The Seventh Day (7 page)

In the hollow silence I heard once more the call of that unfamiliar woman’s voice: “Yang Fei…”

I opened my eyes and looked all around. The rain-snow mix was now falling less heavily. To my left there approached a woman very much like Li Qing, wearing a nightdress that was dripping with water. She came up to me and studied my face and then my pajamas, on which she saw the now-faded characters for “Li Qing.” “Yang Fei?” she called inquiringly.

She had to be Li Qing, I felt. But why did her voice sound so different? I sat on the bench looking at her silently.

A strange expression appeared on her face. “You’re wearing Yang Fei’s pajamas,” she said. “Who are you?”

“I’m Yang Fei,” I said.

She looked at my peculiar features in perplexity. “You don’t look like Yang Fei to me.”

I put my hand to my face. My left eye was on my cheek and my nose next to my nose and my chin below my chin.

“I forgot to get my face fixed,” I said.

She reached out her hands and carefully put my eyeball back inside its socket and moved my askew nose back to its original position and pushed my wandering chin up with a firm click.

Then she took a step back and studied me carefully. “Now you look like Yang Fei,” she said.

“I
am
Yang Fei,” I said. “You look like Li Qing.”

“I
am
Li Qing.”

We both smiled, and in smiling our familiar smiles we recognized each other.

“You’re Li Qing,” I said.

“You really are Yang Fei,” she said.

“Your voice is different.”

“So is yours.”

We looked at each other.

“Your voice is like that of someone I don’t know,” I said.

“Your voice is like that of a stranger,” she said.

“It’s so strange,” I said. “I know your voice so well, and even your breathing.”

“It seems strange to me,” she replied. “I ought to be familiar with your voice….” She paused and then smiled. “Just like I’m familiar with your snore.”

Her body leaned over and her hand patted my pajama top, patted my collar. “The collar is still in good shape,” she said.

“I never wore these after you left,” I said.

“So how come you’re wearing them now?”

“They will serve as a shroud.”

“Shroud?” She didn’t really understand.

“How about your pajamas?” I asked.

“I didn’t wear them, either,” she said. “I don’t know where I put them.”

“You were right not to wear them,” I said. “They’ve got my name on them.”

“That’s true,” she said. “I married someone else.”

I nodded.

“I kind of regret it.” A mischievous smile appeared on her face. “I should have worn them, just to see what his reaction would be.”

Then she became sad. “Yang Fei, I’ve come to say goodbye.”

I saw how water droplets were still trailing from her nightgown. “Were you wearing that when you lay down in the bathtub?” I asked.

Her eyes glinted, in an expression I knew well. “You know what happened, do you?” she asked.

“I know.”

“When did you hear about it?”

“Yesterday”—I thought for a moment—“or maybe the day before.”

She studied me carefully and seemed to realize something. “You died too?”

“Yes,” I said. “I did.”

We exchanged mournful looks.

“It looks like you’re grieving for me,” she said.

“I have the same feeling about you,” I said. “It’s as though we’re both grieving for each other.”

She looked around in perplexity. “Where are we?”

I pointed at the old building that appeared dimly behind the rain and snow. She gazed at it intently, recalling the apartment that had once recorded the humdrum minutiae of our life.

“Do you still live there?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I moved out after you left.”

“You moved in with your dad?”

I nodded.

“Now I know why I came here.” She smiled.

“It must have been in our destiny,” I agreed. “We both had to make our way back here.”

“Who lives in the apartment now?”

“I don’t know.”

She shifted her gaze, clutching her wet gown tightly to her chest. “I’m tired—I walked a long way to get here.”

“I didn’t walk far,” I said, “but I feel tired too.”

Her body bent over once again, and she started to sit down on the bench, to my left. She felt it sway precariously. “This bench seems about to collapse,” she said.

“You’ll get used to it in a minute,” I said.

She sat down gingerly and her body tensed up. But after a moment her body relaxed. “It won’t collapse anymore,” she said.

“It feels like sitting on a rock,” I said.

“That’s right,” she agreed.

We sat quietly together as though sitting in a dream. A lot of time seemed to pass before her voice regained its strength.

“How did you get here?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” I thought of the last scene I remembered. “I was in a restaurant and had just finished eating a bowl of noodles. The newspaper on the table carried a story about you. The kitchen seemed to catch on fire and many people fled outside. I didn’t move but just kept on reading the story in the paper. Then there was an explosion and I don’t know what happened after that.”

“This happened yesterday?” she asked.

“It might have been the day before,” I said.

“It was all my fault.”

“Not your fault,” I said, “the newspaper’s.”

She leaned her head on my shoulder. “Do you mind if I lean on your shoulder?”

“You’re already doing that,” I said.

She seemed to smile and her head trembled a couple of times on my shoulder. She saw the black armband on my left arm and reached out a hand to touch it.

“Are you wearing this for me?” she asked.

“For myself.”

“Nobody is wearing black for you?”

“No.”

“How about your dad?”

“He died, over a year ago now. He was very ill and knew there was no cure, and so as not to burden me he went off quietly by himself. I looked for him everywhere but couldn’t find him.”

“He was an excellent father, and very kind to me as well.”

“The best father there could be,” I said.

“How about your wife?”

I didn’t answer.

“Do you have a child?”

“No, I don’t. I never married again.”

“Why not?”

“I wasn’t interested.”

“Was it because you were so hurt?”

“No,” I said. “It was because I never met another woman like you.”

“I’m sorry.” All this time she had been gently patting my black armband.

“Do you have a child?” I asked.

“For a while I did want one,” she said, “but later I gave up on the idea.”

“Why was that?”

“I got an STD—picked up from him.”

I felt droplets in the corners of my eyes, droplets different from rain and snow, and I stretched out my right hand to wipe away these drops.

“Are you crying?” she asked.

“I guess I am,” I said.

“Crying for me?”

“Probably that’s what it is.”

“He kept a mistress outside and also went to clubs to pick up women, and I split up with him after I got infected.” She sighed. “Do you know something? I would think of you at night.”

“After you broke up?”

“That’s right.” She hesitated. “After being with someone.”

“You fell in love with another man?”

“I didn’t love him,” she said. “He was an official. After doing it with him, I would think of you.”

I smiled ruefully.

“Are you jealous?”

“It’s a long time since we were married.”

“Each time he left, I would lie in bed thinking of you. When we were together,” she said softly, “I had to do a lot of entertaining. You would never go to sleep, however late it was, but would stay up waiting for me. I would be exhausted when I got home and just want you to hold me in your arms. It was when I leaned on you that I could relax at last….”

Water droplets again appeared in the corners of my eyes and my right hand again wiped them away.

“Did you miss me?” she asked.

“I was constantly trying to forget you.”

“Did you succeed?”

“Not completely.”

“I knew you wouldn’t forget me,” she said. “He probably has.”

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“He went to Australia,” she said. “As soon as he heard rumors they were going to audit our company, he upped and ran—without telling me.”

I shook my head. “He didn’t act much like a husband.”

She smiled thinly. “I married twice, but only had one husband—and that was you.”

Once again my right hand went up to rub my eyes.

“Are you crying again?” she asked.

“It’s because I’m happy,” I said.

She spoke of her final moments. “I lay in the tub and heard the people who had come to arrest me kicking the front door and shouting my name, like bandits. I watched as clouds of blood swam about in the water like fish, slowly expanding until the water became redder and redder….Do you know something? I was thinking of you the whole time, thinking of that little apartment where we lived.”

“So that’s how you come to be here.”

“That’s right,” she said. “It’s been a long trip.”

She raised her head from my shoulder. “Were you still living at your dad’s place?”

“We sold the apartment so we could afford to pay for his treatment.”

“So where are you now?”

“In a cheap rental.”

“Take me to see it.”

“It’s very small and run-down—dirty too.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I would feel uncomforta
ble.”

“I’m very tired. I’d like to lie down on a bed.”

“All right.”

We both stood up. The rain and snow, scanty just a few minutes earlier, were now once more densely filling the air. Then she took my arm and it was as though our love affair was rekindled. We walked close together along a vague road, for I don’t know how long, until we came to my rental. As I opened the door, she saw the two notices demanding I pay the electricity and water bills and I heard her sigh.

“Why do you sigh?” I asked.

“You still owe money.”

I ripped the notes down. “I already paid these bills.”

We entered my untidy little apartment. She seemed not to notice the chaos and lay down on the bed while I sat on a chair nearby. After she lay down her gown opened—it must have been just as exhausted as she was. She closed her eyes and her body seemed to float on the bed. After a moment her eyes opened.

“Why are you sitting there?” she asked.

“I’m looking at you.”

“Come and lie next to me.”

“I’m fine just sitting.”

“Come.”

“No, I’ll just stay where I am.”

“Why?”

“I’d be a bit embarrassed.”

She sat up and reached a hand out toward me. I gave her my hand and she pulled me onto the bed. We lay there shoulder to shoulder, our hands clasped, and I heard her even breathing, like little ripples spreading across a calm lake. After a while she talked softly and I too began to talk. Once again I was gripped by an odd sensation: I knew that I was in bed with a familiar woman, but her unfamiliar voice gave me the feeling that I was lying with someone I had never met before. I shared this feeling I had with her and she said she felt the same way, that she was lying with a strange man.