Translator:
Nyoi-Bo Studio
Editor:
Nyoi-Bo Studio
Twain pulled a face as he stood outside the departure hall at Shuangliu International Airport and looked at the huge billboards outside.
It was currently overcast in Chengdu, but he still took his sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on.
There was a special lane for the cabs outside Shuangliu International Airport as they waited for the passengers lined up one after another. With no need to flag down a cab, Twain pulled his suitcase straight to an empty car.
Hello!
The cab driver greeted Twain enthusiastically.
When he heard the driver speak English with a Sichuan accent, Twain wanted to laugh, but he held a straight face.
Dunn followed suit and pulled his luggage over. The driver eagerly helped them put their luggage in the car.
After they got into the cab, the driver started the car and to asked,
Where to?
Uh…
Twain realized he did not know where to go first when he opened his mouth to speak, so he turned to Dunn and asked in the Sichuanese dialect,
Where are we going first?
The driver, sitting in front, twitched. He was taken aback.
Seeing the driver’s reaction, Twain could not ask Dunn because he was laughing.
Dunn gave him a hopeless glance, turned to the driver and said,
Go to Liangjia Alley.
We’re not gonna stay in Chengdu for two days and have some fun?
Twain made up his mind to speak the Sichuan dialect. He spoke English all the time in England. It would be very pretentious of him if he were to speak English when he was back in China.
No, I called my parents before my return, and they’ve asked me to return right away.
Twain listened and nodded. Dunn had gone to Nottingham from Sichuan two years ago. He had no connection with his parents other than making regular phone calls. Now, after not seeing their son for two years, his parents naturally were eager to see him.
He understood their longing for their son’s speedy return.
He was actually anxious too.
The two men did not even eat lunch. They just left Chengdu at noon in a long-distance coach ride.
This trip was different from his previous return. Twain did not yearn to go to the city. Without Shania to accompany him on this trip, he also did not have to consider eating, drinking, or being merry.
The purpose of his return this time was clear; that was to visit his parents, whom he had not seen in three years.
※※※
The journey from Chengdu to Dunn’s, or more specifically Tang En’s, hometown, was a three-hour drive. It would take nearly another hour to get home with public transportation and it only took half an hour from the coach station if they were to take a cab.
They screened
Infernal Affairs
on the coach, and the passengers enjoyed watching it. Neither Twain nor Dunn was interested. They both had something on their mind.
Twain did not know if Dunn would feel awkward. His current parents had used to be Twain’s parents, and now he was going to meet them with their real son. Psychologically, would he be able to accept the difference in their identities?
While they were in England, they only needed to care about their own identities, which was easy to resolve as they were both young and open to ideas. They could calmly think and accept this reality. They did not have to think about their relationship with their parents and face this awkward scene.
Twain knew why he had suddenly said he wanted to accompany Dunn on this trip home to visit his parents. Dunn also must know what was on Twain’s mind. After all, they were Tang En’s biological parents who had raised him. This feeling could not be discarded just because of a change in body and identity.
Tang En now looked like a white man, but he would always be Chinese inside. That could never change. Those people and things like China, Sichuan, his parents… They had left an indelible impact during his twenty-six years of life that he could not erase.
Why would he be so excited to run into Yang Yan in Nottingham in the first place? In addition to her being the object of his first secret crush, perhaps there was a kind of familiarity. Yang Yan was a projection of his past, and she made Twain unable to forget his original identity. As soon as he saw her, he would recall his past, whether good or bad. Now that he had lost it, it felt particularly precious to him.
When he and Shania had come here two years ago, he had made an excuse to bring Shania to China for a visit. At that time, he had not known what identity he should use to meet with his parents. So, he just stole a look at them from afar and left. This time, he and Dunn planned to stay at home for a while and would interact with his former parents daily. Would it be awkward?
He glanced sideways at Dunn, who stared out of the window in a daze. What was he thinking?
※※※
For Dunn, this road outside the window had been foreign to him three years ago. This country was also unfamiliar. He’d never thought he would come to China.
But now, this was one of the highways he was most familiar with, more familiar than the M1 highway from Nottingham to London.
There was only one reason for him to feel like he identified with this land: his current parents. A lack of fatherly and motherly love in his life had made the appearance of his current parents like a gift from God. And because they were Chinese, he acknowledged his new identity as Chinese.
He could easily abandon his former identity because of this.
He did not miss his
home
in England at all.
Before he met Twain, he had had no qualms about enjoying this happiness.
When he agreed to go back to England for his career, he knew in his heart that he had to face the other him and his parents’ real son.
He was certainly afraid of losing his present life, but as a person who occupied someone else’s body and family, he felt a little guilty about Twain. Twain would not know about his former life, but he was clear that there was nothing to be nostalgic for in his previous life. If this were a business, it was like he had reaped a huge profit with very little capital. No, it was more like he had had a windfall.
Because of thoughts like these, he always felt that he had taken advantage of it. If he had not met Twain, he could have gone on like this. However, once he met him, that guilt slowly emerged and occupied his thoughts. He felt that perhaps he should go to England to meet him face to face and make everything clear, and then figure it out.
Therefore he went, and found Twain easier to get along with than he had anticipated. He was an outgoing and cheerful man, and had felt a little guilty as well. Why? He felt like he had done Dunn a disservice because he was a manager now who had achieved some success.
Dunn thought it was funny to think of such things. Some people treated their careers as more important than anything else, while others felt no matter how great their careers were, the ultimate goal of having a happy family was better. After his experience in the change of his body, Dunn was the latter kind of person and had found his goal.
Dunn was not an ambitious man. In the past, his greatest wish was to be the head coach of the Forest youth team. It was his ambition to train the young players. He and Twain were essentially different. Twain longed for victory, championship titles, glory, money, fame. He desired things which represented success. Dunn felt that these things did not matter, and Twain needed his help, so he helped him.
Therefore, when Twain said he wanted to come back to see his parents together, he agreed. He knew Twain would not rob him of his present life. He had nothing to worry about.
As for the awkwardness of his parents seeing their real son, he did not feel any discomfiture about being the
third party.
There was nothing to be embarrassed about.
As for Twain’s true identity, who would know as long as he and Twain kept it to themselves? It would be fine if they kept it a secret forever.
He did not know if there was anyone else in the world like him, who had switched bodies with someone else. Even if there were, they would not tell the truth. Compared with society, he was an isolated case in a very small minority.
※※※
Three and a half hours after they set out from Chengdu, Twain and Dunn finally arrived in a small town in Southern Sichuan. Once they got out of the station, they did not take a cab; with a foreigner, it was easy to be ripped off by cheating drivers. Although neither of them cared about that small amount of money, Twain found it intolerable to be treated like a fool.
No matter how many eager drivers outside the station offered them rides and followed them with questions about where they were headed, the two men remained silent and dragged their luggage straight to the bus stop.
Do you still remember which line to take?
Dunn asked as he watched Twain standing in front of the bus information board and searched carefully.
Twain looked back at him and then pointed to the second row on the bus information board,
Of course, Bus Number 75. Eleven stops.
You remember that very well.
I can’t help it. Twenty-six years, I couldn’t forget it even if I wanted to.
Twain lightly shook his head.
I went to the high school in the city and had to travel back and forth every week. This bus went near our school,
said Twain, pointing to one of the stops.
After getting on the bus, the two men sat in the crowded compartment in silence. After all, a foreigner speaking the Sichuanese dialect would be too conspicuous. Twain did not want to create unnecessary issues.
After more than an hour of jolting, the two of them stood at the gateway of the town at six o’clock in the afternoon. It was a small town, and the national highway ran through the middle of the town, splitting it in half. The humble bus stop was at the entrance of a grocery store, with a metal sign erected at the side of the dusty gravel road.
Twain stood under the metal sign and viewed the sight in front of him.
The enormous sunset hung at the end of the road, to the west of the town. They were facing right in that direction and had to squint their eyes to see clearly ahead. The bus drove down the road as if it gradually integrated with the red sun, its shadow becoming longer and longer.
The students dismissed for the day from school swarmed past him, escorted by their teacher. The curious children were excited to see the appearance of a foreigner here. They chattered about him, speaking in the familiar local accents.
It was dinner time now and the cooking smells wafted from the nearby shops on the street.
Dunn stood in front and turned to look at Twain, who had not moved,
Are you nervous?
He was answered by a rumbling noise coming from Twain’s stomach.
No, I’m hungry.
Dunn smiled wordlessly and then turned to go,
Then let’s go, I’ve told them we’re going to have dinner at home.
Hey, you told mom and dad about me, haven’t you?
Twain pulled his luggage to catch up.
Yes, over the phone.
Oh…what was their reaction?
They’re glad that I’m bringing a friend home.
Twain looked up at the darkening skies in the twilight and said,
Is it because I used to have very few friends coming to my house?
I don’t know, that’s your business.
Twain looked at the people of the town. With the small town and its tiny population, he used to constantly keep his head down and avoid people even if he saw them daily. Since Dunn was back, he did not meet anyone on the road whom he could stop and exchange pleasantries with. His former self really had poor relationships with people.
Walking ahead, Dunn did not hear the sound of footsteps and the friction of the rolling luggage wheels, so he curiously turned back and found that Twain had stopped again.
Hey, aren’t you hungry?
Oh, coming.
Seeing the somewhat distracted Twain, Dunn said,
I know those stories that happened after you replaced me were not quite like you. After I became you, I worked very hard to follow your lifestyle because I was worried about being discovered. But apart from being aloof, there was nothing else to learn.
That’s good. I don’t like to be in the limelight.
Twain muttered as he put his collar up.
※※※
The two people turned a corner from the street to go up a flight of stairs. The zigzag flight of stairs traversed among the low gray-tiled houses. Southern Sichuan was hilly and Tang En’s house in his hometown was built on a hillside. The road was built in the valley of the hills and every household lived on the hillsides on either side.
Twain was familiar with this road. He had often jumped up and down these steps as a child and would not trip and fall even with his eyes closed. On the back of the hillside were the paddy fields, as well as an embankment to thresh the grains, hold town meetings, and screen movies. And of course, it was where he used to play football.
When he and Shania came here two years ago, they had only passed by in a car from the road below. He only hurriedly looked.
Today, standing on these limestone steps and surveying the eaves of the surrounding houses which only reached up to his chest, a complex feeling of both familiarity and strangeness sprang up in him.
He used to think these houses were tall.
Here we are.
Dunn, who was walking ahead, suddenly quickened his pace, taking two to three steps up the stairs.
Twain stood in the back and looked at the familiar limestone bricks and the black tiles, as well as the two old people standing at the door with their familiar faces. They smiled when they saw Dunn. His father, who was wearing an apron, turned back to the house and kept busy, while his mother held the arm of her son whom she had not seen for two years and enquired solicitously about his well-being.
Twain stood below and stared blankly at the long-awaited scene. Whenever he had come home for the Spring Festival from college, his parents also waited for him at the doorstep, when it was the wintry twelfth lunar month and not a summer day like it was now.
Dunn, who was chatting with his mother, realized that Twain had not followed. So, he turned back and pointed at Twain as he said a few words to his mother. Twain found that the two people were looking at him, so he walked up but did not know what to call the woman in front of him.
Auntie?
Mom?
Dunn knew what was on Twain’s mind, but he should still remind Twain not to blow his cover, so he cried out,
Tony?
This voice called Twain back from being lost in his thoughts.
Oh, hello. I’m Dunn’s friend, my name is Tony Twain.
Hello, hello. My son has spoken of you, he said you could speak the Sichuanese dialect. At first, I didn’t believe it. Now I do. Come on, please come in!
Twain carried the luggage into the house and greeted his elderly father, who had taken the time to come out of the kitchen. Then he took out the gift he had brought from England. Even though his parents declined, they finally accepted it.
They came back just in time. Dinner was ready. The soup just needed to be reheated and they could have dinner. Twain was famished. For someone who ate fish and chips in England all the time, he was immensely happy to be able to eat the truly authentic homemade dishes.
Dunn’s parents were alarmed at the amount of food this foreign friend could pack away. They looked inquiringly at their son, while Dunn looked at Twain who was busily stuffing himself, and gave an embarrassed smile at his parents,
He likes Sichuan food very much.
It suddenly dawned on them,
Oh. take your time to eat, slowly, no rush, there’s plenty still.
When Twain heard the remark, he quickly stuffed himself with more food.
He dared not look up for fear that his red-rimmed eyes would alarm his parents sitting across him.
