Kinder Than Solitude: A Novel

by Yiyun Li

  “What charming, endearing innocence,” Yening said, smiling to herself as if savoring the comment, but before Ruyu replied, she started to pat her pillow. “Which side of the bed do you take?” she said, her face all of a sudden frosty, as though she had exhausted her goodwill and wished to be left alone.

  Later, lying awake, Ruyu heard Shaoai climb into bed between her and Yening. Neither of the girls was pleasant, and Ruyu wondered how they’d become friends. Or perhaps that was how things had to be for those two, one person’s edge constantly cutting into the other person’s edge, those who hurt others seeking likewise to be hurt.

  Much later, Ruyu was awakened by an angry exchange of whispers. She did not know what time it was or how long the quarrel had been going on. She stayed as still as she could and kept her breathing even, and soon it became clear that the two girls were arguing about a boy.

  “Let him go off to be a monk,” Shaoai said, “if he doesn’t have the courage to stand up for himself.”

  “It’s not a question of courage. The question is, what’s better for him?”

  “Or should we ask what’s better for you? Certainly it’d be harder for you to seduce him if he shaves his head and lives in a temple.”

  “That’s distasteful, Shaoai.”

  “I don’t think truth ever tastes good to anyone’s palate.”

  “But you’re unfairly harsh toward him because you’re jealous of him.”

  “Jealous is the wrong word,” Shaoai said. “He’s not worthy of my jealousy.”

  “Of course not,” Yening said. “Any boy I lay my eyes on is a low creature for you. All you want is for me to love no one, and to be stuck with you.”

  “If it feels that way, you are welcome to get yourself unstuck any time.”

  “Certainly you’d say so, now that you have a cute and dumb girl sharing your bed.”

  Both girls were quiet for a moment, and then Ruyu felt a slight breeze on her cheek as Yening lifted the mosquito netting. “Where are you going?” Shaoai asked. Yening did not answer, and a moment later Ruyu heard her tattered slippers going off toward the living room. She waited for the bell on top of the door to jingle, but it did not.

  “Have you eavesdropped enough?” Shaoai said, her voice low but not whispering.

  Ruyu stayed still.

  “I know you’re awake,” Shaoai said. “Just so you don’t misunderstand the situation: the boy we were talking about used to be a friend of mine, too, but now he’s worried about disciplinary action against him for what he did in the protest. His parents arranged for him to leave the university and go to a temple for a while. Imagine that. To be exempt from secular matters.”

  Please make her stop. Please make her vanish, because she doesn’t matter to you, and so she doesn’t matter to me.

  “I guess all you need to know is that Yening and I disagreed about his decision,” Shaoai said. “She thinks it’s a good idea. She thinks any idea that saves his ass is a good idea. But then she feels miserable about letting him go into a world where she has no right to be. Wouldn’t it be nicer if she could be his personal temple?”

  The bitterness in Shaoai’s words was too much. “I didn’t ask you to tell me,” Ruyu said.

  “I’m telling you to spare you the extra time you’d spend dwelling on it,” Shaoai said. “Now you know the whole story; you’d better forget it tomorrow.”

  Yet there was more to it, Ruyu knew, but that mattered little to her because it was not her position to discern the true from the untrue: secrets of any kind breed ugliness. Ruyu felt an uncleanness clinging to her the way she had read in books a leech attached itself to a body.

  “Though, to think about it, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing for you to know a little more about how the world works,” Shaoai said. “Who knows what your grandaunts have done to taint you?”

  “You don’t even know them,” Ruyu said.

  “Do I want to know them?” Shaoai retorted. “From how they’ve brought you up, I would advise that a young person should run the moment she sees them.”

  Back home when Ruyu had seen people exchange mocking looks behind her grandaunts’ backs, she had learned not to feel bothered: none of those people understood her grandaunts, and, more important, her grandaunts did not need the understanding of others. She wished she could now treat Shaoai’s chatter as one of those irrelevant voices, but Shaoai seemed to have made up her mind not to be dismissed. “Now let me explain to you what I mean,” Shaoai said. “What do you think of Yening? Is she a good person in your eyes? Would she be a good person in your grandaunts’ opinion?”

  “She’s your friend,” Ruyu said. “Why do you need my opinion?”

  “See, your answer proves my exact point. Before she’s my friend, she is a being out there, a fact; anyone should be able to form an opinion of her. My mother thinks her eccentric. My father probably thinks of her as a spoiled child, as I am. Our very cowardly friend—the would-be monk—thinks she is wickedly attractive and wants her to wait for him to finish his stint in the temple so he can marry her. But you, what’s your opinion? All you do is look at her coldly and say to yourself: she has nothing to do with me. And then she becomes nothing to you. Do you see that? There is a human being there, whom you, with whatever absurd logic your grandaunts have given you, turn into a non-being.”

  Ruyu felt as though she were being swept into an abyss by Shaoai’s words, which were ludicrous yet had the irresistible force of insanity. “But it’s true that Yening and I have nothing to do with each other,” she said, but realized her error right away. To give up a position of silence, to allow oneself to be engaged—already she was allowing Shaoai what she did not deserve.

  “You missed my point,” Shaoai said. “I am only using her as an example. Or maybe she is the wrong example. But those people shot dead in Tiananmen Square? Have you found yourself thinking, for even a moment, about them or their families? Have you asked Moran or Boyang about what they have seen or heard? No, and no, because those dead people have nothing to do with you; hence, they are nothing to you. Rest assured, you are not the only one who maintains that stance. More and more people will choose that attitude now that a revolution has been crushed, but that does not exempt you. In fact, I have to say, you must have been born a heartless person, or else you must have been thoroughly brainwashed by your grandaunts. Either way, I find your lack of interest in anything but your own little faith to be more than horrifying. Of course you can shrug your dainty shoulders and say, what does your opinion have to do with me?”

  Ruyu did not speak when Shaoai finished her monologue. Her silence seemed to infuriate Shaoai even more. “Well?” she said. “Have you made up your mind not to condescend to answer me?”

  “What do you want me to say?” Ruyu said.

  “It’s not what I want you to say. It’s what you want to say for yourself. Come on, defend yourself. Defend your grandaunts. Let’s at least have some fair play.”

  “My grandaunts don’t need me to defend them.”

  “And you yourself?”

  “I’m fine with your thinking of me as anything, or nothing,” Ruyu said, and was relieved to hear Yening’s shuffling steps nearing the bedroom. Before Shaoai could find more words, Yening entered the room. “Why the silence all of a sudden?” she said to the dark room, laughing lightly. “I thought you two were having a good time.”

  The next day, Shaoai helped Yening move back into her dorm, and when she did not return for dinner, Aunt wondered aloud if she had missed Shaoai saying that she was going to move back into the dorm that day, too. “You’d think I wouldn’t miss something so important,” Aunt said to Uncle, who comforted her, and said he himself had missed it too, if that indeed was Shaoai’s plan.

  When Aunt asked Ruyu, she said she didn’t know of any such plan, either. Perhaps in Shaoai’s eyes, Ruyu was like one of those birds that occupied another bird’s nest; but the thought did not bring Ruyu any remorse, nor did it diminish her relief that soon Shaoai wo
uld move out of the house, and she would have a bedroom to herself.

  Just as the dinner was ending, Shaoai returned and with a stern face announced that she had decided to commute for the new semester. Uncle and Aunt exchanged a nervous look. “Did any school official talk to you?” Aunt asked.

  “No.”

  “Does that mean everything will be all right?”

  “Nothing is ever all right, if you ask me,” Shaoai said.

  “But the school—will they … will you …” Aunt tried in vain to find the right words.

  “You’re worried that I’ll be expelled? And I won’t graduate and won’t have a job and will remain a burden to you forever?” Shaoai said. “Let me say this: there are worse things in the world than not graduating with a useless degree in international trade and relations.”

  Aunt and Uncle watched as Shaoai stormed back to her bedroom. Had there been a door, Ruyu thought, Shaoai would have banged it shut as befitting her drama, and, as though the same thought had occurred to Shaoai, she came out of the bedroom and said that it was stuffy in the house and she was going for a walk. Aunt glanced at the clock on the wall and was about to say something, but Uncle shook his head discreetly at her. A moment later, the door was slammed shut; the bell on top, unconstrained, swung back and forth furiously.

  No one said anything, but when Aunt looked up and caught Ruyu’s eyes, she sighed and said she wished that they could offer her a more peaceful stay, and that Shaoai were a better companion. “Had your grandaunts known what kind of failures we are as parents, they might not have sent you to us,” Aunt said, looking dejected.

  “Every family has a book of challenging fate written out for them,” Uncle said, solicitously looking up at Ruyu, pleading for her to agree with the cliché, so she did, saying that Aunt should not think too much, and that everything would turn out all right in the end. Eager to believe someone—preferably someone other than her husband—Aunt seemed to have found comfort in Ruyu’s words, and repeated the saying herself as though to further console the other two in the room. When Grandpa made the noises demanding his supper, Aunt sprang into action. With a tender sadness, Uncle watched Aunt fill a bowl of gruel, adding soft, fermented tofu on top. At least they had each other, Ruyu thought, just as her grandaunts had each other.

  When Aunt was out of the room, Uncle said to the half-empty platters on the table, “It’s kind of you to be understanding.”

  For a moment Ruyu wondered if Uncle, who so rarely initiated a conversation, was in fact talking to her. She looked at him, but he only smiled at the unfinished dishes, the same way he smiled when the neighbors teased someone in the yard, or when Aunt complained about the weather. Ruyu did not know if he expected an answer from her.

  “Shaoai has been headstrong from the very beginning,” Uncle continued. “A difficult baby, you would say. We talked about having another child after her—Aunt wanted another one—but I was so frightened that I could not imagine having to go through everything a second time.”

  “But you might have had a different child,” Ruyu said. “I’ve heard people say that siblings from the same parents can have opposite temperaments.”

  Uncle sighed. “Many told us that, too, but I didn’t believe them. To be honest, I now regret my stubbornness. If we had had a second child, he or she might have made it easier for us now, don’t you think? At least Shaoai would have learned how to be nice to someone younger than she. We’re sorry that she doesn’t really consider you part of the family.”

  Ruyu shook her head as though to say that these things did not matter. Had Uncle and Aunt had another child—a boy, for instance—her grandaunts might have thought the household unfit for Ruyu. She would then have been sent to another place to live, with a different set of people … but it was useless to pursue such thoughts. She stood up and said she would put the leftovers away if Uncle had finished his meal.

  The last days of summer were always sunny. The August heat, already abating, was still intense enough to create an illusion of never-endedness—of a moment, a day, a season. Cicadas, stubborn creatures, having spent long years underground, would not forsake their posts in the trees; yet their days were numbered: dusk muted their singing and brought, along with the first breeze of the evening, the autumnal song of the crickets.

  One leaf drops and you know autumn is here; on the morning of the last day of August, Ruyu heard Boyang’s grandmother exchange the cliché with a neighbor in the courtyard. The season’s end seemed to have brought out the sentimental side of people, as though everyone was preparing for a small part of himself to die with the summer lives. Watermelon Wen, upon hearing the old woman’s words, chanted in a drawn-out falsetto an opera passage about an old general’s grief over a tree that had aged during his fifty-year war career; Wen’s twin boys imitated their father from behind the screen door and then fell to giggling, cutting the performance short and diluting the sadness.

  Wait until you fall in love with the autumn in Beijing, neighbors kept telling Ruyu, or else they would say, wait until you fall in love with Beijing this autumn. The notion that someone would fall in love with a place or a time was new to Ruyu; she might have tolerated it better were it not for the certainty of everyone about how she should feel. A season was a season for her—no more, no less, because that was the way time was for her grandaunts, each day a replica of the previous day; a place, any place, was merely a spot for resting during one’s migration from beginning to end. Only in a drama would an old man lay his hand on the coarse bark of a tree and mourn in advance his own death; in real life, a man’s grief for himself was as wordless as the dim light in Grandpa’s eyes, the passing days pooling into a stale puddle around his dying body.

  On the morning of August 31, Boyang roped Ruyu’s accordion onto the back of his bicycle, and Moran sat astride her bicycle, balancing it with both legs and waiting for Aunt to finish talking with Ruyu so that she could hop onto the rear rack. It was the day the entering class was to register at the high school. In addition to a general admissions letter, Aunt handed Ruyu a note directing her to meet the music teacher after registration.

  The school, No. 135, occupied an old temple. Its spacious, park-like yard was dotted with ancient elms and mulberry bushes, the well-designed garden in its center long since taken over by wildflowers and ivy. Several rows of rudely constructed, single-story brick buildings had been added as classrooms and dorms, giving the campus the look of a hastily planned people’s commune. The temple itself, which was occupied by the administrators and the teachers, had been split into two levels and divided into offices with thin walls, though signs of the original architecture—the high ceiling, the round wooden pillars, and the long narrow windows—remained visible. Inside, it was perennially dark: the walls and the ceilings retained their wooden panels painted a deep brown; the floor was the original brick one, gray and uneven and in places repaired with a patch of cement. Fluorescent tubes buzzed in the hallway and inside the offices. There was nothing to love, Ruyu reflected, about this new school.

  Moran and Boyang seemed elated that all three of them were assigned to the same homeroom. After registering, they took her to meet Teacher Shu, the music instructor. The music room was in a cottage at the far end of campus, which Boyang said once served as sleeping quarters for the monks’ visiting family members. Ruyu imagined Shaoai’s friend Yening in a similar cottage at another temple, the boy she was in love with wearing a long, drab robe and counting his beads silently while she poured her heart out. How odd, Ruyu thought, finding oneself in a place that had no relevance to one’s life but was necessary for the time being: her grandaunts would not have any idea that she would be schooled in a former Buddhist temple.

  Teacher Shu was one of the ugliest men Ruyu had ever met. Short, bald, with an unevenly shaven face and a pair of round eyes that were so wide open they seemed never in need of blinking, he reminded her of an owl with ruffled feathers, more clueless than menacing. When he smiled, he did so with unadorned g
lee, showing teeth that had been yellowed by smoking. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said when Ruyu presented herself, and waved a dismissive hand at Boyang and Moran, who dutifully left the music room but lingered on the porch, leaving the door ajar.

  Ruyu played “The Song of Spanish Bullfighters” and “The Blue Danube”; when asked to keep on, she played a couple of polkas. She had not practiced for a month, and her fingers, though not uncertain, stumbled a few times at places they had not before. Teacher Shu nodded with a pensive look, and when she stopped, he asked to take a look at her accordion.

  The instrument, a 120-bass model made by Parrot Accordion—the most coveted model of the best brand name, for which Ruyu’s grandaunts had paid a black market price when she had turned nine—seemed to impress him more than either Ruyu’s performance or her grade 8 certificate, which she had brought to show him. He touched the head of the golden parrot with a finger, and then wiped his fingerprint away with his sleeve. Could he have a try, he asked. Yes, Ruyu said, and refrained from looking at his cigarette-stained, stubby fingers as he buckled the instrument and loosened the straps.

  “How long have you played?”

  “Six years.”

  Teacher Shu said that six years was not bad for a girl her age. “Do your parents play any instruments?” he asked, but before Ruyu could think of a proper reply, he launched into “The Song of Mongolian Herdsmen,” his unsightly right hand moving up and down the keyboard like a showy dancer, his left hand pulling and pressing the bellows with an effortless rhythm. In the middle of his performance, a tall, sinewy woman approached the entrance. Moran and Boyang, who had been leaning against the door frame, quickly straightened and made way for the woman. She took a seat in a nearby chair and watched Teacher Shu, her face softening without showing a definite smile. When he finished the song, she introduced herself as Headmistress Liu. Later, when Ruyu got to know Teacher Shu better, he would tell her stories about Headmistress Liu when nobody was around, how she had remained unmarried to fulfill her ambition of becoming a top educator, how underneath her stern and intimidating appearance, she was a kind woman without many people close to her.