Page 180 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

the one who was hoping the most to walk, judging by what he had said in the
past. Now he was fulfilling his wish, even surpassing it. He had become one
with the gardener. He had become the most fortunate guy in the world. I thought
that the precondition for the wisteria attaining his goal was his knowledge that
the gardener would not let him lose his life.
The gardener was rushing around in the garden. The wisteria was nervously
and excitedly clinging to his back and trembling. I inwardly admired him, but I
recognized that I was unlikely to achieve such high-level treatment. He was a
vine; I was a tree. Only vines could cling to people. Trees had better stay in the
ground and figure out another path. The gardener finally finished what he was
doing and reached the place where the wisteria had been before. He took him off
his back and planted him in the ground again. I heard the wisteria moan

contentedly. He must be very proud of the risk he had taken. But I thought if he
had known the result ahead of time, it surely didn’t count as any great risk. As
for me, where was my way out?
I had no way out. My way out lay in thinking of a way out. It lay in
“thinking” itself. I was still thinking, wasn’t I? I hadn’t yet died, had I? My roots
were twice as long as they were when I first came, weren’t they? This was the
advantage of plants that couldn’t walk! If I had the same skill as the wisteria, my
roots probably wouldn’t run so deep. All right, I’ll stay in this spot. My future is
unpredictable. A greater danger is waiting ahead of me. The gardener got ready
to go back. He turned to look at me and gave me a knowing smile. He was a
person who didn’t know how to smile; he smiled like a dead person. It was in
this way that he achieved a tacit understanding with me.
Under the ground, that thing pressed against my root again.