forest!”
Ju suggested that Gu lie down too, and so Gu did. When he covered himself with the dusty quilt, a thread of pleasure germinated in his heart. He heard a sound from his fifth-floor room: a group of doctors and nurses were looking for something there. Ah, were they looking for Lei? They said that Lei, who had been tied to his bed, had disappeared. Not only this, but Lei had also pulled a prank: he had tied a piglet onto the bed. He was really devilish! Gu heard not only the doctors’ conversations but also the very familiar meows coming from the fifth floor corridor. Gu thought the meows were coming from a “catman.” That “catman” was with him day and night. Could Lei be a “catman”? Or had those “catmen” set Lei free? Gu looked around the large ward and was surprised by the desolation. When he was downstairs, he always thought the top floor was very busy; it was even more possible that those “catmen” were hiding here. The other day, he had sat in the wheelchair and an aide had pushed him to the flat roof on the ninth floor. At the time, he thought he was about to die. The big fellow pushed the wheelchair around the periphery of the flat roof and told him to look down. He looked a few times: muddy waves were all around. Then he heard all kinds of screams coming from everywhere in the building, as if the end of the world had arrived. Still later, grumbling and swearing, the big fellow took him downstairs and pushed him into his own ward. At the time, five other patients were still in the room. As soon as he entered, everyone rose respectfully and looked at him with envious eyes. One of them—a young person named Bei Ming—said, “This is like winning the lottery!” His entire day floated amidst everyone’s compliments.
“Mr. Gu, have you seen my mask?” Ju said. “I must have left it on the stairs. Without it, I can’t see anyone except for you.”
Gu thought for a long time, but he couldn’t figure out why Ju had to wear a mask to see people. He really wanted to ask him what he had experienced after he disappeared, but he could never broach the subject. He thought it would be the same as asking his student: “After you died, where did you go? What unusual things did you see?” He just couldn’t do it. He slowly massaged his fluid-filled belly, and his thoughts flew to the beginning stages of his disease. He’d felt then as if a load had been taken off his mind. In high spirits, he had moved to the slope at the maple forest and had spent some lovely days there. In the autumn, the red leaves had intoxicated and entranced him. He’d never felt so sensitive to the world around him as he did then. In his excitement, he even saw eagles. Autumn was a long season. He said to himself: “Autumn is so long—like eternal life.” Sometimes, old friends came to see him, but they weren’t the one he wanted to see. Back then, he couldn’t think who it was that he wanted to see. Only now, lying here, did he know. The one he had wanted to see all along was this student who had disappeared. As he thought of this, the fluids in his belly made a pleasing sound, and a grateful sensation spread throughout his body.
Gu heard them free the Dutch piglet that Lei had tied to the bed. As soon as the piglet was freed, it scurried out of the ward. The people garbed in large white gowns looked at each other in dismay. Someone said softly, “This never would have occurred to me.” But Gu thought, Perhaps this had occurred to them some time ago. Nothing could easily defeat someone like Lei. Even the person who jumped from the window the night before had ordinarily done as Lei said.
Ju was snoring comfortably in the next bed. Gu thought, He’s so at peace with himself that even the clamor in the building can’t disturb him. Gu really wanted to learn how far Ju’s disease had progressed. He intended to ask him as soon as he woke up. Gu had seen Ju jump into the icy river, but he couldn’t ask him how he had been revived after his bare heart had been submerged in the icy water. He merely wanted to ask about his present condition. His face had always been as white as limestone, and it still was. From looking at him, it was impossible to guess how bad his condition was. He felt that although his appearance had changed, he was still as gentle as before. Perhaps it was because he could see his own heart that he had been so sure about what he was doing—for instance, jumping into the icy water.
“Ju, let’s go to see the red leaves next year, okay?” Gu said to the air.
A meow came in from the door: it was Lei talking with someone. Of course Lei was a “catman.” It seemed three people were outside: Why didn’t they come in? The big white gowns from the fifth floor were also heading upstairs, but neither Lei nor the others paid any attention to the doctors. Gu heard them say that doctors were “garbage.”
After the doctors came upstairs, they didn’t encounter Lei and the others. Gu heard them plotting something—something that Gu was very familiar with, something that he had once participated in but had completely forgotten. What was it? Gu felt unable to express it in words. When this group entered the opposite ward, they closed the door, nipping the Dutch piglet’s leg in the process. The piglet howled. Someone turned around, freed the curious little pig, and let it in.
Gu groped under his pillow for a flashlight; probably a former patient had left it there. Feeling excited, he immediately walked to Ju’s bed with the flashlight. Seeing that he was still sound asleep, he lifted the quilt and shone the flashlight on his chest. Ju’s torso was bare, and so Gu immediately saw his pulsating heart. For some reason, his heart was the color of milk. It beat much slower than most people’s. Peering through the hole, he saw that the beating heart was shifting its position. This baffled him.
“This is just the way my heart is, Mr. Gu.” Ju opened his eyes and spoke apologetically.
“Ju, can you hear the secret meeting in the ward across the way? What are they discussing?”
Ju took hold of the flashlight and shone it toward the door. Gu also turned his gaze in that direction. A doctor was standing there, but he wasn’t one of the doctors who made rounds. Gu had never seen him. The doctor blocked the flashlight’s rays with his left hand and said: “It’s good to be here. We’re prepared for an emergency at any moment.”
Then he left, closing the door behind him. Ju laughed softly and commented that this hospital was “quite interesting.” He put on his black jacket and his opera mask. Gu asked him where he had found the mask, and he said that actually he hadn’t lost it: he’d forgotten that it was at his waist all the time. After he dressed, he told Gu that he wanted to go across the hall “to take part in the meeting.” Gu—heart thumping—went with him. He had a hunch that the truth would come out. His hands began trembling.
When Ju appeared in the room wearing the opera mask, everyone’s head swiveled in his direction. The blinds were all open, so it was quite light, and Gu noticed that neither Lei nor the doctors were there. They were all his closest friends and relatives, but he couldn’t recall any of their names.
Someone pushed a wheelchair out, and Gu thought it was for him. He never imagined that Ju would beat him to it. Sitting in the wheelchair, Ju looked happily inebriated. Gu begrudged him the wheelchair, because he usually used it. Two big fellows were pushing Ju, and Gu thought they intended to leave the room, so he quickly made way for them. But they didn’t go out; they just pushed the wheelchair around in the empty ward. Ju grabbed at something in the air. He looked absorbed, and the people around him were cheering him on. Just then, Gu glanced out the window: what he saw was the splendid spectacle of drifting red leaves. Astonished, he sat down on the floor. How could there be red leaves in the winter? In the sunlight, the leaves were like flames.
Now—with Gu at the end of the line—everyone was following the wheelchair as it made the rounds in the room. The footsteps sounded like marching. As Gu listened attentively, he even felt that everyone’s footsteps were lost in thought. Walking and walking, Gu no longer looked out the window, because a shadow was filling this circle. Everyone was sinking into this dense, dark shadow. At last, Ju plucked something from the air. He took off his mask and smelled the thing.
“Mr. Gu! Mr. Gu! This is it!” He seemed to be weeping.
“What
