Joyner walked over to him, forcefully grasped his hand, and said, “I must go. What I’m saying is, soon I’ll need to go below again. But Grandfather, what will you do? Look at this smoke, even the trains have stopped. I’ll go underneath, no travelers will be coming, either on the train or by foot. Lisa’s parents love you so much, why don’t you go to their home?”
“Really? They love me? Why don’t I sense it?”
“Because you’ve become unfeeling. Listen, no one here would let an outsider into the house because it’s too dangerous. You are one of their family, so they let you stay at their home. For years they’ve been chattering away, saying, Supposing you came, they would save your life. So go to their home.”
Joyner disappeared into the gray building. In Vincent’s eyes, the small town became a genuinely bleak, desolate place, and that smoke, already slowly assembled, was now descending. Perhaps he could only obey what Joyner said. Perhaps at his wife’s parents’ house he wouldn’t be in danger.
Against his will, Vincent stepped again through the door of the large house.
“This isn’t a hotel, where you can come and go as you please,” the servant said. He stood in his place as before.
Smoke still oozed from the mouth of the stairs. Yet the smoke didn’t gush toward him, but rather took a turn and exited through an open window, as if something were guiding it. In a panic Vincent saw that outside there were rolling billows of smoke everywhere. Visibility was not even two or three meters. Because the doors and windows were shut tight, there was still no smoke where he and the manservant stood. The servant’s voice sounded in his ears:
“Only the people whose desire for these earthquakes is strong can enjoy them.”
That was to say, Lisa’s parents were underground “enjoying,” Joyner and her tenants were also “enjoying” this. In that place with no sun, an air-thinned place, flooded with stifling smoke. .
He lay face up in a reclining chair, watching the magnificent, stately chandelier extend down from the ceiling. Near his ear someone was mocking him, saying he was a miser. Vincent sat up and looked around. Who was speaking?
“It’s me, I’m Lisa’s uncle!” The voice came from the open stove.
The parrot reached its head out. Evil words flowed from its mouth. It said Vincent didn’t have a single redeeming quality. Vincent felt suspicious: why didn’t it fly out? Even if it had lost its ability to fly it still could run away, and no one would block it. At the moment the servant wasn’t even looking this way, he was facing the mirror to pluck the whiskers on his lower jaw with a metal clip! But the parrot didn’t emerge, he only cursed like a gossiping woman.
“If you are Lisa’s uncle, then we are related. Why are you cursing at me?” Vincent spoke with sincerity. He wanted to see the bird leave the fireplace.
But the parrot ducked inside and cursed even more ferociously, its wings fanning the charcoal dust inside so it poured from the stove door. Vincent didn’t know why its most frequent imprecation was “Exploiting usurer!”
Vincent was just going over to the stove door to ask what this meant when he saw the servant race over, throw a large piece of burning firewood into the stove, and shut the door. Through the glass of the door he could see the parrot extinguishing the flames with its wings. The smoke inside obscured everything and he only heard its flapping, pu tong, pu tong. He could also faintly make out a shriek like an infant’s.
Vincent’s body broke out in goose bumps. He turned to face the servant’s evil smile.
“Is it dead?”
“It can’t die. It is a long-life parrot. It was here ages ago, when playing the slot machines was popular.”
“Where are the slot machines now?
“They are all buried between the walls of the underground rooms. Those props aren’t necessary any more. I won’t go around in circles with you, I’ll tell you everything: I am your rival in love.”
“Lisa?”
“Yes. What a marvelous woman, burning between your legs.”
Vincent furrowed his brow in disgust, which his adversary swiftly detected.
“You came here, but what use is it?” He stuck out his chin proudly. “You will never reach her heart because you don’t understand the kind of woman she is. Look, she has such worthy parents! Even our parrot looks down on you.”
“But I’ve already come here, and now I should leave?”
“Leave, this is the morality of people like you: you don’t stay anywhere long, only in hotels, you have no home. Poor Lisa, she must regret you.”
“I think Lisa has forgotten you.” Vincent pricked him with this sentence.
“Maybe. I’ve heard that people who leave here lose their memories.”
The servant was silent, thinking of his own problems. The parrot came to life again, walking back and forth in the smoke cloud with an apprehensive look.
Vincent walked over and opened the door of the stove. The parrot ran out all at once and jumped onto his shoulder. Now not only did it cease cursing, it also appeared attached to him, tightly holding his shoulder. Vincent sat in a reclining chair, and it jumped onto his knee. It looked serenely at him with its somewhat bleary old eyes. Vincent suddenly felt the bird’s charm, but he couldn’t say what sort of charm it was. He saw the servant looking himself over in the mirror. His mood seemed low, and he kept making grimaces in the mirror as if he were trying to adjust his mood.
“Vincent, Lisa has forgotten all about you.” The parrot imitated his voice.
“Are you lonely, Uncle?”
“Is Vincent lonely? If he’s lonely he should go practice his usury.”
Vincent listened to what it said and laughed out loud. At this the parrot laughed, too. The sound of the parrot’s laugh stopped Vincent’s short. It was like the laugh of a ghost in an ancient tomb. The parrot laughed and laughed, its wings held straight up, as if it were possessed. Vincent was going to push it down off his knee when the servant turned toward him, as though he could see into Vincent’s thoughts, with a cold, derisive expression; but the parrot suddenly shut its mouth.
“Why does it always say I’m a usurer?” Vincent asked the servant.
“Because in the gambling city we all have usury in our bones. Look at yourself, whoever makes you unhappy you push away. We look down on this kind of behavior.”
When he said this, the parrot also stared at Vincent, and its bleary eyes suddenly shot out a cold light. It seemed to see through to Vincent’s organs and its claws broke through Vincent’s pants, catching his flesh. Vincent felt he must say something right away, and what he said was “Joyner.”
The parrot was satisfied. It loosed its claws, jumped down onto the floor, and flew from the floor up onto the servant’s shoulder.
“Joyner is the gatekeeper to the gambling city. After you go back from here, even if you lose your memory completely, you will still remember how she looked resting on her broom, standing in a cloud of smoke,” the servant said.
“I wish for that, too.” Vincent agreed from his heart.
He looked out at the window. The smoke outside was already dispersing. The sky broke through with a color pleasing to the eyes and the heart, like the colors of the frigid morning of a clear day, but even more beautiful than this, a beauty that didn’t seem real. The gloom in Vincent’s heart quietly receded. He walked to the stairway beyond the door and heard a nightingale singing. How could there be a nightingale in this sunny sky? In the garden opposite the house, a red apple fell from a tree laden with fruit. The apple didn’t fall directly, but rather gradually drifted in the air before gently falling on the grass, where it lay like a miracle, giving off a red light.