by Can Xue
After this, we went to the kitchen for a great meal of sausage, smoked fish, and milk. While we were eating this wonderful midnight repast, I suddenly felt much closer to my owner. As he had in the past, he raised a glass of beer, and then his hand stopped for a couple of seconds in midair before he finally brought the glass slowly to his lips. He didn’t drink the beer in one gulp, but sipped a mouthful and held it in his mouth, shilly-shallying for a long time before swallowing it. I had long been used to this habit of his, and hadn’t paid much attention to it, but tonight I felt there was something new about it. As I stared at him, I realized that he needed me to understand him thoroughly.
My owner grew uneasy under my gaze. Setting his glass down, he asked, “Does anyone in this world feel an affection that’s deeper than our affection for each other?”
Even so, when all is said and done, I didn’t completely understand him. Perhaps the only thing I could do was wait patiently, wait until everything cleared up of its own accord, wait until the black man who came and went without a trace met up with him again, and divulged even more about the mystery of life.
A VILLAGE
IN THE
BIG CITY
=
The compound where Uncle Lou lives has a pleasant name—“Village in the Big City.” Because the power was off that day, I climbed twenty-four flights of stairs to reach his small loft on the top floor. As I stood at the entrance, I was dimly aware that the old pain in my foot was coming back. Damn! Why did I have to seek out Uncle Lou right now? Because I could no longer bear the inner panic. This is what was happening: for several days, as soon as I woke up, I felt strange because I couldn’t touch my face. I stretched my hand out toward the place where my face was supposed to be, but I could touch only my hair. And my hair was coarser than usual: it even pricked my hand. After a while, when I looked in a small mirror, my face returned to normal. Then, in the interval before I looked in the mirror, what was my face like? I put the small mirror back under the pillow, so that as soon as I opened my eyes in the morning, I could look in the mirror. It was strange, for when I looked in the mirror, nothing was there but the bed’s headboard. I touched my face again, but I could still touch only my coarse hair. There were also some grain-shaped things on my scalp, like the coarse sand that adheres to sandpaper. I put away the mirror and waited a while to look again. This time, I saw my face, and there was certainly nothing abnormal about it.
Uncle Lou had been my next-door neighbor when we both lived in an old house. We hadn’t seen each other for a long time, so—standing at his door now—I hesitated a little. It was strange: the door wasn’t closed, and yet, though I knocked several times, no one answered. After pushing the door and entering, I saw Uncle Lou sitting upright in front of the window and looking into the distance. Even after all these years, Uncle Lou didn’t seem to be getting a bit older; although he was more than seventy, his hair was still black. The room was neat and clean, the furniture simple—a bed, a chest of drawers, a dining table, and a few chairs. That was all. The kitchen was in a corner under the slanted ceiling. There was a window, so Uncle Lou could look at the cityscape as he cooked. A few shallots were on the stove, and next to the stove stood a small bamboo basket of eggs. The old man was leading a decent life. This was a relatively large loft, with several windows on the south, north, and east sides. Living here was like living in a glass greenhouse. With the sun high in the sky, it was uncomfortably hot in the room, yet Uncle Lou was relaxed and calm. I really admired him.
“Are you observing our city, Uncle Lou?”
“No, I’m waiting for someone.”
That was weird. He’d known I was coming. Perhaps, sitting at the window, he’d seen me enter this residential area. If I wasn’t the one he was waiting for, who was it? It was no secret that he’d been trying to stay away from others for a long time. For example, he was the one who had taken the initiative more than ten years earlier to hold me at arm’s length. And yet now, he was waiting for someone! It really wasn’t the right time for me to have come. Should I leave?
“Uncle Lou, I’m leaving. I’ll come back another time.”
“No, Hedgehog, why not wait with me? The sun is so nice.”
I was shocked, because Hedgehog was my deceased younger brother. I had stood here so long, and he hadn’t looked at me even once. Following Uncle Lou’s line of vision, I looked out and saw a water tower in the distance, as well as the post office, the tax office, various other large buildings, and the mirage-obscured suburban quarry. I blinked, and it suddenly changed into a vast expanse of whiteness. I looked hard again, but it was still the vast expanse of whiteness. And thus, the anxiety I had experienced this morning rose again from the bottom of my heart.
“Uncle Lou, I’m not Hedgehog. I’m Puppy. I’m Puppy—the one who used to go fishing in the creek with you. Sure, I’ve degenerated a lot over the years . . .” I was starting to babble.
“Puppy? Aren’t Puppy and Hedgehog the same person?”
Uncle Lou still hadn’t looked at me even once. What was he looking at? I was distressed because I couldn’t see anything. Feeling as if my knee had been gnawed by a little animal, I sat down on a chair. At last, Uncle Lou faced me, and only then did I get a good look at his face. His brown face not only wasn’t getting any older, it looked even younger than in the past. The wrinkles that had previously lined his forehead had fled. But one thing bothered me: his gaze was flickering. In the past, his gaze had always been focused.
“He’s arrived,” Uncle Lou said, and with that, he appeared to be really satisfied.
“Who is he?”
Uncle Lou didn’t reply, but only listened attentively. I did, too, and heard footsteps that sounded odd: the sound neither came closer nor did it recede. That is to say, he was neither coming up the stairs nor going down. He went up and down between the twenty-third and twenty-fourth floors. I listened for a while, and then the sound stopped. I wanted to get up and look out the door, but the stabbing sensation in my knee hurt so much that I broke into a cold sweat. Uncle Lou asked:
“Have you remembered?”
I didn’t know what he meant. I couldn’t speak. I was sweating all over.
All of a sudden, Uncle Lou clambered up to the windowsill and sat there with one leg swinging back and forth in midair.
“If you clench your teeth hard, you’ll feel no pain. In the past, a lot of crocodiles bit my legs in the lake. When I clenched my teeth, they swam away. This room of mine is linked with the lake. Have you remembered?”
Sure enough, when I clenched my teeth, the pain eased. In this “lake,” this loft from which you looked out and saw nothing clearly, what did I recall? I recalled the playing cards I had lost as a child. It was a deck of expensive waxed playing cards that I cared about very much. Four people had been in the room that afternoon. Who had stolen the cards? This was a frightening question. And what’s more, a storm that afternoon caused a flood that ruined our floor boards. For a short time, the city was a vast expanse of whiteness. Was it rainwater or lake water?
“I think you’ve remembered a little something, haven’t you?”
Uncle Lou jumped down happily from the windowsill. He was as agile as a thirty-year-old. I replied that I had remembered one incident, but that I didn’t understand the point of his question. It was even hotter in the room, probably because the sun was higher. Uncle Lou walked quietly to the door and looked out. Then he walked back and said to me, “That person has gone down.” He also said that he was anxious every day, because he waited for him every day. He sometimes came and sometimes didn’t; he was absolutely inconsistent. “He’s my nephew from the countryside.”
I was looking at the large window on the south side. I saw the sun, which was like a circle made of metal flakes—a white circle without dazzling rays, a solitary circle hanging in the boundless sky. Then, could it be that the dry heat in this room wasn’t coming from the sun? I wiped the sweat from my face with my sleeve. I wanted to stand up, but
my feet couldn’t manage it. I looked at Uncle Lou again. He said he passed his life feeling “anxious,” but he didn’t feel at all hot in this sauna. He wasn’t sweating; he looked fresh and energetic.
“Uncle Lou, why didn’t this relative of yours come inside?”
“He can’t. He’s too ugly.”
“What? I never heard of such a thing!”
Uncle Lou sat down on the windowsill again. This time, both legs were swinging in midair. This frightened me a little, but he was relaxed, as though there were lake water outside the window and he could swim across it.
I could still hear footsteps on the stairs, so I thought the ugly relative hadn’t left yet. Why did Uncle Lou wait every day for this relative who was so ugly that he couldn’t associate with others? And since he was too ugly to be with others, then why did Uncle Lou insist that I wait with him in the room? Alas, Uncle Lou: in the more than ten years since I’d seen him, he’d become an enigma of an old man.
After wiping my face with the washcloth he handed me, I became a little more clear-headed. Clenching my teeth hard, I stood up and, enduring the violent pain, I walked to the door and held onto its frame with both hands. Ah, the stairs had disappeared! The twenty-fourth floor was suspended in midair with nothing below! The elevator cage was still across from us, but could an elevator still be in it? The wind carried the sound of Uncle Lou talking.
“Don’t look everywhere indiscriminately. It will blur your vision. There are too many things in this building. You should sit down in the room and listen more.”
Limping, I returned to the room and sat down. A sentimental feeling gushed from my heart. I don’t remember how many years I had wanted to leave home and go to the temple at West Mountain to study martial arts and live an impoverished, meaningful life. Year after year passed, and I could never fulfill my long-cherished wish (because the mountain was far away, because I had no self-control, and because of feelings for my family). From the time I was a child, I had admired the knights errant who could leap onto rooftops and vault over walls and had looked forward to the day when I could also be as skilled. Later on, I learned that this skill was called “martial arts,” and thus I lived for the day when someone would teach me martial arts. But to study martial arts, one had to go to West Mountain—as far away as the ends of the earth. The train ride took four days and four nights. It was also a rocky mountain with no vegetation. Only by taking a concealed path could one reach the temple on the mountaintop. One of my cousins wanted to study the martial arts, too: he went to West Mountain and then returned, saying he had strolled around for a week in the foothills without ever locating the path up the mountain. He saw someone appear in the middle of the mountain and also saw someone emerge from the mountain, but he was unable to find the path. Later, he abandoned the idea of studying martial arts. I also abandoned the idea several years ago because my legs began aching for no reason; it wasn’t arthritis, nor was it rheumatism. My legs just started hurting, and as time went on, the pain grew worse and worse.
Sitting and sweating in this sauna-like room, I closed my eyes and thought back to some long-ago events. Whenever I recalled something, my legs felt a little more comfortable. Of course, I was listening at the same time. That person’s footsteps were distinct and steady: Could he be a Shaolin martial arts disciple from West Mountain? In my excitement, I opened my eyes. I wanted to ask Uncle Lou. Ah, Uncle Lou was no longer on the windowsill, nor was he in the room. Had he gone downstairs? I hadn’t heard him go down. Had he floated out from the window? I went to the door again and peeped out. What I saw was still the view of the room in suspension. I took several cautious steps forward, and at once I was frightened into crawling down. I didn’t have the courage to stride out toward midair; even if I had studied Shaolin kung fu, I probably wouldn’t have dared. It was too dangerous; I had to rush back inside. I climbed back to the room, stood up, and brushed the dust from my clothes. Just think: this building was twenty-four stories high! I was listening to that person’s footsteps. And I wanted more and more to meet him. He couldn’t be around other people just because he was ugly? This made no sense. How could Uncle Lou have said this?
“Uncle Lou! Uncle Lou!” I shouted.
After a while, a feeble voice answered me. It was as if the voice were coming from a tunnel to the door. “Don’t shout . . . Don’t . . .”
It certainly wasn’t Uncle Lou’s voice. Perhaps it was his nephew from the countryside answering me?
“Uncle Lou!” I shouted again.
“Don’t shout . . . Watch out—it’s dangerous . . .”
The person was on the stairs, which is to say he was in midair. Judging by his voice, he must be hanging in midair. I couldn’t bear to shout again, because I was afraid he would fall. Maybe the one facing danger wasn’t he, but I. Was he saying that I was in danger? I didn’t dare shout again. This was Uncle Lou’s home. Eventually, he would have to return. Perhaps he had simply gone downstairs to buy groceries. It was a nice day. The sun was out, so it was a little hot in the room. So what? I shouldn’t start making a fuss because of this. When I recalled that someone outside was hanging in midair, I started sweating even more profusely. My clothes stuck to my body; this was hard to endure. Since there was nothing to see outside, to while away the time I looked closely at the furnishings in the room. I started with Uncle Lou’s wooden bed.
Next to Uncle Lou’s pillow, besides a flashlight, there was a deck of cards! It looked familiar: it was just like the deck of cards I had lost long ago. I rubbed my sweaty hands on my clothes and went over and picked up the cards. My hands were shaking a lot, and my memory returned to that long-ago afternoon. Ah, it occurred to me that it was Uncle Lou who had stolen them! That old man wearing sneakers and standing in the shadows behind the mosquito net: Who else could it have been? He had taken my treasured deck of cards! So many years had passed, and I had never suspected him, because I thought he was too serious a person to be interested in a plaything like this. These cards had yellowed a little and smelled of the past. Now it was hard to find these old-style cards, which were so simple and enchanting. Look at this black joker: the small mark I’d made on top of it with a ballpoint pen, in case someone stole it, was still visible! Wow, my dear Uncle Lou, I don’t know what to say about you!
I put the cards next to the pillow again. I wasn’t feeling as agitated anymore, and I was no longer sweating. I steeled myself to look out the window again. Although the sky was still a vast expanse of whiteness, the sun now looked the way it usually did. I don’t know why, but I felt that a certain something had already occurred, and so for some reason, I was no longer so worried. Since that kind of thing had happened more than ten years ago, there must also be a reason for what was happening now. I should just wait; I shouldn’t worry for no reason. Listen, the footsteps were still there. The nephew who had come from the countryside and couldn’t see me was so composed. Now he had actually come upstairs. Truly, he was standing at the door and stamping his feet to knock the mud from his shoes. He was going to come in right away. I went over and opened the door.
It was Uncle Lou. Uncle Lou had come back from grocery shopping. He put down the groceries and suddenly stared at the deck of cards on the bed. With an understanding smile, he said: “You noticed. That’s an antique that I packed away long ago! My nephew has left.”
Uncle Lou had changed again to the Uncle Lou he used to be. He was merrily cooking on the gas stove as he related some neighborhood gossip. I walked over and helped him wash the vegetables. When I turned on the faucet, some slippery little creatures streamed into the sink. Before I had time to get a good look at them, they had gone down the drain. Filled with irritation, I was staring at the few stalks of celery. Behind me, Uncle Lou started laughing.
“This neighborhood is ‘a Village in the Big City.’ There are little fish and tadpoles everywhere, as well as leeches and schistosomes. We grew accustomed to them long ago.”
The water was muddy, and it also smelled like mud
. Could it be that this water didn’t come from a water tank but from a ditch in the countryside? This was really a weird residential block. I recalled that when I had arrived this morning, I hadn’t seen a single person around. It seemed the people all stayed in their own homes. It was more than ten years ago that Uncle Lou had first wanted to close himself off from others. He had wanted to move here to isolate himself from all of us. I realized, however, that in these years he was still closely connected with us. I couldn’t offer any proof of this, but the atmosphere in this room—the various odd phenomena—hinted at the attention Uncle Lou gave us. This kind of attention might not please people—sometimes it even felt eerie—but I couldn’t deny its presence. While I was watching him cook, a scene from years ago appeared in my mind—the pair of “Liberation” sneakers on the ground. I came to a shocking conclusion: Uncle Lou was everywhere!
After I washed the vegetables, Uncle Lou told me to sit down and rest. I had no sooner taken a seat than I heard footsteps on the stairs. The nephew hadn’t left, after all.
“Who’s coming up the stairs?” I asked.
“Who else could it be? He’s no stranger to you. If you don’t believe me, take a look. It’s always like this. They all want to come to my place, but they aren’t brave enough. You are. Hedgehog, go to the door and take a look.”
Once again, I went over to the stairs. This time, the elevator on the right side was just going down. Maybe the person had taken the elevator. No, someone was still on the stairs. He was my former classmate, the one who had frequently come over to play cards. We hadn’t seen each other for a long time. He was a little flustered and fled downstairs. I understood a little—probably people were always going up and down the stairs; maybe they couldn’t make up their minds or maybe they liked this sort of activity. The one I’d heard before certainly wasn’t indecisive, because his footsteps sounded composed. Were they also fearful of being suspended?