上海弄堂（二）

English (for the teacher)

He walked into a little shop at the mouth of the first lane and asked the man selling breakfast, “Excuse me, is there a tailor’s shop around here?”

The man said something in Shanghainese first, saw that he didn’t understand, and switched to Mandarin: “A tailor’s? Gone long ago! Who has clothes made these days? Everyone buys them online.”

Yuan tried the second lane, then the third. He saw a coffee shop, a flower shop, and lots of young people taking photos on their phones. In one lane nobody lived in the houses any more, and all the doors were shut. The whole afternoon went by; he walked down nine lanes, his feet so cold they didn’t feel like his own, and he didn’t find a single tailor’s shop.

A little after four, the sun went down and everyone began taking their washing in. Yuan stood at the mouth of the tenth lane, ready to go back to his hotel.

Just then, he heard a sound. Very soft, very clear: once, and then again. It was the sound of scissors.

The sound came from the far end of the lane. There was a tiny shop there, its door even smaller than the others; the characters over the door had worn away, and only the last two could still be read: Tailor. Yellow lamplight shone in the window.

Yuan pushed the door open.

The shop was tiny; with a big table in it, it was nearly full. Lots of clothes hung on the walls, some finished, some only half made. Beside the table stood a very old man, not tall, his hair completely white, wearing very thick glasses. A young woman stood in front of him in a red qipao that wasn’t finished yet.

“Master Tao, can’t you go a bit faster?” the young woman said. “I’m getting married next month, and you’ve already measured me three times.”

The old man didn’t answer. He picked up his ruler and measured her once more, then bent his head and wrote a number on a piece of paper. He wrote very slowly and very carefully.

“Sit.” He didn’t look at Yuan; he said just that one word, then: “Wait a moment.”

So Yuan sat on the little chair by the door and waited. He waited a whole hour. The shop was much warmer than outside, and feeling slowly came back into Yuan’s hands. When the young woman left, she was still saying “a bit faster”; Master Tao still didn’t answer, he only nodded.

The door closed. Only then did Master Tao push his glasses up and look at Yuan: “Clothes made?”

“No.” Yuan took out the blue notebook and opened it at page eleven. “I’d like to ask… have you ever seen this place?”

Master Tao took the notebook and held it up to his eyes. He looked at the lane, looked at the washing overhead, and in the end his eyes stopped on the little girl.

He looked for a long, long time, so long that Yuan thought he had fallen asleep.

“This little girl,” Master Tao said at last, his voice a little different, “is wearing clothes I made.”

Yuan jumped to his feet. He went over and, for the first time, looked closely at the little girl. She wore a small, long dress, and on it was something very, very small that he had always taken for a dot.

Master Tao pointed at the dot.

“Look at this button,” he said. “Doesn’t it look like a little train?”