by Can Xue
Still, Nancy wasn’t much interested in the Gobi Desert. What she saw in her mind’s eye was their hometown, Smoke City. The longer they were away from that city and the more unfamiliar it became, the more she was attracted to it.
She said, “I never could see that iron bridge very well, because the fog over the river didn’t break up for years on end.”
At first they went to the hospital every day, but never saw the director. Then, once they did see her, José didn’t want to go back. He reasoned that since she wanted to leave them, they shouldn’t disturb her again. Nancy thought José was really tough; men were very logical. Nancy felt that the director was like a part of her own body, and thus Nancy was now aware of the director every minute. So she continued to go to the hospital. She didn’t even go to work. The nurses always drove her away, though, and she grew desperate. Later, all of a sudden, she ran into the director next to the main road. As it happened, a carriage also stopped there just then. Without thinking, Nancy got in.
Had the director’s body become an empty shell? She saw the thick hypodermic needle prick her vein, but she saw no blood flow back into the syringe. Nevertheless, the two demon-like male nurses started the transfusion.
Many days passed. Whenever Nancy had time, she went to the places that the gardener frequented, but she never saw him. When she mentioned this to José, he said he hadn’t seen him, either. After Lee died, Grace moved away. At night during this time, José and Nancy often went to look at their empty apartment. They looked inside and they looked out the window: they saw nothing. The only thing outside the window was the long-dead poplar tree. The birds’ nest in it was an old one that the birds had long since abandoned. José said there were two possibilities: either the gardener was in hiding and only the director knew where he was; or the gardener had gone home to the south. One time when they were about to leave the room, they heard something like a wooden stick pounding on the skylight. Nancy started shaking, but José was calm. He said it was birds. Only one small area in this long corridor was dimly lit. The other spots were all dark. No one seemed to be living in this building, so who had turned on a light? The manager?
After they returned to their bungalow, Nancy told José she had to go to work the next day because, after seeing that once-occupied now-empty apartment, she sensed that her heart had also become empty, and that the domain of her life had contracted. She had to go out and expand the scope of her life: this was also the director’s wish. She fell asleep while speaking of this decision.
When she awakened in the morning, she had forgotten what she said and once again asked José to request time off for her because she had to go to the hospital.
The director was dying. Nancy placed the director’s hand on her own chest, trying to warm it. Since the director could still speak, Nancy asked where the gardener was. With a smile, the director said he’d been to see her and he was always hanging around. Just then someone entered. It was the charge nurse. She pushed Nancy away with one hand and sat at the head of the bed listening to the director’s heart with a stethoscope. The charge nurse wasn’t wearing a mask, and Nancy felt she was a little scary—like a cold-blooded murderer. The director kept staring at the ceiling. Perhaps she couldn’t see anything. After the nurse left, she said clearly: “Nancy, did you finally see the gardener? He was just here caressing me. He was so tender! I’m dying, and he came to see me. You can’t find him easily. He always plays hide-and-seek with people around him! That time in the farmer’s courtyard . . .”
She couldn’t go on. Her throat was gurgling with phlegm, and the whites of her eyes showed.
The two male nurses rushed in, followed by the charge nurse. They prepared to give her an injection.
Nancy slipped out quickly. Later, she found out that the director hadn’t died after all.
The director revived again, just as she had many times in the past. She stared at the beautiful eyes above the charge nurse’s mask. The director asked, “Do you want tulips or chrysanthemums?”
The nurse shook her head, her eyes showing distress. The director told her that she had died once: what a fabulous experience that had been! Now she wasn’t at all fearful. After the nurse left, the director sat up and looked at the birds flying back and forth in the dusk. This happened time after time, and it was always the same three birds. The air was suffused with an amethyst color. It was as though time had stood still. The window screen had been removed while she was disoriented. How beautiful the twilight was, and somewhere children were singing. She stood up and looked down from the window. Everywhere, canna were in full bloom, the petals so red that they seemed to drip blood. She wondered, “Am I in the south or the north now?” Darkness fell, and a warm breeze brought the scent of tangerine blossoms. By the light of the lamp, the director looked in the mirror and saw an amazingly young face.
She bent to tie her shoelaces, for she had to go to the courtyard. When she heard someone whisper in her ear that she was a beauty, she was filled with joy.
“Do you want to admire the tangerine trees blossoming?” One of the male nurses in the corridor asked her.
“Wait a minute,” he added.
To her surprise, he emerged with an old-style hurricane lamp. He took the director’s arm quite naturally and amiably, and they walked to the courtyard. The courtyard was large and unfamiliar, divided into several sections by flowerbeds. The flowers in the plots looked familiar—like southern varieties. The nurse grumbled, “You never visited our garden before.”
He pointed to a large expanse of trees in dark shadow ahead and said the tangerine blossoms would wither soon. It would have been much better to come here earlier. When they circled around the flower beds and entered the tangerine orchard, the director’s knees started aching dully. In the south, she’d had arthritis, but after coming here—a few decades ago—it had gone away. The nurse shone the hurricane lamp on a tangerine tree so that she could see the blossoms. Such tiny white flowers—if you didn’t look closely, they were invisible. The director breathed deeply: she felt she had lived a hundred years.
It took them a long time to go through the tangerine orchard. Someone was sitting in the dark on a bench next to the path, crying.
“That’s the charge nurse. She’s homesick,” said the male nurse.
They walked over to her, and the male nurse shone the lamp on her, but she kept covering her face with her sleeve. The director thought to herself, This poker-faced guy must be feeling embarrassed now. And so she tugged at the nurse’s clothing, wanting him to leave. But he insisted on standing there with the lamp. The director said, “I’m going south very soon.”
As soon as she said this, the male nurse turned around and helped her walk back. They left the charge nurse behind. When they reentered the tangerine orchard, the moon had already risen, and the sound of weeping came simultaneously from several places. In the moonlight, the male nurse’s voice became gentle and sweet. He asked the director: Can a person die of homesickness?
“Yes. A person can die and then come back to life,” the director answered serenely.
“How strange it is that the tangerine blossoms here don’t wither.”
The nurse shone the lamp on the flowers, and the director saw the trees laden with tiny white blossoms—so many that they hid the leaves. She suspected she might have blurred vision, because she had never seen such dense blooms on tangerine trees. Their scent reached her heart.
“Even I never imagined the tangerine blossoms would be so luxuriant this year.” The nurse added, “If you can hold out for another few months, you’ll see even more fantastic scenery.”
“Ah, I’m so tired. What am I stumbling over?”
“It’s those people who’ve collapsed. They’re everywhere in this tangerine orchard. Listen: the charge nurse has stopped weeping. She’s always like this: she cries for a while and then she’s all right again. She’s a shy person.”
The tangerine orchard became still. Arm in arm with this gentle young man,
the director felt dimly that this person beside her was her sweetheart from the long-ago time when he worked in the flower shop. She asked him his name. He said he wouldn’t tell her, because it wasn’t important, and besides, his name was banal. She could imagine him to be whoever she wanted him to be. As he spoke, some passion that the director hadn’t felt for ages rippled in her mind.
“Then, were you once a flower grower?” she blurted out.
“Yes. When I gave you injections, did you notice my hands? My bones are big and strong.”
“I sort of understand. But no, I don’t. Aren’t I already old?”
The nurse turned taciturn. Every time the director tripped over something underfoot, he held her more tightly. He was tall and sturdy. The director thought he was the personification of gentleness. Why hadn’t she found this out until now? She used to think that he was fiendish and that there was no way to communicate with him.
They parted in the corridor. The nurse looked into her eyes and begged her not to turn on the light.
“I can signal you with the lamp. If you look up, you’ll see it,” he said.
As he walked into the office, the director thought he looked lonely from behind.
After the director lay down, she still felt excited, because just now, the impossible had happened. She believed this surely had something to do with the gardener, whose influence was expanding. She was so lucky that, before death, she was able to revive the passion she’d felt in her youth in the wonderland-like tangerine orchard. From the day she was admitted to the hospital, her intuition had told her that it would be hard to see her old friend the gardener again. She’d been depressed about that. But the events tonight had eased her mind and told her that the gardener had been near her all along. Wasn’t that exactly right? Look: the young nurse outside was sending her a signal with his lamp. Despite having a little chest pain, she was happy. Would that young man stand outside all night?
Before she dozed off she was afraid she would die, but after sleeping a while she woke up again. The youngster was still standing out there. No, now there were two of them, each one holding a lamp that produced pleasant tangerine-colored light. A smile floated up on the director’s face. She thought, finally she would die in her hometown.
Outside, some children were singing in a southern accent. She half-rose and looked briefly at her luminous watch. It was past midnight. She seemed to have endured another day. She remembered the charge nurse and started thinking about her, and she suddenly understood why this woman had such beautiful eyes. Yesterday, she had intended to leave after inspecting the rooms, but she turned and said to her, “For some people, a day is like a year.”
The director hated to leave this world: she hadn’t lived long enough. Since the screen had been removed from the window, the wind of death kept blowing in. She liked inhaling the wind, for this eased the feeling of suffocation. The next time she propped herself up to look outside, the two boys had vanished. Ah, day was dawning. Footsteps echoed in the corridor: there they were. One of them said, “Such a nice day . . .” They went into the office and closed the door. Their hearts were surely overflowing with great happiness. Another smile floated on the director’s face, because a new day had arrived: this was an undeniable fact. She thought of Nancy, she thought of José, she thought of Qiming, and also of Ying. She thought of Grace and Lee, and of Nancy’s daughter and Haizai, and many, many others. Pebble Town, next to the snow mountain, was so vivid in her mind. Each and every path was animated, as though they would open their mouths and start talking. Above Pebble Town was that high, eternal, grayish-blue sky . . . Just then, the charge nurse came in.
In the haze, the nurse’s face was sometimes large and sometimes small. It was a little scary. She wasn’t wearing a mask, either. The director thought the face probably wasn’t very ugly. As she was about to talk to her, the nurse turned and left.
The wind blew up, and the director wanted to sleep again for a while in the wind. She closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep, but without success.
So many years had passed since she’d been in the hospital to give birth to her baby, yet Nancy felt the hospital was just the same as it was then. There was only one notable change: the poplars, willows, and birches had grown into large trees reaching the sky. Shrubs and flowers were lush. Nancy thought this hospital was like a lovely convalescent home. After coming here a few times, she noticed there were no birds here, nor bees or butterflies. Not even ants. Only one or two mosquitoes flew past in the sky. Why did vegetation grow so green and lush, and yet there were no insects? She stayed a bit longer in the garden and felt a clammy moisture rise from below. She moved at once to the dry concrete road.
The inpatient ward of the hospital where the director was staying was particularly beautiful. Although one side faced the street, an immense flower garden inside extended straight toward the south as far as the eye could see. It seemed boundless. At the front of it were flowerbeds and a lawn; a little farther was a grove. Nancy hadn’t been to the inpatient ward before. She squinted at those trees, but couldn’t guess what kind they were.
Once, because the director was sleeping, Nancy thought she’d take a stroll in the garden. She walked to the edge of the flowerbeds and saw a large wooden sign with striking red letters: “Loiterers: Keep Out.” A young man came up with a bulging muslin bag. He saw her hesitation and said, “The garden has been dangerous the past few days because poisonous butterflies are flying everywhere. Look: there are many more in here that have to be released. It’s enough to give you a headache!” He held up the muslin bag.
Nancy looked at the colorful little things inside the bag.
“They’ll die when they reach the garden, won’t they?” she asked.
“Ha! You know this, too! That’s right. These poor short-lived insects—the things in this garden don’t suit the season.”
The young man urged Nancy to leave the garden right away for her own safety. Nancy’s heart was still pounding for some time after she’d left the garden. She stopped next to the hospital wall and looked at the garden through the iron fence. She was dumbfounded: there was no garden inside. There was only bare wasteland, with piles of rubble.
She told José what she’d seen. He pondered for a long time and then said, “I also think something’s amiss. One thing bothers me—that Haizai: Why did he volunteer to work in the morgue? It can’t have been just a whim.”
Nancy wondered about this, too. The hospital was definitely a real place: she had given birth to Liujin here, after all. If the hospital also turned into a place like the garden in midair, then what was left to hang onto? She looked up and said to José as if complaining, “Life’s domain shrinks more and more.”
She made up her mind to discuss this with the director the next time she saw her.
The director still hadn’t died. The worst attack had passed, and she realized she was still breathing. She was inhaling the wind of death. That wind was carrying the blended fragrances of gardenias and white orchids.
After a day’s rest, she felt her strength starting to return. She wasn’t at all worried about the Design Institute. This institution had been run autonomously in line with her ideas. After being admitted to the hospital, she consigned any specific work to the back of her mind. Now she was preoccupied with something more abstract and more essential. She could almost reach out to touch it. The night before, the male nurse who had taken her to the tangerine orchard jumped in through the window. She had thought it was death coming for her. But instead it was the nurse; he said all the doors were closed. Only her window was wide open, so he had to climb in. In the dark, she thought of asking where he had gone, but she was too weak to speak.
“The charge nurse and I were in the garden: she sank into homesickness, so I came back alone. This place was locked up as tight as a fort. I thought to myself, there must be an opening somewhere—and sure enough, I found it.”
He walked out the door and returned to the office. The director felt al
l of her strength rush back.
She saw some square beams and some triangles. In between were some automobile tires. She heard a stranger calling her from outside. She imagined he was her old friend the gardener; he had never used his real voice before. He was either speaking a northern dialect or else he was using incomprehensible language. At this moment, she so cherished the sunny rain of her hometown. In the rain, one could hear something growing in one’s body.
The person who came in wasn’t the gardener; it was Nancy. Nancy looked nervous.
“Nancy, is it because of the garden outside?” she asked with concern.
“Exactly. How strange . . .”
“You’ll get used to it. Nancy, this isn’t a bad thing. It’s a good thing.”
As the director spoke, she could see herself walking in the sunny rain: beautiful flowerbeds were on all sides.
“I’m exhausted. Nancy, I’ve come so far. It’ll be over soon.”
“Oh.”
Nancy combed the director’s white hair tenderly. Her long hair was lustrous, and not one wrinkle marred her round face. She wasn’t a bit like a person plagued by illness. After her hair was combed, the director asked Nancy to help her stand up. She strained to do it, but she managed. Nancy was scared.
The director started walking. She asked Nancy to support her as she moved out step by step. They ran into the charge nurse in the corridor; to Nancy’s surprise, the nurse ducked to one side and let them pass without a word.
At the entrance to the hospital, the director’s gaze followed the pedestrians on the road. She seemed apprehensive.
“Are you looking for the gardener, ma’am? José saw him the day before yesterday in the courtyard.”
“What was he like?”
“José didn’t get a good look at him. He was getting on the bus. José just saw him in profile.”
The director’s expression turned placid. Then she told Nancy that she might die tonight, but she wasn’t afraid—because she was used to it. The director stood here watching the people come and go on the road and watching the sun suspended in the sky. She was very moved. Then she uttered some curious words.