Les Interprètes

Qiao Fei continued

“Who let you come so late?” I asked, and began to look around everywhere. Looking for anything that I could make for him to eat.

“Because of this.”

He actually took a small white dog from his chest. So small and so fat, it rolled out from his embrace, dropping onto my bed, looking around everywhere, giving a whining sound.

I hugged that dog in my embrace, and sat on the mat: “What is this for? Such a big surprise.”

“If you own a dog, your days will be happier.”

“Thanks, I love dogs.”

“This is a dog that was just born, I got him from a friend’s house in the outskirts, give him a name.”

I thought about it, and looked at him. The small dog’s expression was just as bright as Zu Zu’s : “Ah, I’ve got it.”

“What?”

“We can call it Zu Zu, all right?”

The boy really thought about it: “All right, he’s Italian-American anyways.”

I wanted to laugh, like I was forcibly stifling my internal injuries.

“You’re probably hungry, right?” I said.

He nodded.

“There aren’t anymore dumplings. I also don’t have any good milk fondues to welcome you with.”

“Oh.”

I’ll make you some fried rice. Guangdong style fried rice, ok?”

“That sounds great.”

I used the remaining rice, eggs and green onions to make another plate of fried rice fo Zu Zu. I crushed the cucumbers again. It didn’t pass a moment before he ate it all up: “So delicious. Fei, thank you.”

“What are you talking about.” I hugged the small dog, Zu Zu, and said, “I haven’t thanked you yet.”

“I heard Auld say, you want to go to Africa? To go as a protector and a peacekeeper?”

“Yeah. I’ve already applied. Next spring, I will know the results.”

“Why?”

“What about you? Why are you learning interpretation?”

“To make money, and give some to my parents to spend.”

Zu Zu nodded his head: “When I was little, I saw a picture, a small African girl was so skinny that she was just skin and bones, lying on the ground, like she was about to die. An eagle was ready to eat her back.”

I also saw this picture on “Black Lens” before. At the time, my heart had been happy to have been born in China, not in the black Africa.

The living hell where you couldn’t even hide from, but the prosperous and happy French boy said, he wanted to there to work.

“Where are you going, what can you do?”

“Doing something is better than not doing anything at all.”

And he was even so confident, speaking so plausibly.

He looked at me, I looked at him, the boy suddenly reached out his hand to touch my hair: “Your hair is really great.”

“Oh, this isn’t much, when I wake up every morning, I will lick it a bit, and use some saliva to moisten it.”

He laughed: “Like a dog?”

“Like Zu Zu.” I pointed at the little dog in my embrace.

It was late, he should probably return now.

I said: “How are you going to return? The buses are gone.”

“No problem. I’ll run home. Like that night.”

“That far?”

From my university city to the Ferlande’s pizza shop, you had to go through the whole city. Even though the city wasn’t big, it was a pretty big distance in itself.

“I was just kidding.” Zu Zu gave a very dismissive look, “I represented Montepellier in participating in the Tour De France last year, what does this count as? Next time I will show you my photos from the Alps mountains.”

The boy said this as he jumped up and down to warm up: “I am going to leave.”

I didn’t have anything to say, the tall Zu Zu pressed my shoulder and kissed my face,”Good night, good bye.”

As he said this, he ran outside.

He ran downstairs, and gave a loud whistle, shouting the gendamarie command, and left, running away.

I didn’t know if it was the classmate from that room, but I heard a scream: “Who is that pain in the ass? I just ate my medicine and was about to sleep!”