The Fourth Visit

She told him on a Saturday afternoon in late February — eight days after Lao Wei's mention.

They had finished their work at the library. The exhibition rotation that month had been small; they had been done by ten-forty. They had decided, at her suggestion, to walk before lunch — to a small park along the river that Lin had not previously been to, where there were stone benches and a small grove of plum trees that had begun, in the past week, to bloom.

It was the kind of February day that comes only a few times in northern Chinese winters: the air still cold but with a quality in it that suggested, distantly, the coming spring. The sun was high and pale. A few small birds were moving in the bare branches of the camphor trees along the river path.

They walked slowly. They did not speak for the first ten minutes. They had, by now, the kind of silence between them that did not require breaking.

Then she said, looking at the river:

"My father has taken on a committee at the provincial cultural bureau."

Lin's face, by long preparation, did not change.

He said: "Has he."

"Yes. He told me last Sunday at dinner. The committee will — review certain old archives. He is to chair it. It is a part-time advisory position, but it will involve — meetings, in Jianghai, perhaps once a month."

"Will he travel."

"Yes. By train. He likes the train. He says it gives him three hours each way to read."

"Has he done committee work since his retirement."

"No. This is the first."

"Why now, do you think."

She walked for a moment without answering.

She said: "I think — he has decided that he has read enough books for a while. He told me, last year, that he had begun to feel — restless. He did not use the word *restless,* but the word he used meant something like that. He said: *Wanyin, the books are very good, but they are still books.* I had not, before that, heard him say anything that suggested he missed the work. I think — perhaps — he had been missing it for some time, and had not let himself acknowledge it."

"Yes."

"I am — not sure how I feel about it. The committee is small. The position is small. But it will — bring him back, slightly, into rooms he has not been in for nine years. He will — meet people. He will hear things. He will — perhaps — be moved to do small things in response to what he hears. None of these will be — large. But the cumulative effect — I do not yet know."

She paused at a stone bench. She sat. He sat beside her.

She said: "When my father retired, nine years ago — I was seventeen. I did not, at the time, fully understand what had happened. I knew that he had been — somehow — pushed out. I knew that he had decided to go quietly rather than to fight. I knew that he had, by that decision, protected several of his colleagues from collateral damage. What I did not understand, at seventeen, was that the retirement had been — for him — a sustained loss. He had been a senior cadre. He had been, in his own quiet way, important to the city. He had, after the retirement, become a man who read books in a study. He did not complain. He never complained. But — the change — was very large.

"I have been watching him, for nine years, learn to be the man who reads books. I had, by perhaps the fifth year, concluded that he had — completed the learning. He was — settled. He was — content. The learning had taken him five years, but he had achieved it.

"Then, last year, he began — without speaking about it — to be slightly different. He began to read different books. He began to — write small letters to old colleagues, for the first time in years. He began to ask my mother, in passing, about people he had not asked about for a long time. I noticed, perhaps a year ago, that the settling I had observed at the five-year mark had been — not final. It had been — a stage. He was — moving through it into something else."

A pause.

"The committee is — the something else. Or the beginning of it. I do not know yet how far the something else will go. He may chair this committee for two years and then return to his books. Or he may use the committee as the first small step in a — re-emergence. I think — perhaps — even he does not yet know which. He is — feeling his way."

She turned her head to look at Lin.

"I am telling you this, Lin Zhaoxu, because I have realized — over the past several days — that I have not, in the four months we have known each other, told you very much about my father. I have — protected my privacy about him, and his privacy from me. I have done this — partly out of habit, and partly because I did not — quite — wish to bring him into our small careful arrangement. I now realize that the protection has — also — been a small dishonesty. Not large. Small. But — a dishonesty.

"I am — telling you about him now. Going forward — as he becomes more visible — I will, perhaps, mention him more often. I will not begin to discuss his affairs. He would not want me to, and I would not want to. But I will not — pretend that he is not — re-emerging, as he is. I will let you see what I see."

She paused.

"Is that — an arrangement you can live with."

He said: "Yes."

"Good."

She turned back to the river.

After a moment she said: "I have been — thinking, also, about something else. May I tell you?"

"Of course."

"You — remember the kiss."

"Yes."

"I had said, at the time, that we would not — repeat it for some weeks. I would like — now — to revise that statement."

He looked at her.

She did not, this time, look back. She looked at the river.

She said: "I had — at the time — wanted the kiss to sit between us as a fact. To not be — repeated immediately. To not be — undermined by having a second one too quickly behind it. That carefulness was — appropriate then. It is — no longer appropriate. The kiss has sat. The fact has — been received. I would like — now — for it to be a kiss that has happened twice, rather than once."

He laughed, quietly.

"Wanyin."

"Yes."

"You are — extraordinary."

"I am — direct. The directness is — a different thing from being extraordinary. I have been — direct since I was four. My mother used to find it — alarming."

"I will not find it alarming."

"Good."

She turned her face, finally, to him.

The kiss this time was longer than the first. It was perhaps eight seconds. They were sitting on a stone bench in a small park in late February, with a thin February sun on their faces and a small wind coming off the river, and the plum trees behind them just beginning their first careful blossoms.

When they broke apart, she said: "There. Two."

"Yes."

"The third — you may decide when. I will not — set the rate any longer. I have established the principle. The frequency is — yours."

"I understand."

"Good. I am — hungry. The Sichuan woman is expecting us in twenty minutes. We should walk."

They stood. They walked, side by side, slowly, in the direction of the noodle shop.

#

That evening, in the boarding house, he wrote two lines in his daily-record notebook:

*She told me, herself, about the committee. She told me with a — directness — that surprised me until I remembered that she is, as she said, direct. She kissed me again.*

*I am — twenty-two. I have, this afternoon, kissed a woman for the second time in my life. She has set the principle and given me the frequency. I will — be careful with the frequency.*

He closed the notebook.

He read three poems by Su Shi. He read very slowly. The wind outside had picked up; it was rattling the small loose pane of his window in a way that, on most evenings, he found mildly annoying. Tonight he found it — pleasant.

He went to bed.

He slept.

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