Les Interprètes

Haha I knew it! If you guys recall my comment previously on Cheng Jia Yang vs. Zu Zu…who won?

Qiao Fei

I hadn’t dreamed for a long time, that day, I suddenly dreamed of Cheng Jia Yang.

I was translating, simultaneously interpreting. The scene looked like the time he had been interpreting at the summit conference for the ASEM. This time, the person working was me, Cheng Jia Yang quietly sat beside me. I only felt like my whole head was sweating, powerless, I looked back at him and wanted to ask him, Why are you not helping me; in the dream, he seemed like someone who understood people’s hearts and said to me: “Have you let me help you? I have done everything I can for you. You see, right now, my head was blank.” As he said this, he opened his head to show me, and I sat down, my sweat already seeping into my back. It was a really creepy nightmare. I lay on the bed, and couldn’t sleep, hugging my small dog, I restored a little of my peace in my mind.

I woke up early, with puffy eyes, black eye circles; a really ugly appearance.

I wore a dress and went down to buy breakfast, but was startled by Zu Zu Ferlande. He sat on his own motorcycle, and beeped at me.

I walked over, my hand over my eyes.

“Why are you here so early?” I asked.

“I’m not doing much. Let me tell you, the train tickets are a a great price, this Friday we can go. Why are you blocking your eyes?”

“Can’t you just call? How much does it cost? Zu Zu. Wait until I go upstairs and then I’ll give it to you.”

“Why are you blocking your eyes?”

“The sunlight is too strong, my eyes are sore.”

He accompanied me to the restaurant, really an uninvited guest, I even had to bring his portion of breakfast.

I lowered my head to eat breakfast, but I still wasn’t careful, and he noticed my eyes.

“Why are you so serious? Was it from playing with the skateboard that day?”

“Where can I put my eyes? If you’re not careful I’ll throw you into the tea and drown you.”

“So mean.”

I sighed: “I had a nightmare. I dreamed of a person.”

He didn’t eat anymore, and watched me.

“He gave me many things, and he became nothing.”

“So scary.”

“I know.”

“I also had a nightmare.”

“What?” I squinted my eyes at him, guessing he was going to dupe me.

“I dreamed I was at school learning how to write, it was obviously French, but the whole paper was wrong, I looked a bit, and the proctor was actually you.”

I bit my teeth as I laughed saying, “I hope I failed you.”

Zu Zu gave me the train ticket: “This is yours, hold it carefully. I’ll come get you on Friday.”

I looked at the train ticket, 20 euros: “Wait, wait for me to return you the money.”

“Why? It isn’t much money.”

But I knew foreigners were used to AA, and people I was familiar with were also like this, moreover in these circ.u.mstances. 20 euros, I returned him with yuan, and felt it really was a lot.

“No. What logic is this?”

He looked at me: “Fei, I feel very strange.”

“What?”

“I originally felt that girls from China were warm, but now I feel, someone like you, so manipulative, is like a guy.”

He wasn’t the first person to say something like that about me.

Money to me, was something that if you lacked, it would make you helpless, I didn’t want to be looked down on this kind of matter, and thus became more sensitive.

But this wasn’t my fault.

I didn’t speak, Zu Zu watched me, and grabbed a pen from inside his jacket. He wrote some calculations on the napkin, and said: “Then let’s calculate more clearly. What I have and what you have.

You ate cheese fondue at my house, and according to the store, it is 20 euros per person.

I ate stir fried rice at your house, Chinese salad, and beer, according to Chinese restaurants, it should be about 15 euros.

I made you get a puppy, every day he uses about 10 euros per day for meals, right now it’s already been 10 days, so I owe you 100 euros.

This breakfast meal, 2.75 euros, I owe you.

Then, Miss, I owe you 97 euros in total. 25 euros, minus the ticket money, I should give you 77.25 euros.

I thought I even made a friend, so we wouldn’t need to calculate so clearly.”

After Zu Zu said this, he really did take out the money, and take out a few notes and place them in front of me.

Saying it like this, he really did calculate so much money. But now, he still owed me, I didn’t know what to say.

I returned him the money, and the hand with the notes in it was suddenly pressed by him. A boy’s palm was nice and warm; he pressed my hand, and then clenched.

Zu Zu didn’t raise his head to look at me and slowly said: “Someone like you, how would you know how to smoke?”

I used force to throw him off and continued to walk onward.

I ran back to my dormitory, holding my dog, and smoked towards the window.

My heart was in chaos.

The hand I was smoking still had an imprint of the young guy’s warmth, in that time, this warmth made one fill with yearning.

I liked tall guys, with a healthy physique, a clean body full of information. I liked his skin, but in my head, it was another guy’s face.