they arrived, when they were sleeping in a room in midair wreathed in smoke, she’d said she heard a large bird flying past the window. Was it the same crane? She preferred long-lived animals, and she also raised a little black turtle in their room. But was the crane really long-lived?
“I want to walk around. Let’s both go,” she suggested.
The entrance to the staircase was to the east. When they got there, José kept staring at the locked door. He noticed his wife smiling a little. This building where they lived was in the middle of the poplar grove. Not far away was the small river, but perhaps it wasn’t the same small river? José lost all sense of direction. Nancy walked on the flagstone path beneath the poplars. She was composed, sometimes massaging her temples. Her headache seemed much better. What surprised José was that there wasn’t a ghost of a breeze. He recalled that he had heard a bizarre wind in the room, and he swept his eyes involuntarily over the steel-blue sky. But Nancy suddenly bent down, leaned over the grass, and placed one ear close to the ground.
“Nancy, what are you doing?”
“A large group of people is coming across from the snow mountain. José, this small town is going to be overcrowded. We’d better batten down the hatches.”
As she spoke, her body writhed in anguish on the ground. Her movement was strange—as if the bones had been pulled out of her body. The weeds underneath her had been crushed and smashed into the ground. Looking at his wife, José felt growing doubts and suspicions. Was it really because of reading an advertisement that they had decided to come all the way out here? Had Nancy really known nothing about this little town before they decided to come here? If that wasn’t true, then what was? He sat down on the grass, too, but as soon as his butt touched the ground, he felt a kind of jumping—no, it was a knocking, just like the wind knocking the roof. He leapt to his feet, astonished, and turned to look at Nancy again. She was looking down and snickering.
“What happened?”
“Didn’t I tell you? A large group of people is on the way. You haven’t gotten hold of yourself yet. You have to stop being so wishy-washy right now.”
In the distance, old Qi the janitor was standing in the river. This man seemed to like doing things in the river. He was probably observing them. Maybe this was a task that the institute had given him. José didn’t know why the institute would do this. Up to now, the only impression he had of the Design Institute was the white-haired woman director. Nancy wanted him to get hold of himself. What did she mean? He wanted to go and see the Design Institute, that place where he would work for a lifetime. It must be nearby. And so he hailed old Qi. When Nancy asked why, he said he wanted old Qi to take them to the Design Institute so they could look around. Standing up, Nancy brushed the dust from her clothes and whispered, “Hunh. You’re too impatient.”
After a while, when old Qi showed up, José made his request.
Puzzled, old Qi rolled his eyes. They didn’t know what he was thinking until he suddenly laughed and said, “Mr. José, you were there yesterday. It’s where the madman abandoned you.”
“But I certainly didn’t see the Design Institute in that area. It was just a hill.”
“You didn’t look closely. Actually, it’s not far from there. It has a gray arch, so it isn’t conspicuous. Lots of other people can’t find it, either. Do you still want me to take you there?”
“Ah, no. I don’t want to go now, thank you. I’ll give it some more thought.”
Nancy stared at him reproachfully and dragged him home. With an understanding smile, old Qi called after them, “That’s good.”
When they got back to their building, Nancy wouldn’t go in. She said the apartment was “suffocating.” She’d rather walk around outside. To his surprise, Nancy said that when they were on the hill she had seen the buildings at the Design Institute; they were all unimposing, low, gray buildings. At the time, she hadn’t known it was the Design Institute, so she hadn’t said a word for fear of being mistaken again. She was right. If they had simply walked in there and found no one expecting them, it would have been embarrassing. As they walked around on the cobblestone path in front of the building, Nancy seemed agitated. Apparently she had something on her mind.
“Nancy, what are you thinking about?” José asked uneasily.
“I’m thinking—ah, José, I’m wondering what kind of people will live in Pebble Town forty years from now? When I think of these things, I get very excited.”
“You’re looking far into the future. You’re like the geese that look down from above: will they be frightened into being unable to fly? I think of things like this only occasionally.”
But José sensed distinctly that Nancy had some other idea—not what she had just spoken of. What was it?
Upstairs, the man who had been in their apartment stuck his head out the window to talk to the woman, who was heading out the door holding a shopping basket. The man wanted the woman to find a veterinarian named Snake. The woman said, “Okay, okay,” bent her head, and raced away. José noticed that she now wore an even larger white flower. As she went past and nodded, they saw her red and swollen eyes. Although neither José nor Nancy liked these neighbors, their melancholy was impressive. Those two seemed to spend the whole day wallowing in a kind of funereal atmosphere—white flowers, black clothing. Seeing them gave Nancy a headache. Nancy liked to think about lofty, distant things; she liked to roam about in the immense, boundless world. She regarded these neighbors as obstacles to her train of thought. José sensed this, too. They didn’t notice how lame the woman was in one leg until she walked past. José felt sorry for her. He smacked his head and said, “How come I didn’t notice!” “Unh,” Nancy responded as if deep in thought. All of a sudden, they both wanted to go upstairs. When they went in, several people came out of the building, racing away with their heads bent.
The man was rather flustered and hurriedly threw something behind the sofa—because José had just opened the door and walked in. Standing up straight and blushing a little, he said, “Welcome, welcome. My name is Lee. My wife’s name is Grace. The institute director told me your names.”
José saw it. It was a miniature dog with short reddish-brown hair. He didn’t know why it was so dirty; it was covered with spots of black grease. It was lying on the ground, panting, its eyes almost shut.
“It used to sleep in bed with us, but it hasn’t wanted to do that recently. It’s so dirty and sick now. It doesn’t want to eat anything. Don’t make a fuss over it. If you do, it’ll give us trouble when you leave.”
Lee invited José and Nancy to come inside and sit down, lest they disturb the dog. The furniture in the apartment was the same as theirs, except for a black quilt and white pillows on the large bed: the combination looked oppressive. It seemed natural for the three of them to go over to the window and look out.
José was astonished because he saw a scene that was completely different from the one outside his window. It was a small garden with palms, banyans, and coconut trees, as well as some other unusual plants. An old man bustled about in the garden. José wondered why he hadn’t seen this garden from his window, for their window faced the same direction. And how could these southern plants grow so well in the north? All at once, Nancy’s impression of these two neighbors changed. She grew excited and kept asking Lee the names of these plants. She kept tut-tutting as she marveled at them. José said, “Why can’t I see this garden from our window?” He had no sooner spoken than Nancy reproached him, “You’re talking nonsense again, José. That isn’t good.” When José
