Yiran Wang
Me After You
Excerpt
In Berlin Bahn I Stood up and Screamed
Two days after Martin died and one day after I learned about it, I was locked inside the subway train—the Bahn—in Berlin. I couldn’t sleep the night before, and in the broadcast of stop announcements in a foreign tongue, I had fallen asleep as if I were waking up from a dream. The dream where the ambassador’s voice was jammed—“He didn’t make it he didn’t make it he didn’t make it”—and the two women who picked me up from the airport put their hands on my back as I sank into the floor from the sofa. I couldn’t tell if I was screaming or dead silent, for I couldn’t hear anything at all, and my whole world was filled with the jammed cassette playing he didn’t make it he didn’t make it. If only I had arrived a day earlier—but what difference would that make? The scalpel that cut open his chest sliced me into pieces, and I had to wake up before losing the shape of a woman. My eyelids became heavy and in vertigo my pieces of flesh regrouped.
In my sleep I sensed the train had stopped and I stood up, still half asleep, and all the lights went off. The air in the train turned into a blue that one would see in a forest. I walked slowly in the woods and heard a wind only audible in extreme silence. Eventually, I saw the silhouette of the tunnel gilded by blinding light. I drummed on the window, and I couldn’t feel my hands. A station agent’s astounded face approached the window. A moment later, the train moved, and light stung my eyes.
Danke. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I’m sorry for falling asleep here. I’m sorry for causing you trouble. I’m sorry for frightening you. I’m sorry for my swollen eyes. I’m sorry for not speaking German.
I took a cab and handed my phone to the driver to show him Soledad’s address. Soledad was a friend of a friend, and I had met her only today when she picked me up from the Chinese embassy. She took my suitcase with her right hand and my hand with her left, dragged me toward her and hid me behind her. She was instantly protective of me, although she didn’t even know how to spell my name. She cast a guarded look at the two women standing beside me, as if they’d do me harm.
It was early February and three years in Chicago hadn’t prepared me for the winter in Berlin, only conferred on me ungrounded confidence. When the cab pulled up, Soledad was already waiting at the gate with a black puffer in her arms. Soledad lived with two other girls, Peppercorn and Dong, who were both art students. The living room was crowded with canvases, brushes and paint tubes, and I felt safe. Peppercorn stuck her head out from the room and said, “Oh you are back,” and went back to sticking a bead to a pearl monkey.
Where did you go? I would have gone with you.
I didn’t know.
I was taking a walk and I walked and walked and realized I was lost. Tell me the difference between one street and another, one bridge and another.
Soledad set up a sleeping bag in her room and put me to her bed. She sprayed lavender onto the pillow and wrapped a heating eye mask around my head. In darkness I heard her voice, “I’ll be right here.” The fabric stuck to my eyelids, and I realized I hadn’t stopped crying, and I fell asleep.
The Fourth Act is a Monologue
It’s been seven days. The boundary between life and death had blurred, and you are lovely as ever. Both of us had no obsession with life and little care for what to leave behind and what to be remembered by. I don’t feel sorry for you; I feel sorry for the world.
August 29 was summer in both Aachen and Durham. I wrote down, “He told me about his dreams, and I was kindled. It was not ambition but beauty. To me, beauty, sincerity, broadness, passion, dedication, and courage are all like oxygen in the deep sea. I hope all your dreams to come true, and all the cities on your blueprints to erect in reality only to give the world the honor to see them.”
September 2, we were on the phone nonstop. Your friend Wu laughed at you, “You will run out of things to say.” I wrote down, “Remember the moment when he talked about pottery in the Japanese town. He gave life to things. From now on, you want to see everything through his eyes. All your courage will have somewhere to go now. The Milky Way you saw two months ago—the Milky Way you wanted to share with someone but had no one to share with finally had its second witness.”
September 4, even silence blossomed. I wrote down, “Remember his footsteps. Remember the sound of him chopping potatoes. The elevator opened its door, cracking and shaking. The German spoken by passersby. My breath. My kneading the dough. To be with—in the meaninglessness of life.”
September 6, you were reading a paragraph from a book and told me there was a sentence you particularly loved. I held my breath for there was one line in my mind, and I was afraid that was not the line you were about to say. As soon as the sentence began, I smiled in relief. I loved your moments of wonder, as if saying, “And this is possible?” It is possible; I’ve got your back.
September 26, the tenth day you were back in Shanghai. We started a video chat, not saying a thing. I watched you making your model—your fingers, the curve of your wrist. I didn’t want anything—even myself—to disrupt you.
October 4, you were thinking about what a vulgar world we lived in. I told you that I was once amazed by a chair in the corner of a photo—half-hidden and entirely beat down, and it turned out it was designed by a master with much heart and soul. See, you will be seen. Even the possibility of being seen is worth it.
Jan. 21, I booked the ticket to Berlin. I wrote down, “I counted the hours in my daydreams for the time to meet again—when my fingers reach the valley on your chin and the Milky Way in your eyes.”
You must have already met Mu Xin, Nietzsche and Rikyū. One day in heaven is one year on earth. You take your time to chat with them, and the time we endure all the ordeals on earth will only be a vacation for you.
The monologue stage
I’m sorry that we didn’t have the sunlight in your photos, but everything else, we tried our best.
About the Author
Preemptive exile; aspiring flying squirrel; public crier; nomad born and raised in the middle of nowhere, China; collateral damage of the legal profession; writes about mass incarceration, women, sexuality, grief, things words can’t say, and love.