The Restaurant Owner's Wife/ Part II

Part 1

It’s alright, she supposes. Not so different from the last, or the one before that.

All the ones before.

All cities look the same these days: glass, neon, brown air congealing, concealing.

She’d suggested moving further west, but he’d only laughed, and the next day, they’d been standing in front of the new place- the new new place. 

The tiles may have once been white, she imagines, as also the walls. She will not speculate about the narrow stairs. They don’t creak, which is probably the most positive sign about this whole enterprise. The single long window in the kitchen lets in the shuffling of feet and wheels from the narrow alley beneath, a child's wailing. 

It needs a little work, he says, running his finger along the wall.

He wipes it on his trousers, leaving a streak of black that she’ll have to figure out how to get rid of.

 “Méi huā”, he murmurs. “You will like it.”

She wrenches the shutter of the window so that it’s fully open, and a blast of cold air follows.

She breathes in deep: stale oil, cigarette smoke, damp, and somewhere beneath it, so far beneath, that only she can find it, because she knows where to look for it, the first thaw of spring.

“Yě xǔ”