The woman was still there. Her hands were on her knees, palms up. She was sitting with her eyes closed, beneath the big parasol tree, absolutely motionless. I stood beside her for a while, but she seemed oblivious to my presence. It occurred to me that as a man, I should go talk with the man. I walked over to the small gate and pushed it, but it didn't open. I pulled it, and it still didn't open. It was locked; there was a great big lock on the outside. Strange. Then how did the woman get inside? My head, like my heart, is not particularly good. I thought for a minute before recalling how I myself got inside. I ran over toward the south gate, planning on circling around to the west side of the building. It would be best to first go have a look at the child. It was late and getting cold. The child had to be kept from getting sick. I would go have a talk with the young father and then maybe speak to the child's mother also.
What is it you're doing? Just what are you doing? What calamity has occurred? You're not married? If you're not married, then hurry up and get married. There's still time. You simply cannot do this. You were pretty daring in the beginning, so what are you afraid of now? There's no need to be afraid of anything. Let people talk. "Go your own way and let others talk." An important person said that, so it can't be wrong. Look, you two, this is a wonderful child, so well behaved. Illegitimate children are all smart. He could grow up to be a great man. Great men shouldn't just be tossed aside in some cemetery.
But, but! There was a river in front of the main gate on the south side. I had all but forgotten it. The river flowed right up against the green brick wall; there was virtually no space between them. The bridge could take one only to the south bank, and there was absolutely no way to circle around to the west side of the wall. I crossed the little bridge and walked west a long way but didn't find any place where I could cross the river. Then I followed the riverbank east. I walked a long way, but there was still no place to cross. Now what was going on? The wall around the compound was so high that the man would have had a hard time jumping over it, let alone the woman. I continued on, figuring that sooner or later there had to be a place where I could cross the river. By the time I'd gone another considerable distance, it was deeper into the twilight, and still I hadn't found a place to cross. If there were such a place, I reasoned, it had to be on the west side; so I turned and headed back. After I had walked for a while, I met up with a woman.
"Excuse me," I said, "where can I cross the river?"
"Cross the river?" She glanced all around. I realized she was the woman who had been sitting beneath the tree.
"Go west. After about five hundred yards, more or less, there's a big bridge," she said.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
She looked at me for a moment with suspicion. "I'm going home."
"Well, what about him?"
"Who?"
"Who's that man on the other side of the wall?"
"What? What man? What do you want?"
"OK, we won't talk about that," I said. "But what about the child?"
"Child? What child?"
"The child in the woods to the west."
She laughed. "You're not feeling well, perhaps?" She turned and was about to leave.
"There's an abandoned child over there! Listen, no matter what, it's getting late, and we have to get that child and take it home. Tell me again, where is the bridge?"
Events proved my heart was OK, for I jogged all the way to the woods, and it kept working normally. I found the gravestone. I was positive it was the one. I could swear my eyes hadn't deceived me. I couldn't have been wrong. But there was nothing in front of the gravestone-no child and no baby carriage. I hurried off to find the man. He was still outside the western wall. He was just then in the process of tidying up a pile of painter's things. Brushes, portfolios, paints, bottles, and jars were spread out at the base of the wall, and a finished painting titled Cemetery in the Woods stood to one side.
I walked up and asked him, "Did you happen to see a child in the "Woods?"
"A child? What sort of child? How old?"
"Very small, a couple of months."
"Good Lord, aren't you a case? How could you lose such a small child? He couldn't run away by himself, could he?"
We looked off toward the woods simultaneously. I walked back and forth along the green brick wall, from south to north and north to south. I couldn't see it; from there, I couldn't see the gravestone at all. Then the woman showed up. I described for them everything I had seen.
"Please believe me, my eyes work better than anything else in my body," I said to them. "Please don't look at me like that, like there's something wrong with me."
I said to them, "If we spent some time together, you'd realize that I'm quite normal."
I said, "Will you go with me to have another look?"
The man said, "I don't doubt your sincerity, but how can you guarantee you saw everything there was to see? As for me, I'm sorry, I have to go home."
The woman said to me, "All right, I'll go with you." I could tell she said this only because she wasn't entirely satisfied that I was OK.
We went into the woods and walked to the gravestone. Sure enough, nothing. There was nothing there at all. I sat down beside the grave. I said, "Go on home. Weren't you on your way home? Go on." She sat down beside me. I said, "Don't worry. You don't have to worry about me. I'm a little tired. I think I'll rest here for a while." She reached out and felt my pulse.
I said, "Maybe the painter was right, maybe the child's parents were nearby."
I said, "But maybe I wasn't wrong, and someone took the child away while I was looking for the bridge."