“Oh, you don’t get it. You really don’t understand anything. Hasn’t Lisa told you? It is the principle of the gambling city. It will never change. Listen, they’re crying in fear.”
Joyner stirred herself, saying she had to work. Actually, the road was quite clean. There was no one to sully it. She lifted her broom and started to sweep. Vincent understood, she wasn’t sweeping to keep things clean, she was there to receive visitors. Look at her expectant appearance, as if she’s waiting for her boyfriend to appear.
“Joyner, who are you waiting for?”
“For anyone. Wasn’t I waiting for you? Your arrival was my holiday.”
Vincent sensed that she wasn’t happy at his arrival. Her look was always heavy with care. As he and Joyner were speaking, a group of men came out of the two-story building with smoke pouring from it, forty- or fifty-year-old men in their underwear, looking like they hadn’t woken up yet. Joyner flew toward them, raising her broom to strike, rebuking them as she drove them back into the building. At first they grumbled, then fearing her wild, violent look, they obediently went back inside.
Joyner’s face ran with sweat. She spoke to Vincent, as if embarrassed: “Gamblers are always discontent.”
“All these people are in your care?”
“Yes, my youth is wasted on things like this. It’s not worth it, is it? Follow this road to the end, then turn right and you will see Lisa’s home.”
“Lisa’s home! Didn’t her parents die a long time ago?” Vincent was frightened.
“That was only an analogy, it’s how people here look at things. Go, they are waiting for you.”
He hadn’t anticipated that Lisa’s parents would be extremely wealthy. Although her elderly father and mother were seventy or eighty years old, their minds were clear and they looked quite spirited. The large, extravagantly decorated house had a number of servants. At Vincent’s arrival, the old couple was guarded. They kept asking at first when he would be leaving, as though they took him to be a threat. Afterward, when they heard Vincent explain that this was only a short-term visit, they finally relaxed, and accordingly took no interest in him. They would let Vincent do what he liked, and said he could stay at their home as long as he wanted to stay. Then, not waiting for Vincent’s reply, they lay down on the thick cushions of their respective rocking chairs, talking with an old parrot in a birdcage hanging under the chandelier. Vincent couldn’t understand their conversation. It seemed they were debating the question of putting power lines on the stone mountains. It also seemed they were analyzing methods of tracking down criminals on the run. No matter what the old couple said, the old parrot always said, “Very good! Very good! A work of genius! A work of genius!” Vincent suspected that these words of praise were not the only things the ugly bird could say.
Vincent grew tired of listening. He also found a rocking chair to lie down in. There were many of these rocking chairs in the living room. He had just settled into one when he heard the manservant who had been standing at the door say in reproach: “This man doesn’t have the status to lie there.” Vincent found this amusing. A hurried burst from a buzzer rang out in the main hall. The elderly couple got up from their rocking chairs and went to an interior door, then thought of something and stopped again. Vincent’s father-in-law turned back and said to him, “We need to go to the rooms underground. We don’t know if we’ll be able to come back up once we get there. You should do as you please, have fun. We hadn’t imagined you’d come, it’s one of Lisa’s tricks.”
Vincent wanted to tell them he would be leaving soon, but the old couple didn’t want to listen. They hurried each other to the basement rooms. After they left, the servant, who before this had stood unmoving by the door, became animated. He ran over and hung two blankets over the old couple’s rocking chairs, then took down the parrot’s cage and stuffed it into the empty stove that sat in the fireplace. Vincent heard the old parrot shouting abuse: “Villain! Stuck-up fiend!” When he shut the door to the stove, the bird couldn’t be heard. Vincent smelled a strong, acrid tobacco. He turned and saw smoke pouring from the stairway leading to the basement entrance. The servant spoke from behind him:
“Where do you think you can run off to?”
“Are you talking about me?”
“Who else would I be talking about!”
“Why do you dislike me?”
“Because you are a cold-blooded man, never to come here in so many years.”
“But I didn’t know there was anyone here who wanted me to come. Lisa told me her whole family was dead. The gambling city she described was not like this place, either. What’s gone wrong?”
“There’s something wrong with you, of course. You fantasize. You can’t see the essence of things.”
The servant stood there haughtily, and Vincent saw his feet treading on a snake. It was the kind of small striped snake he’d seen at Reagan’s farm. The snake was struggling to reach up and bite his ankles. The servant pulled a dagger from his pants pocket, took off the sheath, looked it up and down, inspecting the edge, then bent over and cut off the snake’s head with a single stroke. The snake, its head and body in two places, wasn’t dead. The head and the body seemed to have an invisible connection between them, and wriggled a retreat in unison to the door. In the wink of an eye they were out of sight. Vincent looked back to the ground and saw that there weren’t even bloodstains left behind.
In the living room the smoke grew thicker. Vincent thought the servant would prevent him from leaving, so he stood without moving in his former place. The servant stooped to light the stove and immediately the sound of cursing flew out. Vincent took advantage of the servant’s inattention to walk out. But the servant did not come after him. What did it mean when he’d said, “Where do you think you can run off to?”
Joyner stood by the road with a serious look. She still awaited visitors, not knowing the direction from which they would come. The street was already swept clean. Vincent looked in her direction, and gazing at this lonely girl, he felt an inexplicable sadness. He thought, perhaps, many years ago, his wife, Lisa, had occupied this girl’s place. In fact, the first time he met Lisa he could see the shadows on her high-colored cheeks. But he would never have thought that she possessed such an implacable heart. Over the decades of married life a few of her secrets were revealed, but if he hadn’t come to her hometown, how much would he have understood about her? Even though he’d come here, how many things about her did he still not understand?
Vincent raised his head and looked off into the distance. The encircling stone mountains spat out thick smoke like live volcanoes. The gray smoke gradually fluttered toward the small town. But it was no volcanic eruption, nor did it feel like an earthquake. Looking around at the nearby buildings, he saw that some oozed smoke, some did not, and none of the people inside came out. Vincent remembered the scene from when he had climbed out of Joyner’s below-ground rooms, thinking to himself, The people had gotten used to breathing within heavy smoke long ago. If he didn’t leave, would the thick smoke occupy every open space? Regardless, he would be unable to get used to it.
Joyner stood coolly by the road, holding her broom. She was looking at the smoke too, her gaze clear, her features pretty. Most likely every traveler who came here was profoundly fascinated by her.
Vincent spoke without making a sound: “Joyner, Joyner, I love you.” But he did not feel this love as a physical love. Why, considering her youth, full of freshness, was he not sexually excited by her? Surely there was something separating them. He worshipfully watched the girl, his mind repeating the question: twenty-eight years ago, how had he and Lisa come to love each other at first sight?