Can Xue - The Embroidered Shoes

“I can’t turn on the light,” he says. “It’s too dangerous. I guess you still don’t know that behind our house there is a deep abyss. This house was built on a cliff. I’ve been hiding this fact from you in the past, but I can’t anymore. Do you remember that I always accompany you to the corner, chatting about something distracting? I was afraid that you might turn your head and see the position of the house!”

I sit down at the table.

“That’s not too difficult,” the owner continued. In the darkness he passes a cup of lukewarm water into my hand. “Once in a while it comes out. I mean the moon. You can see it now. I really can’t turn on the light. Please forgive me. This house has reached its dying age. Please listen, and you will understand everything.”

What he’s saying is patent nonsense. It’s obvious to me that the house is situated at the end of the flat grassland with its back toward the mountain. I can remember clearly. Once I even circled around to the back of the house and fed pigeons there! But now he has made it so terrifying that I have to be more cautious.

In fact, the moon still hasn’t come out, and there’s no sound whatsoever from outside. It’s a silent, suffocating night. It could be that the owner has lost his mind during my absence for all these years.

He sits quietly in front of me, smoking.

“Maybe you don’t believe me. Just stand up and have a look!”

Supporting myself with the table, I stand up. All of a sudden I fall forward onto the ground without anybody pulling me.

“Now you understand.” I suppose he is smiling slightly. “It’s terrible, such a thing. Light is absolutely forbidden. And the banana grove can be reached only under the condition that you do not turn your head and look back. Well, my little deceptions are something from the past. Maybe you won’t even care about them anymore.”

“Now I have to wait until morning to leave.” I sigh and say, “When the dawn comes I’ll be able to see and it will be convenient for me to go.”

“You’re completely wrong,” he says, deep in thought while smoking. “There won’t even be a question of dawn. I’ve told you that the house has reached its dying age. Can’t you imagine what’s left? Since you have forced your way in, I have to arrange a room for you. Of course, the light cannot be turned on. You’d better calm yourself down and listen. You can hear how those sea waves are striking against the cliff.”

Of course I can’t hear anything. Outside the window appears a dark shadow that might be the mountain. I remember this house is located at the foot of a mountain. I listen intently. Still there is dead silence.

“How can the dawn come?” The owner has guessed what I’m thinking. “You will understand. As time goes by, you will understand everything. Once you force your way in, you have to live here. It’s true, you’ve been here in the past, and every time I saw you off in person. But then you were only passing through — that’s not the same thing as forcing your way in. Then this house was not as old as it is now.”

I mean to argue, I mean to tell him that I did not intend to force my way in. As in the past, I am, again, just passing through. I would not have come if I had known that my behavior constituted “forcing my way in.” But I open my mouth without saying anything, as if I am too timid and ashamed.

“The foundation of the house is very fragile, and it’s built on top of the cliff. Right behind the house there’s a deep abyss. You should be aware of this situation. Now that you’re here, you can live in a small room on the right. Actually, I am not the owner of this house. The original owner has departed. I, too, came here by accident, and I stayed. At that time the original owner was not very old. One day he went to the back of the house to feed the pigeons. When I heard a sound, I went out back, but I couldn’t find him. He had disappeared. That was when I discovered the cliff behind the house. Of course the original owner had jumped over the edge. I never had a chance to ask him why he had built the house in such a place. I still find it puzzling. But I’ve gotten used to the idea.”

He leads me to the appointed small room and orders me to lie down on the wooden bed. He tells me not to think about anything, explaining that this way I can hear what’s happening outside. And he tells me not to expect the dawn, that such a thing does not even exist anymore. I have to learn to adjust to this new environment in which I must depend on the senses of touch and hearing. As silently as a fish he leaves me. For a long, long time I am in doubt as to whether he is exaggerating. For example, he considers my coming here as “forcing my way in,” and he makes much of the cliff and the abyss. But what do these have to do with putting on a light?

I don’t know how long I’ve been sleeping in silence. Finally I’ve made up my mind. I find a lighter in my pocket and start a small fire. In that faint light I search the small room up and down without finding anything. It’s an extremely ordinary room. The ceiling is made of bamboo strips. The only furniture in the room is the old wooden bed that I have lain on. On the bed there’s a cotton mattress and a quilt. There is perfect silence, and there appear to be no terrible changes in the house because of the light I am making. Obviously the owner of the house is exaggerating. Maybe he’s suffering from some neurosis. A lot of things in the world are hard to figure. These are all kinds of possibilities. To be cautious, I had better keep still. Besides, there isn’t much fluid left in my lighter. I should save it. It’s the same as the blindfold game I used to play with my younger brother. We would limit our travel to only ten minutes. The whole situation might have turned out completely differently if we had set our time limit at one hour. Furthermore, what is the structure of the human ears? For example, can my ears stay this quiet forever? As for the owner of the house, can he find a way to keep himself alert? How can he be so listless for such a long time?

I hear him coming. Feeling around, he says, “So, one corner of the ceiling has dropped! Those explosions just now were horrifying. I hope you didn’t make any light. In the waves below, a fishing boat is sinking. I suspect the fisherman on the boat is the original owner of this house. Such things always seem to have a relationship to each other. According to the account I’ve heard, the fishing boat has run aground on the rocks. The whole boat is smashed to bits and the dead man is lying peacefully amidst the seaweed. Above him is the little house he built with his own hands.… Of course this story is pure nonsense. How can he see any house? He’s choked to death on seawater. And there’s nothing poetic about it at all. He’s lying at the bottom of the sea, his face down, buried in the sand and stone. He will rot, gradually.… Now I’m returning to my room. You should just calm down and stay here. Gradually you’ll find that everything is fine. Certainly better than your wandering all over the place.”

I try to walk out of the house. The earth is trembling terribly. Clinging to the ground, I crawl outside the front gate. In front of me should be the flat stretch of grassland. As soon as I stand up and walk, I feel suddenly that it’s not grass under my feet but something hard and moving. I start to change direction. But no matter which direction I walk I can never reach the grassland, and beneath my feet there’s always that lump of moving substance. Surrounding me is a stretch of grayish black. Except for the vague silhouette of the house, I can’t even see the mountains. Of course, I can’t go behind the house. According to the owner, there’s a cliff. Since I have walked randomly along the grassland, I should be able to walk back as long as I walk randomly. There’s no need to feel tense. With these thoughts in mind, I start walking randomly in some direction. In the beginning nothing happens. I start to feel a little bit pleased with myself. About a hundred paces on, I suddenly step into empty air. Fortunately, I get caught in a little tree sticking out and I climb back onto the cliff. I remember very well that I started walking from the front of the house. Why have I reached the cliff? Does that mean that “different roads lead to the same destination”? Where’s the trail through the grassland? I ponder hard. It seems there should be some answer. In fact, I have vaguely felt that answer for a long time, but subconsciously I have refused to recognize it. Clutching the ground, I crawl back into the house. Inside, there’s a kind of relaxation and a safe feeling. I even feel that the darkness and the smell of the lime are familiar, cozy, comfortable. In the darkness, the owner of the house hands me a cup of water — lukewarm and with a smell of being unboiled, but it’s still drinkable.