, as if their only purpose was to agitate everyone’s nerves. A sharp sound cracked against the windows and then the door. She and Ling jumped but Sparrow simply turned, as if he’d been expecting an intruder all along. A woman’s raspy voice cried out, “Comrade Sparrow! Comrade Sparrow!”

When no one else moved, Ai-ming went to the door and pulled it open.

The woman had a narrow nose, surprisingly large eyes and a small, pointy chin. What was the stain on her dress? Mud. Dried red mud. And she had a new bruise, very swollen, just below her left eye.

“Fan,” her father said.

“Sparrow, help us…please.” Fan was shuddering as if from cold. “Old Bi, Dao-ren, we have to bring them here….”

Ai-ming stepped away from the door.

“They were hit at Gongzhufen. We have to hurry. The army is coming in!” She stared at Ai-ming with an unreal placidity, blank terror.

“Gongzhufen…” Sparrow said.

Ling was looking at Sparrow’s sheaf of papers, she had picked them up off the sofa and was staring at them as if no one and no sound had entered the room. Sparrow went and spoke into her ear. Ling stood up.

“Ai-ming,” her father said, turning. “Stay with your mother. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You promise to stay here?”

She nodded.

“Ai-ming, promise me that you won’t leave the house. I have to go now.”

Why was he shouting? Or perhaps he wasn’t shouting. He was speaking quietly yet his voice seemed to be pounding in her ears.

“Yes, Ba.”

He paced the room in a confused way, looking for something. His coat? His ID? The bundle of papers? A letter? Whatever it was he had wanted to bring with him, he abandoned it. He gave Ling one last look, a smile to reassure her, before hurrying after Fan.

Ai-ming followed them to the door.