Can Xue - The Last Lover

“There is an Eastern woman in Vincent’s life, perhaps a Japanese woman,” Lisa said.

“She lives on 13th Street in Building No. 2.”

“You knew this already.”

“No, I didn’t. I only passed there by chance, and saw a woman covered in a black veil coming out of that building.”

“Do I belong to Vincent’s finished life?”

“Just the opposite, I feel you belong to his future. This means that you two will be isolated from each other, just like me and Joe. Actually, Vincent is looking for you everywhere, too.”

Leaving Maria’s house, Lisa seemed to have decided many matters. She also seemed to have decided nothing. Although her steps appeared careless, she felt that every step was along some invisible trajectory.

That night, when Lisa once again converged with the long march army, which she hadn’t encountered for such a long time, when like blind men in the enormous dense fogs of a swamp they circled around and around, she realized that passageways were beginning to appear in her chaotic mind. The ghosts who’d come to her house many years before did not reappear, nor was the sound of their voices any no longer in her ears. She strode from the room, passing unhindered through the chaotic garden, and walked directly into the midst of the army.

“Lisa, Lisa, Vincent has been waiting for you a long time.” They spoke in unison. “Go with him to the grass over there to make love. There is a zebra that will guard you.”

But Lisa came to an iron cable bridge. Underneath were terrifying waters. Her bare feet stepped onto the rocking cables. She couldn’t stop because the people behind her pressed her on. Her feet slipped again and again but never fell through. She heard herself shouting for help; her voice was drowned in the clamor of the waves. The people behind her were singing a strange song: “The long march, the long march.”

Lisa finally lost control, and her numb hands loosened their hold on the iron chain. She closed her eyes. But she still proceeded with the army along the iron cable bridge between the two mountains. There was someone carrying her. She wanted to see who it was, but couldn’t with the dense fog blocking everything from view.

“Ah, you’ve returned,” Vincent said. He sat smoking a pipe in a small thatch-roofed pavilion.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Here’s my umbrella. How will you walk back with the rain coming down so hard?”

Lisa stood in the midst of the coiling smoke as Vincent’s long arms, like a caveman’s, embraced her. In her distraction, she realized that she was still on the long march. Seemingly, she and Vincent were at the camp cooking food for everyone. The firewood was wet through, choking the two of them and making them cough. Lisa stood up and went outside the canteen, panting for air. There was a fine drizzle on the plain, where among those sitting on the ground and those staggering along she saw to her surprise a woman in a black skirt shuttling back and forth. She recognized at a glance that tall and somewhat rigid posture.

“Her, her!” Lisa shouted incoherently.

“It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. The army will set out soon.” Vincent grasped her hands, pressing his lips to her ear as though making a promise to her.

She couldn’t see Vincent’s face clearly, yet she said to him, “I don’t want to go back. Let’s walk on a bit farther.”

“We’re already getting farther and farther from home.” When Vincent said this, Lisa could no longer see him.

Continuing on she heard Maria’s voice behind her. She returned to her own house, where she heard the driver and cook cursing at each other in the kitchen. Looking out through the French windows she could see the small pavilion and the smoke curling up, but she did not see Vincent. Was he still inside the pavilion?

“This unjust life!” The cook A Bing raised his voice and sighed.

“A Bing, A Bing, how fortunate, almost all of my friends live with cooks.” Lisa stood at the door of the kitchen, addressing A Bing. “See, the title ‘cook’ is so attractive!”

But A Bing was in a very bad mood at the moment. He said fiercely: “For people like us, life is no better than death!”

When A Bing spoke, the driver Booker appeared distressed. The two of them evidently wanted to embarrass Lisa, but to what purpose? Lisa recalled Booker’s dissolute life on the farm, and she reflected that this young fellow was also a riddle. Right now, for example, he’d rustled up an army uniform from somewhere and was wearing it, but the uniform didn’t suit his languid bearing. Lisa believed that he was playing the part of a clown, and in her heart she loathed him. She wasn’t someone who could be annoyed easily, so she sat down at the kitchen table, trying instead to see what tricks these guys were up to.

Once she’d sat down she felt very tired, and she fell asleep leaning on the kitchen table. Yet at the same time she heard Booker loudly discussing the long march. Lisa wanted to cut in, but her eyelids wouldn’t stay open.

“When sinking into the swamp the best thing is not to struggle, otherwise it’s all over.”

She didn’t know how long she slept, perhaps a very long time. When she woke, she heard them beside her still discussing the long march. The circumstances they spoke of were wholly familiar to her.

“Booker, are you on the long march at night?” she asked.

“No, I’m on the long march during the day,” he answered haughtily, as if this gave him a higher status.

In his lazy way, he already lay face-up in an armchair, his legs propped up on the arm. Lisa truly could not connect him with the army, the fires of war, and the smell of gunpowder. But how did he come to have information about it? In her heart she had many suspicions.

“A Bing, I’ve seen you all day inside the house. Are you also on the long march?”

“Yes, Lisa.” When he spoke as before it was with a distressed look. Then he cursed a few times.

Lisa thought, Is it possible every person is on a long march? Judging from the vast army she knew, this seemed a matter of course. In the blink of an eye, the magnificent spectacle of a global march welled up in her eyes. The spectacle shook like lightning, then quickly disappeared.

A Bing stood apart from the table and said to Booker, “I have a wife, and a child, but I haven’t seen them in many years. I’ve climbed and climbed, and in the end how many mountains have I crossed? Just think, your wife pulls your daughter along, shading her eyes with her hand as she stands under the eaves, her gaze always trying to penetrate the thick mist before her. And me, I trudge along in the swamp. The rumor of catastrophe is becoming widely known in the ranks. There is a poisonous snake, and if someone’s shoe is worn through he can be attacked.”

Suddenly he covered his face with his broad palm and started to cry without shame. His violent wails appeared meant to drive Lisa away, and intended to make a powerful show of force. Booker stood up from his chair, looking indignantly at his employer.

Lisa left the dining room and headed upstairs to the bedroom. She shut the bedroom door, but could still hear the two men standing downstairs, their voices ferocious, like two savage wolves. She turned around and saw Vincent lying on the bed, still holding a pipe in his hand.

“Have you come to an agreement with them?”

“It counts as an agreement. In the dark, I must listen to their commands.” Vincent’s voice was a touch hoarse. “Those two are very powerful. Didn’t you realize on the farm what Booker is capable of?”

Vincent put down his pipe and said lightly: “Come over here.”

They tried a new position. Lisa asked Vincent where he had learned it. Vincent said he’d learned it yesterday from a group of animals. Last night he’d made his way alone into a great primeval forest. Lisa said that she’d felt like a cat, without a clear climax, but completely beside herself. Was this the tiger’s way of sex? Vincent did not answer, but said: “Listen, the young men downstairs are completely silent.”