and his wife walked out of the Pebble Town bus station and stood at the side of the long cement street. The two of them let out deep breaths simultaneously: they felt they had stepped into a picture of the legendary Crystal Palace. The chilly air was clear and fresh, and under the high, distant, steel-blue sky, the street seemed very wide. The sidewalk was made of pretty, colorful stones. Elms alternated with oleasters, screening the quiet avenue. In the middle of the road, men looking down at the ground were slowly pulling a few flatbed carts. The simple houses were quite far from the road; each house had clumps of greenery out front. José and his wife were a little taken aback as they stood under a tree with their bags at their feet. This small frontier town was beyond their expectations; to them, it felt like a utopia. After a while, the rickshaw from their workplace arrived; it was a pedicab whose driver was a big fellow with a black beard. He helped them pile their heavy luggage into the front, and asked them to take seats in the back. Then he started pedaling slowly and effortlessly. He was a virile man who evidently didn’t like to talk much. José and his wife felt it wouldn’t be right to talk, so they enjoyed the view of the beautiful town in silence. Pebble Town apparently had only one street because they saw no forks in the road. When the rickshaw reached the end of this straight road, it went up an asphalt path. On one side of the path was a small river; on the other side were poplars. No one was on the road. There were only birds chirping in the trees. After they made a few turns, the river and the poplars disappeared, and a rocky hill stood before them. The driver got down, saying he had to pee, and then he disappeared.
The husband and wife waited and waited on that desolate hill before finally suspecting they’d been tricked. They didn’t know how to pedal the rickshaw, but if they walked off and abandoned it, they wouldn’t be able to take their luggage. Nancy squatted on the ground and sighed. José thought to himself, She’s always like this; whenever something happens, she sighs. He hastily estimated that it was almost two miles to the main road, and the road wasn’t good. Besides, it was almost evening. They had to leave their luggage behind and get away from here soon. They had to find their workplace. He didn’t dare spend the night with his wife in the fields of the frontier. It could be dangerous. After talking it over briefly, they walked away holding hands.
It was hard walking on that path. It was filled with jutting rocks, and they almost tripped and fell several times. Nancy was nearsighted and couldn’t easily walk in the dark. She had to hang on tightly to José’s arm and let him guide her. It seemed it wasn’t just two miles, but maybe more than three or four miles. When they finally got back to the main road, they were too tired to talk. The main road was empty, yet extravagantly lit; they leaned against a power pole waiting for someone to appear.
It was about half an hour before they came across someone. He was dripping wet from walking up from the river. When José went up and made inquiries, he replied, “Didn’t you see me? I was watching you from the river all along! The boss sent me. I was afraid of making a mistake, so I didn’t call out to you. Everyone from the office is out looking for you.”
“But we’ve left our luggage in the wilds.”
“Don’t worry. Someone picked it up quite a while ago. You ran into a madman, didn’t you? It was a prank. People here are fond of doing that. Follow me—Pebble Town welcomes you!”
The two of them looked up at the same time and saw a flock of geese flying in the deep blue sky. They almost wept.
It was very cool after dark, so even though they had walked a long way they didn’t feel hot. They were the only ones on this road. Such a quiet little town.
That night, the dripping wet middle-aged man took them to the guesthouse of the Construction Design Institute. As they entered the room, they saw their luggage. Lying on the bed, Nancy couldn’t fall asleep for a long time. She seemed to dread the future. Every few seconds, she whispered into the dark, “It didn’t occur to me.” José thought his wife was blaming him, but he was excited, even . . . radiant. He liked challenges. He heard someone turn on the water in the next room, perhaps taking a bath. He kept listening; the sound of water continued. He remembered the small river outside the town, and the man standing in the river. Had the man been fishing? But he hadn’t been carrying a pail of fish. Maybe many other people had also been in the river; he and Nancy had been concentrating on hurrying along and hadn’t noticed. The people of this little town must have noticed every move they’d made. When they were on the desolate hill, they’d felt keenly that the world had deserted them. When José recalled the days and nights on the train, he felt that Nancy had undergone an inner upheaval, because on the train she was longing for small town life and had vowed solemnly and repeatedly that they would never go back to the big city—their hometown. As they neared their destination, she became jumpy. Pointing out the window at one quiet little town after another, she asked, “Is it like this? Does it look like this? . . . What do you think? Will it look just like this? Huh?” Unable to answer, José was perplexed and alarmed. He knew that his wife’s train of thought was always unusual. But just now, why had she said that it had never occurred to her? José thought it should have been the other way around: she should have foreseen everything. When they had first seen the little advertisement in the newspaper, they had resolved to give up everything in the large Smoke City and set out for an unfamiliar place. People who could move so far must have thought things through quite thoroughly. What on earth was wrong with Nancy? Had some little setback beaten her down? No, no, her whispers must hold a hidden meaning. Then, what was this hidden meaning? José thought: as soon as he’d reached this small town, everything buried deeply in his past had emerged and slowly unfurled before his eyes—but he couldn’t see it well. For example, when the man was pedaling them slowly out of the city this afternoon, a familiar feeling had welled up in his heart. He couldn’t say when that feeling had arisen, but it was certainly related to things in his previous incarnation. He’d experienced this before. This made him suspect that it wasn’t because of the newspaper ad that they had left Smoke City; perhaps this had long been premeditated. After this, when the man abandoned them, he had felt even more suspicious. Outside, a gale blew up, threatening to rip the roof off. The room suddenly became cold. Nancy snuggled up to his chest, and they wrapped the thin quilt tightly around themselves. A loud shout in the corridor was followed by hurried footsteps. Door after door was opened, and then closed, as if everyone was running out. Outside, one gust of wind was closely followed by another. Then someone blew a whistle, as if in a military camp. The two of them didn’t dare turn on a light, nor did they want to get up and see what was happening because they were exhausted from the day. Nancy murmured, “It’s really noisy tonight.” They decided to ignore everything and go to sleep. And then they really did fall asleep.
José awakened at dawn. After going to the washroom, he went to the now calm courtyard. The courtyard at the guesthouse was several acres large. Some shrubs grew there, but there wasn’t a single old tree; the only trees were young, newly planted firs. José reflected that if there had been any old trees, they might have been toppled by last night’s gale. The sun was almost out, and he smelled again the distinctive clear, fresh air. The day before, this had almost brought him and his wife to tears. The guesthouse was located on high land. When you looked out, you could see the snow mountain. He could see it well because no fog blocked his vision. It stood there indifferently. José sighed lightly: Ah, so this was the snow mountain! It wasn’t completely snow-covered. Only the peak was white, probably because it was so high. People said it was four thousand meters above sea level. For some reason, the middle-aged man who had brought them here the day before was standing in the courtyard washing his face. He placed the washbasin on a block of stone, and wiped his face with a towel until it glowed red. José walked over to him.
“Washing the face is a kind of exercise,” the middle-aged man said.
“True, true. You’re really fortunate.”
José surprised himself by saying this. What had he meant by it?
“You’re right. I’m bathing with the chilly breeze blowing in from the snow mountain.
