Can Xue - The Last Lover

“In the south, there are rubber tree groves and coconut palms everywhere. How much clothing do you think the workers need to wear? Haven’t you ever thought of that? Do you have that much imagination? Yesterday two workers drowned in the bay because the clothes you make are too thick and heavy, and it’s hard to get them off quickly. . What kind of idiot designed these clothes? One of the workers who drowned was a girl. There were people who saw her leap out of the water like a fish and then sink back in. You fool!”

He held his head in both hands, looking unbearably vexed.

Joe was silent and reluctant to speak. He didn’t know what he could say to make this better. He’d known Mr. Reagan for many years. He was an educated and highly cultivated farm owner — or, rather, he didn’t come across as a farmer at all. He seemed more like the owner of an antiquarian bookstore. But today he displayed a violent temper.

“Do you really want to keep doing business with us?” Reagan looked contemptuously at Joe.

“We could design some light outerwear, pieces that can be taken off easily,” Joe answered mechanically.

“I don’t appreciate your way of thinking at all.”

Joe was at a complete loss after Reagan tossed off this icy statement. When Reagan had visited his office in the past, a scent of the open country, of canola flowers, had emanated from him. Joe would inhale this odor keenly, and involuntarily he’d drawn the deeply tanned southerner into the network of his stories. He had never sensed that Reagan felt any hostility toward him, but today he knew that he did. Joe drew his arms in as if he felt a chill, and Reagan noticed the movement immediately. He asked whether Joe was tired of doing business with him. If so, they could break off the discussion.

“Like the two of us. .” Reagan let out half a sentence and then swallowed it back.

Joe thought that he was trying to say that between two men like them it was difficult to reach an agreement. What was going on today? They had worked together for years; his figure often appeared in Joe’s stories, with that square jaw reflected in the mirrors along the road, swaying back and forth. . on the pathways in Joe’s mind there were always mirrors hung on the tree trunks along every side. Not long ago, Reagan had given Joe a pair of wild birds, and their dazzling, variegated plumage had sent Joe into fantastical reveries. Then he had gazed at Reagan’s expressionless face and felt that the man must be a conjurer with capabilities beyond anyone’s expectations.

Reagan walked up and down Joe’s office several times before asking Joe to hand him the contract. Then he signed several pages at lightning speed, so quickly that Joe couldn’t see clearly what he was doing. His memory retained only an image of protruding blue veins and the long thin right hand. In his mind he marveled: How could a farm owner have a hand like that?

Reagan left after he’d finished signing the contract. As Joe showed him out, he caught sight of his boss’s figure disappearing into the elevator. What was he doing on this side of the large building? Joe asked his secretary, Jenny, whether the boss had stopped by. Jenny stared at him for a moment and then slowly shook her head, disapproving of his neuroticism.

Joe had worked in this building for over a decade, and he was as familiar as anyone could be with his job and with the business of the company. Within his department, it would be almost impossible for anything out of the ordinary to happen without his knowledge. But today he realized that some things were getting out of hand. These things must have taken place outside of his awareness, and not even by racking his brains could he grasp the clues to what was happening.

That day, as Joe was on his way home from work, someone came up quickly behind him. It was the boss’s wife.

“Vincent drinks heavily every day now. He made a spectacle of himself on the lawn right in front of our house.” Lisa turned red in the face and she spoke a little bashfully. “He’s not young anymore. I’ve been wondering what sort of influence all of you have on him. Hmm?” The woman swung around and glared at Joe. Sparks unlike anything he’d ever seen before flew from her eyes.

Joe could not answer. He couldn’t even recognize the red-haired woman standing in front of him. The generally cheerful, gaudy Lisa was now shoving past him in a fit of rage, almost forcing him off the sidewalk. Like a gust of wind she was suddenly at a distance, her high heels energetically tapping the sidewalk. There were many people on the street at nightfall, all looking with surprise at the completely discomfited man. Joe saw an abyss open in the sidewalk ahead of him, and he walked toward it, thinking perhaps it would lead him into the web of the story he had recently constructed. But that large black open mouth wasn’t an abyss after all — it was an underground pedestrian crossing. And just as he reached the entrance to the underground walkway, Lisa rushed out from the shadows.

“Vincent’s mad! He’s crazy! Damn it, how could this have happened!”

The expression in her eyes was frantic. A strong hand grasped Joe’s arm and shook it, and Joe caught the smell of liquor on her breath.

“Hey, Lisa. Try to explain more slowly.” Joe spat out these few words with difficulty. A fury — at what, he couldn’t place — sprang up in his gut, and he felt disgusted with the small-framed woman.

But Lisa disappeared just as abruptly as she’d appeared. Thinking over the day’s strange occurrences, Joe felt his head buzzing with confusion.

Joe’s wife, Maria, was at her loom weaving a tapestry. It was her favorite pastime, and also a means of supplementing the household income. Almost all the homes in the neighborhood had samples of her handiwork hanging in them. Today Maria was weaving a scorpion design. With the deep brown insect hiding among exotic flowers, it looked original, fresh, provocative. Maria’s body was strong and well-proportioned, and her hands, with the fingernails cut short, were dexterous at any kind of craft. Although she was almost fifty, her eyesight was very good, and she wore her thick brown hair drawn up in a bun.

On the lawn outside, two cats from Africa yowled without stopping, but it didn’t sound like their mating call. Maria had bought these cats. Usually they made little noise, appearing and disappearing from the area around the house like ghosts.

“There were some problems at the office today.” Joe felt weighed down by care.

“I heard about that.” Maria glanced at her husband.

“You? Who told you?”

“Lisa. She stopped by.”

“Don’t listen to her gossip.” Joe impatiently threw his briefcase onto the sofa.

Maria rose from the side of the loom and walked past the dining table to Joe’s side, helping him put the briefcase on its stand. Afterward she laid her hand on Joe’s shoulder.

“Don’t be irritable, it’s nothing serious. You’re an old employee at the company. How could that old fox Vincent manage without you? Besides, Lisa came here for another reason. She’s having trouble at home.”

This was an odd thing, that Maria always called Vincent “old fox.” Joe had never understood his wife’s intuition about him. Joe didn’t think his boss was at all cunning. It was just that he acted a bit indecisive. But if his wife wanted to call Vincent an old fox, then let her. Joe didn’t care to question her about it.

“What’s the problem?”

“According to Lisa, it’s an Arab woman. Vincent has been hiding from his wife that he’s living with a woman who wears a black veil.”

“Living with? Doesn’t he go back home after work? I see him there just about every day.”

“That’s right. But Lisa says other people see her husband at the Arab woman’s house every day. How could that be? I think he must know some way to be two places at the same time.”