style="font-size:15px;"> “In the small courtyard of the farmhouse. He flashed past the window and then went in. I think he and the director created the garden together. They chose this neglected open country for experiments so they’d be away from prying eyes. Look, look!”
Nancy blushed. She was pointing at the distant horizon, her index finger in constant motion, as though pursuing a mirage. José thought his wife was really out of her mind. A wind picked up, bringing rain with it. It was bare all around, with no place to take cover. Their only option was to make a run for the small farmhouse.
The door was unlocked. No one was home. They checked every room, including the kitchen and even the pigpen in back. Nancy said the institute director was watching the rain from the arbor in the garden; she had earlier figured out that the director wasn’t interested in the Design Institute. As Nancy was speaking, she picked up a coconut shell from the table, placed it on top of her fist, and spun it. José thought the coconut shell was very much like a human head.
“So, what’s the director interested in?”
“I don’t know; I’m mulling that over.”
As they talked, the sky darkened all of a sudden. It seemed a storm was blowing in. José was quite dejected; he had no desire to stay here in the farmhouse, for he wasn’t accustomed to the smell of the pigpen. Nancy apparently felt differently: she looked around. She even opened the kitchen cupboard and took out a bottle of rice wine. She sipped a little of it and passed the bottle to José, too, but after two swallows, a fire leapt up inside him. They were both a little dizzy. Thunder roared. Nancy dashed to the window and shouted, “Come, look. Quick!”
José saw the institute director’s snow-white hair blowing in the wind. She and the gardener were rushing around crazily. But their silhouettes flashed by for only a moment and then disappeared. Where had they gone? Nancy was distracted. After a long while, she said faintly, “I want to find that garden.”
“Wait for me here, José, okay? I’ll look for it.”
“It’s so dark outside—a big storm must be on the way.”
“No, it’s stopped raining. And we’re already here. I have to do it.”
With that, she went to the courtyard. She was a determined woman. When she vanished outside the courtyard gate, José heard an enormous noise coming from the east; it wasn’t thunder. The quilt was in a heap on the bed, as if someone had just gotten up. Maybe the director and the gardener were actually a married couple. One had lived in the north and one in the south, and they had built this tropical garden here . . . Did the garden really exist, or did it exist only in everyone’s imagination? José sat down on a wooden chair, but the chair that had looked so strong all of a sudden became extremely soft. As he sank into it slowly, he ended up sitting on the floor. Sticks and boards lay scattered all around him. He scrambled up awkwardly from the floor and flicked the dust off his clothes. All at once, he sensed that nothing in this house was real. Even the chickens had weird, gloomy expressions. Avoiding the chair, he chose to sit on the bed. The bed was strong and probably wouldn’t collapse. But a buzzing sound came from it, as though someone sleeping there was talking. The sound annoyed him, so he went outside.
The dark clouds had dispersed, and the courtyard had brightened. Someone outside was playing the flute. The music reminded him of the open country and mountaintops where flowers bloomed. José was enthralled. For no reason, he assumed it was the gardener playing the flute. He stood at the courtyard gate and looked out. What he saw, instead, was the institute director. Leaning her plump body against a large locust tree, she had stopped playing and had tossed the flute onto the ground. Her head drooping, she looked melancholy in profile. José walked over quietly.
“Ma’am!”
“What do you want, Mr. José? You came to Pebble Town from far away, but this place has changed. The thing you want to find no longer exists. Look—even I am looking for it!”
Her dolorous eyes turned gray and lifeless; her mouth—once resolute—was now drooping.
“But what Nancy and I want to find isn’t the same as what you want to find. We only want to find the tropical garden. We saw it once from our apartment—the place you arranged for us to live . . .”
He was speaking a little incoherently and didn’t go on. The institute director didn’t answer him. She was gazing toward the sky. José sensed that her thoughts were no longer in this world. Her lips were trembling, maybe silently reciting some words. The gardener’s sinister face appeared from a spot five or six meters behind her. Bending over, he was picking something up from the shrubs. As José was about to greet the gardener, the geezer turned his back and ignored him. José realized abruptly that this person wasn’t very much like the gardener: the gardener was a little older than this man, and his air was like that of an outsider. He was definitely a local. He stood up, a small lizard in his hand, and headed toward the farmhouse. José was about to follow him when the director spoke from behind.
“Don’t go, Mr. José. He appears and disappears mysteriously; you can’t catch up with him. He catches these critters in this wasteland all the time, so he can transport some fresh blood to his garden.
“Where on earth is that garden?”
“You can see it everywhere. But I—I’m feeling ill.”
Sliding down along the tree trunk, she sat on the ground. Scratching her chest, she repeated, “I’m really feeling sick.” When José asked if she wanted help, she shook her head and wheezed. José picked up the bamboo flute. He was puzzled that such a crude thing could produce such a lovely sound; she was really talented. She stretched out her hands, asking José to help her up. Her hands were so cold that he shivered. They returned together to the small farmhouse. José was thinking of Nancy, so he kept looking in all directions, but he didn’t see her. She was nowhere nearby.
“I’d really like to see the old man’s garden,” José mustered his courage to say.
“He won’t take you there because he isn’t a local. He—he speaks a strange dialect that no one understands. He and I communicate through pantomime.”
Still talking, they went inside. The gardener was sitting there silently smoking a pipe. He was looking down, not at them. He was a hairy man; his face was covered with a gray beard. José thought this person was certainly like a local, so why did the director say he wasn’t? As soon as she entered the room, the director made straight for the large bed and lay down on it. She was acting as though these two men were her relatives. An idea suddenly crossed José’s mind. Was it possible that he himself was related to the director? If not, then why had he dashed over here—so far away—the moment he saw her tiny advertisement? And then there was this gardener: perhaps it was the same with him. After finishing his pipe, the gardener began cleaning the house. He dusted the furniture with a rag. José noticed that the chair that had caved in beneath him had been restored to its original state—and now looked sturdy again. Curious, he pressed down on the chair with both hands; the chair didn’t sink at all. And so he cautiously sat down again; this time, nothing happened. Two minutes later, José thought to himself that it wasn’t right for him to sit in this room: What if those two were husband and wife? He stood up, about to leave, when the director spoke from her bed, “Mr. José, don’t go. Wait for Ms. Nancy to return.”
“Will she come?”
“Hunh. When she doesn’t find it, she’ll be back.”
“Won’t she find it?”
“Of
