【Qi Yuan · Husband】
Twenty-sixth of the twelfth lunar month, train K587, South Station. One soft sleeper, one hard seat. Lao Zhao from the logistics park grabbed them for me at a ticket outlet; a day later and there would have been nothing left but standing tickets.
The soft sleeper goes to Tong Rui. She is thirty-four, seven years as an administrator at an adult night school: scheduling classes, taking attendance, reissuing graduation certificates for students. Office chair all year round, bad back. I’m thirty-six, a freight-handling supervisor at the logistics park. I spend half the year on my feet. Twenty hours in a hard seat is nothing.
“Car nine, berth eleven, lower bunk.” I stuffed the ticket into the pocket of her down jacket. “I’m in car three, seat one-eighteen. After the ticket gate we go our separate ways. When we get there, I’ll come get you.”
“Keep the ticket,” she said. “I know, for the reimbursement,” I said. “Give it to me when we arrive.”
We’ve been saying those two lines for all eight years of our marriage. Every time, I’m the one who collects her ticket, folds it neat, clips it into the expense form.
The station entrance was packed like a warehouse on unloading day. She walked half a step ahead of me, her suitcase wheels jumping over every gap in the floor tiles. I looked at the bun at the back of her head and wanted to say something. What came out was, “Fill your water bottle as soon as you’re on board.”
【Tong Rui · Wife】
Four bunks in a soft-sleeper compartment. On the upper bunks, a young couple heading to his parents’ for the holiday, early twenties; he put on his headphones the moment he climbed up, she was folding her down jacket. On the lower bunk across from mine sat a man, forty-something, black down vest, a hard-shell suitcase at his feet with a pharmaceutical company’s shipping label stuck on it.
I stowed my bag and sat down. The bunk was hard; through the blue-and-white checked sheet my backside could feel the board underneath. The train hadn’t moved yet. Outside the window, the platform lights.
“Lower bunk. You want the window end or the door end?” the man across asked. “Window.” “Then I’ll take the door.” He pushed his suitcase to the door end. “Saves me climbing over you to get to the toilet at night.”
The train moved. First a jolt, then the regular clack of the rail joints, coming up through the board into my tailbone and climbing from there. My phone lit up. Qi Yuan: “Seated.” I sent back: “Mm.”
The night-school students call me Ms. Tong. The youngest is twenty-two, the oldest fifty-eight. Days in a factory, a shop, a construction site; nights at school, finishing a diploma. They come late, I record late. They skip, I record skipped. When I record things I do it without feeling. The feeling comes later, sometimes a day later, sometimes a week.
The man across took off his vest. Underneath, a gray sweater, pilled at the cuffs. He looked at me. Two seconds. I didn’t look away.
“Heading back from a business trip?” he asked. “Going home for New Year.” “Alone?” “My husband is in the hard seats.” “Couldn’t get tickets together?” “Mm.” “So he gave you the soft sleeper.” That wasn’t a question. I didn’t answer it.
【Wen Tao · The Other Man】
Thirteen years in pharmaceutical sales, two hundred days a year on trains. I read people the way I read a drug insert: indications first, then contraindications.
The woman across from me, somewhere between early thirties and thirty-five. Under the down jacket, a gray turtleneck sweater; hair pinned up without a strand loose; posture shaped by an office chair, back straight, knees together. When she said “my husband is in the hard seats,” her voice didn’t change and neither did her face. Like reading out a student’s attendance.
On the insert this is called “symptoms not pronounced.” Contraindications? Those you have to wait for.
Nine thirty, the attendant came to swap tickets for bunk tags. “Tickets to me, you get them back before your station.” She handed hers over; the attendant glanced at it and wrote her name in the ledger. I caught a look at the ticket: Tong Rui. Soft sleeper, berth eleven, lower.
My tag was twelve. The attendant clipped the two plastic tags together and passed them across the little table. She took them and handed me mine. Our fingers touched. Cold.
“Your hands are freezing,” I said. “The heating isn’t up yet.” “I run this line from November on. The heat only comes up once you’re past the mountains.” “Mountains?” “After Qinggang it’s all tunnels. One after another. Your ears hurt.” She gave me a look and said nothing.
The couple up top were murmuring. She said, “No drinking tomorrow at your mother’s,” he said, “Mm.” I folded my vest and tucked it under my pillow. She was watching me fold.
“What are you looking at?” “You fold clothes the way we file withdrawal forms,” she said. “Edge to edge.” “What’s a withdrawal form?” “When a student drops out, the form gets voided and folded for the archive.” “Do you archive a lot?” “A lot,” she said. “I’m in there myself.”
【Qi Yuan · Husband】
Ten o’clock. The lights in the hard-seat car were still on and the aisle was solid with people, standing, squatting, sitting on suitcases laid on their sides. Next to me, a young guy heading home; he fell asleep the moment he sat down and his head tipped onto my shoulder twice.
I bought two mandarins, a cup of instant noodles, a bottle of water, and started from car three toward car nine. Every car meant stepping over seven or eight pairs of legs. People cursed. I said sorry.
Car nine was as quiet as a different station. Carpet, every door shut, one attendant dozing in the corridor. I knocked on the door of eleven and twelve. Tong Rui opened it.
“Have you eaten?” “I have.” “Mandarins.” I set the things on the little table. The man on the bunk across nodded at me. I nodded back. The couple up top were on their phones.
I sat down on the edge of Tong Rui’s bunk. It really was hard, not much better than a hard seat. I asked if her back hurt. She said no. I asked if she had filled her bottle. She said yes. Then I had nothing left to say.
I looked at her. She was looking out the window. Outside was black, nothing but her own face in the glass. Eight years of marriage, and I’ve looked at her fewer times than I’ve looked at shipping manifests. It took a hard seat for me to think of that.
“Go back and get some sleep,” she said. “Mm.” I stood. “Call if anything comes up.” “No signal in the tunnels,” the man across said. I said I knew.
【Tong Rui · Wife】
After Qi Yuan left, ten thirty, the attendant came to switch off the lights. All that was left in the compartment was a sliver from the door crack and, now and then, a signal lamp sliding past outside.
The woman up top whispered, “Sleep,” and the man said, “Mm.” I lay down and pulled over the railway blanket. Dark blue, stiff pile, scratchy against my chin.
I don’t draw the curtain when I sleep. Qi Yuan knows. In our first year he closed it once; I got up in the middle of the night and opened it again. I need to be looking outside. Even if there’s nothing out there, I need to be looking.
The train passed a small station without stopping. The platform lights swept one by one across the ceiling, across the face on the other side. He wasn’t asleep either. On his side, one hand under his head, eyes open.
“You can’t sleep,” he said, voice kept very low. “Mm.” “Me neither. Eleven times on this line, never slept once.” “Why?” “The vibration,” he said. “Can you feel it. Under the board. It never stops.”
I could feel it. It had been there since we boarded. Shoulder blades, tailbone, heels: three points, beat after beat. A whole day at the office and I would never remember I had those three places.
“Your husband in the hard seats, he’s getting it worse right now.” “Hard seats don’t vibrate. Hard seats sway.” “You have ridden them?” “When we were dating,” I said. “I was twenty-six.” “Did he look at you back then?” I didn’t answer. Shame hadn’t arrived. Something else had, and I couldn’t say what it was.
He sat up, fished a bottle of mineral water from the foot of his bunk and held it across the little table. “Unopened.” I didn’t take it. “The heating dries you out,” he said. “Your throat will be hoarse soon.”
I took it. The bottle was cold, colder than my hand.
【Wen Tao · The Other Man】
She didn’t sit up to take the water. She stayed on her side and reached one arm across the table. The blanket slid halfway off her shoulder; above the turtleneck, a stretch of neck. She twisted the cap, drank, closed it, set the bottle by her pillow.
“Thank you.” It took her several seconds to say it.
“You have to think before you say thank you?” “I think before I do anything.” “Then think about this,” I said. “In this compartment, once the lights are out, you can’t see a thing. The only thing you can see is the curtain. Pulled shut means one thing. Pulled open means another.”
She didn’t ask what either one meant. She looked at me; her eyes caught a glint in the dark.
“You talk very straight.” “I’m in sales. Anything but straight is a waste of time.” “What’s your name?” “Wen Tao. Wen as in news, Tao as in waves.” “How old?” “Forty-one.” “Eleven times on this line?” “Twelve. Counting this one.”
The train crossed a switch. The whole board shuddered sideways; the bottle by her pillow tipped over and rolled under the table. I reached down for it and the back of my hand brushed her dangling fingers. She didn’t pull back.
I put the bottle back by her pillow. Her hand was still hanging there. I took her fingertips between two of mine, squeezed, let go. Her fingertips twitched. They didn’t withdraw.
“What time do the ones up top get off?” she asked. “Three fifteen, Qinggang,” I said. “Eight-minute stop at Qinggang.”
She drew that hand back under the blanket and turned over, face to the window. The curtain was still open.