Chapter 32: Sunday

The number 14 bus ran along the river every Sunday at two.

Xiao Chen had never taken it.

He sat by the window with the duck thermos in his lap, and Shen Yan sat beside him, swinging one foot, with a rolled newspaper under his arm.

"It's slow," Xiao Chen said.

"It's the slowest thing in the city."

"It stops everywhere."

"That's why I like it." Shen Yan leaned his head on his shoulder. "You had me on it for six months. Now I'm showing you."

Xiao Chen watched the river go by.

Two months ago he would have told the driver a faster route.

Now he let the bus take as long as it needed.

The ward on the sixth floor smelled the same.

It was disinfectant and warm dust, and the television at the end of the corridor was showing a game show with the sound off.

The nurse at the desk looked up and put her pen down.

"Mr. Xiao," she said. "Mr. Shen."

"Mr. Xiao and Mr. Shen," said Shen Yan, and showed her his left hand.

She stared at the ring, then at the pink mark on Xiao Chen's neck, and her face broke into a grin.

"I knew it. I told the night staff. Didn't I tell them? A thin boy who sits an hour, never gives his name, leaves a duck."

"You said I was a runner," Xiao Chen said.

"I was wrong," said the nurse, "and I have never been so glad."

She walked them down the corridor to bed six.

A man lay in it, grey and old, with his eyes shut and a drip in his arm.

Nobody had left flowers on the table.

"Nine weeks," the nurse said quietly. "No family has come. He was found on the quay."

Shen Yan looked at the empty chair.

It had a worn cushion, a little flat in the middle.

"May I?" he asked.

"He'd like the company. Everyone does."

Shen Yan sat down.

He unrolled the newspaper and smoothed it flat on his knee.

"Good afternoon," he said to the sleeping man. "I'm Yan. It's Sunday, so I'll read you the paper, and then I'll tell you about my week."

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