Page 196 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

place. Folks said that the couple went away for half a year and came back rich.
But the villagers didn’t know how they had done this. In fact, no one cared how

they became rich. Everyone deeply venerated the old king. “He’s our king.”
People were often near tears when they said this. Their faith was not inspired by
any oracle; it came from their innermost beings. And because of this simple
feeling, when the old king and his queen died in quick succession, everyone
quite naturally called their daughter queen. This queen was much like her father!
Although she lacked her father’s skill at sharpening kitchen knives, in her
imposing manner and with her omniscient vision she proved even more a
monarch than her father. A queen who kept the palace neat and tidy, who was
unruffled in everything she did, who strove for self-improvement was surely
worthy of the villagers’ veneration. Someone noted that they revered her more
than they had the old king! It was only because of this queen that this
transcendental palace also carried a sense of the mundane. Anyone walking past

the wooden house could tell what the queen was eating that day. The aroma of
the food made the villagers hungry. They couldn’t imagine what the palace
would be like if the queen were not there. The queen should live in the palace
forever. Was this the difference between her and the old king? The villagers
didn’t want to probe this question. They venerated their queen, loved their queen
(of course, she was their queen!): this was enough. Hey! Just look at the queen’s
nimble footsteps: Wasn’t it like flying?
A lad named Drum ran into the queen at night in the “desert.” Drum had gone
out because he had a splitting headache. The desert was made of crushed rock;
no plants grew anywhere for several miles around it. Yet under the moonlight
late at night it looked beautiful—a stretch of glistening silver light. Drum
thumped his head desperately and walked in the desert. Suddenly he saw the
queen. Dressed in white, the queen was like a floating immortal. He was at least
two hundred meters away from her. On a night like this, Drum hallucinated that
he had come to the moon. He forgot his headache. He wanted to catch up with
the queen and talk with her. This was a rare opportunity. He picked up his pace,

but for some reason he couldn’t catch up with the queen. Finally, he began
running, but he still trailed behind her. The queen was also running, her white
skirt blowing in the wind, moving like a sail. “Hey, hey—” Drum shouted, as he
ran faster and faster. But the queen ran even faster, and soon disappeared
without a trace. Drum stopped and looked blankly all around. There was now
only a stretch of silver light. Where could the queen have gone? Could she have
dug her way into the ground? Drum finally realized that his headache was gone.
He excitedly thought back to the scene just now and was reluctant to leave the
gravel that glittered like diamonds. He vowed silently, I have to come back here
again tomorrow night.