Can Xue - The Last Lover

He didn’t want to leave the bed. He reached out a hand and kneaded the woman’s breast with his fingers. But at once he felt a sliding under his hand and the woman disappeared. On the empty large bed it was only himself left over.

He left the tall building still endlessly agitated and unable to reflect. But his desire wasn’t entirely for sex. What was the impulse then?

When Vincent raised his head, he saw crows. What startled him was that the crows’ bodies were soaking wet. They lined up in a long row on the banister of the balcony, combing their feathers with their beaks. Was it possible they had also just swum in the waterways of love? A woman wearing a white skirt appeared on the balcony, and the birds, hu , with a caw, all flew away. The woman leant her head down and saw Vincent. She made a face at him and, turning her back, dampened a few potted flowers on the balcony with her watering can. Evidently, she didn’t notice the drenched crows. The woman’s face was ruddy and filled with the freshness of morning; Vincent noticed her chest was shapely, the sort that sets men off on flights of fantasy. But Vincent’s flight of fantasy was about another woman, with a foreign kind of sex appeal that couldn’t be seen from outward appearance. Only on reaching the water did it finally take on a different look. Using Vincent’s poor words to describe it: “Lascivious and ethereal. Greedy as a valley that can never be filled; but pure of heart, with few desires. .” He suddenly thought of Reagan in the south, thought of him in the water, emitting painful but longing groans. Was the blazing sun of the south mending the wound in his soul? What kind of injury was it?

When he reached the office, Reagan was already sitting in the reception room. His appearance was greatly altered, his thin haggard face covered in sunspots. An injured eye twitched incessantly.

“Mr. Reagan, your eye. .” Vincent looked at his friend anxiously.

“A souvenir left by my pets,” Reagan answered.

He stood before the gigantic window of the round office. His formerly tall figure seemed suddenly to have shriveled. His leather shoes were covered in dust.

“I’m not here because of business.”

“Of course not.” Vincent spoke with understanding, watching him with still eyes.

“The whole farm is catching on fire. I think I’ve lost control of it.”

“This morning I saw wet crows. .” Vincent irresolutely mentioned.

“Of course, I saw them, too!” Reagan grew agitated. “A thick mass of crows, like a black cloud, dove from midair down into the lake. It was a collective suicide, a truly magnificent sight. But they didn’t really die, did they?”

Vincent thought to himself that people and animals who harbored astonishing ideas were not able to die so easily.

Reagan abruptly invited Vincent to go with him to a bar. Vincent hesitated, because he never went to such places. But then he felt ashamed of his hesitation.

When the two of them sat down on the bar’s high stools, some young people in the room were quarreling. Reagan glanced sharply at Vincent with his dropsied eye. It was as if Vincent’s cheek had been bitten by a snake. He let out a shout of pain.

But Reagan didn’t drink. Vincent finished two beers while the level of Reagan’s brandy didn’t move. Vincent wondered what he’d come here for, since he was not drinking. He watched the hairy backs of Reagan’s hands traveling back and forth along the tabletop, trembling awfully as if from anxiety. Suddenly he must have thought of something, because he got up and walked away without looking back. Vincent promptly paid the check and went out. When he drew abreast of him, Reagan asked, “Do you know the cleaner for this street? A beautiful black woman.”

“Joyner? You’re looking for her?”

“No, not looking for her, only asking some questions about her homeland. You are close by, haven’t you ever seen her in a dream?”

“Why would I see her in a dream?” Vincent asked curiously.

“Because. . because so many memories are written on her face that no one can succeed in escaping her. Sooner or later you’ll have to deal with her. Look, could she be hiding in this flower shop?”

The two walked in unison into the darkened shop. They heard a burst of confused sound behind the shop and then it was motionless and quiet.

“Something terrifying happened here, in this room!” Reagan spoke in a low, panicked voice.

Vincent wasn’t nervous. He was thinking of his Chinese woman. Could she have some implied relationship to this “beautiful black woman,” like intertwining vines? They didn’t live far apart, so it was quite possible the women knew each other. People on this street all knew warm, eccentric Joyner. Vincent’s company often ordered flowers from her. But Reagan continued sniffing back and forth in the air, his whole body shivering with fear.

Vincent could smell only the fragrance of the potted flowers. In the dark he couldn’t even see what kind of flowers they were. Reagan passed the flowerpots and walked to the rear of the room. By the time Vincent made up his mind to follow him, Reagan had already disappeared. Behind the room was a small, narrow courtyard with a staircase leading up to the building. Vincent stood in the courtyard, lit a cigarette, inhaled, and fell into heavy thought.

There was no doubt that he had been to this place before. It was yesterday. Those steep and narrow steps led to a balcony above. He’d stood on a diving board on the balcony’s edge, closed his eyes, and jumped down, reaching the deep water. It was just then that he discovered he could breathe like a fish. How had he forgotten all this? The “entrance” was actually here, and Reagan had known this for a long while. It was possible that his Chinese women also went into the world of water through this entrance. He thought again of Lisa; he thought of the Arab woman; he thought it possible they had all come to this place. Joyner’s greenhouse was the genuine entrance to the world. And the beautiful black woman was the gatekeeper to this world. On this small side street, Vincent had once seen her eagerly seize a customer’s jacket. The two had almost come to blows.

Vincent, in the midst of his confused fantasy, heard the sound of footsteps on the staircase — not just one person, but the sound of many footsteps. The footfalls came closer and closer, but only one person came down.

“Who came down with you? Those women?”

“Them? There’s no one there, they’re only a few shadows,” Reagan said despondently.

“What is upstairs?”

“Upstairs? Everything is upstairs. But I can’t remember. Tell me, what is this place?”

He grew agitated and left the flower shop without turning back to look. Following him, Vincent heard a loud upheaval in the dark behind him. The flowerpots tipped over one after the other. Vincent couldn’t stand to look back. All of a sudden he saw a row of wet crows settling on the broad windowsill of the flower shop. A black hand stretched out from within, unhurriedly setting down birdseed. “So the crows flew off from here!” Vincent exclaimed. His spine ran cold.

“Hui Mingxia!” Joyner’s clear, sharp voice flew out from the window. The name she called was Chinese.

Vincent kept a tight watch on the window. He believed Joyner was calling to his Chinese woman. But no one answered.

Reagan walked on at a distance. Vincent ran urgently to catch up with him.

“I’m going to the train station and returning to the south.” Reagan’s voice had a derisive overtone.

“Well, I’ll see you off.”

“You should pay more attention to people like Joyner. You are so close to each other. She and I are very close, too. Every time I come to the city I discover this.”