Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather by Gao Xingjian

Author:Gao Xingjian [Xingjian, Gao]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: prose_contemporary

IN AN INSTANT

He is alone, with his back to the sea, sitting in a canvas deck chair on the beach. There's a strong wind. The sky is very bright, without a trace of any cloud, and in the dazzling sunlight reflected against the sea, his face can't be seen clearly.

Big iron doors wet and streaked with rust, water from the top somewhere keeps dripping. The thick, heavy doors slowly open to either side and the gap in the middle widens. Police car sirens can be heard. Through the gap in the doors are towering buildings that block off the sun. One police car after another, and the nonstop sound of sirens.

In the dark passageway of the hall is a woman's back. Without switching on the light, she puts on an overcoat, hesitates, and puts her hand on the knob. She quietly opens the door and goes out. The knob turns softly and clicks as the door shuts.

The warm sun makes him drowsy. He closes his book, leans back in the chair, and puts on sunglasses: the two round lenses screen his eyes from the sunlight. Afterward, he covers his face with a broad-brimmed black hat, and he can hear nothing but the noisy waves of the sea.

The tide surges onto the beach, but before it can recede, the sand soaks it up with a long hiss, so that all that is left is a line of yellowish froth.

His arms, hanging down, start to itch. Ants – first one, then one after another – are crawling up his arms.

She says when she made love with two men in front of the fire, it was very exciting. She is lying across the bed with her head to one side, eyes closed, outside the circle of light. The light is shining only on her long hair, and on her underwear and panty hose on the floor.

He senses the tide swelling. The seawater surges around the legs of the chair, swirls around, then recedes. An old tune fills the air. Beautiful and sad, it is like the wailing of a peasant woman at a funeral, and yet like the sobbing of a reed pipe.

She moves her ankles to kick off her shoes and bends to put on a new pair. A shoe with the heel worn to the quick lies discarded at the side of the passageway near the door.

A poster with a black-and-white photograph shows just the lower half of a woman holding up her long skirt and revealing her beautiful legs. She is standing on her toes. This is another advertisement for shoes, posted on the wall of the platform in the subway station. An old woman with a big empty bag is standing on the platform, a middle-aged man sitting on a bench is reading a newspaper. The train comes; some doors open and some don't. The people getting off head for the exit, and no one so much as looks at the advertisement. With his back turned, he is the only person left on the platform, and as others start to arrive, that back departs.

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