Can Xue - The Last Lover

Vincent watched her recover her vivacity, speaking as she gestured with her hands, as if she would jump up from the sofa. He thought, This girl is too lonely.

In the hallway someone was calling her name. She stood up, excited, and walked away, saying, “Surely it’s that old Tom. They can’t organize their lives without me!”

For a while Vincent stood in the room, and then he decided to go to the surface.

As he climbed the stairs he couldn’t open his eyes for the smog and smoke. On every floor he heard the sound of the tenants quarreling behind doors. When he finally reached the street again, he had a feeling of being released from the dark into the sunlight. He thought of Joyner’s always calling him Grandfather. He was suspicious. Could he have gotten so old?

It was nearly noon. There were still no people in the town. In the distance the stone mountains were illuminated by the sun, with an unspeakably bleak air. Vincent reflected that his journey was not at all like what he’d envisaged beforehand. Not only had he not found any answers, his thoughts were even more constricted. He also suspected he had come to the wrong place. Or maybe this wasn’t the gambling city where Lisa was born, but a smaller town near the gambling city? But the spot had been marked clearly on the map at home. A few decades ago Lisa had told him this was the place. It couldn’t be a mistake. Besides, when he was at the train station, hadn’t he seen that copper rooster beside the rails? This rooster was the most important sign, Lisa said. It symbolized the way the gamblers cherished time.

Vincent made a circuit of the street and finally heard a stirring. It was the sound of shattering glass from the window of a gray two-story building. A puff of thick smoke emerged. He thought of the warning about earthquakes and grew nervous. Yet no one ran out from the building. Joyner came over, her hair disheveled, with an angry expression.

“Don’t you see, the people there are slowly dying! How can you be so unconcerned?”

A gust of wind swept past, mixed with thick smoke. Vincent sensed that something was about to go wrong.

“Joyner, what do you think I should do? Should I go back home? I can’t understand anything here. I don’t know the history of the gambling city. It’s all Lisa’s fault. .”

He became incoherent. But Joyner sniggered, making his skin crawl.

“Joyner, I’m leaving.”

“No, you can’t leave!” She glared, her eyes wide.

“Why not? I’ll just catch the train, I know where the station is.”

“You can’t leave,” she said again, her tone relaxing. “Because, because of the earthquakes.”

“But I can leave. Look, there’s no effect at all.”

“Fine, go, but you could die. When you get there you’ll be done for.”

“How do you know?”

“You’re right, I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have.”

Joyner sighed and sat down on a stone bench at the side of the road, blankly staring at the thick smoke pouring from the broken windows. At this, Vincent felt again that he couldn’t leave, at least not for a bit. He said to himself, “Lisa. Oh, Lisa, how come I can’t understand even a little of what is in your heart?” Lisa, who’d been lovely like a flower in her youth, had grown up in this deathly quiet place. Maybe she was born deep underground! Had the city always been like this, or was it made this way by the people here? If it was made this way, what had it been like before?

“Joyner, why are you the only person who comes to the surface? Is everyone in the city underground?”

“It’s because of the earthquakes. You still don’t understand?”

“The earthquakes can’t harm people if they come to the surface, so why do they hide underground?”

“Oh, you don’t get it. You really don’t understand anything. Hasn’t Lisa told you? It is the principle of the gambling city. It will never change. Listen, they’re crying in fear.”

Joyner stirred herself, saying she had to work. Actually, the road was quite clean. There was no one to sully it. She lifted her broom and started to sweep. Vincent understood, she wasn’t sweeping to keep things clean, she was there to receive visitors. Look at her expectant appearance, as if she’s waiting for her boyfriend to appear.

“Joyner, who are you waiting for?”

“For anyone. Wasn’t I waiting for you? Your arrival was my holiday.”

Vincent sensed that she wasn’t happy at his arrival. Her look was always heavy with care. As he and Joyner were speaking, a group of men came out of the two-story building with smoke pouring from it, forty- or fifty-year-old men in their underwear, looking like they hadn’t woken up yet. Joyner flew toward them, raising her broom to strike, rebuking them as she drove them back into the building. At first they grumbled, then fearing her wild, violent look, they obediently went back inside.

Joyner’s face ran with sweat. She spoke to Vincent, as if embarrassed: “Gamblers are always discontent.”

“All these people are in your care?”

“Yes, my youth is wasted on things like this. It’s not worth it, is it? Follow this road to the end, then turn right and you will see Lisa’s home.”

“Lisa’s home! Didn’t her parents die a long time ago?” Vincent was frightened.

“That was only an analogy, it’s how people here look at things. Go, they are waiting for you.”

He hadn’t anticipated that Lisa’s parents would be extremely wealthy. Although her elderly father and mother were seventy or eighty years old, their minds were clear and they looked quite spirited. The large, extravagantly decorated house had a number of servants. At Vincent’s arrival, the old couple was guarded. They kept asking at first when he would be leaving, as though they took him to be a threat. Afterward, when they heard Vincent explain that this was only a short-term visit, they finally relaxed, and accordingly took no interest in him. They would let Vincent do what he liked, and said he could stay at their home as long as he wanted to stay. Then, not waiting for Vincent’s reply, they lay down on the thick cushions of their respective rocking chairs, talking with an old parrot in a birdcage hanging under the chandelier. Vincent couldn’t understand their conversation. It seemed they were debating the question of putting power lines on the stone mountains. It also seemed they were analyzing methods of tracking down criminals on the run. No matter what the old couple said, the old parrot always said, “Very good! Very good! A work of genius! A work of genius!” Vincent suspected that these words of praise were not the only things the ugly bird could say.

Vincent grew tired of listening. He also found a rocking chair to lie down in. There were many of these rocking chairs in the living room. He had just settled into one when he heard the manservant who had been standing at the door say in reproach: “This man doesn’t have the status to lie there.” Vincent found this amusing. A hurried burst from a buzzer rang out in the main hall. The elderly couple got up from their rocking chairs and went to an interior door, then thought of something and stopped again. Vincent’s father-in-law turned back and said to him, “We need to go to the rooms underground. We don’t know if we’ll be able to come back up once we get there. You should do as you please, have fun. We hadn’t imagined you’d come, it’s one of Lisa’s tricks.”

Vincent wanted to tell them he would be leaving soon, but the old couple didn’t want to listen. They hurried each other to the basement rooms. After they left, the servant, who before this had stood unmoving by the door, became animated. He ran over and hung two blankets over the old couple’s rocking chairs, then took down the parrot’s cage and stuffed it into the empty stove that sat in the fireplace. Vincent heard the old parrot shouting abuse: “Villain! Stuck-up fiend!” When he shut the door to the stove, the bird couldn’t be heard. Vincent smelled a strong, acrid tobacco. He turned and saw smoke pouring from the stairway leading to the basement entrance. The servant spoke from behind him: