by Can Xue
“It’s too late. Too late!” he said, out of breath, through his tears.
As I stood there, both ashamed and afraid, countless emotions welled up in my heart. He began scrabbling at the crumbly limestone wall with his fingers, making a nerve-racking sound. The dust kept falling.
“Brother! Brother! Don’t leave me behind alone!” I blurted out in despair.
At this, the person stopped crying right away and stood up like a gravely wounded wild animal. He turned toward me. Now he and I were so close to one another that we couldn’t have been any closer. His sleeves touched my hand. The strange thing was that his face was still a dark shadow. No matter which angle I looked from, I couldn’t see his true face. It was as if the light couldn’t reach it.
He began backing away from me. For each of his steps backward, I took a step forward. Our entangled shadows were reflected on the wall; it looked as if we were fighting. I felt an unparalleled tension. All of a sudden, the doors on both sides of the corridor opened, and he turned around and fled. It seemed that people in all the rooms were craning their necks to watch. I didn’t dare stay here, so I turned, too, and ran out the front door.
I stopped at the end of the path. Looking back, I saw that the door was still standing wide open. Inside, the corridor was pitch-dark, and the lights in those few windows had all been turned off. The structure had once more become lifeless. I looked up at the sky: it was actually already daybreak.
People were coming around from the path over there, talking in low voices. I saw the lame girl and the young man again. Although it wasn’t raining, the young man was still holding a large, sky-blue umbrella aloft. When they passed me, the two of them were dumbfounded for a moment and stopped walking. Lowering my head, I rushed forward. I didn’t dare look at them. After walking quite far, in the end I couldn’t keep from looking back. They were still standing in the same place, and in the first rays of morning sun, the large blue umbrella glittered with light. The man was bending his head to say something to the girl. Behind them, the granite wall of the lifeless building was blurry and remote.
When I got home, my husband was already up. He was sitting there neatly dressed, as if he was intending to go out. He set my breakfast on the table.
“Time flew last night. I overslept,” he said.
It was strange: he had the same feeling. Was time different inside and outside the building? As I drank some milk, I peeped at his face. When they were dreaming, could people tell any difference in time? Since he had slept straight through, how did he know whether time had passed quickly or slowly?
“What’s the 18th of April?”
“It’s the anniversary of your older brother’s death. Have you forgotten even this?” He was a little surprised.
“At night, people can forget anything, no matter what it is.”
“True. I’ve felt this, too. In one short night, innumerable things can occur.”
I walked over to the desk, and my gaze settled on that wall. The room suddenly felt sultry. Like a small fish, a faint desire swam back and forth. My husband went out, heading in the opposite direction from that building. He kept hesitating, as if he were thinking of backtracking to take a look and then giving up the idea. Turning a corner, he disappeared. The leaves on the date tree at the doorway were moist. Had someone sprayed it with insecticide, or had it rained hard again during the night? Brother had told me last time that he would leave here soon. This was the first time in his life that he was going far away. I asked where he was going. He replied laconically, “I’ll just keep going.” When he said this, I recalled my husband’s description of him a couple of days ago. When a person disappears like a ray of light into the wall, what does time mean to him? Our parents’ faces were alight with joy, their dispositions softening at once. Because of their tardy expression of love for my brother, they both felt a little confused and said they regretted being unable to accompany their son on his journey. If they had been ten years younger, they could have.
When he left, he kept looking back, his face darkening, his appearance dejected. When he was about to get into the car, Mother hung on to the strap of his backpack and wouldn’t let go. When the car started up, Father followed, jumping along like a locust, thus giving rise to jokes from passersby. As soon as the car disappeared around a corner, the two old people sat down on the ground, looking demented. My husband and I had to exert ourselves to get them back into the house. They sat side by side on the couch, and Mother suddenly asked quietly: “How can someone who has everything going for him be carried away by a car?”
My husband tried his best to explain. He said my brother hadn’t disappeared from this world: he was merely taking a trip. This was common enough in other families. He would enjoy himself for a while in the outside world and come back again before long.
Sneering at his explanation, Mother said, “Have the two of you reached an agreement with him? Your father and I are old. We passed our prime a long time ago. But even though we’re old, we’re still alert. We’ve also heard about what happened in front of your house: it’s exactly what we predicted. When you chose to move down here, we talked about it.”
Then she took Father’s hand and looked at it carefully. After a while, the two of them dozed off.
=
I started seriously considering making an inspection behind the building. We hadn’t gone there since we moved here more than ten years ago, because there was a craggy hill behind the granite wall. My husband and I always thought there was nothing worth looking at. Before falling asleep, I mentioned my plan to my husband. He said vaguely, “What if you get lost?”
Early in the morning, I set off in that direction. I had no sooner reached the path than I saw two people ahead of me: it was the lame girl and the tall youth. This time, they weren’t carrying an umbrella. Empty-handed, they turned around and stood facing me. This time, I saw that the “girl” was actually a middle-aged person wearing a wig, and the “youth” was a thin old geezer who was almost seventy years old. They beckoned to me, asking me to approach them.
Impatient, I spoke first. “I see that the two of you always go over there. I’ve watched you from the window lots of times. What’s it like there? I really want a complete concept of this building.”
They laughed in unison. I didn’t think their laughter was genuine, and I wondered all of a sudden if they were two ghosts, ghosts that had floated out from that deserted building. Frightened, I unconsciously recoiled, but I also kept staring at them.
A key turned in the lock. At the ka-ta sound, I fled for my life. After running a short distance, I stopped again and looked back: the two of them had disappeared. The door was wide open; inside was the corridor I was familiar with. They had probably gone inside. Thinking of the first impression I’d had of them and of the bright colorful umbrella, I felt my knees weaken. I didn’t dare go behind the granite wall again: because of this episode, I’d lost the little confidence I’d had early in the morning.
I went back home, where my husband was sitting in my usual place. His head was bent as he repaired the alarm clock, and the desk was covered with parts and tools.
“You’ve been gone a long time. It’s almost time for lunch,” he said without raising his head.
“True. And I couldn’t find a way to reach the back of the building.”
I thought, annoyed, that perhaps he was also faking it. Sitting here, he had seen everything that transpired this morning. I shouldn’t have retreated: I was really ashamed of myself. What was there to be afraid of? The two ghosts? They might have been nothing but two locksmiths or pharmacists when they were alive. After their deaths, they had disguised themselves. It was nothing more than that.
As I was reasoning like this, the alarm clock suddenly rang with an insistent and terrible sound. It went on and on, as if it would never stop, and it vibrated so much that it numbed my brain. When the sound finally stopped, my husband had disappeared, and nothing was on the desk. Yet, I had seen the desk covered
with his tools. Was he sitting here and playing a trick on me? He said, “You’ve been gone a long time.” This was a hint.
I looked out the window. The door was closed, and a little light glimmered on the granite wall. At the upper left corner, close to the eaves, there seemed to be a ball of bright light. My heart throbbing, I wondered again what on earth it was like behind the building. I still had to find out; no one could stop me. Even if the two ghosts wanted to discourage me, they couldn’t guard the path every minute, could they? They must be careless some of the time. A huge time difference existed between the inside of the structure and the outside of it. If they weren’t ghosts and were just two ordinary people, how could they be accustomed to this time difference? My husband had confirmed the time difference: What if he was also lying?
Every day, I faced that gray granite wall, with my brother’s situation lingering in my mind. He had left by car, but that was only a superficial phenomenon. This superficial impression remained in my parents’ minds. The black iron door opened and then closed again, closed and then opened again: the lame woman and the tall youth walked out from there and opened the large sky-blue umbrella. Standing in the rain, they chattered incessantly. One time, I told my husband of the scene I had observed. My husband blinked and said quietly that he had just come in from outside and that it certainly was not raining. It was a bright spring day. He was contemplating hanging his laundry out to dry in the sun. Nonetheless, I still heard the sound of raindrops falling on the umbrella. One of the woman’s sleeves was drenched on one side. It was really mystifying.
NEVER
AT PEACE
=
Mr. Yuanpu had really declined. When Jinglan entered that rundown home and the maid Yunma opened Yuanpu’s bedroom door, he was sitting on a chamber pot, taking a crap, and thinking. Maybe he was merely pretending to think and actually was dozing. Looking closely at him, Jinglan confirmed this from his drooling. Since he’d last seen him, his color had grown much grayer. He seemed a little embarrassed, for he immediately wiped his ass, pulled up his pants, and stood up. The smell of shit filled the room at once. When he rapped on the table, Yunma came in and carried the chamber pot out, closing the door behind her and leaving the smell shut up inside. After he and Jinglan looked at each other in speechless despair, Yuanpu staggered toward the big bed, straightened the rumpled bedding, and then lay down and carefully covered his legs. From the way the bed looked, Jinglan knew that he had spent another sleepless night.
“Have you had breakfast?” Jinglan asked with concern.
“Sure I have. Otherwise, how would I be able to defecate?” He was mocking himself. There were thick mats on Yuanpu’s bed. Jinglan estimated that there were five or six of them, each with cotton batting weighing about ten pounds. Yuanpu had three extremely large pillows. At the moment two pillows were behind his decrepit back, and the other leaned against the side of the bed next to the wall. Yuanpu was half-lying on this large pile of cotton batting, but his face was telegraphing agony, as though the soft cotton batting were rubbing and hurting his body. This old home was much higher than ordinary houses. Many years ago, when Jinglan was a child, there had once been a large window in the wall. A bamboo shade had hung from it. Now only a cursorily whitewashed windowpane remained. Yuanpu had taken this action because in recent years he had found windows increasingly repellant. There were no chairs in the room, so Jinglan sat on the night table at the head of the bed. When he had visited the year before, Yuanpu had told him to sit there. When Jinglan considered his friendship with Yuanpu, he couldn’t help feeling proud of himself. But in recent years, Yuanpu’s decrepitude made him a little uneasy. Yuanpu’s sitting on the chamber pot was especially disgusting. Yuanpu had always been a sanitary person. You could even say he was fastidious. It hadn’t occurred to Jinglan that he could change so much. He certainly wasn’t so ill that he had to stay in bed. He was perfectly capable of getting up and going to the bathroom next door, but for the last six months, he had always asked Yunma to bring a chamber pot to his room. The stench was so bad that even Yunma held her nose when she entered and left the room. Jinglan thought, When all is said and done, there comes a day when people go downhill; even a sagacious thinker like his mentor would not be able to avoid declining day after day. Who could defy the laws of nature? In the past, Yuanpu had suffered only from insomnia, but ten years ago, this hadn’t troubled him at all. Time after time, he and Jinglan had argued all night long in this room, and in the daytime, he was in his usual good spirits. When Jinglan tried to imagine what Yuanpu would look like in two or three years, he smiled sadly.
“Your color is really bad. You ought to exercise more in the courtyard. Exercise would give you a better appetite.” Jinglan couldn’t help saying this, but he soon wished he hadn’t. Yuanpu leaned back on his pillow and listened attentively, but he wasn’t listening to Jinglan: he was listening to the noise outside. When he pulled himself together, Jinglan thought that all traces of senility had vanished from his face. His eyes glittered with bright light. He looked like a young man—absolutely different from the way he had looked a moment ago.
“It’s Yunma,” he said in a low voice. “She’s asked her fellow villagers to come here for meetings every night. If you had come at night, you would have seen the house ablaze with lamps. It’s hilarious.”
Jinglan was astonished. How could anything so preposterous have actually happened? Yunma was Yuanpu’s old servant. Long ago, she had agreed to wait on him until the end. A servant had actually taken advantage of him. After he recovered from his astonishment, he felt melancholy again. It appeared that Yuanpu couldn’t control his own life. Who could help him? How could someone with such self-esteem accept help from others?
“I don’t mind. It gives me pleasure in my old age. You know that I wearied long ago of argument.”
Jinglan wondered: Could he be lying to cover up his embarrassment? He also thought that he was certainly much different than he used to be. Jinglan glanced around the room: decades had passed, and yet this room was the same as always. The only difference was that it looked much gloomier and more rundown. A crab basket in the corner was covered with thick dust. In the old days, he and Yuanpu had gone crabbing in the mountain streams.
“I have to go. I’ll come back another day. I’ll be staying in town longer this time.”
Yuanpu didn’t respond. He was still listening intently to the activity outside. Jinglan waited a little longer. He was uneasy as he rose to leave: he thought his mentor had forgotten he was there.
As soon as he left the room, Yunma grabbed his arm and drew him to her room, which was across the hall from Yuanpu’s. A lot of miscellaneous stuff was piled up all over: it seemed to be the old woman’s hobby. Yunma stared at Jinglan. He was puzzled and so he took the initiative to find something to talk about. He brought up Yuanpu’s present condition, hinting that Yunma should keep the house quiet: this was essential if the elderly Yuanpu were to spend his last years in tranquility. From what Yunma told Jinglan, Yuanpu’s condition was worrisome: he was absolutely different from the way he was in the past. She had worked here more than thirty years: her service should have been appreciated. But for more than two years now, Yuanpu had been unusually strict with her. Her mother was more than eighty and needed care, so she had brought her here. This house had plenty of empty rooms, and she herself was in good health: she could take care of two elderly persons at once. She had settled her mother into a room upstairs. In the beginning, Yuanpu was happy about this, too. He went upstairs every day to chat with the old woman about household trivia. They were from the same generation and got along well. Her mother had a good impression of Yuanpu, too, saying that he was modest and unassuming, easy to be around. But before long, Yunma realized something was wrong. Yuanpu went upstairs too often—sometimes two or three times a day—and not about anything important, either. This made her mother uncomfortable. Yunma asked her mother if Yuanpu had suddenly started “looking for romance in his sunset years�
�? Her mother denied this. At first, she didn’t want to talk about it. Later on, she said that what the old geezer was interested in was something else, for several times he had tried to goad her into betraying her daughter. He had also told her a lot of tales about her daughter, even saying that Yunma was “treacherous.” He told her to be wary of her. Yunma intended to ignore Yuanpu’s words, for she thought he must have been mentally ill—a condition caused by old age. Furthermore, he was just telling tales about her: this didn’t hurt her. But Yuanpu became more and more peculiar—and more intensely so. Later, he not only went upstairs four or five times during the day, but he also rapped on her mother’s door at midnight. This wasn’t a problem for him, of course, because for decades he had slept very little at night, and yet he still had a lot of energy. But it troubled her mother a lot: once awakened, she couldn’t go back to sleep. After several days of this, the old woman could no longer bear it, and so she had packed her things and returned to the countryside. Not long after that, she died. And so Yuanpu’s relationship with Yunma immediately took a turn for the worse.
Irritated, Yunma turned deathly pale as she spoke. Sitting there, Jinglan kept sensing something spooky in this room. He shivered: Who in fact was lying? He squirmed uneasily in his chair.
“Six months ago, he began insisting that he had to have his bowel movements in his room. He said that he couldn’t walk easily and couldn’t use the toilet. But nothing was wrong with him: one night, I saw him go upstairs, just as fast as a thief! He did this in order to punish me. Tell me: How can I continue staying here?”
At this point, Yunma was staring at Jinglan, as if waiting for his answer. Jinglan thought it over and over and then said irresolutely, “I don’t know. I can’t help you. Sorry. I’m inexperienced in this kind of thing. Maybe you should talk it over with him. Or maybe I could ask a doctor to come. It seems he’s become a little obtuse.”
