June 17, 2008. Shao Wu remembered it clearly. It was raining. He carried a case of yogurt and a case of kiwifruit to Yang Shuyi’s great-aunt’s home.
After Yang Shuyi left, relatives took Grandpa, Grandma, and Longlong to stay with the great-aunt. The old were old and the young were young; someone had to look after them. When they moved there, Shao Wu helped pack. There was not much to pack, really. They took only changes of clothes and medicine, along with Longlong’s schoolbag. Longlong still wore the digital watch Yang Long had bought her for New Year. Grandpa and Grandma silently sorted through clothes in the bedroom while, in the living room, Longlong tugged at Shao Wu’s sleeve and asked softly, “Brother Little Shao, why isn’t my brother back yet?”
The question split something inside Shao Wu. He could only put an arm gently around her shoulders. “Be good. You still have to wait a few more days.”
“How many days? And what about Dad and Mom?” Longlong sounded a little aggrieved. “I asked Grandma, but Grandma won’t answer me.”
Shao Wu turned his face away, not even daring to meet her eyes. He truly, truly had no answer he could give. Tell her the truth? Your dad and mom are never coming back. Lie? They’ll be back in a few days. But Shao Wu could not bear to imagine what Longlong would look like when that hope failed.
They had already received word that when the earthquake struck, Yang Long and Xiaojuan had just started driving back from Yingxiu to Yongchuan. Mountains split and slopes collapsed. Their vehicle had been buried deep beneath one of the landslides, and like so many others, they would never return.
Shao Wu sat in the living room of Yang Shuyi’s home feeling as though all of this were a dream. Dust lay everywhere, on the floor, the table, the arms of the sofa. Even the television screen was smeared, with what looked like water marks across it. That television, such a huge LCD screen, bought on sale for only fifteen hundred yuan, Yang Long had told him so delightedly on the second day of New Year. That day, too, they had all been sitting in this living room: Grandpa, Grandma, Yang Long, Xiaojuan, Yang Shuyi, Longlong, and Shao Wu. There had barely been room for everyone.
It had been crowded, but lively. Longlong and Yang Shuyi had received new watches, and the whole family had been festive and happy. Slightly drunk, Yang Long had repeated over and over, “When things hit rock bottom, they turn around. They turn around. I think life for our family is only going to get better and better…” Auntie Xiaojuan had watched him from the side with a gentle smile, as if looking at a child fooling around.
Shao Wu’s nose stung. He forced it back, afraid Longlong would notice anything.
Yang Shuyi had gone to look for Yang Long and Xiaojuan’s bodies. After half a month away, he called once. “Can’t find them. Landslide. Everything’s buried.” Then he hung up and kept searching.
When Shao Wu brought Grandpa, Grandma, and Longlong to Yang Shuyi’s great-aunt’s home, he crouched down before leaving and rubbed the top of Longlong’s head. “I’ll come see you every day, okay?”
Of course Longlong agreed, her face lighting up. “Really?”
Shao Wu nodded. “Really.”
After that, every day when classes let out at noon, Shao Wu rode his bicycle for forty minutes to the great-aunt’s home. On the way he bought braised meat or braised duck, and sometimes vegetables too. During those weeks he learned how to choose produce. Longlong liked pomelos, and the best pomelos had thin, firm skin, ideally with the shapes of the individual segments visible through the peel. Grandpa’s teeth were bad, so Shao Wu often bought tofu. He had never realized three yuan could buy such a big block. Grandma had diabetes and the “three highs” of blood pressure, blood sugar, and blood lipids, so Shao Wu replaced the great-aunt’s peanut oil with olive oil. One noon, after eating lunch there, Grandma walked him to the door. Her leg had never fully recovered after her hospitalization, and now her back seemed to have stooped overnight. Her eyes were swollen. They had been swollen ever since May 12.
Shao Wu said gently, “Grandma, go back inside. You don’t have to see me out.”
Grandma gripped Shao Wu’s arm and called hoarsely, “Little Shao.” Then she began to cry. The tears simply poured out. She raised a hand to wipe them away, but they would not stop. In broad daylight, Grandma was no longer the grandmother who used to come close and say, “Little Shao is such a sweet-looking boy.” Her only son was gone. He would never come back.
June 17, Tuesday, a rainy day. Shao Wu carried yogurt and kiwifruit toward the great-aunt’s home. Before he even reached the building, he could already see a ring of people gathered around the entrance.
Then Shao Wu saw Yang Shuyi. His hand jerked, and he nearly fell off his bicycle.
Yang Shuyi was darker and thinner, standing in the middle of the crowd. From a distance, through the fine rain, Shao Wu could not make out his expression. Only when he came closer did he realize there was no expression on Yang Shuyi’s face at all.
Shao Wu stopped his bicycle. When he kicked down the side stand, his lower leg was visibly trembling.
“Shao Wu.”
If Yang Shuyi had not opened his mouth, Shao Wu would never have realized that voice belonged to him.
It was so hoarse, so low. It sounded almost… almost like a voice from hell.
“Thank you,” Yang Shuyi said. Both his hands were wrapped in white gauze.
From May 12 to June 17, thirty-seven days had passed. The seventy-two-hour golden rescue window had passed. The nationwide mourning period beginning on the seventh day after the quake had passed. At 178 hours and 22 minutes after the earthquake, the last surviving person to be rescued had been brought out alive.
Thirty-seven days later, Yang Shuyi came back.
But the Yang Shuyi from thirty-seven days earlier seemed to have been taken away by the earthquake forever.
“Your hands…” Even Shao Wu’s own voice no longer sounded like his. “What happened?”
“It’s nothing,” Yang Shuyi said.
Only later, from a report on Yongchuan Television, did Shao Wu learn what Yang Shuyi had done. He first took a vehicle to Chengdu, then caught rides with volunteers heading toward Yingxiu. When the road became impassable, he continued on foot. Along the way he passed collapse site after collapse site, seas of stone and mud that could not possibly be dug through. By then, he understood that his father and Auntie Xiaojuan could not be recovered. But he did not leave. Instead, he went on to Yingxiu with all kinds of people: those looking for family, disaster-relief workers, reporters, doctors. There, he dug until all ten of his fingers were torn raw.
On June 25, Yang Shuyi held a joint cenotaph burial for his father, Yang Long, and his stepmother, Tan Juan. Grandpa and Grandma were too old to endure any more shock, so they did not go. Yang Shuyi held Longlong’s hand, with several officials and reporters accompanying them. Shao Wu watched with his own eyes as Yang Shuyi placed Yang Long’s work uniform and Tan Juan’s blouse into the urn.
Elio’s Notes: A yiguanzhong (衣冠塚), rendered here as “cenotaph,” is a tomb containing the deceased’s clothing or personal effects when the remains themselves are unavailable.
That work uniform was the standard uniform of the transport company where Yang Long had worked. There had been two sets, one Yang Long wore and one kept at home. Printed over the chest were the six characters “Yong’an Transport Company.” Shao Wu remembered that Yang Long had also been wearing that uniform on the day he went to the school and had a huge argument with the homeroom teacher.
Back then, both he and Yang Shuyi had thought Yang Long was embarrassing.
The monument was set. They kowtowed and offered incense. Longlong cried until she could barely breathe, while Yang Shuyi said nothing. When everything was finished, Yang Shuyi said, “Let’s go.” He lifted Longlong, who had collapsed to her knees sobbing, onto his back. His face remained numb.
Only after they returned home and everyone else had left did a man approach Yang Shuyi. He wore a white shirt, black trousers, and glasses, with a black shoulder bag hanging from one shoulder.
“Uncle Wang,” Yang Shuyi said.
“This… was something your dad and I had already agreed on.” The man unzipped his bag, pulled out a heavy kraft-paper envelope, and set it on the table in Yang Shuyi’s home. “When your grandma was in the hospital, he came to drink with me that night and said he wanted to borrow some money. I thought he couldn’t afford the hospital bill. But he said his son was about to go to university and asked me to lend him thirty thousand yuan first for his son’s tuition.”
Shao Wu stood to one side, utterly stunned.
So this man was “Wang San’er.” The night Shao Wu had gone to visit Grandma in the hospital, Yang Long had left to drink with him.
Yang Long had gone to borrow money from him, money for Yang Shuyi to attend university.
“I can spare thirty thousand yuan. Take it and don’t worry about paying me back.” The man patted Yang Shuyi’s shoulder and said seriously, “Study hard. Your dad, up in heaven, would want to see you go to university too.”
Yang Shuyi stared straight ahead without speaking.
A few seconds later, Shao Wu saw two lines of tears run down Yang Shuyi’s face.