Chapter Two

Chapter Two

 

A love story is apt to be as ordinary as rain in the spring and frost in the fall. But ordinary people just like to find poetic flavor through that kind of ordinary story. Thus, I guess most of the things in the world must be lack of colors. What a pity! I hope this story of mine can be as colorful as it is supposed to be.

 

Not so beautiful as that time after all, I say ‘that time’…because that day, at that moment, everything was so pretty. The crab apple at her yard was blossoming into a big snowball of pink and white. Around the wall, bamboo shoots were freshly squeezed out. Blue and tender was the sky. Her big cat was sleeping tight underneath the flowers. Her parents were not coming home yet. No sooner had she heard my voice than she rushed out of the cottage in a flash like a flying swallow, wearing a pair of small green slippers, like two soft green leaves. She was as delighted as feeling the morning sunlight. Two apple-like cheeks were many times redder than usual, seemed two hearts from a sweet-smelling river digging two wells on her face, as if the reddish springs full of rouge were overflowing. Still she wore her long brown hair in a plait.

 

When her parents were at home, all she could do was take a glance at me through the window; or smile at me while I was leaving. This time, she acted like a cat encountering a funny friend. I had never known she ‘could’ be vivacious like this before. As we strolled together back to her home, she leant her head on my shoulder. We were just seventeen; speechless, but eyes could tell how ecstatic we were to see each other. I loved to see that painting of ‘birds gathering around the phoenix’ hung on the wall, but my eyes had no space for it this time. I stared right at her small green slippers. She stepped back a little, still smiling, with ears blushing. I wanted to ask about her homework and about whether there was a pure white cat among those newborn ones, but I did not. I had got a lot of questions in fact but my mouth was sealed by a sort of power. The same difficulty came to her as well I thought because I saw her snow-white neck slightly shudder; she seemed to be swallowing up something irrelevant but yet not brave enough to say something that really needed to be said.

 

Sitting by the window on a small wooden red bench, she at times looked out of the window lest someone might show up unexpectedly. On half her face was gently flicking the shadow of the crab apple, which was turned into vivid red by her own gladness of being sure there was no one else coming over. She seemed quite impatient, joyfully impatient, with two hands tenderly caressing the edge of that small bench in turns. Finally, she took a look at me, through and through, and said, “Time to go ”. She was definitely reluctant to say that, I knew, but she just ought to. At that point, I totally forgot myself; did not know what I was anymore; only saw—not heard—three words come out of her mouth somehow. I tried to find out what they really meant through the bottom of my heart because I did care. My mind told me I had to go even if my heart did not really want to. I stared at her eyes, and she bent down her head, not completely; then she courageously turned her head up—on purpose, fearless, unwillingly shy—to look into my eyes. We turned our heads down and up again simultaneously, gazing in silence at each other. My heart seemed to be reaching hers.

 

I was ready to leave, with very slow paces. She saw me off; a layer of dew stuck above her eyes. When I reached the front door, and looked over my shoulder, she was already getting there, underneath the crab apple and flitting out of my sight, like a feather.

 

Afterwards, we no longer had another chance to be like that again.

 

I remember the time when her family was all at once at an exceedingly low ebb; and she was bereaved; not a very poignant funeral after all. She put her hands on her breast, twisting the bands of her mourning dress. Under the lamp, few words I said to her. We stood so close that I could almost hear the heat on each other’s faces ceaselessly spurting out, like cereals and standing grains growing up with sounds after rain. But what I spoke to her was totally meaningless—only the movements of mouth and tongue: we did not tend to care at all.

 

Twenty-two years old, weren’t we? But why was the ‘May Fourth Movement’ [6] not given birth yet? Still it was not so prevalent to see man and woman getting together and having a date at that time. With much fortune, after graduation I became a primary school principal. Of myself I was so proud; and she sent me a congratulatory letter, at the end of which a plum blossom was printed. She also finished her letter by asking me not to write back. As her will, I did not, but suddenly I was being extremely strict with every tiny incorrectness of my school. There was a burning fire in my heart, and I decided to make my school an excellent one, as a present to her; as a kind of writing back. I also saw her in my dream giving me a big hand for my victory—two jade-like hands and wrists.

 

Nonetheless, asking her to be my wife was somehow impossible; plenty of obstacles laid ahead, nonsensical and strong, like a fierce tiger famous for its strength and power standing right between us.

 

One thing at least made me pleased: the news that was linked with my heart about her engagement, never reached my ears. Better than this, she even came to help me out while I became a part-time principal of another school. I only wished to see her every night and day. That was all. But she, a big girl of more than twenty, knew how to keep away from me. She already lost her naiveté and vivaciousness of being seventeen and eighteen, but on the other hand, gained the pride and mystery of being a woman.

 

Two years later, I went to Southeast Asia . That day, I planned to call on her to say goodbye but the time was wrong—she was not at home.

 

Spending years in foreign lands, I had no way to reach her. Straight contact was not going to work; asking others… I was too shy to do that. So the only way to see and hear from her again was to rely solely on my dreams. It was strange that all females who appeared in my dream were ‘she’, one and only. Dream sometimes made me plaintively cry, sometimes be ecstatic. Within the illusion of falling in love, I could taste something unique. It was she, in my heart, still with the look of seventeen: a small round face; delicate eyes and eyebrows with a touch of charm; not so tall; every part of her so soft; and her very brisk walk. She was braiding her long brown hair, which created a most heart-moving back. I did not forget what she looked like when she tied her hair up completely, but I always dreamt of her long brown hair in a plait.

 

After coming back, I was desperate to find out how she was really doing. But every piece of news about her seemed like to me a rumor—she became a prostitute.

 

It disheartened me a lot but my ardor did not fade away. I wanted to see her again. I wanted to help her out and pull her back. To her home I went but she was not there anymore. The house was sold, and I, standing outside the wall, still saw the part of her crab apple at the yard.

 

At last, I found her. She had her hair cut, all tied back, with a big green comb on the nape of her neck; wearing a pink red cheongsam, its sleeves only reaching her elbows; two arms were not so soft as before. She powdered her face thickly but still I could see the wrinkles around her eyes. The smile on her face was still fascinating though its liveliness was lost. Without the make-up, she seemed like a frail woman after giving birth. Her eyes did not meet mine, not for a second, despite no sign of shyness on her face. She joked too, but certainly her heart was unable to catch up with her words and laughter. She was just fooling me around. I attempted to ask something about herself; how she made ends meet all these years; and how she was doing right now, but she did not give me an answer. She lit up a cigarette; smoke was smoothly running out of her nostrils; she sat and crossed her legs, left on right, staring at the smoke floating up and down; seemed so tough but senseless. Tears were drowning my eyes. She must have seen them, but why did she say and do nothing at all?; just kept looking at her own fingernails and slightly pressed her hair, looked like those were the only things she lived for. When I asked about her family, she kept on being silent. Before having to go, I told her where I lived, wishing she would come and beg me or order me to do something, but she did not seem to care at all about what I had told her; just a smile and looked around at something else, with no intention of sending me out. She thought I had already gone but I, as a matter of fact, was standing still in the doorway looking at her back. And I finally caught her eyes as she turned back, like a flash, then she went back in there again.

 

The first blossom in youth is the first love. It cannot be abandoned without thinking twice. So I asked someone to send her some money from me. She took the money but no reply.

 

Friends of mine saw the sadness—my eyebrows gave me away. With good intention, they encouraged me to meet some other girls, but a bitter smile and head shaking were my response. I had to wait for her. First love is like an infant, always so sweet, no matter if it is in the form of a little doll or of some small rocks. Bit by bit, I started to talk about her with few good friends of mine. To save my face, they did not talk her down too much, only pretending they were making jokes about her, and that hurt me a lot indeed. They said I was stupid. It was very wrong to fall in love with her. The more they spoke ill of her, the more stubborn I became. She was the one who opened the gate to love for me, and now we all came to such a helpless situation; no, I could not leave her alone like this. Even though pity is less tasty than love, it contains much more human feelings. Then I was determined to marry her. Not daring to tell her by myself, I asked my friend to give her the message. He told me that she laughed it off when she knew that I was willing to take her as my wife; nothing but wild laughter. Why? Who and what did she laugh at? My foolishness? Great then, people full of tenderness and affection are also considered fools, aren’t they? It, in a way, made me proud. At herself? I guessed she just had no fortitude to cry, and was helplessly driven to wild laughter by over-depression of her own.

 

Emboldened by my silliness, I was resolved to ask her in person. I arranged what I had to tell her in detail. I even practiced it over and over again beforehand. I told myself—I had got to win, I could not fail. But she was not at home. I had been there twice, yet no sign of her. At the fourth try, I eventually saw her, inside the house, in her little coffin. She had died of an abortion.

 

A basket of fresh and tender roses, petals of which heavily bore my tears from my heart, was put before her tombstone. It was the end of my first love, and also the beginning of my life-long emptiness. Why does she come down to be like this? I do not know, I do not care, for she is always in my heart, safe and sound.

 

(TBC)