Frontier

by Can Xue

  “Sir, was the person who went to your home last night looking for a place to stay?” Liujin sat down on a stone stool beside him.

  Meng Yu looked up at her and shook his head. He put down his boot-repairing tools and sighed deeply. The young woman’s silhouette paused briefly in the doorway, and then she went back inside. She did odd jobs for Meng Yu’s family.

  “As soon as he arrived, it was as if Amy was possessed,” he said.

  Amy was the young woman’s nickname. What was the old man’s connection to her? Meng Yu said, “Maybe they’re from the same town.” Liujin had rarely gotten a good look at Amy’s face because she always worked with her head lowered. Even at the market, she was immersed in the flock of sheep, as if she, too, were a sheep waiting to be slaughtered. She liked to wear a red skirt. Liujin thought of her as a rare beauty. So, where had the old man gone that night? She had distinctly seen him go through the gate of Meng Yu’s home, and then Amy had sadly and shrilly cried out in fear.

  Liujin glanced sideways at the sheep. She couldn’t bear the doleful expression in their eyes. She couldn’t figure out, either, how they had gotten so dirty: it was as though they had rolled around in the mud. This made her hate Meng Yu; she thought he was heartless. He had likely lied to her; probably the old man who twisted hemp was hiding in his home and came out only at night. Maybe he was Amy’s father. But everyone said Amy was an orphan. The sheep were still looking at her without making a sound. Liujin thought it would be much better if they bleated.

  “Liujin, look, has any unknown person ever come here?”

  As Meng Yu spoke, he was looking down, oiling his boots. Liujin thought and thought, and then said, “No.”

  “Hey, then he must be somebody from somewhere. Let’s go inside and sit down, okay?”

  When she went through the courtyard and into the house with Meng Yu, the sheep turned around and headed toward them. She held up her hand to ward off their pitiful eyes. His small house was in the old style. Because it was mostly empty, it looked spacious. He didn’t ask her to be seated. He was standing, too. Facing the courtyard, Liujin saw a red skirt appear in the flock of sheep: the sheep were surrounding her and starting to utter sorrowful cries. It was wondrous.

  “How’s everything with you and Mr. Sherman?” the old man asked, turning his attention to her.

  “It hasn’t made any headway. I don’t understand him.” Liujin was staring blankly.

  “Hunh. You need to be patient.”

  Liujin didn’t know why he said she needed to be patient. Or why he had spoken so assuredly of “everything with you and Mr. Sherman.” There was nothing between her and Mr. Sherman. He went to her courtyard now and then for some tea, that’s all there was to it. But it was hard to say: maybe there really was something between them. Was Mr. Sherman a bachelor? Liujin couldn’t say. Feeling ill at ease in this empty house, she took her leave. When she went out, she noticed the old man staring sharply at the woman clad in the red skirt in the courtyard, and she sensed the strained atmosphere in this neighbor’s home. When she reached the courtyard gate and turned around, Amy was pointing toward a sheep with a knife. Liujin didn’t dare look and took off hurriedly. Liujin recalled that this family had had a tough time of it. On the outside, they looked docile, even a little weak. She couldn’t imagine that they could be so brave inside. Apparently they weren’t going to tell her anything. She’d have to wait until late at night and ask the old man.

  Just now, when the old geezer Meng Yu mentioned Mr. Sherman, Liujin had felt a little rush of emotion. Over the last several years, she had been involved with all kinds of men. When her parents were still here, she didn’t want these men to come to her home; instead, she used to meet them at the Snow Mountain Hotel in the foothills of the mountain. Standing on the balcony, she and her lover could sometimes see the snow leopards drinking from the small brook halfway up the mountain. That was the main reason she chose this place. Once, she and her boyfriend (a geography teacher) went to the wild animal preserve. It was almost dark, and she said to the geography teacher, “I’d really like to be friends with the snow leopards. I get excited when I think of their massive claws. You can leave, I’m staying.” The geography teacher then dragged her forcibly out of the wild animal preserve. As soon as they got back to the hotel, she felt a nameless anger rising from the bottom of her heart, and the next day she broke up with him. They left the hotel separately. She had a romantic memory, too: it was about the wild geese. Liujin told her boyfriend, “Most of all, I like listening to geese honking on a clear night.” They didn’t know whether the geese would pass through here, so they walked to the distant fields and waited. As they walked and walked, Liujin felt that she and her boyfriend had merged into one person. The first few times, they encountered only desert birds. Later, when they were paying no attention, a leisurely cry came from high above. The two of them embraced tightly and shed tears. That man was a stone carver with a wife and two children. It had been years since Liujin had gone to the Snow Mountain Hotel. She imagined that she had become a snow leopard squatting on the large rock.

  Snow Mountain Hotel was well-known locally. To attract business, it later placed a cage in the lobby; the cage held a young snow leopard. Although it wasn’t large, it looked fierce. Guests passing by the cage were a little afraid. They didn’t understand why the hotel owners thought this would attract them. Liujin had also stopped next to the cage and exchanged glances with the young snow leopard. She discovered that communicating with it was impossible because of its vacant eyes. It seemed it couldn’t see the people surrounding it. One couldn’t be sure what it was looking at. The last time Liujin went there, she found the large hotel had disappeared without a trace. A skating rink had been built where it once stood, but the skating rink had no ice, and the main entrance was closed. She and her boyfriend had to stay in a small hotel at the edge of the city. In those days, whenever she mentioned Snow Mountain Hotel, the person with whom she was talking hemmed and hawed and changed the subject. “Snow Mountain Hotel—did such a hotel actually exist? That’s a weird name.” Liujin was puzzled; she suspected there was something fishy about this hotel’s disappearance. She got in touch with her ex-boyfriend to discuss it with him, but he avoided the subject, too, saying, “Recently, I haven’t given much thought to those times.” She thought: she wasn’t suggesting resuming their old affair. Not at all. Why was he being so touchy? Or perhaps he wasn’t touchy: maybe he was simply afraid of talking about the hotel. Had there been a major homicide case there, and the hotel was then destroyed? This speculation horrified her. Once, back then, someone had attacked her in the carpeted corridor in the hotel. He had pretended to spray her in the face with gas. But she didn’t fall down; she was just dazed for a second. When she came to, the perpetrator had disappeared. She had told her boyfriend. He said he’d seen this from a distance and had run along the corridor to save her, but when he’d made it only halfway, the bad guy disappeared. Perhaps there was a secret passageway in the middle of the corridor. That night, the two of them held each other tightly, trembling. They couldn’t sleep. Snow Mountain Hotel gradually faded from their memories, but the mystery had never been solved.

  “May I ask your name, sir?” Liujin asked the old man sitting at the courtyard gate.

  The old man mumbled for a while, and then spat out several distinct words: “My name is Meng. Meng Yu.”

  “How can you be Meng Yu? That’s the name of the old man across the street.”

  “Hunh. That is I.”

  Liujin recalled that Meng Yu seemed to know something about this man’s background. Apparently he was watching out for him. Was he a ghost from Meng Yu’s past life? Why did he have the same name? Liujin didn’t believe him. She thought this man might be a little crazy. He wasn’t twisting hemp tonight. In the moonlight, he was weaving a purse out of colored ribbons. He was good at two crafts. He could weave without looking. Liujin imagined that he was a huge silkworm spinning its own beautiful cocoon.

>   “So, Uncle Meng Yu, where do you live?” She wasn’t giving up.

  The words he spat out next became indistinct again. In the distance, Liujin heard a wolf cub trying out its voice. It was a little hoarse and a little hesitant. Inwardly, she cheered it on. All at once, she had an idea: were these two persons actually one person? Right! She had never seen them at the same time. But that one was a wizened old geezer, and this one was strong and stocky. They had nothing in common except for their name. Anyhow, it was hard to say. She hadn’t gotten a good look at the old man at the gate, had she? He might have been disguised. She’d heard that the wolf that had disappeared for years was once more active around here. Wolves frequently showed up in this little town. Uncle Meng Yu walked around late at night. Wasn’t he afraid? “Wolves,” Liujin couldn’t help saying. Glancing sharply at her, the old geezer said, “Hunh.”

  Liujin saw Meng Yu’s wife—the woman other people called “Mrs.”—pass by. What was she doing here in the middle of the night? She was carrying a bamboo basket filled with fried bread. After setting the basket down next to this geezer’s feet, she glided away. Liujin withdrew to the back of the grape arbor and sat down amid the irises. Just then, the old woman reappeared at the door. She yelled, “She’s Mr. Sherman’s woman. What are you thinking?” The bear-like old uncle stood up and snarled at the old woman. Although Liujin couldn’t understand a word he said, her heart was thumping like a drum. It was really scary: she had been trapped by the hunter, and however hard she struggled, she couldn’t break free without losing an arm or a leg. How could this old uncle, whom she had never met before, yet felt some affection for, have such a complicated relationship with Meng Yu’s family? She wanted to shout at him: “WHERE DO YOU COME FROM?” But many wolves began howling at once. And then the “Mrs.” disappeared. Some raindrops were falling from the clear sky. The old uncle staggered to his feet and headed out. Liujin noticed that he wasn’t going to Meng Yu’s home. He walked east down the middle of the street. He moved like a sleepwalker. The moon was bright, and another flock of geese flew past. The sounds reverberating in the sky made her think of her parents in the tall building in the industrial city. The letter she received from her mother the day before had said marriage was predestined. Was she hinting about this Mr. Sherman? But Liujin wasn’t sure what Mr. Sherman was really like. What impressed her most about him was the way he touched the cloth at the market. That made her speculate that this kind of man must be deeply interested in making love. But her general impression of him was vague: he wasn’t like the geography teacher, nor was he like the stonecutter. Liujin didn’t know what to think of him; she wasn’t at all sure of her feelings. God knows, she had never thought of him in a romantic way. Why did the people around her assume she did? And did this man really think of her in that way?

  She bent down and picked up the basket of fried bread and threw it into the trash can. After a few seconds, she even threw the basket in. She was afraid of such things and afraid of everything connected with that family. Could Uncle Meng Yu and the old man Meng Yu really be the same person? How ridiculous. That courtyard was always crowded with sheep and goats. If you wanted to see anyone in the family, you had to squeeze past these dirty animals. And the people in the family seemed to always know all the secrets in this little town. Although they were very quiet, Liujin didn’t think the tension in the courtyard had ever relaxed. The house was gloomy inside. She recalled the encounter that night in the poplar grove: What kind of hatred did Song Feiyuan feel for the dead trees?

  She returned to her room, where—under the lamplight—she saw her father looking seriously at her from his photograph on the wall. A little animal had stopped on the glass on the left side of his face, so his face appeared to have a dark scar. Oh, it was a little gecko! Liujin loathed mosquitoes and flies, but loved geckoes. Sometimes, she caught geckoes in the garden and brought them back to her room. She called them “the insect cleaners.” But tonight, this small thing made her father’s face look a little fierce. She whisked the small critter with a feather duster several times, but it didn’t move! Such an obstinate little creature. When she sat down, her father was still staring at her. She hadn’t looked at this photo for such a long time that she had almost forgotten it. So, had her father not forgotten her, or had she subconsciously not forgotten her father? In the few days before leaving, Father had frequently looked at the garden in a daze, but he hadn’t even glanced at her. It was as though he’d forgotten he was leaving Pebble Town. A few days later, he had left without looking back. He hadn’t turned around to look at her when boarding the train, either. Liujin thought she must have inherited her father’s disposition, so she shouldn’t expect—what on earth had she ever expected? “Dad, Dad,” she cried out in her mind, a little absently, a little sentimentally. In the blink of an eye, the small gecko dropped to the floor. She walked over quickly, bent down, and picked it up. But it was dead. When Liujin looked up at her father once more, his eyes had clouded over.

  She walked into the courtyard again and buried the gecko under the irises. It was after midnight when she finished, yet she was still fully awake. She spied the shadows of several people on the ground. Who were they? Who was standing next to the poplar? No one. There was no one at all. But then whose shadows were they? Several shadows were next to the steps at the entrance, too. In the bright moonlight, the edges of the shadows were sharply focused. How strange. Looking toward the right, she found several more at the courtyard entrance—and they were moving inside. Liujin rushed back to the house and closed and bolted the door. She leaned against the door, shut her eyes, and recalled the scene just now. Then she lay down, but she didn’t dare turn the light off. She kept watching the window, waiting and waiting. Those things made no noise. She didn’t believe in ghosts. Then what were these shadows? Could shadows exist by themselves? Thinking about these gloomy topics, she felt that the deeper she went, the less control she had. Finally, she could only drop into a whirling abyss.

  Holding up the piece of homemade cloth, Mr. Sherman smelled it and then smelled it again, as though he were going to devour it. Liujin noticed that one of his ears was moving. “This design is not readily available. People say that the printing and dyeing process is difficult,” Liujin commented.

  “Ah, I know. My family does this kind of work!” He laughed, and his glasses flashed with light.

  “Oh, I see. You’re a professional.”

  Mr. Sherman was embarrassed. He put the cloth down and hurriedly departed, saying he had to buy groceries. Liujin wondered if she’d said something wrong. He didn’t really seem interested in her, so how had the old man Meng Yu reached his conclusion? There was a commotion in the market, and some people surged toward the exit. A child said, “Wolf!” and an adult covered the child’s mouth. How could wolves come to such a populated place? What nonsense! Liujin had thought for years that people coming to this market tended to rush around impulsively. Once—no one knew who had spread this rumor—it was said that a certain stall was handing out free soda pop, and people had hustled over there. Many people collapsed from heatstroke, and one person was actually trampled to death by people squeezing past. All day long that day, Liujin smelled disinfectant. Her nausea made her hiccup. When Liujin sold cloth, she usually didn’t dare look at her customers. She thought the customers in this market were too mean, and she’d better keep her distance. Now, when she looked up, the market was deserted. A large pool of blood had formed in the circle of chairs in the center of the market where people took their breaks. She didn’t know if it was animal blood or human blood. Or was there really a wolf?! Her boss was smoking non-stop. He was in low spirits as he said, “There won’t be any more business today. These hooligans!” “Who’s a hooligan?” “Who? The people who start rumors!” “What’s that blood?” “It isn’t blood. It’s fake!” He raised his voice sharply and angrily. The shopkeepers on either side of him craned their necks uneasily to look at him. He sat down again dejectedly, and complained to Liuji
n, “People are sneaky! You might as well go home now.”

  Liujin had no sooner left the market than she noticed that the people hadn’t gone far. They were congregated next to the square, looking on. She was disgusted with their behavior. Among them were many regular customers who came here every day. Why were they so harebrained today? Did they really believe the wolves had come here? Impossible! She deliberately walked into their midst to find out what they were saying. But they weren’t saying anything; they just silently made way for her. Wherever she walked, people got out of the way. A little girl called to her.

  “Sister Liujin, someone asked me how to get to your house. I told him.” This was Xiyu, a harelipped child.

  “What did he look like? How old was he?”

  “He . . . I’m not sure. He isn’t from around here. He kept looking back while he was walking.”

  Liujin’s heart leapt. Could this be a messenger from her father?

  The person looked comical. He wore green canvas pants, and a “shirt” plaited from elm leaves. He appeared to be only about sixteen years old. Just now, he’d been squatting in the salvia. If you glanced at him quickly, you might take him for a shrub.

  “Who are your parents? Your clothes are really funny!” Liujin said good-naturedly.

  “I’m not a child, sister Liujin,” he said seriously, and then all of a sudden he smiled, revealing small, white, protruding canine teeth. “As for my clothes, I traded with someone at the foot of the snow mountain. I gave him all of my bricks of tea—a full load of tea. I came here from the interior to sell tea.”

  “My god. What will you tell your parents when you go home?” Liujin wrinkled her eyebrows.

  “I like it here so much that I’m not going back.”