Can Xue - The Last Lover

“We’re there?” Maria asked listlessly.

“Yes. But we can’t enter the building yet, because the old woman is sitting in the stream bathing. She’ll be embarrassed if she sees that someone is here.”

“On a day that’s so cold?” Maria exclaimed.

“But she’s not cold, she’s so hot she can’t stand it. Not many people come here, so Grandmother walks around outside naked. Every month the villagers give her grain. Look, she’s coming over.”

Maria saw that Grandmother was even shorter than a dwarf, and wrinkled all over. Grandmother ducked into the earthen house. This small, low building was set behind a few weeping willows. Unless one looked carefully it was difficult to discover.

“Grandma! Grandma!” Wula shouted loudly, as she passed through the door.

The old woman did not answer. The room was very dark, like entering the deepest part of an underground cave. Wula led Maria ahead. The strange thing was that they walked for a long time and never came to a wall. Apparently, the building only looked like a building from the outside. It was actually a tunnel.

“Grandma!” Wula shouted again.

In the dark a small light flashed. It was the old woman striking a match. She lit a pipe. In a short while a choking tobacco smell permeated the air. The spot where the old woman sat appeared to be a rock slab, on which were many curiously shaped pebbles. As Wula drew nearer, Grandma was playing with the pebbles. They made a hua hua sound, the sound of running water underneath the rock.

“Is it her?”

It was the old woman’s hoarse voice.

“It’s Maria, Grandma, she’s come to see you.”

Wula pulled Maria down next to her on the rock. Maria felt a pair of piping-hot hard small hands squeezing her arm. She stopped shivering and no longer felt the slightest cold.

“So this is what Joe’s wife looks like.” Her aged voice sounded again.

“Maria, Grandma knows your husband. When he was little, Grandma hugged him, and went with him into the river to bathe, but afterward Joe forgot all about it,” Wula said gently.

“Oh — oh!” Maria couldn’t speak.

“Grandma uses these pebbles to help her remember things. She cannot forget a single thing, not anything! Do you hear the sound of running water? That isn’t water, it’s the fluctuation of her thoughts. The place where Grandma lives is very special. People from outside can’t find it.” Wula’s speech was full of adoration.

“Maria, do you understand Joe’s work?” the old woman coughed as she asked this.

“I don’t know, Grandma,” Maria said, hesitating. “Are you talking about his sales work? I think I understand it. I always support his going on business trips, and wait at home for him to return.”

“You really support him?” The voice became stern. “Listen, his work is only a pretense! He’s a two-faced man.”

“I thought as much.” Maria summoned her courage and said, “I am also two-faced, so I came to North Island. I cannot forget the things of the past.”

“Joe cannot forget them either,” Wula cut in.

“My grandfather, in his story, mentioned a rock cave, but he didn’t mention the bamboo forest. And yet once I got out of the car I recognized this place.” Maria felt as if this were dream-talk. “It’s so dark here.”

Wula had Maria stand against the wall, to avoid stumbling over the small animals passing back and forth. But where was the wall? Wula said it was by her right hand. Maria groped to the right and went several steps without touching anything. Yet Wula said she was already touching the wall, it was only that she hadn’t felt it. Every object in the room was like this. Take Grandma’s pebbles. They looked like stones but were actually small animals, pets Grandma doted on. Maria decided to go back, and she returned to Wula’s side. Abruptly, she realized that Wula’s voice was getting farther and farther away.

“You don’t need to look for her. She can’t leave this house,” Grandma said. “Calm down. Think about your own mistakes.”

“Mistakes?”

“Yes. If you’re tired, you can even sleep. There are too many clamorous things in here. An old person like me can’t sleep, I only doze.”

“But you just wanted me to think about my mistakes.”

“Did I say that? It’s the same whether I said it or not. Put your hand here, feel this small mouse. What do you think of it?”

The small mouse was very hard. It was bouncing and bouncing, like a glass ball. Maria thought it was impossible to be sure that it was a mouse, but Grandma said it was. She also said it was the one she loved best because it stood for the greatest mistake of her life, a mistake that almost cost her her life.

“You used to live in a town where the roads were paved with granite, and later you could no longer find that town? The young always make mistakes, and always think of their mistakes when they grow older. Today my mouse is obedient.”

“Wula!” Maria shouted in her direction.

“Don’t bother, she is too ashamed. Besides, she’s over there.”

A feeling of panic rose in Maria’s heart. What could she do in this expansive desolate “house,” with no way to determine what anything inside it was? Wula had brought her here, but what did she expect from her? Now she, too, was ashamed, because she could not guess the meaning of the things before her eyes. She had always thought the meaning ought to be self-evident.

The old woman screamed. Maria would never have anticipated that she could let out such a sharp, thin sound, like a bird call. And then immediately she began to grumble because a small animal, probably a squirrel, had bitten her cheek. She said she was too fond of them, so they sometimes gave her lessons like this.

“It was a small town with dark clouds pressing down overhead.” She suddenly sank back into her recollection.

“Wula!” Maria shouted again. She could hardly stand it any more.

Grandma was angry. Her voice became husky and confused. She loosed a string of curses, took the rocks and threw them on the ground. In a moment Maria felt the ground full of small animals scurrying madly. Maria thought, Grandma doesn’t cherish these “pets” after all. In her state of frenzy she would not let Maria approach. Whenever Maria neared, she made a strange, low roar, as if she wanted to eat her. Maria was exhausted, almost collapsing. Her legs trembled with painful needle pricks. She sank to the ground and lay down, not caring whether the small animals ran back and forth across her body. Without caring or noticing, she closed her eyes.

But she couldn’t sleep. In the dark she heard Wula talking with Grandma, and it sounded as though they had been talking for a long time. So in fact Wula had been nearby the whole time.

“You look at her, seeming so delicate she can’t stand up in the wind, and you worry about her, but actually she can wrestle with evil people — jackals and wolves.” It was Wula’s voice. “At first I couldn’t decide whether to let her come, but she was too persistent — it was beyond my control. And with her constitution, she can withstand anything.”

“Wula, did you cry today?” Grandma’s voice again became dignified. She was striking a match.

In a short while, Maria again smelled the tobacco, and this smell unexpectedly sent her to a small building with wind chimes hanging from it. She also saw a few fine books on the bookcases in the corridor. She didn’t know how it happened, but in those books was Joe’s handwriting. It gave her a very odd sort of feeling.

“Today I did not cry.” Wula’s voice sounded timid. “Because Lila kept pestering me to talk about her problems, I forgot my own. Grandma, do you think things are hopeless for Lila?”