พวกเขาแลกคีย์การ์ดห้องพัก — Chapter 15 Within Thirty Days

Chapter 15 Within Thirty Days

On the first workday back, both of them got up ten minutes late. The toothbrushes stood side by side in the bathroom. Neither yielded. While Xu Siyi put on makeup, Chen Hao heated milk in the kitchen. Heating milk was a small thing he had not done before. She drank a mouthful and looked at him.

"Is this compensation?"

"It's wanting to," he said. "If you think it's sweet, I'll change it tomorrow."

"It isn't sweet. It's fine."

On the subway they did not stand together. Xu Siyi got off one stop earlier. Before they separated, at the gate, Chen Hao said only one sentence: see you tonight. The three words were so ordinary it was as if the three nights of travel had not happened. Xu Siyi put them in her ear anyway, and kept them there all day.

The bank's meeting room was cold. The client had indeed sent the revisions to the guarantee clause. The tone was still the tone of someone calling a person who was expected to be available. Xu Siyi revised the clauses one by one and wrote the reply email hard. After she sent it she went to the restroom and looked at herself in the mirror. The makeup was still on. The red on her chest was covered by the shirt collar. She suddenly did not want to cover it so tightly. Not for anyone else to see. Because she herself knew someone else's mouth had been there, and her husband's kiss had been there afterward. Both things were true. She let the collar down a little, then felt there was no need, and put it back. Putting it back was not denial. It was denying that she needed an audience.

Chen Hao was in a meeting at his company and drifted halfway through. What he drifted to was Gu Wanning saying that not being able was not a breach. That sentence had saved him at the time. After the meeting he messaged Xu Siyi: Thinking of you at noon. Not thinking of Qingdao. Thinking of you stirring coffee. Xu Siyi answered forty minutes later: The meeting was long. The person who stirs coffee is still here. Learn less of other people's sentences. Say more of your own. Chen Hao looked at that, smiled, and sent back an all right.

The first night both of them were tired and did not have sex. Xu Siyi said she did not want it. Chen Hao said he had heard. They leaned against the headboard and each read, their feet touching under the quilt. The second night Chen Hao wanted it, and said so. Xu Siyi said today they could use hands, not enter. He accepted. Her hand was not skilled. He did not perform an exaggeration. When he came in her hand he said her name. She went and washed, came back, threw the towel at him, and said next time he could get the towel himself, she was not his after-sales service. Then she kissed him once, to show this was not sending him away.

On the fifth night they quarreled. The cause was small. Chen Hao finished his shower and did not spread the bath mat. Xu Siyi stepped in water and swore. After she swore she knew the sentence had been too heavy. Chen Hao answered with one of his own: over there, why didn't you swear about bath mats. The moment the sentence was out, both of them went quiet.

Xu Siyi spoke first. "You put the bath mat and him in the same comparison. That's what we agreed not to do. I'm hurting now. I want to stop this sentence, not the marriage. You take that sentence back, and then we talk about the mat."

Chen Hao's face reddened down to his neck. "I take it back. That sentence was dirty. I felt I wasn't as careful as he was, so I grabbed a thorn. The thorn isn't the fact. The fact is I forgot the mat. It has nothing to do with him. I'm sorry."

Xu Siyi sat on the toilet lid and looked at her wet sock. "I accept the taking back. What I swore just now was too much too. I wasn't actually angry at the water. I was angry that on the fifth day back, some of the good habits are still here, and some of the old laziness is still here. I'm afraid I'll take the laziness to mean you only take care with other people. I'm saying that fear now. You don't have to block my fear with perfection. Just spread the mat."

Chen Hao spread the mat, then took a dry towel and wiped where she had stepped. When he finished he was still kneeling there, and he looked a little foolish. Xu Siyi looked at him. Half the anger went. The half that remained was not anger. It was sourness. She told him to get up. They sat on the bed.

"I thought of him today too," she said. "What I thought was whether he was also quarreling in Hangzhou over some small thing. After I thought it I didn't search his company. I'm telling you. I held the search key down."

"I thought too," Chen Hao said. "I thought about whether her tooth mark had faded. It has faded. I didn't take a picture. After I thought it I heated milk for you. The milk isn't an exchange. The milk is that I'm still here."

They did not have sex because of the fight. Not doing it was also a way of keeping the promise. Xu Siyi said that if she still wanted it tomorrow, she would say so. Chen Hao said that if he was still sour tomorrow, he would say so, and he would not again use the words over there to hurt her. They slept holding hands. In the middle of the night Chen Hao woke once and saw her face quiet on the pillow. He did not wake her. He only pulled back the quilt she had kicked off and covered her shoulder.

On the tenth day it rained in Shanghai. The rain did not smell like Qingdao's. There was no salt. Xu Siyi got off work late. When she came in, Chen Hao had already heated the food. At the table she suddenly took the paper out of her wallet. The paper had gone soft. The creases were white.

"I want to tear it," she said. "Not as denial. Its work is done. I copied the address onto a new piece of paper and locked it in the drawer. The rules themselves don't need to be carried every day. Carrying them makes it feel as if we're still on the trip."

"We tear it together," Chen Hao said.

They tore the paper into very small pieces, threw them in the trash, then felt that leaving them in the household garbage was not clean, so they went downstairs and threw them in the compound's recycling bin. Rain threads hit their faces. After Xu Siyi threw it, her hand was empty. The emptiness panicked her for a second. Chen Hao held the empty hand.

"The rules are torn. The words are still here," he said. "If you forget which one, I'll remind you. If I forget, you scold me. Scold the specific thing. Don't scold Qingdao."

"Done."

At half a month they had sex once, and it was long. It was on the bed at home, with the light on. Xu Siyi asked him to use his mouth first. Chen Hao did, slowly, and in the middle asked whether she wanted him to change. She said don't change. After she came she cried a little, and she said of her own accord that she had not drifted. Chen Hao believed her, because she was not obliged to report good news. When he entered her, both of them were sweating. Afterward he did not go shower. He held her, a towel under them, and listened to her tell a small thing from work. The small thing was a colleague calling her proposal "organizing materials" again. She had answered. After she answered she was still angry. Chen Hao listened and said the man was stupid. Xu Siyi said he did not have to say the man was stupid. He only had to say he was on her side. Chen Hao said he was on her side. That sentence brought her closer to him than any technique.

On the twentieth day, at a sales dinner, people tried to pour drink into Chen Hao. He refused. The refusal was not elegant. He still drank two glasses. When he got home he did not hide it. Xu Siyi smelled him and told him to brush his teeth. After he brushed he sat on the sofa and said, suddenly, "At the table someone joked that a business trip must have a story. I laughed. After I laughed I wanted to throw up. Not because of the alcohol. Because our story can't be touched by that kind of joke. I'm telling you now. If you want to scold me, scold me."

Xu Siyi sat beside him and did not scold. "The laugh was a shield. I understand shields. Next time you can not laugh, and say there isn't one. There isn't one isn't a lie. Those three nights are not a story they get to consume. They're ours. Sealed."

"Next time I'll say there isn't one."

That night he wanted sex. Xu Siyi did not. He said he had heard. They only leaned together. While they leaned, Chen Hao was hard, and he said so. Xu Siyi said he could sleep hard. It did not have to be dealt with. He really did not go to the bathroom to deal with it. The small restraint had nothing heroic about it. It only let Xu Siyi close her eyes more safely in the dark.

The thirtieth day was a Thursday. The Saturday in Jiaxing had not yet come. The two of them were washing dishes in the kitchen. Xu Siyi washed. Chen Hao rinsed. The water was loud. They still heard each other's breathing.

Xu Siyi spoke first. "On Saturday I've decided not to go. Not because I'm obeying your opinion. Because I myself don't want to soak a story that has already been sealed back into tea. I think of them. The thinking is still here. But thinking isn't the same as having to meet. I tore the address up. My hand shook while I tore it. After it shook, I still tore it. If you're disappointed, say so now."

The bowl in Chen Hao's hand stopped. "I'm not disappointed. I'm a little empty. Empty and disappointed aren't the same thing. Empty is that the possible door is gone. After the door is gone, I'm clearer that I'm standing in this kitchen. Thank you for telling me. If you tore it because of my jealousy, I would be uneasy."

"Not because of your jealousy." Xu Siyi passed him the last plate. "Because in these thirty days I've already told you the hardest sentences. There is nothing in a teahouse that needs me more than that. If they go, they'll find we aren't there. Not being there is also an answer. The rules said absence doesn't need an explanation."

Chen Hao put the plate in the rack. Water dripped onto the top of his foot. This time he remembered the bath mat and turned to spread it. Xu Siyi saw it and did not praise him. Praise would have turned a thing that ought to be done into a performance. She only walked over and held him from behind. Her face was against his back. The tooth mark had faded long ago, faded until only she knew the place. She kissed that place once.

"The marriage is still the two of us," she said. "The way it is now is this. Neither of us treats the other as property. Neither of us brings someone else's bed into this kitchen. We can think, we can say it, we can refuse, we can do it on the sofa with the light on. We are not going to Jiaxing. We also will not pretend Qingdao was only a piece of weather."

Chen Hao's hand covered hers. "I agree with this shape. I'm still your husband. You're still my wife. Not because no one has touched us. Because after we were touched, we still chose this lamp."

The rain outside had stopped. Shanghai's night was noisy. Downstairs someone was calling a name for a food delivery. Xu Siyi let him go, poured milk into the pot, and got ready to heat it. Halfway through pouring she stopped and looked back at him.

"Tomorrow is Saturday. There is no teahouse. If you want to go out, we walk on Huaihai Road. While we walk you can hold my hand. Ask me before you take it. I may be willing. I may also have my hands in my pockets. Both count."

"Then I'll ask tomorrow," Chen Hao said.

The milk heated slowly in the pot. A ring of fine bubbles rose at the edge. Xu Siyi looked at the bubbles and laughed, very lightly. The laugh was not because she had forgotten. It was because in a life there were still things that would spill if you did not watch them. Chen Hao stood beside her and did not turn the flame up. He remembered she had said that speeding up was not a rope. Some things had to go at the speed she could bear.

At night they lay in bed, and neither mentioned the two facing rooms again. The body still remembered the distance from door to door. Remembered ten meters of corridor. Remembered twelve o'clock. Xu Siyi put her face into her husband's shoulder and smelled only the laundry detergent of home. She said a very light sentence.

"The key cards were returned."

"They were returned," Chen Hao answered.

"And the people?"

"The people are here."

Xu Siyi's fingers locked between his. Locked tight, then loosened a little, leaving a gap for blood to move. That gap was the definition she was willing to give the marriage now. Not locked shut. Not thrown open. Two people still here, able at any time to say stop, and able at any time to say they still wanted it.

Shanghai's lights burned outside the curtain all night. The sea sounded on its own in the north. Whether the same conversation was happening in a walk-up in Hangzhou, they no longer went to verify. The door of the thirty days had shut. It had not shut prettily. It had shut clearly. Clear was already enough for two people in their thirties to sleep until daylight in an old bed, and, after daylight, still know each other's names.