Even a small bell can wake a person. I thought, ‘If Father’s illness is the result of his work, perhaps someone behind those red walls will have the means to deal with it.’ And so one day I went to find old Director Wang. He’d visited our house several times in the past, and given me the impression that he was concerned about Father’s well-being. Director Wang listened to my description of Father’s illness, and for a long time afterwards he didn’t speak. He didn’t seem surprised, nor did he show much sympathy; instead, his expression was blank. He asked me where my father was, and I told him he was at home. He made his secretary get him two cigarettes and said that he would return home with me. Once we arrived there, we discovered that the door was open and Father was nowhere to be found. I asked the old man who served as concierge if he had seen him leave the compound, to which he answered that it was absolutely impossible for him to have left as it had only been half an hour since he’d seen Father in the courtyard. Still, we looked and looked and could not find him, nor did we see any trace of him having been there; it seemed as though he had disappeared into thin air.

Where do you think he got to? He was over in the building opposite ours, wandering through the corridors with his house keys in his hand, repeatedly trying to open doors, trying to find out which one worked. Absurd, don’t you think? He didn’t even recognize his own home! We brought him back, but as soon as we entered, he abruptly turned round and insisted that he wanted to leave because this wasn’t our home. I really didn’t know what to do. It was then that Director Wang thought of a solution. He told me to take my father outside for a moment and wait for him to call us back. A few moments later, we heard Director Wang’s voice. Once we went back in I noticed that slight changes had been made: the sofa cover was gone, the vase of flowers that had been on the dining-room table was on the small tea table, and a few other small decorative items had been shifted around. But Father, having seen these slight changes, now believed that this was indeed his house.

Wouldn’t you say this was strange? It was downright bizarre!