NANKANG BAIQI
(我等你等到三十五岁 – 南康白起 – English translation)
A little while ago, when we were hanging around this furniture mart, a brown sofa set caught my eye – large, cozy, the spongey type you sink halfway into sitting on it. The price tag read over 4,000. I said to Hubby, "What do you say I buy it for you? As a wedding gift?" He gave me a surprised look and said, "Quit kidding around." Then he scurried off to study a little coffee table, seeming particularly interested.
It was a cover-up so shoddy, even I could see through it. It was pretty unnecessary, but it wasn't like there was much else for him to say or do. I watched him go, smiling a little.
He didn't realise that I wasn't being spiteful, nor was I deliberately trying to sting him. I genuinely wanted to buy him a gift of some sort.
It was already dusk when we got off the bus. We began our slow trudge back home.
Turning around to see his profile, the twilight gold daubed on his face, softening its silhouette, I could see quite clearly the faint layer of down on the side of his nose. Hubby was pretty hairy, save for his sideburns and stubble. He'd even got hair on his cheeks and above his Adam's apple. I'd been trying to get him to shave them, but he wouldn't. He was afraid the roots'd grow all stiff, then the whole of his lower face would've turned a grey-bluish hue, like he was wearing a half-mask.
By the time we got home, the suitcases were right there in the living room. He went ahead and resumed packing, while I acted like I hadn't seen them. After all, he could figure out well enough which things were his and which were mine.
Hubby was lying face-up in bed. I rested myself on top of him, nestling up to put my face next to his.
He seemed to be enjoying it too, nuzzling his cheek against me.
To me, such embraces were more important than lovemaking. While the latter could be as simple as a heat-of-the-moment act, cuddling like this was based on pure trust and affection; it was a way of disclosing oneself most unreservedly.
Heart to heart, skin to skin. What well-coined sayings.
From 1999 to 2006, I'd spent a total of seven years loving this man, it was like he'd become a part of me, a part of my body, always there like that was the way it was meant to be. Sometimes I didn't even realise he was there. But when a time finally came that I had to cut him off, I knew I would've found it unbearable. It'd hurt. I'd cry.
Hubby asked me whether I'd fall for someone else in the future. It was too heavy a topic for me, and I only dared to joke about it. "Probably," I said. "Maybe someday I'll feel a spark with someone, and just end up completely ablaze. I'll be a walking fire hazard."
Hubby laughed at that. "I know what you're into – maturity, composure." Yeah, like a whole electric pole right in my face.
My classmates used to say something similar. "You've got to find someone who can handle you." Probably because I was way too childish sometimes. I didn't hesitate to play some sly pranks on those guys, after getting to know them. Good thing no one was particularly bothered by it, they just smiled at me, a bit lost for words.
"Besides, if I really do like them, there'd be no helping it. If I don't, yet they still want to get with me, composure wouldn't get them very far. They'd have to be good-looking. Rich, too."
Well, I've thought about the question myself. Sometimes I try to conjecture the kind of person I'd fall for in the future, but no matter how long and hard I think about it, I always end up at Hubby, my head filled with his image, rendering me completely incapable of imagining another in its place. It has to be him. There's no other way. It makes me feel pretty hopeless sometimes, to tell you the truth.
I remember the little "wedding gift" interlude. "Wishing you a peaceful, content life" – my favourite blessing for couples; I think of writing it down on a note and sticking it to my gift for him, since I myself won't be needing it anymore.
So many other things I want to say to him – "If one day you feel like you can't keep this up anymore, come find me, I'll wait." I want to sow the seed in his heart, make him guilty, make him recall my good in every little thing.
I want to make him know that he still has an easy way out – make it so that he can't bear any of the hardships of not having me.
As soon as there's a chance, a change, the seed will take root and grow. Then, I'll be there to reap the harvest.
Yet I also want to tell him, "If you've decided to marry, then forget about whatever came before. Just focus on living your life." Conforming to the more accepted way of life will surely be a lot easier. And who's to say that isn't a kind of happiness?
Moreover, there's also a woman tangled up in this mess, our mess. All in all, she's the most unfortunate one here.
I waver between the two ideas, unable to make up my mind.
In the end, I chose to send him the selfish message: "I'll wait for you until thirty-five. If you still don't come by then, I'll go and look for someone else."
I'm not guiltless; nor am I a criminal.
All I did was love another person.
"'Till death do us apart – such is our vow, in matrimonal mold. So, taking one another's hand, arm in arm we together grow old.' What an utmostly piteous verse. Life, death and partings are all great things, things beyond our influence. Compared to these external forces, how small we humans are, how terribly small! Yet still we insist on saying, 'I want to be with you forever; we'll never part for all our lives.' As if we ever had a say in such matters."
– Eileen Chang