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hell did she end up in such a place as this, he wonders, not for the first time, as he hurries into the kitchen to ready a fresh pot of the Jade Mountain tea. The woman whispers something in the old man's ear, and then wanders off to the far side of the courtyard, all the better to gain a view of the mountains as they fade into the dusk. The stranger looks at the back of her, sturdy and forlorn in the sunset. The old man is occupied with the crinkled remains of a leaf that has blown onto the table. Dissecting it with the curiosity of a child, he cracks it open along the veins with fingers that are miraculously steady. The stranger is absorbed in this industriousness, and is taken back to when he did the same as a young man, sequestered among the trees in the forest, the sounds of his hands and his breath like tiny detonations within the cathedral quiet of the  |
woods. Then he sees something in the old man's attitude, those dead eyes nearly buried under the jaundiced folds of his eyelids. The stranger addresses him: Are you from here? What? the old man says. I'm from the town over the mountain. The stranger's throat works ravenously as he downs the tea in a single gulp. His free hand comes to rest on the hilt of his sword. You were a magistrate once, he says. Magistrate? The old man has only a few teeth left in his mouth, and the stranger sees them, ugly nub-like things, as he chortles. Magistrate? Yes. Long time ago.  |
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