Page 162 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

“That’s great,” Xu Sheng said. “Since she really wants you to stay, you may
take the opportunity to get better acquainted with each other.”
Xu’s attitude seemed odd to Zhou Yizhen, because he had never shown great
interest in making friends, and he knew that Zhou Yizhen didn’t enjoy it, either.
Not without annoyance, Zhou Yizhen said to her husband, “Okay, then I’ll stay
overnight. Sure you won’t mind?”

“No, of course I won’t mind.”
The moment she hung up, Zhu Mei clapped her hands.
“Your husband is so understanding!”
But Zhou Yizhen was unhappy. She was still annoyed with her husband.
Zhu Mei asked her to take a seat at the desk. She invited Zhou Yizhen to page
through the large photo album she had placed under the desk lamp.
The pictures in the album were all taken in places that she couldn’t have
known better. She missed them very much: a stone lion in the lane; a cast-iron
mailbox on the street nearest to her home; the shop that had sold sugar-coated
dried fruit for more than twenty years; the date tree in the little courtyard; the
clothes of all different colors drying beneath the tree under the sun. But the main
person in the photos, Zhu Mei, didn’t look familiar. And Zhou Yizhen noticed

that her face was always out of focus, and her body wasn’t much in focus, either.
It was like a shadow. It was hard to believe that this was Zhu Mei. Looking more
closely, Zhou Yizhen was startled because the main person in each photo
actually looked like herself. Zhou Yizhen and Zhu Mei weren’t at all alike: Zhu
Mei had the features of an educated person; Zhou Yizhen didn’t. What on earth
were these photos about?
After Zhou Yizhen had paged through most of the album, she turned around.
Zhu Mei had disappeared. So she got up and looked at all of the rooms. These
furnishings and objects called to mind many sentimental memories. Under the
present circumstances, she liked being sentimental for a moment. Sentiment was
a beautiful thing. If she could cry, it would be even better. But she couldn’t. It
seemed that Zhu Mei had gone out. How could she leave her guest behind and
go out by herself? But then, why couldn’t she do this? She’d already said she
wanted Zhou Yizhen to consider this home her own. It was quiet outside: there
was only the deep sound of the wind shaking the date tree branches. Zhou
Yizhen felt safe in this house. She regretted having stayed away for twenty

years. She had misconstrued everything! If Zhu Mei hadn’t invited her, would
she have never returned? Could Zhu Mei have been calling her to come back
throughout these twenty years in her peculiar way, and she hadn’t heard? Zhou
Yizhen kept thinking it over, sometimes sitting down, sometimes standing up
and pacing. She sensed that the familiar objects in front of her were talking to
her in low tones. Too bad she didn’t understand.