A Lover's Discourse. Xiaolu Guo

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СКАЧАТЬ Why do you want to know?

      In the beginning I was very lonely.

      I thought it was obvious I would be lonely. I had just come to Europe. But I asked myself: had I always felt lonely even when I was in China? Even when my parents were around? Yes, I had. Maybe because I was an only child. Or maybe because the burden of study had killed any other kind of life. But here it was different. Here it was the feeling of desolation. Evenings were difficult to pass. English nights were long, and they didn’t belong to the non-pub-going people. Nor did they belong to foreigners, especially those friendless and familyless foreigners. What were we supposed to do at night in our rented rooms, if we didn’t drink or watch sports?

      There was an area by the canal I often passed on foot. It was a little green patch next to De Beauvoir Town, by a lock-keeper’s cottage. I didn’t know how many lock-keepers’ cottages were in use by Regent’s Canal. And I never managed to walk all the way along the canal. I was afraid to walk through the grim part of it. I didn’t trust it. But around this cottage I had a certain feeling of homecoming. So I went back there one evening, with my bag full of library books and a packet of biscuits.

      The cottage was minute, as if it were built for dwarfs. There was neither a lock-keeper nor anyone else living in it. It was always locked. There were some dead sunflowers by the wall. I sat on a tree stump next to a wild nasturtium bush, and my eyes fixed on the rusty water. It was not that I could see the nasturtiums but I could smell them. We used to eat their peppery leaves as well as their sour-tasting flowers in my home town. My mother would pick them. So with that peppery smell in the air I knew what plant I was sitting next to.

      A small waterfall was rushing down from the upper level of the canal. The sound was loud, but peaceful. In the near distance, the lights were on in one of the boats. A warm glow in the grey green. It was a mournful place. I never thought it was beautiful. For me, the idea of a beautiful scene was associated with a typical Chinese landscape – bamboo and water lilies by a temple, or a wild mountain. Never this kind of industrial landscape. But this lock-keeper’s cottage and ­quietly flowing water soothed me somehow, made me feel less alien in this city.

      As I was sitting there, staring at the water, my mind began to wonder. Should I just give up and fly back on the next plane? My parents were recently dead, so they could no longer say anything about it. Maybe my aunt would be surprised to see me return. But she had no say in my future life. You feeling lonely? It’s too hard? Too cold? Were these real problems? Everyone in China would ask. For them, these were perhaps happy problems, since everyone in China was either dying of cancer or suffering from some traumatic family history. And their children would bear the weight of that wherever they went, even abroad.

      I thought of the week before when I had first met my GP. I registered myself at the clinic and the GP asked me:

      ‘What’s your family history?’

      I didn’t understand why she had asked this. Because in China, the question of family history means whether you were born in a family whose status was either peasant or city dweller, and whether they were Communist Party members or not. These details were recorded officially throughout your life. And I didn’t expect I would have to carry all this old baggage to England.

      ‘Why do you want to know?’ I didn’t hide my irritation.

      The GP was taken aback. She glared at me, then after a few awkward moments, she explained:

      ‘Your family history is about whether your mother or your father had cancer, heart disease or rheumatism, or . . .’

      I then understood what she was asking. I just nodded my head.

      But the doctor was confused. ‘So . . . what conditions, then?’

      ‘Everything.’ I nodded again. ‘Everything you just said.’

      ‘Everything?’ she asked back, like I was a person with a low IQ.

      ‘Yes, everything!’ I raised my voice: ‘Cancer, heart disease and rheumatism!’

      A Desirable Immigrant

      – You are now a desirable immigrant, as they say!

      – Ha, a desirable immigrant! Since when did I become an immigrant?

      The second time we met was a few days after that strange event – the Referendum. Clearly things were happening in this country, but I did not understand what they were. I remember walking around my neighbourhood the next day and seeing the looks on people’s faces. Some looked tired and despondent and others a bit wild. This all added to my feelings of disorientation and confusion.

      One day, an Englishwoman who worked in the university library mentioned in passing that I could join her for a weekend gathering. The pub was near where I lived. I said I would definitely come.

      ‘What’s the exact address in Hackney Down?’ I asked her.

      ‘Hackney Downs,’ she corrected me.

      At that time I didn’t know Downs was a proper word, a meaningful word.

      ‘It’s a pub called People’s Tavern – we’ll meet there at five.’

      When I got there that day, I saw the sign Hackney Downs by the park. I wondered about that word. Downs, not Down. Plural. Then I found you in the pub. I was surprised. Your curly hair, straw-coloured, was a little shorter than the first time I met you. Your eyes, the same blue green I remembered.

      You recognised me too. I thought you were directing a slight smile towards me, but I could have been imagining it.

      It was a book-club meeting. They say book clubs are for lonely people, or middle-aged women. I was definitely lonely, but neither of us was middle-aged. You were the only man in the group. Most women there were new mothers of small children. I didn’t feel I could blend in. I didn’t like the idea of having children, or marriage.

      One of them was very pregnant and stated: ‘I will probably never have time to read a book in the next few years.’ She hugged her swollen belly.

      Everyone had a copy of Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook. But no one was eager to discuss it. Everyone was talking about Brexit. And I was beginning to understand what the word meant. Or at least some of the politics behind it. But the emotion remained alien to me.

      A ginger-haired woman spoke: ‘My daughter will grow up in a Brexit world, a non-European world as a European child. Can you believe it?’ She looked distressed.

      Another responded: ‘Well, you have an Italian passport and an apartment in Rome, and they won’t take these things away. You are now a desirable immigrant, as they say!’

      ‘Ha, a desirable immigrant! Since when did I become an immigrant?’

      ‘We are all foreigners here. No one is aboriginal!’ The pregnant woman made another statement.

      A desirable immigrant. I repeated this to myself. If I stayed, would I be one of the desirable immigrants? I wondered.

      You didn’t say much. The conversation was infused with a certain anger and intensity. It was interesting to watch, but difficult to follow. Then the group began to talk about housing and the property market. The Golden Notebook was left on the floor. Literature gave way to real estate. Everyone had so much to say about property, except СКАЧАТЬ