Do Not Say We Have Nothing

by Madeleine Thien

Shanghai, I’ve come to realize, is not big enough for me and will never satisfy all the questions of my soul. I have split into too many people. I blame the priests, who instilled in me the idea of a better world, and the faith that I was destined for greater things. I blame the Professor, too, who once opened my mind but is now limited by nostalgia for the past.

“There is no point in forgiveness. We need to prosper.”

But he had never known how to write music, to perform music, and yet be silent.

Sparrow saw the young woman staring straight ahead and he recognized in her an ambition, a desire, that he was certain he no longer possessed. Would he ever contain that hunger, that wholeness, again?

He wanted to take Ai-ming’s hand. Sometimes, when Ai-ming bruised her knee on the table or suffered some psychological melancholy, it seemed to lodge inside him as well. Where did the line between parent and child exist? He’d always tried to refrain from pushing her in one direction or the other, ever fearful he might drive her towards the Party, but what if his silence had let her down or failed her in some crucial way? But maybe, he thought, a parent should always have failings, some place into which a child can sink her teeth, because only then can a child come to know herself. He thought about those young students kneeling with their petition. Eventually, they would be arrested. It was inevitable.

“Live your life, Sparrow. It’s the best thing either of us can do for our daughter.” She went out the door, through the alleyway, and into the street.

Arise, slaves, arise! Do not say that we have nothing. We shall be the masters of the world!