by Can Xue
Liujin sensed the earth moving at the well’s opening. Startled, she jumped up at once. Oh! A pangolin! Had this ugly thing been buried by mistake, or had it squeezed in? As soon as it emerged, it took off in a hurry. Liujin leaned close to the opening and stared blankly at the small round hole. She thought of another possibility: the well had once been this ugly thing’s home. Hadn’t she suspected this before? How many animals were at the bottom of this well?
“You don’t have to follow in my footsteps,” José said from behind.
Liujin smiled in confusion, not knowing what to say. She and her dad had recently drifted apart. She remembered that when she was a little child, she and her dad had been so close that even when she went to the public toilet she wanted him to wait for her at the door! Liujin noticed that her dad was a little aloof, a little dejected; perhaps he was pondering some personal problems—or maybe he was intentionally drifting apart from her because of some plan? Whenever Liujin thought about this, she felt chilled.
“Is the director an old friend of yours and Mama’s?”
“Unh. It seems that when your mama was a child, the director was her school principal. But your mama doesn’t remember this. Is it important?”
“Is it? I don’t know. Maybe not.”
Liujin looked at the well opening again. Strange, the hole that the pangolin had squeezed out of was now nowhere to be seen. José told Liujin, “This is probably because of the viscosity of the mud here.” As he said this, Liujin gave him a puzzled look. He was a little embarrassed.
“Actually, I don’t know, either,” he said, disconcerted.
A woman was singing on the road, a song of sorrow. José told Liujin that she had once been their neighbor. After her husband died, sometimes she was lucid, sometimes insane. She always sang songs that her husband used to sing. She seemed quite pathetic, but actually, it wasn’t necessarily so.
“Why?” Liujin asked.
“She’s a self-satisfied person. She takes things lightly.”
“Oh, I see. You told me that they once had a dog.”
Liujin also wanted to sing on the road, or even on the mountain, but she had never done this. She sat at home and thought about Ying. After a while, the faint rumble of thunder rolled over from the east.
Nancy said to José, “This girl is very ambitious, and she has been ever since she was little. I’m not worried about her, though.”
José glanced at Nancy’s profile and thought back to the days of living on the third floor of the apartment building when Liujin was just a baby. He whispered to himself, “How did they heal the breach between them?” He felt there had always been a tacit understanding between Nancy and their daughter.
He and Nancy had also discussed going back to visit the interior. José still had an uncle in Smoke City. The moment they broached this subject, they thought of the hardships of travel and realized they weren’t likely to go. In fact, aside from the travel itself, there was another big obstacle: Liujin. Wouldn’t Liujin—with her bright eyes and her sensitive respiratory tract—have problems in an industrial city with smoke curling around all day long? They couldn’t be sure about this. Their daughter had grown up in the clean Pebble Town, where no air pollution existed, and so although she was a sensitive and delicate child, she had never been seriously ill. If they suddenly went somewhere where you couldn’t even open your eyes, they weren’t sure she could handle it. After discussing this several times without coming to a conclusion, they dropped the matter. José felt vaguely that Nancy had a bigger plan, but he couldn’t guess what it was. But it would surely become clear with the passage of time. There were moments—he didn’t know why—when he also wanted to see life’s hidden secrets. But the bright, shining Pebble Town didn’t give him an answer.
After Nancy said “I’m not worried about her,” José didn’t look too pleased. In a split second, the image of “Grandma Wolf” crossed her mind. Had she been playing Grandma Wolf for more than ten years in her relationship with Liujin? Maybe it hadn’t actually gone that far, and maybe Liujin didn’t hold a grudge, and so although their relationship was rather tepid, basically there was no rift in it. This girl was particularly adept at understanding people and was particularly independent. Nancy felt that even she couldn’t match Liujin in this. When she was still a baby, Nancy had left her alone on the lawn several times; later, someone else would pick her up and take her home. José referred to this jokingly years ago. Liujin had laughed—as though her dad were telling a story about someone else. Liujin’s composure surprised Nancy: she wasn’t much like other children her age. Her feelings had long ago pierced the complicated world of adults. Sometimes she was like people who had gone through a lot. Now Nancy could look calmly into her daughter’s eyes because they were no longer as dazzling as they were when she was little. Some hazy things appeared in her gaze, softening it a little. Still, Nancy was sometimes skeptical: Could it be because she had lived on the frontier a long time and had become accustomed to the brightness and intensity of this place? Liujin, ah Liujin, sighed Nancy.
José hadn’t been wrong in his guess: Nancy really did have a hazy “plan.” What it was, he hadn’t yet ascertained. Often when she finished her daily routine and sat down, she gazed at her daughter’s back, and some scenes popped out in her mind. All the scenes had the same background—a large gloomy room, a thirty-some-year-old woman sitting under a dim light in a corner, embroidering butterflies. This was Liujin, wasn’t it? Nancy felt chilled; she didn’t dare hold onto this thought. One time, she called Liujin over to her and asked if she had learned how to embroider. Liujin said she had studied it in school, but hadn’t really learned how. She couldn’t embroider well. When Liujin answered, Nancy seemed to see her thoughts and so she hadn’t pursued this. Later on, she made a point of buying some high-quality thread and bringing it home. But Liujin didn’t touch it.
When José had trouble sleeping, Liujin often didn’t sleep, either. When Nancy awakened, she went to the window and looked at the two forms—one large, one small. Generally, they weren’t talking, but just sitting in the courtyard, each one perhaps wrapped up in his or her own concerns. At first, Nancy was worried that Liujin would also have insomnia, but later she discovered that Liujin slept soundly. Nancy had always been ashamed of her parenting—she’d always felt that Liujin was closer to her father. But recently, José had begun to be reclusive and wasn’t even slightly interested in his daughter. And so Nancy began paying more attention to her daughter, but Liujin’s attitude toward her didn’t change.
“Mama, when the wind blows hard, does it blow away the smoke in Smoke City?”
“It can’t. The smoke comes not only from chimneys; it’s the very air itself in Smoke City. It doesn’t matter what the weather is like or where one walks: haze is everywhere.”
As Nancy was speaking, Liujin thought of cats, because Dad had said that there were many cats in Smoke City. She thought, Probably it’s only cats’ eyesight that isn’t affected by the smog. Liujin had always thought that cats’ eyes were a mystery—the pupils changing suddenly from large to small, green fire in the dark. They apparently could see through to everything. Dad had also told her about a cat that had passed through the marble pillars of the hall. She’d heard that story since she was little.
Nancy took stock of her daughter, whose head was bent as she shelled peanuts. She was shaken by the child’s questions. All of a sudden, she felt filthy, and sour sweat seeped continuously from her pores. More than a decade had passed, and nothing had yet been concluded. The rejection rooted in her bones, the malicious spurning—all of it was still present, and she had nowhere to flee. Sweating, she paced back and forth in the room like a trapped animal. She loathed herself.
“Peanuts grow underground. No one knows this,” Liujin said, looking up. She showed her a large peanut.
“Liujin, Liujin, I do know that. I tell you, little one, I do know that.”
She was suspended in midair. Even on tiptoe, she couldn’t touc
h the floor. She strained to remember that day in the guesthouse of the Design Institute: Where had she fallen? She remembered the wind blowing in from the snow mountain and rubbing her face raw. It had hurt. She had shed tears the whole time, unable to stop. José . . . back then, José hadn’t helped her up; instead he had lain on the floor with her. As for her daughter, did she really know everything? Sometimes she was sure she did; other times, she didn’t know. Back then, her daughter’s crying in the middle of the night had assaulted her brain, and so she had finally left her daughter on the ground. Night after night, she had run, and run—run for a long time before stopping and looking. She saw that she was still in the same place.
Chapter 9
LITTLE LEAF AND MARCO
The wooden boxes were arranged in a long line next to the jet-black river. Little Leaf’s box was the largest one. You could tell from the dark color that these boxes were quite old. They stuck roses into each corner of the box. The roses were weird: even though they’d been out in the sun day after day, they still looked fresh, as if rooted in the ground. Early in the morning, someone shouted from the riverbank: “Little Leaf! Lit—tle—Leaf . . .”
Little Leaf and Marco climbed drowsily out of the wooden box. When they were wide awake and looked across the river, they saw no one. Marco said it had to be the person from Holland, who had come to urge him to return to that country. Because he knew Marco wouldn’t listen to him, he had shouted for Little Leaf, instead.
Nights on the riverbank were terrifying: it was as if the violent wind would blow the boxes into the river at any moment. Mixed with this strong wind were many howling wolves. The two of them were accustomed to this environment. Sometimes Marco lit a candle. Watching the flickering light, he told Little Leaf stories of Holland. “Mama, ah . . .” he often lamented. Little Leaf wasn’t nearly as calm as Marco. She trembled when the wolves howled. When Marco told his stories, she couldn’t see his eyes. This upset her. Although Marco’s eyes were open, his pupils were invisible in the candlelight.
During the day, they worked in a large restaurant on the riverbank. Those who dined there were mostly also migrant workers from the countryside. Some of them also lived in the boxes on the riverbank. Little Leaf was a waitress, while Marco did odd jobs. The work was tiring, but at the restaurant they saw some people and things that aroused their interest. A stolid old man showed up every day for his meals. After examining him closely, Little Leaf concluded that he was more than seventy years old. But his clear eyes looked very young. He didn’t eat much—a small bowl of noodles was enough. And sometimes he ate nothing, asking only for a glass of water. At such times he apologized to Little Leaf, “I’m too old. My body can’t handle too much food.”
Marco told Little Leaf that this man didn’t live on the riverbank; he lived next to the main road leading to the snow mountain. He had built a temporary wooden house in the white birch forest there. Marco had stayed overnight in that house once. Marco also said the old man had been a temporary worker in a lumberyard. “Where’s he from? It seems I’ve seen him before.” As Marco said this, he looked quite distressed. Little Leaf suspected that the old man was somehow entangled with Marco’s past.
Another regular customer was an old woman dressed all in black—even wearing a black headscarf. When she sat down at a table, she made almost no sound. Every time, she ordered a bowl of soup and a small bowl of rice. She ate unobtrusively. After finishing, she lingered a while, absorbed in her thoughts. One time, when Little Leaf was clearing the next table, the woman suddenly spoke up, “There ought to be a clock here.” She blocked the light with one hand.
“Oh, I’ll tell the manager. But maybe it’s intentional? Nowadays, people all wear watches. Hey, that’s exactly right. Everyone . . .” Little Leaf broke off, realizing she was babbling.
The old woman forced an ear-piercing laugh, and then stopped laughing and stood up and looked at the picture on the wall—a framed, crude oil painting. Little Leaf had never been sure what the picture depicted: it could be a sail, or it could be a butterfly. She leaned close to the old woman and looked at the painting with her. The old woman said softly, “It’s the clock, all right.”
From then on, Little Leaf kept noticing this woman, and she also started paying attention to this painting. In the past this painting had been inconspicuous, but now it was disturbing. Furthermore, every time she passed it, she heard a tick-tock sound. It did indeed sound much like a clock. On the wall about four or five meters away from this painting was another picture—a mediocre painting copied from a photograph of a sandthorn that looked as if it were sick and dying. These were the only two pictures in the entire dining room. When Little Leaf walked past the sandthorn, she could hear nothing, and didn’t sense anything disturbing. Yet she couldn’t pass by without glancing at it a few times. Why? The tables beneath the oil painting belonged to the old woman. She always sat at one of two tables. One time, she revealed her wristwatch—a large and heavy navigation watch. It looked more like handcuffs. Little Leaf was surprised that she wore a watch and yet complained that there was no clock in the dining room! She wanted to ask her if she worked on a tramp steamer, but she was too timid. The woman herself brought up this subject later. She said that she had worked on a tramp steamer. After she retired and came to Pebble Town, she had hallucinated: she had thought the “she” who had worked on the steamer had died of cancer. And so she wore mourning garments and moved to an old house on the riverside. She spoke somewhat impulsively and grabbed Little Leaf’s hand, letting go of it only when she finished telling her story. That day, the clock tick-tocked particularly distinctly—and the sandthorn in the oil painting turned colorful and full of vitality.
The old man and the old woman didn’t seem to have anything to do with each other, but for some reason Marco kept insisting they were friends. When Little Leaf asked why he thought so, he said he had seen them together in a coffee shop in Holland. “They weren’t so old then.”
One time, dogs caused a disturbance in the restaurant. A skinny man burst in with a pack of dogs. He ordered food and drink and sat there eating. The vicious-looking animals roamed back and forth in the dining hall. One by one, the angry diners slipped out quietly, and the waitresses took cover behind the door. Then the dogs jumped onto the tables and made a big meal out of the food left by the customers. They also broke a lot of dishes, making a huge mess. Marco and Little Leaf were very excited that day: they had seen these dogs before and thought of them as old friends. The two of them walked back and forth in the dining hall, their hearts filled with indescribable longing.
All of a sudden, a large wolf-dog pounced on Marco, knocking him to the ground. Actually, he fell of his own accord—and quite readily, too. Marco was holding the dog’s neck; the dog stepped on his stomach and made eye contact with him. Marco was panting and anxiously looking for something in the dog’s eyes. The skinny man came up and berated the dogs. He dragged the wolf-dog out with one hand and kicked it in the haunches. Wagging its tail, the dog looked at its master and left grudgingly. Marco clambered up and scuffled with the man. The man started to return the blows, and then stopped, saying, “I’m dying.” His face turned paper-white and dripped cold sweat. Frightened, Marco helped him sit up against the wall. After quite a while, the man said, “My father died before I was born. I have a serious congenital heart condition.”
“You won’t die, will you?”
“I’m dying. But what will happen to the dogs? Who will they belong to . . . belong to . . . ah!”
He rolled his eyes, struggled a few times, and then gradually revived again.
“Who are you?” he asked Marco weakly.
“I’m that Dutch dog.”
By now, the dogs had all left the dining hall. There weren’t any outside, either. No one knew where they’d gone. Little Leaf dashed up and said that something had been stolen from the kitchen in the back: a large slab of beef had disappeared right under her nose. The manager had reported it to the police. The m
oment the man heard this, he stood up and limped out.
He walked unsteadily, but didn’t stop. And thus he disappeared from everyone’s line of vision. The manager said, “I know him. He always goes to a lot of trouble for these dogs. They’re his life.”
One day as they sat in the kitchen at break time, Little Leaf and Marco saw the stolid old man planting something in the wasteland. He dug a hole with a rake, took a seed from his pocket, and buried it in the hole. Then he took a few steps forward and dug another hole . . . The wasteland had sandy soil that didn’t hold water, and so hardly anything could grow in it. What had the old man planted? “It’s something that dropped from a human body,” he later told Marco. But what he took out was seed-shaped—a little round, grayish-blue thing. How could something like that fall out of a human body? Later, the old woman showed up, too, and helped him plant. They were busy for a long time. Marco said to Little Leaf, “I told you they were together, didn’t I? They used to come to dine separately and pretended they didn’t know each other. In fact, they always communicate with each other.”
The next day, the two reappeared. They had sown the entire wasteland with that thing. Supporting each other, they stood taking stock of the results of their work. They didn’t look at all happy; they looked melancholy. The old woman in mourning covered her face with her hands. They couldn’t tell if she was crying. Little Leaf’s curiosity got the better of her and she wanted to go over for a better look. Marco held her back. He thought that in Holland, the two of them had owed one another a lot. Now they were paying each other back. Marco knew everything.
One moonlit night when Marco wasn’t present, Little Leaf ran over to the wasteland by herself and raked open a hole. After searching a long time, she found a grayish-blue seed. She examined it in the moonlight. From any possible angle, it was nothing but a stone—round and smooth and very hard. There were also vein lines on it. She buried it and raked open another hole, where she found a similar stone, maybe a little flatter and a little brown-colored. Such a large stone couldn’t have come from a human body, so why had he said that it had? After reburying the second stone, Little Leaf panicked and ran the whole way back to her living quarters. When she reached the box where she and Marco lived, she noticed several people craning their necks and looking at her from the other boxes. Marco said bitterly, “You’re really headstrong.”
