For a while, you can't remember how you came to be sleeping here, your head is throbbing, and you aren't fully awake. Last night, you drank too much. You haven't drunk to excess like this for a long time. You drank scotch, five-grain liquor, and red wine, then, to quench your thirst, also beer. A full case of beer had been opened, but some cans are still left. Someone brought the scotch from England, and the five-grain liquor was from China. You remember now: a group of Chinese writers and poets have come for a conference here, in the southern outskirts of Stockholm, at the international center named after the assassinated Swedish president Olaf Palme.

You open your eyes and sit up. Outside the window is the lake with clouds hanging low over it. Lush shrubs and trees grow on the flat stretches of parkland, and there is only the singing of birds, no one is around, and it's very peaceful.

You recall the fragrant warmth of the woman in the dream and can't help feeling disappointed. Why did you have such a dream? It must have been because last night everyone was talking about China again, and you had a lot to drink. China always gives you a headache. But that is the purpose of the conference, to discuss contemporary Chinese literature. The Swedes had sponsored the visit of a group of Chinese writers from China and elsewhere, providing the plane tickets, and food and accommodation for a few days. This was an ideal place for a vacation. There was plenty of beer, but because liquor was heavily taxed, the conference participants brought it along with them. There was heavy drinking until dawn. In July, it was summer, and it was a white night; the sky did not become dark, and at midnight it was like dawn. The other side of the lake was a continuous hazy forest with a streak of bright-red dawn above, the birds and insects were sleeping, but these old friends went on talking loudly on the wooden jetty next to the lakeside sauna hut. They engaged in lofty discussions, and their voices resonated into the distance. Ripples stirred on the mirror-smooth surface, spreading in circles to the middle of the lake and making the weeds and the reflections tremble. And this was not a dream.

One of the friends insisted on talking about a whole lot of bizarre happenings in China that had nothing to do with literature. He said that this person who fed the animals in a zoo went to work early one morning, before they started selling tickets. He had just gone in through the side gate for zoo personnel, when he heard the roaring of the tiger he normally fed. He wondered why it was roaring if it wasn't feeding time, and went to take a look. The tiger was lying in the cage in a pool of blood, with its front paws missing. A rescue attempt was made, the wounds bandaged, but the tiger had lost too much blood, and there was no tiger blood for a transfusion, so they couldn't save it.

"Why had the tiger's paws been chopped off?" someone asked.

"Surely everyone here has heard stories about Chinese people eating bear paws?"

"But I've never heard about tiger paws being eaten."

"It's for making tiger-bone liquor, which has been a cure for rheumatism from ancient times! Where else could you hunt for a tiger these days, except at a zoo?"

Everyone broke out laughing and said, "You scoundrel, you're anti-Chinese right through. You've made it all up, haven't you?"

This friend, however, was quite serious and said he had read it in an official Mainland newspaper. "A friend sent me a newspaper clipping from China, it was just a two-line item. In Sweden, it would have made front-page headlines! And, for sure, the environmentalists would have marched in the streets. Hey, does Sweden have a Green Party?"

You didn't go to the dining room for breakfast. From your window, you watched the limousines downstairs drive off to take the others sightseeing in Stockholm.

Afterward, you went for a walk along the gravel path around the lake. On the surrounding fields, here and there, stood big, white, plastic bags that probably contained grass fodder. At the edge of the dark-green forest, these white bags looked surreal, and you again seemed to be entering a dream.

As you follow a track into the forest, the light around the lake vanishes, and, deeper into the forest, the trees seem to get taller, the tallest and straightest being the Korean pines. Suddenly, you hear the shouting of children, and you can't help feeling emotional. It's as if you have returned to your childhood, even though you know those times no longer exist. You stop to listen, to prove you're not hearing things, then hurry on. The track turns, and right ahead, between the trees, is a clearing where two girls are dragging sacks of, most likely, pine cones. The taller of the two is wearing jean shorts, cut off so the frayed edges come above the knee. Farther off, a boy is running about with a butterfly net. The two girls stop from time to time, and, as you don't want to disturb them, you slow down. The boy is in front, running and shouting. The girls call out to him, but he takes no notice and keeps running, so the girls follow, dragging their sacks. The sound of the children gradually fades into the distance, and, by the time you can no longer see them, the dirt track has started to disappear into the grass, and the place looks quite desolate. You still seem to faintly hear the shouting of the children, and you stop to listen, but it is only the rustle of the waves of pines as the wind passes through the tops of the trees.

You keep trying to recall that dream, to recall the tactile sensation of fondling her smooth firm breasts and to recall that indistinct but familiar face. Instead, you recall another dream you have had. The odd thing is that you have had this dream so many times that it has turned into a memory, so it seems that there really was such a girl. After school, she and her girl classmates were a happy lot and were always together. You seem to have been in the same class, but it was not easy to get on friendly terms with her. Those girls also made friends with boys, in fact, they only made friends with boys, but you could never get into their circle. You then remember a big courtyard complex where you once lived. Your home was in a back courtyard, and it was hard getting there through the front courtyard where a lot of people were living. The girl, it seems, lived in the front courtyard. Just like that, another dream is summoned up. The girl lived in a little dead-end street, an old courtyard complex that was very deep, with one entrance after another. Her family lived in the first courtyard, in the left wing after entering the gate, and a classmate of yours from middle school also lived in that courtyard. You went to see this classmate to see if the girl's family still lived there, but, when you got there, you didn't see your classmate. This summons up other dreams that are more like vague memories, and it's hard differentiating the dreams from the memories. You recall that when you were four or five years old, during the chaos of war, you and your parents were refugees and had lived in such a big courtyard complex. But you are searching for a big girl with full breasts, and your memories and dreams are all confused.

Your childhood years are dim and hazy, and only some points of light appear before your eyes. How is it possible to retrieve past happenings that have become submerged in what has been forgotten? It's hard to confirm what gradually appears, and it's hard to decide in the end whether it is memory or something you have imagined. Moreover, are memories accurate? They are fragmented and jump backward and forward, and, when you try to track them, the flashing points of light become dim and turn into words, but you can only link up a few of them. Can memories be retold? You doubt it, and you also doubt the capacity of language to do this. One retells memories or dreams, because some wonderful things that give you warmth, fragrance, longing, and impulses flash up. But can this be said of words?