Joyner led Vincent into a large room. It was more like a bedroom at home than a hotel suite. The room was messy and smelled of cigarettes. It looked like a room an elderly bachelor might live in. Joyner gave him the key and told him that whenever there was an emergency, he should stay inside the room and not move around. She suddenly turned melancholy, adding to what she’d already said: “If it were any worse it would still only be suffocation; people here don’t have bodily suffering.” She went out in a hurry, shutting the door. A tong tong tong thumping sound followed as she ran upstairs.
Vincent felt that he was entering a murderous trap. He stuck his head outside to look around and saw three tightly shut doors in the hallway. He imagined what was going on behind the doors and suddenly felt afraid. He quickly closed the door, latched it from inside, and then went to shower.
When he’d finished his shower and came out of the bathroom, someone else was sitting in the room. The man had his back to him. Vincent could not see his face, only his brawny neck.
“I’m your neighbor,” he said, “Don’t be concerned. You don’t need to be concerned here.”
“How did you get in?”
He smiled slightly, then answered, “The locks are all for show, there aren’t any rooms that can be locked. You must have thought that only a few people lived in this small town. No, the gamblers all live underground. We drink spring water. Listen, it’s the sound of the spring.”
What Vincent heard was the roar of floodwater. The sound was coming from the bathroom. He instinctively ran into the other room, thinking in confusion that he should shut off a faucet, but there was nothing wrong in the bathroom. When he came out, the man was nowhere to be seen and the door was locked shut, as though he’d never been there.
In exhaustion, Vincent lay down on the bed. He knew he wasn’t in a deep sleep, but rather in a lethargic doze, because he was worried that some emergency would occur. There was a brief moment when he heard the whole floor of people in the underground rooms snoring. Altogether there were eight people — that is to say, in the other three rooms there were eight tenants. Vincent thought the gamblers must be truly happy to be sleeping so soundly. Where were the casinos? He struggled with his drowsy state, wanting to pick out through the thick black smoke the street where Lisa had lived, and wanting to find the dwarf. He walked, all the while asking in a loud voice, “Who? Who?” He thought there was bound to be someone who would come out and answer. But no one did.
When he woke up he saw Joyner, who looked miserable, sitting on the sofa and worrying over her own thoughts.
“Where is the dwarf?” Vincent asked.
“Are you asking about my husband? He never stays at home, he comes and goes between your city and my city, never resting. Grandfather, have you gotten used to the earthquakes?”
“I haven’t felt any earthquakes. There’s only a lot of smoke.”
“That’s an earthquake. You must be anxious? Earthquakes make people anxious. I sit here, thinking about your problems, then I also think of my sister’s situation, and I become more and more pessimistic.”
The expression in her eyes made her look as if she were not of this world.
“Grandfather, you know, my sister and I are both street cleaners. This is the only work we can do. But we love our work! Why? Because when we stand in the street nothing can escape our eyes. You, for example. You got off the train, walked over, and who did you run into? It could only be me. I brought you to my hotel, and you are staying here. Of course this isn’t quite the same as your original travel plans. But now it’s the only thing you can do — stay here underground. You could also go up to the surface, only that wouldn’t result in anything. You already know that it’s a deserted city. This is the privilege of a city’s street cleaner!”
Vincent watched her recover her vivacity, speaking as she gestured with her hands, as if she would jump up from the sofa. He thought, This girl is too lonely.
In the hallway someone was calling her name. She stood up, excited, and walked away, saying, “Surely it’s that old Tom. They can’t organize their lives without me!”
For a while Vincent stood in the room, and then he decided to go to the surface.
As he climbed the stairs he couldn’t open his eyes for the smog and smoke. On every floor he heard the sound of the tenants quarreling behind doors. When he finally reached the street again, he had a feeling of being released from the dark into the sunlight. He thought of Joyner’s always calling him Grandfather. He was suspicious. Could he have gotten so old?
It was nearly noon. There were still no people in the town. In the distance the stone mountains were illuminated by the sun, with an unspeakably bleak air. Vincent reflected that his journey was not at all like what he’d envisaged beforehand. Not only had he not found any answers, his thoughts were even more constricted. He also suspected he had come to the wrong place. Or maybe this wasn’t the gambling city where Lisa was born, but a smaller town near the gambling city? But the spot had been marked clearly on the map at home. A few decades ago Lisa had told him this was the place. It couldn’t be a mistake. Besides, when he was at the train station, hadn’t he seen that copper rooster beside the rails? This rooster was the most important sign, Lisa said. It symbolized the way the gamblers cherished time.
Vincent made a circuit of the street and finally heard a stirring. It was the sound of shattering glass from the window of a gray two-story building. A puff of thick smoke emerged. He thought of the warning about earthquakes and grew nervous. Yet no one ran out from the building. Joyner came over, her hair disheveled, with an angry expression.
“Don’t you see, the people there are slowly dying! How can you be so unconcerned?”
A gust of wind swept past, mixed with thick smoke. Vincent sensed that something was about to go wrong.
“Joyner, what do you think I should do? Should I go back home? I can’t understand anything here. I don’t know the history of the gambling city. It’s all Lisa’s fault. .”
He became incoherent. But Joyner sniggered, making his skin crawl.
“Joyner, I’m leaving.”
“No, you can’t leave!” She glared, her eyes wide.
“Why not? I’ll just catch the train, I know where the station is.”
“You can’t leave,” she said again, her tone relaxing. “Because, because of the earthquakes.”
“But I can leave. Look, there’s no effect at all.”
“Fine, go, but you could die. When you get there you’ll be done for.”
“How do you know?”
“You’re right, I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have.”
Joyner sighed and sat down on a stone bench at the side of the road, blankly staring at the thick smoke pouring from the broken windows. At this, Vincent felt again that he couldn’t leave, at least not for a bit. He said to himself, “Lisa. Oh, Lisa, how come I can’t understand even a little of what is in your heart?” Lisa, who’d been lovely like a flower in her youth, had grown up in this deathly quiet place. Maybe she was born deep underground! Had the city always been like this, or was it made this way by the people here? If it was made this way, what had it been like before?
“Joyner, why are you the only person who comes to the surface? Is everyone in the city underground?”
“It’s because of the earthquakes. You still don’t understand?”
“The earthquakes can’t harm people if they come to the surface, so why do they hide underground?”