by Sun-Chio Fong 方新疇
As the south-bound express train slowly departed from Tainan station, Li Zigeng glanced at his watch. It was 11:53 a.m., the train was leaving on time. At the same time, he caught a glimpse of the date on the watch. Today was August 8, Father’s Day.[1] Zigeng did not know who first thought of making today Father’s Day. It was not a bad idea, but he himself, anyway, had not much to do with it since both his parents had passed away long ago. He had been all alone since he was a child, and until now he was still single without even a girlfriend.
He was running an errand today, but he knew that he would have nothing to do after that was finished and would only spend the night in a motel by himself. Nevertheless, he had already gotten accustomed to this kind of life. Supporting himself by doing part-time jobs, he had studied animal husbandry in college and his best friends were oxen and cows. Therefore, it was natural for him to get a job in a dairy product company after graduation. Once every week he would leave for Kaoshiung by train, and then transfer to Pingtung to supervise the production of grass and milk in the pastures. In the course of time, he had come to enjoy listening to classical music on board the train.
He took the Walkman out of his suitcase, plugged in the earphone, and stuck in a tape which he had copied from his records. He then noticed that a girl dressed in green sitting by his side was doing exactly the same thing he was and this warranted a little more attention. Although it was common for people on the train to kill time by listening to a Walkman, it was rather rare for two strangers to sit together and listen to classical music at the same time. They both grinned, sensing that they were both of the same mind.
Zigeng had been listening to the music for two or three minutes, and then noticed that the girl next to him was still adjusting her Walkman. She finally took the earphone off and seemed to give up listening.
“Is there anything wrong? Maybe I can fix it.” He took off his earphone and asked.
“I forgot to turn it off last time, the batteries are dead.” She answered with disappointment.
Zigeng searched his suitcase but did not find any spare batteries. However, he came up with an idea.
“I have a one-to-two plug with me, you can plug your earphone into my Walkman and we can listen to the same tape.” Seeing that she was still hesitating, he added, “We could listen to your tape.”
The girl smiled cheerfully, “I’m tired of my tape anyway, let’s use yours.”
Zigeng was instantly attracted by her smile which was mature but still a little bit childish — it seemed to fill the car with sunshine.
They introduced each other as the tape was being rewound. The girl’s name was Yun June. She worked in a textile firm as a pattern designer.
They then both plugged the earphones into his Walkman and began to enjoy the music. Through that slender connection, they were not only listening to the music but also to the melodies of each other’s heart. Other passengers on the train were either talking, reading, or sleeping. No one paid any special attention to them.
Among all the instruments in the world, none is able to express kindness and love as well as the cello. If the cello concerto by Dvorak were the great ocean, then the bow of cellist Rostropovich might well be the sea bird flying freely among the waves.
The concerto finished, and the two returned once more to the real world. June with tears in her eyes said, “Why didn’t anyone ever tell me that the cello concerto could be so wonderful!”
“Brahms said exactly the same thing.” Zigeng muttered.
At that moment, they both realized that the train had begun to slow down. A minute later, the attendant announced that they had arrived in Kaoshiung and all the passengers stood up to leave.
June took a look at her watch and said, “It’s twelve twenty-five, the train is almost on time.”
But Zigeng shook his head, “No, it’s late at least ten minutes. Your watch must be slow because…” He stopped speaking abruptly and looked at his own watch. It clearly read 12:25.
June picked up her bag and said, “Let’s get off.”
Zigeng sat there for a while motionless. Finally, he looked up at June and said, “But Dvorak’s cello concerto is at least thirty-nine minutes long. The train left Tainan station at seven to twelve, and we started listening to it from the very beginning at about twelve o’clock.”
“That’s impossible! Maybe your Walkman ran a little faster, or you didn’t copy it all the way through? Are you sure that concerto takes thirty-nine minutes?”
Zigeng nodded, “Yes, I have many different versions of that concerto in my collections, and I’m very familiar with all of them. If there had been some part missing or if the Walkman had run faster, I would have noticed it immediately. The fastest is Casal’s. His takes about thirty-five minutes. Yo-Yo Ma’s performance is the most lyrical and it takes forty-two and a half minutes. The one we just listened to was performed by Rostropovich and the Prague Symphony Orchestra. It takes thirty-nine and a half minutes, and that’s why I copied the third movement on the reverse side of this tape.”
June was confused and was about to ask him if he was kidding. But Zigeng seemed earnest, and his serious expression made her change her mind.
Now there was only one possibility left, that is, both of their watches had lost about twelve minutes. After they got off the train at the polite urging of the attendant, they went to the station to check the correct time but found no discrepancy. To make sure, they then went to the information center to verify the schedule. The train had left Tainan at exactly 11:53, it had taken thirty minutes for it to reach Kaoshiung, and it had been delayed by only about one minute.
***
For several months afterwards, they shared this mystery; and it became their custom to check the time with each other whenever they met. They even deliberately took the identical train and listened to the same concerto several times, but nothing unusual happened during the next few months. The music always lasted over than thirty-nine minutes more, and unless the train was delayed, it never finished before the train arrived in Kaoshiung.
Based on those crazy theories he learned from reading science fictions, Zigeng made a conjecture that there must have been some deformation of the space-time continuum in the car on that particular date — August 8 — and that was why a thirty-nine-minute concerto took less than thirty minutes. Therefore, he concluded that if they took the same train next year on August 8, the same miracle might happen once again.
They patiently waited for that special day, and now it had finally come. They both took the day off, boarded the 11:53 train at Tainan station, and even sat in the same car and in the same seats. As the train started moving, they began to listen to the same cello concerto with great expectation. Nevertheless, the train made it to Kaoshiung when the third movement was not yet halfway through. They were both very disappointed.
Then it suddenly occurred to June, “Maybe it’s the date according to the lunar calendar instead of the solar?” Zigeng pulled out his pocket diary and found the lunar correspondence to August 8 of last year, then quietly gave the diary to June. June stared at the calendar with great surprise and did not say a word until about a minute later.
“We are eighteen days early.” She said tenderly.
* * *
It was Sunday August 26, they performed the same experiment once again at exactly the same time. The melodies of the cello flew across space, like meteors moving across the bright Galaxy. June and Zigeng held each other’s hands tightly, silently enjoying this great miracle of the Universe.
The train did not reach Kaoshiung until the concerto had finished for some time, and the train had not been delayed.
They got off the train, walked out onto the platform just like the other passengers, and then realized that they had not made any other plans for that day’s trip. Zigeng looked at the crowd in the street and slowly open his mouth and said, “I’ve got an idea, I’ll go over to that bookstore across the street to find a book on stargazing. In the meantime, you go back to the station to buy two tickets for Chiayi and two bag lunches. We’ll take the train to Chiayi and transfer to Mt. Ali. I’d like to be sure that the Herd Boy and the Weaver Girl will really be in conjunction tonight.”[2]
June put her hand in Zigeng’s strong arm and said, “I’ve got a better idea, we can buy the tickets together, then we can go to the bookstore together, and then we can have lunch together. Afterwards we can take the train to Mt. Ali together. The stars will wait for us, since we already own all the time in the Universe.”
* * *
[1] Father’s Day in Taiwan falls on August 8 each year because the pronunciation of that date in Mandarin Chinese resembles that of the word for “papa”. [2] The Herd Boy and Weaver Girl (the stars Altair and Vega) are star-crossed lovers of Chinese folklore that are allowed to reunite once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. That date is equivalent to Valentine’s Day in Taiwan.