She sat on a bench, the shopping bag lying flat on her lap. She wanted to cry, but she did not have time to go home and re-do her make-up before meeting Leo. So she held her face in her hands and imagined herself crying, screaming at the city, screaming so hard that her heart was coming out and everybody could hear her. She imagined herself crying like a newborn, innocent of all the twists and turns of being alive, the crossroads, the dead ends. She imagined herself crying for only a short while, before she stood up and walked down into the subway to catch the next onward train.
Jia Jia would be the second woman that Leo had ever taken to see his parents. The last time had been five years ago. He wanted them to accept her, and more importantly, he hoped that she would like them. But immediately after he had asked her to spend the holidays with him, he had regretted his words, expecting her to refuse. He should have been more cautious about throwing the question at her like that. Her acceptance had been worried and guarded, as if he had left her with no choice, and to reject his invitation would have been an act of rudeness. From what Leo had learned so far about Jia Jia, he knew that she always chose the option that she thought made others happy, not what brought happiness to herself. So Jia Jia had agreed, and ever since then, Leo had seen an unconcealable although well-hidden trace of anxiety in her. She had sent him messages often, enquiring about what his parents liked to eat; what kind of alcohol they preferred; whether his father smoked Chinese cigarettes or imported ones; what his parents’ shirt sizes were.
On New Year’s Eve, she turned up at his compound’s car park a little before four o’clock. Leo was not a car person; he was aware that there was nothing impressive about his car, a regular black Honda Accord. He had considered taking a taxi with Jia Jia, but ultimately decided that he would drive. This was him. He was not Chen Hang. He wanted her to see that.
She had bought his parents matching red cashmere sweaters, she told Leo in the car, each a size larger than their usual sizes, reasoning that this way, they could wear layers underneath during the cold winters. She had also bought a red scarf for his mother and some Yuxi cigarettes for his father.
It was the best time of the year to be in Beijing. People withdrew into their homes and settled in circles around their living-room tables; the women making flawlessly arranged rows of dumplings, the men chatting over cups of tea and puffs of smoke about all the events that had taken place during the past year. Although Leo never left the city during Chinese New Year, he had not spent the holidays at home for two years now. His parents had not insisted either – they believed that he had been busy with work. He had a close relationship with his family, but he relished his peaceful solitude more, going on hikes at Fragrant Hills, riding a bike down Changan Avenue, and even journeying on the empty subways, which became much more enjoyable without the usual migrant workers racing to their destinations.
Leo’s father was a researcher at the health and science department of Peking University. He was a forward-thinking scholar who spent his days either working in his lab, teaching, or reading at home with a cigarette in his hand. Leo’s parents’ apartment was not very big, but his father had converted the second room into a study where he could read and write. He was writing a book. He had been working on it for as long as Leo could remember. He made it a point to spend some time in his study every night before he went to bed, either reading or writing. Often, Leo’s mother would find him asleep in his armchair with a book opened to the first few pages.
Leo drove fast on the empty roads and they arrived at his parents’ without any delays. They lived in the north-west area of Beijing, just outside the second ring road. When his mother opened the door, Leo started to see what he had foisted upon Jia Jia. His mother was wearing a decade-old apron that was stained all over and was wiping her hands on it.
‘Sorry,’ she said as she invited them in, smiling embarrassedly while patting Jia Jia on the shoulder. ‘I’ll be a little busy in the kitchen. Go and chat with your father! He’s been talking about you for weeks.’
‘Can I help you in the kitchen?’ Jia Jia asked.
‘Oh, don’t worry, please, go, go with him.’ Leo’s mother pointed towards the living room. ‘It’s faster if I do it alone,’ she added. She began rolling dough with one hand while waving the other in the air.
‘Jia Jia, don’t bother,’ Leo said. ‘Come.’
‘Yes, yes, come!’ his father echoed deep and loud from the living room.
Jia Jia handed the gifts to Leo’s father and explained what she had got for the couple. Leo watched his father nod and thank her. He left the sweaters untouched in the bag and pulled out the cigarettes to examine the carton.
‘I should really stop smoking,’ he said. ‘A colleague of mine found polyps in his intestines during his annual check-up and had to have them taken out. We’re getting old, son.’ He looked at Leo and sighed. ‘But I suppose giving up now isn’t going to make such a big difference.’
Jia Jia smiled and faintly shook her head.
The sun seeped through the drying laundry at the window and cast its beams on Jia Jia when she sat down on the sofa. She looked like an old photograph, Leo thought, gentle and delicate. At that moment he felt proud of the cleanness in her beauty – her pale skin and minimal make-up. His father had always proclaimed that he did not care about how much housework a woman could do but she must have a pure heart.
There was something particularly moving about the way Jia Jia interacted with his father, Leo thought. There was a sense of distanced familiarity, as if she were a close friend from long ago. She did not speak much, but she seemed to be at ease listening to him blabber on about the different illnesses that were tormenting his colleagues and friends. And occasionally, when silence reigned, she would take a sip of her tea or ask a question, encouraging his father to talk more.
‘One day last month,’ his father said, ‘it was sunny, so I was with our neighbour in the park. You know, the other professor who lives two floors up?’ He turned to Leo and then back to Jia Jia. ‘He brought a friend,’ he continued. ‘An old man with sunglasses and a walking stick.’
‘Poor man,’ Jia Jia said, appearing genuinely regretful.
‘He also had the newspaper in his hands,’ Leo’s father said.
‘But I thought he was blind?’ Leo said.
‘I still don’t know whether he was blind or not. I never managed to ask him,’ his father said.
‘We think that he was so used to reading the papers every day that even when he became blind he couldn’t stop,’ Leo’s mother said as she plodded into the living room.
‘Ma.’ Leo stood up and guided his mother to the sofa. ‘Come, take your apron off and rest for a bit with us.’
‘Oh! Jia Jia, you brought presents?’ asked his mum. ‘We really don’t need anything.’
Jia Jia offered her the sweater and the scarf. Leo’s mother immediately took them out of the bag and held them up against the sun.
‘This must be expensive! It’s so soft! We really don’t need anything. Next time, don’t bother buying us presents, just bring our son back more often!’ His mother laughed and examined the scarf again.
‘I saw the blind man a few times again in the park,’ his father continued, reaching out and gently brushing his wife out of his way so that he could look at Leo. ‘He would always be with another person, always someone different. Then he stopped turning up. We thought that the man must have got ill, or even died. Later we heard that his children sold his place and checked him into a retirement home.’