Can Xue - The Last Lover

After he’d left, Joe spread out the Tibetan book on his desk again. He thought that the book should have a topographic map and an itinerary inside. Could those two boys have come from the snow-peaked mountains of the plateaus? Joe had one reverie after another, he couldn’t help himself.

Two drenched black birds stopped on the windowsill. They were crows. Joe sensed the air of death. How could he get to Country C? He would take a plane, of course. But how would he tell Vincent? Say he was going to realize his aspirations? Say he would never turn back? Joe felt that web appear again at last. The broad road into his square led all the way to the horizon, and a woman wearing a kimono walked slowly ahead. Was he struggling out of chaos? Or would he jump into an even larger web of chaos? It seemed everyone was inciting him, forcing him to leave. Yet at the very beginning this plan had come from the boss who couldn’t do without him. It seemed that Vincent, too, was forcing him.

Vincent hadn’t shown his face. Joe searched for him in all corners of the office. He hadn’t come, no one had seen him. Joe’s co-workers stared at him in reproach, thinking he shouldn’t search for his boss so anxiously. Someone even hinted he might pay attention to his own business. Unbelievably, everyone knew what was on his mind. Joe didn’t dare keep on asking. He returned to his office like a stray dog, put his things into his briefcase, then sat down to make a phone call to the airport. He had just finished the call when Lisa slipped back into the room like a ghost.

“You’re just going to leave without giving notice?”

“I couldn’t find Vincent.”

“He wouldn’t be here, especially on a day like this. Look at those two crows, so black. That year I came from the gambling city all alone in the world. . You have such good fortune, Joe, you possess everything!” She spread her arms in exaggeration, as if she would dance.

“Actually I have no place to even set my foot. .” Joe grumbled and placed the Tibetan travel book in his bag. He remembered that he still needed to go home and pick up his clothes. What was he doing, was he possessed, that he’d obey a complete stranger’s suggestion? Just because the atmosphere around him incited him to this crazy idea? Who was that thin man, and what made him say Joe should go to Country C, that faraway place not even described in books? Yes, he read many books, but he still had never read a book that described this faraway nation. In books he’d read of red palace walls and amber tiles, but he hadn’t thought about Country C. Joe often traveled on business, for the most part to domestic locations, and sometimes also to Europe and to Mediterranean countries, but Country C, an ancient Eastern country, remained only a hazy recollection in a recess of his mind. He had a groundless intuition: perhaps what Maria had woven was that place? Perhaps he was also on a road with her, depicting those patterns that couldn’t be seen? “Maria, Maria, you are so callous, you won’t release me,” he said to himself. The sun shone on him through the glass. A wasp flew faltering by, stopped on the back of his hand, and began to sting him. Joe’s mind became a stretch of blank space.

He returned home as if moving in his sleep. Maria wasn’t at home. Daniel had not returned either. Once Joe entered the house voices spoke from inside the walls, a sound both urgent and agitated, as if they were quarreling. He put his ear to the living room wall, but couldn’t tell what the argument was about. He went upstairs to his bedroom and packed his suitcase. When he opened the bedroom curtains, two drenched crows sat on the windowsill! The crows did not turn to look at him. They sat unmoving, like statues. Their bodies were much larger than normal. They appeared to be a special breed of crow. Other than his clothing, what else should he bring? He couldn’t make up his mind because he didn’t know a single thing about that country. He had heard before, unwittingly, some familiar person, whose face he couldn’t even recall now, say that poppies grew everywhere there, and that the men and woman all loved to smoke opium, floating like sleepwalkers in blue smoke. In that place, time could reverse, people could return to their childhoods, collecting a few pieces of testimony from their former lives to bring back. Since he had been inattentive at the time, he couldn’t remember who had said this. He discovered that Maria had left a note on the desk. She said she was going to deliver a tapestry that had been ordered by that driver. He felt no need to leave a few sentences for Maria because she’d wished for him to leave all along. Of course, Joe was slightly jealous — he wasn’t sure of the nature of the relationship between Maria and the handsome driver. But now wasn’t the time to consider the matter.

He tidied his suitcase and went out the door. A tall woman wearing a black skirt stood at the front doorway of his house. Joe had seen her before. She had an Eastern woman’s face, her expression detached. Joe greeted her; she merely nodded her head. Perhaps she stood there by chance. The two crows suddenly cawed. The sound reverberated through a vast sky.

At the intersection he ran into the beautiful black woman. She smiled at him with spirit, showing glistening teeth. Joe answered her with a smile, confusedly trying to avoid her, but she willfully moved to the side of the road.

He was troubled by the thought of the sordid action he’d just taken, because he was carrying away the better part of the family’s savings. If he didn’t return, Maria would have to sell her jewelry to live on. Yet it didn’t matter, she always had ways to get through trouble.

“Maria, Joe’s gone to the airport,” Lisa said as soon as she came in.

“Did he bring that book?” Maria had not moved her eyes away from the loom. She was following an image in the recesses of its pattern, her face flushed.

Lisa shot up from her chair as soon as she sat down. She felt Maria’s sorcery growing stronger. Someday this house would be the residence of a demon. When she walked around the room she felt the soles of her feet tingling on the floor. The voices coming from inside the walls brimmed with menace.

“Was the book he brought his map?” Lisa asked.

“Yes, he’s going to the country of poppy flowers. It’s very beautiful. But is it really what he has desired for so long? I’m not too sure.”

“He’s a mild-tempered demon.”

Lisa couldn’t stand still inside the house. Her heart was under attack. She ran into the yard and stood gasping among the shrubs. The sunlight made a weng weng drone, and the loom inside the house still shuttled evenly.

Maria stopped the work under her hands, glanced at the empty chair beside her, and called out once, “Lisa.”

Just at this moment the same image floated to the surface. It was a swiftly moving black wolf. Maria blinked her eyes and it disappeared, but she heard it give a long howl.

Lisa made a sign at the window, saying, “I can’t come in. You are too severe, my heart can’t endure it.”

“It’s because I am retracing Joe’s journey. Tonight he will stay on a plateau, where there are wolves.”

“Oh, and so your heart is full of expectations for him. If troops march there at night, what will it be like?”

Lisa raised her head and saw sparks exploding from the walls with a pa pa crackling. She hastily moved back a few steps. She tripped over a gladiolus, knocking against its sharp spike, and her face oozed blood. The two cats ran over from behind her, their bodies giving off electric sparks, pa pa . In her mind the scene of a trek on the plateaus appeared — soles rubbed to bleeding by boots and deep gullies swaying with white flowers. She wanted to leave, but she heard Maria screaming from the house. She rushed to the window and looked all around inside. She saw Maria staring at the unfinished tapestry, trembling.