Bird Talk and Other Stories by Xu Xu

by Xu Xu

  “It shouldn’t bother you,” he said, smilingly. “You are too … And anyway, you are a married man.”

  “It doesn’t bother me, it’s just a little inconvenient,” I said with a forced smile.

  “If it’s a problem, I will ask her to board late, so that your wife won’t see her.”

  “I don’t have a wife,” I said.

  “Didn’t you say you were married and even had children?” he asked curiously.

  “We got divorced three years ago,” I replied.

  “What about your children?”

  “Living with my mother.”

  “Ah well, then it should bother you even less!” He said, smiling cheerfully.

  By then, we had already stepped back on the pier. Since the ticket had already been paid for, I obviously could no longer change it. We parted ways at the tram stop.

  Two days before my departure, Sherkels called me again, but I was not at home. I was busy all day with social engagements and only went to see him on the evening before the day of the sailing to say my farewells. I expressed my regrets for having missed his calls. He said he had called me twice on Thursday, but I had not been home. On Friday, he had invited his friend’s daughter for dinner and he had wanted me to come as well so that the two of us could get to know each other, but he had not been able to find me. He then asked me if I would be free the next day for lunch. I thanked him, but said that I would not be able to make it, to which he replied that we just would have to acquaint ourselves onboard. “Husband and wife on their honeymoon,” he added jokingly.

  And that’s how I became the “husband” of that young lady yet unknown to me who today was wearing a blue and gray dress. I was still blushing, but all my regrets came too late. I felt uneasy, and I feared I would have to endure this unease for the whole month of the journey.

  She was extremely vivacious and within a day had met practically everyone on board. When she encountered people on deck, she would introduce them to me: “This is Mr. So-and-So and Mrs. So-and-So; this is my husband.”

  As for the names of all these So-and-Sos, I could not remember any of them. I am not someone who is good at socializing, and when she introduced me to all those people, I would only mumble a few perfunctory words and then remain silent. She, on the other hand, enthusiastically engaged in conversation, especially with one young Italian. She talked to him endlessly, all the while looking at me, as if she wanted me to be a little jealous or arouse a competitive spirit in me. Her behavior, however, did not have much of an effect on a middle-aged man like me. I had known too many girls like that, and besides, I had too many other things on my mind. What’s more, in my mind, I could have been her father’s friend, and seeing the photos of her as a child at Sherkels’s apartment made me think of her as even younger than she was. For all those reasons, my emotions remained as calm as the sea at the time of our crossing. And, just to make sure I would not even be tempted by her little games, I struck up a conversation with an older gentleman close by.

  This in turn made her unhappy. She came over to me and said she needed to go to the cabin to get her binoculars and she wanted me to go with her. I could not refuse her request and so started to walk toward the cabin. She quickly followed me, and once she had caught up linked arms with me and glanced at that young Italian who was just then looking over at us.

  When we got to the cabin, she said, “You are my husband now, and you should treat me like your wife.”

  “But I am only your nominal husband,” I replied.

  “So what if it’s in name only. On the surface, you can still act like a proper husband, don’t you think?”

  “Even if I were to act like a proper husband, I would still act like a Chinese husband, would I not?” I asked.

  “On the surface a Chinese husband might appear less caring of his wife than his Western counterpart, but deep in his heart, a Chinese husband cares a lot more,” she replied. “But you …”

  “I am not a teenager, you know,” I said. “And besides, I have a lot of things on my mind.”

  “So you think I am still a child?” She asked.

  “Of course!” I exclaimed. “I have seen all of those photographs from your childhood at Sherkels’s place.” This, of course, was only an expression of what I had been thinking, and no evidence of her acting like a child. But she did not refute me. She just smiled and said, “But now I am your wife.”

  And so, the days passed by. I spent my time just as I would have spent it traveling alone. I read, chatted a little with other people, and played chess. When she wanted to talk with me, I talked to her. When she wanted to be with me, I spent time with her. Otherwise, I left her to her own devices. And even though I would miss her a little after not seeing her for several hours, on the whole I acted with extreme reserve toward her. Waking up early every morning, I would invariably feel that I was ill suited for the role of a nominal husband, which would make me even more frustrated about getting caught up in this whole business. Yet on those evenings when I withdrew to our cabin first, she always followed me down. And on those occasions when she wanted to go down first, she came to get me. Sometimes, when I was sitting in the salon and she wanted to go on deck with some other people to amuse herself—usually that young Italian would be one of them—she asked me to get her when I went down to the cabin. But this always made me uneasy. What if I went to get her and she was in the middle of some amorous adventures? I, her “husband” who never seemed jealous, but who at times could not avoid feeling a little sad, would be embarrassed. That was why I would prefer to wait for her in the salon. Sometimes I would read, at other times I would write a letter, or, if there were other passengers around, I might play chess with one of them.

  When we returned to our cabin, she usually wanted to talk to me before going to sleep. She told me stories about the other passengers. She said that the young Italian was a Fascist, but that he was nevertheless courting her in a most romantic way. I said that falling in love is what young people do and that it had nothing to do with Fascism or Communism or the like.

  I can’t remember when it started, but some time into the journey, she asked me to sit by her side and talk to her after she had lain down for the night on her lower bunk. This soon became a habit. At night, I usually woke up several times, and when I noticed that her blanket had slipped off I put it back over her. I got used to all this as the days went by.

  One night, she once more started to talk about that Italian. I said, “He might be genuinely in love with you, and I think you might be in love with him, too.”

  “I am certainly not in love with him, but I might have fallen in love with you a little.”

  “Fallen in love with me?” I laughed, attempting to hide my true emotions which, if I were to be frank, amounted to two-thirds being flattered and one third feeling that this was just the typical sweet talk of a young woman.

  “I think that you might also love me a little.” She was looking away as she said it.

  I did not know how to reply. I laughed and said, “You reckon that when a person falls in love with another person, that person can at that very moment understand with clarity his or her own sentiments for what they really are?”

  “Maybe you are only secretly in love with me, which is why you don’t dare to say it clearly,” she said.

  “What do you mean by secretly? If I loved you, what would there be to be afraid of?” I asked.

  “You can be afraid of things without knowing it. A lot of university professors are secretly in love with their female students, many wealthy men are secretly in love with their maids, many older men are secretly in love with younger women. Only great poets and great artists dare to express this kind of love openly. When Goethe was eighty years old, he fell in love with a young girl. Who doesn’t have such feelings? It’s just that people don’t dare to talk about them,” she said.

  “You think that in the short span of time that we have spent together, we could have already fallen in love?” I a
sked.

  “Love is the thing of an instant. Sometimes, a friendship lasts for ten years and there is no love, but then suddenly, in the spark of a moment, love is born. And it is the same kind of love as when you fall in love at first sight. You see, there is no correlation between love and time.”

  At a loss for words, I got up from her bed and went to wash my hands. I took a knife to cut an orange in two, and gave her one half. Seemingly in jest, she suddenly said, “Do you think we would be happy if the two of us were to get married for real?”

  “I haven’t thought about it,” I replied. “Do you think being married to a Chinese man would make you happy?”

  “You are not saying that interracial marriages are no good, are you?” She asked.

  “That’s a Fascist theory. I am not at all of that opinion,” I said, and changed the topic.

  When I went to bed, I could not fall asleep. I realized that she did in fact love me, but how could she have known that I too loved her? Even I would not have realized it had she not alerted me to it.

  And then, over the next two days, the following happened. The wind had grown strong and there was a heavy swell. She got seasick and did not leave her bunk. Usually, I did not impose on her. I would remain aloof and let her socialize with the other passengers. But once she had come down with seasickness, I could not help but sit by her side in our cabin. She was under my watch for two full days, and I could not conceal the happiness that began to show on my face. I dropped my restraint. I had felt compelled to keep my distance when she was with others, but now that it was just the two of us, I no longer felt the need for it. And this was precisely the heart of the matter; for, as long you are in love with another person without yet having realized it, you can still pretend not to be in love. But once you’ve realized it, pretending is no longer possible. If you have become aware that you are in love, but the other person who in the meantime has also fallen in love does not speak out, it is still possible to show restraint. But once the other person acknowledges that there is mutual love, it all becomes so much harder.

  What was there to be done now? Should I admit that I had fallen in love with her? Should I court her or not? And if I decided to court her, how should I go about it? Should I go to Europe with her and then take her back to China? The problem was that my family was all country folk and my father and mother were simple farmers. On the day of my departure, my mother had said to me that under no circumstances should I take a foreign wife. This was a real dilemma: My feet had not even touched foreign soil, and yet I was already married to a foreign woman. What was I to do about it?

  I kept turning this question over in my mind. I finally told myself that since we soon would reach Europe anyway, we should quickly take care of her business first. If by then our emotions for each other had cooled, then maybe that was for the better. But if not, then everything should be left to fate. Down in her lower bunk, she was not sleeping either. Again and again I heard her toss and turn, but I had no idea what she was thinking.

  Her destination was Naples, and we finally arrived. She spoke Italian and thus everything went smoothly. We first went to look for a hotel. Since we had to keep up the appearance of being a married couple, we naturally stayed in one room. She then said she would go and look for the attorney. Once everything was in place, she would bring me along. But when she came back, she said that the attorney had gone to Rome and would not be back for five days.

  “Five days?” I was reluctant to delay my own departure for so long.

  “There is nothing to be done about it,” she said apologetically. “Would you mind doing this for me? Why don’t you use this as an opportunity to enjoy yourself a little?”

  On the second day, she did not accompany me but instead told me about some places of interest and how to get there. She then left on her own. I spent the day sightseeing. When I got back to the hotel, she had not yet returned. By the time I took dinner on my own, she still had not returned. Long after dinner, there still was no sign of her. It turned midnight, one o’clock, two o’clock. She finally came back at three o’clock. I was still wide awake when she walked in. She was laughing loudly and I knew she must have been drinking. She sat down on the sofa and began to smoke. She no longer seemed to resemble the person she had been on the ship. She had suddenly changed, but why?

  “Catherine,” I said sternly.

  “How was your day?” she asked me.

  “I was just about to ask you the same.”

  “I was taken out by some friends,” she said. “We danced all night. Let’s go to sleep, I have to get up early tomorrow to take care of some business.”

  On the third day, she again told me about some places I could visit and how to get there, but then left again on her own. I spent another day sightseeing. When I got back to the hotel, she had not yet returned. I ate dinner alone at the hotel again, and long after dinner there was still no sign of her. I assumed it would be just like the previous night and went to bed first. But I was unable to fall asleep. I heard a church bell ring at midnight, and again at one, at two…. I must have fallen asleep shortly after two and I did not immediately wake up when she returned. It was only after she had washed herself and changed into her nightgown that she called out my name. To my utter surprise, she suddenly slipped under my blanket. I was wide awake now. I was at a loss and can hardly express what I felt in that moment. I might have felt a little flattered, but for the most part I felt uncomfortable.

  Her kiss tasted of alcohol. I did not know what to say and finally asked her, “What is this supposed to mean? Why are you doing this?”

  She did not reply, but let out a soft sigh, not of sorrow, it seemed, but rather from fatigue. Her hands and feet were ice cold. I grasped her hands.

  “Catherine …” I said.

  “If we both believe that we love each other,” she replied, “then let us prove our love to each other tonight.”

  “Haven’t we already done that when we both admitted that we are in love with each other?” I asked.

  “But …” She embraced me, pressing her body tightly against mine.

  “Catherine, I think this is where Chinese and Westerners differ,” I said.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” she asked.

  “What I mean is that the Chinese see physical love as the starting point of love while Westerners see it as the finish line.”

  “I still don’t understand,” she said.

  “You see, if you and I make love to each other now, I will love you even more; and when we part from each other, I will miss you even more. But you, you are a Westerner, and if you make love to me once, love for you will have borne fruit, and you can forget me. There is a saying in China: for only one night husband and wife, and affection will linger all their life. This really sums up how the Chinese feel about love. The two of us will soon part. You will be able to forget me after this one night we had together, but I will miss you more and more until my last day.”

  “But …”

  “We shouldn’t do this. If the two of us are meant to stay together, we can get married for real in the future. What I want to know now is what has been going on for the past two days?”

  “You will soon know. Tonight, I want to … but we don’t have to. But please tell me, you love me, don’t you?”

  “If I didn’t love you, I would have made love to you just now and tomorrow would have gone my way. It’s because I love you, because I value our love, that I don’t.”

  She did not reply, but kissed me violently. The bell in the nearby clock tower tolled, but her heart beat even louder. In the end, she fell asleep in my arms. As I listened to her soft breathing, questions and worries filled my heart. An unspeakable weight bore down on me. As a matter of fact, with things having come this far, our love needed to be sealed by way of a genuine marriage. Why was I still hesitating? But as far as she was concerned, I felt I understood her less these past two days than I had on the ship. What had she really been up to these past
two days? Why did she have to lead a life like this all of a sudden? Of course she probably had friends here, but did she really have to get drunk and come back this late? I simply could not make heads or tails of it. I tried to analyze her behavior from every imaginable angle, but there did not seem to be any satisfactory explanation. I began to slide into darkness. The only way to find out what was really going on, I thought, was to question her again.

  But when I woke up the next morning, she was already washing herself and getting ready.

  “What’s your plan today?” I asked her straight out.

  “There still is something that I need to take care of today. Why don’t you take a car to Pompeii,” she said, as if she had not been sleeping in my embrace last night.

  “What’s actually been happening to you these past two days? I would like to know!” I demanded.

  “Tonight you will know,” she said while looking at herself in the mirror.

  As I was getting up, she calmly walked over to me, kissed me, and left. That moment, she made me feel like a little child.

  I did not follow her recommendation to visit Pompeii. I felt gloomy all morning. I tried to write letters and to read but could not concentrate on either. I did not know how to cheer myself up. After lunch, I went for a walk. My mind was in chaos. I thought of how she had behaved, thought of what had happened last night, and tried to imagine what might be. There weren’t many people in the streets at that time. A few trams passed by. Suddenly, behind the rear window of a black sedan, I saw the shadow of a man and woman. I was stunned. Because the car was stuck behind a slow-moving tram, I could see them clearly. There was no doubt about it: The woman was Catherine, and the man was that Italian from the ship. They were talking and laughing intimately. I wanted to call out to her, but soon the car sped past the tram and disappeared. For an instant, I felt a jealousy I had never experienced in my life before. I could not suppress my anguish. I wanted to call a cab and catch up with them, but what good would that have done? I even thought of killing myself, but that too would have been pointless. There was nothing for me to do but to return to the hotel. I wanted to leave immediately, leave Italy for France, but ultimately gave up on the idea.