Frontier

by Can Xue

  “Who opened the window? This is the winter wind from the snow mountain,” Grace was still mumbling.

  He heard people’s footsteps and the sound of luggage being moved, as well as low curses. What were they doing? Perhaps they would escape. Would he and Grace perish here? He wanted to speak, but his lips were quivering and he couldn’t get a word out. Those things that had been growing inside his body now changed into ice, extruding his innards. He started to wheeze.

  “Lee, Lee, you have to bear up.”

  Grace held his hand. Lee thought her hand was even colder than his: it clamped down like icy pliers. He wobbled more and more. He wondered if he was dying. All of a sudden, he felt the icy pliers clamp down on his neck. The train lurched, nearly throwing him from the sleeper to the floor. All at once, he was clear-headed.

  The train stopped, and the car filled with smoke. Everyone got off. Leading him along, Grace groped for the exit. When she found it, she jumped down with him in tow. They landed together next to the tracks and couldn’t move for a long time. Lee noticed that the fire in the forward section was dying out: neither passengers nor firemen were there. It was as if the train had been abandoned. He and Grace were lying in a thicket of tall weeds. No one paid any attention to them. This wasn’t a train station, and it wasn’t an inhabited place, either. There was no sign of the train’s engineer. Lee tried to move, and groaned in pain in spite of himself. Had he broken a bone? Beside him, Grace groaned and mumbled, “The snow mountain wind is really cold.”

  “Where were the two of you at the moment the train stopped?” Someone in a railway policeman’s uniform spoke in a rasping voice from above. He nudged Lee with a club.

  “We were in the car. Then we jumped out and got hurt,” Lee heard Grace answer.

  “Get up and come with me. We received a report of theft on the train.”

  Grace had already stood up. Lee didn’t think he could move and asked the policeman to help him. The policeman bent down and yanked him up. Everything went black before Lee’s eyes, and he almost fainted from pain.

  “Hunh. We’ve already searched your home in the south. Who travels like this? You brought no luggage. Did you just lock the door and leave?”

  Shoving Lee, he walked toward the front of the car. Next to them, Grace kept saying, “It’s so cold, so cold.”

  Lightheaded, Lee and Grace walked a long way. Then the officer took them into a dark room. Telling them to wait on a worn-out couch, he locked the door and left.

  Grace said to Lee, “It’s better here—away from the snow mountain wind.” Tapping the cloth wrapper on her lap, she seemed rather happy. Their changes of clothes were packed in the cloth wrapper. Lee was surprised: even under these conditions, she hadn’t chucked away that wrapper! His legs hurt a lot, so he lay down on the sofa and pillowed his head on Grace’s leg.

  Grace combed Lee’s sweaty hair with her fingers, and muttered, “Everything’s fine, just fine . . .”

  “What do you mean?” Lee asked.

  “We’ve arrived at our destination. The snow mountain, the wind. Pebble Town is just ahead!”

  “But we’re locked up here.”

  “Don’t be silly. People can’t be locked up in one place.”

  Gingerly, she placed his head on the wrapper, stood up, went to the door, and pushed it. It opened. The sun was so bright that Lee couldn’t open his eyes. With a surprising strength, Grace carried the cloth wrapper in one hand and supported Lee with the other. Limping, she quickly walked outside. Lee remembered they went through the waiting room, passed the canteen (businesspeople gaped at them), and finally reached a tearoom. Grace said she was thirsty: she wanted some tea.

  Several people were in the tearoom. They were dressed in black, sitting at tables, heads lowered, conversing in low tones in a northern dialect. The moment they saw Lee and Grace enter, they stopped talking. The proprietress poured scalding hot tea into their cups from a large, long-spouted teapot. The two of them sat in a secluded corner that held a small square table with a screen in front of it. Drawn on the screen’s glass was a strange long-tailed bird. And written there were the words “long-life bird.” As soon as they took their seats, they realized that the glass screen shielded them: no one could see in. Still, Grace remained nervous. She stood up and looked out, sat down again, and then told Lee to look, too. When he did, he was stunned: the policeman stood in the doorway, a pistol in his hand.

  But Grace didn’t seem concerned. As she sipped her tea, she spoke in an exaggerated loud voice. Lee was frightened. Lee warned her in a low voice to behave herself. The proprietress came by to refill their cups.

  “So what?” Grace raised her voice. “Aren’t we in Pebble Town now?”

  The plump proprietress raised her eyebrows and nodded admiringly. “Yes—oh! Pebble Town welcomes you!”

  Lee thought the woman’s northern accent was really lovely. He got up again to look at the policeman. By then, the policeman was sitting among the other customers, his pistol on the tea table. Grace whispered in Lee’s ear: “Now you’re free.” When she said that, Lee’s pain vanished. Was that because of the tea? He felt refreshed and relaxed enough to actually stretch his back.

  “Lee, Lee, we’re going to settle down in this new place. We’ll walk by ourselves from here to our new home.”

  Grace’s voice was choked with sobs. Lee was a little surprised.

  “Lee, tell me: are we . . . still the same people?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s best if you never understand. Lee, you’re really lucky. Go and take another look at those people.”

  Lee stood up again and peered through the screen. He saw the customers being tied up. They formed a line against the wall, looking down at their feet. Holding his pistol, the policeman walked back and forth, sometimes threatening a person by holding the pistol to his head. A girl, maybe a shop worker, approached Lee and poked him. She said, “Don’t be too surprised. This kind of thing happens every day. These people are illegal immigrants.”

  All of a sudden, the policeman shoved the barrel of the gun into an old man’s mouth. Lee saw him pull the trigger, but he heard no sound, nor did he see the old man topple over. They were deadlocked.

  The girl pushed Lee; she wanted him to return to his seat. She was unusually strong, and Lee almost slipped and fell. From behind, she grumbled, “This nosy stranger, snooping around—” Lee laughed. The girl said sternly, “Don’t laugh—shame on you!”

  For some reason, Lee blushed. Muddleheaded, he went back to his seat. He was surprised to see Grace resting her head on the table. Lee thought, These few days, Grace has been exhausted looking after me. He was worried about her health. If she broke down or anything else happened to her, that would be the end of him, too. For years, he had survived only because of her. Although she had one bum leg, she had boundless energy and could work miracles whenever she chose. One time on the street, they were run down by a large runaway truck. It was only because she had pressed down hard on him that they saved themselves in the space between the tires. Afterward, Lee asked how she’d been so calm. She said she didn’t know: it was instinctive. While Lee was drinking tea and mulling things over, Grace awakened. She tittered.

  “Grace, what’s so funny?”

  “You. The way you’re acting is very funny. We’re here—we’re at our destination. Why are you still nervous?”

  Grace stood up and took the cloth wrapper, and dragged Lee out. When they passed in front of the policeman and the people who were tied up, Grace held her head high and limped along. After going through a large coal shed, they reached the street.

  “It’s so high! So dizzying!”

  “Are you talking about the snow mountain, Grace?”

  “Uh. I’m saying there’s no turning back. It’s just like the time we were under the truck.”

  Although Lee was tired, he still looked excitedly all around, because he was breathing the air of freedom for the first time in days. They were g
oing to the Design Institute guesthouse, which was in the city. Someone pointed out the direction, and they took the path between the poplars. After walking almost a mile, they still didn’t see the guesthouse. They came to a construction site with an oilcloth tent next to it. Someone was sitting on a long bench drinking tea. Lee and Grace walked in and sat down, partly to rest and partly to make inquiries. A woman whose hair was wrapped in a brown scarf told them that this place under construction was the Design Institute’s guesthouse.

  “We knew you were coming. The director told us to make up your bed. Look—it’s so comfortable! You guys are so lucky!”

  As she spoke, the woman smacked her palm on the wooden bed in a corner of the tent. The bedding was a new black-and-white fabric with an annular pattern. It made Lee think of ominous things. Grace put her cloth wrapper on the bed right away and sat down on the edge of the bed. She looked excited. She kept saying, “See, look, this is our new home! Ah! . . .” The woman asked if she needed anything else. Grace said no, because she thought everything had been taken care of perfectly. The woman said she would leave then. Later, if they had any problems, they could seek her out. Grace said, “There won’t be any problems!”

  Lee said to Grace, “There isn’t even a place to bathe here. I stink.” Grace replied in astonishment, “Didn’t you see the little river? Where there are poplars, there must be a river.”

  Later on, they opened the cloth wrapper, took out some clothes, and went to the river to bathe. The river water was a little too cold, but they still had to scrub themselves clean. As they were bathing, someone on the bank called their names. The man seemed really vexed: Who was it? They finished bathing in a hurry and hid in the shadows to dry themselves and put on clean clothes. By then, the man had appeared before them.

  “I’m old Qi. The director told me to take you to the guesthouse. Come along.”

  Though not young, this ruddy-faced man overflowed with a youthful spirit. His gaze was as lively as a child’s. Lee was puzzled: How did the director know them? And what was the guesthouse all about? Maybe he’d find out later, Lee thought.

  Carrying the cloth wrapper, they followed old Qi to the work site, went through it, and reached a remote, quiet woods. Lee saw Grace’s eyes fill with longing. Soon, they arrived at the guesthouse at the end of the woods. It was silent inside. The guy led them around the flowerbeds and shrubs, and into the building. They went up to the second floor and entered a room. The only furniture was a bed in the center. The bedding was exactly the same as the bedding on the bed under the oilcloth tent—black-and-white cloth with an annular pattern. That pattern made Lee dizzy, but Grace liked it a lot. Touching the bedding, she kept saying, “Great! It’s nice . . .” Someone in the corridor outside called for old Qi, and he left.

  “It’s just like coming back to my ancestral village,” Grace said, “though in fact, I’ve never been there. I’ve only heard Mama talk of it.”

  She repeated that she really liked the pattern on the quilt. She unfolded it and placed her face next to the pattern. Just then, old Qi returned to the room. Noticing Grace’s enthusiasm, he said, “Just now, it was the institute director who called me. She told me to look after you. It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?”

  “Gorgeous!” Grace’s voice rang out.

  But Lee was wondering why the director hadn’t made an appearance.

  “Our director is a woman. She cares about everyone who comes to her. But sometimes things occur that she can’t handle satisfactorily. Then she asks me to help. For example, just now someone was making trouble at the work site. Naturally, as soon as something like this happens, someone tells the director and she sends me to the scene. The work site is terribly vulgar—with the people working there like a tumultuous mob. They’re bad influences on others. Once you get involved there, you’ll never get out again. This place is different. The director hopes you’ll stay here. The director didn’t come in because she has a headache. She doesn’t look very presentable with an ice pack on her head. She’s always putting an ice pack on her head. She’s one tough woman.”

  Lee visualized an old woman with an ice pack on her head—and shivered. Grace asked him what was wrong. He said he was cold. Old Qi was still talking.

  “My name is Qiming—the same as the name for Venus. Perhaps I was transformed from Venus. Haha!”

  The director called “Qiming, Qiming” again from the corridor, so Qiming got up and left. Grace rushed to the door and looked out. She saw the director covered completely in a black robe. As the director walked, she spoke quite intimately to Qiming.

  Grace sat down on the bed again.

  “Little did I think,” she said, looking blankly ahead.

  “What?” Lee asked, still feeling fearful, though he wasn’t shaking as much as before.

  “This old woman has been manipulating us the whole time,” Grace said, frustrated.

  But she soon pulled herself together. She straightened the bed and told Lee to lie down. She said she was going out for a while. He should go ahead and rest. Probably because he was so tired, Lee fell asleep as soon as he lay down.

  Grace came to the newly trimmed flowerbed and sat on a stone stool to enjoy the breeze. This was a plateau. She looked out: she could see as far as the snow mountain. She saw the tombs halfway up the mountain ready to move—like awakening beasts. She looked back on these exhausting few days, and in spite of herself, all kinds of feelings welled up in her heart. Yes, this was their final destination. What more did she want? Her legs hurt, but hope surged in her heart. She thought, Maybe the director has her finger on everyone’s pulse. This wasn’t a bad thing at all: it meant that someone was taking care of her and Lee. Earlier, when they jumped down from the train and lay in the weeds, she had thought that the air here was really good for Lee’s heart condition. Later, the policeman showed up, and she felt more happy than afraid. She simply pushed the door open and then held her head high as she walked past the policeman. She felt absolutely confident. Now she stood up and looked all around. The guesthouse really was located on a high plateau. Looking down at the highway, she felt suspended in midair. Maybe this used to be a small hill. After it was flattened, people constructed these buildings.

  “Ms. Grace, how are you getting on in Pebble Town?” Qiming walked over and asked her.

  “Excuse me, old Qi, may I ask how you know our names?”

  “Ha. Good question! Think back for a moment. When you bought your tickets, didn’t you have to show ID? A person’s movements are always tracked!”

  Grace couldn’t say anything for a moment. This man was so rude, so shameless! But perhaps he was telling the truth. If he was, then there was an intangible web, and she and Lee had inadvertently been caught in it. No, it definitely wasn’t inadvertent: everything could be said to have been deliberate. She calmed down and said with a smile, “The air here is great. I like Pebble Town.”

  “Does that mean you don’t mind the way we welcome our guests?”

  “No. As long as it’s a good thing, what difference do the methods make?”

  Her eyes grew brighter, for all at once she saw a bird on a stone tomb in the distance.

  “Mr. Qi, may I ask if you’re a local? If not, why did you come here? Sorry, if you’d rather not answer, you don’t have to.”

  “I’m happy to answer, Ms. Grace. I came to Pebble Town in pursuit of love. And I got what I was looking for, so I settled down here.”

  This was hardly what she expected to hear. Looking at this rough, ruddy-faced man, she thought to herself, Things in Pebble Town are so incredible! She said, “Then your beloved must be very special.”

  “Yes, she’s an exceptional beauty. She lives near that mountain.”

  “Oh!”

  “Ms. Grace, I have to go now. Let me know if you and your husband have any problems here.”

  Grace was a little distracted as she watched this rather clumsy form depart. She sensed something gushing up from the ground beneath the flowerbed and
the guesthouse. The stone stool seemed to sink a little when she sat on it.

  When they woke up under the brand-new quilt, the sunlight was so strong that they couldn’t open their eyes. Grace had forgotten to draw the blinds the night before. She walked over to the window and looked out: the sky was bright and clean. It was so light! The rising sun was showing just half its face: a gleam of rosy golden light flashed on the horizon. Even though the mountain was quite far away, it appeared to be right in front of her. How strange this was.

  “I dreamed last night of a man-bear. From behind it looked like a bear, but it spoke a human language,” Lee said.

  “Maybe it wasn’t a dream. Maybe Qiming came in,” Grace turned around and said.

  Lee shivered when he heard this. Could Qi be a brown bear? He circled around Lee all night long. While Lee was standing in the pavilion, Qiming appeared for a while in the distant poplar grove, and the next moment he turned up behind the garden rockery. When Lee walked out of the pavilion, he saw Qiming again, waving from the lobby of the guesthouse. And when Lee lay down on the grass next to the flowerbed, he looked up and saw Qiming leaning down beside him. He was talking to him. Lee couldn’t hear everything he said, but he faintly heard him repeating “long-life bird.” Lee saw clearly that he was a bear, yet at the same time he knew it was old Qi from the guesthouse. This was what puzzled him. Now, Grace was saying that Qiming had come here. How could this be explained? Lee was dubious. He walked over to the window and took several deep breaths. The scenery outside made his heart, long covered with dust, bubble over with joy.

  “Nothing you see here is actually what it appears to be.”

  Grace raised her left eyebrow, as if thinking of something.

  “Do you think this is like our ailments?” she asked him.

  “Do you mean the thing inside us and the thing outside us are the same thing?’ Lee was perplexed.

  “Lee, Lee, we’ve finally broken out!”

  Grace’s dark face flushed a little, as though she were intoxicated. Just then, a woman in the corridor called for Qiming. Was it the director again? Grace drew the curtains at once, turned around, and made the bed. The two of them stared at the door. In the corridor, the director talked loudly with Qiming, but it seemed she didn’t intend to come in. Lee wondered if this director was obsessed with cleanliness. What arrangements would she make for him and Grace? Last night, she had invited them to dinner. The many dishes were all wonderful, and candles were lit for the occasion. The other guests were Qiming and two men who did odd jobs. Qiming said the director would soon join them and they could start without her. They ate in silence. It was a little depressing, and as it happened, the director never did show up. Qiming had whispered to Lee that the director was “injured spiritually” and was in therapy again. Lee asked about the treatment. Qiming said the process was simply sleeping while standing in an empty room. He added that if Lee was interested, he could go with him to have a look and to talk with the director. Grace urged Lee to go.