I Ran Away With His Child novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Minutes
Ran takes the minutes while Mu Qing sets three terms; Xu agrees to everything, and a man on Ningbo plates photographs the shop door.
When the lunch crowd thinned, Mu Qing turned the sign on the door to Closed and pulled the shutter halfway down.
The last diners had gone.
Fan Yue stood at the till with a dishcloth in her fist, looking from the man at table four to her boss and back.
"Go and buy vinegar," Mu Qing told her.
"We have vinegar."
"Buy more."
She went, slowly, and took the man in glasses with her by the sleeve.
He was Xu's secretary, he said, and he would wait in the car, and he looked at his employer once before he went.
Xu Zhengyuan had not moved from his chair.
He sat with both hands flat on the table, on either side of the empty bowl, and touched nothing.
Ran pulled out the chair across from him and climbed onto it.
"I'm taking the minutes," Ran announced.
"No, you're not," said Mu Qing.
"Papa, you get angry and then you forget what you said," said Ran.
"Last time you told Fan Yue she could have Thursday off. Then you said you hadn't."
"I said she could have Friday," said Mu Qing.
"You said Thursday. It's in my book."
Ran opened the exercise book to a clean page, uncapped a pen, and wrote the date in careful square numbers.
Xu watched the pen move.
He had not looked away from the child once since the word arithmetic.
"Is he mine?" he asked Mu Qing.
It was a bad question.
It was an honest one, and Mu Qing took a moment before he answered it.
"You counted," said Mu Qing.
"I want to hear you say it."
"He's yours," said Mu Qing.
He sat down at the end of the table, between them, with the cloth over his shoulder.
"He is also mine. I have paid for every day of him, and you haven't paid for any."
"I didn't know."
"That is what you say," said Mu Qing.
Xu's head came up at once.
Mu Qing looked away, at the window and the rain running down the glass.
"Terms," he said. "Write this down, Ran."
"Term one," said Ran, with the pen ready.
"He comes on Sundays. Here, in the shop, and I am in the room."
"Sundays," Xu repeated. "Agreed."
"You don't take him out. You don't take him to Ningbo. You don't take him to a restaurant with cloth napkins."
"Agreed," said Xu.
"Term two. No money. Nothing bought, nothing paid, nothing arranged by your people. If you bring a gift, it costs twenty yuan or less."
Xu opened his mouth and closed it again.
"Agreed," he said.
Ran wrote it down, and then looked up.
"Is a train set under twenty yuan?" he asked.
"No," said Mu Qing.
"Is a book?"
"A thin one," said Mu Qing.
"Thin," said Ran, writing. "Good."
Xu made a sound that was almost a laugh, and put his hand over his mouth.
When he took it away his face was fixed and formal again.
Mu Qing felt something in his own chest give way a very little, and he put a stop to it.
"Term three," he said. "You do not ask me why I left."
The shop was quiet.
Rain tapped on the shutter.
Xu looked at him for a long time.
"That's a hard one," he said.
"Those are the terms."
"I'll try."
"You'll do it," said Mu Qing.
"I will do it," said Xu. "I won't say that I'm not going to want to."
Ran pulled the book closer.
"Minutes," he read aloud, in a small flat clerk's voice.
"Present, Mu Qing, Mu Ran, Uncle Xu. Three terms. Uncle Xu agreed to everything very fast."
"That doesn't go in," said Mu Qing.
"It's what happened," said Ran.
Xu stood up.
He was taller than Mu Qing remembered, or the shop was smaller.
He took a thin leather wallet from his coat, looked at it, and put it back.
"What does the Sunday visit cost?" he asked.
"Nothing."
"Then I'll pay for the bowl. Eight yuan."
Mu Qing took the coin from his hand without touching his fingers, and put it in his apron pocket.
"Sunday," said Mu Qing. "After the morning rush. Not before."
"Sunday," said Xu.
He took the pen from Ran, turned to the last page, and wrote eleven digits in a small hard hand.
"In case," he said.
Mu Qing opened his mouth to object.
"It's only a number, Papa," said Ran, and blotted it with his thumb.
Xu looked at Ran.
He did not try to touch him, and Mu Qing noticed that, and wished he had not noticed.
"Goodbye, Ran," said Xu.
"Goodbye, Uncle Xu," said Ran, and then, because he was thorough, "Mind the step. It's wet."
Xu went out through the half-open shutter, ducking his head.
Mu Qing stood in the empty shop and listened to his shoes on the wet flagstones.
They stopped.
They did not go on to the car.
Mu Qing went to the window.
The secretary was standing by a black sedan at the end of the lane with his phone held up.
His employer stood beside him, not moving.
They were both looking the other way, at a grey car parked across from the shop door.
A man in the grey car was holding a camera against the window.
He took one picture of the Mu's Plain Noodles sign.
He took another of the shutter, and the small boy's face just behind the glass.
Then he started the engine and drove off.
The secretary said something to Xu, and Xu turned his head, slowly, and read the plate.
Mu Qing read it too.
It began with the character for Zhejiang, and then a B.
It was a Ningbo plate.
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