Madwoman On the Bridge and Other Stories

Atmospheric Pressure

The train was late. Under the dim lamplight, the platform was cast in half shadow. As Meng left the train, a snowflake floated down and landed on his neck. The wind was blowing open his coat at the bottom. It produced a whistling sound which reminded him that the weather here in Tiancheng was colder than he’d expected. Bag in hand, he walked with the throng towards the station exit, and though he kept looking around him, he couldn’t spot the brick Song Dynasty tower that he remembered. Beside the darkness and the lamplight, he saw nothing but the ungainly contours of the high-rises, which looked the same here as everywhere else. No doubt the buildings had blocked his view of the tower.

The station square, covered in snow and mud, was almost empty, since the people, cars, pedicabs and bikes were all crowded chaotically up against the railings by the station exit. The people all seemed so familiar to Meng, though every last one of them was a stranger. He set down his bag, a little surprised that he couldn’t find his cousin waiting for him outside the railings. He glanced again at his watch; he was two hours late, and it occurred to him that his cousin and the others might have gone somewhere to kill time.

Suddenly someone tugged at his arm through the railings: ‘Comrade, do you need a place to stay?’ It was a middle-aged woman with an accent that marked her as a non-local; there were also several others, similar women holding signs, soliciting for this guesthouse or that hostel.

‘I don’t need any accommodation. I’m a local, myself.’

But then he began to laugh, because even he could hear how stiff his dialect had sounded. After more than ten years away, he could no longer speak it.

Meng smoked two cigarettes. The people who had come to the station to meet arrivals had all departed, and still Meng hadn’t caught sight of his cousin nor, for that matter, any of his other relatives. He had no idea what could have happened. Meanwhile, the wind, sweeping in off the square, had a bone-chilling edge to it, and Meng was growing a little anxious. So when he saw a battered old Chinese-made van drive up and stop by the entrance to a public bathroom, it raised his hopes. As soon as the man got out of the van, however, his spirits sank again. He watched as the man walked towards the station exit, the sign in his hand growing clearer and clearer as he approached. It said, ‘No. 2 Education Hostel. Excellent service. First-class facilities. Low price. Discount for teachers.’

Meng looked around and heard several of the guesthouse women urgently expounding something to him. He paid no attention to them; he didn’t need to. Even if he didn’t have anywhere to go tonight, he still wasn’t going to put himself up randomly in some dive. He evaded one of the pestering women and turned to look at the big billboards on the square. They were left over from the summer season: one of them showed a striking girl in revealing clothes holding a bottle of something and grinning at the passers-by. The slogan was even more summery: ‘Refreshing to the core’. Meng smiled involuntarily, which was when he noticed the guy from the van again. The man was smiling, too, smiling at him and waving the sign he held in his hands. His eyes motioned for Meng to read it, but Meng shook his head and said, ‘I’m not a teacher.’ Without a word, the man flipped the sign over. There was something else written on the other side: ‘Everything you need: home-style comfort, colour TV. Air con, sauna/massage.’

The man’s face seemed familiar to Meng, particularly the smile, which looked a little stiff. He concentrated and fixed his eyes on the man for a moment. Suddenly an odd term popped into his mind: atmospheric pressure. Meng was suddenly positive that the man was his highschool physics teacher. He wanted to call out to him by name, but once he’d opened his mouth, he realized that he had forgotten it. His surname was Di, or was it Ding? Or maybe even neither? Meng just couldn’t call it to mind. Instead, he could only recall the nickname they had given him: Diesel. Meng felt a little sheepish although, whatever the look on his face, it must have given the man some grounds for hope, since Diesel — let that be his provisional name — winked at Meng and said, ‘On a freezing day like this, what’s the point of standing around here shivering? Why don’t you come to our guesthouse. You won’t regret it. We’re a school-run guesthouse, and you can bet the people’s teachers aren’t out to cheat the people.’

Meng gave a little laugh at the sound of Diesel’s voice — it was the sonorous kind people sometimes call a ‘mallard voice’. Diesel looked Meng over before squatting down. A cotton-gloved hand came through the bars and started to drag Meng’s travel bag away.

Diesel said, ‘We have a special car for pick-ups and drop-offs. On a day as cold as today, I don’t want to loiter around here either. If you come along with me, we’ll head off immediately, OK? How does that sound?’ Meng reflexively grabbed his bag, while a strange urge to apologize flustered him.

‘Sorry. Sorry. I’m not accustomed to staying in guesthouses like yours.’

Diesel’s eyes flashed. He stood up and, still wearing his stiff smile, looked right at Meng. ‘Guesthouses like ours?’ he said. ‘Sir, I would suggest that you have no right to judge without having seen it. What makes you think the conditions will not be to your liking? Our hostel operates under the aegis of the ministry of education. We’re not like these others; we don’t take anyone for a ride. If it says central heating, there’s central heating; if it says colour TV, there’s colour TV; if it says hot water, there’s hot water!’

This impatience reminded Meng of what physics class had been like long ago. ‘Atmospheric. Pressure. Who’s that talking? Whoever doesn’t want to be here can bugger off right now!’

Meng had concluded that Diesel didn’t have the faintest recollection of him, but it was for precisely that reason that his inner urge to apologize was even greater.

‘That’s not what I meant. I’m not a big fan of TV. Actually. actually, I’m only staying one night. The facilities don’t really matter as long as it’s clean.’

He saw a frosty smile play on the corner of Diesel’s mouth, a smile just like the one he used to wear whenever he entered the classroom, their exercise books stacked under his arm.

‘How do you know we’re not clean? I’ll have you know we’re a model of hygiene.’ Diesel looked a little angry now. ‘You think I’m a cheat, do you? I was a people’s teacher for thirty years; I sacrifice time in my declining years to do a little something for society, and you accuse me of coming down here just to con people. Is that it?’

Meng began to feel uncomfortable; the sense of desperation that Diesel used to provoke in physics class returned vividly. Meng had never been able to answer his questions correctly, and Diesel had had a special proclivity for asking him. Meng wondered why he had recognized Diesel at first glance, but still Diesel hadn’t recognized him? The women outside the gates were exchanging confidential whispers; they shot reproachful glances at him which seemed to mean, How come you let him butt in? Meng blushed deeply and carried his luggage around for a moment inside the railing, then he glanced at Diesel, but Diesel wasn’t looking at him; he was slapping his sign against the railing. You could tell that his teacherly anger had not yet cooled. Meng took another few tentative steps. Then, in the space of a moment, an uncharacteristic decision became reality. He walked up to Diesel and said, ‘OK. I’ll stay the night at your guesthouse.’

Absolutely everything about the city had changed. Development is a hard truth. The city had turned into an endless succession of construction sites and neon lights. He bumped around in the battered van for about half an hour, then it stopped and he heard Diesel say, ‘We’re here. I said it wasn’t far, didn’t I? This is the old town. In the thirties, this was the commercial hub of Tiancheng.’

Meng had no idea where he was. The whole city now consisted of indistinguishable demolition zones. The ground was covered in rubbish and broken bricks, and only a few reusable wooden doors and windows were tidily stacked. And when there are no longer any buildings or trees by which to tell your way, it’s inevitable that you lose your orientation.

‘Where the hell are we? Where the hell is this?’

He saw a three-storey building standing solitary in the rubble, with lights on only one floor. ‘This is a wasteland.’

Diesel didn’t respond, but wrested Meng’s luggage from him and ran towards the building, shouting, ‘Miss Zhang! A room!’

The guesthouse was filled with a raw, damp smell. A woman at reception was huddling against an electric heater, and she looked over at Meng with a glance neither defiant nor apologetic.

Meng stood hesitating at the counter: ‘From the looks of things, you couldn’t possibly have central heating here.’

The woman said, ‘There’s air conditioning.’

Meng said, ‘What was all that about first-class facilities? From what I can see, you don’t have any facilities here at all.’

The woman looked at Meng, then over at Diesel, then she puckered her lips into a smile.

Meng continued, ‘They tore down all the other buildings around here. How come they’re not tearing yours down? This place looks illegal.’

Before he had even finished his sentence, he felt a hard shove on the shoulder. It was Diesel. Looking at him angrily he said, ‘Is that any way to talk, sir? If you want a room, then fine, but if you don’t, bugger off. But to come here and insult people! Illegal! What do you mean, illegal? What kind of people do you take us for, huh?’

Meng reflexively took a step backwards. ‘I was just joking. There’s no need to get all worked up.’

Diesel was still glaring. ‘That’s no way to joke with anybody. When you make a joke, you don’t do it at the expense of other people’s dignity, do you understand?’

Meng said mockingly, ‘Yup. Got it. Got it, all right.’

Meng had already retreated to the exit and was looking out through the glass doors. It was pitch black outside and the little van had already left. He could not rid himself of the feeling that he had been taken for a fool, and this thought made him baulk. He stood by the window and scratched his head. The woman suddenly gave a cough and said, ‘If you don’t want to stay here, we’re not going to force you. If you go out the door and walk four hundred metres, there’s a hotel that’s in a little better shape.’

Meng looked at her gratefully and asked, ‘Do they have central heating there?’ But before the woman could answer, Diesel glowered at him and shouted, ‘This is Tiancheng, not Beijing. What the hell kind of central heating do you expect? You’re lucky to have air con!’ Meng shook his head. The sound of Diesel’s voice still held an awesome power over him — ‘Atmospheric pressure! If you can’t do it, then that’s that! Don’t try to fake your way out of it!’ he remembered.

Meng wondered what attitude Diesel would adopt if he recognized him. He gave the door a push and then quietly closed it again.

‘It’s really cold out. Why is Tiancheng so cold nowadays?’

Diesel rolled his eyes at him, which seemed to mean he wouldn’t deign to respond to such stupid questions.

‘I lived here for eight years; I went to school here,’ Meng remarked.

He saw how Diesel’s exceedingly hostile expression grew somewhat milder, then he gave a snort and said, ‘Well, then, that’s good. You’re a native son returning from his travels. You ought to have some feelings for Tiancheng, so what’s with the snooty airs? Complaining about this, that and the other.’ Meng watched Diesel, hoping he would expound upon his theme, that he would ask him where he had lived and what high school he had gone to, but Diesel picked up a newspaper and seemed unwilling to continue the conversation. This, too, conformed to Meng’s recollection of the man, for if memory served him right, he had never been eager to forgive a student who had crossed him. He was a person who made others feel awkward and that much hadn’t changed. Meng scratched his head, still hesitating. In the end, it was the receptionist who tactfully convinced him. She said, ‘It’s late and awfully cold; I think it’s best if you stay here the night.’

The room was as crude and dilapidated as Meng had expected. The patterned sheets and cotton quilt were damp to the touch. There was a Peacock TV at least a dozen years old, and with the colours distorted so the female broadcaster acquired a green face and lips that looked like they had been smeared with blood, a horrifying shade of red. The only surprise was the presence of a balcony, and quite a sizeable one at that; a solitary luxury feature futilely fixed outside the window. Diesel turned the air-conditioning on with the remote, which he then slipped into his pocket. Noticing the surprised expression on his guest’s face, he began to explain the guesthouse rules and regulations.

‘I can’t do anything about it. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but we’ve already lost four remotes.’

‘Do you really think I’m going steal your remote?’

Diesel shook his head, ‘Not that you would steal it. I just told you, didn’t I? Those are our rules. After I turn on the air con, I have to take it with me.’

‘You really don’t trust me, do you? When all is said and done, what you’re afraid of is that I’ll run off with your remote.’

‘Hmph! You, sir, have an unpleasant way with words. Everyone has to obey the regulations. I’m on duty today, and if the remote control gets lost, it’s me who has to replace it.’

At this Meng laughed out loud. ‘No matter how you put it, you’re still afraid you’ll have to replace it, right?’ Meng’s attitude seemed to amuse Diesel. Keeping a protective hand on his pocket, he walked self-consciously towards the door, as if to effect an escape. Meng, behind him, said, ‘We should have a chat. Can I talk with you?’ But Diesel didn’t turn back; he just waved him off with his hand and said, ‘No. You should rest.’ Meng followed him out the door, but by that time his figure was already disappearing down the stairs; the little old man had made a break for it, just like a child. Meng could appreciate how he felt. Actually, he wasn’t at all certain he wanted to chat with this one-time teacher, especially given that their student-teacher relationship had long since vanished, like mist in the morning. Nor did he have any clue what it was they should talk about.

Through the window, he could see that snow had fallen on the balcony. A mop was propped up in one corner; it even had a plastic bag over it. Meng paced around the room and considered giving his cousin a ring, but quickly discarded the idea. The air-conditioning was purring along. Meng put his hand in front of the air vent, but it was still blowing cold. The temperature in the room hadn’t changed. He reflected that this was not fated to be an evening to enjoy; he was mentally prepared for further unpleasantness. Perhaps Diesel had been right: a native son returning from his travels should be generous in his judgements. Meng opened the door onto the balcony and a gust of cold wind blew in his face. He nearly abandoned the thought of going out, but then he realized that it looked out over a school or, to be more accurate, the sports grounds of a school. And suddenly he felt he had seen it before.

The sports ground was only 20 metres away, and the fallen snow could not obscure the oval outline of a running track. In the nocturnal haze, you could also clearly make out the straight lines of horizontal and parallel bars. The school, too, was clearly on the demolition list, since already certain buildings were skeletal, the doors and windows removed. A very high f lagpole stood loftily in the nightscape, but the flag had been struck, too. Meng followed the flagpole down with his eye. He could just make out the stairs leading up to the platform. They were covered in snow, and from a distance emitted a shimmering white light. Déjà vu. Meng turned his head to look out to the north-west, and it was then that he saw the black form of the brick Song Dynasty tower, facing the f lagpole in the distance. Meng’s orientation in the city suddenly returned, and he was certain that the school he was looking at was Eastern Wind High School, his own high school.

He could still remember that the length of the track at Eastern Wind was 375 metres, making it 25 metres shorter than the track and field standard. That was something his P.E. teacher had told him back then; he had been greatly impressed by the talent Meng had exhibited for the longer distances. Meng looked down on the snowy sports grounds and hazily made out a whitevested adolescent dashing along the track — 375 metres — four laps to make exactly 1500. That had been his best event. That was his former life. Meng shouted out in a strange voice at the abandoned sports grounds; they looked totally desolate in the night. Some concrete prefab slabs were piled where the sandpit was located. Someone had built a snowman on the pile, exacerbating the desolate look of the grounds. A native son returning from his travels. Meng suddenly contemplated the odd chance that led him to witness this unnatural scene. He laughed and thought, I’m not that kind of person. I won’t bear the cold any longer just to indulge in nostalgia. Everything is coincidence. And what is coincidence? Why, coincidence is coincidence.

There had still been no change in the room temperature. Meng realized quickly that although the air con was blowing air, it hadn’t been set to heat. He walked out into the corridor and called downstairs, ‘Hey, you! There’s a problem with the air con. Can you come up and have a look?’ He was surprised at how he had addressed Diesel. No matter what, he shouldn’t have just shouted ‘hey, you’. There was the sound of languid steps on the staircase, then Diesel emerged in his sweater, holding the remote. He looked as though he had been sleeping.

‘What’s wrong with the air con?’ he asked. ‘Isn’t it working? Why should there be a problem?’ From his expression, Meng could see that he was in a mood to make himself unpleasant. He seemed to suspect Meng of making things up just to pick a fight.

The smile disappeared from Meng’s face: ‘Come see for yourself if there’s a problem or not.’

Diesel was clearly only superficially acquainted with the air con. Meng watched as he pressed randomly at the buttons on the remote. The fan suddenly coughed and died. ‘Crud,’ Diesel shouted suddenly, ‘Is it locked? It’s locked, isn’t it?’

Meng said, ‘It’s an air con machine, not a camera. It doesn’t have an automatic lock.’ He motioned for Diesel to hand him the remote, but was ignored. Diesel was still anxiously hitting the buttons, then he uttered, ‘Young people think they know everything. Just because it’s air con and not a camera it doesn’t have an automatic lock. Is that a scientific way of thinking?’ Meng gave a small laugh, ‘Let me give it a try.’ He held his palm open and asked, ‘Do you think I could have a try?’ He watched as Diesel’s nostrils convulsed for a moment before he suddenly placed the remote in his hand. ‘You want to try? OK, go ahead and try,’ Diesel said. ‘If I can’t get it started, let’s see you do it.’

His totally unnecessary anger reminded Meng once more of the long-ago physics class. It was with exactly that kind of annoyance that he had taught the principle of siphonage. The atmosphere. Pressure. Atmospheric pressure. Meng couldn’t resist joshing him, and remarked, ‘Maybe there isn’t enough atmospheric pressure.’

But Diesel didn’t take it as a joke and sniggered coolly, ‘That’s what young people are like today, throwing around concepts they know next to nothing about.’

Meng suddenly felt himself in a tight corner. Under Diesel’s mocking eyes he pressed the remote control buttons but failed to reanimate the exasperating air con. It seemed to have given up the ghost. Scratching his head, he said, ‘Could it be that it needs a new battery?’

Then he heard Diesel’s pleased voice once again, ‘Impossible.’

‘And why is it impossible?’

Diesel grabbed the remote from Meng’s hands and said, ‘It’s impossible because it’s impossible. We put in a new battery just last week!’

Diesel’s victorious expression irritated Meng. Sitting down on the bed, he looked on at Diesel with the remote in his hands. ‘If there’s no air con, how am I supposed to sleep? You said there was air con. But after all your talk, this air con is a piece of crap.’ Diesel still energetically pressed the buttons on the remote, while at the same time motioning to Meng to be patient for a moment. ‘Don’t keep pressing them if you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s definitely broken. Just give me a new room, OK?’

Diesel threw a glance at Meng and, seeing his gloomy expression, he said, ‘This is the only room with air con. There’s nothing I can do; you’ll just have to put up with it.’

Meng gave a strange laugh and said, ‘Great! Put up with a freezing room all night.’

Diesel turned and stared sternly at Meng, then gave a renunciatory smile. With a darting movement, he returned the remote to his pocket and walked out. ‘We’ll take off the fee for air con,’ he said loudly, ‘So I’ll ask you not to regard me as a cheat, thank you very much.’

With that the door was flung heavily back. Meng sat on the bed, thoroughly dejected, not only because of his frosty room, but also because it seemed to him that the experiences of the evening were the wages of a journey conceived in error. He had plainly wanted to go south, but despite himself he had gone north. This was nothing like a reunion with a former teacher ought to be. Perhaps he should tell him the truth, but Meng doubted there was any point now in invoking their common past. No, it was definitely pointless. The reality staring Meng in the face was this: he was compelled to spend a night in this polar room. Only later could he allow this encounter to become a memory.

He entwined himself in the blankets to go to sleep. He was young and actually not all that easily affected by the cold. He had even imagined Diesel would say something to that effect: ‘Young people can put up with a little cold; it won’t kill you.’ But Diesel hadn’t said that; he was someone who made you feel awkward, but he wasn’t harsh or rude. He had been that way in the past, and he was that way now. Meng soon fell asleep. Had he spent a dreamless night, then perhaps things wouldn’t have happened as they did. But Meng dreamed of an exam, and in the dream he needed very badly to take a leak, so he pushed back the examination paper and stood up. He got out of bed and walked in a daze into the corridor, heading towards the bathroom door. Shivering and standing by the piss trough, he heard the sound of a door slamming in a gust of wind. The sound didn’t register with him immediately, but when he got back to his room he found the door wouldn’t open. There must have been a problem with the lock, because now he couldn’t get back in. The night was transforming into a long series of tribulations. He was in his underwear and beginning to shiver in earnest. He hugged his shoulders and, facing down the stairs, yelled loudly, ‘Hurry! Bring the key up! I’m locked out!’

After about a minute, Diesel appeared in the corridor, eyes heavy with sleep.

‘What now? Why did you close the door when you went out? You should keep it open.’

Meng said, ‘I didn’t close it; the wind blew it shut. Everything in this place is broken. Even the door lock is broken!’ Meng gave Diesel a sidelong glance, as if he intended some response, but he said nothing and instead dangled his keychain from his hand.

‘Go to the duty room and put an overcoat on. Watch that you don’t catch cold.’

Meng said, ‘No need for that. Just hurry up and open the door.’ Then came the greatest surprise. Meng watched as Diesel kept passing back and forth through the keys; he couldn’t seem to find the right one. ‘What now?’ Hugging both shoulders, Meng pressed in close in order to look at the keys. ‘Tell me you haven’t lost it.’

Diesel raised his head, and from his dismayed expression he could see that his guess had hit the mark. Diesel exclaimed, ‘It’s ridiculous! Ridiculous! What happened to the key?’

Meng almost leapt to his feet, ‘Everything has to happen to me! What terrible luck! Enough bad luck to last me eight lifetimes!’ He saw that Diesel’s expression had become extremely disagreeable, but he was past caring. He rubbed his hands, stamped his feet and said, ‘Enough bad luck to last me eight lifetimes!’ Diesel stared blankly for a moment, then suddenly took off down the stairs, and as he ran he said, ‘I’ll get that overcoat for you first.’ But Meng was enraged, and he screamed at Diesel’s back, ‘What good is an overcoat? I want to get into my room.’ Shouting was not enough to cool his anger, though, so he delivered a flying kick to the door.

‘They should close down hostels like this, and the sooner the better!’

It was very quiet in the hostel. Except for the sound of the wind outside, Meng could hear only the fragmentary, hectic sounds coming from the duty room. He lifted up his eyes and heaved a sigh heavy with resentment. Before long, a flustered Diesel was hurrying up the stairs carrying a padded army overcoat, which he tossed over to him, saying, ‘Please don’t shout. Shouting isn’t going to help.’ Meng wrapped the overcoat around his shoulders and found that it was still quite warm; Diesel had no doubt been using it as a blanket. Now that he had something to ward off the cold, Meng’s mood took a slight turn for the better. Looking at the keys in Diesel’s hand he said, ‘That’s fine. You made me come and stay here. First-class facilities. First-class service. I didn’t realize you were going to make me stand in the hallway and shiver till dawn.’ Meng saw that Diesel’s head was beginning to sway back and forth and that his eyes were shooting out a dreadful, scorching fury, a fury far exceeding that of the remembered physics teacher. He began to regret his excessive words, but it was too late for regret, for all of a sudden Diesel hurled the keys to the ground. Then, dragging over a chair that stood in the corridor, he sprang on top of it. Meng realized now that he was planning to go through the window above the door; it hadn’t occurred to him that Diesel might resort to such a method. As he watched Diesel clumsily push the window open, Meng felt he shouldn’t let Diesel do such a thing for him, but strangely the words that came out of his mouth were something entirely different: ‘I bet the window’s locked tight, too.’ Diesel’s back, which was hanging in mid-air, trembled a moment, then he suddenly struck the window and it opened with a clatter. Diesel turned his head to shoot Meng a contemptuous glance. Meng evaded his look, turning away in embarrassment. In the periphery of his vision, however, he could see Diesel’s head go through the window, then his legs and chubby torso all squeezed through while his feet kicked and swayed outside. Meng could see Diesel’s old-fashioned, cotton-lined shoes, torn at the toe, and the worn-through nylon socks. Above him, he could hear his panting. Only now did Meng make a tardy gesture, grabbing Diesel’s feet and protesting, ‘Never mind. Don’t go up there. I’ll go through the window myself.’ But Diesel’s feet kicked free of his hands; Meng could feel the anger residing in them. Then he watched as they slowly disappeared through the window; Diesel’s whole body had finally passed through the narrow window. At the same time, dust from the window frame and from Diesel’s coat streamed onto the ground.

Diesel opened the door from the inside. Meng, standing outside, turned sideways, avoiding Diesel’s eyes. Diesel opened his mouth wide to pant and said, ‘Come in then. What are you standing outside for? Huh? I’ve opened the door, haven’t I?’

Meng stood motionlessly. He saw Diesel rush at him, and suddenly fell prey to the illusion that the man would strike him, but Diesel just pushed him into the room. Then he began brushing the dust off his own clothes, saying, ‘What were you standing out there for? You’re the guest; I’m here to serve. You locked yourself out and I climbed through the window to let you in. What is it you’re considering now? Do you want to swear at me some more?’

Meng grew hot in the face, and said haltingly, ‘I didn’t swear at you. Why would I swear at you?’

Diesel again gave Meng a hard push and said, ‘Well, if you didn’t swear at me then that’s all right.’ And then, ‘Now, young man, get into bed and go to sleep.’

Diesel closed the door behind him. Meng heard him pick the keys up outside the door and move the chair back to its original position, then there was silence. Meng stood in the room and had a premonition that the affair would not conclude in silence; and indeed, Diesel’s voice suddenly broke out in the corridor, a voice of suffering and complaint.

‘Young man, let me tell you something. I’m sixty years old this year! You would let me crawl through the window, huh? You let me crawl through the window!’

Meng left the hostel soon after dawn. The woman at reception was only half awake. She showed understanding for his early departure and commented, ‘I guess you didn’t sleep too well. This place used to be quite all right, but they’re about to knock it down and these last couple of business days have been a little chaotic.’ Meng chuckled and said, ‘It was only one night, in any case, it’s over with now. I’ll get a good sleep tonight.’ In the duty room he saw a folding bed with Diesel’s body underneath the overcoat. He couldn’t see his face, though he could hear the light puff of his snoring. Indicating the bed with his mouth, he asked the woman, ‘Is the old man’s name Di?’

The woman said, ‘No, it’s Chen, C-H-E-N. Why? Was there something wrong with his attitude?’

Meng shook his head, ‘That’s not what I meant. Can I ask something? Did he used to teach physics at Eastern Wind High School?’

The woman responded, ‘Well, he used to be a teacher, but whether it was at Eastern Wind, or if he taught physics, that I don’t know.’ The woman looked at him with curiosity. ‘Were you his student? Wake him up and ask him, then you’ll know for sure.’

Meng waved his hand and said, ‘Never mind. I’m not sure myself. He might have been the physics teacher, then again he might not. I don’t really remember.’

The woman seemed quite eager to clear up the identity of her co-worker, ‘Wake him up. I’ll wake him up myself.’

Meng stopped her with a cry that was almost one of fright, ‘No, no!’ he said, ‘Let him sleep. I still have lots of things to see to. I should go.’

Meng opened the door of the guesthouse. Outside, the ground was a single stretch of mire — ice and snow — and the winter sunlight illuminated the city that he hadn’t seen for so long. It was a place he had once lived, but to know whether any trace of him had remained in the disorder of the rubble, you would have had to ask the rubble itself. Meng didn’t know. But in the morning Meng was as vigorous as the morning itself, and yesterday’s moodiness was left behind with yesterday. He walked quickly towards the road, and discovered to his surprise that the sun, which shone so splendidly over the city, hung by some good fortune right over the famous Song Dynasty tower.

A Xiali taxi appeared out of nowhere and turned to approach Meng. The driver poked his head out the window and looked out at him. Meng took a few leisurely steps to the taxi window and asked, ‘Do you have a meter?’

And this time he spoke in genuine Tiancheng dialect.