Boy in the Twilight: Stories of the Hidden China

THE SKIPPING-AND-STEPPING GAME

In a street-corner vending kiosk that sells groceries and fruit, a tired and sagging face spends year after year in the company of cookies, instant noodles, candies, tobacco, and cans of soda, like an old calendar stuck on the wall. A body and limbs are attached to this face, along with the name Lin Deshun.

Lin Deshun sat in a wheelchair, looking through the tiny window in front of him at the street outside. A young couple was standing on the sidewalk opposite, with a little boy between them who looked to be about six or seven. The boy was wearing a thick down jacket and a red hat, and a scarf just as red was tied around his neck. Although it was now the season of spring balm and flower blossoms, the boy was dressed for winter’s cold.

They were outside a hospital, and stood together quietly amid the commotion of people going in and out. The father, hands in his pockets, gazed intently toward the entrance, and his wife, her right hand holding the boy’s left hand, watched with equal concentration. It was only the boy whose eyes were turned in the direction of the street. With his mother clasping his hand, he had to twist himself around to look, but his eyes dwelled avidly on the scene before him. His head was continually on the move and often he would raise his free hand to point something out to them. It was clear there was no end of things he wanted to tell his parents, but they just stood there like statues.

After a little while, the parents led the boy a few steps closer to the entrance and Lin Deshun saw that a rather plump nurse was approaching them. They came to a stop and began to talk, but the boy maintained his sideways stance, his eyes glued to the street.

The nurse finished speaking and went back into the hospital. The boy’s parents turned around and, taking the boy by the hand, cautiously crossed the street and arrived outside Lin Deshun’s kiosk. The father released his grip on his son’s hand, walked up to the window, and took a look inside. Lin Deshun saw a face covered with stubble, a pair of eyes swollen from lack of sleep, and the grubby collar of a white shirt. “Can I help you?” he asked.

The man looked at the tangerines on display right in front of him. “Give me a tangerine,” he said.

“One tangerine?” Lin Deshun thought he had misheard.

The father reached out a hand and took a tangerine. “How much?”

Lin Deshun thought for a moment. “Let’s say twenty fen.”

When the man’s hand laid twenty fen on the counter, Lin Deshun noticed several threads from his sweater protruding from his sleeve.

After buying the tangerine, the father turned around to find that mother and son were holding hands and playing a game on the sidewalk. The boy was trying to step on his mother’s foot and she kept skipping out of the way. “You can’t get me, you can’t get me …,” she would call.

“I’m going to get you, I’m going to get you …,” the boy cried.

The father stood to one side, tangerine in hand, watching their boisterous game, until finally the son stepped on his mother’s foot and gave a triumphant cry: “I got you!”

That was when the father said, “Come and have some tangerine.”

Lin Deshun now got a clear view of the boy’s face. When he raised his head to take the fruit, Lin Deshun saw a pair of luminous dark eyes, but the boy’s face was frighteningly pale — even his lips were practically as white as chalk. Now the family was just as quiet as they had been when standing on the other side of the street. The boy peeled the tangerine and began to eat it as he walked away, parents on either side.

Lin Deshun knew they must have come to register their child as an in-patient, but today no bed was available, so now they were going back home.

Lin Deshun saw them again the following morning, standing outside the hospital just like the day before. What was different was that this time only the father was gazing in the direction of the hospital, while mother and son, hand in hand, were happily playing their skipping-and-stepping game. From his side of the street, Lin Deshun could hear them calling:

“You can’t get me, you can’t get me …”

“I’m going to get you, I’m going to get you …”

Their cries were full of delight, as if they were on a park lawn, not by the hospital gate. The boy’s voice rang clear, instantly recognizable amid the entrance hubbub and the clamor of vehicles in the street.

“I’m going to get you, I’m going to get you …”

Then there emerged the same plump nurse as the day before, and the skipping-and-stepping game came to an end. Parents and son followed the nurse into the hospital.

It was another morning, about a week later, that Lin Deshun saw the young couple emerge from the hospital. They were walking slowly; the husband had his arm around his wife, and her head rested on his shoulder. Slowly, quietly, they crossed the street and came toward Lin Deshun’s kiosk, then stopped. The husband disengaged his arm and walked over. He placed his unshaven face close up to the window and looked inside. “Do you want a tangerine?” Lin Deshun asked.

“Give me a bun,” the man said.

Lin Deshun gave him a bun, and after taking the money from him inquired: “Is the boy all right?”

The man had turned to leave, but on hearing this he swiveled round and looked at Lin Deshun. “The boy?”

His eyes rested on Lin Deshun’s face for a moment. “He died,” he said in a low voice.

He rejoined his wife and gave her the bun: “Have some of this.”

His wife’s head was bowed, as though she were looking at her feet. Her loose hair concealed her face, and she shook her head. “I don’t want it.”

“Have a little, at least,” her husband persisted.

“I don’t want it.” She shook her head again. “You have it.”

After a moment of hesitation, he clumsily bit off a mouthful of bun. He extended his arm toward his wife, and she compliantly laid her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her, and slowly and quietly the two of them walked off in a westerly direction.

Lin Deshun could no longer see them, for the merchandise blocked his view, so he went on looking across the street at the entrance to the hospital. He noticed the sky had darkened, and looking up he knew it was about to rain. He didn’t like rain. On an evening many years ago, when it was pelting down, he had rushed up the stairs to close the windows, clutching his overcoat; halfway up he suddenly lost his footing, and from then on he was paralyzed. Now he sits in a wheelchair.