Duckling walked over to the stove, put the sweet potato that he had just finished chopping into the water and replied in English that he was not a mute.
Young Lillie asked him again if he could speak Chinese and Duckling replied — in Chinese — that he could.
Young Lillie laughed and said, ‘Your Chinese is as bad as my English. Did you learn it from Mr Auslander?’
Duckling nodded again.
Young Lillie said, ‘Don’t nod.’
Duckling said, ‘Fine.’
Young Lillie said, ‘It is many years since I last used my English and it is terribly rusty. In the future we had better speak Chinese together.’
Duckling said in Chinese, ‘Fine.’
Young Lillie walked over to the table, sat down in the director’s chair and lit a cigarette. He asked, ‘How old are you?’
‘Twelve.’
‘Apart from getting you to read these books, did Mr Auslander teach you anything else?’
‘No.’
‘You mean that Mr Auslander never taught you how to interpret dreams? He was famous for that.’
‘He taught me that.’
‘Are you any good?’
‘Yes.’
‘I had a dream last night. Would you interpret it for me?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I only interpret my own dreams.’
‘Well, why don’t you tell me what kind of things you dream about. . ’
‘I dream about all sorts of things.’
‘Have you seen me in your dreams?’
‘I have.’
‘Do you know who I am?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who?’
‘You are a member of the eighth generation of the Rong family to live here and you were born in 1883. You are the twenty-first in your generation. Your name is Rong Xiaolai and your style name is Dongqian, and your soubriquet is Zeshi. People call you ‘Young Lillie’. You are the son of the founder of N University, Old Lillie. You graduated from the mathematics department at N University in 1906; in 1912 you went to the United States to study, and obtained a Master’s degree from MIT. In 1926 you returned to your Alma Mater to teach and you have been there ever since. You are now the vice-chancellor of N University and a full professor in the department of mathematics.’
‘You know a lot about me.’
‘I know a lot about all the members of the Rong family.’
‘Did Mr Auslander teach you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he teach you anything else?’
‘No.’
‘Do you go to school?’
‘No.’
‘Would you like to go to school?’
‘I don’t know; I have never really thought about it.’
The water in the pot had now come to the boil again and filled the room with its warmth — that and the smell of cooking. The old man stood up with the intention of going out into the garden. The child thought that he was leaving and called out to him to wait a moment. He said that Mr Auslander had left something for him. As he spoke, he walked in the direction of the bed. He pulled a paper parcel out from underneath the bed and handed it to him with the words: ‘Daddy told me that when you came, I was to give this to you.’
‘Daddy?’ The old man thought for a moment. ‘You mean Mr Auslander?’
‘Yes.’
‘What is this?’ The old man picked up the parcel.
‘When you open it, sir, you will see.’
Whatever was inside had been wrapped up in a couple of layers of brown paper and looked pretty large. This however turned out to be a mistaken impression, for when all the paper wrappings had been removed, they revealed a statuette of the Bodhisattva Guanyin that you could hold in the palm of your hand. It had been carved from muttonfat jade and had a single dark sapphire set between its eyes as the urna, the Buddhist ‘Third Eye’. Holding it delicately in his hand the old man scrutinized it carefully; immediately he sense a kind of icy pure aura spreading from his palm to the rest of his body — a testament to the high quality of the jade. The workmanship was also excellent; the combination of these two factors suggested that this statuette had a long and complex history. He was sure that such a remarkable treasure must be worth a very great deal of money. The old man thought the matter over, looking at the child. Then he said with a sigh, ‘I hardly knew Mr Auslander. Why should he leave me any bequest at all?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You know, this statuette is worth a lot of money. You should keep it.’
‘No.’
‘Mr Auslander took you in when you were only a baby and he loved you as if you were his own son; you ought to take it.’
‘No.’
‘You need it more than I do.’
‘No.’
‘Or is it that Mr Auslander was worried that you would be cheated if you tried to sell it yourself and wanted me to do it for you?’
‘No.’
While he was speaking, the old man’s eyes happened to fall on the outer wrapping paper and he noticed that it was covered in figures, line after line of calculations, as if someone were working out a very difficult sum. When he spread out all the papers and looked at them, he realized that they were all the same, covered in line after line of mathematical calculations. Changing the subject completely, the old man now asked: ‘Did Mr Auslander teach you mathematics?’
‘No.’
‘Who wrote this then?’
‘I did.’
‘Why?’
‘I was trying to work out how many days Daddy lived for. . ’
3
The disease that finally killed Mr Auslander first manifested itself in his throat. Maybe this was some kind of karmic revenge for all those years he had spent interpreting other people’s dreams — everything that he had gained in life had come to him thanks to his elegant turn of speech; likewise all the harm he had suffered was brought about by others taking umbrage at his choice of words. Even before he started composing his last letter to Young Lillie, he had already pretty much lost the ability to speak. It was this that made him feel that death was coming and that he needed to start making some plans for Duckling’s future. Every morning during those silent days, Duckling would put a cup of pear blossom steeped in water by the old man’s bed and he would be woken by the faint breath of its perfume; as he watched the pale dried flowers would uncurl in the warm liquid. It made him feel calm and relaxed. These pear blossoms seemed to alleviate the pain he felt from his badly-set bones; he came to think of them as the one thing that had enabled him to live to this great age. When he had first begun collecting these flowers, it was simply because he was bored. After a time, he began to appreciate the startling clarity of their colour, not to mention their delicate texture. He would collect the flowers and sun them under the eaves. When they were completely dry, he would put them in his pillow or on top of his desk. Every time he smelled their fragrance, it seemed as if he were prolonging their flowering season by keeping them by him.
Since he only had one eye and his legs had never recovered properly after they were broken, he found it difficult to get around. As a result, he spent much of his life sitting in his chair. As time went on, he gradually became sick with constipation; at its worst he felt that there was no point in him being alive. One year, at the beginning of winter, his constipation returned. He used all his regular methods: every morning when he first woke up he would down a large bowl of cold water, then he would continue drinking more in the hope of giving himself a stomach-ache. This time the constipation proved particularly obdurate — for a couple of days he downed cup after cup of water, but with no sign of the slightest reaction from his guts. He had only succeeded in making himself even more sick; he felt terribly unwell and hopeless. One evening he came back from the town having picked up his medicine — fumbling round in the dark he picked up the bowl of cold water waiting for him by the front door and drained it to the dregs. Because he drank it so quickly, it was only afterwards that he realized there had been a strange flavour to the water — at the same time he felt that something or other soft had gone down his throat with the liquid — a horrifying experience. When he lit his oil lamp, he discovered that the bowl was full of sodden dried pear petals. Maybe they had been blown there by the wind, or maybe they had been disturbed by a rat. He had never heard that pear-blossom could be used to make a drink and so he waited uneasily to find out what happened next — he was even ready to discover that they were going to kill him. But before he had managed to finish brewing up his medicine, he felt a pain deep in his guts. Soon, he realized that this was the pain he had been hoping for day and night. He knew that he would be okay. After a long and resonant fart he headed off to the lavatory. When he returned, he was completely relaxed.