My mother was always encouraging me to take up a sport, something I could do in my spare time that would be good for my health. It was a chance to get a bit sweaty, she said, to relieve some stress, and if I learned a sport now I’d have a skill for life. Why not give it a go? After thinking it over, I decided swimming might be fun. I imagined myself gliding through the water like a turtle, stopping to float whenever I wanted. And I thought that girls’ faces looked so lovely and white in blue water.

There weren’t many swimming pools in the city when I was in primary school. Aside from the enormous pool at the Workers’ Cultural Palace, I knew of only one other. It was just across the road from where we lived, down a narrow alley busy with tricycle trucks and opposite a school for children with special needs. The sign outside said swimming pool, but if you gave a driver the address, you had to say ‘Hai Shan Bath House’, because people mostly went there to bathe or shower. Swimming was quite expensive whereas a body scrub was more affordable. We lived in an old building, which was hard to keep warm, and in the winter, it was a hassle for the three of us to take showers. The shower attachment was a late addition, which meant you had to hold it up the entire time, and since neither the water nor the room were heated, whenever you took a shower, you risked catching a cold. My father would have sooner died than go to the public baths – he was too shy to take his clothes off in public – so I started going with my mother. It was less stressful that way. And naturally, we went to Hai Shan Swimming Pool.

The second time we went, the woman at the front desk talked my mother into buying more than just a shower. You’d be better off with an all-inclusive ticket. It covers everything: shower, scrub and swim. It’s much better value. She glanced down at me. Looks like your daughter could use some swimming lessons. I’m not sure what she saw in me. I was more tanned back then; perhaps she meant I should spend more time in the water.

My mother and I were very excited. We went straight to Bai Hua Yuan, a little wholesale market around the corner, and bought two swimming costumes, two pairs of goggles, and a swimming float for me. The seller there was persuasive too. If you buy an inflatable ring, she’ll never learn to swim! He turned to me. Here, take this. I took the swimming float. You have to stretch out your legs and kick them up and down like this. He threw away the snack he was holding, malatang in a plastic bag, to show me what to do. When you get in the water, hold it like this. Imagine you’re in trouble, and this float is a piece of decking that’s fallen off a boat. My mother had no time for this, but I got really into it, listening closely as he continued, his voice getting louder and louder. Imagine there’s a shark chasing you and a big wave right behind. You can see the beach just ahead. You hold on tight, and go for it. When you hit the shore, lie down on the float like this, like it’s a mattress . . . My mother cut in. I’ll give you ten yuan tops, and that’s it. And just like that, he turned away, and I never got to hear the end of the story.

When we got home, I pestered my mother. When can we go swimming? At first it looked promising. I’ll take you tomorrow after work, she said. But the next day, she didn’t come home after work. There was a drinks party, and then another one the next day, and the day after that. When she did come home, late at night, bleary-eyed and muddled, she stamped loudly in the corridor to activate the light and banged on the door with the heel of her shoe. My dad just accepted it, but I was furious. She saw the swimming float on the bed in my room and lay down on it, mumbling. Where are you? Come and sit next to your mum. I asked why she’d taken her shoes off. She said she’d cut her foot on the way home. There was broken glass on the ground. I didn’t see it. I moved closer and looked at her right foot. There was a bright red gash near her big toe. Without a word, my father went to fetch some sterilising wipes. When he returned, I stood before them with my head down, clenched my fists, and prepared what I was going to say. I took a deep breath and pushed my shoulders back. My mother finally noticed me. Oh, I’m lying on your float. I stared at her. When are we going swimming? Tell me exactly which day. She grinned. It’s up to you. I took another deep breath. Tomorrow. You won’t be working. It’s a Saturday.

My parents looked at each other. I’ve cut my foot, my mother said. I won’t be able to go in the water. I stood my ground. Two days ago, your foot was fine. Yesterday, your foot was fine. I think you did this on purpose. My father stayed quiet, just watching. In the silence that followed, reason slowly sided with my mother: she had an injury, even taking a shower would be difficult; several hours soaking in a pool full of disinfectant was out of the question. But at the time, I was indignant. Let your father take you, she suggested. He refused immediately – it would mean baring his pale upper arms. I didn’t want that either. I hung my head again, and as planned began to cry. It worked. My mother must still have been drunk, or else she would never have promised. When my mother drank, we were equals. Even so, she seemed reluctant. She grasped my hands and tried to make me touch her foot, but I pulled away. She sighed. Do we really have to go?

My father said she spoiled me, but it wasn’t like he was going to do anything about it. For him, Saturday was set in stone: it was his gaming day, spent, from breakfast until dinner, in front of the computer. The next day, my mother, having promised to take me swimming, wrapped a piece of plastic around her toe, and secured it with a rubber band. We crossed the road with our new kit and walked into Hai Shan Swimming Pool. Although, as I said, I’d been there twice before, both times it was just to the showers. I’d never been further. Today I was going all the way inside. In the changing room, putting on my swimming costume, I felt a cut above everyone else. I treated the brand new swimming costume like I used to treat my ballet leotard when I was younger. I took it out of the locker and put it on slowly. A little girl watched me very intently and asked her mother what I was wearing and why. The swimming costume was dark blue, with a little skirt and a yellow duck on the front. It was a bit big for me, and the straps kept slipping off my shoulders, so I had to straighten up and walk with the posture of a ballet dancer, wearing the matching dark-blue swimming cap that showed off my big forehead. Meanwhile, my mother attended to her toe: the elastic band was too tight and blood wasn’t getting to the toe, which was beginning to go white.

We walked past the steaming showers, through the huge relaxation hall with the lights switched off, and all the way down a long, narrow corridor towards a light at the far end. A middle-aged woman in short sleeves and shorts sat on a stool checking tickets. She checked our wristbands. Go through the foot pool. The swimming pool is just around the corner. There aren’t many swimmers today. I nodded blankly. My feet finally came out of the slippers and the feeling when they touched the white tiles was exhilarating. My mother went first and paddled through the ankle-deep footbath of disinfectant. As I held her arm in support, I noticed some water slip inside the plastic around her toe. The middle-aged woman had sharp eyes. What’s the matter? Something wrong with your foot? My mother had been waiting for someone to ask so she could embarrass me. I went red as she explained. Well, you’re here now, the middle-aged woman said. Might as well let her do what she wants! I reasoned that if no one came to swim, the woman would have nothing to show for having sat there all day. She waved us past and my mother led me around the corner. A bright blue world came into view. The water was calm.

Holding the float, I stepped onto the ladder and climbed down into the water. My mother had gone first and was waiting for me. I managed to get into the pool, but as soon as she let go of me, I started screaming. At the time I was about 1.3 metres tall, and even on tiptoes I could only just keep my head above water; the moment my feet were flat on the floor, water went up my nose, in my ears, gushing at me from every direction. The float was no use at all. My mother hauled me up a few times and I hung from her body like a sloth from a tree, cold and frightened. When I gazed over at the deep end, the pool seemed to go on forever. The lifeguard, who had a toned upper body and visible ribs, stood at the side of the pool watching me for ages, and then said to my mother, Your daughter could choke on all that water. My mother scowled back. And it’s your job to save her life. I want her to know what it feels like to be in the water. The lifeguard said, I think she’s felt enough. I would stop before it’s too late. My mother gave up on me and dipped down into the water. She hadn’t gone swimming for a long time, and she wanted to enjoy herself. It was as if the cut on her foot had transferred to me; I felt that my whole body was covered in cuts that were aggravated by the water. The lifeguard told her to let me swim in the little pool upstairs, where the water was shallower. We were both surprised to learn that there was a children’s pool. Why hadn’t they told us earlier? I climbed out, shivering with cold, while my mother glided back and forth like a mud loach, a girlish smile on her face as she waved at me. Go upstairs and practise. You’ll only hold me back here.

There were two small pools upstairs. And whichever way I looked at them, they were for soaking, not swimming. The water wasn’t blue, it was hot and there was sand at the bottom. I stepped into the smaller one. Standing up, the water just reached my calves. I tried to float in the water, but the tiles on the bottom kept sticking to my legs. Even without the float, it would have taken some effort to drown. While I was trying to practise, I heard a few people enter the downstairs pool. I could hear my mother laughing as she chatted with a group of men and women who had arrived together, and were about to race each other from one end of the pool to the other. The lifeguard shouted, Go! He seemed to be using a stopwatch. My little pool felt strange and quiet. I tried kicking the water a couple of times, and it sounded all right, but when I stopped splashing, there was no shark, no big wave. I was already on the beach, and it didn’t matter how I swam because I was stranded.

I leaned against the upstairs railing and looked down. A supple figure appeared in the vast blue swimming pool; it moved like a tadpole, feet flickering, legs moving as one, like a single tail. She swam to the far end of the pool, then almost without stopping, turned and swam back, leaving my mother and the others half a length behind her. I saw the lifeguard bring her a white bath towel, and I saw her nimbly pull herself onto the side of the pool, and sit there draped in the towel, casually kicking her dainty white feet in the water. My mother wiped water from her face, moved her goggles up to her forehead, and asked, How old are you? She said that she was eleven. I recognise you, Auntie, she added. Li Wu and I are classmates. My mother sat down next to her, and said, What a coincidence! My daughter’s here too. What’s your name? She should learn from you how to swim. She said that her name was Yang Yang. Before I could dodge out of sight, my mother raised her hand and pointed in my direction, as though blindly firing a gun. I stayed exactly where I was, though part of me fell to the ground as the gun fired. Li Wu’s a lost cause, my mother said. She’s in the shallow pool. Why don’t you go and find her? I waved stiffly down at Yang Yang. She looked up at me. She already had girlish curves, and as she stood up, drops of water rolled over the muscles on her leg. She laughed, Pshht. Her eyes were jet-black and kind, her eyebrows thick, almost meeting in the middle. She looked as if she had been born knowing how to swim, as if she had mastered sword fighting and hunting too. After she had done a few stretches at the side of the pool, she said goodbye to my mother and went to get changed.

Outside, after my mother and I had fastened our padded jackets, she looped a scarf several times around my neck and mouth. Did you know that your straps were slipping down your arms when you were standing at the railing? And when you saw your classmate, you didn’t say anything, you just did a silly smile, like the children at the special school across the road. I shook my head. It wasn’t a silly smile, I said. I was being sarcastic. My words were muffled by the scarf. Why? asked my mother. I thought about it as we walked along. We were almost home when I spoke again, my voice still muffled. It was a good thing she didn’t come upstairs. My sarcasm might have put her off. My mother looked at me quizzically, only then thinking to ask what it was like upstairs. How was the water? I pulled the scarf down and let out a long breath. The inside of my scarf was wet through and dotted with tiny crystals of ice. It was pretty deep, I said. I’m glad I had the float. And I can float now.

2

The day after we went to Hai Shan Swimming Pool, the cut on my mother’s foot was inflamed and very swollen. She tried to blame it on me, but I pushed back. You didn’t have to stay in the water so long. We ignored each other for a few days, and I stopped thinking about swimming; instead, it was Yang Yang in her swimming costume, the curves of her body, that kept appearing in my mind.

She’d already caught my attention at school. There was an arts academy in the city, and every year they would visit several primary schools looking for students with potential. The head teacher of the academy was a square-faced young man with sunglasses. He came in, glasses on, took a few steps in his leather shoes, then stopped, as if he were standing in a spotlight onstage, and looked at us all with disdain. The time I was part of the group selected for his consideration, I was in the front row. I held my shoulders so far back that they hurt, and when the man walked past, I gave a big smile, revealing my crooked canines. He raised an eyebrow, and moved on. I wished afterwards that I had chosen to look more serious. But Yang Yang had smiled too. She was standing behind me, and I could see her in the mirror. The man looked at her for a long time, and I heard him saying to himself, trembling with joy, Oh, please let me train you.

My mother took some time off work to recover. One day, when she woke up, I was already home from school, facing our old-style window frames with the brass fittings, crying, constantly wiping my tears across my temples, each wipe leaving a mark. She asked me what the matter was, and when I told her, she was quick to explain that I wasn’t selected because my posture wasn’t good enough. What’s good posture? I asked. She sat up in bed, holding her solid upper body straight, head up, chest open, eyes straight ahead, with a rigid smile, and said, See, this is good posture. I looked at her. Yang Yang didn’t look like that, she was very natural, I said. Who is Yang Yang? The girl at the swimming pool? my mother asked. Yes, I said, and went to sit on the edge of the bed by her legs, resting my head on her chest. I didn’t want to talk any more.

I decided to go to Hai Shan Swimming Pool the following Saturday on my own. My mother packed my bag, put her old PHS phone in my jacket pocket, and told me to call when I got there. She gave me three hours, after which I had to be home. My father tried to bargain with her. How about two hours? Two hours is enough for her to go swimming. He wanted to walk me there, but my mother and I wouldn’t let him, though we conceded that he could come and pick me up in three hours’ time. The woman checking tickets to the swimming pool wasn’t too concerned when she saw me on my own. Her eyes lit up. You’re back! How’s your mum’s foot? It’s much better, I said, almost following it up with, The family’s all fine. Like a long-lost auntie, she tucked some loose hair from around my temples into my swimming cap, and asked if I’d come to meet my friend, who she said was already inside. My mind shuddered as my subconscious nagged at me to sneak away. Yang Yang wasn’t exactly a friend. Does she swim on her own too? I asked the auntie, who seemed delighted to have someone to chat with, even a child. I stood in the shallow footbath, listening as she talked, disinfecting my feet for a long time. I learned that Yang Yang came swimming every Saturday. The lifeguard had been her teacher, but she didn’t need a coach any more – it was a hobby, one she was very good at. The lifeguard kept encouraging her to pursue it as a career, but Yang Yang’s parents didn’t agree. I thought I knew why: no one who knew how brightly she shone outside the swimming pool would agree. There were too many adults competing to train her. I figured that having too many choices must also be a problem.

As soon as I turned the corner, I saw her. She was swimming across the blue sea, the only person in the entire swimming pool. The lifeguard wasn’t there that day, and the height of the building, the smell of the chlorine and the lines she drew in the water made me feel lonely. I didn’t call out to her, just carried my float upstairs. I soaked silently in the little pool, listening to the sound of the water splashing downstairs. I pictured myself, aged five or six, going to the public baths with my mother for the first time, and standing under the steaming shower, surrounded by women chatting. Everything they said echoed, lulling me into a trance. I felt that no one would ever understand that sensation of being part of the world, and at the same time, being able to withdraw from it. Then I heard someone call my name. Li Wu! By the time I saw that it was Yang Yang, she was right in front of me. I stood up with a lot of splashing, and felt the warmth sink from my whole body down to my calves, to water level. Yang Yang looked down at her feet, then at me. Why don’t you come and swim in the pool? She stepped into the water with me, warming her feet while she sat on the edge, which made me realise that maybe it was for soaking your feet. I didn’t say anything. If you stay up here, you’ll never learn, she said. I don’t want to learn, I said. I only came for a shower. As soon as I said it, I regretted it. She looked at me and smiled. But you brought the float.

How about I teach you, starting with the basics? Yang Yang looked at me, her head tilted to one side. I looked away and when I looked back, Yang Yang had quietly stolen my float. Behind me, I heard the patter of her feet as she ran down the stairs and jumped into the swimming pool. I chased after her, leaning forwards on the poolside and shouted at her across the water. What are you doing? Yang Yang spat out a mouthful of water, and grinned. Come and get it. I looked at the pale pink board floating beside her. She swam back towards me, took a deep breath, and put her head underwater. I watched as her slender body spread out in the water, then floated up to the surface, and swayed gently, as if it was lighter than the float. Come and try. I turned around and started to climb down the ladder into the pool. I felt her cold fingertips on my calves. Yang Yang put her arms around my waist. Imagine that everything around you is air. The water is like air.

I wanted to break free from her, but I didn’t dare. She was a head taller than me and could stand up in the water and breathe easily, which I couldn’t. But I couldn’t wrap myself around her either, as I had with my mother. I wished I had never got in the pool. In the water, I couldn’t be sarcastic, that most basic form of self-defence. Yang Yang gave me orders, Put your hands on the edge. Hold the edge. Let go. Then she disappeared. I thrashed about in a panic. I swallowed some water and almost choked, but found I was rising. Yang Yang issued another order, Lift your feet off the ground. Lift your feet up, you won’t fall down. You’ll just float.

In the water that she said was like air, I felt a freedom that was almost like losing consciousness. As soon as my feet left the bottom of the pool, it was as if my legs were no longer mine; they drifted, as if they belonged to one universe, and I was in another. I couldn’t open my mouth, because it would still let in water, but I could hear what Yang Yang was saying. I was lighter than I had ever been before. I curled up, brought my legs to my chest, and pressed my toes against the tiles. Do you think I’m stupid? I asked. She shook her head. You’re not stupid, you just wouldn’t let go. Swimming is the best way of letting go, she said, That’s why I come. It’s the only time I can spread out my arms and legs, and really be myself.

I thought about this for a moment. It’s not the same for me, I said. I always have to tell myself to stand up straight or put on a smile. You shine wherever you are. Even when you don’t feel yourself, when you let go, there are people who love you. I couldn’t be more different. She watched me intently, and after a long time, she smiled again. Li Wu, look at me. Instead of looking at her face, I had been watching her legs changing shape in the water. The light refracting in the water kept distorting them. There were some blurry marks on her leg. I looked closer, thinking I must be mistaken, and she cooperatively raised the leg. My leg was on fire. The year before last, there was a fire in the Wufu community. I was home when it happened. I ran down the hallway, but I wasn’t fast enough, my leg got burned, and I fell. When I was taken to hospital my leg was much worse than this. I said that she was brave to bare her legs in public. I can’t hide it, she said. It’s better in the water, because people only see it through the splashing water as I swim, and splashes always look good. I looked her in the eye and said, You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. Yang Yang stood still for a moment, then jumped into the water again, and we stood there facing each other. If she hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have realised that I was standing up in the water. When she came forward to hug me, the buoyancy of the water made it feel unreal, as though we had found one another in a dream.

My father came to collect me on time. Yang Yang didn’t get out of the pool with me, and I was reluctant to leave. I watched as she continued to swim up and down, then went to the shower room by myself to rinse off the chlorine. By the time I met my father, I was fully armed. He asked me on the way home if I’d got the basics. I said that I had, and that I wanted to come again every day of the week. He wasn’t expecting that, and walked ahead without a word, his bulky body in a red down jacket, carrying my pink shower bag. That was the extent of our conversation. When we got home, my mother was still in bed, watching TV. She turned down the volume, and kissed my pink face when I walked over to her. You look so much better after some exercise, she said.

3

For a while, when I walked past the arts academy, I would see Yang Yang’s photograph hanging at the front of the building. In time though, the picture, which showed her dressed in a purple tulle skirt, disappeared like an illusion. Despite this, I continued to see her all over the city. I would mention this while chatting with my mother, and she would always ask, Who’s Yang Yang? She hadn’t yet been back to the swimming pool; she was waiting for her foot to heal. Yang Yang’s the girl at the swimming pool, I said. The last time you were there you raced with her, remember, and she beat you. My mother frowned. I thought you two didn’t get along, she said. We’re friends, I said. We don’t say hello at school, we just smile when we see each other, but in the swimming pool, she’s like my shadow. My mother seemed pleased. I was worried about you, always being on your own, she said. She’s teaching me how to swim, and I keep her company – we both win. Besides, life is hard and good friends are few. My mother slapped the back of my head. Don’t say that life is hard in front of me. I have a harder life and fewer friends than you. I’m still here.

Where we live, summer passes quickly, and autumn even faster, but winter is long and slow. As the trees began to lose their leaves, ice started forming in the puddles on the dirt road in front of Hai Shan Swimming Pool. Yang Yang and I met at the pool every Saturday come rain or shine. I wasn’t a particularly good student, and she stopped trying to push me. Instead, we spent most of our time just floating in the water, drifting and talking. One day, Yang Yang arrived late. When she came through the door, my head was underwater while I practised holding my breath. I had been trying to open my eyes in the water without goggles, as Yang Yang did with ease, and I could just about manage it, but it was different for me: when I opened my eyes, I started seeing things, and it terrified me. Yang Yang came over and stood by my head at the poolside. I let out the breath I’d been holding, raised my head above water. She was just squatting there, watching me. Torturing yourself? she asked. You’re so late, I said. We’re moving, she said. They won’t let me come any more. I wanted to get out of the pool, to talk to her, but she said not to worry. There was a loud noise as she jumped in, splashing water all over my face. It was a different Yang Yang from usual, her back to the side of the pool, standing there calmly, her face pale, every hair of her eyebrows clearly visible. She whipped off her swimming cap with one hand and revealed a new boyish haircut. It was short and neat, and she used her wet fingers to smooth a stray hair on her forehead. Her hair parted naturally, as though styled with gel. A few wisps hung loose. She said, I have to go to Harbin.

Yang Yang looked at me without moving at all, her eyes as open as her shoulders. I thought for a while. It’ll be fine. Big cities are more fun, I said. Why are you so concerned about fun? she said. It’ll never be like this again: you and me in this big pool, swimming, doing whatever we like. I swallowed a couple of times. Some water had gone up my nose and was now in my throat. I couldn’t stop it from slipping down inside. She looked down and said, How about I teach you something else? You can do freestyle now. What about breaststroke? I looked at her. I haven’t learned anything, I said. I can’t even hold my breath. She laughed and said she hadn’t been a good teacher. I figured that I could at least float, and so we floated together, and she stole glances underwater, and told me I was good at floating.

While we were in the water, I noticed a lumpy patch just below Yang Yang’s ear, similar to the marks on her calf, mottled red and white, as though two rice porridges had been mixed together and had set on her skin. I felt I should say something; there might never be another chance. You are even braver than I thought, I said. I’m OK, she said. As she spoke, she touched the scar behind her ear. The fire burned me here as well. I always covered it with my hair. Now that I’m moving to a new environment, for some reason, I don’t know why, I don’t want to keep hiding and covering it. My mother says I’m crazy. What do you think? I asked her if she was burned anywhere else. She said yes, and showed me more, a little bit further back. She was smiling again. It was the same smile I had seen in the rehearsal room mirror that day. I didn’t know why Yang Yang wanted to tell me these things, just as I didn’t know why she had chosen to get close to me in the first place. Li Wu, she said. Today may be the closest we’ll ever be. We’ll go to middle school, then high school, then university. We may never see each other again. When I closed my eyes, I could feel her in front of me, watching me underwater.

We were still in the shower room as the three hours came to a close, standing under the shower heads, having taken off our swimming costumes, letting the water pour on our heads. Yang Yang was singing. She had been singing for a while, though I couldn’t work out what it was, and didn’t want to ask. Her babbling in the steam of the shower room was like the accompaniment to a dream, deepening the sense of parting. She turned off her shower, picked up my shower gel and shower puff, just like my mother, and put them in my shower bag. Then she squeezed under my shower head, her arm touching mine. Her skin was warm and smooth, whereas mine, even after being in the shower for so long, remained cold. I looked at her face, with water running across it, and saw a smile. I didn’t dare look down at anywhere on her body. We had always showered together, but separately, and surrounded by steam, so that we could hear but not see, and we had never looked at each other properly.

Her eyes seemed to be urging me to look but I didn’t. When you’ve gone, I said, I won’t come swimming here ever again. No matter who asks me to come. Yang Yang smiled. Well, she said, it’ll be closing down soon anyway. I turned off the shower and picked up my shower bag. She followed me out, swaying slightly. Perhaps we’d been standing in the shower room too long and needed some oxygen, because we were both slightly dizzy. We took our clothes out of our lockers and got dressed. She put on a duckling-yellow beanie and matching scarf. When we were both ready, we stood there face to face, and I remembered how we had met a year earlier. The PHS in my pocket kept vibrating, telling me my father was outside; he couldn’t come in and was getting impatient. Yang Yang pulled the scarf down from my mouth. Every time I go swimming, she said. I’ll think of you. When you miss me, just go to the swimming pool. Remember that water is like air. We can soak in the same water, and breathe the same air, and not be so far apart.

I left first. Yang Yang had always stayed on after I left, but I’d never known how long. My father was outside the building, smoking a cigarette. When he saw me, he tossed the butt aside, so cross he tripped over his words. You – you – what’s going on with you?

I didn’t know what was going on with me either. After Yang Yang left, I stopped going to Hai Shan Swimming Pool, and stopped mentioning her to my mother. Yang Yang and Hai Shan Swimming Pool seemed to share the same fate, and when I stopped thinking about them, they disappeared altogether. People no longer asked for the ‘bath house’, they took cabs to ‘opposite the special needs school’. Today, there is a private gynaecology and obstetrics hospital on the site of the old swimming pool, the remote location making it the ideal site for such a hospital. And who now could imagine that dirt road once housed an expanse of blue calm?

The coffee in front of me has gone cold, and as for my memory of Yang Yang and the swimming, it ends here. I did see her again, but that memory belongs not to this story, but to the wretched sequel to another reality, one I would erase if I could. The next time I saw her was in a shopping mall in Harbin. My mother had some errands there, so we went and stayed for a few days. While we were browsing the racks of shoes on the ground floor, Yang Yang walked up to me. I should have been surprised and excited to see her appear so suddenly, but we were both very calm. Li Wu? she said. Yang Yang? I said. We both smiled. You’ve come shopping? she said. You too? I said. She was on her own, likely waiting for someone, because after this she glanced at her watch, and hurriedly said goodbye. My mother had been trying on shoes, and as I watched Yang Yang walk away, she asked, Was that an old classmate? I said it was Yang Yang. She didn’t hear me properly, and didn’t seem to care, asking the salesperson to bring her another pair of shoes since the pair she’d tried were too small and pinched her feet.

Yang Yang was out of shape. It would be hard to convince anyone now that she had once been an excellent swimmer, that she had shone like a princess, a celebrity even, at least in those days when we had dust in our hair and dirt on our faces. I remembered the last thing she said to me when we were in the changing room: if we missed each other in future, we should go for a swim. It didn’t look as though she had swum much since then, and I couldn’t blame her – I never went back in the water either. As I’ve grown older, I’ve found that I wrap myself up tightly, avoid attention, think twice before speaking, and stick to safe environments. I prefer things to be steady and straightforward. My mother used to say that one must master a sport to learn how to breathe, and to discover one’s true self in stressful situations. Moments like that, when you can reveal your true self are rare.

My thoughts now are all jumbled up. If I were to return to the water with Yang Yang, how far would we be able to swim together? Hai Shan Swimming Pool no longer exists, many things no longer exist, but there are still traces of us in the water. With no one else around, the sound of the water in the empty swimming pool has stilled; only the laughter of young girls can be heard, as they talk about dinosaurs and the universe, jealousy and pride, words that float in the water like fish bait, catching one beautiful promise after another. The float slowly drifts away, it isn’t needed any more. That year, we were land and sea to each other. Mountains and rivers may shift, but they are always there.

Artwork by Vera Yijun Zhou, Overshadow, 2020