MY ENEMY’S CHERRY TREE

By Wang Ting-Kuo. Translated by Pamela Hunt and Anna Holmwood.

Chapter 1:

We don’t need to start if you’re not ready.

There had been no customers in the café all afternoon. He was the first. Wearing a muddy brown fisherman’s cap, which he didn’t remove, out of surprise at finding that I ran the place alone, no assistants. Only me.

And so, flustered, he sat in the chair nearest to the exit, his cap still perched on his head, his face turned towards the bicycle he had just ridden here, eyes staring without seeing in one long, seemingly illusory pause. Until a sudden gust of wind shook the windowpane, rattling it as if the earth beneath was trembling.

In the silence that followed, there was none of the usual order or response. Mechanically, I moved to get a cup. The coffee grinder clattered and squawked, and then the little café fell into a strange stillness.

He had finished less than half of his coffee when he stood up.

I was first outside, so that I didn’t have to hear him speak or take his money. I walked to the crossing, and waited for him to leave. But he didn’t come. I glanced back, and saw that he was now outside the glass doors, but had sat back down alone on the edge of the raised flowerbed by the front porch. He was sucking frantically on a cigarette, dragging it down to the filter, his cheeks caved in from the effort. He bit down on it, like a gambler who has lost everything but refuses to give up.

1

Apparently, after Luo Yiming finished the cigarette, he returned home and fell ill.

He climbed onto the roof. He liked going up there; he’d sit on a metal folding chair, read the paper and look out over the mountains in the distance as they followed the curving river bank. It can’t have been long after lunch, although somebody told me it happened at dusk, while one of the neighbours was taking in her laundry from the balcony. She saw Mr. Luo stand up abruptly, as if he had received an order from above, and within moments he was on the balustrade.

The woman cried out. One after another, Luo’s neighbours came running outside; the neighbourhood watch was brought out too, but the police car could only wait and watch from the entrance to the small alleyway. Luo Yiming was led by the arm, his cheeks white and his legs trembling, but gave no answer to the questions. The only sound to be heard was the woman’s sobbing as she described, over and over, the events to the police officer: First, she noticed the pigeons… In her five years in this neighbourhood, she had never before seen so many take off so suddenly like that…

I went to the market a few days later. Shopkeepers, normally friendly, were now aloof, and vendors selling goods along the roadside took my money, but were reluctant to look me in the eye. They resumed their conversation only after I was out of their line of sight. It was as if the entire town was quietly engaged in some kind of collective protest. All I could do was lower my head and leave the scene, the criminal.

A few times, people came up to me, even though I didn’t know them. But they were all keen to express their concern for Luo Yiming, declaring him the great philanthropist of the town, relating stories of his kindness and the generosity with which he conducted his affairs, describing the vagrants who congregated outside his home so that they could receive the food that he handed out personally.

Tales of Luo Yiming’s largesse were not unfounded. A friend who worked in a local charity once told me that in recent years, Luo had taken to withdrawing large sums  of money every month and dividing them into envelopes. With the exception of the notes destined for the public welfare organizations too far away to be delivered by hand, the rest he placed in a postbag and into his bicycle basket. He then rode around like an industrious Father Christmas, distributing festive cheer to our small coastal town.

There was another rather touching story that people shared, involving a new postman who had come to deliver a letter to Luo’s home. Luo himself was out at a wedding banquet, so when the postman called for him, his neighbours came out instead. Looking at the envelope, they realised it was a receipt for an anonymous donation. Thus Luo’s fame was cemented as an anonymous benefactor who had been seeking virtue as its own reward.

After Luo fell ill, these sentiments collected together like leftovers once cold but now reheated, notes of admiration harmonising into a clear melody. It sounded through the town day and night, building to a crescendo – even though it left me with a very different, more mournful, aftertaste.

To be sure, when I first met Luo Yiming I admired him as fervently as everyone else. I even believed that without him, we the people of this nation would be somehow incomplete, would never again know such benevolence.

Even after later events occurred – events which destroyed a life I had only just built up – I never told the outside world the truth. They needed stability; if our small town wanted to bask in the light of its local hero, I had no choice but to go along with it. I could only hope that he would live, that in between those steady breaths he would, at some point, waken to the taunts that lingered beneath the applause, and in those brief moments he would know the torment and misery of others, until finally, he might remember that there was one person in this world who would never, ever, forgive him.

And so, when I heard that he had fallen ill, to be frank, I felt an uneasiness in my chest, an aching in my bones. More than that, I was once more heartbroken.

2.

I had been to the Luo residence. It was an old buildings, of the kind rarely seen these days, with no cheap ceramic wrapping but made instead entirely of steel, old wood, and black tiles from Yilan. Several short pillars rose from the foundations, upon which two storeys balanced. A long, covered walkway cut across the front courtyard. As you walked along it the boards creaked and groaned.

I remember Luo Yiming saying, when we first met five years ago, that the house had been left to him by his ancestors. “It’s not mine,” he said, “I’m only looking after it. I want to retire as soon as possible, so the bank won’t keep shunting me from place to place, and I can finally make this my home.”

He was an unassuming man, but I still admired him for his achievements, for the position of responsibility he held in one of the country’s biggest banks, controlling credit for the entire central region. And yet, despite his status and authority, he frequently slept in the company’s dormitory, only coming back home on his days off.

Luo Yiming spent his days off in the house, but only stayed one night a week, giving him one morning to put things in order. When Autumn and I visited, he had already raked the fallen leaves in the courtyard into a pile and swept the ground. Now he was crouched next to the pond, hurriedly washing his hands, preparing to take us though the covered walkway and inside.

He wiped his forehead as he spoke. Sweat had soaked through his striped shirt, and his feet were still encased in a pair of yellow rubber boots. We followed him into the house, where he disappeared for a moment, emerging soon after in a fresh pair of black trousers and a white shirt. He had done up the top button at his Adam’s apple, so that when he spoke the interlaced creases on his neck writhed and moved just above the collar.

He struck me as both grand and guileless, the kind of person who you could tell from just one look was utterly clean. At first, the atmosphere that pervaded the house left me feeling bewildered; but I also felt a deep gratitude towards him for his attentiveness. I don’t  know what  kind of  qualities a  person  should have  possessed in   order  to  be welcome in that kind of house, but I knew that at the very least, Autumn and I did not have them.

I had only met him a couple of times when a thought occurred to me, swift and contemptible: if only he had been my father. I couldn’t say where this laughable idea came from, only that from a young age, I had known what it was to have one’s dream shattered, and that once broken, that it was something my real father could never repair.

Autumn seemed even more excited about our visit than I. Our invitation into the home of the wealthiest family in the region came about because she had heard he offered free tutorials in photography. Autumn wasn’t the most glamorous woman in all respects, but she had a singular perseverance when it came to her studies. Photography class inspired a childlike delight in her and brought a sparkle to her eyes. It never occurred to her that her lens, nestled as it was deep and serene inside her camera, could not always pick up on life’s most important problems. I think it was precisely that purity that drew Luo Yiming to look on her as a daughter. Otherwise, I do not believe that we – or anyone – could have walked into that grand house so easily.

Autumn was not the only one who delighted in his tutelage – fearing that I was too unsophisticated, I also tried my best to enjoy it. All we needed was another cordial invitation from Luo Yiming, and it was impossible to say no; I would find a way to race down the coast with Autumn, back to Taichung from my office in Taipei. High winds would lash at us as we drove, but we cried out in our excitement, our voices soaring above the motorbike’s engine. With Autumn’s arms around my waist, we cut through the wind at a frantic rate, drawing on the boldness of our newly-wedded love.

Autumn normally sat on the left-hand side of the drawing room, beside the telephone. Luo Yiming’s armchair was on the right. The two of them would gesticulate from time to time as they leafed through a photo album, the atmosphere lively and intimate. They were two fish steaming together in a pot. Luo Yiming would tell anecdotes about his early years at photography school, laying out the prints he was most proud of until the table was his miniature exhibition. Newspapers and ashtrays were all swept aside, just as I, too, was willingly brushed away on occasion.

He was generous in his teaching; amidst his explanations of concepts and techniques, he would often snatch up a negative and hold it up to the window. He faced the sunlight as he spoke, as though delivering his engrossing lecture to it. It was rather moving to see him standing there, his short hair glinting a mottled grey, immersed in what he had to say.

Back then, I was too much of a dilettante to appreciate a complex art form such as photography. I could only observe from the outside. The house was enormous, vaster than anything I could have dreamed of. Its Japanese architecture lent it the feel of a grand official residence, and I could smell the delicate fragrance of the antique wood. How might a regular person react to this, Luo Yiming’s kingdom? With despair, perhaps, or a deep, insurmountable sense of shame? Not me. I too was capable of jealousy, of course, but I was comforted by the force of my own imagination. I wasn’t yet forty then; I had another twenty years to catch up with him – if he stopped and waited for me, that is.

And so I would sit with my wild imaginings and wait for Autumn, the good student. Sometimes she would ask the strangest questions: do you need to wear dark clothing to enter a darkroom? If you had just taken a photograph of a colorful bird like a barbet, but you were using black-and-white film, what could you do? Autumn’s curiosity exposed many of her weaknesses, but they were borne from naïveté, from the same artlessness that you could see in the bare skin, fresh and pure, at the nape of her neck, or in her face, as clean as a new piece of paper.

But I liked my Autumn that way. A little slowness was better than being too quick in her thinking, because it meant she could still be stimulated and enlightened by others, while a sharper brain would stagnate in its own selfish calculations. At any rate, she wasn’t stupid; all you could really say was that there was a slight foolishness about her. This quality only made me love her more, because I had already lost it myself. Her brightness illuminated my shadows, and lightened the heavy parts of my own personality.

That is to say, I couldn’t be without Autumn. I felt happy only when I saw her smile, and when someone praised her, I too felt proud. She would grip her cup of hot summer tea, quietly listening to her teacher speak, eyes blinking, face glowing. From time to time, she put down her cup to pick up a pen: “Sir, won’t you speak a little slower? I want to get it all down.”

I believe Luo Yiming was affected by her, too. Though he had a natural, graceful presence, there was something rather reserved about him. When he was happy, he would smile gently, lips still covering his teeth, as though pleasure flowed not outwards but down his dry throat. It was getting on for noon the first time we met him, and when he kindly asked us to stay for lunch, Autumn and I looked at each other. We knew then that he lived alone.

If that had been the end of it, then all that would have remained of that day was a cherished memory. What a shame, then, that we called on him again not long after. It had not yet reached blossom season; the large cherry tree outside was still covered in green leaves, its dark purple trunk casting a mysterious light across the shady courtyard.

The tree still hadn’t blossomed by the time Autumn left me. Together, we lost an entire spring.

3.

As one might expect, Luo Yiming’s sudden illness caused no small amount of disruption. Two local policemen paid me a visit. One spoke with a provincial accent, while the other seemed to be fresh on the job. The latter began a frenzied search of the café as soon as they entered, and upon discovering the door to the loft behind a curtain, made a strange yelp, as if he had found a secret stash of drugs. I almost wondered if he was about to pull out his gun.

He had me brace the ladder as he climbed up. The loft was dark, with a low ceiling. I saw him hesitate, but he must have been itching to make a scene, as he suddenly grasped hold of the slats that lay alongside the hatch and flung his body forward like he was on the parallel bars. First, his head and then the rest of his body bravely vaulted up and in, landing with a thump.

He had knocked the ladder in the process, leaving his legs dangling. The local cop propped the ladder back into position and went to help his partner down, who was, by now, groaning in pain. Once back on solid ground, he cradled his head and looked at me balefully. The whole situation had become rather comical. I poured two glasses of water for them, set them down on the table, and waited for the interrogation to begin.

The newbie looked unwilling to admit defeat just yet. Rubbing his scalp, he said: “What’s the deal – what have you got up there?” “A bed, a pillow, and a radio.”

“They’re all saying you’re here on some kind of vendetta. Looks like they could be right.”

The local guy agreed. “People are saying your café is just a front. Seems reasonable, makes no sense to sell coffee out here. Why serve coffee in the height of summer and not herbal tea?”

He consoled his injured colleague, then examined my ID and entered something into some gadget. As he waited for his request for information to be answered, he copied my details into a small notebook.

After a while, the response came through. He dropped down suddenly, his mouth against my ear.

“Okay, you haven’t got any priors. So what are you doing here? What is your real purpose?”

“I only came here to sell coffee.”

“There are plenty of empty shops available in places that people actually visit.”

“It’s closer to the sea here.”

“Hmph. You wouldn’t even find a hairy crab out here. It’s a wasteland. No, you can’t fool me. I’m going to look into all your associations with Mr Luo. What kind of grudge did you have against him, exactly? You came here for revenge, didn’t you?”

He tried a different tack. “I’ll be honest with you, I’ve been waiting for something to goddamn happen in this place, so that I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life catching pickpockets. Do what you want, turn this tiny town into a holy mess for all I care. But Mr Luo is different, we can’t have him die. You’d better think of a way of keeping him alive…”

Two customers came up to the café and hesitated for a moment at the front door. The local cop put his hat back on and led his partner out. Just as they were about to leave he turned, and hissed, “Any problems and we’ll be back.”

I dealt with the new customers and went out quietly for a cigarette. I was feeling low. This really was just a café, and all I really did was sell a few cups of coffee here and there. But even if all the world’s supply of coffee were to run out suddenly, I would have to keep this café open, for no reason other than to wait for my Autumn’s return.

It had never occurred to me that Luo Yiming might charge in. From a distance, he looked like any other elderly man passing slowly by on his bicycle. How could I have possibly known that he would leap down and burst into my shop, leaving me with these feelings of melancholy and dread, this hopelessness? Still, it was hard to tell if recent events heralded the arrival of new misfortune, or if the entire scene had only been a hallucination.

He had seemed so full of life; not long into retirement, he looked to be in good shape, still agile. He must have been, or he wouldn’t have been able to ride so far across town. Cycling for him must have been a gentle form of exercise, like walking. Meandering at his usual pace, he was merely stopping at a place he’d never noticed before. He was, after all, free to explore anywhere that struck him as interesting, unique, or picturesque; as a retiree, he had the right to enjoy every moment of his free time more than most.

At any rate, stopping for a coffee would be nothing out of the ordinary for him. He took his thick and musky with no sugar, a black liquid that hid opaque imaginings. We tasted it ourselves when we visited his home, I remembered it as the bitterest of sips. Autumn couldn’t understand its profundity; I too was unable to appreciate its complex flavour. I simply clamped my arms to my sides and kept quiet, fearfully balancing the gold cup and saucer in my hands. Their very respectability made me uncomfortable. And yet, we knew we would understand its quality in its aroma. A simple murmur of approval would not suffice; we had to drink it deep into our lungs, and absorb the bitterness of life itself. We needed to allow it to reach down into the loneliness of our souls, and suppress the inevitable small belch that returned, letting it linger, however bashfully, between the oesophagus and the larynx.

And so, on that ill-fated morning, I am certain that he only come in looking for a cup of coffee. Perhaps he had also heard rumours that some out-of-town idiot had opened a small café in this desolate area here on the outskirts. It wasn’t that he had been overcome by some new fancy, only that, as he was want to do, he had mounted his bike and ridden aimlessly. There was still some time before lunch – why not stop for a cup of coffee? That must have been what he was thinking.

Things would have carried on as they had been, had he not made such an impulsive decision that day. He wouldn’t have succumbed to the same sorrow, the same fear and despair as I had. Maybe he would have continued to live in darkness as before, unable to see trouble. Darkness itself isn’t dangerous, it’s the antagonist hidden within it that is frightening, that scares you until you lose all sense of yourself. That, that is the kind of darkness that will grab you both and cast you into a bottomless abyss.

Unfortunately, he did decide to stop in. Maybe he had been following the makeshift path alongside the embankment. It wound around a long bend to the bridge. The road at the other end led straight to the Luo household, on past the Catholic church in the town center, and right up to the small park nearby. Indeed, if you stood on the park’s grassy slopes, you could make out the old Japanese-era building, complete with the cherry tree in the courtyard in timeless bloom.

What was I doing at that precise moment, while he was riding in the cool shade of the road? Maybe I was arranging my stock, or perhaps wiping the empty counter tops at which no one sat. There was no omen, no warning flashed before my eyes. I had no idea we would both soon be faced with such unbearable awkwardness personified, as we stood before one another.

The road underneath the embankment bent sharply several times. By this point, the tune he liked to whistle had probably wandered slightly off-key. Had he felt a sense of foreboding, he would still have had time to turn back. There are lots of places to explore nearby: he could have gone down one of the alleyways towards the old street, or followed the big path alongside the timber mill, cutting through the lively fruit and vegetable market. But, unfortunately, he didn’t; the same road unchosen as all those years ago, when he had the chance to maintain the dignity and principles that old age afforded him. But it too slipped from his grasp.