The two continued waiting for the driver. Aston asked Qin Siyu, ‘About what time will you be back tomorrow?’
‘I’ll probably take the three o’clock train in the afternoon, arriving at Berkeley station at five-thirty,’ Qin Siyu said. He would then take a streetcar back to school.
Ordinarily, when he went to San Francisco for work, he took his bicycle and transferred to a ferry. This trip was too long, however, and he didn’t want his bicycle stolen, so he had splurged for once on trains and streetcars.
Aston nodded, his voice matter-of-fact. ‘I’ll be returning to Berkeley at about the same time. I can give you a ride. Let’s meet at this station again. I’ll be here before five-thirty.’
Qin Siyu raised his eyes. Aston’s expression remained perfectly ordinary.
Qin Siyu decided he must be reading too much into it. The Aston house was only three or four kilometers from the station, after all. And on the way back to Berkeley… the station was somewhat out of the way from Aston’s home, but not by much. One could just about call it convenient.
Qin Siyu nodded. ‘Thank you. I’ll come out and wait at five.’
At that moment headlights flashed around a street corner, piercing the darkness. Soon a Cadillac pulled smoothly to a stop before them. Aston stepped into the back seat with his long legs, gave a slight nod without another unnecessary word, and departed.
Qin Siyu watched the car until its taillights disappeared around the corner. The covers were red, oval, chromium-trimmed glass, bright and splendid. Even in the design of its taillights, the V16 conveyed an air of authority. Once it vanished, the entire street fell back into dark silence.
What had just happened seemed almost unreal. Qin Siyu began wondering whether he’d dreamed it. He wandered back into the station, opened the wooden door and entered the telephone booth. Then he spotted the spent match and the matchbook and knew it hadn’t been an illusion. The corner of his mouth lifted in an inexplicable smile.
Someone actually came to see me.
Only because it was nearby, of course…
He sat down again and waited for his train.
The long night suddenly seemed short. Less than three hours remained before departure. He sat a while, studying the writing on the booth wall as he recalled their conversation, then played with the matchbook. Gradually voices sounded around him again, and the station began pumping travelers across the country like a heart.
Back at home, Aston found his father Alex furious that he had left the party while the guests were departing. Pointing at his son, Alex shouted, ‘Everything I do is for you! I wanted to give you a chance to make connections! De Rohan’s company is a leader in France’s electrical industry. It was difficult enough getting him here. Knowing him would help you expand business into Europe! Even my trip to San Francisco was for his sake!’
Aston regarded his father without expression.
He knew that.
But at that moment he hadn’t chosen it.
All he said was, ‘I know you came to San Francisco for him.’
Alex Aston was intensely controlling. Once again, he pointed a ringed finger at his son, this time toward the upper floor. ‘Go to the reflection room and stay there until it’s time to return to school.’
Aston merely glanced at him again and went upstairs as though he didn’t care.
The room was only one hundred square feet. Its walls, ceiling and floor were all painted black, oppressive and suffocating.
There were no lights or clocks. Each second stretched out endlessly.
When Aston was five or six, he’d been terrified of that room.
His father used to play an irregular dripping sound inside it, constantly irritating his nerves until Aston felt close to collapse. When he listened intently for the next drop, waiting for it, time seemed to slow several times over.
The room also echoed dully. Any sound Aston made returned as a series of low, humming reverberations. At five or six he became afraid to make the smallest movement, and could only sit motionless on the floor hugging his knees, too frightened even to cry. If he cried, the surrounding walls seemed to fill with the wailing of countless ghosts.
So he didn’t cry. He sat with his eyes closed and his hands over his ears, counting numbers. Once he counted as high as 190,000 before finally fainting.
The method had worked very well. At least at the time, Aston had tried desperately to do everything perfectly and please his father, because he knew what happened if he defied him.
The last time he’d been there was probably nine years earlier, when he was in elementary school.
Nine years since his last visit.
He had fulfilled Alex’s expectations for nine whole years.
Aston entered without a care, found a corner, sat down against the wall and closed his eyes.
Qin Siyu was waiting at the station. Aston was waiting in the reflection room. Together, they waited in darkness and silence.
Fortunately that other person still had a lamp. Fortunately.
It was good that between them, they had at least one light.
Now the room no longer made Aston feel anything.
He even spoke playfully into the room, murmuring ‘Sean Chin.’ His voice was so soft that the echoes returning from the walls were soft too, as though countless versions of himself were whispering.
He gave a faint laugh.
After being deprived of food for a long time, Aston was finally released when it was time to return to school.
His mother, Victoria Aston, looked utterly untroubled.
He knew she supported his father. She too was a staunch believer in a philosophy of ‘victory above all.’
Her family had once been wealthy, only to suffer a reversal of fortune.
There were eleven children in her family. She was the sixth, right in the middle, and received no particular attention.
Seven were girls. The eldest sister, the third, and two of Victoria’s younger sisters were all strikingly beautiful, while she herself had a very ordinary face.
And yet it had been Victoria who did everything she could to marry into the Aston family and become her own family’s greatest hope.
To refine her figure and bearing, she’d practiced ballet from the age of eight until her toenails were black with bruising. She had wrapped her waist with strips of fabric in an effort to narrow her ribs.
To avoid developing the ugly habit of hunching her back and reaching forward for food, she tied herself to the back of her chair with hemp rope whenever she ate. That was how she acquired her later upright, elegant table manners.
She had always agreed with Aston’s father.
When Aston was small, his mother personally supervised his daily ‘task list.’ If he failed to complete any item, she joined her husband in punishing him.
She was also responsible for his list of ‘expectations’ each semester. Aston had to accomplish everything on it, such as winning a particular gold medal.
She made him keep a diary criticizing himself, reviewing everything he’d done, with every aspect expected to be flawless. If he’d made a mistake, he had to stand before all the family’s ‘servants’ and read the diary aloud: the butler, cooks, gardener, driver, groom… His parents believed such humiliation would help him achieve perfection.
‘Child,’ his mother said, gently touching his shoulder, ‘you must remember your surname.’
Aston’s eyes turned toward her.
‘My child, you’re our only son,’ she continued. ‘Please don’t disappoint us again. Promise your mother, won’t you?’
Aston gave a faint nod, enough to be polite, then turned away. The butler placed an overcoat over his shoulders, opened the front door and respectfully saw him out.
The driver was already waiting outside and opened the car door for his young master.
Aston took the back seat. The car started and rolled down the driveway between grass and fountains. A guard in the gatehouse opened the estate gate, and the Cadillac drove out.
The gatekeeper had been very busy the previous night too: checking identities, guiding guests, parking their cars, safeguarding keys and bringing each guest’s car to the entrance. Now he looked a little weary. He would not be relieved until evening.
Once they were outside, Aston half closed his eyes and asked the driver, Parker, ‘What did you tell them?’
Parker looked at his employer in the rearview mirror. ‘I said you’d gone drinking with your friends last night.’
Aston kept his eyes closed. After a long pause he murmured, ‘Mm.’
Parker had served the family for many years. Aston’s father trusted him and had ordered him to keep an eye on his son.
In reality, however, Parker was already loyal to the young master. Under Aston’s direction, he reported a careful mixture of truth and deception.
It had probably happened when Aston was in his first year of high school.
The car continued toward the railway station.
Qin Siyu was huddled against the wind, feeling cold.
The volunteer opportunity was certainly lost.
When the hospital interviewers saw him, they exchanged looks and quietly laughed. Finally they said with astonishing bluntness, ‘I’m sorry. We need clean people here. A hospital can’t spread germs.’ One even held a book over their nose and mouth.
Qin Siyu froze for a moment.
He knew the people interviewing him might not be the ones who had screened the applications. Being Chinese, his clothing, and the dust gathered from spending the night in a railway-station telephone booth after work had already persuaded them to reject him.
How clean could any telephone booth possibly be?
But in all conscience, there was only a little dust on him. He didn’t smell, and there was no actual dirt on him.
Did they really have to say it so openly?
During the plague outbreak of 1900, San Francisco’s health authorities had treated Chinatown as a source of infection and even imposed measures directed at Chinese residents: barricades, quarantine, compulsory disinfection and controversial forced vaccinations. That prejudice still remained in many people’s minds.
Elio’s Notes: In 1900, San Francisco authorities quarantined Chinatown during a bubonic-plague outbreak. Chinese residents were singled out for restrictions that were challenged successfully in federal court as discriminatory.
And now Qin Siyu arrived covered in the dust of travel.
Yet Chinese people were actually meticulous about cleanliness. Their clothes might be old, but they weren’t dirty.
Pointing a fingertip at his application documents, Qin Siyu said, ‘May I have my résumé back?’
That cost money to prepare.
The people opposite him were taken aback. Almost reflexively, they complied and passed the pages across the desk.
Qin Siyu gathered the sheets, tapped their edges twice against the tabletop to straighten them and held them together. Raising his eyes, he said, ‘I am clean. But to get here, I had to take a streetcar from Berkeley, then a ferry, then another streetcar to my job in San Francisco. After work I took a streetcar to a train, and from that train another streetcar to come here and discuss your program. I’ve been traveling a very long time today, so yes, I’ve picked up some dust. But I didn’t come here to be insulted. You knew beforehand that the journey from my school would take four hours. I thought you would respect me, but you haven’t. So this isn’t somewhere I truly want to work. In future, if you have no intention of respecting someone, don’t make them go through all this trouble.’
With that he pushed himself up from the desk, politely slid his chair back into place, picked up his résumé and left.
Behind him he heard a few embarrassed, obviously affected coughs.
The position was lost. Yet perhaps nothing happened entirely without cause. Once outside, looking at the sunlight, Qin Siyu suddenly had a good idea about how to find another opportunity.
It seemed worth trying!
The interviewers had given him an idea. If it worked, perhaps this misfortune would prove a blessing in disguise.
At exactly five-thirty, Aston’s car appeared.
The Cadillac V16 rolled to a smooth stop in front of the station.
Everyone standing there turned to look.
The polished body, clear windows, flowing lines and finely made headlights gleamed.
Aston, however, looked only outside and said to Qin Siyu, ‘Get in.’
Now everyone looked at Qin Siyu. With his bag slung across his shoulder, he opened the door and climbed inside. ‘Here I am!’
The car left the station and headed toward Pier 41 to board a ferry.
The driver took the vehicle ramp.
It was Qin Siyu’s first time using a vehicle ramp.
Normally he entered the Ferry Building, bought his ticket inside and walked down the passenger boarding passage to the cabin when it was time. The passage sloped, with a wooden canopy above and an iron walkway beneath. Footsteps made a hollow thudding noise as hurried travelers crossed.
The car drove onto the vehicle deck, then into the automobile hold. Directed by a crew member, the driver parked in the assigned position and set the brake. A sailor wedged wooden blocks against the wheels.
Cars boarded by the lower ramp, while passengers used an upper gangway.
Once they left the car, the group was escorted upstairs.
Countless people looked at Aston along the way. He was exceptionally handsome.
For the first time, Qin Siyu learned that ferries had VIP lounges.
It was an enclosed waiting cabin with luxurious carpets, sofas, ceiling fans, large windows, brass ornamentation and even a piano.
Through the windows, passengers could watch people and cars entering the ferry and settling aboard one after another.
Departure was near. Sailors secured the safety chain, and the smell of engine oil drifted into the lounge.
Three long, deep horn blasts sounded, and the ferry slowly moved away from shore.
Aston led Qin Siyu onto the outer deck. Even this section of deck was separated from the rest, with heavy windbreaks on either side.
In the distance, a dazzling red sun was preparing to sink into the sea.
Light spread straight across the water. Above it lay a whole expanse of red-orange, and below it a whole expanse of deep blue.
The sea was wide and smooth. The clouds glowed with extraordinary colors, while deep swells gently stirred the water below. Looking far out, one could see the golden reflection of the sun shining beyond the Golden Gate, the glittering trail cleaving the waves and stretching all the way toward their vessel.
The sunset streamed into the bay through the Golden Gate. Beyond was the Pacific Ocean, while inside lay San Francisco Bay. The sun hung high between the two mountains on either side of the strait. The horizon was blurred, and where sea met sky, golden light flashed toward their eyes.
A magnificent sight.
Across the water, lights were gradually coming on along the hills.
Californians called this the most beautiful commute in the world: ‘The most beautiful in the world.’
A faint smell of diesel mingled with the briny scent of the sea breeze on deck.
Qin Siyu looked toward the two mountains in the distance and the narrow stretch of water between them. That was the ‘Golden Gate.’ The red-gold sun hung over the gap, and its reflection broke across the waves all the way to the ship, while beyond the strait the ocean widened abruptly.
‘I really like this view,’ Qin Siyu said softly as the wind lifted his black hair.
Aston leaned an elbow on the rail. The wind ruffled his blond hair as well. ‘Mm.’
His shirt billowed and snapped in the breeze.
‘I heard they’re planning to build a bridge here,’ Qin Siyu said.
Once the bridge was finished, automobiles could travel directly between San Francisco and Berkeley.
‘Mm.’ Gazing into the distance, Aston replied idly, ‘Construction should begin in the summer. The funding is already secured, without directly raising taxes. Some of it comes from California state bonds, some from federal loans under Roosevelt’s WPA. The Bay Bridge authority will issue bonds too, to repay investors through future tolls. Once completed it’ll be the longest and most expensive bridge in the world, costing around eighty million dollars. The Golden Gate Bridge is also about to begin construction, probably next year.’
Elio’s Notes: The novel mentions a “WPA” in 1933, but the Works Progress Administration began in 1935. The separate Public Works Administration was established in June 1933. Golden Gate Bridge construction began in January 1933; work on the Bay Bridge began that July. The source’s chronology is preserved.
‘I see.’ Qin Siyu knew nothing of such behind-the-scenes project details. ‘I hope they’re finished soon. But I’ll miss this ferry.’
Aston glanced at him and continued, ‘The Golden Gate Bridge will be very beautiful. You’ll like it.’
‘Really?’ Qin Siyu turned, his fringe drifting in the evening breeze and the sunset laying gold across his face. ‘What will it look like?’
‘A suspension bridge, with two very tall towers shaped like gateways and magnificent steel cables. And its color will be extraordinary, one of a kind,’ Aston said. ‘Irving Morrow has chosen International Orange. In San Francisco’s dense morning fog, it will stand out clearly. Of course that’s really so ships can see it. But imagine two orange-red bridge towers piercing the fog. It’ll be magnificent. California’s sea is such a deep blue that in daylight the bridge will rise between the blue sky and water, set against the green hills beyond, the complementary colors of blue and green. And at this time in the evening, the brightest, most dazzling sunset will shine between those two orange-red towers. Night after night, the sun will hang between them, changing from yellow to red before sinking away, sending gold and crimson ripples across the bay.’
Imagining the bridge, Qin Siyu couldn’t help feeling captivated.
At that moment a flock of seagulls swept past them, flying toward the sun.
‘Kingsley,’ Qin Siyu asked, ‘may I ask what your favorite animal is?’
Rather than answer, Aston asked, ‘What about yours?’
‘Birds,’ Qin Siyu replied. ‘They’re the inspiration for my name. Your turn.’
Pressed again, Aston stopped concealing his answer. Leaning against the rail, he said, ‘Birds too.’
His blond hair and blue eyes looked like the sun and sea beyond. Qin Siyu’s heart gave a little leap. ‘…What a coincidence.’
Aston said nothing.
As a child, when he was locked in the ‘punishment room,’ he had wished he could become a bird and fly far, far away.
The sun had fully set.
Lights from thousands of homes shone in layers, until it was hard to distinguish the lights reflected in the sea from the stars.
The temperature over the water suddenly dropped, so they went back inside the lounge.
The crossing lasted about half an hour. On reaching shore, the ferry sounded its horn three times again and eased toward the pier.
Passengers filed off once more.
Again Qin Siyu felt that time had passed remarkably quickly.
The three of them returned to the vehicle deck. The driver opened the front door and took his seat, while Aston and Qin Siyu entered the rear. The Cadillac drove toward the university once again.
‘I forgot to ask,’ Aston said, leaning back and elegantly interlacing his fingers in a relaxed pose. ‘Did the volunteer placement work out?’
‘No.’ Qin Siyu smiled faintly. ‘They said I looked dirty. Probably because I spent the night in a telephone booth and then took a train and a streetcar.’
He patted his bag. ‘At least I got my résumé back. It took time to put together.’
Aston glanced toward him.
‘I’m fine. You, though…’ Qin Siyu turned to the man beside him and looked closely, his black pupils bright and clear. ‘You’re different from usual.’
Aston paused, then echoed, ‘Different?’
‘Mm. You wore this shirt last night, and you’re still wearing it today. That’s very unusual for you. You’re always so careful about cleanliness and the way you dress.’
Aston studied him briefly, then looked forward again. After a few seconds he said, ‘Mm. Something happened at home.’
‘Can you tell me?’ Qin Siyu asked.
Aston raised his eyes toward him for several seconds. In the darkness his expression was hard to read, but he answered calmly. ‘I left the party my parents had arranged with a major French electrical businessman, so I was punished.’
Qin Siyu froze, struck by a wave of guilt. ‘What kind of punishment?’
‘A small trick, that’s all.’ Aston glanced at him lightly. ‘It stopped being a threat to me long ago.’
He spoke as though describing someone else’s life, his voice and expression equally calm. ‘A room of a hundred square feet. No windows, entirely enclosed. All six surfaces painted black. The clock removed, with irregular drops of water to make time pass as slowly as possible… Later I discovered the dripping was regular after all. There were five seconds between the first and second drops, ten between the second and third, then two seconds before the fourth, followed by three, seven and eight seconds. Then the pattern repeated, starting again with five.’
Aston had just turned seven when he first discovered the pattern.
Qin Siyu turned toward him.
Aston even smiled slightly. ‘I was very weak back then. All I knew was to bury my face in my hands, cover my ears and count. Once I got as high as a hundred and ninety thousand.’
He could still remember the exact number: 193,251.
He seemed almost nostalgic. ‘I hadn’t been inside that room in years. Going back now, I discovered it was merely a trick to frighten children. It felt quite novel to me, since the last time was nine years ago.’
His voice was calm, but Qin Siyu detected a faint emotion beneath his words, so faint it was almost impossible to perceive. He asked softly, ‘May I ask… why were you locked in there the previous time?’
Aston glanced at Qin Siyu, apparently unconcerned. ‘My parents actually wanted as many children as possible.’
He smiled. ‘They’re both devoted believers in winning above all else. Naturally they wanted numerous children to make them hate and fight one another until a cold, perfect heir emerged. They simply couldn’t achieve it.’
Whether because of their bodies or their fate, he did not know.
‘What happened then?’ Qin Siyu asked.
Aston’s voice remained level. ‘When I was in third grade, she finally became pregnant again. By the time I was in fourth grade, my mother’s second child was due. But she suffered an obstructed labor. Her pelvis was apparently too narrow, and she had to be rushed to hospital.’
‘And then?’
As someone determined to study medicine, Qin Siyu knew that roughly one mother died in every 125 deliveries. Wealthy people usually chose to give birth at home unless an emergency arose, because hospitals actually posed the greater risk of infection.
An infection could be fatal. Bayer was developing synthetic antibacterial medicines, the sulfonamides. It hadn’t succeeded yet, but they represented one of humanity’s greatest hopes.
There were other approaches too. One of Professor Brown’s British colleagues said an obscure young researcher had mailed samples to several people. He’d scoffed that this person imagined he could extract a substance from nature to kill bacteria. Two or three years earlier the researcher had published a paper in an obscure journal and given the substance an awkward name: penicillin.
Elio’s Notes: Alexander Fleming published his penicillin findings in June 1929, roughly four years before this scene, rather than the two or three years mentioned in the novel.
Aston’s voice grew soft and distant. ‘Cesarean surgery carried such a high risk of infection that she still wanted to deliver naturally. The doctors used forceps, but her birth canal tore and she lost a great deal of blood. They couldn’t stop the bleeding. Their second child… died too, because the umbilical cord was caught and the baby was deprived of oxygen.’
‘…I’m sorry,’ Qin Siyu said.
Aston rested an elbow against the car door, his gaze seeming to drift back into the past. ‘That evening, everyone told me my mother was going to die. I was terrified and cried beneath the covers. I stayed under my blanket all night, frightened out of my mind. Early the next morning my father told me to go to school as usual. Or rather, ordered me to go immediately. We had a test that morning, and my fingers shook the whole time. I kept thinking, "My mother is going to die. My mother is going to die." I’d just skipped a grade and was in fourth grade, so I hadn’t learned everything thoroughly. I answered one question incorrectly.’
His eyes met Qin Siyu’s. ‘When I got home, my father found out I hadn’t placed first. I’d come second, and someone else had beaten me. He was furious. He punished me by locking me in that room for three whole days.’
Alex had said, ‘Kingsley, you must never lose your composure over anything! You must never become a coward over anything! He beat you, you fool!’
Qin Siyu felt his throat tightening, as though he were suffocating. He drew slow, deep breaths.
Aston continued, ‘I sat in a corner thinking: My mother is going to die… and I think I might die too.’
As he said this, something struck Aston as strange. The previous time he had defied his parents and been punished, it had been because of his mother. This time, nine years later, he had defied them because of the person beside him.
Qin Siyu knew he had no right to pity Aston. The man belonged to the Aston family, at the very pinnacle of American society.
And yet he did feel pain and compassion for him.
Qin Sanfu was always dreaming of becoming rich, forever building castles in the air, and Lin Xiangmei always went along with him. But there was no doubt that Qin Siyu’s parents loved him.
‘Mother survived. After she came home, she wanted to see me… and only then was I finally let out. Strangely enough, that may have been the only time I remember her wanting to hold me. In my parents’ eyes, embraces and kisses made a person weak. Their child should never need them.’
Yet he had missed that embrace for a very long time. It was his mother’s warmth, the place from which he’d come, the warmth that had accompanied and protected him throughout his journey into the world. It ought to have been the safest, most comfortable place of all.
In his mother’s arms he could hear her heartbeat, the one sound that had comforted him on his way into the world through darkness.
His mother had held him, weeping as she murmured, ‘My child… my child, you must grow up strong and well.’
He always remembered those words.
He remembered that wrong answer too. He believed he no longer cared, yet inexplicably it remained in his memory.
Throughout the story, his voice was as elegant and pleasing as ever, marked by that distinctive Transatlantic accent of the upper class.
Especially when he said ‘My mom will die,’ drawing the word ‘die’ out softly. It still sounded so beautiful.
Lights flickered past outside the car. Aston turned to look at the person beside him, surprise entering his voice. ‘Sean, are you crying?’
Why are you crying?
Many people knew what had happened: the butler, cooks, driver, gardener… All of them said, ‘Master, this is all for your own good. Just look how outstanding you’ve become.’
‘Hmm?’ Qin Siyu seemed surprised too. He instinctively shook his head. ‘I’m not crying.’
The car slipped back into darkness.
The glistening track of water on his cheek disappeared into the shadows.
In the darkness, Qin Siyu suddenly felt a fleeting tickle against his right cheek.
It lasted only an instant.
Had Aston’s fingertip just brushed his face?
Was it his imagination? Qin Siyu wondered. It must have been.
Surely Aston hadn’t touched him. He wouldn’t.
Then he heard Aston’s voice again, calling, ‘Sean.’
‘Hmm?’ Qin Siyu said.
What is it?
‘Salty,’ Aston murmured.