Can Xue - The Last Lover

Daniel raised his head, and saw Amei standing in the doorway.

“Amei, Amei!” he called out in confusion.

“Here, where you are, is like heaven, Daniel.” Amei made a lovely smile.

She caught sight of Zhenya, and her eyes immediately grew bright and shining. She walked timidly up to her and mumbled, “I’ve come here with Daniel, Auntie.” Her voice carried a weeping note.

Zhenya glanced at her with an expressionless face.

Amei grew even more ashamed. She went out, her head lowered and her face turning red.

Zhenya, who had not slept all night, suddenly grew lively. She directed Daniel, and the two of them hustled, lifting the large basket of squashed apples and throwing them away. Afterward she rolled up her sleeves and went to make breakfast in the kitchen.

“This is living,” Daniel sighed. In his heart he recalled Amei with concern. He didn’t understand why a person like Amei would be ashamed to meet Zhenya. Thinking of Amei among the rosebushes, how abandoned she was, he still couldn’t keep his heart from pounding with infatuation. Then he remembered his father. His mother probably thought, like Zhenya, that the farther away he went the better.

Daniel returned to his own home and saw his mother, as usual at this time of day, drinking tea in the garden. She beckoned Daniel to join her. The sky was overcast, and the two cats were again wailing beside the well.

“Your temper has grown steadier at Zhenya’s house.” Maria’s face betrayed a smile.

“Father is walking back and forth out on the street. How is that possible?”

Maria snickered, pu chi , saying: “He said he was leaving on a business trip. If someone is too consumed with stories, he no longer has any sense of reality. Don’t you agree?”

Daniel glanced at his mother, thinking that her eyes looked bright and shining.

He went upstairs to his father’s study. As he sat down in the old-fashioned armchair, looking around at the bookshelves that filled the room, it occurred to him that his father had just been there. On the open page of an old book spread out on the table was a drawing of a cat, and beside the cat were the words Turkish cat . He examined it with care for a long time, but even then he couldn’t tell what the characteristics of a Turkish cat were. This cat and the cats of his city were alike in every particular. When he was small, Daniel had sometimes snuck into this library for a look around. He didn’t read books himself, but he had always been familiar with the smell of books. From the time he was six he had known that his silent father lived inside a completely different world. And although his father’s world fascinated him, he had never thought of connecting with him through reading. In fact, Daniel thought he and his father were already in communication, only his father didn’t think so. For example, he saw the cat on the page, saw the words Turkish cat , and felt that he already knew the book’s meaning and was faintly agitated by it. To quiet his agitation, he moved the book a little aside. But at this movement, he felt in the right hand that lifted the book a numbness and weakness that rushed straight toward his heart. He had always believed that his father, absorbed by his many bookcases, must surely have a great and powerful mind. Daniel himself was thin, weak, and easily agitated. When he encountered a problem he was often unable to extricate himself. His worship of his father was thus natural.

Daniel took the books down from the shelves one by one and leafed through them, then restored them one by one. He was once again captivated by the smell issuing from the books. It was an extremely familiar smell, but also complex and hard to describe. It was like ice flowers on the windows on a snowy morning, or an old well with the moss of many years beside it. But what it was most like was the illustration in the book on the table — that Turkish cat. While he was absorbed in concentration, leafing through the book, someone slipped into the library and hid behind a bookcase. It was Amei. From her hiding place, Amei couldn’t help sighing. She’d felt for a long time that it would be hard for a boy like Daniel to survive. His appearance now confirmed her view.

“Who’s sighing over there?” Daniel asked. He couldn’t see Amei.

He was suddenly upset. He replaced the book and went to find his mother.

But his mother was gone. It was Zhenya sitting at the table in the garden. She welcomed him over, smooth-browed and smiling.

“Every time I come to your house, I forget that I’m fat. I’m almost as light as a swallow now.”

Daniel sat down across from the balcony of his father’s library, staring at it in a daze. Amei’s silhouette flashed for a moment on the balcony. His spirit was still immersed in the atmosphere of the books.

“Zhenya, tell me where my father really is.”

“He and Maria are together. Those two can’t be apart for a moment. Has Daniel thought of leaving home?”

“I’ve already decided to be a gardener here. So how could I leave?”

“Oh, that’s no obstacle.”

Zhenya hugged an African cat on her air cushion of a stomach. The cat tamely licked her stomach where her clothing parted.

“Daniel, I want to tell you about your mother,” Zhenya said, watching the red dragonflies fly back and forth. “Maria is a remarkable woman. You can’t find another woman like her nowadays. Think about how the small town she used to live in has been gone for so many years. Almost no one from it is left, but without changing her original plans she still speaks with them. In this city, who of us can build a house on a foundation passed down from our ancestors? I’m afraid there is only Maria. One night, my Siberian fiancé had entrusted someone with a letter for me, and the letter said he was tired of waiting. It said that since he couldn’t touch my body, it was the same as not having a fiancée, so he planned to go roaming. After reading his letter, I wept and came crying to your mother. You were still at boarding school then. Your house was blazing with lights. Your father was on a business trip. I thought your mother was in the bedroom, but I looked all over and couldn’t find her. But as I searched, the sorrow of my heart eased. I sat in your kitchen eating meat pies and my mind became entirely calm. Then I heard someone speaking in a low voice. I followed the voice and finally found it in the laundry room in the basement. Your mother was sleeping in the large tub, with dirty clothes piled around her. Her mouth moved continuously, calling out, in a quiet voice, a name unfamiliar to my ears. Every time she called out, a strange, hoarse voice sounded from the wall opposite her. I couldn’t hear clearly what it said.

“‘Zhenya, dear, do you love your fiancé?’ She suddenly turned her head and looked earnestly into my eyes.

“I stood there, my brain completely numb, then I felt my heart surging. I piled up words: ‘Maria, Maria, I love you! You cannot abandon me.’

“You see, Daniel, your mother and I are such kindred minds. Your mother told me later that on the night your father went away on a business trip, she was having ‘true communication’ with him through those ancestors. When your mother and I sat among the rosebushes drinking coffee, my body floated in the air. That really is a rare happiness! She sang ‘The Small Village Bakery’ for me. Every time I heard it I shed tears. The two cats ran back and forth, giving off electric sparks. If it wasn’t for the sound of cars outside, we would have forgotten where we were. Daniel, I’m telling you this so you will know that your mother is a woman entrenched in older times. The origin of her family is complicated, which makes her proud but also makes her suffer. Yet she gave birth to you on this foundation. It’s so strange!”