And I think I would be able to cry. Not for him, but for the things that will depart with him. Yet I haven’t been able to make myself call the hospital. One phone call, and his death will be an official matter, no longer anything to do with me. He’ll be surrounded by nurses and doctors, his students and colleagues, visiting officials, the media, a surge of people laying claim to his final moments, giving his imminent death the scale it ought to have, commensurate to the importance of his life. The sinking of an enormous ship. I have no right to stand in the way of a great man’s glorious death, but I only have this little bit of time remaining to me and can’t bear to hand it over. All these years I haven’t asked him for a thing—not his concern or affection or regard. All I want, at this moment, is to claim his death for myself. I have been waiting for this moment, for a nonexistent voice to tell me it’s all over.

When I saw you this afternoon, I could feel all this between us. Perhaps you’ve already learned the secret. Perhaps, with the passage of time, it seeped into the texture of your life. No matter what form it takes, I believe it is still present, and like me, you can’t ignore it. Let’s talk about it, for the first and final time. We’ll talk till dawn if we have to, and after that, everything about the secret will be left behind in this night.

Great swathes of snow are coming down now. As if God were flinging back at humanity every letter we’ve ever sent him, ripped into tiny pieces.

Cheng Gong

Yes, let’s talk, although I can’t stay long. As soon as the snow dies down, I need to get to the train station. I’m going far from here. Actually, I ought to have left this afternoon. When you showed up at my door, I thought you were the water delivery guy. If he’d come any earlier, we might have missed each other.