“Are we there, Dad? Why is the view along the way so sad?”
“There are happy ducklings swimming in that lake, child. You need to look harder.”
Vincent listened harder, and to his surprise he understood their language.
When Vincent left the work shed the sky was already bright. He once again came to the Five Dragon Tower.
Joe was also there. His eyes were suffused with threads of blood. It looked like he hadn’t slept all night. Walking into the tower, both men felt a chill wind spinning inside, causing them simultaneously to look up. There was a patch of white light on the roof. They couldn’t pick out the round holes any more. At the midway point of the tower of stone someone was climbing, someone elderly with fluttering white hair.
“He came from the banks of the Ganges. He had raised a lion in the village,” Joe said to Vincent. “Afterward he went mad. It was a very beautiful village. Standing at the riverside, you could hear the ancestors speaking in the starry sky.”
“Was that place really the Ganges?” Vincent asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve been to too many places, they’re all muddled together. But I want to think so. Such a wide river, where elephants stood towering on boats. The Ganges, the Ganges.”
“But it’s really cold here.” Vincent sneezed a few times in succession.
The old man had already climbed to the roof and disappeared into the patch of white light.
“He worked during his lifetime as a cooper. Raising the lion was his secret occupation. He did this using pheasants he’d captured. The lion hid in the forest, only appearing in the village in the middle of the night. The relationship between the lion and the man was unknown to others. He left riding the lion’s back. That day, the woods were full of noise and the water of the Ganges overflowed both banks. The elephants, the elephants. .”
He couldn’t continue speaking, because he heard a loud violent sound, like a rock smashing to the floor. Could a stair have fallen down? But there were no traces of it on the ground.
“Are you speaking of this old man?”
“Yes, I know him.”
“But he just fell down. Think of how heavy a man’s soul is.”
That day they did not climb up. They stood underneath in the tower’s shadow, watching the patch of light at its crown and discussing those irrelevant things that don’t touch on reality. In the afternoon they went to eat at a small restaurant, then returned to the Five Dragon Tower and continued talking. Time silently slipped away and night fell again. Joe sensed that Vincent seemed to be waiting for something. He went up to the doorway, over and over, to look around outside. Finally, a woman appeared. As every step brought her nearer Joe saw clearly that she was the bookshop owner’s aged, beautiful former wife. But in Vincent’s eyes, she was that weightless woman from the twenty-four-story high-rise in City B. Vincent had remembered agreeing to meet her at this spot.
The woman walked in, nodding familiarly to the two men. She said, “At dusk there was so much fog I could hardly make out the road.”
Vincent and Joe opened their mouths at almost the same time and said to each other, “So, you two arranged to meet here.”
At this they were both embarrassed. But the woman wasn’t. She walked over and clasped both their hands, shaking them forcefully a few times. Joe saw a figure beyond the wavy white hair of her elegant head. It was a rare breed of white tiger. In the dim light the tiger’s eyes were two lamps.
Soon the three of them couldn’t see one another’s faces.
Joe pressed the woman’s hand. Her hand didn’t give him the slightest feeling of reality. He thought of something.
“You’d said we wouldn’t meet again, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I said something like that. This is like fate. . If Ito were here. .”
Her voice was so ethereal Joe felt she must be floating overhead. But her slender hand was still held in his own, although it grew icy cold. Joe tried to warm it with one hand, while he clasped it with the other.
“Joe, why can’t I see the things I want to see?” Vincent’s dejected voice came from the dark. “I look harder, but on the beach there is only a boot the sea has pushed onto the shore.”
Vincent seemed to be crying. Joe thought that his tears probably fell on the palm of the woman’s other hand, because the hand Joe held in his was regaining its warmth little by little. The woman took back her hand and walked out through the door with quick steps. Joe heard her voice still inside the tower.
“The work in the bookstore increased every day, while Ito grew old.”
The white tiger walked into the night behind her.
Joe wanted to follow after her, but Vincent blocked the doorway. Vincent said, “She wears that black skirt and shirt all four seasons of the year.”
“Oh,” Joe was surprised. “Wasn’t she wearing a white kimono? She’s the former wife of the owner of a bookstore. I’ve met her before.”
“We saw the same person.” Vincent sank into tangled thoughts.
Someone came down from the top of the tower, then went through the side door and walked away. They couldn’t see the person, or maybe it wasn’t a person: the footsteps sounded like horse’s hooves.
“Joe, you go on ahead. Tonight I’ll sleep inside the tower. There’s a felt blanket here. Everyone says this is the highest point in the world.”
Once Joe left, Vincent shut the heavy door. As Joe walked he imagined Vincent scaling the tower inside. He thought that Vincent wanted to climb alone. Vincent wouldn’t be sleeping.
Outside there were no lights, and no stars in the sky. The night was deepening. He could dimly see the white tiger appearing and disappearing nearby. For the first time in many days Joe remembered Maria, and remembered he had a wife and a family. On this remote plateau someplace in the East a dim part of his lost memories reappeared. He remembered passing rich busy little days with Maria in City B. The two managed a restaurant that offered Western specialties. Their son was a long-distance truck driver, speeding along the highways of other regions year-round. Joe said to himself: “Such a wonderful family life.” He saw steam rising in the kitchen. Outside, the dining room was filled with seated guests. The thick smell of fried shrimp was everywhere. Maria bent over in the food cabinet looking for something, then she straightened up and walked over to Joe, asking, “Joe, did you finish seasoning the shrimp?”