Page 178 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

front of me, a voice was repeatedly saying, “Who was that? Who was that? . . .”
I wanted so much to see exactly who this voice was coming from. I thought that
since “it” could utter sounds, it must be something real. But no. The voice came
from gratuitous vibrations in the air: it was utterly terrifying!

Carrying water buckets, the gardener appeared at the garden gate. He stopped
and glanced at me: after seeing me trembling, he laughed. It was that eerie
laughter again! He turned to water plants, paying no further attention to me. The
words in the air continued. I heard the Indian azalea say softly, “Shhh, that’s a
bear! A black bear . . .”
Could a black bear speak? Why couldn’t I see it? Was I done for?
“A black bear. How amazing!” the Indian azalea said.
I thought that since she was seeing the amazing thing, and the gardener had
also just confirmed that I was alive, I wouldn’t die. Since I wouldn’t die, what
was I afraid of? So I also said something. “Oh—hey—hey!”
I had shouted three sounds in a row in midair! Ha! My voice came from this
crack. It was surprisingly resonant, crowding out the sound “black bear”! Now
there was no “black bear”; there was only my sound of “Oh—hey—hey!”
vibrating repeatedly in midair. The plants in the rose garden listened in
astonishment. I could still hear the Indian azalea mutter in amazement, “It’s
really a black bear. Who can imagine it?”

Only after a long time did the echo of my voice quiet down. I remembered the
Indian azalea’s words, and I felt renewed terror. Could it be that I myself was the
black bear? In the past, when I was in the nursery, everyone had heard the
terrible bloody tale about the black bears. Back then, the black bears had
consumed all the animals on the opposite mountain, leaving only themselves.
Then they massacred each other . . . The Indian azalea was the most truthful
plant; she had never told a lie. Had she spoken the truth just now? As she saw it,
in the beginning the voice in midair was mine, and the later one was mine, too.
Maybe the gardener had known for a long time, and I was the only one who
didn’t? Too dreadful! So scary! HELP! . . . I fainted.
I awakened. Of course I wasn’t a black bear. If I were, I would have eaten the
gardener long ago. I wasn’t a tree that could walk, either. My roots were the only
part of me that could move, but they could only grow downward. Still, I felt

foreboding about the gardener. Just now, he had stared at me again, hadn’t he?
He pretended to be bending toward the wisteria, yet he shot a glance at me. That
turbid gaze seemed to be coming from my forebears. What was he seeing in me?
I—a dying willow—a plant using something whose name I didn’t know to give
me the nourishment to survive, a monster that had fainted and then revived and
was struggling at death’s door: if I had to look at myself, I would surely be
unable to see myself clearly. I conclude that I must look at my image through the