Can Xue - The Last Lover

“I’m too timid,” Joe said. “I can only stand outside the palace walls, beneath the stairs.”

As they talked, the cook bent down to pick up the flower bowls and carried them away. Kim watched her obese receding back, nodding his head in commendation. He told Joe that last night a visitor had arrived. It was a woman. This guest wasn’t planning to go up the mountain, but had rather come only to see his grasslands. Hearing Kim describe his guest’s appearance, Joe thought that this arrival might be Maria. But Kim spoke a different name, and also said the woman had eccentricities, was an Eastern woman, and did not easily show her face to strangers.

“Ah, again it’s the East!” Joe sighed.

But Kim, staring at him, spoke one word at a time:

“Afraid she’s looking for you?”

“Impossible, impossible. I don’t know any Eastern women.” Joe forcefully shook his head.

“You have, however, been to her country.”

“That’s not possible.”

Joe lowered his head to mull this over. Was Kim pointing to his years of reading? If so, he certainly had been to Eastern countries. It could be said that he had a singular feeling for Eastern stories. When he took all the stories and combined them into a web, in the square at its center appeared a kimono and peonies. At that time, in the midst of his busy marketing work, he’d still been able to enter lightly into his own stories, seemingly in large part because of the kimonos and peonies. In everyday life, he had never known women from the East, and due to his conservative nature, he also never had vain sexual hopes about strange women. But once inside his stories it was a different matter. More than once he’d had intense feelings for young women and mature women wearing kimonos.

But how did Kim come to know this? Perhaps he really had met him before? Before this Joe did not expect that there would be anyone in his country who could have fabricated a story like his own. Based on his observations, Vincent and Reagan were aware of the dual nature of the world, but they seemed to have no way of fully entering into his story. They were in too much daily contact and unable to wholly open up their hearts. And aside from work friends, Joe didn’t have other types of friends. Joe thought again of Maria. For the past several years Maria had also fabricated her own world. Maria’s and Joe’s were parallel developments. But occasionally, Joe felt himself to be in her grasp, and in the blink of an eye this was enough to depress him. Kim, who was a longtime client of Joe’s, lived in a way that was difficult to interpret. He was unfettered, and for a long time he had constructed his own complex, interconnected world. By coming here Joe felt that he’d thrown himself into a trap. Even so, he was happy to sacrifice himself. This really was his own story. Could that be?

A whispered conversation was taking place in the kitchen. Kim said that the woman guest was talking to the cook. They’d already conversed for a long time: they shared an aspiration for exchange. So the cook was speaking? Joe asked. No, the cook didn’t speak. It was only the one woman speaking. She had the aspiration to speak, the cook had the aspiration to listen. As Kim spoke this sentence, the two of them walked into the dining room. While they ate, Kim told Joe, the women would eat in the kitchen. Joe thought this was a pity. He’d hoped the woman would reveal her face, and he would know whether she wore a kimono. And now he listened to Kim in discomfort.

“During the hailstorm, she was on the road. Her jeep broke down. Then she came up with a way to fix the vehicle herself. An estimable woman! Eastern women don’t give up if they don’t achieve their purpose.”

“What is her purpose?”

“To come see my grasslands. Possibly also to ride the leopard. I’ve never seen her, not even this time, because she is covered in black cloth. Had you expected that?”

Kim seemed unsettled as he spoke. His whole countenance grew stiff. At this moment there was a loud burst of noise from the kitchen. Kim jumped up in surprise, his face turning a deathly white.

The cook looked in, then entered. She’d come to tidy up the dishes. She walked falteringly. Joe thought, mistakenly, that she would gather the plates and bowls, but she stood unmoving next to the table, her eyes staring at nothing. After a moment, she slowly collapsed beside the table. Joe tried to prop her up, but Kim grabbed him, saying, “Don’t move her, her spirit has suffered an attack. Allow her to recover.

“In fact, she and I are from the same village. My village and hers were only separated by one kilometer. Every time there’s a windstorm, we are both distressed, but we’re the sort of people who make up our minds and never look back. She left her terminally ill father to escape to this country, and I, after accompanying my parents here, never thought afterward of going back. I’d rather climb to the mountain’s summit, stand in the ice and snow, and look out from a high place toward my homeland. The woman who arrived yesterday told the cook that she is her stepmother, and at her father’s dying wish she came looking for this pastureland. At first I thought that she was lying because the cook’s father must have died a long time ago. Even if he hadn’t contracted a fatal illness, he couldn’t have lived this long. And as for this woman wrapped in black cloth, judging from her exposed hands and feet she’s not that old. How could she be the stepmother? Then, a thing I never could have predicted happened. This woman stood there speaking to the cook, and she told the whole thing, all of the particulars, and the cook’s eyes filled with tears. . Ah, how can there be such extraordinary things on the earth? In short, between yesterday and today the two longtime residents of this house are learning from strange experiences. Because through this woman, we meet the history discarded behind us. This isn’t good.”

Kim’s face recovered its color and his hands stopped trembling. He seemed to have decided on a plan.

“So, what is she really here to do?” Joe asked.

“Her? She’s seeking repayment for a debt. She’s already gone. My house is therefore brought into darkness.”

When they left the dining room, the cook still lay on the floor. Kim said that the woman had carried away the cook’s soul. It was difficult to imagine how the cook’s prolonged days would be passed after this. However, it was no use to worry, because he had ordered many more flower seeds, and the present greenhouse would be enlarged. These flowers alone would be enough for her to work on, without too much time for recollecting things of the past. Further, the climate was already changing, as storms grew windier and more frequent. He said this, and those potted flower seeds containing insects appeared in Joe’s mind. He immediately felt an itch on his neck, and the skin all over his body felt uncomfortable.

Kim at long last led Joe to tour his pastures. As they lay on the grass, watching the hawks gliding in the air overhead, Kim again revealed his blood-red gums, with the expression of a predator.

“Where are those sheep of yours?”

“Oh!” He answered as if waking from a dream. “Don’t you understand yet? They are in my dreams.”

“So it’s like that.” Joe was a bit disappointed.

Afterward they drove in an old clunker, stopping and starting. The grasslands were certainly large enough, nearly without borders, and the plains were the same. Seen from a distance, the large mountain where Kim’s house sat appeared utterly monstrous, lonely as it broke up from the ground, in its surrounding pastureland. Joe looked back and forth, but from beginning to end discovered no waterways. Could the piled-up snow on the mountaintop have never melted? Looking at this cold, still, solitary mountain peak, Joe felt his eyesight growing blurred. Several decades ago, Kim’s whole family had immigrated to this country. What were the actual circumstances? Kim said he did not have sheep or cattle, nor did he have workers, so why did he order so much workers’ clothing? Perhaps Kim’s parents were wealthy, and he could arrange for a home in this strange place? In Kim’s words, living here was “not in order to break off from other people, but in order to merge into the midst of other people.” This sophistry in his way of speaking made Joe laugh.