by Xue Yiwei
The next day I borrowed the book from the school library. And the morning after, at 10:25, I took it with me and sat on the grass in the garden.
I deliberately sat less than twenty metres from the row of pine trees, and I took care to hold the book in my hands rather than laying it out on the grass. This way, I thought, the dramatist would notice the cover, which is to say he would notice me.
I did not expect to have to wait so long. I sat there for four days, and had basically read the whole of The Merchant of Venice before the scene I was waiting for was finally enacted.
The dramatist finished his morning’s silent prayer. Walking past me, he suddenly stopped. “Are you reading Shakespeare in the original?” he asked.
I told him I taught English at the university, that English was my specialty.
The dramatist gave me a friendly look. “I can’t read it at all,” he said. “But I have the very same book.”
I pretended to be surprised, as if I had never seen his picture in the newspaper.
“My copy is a present from a friend,” the dramatist said. “As are the two Shakespeare T-shirts I alternate,” he said, tugging at his shirt.
I was surprised that the book on his shelf was so intimately tied to his T-shirt.
“My friend sent me this T-shirt from Shakespeare’s hometown,” the dramatist added.
I could hear a sadness in his voice that he was trying to suppress.
“I never made it there myself,” he said. “I missed that.”
Again I heard the deep regret in the man’s heart. I did not know exactly what he meant when he said “missed.” But I nodded vigorously, as if I understood his longing to visit the bard’s hometown. Then I mentioned the interview I had seen in the newspaper.
The dramatist humbly bowed and extended his hand to me.
I held his hand tightly, thrilled, not only because this was the first time I’d ever shaken a celebrity’s hand, but also because I had fulfilled my wish to approach the most eccentric person I’d ever seen.
The dramatist patiently waited for me to relax my hand, and then solemnly asked, “Which of Shakespeare’s works do you like the best?”
This unexpected question left me embarrassed. I was too ashamed to say that I didn’t like any of them. So I hummed and hawed and said I liked them all.
The dramatist could tell that this college English teacher had not done any research on Shakespeare. He let out an indulgent laugh.
I took the opportunity to take a step towards the man, and ask him which one he liked the best in return.
“Othello,” he said without thinking. “Of course, Othello.”
Of course? I wanted to ask but I did not dare.
He pointed to the words on his T-shirt. “My friend told me this is a line from Othello. It’s what Othello says before he kills himself.”
The dramatist’s explanation unnerved me. Did he mean to say that this friend of his had selected the T-shirt, this gift, on account of that line? And why give someone two identical T-shirts? As if this friend wanted the dramatist to wear the present he was giving him every day, year in year out. Must’ve been a very special friend, I thought, ill at ease.
“I’ve done a bit of research myself,” the dramatist said, “and ‘No way but this’ is translated into a Chinese phrase that means ‘This is the only way out.’ Is that the right translation?”
I said it was just a straightforward line. I couldn’t think of a need to translate it any other way.
The dramatist frowned, as if disagreeing with my claim that the sentence was straightforward. “This the only way out, the only way out,” he said over and over again. Then he turned and left.
That night before going to sleep, I was re-reading the interview in the newspaper once more, remembering our conversation, when I had a strange idea. I wondered whether the dramatist’s preference for Othello—“Of course, Othello,” he’d said—had something to do with his personal tragedy. I also noticed that in my previous readings of the interview I had missed a detail. The dramatist had mentioned a short story called “A Detail in Life” twice. He said it was a story about a young married couple on their way home from a trip. They came across someone supposedly familiar to the young wife, but of whom she had no recollection. By virtue of that inscrutable someone’s insinuations, part of the woman’s past—a part that was unknown to her husband—gradually emerged. The dramatist’s comment on the story was that tragedy can result from the most mundane detail in life.
Just when I was revelling in my discovery, a neighbour called. She said everyone had seen me talking to the weirdo. They all wanted to know what I’d found out. For some reason my neighbours’ vulgar curiosity filled me with disgust, as if they had invaded my personal space. I did not want to tell them anything. “He really is a weirdo,” I said, trying not to say anything. “Weirder than you can imagine.” I deliberately said “you” and not “we,” as if I were no longer one of them.
Over the next two days, I was too busy preparing for my final examinations to go to the garden. But on my bus commute to and from work, I wasn’t thinking about the weighting or difficulty of the exam questions, as in the past. I leaned my head on the window, thinking about our last conversation and imagining our next. I never expected that our next exchange would happen in a different time and place. For the next day, at dusk, when I got off the bus, the dramatist was standing beside the bus stop. “Are you waiting for me?” I asked, half in jest.
Still less did I imagine that he would pick up on the humour and reply with his own joke: “I’m waiting for Godot.” (Though based on his serious expression and tone, I wondered whether he really was joking.)
The dramatist did not continue to wait. He walked with me into the community. He said that he had once written a one-act play about a city bus stop. There were no protagonists in the play, just people arriving and departing, as they did every day. He said that he wanted to express the absurdity of life by means of repeated departures and arrivals.
I appreciated the dramatist’s mode of expression. I said that I often felt a sense of absurdity when I was waiting for and getting off the bus.
When we were approaching the door to my tower, the dramatist still seemed to have many things to say. He showed no sign of slowing down. Nor did I, as I also wanted to know what he had to say. We kept on walking towards the grass.
That’s when the dramatist mentioned the interview in the newspaper. “How did you see it?” he asked.
I wasn’t sure what his intention was in asking this, but I knew I should not say I had seen it accidentally. I told him that I would never miss such an interesting story in the newspaper.
My reply seemed not to please him. “What I’m asking is: how many people have seen that article?”
I said that the newspaper had a wide distribution, and that practically everyone in the city would have seen it.
“You really think so?” the dramatist asked.
All the neighbours have seen it, I said, and all of my colleagues at work.
The dramatist looked up and gazed at the twilight sky. “Well, good,” he said, though with doubt in his voice.
I did not know what he meant.
“Actually I just hope one person sees it,” he continued.
I did not know what this meant, either. His rumbling voice made it seem as though he was talking to himself.
“After the interview was published, I started having bouts of loneliness,” the dramatist said.
I recalled his “joke” at the bus stop. I assumed he must be waiting for the reader to respond. Waiting makes people lonely, I said.
The dramatist looked at me, lost. I did not know whether he thought I had it right or wrong. “I don’t know whether I should keep on living here, in this city,” he said.
I found this brusque. Our conversation had neared a crux of so
me sort, as if we had returned to the question he had avoided at the beginning of the interview. I did not want to miss this opportunity. I said he had to figure out why he had come to the city in the first place before he could decide whether or not to stay.
The dramatist looked at me, his eyes just as confused as before.
I still couldn’t tell whether he thought I had it right or wrong. But I told myself that I must not hesitate. I mentioned the tragedy in his life. I asked him why he had avoided the question in the interview.
The dramatist seemed to want to say something. Then his eyes flashed. Something seemed to attract his attention. “Am I seeing things?” he asked, distraught.
I looked over. I did not know what he had seen in the twilight.
“Just there, on the path behind that row of pines,” the dramatist said. “I don’t think I am seeing things.”
I also saw something, a woman in a black dress pacing up and down the path behind the pine trees.
The dramatist seemed to forget that we were having a conversation. He walked towards the trees, apparently in a kind of trance, but he was unable to get close to the woman. When he had almost reached the pines, a man in formal attire came to the woman’s side. They exchanged a few words and then walked away, hand in hand.
The dramatist seemed shocked by this. After a while he plodded back, looking behind him. He looked exhausted. “I think maybe I was mistaken,” he said quietly.
I had no idea where he was mistaken.
“I heard she left right after the telephone call,” the dramatist said.
I did not know what telephone call he was talking about.
“I heard she came here, to this city,” the dramatist said.
I did not know who had come to our city.
“Why would I have that idea?” the dramatist asked.
I had no idea what idea he had had.
“What does it matter if she knows?” the dramatist said.
I was totally lost.
“Waiting makes people lonely. Oh, ’tis true, ’tis true,” the dramatist said. “Now I think I was wrong.”
Wrong? About what?
The dramatist turned to go without taking his leave of me.
The next day after work I saw the neighbours standing at the entrance to the community, gossiping. When they saw me, they got extremely excited. They surrounded me. One said that one of the women had seen the weirdo at the airport while she was dropping her mother-in-law off. He had nodded to this woman in a very friendly way, but as usual said nothing. He was carrying a large backpack, as if setting off on a long journey. My neighbours asked me if I knew where he was going.
The woman’s supposition was probably right. The dramatist had probably left, as the past few days he had not appeared at his regular time and place.
About a week later, I got an express parcel from Xishuangbanna, an ethnic minority area in southern Yunnan province. In it was a brand new tape recording with a label that read: “Why I came” in the dramatist’s handwriting.
I could not wait to put the tape into the machine, and soon I heard the dramatist speak in a gravelly voice.
“My decision to retire and leave the city is indeed related to my personal tragedy. But there’s a deeper reason for the tragedy itself, which only the people involved know. That’s what plays in daily life are like. There’s always a play within the play, and sometimes it’s difficult to make out which is the cause and which the effect. I don’t know how much responsibility I should take for the tragedy. But I know that it was a play I could not write, and that made me lose my passion for drama.
“In the past three years, I have revisited the tragedy from different perspectives. Through repeated comparison, I know that the telephone call is the best entry point into the story. I had waited for that call for four years, but when it came it took me completely by surprise. Thinking back now, I don’t know whether the call came at the wrong time or just at the right time. My wedding was set to take place in two hours, I was busy with last-minute preparations, and a steady stream of calls were coming in, from my grandmother, my cousin, my aunt, the photographer, the manager of the cavalcade of cars.
“I never expected I would suddenly get that call. I hadn’t heard her voice in four years. I was almost overcome. She said she had been trying to call for over an hour, and I could hear in her voice that she did not understand why the line might be busy.
“I hesitated. I still felt there was no need to tell her. I tried hard to steady my emotions, listening patiently to her. She said that she had just come back from England and had made a point of visiting Shakespeare’s hometown. She said she had bought some gifts there and sent them from the local post office. She said that her purpose in calling me was to tell me to watch out for that parcel, and that she hoped I would see the stamp from Stratford-upon-Avon.
“That could not be her main purpose, though. This was the first call either of us had made in the four years since we (or should I say I?) broke off an incredibly passionate love affair that had lasted almost three years.
“What she told me battered my heart. I had not forgotten the meaning of Shakespeare’s hometown for us. I would never forget. That was where we decided we’d spend our honeymoon. Now I was getting married to someone else. And she had just come back from that special place. I did not know how to react. What could I say? What was there to say?
“She did not need me to say anything, it seemed, because she still had things to say herself. She said that she had spent two days in that pretty little town, at an inn called The Black Swan. There, she remembered our life together, our “incredible passion.” She said that at the end of her reminiscence she was still left with the same old question: Did I love her or not?
“After we’d first met she often asked me that. And she kept on asking the same question throughout our love affair. But after four years apart, this was no longer a question for me. She had to answer it herself.
“She told me that at dawn that day, at Shakespeare’s grave, she realized that I didn’t love her, that I never had. I reminded myself to hold my tongue. I told myself not to concern myself with her insult to my feelings. She had not finished saying what she wanted to say. And so I listened. She said she had thought several times of calling me, but had not been able to gather up the courage. She wanted to know why our incredible passion had come so abruptly to an end.
“She said that it was after that realization that she’d finally mustered the courage. Yes, that was her main reason for calling. All these years later, she wanted to know why I had suddenly left her, after we had chosen the place we’d spend our honeymoon. Whether I loved her or not couldn’t serve as an explanation. She wanted to know the specific reason why.
“Hearing her state her clear objective, I was able to relax. I was certain she was just trying to sort things out, that she wasn’t making this dramatic call out of nostalgia. That being the case, I thought she should be able to accept my present situation. I did not answer her directly, just told her that I was about to get married. I said that there was no reason for us to stay wrapped up in the past.
“She didn’t speak for the longest time. I waited patiently and imagined her reaction. In fact, she was unable to keep her calm; finally, she spoke. She asked me what ‘about to’ meant. I said that it meant immediately. I heard a grim laugh. She said surely I wasn’t getting married today. My silence was response enough. She burst out laughing. She said this is ridiculous.
“But then her voice changed and became so very dark. She said that it had taken her four whole years to find the courage to ask me. She said it was just absurd, like the plays I wrote. ‘Why?’ she asked in her leaden tone of voice. Why had she, a little boat, run aground on such a ridiculous, treacherous reef? That’s what she said.
“Maybe it’s fate, I said. I thought that would console her, but it just made things worse. F
uriously, she said she didn’t believe in fate, especially not this kind. I did not dare to say anything more. And I did not want her to say anything more. Then she bellowed into the phone, ‘You’ll be cursed.’
“Her outcry filled me with dread. I asked her what she meant, as calmly as I could. ‘Figure it out for yourself!’ After she had finished shouting, she hung up. I did not think anything more of it. I didn’t have the time. I had wedding preparations to finalize.
“Our wedding went very smoothly, and right afterwards my wife and I went to spend our honeymoon in her hometown. The package from Shakespeare’s hometown arrived two days after we returned. I went alone to the post office to pick it up. I had decided on my honeymoon never to open it. I hid it on the top shelf of the bookshelf, behind my old manuscripts. Time flew by. A year of peaceful married life passed, and the fear aroused by that call gradually faded.
“One day, when I was looking at the calendar, I noticed that my wife had made a note on our wedding anniversary. I excitedly went to ask how we should celebrate our special day. My wife’s icy tone and disgusted expression made me shudder. ‘Our day?’ she asked. ‘That’s your day, yours and hers.’ I knew immediately something was very wrong. ‘What do you mean by that?’ I asked, on alert. ‘Don’t be so jumpy,’ my wife said. ‘You’re more anxious than you were that day after you finished that phone call.’ I did not know my wife had noticed the call that day. I was too nervous to speak. ‘What is there to be so worried about?’ My wife continued to goad me with her icy tone. I looked sideways to avoid her disgusted gaze. ‘You really don’t have to be so uptight,’ she said. ‘I actually don’t know who it was. I just know you.’ She did not complete her sentence, but I could guess what she was going to say. ‘You said that a person can only have one true love,’ my wife continued. ‘That was just a line in a play I wrote,’ I argued. My wife didn’t give me any room for argument. ‘Don’t forget that you said all your characters are aspects of yourself,’ she retorted. I didn’t want to say anything more, and I hoped she wouldn’t either. ‘You don’t love me, that’s a fact. And it doesn’t matter,’ my wife continued. ‘But there’s one thing I just don’t get. Why didn’t you marry the woman you really love?’ Her unexpected question reminded me of the call on my wedding day, and of my ex’s supposed realization. What could be more absurd than that?