Kinder Than Solitude by Yiyun Li

Author:Yiyun Li [Li, Yiyun]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Psychological, Contemporary Women
ISBN: 9780812996029
Google: _SzbAAAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00EX4FFNQ
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2014-02-24T16:00:00+00:00

12

The celebration in Tiananmen Square on October 1 came and went; eventless, Moran could not help thinking with disappointment, as she had wondered if people would find ways to protest the event, which took place only four months after the bloodshed there. But bloodshed, even if it hadn’t been forgotten, cast little shadow on this day. There was no one climbing up the pole of the streetlight to shout out slogans, nor was there any organized sabotage—a homemade explosive tube thrown into the crowd not to hurt people but to cause havoc, a false alarm message to deceive people into an evacuation—as she and Boyang had wishfully imagined.

The only drama of the day happened earlier in the afternoon. When they gathered at the school, Headmistress Liu distributed two lipsticks to every homeroom, saying it was a district order that the girls look more festive. No one pointed out that wearing makeup was prohibited in school, as was clearly written in the students’ manual. When it was Ruyu’s turn, she passed the tube to the next girl in line without applying it.

“But why?” asked the class monitor. “It’s not poisonous.”

Moran bristled, ready to defend her friend. Ruyu was not one to make trouble and attract undue attention to herself, even though she had not put on a festive dress as instructed. She had on, for the day, a long-sleeved cotton smock, greenish gray, one of those she had brought with her from home; the only color about her, bright against her anemic skin, was the red gauze required for the dancing, which—unlike the other girls who wore the gauze as a scarf or a headband or even as a flower on their chest—she wound around her wrist.

It’s not hygienic, Ruyu replied. The class monitor stared at her, horrified by such an impertinent comment, but Ruyu only half-smiled; her contempt, which she had no intention to hide, contrasted with the class monitor’s fury, her face flushed, her chest heaving, words partially formed and sputtering out.

The class monitor was not a likable girl, and already Moran could see that she would grow up into someone who would not hesitate to mistreat those who were less fortunate than she was. Still, Moran felt bad for her, fearing that in Ruyu’s eyes Moran herself occupied a position not much different from the class monitor’s. Moran sighed, and stepped in between the class monitor and Ruyu. “Let’s not make a big fuss,” said Moran to the monitor placatingly. “It would make Headmistress Liu think you can’t do your job well.”

Everyone seemed to enjoy the night. The students milled in tight circles, as the loudspeakers blared across the ocean of people the fourteen songs they were to dance to. Every thirty minutes there was a fifteen-minute break for fireworks.

When the boom-booming shook the ground, Moran watched her schoolmates cheer, their upturned faces lit by the flashing in the sky. A boy climbed on top of another boy and hailed the crowd: “Look at me!” Few looked, but when the boy jumped back down, he raved about the number of people.

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