by Can Xue
The gardener noticed this drama between the sparrow and me. He strolled around in my vicinity for a while and then walked away. Judging by his actions, he wasn’t indifferent to me. So what was he waiting for? Was something going to happen to me? I felt an obscure hope arise, although I didn’t yet know what it was. I secretly cheered the sparrow on, and the sparrow became aware of my existence. She kept shouting nonstop until she had poured out all her sorrow, and finally she realized that she needed to control herself. She jumped back and forth on my branches, and then suddenly spread her wings and flew to the sky.
She flew away, leaving emptiness with me. I saw the gardener sneer slyly.
A long crack ruptured my trunk. This crack penetrated to my very center. I would soon lose all my moisture, and death was not far away. Sometimes I awakened early in the morning and felt that I was floating lightly in the mist. “I” had already vanished, leaving behind only a small handful of leaves that were neither yellow nor green. Without the water that was essential to my thinking, all that was left were some inexplicable scraps and clues. Under the blazing sun, I was muddle-headedly reciting, “Go left, go right, go into the grotto.” Whenever I recited this, I sensed that the gardener was hiding somewhere and gesturing to me, but I didn’t know whether he was inciting me or impeding me.
In the years of suffering and the frightening depravity, the rose garden was no better than hell to me—because the gardener abandoned me.
2.
I fainted again. This time, it resembled real death: there was no suffering; in the blink of an eye, I lost consciousness. The last thing I saw was the gardener walking toward me with a saw in his hand.
But I wasn’t cut down by the saw. After being soaked by a heavy rain, I discovered that I was still standing in the meadow. I began drinking water: after being parched and thirsty for so long, I felt that the flavor of water had changed! It was the spicy hot flavor that I loathed more than anything. What was happening? Oh, I couldn’t bear it. I’d better not drink it. Still, I couldn’t suppress my thirst. Without giving it another thought, I drank this spicy soup that had fallen from the sky. My withered roots began swelling quickly, and my leaves greened. My peers all around were cheering and skipping, they were so excited. But I was in unbearable pain as if my whole body was on fire. If I could move, I would definitely roll around on the ground, but I was destined to suffer in silence. At the extreme boundary of pain, I lost consciousness again and again. And again and again, I regained consciousness. I heard myself talking incoherently in the heat: “I’d rather die—”
Luckily, the rain ended quite soon. Still in pain, I saw the gardener stop next to me. He caressed the long crack on my body and began to laugh eerily. His malicious laughter infuriated me. I was so angry that I trembled violently, nearly losing consciousness once more. He left quickly and inspected his plants’ growth after the rainfall. Everyone greeted him with cheers because rain was a gift from the gods, an unexpected gift. My response was the only contrary one. I was the only plant in the garden that wasn’t irrigated. Now my swollen roots and my branches and leaves that had suddenly consumed so much water disgusted me. Indeed, I felt not only pain but disgust.
Before dark, the pain finally began to dull, or rather my roots, trunk, branches, and leaves became numb. Little by little, the sun withdrew into the hills, and the air was rain-freshened. Now and then, someone passed by the garden’s gate. Each person was holding a small red flag. Beside me, I heard the Taiwan grass say that people were going to the hillside where there would be a party tonight to celebrate. “Because this is the first rainfall of the year,” the Taiwan grass said in a gratified tone.
In the gradually descending darkness, I was coming to understand something: in this lifetime, I would never again be relaxed and joyful—qualities that everyone hoped for. I’d better learn to seize an alternative happiness in being parched, tense, and tormented. That sort of happiness was like the gardener’s malicious laughter. If I learned to laugh as he did, perhaps a vast horizon would unfold before me.
The dryness of the next several days led me back to my previous state, but my feeling and my reasoning changed a little. I can describe myself as “composed.” Previously, each time I saw the gardener water the others, I hated him, but now my feelings for the
gardener changed all at once. I saw many layers of thought in the gardener’s image: the way he carried the hoe on his back; the way he bent to dig the earth; the way he carried water buckets on his shoulder poles; the way he watered the plants; the way he fertilized; the way he spread manure . . . The more I observed him, the more interesting I felt he was. I believed this skinny guy possessed many different kinds of witchcraft that he would practice on me one after the other. All I had to do was wait, and it would eventually be effective.
This garden wasn’t at all lush. Actually, it was rather bleak. The plants weren’t arranged in any order; they were placed randomly. It was called a rose garden, but there were no roses; there were only some azaleas, chrysanthemums, and jasmine flowers. A few days ago, the gardener brought in two false acacias and planted them next to me. Then he left. He still hasn’t watered them. Yellow leaves drooped from them, but they didn’t complain about the gardener. I knew that all this was just the surface appearance. What differed from the nursery was that the plants here were confident they would survive. I had no idea where this confidence came from: Weren’t they dependent on the gardener’s watering them? What if the gardener got sick, or had an accident? I discussed this with them, but they ruled out my hypotheses; they didn’t want to hear them. As for me, I, too, now felt I would survive. Since I had survived this long without being watered, I had no reason to think I couldn’t go on this way. Oh, what a fantastic garden we were! It was hard to figure out whether this was because of the gardener’s planning or whether it was because of our great effort that the garden was so extraordinary.
Look, the false acacias’ leaves are dropping in profusion. Unexpectedly, the more parched they were, the more they perspired. I thought, When they have sweat out all their fluids, their bodies will be as dry as mine, and then we’ll speak the same language. They were fantasizing now that they would become trees that could freely move around. From their bodies, I could see what the gardener had in mind. As for this rose garden, in fact who was the owner? You’re sure to answer that it’s the gardener. I used to think this, too, but recently I changed my mind. After my observations, I now saw that the gardener’s actions were arbitrary. His line of thinking didn’t come from premeditation; it was innate. Why didn’t he water the false acacias? Because in his judgment, false acacias didn’t need to be watered. Why did he water me at first and then stop? Because he thought I didn’t need water and could still go on living (this was probably true). After being in the rose garden so long, I felt the future had become increasingly ambiguous. The shadows were thick behind the fence: in the dry transparent air, even more transparent monsters were roaming around. I didn’t need to become a wandering tree; I only needed to stay here and wait for a certain change to occur. Change truly did begin.
At nightfall, a bunch of my roots awakened: I thought they had penetrated to a deep and unfamiliar region. That is, they had grown because of being watered by the spicy hot rain. Now there was still no water in this deep layer of soil where my roots were, but the solid earth unexpectedly imparted a sense of something similar to water. I felt itchy at the ends of my roots: this was an omen of growth. It was also an omen that something unexpected was about to occur. I estimated that my roots had penetrated more than one meter in just a few short days. This could be called “flying.” It was a miracle. No rain had fallen for days, and yet they were still growing. Was I accessing another kind of nourishment to substitute for water? Was the “water of life” that was often spoken of no longer applicable to me?
Late at night, I heard the gardener’s muffled voice. After his voice faded away, a tiny cracking disturbance echoed from within my body. The dusty old leaves on my
head and face gave off some green fluorescence. This disturbance awakened the acacias next to me: they gasped in admiration. They nearly spoke in unison: “The gardener bestowed such a great favor on the willow tree!” They had no sooner said this than the entire garden erupted in excitement. Everyone was talking at once, but their words were indistinct. Only after listening attentively for a long time could I distinguish a word: fireworks. They were saying I was setting off fireworks. But all I had done was to emit a little light. Why were they making such a fuss?
The disturbance inside me quickly calmed down, and I felt hollow. In fact, I shouldn’t have: Wasn’t I growing, and even emitting light? Wasn’t the gardener secretly supporting me? But I was still hollow. Perhaps I was looking forward to emitting light again the next time? Or because I didn’t understand what was going on? Oh, gardener, gardener, be sure not to give me water. I racked my brains: I wanted to know what that invisible nutrition was. The gardener must know. They all envied me: I was the only plant that emitted light at night; I had gained the gardener’s greatest support.
At daybreak, I was exceptionally hollow. At night, my leaves had nearly all withered. The trunk was even redder, the crack even deeper. I asked myself, Will I die today? Aside from thinking, I couldn’t sense any living movement in myself. I couldn’t even sense my roots. The fence was illuminated by the first rays of light, and the garden’s silhouette gradually came into focus. In the air in front of me, a voice was repeatedly saying, “Who was that? Who was that? . . .” I wanted so much to see exactly who this voice was coming from. I thought that since “it” could utter sounds, it must be something real. But no. The voice came from gratuitous vibrations in the air: it was utterly terrifying!
Carrying water buckets, the gardener appeared at the garden gate. He stopped and glanced at me: after seeing me trembling, he laughed. It was that eerie laughter again! He turned to water plants, paying no further attention to me. The words in the air continued. I heard the Indian azalea say softly, “Shhh, that’s a bear! A black bear . . .”
Could a black bear speak? Why couldn’t I see it? Was I done for?
“A black bear. How amazing!” the Indian azalea said.
I thought that since she was seeing the amazing thing, and the gardener had also just confirmed that I was alive, I wouldn’t die. Since I wouldn’t die, what was I afraid of? So I also said something. “Oh—hey—hey!”
I had shouted three sounds in a row in midair! Ha! My voice came from this crack. It was surprisingly resonant, crowding out the sound “black bear”! Now there was no “black bear”; there was only my sound of “Oh—hey—hey!” vibrating repeatedly in midair. The plants in the rose garden listened in astonishment. I could still hear the Indian azalea mutter in amazement, “It’s really a black bear. Who can imagine it?”
Only after a long time did the echo of my voice quiet down. I remembered the Indian azalea’s words, and I felt renewed terror. Could it be that I myself was the black bear? In the past, when I was in the nursery, everyone had heard the terrible bloody tale about the black bears. Back then, the black bears had consumed all the animals on the opposite mountain, leaving only themselves. Then they massacred each other . . . The Indian azalea was the most truthful plant; she had never told a lie. Had she spoken the truth just now? As she saw it, in the beginning the voice in midair was mine, and the later one was mine, too. Maybe the gardener had known for a long time, and I was the only one who didn’t? Too dreadful! So scary! HELP! . . . I fainted.
I awakened. Of course I wasn’t a black bear. If I were, I would have eaten the gardener long ago. I wasn’t a tree that could walk, either. My roots were the only part of me that could move, but they could only grow downward. Still, I felt foreboding about the gardener. Just now, he had stared at me again, hadn’t he? He pretended to be bending toward the wisteria, yet he shot a glance at me. That turbid gaze seemed to be coming from my forebears. What was he seeing in me? I—a dying willow—a plant using something whose name I didn’t know to give me the nourishment to survive, a monster that had fainted and then revived and was struggling at death’s door: if I had to look at myself, I would surely be unable to see myself clearly. I conclude that I must look at my image through the gardener’s eyes. I know that he sees a lot of things when he looks at me, but I can’t figure out what. When I look at him (we plants use our bodies to see), his fixed eyes embarrass me. Out of embarrassment, I can’t look at him very long, and so I have no way of knowing what I look like in his eyes. The only thing I know is: this person has seen through me all along. He’s the sort of strange person who can see everything in his surroundings distinctly.
Oh, I’m so hollow! In this moment, my inner hollowness surprisingly caused me to tremble. I trembled violently; even my roots were trembling deep in the earth. What had I come in contact with? Something was down there! I couldn’t be certain what it was: it was apparently something solid that didn’t move, and yet it also seemed to be alive and movable. I felt that my roots were oriented. Right, they spread in the direction of that thing . . . Did I touch it? No. I hadn’t contacted it, but I was very sure it was down there. When my roots exerted themselves to spread out and engendered this confidence, my hollow feeling lightened a little. But I was still trembling because of the hollowness.
The Indian azalea was still muttering, “It’s really a black bear. Who can imagine it?”
I found her words exciting, and I couldn’t help but say, “Hey!”
This time, my voice traveled to distant places. I noticed that the plants in the garden were listening respectfully. They were no longer astonished. They seemed to be concentrating, and my voice actually lingered a long time in midair.
When the lingering sound vanished, the plants in the garden all began whispering. They were saying “black bear.” Maybe they (and the gardener, too) believed that I was the reincarnation of that savage black bear. But then why were they so admiring? The gardener brandished his hoe in my direction. Did he want to destroy me? No, he was helping me by loosening the soil! It was as if his work were saying: the invisible nutrition in the air could reach my roots through gaps in the earth.
Just then, I saw that walking plant, our garden’s wisteria. The wisteria didn’t walk with his own feet, for he had no feet; he clung to the gardener’s back. He went wherever the gardener went. This was so exciting! A dark color—nearly black—arose on his body. His roots were swaying on the gardener’s back; mud was still stuck on it. No matter how much I thought, I couldn’t figure out how he had flown out of the ground and begun to cling to the gardener’s back. In general, if we plants break away from the soil, the only path ahead is death. This is probably why he hadn’t changed into a walking plant but instead clung to the gardener’s back. He must have plotted this for a long time. Of all of us, he was the one who was hoping the most to walk, judging by what he had said in the past. Now he was fulfilling his wish, even surpassing it. He had become one with the gardener. He had become the most fortunate guy in the world. I thought that the precondition for the wisteria attaining his goal was his knowledge that the gardener would not let him lose his life.
The gardener was rushing around in the garden. The wisteria was nervously and excitedly clinging to his back and trembling. I inwardly admired him, but I recognized that I was unlikely to achieve such high-level treatment. He was a vine; I was a tree. Only vines could cling to people. Trees had better stay in the ground and figure out another path. The gardener finally finished what he was doing and reached the place where the wisteria had been before. He took him off his back and planted him in the ground again. I heard the wisteria moan contentedly. He must be very proud of the risk he had taken. But I thought if he had known the result ahead of time, it surely didn’t count as any great risk. As for me, where was my way out?
I had no way out. My way out lay in thinking of a way out. It lay in “thinking” itself. I was still thinking, wasn’t I? I hadn’t yet died, had I? My roots were twice as long as they were when I
first came, weren’t they? This was the advantage of plants that couldn’t walk! If I had the same skill as the wisteria, my roots probably wouldn’t run so deep. All right, I’ll stay in this spot. My future is unpredictable. A greater danger is waiting ahead of me. The gardener got ready to go back. He turned to look at me and gave me a knowing smile. He was a person who didn’t know how to smile; he smiled like a dead person. It was in this way that he achieved a tacit understanding with me.
Under the ground, that thing pressed against my root again.
THE OUTSIDERS
The temperature dropped after midnight, and the wind picked up. Daisy snuggled under her quilt; to keep the cold air away, she wrapped her tiny body tightly in her bedding, her head hidden in the center of the quilt. Someone was pouring water in the kitchen—back and forth, back and forth from one container to another. The sound gave her goose bumps.
Ah, the wind! Like kids crying to come in, it kept pushing the door, causing it to creak and groan. How cold was it outside? Thick ice must be forming. Yesterday when she worked her way out of the backyard, she saw ice in the gutter. Ordinarily, the sewage looked terrible, and it stank, but when it formed ice it turned beautiful—like an icy black beauty. As Daisy was thinking of these things, the cold sharpened, and it was as if her heart were stuffed with a ball of ice.