I am waiting for Helen on her fiftieth birthday. On the table, there’s a crystal drinking glass and a vase with rare orchids; I can’t tell if the flowers are genuine or not. Faint piano notes and a cold scent drift in the air. Beautiful men and women sit on white leather sofas, all appear to be in their twenties. I feel a little uneasy.

The afternoon sun shines through the French windows, lighting up the green marble walls and falling onto the travertine floor. Outside the window, reflecting pools are as smooth as mirrors, evergreens grow between fair-faced concrete, and wealthy families stroll from boutique to boutique. In the distance, glass skyscrapers tower into the sky, connected by ribbonlike highways in midair. The weather is good, and the sky is clear.

I came here by the metro. At this hour, the deeper into the Inner City, the emptier the metro becomes, and the fancier the platforms become. I haven’t been here in years, so I got lost in a maze of security checkpoints. My smart contact lens rescued me by giving me the directions to the hotel, where a doorman in a fancy uniform scrutinized me from head to toe. I held my head high and prayed that my outfit and face would pass muster.

The waiter comes to pour water into my glass. He is young, genuinely so, and very handsome. All the waiters and waitresses here are the same: young, pretty graduates from top universities who jostle to get a job waiting tables here in the hope of snagging a rich dude who will pay for their Surgeries. Sparkling water fills my crystal glass while the glare from the pool shines on my face. I shrink back, knowing that the light would reveal I look at least a decade older than everyone else here. Those standing here are naturally young, and those sitting too rich to age, except for me. I had my Surgery at least a decade later than theirs.

The table looks out on a park. I see a ginkgo tree and a woman stepping through the golden leaves encircling its trunk. She’s Helen Yu. She enters, and everyone is dazzled. A dark gray cloak, a light gray dress, black low-heels, and a white handbag, all top-notch and elegant. And her face, as perfect as it was twenty-five years ago.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Xiao An!”

Xiao An—a pet name I haven’t been called for years. I smile and reply, “No worries.”

She sits down, and the waiter waltzes up while the guests snap out of their trance. I continue to study her while she studies the menu. She hasn’t changed—still supernaturally beautiful—except her makeup and hairstyle, a graceful French twist now. This is our Helen, a neoclassical painting in the autumn sun.

I pluck a ginkgo leaf from her hair.

She shudders and grins at the sight of it. “Guess I got that on my walk here. Traffic was a nightmare after the ikebana class. A hobo somehow made it onto the Midair Highway.”

“That’s why I don’t trust driverless systems,” I say. “A hobo?”

“An old lady,” she muses.

An old lady in the city? Impossible. Old people have all moved to small towns or are living with their children and grandchildren in the slums outside the city. You have to pass through tons of checkpoints to get into the city, and if the machines spot an old face, it is flagged as suspicious. So how did this old lady get in?

“I heard a rumor, too,” I say. “It is said there are hobos in the city, mostly women. They work in groups, coming and going like guerrillas.” Indeed, it takes guerrilla tactics to dodge the flying cameras and patrolling robots.

Helen frowns. “It’s true. My friend saw one but was too scared to take a photo.”

Scared of what? These rich ladies are scared of their own shadows. I change the subject. “Busy day for you, huh? My bad for meeting up today.”

She grins. “You come first, always. But honestly, my days are boring as hell.”

Must be boring living in a billion-yuan mansion. “Really?” I ask. “You don’t find your ikebana class exciting?”

I’ve seen her work in her Virtual Showcase. With a touch on the image, a translucent bottle of flowers appears. Wabi-sabi indeed, yet lonely for sure. I rotated the hologram and noticed the petals and leaves were starting to wilt. So they were genuine flowers, instead of eternal ones. Only Helen could afford a class like that. Maybe the teacher wears a kimono and is a master of some ikebana school.

“Ha ha,” Helen gives a wry smile. “Sensei scolds me every time. ‘There’s no aura in your work,’ she says. Sure, my arrangement of the flowers is dull, no matter how hard I try.”

“Hmm. You’re the most artistic person I’ve met. If there’s no aura in you, then what does that make me? A rock?”

The waiter takes the order and pours water into our glasses with too much enthusiasm. I ask Helen, “So, you’re going to the same old place tonight?”

“Same old. La Notte.”

La Notte is a fancy restaurant where Helen’s family celebrates her birthday every year. It’s where her famous husband-to-be, Mr. Yan, proposed to her on that very same day twenty-five years ago. Years have passed, and I’ve seen twenty-five photos of the unchanging river view, the unchanging faces of the couple, and their two boys growing into men. I don’t know if I’m jealous or not.

“Amazing,” I exclaim. “You guys are still so in love after twenty-five years. My husband doesn’t even know my birthday.”

She laughs. “We go there because it’s a family tradition. If we don’t, Yan Tianyi will get antsy.”

“How are the boys doing?”

“They’re giving me a headache,” she sighs. “We had scheduled Surgery for Tiancheng two years ago, but he refused. Said he wasn’t ready to ‘settle down.’ He’s still in Europe now. Tianyu, on the other hand, promised to have Surgery and work for the corporation as soon as he graduates from college.” She stroked the water glass with her thumb. “It seems like a fad among the young people, ‘To have Surgery or not to have, that is the question…’”

I take a sip of the sparkling water, and the fizz tastes bitter on my tongue. “I will never understand that,” I say. To have Surgery or not to have—what a privileged question to ask! In the Outer City, kids are more worried about whether to sell their young blood. Blood transfusions aren’t as effective as Surgery, of course, but they are much cheaper and therefore popular on the black market.

The afternoon tea set arrives, featuring a silver birdcage with three tiers of mousses, scones, and finger sandwiches. The bone china tea set and two champagne glasses complete the picture. The waiter pours the champagne, and I am mesmerized by his smile. A faint pop and a gentle fizz, and the champagne gives off an aroma of autumn fruits. I raise my glass and say, “Happy birthday!”

Clink. I close my eyes to savor the effervescence and the buttery fragrance on the tongue. “When was the last time we met?” I ask.

“Twenty-five years ago, on my wedding day,” she replies.

Ah. That was a long time ago.

“I saw you at the University Centenary,” she continues. “But you were in a hurry, and we didn’t get to talk.”

I struggle to recall that day. A visit to a campus I used to know, and a mix of familiar and estranged faces. Yes, I was in a hurry, driven to sell my apartment to pay for my Surgery.

I take a beautifully wrapped box out of my handbag. “So we must catch up today. Here, this is for you.”

Helen unties the ribbon, unfolds the wrapping paper, and picks up a small, golden box. I examine her face. The customized birthday gift is decent, and it didn’t break the bank: a gold chain with an enamel pendant that has a tiny portrait of a young woman. She’s in a canary yellow dress, her gorgeous hair windswept, and she’s laughing heartily. Helen touches the pendant and says, “God, I love this photo!”

Of course she does. I took it twenty-five years ago.

It was the last time we hung out. Helen was to get married, and I had just started going on blind dates arranged by matchmaking agencies. We posed as students, went back to college, and raced our bikes along the lake bank, screaming our heads off. We sat on rocks, tired but happy, feeling the breeze from the water and the cold cans of beer. We shared headphones and read a book. I looked at her face, which would not ever change, and took a picture.

“You’re a true friend,” she said.

Twenty-five years have passed. I lift my head to see her unchanged, while I have aged. Still, I’m luckier than most. Thirty-five years ago, some scientist invented the antiaging Surgery but kept it a secret. Twenty-five years ago, Helen’s father heard rumors about it and invested a huge sum of money in her Surgery. Fifteen years ago, my husband got a promotion, we sold our school district apartment, and we managed to afford our Surgery before the age limit. As long as we get the Vaccine every five years, we’ll never age again.

“You haven’t changed at all,” I say.

“Yeah? You haven’t either,” she replies.

Is it true? Twenty-five years have passed, and she looks as regal as ever, while I’ve become incredibly worldly. If we met today for the first time, we probably wouldn’t even become friends. How did we manage it back in college? She was the golden girl, and I was poor, plain, and sulky. We weren’t even in the same school! But we hung out all the time, talking and laughing. So why haven’t we seen each other in twenty-five years?

“I went back to college a while ago. The lake was gone, replaced by some new buildings,” Helen says, taking a sip of her champagne. “Remember the story we read by the lake? About a planet where the people had never seen the stars?”

I shake my head. I sold that book to a printed book collector years ago. “Nah, I haven’t read a book in years.”

I pick up a finger sandwich and take a bite, the natural flavor of the egg exploding in my mouth. After years of synthetic foods, it’s cruel to have your taste buds come back to life.

“How are you doing these days?” Helen asks, “Are you planning to retire soon?”

Retire? I nearly spit out my tea. Helen’s understanding of the world is decades-old, if she has any at all. “There’s no such luxury as retirement now. One has to work until they kick the bucket.” I catch a glimpse of Helen’s expression and grin. “Just kidding. But I have to save for my Vaccine and my daughter’s Surgery, so I have to work until I can’t.”

“Kick the bucket” was my husband’s catchphrase. He’d say, “Surgery’s a brilliant idea, He An! I’ll work twenty-five hours a day until I breathe my last breath!” As if losing his job and breathing the toxic air of the suburbs were the better option. But he has changed his mind now, for he has become one of the last programmers. He has outlasted companies and survived layoffs, and now he’s got one final task: to write a program that automatizes his work. The day he completes this is the day he’ll lose his job. At his age, it’s tough to find a new one.

But Helen needn’t know any of this.

“Are you still at the marketing agency?” she asks.

“Thank my boss for not firing me yet,” I reply. Unlike my husband, I’m still holding onto my job, for now. I owe it to my boss, and the fact that machines can’t yet read human minds. I owe it to myself for being cheap and tough enough. But the machines are getting smarter every day, and there’s always someone younger and cheaper waiting to take my place. Suddenly, it all seems a bit ridiculous.

“I remember this one case,” I say. “We were promoting a boy band, and I recognized one of the boys. Turned out he was a big deal a decade ago when he was sixteen. Now he still looks sixteen but is a nobody. So his agent changed his name and paired him with a new virtual idol. Who knows how long they’ll last this time.”

Helen stirs her tea. “Poor boy. He will never grow old or up.”

“He’s not poor,” I say, savoring the luxurious scent of my tea. “As long as he is still rich.”

Helen changes the topic by asking about my daughter. “Where’s Yueyue studying these days?”

“S University, studying Finance.”

“I thought she’d have gone abroad for Fine Arts.”

“Fine Arts? We can’t afford that. Besides, will it pay for her bills or Surgery?”

“There is an artist in my neighborhood, and he seems to pay his bills. Plus, I’ve heard there are programs that pay for artists’ Surgeries.”

“That doesn’t apply to commoners like us. I’ve stretched myself thin to send my daughter to college, and it was no walk in the park. Easier for you to raise your sons?”

Helen’s eyes darken.

I grab a salmon sandwich. “These days, degrees don’t mean much. I keep telling Yueyue to snag a promising man, marry him, and have Surgery as soon as possible. But she insists, ‘I will snag nobody!’”

Helen smiles and breaks a scone. “Just like you did back in the day.”

I sigh and spread the cream on my scone, watching it melt. I picture Yueyue in my mind, a restless young woman who’s neither pretty enough, silly enough, nor rich enough to be happy.

“I’m not a parasite!” she yelled. “I can support myself!”

“Support yourself?” I countered. “You can barely find a job these days. And even if you do, how are you going to afford Surgery?”

I knew how it was going to be. I knew it too well. Once she started looking for work, she would have to fight with a bunch of old people who, like me, would rather die than give up their jobs.

“What, do you think everyone marries for money, like you did?” she sneered.

“Ha,” I replied coldly. “I was just as rebellious as you when I was your age. Luckily, I knew I couldn’t live in dreams.”

Then, inevitably, we got into a bitter argument. Finally, she fell silent, glaring at me with tears in her eyes. I wanted to hold her in my arms, but I couldn’t even move a muscle.

The butter knife falls onto the plate with a clang.

“I just want her to be happy,” I whisper.

Helen pours tea into my cup, the black liquid swirling like ruby.

“Remember when my father went bankrupt a year after my wedding?” she asks. “He had hidden it so well that nobody had guessed. Years later, I found out he had received a large sum of money before the bankruptcy. Instead of saving his company, he used it to pay for my Surgery.”

I stare at my tea, dizzy from the story. Helen’s father may not be a successful businessman, but he made a successful investment in her.

“How is he doing now?” I ask.

Helen sighs. “He’s in a nursing home. I visit him once a month. He’s starting to forget things. Sometimes he thinks I’m still young and insists that I should get married as soon as possible. Other times, he mistakes me for my mother, who never got the chance to grow old.”

She lowers her head, hiding her face in the steam. “Sometimes I think it’s better for him to forget. What’s the point of remembering? He used to hide from his creditors, living in a park for six months and looking ten years older when he was finally found. But now, as long as he forgets, there’s a glow on his face, as if he’s young and happy again.”

Wordlessly, I stare at the bottom of my teacup. “My parents moved down south three years ago,” I say.

“To H province?”

“No, that was way too expensive. They spent a long time searching for a proper elderly city and ended up purchasing a residency in a small elderly town. It’s not top-grade, but it’s new and affordable.” I pick up a lemon tart and take a bite. “But sometimes, I can’t help but feel like I gave them up and left them to a gang of robots…”

“Don’t ever think that,” Helen interrupts, selecting a mille-feuille. “My parents-in-law live in an elderly city in Switzerland, and there are robots there too. If you send your parents to a satellite town, it’s like leaving them with nurses, which is even worse. I believe they would rather choose an elderly city where they can make friends with people of their kind. And if you miss them, you can always pay a real or virtual visit.”

No, that’s not it. I lower my head, breathing in the bitter scent of the lemon tart. The problem is my mom doesn’t want to see me. Every time we meet, we talk less, and she grows more sullen. I understand. It’s because of my face that never changes. She won’t have her photo taken, not even with me. When I hologram my dad, she’s off in the backroom doing chores with the help of a soft exoskeleton. She’s done everything she can to stay away from me. Going back to the countryside was impossible since it had become a no man’s land, but she could drain her savings to move to an elderly city after her granddaughter moved out and left for college, setting her free. Free from me too.

But I don’t blame her at all.

“Enough of this!” Helen straightens up and catches the waiter’s attention, “Two beers, please.”

The waiter apologizes that beer is not on the menu, but he will happily fetch it for us. He returns with two cans of Tsingtao, just like the good old days. They don’t have beer mugs, either, so he pours the beer into champagne glasses instead. Those gloveless hands—they are stunning.

The beer fizzes loudly and oddly in the champagne glasses. It tastes different from what I remember, but it doesn’t matter. I take a deep gulp and end up with a foam mustache, causing Helen to burst into laughter.

“I’m thinking of taking a trip to Europe with Yueyue next summer,” I say. “Where do you recommend we go?”

“France, Italy, Spain… Greece. Especially Greece. It’s ethereal.”

“You went there on your honeymoon, right?” I ask.

“Yeah, and I went back two years ago,” she says.

She offers to show me the photos. A request comes up in my Vision, I agree to it, and then our Visions are connected. Translucent images float in the air, shining and tinkling. They captured the faces of a father and two sons, the days spent roaming the island villages, admiring majestic temples, resting at ancient theaters, and treading on archaic stones, and the colors of the beach, the waves, and the otherworldly horizon.

Helen is good at taking photos. You only have to finger a frame to take a photo today, and everything else is taken care of. Still, there is something special in her photos. There’s something special in her. Helen could have become someone great if, unlike the two of us here, she had taken another path in life.

Helen doesn’t appear in many of the photos, and when she does, she looks uncomfortable and unnatural, as if posing for a charity event.

“Who took these?” I ask.

“Yan Tianyi did.” That’s her husband. “He’s not the best at photography; his clumsiness is contagious.” She gives a dry chuckle.

It seems to me that the issue isn’t his photography skills. I push the images upward, and they rearrange themselves. I select a sequence: the horizon burns in the afterglow, and the sea fades into a blur. The boys run wild on the beach, two orange haloes in the foreground. A small white dot in the distance is her husband on a beach chair. Everything is melting away. Helen is absent from the photos—she is the one behind the finger frame.

“These are impressive,” I remark. “There’s something special about them.”

Helen fingers a frame and chuckles before letting her hands fall. “My honeymoon was on this very beach. And when I came back years later, my son was off to college. Standing in the sand, feeling the waves crash at my feet, looking at my husband and sons, I suddenly felt alone. Tian Yu would soon leave for college and leave me in an empty house. I had devoted twenty-five years to this home, but for what? And how would I spend my future days? It all felt so surreal, as if the sunset were a grand stage and the curtains were about to close. I stood there and heard the tide echoing inside of me.”

I raise my beer, savoring its coldness and bitterness, and shiver.

“It will be fine,” I murmur reassuringly. “You’ll adjust. Things are already improving, right? With the boys out of the house, you and your husband finally have the love nest all to yourselves.” I remember the beautiful couple in the photos on Helen’s Virtual Showcase and in the news of the chairman and his wife attending various events. They look as stunning as they did decades ago, though he appeared more reserved now, while she walked behind him with downcast eyes, remaining silent.

“He’s busy,” Helen admits. “I try not to bother him. Parenting was already a nightmare for him, worrying about which preschool program to enroll the kids in, or which summer camp to send them to. So, he left it all to me. Guess that’s what I could really do for him besides making breakfast, shopping for designer clothes, and holding up the show.”

This isn’t what I had imagined.

“I have to admit, your man is better than mine,” I say as I grab a chocolate mousse cup. “My husband used to come home in the small hours every day without an explanation or even an excuse. And when he was lucky enough to take time off work, he’d shut himself in a room and play video games, leaving me to take care of everything at home.”

Helen appears taken aback. “Did you talk to him about it?”

“Of course I did, but it didn’t work. So I just got used to it. We only talk when it’s about money. At night, he plays his video games while I watch TV. Isn’t it peaceful?” Isn’t it pathetic?

“I don’t know,” Helen says, looking down at her hand. “Sometimes I feel like a stranger at home, too. I have a collection of books and movies, but now I can’t relate to them anymore. And the SenseNet is so noisy and overwhelming that it makes me sick. Yan Tianyi said I was just bored and suggested I enroll in some classes. So I go to piano and ballet classes full of young women, real or not, just to keep my body busy. But my mind keeps asking: what’s the point? What’s the point of doing all this at my age? I try my best in my ikebana class, but sensei said there was no life in my arrangements because I spent too much time with eternal flowers to know what to do with real ones. But—but no matter what flowers they are, aren’t they dead once they’re cut?”

A sunbeam slants across her face like a crack in a painting.

“At least Yan Tianyi sends you flowers,” I declare. “My husband never does. The only time he did, it was a mistake—meant for another woman. Funny how they disappear once they realize he can’t pay for their Surgeries.”

Of course, I’m no saint either. I had a thing with my boss and looking back, I can’t tell if it was love or just desperation. When feeling down, I splurge on virtual idols, only to regret throwing away the small cash right after. At least those virtual boys make me happy. Who would fall for a thirty-five-year-old body with a fifty-year-old mind?

“I used to have a dream,” I murmur. “I dreamed of a love story like yours, and I would die for it.” Seeing Helen’s expression, I give a wry smile and add, “No worries. Just a silly girl’s stupid dream.”

Sunbeams stray and scatter across the pools. The sky darkens, and evergreens cast long shadows, and the happy families are heading home.

The waiter arrives with a new pot of tea and a plate of strawberries, compliments of the house. He sets down a bowl of whipped cream, accidentally brushing Helen’s hand as he does. I pick up a strawberry and dip it into the cream. Unlike the cloying artificial ones, it has a fresh hint of sourness.

The waiter leaves. Helen’s smart lens lights up, probably indicating a friend request. She chuckles and lowers her head, her expression too complex for me, a plain Jane, to comprehend.

Helen says, “I knew nothing. He was handsome, he pursued me, and everyone was envious, so I thought it must be love. Now, I have a big house, a happy family, and even youth and beauty—what more could I ask for? Perhaps, just perhaps, it’s his perfectionism. Everything in the house must be the best and latest. Designer clothes are tossed after one wear. All flowers should be eternal. I once had a shoebox of letters, dolls, and postcards, including those you sent me, but one day, it was gone. Turned out that Yan Tianyi had seen it in the closet and told the servant to ‘toss that dirty thing.’ It was in our third year of marriage.

“Since then, I tried to be the perfect wife, obedient to my in-laws, taking care of the kids, making vacation plans, and always smiling at parties to cover for his sudden disappearance. Dad told me this was the best path, but once I underwent Surgery, there was no other path left for me.

“One night, I had a dream about the petals of my bedside roses falling off and scattering on the ground. I woke up to see the roses still perfect as ever. I looked at the man who had been lying next to me for twenty-five years. Twenty-five years, and this face hadn’t changed a bit. I got up, put the flowers into the bathtub, and set them on fire. I watched them burn and felt at peace.”

I imagine a gigantic bathroom, a blue-gray dawn, and a beautiful face lit up by the flames. Suddenly, I recall the story we read together by the lake twenty-five years ago. What was the ending of it?

“I don’t dream at night anymore,” Helen states. “It happens when you live without dreams.”

And I don’t dream either. Even if I did, my dreams were shattered twenty-five years ago. Otherwise, how would it be possible for me to have tea with her right now, right here?

Helen smiles, her face lit up by the blazing glare of the sunset. “By the way, have you heard the rumor?”

“The rumor?”

“That the hobos don’t come from far away.”

“Then where from?” I ask, beginning to catch on.

“From right here in the city, especially the Inner City,” she responds, her smile turning grim. “There’s a rumor that the Vaccine is imperfect. The effect weakens and is lost with age, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman. But why, why do I only see homeless women?”

Helen covers her mouth with a shaky hand. She looks up, tears streaming down her face.

“Mom never had the chance to age. I can’t… I can’t imagine what it’s like. Sometimes I just want to disappear to a place where no one can find me and become an old witch, all alone…

“Tell me—why is aging an ugly thing?!”

She thumps the table with her fist, causing dishes to clatter and eyebrows to raise.

The moon rises as the sun casts its last beam of light on the glass skyscrapers. Gazing into the twilight, I realize that perhaps, like the people on that fictional planet, we too are witnessing the coming of the stars.

Helen remains still, her mascara smudged. Gently, I place a hand over hers. It takes her a moment to come back to herself, and when she looks up, her eyes widen.

By the light of the sun and the moon, a woman passes by the window.

I turn around and see a homeless woman. She is wearing a tattered robe, dragging a woven polypropylene bag, walking barefoot on the edge of the pool. Her face is as ancient as the mountains and rivers; her lips are pursed, as if she is to make a prophecy; her disheveled and gray hair glows golden red in the sunset, adorned with wild chrysanthemums, wilted, yet still bright yellow. She walks through the sparkling light, as if on water. The golden light in her eyes pierces through me, hurting me.

The light is caught in Helen’s eyes.

The tears have dried up. She releases my hand to wipe her eyes with a tissue. I notice a faint line under her eye. She apologizes and leaves to freshen up her makeup. It’s getting dark, and the homeless woman is nowhere in sight.

We stand up to say goodbye. Wordlessly, I give Helen a hug. I make my way home on the metro, surrounded by a throng of young commuters. Before going to bed, I peer into the mirror and see a wrinkle crawling its way onto my face.

 

Originally published in English in Clarkesworld #201, June 2023, translated by the author.