Chapter Fifteen: Reunion

Reunion

That day, after bidding farewell to my friend, I watched her leave Beijing for Chongqing. She said she wanted to travel there, to seek out new opportunities. I saw her off at the train station.

It was past six in the evening when I returned to Changping. On a strange impulse, I found myself at the kindergarten where she worked—the same place that served as an arts training center. I stood at the gate, foolishly standing there, smiling, watching, and crying all at once.

Hao Xiaojun was inside, teaching the children how to paint. She used her left hand, for her right was slightly disabled and couldn’t hold a pen—perhaps one of the reasons I admired her so much. She had grown more mature, more captivating than ever…

Perhaps she sensed my presence, some silent resonance between us. She seemed to realize I was watching her.

Suddenly she turned and looked my way. At that instant, I lost my nerve and darted behind a wall, but my clumsy movement betrayed me—I knocked over a row of shared bikes, the crash loud in the quiet.

She came out, stepped to the threshold of the building, and called out into the courtyard, “Hello? Is someone there? Are you here to pick up a child?”

I answered, “No, I’m here searching for the past.”

She replied, “What did you say? Who are you looking for?”

I said, “I’m looking for the girl I once lost.”

She seemed to recognize my voice then, and slowly she approached.

I, too, moved forward, slowly taking from my pocket a necklace—a pure silver cross. She had given it to me years before, when we were students, because I was a Christian. It was a gift from her.

When she saw the cross in my hand, she began to cry. I did not look at her. Guilt weighed on me—I didn’t know how to face her, how to explain my disappearance for all those years.

She came right up to me, reached out to touch my face, and then noticed the scars from blades that marred my arm—shocking, livid marks. She knew nothing of their origin, nothing of how they were connected to her, nothing of what I had been through, or where I had been these past years.

She turned away, shoulders trembling with grievance, and said in a trembling voice, “You have ten minutes. Give me an explanation. Just ten minutes.”

I said, “There was an accident. I almost didn’t make it back. I didn’t want to drag you down.”

She asked, “An accident? Keep making things up, keep trying to fool me. Go ahead, perform your act! Do you take me for a child? Do you think I’ll believe you?”

I suddenly rolled up my sleeve and let her see the scars covering my arm. “I was in a car accident. My arms and legs were broken. It took years of recovery just to survive, just to keep my limbs. I’ve given everything just to carry on.”

Hao Xiaojun said, “Have you been watching too many Korean dramas? How moving. Amnesia, too? Let me see—did you swap souls with someone?”

I said, “Because of that accident, I even lost my father. Do you really think I’d lie to you?”

The moment the words left my mouth, I regretted them. Why did I have to drag my father into this? But it was too late.

She said, “Is that true? You’re not lying to me, are you?”

I pressed on, “I don’t want to disturb you anymore. I didn’t want to weigh you down. I was afraid I’d become a burden, unable to give you happiness. Do you understand? Do you know what these years have been like for me? Do you really know?”

Seeing my aggrieved expression, she softened, flustered and compromised. “Alright, enough—let’s not talk about it now. Let’s go home. Let’s go back, alright? I’m sorry. I didn’t know your father was gone. I truly didn’t mean it…”

She spoke a word to her supervisor, then hurriedly took me back to her temporary lodging—a semi-basement apartment in Tiantongyuan.

Tiantongyuan is a haven for Beijing’s migrant workers—if you’re working here, you’ll find yourself in Tiantongyuan. If you’re down on your luck, you’ll end up in Majiaoqiao. Perhaps every drifter in Beijing has passed through this place. Tiantongyuan takes up nearly half of Changping District, with three major routes and seven or eight subway stations serving it. Take Line Five, for instance: Tiantongyuan, Tiantongyuan South, Tiantongyuan North—three stops, and after half an hour on the subway, you’re still in Tiantongyuan.

Can you imagine how vast it is?