From the novel: April Affairs

Below deck, the air was stagnant and close. There were five or six cabins for the crew to rest in — each cramped, like the sliding-door compartments of an old-style train.

A crew member had cleared one out specifically for them. They pushed the door open and stepped inside: upper and lower bunks on either side, with barely enough room to turn around in the passage between them.

Luggage stowed on the upper bunk. Wei Lai and Cen Jin sat on the lower bunks opposite each other. For a moment, there was nothing to say. The scant familiarity built up between them the previous night, in the wake of the crisis, seemed to have dissolved entirely with the coming of daylight.

Perhaps because of the injury, or simply from exhaustion of body and spirit, Cen Jin pulled her hat down — this time without even a word of acknowledgment — and lay down and went straight back to sleep.

Wei Lai piled the bedding and pillow into a heap to use as a backrest and settled in with nothing to do. He hoped he wouldn’t fall asleep; after the smuggling ship, he had never once slept on a boat — he had a feeling that if he dozed off, he would have unpleasant dreams.

He wasn’t sure how long had passed before his eyelids began to grow heavy. Sure enough, what you fear finds you — he was back in the dim hold of the smuggling vessel.

The air was foul — body odor, the smell of excrement and urine, the sour stench of vomit, and the reek of mold, all fermenting together in the sealed space. On the ship’s boards, in the corners, people lay sprawled in every direction — disheveled, half dead. In the dark, you couldn’t tell the men from the women. Disaster levels everything.

He saw himself as a small child, propping himself up on arms as thin as kindling, turning to the father lying beside him: “Why did we have to leave home?”

There had been no warning whatsoever — his father had come to collect him directly from his primary school classroom and brought him straight to the ship. His schoolbag was still there, with his textbooks inside: language arts, mathematics, moral education.

His father never answered. He never answered, not once.

To this day, Wei Lai had never quite worked it out: so many people leave their homes and travel far away, as if clarity and direction can be found in distant places — when in reality, they are simply carrying their confusion to a different location.

The ship pitched and rolled from side to side; the voyage stretched out as if it would never end.

Wei Lai opened his eyes.

For a moment he felt disoriented. Close to his ear was a very faint rustling sound. He planted his hand on the bunk and started to push himself up — then heard Cen Jin speak.

“Don’t move.”

He had no idea when she had woken. She sat cross-legged on the bunk opposite, head lowered, drawing.

Using him as a model?

Wei Lai thought it wasn’t unreasonable to go along with it — after last night, he had developed quite a good impression of her.

He held the posture he had been in when he woke and took stock of it. Not particularly elegant: one arm tucked under his head, neck tilted to one side, one leg dangling off the bunk, the other stretched out beyond the edge.

He tried to console himself: maybe it makes you look like you have a good figure. Like you’re very long.

He had never been a model for a drawing before. Did he have to hold this position the entire time? How long? Half an hour at minimum, probably. They might as well chat a little — just sitting here in silence was stifling.

His forehead, the back of his calf, behind his ear, his chest — all inexplicably beginning to itch.

But this angle was good for observing Cen Jin. She had no expression; the top of the pencil moved above the edge of the paper, shifting with a soft rasping sound, faint light brushing the nape of her neck.

She was still wearing the same necklace.

The necklace must have special significance — who gave it to her? Jiang Min?

Wei Lai frowned: she had gone to Jiang Min’s lecture without any apparent feeling, burned a hole in his shirt, and called it “settling things.”

He couldn’t help himself.

“May I ask you a personal question?”

“Go ahead.”

“You and Jiang Min — what kind of relationship did you have?”

The pencil tip swaying in her hand stilled, barely perceptibly, then everything continued as before: “An ordinary relationship between a man and a woman.”

“What does ordinary… look like?”

“When there’s no disaster, you get along amicably. When disaster strikes, you each fly your separate ways.”

Oh.

In Wei Lai’s mind’s eye, a vast expanse of woodland appeared, countless birds flapping their wings, scattering in every direction in a disorganized flurry.

Reasonable enough — in this day and age, men and women are both restless. Even without disaster looming, each harbors a heart already half-ready to scatter.

“Did he ever wrong you in any way?”

Otherwise — you were the one who betrayed first; on what grounds do you go and burn someone’s shirt?

“Nothing in particular… he talked too much, said things I didn’t care to hear.”

Wei Lai felt something like regret — running his mouth after a breakup wasn’t illegal, but it couldn’t be called a virtue either: “He went around telling people you… betrayed him?”

“Not that either. At his wedding, he said that having survived the ordeal brought on by a former partner, he thanked God for not letting him die for the wrong person.”

She raised her eyes; her gaze slid over the sharp edge of the drawing paper toward him, word by word: “He called me an ‘ordeal.'”

You were his ordeal, though.

The man was a scholar — the gravest hardship of his life was probably failing to secure a full scholarship. He nearly took his own life with pills over your betrayal, almost lost everything, and could no longer protect the Earth — no wait, protect humanity. And yet you won’t allow him to call you his ordeal?

Wei Lai bit his tongue. He did not speak up for Jiang Min. It was clear enough that Cen Jin could go and rescue strangers on a ghost ship and at the same time be entirely narrow-minded — he was afraid that one day his own clothes might also end up with two burned holes in them.

The arm tucked behind his head was going numb. Wei Lai lost patience: “Are you done yet?”

She was putting the finishing touches on it, adding the date as a signature: “Just drawing for fun — I’m not planning to keep it. Do you want to see?”

The drawing paper was passed over. Wei Lai’s gaze fell on the page, and in that instant, he sat bolt upright.

Pencil, sketch style — several endearingly plump little pigs, one leading the way at the front, the others following behind.

Wei Lai held the edge of the paper; if it had been an aluminum can, he would have crushed it long since.

She wasn’t drawing him?

He held himself back and didn’t ask — because he could more or less anticipate her answer: I just told you not to move; I never said I was drawing you.

So he smiled, as restrained and amiable as he could manage: “What made you think of drawing this?”

“As we passed the refrigerated hold, I saw a silhouette of a pig on the cabin door. So I drew it.”

Wei Lai passed the drawing back: “I actually pick up a pencil now and then myself — though not in this sketch style.”

She took it back, too lazy to get up, stretching out her arm to pass the paper and pencil up to the empty upper bunk. Her tone was the perfunctory kind: “We should compare notes sometime.”

He checked the time. They were only halfway through the journey.

They made the most of what was available: eating the crew’s meals, using the lavatory, brewing instant coffee, reading old newspapers, sleeping some more.

At last, a crew member came to knock on the door: in port.

Up on deck, they would finally breathe Stockholm’s air. Cen Jin felt the release of someone who had endured a crossing and finally reached the other side. She got up to pack her bag and began rolling up the loose drawing papers.

Halfway through rolling, something felt off. She slowly flattened them out again.

Her drawing had been added to — someone had drawn a few extra strokes.

— “I actually pick up a pencil now and then myself — though not in this sketch style.”

Honest of him. His style was sparse — just a few lines — but it caught something essential. What he had drawn was unmistakably her.

She was riding on top of the lead pig.

From either side of the pig’s snout extended reins, like the reins of a horse.

One hand gripping the reins hard; the other arm raised high, as if rallying a charge.

Three more fattened pigs followed close behind.

Wei Lai, one bag in each hand, gave them a heave and hauled both up onto his shoulders: “Let’s go.”

As if nothing had happened.

Cen Jin looked up at him. Her hands didn’t stop moving — she folded the drawing paper in half, pressed her index fingernail and thumbnail along the crease from one end to the other.

Folded again, pressed again. The sound of nail scraping paper in that narrow space carried a vaguely ominous weight.

Wei Lai watched her thumbnail and had the feeling she might come up and scratch him.

At last the folding was done — neat and square. She tucked it into the pocket of her jacket.

Said: “Let’s go.”

——

Up on deck, the view opened up suddenly before them.

It was nearing evening. Both cities lay on the shore of the Baltic Sea, and both were in April — but while Helsinki had yet to shed its damp gloom, here the light on the water dazzled and shimmered. This was unusually good fortune; as a rule, Stockholm and Helsinki were brothers in misery — one gray, one cold; one rainy, one snowy. Neither had any advantage over the other.

They disembarked, left the port, and walked along the waterfront for a while. They came across a medieval multi-masted triangular sailing vessel flying flags of all nations — narrow hull, bow raised high, like a long beast’s horn.

The faint scent of coffee drifted over, along with the sound of a violin. This was a café that had taken up residence on the sailing ship.

Wei Lai beckoned to Cen Jin: “Let’s rest a bit — get something to drink.”

This wasn’t his real purpose: when a ship docked on this side, the port authority would receive the notice; Tapio would inform Milu that the “ticket” had been honored. If there were any new developments on the Saudi’s end, it would be time for Milu to call him.

Cen Jin had no objection. Wei Lai felt that, aside from the occasional moments when she acted entirely on her own judgment, she was mostly quite easy to manage — she either slept or trudged along silently behind him.

They sat outside, near the bow. A handsome blond man was playing a Nyckelharpa — its shape like a strange wooden shoe, though the sound it produced was long and drifting — accompaniment to the wind stirring the flags of all nations overhead.

The coffee, salad, and sandwiches had just arrived when Milu’s call came, right on cue.

“Wei — Hu Sha has news.”

Wei Lai showed nothing in his expression. He reached into the salad and picked up a small potato, popping it into his mouth: “What did he say?”

“They’ll only give you a general direction and pull you along step by step — still not saying the specific location. Just that the meeting will be in the Red Sea, international waters.”

Wei Lai frowned — he had no great grasp of geography: “The Red Sea — is that the long, narrow one?”

There seemed to be many countries along its shores.

“That’s the one. We’ve discussed it. You’ll take Miss Cen to the airport. At the entrance to the tourist center at Terminal 5, someone will deliver your tickets. Tonight’s flight.”

Relentless. Wei Lai gave a rueful laugh and rubbed his face.

“Flying where?”

“The Sudanese capital, Khartoum. Long trip, no direct flights — you’ll need a layover.”

Wei Lai was quiet for a moment.

Then, word by word: “Are you messing with me? You think I don’t know Sudan is at war?”

Cen Jin heard him. She corrected him quietly: “To be precise, it’s a localized armed conflict.”

Milu was evidently prepared for this.

“Wei, listen to me. First — a country is a very large thing. The south can be fighting while the north is singing. Sudan had a civil war for twenty-two years, but it’s essentially over now. Khartoum is the capital — it’s still safe.”

“Second — look at the map. Sudan has a long border running along the Red Sea, and it’s in the middle section of the sea — you can go up or down from there. Getting to international waters is very convenient.”

“Third — and this is the most important part — Ke Ke Shu has been there recently, guarding senior government and military officials. He’ll be at the airport to pick you up. He’ll take care of everything for you there. Ke Ke Shu!”

Wei Lai paused.

He repeated in a low voice: “Ke Ke Shu?”

That fellow who hated moles on people’s faces anywhere between the hairline and the navel, who cared about designer labels on his clothes, who wore his hair in a full head of tiny braids, and whom he hadn’t seen in quite a while — Ke Ke Shu.

Milu picked up on the shift in his tone: “Right? I told you so — I said you could see Ke Ke Shu there…”

Wei Lai laughed. He beckoned the server over to add a glass of dark beer to the order.

Milu said something on the other end; he hadn’t caught it: “What?”

“Wei! I was asking — how are you and that ‘deflated of all spirit’ Miss Cen getting along?”