Disputes at public welfare stations
The mornings in the 13th arrondissement of Paris are always filled with the damp aroma of bread. As Ah Yu followed Lin Wanqing through the arcades, the warmth of the fireplace in the guesthouse still lingered on his fingertips—a faint red mark left by sparks from when he added firewood to the fireplace the night before.
“Today we’re distributing winter clothes and milk powder,” Lin Wanqing said, stepping aside to avoid the vendors pushing breakfast carts. Her beige trench coat swept across the sycamore leaves by the wall. “Most of the volunteers here speak French. If you really can’t communicate, just come to me.” As she spoke, the wind lifted the stray hairs behind her ears, and Ah Yu caught a glimpse of a very faint crescent-shaped scar on her fair neck, like a ginkgo leaf that had been eaten by insects.
The refugee camp was located in an abandoned subway maintenance depot, its rusty iron gates creaking as they opened. A dozen or so children, bundled in thick coats, were squatting in a corner drawing, their crayons sketching crooked rainbows on the damp cement floor. Lin Wanqing expertly bent down and picked up a blonde little girl, asking her in fluent French if she had secretly hidden cookies again. The girl giggled and slipped a melted chocolate into her pocket.
As Ah Yu followed, carrying a cardboard box full of milk powder cans, the soles of his boots crunched over crayon stubs on the ground. He had just placed the box on the metal rack when a tall man in a blue vest stopped him. The man pointed rapidly at the Chinese label on the box, his brow furrowed, his finger almost poking Ah Yu's chest.
"He said this batch of milk powder didn't have French labels, so it couldn't be distributed according to regulations," the woman in the red scarf translated, looking at Ah Yu as if she were sizing up a troublesome rock.
Ah Yu pulled off his gloves, revealing red marks on his palms from the cardboard boxes: "This was donated by a domestic company. The quarantine report is with Wan Qing." His French was only enough to say "hello" and "thank you," and the words stuck in his throat like gravel.
The tall man suddenly raised his voice and swung his hand violently at the cardboard box. Ah Yu instinctively reached out to protect it, and the milk powder cans rattled and crashed inside the box. One can fell to the ground and rolled into the group of children, startling the youngest boy who burst into tears.
"Jean!" Lin Wanqing rushed over carrying the girl. She handed the child to the woman in the red scarf, and as she turned, the hem of her trench coat brushed against Ah Yu's hand. When the tall man raised his arm again, she appeared like a white butterfly wing suddenly unfolding, shielding Ah Yu.
It was at this moment that Ah Yu saw it clearly. The wisps of hair behind her ear flew up with the movement, and the crescent-shaped scar was particularly clear under the pale light of the overhead lamp—much lighter than he remembered, but the stitches from back then were still recognizable.
Five years ago, backstage at a cocktail party, when shards of glass rained down like hail from above, Lin Wanqing shielded him in the same way. Back then, she was Gu Yanting's kept woman in a haute couture gown, but in the instant the chandelier fell, she pushed him behind a fire hydrant. Flying shards of glass cut her neck, and drops of blood dripped onto his watch strap, spreading into a dark red flower. He stayed by her side in the hospital for three days afterward. The nurse said her first words upon waking were, "Don't tell Ah Yu I'm afraid of blood."
“This batch of supplies passed customs quarantine last week.” Lin Wanqing’s French was soft with a Parisian accent, but her eyes were harder than the icicles of the Seine. “If you have any doubts, you can contact the Chinese Embassy in France, or call the Department of Health right now.” She pulled a folder out of her canvas bag. The corner of the copy of the quarantine report was lifted by the wind, and Ah Yu saw the photo tucked inside—it was a picture of him, Zhong Hua, and her backs at the entrance of the reception. The three shadows of them formed a crooked line on the carpet.
The tall man's face turned a deep purplish-red as he muttered something and turned to check other supplies. The woman in the red scarf came over to pick up the milk powder can from the ground and whispered to Lin Wanqing, "He just broke up with his girlfriend, he's a bit... averse to Asian faces..."
“I know,” Lin Wanqing interrupted her, the scar behind her ear disappearing into her hair as she bent over, “but the children can’t wait.”
Ah Yu squatted down to help pick up the crayons, and the youngest boy timidly stuffed a piece of candy into his hand. The candy wrapper was transparent, and you could see the melted and solidified caramel inside, just like the scab that had formed on Lin Wanqing's wound back then.
"Does it hurt?" he suddenly asked, his voice as low as if afraid of startling the pigeons under the eaves.
Lin Wanqing was preparing formula for a pregnant woman when she heard this and paused. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, the scars gleaming under the light: "Right after the stitches were removed, turning my head felt like someone was pulling my hair." She smiled and handed the warm bottle to the pregnant woman, "But it's better than it hitting you on the head—you were staring at Zhong Hua's interview video and grinning like an idiot, completely out of your mind."
Ah Yu's fingers clenched the candy tightly. He remembered the day of the mudslide, the ginkgo leaf specimen stuck in Zhong Hua's hair, the first gift he had given her; he remembered when her eyelashes trembled in the ICU, the curve of the monitor looked like a river that had finally found its direction; he remembered the red rope he had secretly tied next to the prayer wheel in Tibet, which was blown by the wind and tangled with Zhong Hua's... These images suddenly overlapped with the scars in front of him, like a painting that had been crumpled and then smoothed out again.
At lunchtime, Ah Yu was assigned to deliver sandwiches to an elderly person across the street. As he crossed the street, he saw Lin Wanqing standing at the entrance of the shelter, making a phone call. Sunlight slanted behind her ear, making the scar appear faintly pink. She was saying into the phone, "...Yes, I've already asked the lawyer to process Zhong Hua's visa, and I've asked the landlord to keep the Airbnb in Montmartre..."
A newspaper whizzed past his feet in the wind; the front page featured a prayer wheel beneath a snow-capped mountain, its red ropes swirling in the snow, creating a blurry red speck. Ah Yu suddenly remembered the plane ticket Lin Wanqing had sent him; the edges of the note tucked inside were already frayed: "Go after the person who fills your phone's photo album."
As he turned to walk back, he saw Lin Wanqing taking off her scarf and tying it around the neck of the blonde little girl. The girl pointed to the scar behind her ear and babbled. He smiled and shook his head, raising his hand to tuck a stray hair behind his ear—a movement as natural as brushing away a non-existent leaf.
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