Chapter 6 — The Password Without Me

My older sister sat on the sofa, eating a mandarin orange and peeling it segment by segment while her eyes remained fixed on the television screen. Finally, she sent another message.

"Yesterday, Father checked the router administration page. He saw that the last time your phone connected to the WiFi was at eleven o'clock at night on January eleventh. The day before you left."

"He looked at that page for a very long time, and said nothing."

Eleven o'clock at night on January eleventh. I remembered. That day, after locking my suitcase, I connected to the home WiFi for the last time to download all the documents I needed offline. No one had told me that password. I had figured it out myself through trial and error. They did not know I knew the password. Nor did they know that the very next day I would be gone. I exited the chat thread without replying. It was not out of cruelty. It was simply because any response I gave would be wrong. Rain was drumming against the windowpane. I took a deep breath, walked into the shared kitchen, and asked my roommate if she needed help slicing onions. Onions sting the eyes. If tears fall, let them fall. At least there was a valid reason.

Polar night arrived in late November. It did not plunge into darkness all at once; rather, each day shed a little less light, much like someone slowly turning down a dimmer knob. By mid-December, the sun merely grazed the horizon before dipping below it. After that, even that faint arc vanished entirely. I had imagined I would find it terribly difficult to endure. Yet I did not. Perhaps it was because the darkness here was so universal. It was not the kind of heavy gloom where "every other house is brilliantly lit while only yours is overlooked." Everyone was plunged into the exact same shroud of night. The streetlamps cast a warm golden glow, the library radiators hummed with steady heat, and the entire city wrapped itself in thick scarves to hibernate through the winter. Every morning at half past six, my roommate Maja brewed coffee, always preparing two cups. She would set one right outside my bedroom door, tap twice against the wood, and walk away. There was no need for superfluous conversation. That quiet solitude felt remarkably comforting. It was December nineteenth. My birthday. I had never mentioned it to a single soul. Returning from campus that afternoon and pushing open the door to the dormitory, I found a small cupcake waiting on the dining table. It was tiny, the frosting piped somewhat crookedly, with a single slender candle stuck into the top. Beside it lay a sticky note, Maja's handwriting characteristically careless:

"Gratulerer med dagen, Yidu."

Happy birthday, Yidu. She poked her head out from her room. "I saw your date of birth in the course registration system. You don't mind, do you?"

"I don't mind."

I lit the candle, making no wish. I simply watched the tiny, flickering flame. This was the first time since turning eighteen that anyone had ever celebrated my birthday. The person who did had known me for less than two months, yet she had taken the trouble to look up my birth date. The cupcake was lemon-flavored, slightly tart, but sweet. That night, lying in bed and scrolling through my phone, I saw a message from my mother. The timestamp read three-seven in the morning, Beijing time. She had stayed awake until three without sleeping, or perhaps intentionally woken up just to type those words. The message was long. There were no paragraph breaks, flowing forth as if poured out in a single breath.

"Yidu, Mother doesn't know where to begin. It was only after you left that I realized how many things you had managed to accomplish. I saw that certificate, and I saw that list as well. I cannot fathom how you handled all of that entirely on your own. I thought for a very long time, but I could not recall a single moment when I ever asked what you were busy with. Perhaps I truly never did. Your father is the same. We did not do it intentionally, but I know that saying so is useless. You never threw tantrums or caused a fuss since you were little, so I genuinely thought you needed nothing at all. Now I understand: it was not that you needed nothing, but that you stopped speaking. It was us who made you stop speaking. I do not know whether I should apologize to you or what I ought to do, but I simply want you to know that I see it now. It is late, but I see it. Take good care of yourself."

I read it twice. Three times. Outside the window lay the polar night, a pure, unadulterated black. I did not reply. It was not out of stubborn resentment. Rather, I needed time. I had waited far too long for these words, so long that by the time they finally arrived, I discovered the wounds had already healed over. They had left behind scars that would ache dully if pressed, but they would no longer bleed. I turned my phone face down beside my pillow, turned on my side, and pulled the blanket over my shoulder. There were classes tomorrow. In the midst of the polar night, the days continued to pass as they always did. There was no rush. For the very first time, time belonged entirely to myself.

In August of my second year, Bergen was raining again. It always rained here. With more than two hundred rainy days a year, after living here long enough, one stops bothering with an umbrella altogether. I wrapped myself in a windbreaker as I walked back to the dormitory from the lecture hall, passing the fish market by the harbor. The vendor called out to me:

"Hello, Yidu."

I raised a hand in greeting. Every Thursday, he set aside a mackerel for me; because I had been buying from him for half a year, he had grown to remember me. I had carved out my own steady rhythm of life here. On Tuesdays, I sat in on a maritime law lecture. On Thursdays, I went to my advisor's laboratory to process data. On weekends, Maja and I would take the ferry across to the opposite island for a stroll. Life was not overwhelmingly dramatic, but every single day belonged to me. My transcript was filled with straight A's. The professors knew my name. During discussion seminars, people would turn around and wait for me to speak. I was learning Norwegian, and I could manage simple conversations with the cafe staff. I had gained four pounds. Maja called it "normal happiness weight." My communication with my family had not been severed.