Ball Lightning

“Really? Come over for dinner with my family.”

The invitation caught me by surprise, since Lin Yun had always avoided talking about her family. Even Jiang Xingchen hadn’t mentioned anything about it.

As I left the airport, I ran into Zhao Yu. He had resigned from the Mount Tai Meteorology Station and had some things he wanted to do. He had lots of ideas, things like installing lightning attractors on large swaths of farmland to harness it, in order to produce fertilizer or repair the polar ozone holes. He even brought up lightning weapons, which Lin Yun had discussed with him on Mount Tai, but he was of the opinion that they were unlikely to work.

“You’re done with taking it easy?” I asked.

“With the current state of things, everyone’s nervous, and there’s not much fun in taking it easy.”

Zhao Yu was a smart man, and if he put in the work, he could accomplish many things. Looking at him, I realized that sometimes a philosophy of life might be set in stone, unchanging throughout one’s life, but at other times it could be incredibly weak. The direction of a man or woman’s life might be determined by the era they found themselves in. It’s impossible for someone to distance themselves very far from the times they live in.

Before we parted, Zhao Yu remembered something: “I paid a visit to school recently, and I saw Zhang Bin.”

“Oh?”

“As soon as he saw me, he asked about you. He has leukemia. It’s incurable. I suspect it’s the result of long-term emotional stress.”

As I watched him leave, the words of the Siberian called Levalenkov echoed in my mind:

Sometimes you fly all the way only to discover it would have been better to have fallen halfway.

A fear of the unknown future seized hold of me once again.

* * *

I was met at the airport not by Lin Yun but a second lieutenant driving a car common to senior officials.

“Dr. Chen, Major Lin sent me to pick you up,” he said after saluting. Then he politely asked me to get into the Red Flag. Along the way, he concentrated on driving, saying nothing. We eventually entered a guarded compound that contained a neat row of residential buildings, all 1950s-style buildings with broad eaves—the sort of building that if you were asked to say the first word that came to mind, it would no doubt be “father.” We passed several rows of poplars and parked at the base of a small two-story building in the same style.

The second lieutenant opened the car door for me and said, “They’re both at home. If you please.” Then he saluted, and watched me as I walked up the steps.

Lin Yun came out the door to greet me. She looked a little more haggard than before, evidently tired from recent work. The change felt sudden, and I realized that in the time we had been apart, I had kept a place in my heart for her, where she lived in her former appearance.

Inside, Lin Yun’s father was sitting on a sofa, reading a newspaper. When he saw me come in, he stood up and shook my hand. He was thin but strong, and his hand was powerful.

“So you’re the academic who’s studying lightning? Greetings! Xiao Yun has talked about you often. Her other friends are mostly from the army, but I say that’s not a good thing. Soldiers shouldn’t limit themselves to a small circle. Otherwise, in times like these, their thinking will calcify.” He turned to Lin Yun, and said, “Auntie Zhang’s probably swamped. Why don’t I whip up a couple of my specialties for Dr. Chen?” Then he said, “It wasn’t just Xiao Yun who invited you today. I did as well. We’ll talk in a bit.”

“Don’t use too much hot pepper, Dad,” she called after him as he went off.

I watched him until he disappeared. We’d met for less than a minute, and already I sensed in him some ineffable dignity which, combined with his amiable approachability, lent him a very unusual demeanor.

All I knew about Lin Yun’s father was that he was in the military, possibly a general. I had caught a sense of his job from scraps of conversation from the people around her, but military ranks weren’t my forte and I couldn’t make a good guess, so even now it was completely unknown. But her father’s easy manner relaxed me. Sitting on the sofa, I smoked the cigarette Lin Yun passed me and surveyed the living room. It was simply furnished, with very little decoration. An entire wall was practically covered by large maps of China and the world. A large desk caught my eye—definitely a working desk—with two telephones, one red and one white, as well as what appeared to be files. The living room was apparently also an office. My eye finally rested upon a clothes rack set up beside the door on which hung a military uniform; from my vantage point I could see one of the epaulets. I took a closer look, and then dropped my cigarette.

There were three stars on the epaulet.

I hastily snatched up the cigarette and put it out in an ashtray, and then set my hands on my knees, like a schoolboy sitting at attention.