Can Xue - The Last Lover

Suddenly, Joe felt the light from the snowcapped mountain to be especially dazzling, an endless flow toward the dark little teahouse where he sat. In the room the two men changed into two pale shadows in the white light.

“This is Xima Melian’s father,” one shadow said to Joe, his head stretching and curving, both comical and a little distressing.

“What’s wrong with my eyes?” Joe struggled to say.

Joe could still hear the silver ornaments as he felt the small building disappearing and his feet thrashing in the air. He became a man floating in midair. And those two shadows were also floating into the distance.

“Xima Meilian, Xima Meilian!” Kim said, as if threatening Joe with a false show of power.

But his voice floated far away. Now Joe was facing the snow-covered mountains. When he stepped ahead, the snow under his soles made a cha cha whisper. Aside from the snowy mountains there were no other colors or forms before his eyes. He suddenly experienced a feeling of being “crushed.” He was crushed. His body disappeared. He wanted to touch his face with his hand, but he had no hand, and he had no face. So whose sense of hearing was this? In the long long rumbling of an approaching avalanche, who would witness it?

“Who?” he asked.

“Xima Meilian!” Kim said, his response echoing in the distance.

He wanted to step toward the place where Kim was, yet he didn’t dare. He felt that it was an abyss. His lower abdomen tightened, and untimely desire made his organ harden. Where did Kim actually come from? He looked outwardly like a genuine local man, but he spoke the language of Joe’s country. Joe thought of the portrait of Kim, the pasture owner, in that book. He thought of the owner of the streetside bookshop. He suddenly understood that the book with one page was a snowcapped mountain! The reason the owner wouldn’t sell it to him was because he wasn’t willing to sell the secret in his heart. Joe’s thoughts moved away from these two books, and returned to those books he’d read before. He felt waves of emotion, his mind flickering with light. Now what appeared in his mind was no longer a square and a broad road with parasol trees planted along its side. The wild, heavy snow concealed everything, everything whispered secretly under thick layers of snow. He laughed with understanding: so this was that anthill! How many years passed while industrious worker ants constructed a palace underground, and already no one could see through to it? Should this be sad or joyous? The books existed. The owner of the tiny bookstore guarded them. Joe, too, guarded them. Paper perhaps could be damaged by insects, could be scattered in all directions, but the stories inside the books entered the mind and were passed down generation to generation, preserved in secret places.

Now Joe’s face was pressed to the surface of the ice. Perhaps the snow-covered mountain was kissing him? How unusual, he felt the bone-piercing frozen wind cut through his whole body — his body shook without stopping — but his desire was as before.

The snowy mountain leaned toward him, as if pressing against his body, but it wasn’t heavy. Joe squinted. He saw butterflies flying in the ice and snow, masses of colorful butterflies mixed in with the snowflakes. Joe’s organ was frozen by the ice and snow. Moaning, his spirit lost in rapture, he came.

“Xima Meilian!” Kim said in the distance.

Ida swam along in pain, like an injured fish. The lake bottom was lit by a dim gleam, and there were many shadows. After a short while she saw that these shadows were actually the shadows of plants. Ida had often gone to the lake bottom before, but she had never seen these plants. It appeared this place had undergone a transformation. What kind of plants were they? They looked like climbing vines, with huge egg-shaped leaves creeping along the silt like innumerable small beasts. Now was the time when Reagan came to fish. She leaned against the leaf blades, listening to his footsteps close by. Reagan’s steps were filled with hesitation. He didn’t stop, but like a man possessed he wound in circles on the same spot. Ida wondered, Could he hear the sound she made stirring in the depths of the water? Numerous small fish stopped to rest on her naked body, crowding especially on her back. When she swam, these small animals bit her back and shoulder blades lightly, causing her pain to shift.

She heard a loud sound on the shore. It was Reagan falling into a water-filled depression. Perhaps a snake had attacked him. The snakes had always been friendly with him before. How could they wildly assault him now? Ida felt a certain comfort.

Reagan really was wrestling with the snakes. The violent little bastards not only poured their venom into his body, they also got into his abdomen and thrashed around inside it, making him die and come back to life again and again. He told himself, “Die, just die.” But he couldn’t die. Then one of the deadly poisonous bastards went into the arch of his foot, and he finally passed out. The last image he saw was a red star exploding in the sky.

When he came around Reagan heard Ida crying. She squatted at a spot five meters from him, looking very much like an orangutan. Her long arms propped her up on the ground, and in the night’s luminescence even her eyes turned red. Thoughts assembled in Reagan’s extremely weakened mind: “Did this woman grow up among the orangutans?”

“I-da.” He spoke the two syllables with difficulty.

“How good,” Ida spoke from her heart. “A nightingale just flew by.”

“Come here.”

“No. I’m not used to it any more. I want to stay for a while on the farm. May I?”

“You may, Ida.”

Reagan felt his body disappearing in the vanishing of hope.

Ida slowly left. Reagan saw her crawling away. She crawled ahead bit by bit. Reagan wanted to cry, but there were no tears in his eyes.

In that endless time before daylight Reagan sat unmoving in the water-logged ditch. The venom already flowed throughout his body, yet the great pain slowly brought him cheer. What he found astonishing was the way the snakes had suddenly disappeared, without leaving a trace. His surroundings were therefore tranquil. All the small living things were hibernating and did not stir. From the lake came the incongruent sound of singing. It was a woman, a bereft woman, but of course it wasn’t Ida. She had already gone in the opposite direction. So who was it? He didn’t want to move. Lightning flashed in his mind, flash after flash illuminating its most hidden corners until they were as bright as snow. White horses, red foxes, and spotted leopards sliced the air like comets. Tolling thunder surged, pressed by the black wind. Perhaps the pain made his imagination so keen. Reagan saw his own life turn into unimaginably clear lines of ideas, like veins. The path of his thoughts stretched out from the dark surface of the lake, slipping unimpeded along the ground. At this moment he couldn’t help sighing like Ida, “How good!” What he saw wasn’t a nightingale but rather the spotted leopards, white horses, and red foxes in his mind. He didn’t want to separate himself from his great pain. This novel experience made him reluctant to pull away. Every time he swung his head, there were ever stronger flashes inside it, and from its hidden corners ever more incredible animals ran out. Ancient Chinese qilin, dragons, and so on. .

Ida crawled far away before finally straightening up. She walked slowly. She wanted to return to the apartment building where she’d lived before, a building set among the banyan trees.

But the building had collapsed. Her friends Lara and Liang sat in the rubble of its broken walls.