Can Xue - The Last Lover

Her in-laws listened to this speech, then released their hands in unison, becoming affectionate, warmly restraining her, and comforting her with low, kind whispers: “That’s right, that’s right, a young girl who understands how things are.”

The three of them walked closely together toward the house.

Maria returned to the entrance of the hotel. She remembered clearly the direction she’d been facing before when she’d headed into the depths of the bamboo, so how had she come back here? She resolved to try once again, seeing as the two people were inside making love. Although they acted as if no one were present, Maria herself was terribly uncomfortable. This time she circled to face the rear of the building and walked in that direction. At the start lay a road, and farther on she reached a thick, cheerless wood. When she was cold enough to start shivering, she heard nearby, from inside a few bamboos with trunks as thick as basins, the nan nan muttering of low voices. They resembled somewhat the voices inside the walls at home, so she was not afraid. The difference was that these voices carried a sprightly note, full of praise and urging. Maria circled back and forth alone in the forest, listening to the low voices. Her mood suddenly changed for the better. She realized that she no longer feared losing her way. At the same time she felt amazement at her former misunderstanding of the concept of losing the way. How could she have misunderstood for decades?

Wula sat under a bamboo tree. Blood flowed from the side of her forehead and her hands were swollen up like steamed buns. She was crying.

“Wula, how did this happen to you?” Maria stooped and covered Wula’s temple with her handkerchief.

“We fought. Every time we make love, we come to blows afterward. Qing says I am a tiger. I don’t know how I got to be like this. But him, he is a wolf! Do you see the teeth marks on my forehead? I bit his finger!”

Saying these things, Wula appeared inspired, her eyes filled with anticipation.

“Let’s go back to the hotel,” Maria said.

“I want to go back, but I cannot find the road. My heart’s in chaos.”

Her hair spread down and covered her face. Maria saw that there was no shoe on one of her feet, and a bloodied wound on her ankle as well. Wula lifted her head, with tears in her eyes.

“Maria, go back home. If you don’t go back, the road back won’t be there. What can you do here? We all depend on raising the tortoises for our livelihood. These animals don’t appear to eat or drink, but caring for them is not easy because they depend on the energy of our minds and bodies to live. If one day we no longer want this kind of life, then they’ll disappear from the water vats. A few of Qing’s relatives did this, and now they all lie in their homes on the brink of death. Without tortoises, they lose their means of support. What meaning does life still have for them? Maria, you would not like living here for long. Only people who grew up here, from the time they were small, like their lives here. Look at Lila, who’s been here so many years: she cannot make up her mind.”

“I still want to see the tortoises. I still haven’t seen them clearly.” The idea occurred suddenly to Maria.

“Walk toward the right, keep walking, and maybe you’ll find yourself back at the hotel.”

Maria turned around in the bamboo groves for a long, long time, until she grew disheartened, and then she began to be afraid: would she starve to death in the forest? When she truly could not walk any farther, she sat down and leaned on a bamboo tree, falling into a doze. As she slept, someone spoke, lover’s talk, in her ear, sickeningly sweet and calling her “little nightingale.”

“Are we going back?” said the taxi driver, who had thick eyebrows and big eyes, seeing her awaken.

“Where are we?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.

“At the edge of the bamboo forest. Look, up ahead is the waste-land you saw when you arrived.” He pointed to the right.

“Oh, I didn’t notice it! I still need to go to the hotel and pick up my luggage.”

“Of course, the hotel is right ahead.”

Maria got into the taxi, uneasily sizing up the driver and thinking that he didn’t look like a local.

“You don’t live on North Island?”

“Me? I come and go. I specialize in transporting guests like you.”

After Maria entered her room and picked up her luggage, she stood for a while in the hallway. Finally she couldn’t bear the curiosity. She edged toward the doorway and saw no one there, she returned and pulled open the lids of the water vats. It was amazing, every single vat was empty, without even any water.

“I just saw your village head Qing sitting in the wasteland and howling like a wolf.”

As the taxi driver spoke his back was to Maria. She realized that all along he had averted his face from her. She was only ever able to see the back of his head.

“He isn’t my village head, because I’m not from around here.”

“It isn’t so simple. I still regard him as your village head.”

Maria saw that he was stealthily laughing. She imagined how Qing would look howling like a wolf. Would the right side of his face, where it was starting to decompose, be able to grow a wolf’s fur?

Once the car started moving, the driver said to Maria:

“You didn’t think I would come here, too?”

“Ha, you’re Joe! How could I not have recognized your voice? You were wearing a mask? I thought that you were someone else. How did you find your way here?”

“Wula has been sending me travel brochures, too. She and Qing were woven into my story long ago. I told you just now that I come and go, transporting guests. I have done this for a long time. When I go on a business trip I come here, and in the future Daniel will also be able to come here. Look at those two white egrets in the sky, so free and unrestrained!”

Maria didn’t see the egrets; she saw a granite path. Her heart surged up with a thousand kinds of tenderness, so she leaned her head on Joe’s shoulder and shut her eyes. She heard many people all hailing her; most of the voices were familiar. Then she saw the square surrounded by cypresses, and a young woman wearing a kimono, and a spring in the center of the square. In her dream she said to Joe: “Joe, I’ve arrived in your story.”

On the road Maria did not wake up. Even if Joe stopped the car for a meal, she ate and slept at the same time. She felt so weary she could die.

Even so she woke when they reached home. She saw Daniel busy in the garden, with small Amei working alongside him. Maria said to Joe:

“Could these two be a match made in heaven?”

Joe smiled serenely, answering:

“Just like the two of us back then.”

Ida thought she had finally escaped Mr. Reagan’s clutches. She sat at the bar counter, ordered a glass of red wine, lit a cigarette, and inhaled two puffs, feeling dizzy and elated.

The owner of the bar was her fellow townsman, a man a little over forty who looked like an old ape, with small eyes always staring straight ahead. The bar was a family business. The owner’s wife and daughter both worked in the restaurant. On holidays Ida came here to help out. Ida’s movements were nimble, her mind agile, and she attracted customers. The owner’s wife wanted her to stay, to become a member of their household.

The bar was in an out-of-the-way spot. A green neon light, which flickered like ghostly eyes, was set on a grapevine trellis out in front of the restaurant. It was by chance that Ida had come here. Once she arrived she fell in love with the place, then, unexpectedly, discovered that the owner was from her hometown and the bar’s customers were all to her liking. For the most part, customers arrived one after another around midnight. Almost everyone walked, very few of them drove. Without anyone realizing it, the seats at the counter and in the large dining room filled. People kept straight faces, spoke in lowered voices, and discussed serious issues in groups of two and three. The owner, Alvin, told Ida that the tone of the bar came about naturally, and only people who spent all day in illusions liked to come here. When they arrived, they poured out to each other the nightmares pent up in their hearts. Alvin called this “woe telling.” Ida didn’t come to the bar for woe telling; she had been attracted by the bar’s name. From a distance she saw the neon lights on the dome spell out two words, Green Jade. She still remembered how things had been that night. She’d walked a long road, roaming nearly all the large streets and small alleys of the city, until at last she reached this corner. At that point she had already made up her mind. If this bar were still not what she was looking for, she would go instead to a certain storefront and sleep there, leaning against a marble wall. But her luck had found her.