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Chapter 2

JOSÉ AND NANCY

José and his wife walked out of the Pebble Town bus station and stood at the side of the long cement street. The two of them let out deep breaths simultaneously: they felt they had stepped into a picture of the legendary Crystal Palace. The chilly air was clear and fresh, and under the high, distant, steel-blue sky, the street seemed very wide. The sidewalk was made of pretty, colorful stones. Elms alternated with oleasters, screening the quiet avenue. In the middle of the road, men looking down at the ground were slowly pulling a few flatbed carts. The simple houses were quite far from the road; each house had clumps of greenery out front. José and his wife were a little taken aback as they stood under a tree with their bags at their feet. This small frontier town was beyond their expectations; to them, it felt like a utopia. After a while, the rickshaw from their workplace arrived; it was a pedicab whose driver was a big fellow with a black beard. He helped them pile their heavy luggage into the front, and asked them to take seats in the back. Then he started pedaling slowly and effortlessly. He was a virile man who evidently didn’t like to talk much. José and his wife felt it wouldn’t be right to talk, so they enjoyed the view of the beautiful town in silence. Pebble Town apparently had only one street because they saw no forks in the road. When the rickshaw reached the end of this straight road, it went up an asphalt path. On one side of the path was a small river; on the other side were poplars. No one was on the road. There were only birds chirping in the trees. After they made a few turns, the river and the poplars disappeared, and a rocky hill stood before them. The driver got down, saying he had to pee, and then he disappeared.

The husband and wife waited and waited on that desolate hill before finally suspecting they’d been tricked. They didn’t know how to pedal the rickshaw, but if they walked off and abandoned it, they wouldn’t be able to take their luggage. Nancy squatted on the ground and sighed. José thought to himself, She’s always like this; whenever something happens, she sighs. He hastily estimated that it was almost two miles to the main road, and the road wasn’t good. Besides, it was almost evening. They had to leave their luggage behind and get away from here soon. They had to find their workplace. He didn’t dare spend the night with his wife in the fields of the frontier. It could be dangerous. After talking it over briefly, they walked away holding hands.

It was hard walking on that path. It was filled with jutting rocks, and they almost tripped and fell several times. Nancy was nearsighted and couldn’t easily walk in the dark. She had to hang on tightly to José’s arm and let him guide her. It seemed it wasn’t just two miles, but maybe more than three or four miles. When they finally got back to the main road, they were too tired to talk. The main road was empty, yet extravagantly lit; they leaned against a power pole waiting for someone to appear.

It was about half an hour before they came across someone. He was dripping wet from walking up from the river. When José went up and made inquiries, he replied, “Didn’t you see me? I was watching you from the river all along! The boss sent me. I was afraid of making a mistake, so I didn’t call out to you. Everyone from the office is out looking for you.”

“But we’ve left our luggage in the wilds.”

“Don’t worry. Someone picked it up quite a while ago. You ran into a madman, didn’t you? It was a prank. People here are fond of doing that. Follow me—Pebble Town welcomes you!”

The two of them looked up at the same time and saw a flock of geese flying in the deep blue sky. They almost wept.

It was very cool after dark, so even though they had walked a long way they didn’t feel hot. They were the only ones on this road. Such a quiet little town.

That night, the dripping wet middle-aged man took them to the guesthouse of the Construction Design Institute. As they entered the room, they saw their luggage. Lying on the bed, Nancy couldn’t fall asleep for a long time. She seemed to dread the future. Every few seconds, she whispered into the dark, “It didn’t occur to me.” José thought his wife was blaming him, but he was excited, even . . . radiant. He liked challenges. He heard someone turn on the water in the next room, perhaps taking a bath. He kept listening; the sound of water continued. He remembered the small river outside the town, and the man standing in the river. Had the man been fishing? But he hadn’t been carrying a pail of fish. Maybe many other people had also been in the river; he and Nancy had been concentrating on hurrying along and hadn’t noticed. The people of this little town must have noticed every move they’d made. When they were on the desolate hill, they’d felt keenly that the world had deserted them. When José recalled the days and nights on the train, he felt that Nancy had undergone an inner upheaval, because on the train she was longing for small town life and had vowed solemnly and repeatedly that they would never go back to the big city—their hometown. As they neared their destination, she became jumpy. Pointing out the window at one quiet little town after another, she asked, “Is it like this? Does it look like this? . . . What do you think? Will it look just like this? Huh?” Unable to answer, José was perplexed and alarmed. He knew that his wife’s train of thought was always unusual. But just now, why had she said that it had never occurred to her? José thought it should have been the other way around: she should have foreseen everything. When they had first seen the little advertisement in the newspaper, they had resolved to give up everything in the large Smoke City and set out for an unfamiliar place. People who could move so far must have thought things through quite thoroughly. What on earth was wrong with Nancy? Had some little setback beaten her down? No, no, her whispers must hold a hidden meaning. Then, what was this hidden meaning? José thought: as soon as he’d reached this small town, everything buried deeply in his past had emerged and slowly unfurled before his eyes—but he couldn’t see it well. For example, when the man was pedaling them slowly out of the city this afternoon, a familiar feeling had welled up in his heart. He couldn’t say when that feeling had arisen, but it was certainly related to things in his previous incarnation. He’d experienced this before. This made him suspect that it wasn’t because of the newspaper ad that they had left Smoke City; perhaps this had long been premeditated. After this, when the man abandoned them, he had felt even more suspicious. Outside, a gale blew up, threatening to rip the roof off. The room suddenly became cold. Nancy snuggled up to his chest, and they wrapped the thin quilt tightly around themselves. A loud shout in the corridor was followed by hurried footsteps. Door after door was opened, and then closed, as if everyone was running out. Outside, one gust of wind was closely followed by another. Then someone blew a whistle, as if in a military camp. The two of them didn’t dare turn on a light, nor did they want to get up and see what was happening because they were exhausted from the day. Nancy murmured, “It’s really noisy tonight.” They decided to ignore everything and go to sleep. And then they really did fall asleep.

José awakened at dawn. After going to the washroom, he went to the now calm courtyard. The courtyard at the guesthouse was several acres large. Some shrubs grew there, but there wasn’t a single old tree; the only trees were young, newly planted firs. José reflected that if there had been any old trees, they might have been toppled by last night’s gale. The sun was almost out, and he smelled again the distinctive clear, fresh air. The day before, this had almost brought him and his wife to tears. The guesthouse was located on high land. When you looked out, you could see the snow mountain. He could see it well because no fog blocked his vision. It stood there indifferently. José sighed lightly: Ah, so this was the snow mountain! It wasn’t completely snow-covered. Only the peak was white, probably because it was so high. People said it was four thousand meters above sea level. For some reason, the middle-aged man who had brought them here the day before was standing in the courtyard washing his face. He placed the washbasin on a block of stone, and wiped his face with a towel until it glowed red. José walked over to him.

“Washing the face is a kind of exercise,” the middle-aged man said.

“True, true. You’re really fortunate.”

José surprised himself by saying this. What had he meant by it?

“You’re right. I’m bathing with the chilly breeze blowing in from the snow mountain. Every morning, I stand here and bathe in the wind, and listen to the birds on the mountain and the cries from the snow leopards and the black bears.”

“So far from here—and you can still hear them!” José was astonished.

“People on the frontier have good hearing.” He laughed out loud. “And so you and your wife can’t get lost in Pebble Town. How could you? Huh?”

Although José was sure the man meant well, his laughter made him uncomfortable. And while this person was talking, he never stopped using the towel; he scrubbed his face until it was like a shiny red apple. Ordinarily, José loathed people with this kind of face. And so he took his leave and went back to the room. The middle-aged man shouted from behind, “Why don’t you cherish your happiness? And don’t do anything rash.”

An elderly silver-haired woman had come to their room and was whispering to Nancy. Smiling at him, Nancy said the old woman was the institute’s director. José promptly exchanged greetings with her. This woman director had a nice way about her. Looking at her closely, José thought she wasn’t very old at all. She smiled a little and said to José, “Just ignore the man outside. He’s a little crazy because he was unlucky in love. He’s the janitor here.”

The director’s words startled José. He thought everything here was a little topsy-turvy. Yet, Nancy was composed and didn’t seem surprised. She and the woman director seemed to get along very well.

“I’ve been thinking—you’ve just arrived. Your apartment is ready for you. Now the most important thing is for you to feel at home, so I’m not going to assign you any work for a while. Just wander around wherever you like. Go have a look around—get a sense of Pebble Town’s geographical location.”

After she left, José thought for a long time. What did “geographical location” mean? Did it suggest the snow mountain or did it suggest the frontier? And what about “get a sense of”? Looking at him, Nancy laughed, “You’re making too much of what the director said. Actually, she’s an old mama!” José felt this was even stranger. How had Nancy fused into this environment all of a sudden? Changes in women were unfathomable. She had actually said this eccentric director was an old mama. Then was the madman who had pulled them in the rickshaw a warm-hearted brother? When the two of them had stood on the hill, she’d been utterly discomfited. He had even thought she regretted coming here. But after only one night, she had changed her mind.

They were taken to the top floor of a three-story building. The apartment—a loft with a slanted roof and a large glass skylight—was huge. Sleeping on the large bed was like entering outer space.

Ecstatic, Nancy immediately lay down in the center of the bed with no thought of moving. José fetched the luggage, and started unpacking and putting things away. They had two rooms: the living room in front, the bedroom in back. While José was going back and forth moving things around, a continual “da, da, da” sound came from the roof, as though someone were pounding with a wooden stick. And the sound wasn’t coming from just one place; it seemed to be in constant motion. “Nancy, listen!” “What? I heard it all the way here!” “Could it be birds?” “I think it’s the wind.” “How can the wind make a noise like this? It’s like a wooden stick pounding.” “Probably that’s the way the wind is here.” José couldn’t come up with a response, so he went on dealing with the luggage. After a while, the pounding sound started on the skylight. José stood on the bed to look more closely, but he saw no stick pounding on the glass. He thought, Nancy’s way of thinking has changed so quickly that she might as well be a local! See, she’s sleeping contentedly, even snoring. Then someone came to the door, and José jumped down from the bed at once. The person came in without knocking: it was the jilted janitor, his face still glowing red. Without waiting for an invitation, he took a seat in the living room.

“I need to talk with someone,” he said as he looked around.

“I’m busy now. Do you mind?”

“No, no. Go ahead, go ahead. I just need you to lend me an ear. Is your wife asleep? Perfect! I’ve come to talk about my personal problems. I have a regular job with the Design Institute, but I’ve never married. Why? Because I have high standards. The woman I fell in love with is a beautiful Uighur. She lives with her family on the mountain. How many years have passed? I can’t remember. Who would keep track of something like this? I’ve seen her only twice. One time was at the market, which was only a little bazaar back then. She showed up with her father. Huh, I know you won’t believe this. No one ever did, except for me. Mr. José, are you laughing at me? I see your chest moving. Never mind, I’m used to that. My story always makes people laugh because it sounds crazy.”

The janitor was lost in thought as he looked at the wall in front of him. José thought, It’s got to be his memory of this romantic encounter that keeps him active and gives him a positive outlook.

“My name is Qiming. You may call me old Qi,” he broke the silence abruptly.

“I just want to ask: When the wind blows over the roof, why does it sound like someone pounding it with a wooden stick?”

“Ah—good question. That’s how things are on the frontier—the intangible is tangible. I have to go to work now.”

He got up and left.

Nancy turned over in bed, and shouted, “I saw it!” José looked to see her pointing at the skylight. She looked straight ahead: Was she awake? José sighed inwardly: it was as if she were sleeping in outer space. In the past, when they lived in the interior, their bedroom was closed in: heavy drapes blocked the soot and the light. Back then, he had often joked that these deep blue velvet drapes were the “iron curtain.”

José continued putting things in order. A picture frame accidentally fell from his hand and broke into pieces. It held their wedding photo. Now both their faces were a mess. From the other room Nancy asked:

“Who’s here?”

“No one. Go back to sleep.”

“But I hear a man and a woman.”

José hid the picture frame and turned around. Sure enough, a man and a woman were standing there. Evidently, everyone here was used to entering without knocking. He gave a slightly embarrassed smile and said, “Hello.” They smiled slightly, too, and said, “Hello,” introducing themselves as neighbors. They told him to call on them if he needed anything. Their home was to the east, three doors away. “These three apartments are empty, but you mustn’t open the doors by yourself,” the man added. José asked, “Why not?” The man frowned and thought for a while before finally answering, “No reason. It’s simply our custom here. Maybe because we’re afraid a wind will blow the door down.” José noticed a white flower of mourning on each of their chests. The man explained that their beloved dog was seriously ill and wouldn’t live long. José said, “But it hasn’t died yet.” The woman answered, “But it will die eventually. If not tomorrow, then next month.” They seemed critical of José’s attitude. They glared at him and then fell silent.

Nancy had dressed and come to join them. She was wearing a necklace with a jade toad hanging from it. She invited them to sit down. The man and woman hesitated bashfully for a long time, and finally decided to leave. By then, José had almost finished dealing with their luggage and putting everything away. But Nancy didn’t seem to realize this. Holding her head and complaining of a headache, she paced back and forth. José asked her what she had seen when she was sleeping. She said she’d seen a crane flying up from the south and circling above the skylight. “Cranes live a long time,” she said.

“I didn’t like their bravado.” She was suddenly infuriated. “Why white flowers? What for? No one wants to die, right?”

“True. I don’t like them, either,” José chimed in.

José admired his wife’s acuity. He thought that even in her dreams, she was aware of the essence of things. The day before they arrived, when they were sleeping in a room in midair wreathed in smoke, she’d said she heard a large bird flying past the window. Was it the same crane? She preferred long-lived animals, and she also raised a little black turtle in their room. But was the crane really long-lived?

“I want to walk around. Let’s both go,” she suggested.

The entrance to the staircase was to the east. When they got there, José kept staring at the locked door. He noticed his wife smiling a little. This building where they lived was in the middle of the poplar grove. Not far away was the small river, but perhaps it wasn’t the same small river? José lost all sense of direction. Nancy walked on the flagstone path beneath the poplars. She was composed, sometimes massaging her temples. Her headache seemed much better. What surprised José was that there wasn’t a ghost of a breeze. He recalled that he had heard a bizarre wind in the room, and he swept his eyes involuntarily over the steel-blue sky. But Nancy suddenly bent down, leaned over the grass, and placed one ear close to the ground.

“Nancy, what are you doing?”

“A large group of people is coming across from the snow mountain. José, this small town is going to be overcrowded. We’d better batten down the hatches.”

As she spoke, her body writhed in anguish on the ground. Her movement was strange—as if the bones had been pulled out of her body. The weeds underneath her had been crushed and smashed into the ground. Looking at his wife, José felt growing doubts and suspicions. Was it really because of reading an advertisement that they had decided to come all the way out here? Had Nancy really known nothing about this little town before they decided to come here? If that wasn’t true, then what was? He sat down on the grass, too, but as soon as his butt touched the ground, he felt a kind of jumping—no, it was a knocking, just like the wind knocking the roof. He leapt to his feet, astonished, and turned to look at Nancy again. She was looking down and snickering.

“What happened?”

“Didn’t I tell you? A large group of people is on the way. You haven’t gotten hold of yourself yet. You have to stop being so wishy-washy right now.”

In the distance, old Qi the janitor was standing in the river. This man seemed to like doing things in the river. He was probably observing them. Maybe this was a task that the institute had given him. José didn’t know why the institute would do this. Up to now, the only impression he had of the Design Institute was the white-haired woman director. Nancy wanted him to get hold of himself. What did she mean? He wanted to go and see the Design Institute, that place where he would work for a lifetime. It must be nearby. And so he hailed old Qi. When Nancy asked why, he said he wanted old Qi to take them to the Design Institute so they could look around. Standing up, Nancy brushed the dust from her clothes and whispered, “Hunh. You’re too impatient.”

After a while, when old Qi showed up, José made his request.

Puzzled, old Qi rolled his eyes. They didn’t know what he was thinking until he suddenly laughed and said, “Mr. José, you were there yesterday. It’s where the madman abandoned you.”

“But I certainly didn’t see the Design Institute in that area. It was just a hill.”

“You didn’t look closely. Actually, it’s not far from there. It has a gray arch, so it isn’t conspicuous. Lots of other people can’t find it, either. Do you still want me to take you there?”

“Ah, no. I don’t want to go now, thank you. I’ll give it some more thought.”

Nancy stared at him reproachfully and dragged him home. With an understanding smile, old Qi called after them, “That’s good.”

When they got back to their building, Nancy wouldn’t go in. She said the apartment was “suffocating.” She’d rather walk around outside. To his surprise, Nancy said that when they were on the hill she had seen the buildings at the Design Institute; they were all unimposing, low, gray buildings. At the time, she hadn’t known it was the Design Institute, so she hadn’t said a word for fear of being mistaken again. She was right. If they had simply walked in there and found no one expecting them, it would have been embarrassing. As they walked around on the cobblestone path in front of the building, Nancy seemed agitated. Apparently she had something on her mind.

“Nancy, what are you thinking about?” José asked uneasily.

“I’m thinking—ah, José, I’m wondering what kind of people will live in Pebble Town forty years from now? When I think of these things, I get very excited.”

“You’re looking far into the future. You’re like the geese that look down from above: will they be frightened into being unable to fly? I think of things like this only occasionally.”

But José sensed distinctly that Nancy had some other idea—not what she had just spoken of. What was it?

Upstairs, the man who had been in their apartment stuck his head out the window to talk to the woman, who was heading out the door holding a shopping basket. The man wanted the woman to find a veterinarian named Snake. The woman said, “Okay, okay,” bent her head, and raced away. José noticed that she now wore an even larger white flower. As she went past and nodded, they saw her red and swollen eyes. Although neither José nor Nancy liked these neighbors, their melancholy was impressive. Those two seemed to spend the whole day wallowing in a kind of funereal atmosphere—white flowers, black clothing. Seeing them gave Nancy a headache. Nancy liked to think about lofty, distant things; she liked to roam about in the immense, boundless world. She regarded these neighbors as obstacles to her train of thought. José sensed this, too. They didn’t notice how lame the woman was in one leg until she walked past. José felt sorry for her. He smacked his head and said, “How come I didn’t notice!” “Unh,” Nancy responded as if deep in thought. All of a sudden, they both wanted to go upstairs. When they went in, several people came out of the building, racing away with their heads bent.

The man was rather flustered and hurriedly threw something behind the sofa—because José had just opened the door and walked in. Standing up straight and blushing a little, he said, “Welcome, welcome. My name is Lee. My wife’s name is Grace. The institute director told me your names.”

José saw it. It was a miniature dog with short reddish-brown hair. He didn’t know why it was so dirty; it was covered with spots of black grease. It was lying on the ground, panting, its eyes almost shut.

“It used to sleep in bed with us, but it hasn’t wanted to do that recently. It’s so dirty and sick now. It doesn’t want to eat anything. Don’t make a fuss over it. If you do, it’ll give us trouble when you leave.”

Lee invited José and Nancy to come inside and sit down, lest they disturb the dog. The furniture in the apartment was the same as theirs, except for a black quilt and white pillows on the large bed: the combination looked oppressive. It seemed natural for the three of them to go over to the window and look out.

José was astonished because he saw a scene that was completely different from the one outside his window. It was a small garden with palms, banyans, and coconut trees, as well as some other unusual plants. An old man bustled about in the garden. José wondered why he hadn’t seen this garden from his window, for their window faced the same direction. And how could these southern plants grow so well in the north? All at once, Nancy’s impression of these two neighbors changed. She grew excited and kept asking Lee the names of these plants. She kept tut-tutting as she marveled at them. José said, “Why can’t I see this garden from our window?” He had no sooner spoken than Nancy reproached him, “You’re talking nonsense again, José. That isn’t good.” When José stuck to his question, Nancy angrily stamped her feet and went home alone. Lee looked at José sympathetically and sighed. “You’re a straight talker. Look at the gardener again. You’ll see that in fact you know him.” José looked carefully and said he didn’t recognize him. Lee said, “Then stop staring at him. He’ll get angry. The old geezer is from a southern plantation. Now he stays in this garden and never leaves it. He lives in his memories.” Lee drew the drapes. Noticing that they were a dark blue just like the ones in their previous home, José wondered if their neighbors came from the same place they had. Because he hadn’t opened the skylight, the room looked gloomy, but this oppressive atmosphere felt familiar to José. And this skinny man—had he seen him before? He asked José to sit on the only chair, while he himself began talking. As he talked, the large white flower on his chest swayed.

“Young José, my wife and I came to this Design Institute more than a year ago. Here, we can’t see our future. Of course, we didn’t come here to find our future. We just wanted to find an atmosphere, an atmosphere that could constantly inspire us. And in this, we were right to come here. People living in Pebble Town always feel a covert motivating force. Your wife, for example: I believe she already feels it. She’s very sensitive. You’re a man, and men generally lag behind in this. Let me ask: can you endure a life in which you can’t see the future?”

“Probably. I don’t know. I’m confused. What’s wrong with your dog?”

“It isn’t sick!” Lee stood still. In the shadows, his eyes flashed with light. “That’s the problem. Nothing’s wrong with the little animal, but it wants to die.”

Sensing a cold breeze in the room, José shrank back into the chair. Lee noticed this slight movement. The drapes were drawn very tight, and the skylight was also closed. Where was the wind coming from? As José was speculating about this, Lee had quietly gone to bed and covered himself with the quilt. Set off by the snow-white pillow, his long, thin face looked a little dirty. He said he had to lie down because he wasn’t feeling well; he had heart problems. He asked José not to be offended. “Now we’re one family,” Lee added. José stood up and walked lightly to the front room to look at the puppy. He squatted down and stretched out a hand to pet it. But it stopped him with a slight moan. Lee’s despairing voice reached him from the other room, “José, when will the fog lift?” When José looked up, he saw that Grace had come back and was standing there looking woeful. Beside her was a grocery basket. In addition to some vegetables, there were a few things wrapped in pink paper—probably medicine for the dog.

“Mr. José, have you seen the garden?” Grace said, looking at him solemnly.

“Yes. So beautiful—”

He was thinking about other ways he could describe the fairyland, but Grace interrupted him.

“The garden isn’t there to be admired. It’s enough to know that such a place exists right under your nose.”

José wondered how she could reproach him just as Nancy did. Women—ah, it was so hard to figure out how their minds worked. He thought of Lee lying in bed, and he suspected that Lee had been ground down by her. With such a serious heart disease, he didn’t know what kind of work he could do. Today wasn’t a day off, yet they were staying home. They were like people taking extended sick-leave.

Grace dumped the dog medicine into a small ceramic bowl and dissolved it in water from a thermos bottle. She placed it in front of the animal, which opened its eyes right away and stood up. It thrust its head into the bowl and lapped up all the off-white medicine in a few gulps. Grace called out to it softly: “Xiumei, Xiumei . . .” The puppy held its head high, seemingly in good spirits. José thought it was about to start running, but it barked—depressed—once, and then lay down again and closed its eyes. Its ears drooped. “Xiumei, Xiumei—” Grace called patiently. It didn’t respond.

“What’s this medicine for?” José asked curiously.

“What do you think?” Grace ridiculed him.

José caught what she had left unspoken and felt uncomfortable. In front of this woman wearing a white flower on her chest, he felt as naked as the day he was born. Mumbling vaguely “I have to go home,” he went out the door. In the corridor, he straightened his back and took a deep breath. A large white moth flew in from the window on the east side. His heart constricted, and he hid his face in his hands as he rushed home. The moment he got there, he bolted the door behind him. Nancy smiled.

“You’ve already let it in. It came in before you did. This is the season when white moths lay their eggs.”

Pointing with a feather duster at the moth on the wall, she asked, “What should we do?”

What else? Of course they had to kill it, or throw it outside. José despised moths most of all; whenever he saw one, he got goose bumps. But he knew that Nancy would never kill little creatures. Sure enough, she walked over lightly, and wrapped the fat moth up in a newspaper and escorted it out of the room. When she did things like this, Nancy was earnest and agile, with a feminine charm. After washing her hands, she came back. She sat down and told José something strange: she had found her long-lost diary. It had been in the back pocket of the old suitcase. She had written it as a young girl; she had recorded a long dream about escaping from some great danger. At this point, she waved the old brown notebook in her hand. José wished she would talk about the dream, but instead she told the story of the diary.

This diary had apparently been lost quite a few times, and then had reappeared in their home. “Who would touch this thing? It doesn’t have any shocking private secrets!” Nancy was puzzled. She had no interest in talking about her dream; she said it was just a “childish description.” As José watched, she put the diary back in the pocket of the suitcase, and asked José to help remember where it was. José thought and thought, but still couldn’t remember when he had seen this old diary. Just then, something knocked at the window. This happened time after time, and José went over to take a look. What he saw was fog; one corner of it had dispersed, revealing a coconut tree. Ah, this was the garden, wasn’t it? But the fog quickly rolled over the coconut tree again, and everything was shrouded from sight. He told Nancy that the weather in Pebble Town was very unpredictable. “That’s why I reminded you not to jump to conclusions,” said Nancy, glancing reproachfully at him.

This was their second night in the small frontier town. Although it was chilly, Nancy insisted on opening the skylight. As they lay on the wide bed, they felt the building swaying beneath them. Above them a flock of wild geese flew by; their lingering honks were fascinating. “Is it an earthquake? The director told me that Pebble Town has a lot of earthquakes.” Nancy’s voice seemed to be coming from far away, and the wall reverberated. The past was crowding into José’s mind; he couldn’t fall asleep. He tried to insert the ill Lee’s image into several different phases of his own life, but failed again and again. The more he thought, the more he felt that he knew this man well. Finally, he had to get up and go over to the window. A little fog still hung in the night air, yet a faint outline of the flower garden appeared. José noticed the pavilion in the flower garden. The gardener was lying on the pavilion floor, a black cat beside him. This scene felt unreal. Behind him, Nancy was talking. Her voice still stirred up buzzing echoes. She continued talking of earthquakes, asking him to prepare for their escape. “We can escape to the flower garden.” José thought her idea was rather bizarre. In fact, they couldn’t find this flower garden—so how could they escape to it? Something suddenly rapped on the window, like thunder. José turned, ran in fright, and threw himself onto the bed. He hadn’t yet recovered from his panic when Nancy said, “That was the wind.” The sound of Lee’s hysterical weeping came from the corridor. What a noisy night.

“Should we help them?” Nancy asked as she turned on the light.

“How? Move their dying dog over here? They would never agree.”

Lee was talking about something, and his voice came through distinctly. It seemed to be about the dog, yet it also seemed to be about events in the distant past—something about the ocean. Had he once been a sailor? José didn’t want to go out and comfort him. If he did, he might as well forget about sleeping tonight. Lee smelled strange—like sandalwood but also unlike it. Whenever José talked with him, he felt himself withdrawing from the world—and floating like a feather. It was an uncomfortable feeling. He needed to rest now, so he told Nancy to turn off the light, and he lay down again. In the dark, he heard two people weeping. Grace’s was sharp and reverberating; Lee’s was like roaring and was punctuated by periodic complaints. He mentioned the ocean in his complaints. Nancy cuddled up to José and said in a trembling voice, “The ocean drowned a man’s dream.” Holding each other tightly, they fell asleep. It was hard to know when the weeping stopped. Later they awakened because their hands were numb. The room seemed darker than usual; after a while, they realized the skylight had closed automatically. How could it close by itself? Was it the wind? Nancy said, “We’re at the bottom of the ocean.” José reached to turn on the light. Damn, the power was out. When he got up, he felt his feet weren’t touching the floor; rather, he felt like a fish swimming. He swam in a circle and went back to bed when Nancy called to him.

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, including 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 surprised 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.

“I was ambushed by a pack of mad dogs. I picked up bricks to hurl at them. Damn, they bit my face—I won’t get rabies, will I? Maybe they weren’t mad; maybe they were just wild. Oh, José, I saw that garden and also the somber gardener. I saw them through the dog’s eyes when it pounced at me. It was so large. I squatted low, and it placed its heavy front paws on my shoulders . . .”

An unusual light flashed from Nancy’s eyes, and her face turned purple from the blood surging up.

“How could that garden—that garden—have appeared in a wild dog’s eyes!?” she shouted loudly. She was hoarse.

Just then, the institute director and the gardener stuck their heads out the door, but Nancy was distracted. She didn’t notice them. She implored José wretchedly to take her home soon.

All the way, she leaned heavily on José, like a little girl suffering from a serious illness. It was just under two miles, but they walked a long, long time. Finally, José could no longer keep going. Every now and then, they had to sit down on the ground. José worried: Why had Nancy become so weak? If the dog had rabies, would she die? When he thought of the crazy dog, he suddenly found the energy to run. Putting Nancy on his back, he raced along.

When they finally reached the residential area, he was about to fall over from exhaustion. Nancy had gone to sleep on his back. Her face was still purple. He set her down on a bench at the side of the road. He intended to ask the apartment manager where to find a doctor. He had no sooner stood up than he saw Lee walking over. He told Lee what had happened.

“Did this happen at the farmhouse over there? Where it’s so desolate all around?” As Lee spoke, he began laughing. “Don’t worry; they weren’t mad dogs. They’re dogs raised by our director. She indulges those dogs and lets them run around in the wasteland all day long. And so they seem to be wild.”

The rock in José’s heart dropped to the ground. He greatly appreciated Lee. But why had Nancy’s face turned purple? He couldn’t understand that.

“That’s because your wife was too excited. Just think about it: she was in the wilderness, running, and besides, she saw the dog’s strange eyes.”

“So you know about the dog’s eyes?!” José was startled.

“It’s no secret. Anyone who has ever come into contact with those dogs knows—our institute director is no ordinary woman.”

Just then, Nancy suddenly came to and said, “Lee, don’t you dare talk about her behind her back! I heard everything.”

At midnight, when José and Nancy were in bed, the skylight was suddenly automatically propped open. They heard wild geese flying by. Hollow and lonely feelings welled up in both their hearts. Nancy whispered, “The frontier is so beautiful.”