Can Xue - The Last Lover

Someone was calling him. It was Ali, panting as she came over. She said he might be drawn into a lawsuit. She’d heard that Jin Xia used improper methods to manage the farm.

“What does he mean to do?” Ali said, as if she were in the dark.

But Reagan saw that she wasn’t really nervous. It seemed she was still looking forward to a certain event. He thought that this was a common mentality of people on the farm, they were all looking forward to a certain event.

“I don’t entirely believe this. Is it a ruse, is he hurting himself to win us over?” Reagan said.

“Yes, is it a ruse?” Ali repeated his words excitedly, a light shining in her eyes.

“Jin Xia is a strange, unpredictable man.”

When Reagan opened the curtains and looked outside, a woman appeared in his field of vision. This happened two days in succession. She was Jin Xia’s wife. On the farm, covered everywhere with wind-blown sand, rumors flew in the air. Already several people had come to tell him rumors about a public sale. Already Jin Xia had avoided Reagan for days. Now his wife was digging in the soil next to the road. What was she digging up? Ali entered.

“She’s already dug a lot of deep pits beside the road. She says she wants to examine the composition of the soil. This woman is a sorceress. I’m not afraid of her husband, I’m only afraid of her. Why would she examine the composition of the soil? She wants to dig down to the roots of things.”

Reagan was surprised and turned around to question her, but Ali had already gone, taking his dirty clothes with her. Ali’s talk made his spine run cold. For many years he’d seen his life as a perfect whole. This outlook was now thoroughly destroyed. Over there, halfway up a mountain, two pairs of eagle eyes observed the farm’s fragile existence. Once they showed their strength, everything would return to a savage era. Despite the distance, the sound of the woman’s digging in the earth still carried to where Reagan stood. She seemed to be digging at the foundation of his house. Even the glass in the windows trembled slightly. Reagan suddenly understood why when he went to her home she acted as if she despised him. Perhaps in her eyes, he was only an idiot. What did she see within layer on layer of soil? Her manner of grabbing tight, of not letting go, left Reagan with an indistinct feeling of hopelessness. He said to himself, over and over, “Ida, Ida, we’re through.”

This family was laying out schemes far in advance. Reagan’s thoughts couldn’t capture what they had planned. His heart leapt madly in his chest, as the hoe she raised resentfully seemed filled with hate, and stroke by stroke dug into his heart. He heard someone outside his door say, “Manila, Manila, waves from the sea flow into the distance.” He ran over to open the door. Ali was standing outside.

“Is something wrong?” he asked her stiffly.

“I was worried that you might need something, so I’ve been waiting here.” Her face seemed to redden, but it might have been the light playing a trick.

“Just now someone was talking outside the door.”

“Impossible, I’m the only one here. Look, am I interfering too much? If she keeps digging like this, won’t she control every last bit of the farm? After all, we are old residents, we should be respected.”

“Why would you concern yourself with what that lunatic does?” he said, ill-temperedly. He closed the door in her face, irritated.

As for Jin Xia, who was addicted to buying land, and his “lunatic,” perhaps they were playing at a two-person comedy. Just now Ali had said “old residents”—was this sarcasm? Reagan wasn’t a true old resident. There was the forest keeper, and before the forest keeper, there were some people — he basically didn’t know anything about them — but only they were the true old residents. Over so many years, Reagan had never run across people like that. To his surprise, he realized that by analyzing the soil’s composition the farm’s history could be known. It was a little like mythology. Why did this family want to seize the farm and hold it? Then there was Ali, who seemed to understand their situation as if she held it in the palm of her hand. Last night someone had walked into his house, someone a bit like the black-clad Eastern woman. But “she” was a young man walking over to face him. He held a round porcelain dish. He’d abruptly smashed the dish to the ground, where it broke into splinters, but made no sound whatsoever. Without knowing how, Reagan formed a kind of attachment to this black-clad youth. He wanted to pour out his feelings to him. The youth turned his white bony face toward Reagan, kicked at the smashed pieces of porcelain with his toes, and did not answer his questions. Reagan understood, he would never get an answer. Looking at this young man, an unusual desire rose in his heart, even more intense than his desire for Ida. This one time, Reagan terrified himself. The young man went outside. He followed but failed to catch him, because the young man strode like the wind. Recalling this event now, Reagan thought, for no reason, that it was actually Jin Xia pretending to be a youth. Although he had looked like an Eastern man, the impression he gave was also of someone of unclear nationality. But during the day, when he faced Jin Xia, Reagan didn’t feel the slightest degree of desire. Jin Xia was certainly not the sort of person to make people desire him, if not to say, he was the sort of person to extinguish desire.

“Look, she’s already found what she wanted. Her pose is so graceful.”

Ali had come in again from somewhere without his noticing. They could see Jin Xia’s wife shouldering her hoe and receding into the distance.

“How did you know this woman wanted something? You don’t know her.”

“In my hometown, there are many people like this. Once I saw this family I was sure they were the same kind of people. They absorb a few things from your body, and they pour a few things into your body. I’m speaking of Jin Xia’s family. Mr. Reagan, from the day they arrived, the farm has been changing, but you haven’t detected it.”

As Ali was speaking her eyes looked to the ground. Reagan thought that surely she knew many more things. There was nothing hidden from this pair of aged eyes. He even suspected Ida’s leaving had something to do with this loyal, faithful old servant. But why did he suspect her loyalty?

With these many contradictions rushing toward him, Reagan made up his mind to flow along with the current.

He stood in the garden wearing pajamas, because the driver Martin had taken all his coats. He turned his face to the autumn sun, figuring that it wasn’t bad to be a child, to be unconcerned, and let this 160-square-kilometer farm return to its age of savagery. He didn’t want to be concerned with the future any more. A few workers walked past. Were they going to work? No, they weren’t going to work, they were playing a part. They each harbored their own ancient story, drifting along on his farm, searching for something.

In a spot where the grass and leaves reflected the light, underneath a palm tree, he saw his mother. His mother’s appearance didn’t show her age and there was no expression on her face. She held knitting in her hand, as if she were making wool socks. The sun shone on her body — wasn’t she too warm? He didn’t dare call out because the sight before his eyes was too fleeting. But his mother raised her head, looking at him inquiringly, as if to say, “Why are you wearing pajamas outside, little boy?”

His bare feet tread on a small snake. It was ice cold.

“Martin, Martin, you’re always wearing my clothes. What are you thinking?”

“Me? I don’t think about anything, I’m unable to think, so I wear your clothes. When I walk outside, I become another Mr. Reagan, and the knots in my heart disappear. I’m a rootless person, I always need to pull on a coat.”