There was a carousel in a park in Berkeley. It wasn’t cheap: a ride cost twenty cents. But Qin Siyu had fallen in love with it. He often went just before closing time and rode for two circuits.
One day, a friend of Aston’s mentioned it with some surprise. “I went out with Tiffany last night and saw your friend Sean. I didn’t say hello, though. He was… riding a carousel by himself? It was almost closing time, and only a few lights were still on.”
For reasons he couldn’t explain, Aston went past that park shortly before closing on each of the next several evenings, casually looking in.
Then, on Friday night, he really did see him.
Qin Siyu bought a ticket, by no means cheap for him, and joined the line at the entrance.
The strange thing was that when his turn finally came, he went around to one side to look at something, then came out again and rejoined the back of the queue. When his turn came a second time, he did the same thing.
“…” Aston frowned, unable to understand.
Only on the third attempt did Qin Siyu board.
Again Qin Siyu went to the same “horse” he’d inspected on the first two rounds. This time no one else had taken it.
Beautiful colored lights lit up, cheerful music began, and the carousel started turning with a creak, its horses rising and falling. Children giggled as their parents walked beside them. Everything was full of delight. Only Qin Siyu looked out of place.
He merely gripped the upright pole, head bowed, eyes lowered, not moving at all. From time to time the evening breeze stirred his black hair.
Aston watched for a while. Then, suddenly, he understood.
The horse Qin Siyu was riding looked remarkably like the one he’d ridden at the Hillsborough estate on the night he and Aston kissed for the first time while fully aware of what they were doing.
A tall, strong black horse with powerful muscles and a saddle and bridle in red and gold.
That night Aston had made his favorite horse accept Qin Siyu as another master.
He wanted to ride that horse and no other!
If someone had taken it, he waited for the next ride!
Aston’s heart seemed to be seized in a fist. A dull ache spread through it.
When Sean comes here to ride the carousel from time to time, he wondered, what is he thinking about?
Does he… want us to be together again?
Aston remained hidden in the trees beside the ride until the carousel stopped and Qin Siyu left.
Before leaving, Qin Siyu even patted the “horse” twice on the head, then strode away.
From that day on, every Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday evening, both men went to the park. One rode the carousel. The other watched him.
The next time they met was at the wedding of Professor Brown’s daughter.
Qin Siyu was something of a friend to Professor Brown. Aston was his student, and they too were very close. Brown knew nothing of the trouble between them, so he’d sent them both invitations.
When the invitation arrived, Qin Siyu hesitated and considered backing out. But he soon reminded himself that Professor Brown was his benefactor. He absolutely ought to witness such an important occasion in the professor’s life, offer his blessings, and make sure Brown had no regrets. He shouldn’t let his private problems affect someone else. And there would be so many guests that he could simply stay far away from that person… sit quietly in the last row.
Yet Qin Siyu knew he also wanted to see him, even if he could only glance at him from far away.
The wedding was held in the small garden at Professor Brown’s house.
As a professor of finance, Brown had made some money in the 1920s and bought a lovely home.
Everything was ready by the time Qin Siyu arrived. Rows of pure-white wooden chairs lined either side of the red carpet. At the end stood an arch, hung with gauzy fabric and blooming flowers, with ivy winding delicately around its frame.
After presenting his gift, Qin Siyu entered the garden. At once he saw Aston sitting quietly in the last row on the right.
One of Aston’s friends noticed Qin Siyu coming and called, “Sean! Over here!” Then he shifted over to make room for Qin Siyu beside Aston.
Everyone at the university knew that Kingsley Aston had once beaten someone up in defense of a Chinese student, violating school rules and receiving a disciplinary penalty. And at Endicott Cliff’s party they’d seen Kingsley Aston sitting behind Qin Siyu and advising him during the Monopoly game.
Qin Siyu heard the invitation. He glanced in their direction. Cliff hadn’t arrived yet, and the others apparently thought he and Aston were close enough to call him over.
Qin Siyu smiled, but of course he didn’t go. He merely waved to indicate he wouldn’t disturb them, then sat at the farthest end of the last row on the left and looked ahead.
A student sitting in front of Qin Siyu happened to ask, “You and Kingsley Aston…”
Qin Siyu interrupted him with a smile. “We really aren’t close. He only hit that person because Kingsley Aston has such a strong sense of justice.”
Over on the other side, Aston’s friend was equally stunned. He hesitated. “You two—”
Everyone around him pricked up their ears to hear the answer. For a moment, those two back rows became utterly silent.
They’d been to Cliff’s party and other gatherings. Nothing like this had happened before. Qin Siyu had at least greeted Aston on previous occasions, but this time there was no interaction whatsoever. Aston knew that some white people near him were waiting for him to say something derogatory about Qin Siyu. How could he genuinely be friends with a Chinese man? Perhaps the Chinese man had deceived and used him, and Aston had finally discovered how ugly and inferior he really was.
“We’re not close,” Aston said calmly. “Perhaps I’m not worthy of him.”
“…” The people around him barely dared breathe. The silence became almost uncanny.
When the time came, musicians on both sides began playing their strings, while a pianist in the front corner struck up the “Wedding March.”
Several flower children walked down the red carpet, happily scattering petals over the carpet and the chairs.
Aston lightly brushed a fallen petal from his shoulder.
The bridesmaids followed, bouquets in their hands, slowly passing the guests.
Professor Brown came last, escorting his daughter. He looked different today: his half-gray hair was immaculately arranged, he wore a suit and tie, and tears glimmered faintly in his eyes. His daughter wore a wedding dress and held her father’s arm in one gloved hand.
When they reached the front, the bride held out her hand. Professor Brown gently lifted his daughter’s right hand and placed it in the groom’s.
The father stepped aside. The couple stood together before the officiating pastor.
The music ended at just the right moment, and the pastor began: “Dearly beloved, today we are gathered here in the sight of God…”
He prayed for God’s blessing on everyone’s marriages and for peace in their homes.
Then he opened the Bible and read from Genesis, his voice ringing out: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”
Therefore a man should leave his parents, be joined to his wife, and the two should become one flesh.
The pastor was speaking of marriage.
Marriage, he said, was ordained by God. It was sacred and carried obligations. God would appoint a spouse for every person, and the two would henceforth become one, closely bound and indivisible, moving from their parents’ home to a household of husband and wife, uniting their souls and bearing children.
Every person would marry. Every man would have a wife, and every woman a husband.
Anyone who defied these principles would surely be abandoned by God.
At this point Qin Siyu couldn’t help himself. He glanced toward Aston.
Their eyes met at precisely that moment!
Aston’s nose was sharply defined and his gaze deep. Qin Siyu went rigid. After a moment he turned his eyes back to the ceremony.
The pastor continued reading:
“Charity suffereth long, and is kind;
charity envieth not;
charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
Doth not behave itself unseemly,
seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked,
thinketh no evil;
Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
Beareth all things, believeth all things,
hopeth all things, endureth all things.”
He explained that love must be patient and kind, neither jealous nor boastful, not seeking its own advantage, not easily angered, and not harboring malice. It took no pleasure in wrongdoing but delighted in truth. It bore all things, believed all things, endured all things, and hoped for all things.
This meant that marriage was more about responsibility than emotion. In other words, Qin Siyu thought, the exact opposite of the two of us.
They could never be patient. They were jealous and wanted to boast about each other. They ignored “the truth,” selfishly dragging the other toward the abyss and ruin. Ever since meeting, they were constantly driven by feeling: anger, resentment, spite. Tolerance, endurance, trust, hope: all those things collapsed before them.
Their emotions always swallowed them whole.
Kingsley had always been an exemplary believer, hadn’t he? And now he was like this. If the two of them wanted to unite, according to this doctrine they really were “wrong.”
When the admonition was over, the pastor guided the couple through their vows.
He led them: “Today, I take thee… to be my wedded wife/husband, to have and to hold from this day forward—”
The bride and groom each repeated, “Today, I take thee… to be my wedded wife/husband—”
The pastor continued: “For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, for better, for worse—”
The couple repeated: “For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, for better, for worse—”
Then the pastor pronounced the final words. “To love and to cherish, till death do us part.”
At the words love and cherish you until death separates us, Qin Siyu couldn’t resist glancing toward Aston again.
He knew their eyes would meet. He couldn’t help it. There was no possibility of him ever having a wedding, but he desperately wanted to look at that person when the pastor said those words.
And so their gazes intertwined softly.
They looked at one another without blinking until the bride and groom finished their vows through their tears.
A tingling warmth spread deep inside Qin Siyu. Why are we still doing this? he wondered. Why do we keep looking at each other?
They’d already been apart three months.
He’d even… repeated the words silently along with the newlyweds while looking at Aston.
Now it was time to exchange rings. The pastor lifted the rings from the ring bearer’s palm and held them high. “The wedding ring is a circle, with no beginning and no end. It symbolizes eternal love. Whenever you look at these rings, may you remember this moment and the vows you made today.”
The bride and groom exchanged rings, saying, “With this ring, I thee wed.”
With this ring, I marry you.
Qin Siyu thought that he’d never be able to wear a wedding ring for the rest of his life. Staring blankly, he remembered that night when he’d taken a length of thread used to mend shoes and tied a surgical knot at the base of Aston’s ring finger. Aston had tied the same knot at the base of the ring finger on Qin Siyu’s left hand. They were like red threads, and like rings. Then they’d embraced, the two hands bearing knots moving over each other’s bodies.
The base of his finger began tingling. It itched so badly. Qin Siyu unconsciously raised his hand and bit his knuckle.
The little stab of pain helped.
Aston glanced at him.
Once the rings had been exchanged, the pastor announced that the newlyweds could kiss.
Smiling faintly with happiness, the couple leaned toward each other. The groom held the bride’s shoulders, she placed her hands at his waist, and they kissed gently.
The guests applauded.
Qin Siyu’s tongue began tingling again.
When those two are alone, he thought, do they kiss with such restraint?
He himself had never been capable of restraint.
Their kisses had always been long and wild. Their tongues seemed to wind themselves automatically around each other, rubbing together as though trying to become one, as though they’d waited lifetimes for every kiss.
They always held each other tightly, closing their eyes and shutting out everything else. By the end their lips would be swollen, their tongues aching, and even saliva would spill down.
They had kissed. They had exchanged “rings.” But there would be no wedding for them.
The pastor pronounced the closing words, and the ceremony was over. Now the guests could come forward to take photographs.
Because they were both in the last row, and Aston had delayed a little, they ended up stepping onto the red carpet at exactly the same time, side by side.
At the far end waited the wedding arch and flowers.
Remembering how Qin Siyu had rationally refused to sit in the same row as him, Aston immediately, tactfully, took a step back to let their paths separate.
“…” Qin Siyu’s right hand clenched briefly, then relaxed. He strode toward the front alone.
He was tall, long-legged, and upright. Within a few steps he’d reached the front and taken a place at the end of the row on one side. Aston, again tactfully and of his own accord, chose the other side.
One on each side. As far apart as they could stand.
Click. The photographer captured the moment.
Qin Siyu smiled faintly. Aston showed little sign of a smile.
The guests began taking separate group portraits: the bride’s parents, her family, the groom’s parents, his family, the bride’s friends, the groom’s friends. There were so many.
After several rolls of film, Professor Brown suddenly came forward and called, “Everyone who’s single, come here!”
They knew the bride was about to toss her bouquet. As a single man, Qin Siyu had no choice but to go.
The unmarried guests formed a laughing, chattering semicircle and waited for the bouquet.
Professor Brown’s daughter stood with her back to them in her white wedding gown. At the countdown of “Five, four, three, two, one!” she threw the beautiful bouquet over her shoulder with a great sweeping motion.
The flowers were lovely and expensive.
Qin Siyu had deliberately stood rather far to one side. But the bride’s aim was dreadful. He watched the bouquet rise high through the air, tracing a beautiful, smooth arc through the sunlight, pink and red, before hurtling straight toward him.
“…” Just as it was about to touch him, Qin Siyu instinctively took a step backward. The bouquet fell to the ground with a thump, right beside his feet. His eyes followed it helplessly all the way down.
The scene became awkward at once.
Qin Siyu knew he had deliberately dodged the flowers.
Throwing the bouquet at a wedding was supposed to pass on good luck and love. According to the tradition, the unmarried person who caught it would be the next to marry. But Qin Siyu knew that he would never marry, never find any such luck, never experience another love like that.
He couldn’t forget Aston.
If he actually married someone else, he’d hurt both that person and himself. It would be a curse. His body had moved aside before he could think.
Aston had seen that step.
He watched Qin Siyu silently, his thoughts unreadable.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Qin Siyu picked up the bouquet and smiled at the bride. “Sorry I missed it. Why don’t we throw it again?”
“Oh, yes, all right,” the bride said.
The atmosphere had been awkward for a moment, but everyone soon became excited again. They all wanted the flowers. “Again! Again!”
This time a white girl caught them. She was delighted, lifting the bouquet high, jumping and shrieking with joy. Her happiness spread through the crowd, and everyone applauded and congratulated her. Qin Siyu joined the cheering too.
Then it was time for the wedding dinner. Two tables had already been laid beneath the grape trellis, with flowers arranged in the middle.
The bride went inside to change out of her dress while the guests took their seats. Again, Qin Siyu and Aston sat at different tables.
The bride returned in a more practical white wedding dress reaching her ankles, her veil removed. At the start of dinner Professor Brown thanked everyone. The bride and groom raised their glasses and the guests responded.
The dinner wasn’t especially lavish. The hors d’oeuvres were rolled smoked ham and chicken-liver pâté on toast. There was chicken and vegetable soup, a classic Caesar salad, and a choice of roast beef or baked cod for the main course, served with roast potatoes and green beans.
Gentle background music played. Near the end of dinner, the bride’s mother brought out a three-tier wedding cake. Amid applause, the newlyweds came forward arm in arm and picked up the knife. The bride held its handle with both hands, and the groom wrapped his hand around hers. Slowly, they made the first cut.
Slices of cake were distributed to the guests.
Qin Siyu took a bite from his plate. Oddly, it tasted a little bitter.
Yet the girls nearby exclaimed, “Wow, it’s so sweet! Delicious!”
Qin Siyu tried another bite. He still couldn’t taste any sweetness.
He chatted with a girl next to him and helped her in a gentlemanly fashion. Her shoe was rubbing her foot, so Qin Siyu asked Professor Brown for a bandage.
When she learned he also attended Berkeley, she asked, “Do you know that man? What’s his name? Who is he? Even the way he cuts his cod is completely different from everyone else.”
The man she meant was Aston again. Aston always drew everyone’s eyes. Girls in this era rarely brought up men of their own accord. It wasn’t considered ladylike. Yet Aston always made people set their dignity aside long enough to ask about him.
“I do,” Qin Siyu said. “His name is Kingsley Aston.”
As he said the name, his voice actually trembled. He was startled for an instant, then cleared his throat to cover it, pretending the cake had been too sweet.
“Oh,” the girl replied. Fortunately, she hadn’t noticed. “It seems… well, lots of people are looking at him.”
“Oh,” Qin Siyu said.
When dessert was finished, Professor Brown and his daughter opened the dancing.
The two danced slowly on the lawn. As the music ended, the guests began joining in, until couples were dancing across the grass.
Qin Siyu noticed several people pluck up the courage to invite Aston to dance. Every single one was refused.
Aston was very cold. Some acquaintances came to sit beside him and offer greetings. Whether they congratulated him on the fencing championship or on an acquisition that had caused a sensation in the business world, he simply nodded, thanked them, and said little else. He was never rude. He paid attention and answered seriously, but always maintained a distance.
The white girl sitting beside Qin Siyu returned to rest after several dances. She was popular and had danced with several white boys, though Aston had refused her too. Perhaps because she was kind, she asked Qin Siyu, “Are you just going to sit here the whole time?”
She was hinting that if Qin Siyu wanted to dance and invited her, she’d go with him. Then he wouldn’t have to sit there awkwardly in front of his classmates. He might even gain a great deal of social standing.
“Thank you,” Qin Siyu said gratefully. “But I am all right.”
He refused. Then, for some reason, after refusing he actually turned and glanced at Aston.
Aston was watching him too. When Qin Siyu looked over, Aston shifted his gaze away and took a drink.
“You…” the girl asked Qin Siyu. “Don’t you know how to dance?”
“It’s not that,” Qin Siyu said with a smile. “I can dance.”
He hadn’t once. Now he could.
How strange, Qin Siyu thought. The man everyone wants to dance with, but who refuses everyone, patiently and carefully taught me one step at a time. He’d taught someone whom everyone else assumed nobody wanted to bother with.
Seeing the two of them like that, Endicott Cliff finally couldn’t stand it. He patted his friend on the shoulder. “Kingsley, come outside a moment.”
Aston followed him out through the side of the garden. Standing beneath a tree, Cliff said, “Kingsley, you’re paying far too much attention to him. It’s obvious. Whether he catches the flowers, whether he dances, you’re watching. Halfway through every conversation your mind wanders. This can’t go on. It’s been months, and you’re still… Isn’t it time to move forward?”
Cliff knew his friend had always been emotionally detached. Whatever he felt about something, no matter how much he once liked it, once he decided to give it up, it was simply gone.
Aston turned his icy-blue eyes toward his friend.
“I admit it,” said Cliff, the playboy. “Sean really is beautiful. I never knew a Chinese man could look that beautiful. He has a certain charm. At our age it’s natural for hormones to get the better of us. But there’ll always be other beautiful people, provided you’re willing to move on.”
Aston said nothing.
“Kingsley,” Cliff continued, “I know you’re disappointed—”
“Me?” Aston repeated. “Disappointed?”
He knew that for people of their class and position, even a moment’s “disappointment” was considered a terrible thing.
It had always been so.
But what he felt was not disappointment. It was—
“Endicott.” Aston’s eyes were ice-blue, his gaze unfathomable. “If I told you I love him deeply, that it’s not anything else, that it’s love, would you think I’d gone mad?”
Cliff was stunned. His eyes opened wide.
Aston continued calmly, “This is the one and only time in my life. I’ve never felt the slightest love for anyone else. Not before, and I never will again. That’s why I’m in such pain.”
Not disappointment, but enormous, profound pain.
A pain so vast it was on the verge of crushing him.
He’d gone through his whole life with his feelings numb. But after meeting Sean—
He’d experienced an emotion of the utmost intensity.
“But…” Still reeling, Cliff chose his words with care. “But Sean wants to protect himself.”
“No.” Aston casually plucked a blossom from the tree and studied it in his hand. “He wants to protect me.”
“…” Cliff asked, “How do you know?”
Aston’s answer seemed both an answer and not one at all. “Of course I know.”
They’d never really spent even one whole day openly together, yet he understood him.
After a long moment, apparently unwilling to worry his friend further, Aston let the flower fall, slipped his hands into his pockets, and said with his usual composure, “Please tell Professor Brown that I’m going home early.”