Can Xue - The Last Lover

When he opened the door of his “office,” Vincent and Lisa were surprised. The tiny room was just one meter square, with a small student desk attached to a metal chair. If anyone sat there for a long time it would be painful, let alone someone as fat as the conductor, who would have trouble squeezing into the seat. They didn’t understand. Why was the conductor’s office designed like this when it was such a spacious train?

The conductor seemed to have guessed their thoughts. He raised one leg, squeezed behind the desk, and sat down in an extremely painful posture, his stomach tightly propped on the desk drawer. He asked Vincent to give him the liquor bottle. A half-bottle of brandy sat on a separate shelf. The conductor greedily emptied it, drinking straight from the bottle. He threw it away, bent over the desk, and went to sleep. Lisa said to Vincent: “The train can indeed be called a lonely town, but why did he want us to see how he dreamed? He’s a strange man.”

“It’s possible this is how he lives his life. We happened to become the landscape of his world.”

When he said these words, Lisa stared at him for a moment. He couldn’t say whether she approved of what he said or disagreed. The train had already entered the station. They surveyed the conductor and decided he had no intention of waking. Although he looked uncomfortable leaning there, he certainly slept soundly.

That day Vincent and Lisa sat in the garden for a long time. The sun was scorching. The scent of the green grass made them drowsy. He told Lisa that there were a few things he was now unsure of. He couldn’t tell whether he should go to work. Maybe he should become a train conductor, or something like that? But he wouldn’t like that journeying kind of life, and even more he didn’t like loneliness. Yet he felt his career was now a yoke around his neck, because there were things in this world that still held interest for him, things he was unable to pursue. He chattered on. What he talked about seemed to have been suppressed for decades. The more he spoke the more direct his gaze grew, and the more he felt himself near but not touching on reality; but still he couldn’t stop.

Lisa let him talk at first, looking absentminded. Her large brown eyes watching him appeared so remote it was as if he were a passing stranger.

“Vincent, when I picked brake ferns in the gully, where were you hiding?” she mumbled.

Vincent was surprised and shut his mouth.

Lisa made several odd gestures with her hands, appearing nervous. Vincent sensed that she was communicating with someone. With whom? There was not a single person in the vicinity.

“Vincent, I want to leave,” she spoke again, her face turned elsewhere. “Every day I go to the same places. But why do you complain? I think you are complaining.”

Yet she didn’t move. She still sat there, staring into space. Later on she finally stood, circled around the stone table, and placed her hands on Vincent’s shoulders, saying, “I’ve finally remembered. It isn’t Maria going on the long march at night, it’s me. Look how forgetful I am. You don’t need to change jobs. It won’t affect your pursuing those other things.”

“I remember your going on the long march at night, too, but you said it was Maria!”

“The delusion probably emerged when I was in her rose garden. Now, when I’m speaking with you in this garden, I’m already gone, I’ve left. You see my shadow receding? Along with the cook’s.”

Vincent reached out his arms to embrace Lisa. The woman sat in his embrace as calmly as a kitten. He heard a strange noise. He listened carefully and made out the sound of galloping horse’s hooves, with the sound of people yelling pressed in between.

“Darling, where do you think you can run off to?” he asked, kissing her ear.

“I am changing my habit of going on journeys at night.” She stifled a laugh.

“Lisa, you’re so light. Is this you? I saw the gambling city under the sun. It looked like it was coming toward us. Lisa, is this you?”

“It’s me, darling. You can’t forget the city, because it will always be in the depths of your heart.”

They were talking in this mad way, and at the doorway of their house Joe, his features strained, was looking for Vincent. He had an emergency to report to him. The cook told Joe that the house’s owner and his wife had already returned and were both in the garden. Joe walked into a large garden so overgrown even the path was obscured, but he didn’t see the two of them. He saw doves. The white breed of doves, hidden in the thick grass. They were everywhere, making a lovely cooing. Joe was released from his anxiety. He felt no need to be nervous, and thought that spending an afternoon here wouldn’t be too bad. A few nights before he’d passed through a street-corner garden and seen Vincent sitting on a bench drinking, worries written all over his face. He had come here to find Vincent and discuss a problem from work, but he’d already forgotten what he’d wanted to talk about. He vaguely remembered that it had something to do with an improvement to the style of the clothing. Now he was afraid of meeting Vincent, because he couldn’t say what had brought him here. Joe squatted in the grass, listening carefully to the doves’ coos. It was a few days since he had seen his boss. Joe wondered whether he himself still hoped to leave. If he hoped to leave the clothing company, why was he still laboring body and soul at the company’s work? It had already developed into a giant corporation. Opportunities increased, and Joe’s salary grew larger. Maria had renewed her habit of buying jewelry. In the midst of his pressing business at work, Joe continued his frequent reading. And so sometimes, when talking about work, he used literary language. Encountering this, his customers often nodded their heads to show complete understanding. What kind of people were his customers? He heard Vincent and Lisa’s voices. They were walking past the other side of the peach tree beside him.

“How could you breathe in the underground rooms? I can’t think of how. Could you teach me?” Vincent said.

“Vincent, dear, it is called summoning demons. I don’t want to fill our everyday life with earthquakes.”

Through the branches of the peach tree Joe saw Lisa’s gorgeous skirt. The couple was walking toward the house. The cooing of the doves, the blue sky, and the green trees made one reluctant to leave the place. Joe sat down, taking out a novel from his briefcase. A train appeared in the chapters he read. One of the train’s cars had no people in it, only two shadows showing on the glass window. The train conductor, a fat old man, came over to explain: “This is a newly implemented experiment, to see whether this special journey is possible. The two people who founded the Rose Clothing Company in the city belong to an elite class of people.” Joe didn’t like the tone of this description: it was oily and shifty. What elite class of people? Vincent wasn’t that kind of man. Joe suddenly realized, How could things taking place in reality be written in the book? He looked again at the book’s cover, where there was a picture of a bee along with the title in italics: The Heroic Long March . At this moment two real bees fell onto the page of the book. They were both comatose, one a worker bee and the other a drone, hopelessly moving their legs. Was Vincent passing information to him? He cautiously moved the bees onto a blade of grass, thinking of everything Lisa had said about the earthquakes. Yesterday there had been a real earthquake in his square. The statue in the center had toppled over a little at a time. Spring water rushed from the well. With a nameless impulse he ran to the well, wanting to see his own face. But he couldn’t lean into it because he was drenched by a small waterfall, and he couldn’t keep his footing because of the vibrations from every direction.