Page 113 - RKJ 2019 Online Flip Version

On quarter days, when the landlord’s agent More likely, it was just another way of trying to
came to collect the rent-money, he rode into
the village on a shiny dark blue bicycle. It had
a bell on the handlebars and its tyres boasted
brilliant white rims. Three times in Tseng’s
memory the landlord himself had passed
through the village in his fine yellow motorcar.
Once, during the rainy season, the car had
become stuck in the mud on the outskirts of
the village, and everyone had dropped what
they were doing to help pull it out, the men, the
boys, and even the women and girls rushing
eagerly for a chance to touch the glossy
machine. On the bonnet of the car was a large
red diamond and some writing in a language
that Tseng recognized, though he could not
read it; the same symbols were stamped into
the soles of the plastic flip-flops his mother and
grandmother wore around the village.
Whenever they stepped in soft earth, they left
the imprint of those two characters behind.
Arriving at the village hall, Tseng joined the
two dozen boys waiting outside. Some of them
had come from miles away. Not long
afterwards, the doors opened, and the
headman came out to usher the boys to their
places. Tseng sat at the desk provided, took a
deep breath, and looked around. Straight away
he noticed the two strangers standing against
the wall. One was a human being. The other
was a goblin-man.
Tseng quickly turned his face away, to hide
his start of surprise. He was far too proud to
stare, but while he waited for the papers to be
distributed he studied the goblin carefully out of
the corner of his eye. He’d never seen one in
the flesh before. It – or he, since Tseng
presumed it was male – had thick, colourless
curly hair sticking up all over his head, and
eyes that looked blind, or perhaps were only
covered with some sort of blue film, since he
could apparently see with them as well as any
real person. He smiled a bit too widely when
he looked at the assembled children, but his
teeth were not very pointy. Tseng suspected
that most of the things people said about the
goblin-men were probably not true, anyway.
She put on his dead grandfather’s old
frighten the children into staying in the village.
Goblin-men came from out there, like all the
best things did, cars and bicycles, toilet paper
and ball-point pens. If Tseng passed this
exam, he might get the chance to go there,
too.
Both the human stranger and the goblin
stranger were wearing clothes like the clothes
the landlord’s agent wore, made of heavy
material with lots of fastenings and pockets,
high-collared white shirts, and a kind of ribbon
knotted tightly around the neck. Embroidered
into the ribbon was the same red diamond and
gold characters that Tseng had seen on the
bonnet of the landlord’s car and on the soles of
the women’s shoes. The two men, human and
goblin, looked hot and uncomfortable in their
suits, but also serious and important. Their
polished black leather shoes were the most
beautiful things Tseng had ever seen. For the
first time in his life he felt ashamed of his bare
feet, and tucked them carefully under his
bottom where they couldn’t be seen.
The questions on the exam were easy.
Tseng returned home feeling elated and guilty.
He could see his mother had been crying. Over
dinner, his grandmother asked him briefly if the
morning had gone well, and then they did not
speak of it again. He rested, spent the rest of
the afternoon working in the field, and then in
the evening joined the other boys hanging
around the headman’s house hoping for a
glimpse of the goblin-man. While they waited,
they talked over the exam, checking with
Tseng to see if they had got the answers right.
“Of course, you will pass,” they said. Modesty
prevented him from agreeing with them out
loud. The goblin man failed to put in an
appearance, and eventually they all went
home.
The next morning his grandmother woke
him early from his bed. The sun had just begun
to rise. His mother was still sleeping. “You’re
going to be needing money,” his grandmother
said. “Come on, you can help me.”
waxed felt boots, wrapped the bark-cloth rain-
cape around her shoulders, tied the wide straw
hat onto her head. Handing Tseng a fox-trap,
she picked up two more, one in either hand,
and together they set off through the gathering
light, up the path that led into the cloud forests.
Pine needles lay thick upon the ground. The
smell of wet earth and pine trees and greenery
was so strong that it went to Tseng’s head;
bursting with joy, he began to run, his bare feet
making no sound on the springy path.
“Ssst,” his grandmother called him back.
“This is a good place.”
They laid one of her traps, walked on for
another twenty minutes, and laid another. The
agent would pay good money for the tails.
Tseng wondered what happened to the tails
once the agent had taken them. Where did
they go? Who wanted them? What for?
“Foxes are clever,” he said to his
grandmother. “Can’t they see that it’s a trap?”
“Oh, they know,” she replied. “But their
curiosity is too much for them. They can’t resist
taking a peek inside.”
“And then they’re sorry.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows what a fox
thinks? Let’s put this last one by the spring.
That never fails.”
Running up the hill ahead of her, Tseng
rounded a bend in the path and saw the goblin
man. He was standing with his back to Tseng,
looking out across the tree-tops, but when he
heard Tseng’s breathing and the crack of the
twig under Tseng’s foot he turned around,
looked at him blindly, and smiled. Even though
Tseng knew it was childish to be frightened,
that goblin smile unnerved him; he dropped his
gaze to the level of the stranger’s chest, and
saw that he was holding in his pale hands a
small, box-like object made of metal and
plastic. It looked like some kind of machine.
The stranger spoke. Of course, it was
gibberish. Unsure of the correct protocol for