Lake with No Name by Diane Wei Liang

Author:Diane Wei Liang
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2009-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

Ten

Heavenly Peace

Flowers falling in water, spring is disappearing, spirits rising to heaven.

—Li Yi, ninth century

I spent the next day drifting between a determination to forget all about Dong Yi, and a burning urge to see him and to know what was going on between him and Lan. Meanwhile, life was passing me by out in the Triangle and Tiananmen Square. Great things were happening in China. Students were standing together as never before, to make a difference and to change the course of history. Why was I still living in the past, waiting passively for someone to tell me how my life might turn out?

“Do something! Make your own life, Wei,” I said to myself.

These thoughts lifted my spirits and I became genuinely happy for a while. But soon my strength drained away again, and, by lunch-time, my desire to see Dong Yi had reached an overwhelming level. Eimin and I usually had lunch at the number three canteen around the corner. The canteen had recently become extremely popular with the students because of its proximity to the Triangle. As a consequence, the lines inside were enormous, almost all the time. Yet, we’d still go, for you could be sure you’d see your friends and so discuss the current events with them.

Dong Yi had only been to number three canteen occasionally, and mostly with me. I thought that my chance of bumping into him would be greater in another canteen closer to his dormitory. So I persuaded Eimin to go there, and we went as soon as it opened for lunch. Knowing that they would take some time, I asked Eimin to get me two dishes from the small wok—where they served freshly made stirfries. I kept my eyes on the door for the one-and-a-half hours we were there, hoping that Dong Yi and Lan would show up. But they did not. Though I would not have known how to react if I’d actually seen them together, I wanted so much to see Dong Yi.

Since the moment I saw Lan, I had asked myself a hundred questions without knowing any of the answers. Yet, among all the speculation, suspicion, love and hateful feelings, there remained one mystery—the purpose of Lan’s visit. Why had she come at this particular time? Was she bringing news that might change everything?

Dong Yi was not at the Triangle that evening either. I walked around and through the crowds over and over again and saw neither him, Lan nor his roommate. He seemed to have suddenly disappeared into his other life. Our paths no longer crossed.

I resented Dong Yi deeply; not because he was now with Lan—after all, she was his wife. It was because he had left me with a cursory “something has come up,” passed on by his roommate. I wished that he had felt he could let me know what had really happened. Didn’t I deserve at least that?

I looked at Eimin, who had been reading the wall posters with great concentration. Suddenly I wished that Dong Yi had never mentioned divorce.

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