Kinder Than Solitude Read Online Free PDF

making requests; not the neighbors, the five other families who had all come out to the courtyard upon her arrival, talking to her as though they had known her forever, a man teasing her about her accordion, which seemed too big for her narrow shoulders, a woman disapproving of her outfit because it would give her a heat rash in this humid weather; not the boy Boyang or the girl Moran, both of whom were quiet in front of their seniors, but who, Ruyu knew from the looks the two exchanged, had more to say to each other; and not Shaoai, who, queenly in her impatience toward the fuss the neighbors made over the newcomer, had left the courtyard before they had finished welcoming Ruyu.
    Please make the time I have to spend with these strangers go fast so that I can come to you soon. She was about to finish the conversation, as usual, with an apology—always she asked too much of him while offering nothing in return—when the front door opened and then banged shut; the metal bell she had seen hanging from the door frame jingled and was hushed right away by someone’s hand. Aunt said something, and then Shaoai, who must have been the one who’d come into the house, replied with some sort of retort, though both talked in low voices, and Ruyu could not hear their exchanges. She looked through the mosquito netting at the curtain that separated the bedroom from the living room—a white floral print on blue cotton fabric—and at the light from the living room creeping into the bedroom from underneath the curtain.
    The house, more than a hundred years old, had been built for traditional family life, the center of the house being the living room, the entries between the living room and the bedrooms open, with no doors. The smallest bedroom, no larger than a cubicle and located to the right of the main entrance, was the entire world occupied byGrandpa—Uncle’s father, who had been bedridden for the last five years after a series of strokes. Earlier in the evening, when Aunt had shown Ruyu around the house, she’d raised the curtain quickly for Ruyu to catch a glimpse of the old man lying under a thin, gray blanket, the only life left in his gaunt face a pair of dull eyes that rolled toward Ruyu. He had said something incomprehensible, and Aunt had replied in a loud yet not unkind voice that there was nothing for him to worry about. They were sorry they could not offer Ruyu her own bedroom, Aunt said, and then pointed to the curtain that hid Grandpa and added in a low voice: “Who knows. This room could be vacant any day.”
    The bedroom Ruyu was to share with Shaoai was the biggest in the house and used to belong to Uncle and Aunt. Aunt apologized for not having had time to make many changes, besides installing a new student’s desk in the corner of the room. The other bedroom—Shaoai’s old bedroom—was not large enough to accommodate the desk, so it wouldn’t do, Aunt explained, since Ruyu needed her own quiet corner to study. Ruyu mumbled something halfway between an apology and an acknowledgment, though Aunt, flicking dust off the shade of the desk lamp—new also, bought on sale with the desk, she said—did not seem to hear. Ruyu wondered if her grandaunts had considered how their plan for her would change other people’s lives; if they had known anything, they had not told her, and it perplexed her that a small person like herself could cause so much inconvenience. At dinnertime, Shaoai had scoffed when Aunt reminded her to show Ruyu how to clip the mosquito netting, saying that even a child could do that, to which Aunt had replied in an appeasing tone that she just wanted to make sure Ruyu felt informed about her new home. Uncle, reticent, with a sad smile on his face, had come to the dinner table in a threadbare undershirt, but had hurried back to the bedroom when Aunt had frowned at him, and returned in a neatly buttoned shirt. From the expectant looks on Aunt’s and Uncle’s faces, Ruyu knew that the dinner had