She considered as she dressed: could “he” be Joe? Could the bridge be Luding Bridge? But Joe hadn’t gone to China, he had gone to Country C. Ever since Joe brought home that book with only one page, Maria knew that a turning point in their lives had already been reached. Joe had put it in the refrigerator, telling her that he wanted to freeze the boiling din inside the book. Otherwise, if he put it on the bookcase, it would bother him until his mind became uneasy. When he did this Joe wore his usual conservative look, but Maria thought her husband was like a child.
She went into the workroom to look at the tapestry she’d woven yesterday. Yesterday she wove and wove, so vexed she almost cried. Every time the loom sounded it seemed to be saying, “Why can’t you understand?” So now she first shut her eyes for half a minute, then suddenly opened them again. Those lines knit from lambswool were still lines, and no pattern protruded. Suddenly she discovered a small hole. She leaned in and saw two or three other holes. It looked like moths. Probably the newly bought knitting wool hadn’t been processed correctly. She lightly smoothed it with her hand, and the knit lines surrounding the holes began to loosen and spread. Before her eyes, like a domino effect, the fabric was reduced within a short space of time to a pile of wool threads. An indignant shout came from inside the walls. Maria’s head felt dizzy. “Joe, my head feels dizzy,” she said as she sat down on the floor.
Someone helped her into a rocking chair. It was Daniel. The odor of his body was like an early morning mist in a forest.
“Where did you come from, Daniel?”
“Amei and I went to Vietnam. We reached the village of butterflies,” he said excitedly.
He fell silent. After a while he finally spoke again.
“I love you, Mother. You’re truly admirable.”
Maria’s eyes went dark. She said: “Did you see my fabric? Don’t be discouraged. Things are much better than you think they are. I, I saw Luding Bridge!”
She grasped a pile of the tangled wool threads and put them to her nose to smell them. The threads inside began to smoke. Daniel wrested the wool from her, threw it to the ground, and stomped on it a few times.
Daniel saw the stories swimming in his mother’s eyes. The stories called up once again in his heart the circumstances of the evening of August 15. On that night, the two of them stood on the stairs, leaning against a wall. A low ni nan chirping came from inside the walls. The Swiss watch on Daniel’s wrist made zheng zheng clanking metallic noises. His mother’s strong neck crooked to one side, her head leaning on his shoulder, and the moonlight swam swiftly under the osmanthus tree. For many years the walls of this house had tied Daniel’s heart down firmly, and his wanting to throw them off was futile.
Without intention, Maria’s gaze swept across the walls. She saw the two tapestries on the wall in their wooden frames fluctuating rapidly. Designs of mountains, reefs, solitary islands, and geese appeared in alternation. Maria’s eyes were heavy with sleep, and they filled with tears.
“Do you like the women here, Joe?” Kim asked him once again. The two of them sat in a teahouse where they had a full view of the snowcapped mountains.
“I don’t know. They’re not much like what I expected. What is her name?”
“Xima Meilian. All the women here are named Xima Meilian.”
“When I was at home, I saw an especially beautiful Eastern woman. Did she come from here?”
Downstairs someone called for Kim. He leaned over to listen carefully, seeming a bit nervous.
The man came upstairs as he called. It was the old fellow who sold silver goods. He stood by the table, glancing with eyes full of hate at Joe, who was drinking tea. His ornaments struck one another with a pleasant sound.
Kim approached the old fellow, the two of them speaking the local tongue.
Suddenly, Joe felt the light from the snowcapped mountain to be especially dazzling, an endless flow toward the dark little teahouse where he sat. In the room the two men changed into two pale shadows in the white light.
“This is Xima Melian’s father,” one shadow said to Joe, his head stretching and curving, both comical and a little distressing.
“What’s wrong with my eyes?” Joe struggled to say.
Joe could still hear the silver ornaments as he felt the small building disappearing and his feet thrashing in the air. He became a man floating in midair. And those two shadows were also floating into the distance.
“Xima Meilian, Xima Meilian!” Kim said, as if threatening Joe with a false show of power.
But his voice floated far away. Now Joe was facing the snow-covered mountains. When he stepped ahead, the snow under his soles made a cha cha whisper. Aside from the snowy mountains there were no other colors or forms before his eyes. He suddenly experienced a feeling of being “crushed.” He was crushed. His body disappeared. He wanted to touch his face with his hand, but he had no hand, and he had no face. So whose sense of hearing was this? In the long long rumbling of an approaching avalanche, who would witness it?
“Who?” he asked.
“Xima Meilian!” Kim said, his response echoing in the distance.
He wanted to step toward the place where Kim was, yet he didn’t dare. He felt that it was an abyss. His lower abdomen tightened, and untimely desire made his organ harden. Where did Kim actually come from? He looked outwardly like a genuine local man, but he spoke the language of Joe’s country. Joe thought of the portrait of Kim, the pasture owner, in that book. He thought of the owner of the streetside bookshop. He suddenly understood that the book with one page was a snowcapped mountain! The reason the owner wouldn’t sell it to him was because he wasn’t willing to sell the secret in his heart. Joe’s thoughts moved away from these two books, and returned to those books he’d read before. He felt waves of emotion, his mind flickering with light. Now what appeared in his mind was no longer a square and a broad road with parasol trees planted along its side. The wild, heavy snow concealed everything, everything whispered secretly under thick layers of snow. He laughed with understanding: so this was that anthill! How many years passed while industrious worker ants constructed a palace underground, and already no one could see through to it? Should this be sad or joyous? The books existed. The owner of the tiny bookstore guarded them. Joe, too, guarded them. Paper perhaps could be damaged by insects, could be scattered in all directions, but the stories inside the books entered the mind and were passed down generation to generation, preserved in secret places.
Now Joe’s face was pressed to the surface of the ice. Perhaps the snow-covered mountain was kissing him? How unusual, he felt the bone-piercing frozen wind cut through his whole body — his body shook without stopping — but his desire was as before.
The snowy mountain leaned toward him, as if pressing against his body, but it wasn’t heavy. Joe squinted. He saw butterflies flying in the ice and snow, masses of colorful butterflies mixed in with the snowflakes. Joe’s organ was frozen by the ice and snow. Moaning, his spirit lost in rapture, he came.
“Xima Meilian!” Kim said in the distance.
14. IDA RETURNS TO THE FARM
Ida swam along in pain, like an injured fish. The lake bottom was lit by a dim gleam, and there were many shadows. After a short while she saw that these shadows were actually the shadows of plants. Ida had often gone to the lake bottom before, but she had never seen these plants. It appeared this place had undergone a transformation. What kind of plants were they? They looked like climbing vines, with huge egg-shaped leaves creeping along the silt like innumerable small beasts. Now was the time when Reagan came to fish. She leaned against the leaf blades, listening to his footsteps close by. Reagan’s steps were filled with hesitation. He didn’t stop, but like a man possessed he wound in circles on the same spot. Ida wondered, Could he hear the sound she made stirring in the depths of the water? Numerous small fish stopped to rest on her naked body, crowding especially on her back. When she swam, these small animals bit her back and shoulder blades lightly, causing her pain to shift.