Frontier

by Can Xue

  It was much darker than usual, and José turned to Nancy to tell her about his decision to move here. He said it was hardly a decision—but more a matter of the conditions being ripe for success. Maybe he’d reached this decision ten years ago. When they had been abandoned on the hill, he had felt something solemn and stirring. Time and again, he repeated these words: “How could I finally fully carry this out?” He realized this was an unanswerable question, yet he couldn’t help but raise it repeatedly. “Oh, the frontier!” Nancy responded irrelevantly. José started thinking of the orientation of their house in Pebble Town—that is, what the institute director had called “its geographical position.” All of a sudden, his mind was alight with radiance. The entirety of Pebble Town appeared in his mind, and he saw that their house was situated in the northwest corner. But there was a problem with this northwest corner: there was something confusing and dark, like a swamp. Inside it a miniature puppy was swimming energetically toward the bank from the mudhole. It wanted to climb up, but it couldn’t. Time after time, it fell back into the water as if something were preventing it from succeeding. He was vexed, and—all unaware—he said, “Is it Lee’s dog?” He had no sooner said this than his hallucination vanished, and everything turned dark. Had the two neighbors exhausted themselves with their crying and turned into fish just as they had done? He was trying to imagine the situation in the rooms to the east. When he started doing this, those rooms all dropped. That’s right: they dropped into a void and no longer existed. The old gardener was shouting something indistinctly in the garden below. “That often happens.” Nancy whispered, “We have to get used to it eventually.” José said, “Okay.” They tried hard to sleep some more. Before dawn, they struggled between sleep and wakefulness. They dreamed simultaneously of the poplars, though they didn’t know this until they woke up. The poplars were a symbol. It was only the light from behind the poplars that made their silhouettes visible. Later, they moved away from each other, each occupying one side of the bed. They slept soundly.

  When they awakened, it was noon of the third day since they’d arrived in Pebble Town. After washing up and getting dressed, they went to the Design Institute’s canteen for breakfast. On the way, Nancy kept looking back. She said she saw the gardener from the tropical garden. Yet, when José turned around, he saw no sign of him. “You always see something that I can’t see.” “That’s because you’re distracted.”

  The last time they’d come here to eat, hardly anyone else was here. Now the canteen was crowded, and they had to line up for a long time to buy food. After José had stood in line for a while, he noticed that all the employees who’d come here for breakfast looked out of sorts, and no one greeted anyone else. Thus, although crowded, it was as silent as a school of fish. He saw the institute director come out after buying her breakfast. Just as he was about to greet her, the man in front of him backed up and stomped on his foot. “Ouch!” He clapped the other person on the shoulder. But the person ignored him and kept standing on his foot. “What’s wrong with you?!” José said angrily. When the man turned around, José saw a heavily pockmarked face. He moved his foot away and whispered, “I’m not being rude. I want to remind you of some things. Don’t you know that people are watching you?” José sensed that this man was friendly, and his anger dissipated. He evidently shouldn’t have considered greeting the director. Now she was seated alone far away in the back of the canteen, eating her food in silence. Maybe she held a peculiar position in the Design Institute. But what was Nancy up to? How had she gotten along with that old woman? Nancy had bought her food and was sitting at a round table waiting for him. When he carried his food over there, he noticed that no others were sitting at this table, yet the other tables were crowded. “I think things are very well organized here,” Nancy said quietly as she ate. She was satisfied. José thought, he and Nancy were becoming more and more distant from one another. Still, no one had joined them by the time they finished eating,. Everyone else was crushed together, and many people even stood as they ate. The director and the two of them were isolated in this canteen.

  While they ate, many pigeons were flying outside the window. Some flew in; others perched on the windowsill. The ones that flew in perched on the cupboard. They weren’t afraid; they looked curiously at the people filling the canteen. A rather large gray pigeon stood on the director’s table, pecking at the bread she held. She was happy: she ate a bite and then gave the gray pigeon a bite. José stared blankly, even forgetting to eat. It wasn’t until Nancy nudged him that he came to his senses. Nancy said, “I like pigeons. The director truly has the presence of a frontier woman!” When the director finished eating, she got up and washed her dishes. For some reason, the pigeon followed and assaulted her, pecking at her hair, mussing it, and flapping its wings wildly. Just then, José realized that almost everyone had stopped eating to watch this scene. Qi, the janitor, showed up, set his bowl down on their table, glanced furtively at the scene, and said, “You think this is bizarre, don’t you? The pigeons come to deliver messages. Long ago, the institute director’s son had an accident in a creek, but his body wasn’t found. Someone said he had boarded a small boat and left the city. Back then, pigeons were everywhere in the poplar grove—wild pigeons. Now the pigeons are all pets. When she was young, the director was a workaholic and paid no attention to her son.”

  As if realizing that he shouldn’t have said these things, he stopped talking, picked up his bowl, and moved to another table.

  Nancy merely sniffed at what he said. The whole time they were in the canteen, no one else approached them. José wondered secretly how Nancy would feel if it was like this every day when they came to eat. The people in Smoke City had been much friendlier than the ones here. Acting as if she didn’t care, Nancy urged him to finish eating. She said she wanted to look for the tropical garden and that she felt sort of sure about its location. She’d gotten the idea from the pigeons they’d seen just now. “Some things hide right under your nose.” She pretended to be relaxed as she forced a smile. “I think the garden isn’t in the residential area, but outside.”

  The moment they walked out of the residential area, they were outside the city. Scattered ahead of them were some small farm homes, but the land was desolate: a large area of wasteland overrun with weeds stretched into the distance. Nancy was in a good mood as she walked through the wasteland. She said she had already “smelled” the tropical garden. All of a sudden, José saw the institute director drinking tea in a farm home at the side of the road. What was going on? Did the Design Institute’s work consist of drinking tea? The director saw them, too, but evidently didn’t want to invite them to enter. Many chickens were in the courtyard. As she drank tea, she fed the chickens. They passed by reluctantly. The woman never called them over. Nancy continued to believe they were near the tropical garden because she smelled the flowers. “And otherwise, why would the institute director be sitting here?” she asked. José was deeply impressed by Nancy’s great faith. But at any rate, he couldn’t figure out why the garden they saw in front of their window (that close!) could be located two or three miles away in the wasteland in the outskirts. A flock of crows wobbled toward them; like the pigeons, they weren’t afraid of people. Maybe all of Pebble Town’s birds acted the same.

  “José, did you see the gardener?” Nancy asked.

  “Where?”

  “In the small courtyard of the farmhouse. He flashed past the window and then went in. I think he and the director created the garden together. They chose this neglected open country for experiments so they’d be away from prying eyes. Look, look!”

  Nancy blushed. She was pointing at the distant horizon, her index finger in constant motion, as though pursuing a mirage. José thought his wife was really out of her mind. A wind picked up, bringing rain with it. It was bare all around, with no place to take cover. Their only option was to make a run for the small farmhouse.

  The door was unlocked. No one was home. They checked every room, in
cluding the kitchen and even the pigpen in back. Nancy said the institute director was watching the rain from the arbor in the garden; she had earlier figured out that the director wasn’t interested in the Design Institute. As Nancy was speaking, she picked up a coconut shell from the table, placed it on top of her fist, and spun it. José thought the coconut shell was very much like a human head.

  “So, what’s the director interested in?”

  “I don’t know; I’m mulling that over.”

  As they talked, the sky darkened all of a sudden. It seemed a storm was blowing in. José was quite dejected; he had no desire to stay here in the farmhouse, for he wasn’t accustomed to the smell of the pigpen. Nancy apparently felt differently: she looked around. She even opened the kitchen cupboard and took out a bottle of rice wine. She sipped a little of it and passed the bottle to José, too, but after two swallows, a fire leapt up inside him. They were both a little dizzy. Thunder roared. Nancy dashed to the window and shouted, “Come, look. Quick!”

  José saw the institute director’s snow-white hair blowing in the wind. She and the gardener were rushing around crazily. But their silhouettes flashed by for only a moment and then disappeared. Where had they gone? Nancy was distracted. After a long while, she said faintly, “I want to find that garden.”

  “Wait for me here, José, okay? I’ll look for it.”

  “It’s so dark outside—a big storm must be on the way.”

  “No, it’s stopped raining. And we’re already here. I have to do it.”

  With that, she went to the courtyard. She was a determined woman. When she vanished outside the courtyard gate, José heard an enormous noise coming from the east; it wasn’t thunder. The quilt was in a heap on the bed, as if someone had just gotten up. Maybe the director and the gardener were actually a married couple. One had lived in the north and one in the south, and they had built this tropical garden here . . . Did the garden really exist, or did it exist only in everyone’s imagination? José sat down on a wooden chair, but the chair that had looked so strong all of a sudden became extremely soft. As he sank into it slowly, he ended up sitting on the floor. Sticks and boards lay scattered all around him. He scrambled up awkwardly from the floor and flicked the dust off his clothes. All at once, he sensed that nothing in this house was real. Even the chickens had weird, gloomy expressions. Avoiding the chair, he chose to sit on the bed. The bed was strong and probably wouldn’t collapse. But a buzzing sound came from it, as though someone sleeping there was talking. The sound annoyed him, so he went outside.

  The dark clouds had dispersed, and the courtyard had brightened. Someone outside was playing the flute. The music reminded him of the open country and mountaintops where flowers bloomed. José was enthralled. For no reason, he assumed it was the gardener playing the flute. He stood at the courtyard gate and looked out. What he saw, instead, was the institute director. Leaning her plump body against a large locust tree, she had stopped playing and had tossed the flute onto the ground. Her head drooping, she looked melancholy in profile. José walked over quietly.

  “Ma’am!”

  “What do you want, Mr. José? You came to Pebble Town from far away, but this place has changed. The thing you want to find no longer exists. Look—even I am looking for it!”

  Her dolorous eyes turned gray and lifeless; her mouth—once resolute—was now drooping.

  “But what Nancy and I want to find isn’t the same as what you want to find. We only want to find the tropical garden. We saw it once from our apartment—the place you arranged for us to live . . .”

  He was speaking a little incoherently and didn’t go on. The institute director didn’t answer him. She was gazing toward the sky. José sensed that her thoughts were no longer in this world. Her lips were trembling, maybe silently reciting some words. The gardener’s sinister face appeared from a spot five or six meters behind her. Bending over, he was picking something up from the shrubs. As José was about to greet the gardener, the geezer turned his back and ignored him. José realized abruptly that this person wasn’t very much like the gardener: the gardener was a little older than this man, and his air was like that of an outsider. He was definitely a local. He stood up, a small lizard in his hand, and headed toward the farmhouse. José was about to follow him when the director spoke from behind.

  “Don’t go, Mr. José. He appears and disappears mysteriously; you can’t catch up with him. He catches these critters in this wasteland all the time, so he can transport some fresh blood to his garden.

  “Where on earth is that garden?”

  “You can see it everywhere. But I—I’m feeling ill.”

  Sliding down along the tree trunk, she sat on the ground. Scratching her chest, she repeated, “I’m really feeling sick.” When José asked if she wanted help, she shook her head and wheezed. José picked up the bamboo flute. He was puzzled that such a crude thing could produce such a lovely sound; she was really talented. She stretched out her hands, asking José to help her up. Her hands were so cold that he shivered. They returned together to the small farmhouse. José was thinking of Nancy, so he kept looking in all directions, but he didn’t see her. She was nowhere nearby.

  “I’d really like to see the old man’s garden,” José mustered his courage to say.

  “He won’t take you there because he isn’t a local. He—he speaks a strange dialect that no one understands. He and I communicate through pantomime.”

  Still talking, they went inside. The gardener was sitting there silently smoking a pipe. He was looking down, not at them. He was a hairy man; his face was covered with a gray beard. José thought this person was certainly like a local, so why did the director say he wasn’t? As soon as she entered the room, the director made straight for the large bed and lay down on it. She was acting as though these two men were her relatives. An idea suddenly crossed José’s mind. Was it possible that he himself was related to the director? If not, then why had he dashed over here—so far away—the moment he saw her tiny advertisement? And then there was this gardener: perhaps it was the same with him. After finishing his pipe, the gardener began cleaning the house. He dusted the furniture with a rag. José noticed that the chair that had caved in beneath him had been restored to its original state—and now looked sturdy again. Curious, he pressed down on the chair with both hands; the chair didn’t sink at all. And so he cautiously sat down again; this time, nothing happened. Two minutes later, José thought to himself that it wasn’t right for him to sit in this room: What if those two were husband and wife? He stood up, about to leave, when the director spoke from her bed, “Mr. José, don’t go. Wait for Ms. Nancy to return.”

  “Will she come?”

  “Hunh. When she doesn’t find it, she’ll be back.”

  “Won’t she find it?”

  “Of course not. Where would she look? Where, I ask you? Haha haha . . .”

  She began laughing hysterically on the bed, not at all like a sick person. This scared José. As she laughed, the gardener made a face. It was the ugliest expression José had ever seen. His face crinkled, and his gray weed-like beard hid his features until they virtually disappeared. It was disgusting. All at once, José thought these two persons had duped him and Nancy. They were using some tricks to scam them with a tropical garden. And Nancy—with her wishful thinking—was still struggling inside the net they had cast. All at once, an incident floated up in José’s mind: one day, years ago, Nancy had been in high spirits as she told him that she was going to the wharf to meet her auntie. Her aunt lived in Manchuria. Aunt and niece had never met one another, so the aunt had brought many gifts. Nancy blushed excitedly as she looked again and again at the photograph and asked him, too, to look at it carefully. When the ship pulled in, several passengers disembarked. But no auntie. He was terribly disappointed, but when he glanced at Nancy, she didn’t seem to mind at all. She was still glowing, filled with the vitality of youth. All the way home, she told him how delicious the Manchurian salmon tasted. José was surp
rised to be recalling this incident at this moment: Could the incident from the past be connected to the situation now? “Oh, Nancy, Nancy,” he sighed.

  When the institute director stopped laughing, she whispered to the wall. The gardener seemed angry: he was pointing at José, and strange sounds came from his mouth. José couldn’t understand even a word of what he said. He raised his hands and made a chopping motion toward his own neck; a fierce light shot from his eyes. José was standing next to the window, not sure whether to stay or go. Suddenly, he saw Nancy. Just like the director, Nancy ran across with her hair flying, as if being chased by something. She ran over to the large locust tree where the director had stopped. After a while, Nancy’s shouts rang out in the courtyard: “José! José!” José walked out and saw that Nancy’s back was to him; she was braiding her hair. He walked over hastily.

  Nancy’s face was covered with bloodstains. The cut near her mouth was still bleeding. She smiled a little, revealing blood on her teeth, but she wasn’t perturbed.