Paths. Chapter Eleven

They met on the same bench, under the acacia tree, where they had once read strangers’ letters and shared silence.

The evening was transparent, like water in a glass, and in this clear air, everything seemed a little more real than usual.

Wenbo arrived first. He sat hunched over his phone, but when Desheng approached, he put it in his pocket. His face was tired, his gaze distracted, like that of a person already with one foot in another city.

Desheng sat beside him. The air between them was cold and dense.

“I spoke to him. It’s definitely her, Mei Lin,” Desheng began, and his words, still warm from the night’s conversation, felt out of place in the cooling air. “With Morozov’s grandson. He said his grandfather always kept her photo. I think he came to Beijing back then to find her.”

Wenbo didn’t raise his head.

“Did he find her?” his question was short, pragmatic.

“No. But you know… he told his family he was writing memoirs. And after his death, they found only reams of blank paper. And one sheet. On it was written a single word. ‘Forgive.’”

Desheng fell silent, waiting for a reaction. But Wenbo seemed to be listening not to him, but to something else sounding only within himself.

“You forgive me too,” he said finally, just as quietly. “We’re flying out tomorrow.”

Desheng didn’t understand immediately.

“Where?”

“First to Hong Kong. From there — to the States.”

The words were simple, but they shattered the world.

“Why so urgently?” was all Desheng could manage to say.

“My parents said it was time,” Wenbo raised his eyes to him for the first time, and his eyes held only an adult’s exhaustion — deep, irrevocable. “They said there’s nothing left for us here. That we have to leave.”

“And Xiangliu… did you tell her?”

“I wrote to her. She didn’t answer.”

Wenbo took a flash drive from his pocket and placed it on the bench between them.

“There’s something else here. Just don’t show anyone what’s on it.”

He stood up, not looking at Desheng, and added:

“Don’t see me off. We’re flying early in the morning.”

Desheng watched the receding back of his friend, who walked without looking back, dissolving into the evening city light.

Desheng stayed on the bench, its chill seeping through his clothes, clutching in his hand this small, cold key to yet another locked door. He understood: his friend hadn’t just left. He had fled. Fled from a country where the past turned out to be heavier than the future. And now he, Desheng, remained the sole keeper of all these stories, all these ghosts. He remained alone on this path. Completely alone.

Chapter Twelve →
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