“Uncle, there’s nothing inside!” they said in unison.
The two boys were dressed shabbily and their faces were dirty, completely out of keeping for a well-off family. Reagan observed that they had cunning expressions in their eyes, like their father. At this moment the children’s mother entered. She whispered a few words to the children, who then both looked at Reagan with resentful eyes. It seemed they were interrogating him, asking why he’d come here to upset their lives.
Jin Xia still sat at the table as if nothing had happened.
“These children have no upbringing,” he said, although he seemed to be showing off, not apologizing.
When the wind blew, the wooden walls of the building creaked, zhi ya, so much so that one could sense the building tilting in the wind. Jin Xia shut his eyes slightly, intoxicated by this ominous sound. His short, dark wife seemed not to have heard anything.
The wolf didn’t make a sound, but the two children in the inner room began crying.
“They’ve injured the wolf, they are distressed, too, so they are crying. The little devils!” Jin Xia told Reagan.
But Reagan thought the sound of their crying had something not quite right inside it. Just how it wasn’t right, he couldn’t think of at the moment. Their cries weren’t the cries of small children. Rather, they seemed to contain deliberate and shrewd hinting, transmitting to someone some information difficult to speak aloud. To whom? Reagan didn’t understand the information the sound carried, and felt vexed. He looked at Jin Xia, at his happy, sated appearance. He was at the table arranging six small glasses into a plum flower shape. His long, thin, cigarette-stained fingers revealed his somber inner heart.
“Is your home always. . always as lively as this?” Reagan couldn’t think of a suitable description.
“Yes, I’m very sorry.”
But he still did not appear sorry. This false affectation infuriated Reagan. But was it really affectation? Or maybe he simply had no affectations? His wife was bringing the quilts back in from drying in the sun. She said she feared it would rain. She made trip after trip, mechanically, appearing calm. The two children’s strange crying couldn’t vex her at all.
“At first, I didn’t expect to set up house here. But once I saw this mountain, this banyan, this building, I didn’t want to leave. It’s hard to change your nature. There’s something I want to ask you about, Mr. Reagan. Can you tell me how much area the farm covers? For the past few days I’ve been completely confused by this question.”
“It’s the same for me, Jin Xia. Sometimes I feel our land is limitless; sometimes I also feel that not even the place where I’m standing exists. Should we continue buying land?”
When the sound of the wind stopped, Reagan and Jin Xia walked outside and stood under the banyan tree. As they looked down from the mountainside, their field of vision widened. Over the farm was a stretch of gleaming sunshine. Why had Jin Xia’s wife said it would rain? Reagan’s gaze swept over the rubber trees, arriving at the lake. The land made him feel stifled. He had the impulse to flee — maybe he could leave, as Ida had. Maybe Jin Xia lived here in order to draw back a ways from Reagan’s farm? But why did he so intently help Reagan enlarge his landholdings? Reagan could clearly remember how Jin Xia’s eyes had flashed with a greedy light when he was discussing business. He had no way of knowing the nature of Jin Xia’s delight. Judging from his spare lifestyle, he didn’t care about money. Turning around, Reagan looked back at the house, that enormous termite nest, and an ominous premonition sprang up in his heart. Was it possible he was encountering his life’s evil star? This taciturn man, whose nationality was unknown, and his strange family who lived in this wooden house built by a hunter many years ago, did they use the quiet pose of their lifestyle to influence him? Or was it to negate his existence? What was the meaning of the woman’s arrogance, coming as it did from the depths of her heart?
The two boys stood at the main door watching him, raising small fists against him. Reagan thought that if he went inside again they might rush at him and strike. His gaze moved in the direction of his own home, but how strange, he couldn’t see the building. The spot was bare, except for two electric poles. After a while, his yellow dog ran from somewhere into his field of vision.
“From here you can’t see your house,” Jin Xia said.
Reagan loathed the tone of his voice. He thought that this man had mastered everything of his and was using Reagan’s own influence to eliminate him step by step. His house, everything in the house, had surely been eliminated, because looking toward the farm from this mountainside he could see no people and no buildings.
Depressed, he took his leave of Jin Xia and went down the mountain. He walked far away and turned back to look. He could still see Jin Xia standing under the banyan tree smoking his cigarette. Was he keeping an eye on Reagan? It seemed likely that, in that negating field of vision, Reagan’s own form was also erased. At the thought of being thus “erased” himself, a wave of fear rushed through Reagan’s heart. What kind of person was Jin Xia? Yesterday, Reagan was still telling himself to seize the opportunity, to continue enlarging the farm’s holdings. “Take as much as can be taken,” he’d said almost shamelessly. In fact, he’d also agreed to a large business deal in preparation for extending the rubber tree plantation to the north, near the sea. But seeing Jin Xia, Reagan somehow couldn’t feel reassured. Jin Xia’s tall, slender frame, his peculiar intonation, the gray shirt he wore were altogether too insubstantial. On many occasions Reagan wanted to ask about his nationality. But he only got out half of the question before drawing it back because he thought it was inappropriate. How could he inquire about the origins of someone like Jin Xia?
“Hi, Mr. Reagan!”
It was that girl, the one whose older sister had drowned in the bay. He meant at first to escape after a few perfunctory sentences, but discovered that the small girl looked at him avidly, as though she had something to ask of him. She was also a worker on the farm and wore the heavy work clothes, the uniform manufactured by Vincent, which had undergone improvements. Now there were almost no buttons on the garments and taking them off was extremely easy. Reagan remembered that on the day her sister was buried she had cried until her eyes bled.
“Is there something wrong, child?” he asked affably.
“My sister is an expert swimmer,” she said, watching his eyes.
“Oh?” Reagan was suddenly dizzy.
“Everything on this farm goes to extremes, so does she. Our parents are rich, they’ve separated, they live in villas in the north. Your farm is truly beautiful, Mr. Reagan, too beautiful. My sister says so, too.”
From her way of speaking it seemed her sister was still alive.
Reagan tried his best to think of her sister’s face, but it was always vague. A young lady from a wealthy family who came to the farm to be a worker, and then, one day, wearing thick work clothes, swam into the open water. “Swam into the open water,” this metaphor was too apt. The girl had stood there waiting for him so that she could talk about her sister. But why did she want to discuss her? Was she thinking of her, or sighing with grief? Or perhaps it was envy? Hadn’t someone said that the nature of everyone who came here changed? This girl, too, had changed her nature. Disregarding everything, she lived in her imagination. It appeared that her sister’s death held a kind of enticement for her. Now she probably thought her weeping at the time had been unnecessary.
“Mr. Reagan, I must go. I still want to ask you a question. Do you always stand outside when you’re pondering things?”