She sashayed into the next room. Empty rooms, one after another-pure empty space. She felt that she could fly up, to the ceiling. Walking around on those big empty floors was like being on the smooth, dust-free ceiling. The room was too empty, she had to fill it with light. But the light was too dim. She'd have to remember to put in brighter bulbs tomorrow.
She went up the stairs. Emptiness was good—she needed absolute peace and quiet. She was worn out. Trying to please Liuyuan was hard work. He was an odd person to begin with, and because he really was attached to her, he was especially odd with her always unhappy about something. It was just as well that he was gone; finally she could relax. She didn't want any­one now—hateful people, lovable people—she didn't want any of them. From her earliest youth, she'd lived in an overcrowded world. Pushing, squeezing, trampling, hugging, hauling, old people, young people, people everywhere. Twentysome people in a family, all in one house; you sat in a room clipping a fin­gernail—someone was watching you from the window. Now at last she had flown far away, to this unpeopled place. If she were Mrs. Fan officially, she would have all sorts of responsibilities, there'd be no getting rid of people. But now she was just Fan Liuyuan's mistress, kept in the background. She should avoid people and people should avoid her.
Peace and quiet is well and good. But, apart from people, she had no interests in life. All of her learning, such as it was, came from her aptitude for performing in the human sphere: she knew how to be a grave, good daughter-in-law, a fussy, caring mother. But now she was a warrior without a battlefield. How was she supposed to "mind the house" when there was nothing to mind? Raise children? Liuyuan didn't want children. Economize and save for the future? There wasn't the slightest need for her to worry about money. So how would she while away all this time? Play mah-jongg with Mrs. Xu, watch op­eras? Start flirting with actors, smoke opium, go the route of the concubine? She pulled herself up short and straightened her shoulders, clenching her clasped hands behind her back. It was not going to come to that! She was not that kind of person, she could control herself. But ... could she keep from going mad? Six rooms, three up and three down, all ablaze with light. The newly waxed floors as bright as snow. And no sign of anyone. One room after another, echoing emptiness. Liusu lay on the bed. She wanted to turn off all the lights, but she couldn't move an inch. Finally she heard Ah Li coming up the stairs in her wooden clogs, clomping back and forth as she turned the lights off-and then at last her mind slowly relaxed.
That was on December 7, 1941. On December 8, the bombing started. In between the explosions, the silvery winter mist slowly cleared, and on the peaks and in the valleys, all the people on the island looked toward the sea and said, "The war has started, the war has started." No one could believe it, but the war had started. Liusu was alone on Babington Road, unaware of what was happening. By the time Ah Li had gone around to all the neighbors to get the news, then roused her from sleep, in a complete panic, the fighting had begun in earnest. There was a scientific research station near Babington Road, with an anti­aircraft gun, and stray bullets kept whizzing down with a sharp whistling sound, before dropping to the earth with a "crump." The whistling noise split the air, shredded. the nerves. The light blue sky was ripped into strips that drifted on the winter wind. Countless shreds of nerves also floated by.
Liusu's rooms were empty, her heart was empty, and there wasn't any food in the house, so her belly was empty too. Emptiness sharpened everything, and the pangs of fear hit her especially hard. She tried to phone the Xus in Happy Valley but couldn't get through everyone who had a phone was calling around to ask where the safest refuges might be. Finally, in the afternoon, Liusu got through, but the phone just rang and rang, no answer; Mr. and Mrs. Xu must have fled to a safer place already. Liusu didn't know what to do, and the shell fire inten­sified. Then the bombers targeted the antiaircraft gun near her house. They circled overhead, droning like flies, like a dentist's drill boring painfully into the soul. Ah Li sat on the sitting-room threshold hugging her crying child. She seemed dazed, rocking from side to side, singing as though in a dream, patting and soothing her child. Again the whistling sound a "crump" broke off a corner of the roof, spilling rubble down. Ah Li screamed, jumped up, and rushed toward the door, still carry­ing her child. Liusu ran after and caught her at the front door. "Where are you going?" she asked, grabbing the woman tightly.
"We can't stay here! I'm taking her to the sewers to hide!" "You're crazy!" said Liusu. "You'll be killed out there!"
"Let me go! This child ... she's my only one ... can't let her die ... we'll go hide in the sewers ...
Liusu held her back with all her might, but Ah Li pushed, and Liusu fell. Then Ah Li rushed to the door. Just as she reached it, there was an earth-shattering boom, and the whole world went black, as if a giant lid had slammed down on some stupendously huge trunk. Untold, immeasurable fear and fury—all shut inside.
Liusu thought her life was over, but, strangely enough, she was still alive. She blinked: the floor was covered with glass shards and sunlight. She struggled to her feet, and went to look for Ah. Li. Ah Li was still clutching her child, her head droop­ing, her forehead propped against the porch wall. She'd been knocked silly. Liusu pulled her back inside, and they heard the cries of people outside. They were saying that a bomb had fallen next door, blowing a huge crater in the garden. But even after that great boom and the closing of the lid, still they had no peace. The crumping sounds continued, as if someone were hammering nails into the lid of the trunk, hammering on and on; hammering from day to dark, then dark to day again.
Liusu thought of Liuyuan, wondering if his ship had left the harbor, if it had been sunk. But he seemed vague to her, like someone in another world. Her present and her past were disconnected, like a song on the radio that had played halfway through and then was cut short by static. Maybe the song would continue, after the crackling stopped. But if the end of the song had been blasted off, then it would be over, nothing left to hear.