Ali quietly came into the trailer. She was making him breakfast. Reagan, trusting to his luck, thought that maybe nothing had happened. She was so serene!
“The new manager does not intend to move. He will still live in his old cabin.”
Ali finally spoke the fearful truth. Was this possible?
He must open his eyes, must get out of bed. The world had not disappeared in front of him. He saw a drenched crow plunge from the window into his trailer, dropping into the washbasin. A warm, damp animal smell spread everywhere inside the trailer. The bird’s half-shut eyes seemed to stare at him. Ali ever so carefully cupped the injured bird (perhaps it was not injured) in her hands, stepped down from the trailer, and walked it to a growth of grass, where she put it down. She kept saying, “Little fellow, little fellow, you’re so rash!”
“Mr. Reagan, you should get moving!” she said when she left.
When he stuck his head out the window, the violent sunlight temporarily blinded him.
Ida left her own small house and came there. Now she saw him clearly. He didn’t look like a farm owner any more, only like a man who was down and out. He was extremely thin, so thin that his old clothing appeared empty on his body. The trailer was behind him, and the black-clad woman’s skirt flashed behind the trailer. What was that woman doing hiding there? Two days earlier Ida had seen that Jin Xia’s wooden house had completely caved in. A few wild dogs moved around in the ruins. She didn’t know where the family had gone.
She thought, “Today the sky is green. It’s so strange, how is the sky green first thing in the morning?” The road she’d taken passed through the rubber tree plantation. There was not a single worker there.
Mr. Reagan evidently saw her, but his expression was hollow. He had sunk into distraction. “Mr. Reagan!” Ida called out in an exploratory way. The woman behind the trailer was nowhere to be seen. Ida ran over to look, but there was no one behind the trailer. She looked back inside the trailer, but she saw only Ali sweeping.
“Ida, what are you looking at? Everything has changed now.” Ali spoke without raising her head.
“I’m still not used to it. Can you teach me, Mother?”
“You don’t need me to teach you. Isn’t this what you hoped for all along? Try calling him again, I think he will answer. He answered you before, but you didn’t hear.”
Ida called to Reagan again. Her voice was rending and shrill. Suddenly she felt that there was nowhere to hide, and she ran away, cradling her head. She ran to the lake and then through the groves of trees, running until her eyes went black and she fell to the ground. She indistinctly remembered falling on a space of open ground.
“You run back and forth, but it’s still the same piece of land. The young lady’s heart is like the morning dew.”
Ida heard the forest keeper close by. He was wearing the same clothing and leg wraps. He hugged a wild pheasant to his chest.
“Mr. Reagan handed over the farm to me. I want to change it into a territory of the night. Ida, your eyesight is so good at night. You will have a place to develop your talents.”
His voice came through his beard with a weng weng droning. He’d already grown a beard.
“With the first light of morning, I saw Ida running toward me. My heart was truly moved.” His snow-white brand-new beard shook.
“But I didn’t. . Oh, the sky this morning was so beautiful. Where did our convoy go? Doesn’t it usually travel along this road?”
Some object in her heart revived. She felt herself eager to do something. She stood up and stretched her body out, appraising the forest keeper’s cabin.
The forest keeper laughed heartily and said in a loud voice: “Convoy! Convoy. . There’s no convoy any more, dear, only a pack of wolves tearing through the wilderness.”
But at noon large crowds of workers appeared on the road. To the south there was a road-repair bulldozer pushing earth. The forest keeper stood underneath the machine giving orders. Ida knew he wanted to construct a new road. This was the pack of wolves he talked about — those workers. Among the workers were both new hands and old hands. Ida asked one of the young men where they lived. He said by the sea. They slept on the beach under the open sky. He also said their manner of living now was “better than we ever imagined.” Ida saw that he was holding a pheasant in his arms and asked what he was going to do with it. He said he was going to domesticate pheasants. “Everyone’s job will change. This is what the new manager says.”
Ida thought of Reagan’s unfavorable situation. One moment she thought it was the end, but the next moment she thought it was a turning point. As if in a trance, she came to the seaside. A breeze was blowing and the fish smell of the water excited her. There were many people on the beach with their bodies buried in the sand. She approached them and chose a stretch of sand to sit on. She began to bury herself. The middle-aged woman next to her said that lying like this you could hide from a landslide, and you could also speak directly with your ancestors. “You are crushing my hand,” she complained. Ida thought this was odd, because the woman was more than two meters away. How could her hand be underneath Ida’s body?
In the sky numerous hawks stared greedily, but they didn’t dare take precipitate action. Maybe they thought that these people with only heads showing were a bit unusual. You couldn’t say what snare might be hiding underneath. After long, hesitant wheeling above, one large gray bird made a fierce dive at a young boy. Grappling and struggling began. They all held their breath and looked on intently. Ida wanted to look, too, but the sand got in her eyes. She couldn’t see anything. She heard the woman calling her.
“Ida, Ida, I am your mother!”
“Mama, Mama! My eyes, I can’t see you!” Ida began to cry.
“Never mind, stupid child, it doesn’t matter. When the flood came from the mountain you couldn’t see, either, but didn’t you escape? And not seeing is better. It’s tragic, tragic, the child broke the old hawk’s wing. There’s so much blood.”
Some object was underneath her, pushing at Ida’s back until it hurt. She thought of sitting up, but didn’t move. The woman beside her said there was a person underneath. It was Mr. Reagan. Ida pressed down on him so that he couldn’t get out. No matter how much he tried, it was a waste of his strength. Ida felt blood running from her eyes. The grains of sand cut her eyeballs like needles. “Mr. Reagan, I love you,” she said. Then the person stopped pushing at her so hard.
“How nice, Ida found a beau!” The woman’s voice was piercing. “And he’s a landowner.”
Ida remembered that Mr. Reagan had already given his farm freely to the forest keeper. Now he had nothing at all. But who had told her this? Was it him?
In the midst of the stinging pain, which was hard to bear, Ida began to ponder.
15. VINCENT AND THE FIVE DRAGON TOWER
Joe had already traveled through so many countries in the East that he could no longer remember where he was. He stood in front of a stone tower. The tower was on a plateau, and beside him was a local yellow dog that had been following him. He’d spent one night in a small town and now the dog followed him everywhere. Perhaps it meant to lead the way for him, but Joe didn’t have a destination. He was only walking at random, and the yellow dog seemed happy with this procedure. Whenever they reached a new place it would let out a burst of yelping, wang wang, in its excitement.