“But my dungeon has no boundaries,” Ida said, disheartened.
Jade stifled a laugh. Ida had seldom heard her laugh in this elated way.
“Has your boyfriend come?” Ida asked.
“I can wait somewhere like this, and hear his footsteps traveling far from his hometown. This feeling is always so beautiful. I hear the sound of his instincts.”
Ida thought she would go back to the farm tomorrow. There should be many holes like this there, too. She had completely mistaken them before.
Ida moaned. “My foot!” she said. Her foot was still stuck in the mud of her hometown. It was difficult to extract. Jade turned to look at her, and said it would be best to get used to it. She also said anything could be gotten used to. The door opened and Ida saw the bar owner hiding in the shadows. He lay under a table reading a book. It was very difficult to believe he could see anything clearly in such a dark place. Did the two drunken customers leaning on the table know that Alvin was underneath them?
“Jade, I really admire your father.”
“So do I. You should know that the whole bar is his dungeon. Sometimes I think that I’m ridiculous compared to him! The best I can do is not leave my bedroom to go outside.”
She circled around the counter and went to find Mark. Ida bent down to speak to the owner. He opened his mouth, but his gaze didn’t move from his book.
“I’ve read this story for decades. Everything in the story is a trick. Ida, have you made up your mind to go back? Tomorrow’s train leaves at nine in the morning.”
“How do you know I am going?”
“All things are written in this book. After you leave, you will not be able to find this bar again.”
“Why not?”
“You bolted into it by chance. It’s not easy to find, and if you don’t pay attention then you miss it.”
The owner placed the book like a pillow under his head, coiled his body, and appeared to be sleeping.
Jade and Mark stood dumbly under the lamplight of the counter. The record player was already mute. Almost everyone was drunk. A few people got up to leave, another few leaned on the bar top and tables fast asleep. Ida watched to see who woke up and then immediately she would run over, taking them by the arm to walk them outside. The people she led by the arm were often extremely grateful, calling Ida, “good little girl,” “little angel,” and so on. The look of affected seriousness when they’d entered the bar had disappeared, without leaving a shadow or trace. A woman staggered out the door, then suddenly turned around and called to Ida:
“Tonight we were lucky to meet, in days to come we will not forget each other. Good-bye!”
“Good-bye,” Ida said mechanically. She hadn’t even seen the woman’s face clearly.
At dawn, Ida saw many gorgeous butterflies in her bedroom. They flew up and down in the lamplight and lined up to form letters. Watching them dully, Ida began to weep. At the same moment, she heard Jade in the neighboring room jump down from the table.
Ida left the Green Jade bar. When she turned back to look, the flickering neon light had receded into the distant end of the road.
10. REAGAN’S DIFFICULTIES
“A day without Ida is like a nightmare and like a liberation.” This was what Reagan thought. He stood in the shallow water of the bay, watching the gray-green seawater, experiencing the enchantment of the sea’s fullness and power. The year before, was it merely because she couldn’t shed her cumbersome water-logged garments that a girl had drowned? He climbed to the shore while speculating on this question.
Fifty-year-old Reagan had achieved great success in his business. His rubber tree plantation made a continuous profit, which allowed him to buy up the large farms at its periphery and convert them into rubber tree plantations. Over the past few years, Reagan had gradually withdrawn from strenuous daily tasks and handed over work matters to a capable manager. The manager, Jin Xia, whose nationality was unknown, was an excellent administrator. He ran all Reagan’s business affairs with clarity, without noise or bother, and, what was even more important, as regards the farm’s expansion his every move was with an eye to the future. One night Reagan dreamt that this Eastern man had mastered the secret of turning stones into gold. He held a rod with a head inlaid with gems, and when he pointed to the piece of land where he stood, that land became Reagan’s. Reagan stared for a long time into his narrow, cunning eyes. What he saw in them was not desire itself, but rather a changing form of absence.
“Jin Xia, do you still think Ida will come back?” Reagan was sitting by the sea when he asked this.
“She hasn’t really left. You should know that it’s only a question of perspective.”
Jin Xia’s long, thin body was like a shadow rising from the sea. Reagan always needed to study his speech before he could understand it, and had first taken a liking to him because of this. Jin Xia and his family lived in an old house halfway up a mountain. It was the residence Jin Xia had chosen. He and his wife and their two sons always came and went alone. They didn’t establish close relationships with the workers. At times the loneliness in the bones of this family even made Reagan afraid. He worried that they had thoughts of conspiring to undermine him. But later he would reprove himself for these misgivings. In fact, Jin Xia was his only confidant on the farm. He had poured out to him all of what weighed on his mind. At such times, Jin Xia smoked his cigarettes and seldom interrupted. Reagan wasn’t sure whether he wanted to listen, but he certainly took it all in. For example, just now Reagan had mentioned Ida, and Jin Xia had produced a singular opinion on the spot.
“Will your sons be going to school in the north this fall?” Reagan asked.
“Yes, but they hate to leave the farm!”
“Oh?”
“The two of them made up their minds never to leave the farm in the future.” Jin Xia expelled a mouthful of smoke, his tone growing boastful.
The mountain slope cut through the Chinese banana trees. Jin Xia’s gray wooden house was set underneath a large banyan tree. The banyan was like a fierce-faced guardian spirit. Its enormous roots hung in the air, giving it a domineering aspect. Reagan knew that termites had attacked the wooden house, and it was already an endangered building. But Jin Xia’s family didn’t mind. Perhaps they didn’t have long-term plans. Jin Xia’s wife had a name that was pleasant to hear, a name Reagan had difficulty pronouncing. At present she was putting quilts out to dry in the sun, probably because the house was too damp inside. She nodded haughtily toward Reagan, which served as a greeting.
“Living on the mountainside, you must know what happens on the farm as if you held it in the palm of your hand,” Reagan said, jokingly.
“The truth of the situation is that we have become outsiders.” Jin Xia struck his hand on the table uneasily. “Is it because our family lacks ambition?”
Reagan heard a muffled howl from the inner room and jumped up in surprise.
“You can’t be raising a wolf!” He felt his knees shaking.
“Yes,” Jin Xia said, his expression fleeting, “my sons are raising it. They felt that life here was too superficial, they wanted to do something more stimulating. And then they brought back this little wolf. Don’t be nervous, the wolf’s chained up tightly. Sometimes I’m anxious about their hobby, too. After all, I am their father. Luckily they’ll be going to the north soon. .”
He raised a palm toward the sky as if wanting to make some gesture, but he couldn’t make the gesture with his hand, which stayed awkwardly in the air. He looked more like a bachelor than a father.
Reagan turned to enter the inner room, but at the same time the two children rushed out, blocking him outside. He glanced in and saw the window covered by a black cloth. Nothing inside the room could be seen.