Family Catastrophe: A Modernist Novel

Part Three

PartThree 1 8 9 K SEARCH For Father Dear Father, You have been gone for nearly three months. Please come home. Everything will be resolved according to your wishes. Your son, Yeh He was on the train going South. A notice had come from a shelter in T’aichung two days ago with the description of an old man who had recently arrived there, a man without an ID, who had lost his sight in both eyes, and was unable to speak – most likely the result of a stroke. Hence this trip down to T’aichung to make an identification . And inasmuch as this chance offered itself to him as a reason, he simply followed it to the logical conclusion of picking up where he left off and putting into action that long-planned-for search a second time. It also prompted him to revive that newspaper advertisement. He undertook this second search with the same mindset he had adopted for his first trip. Then as now, he harbored little hope of success – after all, the Taipei police alone had called him several times to see if they had turned up the right person. Each time, however, it had turned out to be a waste of energy. He had shelved the whole business of the search for far too long. Since this opportunity to go South presented itself, he took it. Besides, it also gave him a way, momentarily at least, to salve his conscience . 1 9 0 124 The low drone of a plane in flight drew closer and louder. The young man closed the book he was reading. He was now twenty years old. Last year he passed the university entrance exam and was admitted into the History Department at C University. The addition of a pair of thick, black-rimmed glasses changed the appearance of his milkwhite face only slightly. Of late, however, the face itself had undergone subtle changes; it now appeared more resolute and self-possessed, perhaps even a little aloof and withdrawn . Fan Yeh waited till the boom trailed off into the distant sky before picking up the book again and, after a short pause, resuming his reading. Fan Yeh recoiled from loud noise and excitement of any kind, particularly when he was reading. Often, at such times, the slightest little ripple would distract him, disrupt the flow of a sentence, and when he tried to pick up where he had left off, the atmosphere in which he was previously immersed would have dissipated; to continue his reading thus was like trying to fuse the bottom half of a body with the top half after a person had been cut in two. This extremely fastidious habit was not likely to be appreciated by others. If he were to explain it to others, they were sure to cast him as a fanatic, acutely sensitive and abnormally picky. Abruptly Fan Yeh put his book down yet again. Vaguely aware of the proximity of commotion, he had been unable to concentrate for quite some time. It turned out to be the presence of his father in his room, coming and going in and out right behind him. He didn’t know how many times he had told him already that this puttering about was a huge annoyance to him. And it wasn’t just the shuffling alone. The very quivers sent through the tatami mats in his bedroom as his father lifted and pressed his feet on the floor 1 9 1 were insufferable. And here he was again, that Pa of his, coming in to start up a racket once again. He decided to give up, to forget about getting back into the reading altogether, and to put the book away for the duration. And he wasn’t going to say anything more about it either. He was sick and tired of the squabbling. The feeling of weakness and the very thought that he still felt that he ought to be quaking in fear before his father each time they quarreled was enough to tire him out. He was hoping to wait this one out, let his father make his noise and have done with it. These last few days, and in fact the last few weeks, his father had managed to drive him up the wall in numerous and sundry ways. What happened the day before last was a typical example. That afternoon...