Can Xue - The Last Lover

“Lisa,” the old Middle Eastern man, Yasin, said in her ear, “Come to me here, girl. I am the destination of your long march. Look there, it’s a falling star, a happy star.”

His body gave off an odor of sulfur. Lisa gave herself over to illusion.

Before dawn Yasin lay dead on the deck, his aquiline nose suggesting boundless dignity. The tour group continued on ahead, and Lisa, alone in the cabin, carried on the long march. She already felt deeply how remote she and the beautiful Yasin were from each other. Among the long march army, between the dusky sky and darkened land, who else would be able to see her destination? And so, for the first time in many years, she remembered her distant parents, discovering with panic how much she resembled them. In the ship’s cabin the discussion reached a high point, because behind the long march army there appeared a pursuing army. .

After she met Vincent, these ghosts no longer appeared to Lisa. From their first meeting she saw a heavy shadow behind him. That shadow would sometimes grow larger, shrouding the two of them inside it. Lisa thought that a man who could carry the black night on his body as he walked back and forth was her ideal of a man. The two discussed at length the matter of the long march. Lisa asked him, Had he been one of those ghosts in her bedroom? Vincent answered, Perhaps yes, but he couldn’t remember things from the past, what a pity. As they spoke there came an intermittent smell of sulfur, making Lisa shudder uncontrollably. Vincent was not adept at description, and he only repeated, “Ah, Lisa, my ideal!” That sentence seemed unbearably crude. Lisa told him that the shadow behind his back was like a powerful black cloud. With him standing beside her, she felt as if she were living inside an imagination. But in this, wasn’t she too lazy?

In the city, among crowds of people, Lisa always kept one eye on her husband. Often, as she ran to his side, her high heels snapped off.

In recent years Lisa had observed with panic as the shadow behind Vincent grew darker and darker. At times his whole person unexpectedly disappeared inside it, without leaving an image or trace.

“Vincent, Vincent, have you abandoned Lisa?” She worried over this sentence.

Originally, when they married, Vincent’s world became her world. The two of them passed many unforgettable days in a shared refuge. But now Lisa was suddenly again a solitary person.

The nighttime became a trial of tortured nerves. Especially on rainy evenings.

The day she retired Vincent asked her what she was going to do, and she responded, “Start the real long march.” Vincent felt a little surprised at first, but soon he was relieved, saying, “You’ll settle everything for the two of us.” That evening they got drunk to celebrate Lisa’s return to the home.

Afterward the period of waiting seemed endless. The ghosts didn’t appear in her room any more. She tried a room separate from Vincent’s, but they didn’t come. Later she realized that there was no need for separate rooms, because it was quite possible Vincent was one of the shades. The searching activity was thus begun. The dwarf, Dummy, had told her that on the plot of their house there was a road leading to the gambling city. Lisa thought, without any reason to, that by finding this road she could join the long march army. But Vincent’s searching had its own method. Once he headed into the thick groves and tangled grasses, Lisa could no longer find him. Lisa could not help suspecting that building this house on a hillside and buying this enormous garden in the middle of the city was something Vincent had premeditated long ago.

Sometimes Lisa went to the office to observe her husband closely. But she couldn’t see the slightest marks of his nighttime activities on him. Where did he actually go at night? She said to him, “We can return together to my hometown.” Vincent said, however: “I’m also searching for you. I’ve reached the long march campsite. The fires are not put out, the troops have not yet departed.”

When Vincent and his co-workers got into a car, Lisa saw the black shadow behind him remain outside it. The car started off, and the shadow floated on top of the car roof like a black hot-air balloon. Lisa could only stare, but the faces of the people next to her had no expression at all. Perhaps they saw it, too.

The night without Vincent was a night without anything at all, other than the yi ya babbling of an infant learning to speak. Perhaps it was their punishment for leaving no descendants. . their two-person world couldn’t contain a new life. Lisa still harbored a desire to develop on her own. One time she thought that it might be worthwhile if she walked to the head of the mountain stream, because recently a species of small fish had appeared in the rivulet, like a piece of news from the outside world rushing in. She changed into high boots and groped her way along the gully holding a flashlight. The moon was dark and the wind high as Lisa heard the faint sound of the army’s bugle, and smelled a pungent smoke. Her pulse grew wild. The gully bent and curved. She thought she was already behind the mountain, and up ahead was the side of a large road. But the gully unexpectedly cut short and the babbling spring, chan chan , ran down into a natural well. This well was not far from the road. It actually looked more like a puddle than a well. She could imagine that it was very deep underneath its commonplace appearance. Lisa didn’t have the courage to jump into the well. Although she was able to swim, as soon as she thought of the bottomless abyss and the narrow entrance she became so afraid that her mind went numb. Besides, who could guarantee that Dummy had taken this road? Vincent was even less likely to have. Hadn’t people seen him sitting in a coffee shop off the street? She stood beside the road in her boots, sweat pouring like rain all over her body. The second night she practiced again. This time she hadn’t walked far before the rivulet disappeared, its running water seeping into the ground. She realized that the earth on which she stood was soft. She was sinking down. She grew anxious and began to churn up the ground, reckless of everything, turning up the piece of land. Then someone was in front of her, speaking to her. It was Vincent, who seemed to have been there for a while.

“Lisa, go back. There won’t be any results so quickly. Your hometown is more than five hundred kilometers away, in the mists and fog. How can it be found all at once?”

“But you, what are you looking for, Vincent?” she asked him, her mind in confusion.

“I’m not looking for anything, I was this way before I knew you. I can’t always stay in one place. But we are together, aren’t we?”

“Yes.” She had to admit what he said was correct. Of course they were together, perhaps forever.

In the dark she saw Vincent reach out his hand toward her. Her hands held that familiar hand, bringing it to her face. Suddenly, she discovered it was a broken-off arm.

“Vincent!” she shouted desolately, and fainted.

The water from underground flooded her clothing. It was the mountain stream, the one which had just disappeared.

She returned to the house dripping wet. The driver told her Vincent had already gone to work. This driver, Booker, was a part-time employee. He looked so steadily at Lisa’s body, which seemed almost nude, that her face reddened.

“Haven’t you seen this before?” She forced herself to make a provocative look.

“I haven’t. At least someone like you,” he said resentfully.

“Huh, go back to your hometown and look around then.”

Lisa realized that she wasn’t making sense, saying this. Why tell him to go look around his “hometown”? Did he have a hometown? It seemed she was going too far with her obsession. But the young man had already walked off. She heard the cook cursing maliciously from inside the house, but she didn’t know if he was cursing her or the driver.