Free The Seventh Day by Yu Hua Page A

he say something, but often his words were drowned out by the roar of an approaching train.
    At first their dates were of short duration; they would end after just one or two turns along the tracks, and then my father would come to collect me. Later, the pair would take five or six turns and keep walking until after midnight, by which time I would be sound asleep alongside little Hao Xia, who was three days older than me. Hao Qiangsheng himself, unable to keep his eyes open, would have lain down in bed and begun to snore. Only Li Yuezhen would be sitting patiently in the outside room waiting for my father to arrive. She would briefly inquire about the progress of the relationship before she let my father carry me off. In those days I would often fall asleep in the evening on the bed in Hao Qiangsheng’s apartment and wake up in bed in my own house.
    This situation continued for two months or so, after which Li Yuezhen felt that my father and the young woman were not making any real progress but simply spending more time on their walks. After she questioned my father closely about the nature of their exchanges, she discovered where the problem lay. By the end of the evening, after all their walking, the girl would be tired. She would come to a stop and say “Good night.” My father, not knowing quite what to say, would simply nod, then turn around and head off quickly to Hao Qiangsheng’s apartment to collect me.
    “Why don’t you walk her home?” Li Yuezhen asked my father.
    “She already said good night,” my father replied.
    Li Yuezhen shook her head and sighed. When the girl said good night, she told my father, what she was really hoping was that he would see her home. Seeing his confusion, Li Yuezhen took a firm line. “Tomorrow night,” she instructed, “make sure you walk her home.”
    My father was enormously grateful to Li Yuezhen and her husband, for ever since I was born they had never stopped helping the two of us. He followed her advice, silently walking the young woman back to her home after she said good night. Outside her door, in the moonlight, she said good night a second time, and this time she looked radiant.
    Their relationship leapt ahead, and now they did not wait until after dark for a surreptitious date but strolled confidently side by side into the park on Sundays. They were now formally in love, and passionately so. They began to meet in the little house that swayed and shook when trains passed, and they probably hugged and kissed, but I suspect they went no further than that.
    From dating to full-blown love affair, I was absent from all the proceedings. This reflected Li Yuezhen’s view that for me to join the fun would hinder the normal development of the romance, and my appearance should be delayed until the waters had settled in their course. She believed that so long as this girl truly loved my father, she would naturally accept my existence. During this period I was practically living in Li Yuezhen’s apartment. I liked this family: I had a close bond with Hao Xia, and Li Yuezhen was like a mother to me.
    When things got to the point where my father and the young woman were ready to discuss marriage, they had to bring me into the conversation. Earlier, when they were courting so avidly, I hardly figured in their thinking at all. Now my father began to talk about me in detail, starting with how he’d heard my wailing and picked me up off the tracks, and sharing the highlights of my development these past four years. He spoke as a happy father, and a proud one, relating a wealth of anecdotes that revealed how clever I was, for he thought me the smartest child in the whole world.
    Never before had he talked for so long, or so volubly. After an hour or so, his intended said to him coolly: “You shouldn’t have adopted this kid—you should have left him with an orphanage.”
    My father was speechless. The cheerful glow that lit up his features gave way at once to a stiff, pained