Can Xue - The Last Lover

“Probably some stranger inside the house?” He feigned relaxation, and stretched himself.

“What strangers could be here? Even the snakes are familiar visitors. Some people you think are unfamiliar because you don’t often actually think of them. But they cannot forget you,” Ali said as she went into the kitchen.

When Reagan went upstairs, Martin and Elaine closely tailed him. He walked into the bedroom, and the pair followed him in. Moreover, they immediately took possession of his bed, becoming heedlessly intimate. Reagan was just about to leave when they stopped moving. Martin said:

“Mr. Reagan, you’re not used to looking at young people like us?”

“Please leave, both of you.” He squeezed out these words between his teeth.

Martin got up from the bed with an aggrieved look, mumbling, “I don’t understand you, Mr. Reagan, why do you wrap yourself up so tightly?” Elaine thumped furiously on the mattress and threw a pillow to the ground, then she jumped down from the bed and stepped on it.

As they left, Martin said directly to Reagan’s face: “Even though you’re my boss, I still want to tell you, Mr. Jin Xia has lost all hope in you.”

Reagan walked to the French windows. In his field of vision, Jin Xia’s lodging became a small gray speck in the distance while the farm looked like it had caught fire in the golden sunlight. He picked up the pillow from the floor, put it on the bed, and lay down with his head emptied of thought. His gaze rested on the open door of a cabinet — that bastard Martin had taken almost all the clothes and personal things from inside. Was Martin even his employee, or was he his master? Many years earlier, when Reagan discovered the young fellow taking his clothes, he’d initially been excited. At the time he thought he would influence this youth, but judging from circumstances today it was exactly the opposite. The two of them were challenging him to battle. The sister of the girl who’d died to follow a dream bared the vulgar desire of her body to him, and at the same time she disdained his lack of upbringing. He had seen Martin sitting in his dining room downstairs, his body wrapped in four or five small snakes. The snakes were not encircling him from outside, but had gotten into his body, entering from one side and exiting from another. The youth’s countenance was like that of a man in a coma. After Reagan entered the dining room, the small snakes left Martin’s body and slid away, following the base of the wall. Reagan was greatly surprised. He wanted Ali to guard against this youth.

“Don’t take him to heart,” Ali said. “He drifted here from an impoverished border region. The place where he was born had no material comforts. Everyone worked like convicts. Now he has an advantageous position. But people like him can’t change the bearing of poverty.”

Imagining life in that poverty-stricken border region, imagining this young fellow who, when necessary, let poisonous snakes enter his body, Reagan felt a kind of respect well up in his heart. It was for this reason that later, when Martin time and again took his clothes, Reagan did not object.

Was it possible that the shadowlike Jin Xia could have expectations of him? Jin Xia worked madly, but not to leave his specious mark on the face of the earth. Reagan thought of the collapsing “termite nest” where he lodged, and felt that Jin Xia would stand fast.

One afternoon, after Ida had left, Jin Xia quietly accompanied him to the lake, where they sat for a long time.

“Jin Xia, how large is our farm now?”

“A hundred and sixty square kilometers.”

“I hadn’t imagined it was so large.”

“Taken all together, it’s very large. That’s why Ida left. She wants an honest man, not a shadowy landowner like you.”

“You speak directly. The past few years I feel I’ve become more rarified. Look at that patch of reedy ground ahead. Ida and I made love there. A mouth opened up in the ground, crowds of water snakes poured out and wound around our bodies. My neck was looped tightly, I couldn’t feel the slightest pleasure.”

As Reagan spoke the lake water began to ripple, and he realized the embankment beneath him was also shaking slightly. He couldn’t help being a little worried. But when he stealthily sized up Jin Xia, he saw him writing in a little notebook, his head lowered.

“What are you writing?”

“I’m calculating the surface area of the newly bought farms.”

“You haven’t been listening?”

“I’ve been listening. You often talk about this.”

“But this is the first time I’m telling it to you!” Reagan was disappointed.

“That’s not right, how could it be the first time? You’ve forgotten. I like Ida, too. But without her, what can you do? You are fortunate to have her. I knew early on that Ida was the master of this farm.”

Jin Xia was always able to say the things Reagan most wanted to hear. Reagan called his words “a spirit-enchanting potion.” If it weren’t for Jin Xia, Reagan didn’t know how he could have suffered through such days.

“But she didn’t expect to stay here.”

“Oh, you’re mistaken, Mr. Reagan, you always make this mistake. You forget again, this is Ida, who escaped from the landslide.”

The afternoon sun shone on the lake water, shining on the reeds. An occasional water bird flew past with a sharp cry. The place now seemed incomparably ancient. In Reagan’s mind a fresh memory appeared. In this memory a young Jin Xia carried Reagan’s little brother, running in the wind. His long, thin legs seemed to rise up into the air. He was wearing a strange black-and-white gown, and looked both Chinese and Japanese. Reagan almost let the question leave his mouth: “Jin Xia, where are you really from?” But what he actually asked was: “So how large is the farm?”

“The calculations differ a good deal, Mr. Reagan, sometimes by a multiple. However, this is normal. Surveys of the surface area can’t be depended on, don’t you agree?”

Reagan grew conscious of the reality that his farm could not be measured. He thought Jin Xia might also be conscious of this, so why would he still go to the trouble of taking measurements? One time Reagan woke from a dream and walked into the woods, where he saw his workers, all wearing straw hats, sitting in the moonlight like statues. He passed by these unmoving figures and immediately sensed the plane attained in their minds, one that took the rubber tree forest as its starting point, a limitlessly extending open sky. He rudely called out: “Ida.” Immediately someone answered him, but the voice answering was a man’s. Watching the groups of people like wooden statues, Reagan was afraid. He stepped back to walk out of the woods, wanting to break away from the feeling of stagnation they gave him. But the rubber tree forest was possessed. Even if he turned in a familiar direction, he could not reach the edge of the woods. On that occasion he exhausted himself to the point of collapse.

“Mr. Reagan, as I see it, as the farm grows larger, our hearts grow peaceful.”

Jin Xia stood up, saying he needed to go manage a piece of work. Reagan saw that as he took a branch in the road, two fellows scurried out from the woods and propelled him away. Reagan wanted to shout but couldn’t because he realized the scene taking place before his eyes was false. After a while he gradually recovered a sense of reality. He noticed a stain on his coat. He’d worn this gray-green garment for a long time. Ever since Martin had swept away his clothing, he’d had nothing else to change into. It all seemed so absurd. As the farm grew larger, the work of measuring had more reason to permanently continue. This was Jin Xia’s scheme.

There were small birds — he didn’t know their name — hidden in the clump of reeds. The number of them surprised him. As he passed the spot, small objects like locusts sprang from the grass into the air and flew high up into the clouds. He opened his mouth, making stupid “ah! ah!” sounds. He looked back at the ground, where everywhere was a mass of crows. Clearly the crows had just flown in from somewhere else. Where? From the city? He’d heard someone say that in the city the balcony of every house was packed full with crows, wet dripping crows.