Page 193 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

THE QUEEN

1.

People in Wang Village had a great hobby—watching the queen walk along
the flagstone roads through their village. The queen was returning to her home, a
deserted wilderness north of the plains. That rather large wooden house had been
built when the old king was young. After years of being battered by wind and
rain, the wood had darkened, but it hadn’t yet rotted. It was still strong. The old
king and his queen had long since died; the elders in the village could still dimly
remember them. After the old king and his queen died, the Wang villagers quite
naturally began calling the couple’s only child Queen. No one knew how old she
was—a person’s age was the last thing that the villagers cared about. Their
impression was that the queen wasn’t yet old, nor was she young. It was best to
say she was ageless. Everyone knew the queen was arrogant, for she lived alone

in an old house in the wilderness, unwilling to move to the village. If she had
wished to move to the village everyone would have welcomed her. She lived in
the old house. Every day she went to the market to buy groceries and incidentals.
She drew water with a wooden bucket from the well at the gate of her house. A
mischievous boy from Wang Village called the queen a drone to her face. He
was later twig-whipped fiercely by his parents, who were deeply ashamed of his
ill-bred behavior. But he was only a little kid: he would learn from this lesson
and grow up. The villagers thought that each person should understand the
hidden meaning in the word queen and behave accordingly.
What did the queen think of the villagers? Hard to say. Everyone knew she
was amiable and polite. She greeted people when she saw them, and she was
happy to help others (this seldom happened, though, because she lacked

opportunities to help). Yet when she went through the village, she never stopped
to chat with the people she encountered. She apparently was always busy, and
her thoughts were elsewhere. One could see this from the vague expression in
her eyes. The queen had never locked her door. One day, unable to contain his
curiosity, a young man slipped into her spacious living room. At the time, the
queen was at the market. What happened after that? Nothing. The young man
stayed in the house fewer than five minutes and then came out, his face deathly
pale. The villagers said, “This is the boundary that the queen has set. How can
someone simply walk into the queen’s residence of his own accord?” This young