After hanging up, he squatted there with his head buried in his knees.
He watched quietly, never intervening.
Those arguments, calculations, and tears were things they had to go through. He could not help them, nor did they need his help. They would learn compromise through arguments, generosity through calculations, and strength through tears. He knew all that.
The night deepened. The crowds gradually thinned, and more than half the lights went out.
The stall vendors packed up, the shoppers dispersed, and the drinkers went home. The few people left on the street all walked quickly, eager to return.
Only he was in no hurry.
He walked to the riverbank.
The river was not wide, and its current was slow. Its dark waters reflected the glow of the streetlights along the shore.
He crouched down and reached out a finger, lightly touching the surface. The icy river water washed over his fingertip, like moonlight from a thousand years ago, like the evening breeze at countless farewells, like a warmth long forgotten in the passage of time.
No memories came surging forth.
Those scenes—the river before his old home, the water he had waded through barefoot as a child, the river he often visited in his youth—did not surface.
It was not that he had forgotten them. They were simply too far away, so far that he had to strain to reach for them when he thought of them.
And he did not want to make the effort, so he did not think of them.
No heartache welled up, either. Everything he had lost, missed, and could never get back remained quietly where it belonged, without coming to disturb him.
He did not let out a long sigh. People sighed because something was stifled in their hearts, but there was nothing