He bent over and fumbled through the shoe cabinet for a pair of slippers.
‘I can just wear my socks,’ Jia Jia said and sat on a chair to untie her shoelaces. ‘I’ve found a tenant for the apartment. I’m OK for now.’
‘You’ll catch a cold. Xiao Fang taught me to always be careful not to let my feet get cold. Here you go.’
He placed a pair of red slippers in front of Jia Jia. As he turned and walked to the living room, she observed his back. If she had had a checklist for the symptoms of ageing, he would have had marks in every box. He was thinner, despite having grown a small, sagging belly. Though he had always been a man who kept his back straight, he was now hunching over a little, and as a result, his neck extended forward. The skin on his hands was folded and sprinkled with dark spots.
Xiao Fang was not at home, but her presence was everywhere. On the sandalwood bookshelves behind the sofa, there were several volumes on traditional medicine. Jia Jia’s father only read history and philosophy. The remote controls for the television, DVD player and music player were arranged neatly in a row on top of the tea table, like soldiers sleeping in a camp. In the corner of the room, there was a green yoga mat, rolled up tidily and leaning against the wall. The room smelt like essential oils. Lemon perhaps, or lime.
Funny, Jia Jia thought, that a woman could take over a man’s living space so effortlessly.
‘Do you want to go out for dinner?’ her father asked, but he immediately seemed to change his mind and said, ‘Actually, why don’t we stay at home? Xiao Fang is away for the weekend. I’ll cook something.’
‘I can cook,’ Jia Jia offered. She did not know that her father could cook. She could not remember ever eating anything that he had made.
‘I haven’t moved all day,’ he said, pushing her shoulder to sit her down on the sofa. He handed her one of the remote controls; the one in the middle. ‘Watch some TV or have a snooze. There’s tea under the table.’
She looked at the clock. It was ten past five in the afternoon.
‘I’ll go and buy some groceries,’ he decided hurriedly and went into the bedroom to change. ‘If you want, you can start making the rice,’ he shouted from inside.
He soon emerged in a plain T-shirt and black trousers. After he took his car keys and closed the door behind him, Jia Jia found the bag of rice in the kitchen cupboard, measured out enough for the two of them, washed it three times, and started the cooker. The phone rang in the living room and she rushed over reflexively. She watched it ring, unable to decide whether she should pick up. What if it was Xiao Fang? She did not want to speak to her. She told herself that if the person was still calling after five more rings, she would consider it an emergency and answer.
The phone went silent after three rings. Jia Jia watched it for a few more seconds, in case the person was going to call again, but there was only silence. Relieved, she sat on the sofa and took out the photo she had brought back from Tibet. Even from the back, she could tell that the man was young. And the woman, she seemed as light as a leaf. Jia Jia could hardly imagine that another living being was growing inside her.
Jia Jia decided that she would take a shower. It was delightful, she discovered, as she stepped under the hot water in the guest bathroom, to be able to clean herself thoroughly. She had not had a proper shower in days. Ever since she had arrived in T.S.’s village, cleaning herself had meant wiping her body with a towel. She shampooed her hair twice, lathered her skin repeatedly with soap, and stood under the showerhead for a long time.
When she had finished, she found that her father had returned and was busy chopping carrots. Jia Jia leaned against the sofa and let the air conditioner blow gently on her for a while. She started to feel cold, and turned to the bookshelves for something to busy herself with. Nietzsche, Rousseau, Diderot, Sun Tzu and others lined the shelves along with dozens of books on the Liao dynasty, an era that had particularly interested her father ever since he was a child. He could never explain why he had such a fondness for this dynasty; everyone else found it rather bizarre. The Tang dynasty, the Warring States, or the Qing dynasty – these had many more gripping stories.
Jia Jia was not interested in anything she could see. She was not about to pick up The Social Contract and begin reading. She migrated towards the other end of the shelf and spotted, in front of another collection of burgundy history books, a palm-sized stone figure. It was the fish-man, standing among the other little ornaments on the shelf like a curious souvenir. She froze for a moment. Why would her father have this? Why had she not seen it before? Had she in fact seen it before? Jia Jia fell into a moment of stunned wordlessness and her body suddenly felt weak. She tried to steady herself. She turned the fish-man around to find the back bare, without a number. This figure, unlike the ones she had seen in the village, was expertly crafted.
‘Wash your hands! Almost finished here!’ her father yelled over the sounds of fresh vegetables being tossed into heated oil.
Startled by his voice, Jia Jia instinctively stuffed the fish-man into her pocket. Her father appeared from the kitchen with a dish in each hand.
‘Get the rice,’ he said. ‘And chopsticks.’
She did as she was told.
Jia Jia sat at the table and studied her father, thinking about the figure in her pocket. Her father’s hands, holding the chopsticks, were slightly unsteady – something that she had first noticed years ago when he took her out to lunch, but tonight, it made her heart clench and tremble.
On the table sat a plate of braised pork belly, a little dark in colour, with slightly too much oil floating on top. The other dish was stir-fried carrots and fungus, perfectly bright in colour, cooked more skilfully.
Her father, using his chopsticks like a spoon, scooped up a piece of pork and carefully hovered it over Jia Jia’s bowl, and then finally allowed it to drop inside. ‘Try this.’
Jia Jia held the bowl in her hand and gazed down at the lonely piece of pork.
‘Try it,’ repeated her father. ‘You like braised pork, don’t you?’
She picked it up and stuffed it into her mouth. Although she expected it to be rather salty from having been bathed in too much soy sauce, it actually tasted too sweet.
Her father smiled in a satisfied way and pointed his chopsticks at the window. ‘If I had gone five minutes later, the supermarket would’ve run out of pork belly. I remember you used to ask for braised pork every day when you were a girl. Pork belly tastes best when braised. Eat some more. I’m sure you got sick of the food in Tibet and started missing home-cooked food after a few days.’
The last time Jia Jia had sat at home and eaten dinner with her father was the day before he left. What did they eat? She tried to investigate the deep cave of her memory but could not recall a single dish on the table that day. She stuffed another piece of pork into her mouth, chewed a few times, and before she could swallow it she had put in another.
Then, utterly unprepared, she found herself crying hysterically. She was like a fallen child who had kept her tears contained until her parents took her into their embrace, releasing a sundering, burning wail. She nodded several times while she sobbed, signalling to her father that he was right – she did like braised pork belly. She hoped that he understood her nods, as she could no longer put any words together. Jia Jia had lost all control. There was not a single string that she could pull to stop herself from this crying that seemed as though it was never going to end.