“Mei, what kind of treasure are you growing?” the neighbor Ayi asked.
“The China rose.”
“Why don’t I see any buds?”
“They grow downward, and the flowers also blossom underground. It isn’t the China rose that we’re accustomed to seeing. The flowers are only as large as grains of rice, and the petals are stiff.”
Mei blushed. She was repeating what Jin had told her. In her own mind, she didn’t have a good grasp of it. With her goldfish eyes bulging, Ayi looked at her for a moment and then silently entered the apartment.
Mei told Jin that their neighbor Ayi didn’t believe they were growing the China rose. Jin was shaving just then, and lather covered his face. Blinking his little triangular eyes, he said he hadn’t believed it either, at first. Whether people believe it or not has no bearing on the China rose’s growth. With that, he went into the bathroom. Holding a mop, Mei stood there thinking. Presumably, Jin had a clear understanding of this. When the seeds were seen under lamplight, they did look like a singular variety. She remembered that two nights ago the two of them had put their heads together and taken stock of these seeds. She bent over and mopped the floor. When she reached the desk, she noticed a seed that had been left next to a leg of the desk. She quietly picked it up, wrapped it in crepe paper, and put it in the kitchen cupboard.
In the afternoon, Jin napped on the chaise lounge. As for Mei, she sat on the sofa. She could rest just by leaning against the back of the sofa and dozing a little. When her eyelids grew heavy, she heard someone knocking on the door. Twice. Not continuously, but with an interval between them. Who would knock this way? Was it a child playing a prank? She didn’t open the door. She heard Jin snoring softly. After a while, just as her eyelids were growing heavy again, the knock came again — this time, twice in a row. Still light and hesitant. Mei had no choice but to go to the door.
Ayi was standing outside. Her face was pale, as if she’d been frightened.
“I’d also like to grow a little of that variety — that variety of China rose. Do you have any extra seeds?”
“No. Old Jin brought them back through a relative. If you want some, we can ask someone’s help again.”
Ayi looked terribly disappointed. Then her expression changed to spiteful probing — she impertinently stuck her head in and looked into the room. Mei generally did not invite neighbors into her home. Ayi’s unusual behavior made her a little nervous.
“I just remembered. I still have one seed. Do you want it?” She looked almost ingratiating.
“You have one? Sure, I’d like it. Let me have it.”
Taking the seed wrapped in crepe paper, Ayi gave Mei a hard look.
When Mei turned around to close the door, what she saw in the room startled her: a rat was sneaking back and forth under the tablecloth on the dining table. There had seldom been rats in their home. Was it really a rat? Pouncing, she covered the tablecloth with her hands, but the little guy still slipped away. She had pounced on air. She looked on helplessly as the gray rat climbed up the window and glided outside. Shaken, Mei stood in the room and said, “Rat.”
Jin’s gaze left his book, and he glanced at her. Then he returned to the book and said:
“The rat is Ayi. You needn’t worry too much.”
Recovering, she replaced the tablecloth and went to the kitchen. After cooking for a while, she rushed back to the bedroom because she was afraid of the rat. Luckily, she didn’t see the little guy again. But she noticed that the lower part of the cloth on the dresser had been gnawed on, so it seemed this problem was real! When Mei was in primary school, the city was overrun with rats. People had employed all kinds of ways to get rid of them: blocking their paths, poisoning, tracking, pouring water on their nests, and so on. From then on, there had been no problem.
As she chopped radishes, she savored what Jin had said. Jin had said the rat was simply Ayi. This made some sense. Although the two families were next-door neighbors, and their children had played together, their socializing had been limited to simple greetings made in passing after the children grew up and moved away. So she’d been a little surprised when Ayi had asked for flower seeds. Judging by Ayi’s expression and movements, she was taking this matter quite seriously. But why? It couldn’t be merely for a few flower seeds.
At mealtime, Mei said to her husband:
“Will Ayi really grow the seed she took with her? What do you think?”
“No, because that one is fake; it’s one I culled to throw away. Altogether, quite a few are fake. As soon as she looks at it, she’ll realize that. It isn’t a flower seed; it’s a beautiful pebble.”
Jin winked at her complacently. Mei whispered to herself: “You cunning bastard!” She was a little worried that Ayi would hold a grudge against her because of this. Ayi’s husband was a sullen, one-eyed man. Would the couple think she had played a trick on them? Perhaps she should explain to them. Jin argued against this. He said it would be a case of “confusing the issue with more talk.” He also said, “Since she’s interested in this underground plant, it’s okay to make fun of her a little.”
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Because of insomnia, Mei and Jin had started sleeping in separate rooms ten years earlier. In general, Mei could sleep from midnight to a little after one o’clock. After awakening, she couldn’t sleep again until after three o’clock. She would wake up again about five o’clock, and at close to seven o’clock she slept again for a while. She arose at sometime after eight o’clock. Every day was much like this. Mei’s nights were long. At first, this was hard to put up with. Between periods of sleep, she was drowsy. After awakening at one o’clock at night, dressed in her pajamas, she always made the rounds of each room. While doing this, she didn’t turn on any lights. And so, one night she fell — frightened of the sudden glare on the large mirror in the living room — and bumped against the side of the dining table. She broke her collarbone. Looking back on it, she thought the subtle sparkle had been caused by a passing car. Afterward, Mei had covered everything with cloths. After getting better, Mei ceased her nighttime rounds. She still got up during the night and sat on a low kitchen stool. Leaning against the wall, she would doze for a while. She sat in the kitchen because she could look out the window and see the sky and the trees. This was relaxing. At such times, recalling the long-ago days when she and her children had been together, she was astonished at the well-being she felt: Was that really the life she had experienced? The sense of well-being, however, came from her present contentment. Thus, after a long time, she started enjoying her insomnia. She imagined that she had become a large white goose waddling in the woods looking for food.
Unless he was greatly disturbed — for example, the time that Mei was injured — Jin did not wake up at night. According to him, he slept lightly: whenever something happened, he was aware of it.
“People like me are bound to die early, because we never have any real peace.”
He made a long face when he spoke of his situation, but Mei knew he was inwardly satisfied. Wasn’t light sleep much the same as wakefulness? If a person was always waking up, wasn’t this the same as living two lifetimes? Jin’s lifetime had been a really good bargain! What’s more, he was so healthy that he never fell ilclass="underline" How could he die prematurely? He also said that he had never dreamed, because he was essentially always conscious and so there was no way to dream. As Mei listened, she thought: When she sat in the kitchen and dozed, she had one dream after another. The two of them were really not much alike.