Courtyard House: Home Alone

"But I won't ask him, and I won't ask you."

Meng Zhuolin continued, running her fingers through her son's short hair, "I only have one question for you—promise me that after the baby is born, after I can get out of bed and walk, you will tell me in person what you experienced in Beiping. Not the story of that 'ghost,' but the real story that belongs to you."

She released him, cupped his face in her hands, and forced him to look directly into her eyes: "Promise me."

Lin Yifan looked at his mother. There were fine lines at the corners of her eyes and gray hair at her temples, but her eyes were exactly the same as he remembered—gentle, stubborn, and with the clarity unique to intellectuals.

"I promise you," he said.

This is not a lie. He will indeed tell her, part of it. About the cave dwellings of the Taihang Mountains, about the attic of the Xilai Teahouse, about the faces that died before dawn. But not all. Never all.

Some truths are better known to as few people as possible—including himself, who sometimes hopes to forget them.

Meng Zhuolin seemed satisfied. She took her son's hand and walked towards a bedroom at the end of the corridor.

When the door opened, Lin Yifan smelled a faint scent of disinfectant mixed with the bitterness of mugwort and angelica—this was his mother's habit, to maintain a certain medical order even in the most difficult times.

"You'll sleep here," she said, pointing to a narrow bed by the window. "I had a cot borrowed from the hospital; it's softer than the one in your father's study."

Lin Yifan walked to the bedside, his fingers tracing the rough, military-green canvas. This bed reminded him of the cave dwellings in the Taihang Mountains, and of those sleepless nights he had tossed and turned.

"Mom," he turned around, "you just said you're going to give birth next month?"

"Yes, the doctor said it's probably around the middle of the month." Meng Zhuolin sat down on the edge of the bed, her movements a little clumsy. "It's a girl. Your father wanted a daughter, saying sons are too much of a worry."

She smiled, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes smoothing out: "I didn't expect that the one he was worried about would come to me on his own."

Lin Yifan didn't laugh. He looked at his mother's swollen belly and asked, "What will she be called?"

"Not up yet." Meng Zhuolin placed her hand on her abdomen. "Your father wanted to name you 'Anning,' and I hope it will be 'Nianbei'—meaning 'missing Beiping.' What about you? What are your thoughts?"

Lin Yifan remained silent for a moment. The setting sun outside the window was sinking into the river, dyeing the sky a blood-red hue. In the distance, the test sound of an air raid siren rang out, sharp and short, like some kind of ominous omens.

"Let's call him 'Yu'an'," he said. "Yu means 'to give,' and An means 'peace.'"

Meng Zhuolin paused for a moment, then understood the meaning. Her eyes reddened again, but she smiled and nodded: "Okay, Yu'an. Lin Yu'an. It's a good name."

She took her son's hand and made him sit beside her. Their shadows overlapped on the wall, stretched long by the setting sun.

"Yifan," she suddenly said, "what was that 'by the way' you mentioned to your father earlier?"

Lin Yifan's fingers tightened. He looked out the window, where the lights of boats on the river lit up one after another, like a fallen galaxy.

"It's hard to say right now," he said, his voice barely audible. "We'll have to see how things develop. Hopefully, no one will bother us."

In the days that followed, Lin Yifan finally experienced the life a seven-year-old should have. He was woken up by his mother every morning and given a bowl of hot brown sugar and egg sweet rice wine.

In the afternoon, I would sit on the veranda and listen to my mother read "Three Hundred Tang Poems" or watch my father copy medical cases with a brush.

Occasionally, when there was an air raid siren, the family would take shelter in the air-raid shelter in the back mountain. His mother would hold him tightly, while his father would shine a flashlight on a copy of "Compendium of Materia Medica" and whisper to him about the properties and meridians of the herbs.

These ordinary moments, like a thin veil, temporarily obscured the bloodshed and darkness in his memory. He began to forget how to hold his breath in the alley under curfew, how to tell if someone was truly asleep or pretending—or rather, he allowed himself to forget.

Meng Zhuolin's due date is fast approaching. As the date draws near, Lin Qiqing reduces his outings and spends more time at home, using a stethoscope to monitor the heartbeat of the fetus in his wife's womb.

Lin Yifan often stood to the side, watching his father's focused profile.

"The fetal heartbeat is very good."

Lin Qiqing took off his stethoscope and said to his wife, "But your blood pressure is still a bit high. You need to move around less and rest more."

"I know," Meng Zhuolin said with a smile, nudging him. "You're even more long-winded than Granny Wang."

Wang Morong was a midwife hired by the hospital. She was a woman from Sichuan in her forties who spoke loudly but was quick and efficient.

She lived in a side room downstairs and would come up every day to take Meng Zhuolin's blood pressure and listen to the fetal heartbeat. She would also tell some rural tales in her thick Sichuan accent, which made Meng Zhuolin laugh.

Lin Yifan was initially wary of her, as was his habit. But Granny Wang was really not like a spy—she was too noisy, too lively, and always called "Mrs. Lin" "Lin Taitai," which made Lin Qiqing both amused and exasperated.

October 12th, early morning. Lin Yifan was awakened by a suppressed groan. He rolled out of bed, ran barefoot to his mother's room, and bumped into his father rushing out in his pajamas.

"Go find Granny Wang!" Lin Qiqing's voice was tense. "Quickly!"

Lin Yifan ran downstairs and knocked on the door of the side room. Granny Wang, clearly prepared, was neatly dressed and carrying a leather suitcase: "Is she about to give birth?"

"Um."

"Don't panic."

As Wang Mama walked upstairs, she took out various utensils from her box. "Go boil some water, the more the better, and find some clean white cloths."

For the next few hours, Lin Yifan ran back and forth between the kitchen and the hallway. He boiled four kettles of water, found the sterilized gauze his mother had prepared, and, as instructed by Granny Wang, wiped a pair of scissors with alcohol.

The mother's groans could be heard from upstairs from time to time, sometimes high-pitched, sometimes low and hoarse, like a string that had been repeatedly stretched taut.

As dawn broke, a baby's cry pierced the mist. Lin Yifan was standing at the kitchen doorway, carrying the fifth kettle of hot water.

The cries were shrill and angry, carrying the fear and resentment of someone who had just arrived.

He put down the kettle and walked up the stairs step by step. His father stood in the doorway, his white coat stained with blood, his glasses slipped down to the tip of his nose. Seeing his son, he reached out his hand, as if wanting to say something, but in the end only patted his shoulder.

"Go in," he said, his voice hoarse. "Your mother wants to see you."

The room reeked of blood and the scent of mugwort. Meng Zhuolin lay on the cot, her face as pale as paper, yet strangely calm. Granny Wang was swaddling a pink bundle of flesh, her movements as practiced as if she were wrapping a gift.

"It's a daughter!" Granny Wang announced loudly, "Weighing seven pounds and two ounces, very healthy!"

Lin Yifan walked to the bedside, knelt down, and brought his gaze level with his mother's. Meng Zhuolin reached out her hand, her fingers icy cold, yet she gripped his hand tightly.

"Yu'an," she said, her voice as soft as a sigh, "Lin Yu'an. The name you chose."

Granny Wang handed over the swaddled baby. Lin Yifan hesitated for a moment before taking the incredibly light weight. The baby's face was wrinkled, its eyes were tightly closed, but its mouth was still moving unconsciously, as if searching for something.