A New Beginning

He came from the northern part of China, from a small town called Hequ, in the northwestern Shanxi province at the intersection of the Yellow River and the Great Wall. His father was a very ambitious man and he had sent him here to this University to become a succesful engineer and bail the family out of poverty. He said they were going to work hard and sacrifice whatever it takes for him to become successful so he could help his family in turn, especially his younger sister whose birth had cause economic punishment to his parents and it had been truly hard for them.


When he first arrived in Xi'an the city lights proved too bright and too glaring for him and it was hard to adjust to life in the University. He had to share a small room with three other students who came from different parts of the country. Above his bunk was Steven Chen from Shanghai, who failed to get his first choice College and ended up in this University in this ‘small’ city of seven million people. Next to him was Wang Xiaohui, a bright student from Zhejiang province. And then there was Tang Zhexiang, the guy who had it all – money, talent, girlfriends and connections. He was hardly in the dormitory.

They were all thrown together in this congested place and they could hear each other’s sleep-talks and could almost see through each other’s thought. However, they were well aware that they had it much easier than the undergraduates who had to share the same room with seven other students. It was Steven Chen who gave him his English name Tommy Wang as English speaking University students are wont to do. Having an English name had become fashionable again after a decade of Cultural Revolution, during which it was considered bourgeois.

It was when he first spotted her inside the Chemistry class that he realized how beautiful and lovely she was. No one could have missed that. She seemed so damn good and so perfect that she never actually registered in his mind. She simply was out of bounds for him; don’t even think about her – everything’s going to be in vain anyway. Just ignore her. Beatiful things are beautiful. They are to be cherished and engaged in if only you have the means to enjoy and cherish them. Rich people can have them. Successful people can have them. There are enough rich people and successful people who could make the first move before he did. He knew that too well. He simply had to concentrate on his studies and think about his family back home. His farming father, who tilled the ground, planted the crops and sweated for him to be here.

He was mildly surprised to notice her training her camera on him- the silver coloured Sony digital camera. That was the first surprise. He remembered the University sports. It was in April, that beautiful spring. He was always a good runner even though he hated to run a race in a competition. He enjoyed running when he ran on his own will, at his own pace on the way to the Yellow River near his hometown. It was truly beautiful there. But there she was taking his photograph even though he had not won anything. He was gasping for air after the 1,500 meter race. The other runners were lying on their backs and he could hear the spectators shouting and celebrating the winner of the tighly contested race. But in the end his breathing drowned all the other noises. Her eyes seemed to be completely fixed on him and a smile of surprise broke on her face as he caught her eyes and she turned red at that fleeting moment of time. That was the second surprise. Why should she blush at all? Was she ashamed of being caught, looking at a lowly scum like him? Admiring? Not a chance.

It was hard for him to initiate a conversation and it took them sometime to muster up enough courage to strike up a conversation yet when they did it was more like they always knew each other since Adam, and it wasn’t hard to see why they talk to each other at all. The boyfriend was ignored; he never seemed to exist anyway even though he was often used as an excuse to mislead friends about them seeing each other. He never met him and he was glad about that. He remembered the collonades, the green lawns, the lake and the hidden paths in the woods - the places where they often took those secret evening walks. Hand in hand. If this was not love what is? They loved.

“Why do you use me like this?”

He was trying to understand why they were together, and why she was with someone like him in the first place.

“Use you? What do you mean?”

Yes, there was nothing to argue about that. The word could not have been understood in that context. He knew she wasn’t after his money or his wealth and she knew he had none. Physical pleasure? Well, she had a steady boyfriend of five years. Did she find pleasure out of the thrill in two-timing her boyfriend? Was she looking for an escape from boredom? But what was the spark that he saw in her eyes whenever she was with him? He wasn’t sure. To him she was genuine. There was no guile about her. She was the standard by which everything should be measured – beauty and brain, virtue and love – and everything else.

“I saw a very beautiful thing in you. I just need to have that beauty even if it’s only for awhile.”

That was all she said. And then they needed no other reason to be together. Together, they were the reason. That was all that they needed. It was a tear of happiness then. A tear of joy for the taste of heaven because heaven had made this happen.

They knew it could never be and it could never last. And then it never happened and it never
lasted. It never was. Those three months, they never were. It was lovely. She was lovely. He remembered the velvetty soft lips, the softest that ever were and will ever be. Yet, they never were.

“It’s now we say goodbye. It’s here we say goodbye.”

Those dreaded words were uttered after three stolen months of togetherness. They said goodbye in that very spot. They said goodbye online. They said goodbye in the air. They texted. They said goodbye as if they were not really saying goodbye yet they knew that they were saying goodbye for the last time.

“Baby!”

“Oh, baby!”

Then it stopped. It stopped abruptly as it had started. Everything ceased to be. Time stood still. That was the end of the non-existing three months- the stolen ones. It was finished, done with, completed and now to be thrown out forever. To be trampled and forgotten. That was one, no, two years and three months ago. Why did he still remember that? It’s been two years, three months, two weeks and five days to be exact. He could even name the hour; even the very minute and the exact second if someone were to document it as a fact. Forgotten? Forgotten.

Soon it turned into tears of sadness. It was wiser to hold them back than to shed as it was totally meaningless. Still it could not be helped and there were moments when they let go and tears would just flow out of the endless source. It was truly painful. He knew it broke her too. How did he know? Well, how could he not know when they were of one body and soul? Dreams and nightmares often came together and he found it hard to pin down which was which.

It was Steven who spotted her from their table. She wore her hair short and she was with her friends. She was wearing a black jacket, that black jacket on that racing day. It’s been two years since he last saw her. He knew she was around yet he did not want to know nor want to see her anymore. It seemed like they were discussing whether to eat in that restaurant or not. She was just observing her friends and it looked like she was okay with whatever they would decide. That was so much her- she was a follower, reserved, considerate, and just so gentle. He recalled a thousand things about her at that very moment. This unexpectant reapperance and sight was giving him more trouble than he had thought. It was hard to pretend like it didn’t matter. His fingers ached from the longing to just hold her hand. Three months of togetherness - a thing that never happened, a time that never existed, stolen from the gods - had left him with a lifetime of memories. Impossible memories. The sight of her behind, the side look, the sad eyes, the forced smile, the pretension of being happy with that motley group of friends was too much to bear. He knew she was not what she appeared to be. To not be seen and recognised by the love of his life was excruxiating. It killed him and he died many times before they finally left for another place to eat.

Nothing much made an impression on him. It was mostly the pain of seeing her face again. He was trying hard to hide his feelings but if you look closely and carefully in his face you could see the pain and the longing for something that was never his and will never be, yet for so brief a time it was fully his and it could have been his forever if he had made that decision. However, he had chosen to let it go and so it remained even now. It was the thrill, the excitement and the hard-to-describe feeling that stayed with him throughout the evening.

His world had stopped for the past two years. He had stopped to exist. He mulled over what had happened. His mind was filled with what ifs, the what ifs of wishful nature. Then things did not make sense anymore. Existence does not make sense at all. Life simply stopped to be, and it was simply meaningless. He grew more comfartable with death, and the idea of living was not attractive anymore. And so he was like that, courting suicide, so very closely before he realised what was happening.

That’s when he met him. This rather cheerful man, babbling away about things he hardly understood. He could not understand much because the man was talking to him in English since he was his oral English teacher. It was not long before he stopped attending all the other classes except the English class. For reason unknown to him he kept going back to the class even if it meant dragging himself out of bed every morning at dawn, even when it snowed, and still dark and cold in the winter. He sometimes participated in some of the activities even though he did not fully understand or comprehend or see the usefulness of those activities. Half of the time he was just day-dreaming about what could be, would be, must be, should be or might have been.

“Tommy, why don’t you take part in this activity?”

He had been dreaming again.

“Uh uhhh”

“I want you to try and talk with your group mates, don’t waste your time.”

He just gave him a blank stare.

“What are you thinking about? You seem to be lost in thoughts. What is your
problem?”

He was not sure if he should tell him. Could he trust this man? At the end of the class he decided to talk to him. He summoned all his courage and went up to the teacher and apologised for his strange behaviour. He told him that he had not been himself because of what he had been through. Yes, because the love of his life had left him for good. As he poured out his soul it was hard to not feel his agony. The teacher heard him – he heard the sound of a broken heart, beating, loud and clear. Then he said to him what he hardly understood.

“I’ll pray for you Tommy. I am truly sorry. I’ll pray for you”

'Pray for him? What did he mean pray for him?' He left, feeling uncertain.

The semester ended and he had lost his purpose in life. What was he to tell his family, especially his father? That he was going to give up eveything for love? That he could not go on with his life anymore? Could he tell him that? When he got home for the Spring Festival he was so desperate to get back to her. To leave the University and the city was like leaving the home he had known all his life. It’s all because of her. Then the realisation struck him that it was truly over. There was no going back; there’s no way back to her.

Going home proved to be good for him in the end. He was back where he belongs and it did him good. Being surrounded with familiar things and familiar people was wonderful. And somehow he seemed to get a new hope from an unknown source. It was as if he was lifted out of the muddy waters of his sad existence. He could feel a gentle hand lifting him up and leading him to the right path. He was not sure what was happening to him. Somebody must have been praying for him!

When he got back to the University after two months of winter holidays things looked more beautiful and cheerful to him. It was not so much about things but what he felt inside, and his change of attitude that made things look different. He decided to start everything anew and he came to love his life more than ever before. The first time the class really got to see the new Tommy was when they organised a trek to the mountains. As they climbed up a two thousand metre high mountain, it was Tommy who chatted with the teacher all the way, literally non-stop to everyone’s surprise and delight. Even his English improved dramatically only within a matter of two months. He was talking about almost everything – confessing and owning up his lowly insignificant and painful existence, of how he almost gave up everything because of her. The teacher was happy to see him getting back to his normal self which he always saw in him even as he drowned himself in the mire of sorrow.

After all his efforts to start anew had failed this fresh new hope had given him a solid start and he was truly grateful for it even though he did not know where it came from or what or who had given him.

Well, not just yet.