Can Xue - Vertical Motion

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.