Can Xue - The Last Lover

“I didn’t know you were here, that you worked here,” she said, stammering.

“Are you new here? I heard there was a new person who’d come, but I hadn’t met her. So it’s you! It’s good that you’ve come, though the work here isn’t easy to get used to.”

Ida was relieved. It wasn’t Ali. She only resembled her a great deal.

“Oh, I made a mistake. But have you worked in a place like that before?”

“Are you talking about the rubber tree plantation? Of course, fat people like me have all worked in that kind of place. The scorching climate was unbearable for me. Besides, I thought there were too many snakes. They even got into the refrigerators. I would rather be here, missing that place, than stay there myself. I left ten years ago.”

She guardedly looked toward the kitchen door, then walked over, closed it tightly, turned back and sat on a small wooden stool to peel potatoes. After a bit someone knocked at the door. She pursed her lips at Ida, saying: “Don’t pay attention, it’s the bar owner wanting to come in. Once he comes in he adds salt to the meat pies, he says it’s to test the customers’ sensitivity. He’s really insane. I think his opening this bar was an insane gesture, don’t you, Ida?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure.” Ida listened to the owner’s anxious yells.

“Lunatic, a complete lunatic! He wants to go back to that army camp!” The cook turned her fat body around indignantly, and waved a spatula menacingly at the door.

“Army camp?”

“Yes. Couldn’t someone like him only have come from somewhere like that? A well-trained soldier. You haven’t noticed that the atmosphere in this bar is like an army camp? This is a place that levels individuality.”

She put down the spatula and stood there, huffing, clearly not working. Ida thought she was like an angry child. She reminded her of a penguin. In the kitchen, sounds from outside couldn’t be heard, so it was a completely different scene. Someone was poking his head in at the window. It was Jade’s boyfriend. What was he planning to ask about here? He looked extremely haggard standing under the lamp in the yard like a ghost.

“But someone like this boy ought to go to an army camp for training,” the cook said.

Ida finally understood that Mr. Reagan was inescapable. In this unusual bar, far from the farm, Ida’s mood had changed. She didn’t think of returning to the farm at all. The place where she wanted to return was her old home. In her imagination it was a vague shadow. Actually, she didn’t want to take a train there, either. She wanted to take a shortcut, and the shortcut was one of those dark holes in the bar that Jade had told her about.

One day, when music reverberated throughout the bar, Jade guided her into a dark hole. At the time they stood in the backyard talking. There was no rain, intermittent gusts of cool wind blew across the sky, the moonlight appeared clammy. By a pagoda tree someone whistled a hackneyed love song, flirtatiously. Suddenly Jade pressed a hand forcefully on her shoulder. Ida’s feet slid, then she fell with Jade into a hole.

Ah, she was overwhelmed with so many thoughts and feelings! Thunderclaps and the smell of the damp mud immediately surrounded her. The sound of shouts spread out indistinctly from somewhere. They were all familiar voices. Jade was not in the same hole as she, but in one next to her. When Ida called, she made a muddled echo, as if she were almost asleep. Surely Ida stood on the mud of her hometown. That softness could not be forgotten in a lifetime. The rain carried a thick fish smell, and it fell without stopping. Soon her hair was wet through. By her ear, a man from her hometown said: “Manila, Manila, floodwaters cover the open fields.” She remembered that she’d recently heard someone speak this same sentence. At this moment, she deeply sensed that the people of her hometown had an instinct for quick adaptation. Otherwise, in a place constantly assaulted by mountain floods, how could a race survive? Those people taking the night road, how forceful their steps were, with almost every step holding tight to the pulse of the land.

“Ida, Ida, have you seen the burning clouds of sunrise?” Jade mumbled in a low voice off to the side.

The music swelled, and the smell of the tropical rainforest grew thin. But a rooster still crowed at the light, starting and stopping, crowing and crowing.

Jade’s hard, nervous fingers hooked Ida’s fingers. They stood shoulder to shoulder. A man and woman, both drunk, supported each other home. Jade said that they had a long journey to make.

“They are returning to a house with a dungeon,” Jade told her.

“But my dungeon has no boundaries,” Ida said, disheartened.

Jade stifled a laugh. Ida had seldom heard her laugh in this elated way.

“Has your boyfriend come?” Ida asked.

“I can wait somewhere like this, and hear his footsteps traveling far from his hometown. This feeling is always so beautiful. I hear the sound of his instincts.”

Ida thought she would go back to the farm tomorrow. There should be many holes like this there, too. She had completely mistaken them before.

Ida moaned. “My foot!” she said. Her foot was still stuck in the mud of her hometown. It was difficult to extract. Jade turned to look at her, and said it would be best to get used to it. She also said anything could be gotten used to. The door opened and Ida saw the bar owner hiding in the shadows. He lay under a table reading a book. It was very difficult to believe he could see anything clearly in such a dark place. Did the two drunken customers leaning on the table know that Alvin was underneath them?

“Jade, I really admire your father.”

“So do I. You should know that the whole bar is his dungeon. Sometimes I think that I’m ridiculous compared to him! The best I can do is not leave my bedroom to go outside.”

She circled around the counter and went to find Mark. Ida bent down to speak to the owner. He opened his mouth, but his gaze didn’t move from his book.

“I’ve read this story for decades. Everything in the story is a trick. Ida, have you made up your mind to go back? Tomorrow’s train leaves at nine in the morning.”

“How do you know I am going?”

“All things are written in this book. After you leave, you will not be able to find this bar again.”

“Why not?”

“You bolted into it by chance. It’s not easy to find, and if you don’t pay attention then you miss it.”

The owner placed the book like a pillow under his head, coiled his body, and appeared to be sleeping.

Jade and Mark stood dumbly under the lamplight of the counter. The record player was already mute. Almost everyone was drunk. A few people got up to leave, another few leaned on the bar top and tables fast asleep. Ida watched to see who woke up and then immediately she would run over, taking them by the arm to walk them outside. The people she led by the arm were often extremely grateful, calling Ida, “good little girl,” “little angel,” and so on. The look of affected seriousness when they’d entered the bar had disappeared, without leaving a shadow or trace. A woman staggered out the door, then suddenly turned around and called to Ida:

“Tonight we were lucky to meet, in days to come we will not forget each other. Good-bye!”

“Good-bye,” Ida said mechanically. She hadn’t even seen the woman’s face clearly.

At dawn, Ida saw many gorgeous butterflies in her bedroom. They flew up and down in the lamplight and lined up to form letters. Watching them dully, Ida began to weep. At the same moment, she heard Jade in the neighboring room jump down from the table.

Ida left the Green Jade bar. When she turned back to look, the flickering neon light had receded into the distant end of the road.