The voice saying this sentence dropped, and the white tiger darted in front of him. Joe sobbed like a child.
He returned to the hotel and lay down on the mildew-smelling folded quilt. His mood quieted and he began to dream.
Midway through the night he woke up once and looked at the yellowed wallpaper on the wall of the hotel. A question flashed briefly across his mind: Was the bookstore’s volume of business really increasing? Then he quickly went back to sleep.
Vincent was inside the tower. It was so dark that when he stretched out his hand he couldn’t see his five fingers. He heard that person walking down. The man was probably feeling his way one step at a time. Proceeding was strenuous. Vincent imagined the fear in the man’s heart and unconsciously made a ge ge creaking sound with his fist. After a while the man stopped. A stair might be loose. Vincent remembered the loud sound inside the tower earlier. Perhaps a section had fallen down and there was a large gap between the stairs. Or could the white-haired man’s strength be used up? He’d looked so frail, he must be ancient. But he began to move again. His footsteps came even closer. Did he have wings to fly over that gap? Or was there no gap?
The footsteps sounded in front of Vincent, but he had not seen the old fellow face to face. Perhaps these footsteps were the sound of his heart? What was the white light on the roof after all? Vincent hadn’t ascended because in a dream the old man from the village clearly told him, “Do not go to the top of the tower.” Last week a beautiful little wolf had died inside the tower. Vincent thought that the little wolf must have died from exhaustion. It appeared quite serene and had no wounds on its body. The color of its fur was very light, almost a light yellow. It was at the age of dreams. But who had taken away its corpse?
Vincent touched the blanket on the floor with his foot. He wanted to lie down. Just at this moment, someone outside knocked on the door of the tower. Vincent went over and opened the door. This person brought in a smell of dew.
“The hotel is all full, I had to come back here.”
It was the black-clad woman.
Vincent and the woman lay down together on the blanket. He asked her whether she’d heard the sound of footsteps descending. The woman smiled and said, “That was me, I went up and came back down. All the people who ascend lose their weight. Don’t you see that I’m as light as air?” Vincent thought she truly was as light as air. He asked her what was on the roof of the tower. “Ten circular holes, you’ve seen them. From the round hole you lean out. .” She didn’t speak. “What’s there?” Vincent pressed her to speak. “I don’t know,” she said, “I haven’t done it, I came right back down.”
Vincent embraced her tightly and entered a dream. In his dream he was at his home in Country A at Christmas. Thick snow fell outside the windows. Lisa was adjusting the logs in the fireplace. The blazing flame made her face shine like a ripe apple. She turned her face to him and asked, “Vincent, when do you plan to set off?”
“Tomorrow,” he blurted out. “Otherwise I’ll be too old.”
When he woke in the morning, his eyes were dazzled by the strong sunlight from above and wouldn’t open. He reached out a hand to the woman by his side. She wasn’t there. When he raised his head again to look up, he discovered that the patch of white light was moving downward. Maybe it wasn’t moving, maybe it was expanding. Yes, it really was expanding! In a short time the whole inside of the tower was bright and dazzling. For Vincent it was as if he were looking directly at the sun. He couldn’t see anything. He felt hot and began to sweat. Nearby he heard the voice of a local person, it was very indistinct. He tried reaching out his hand, felt the edge of a knife, and shrank back at once. Someone was pulling his hand. Vincent caught at the hand, feeling that it was an old man’s, damp with cold sweat.
“Yesterday the sun came out. Today heavy snow seals off the road. You couldn’t go back even if you wanted to. Life at the top of the Five Dragon Tower is the same as a brush with death,” he said. He was probably from the same country as Vincent.
“And me? What is my life at the bottom of the tower the same as?”
“Your life is the same as watching a play.”
He laughed hollowly, then flung Vincent’s hand away, turning to climb the stone steps.
Vincent groped his way out of the tower. His eyesight immediately returned. The plateau was bright and clear. Green grass, trees with pink leaves, gray wolves racing along, cottages with thatched roofs beyond the woods. But this landscape didn’t seem real. Vincent imagined that if he stamped the ground everything before his eyes would disappear. Now that he had placed himself in the beautiful, ill-intentioned landscape he felt deeply that the Five Dragon Tower behind him was the single sight within this scene that was firm and would not collapse — and he’d left it.
He followed a road trampled into the grass by people passing back and forth on foot. He reflected that the plateau changed its face quickly. Over these past days he had become extremely familiar with this area, but now every blade and tree was wholly transformed. Was there some power at work? Was it to make people who came here cherish the Five Dragon Tower with yet greater reverence? He turned to look. The tall tower had already turned into a small gray triangle, just like one of the wooden building blocks he’d played with as a boy. Perhaps the tower was a building block?
Vincent stepped forward alone, anxious and fearful, into this false landscape. His legs were a little shaky. He thought it might be because he was so hungry. He asked himself: Had he made up his mind?
A long time ago, on the beach, watching the distant coral island, he had thought about that question. In truth it was an imponderable question. So how could he ask it? He didn’t ponder the question’s essence. Instead, he only circled around the question, opening many passages to it, setting an ambush.
When these sentences appeared in Vincent’s mind, his whole body felt a little feverish. Energy filled his gaunt and exhausted body. His footsteps gradually became steady. He was no longer nauseated by the false landscape extending in every direction.
Beside the forest an old man collected firewood, catching dry branches with a long hook. After Vincent walked past him, he shouted a sentence in the local language at Vincent’s back. Vincent suddenly understood that he was shouting, “Taking a boat or a plane?” Vincent returned to the old man, but his eyes were lowered as he tied his wood into a bundle with a vine, as if nothing had happened. The old man’s big-boned, able hands looked familiar. Vincent felt a few things inside him swiftly die, but at once a few other things grew.
The old man shouldered his load of firewood and walked into the depths of the woods. Vincent stepped forward along the road heading in the opposite direction.
16. LISA AND MARIA’S LONG MARCH
Maria came to Lisa’s house for the first time. She cautiously looked all around. Lisa didn’t ask her to sit in the spacious living room. Instead, she invited Maria to go upstairs into the bedroom she shared with Vincent. Maria saw that their bedroom was much more spartan than her own. Aside from a wooden bed there were no furnishings. The walls were bare, without a single picture. It was out of keeping in such a high-class residence. The windows were the strangest part. There were two of them, both very small and set high up, making it difficult for light to enter the room.
“I designed our bedroom myself. What do you think of it?”