Lost and Found– Chapter 4
Home Life
In the days that followed, I began to live a life reminiscent of an elderly person. These days could also be known as “Zhanghua said.”
Zhanghua said that I couldn’t handle the work of a deputy manager in my current state, so I took a six-month unpaid leave. All the paperwork was done at home, signed by me and her.
Zhanghua said the reason I got sick was that I was too stressed, so I needed to relax and have a healthier, more regular lifestyle, so I went to bed early and got up early. The rest of my time was spent browsing the internet, catching up on things that I had missed over the past seven years, like news, events, and movies. While I was doing that, I noticed that I didn’t lose all my memories. I still had some memories of the major events that happened over the past few years, and funnily enough, I didn’t remember much of the events that happened a decade ago. I had no problem remembering the chronological order of the events but the exact years in which they occurred were rather hazy.
Zhanghua said that I had to exercise regularly, so I would go for a jog in the nearby park every day at four-thirty in the afternoon and pick up groceries on the way back. I would prepare dinner because Zhanghua said, “You take care of dinner. I don’t know how to cook…”
There were many instances of “Zhanghua said.” From my first impression of her, I could never have imagined she had this side to her. She would often casually mention things in our conversations, as though she suddenly remembered she had something to tell me, but you would soon realize that these seemingly passing remarks would quickly turn into the basis of her strict supervision.
For instance, one day, I was up well past one at night watching a TV series in the living room. I saw her coming out of her room, her arms crossed in front of her chest, leaning against the wall in the hallway, and staring at me with a deadpan face.
I said, “It’ll be over in about twenty minutes.”
She asked, “So what time do you want to get up tomorrow, and what time are you going to bed tomorrow night?”
Normally, this tone would have sparked the rebellious streak in me, but considering how easygoing she usually was, and seeing her clearly upset face, I realized it was for my own good anyway. I touched my nose, switched off the TV, got up, and went back to my room.
The next day, Zhanghua acted like her usual self, but I couldn’t stand it anymore; I felt the need to fight for some basic rights for myself.
I prepared some of her favorite dishes for dinner, making sure she could shake off the bad mood from the day before. Once we had devoured most of the food on the table, her sufficiently buttered up, I said, “Zhanghua, I’m turning twenty-nine this year, right?”
“Didn’t you say you are only twenty-two?” Zhanghua was in a good mood. Her lips were curled. She seemed intrigued by my opening, poking fun at me while she brought a glass of water from the kitchen, and sat back down, waiting to hear what I had to say next.
“Ahem,” I began, “that’s not the point.”
“And the point is?”
“The point is, for a citizen who has reached twenty years of age, both in body and mind, we should respect her freedom of choice.” Seeing her cast me a sidelong glance, I added, “At certain times.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she nodded, adding, “at certain times.” When she said that, I knew my specially prepared dinner had gone to waste.
In time, I came to understand Zhanghua’s personality. Anything she considered unimportant, there was no limit to how much she would give in, but when it came to things she cared about, she would never back down. These days, she seemed to assume the role of my guardian, so my life went on with a cycle of fighting for myself and making compromises.
It wasn’t easy for her either. If I were to put myself in her shoes, I doubted I would act as rationally as her. I wondered what it would feel like to have your partner wake up one day and forget about you. So far, she had made me feel at home. I felt comfortable and at ease around her and free to do anything in front of her. But this closeness was something closer to that of a roommate or best friend. Perhaps that was why I kept giving in to her because I always had the feeling that I owed her something.
Although I was avoiding facing my relationship with Zhanghua, it didn’t mean I wasn’t curious about my past seven years. Quite the opposite, I desperately wanted to restore those memories or, at least, know what had happened. The feeling of having a blank period in my memories was awful. Dr. Liu told me amnesia was rare, and its causes varied widely. Many patients lost their memories because of major trauma, but there were also cases like mine, where they lost their memories overnight for no apparent reason. I believed there could be no wave without wind. So what kind of stress or trauma could make a person rather bury the past?
Zhanghua wasn’t against me trying, but neither did she encourage me to dig into the past. She said—yes, another “Zhanghua said”—that since I would forget the past, it meant that my mind or my body had perceived some kind of threat, and it triggered a response, so what I should do was to relax before easing myself into contact with the people and things from my past and gradually accepting who I used to be. Perhaps one day, my memories would return on their own.
I was with her in the study when she said that, studying my laptop together. Unfortunately, my old laptop from seven years ago still ran on Windows XP, and I had absolutely no idea what password I—seven years later—had chosen for Windows 8. I tried the few usual combinations and failed, then I tried my birthday, ID number, phone number, English name, and online usernames. I even called Zhanghua over and asked for the same information from her and tried again with them. By the end of it, I was one failed attempt away from smashing the laptop.
On top of my previous failed attempts to unlock my smartphone, I couldn’t help but grumble about my past self to her, “What kind of person was I, the me you know? How is she so different from who I know?” Even the login password had become a mystery.
She just smiled without answering and shut the laptop for me, and instead pulled out a few stacks of paper records related to my past from the bookshelf for me to look at—photos, written notes, and official documents. Over the next few days, I went through these things, and with her explanations, I began to piece together my relationships with some friends over the past few years.
Perhaps I had strained my brain trying to dig into my past. I couldn’t sleep that night. I didn’t get up to turn on the light. I was just lying in the dark and turning over more possible password combinations in my head when the bedroom door creaked open softly.
A sliver of dim amber light seeped through the crack. Zhanghua called my name softly a few times. Maybe it was the mood of the moment, I didn’t answer. I kept my eyes shut, pretending to be asleep. Her soft footsteps moved towards the bedside. I tried to slow my breathing, but my heart beat faster on its own. Her footsteps stopped by my bedside, and then I felt a slight dip near my pillow. It seemed she had rested her hand there. I felt her fingers brushing the hair from my forehead. Then after a long while, so long that I began to wonder if she had already left the room, she spoke.
“Ruwei.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, sounding a little nasal. “How could you just forget me?”
“I want to know too. What kind of person was the you I knew?”
“I must’ve failed so terribly that you’d rather forget me.”
Another silence followed, and then she left my room. That night, with emotions churning in me, I couldn’t fall asleep.