So they returned to his house to continue their conversation.
She was surprised to find him living alone in such a large house. As she looked around, she said that only a wealthy man could live this way, a normal surgeon’s salary wouldn’t pay for more than the bathroom. If men did not sell their souls for their professions and women did not sell their bodies, what would become of the world? She rambled on. Who would dig out a three-room underground house, who would turn a scrapped vehicle into a mobile camper, who would fake a divorce for the sake of a house. She talked a lot, and energetically, and quickly forgot her tears. She said, ‘You must have had a windfall, or you’re being kept by a rich woman. You’re living in such luxury, no wonder you don’t want to leave.’
‘My material comforts were not less there than here. At first, I didn’t want to go back. I was attracted by the freedom they enjoyed here. In our art back home we wouldn’t be allowed to paint a moustache on our leaders. Their art allowed them to strip their dead leader naked. But I know now that their freedom is only superficial.’
The house was nice and warm. They sat cross-legged on the carpet. For a while, they almost forgot that they were living abroad. Her wounded feelings over Jia Wan had apparently healed, and her recent illness had had almost no effect on her. She was healthy and young, like fresh fruit on a tree. He could see that she was excited, that everything in Swan Valley seemed fresh and lovely, and that she did not intend to leave. He unceremoniously poured cold water on that prospect, telling her truthfully all that had happened to him, including Rania’s death, the letter from the person in black, his conversation with the robot, and his doubts about the nursing home. He also summarised his own temptations when faced with beautiful women, but he didn’t think that terribly important right now.
Artificial insemination and the prohibitions on sex surprised her, but hearing about the squid that nearly ate him and the waste disposal site turned her insides to ice. She moved closer to Mengliu, and felt a little better. She asked him why he had not sneaked back to the site. He said he had tried many times. Once he became lost, and once he was nearly killed. He hid the additional factor of the woman, especially the more captivating moments with Juli. There was no need to complicate the issue.
Her chest heaved as she sat watching the flames. He looked at her silently, secretly surprised at his own cool head. The warm fire and the pretty young woman had failed to stir his body, or the appetites of the little beast within him.
Perhaps this was a good omen.
21
‘What did you say? The nursing home is actually a crematorium?’ Esteban’s voice issued from the dark grey mattress, blurred and cold. ‘Oh…is that right? Then so be it. It’s no big deal. When one is old one is useless, and fire has a purging power.’ He was a completely changed man.
There was no heating system in the mill, and it was filled with sacks of grain which lay everywhere, piled up to the windows. It wasn’t too cold, but Esteban’s words were frigid, his body like a toppled mountain. There was no energy in his voice. A half hour earlier, when Mengliu and Suitang had set out on their bikes to the mill, as if they were just out to enjoy the scenery, they hadn’t expected to find Esteban in such a state. They had to put aside the matter of the nursing home and concentrate on the condemned man’s health.
Mengliu knew what the punishment was for a man who had committed adultery. Those who kept repeating the crime would be put to death. First-time offenders might be condemned to five years of service as a coolie, living in exile with only vegetables to eat. The sick were not allowed to see a doctor. They laboured during the day, while reading and making notes at night in order to keep their minds from degenerating to the point where they would be of no use after their release from imprisonment. In truth, some were ruined, but some were completely transformed, becoming thinkers and gaining a very different understanding of life. They buried themselves in books, gave lectures, engaged in theoretical discussions, became admired and celebrated gurus.
In Swan Valley, anything was possible.
Esteban wasn’t concerned about his health. Mengliu, afraid he had contracted the plague, encouraged him to apply for permission to see a doctor. This was blasphemous to Esteban, who believed himself to be a sinner and fully intended to atone for his wrong-doing. There was nothing Mengliu could do about his pious repentant attitude, and Esteban’s stubbornness was driving him crazy.
Suitang looked on anxiously. Several times she started to speak, but Mengliu stopped her because he knew she had nothing positive to say. All the way there she had cursed Swan Valley, saying the people were deranged, lacked any discernment, were clearly a bunch of idiots. He replied that they enjoyed simplicity, the natural state of people living in abundance and reunified with their spirit. She included him in her ridicule, saying Swan Valley had made him short-sighted and weak-minded, as if he had been struck ill too.
‘Dr Yuan,’ she leaned the bike next to the trunk of a tree, speaking in a deliberately pinched tone, ‘if this continues, you will be just like them in time.’ She pretended her jacket needed a good beating to clean the spots on it, stomped the snow from her shoes, and looked up contemptuously at the snow-capped mountains.
All of this made Mengliu think of Qizi. But when Qizi was angry, her eyes welled up with tears and she would shout and yell.
He had not quarrelled with Suitang before, and he secretly admired her energetic expression of discontent. He felt that a man should never engage in a war of words with a woman. A woman was like candy, and all you needed to do was keep her in your mouth and allow her to soften quietly until her hardness had completely disappeared.
So he smiled and said she was right. Swan Valley really was rotten and not worth bothering about, but for the sake of friendship he should try to help. He did not say that he was curious, or that uncovering Swan Valley’s secrets was of great interest to him, for that was too much even for him to believe. Other than women, he wouldn’t normally take the trouble to investigate into the truth of anything. The thought suddenly brought to mind his past silent self, like a pig eating, drinking, relieving itself and sleeping, day after day.
This deeply engraved image of his past streamed through the empty spaces in his heart and quickly engulfed the last ray of light there.
‘No matter what you believe, you must be treated, rather than insisting on your so-called…faith.’ Mengliu decided he would try one last time with Esteban. As he got up from the millstone and walked to the dim lamp, he smelled decay. ‘Sometimes faith is nothing but a guard who exists in name only at the gate of a village. If you are arrogant, you can walk through easily, but if you look left or right before you enter the gate, he will stop you and interrogate you.’
Esteban did not move. He looked like a dead man.
‘If you are stopped at the gate, what else can you do? There’s nothing you can do but dream.’ Mengliu came at it from another angle. ‘And love…yes, you remember you are a father? Surely you don’t want your child to be born fatherless? You have become enslaved because of him, but you have to grit your teeth and carry on living. Even if it is for your…so-called faith.’
Suitang’s expression said that she thought Esteban’s faith was a load of bullshit. ‘For pilgrims, the temple is everything, all culture and happiness,’ she muttered. But she did not speak that softly.
She seemed impatient, so much so that she left the mill and went out to stand in the cold, looking up at the sky.
Mengliu was shocked. She said so bluntly exactly what he meant. He felt a little awkward but, even more, he was relieved, since to say anything else would be superfluous. He assumed Esteban had also heard Suitang. Seeing some movement, he thought the other man was trying to sit up, not imagining that he was simply changing his position so he could continue sleeping.