Bird Talk and Other Stories by Xu Xu

by Xu Xu

  She smiled at me. Her eyes suddenly sparkled with a beautiful radiance. Never before or after did she leave such a deep impression on me. I ran back to where Dawen was standing, and Xiancheng took a photo of the two of us. That is why in that photograph I am holding a branch of the all-souls tree. It is the one Xiancheng gave me on that day.

  When we returned to the hotel, everyone was playing cards, and we joined in a round of Cheats and Dunners.

  After dinner, Mr. Wang’s friend Mr. Shi was generous enough to share a can of ground coffee with everyone. As we were enjoying our coffee, Mr. Wang started to tell ghost stories. Each one of us then took turns and told one as well. The more stories we heard, the more scared we became. There was no electric light on the mountain, and it was completely silent outside. The snow and the rain had stopped, it seemed, but from time to time a gust of wind would rattle the windowpanes. I am usually not afraid of ghosts, but even I could not help feeling a little frightened. Mr. Wang, Xianmeng, and Dawen were even more spooked than me, and the women all were cowering against the wall, not daring to move. Only Xiancheng’s appearance had not changed, and she was still talking in a calm and composed manner.

  “You are not at all scared?” I asked her.

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” she said with a smile. “But if ghosts do exist, each of us will turn into one after we die, so what’s there to be afraid of? And if ghosts don’t exist, then there is even less reason to be afraid of them.”

  “People who are terrified of ghosts don’t care whether they exist or not,” Xianmeng said. “They are afraid, regardless of whether they exist or not.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Xiancheng asked skeptically.

  “I think it’s just like when people who are in love long for their lover, and people who don’t have a lover nevertheless long for an ideal lover,” I said jokingly, wanting to steer the conversation away from ghosts. My comment made everyone laugh, everyone except for Xiancheng, who fell silent.

  “The sky has pretty much cleared up,” Mr. Wang said. “Tomorrow, everyone should get up early and see the sunrise.”

  “Well, we should sleep early then,” I said.

  Mr. Wang then brought up the question of rooming. We had four rooms in total, two upstairs and two downstairs. The upstairs rooms were a little nicer while the downstairs rooms were Japanese-style and one would have to sleep on a tatami mat. It seemed appropriate to let the women sleep upstairs while we men would stay downstairs. However, Ms. Li, Ms. Nie, and Cunmei all were scared of ghosts. They said that if the four of them slept upstairs and something happened, even if they cried out, there would be no one to help them. Ms. Li was the first to object to the arrangement. Then Cunmei, who had studied in Japan and liked to sleep on tatami mats, said that she would prefer to sleep downstairs. In a bed, she added, two people have to squeeze under one blanket, but on a tatami, one can stretch out as one pleases. And so it went back and forth until it was decided that two of the men would stay in one of the upstairs rooms and two of the women in the other. For the downstairs rooms, it was going to be the same.

  Ms. Li and Ms. Nie as well as Mr. Shi and Dawen were going to sleep upstairs. Mr. Wang, who was quite portly, preferred to sleep on a tatami instead of having to share a bed and thus shared a downstairs room with me and Xianmeng. Cunmei and Xiancheng shared the other downstairs room. In the end, everybody was happy. Holding flashlights and candles, those of us sleeping downstairs descended the stairs. By that time, it was already past ten.

  We entered the rooms from a little porch-like corridor and took off our shoes. The side of the corridor facing outward was made of glass, while the one facing inward consisted of Japanese shōji panels, each made of thin wooden strips in a lattice of equal-size squares pasted over with paper. There were about five or six rooms stretching the length of the corridor, each separated from the next by a set of shōji panels. We let the women sleep in the outermost room while we slept in the room next to them. We did not know whether the room adjacent to us was occupied by another guest. But since it was pitch black inside the rooms, it would not have mattered whether that room was empty. The women would have been scared sleeping next to it no matter what.

  The rooms were very clean, and once the three of us had entered ours, each one of us picked a corner and got ready to sleep. I was still chatting with Xianmeng by the time Mr. Wang had begun snoring.

  “So it’s true that heavy people are easy sleepers!” I said, but Xianmeng did not reply and, soon, he too was snoring. How could I fall asleep under these circumstances? A faint moon shone through a cloudy sky, its dull glow barely spilling into the room. Now and then, a gentle wind rattled the latticework in front of the window. Inside our room, the sound of snoring reverberated, now high, now low, drawn out one moment and hurried the next. Then, all of a sudden, it was as if someone were tapping against the glass on the outer side of the corridor, three times total. I listened carefully, but the sound was already gone. But just when I rolled over in a desperate effort to find a good sleeping position, there it was again: three knocks. There really seemed to be someone out there, knocking against the glass panes. I was thinking of waking up Mr. Wang and Xianmeng, but then felt it would be better not to make a fuss about nothing. Instead, I listened again carefully. The sound was gone. But after a little while, there it was again, this time seven or eight rapid knocks. It was really bizarre.

  I groped for the flashlight next to my pillow and shone its beam on the shōji panel. Again the sound was gone, this time for quite a while, at least the time it takes to smoke a couple of cigarettes. Then there were five more knocks on the windowpanes in the corridor. This time, it sounded almost rhythmical: knock, knock, knock, knock—knock, and then after a short while, it went: knock, knock—knock, knock—knock. Again I thought of waking Mr. Wang and Xianmeng, but then I suddenly heard the faint sound of someone sighing. By now, my curiosity had triumphed over my fear, and I decided against waking up the two. I held my breath and listened attentively. There it was again: knock, knock—knock, knock—knock, knock, knock. How strange! Hesitant about what to do, I once more shone the flashlight onto the shōji panels by the door of our room.

  All of a sudden, I heard someone whimpering. Then the whimpering turned into a low weeping. I now could hear that it was from a woman. All this was becoming more and more bizarre, I thought. Was I reliving a ghost story from *Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio? Or was it possible that I was dreaming? I shone the flashlight on my hand and squeezed my fingers. It all felt pretty real. Just then, the knocking on the window could be heard again: knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, and the sound of weeping became even more pronounced. Was I just imagining it? Or, it suddenly occurred to me, could it possibly be Xiancheng whom I heard crying? I carefully listened again, but the sound had stopped. I waited silently, and after a while, I heard a faint sigh, followed by suppressed sobbing. This time, I heard it clearly. There was no doubt that it was Xiancheng who was sobbing, but why was she crying? I wanted to call out to her, but then thought that she might feel embarrassed. I was also afraid that I would wake the others. Could it be that she had wanted to sleep upstairs and was unhappy that she now had to sleep downstairs? Or was it because there had been an unpleasantry between her and Cunmei before they went to bed?

  I was so preoccupied by thinking about Xiancheng that I no longer paid attention to the knocking or the snoring of my roommates, but then I heard again four fast-paced knocks. Shortly after, I heard the sound of a door being slid open in the adjacent room. I saw the beam of a flashlight in the corridor and thought that it must be Xiancheng who was going outside. I sat up, and listened attentively. Maybe the person knocking on the glass was Xiancheng’s lover? But this late and this high up in the mountains? That would be grotesque. Could it be Dawen? Ridiculous. Why should he come knocking on the window this late? But maybe they knew each other before, and they were playing some kind of trick on us? A ghost? Could a ghost be knocking on the window?
Maybe Xiancheng was also a ghost?

  The more I thought about it the more perplexing it all seemed. Suddenly there were three more knocks, this time very faint ones. That brought me back to my senses. Maybe Xiancheng had merely gone to the bathroom, and it was me who was seeing ghosts! But I had clearly heard her weeping. Sitting on the tatami mat, I had a cigarette. I thought that if by the time I had finished my smoke she had not come back, I would go out and have a look. But then, having not even finished half of my cigarette, I began to put on my pants, my socks, my coat, and the padded kimono. I then tucked the flashlight into the inside of the kimono, quietly slid open the door, and went out. I slid shut the door behind me and walked back through the corridor. When I got to its end, I put on my shoes and hurried to the front door. The front door was unlocked and I went out, pulling it shut behind.

  I went back to the fork in the road and stood there for a moment. I turned on my flashlight and saw Xiancheng on the road leading down. When she noticed that someone was shining a light at her, she also turned on hers and shone it up toward me. It was like two ships in the night signaling at each other. She remained where she was and I walked over to her. She was very composed and did not seem upset that I had followed her.

  “So you heard it too?” she asked.

  “Of course,” I said. “What on earth was that?”

  “Strange,” she said, gazing at the forest on the mountain slope opposite us. “Very strange!”

  Then she fell silent. I shone my flashlight at our hotel. I noticed that the glass panes of the corridor leading to our rooms could be seen from the road. A deep creek ran in the middle. I walked back until I stood in front of the corridor and shone my flashlight on the glass panes. And then I realized: A branch from a tree growing on the bank of the creek was tapping against the window whenever it was swayed by the wind. I wanted to share my realization with Xiancheng, who had already walked downhill a little. She was standing in front of a big rock and was looking into the distance.

  I caught up with her and said, “Xiancheng, it turns out a tree branch that was swayed by the wind was tapping against the window.”

  “Listen, listen!” Not only was she not paying attention to what I was saying, she seemed to reproach me for talking.

  I listened for a moment and said, “The wind.”

  “Listen, listen!”

  “The trees,” I said. “When the wind runs through them, they naturally …”

  “Listen!”

  All I heard was the sound of the wind whispering through the trees, but I remained silent.

  “Aren’t you hearing the wailing sound from the all-souls trees? ‘Oh love, oh sorrow’ is what they are calling.”

  Once she had said this, it really seemed as if I could discern a faint ‘oh love, oh sorrow’ amidst the sound of the wind. I nodded. She suddenly sat down on the big rock in front of us and started to cry.

  “Xiancheng, what’s the matter?” I asked her, but she just went on crying.

  “What’s the matter, Xiancheng?” I could not think of anything to console her and said, “Let’s go back.”

  She took out a handkerchief and wiped her tears but continued to cry.

  “What’s going on, Xiancheng? If you trust me, then please tell me! I will do all I can to help you,” I said to her. She seemed to be listening to me and calmed down a little.

  “If there is anything Xianmeng can do for you, but you can’t talk to him yourself, I will talk to him on your behalf. You know that he and I have been friends for more than a decade. We can talk about anything.”

  She was quite composed now and so I continued, “There is no one here but you and me. If you want to share a secret with me, I’ll promise that I won’t tell anyone. We all carry some old wounds. Sometimes telling a friend about them can bring some comfort, even if it won’t help the healing. Instead of crying all by yourself, why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

  She remained silent until she suddenly raised her head, her tear-filled eyes wide open, and fearfully said, “Listen, listen!”

  We listened for a while. Finally, she said in a stifled, low voice, “You hear the all-souls tree? It’s the wailing of my boyfriend.”

  “Your boyfriend?” I asked. “Where is he?”

  “In Jiujiang, in Jiangxi province,” she replied. “It’s too long a story to tell.”

  “Don’t worry!” I said as I sat down by her side. “Just keep going, maybe I can help you. I can even go to Jiujiang for you, if you need me to. I have nothing better to do anyway.”

  She wiped her eyes with her handkerchief and gave me a glance before lowering her eyes. Then, clutching her damp handkerchief, she began to tell me in a low and husky voice what had happened to her and her boyfriend.

  “We were both attending the same middle school. He was three grades my senior. His father and my father knew each other and when the two of us became friends, neither family had any objections.”

  “The two of you must have been very happy,” I said, but she paid no attention and, after taking a deep breath, continued.

  “We became a couple when he was in his last semester of high school. I myself had only six months of junior middle school left until I could graduate. At that time, I contracted a mild case of pneumonia, but it wasn’t very serious. I was afraid that if he knew, he wouldn’t love me anymore, and so I did not tell him. He was planning to go to *Beiping after graduation to sit for the university entrance exams. I had a maternal uncle and aunt in Beiping who liked me a lot. They often told me to come live with them in Beiping and to attend school there. Because of them, I knew that if I were to go study there, my parents would not object.

  “And so, the two of us made plans to go to Beiping together in the summer following our graduation. But because of my poor health, I often had to take leaves of absence. My schoolwork suffered, and so I was afraid that I would not be able to graduate. Not being able to graduate would of course mean an enormous loss of face, but what I feared most was that he would despise me and that my parents would no longer let me go to Beiping to continue my studies. That’s why I became extremely diligent. Who could have known that once our graduation exams were done, I immediately began to cough blood and run a fever? The doctor said that the disease had flared up and that I would have to be hospitalized for at least six months and so I was admitted to a sanatorium.

  “I was devastated, for my dream of going to Beiping with him was shattered. When I received my graduation certificate, I was crying in my bed and none of my family members could do anything about it. When he came to see me later, he said that he had decided to wait for six months or a year and that once my disease was cured we would go to Beiping together. I told him he could not do that. There were no decent universities in Jiujiang, how could he forsake his plan of going to university on my behalf? He said that there was no problem if he postponed by a year, and that he had already made arrangements with a primary school where he could teach. His family naturally objected to his plan. My father was also not in favor of it and thought that he ought to go to Beiping first and start university. I could follow him the year after, once my disease was cured. We were both still young and there was no reason why we should fear being separated. Only my mother was grateful to him, because she knew that he did this out of love for me and to comfort me. My mother knew that had he gone, I certainly would have been extremely sad, which could not have been good for my state of health. And so he postponed the university entrance exam and instead taught at a primary school. Once his classes were over, he’d run right over to the hospital. He would often do his grading there. He was very healthy and was good at sports. He had never been sick and was not afraid of catching my disease.”

  At this point in her story, Xiancheng again began to cry. “At that time,” she sobbed, “I was so muddleheaded. How could I let him kiss me all the time?” She rested a little, and then continued.

  “After six months, I had some X-rays taken, and to everyone’s sur
prise, the wound had healed. But then suddenly he took sick. I had infected him, and his condition turned very serious. He ran a high fever and every day coughed blood. After not even two months, he was so thin he was hardly himself anymore. And then, all of a sudden, there were some changes with my father’s work and he wanted the whole family to move to Beiping. What could I have done? We weren’t married yet, and there was no way I would be allowed to stay behind on my own in Jiujiang to look after my boyfriend. Again and again I pleaded with my mother, but she said there was nothing to be done. People are always selfish, even a mother as good as mine. She said exactly the same as what his parents had said, that I could just as well wait for him in Beiping while starting high school, and that once he had recovered he would follow us to Beiping for university. I felt terrible. After all, he had delayed his university entrance exams on my behalf, had contracted my illness, and then in the end I …” She started to cry again and gazed at the dark sky. After a while, she continued.

  “But he is so wonderful, and not at all selfish. He told me not to be sad and urged me to go to Beiping. He said that he would be fine as long as I wrote him two letters a week.”

  At this point, Xiancheng paused again and wiped her eyes. She looked at me and said, “But in reality he was so weak that he could not even write letters by himself. But there was nothing I could do, and once everything had been decided, I asked the nurses in the hospital for help. They were very nice and promised to write letters to me on his behalf and not to let him write them by himself. When I went to see him to say goodbye on the day before my departure, the sky was overcast and rainy. I couldn’t stop crying. He kept smiling and comforted me, but …”

  Xiancheng abruptly stopped. She turned her upper body and gazed at the mountain ridges, listening attentively. Then she said hurriedly, “Listen, listen!”

  She fell silent again, and after a while continued under sobs: “When I stepped out of his hospital room and the nurse was closing the door, I heard him utter the words ‘oh love, oh sorrow!’ I wanted to go back in and see, but my mother was waiting for me and pulled me away once I had stepped out of the room. This parting of ours was five years ago.”