“It’s Yunma,” he said in a low voice. “She’s asked her fellow villagers to come here for meetings every night. If you had come at night, you would have seen the house ablaze with lamps. It’s hilarious.”
Jinglan was astonished. How could anything so preposterous have actually happened? Yunma was Yuanpu’s old servant. Long ago, she had agreed to wait on him until the end. A servant had actually taken advantage of him. After he recovered from his astonishment, he felt melancholy again. It appeared that Yuanpu couldn’t control his own life. Who could help him? How could someone with such self-esteem accept help from others?
“I don’t mind. It gives me pleasure in my old age. You know that I wearied long ago of argument.”
Jinglan wondered: Could he be lying to cover up his embarrassment? He also thought that he was certainly much different than he used to be. Jinglan glanced around the room: decades had passed, and yet this room was the same as always. The only difference was that it looked much gloomier and more rundown. A crab basket in the corner was covered with thick dust. In the old days, he and Yuanpu had gone crabbing in the mountain streams.
“I have to go. I’ll come back another day. I’ll be staying in town longer this time.”
Yuanpu didn’t respond. He was still listening intently to the activity outside. Jinglan waited a little longer. He was uneasy as he rose to leave: he thought his mentor had forgotten he was there.
As soon as he left the room, Yunma grabbed his arm and drew him to her room, which was across the hall from Yuanpu’s. A lot of miscellaneous stuff was piled up all over: it seemed to be the old woman’s hobby. Yunma stared at Jinglan. He was puzzled and so he took the initiative to find something to talk about. He brought up Yuanpu’s present condition, hinting that Yunma should keep the house quiet: this was essential if the elderly Yuanpu were to spend his last years in tranquility. From what Yunma told Jinglan, Yuanpu’s condition was worrisome: he was absolutely different from the way he was in the past. She had worked here more than thirty years: her service should have been appreciated. But for more than two years now, Yuanpu had been unusually strict with her. Her mother was more than eighty and needed care, so she had brought her here. This house had plenty of empty rooms, and she herself was in good health: she could take care of two elderly persons at once. She had settled her mother into a room upstairs. In the beginning, Yuanpu was happy about this, too. He went upstairs every day to chat with the old woman about household trivia. They were from the same generation and got along well. Her mother had a good impression of Yuanpu, too, saying that he was modest and unassuming, easy to be around. But before long, Yunma realized something was wrong. Yuanpu went upstairs too often — sometimes two or three times a day — and not about anything important, either. This made her mother uncomfortable. Yunma asked her mother if Yuanpu had suddenly started “looking for romance in his sunset years”? Her mother denied this. At first, she didn’t want to talk about it. Later on, she said that what the old geezer was interested in was something else, for several times he had tried to goad her into betraying her daughter. He had also told her a lot of tales about her daughter, even saying that Yunma was “treacherous.” He told her to be wary of her. Yunma intended to ignore Yuanpu’s words, for she thought he must have been mentally ill — a condition caused by old age. Furthermore, he was just telling tales about her: this didn’t hurt her. But Yuanpu became more and more peculiar — and more intensely so. Later, he not only went upstairs four or five times during the day, but he also rapped on her mother’s door at midnight. This wasn’t a problem for him, of course, because for decades he had slept very little at night, and yet he still had a lot of energy. But it troubled her mother a lot: once awakened, she couldn’t go back to sleep. After several days of this, the old woman could no longer bear it, and so she had packed her things and returned to the countryside. Not long after that, she died. And so Yuanpu’s relationship with Yunma immediately took a turn for the worse.
Irritated, Yunma turned deathly pale as she spoke. Sitting there, Jinglan kept sensing something spooky in this room. He shivered: Who in fact was lying? He squirmed uneasily in his chair.
“Six months ago, he began insisting that he had to have his bowel movements in his room. He said that he couldn’t walk easily and couldn’t use the toilet. But nothing was wrong with him: one night, I saw him go upstairs, just as fast as a thief! He did this in order to punish me. Tell me: How can I continue staying here?”
At this point, Yunma was staring at Jinglan, as if waiting for his answer. Jinglan thought it over and over and then said irresolutely, “I don’t know. I can’t help you. Sorry. I’m inexperienced in this kind of thing. Maybe you should talk it over with him. Or maybe I could ask a doctor to come. It seems he’s become a little obtuse.”
“Do you believe doctors?” Yunma’s eyes shone. “Let me tell you: you must never believe doctors! It was a doctor’s cure that killed my mother. If she hadn’t left. ” Suddenly terrified, she stopped talking.
When Jinglan walked out of Yunma’s room, he saw a hand closing Yuanpu’s door across the hall. Who could that be? Jinglan suddenly got it, and he turned back to say to Yunma: “Was he outside listening to us?”
“Naturally. There’s no way to keep anything from him.” Yunma smiled faintly.
=
As he walked along the road, Jinglan felt uneasy. The shadows of the house shrouded his mind. His respected mentor had actually reached this stage. He had never expected this. He felt obligated to help him, but unfortunately Yuanpu didn’t want his help. Maybe he was even mocking him for not understanding the world! Hadn’t Yunma also felt that he was ridiculous? Anyhow, he must give up the idea of helping Yuanpu. Then Jinglan began doubting his former impressions of Yuanpu. Over the decades, his mentor had never appeared decrepit in spirit. He loved arguing, never wearying of it. While arguing, his very being glowed with an unusual luster. Jinglan was always involuntarily drawn to his mentor’s brilliance. And so, although Jinglan had left here years earlier, he still came back once a year. Actually, his mentor was the only person he couldn’t leave behind. Could it be that his former impressions were all false? How could someone like Yuanpu have lost his mind? The configuration of Yuanpu’s brain rose before Jinglan’s eyes. He saw a tree whose leaves had all fallen. Its trunk and branches could be distinguished clearly, for they were bare. This kind of person was anything but out of his mind. But which image revealed the real Yuanpu? Was it the one who sat at his desk and thought all day and night? Or was it the one who dozed on the chamber pot and tiptoed like a thief through the house? He definitely couldn’t believe what Yunma said; it was likely all slanderous. But her motive didn’t seem to be to slander Yuanpu; it seemed more likely that she meant to scare Jinglan and make fun of him. What sort of confused state had Yuanpu’s life turned into? Jinglan thought, too, that he shouldn’t trust what he’d seen with his own eyes. His mentor was still as strong as an indestructible city wall. He could sense this while sitting in front of him, even though he had changed on the outside.
=
Jinglan had already spent nine days in his hometown. Every day he went to the riverside and sat on the flood-control dike to look at the distant sails. Deep down, he felt a little at loose ends, and he also felt some melancholy that he couldn’t dispel. These last few days he hadn’t gone back to see his mentor, and he kept reproaching himself. The river here was a little old and its water was dark. But Jinglan could see its energy in the strength the boatmen exerted to row the boats. He knew this river well. First thing this morning, he’d been uneasy because he would leave this evening. At about noon, what he’d been expecting occurred at last. The man approaching him was Yunma’s cousin.