A Road of a Thousand Years. Part Two. Chapter One

Beijing had become different.

The city, which had once seemed infinitely large and noisy to Mei Lin, had now shrunk to the size of a single room, a single window, a single gaze into the void. She no longer went to school — she had been dismissed without explanation, simply barred from entering the gates. On the bulletin board, where schedules and poems used to hang, there were now only lists of enemies of the people and new slogans.

Her parents had been expelled from the university. Their books, manuscripts, and photographs were thrown into the courtyard like trash. Her father remained silent, her mother cried at night, burying her face in her old shawl, and Mei Lin became the only one bringing any money into the house. She still worked as a translator at the factory, where everything had become mundane to her: the language, the smells, the people, even the air. But sometimes it seemed to her that she was not living her own life, but someone else’s, accidentally put on like an old coat in a theater cloakroom.

In the evenings, she sat by the window, watching the street where rare passersby hurried home, and thought of Chen Wang. She did not know what had become of him. After the crackdown on the Red Guards, his name had disappeared from conversations as if he had never existed. Sometimes she felt she had invented him — the boy with the wary gaze who drew her on the margins of his notebook and could not hide his feelings. She remembered his questions, his embarrassment, his silence. She remembered — and didn’t know why.

Their home seemed steeped in poverty and fear. Her mother spoke in whispers more and more often; her father would not leave his room for hours. A portrait of the Helmsman hung on the wall, and his eyes followed every movement, every word. Mei had learned to say only what was necessary, and only when necessary. She had learned to be a shadow.

In those days, the conflict on the border began. The radio spoke of enemies, of traitors, of how the USSR was no longer a friend but a foe, that Soviet revisionists were to blame for everything. In the news for the Soviet specialists, the island was called Damansky, and for the Chinese — Zhenbao Dao. Even in this, there was a rift, a crack, an inability to agree on the very name of the land where shots were now being fired.

Mei Lin listened to this news and could not understand: how could it be — the country where her parents grew up, where she had lived for several years, and the country where she was born, were now enemies? Where was her home? Where was her motherland? She felt split in two, like a tree struck by lightning.

Sergei Morozov also listened to the radio and waited for orders. For him, it was Damansky — the name etched in Soviet maps, a small patch of land that had suddenly become the border between the past and the future. For her, it was Zhenbao Dao — the name carved into Chinese soil, an island whose name now sounded somewhat different — as if memory itself had split into two halves.

In the evenings, behind the closed door, they talked about the weather, about work, and even about things that could not be said aloud. Sometimes he looked at her and thought: how strangely life is arranged — sometimes the person closest to you turns out to be the one you cannot be with.

His family — wife, children — remained far away, in Russia, in the Urals, in Sverdlovsk. Their faces surfaced in his memory more and more often like old photographs: slightly faded, with corners bent by time. He knew he should miss them, but increasingly caught himself thinking: when the order comes to leave, he would miss this place, miss it terribly. But in a different way. He would miss this country, these conversations with Lin, her voice, which had become the only real thing for him in this still alien world. And even the tiresome factory, where everything was wrong, not like at home. All this would become the past, and perhaps the most real part of his life.

One evening, when dusk was already gathering outside the factory windows, they sat in his office. Morozov smoked silently, staring into the clouded glass, while Mei Lin sorted through papers, pretending to read.

“Did you hear?” he finally said, without turning around. “They were shooting on Damansky again. Eight of our men were killed.”

She slowly raised her head, not immediately understanding what he meant.

“On Zhenbao Dao,” she corrected quietly. “It is Zhenbao Dao Island.”

He chuckled, but there was neither joy nor malice in that laugh — only weariness.

“For us, it has always been Damansky.”

“And for us — always Zhenbao Dao,” she replied, and a new, unfamiliar firmness sounded in her voice.

They fell silent. Behind the wall, the factory hummed, indifferent to their conversations, to their fears, to their different words.

“Strange,” Morozov said, “as if even names are now at war with each other.”

“Not just names,” Mei whispered. “Everything is at war. Even memory.”

He looked at her — long, intently, as if seeing her for the first time.

“You don’t believe this will end, do you?”

She shook her head.

“No. I think this is only the beginning.”

He wanted to say something but found no words. She remained silent too. That evening, there was more silence between them than ever before.

When Mei Lin returned home, the streets seemed even emptier to her than usual. The entrance smelled of dampness and other people’s lives. Her mother, as always, sat by the window; her father did not leave his room. She walked quietly into the kitchen, poured herself some water, and sank on a stool.

I don’t know where my home is. I don’t know who I am. I am between two countries, between two languages, between Damansky and Zhenbao Dao, between the past and the future. I am like water flowing through cracks, not knowing where to stop. I am like a letter that doesn’t reach the addressee. I am like a ghost no one notices… Sometimes it seems to me that all this is a dream. That I will wake up, and everything will be as before: school, books, children’s laughter, spring rain outside the window. But I don’t wake up. I only listen to the water dripping in the sink, the trains clattering outside the window, someone whispering in the dark: “Don’t speak. Don’t ask. Forget.”

Meanwhile, the night outside the window had thickened to such a degree that it was no longer possible to distinguish where one country ended and the other began.

Part Two. Chapter Two →
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