Paradise Island (4)
A round-the-world cruise means stopping at each port for only one day. You can only keep passing through, over and over, without being able to stay or turn back.
Before she knew it, it had been nearly two months since they boarded the ship. After passing through the Maldives, the Queen Anne had officially reached the halfway point of its current journey.
The next stop after Malé was Colombo, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka was known in ancient times as “Ceylon,” meaning “a bright and fertile land.” It lay across from the Indian subcontinent and was a quintessential tropical country, with simple, honest people and beautiful natural surroundings. It was famous for its black tea and all kinds of beautiful gemstones, and was known as a teardrop in the Indian Ocean.
But this time, Tan Guhong unusually had no intention of getting off the ship to sightsee.
Because she was sick.
It had started with weakness throughout her body and a slight cough. Later, she developed a low fever in the middle of the night. A Chinese doctor on board came to examine her and said it was only an ordinary cold. He gave her an injection to bring down the fever and instructed her to stay in bed and get plenty of rest.
“Is there anything else she needs to watch out for?” Luo Jingming asked.
“Just treat it like a normal cold. Eat according to the meal schedule, take your medicine on time, don’t do strenuous exercise…” The doctor shrugged. “Oh, and drink plenty of hot water.”
Although the foreigners on the ship didn’t believe in this advice, he added, “It does promote metabolism and really is quite beneficial to recovery.”
“Thank you.”
“No problem, Mr. Luo. Being sick on a ship can be pretty miserable. If anything happens, call me right away.”
After the doctor left, Luo Jingming returned to the bedside and sat down beside Tan Guhong. He reached out and touched her slightly warm forehead.
“Want to take your temperature again?”
Tan Guhong’s fever had left her aching and weak all over, and she felt rather miserable. But she had already gotten the injection and taken her medicine, so all she could do was wait it out. At his words, she laughed.
“I just got the injection.”
“Want some water?”
“Mm…”
So he poured her a cup of hot water. After testing the temperature, he helped her sit up and drink it, then raised his hand and gently wiped away the trace of moisture that had stained her dry lips with the pad of his finger.
Her cheeks were flushed from the illness. Lowering her eyes, she said,
“You don’t have to worry about me. Go do whatever you need to do. I’m not that sick. Lucy will take care of me. She’s my personal butler, so don’t steal her job.”
He smiled. “I didn’t have anything to do anyway. I’ve been to Sri Lanka more than once. There’s nothing new for me to see. It’s fine if I stay here and keep you company.”
As he spoke, he climbed directly into bed and lay down beside her, looking very much like someone who had no intention of being driven away, apparently prepared to spend the whole day there with her.
Tan Guhong couldn’t even be bothered to roll her eyes. She turned over, presenting her back to him, and said indifferently, “Suit yourself, as long as you’re not afraid of catching it.”
“You can’t infect me like this.” He gave a low laugh.
Then she felt his arms tighten around her waist. He pulled her whole body toward him, settled her into his embrace, and had her sitting on his lap. He lowered his head, the tip of his nose lightly brushing hers, and for an instant their breaths mingled.
He said softly,
“Now this will work.”
“Stop fooling around.”
She struggled, trying to free herself from his arms, but he only held her tighter. He pressed her head against his shoulder and gently soothed her.
“Shh, don’t move. The doctor said you need to get plenty of rest.”
She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Who, exactly, was the one not letting her rest properly now?
But the next second, she heard him whisper softly beside her ear,
“Let me hold you for a while.”
Her movements paused slightly. After a moment of silence, she finally sighed quietly in her heart and slowly relaxed, leaning into his embrace.
After the Maldives, the two of them had grown much more distant. This was the closest they had been in a long time.
It was strange. Two people whose bodies had once been so intimately familiar with each other could, in the blink of an eye, become so far apart in their hearts.
For a while, there was no sound in the room, only the ticking of the grandfather clock downstairs and the rhythmic rise and fall of the waves outside the window, peaceful and serene.
She spoke softly. “Say something.”
He turned his head and kissed her forehead. “I won’t. Go to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep…” She shook her head. “I never can after I take cold medicine.”
“All right. What do you want to talk about?”
“Anything. Whatever.”
He was silent for a moment, then smiled. “You’re always listening to me talk. I’ve never heard you tell me about yourself.”
“Me? I’m not like you. I haven’t had any particularly eventful experiences, so there’s nothing much to tell.” She teased him, pointing to her right ear. “You already knew about this.”
“It doesn’t have to be eventful. Little things from everyday life are fine. For example, what were you like when you were in school? What friends did you have? What was your family like with you? Anything. I want to know.”
“There really isn’t much to tell… Fine, I’ll just tell you whatever comes to mind.”
She perked herself up. For a moment, she didn’t know where to begin. After thinking for a while, she slowly spoke.
“When I was little, I grew up in a military compound. Just like all the children who grew up in the compounds, I was naughty and wild. I wasn’t afraid of anything, and I ran around getting into trouble with everyone else. My maternal grandfather held a high-ranking position, so no one ever dared to discipline me. Later, as I gradually grew older and became more sensible, I no longer wanted to do anything too outrageous. I thought it was stupid and pointless.”
“I started boarding at school in middle school. Later I lived on the military base, then went back to boarding school. I got used to being on my own. Actually, I don’t have many friends. From childhood to adulthood, the people I’ve kept in touch with have all been from that same circle. Everyone chose a different path. Some really are the kind of useless people who just muddle through life waiting to die. Others are very clever and went abroad early on to do business, basically with no intention of ever coming back. And some are doing proper, serious work. But they’re all very busy, and I haven’t been in touch with them for many years. Some are in the military, some are doing scientific research, and a few are working in aerospace…” She gave a self-mocking smile. “Looking at it that way, I’m the least accomplished of them all.”
“Oh, right. There’s also Huo Qiaonan. He’s the friend I’ve spent the longest time with.”
“Because you share the same ambitions?”
“No. Because he has thick enough skin.”
She glanced at him. “Tsk tsk. Looks like you really aren’t very familiar with this cousin of yours.”
He gave a faint smile. “After all, he’s in Beijing, and I’m in San Francisco.”
The Liang family had three siblings. The third brother, Huo Sirui, who was Huo Qiaonan’s grandfather, was a scholar of translation. He returned to China to settle in the 1980s and remained a professor at a foreign-language university. Huo Qiaonan was a native-born Beijinger, which was how he and Tan Guhong had become childhood friends.
“Your maternal grandfather’s family and my grandfather’s family have been family friends for generations, with quite a long history between them. I heard it can be traced back more than a hundred years, to the late Qing and early Republican period. My grandfather’s family used to be a prominent family in the capital. When he was young, he was a carefree young master. His father appeared to be a businessman on the surface, but secretly was a member of the underground Communist Party. Later, after a traitor betrayed him, the family was destroyed and everyone was killed. My grandfather was fortunate enough to be taken in by one of his father’s comrades and brought to Yan’an, where he joined the revolution. I don’t know whether this family friendship should be counted from my grandfather’s biological father or his adoptive father.” She sounded somewhat puzzled.
“Probably both…” Luo Jingming said. “Your grandfather’s biological father, his adoptive father, and my maternal grandfather’s parents were all friends back then.”
“Really? I didn’t know that. My grandfather was a very stubborn man. He didn’t like talking about what happened back then. Whether it was the glory or the hardships, I could only hear bits and pieces from my uncle. Actually, his life must have been quite legendary. Look, he joined the army when he was in his teens. He fought in the War of Liberation, the Korean War, and later the Vietnam War. He spent half his life in the military. He and my grandmother met and got to know each other on the battlefield in Korea. My grandmother was an orphan who had been adopted by the People’s Liberation Army when she was little. She grew up to become a nurse and went to the battlefield too. A love story born amid all that war and bloodshed must have been incredibly moving. Unfortunately, my grandmother had always been in poor health, and she died when my mother was in her teens. I never met her. But I think my grandfather must have loved my grandmother very much. Over the years, many people have tried to introduce wives to him, but he wouldn’t even look at them. He really was stubborn, the kind of person who said something once and never went back on it. For most of his life, he continued to live by the simple, frugal habits he had developed during the revolutionary period, and he never took special privileges for himself. He often said that he wasn’t any great figure, just an ordinary soldier of the Republic. The same for one day, the same for a lifetime.”
“Your grandfather is someone worthy of admiration,” Luo Jingming said softly. “So was that how you were raised from childhood too?”
“‘Give your youth, then give your whole life; give your whole life, then give your descendants.’ That was the lifelong faith of their generation. Growing up around that, naturally their children and grandchildren would be the same.” Tan Guhong smiled. “I wouldn’t say my family’s upbringing was strict. Maybe my grandfather just liked me and was especially indulgent toward me? Anyway, I thought it was fine. But someone else didn’t quite adapt to it.”
“You mean…”
“My uncle’s daughter. The one who almost got introduced to your cousin Huo Qiaodong back then. You probably never met her.”
She couldn’t help smiling. If not for her, the two of them probably wouldn’t have had that mix-up of a meeting back then.
He smiled knowingly too. “No, I haven’t.”
“Her mother, my aunt, was the only female elder around when I was little and living at my grandfather’s house. So, consciously or unconsciously, I always treated her as a kind of mother figure. But she and my uncle never got along. She married my uncle because she wanted to live a glamorous life, but our family couldn’t give her what she wanted. And my uncle was exactly like my grandfather, stubborn and headstrong, and not very attentive to his family either. He spent most of the year stationed with the military. During the 1998 floods, he was the first to jump into the water and nearly didn’t survive the rescue. Later, they divorced. My aunt left my cousin and my younger male cousin behind and went to Australia alone. She hasn’t been in contact with my family all these years. Maybe because of my aunt’s influence, my cousin was also very unhappy with my uncle. After graduating from university, she went abroad to find her mother, and maybe she won’t come back either.”
These bits and pieces of family gossip and trivial household matters were things Tan Guhong had never told outsiders. But once she had opened the floodgates today, she found it difficult to stop. It seemed some things had been weighing on her heart for a long time, with nowhere to be spoken. Perhaps people were especially vulnerable when they were sick. Today, she simply told Luo Jingming everything.
She shifted her body, finding a more comfortable position against Luo Jingming, closed her eyes, and said softly,
“The people in our family have never exactly been lucky in love. My grandfather lost his wife in middle age. My uncle divorced young. Even my mother… was the same. When I was little, they all told me that my parents respected each other and were deeply in love. But as I grew older, I gradually learned that it wasn’t like that at all. They had simply entered into a hasty marriage after their elders brought them together. Their feelings for each other were very ordinary, and after having me, neither of them wanted to sacrifice time from work to raise a child. They were always having conflicts and arguments. Sometimes I even think that if they hadn’t died in that car accident, perhaps they would have ended up divorced anyway.”
Because they had died tragically, a husband and wife whose relationship had been full of conflicts had been turned into a loving couple in the stories people told about them. Who knew whether, if they knew this from the afterlife, they would be angry or amused?
“Sometimes I feel that maybe love really is like a flower. After blooming, it gradually withers. Only if it’s made into a specimen at its most brilliant can it remain forever.”
When two people are together, simply by being together, whether for one day or a lifetime, it is like two grains of sand with completely different shapes trying to embrace each other. Inevitably, they are hurt by the other’s inadvertent edges until they are bloodied and torn.
That was what compromise was supposed to be. Compromise too little, and you hurt the other person and yourself. Compromise too much, and you feel wronged. That was what people called learning to fit together.
Whatever the outcome, all that remained was a battered, scarred version of yourself. Why put yourself through it?
But fate often twists and turns in ways no one can predict. Who could know whom or what they would encounter in the future? And who could confidently swear that they would never love anyone in this lifetime?
Actually, she had once imagined it too. If she really did meet someone she liked, most likely she would bury it deep in her heart, letting it become a secret that would remain unknown to anyone for the rest of her life.
Just like her eldest maternal uncle…
Her mind had been hazy with sleepiness, but suddenly a flash of insight struck her. The association that surfaced in Tan Guhong’s mind startled even her.
She abruptly sat upright, startling Luo Jingming as well.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Tan Guhong hesitated. She frowned and wrestled with it for a long while before finally speaking hesitantly.
“Do you remember before, when we were at the castle in San Francisco? When I saw the photo of your mother, I felt like I’d seen her somewhere before?”
“Mm. I remember.”
“I think I may have remembered where I saw her before. But I’m not completely sure… Let me ask you, did your mother ever come to China?”
The question caught Luo Jingming off guard. He couldn’t help frowning slightly as he thought about it. “After she married my father, I don’t think so. As for before that, I’m not sure.”
“Then maybe I mistook her for someone else? After all, photographs from that era can be rather distorted…”
“You saw her?”
“I really don’t know for sure.” Tan Guhong looked somewhat troubled. “Let me put it this way. The uncle I’ve always been talking about is actually, strictly speaking, my second maternal uncle. My grandfather also had an eldest son. He was a soldier too, and he was killed in the Battle of Laoshan during the Sino-Vietnamese border conflict. He was thirty and had never married.
“I remember when I was little, there was a time when the family was tidying up the study and sorting through my eldest uncle’s belongings. We found a photograph tucked inside his diary. There was a foreign girl in it, and I thought it was a page from a celebrity magazine. But my second aunt once said, ‘She was the only girl your eldest uncle ever loved in his entire life.’
“The person in that photograph… seemed to be your mother, Laura…”
The two looked at each other in silence for a long while.
It was a story from the last century. The people involved were all gone by now. Those things from the past had simply vanished like smoke and dispersed like clouds, leaving no trace behind.
It wasn’t really appropriate to bring up someone’s deceased mother like this. The moment the words left her mouth, Tan Guhong regretted them. She spoke softly,
“I’m sorry. It was something I had no basis for. I shouldn’t have said it.”
“It’s all right. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Luo Jingming gently stroked her head, then pulled her back into his arms and sighed softly.
“I’m glad to know a little more about my mother. It’s just a pity that this doesn’t seem to be a happy story.”
One was a Chinese soldier devoted to serving his country. The other was a wealthy young Chinese American heiress.
Whether it was a quiet, unspoken love or a passionate romance, it was destined to end without ever bearing fruit.
What’s more, death had already taken them all away from this world. He had died in the flames of war along the Sino-Vietnamese border, while she and her husband had died tragically on the day of their wedding anniversary.
This story had ended before it ever began.
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