Can Xue - The Last Lover

The two boys stood at the main door watching him, raising small fists against him. Reagan thought that if he went inside again they might rush at him and strike. His gaze moved in the direction of his own home, but how strange, he couldn’t see the building. The spot was bare, except for two electric poles. After a while, his yellow dog ran from somewhere into his field of vision.

“From here you can’t see your house,” Jin Xia said.

Reagan loathed the tone of his voice. He thought that this man had mastered everything of his and was using Reagan’s own influence to eliminate him step by step. His house, everything in the house, had surely been eliminated, because looking toward the farm from this mountainside he could see no people and no buildings.

Depressed, he took his leave of Jin Xia and went down the mountain. He walked far away and turned back to look. He could still see Jin Xia standing under the banyan tree smoking his cigarette. Was he keeping an eye on Reagan? It seemed likely that, in that negating field of vision, Reagan’s own form was also erased. At the thought of being thus “erased” himself, a wave of fear rushed through Reagan’s heart. What kind of person was Jin Xia? Yesterday, Reagan was still telling himself to seize the opportunity, to continue enlarging the farm’s holdings. “Take as much as can be taken,” he’d said almost shamelessly. In fact, he’d also agreed to a large business deal in preparation for extending the rubber tree plantation to the north, near the sea. But seeing Jin Xia, Reagan somehow couldn’t feel reassured. Jin Xia’s tall, slender frame, his peculiar intonation, the gray shirt he wore were altogether too insubstantial. On many occasions Reagan wanted to ask about his nationality. But he only got out half of the question before drawing it back because he thought it was inappropriate. How could he inquire about the origins of someone like Jin Xia?

“Hi, Mr. Reagan!”

It was that girl, the one whose older sister had drowned in the bay. He meant at first to escape after a few perfunctory sentences, but discovered that the small girl looked at him avidly, as though she had something to ask of him. She was also a worker on the farm and wore the heavy work clothes, the uniform manufactured by Vincent, which had undergone improvements. Now there were almost no buttons on the garments and taking them off was extremely easy. Reagan remembered that on the day her sister was buried she had cried until her eyes bled.

“Is there something wrong, child?” he asked affably.

“My sister is an expert swimmer,” she said, watching his eyes.

“Oh?” Reagan was suddenly dizzy.

“Everything on this farm goes to extremes, so does she. Our parents are rich, they’ve separated, they live in villas in the north. Your farm is truly beautiful, Mr. Reagan, too beautiful. My sister says so, too.”

From her way of speaking it seemed her sister was still alive.

Reagan tried his best to think of her sister’s face, but it was always vague. A young lady from a wealthy family who came to the farm to be a worker, and then, one day, wearing thick work clothes, swam into the open water. “Swam into the open water,” this metaphor was too apt. The girl had stood there waiting for him so that she could talk about her sister. But why did she want to discuss her? Was she thinking of her, or sighing with grief? Or perhaps it was envy? Hadn’t someone said that the nature of everyone who came here changed? This girl, too, had changed her nature. Disregarding everything, she lived in her imagination. It appeared that her sister’s death held a kind of enticement for her. Now she probably thought her weeping at the time had been unnecessary.

“Mr. Reagan, I must go. I still want to ask you a question. Do you always stand outside when you’re pondering things?”

“Can my thoughts be seen?” He was at a loss.

“In your shadow, the grass turns yellow. But you don’t know it!” She ran away.

Reagan thought, gratified, that his farm wasn’t a stretch of emptiness. Of course, he could not wholly comprehend what Jin Xia’s intentions were. Even if nothing could be seen when he looked over here from under the banyan tree, once he came down the mountain, he ran into this girl, a girl who lived in the dream of the farm. Her suffering and that of her sister was concrete, it existed, and that dream-chasing sister had carelessly given up her life. To start with he had invited Jin Xia to the farm because of his working spirit. Or, you could say, because of his fanaticism for buying land. But Jin Xia didn’t want to occupy land himself, and the impoverished life he led was difficult to make sense of. Reagan couldn’t say what the fanaticism of his bamboo-like body aimed at. Reagan asked himself, Am I pondering things? The movement of his thoughts was like the turning of a millstone; it was no more than taking the outward appearance of things that happened and reviewing them once again. At root, it didn’t count as real pondering.

Yesterday some people had returned from Vincent’s city and told him they’d seen Ida. During the long, long night, he and Ida had dug their own deep caves, each listening to the sounds made by the other. “Ida, Ida!” he said. A chunk of earth fell down, striking his head. His movements became frenzied. Ida’s movements were methodical, making Reagan think of her composure in escaping from the landslide. He heard her digging reach underneath his feet. And yet Ida was concealing herself at a bar in the city. Even as his farm grew larger, it still could not reach the city where she was.

“Mr. Reagan, Mr. Reagan, the sun is already cruel, come hide in the shade under the trees.”

It was Ali.

“You look so depressed, you should come over and sit with me.”

He walked over mechanically and sat next to her. The cook patted his knee with her rough hand. He turned around, and made a smiling face.

“So many small snakes crawled into the house. It made me think, I’m afraid the day Ida will return is not far off.”

Reagan was unsure what type of person Ali really was, but he realized she wasn’t someone who kept a quiet spirit or checked her passions. Although Ali’s age was advanced, when she sat in the kitchen, thinking deeply, no slight stirring on the farm could escape those aged eyes.

“Ali, do you think I should continue buying land?”

“Of course you should. It can make your heart peaceful, can’t it? Jin Xia understands your ideas best, you can trust him to the last.”

“The last?”

“The last, you, I, we’ll both see it. This morning, for instance, that old lizard came into the building again. Every time he does, a new round of desire rises.”

Martin brought the jeep over. Reagan saw the young man’s entire body, top to bottom, covered in his own clothes. Even the leather shoes on his feet were Reagan’s. How had he grown so impudent? There was another person in the car, the younger sister of the girl who’d drowned. She was dressed up in gaudy clothes.

“Going home, Mr. Reagan?”

“No, I have no home,” he unhappily answered.

“Sit in the dining room with the mad dancing snakes, and you can think things over, same as before.”

The girl’s mocking voice came from inside the car. She turned her head away and didn’t look at Reagan.

“Elaine’s so silly.” Ali’s deep voice was filled with intimations of disapproval.

Ali stood up from the stone bench by degrees. Reagan also stood and got into the car with her. The four of them drove home together.

As Reagan walked up the stairs to his house, a stranger’s unfamiliar voice sounded by his ear:

“Manila, Manila, the floodwaters cover the fields. .”

Reagan felt his legs go soft and he almost sat down on the stairs. He looked in all directions, but there were no unknown people there. Elaine and Martin stood to the side, nervously attentive to him. Evidently they had heard the voice. There was Ali, too, who was measuring him with her eyes.