“Yes. I met Martin at a picnic — a young man who took care in his dress, with an elegant manner. It was at his suggestion that I came to your farm. At that time I was enjoying successful promotion in my career. Martin said I should come here, where I would have a place to exercise my talents. He also called your farm ‘a wasteland.’ An intelligent young fellow. The scenery here is especially beautiful, particularly the green sky. It makes me enlarge my outlook.”
After a while, Jin Xia told Reagan he needed to go.
“Going back home?”
“No, to make the whole world my home. My family will leave at night when it’s dark. I already found someone to replace me. He was formerly a monk.”
“I’m very surprised.”
Reagan passed another night without sleep. He was at the lake, sitting on the small bench fishing. The boy sat on the ground at his side.
“Little Wolf, will you be leaving?”
“Yes, Uncle Reagan. Aren’t I saying good-bye to them now?”
“To whom?”
“Them, the leeches in the water ditch. I’m good friends with them. Once every week I let them drink blood from my leg. Look!”
He smoothed his pants leg, showing Reagan his slightly swollen and inflamed calf.
“I love you, Little Wolf. Are you really going to leave?”
“I really am going to leave, Uncle Reagan. Dad says we won’t come back again. My heart’s already flown to that place far away in the mountains. I heard all the buildings there hang from the cliffs. My dad is a hero, isn’t he?”
“Yes. Is your wolf going with you?”
“Hmm.”
His mood darkened. He kept kicking the small bench where Reagan sat until he could no longer fish. Reagan didn’t know why the boy was so unhappy. Maybe he shouldn’t have brought up that wolf. He’d never understood why Jin Xia had lamed the wolf. He packed up his fishing rod and sat down on the ground with the child, holding his little hand, wanting to speak with him. The child’s hand was extremely skinny. It gave Reagan an unusual feeling. He remembered the child had been eating and sleeping out of doors all these days.
“Uncle Reagan, will I die?”
“No, you won’t. You are a child.”
“Children can die, too. I was just thinking about the buildings hanging from the cliffs. When our wolf starts to howl, the buildings might fall down. Last time when most of our house collapsed it was the wolf that did it. It wasn’t the rainstorm at all. My dad told everyone it was the rainstorm. He was fooling people. Uncle Reagan, do you think I should go? I want to stay on the farm with my wolf. I already found a good place over there in the forest. I could put up a house and live there with it. I wouldn’t have to live in that termite nest any more. But I also wonder if living on a cliff would be more interesting, only if you don’t fall in. I think and think, and I can’t make up my mind. I’m still a child, I don’t want to die. My dad is a hero.”
Reagan pityingly rubbed the child’s small hand, although in his heart he understood that the child needed no pity.
“Little Wolf, you don’t have to go. You could live here with me in the forest. What do you think? In the future you would grow up to be like your father and come help me manage the farm.”
“Things are good here, but I also want to go live on the cliffs. Uncle Reagan, what do you think I should do?” He looked seriously at Reagan.
Under the moonlight Reagan thought his eyes looked like two deep caves, as if there were no eyeballs in the sockets. A feeling of cold scudded across Reagan’s heart, and for a moment he couldn’t speak. Someone swam by in the lake with a noisy gurgling, hua hua. Reagan could tell it was someone else, not Ida. Ida was rhythmical, while this person slapped the water carelessly, almost willfully. “It’s the forest keeper,” Little Wolf told him.
The forest keeper came ashore naked. His clothing was on the bank, and he walked over to dress. The old man’s silhouette looked strong and healthy, not at all like his downtrodden appearance in the daytime. Reagan thought: Maybe the forest keeper believes this lake and farm both belong to him? Look how confident he is. His movements are so poised. Little Wolf suddenly ran over and hugged the forest keeper. The pair walked away, speaking warmly in whispers.
Without blinking Reagan watched their old and young figures as they left. A kind of regret sprung up in his heart. Without knowing why, he sensed that the forest keeper was the true owner of this land. Every tree and blade of grass was probably in his dreams, and this child was a free bird flying back and forth. It was said that the forest keeper’s family had lived here for many generations. Formerly it was a true wilderness. Suddenly, the silhouette of a deer appeared within Reagan’s view. The deer were on the opposite bank, a great herd of them. He had never heard of there being deer in these mountains. What sort of monk had Jin Xia hired to replace himself as the manager of such a large farm? Seeing the deer suddenly emerge from lower ground on the opposite shore, Reagan felt that the future was uncertain. At this very moment Jin Xia might have already packed his bags.
He returned to the trailer, unable to lift his spirits, lay down, and shut his eyes to its stinking odor.
“Mr. Reagan, I will start my job today.” The forest keeper’s voice came from inside the trailer.
“You?”
“Of course Jin Xia didn’t tell you, that bastard!” He clapped the trailer window so hard it rang.
“He said it would be a monk.”
“I used to be a monk. That bastard, playing tricks on us!”
“Come in and talk.”
“No, I need to get to work. Mr. Reagan, yesterday I dreamed I saw our farm extending to the eastern seacoast. Jin Xia had great momentum.”
Reagan shut his eyes and reflected for a long time, but he was unable to think of the forest keeper being the manager of the farm. In these past few years, everyone viewed him as a dirty, strange old man who lived alone on the undeveloped land. In these years there were countless times when Reagan had burst with the impulse to speak with him, but once he got to the keeper’s door he was held back by dread. How was Reagan not a plunderer? This stretch of earth was formerly a wilderness. The forest keeper’s family had lived here for generations, and the forest keeper was the only descendent of that clan. Naturally he saw this land as his. Now Reagan had transformed the land into a farm and him into a forest keeper. Who knew what grudge he might still harbor in his heart? Looking in through the broken door, Reagan always saw a snow-white triple-edged scraping knife lying out on the table.
How many years might this old man have been matching his strength with Reagan’s in the dark? There were many times when Reagan had heard that the forest keeper would die soon, or was at his last breath. Apparently this was all a smokescreen. It was as if this strange man controlled everything here from a place deep in the earth, and was now, finally, bit by bit, encroaching, retaking the things that belonged to him. Jin Xia’s sham expansion was no more than a means to divert Reagan’s attention. Damn Jin Xia. Where had he come from? What was he doing? Reagan thought back, but his first meeting with Jin Xia was always a blank. He couldn’t recall anything. It seemed to have been in some underground walkway in City B; it also seemed to have been at home in the kitchen, at midnight, when he went to fetch brandy. Had he invited Jin Xia to work on the farm, or was it Jin Xia who wanted to come? Or was there some third party who introduced him for the job? Reagan no longer retained the slightest impression. His distinct memories all came after Jin Xia started at the farm, and these were all connected to the wooden house on the mountainside that was eaten through by termites. Now he decided that, very possibly, this was a scheme plotted out a long time ago, a conspiracy relating to some few ancient, untraceable wishes. Even his driver, that young fellow, played a role. From the beginning it was like this. . And Ali? At this thought, Reagan felt like a drowning man, like that girl, except he didn’t wear a work uniform and could get to the water’s surface to breathe.