by Saxon Keeley
Alistair had promised to bring the rest of their family’s heirlooms with him once all the affairs with the Assembly were concluded.
“I want her back.”
Wesley feels a tug on his wrist, finding Jessica by his side in tears. She buries her head and cries into his shirt. Taking her in his arms, he comforts her.
“Would you like a handkerchief?” asked a woman’s voice.
Above them stands Sun Ren, holding out a red and gold cloth for Jessica. Seeing that her nose had run down her uncle’s shirt she accepts the gesture, cleaning herself up. Helping her out, Wesley wipes away her tears.
The former comrades face one another and Wesley tries to give back the handkerchief.
“You can keep it,” she said, refusing the soggy cloth. “Are you going too?”
Wesley just nods.
“Are you coming back?”
“I am…not sure,” he said.
His response hurts. “There are still things here for you,” she tried to explain.
“I am sure…there are,” he said, trying not to seem too dismissive. He holds Jessica in close and gives her a smile. “But my family…will be on…Maia. And that will…be our…new home.”
“Got it,” she said. She takes a knee and catches another tear before it can run down Jessica’s cheek. “You look after your uncle. He may seem tough, but he needs you as much as you need him. All men need a woman to make them strong. Understand?”
Jessica agreed, not quite sure whether she does fully understand.
Not having gone the way Sun Ren had planned it, she hesitates in her goodbye, then falls back onto formalities. She stands to attention and salutes. “General.”
“General…”
Leading Jessica by the hand, he takes her to board the Grey Heron. By the hatch, Nicholas waits for them with a vacant expression. A cold shiver runs down Wesley’s spine and a deep sense of unease stirs inside of him. He places a hand on Nicholas’ shoulder to shake him out of his emotionless trance.
“Nicholas…we are going…to leave now. Shall we…find some seats…together?”
Simply nodding, his nephew climbs into the boat.
Distracted by Jessica tugging at his wrist, he squeezes her hand tight. Before climbing through the hatch, she is just about to turn and take one last look at the city she was born in, then her uncle stops her and places his hands over her eyes. She tries to remove his hand from her vison, but is not strong enough. Annoyed, she glares at him.
“Whatever you do…do not…look back. Always look…forward,” he said.
China
Wolf
A single string is plucked and the sound comes to him as the colour red, deep yet vibrant, but always on his peripherals. As more stings are played the notes become lucid, as if rising to the surface of a great body of water.
Ripples shimmer gold and he finds himself in the shallows of a river filled with the dead, shingles of ground bone line the bed. Shapeless figures dance as they attempt to grasp a man walking along the surface. Enshrouded in shadow he is like a singularity. In his wake, the man leaves a trail of destruction, tearing the very land and sky asunder. The droplets of rain that fall are fused with human souls and scream as they hit the ground.
As if the man could see him, he stops and draws his attention to the parting clouds above. Once dispersed, it is revealed that they are in the palm of a celestial dragon, blind in her right eye. Traversing the cosmos, the being engulfs the planets and stars in flames.
Following the river, the man takes him to a great tree. All the branches have been stripped of their leaves and the brittle bark flakes off into the wind. Pointing deep down between the roots, the shadow leaves him to continue circling around the dragon’s palm.
The ground is soft and mushy like the flesh of an open wound. Under the tree sleeps a little girl, cuddled up in the fur of a great wolf. Peacefully dreaming, the girl is not stirred by the guttural growl of the beast. Its fangs have seen many hunts, but are as sharp as the first. Though the eyes are golden, there is something distinctly human about them.
The smell of cinders fills his nostrils.
*
Incense burns in the room and over the crackles of a worn gramophone an old C-pop song softly plays, pleasantly lulling Wolf from a long and harrowing nightmare. A fire warms the room, and though he is naked underneath the blankets, he finds himself surprisingly comfortable. The chill that had buried itself within his bones from the weeks of sleeping in the open, is forgotten.
A bowl filled with bloody water rests on the floor by the bed, his head wound having been cleaned and redressed recently. A numb pain throbs, bouncing off his skull and ricocheting about the inside of his head. His leg tied to a splint, getting out of bed is a harder ordeal then he anticipated.
Startled by the soldier waking, the young Chinese woman tending to the cast iron teapot resting over the fire rushes over to him and pins him back down to the bed. Without the strength to fight back, Wolf submits and though he cannot understand her, does as he is told. She wraps the blanket tightly around him and scurries out of the room, calling for assistance, or so he assumes.
Uncertain of where he is, the severity of his injuries or what the exact nature of his predicament that he has awoken to, Wolf waits for the woman to return. Above him tassels and banners hang. Brightly coloured lights are refracted in the glass. He concludes he must be in a small temple building.
At the door, the woman brings a middle-aged man to see the soldier. His hair is long and loosely tied back, stubble is only because of more immediate concerns than a choice, and on his shirt is a finely stitched dragon, it’s body circling around on itself like a never-ending spiral. He thanks her and she waits outside.
The man walks over to the teapot and pours out two cups. “Relax,” the man said in perfect English, “you are safe here.”
He waits for Wolf to sit up before handing him the tea. The upright position dizzies his head and the room sways violently for a few seconds.
“This will help,” said the man, forcing the cup into his hands. Bringing up a chair to the bedside, the man sits and waits for Wolf to take a sip. “You Americans are always the first to cast suspicion,” he smirked, sipping the tea, “yet you are often the ones to be most suspicious of. Drink up, it will sooth your head and draw out the poisons from your body. It is a certified recipe passed down through generations of the people from the south. Not only does it look murky, but it is horribly bitter, that is how you know it works.”
Amused by the man’s honesty and feeling reassured, Wolf lifts the dark brown liquid to his lips and sips just enough to cover his tongue. Tasting just as it smells, he shivers in disgust. Expecting the tea to burn as it travelled down his gullet, the liquid is instead cooling.
This time he takes a large mouthful and hopes to finish it off in one. Before he can refuse, the man has brought over the teapot and refills his cup. Certain it is a placebo effect, Wolf already begins to feel better.
“I am Zhang Guozhi and I would like to welcome you to our little community here up on Mianshan,” he said with a smile.
“Wolf.”
“Ah! That explains the emblem on your uniform. A few of us were wondering what that meant.”
“Where is my uniform?”
“Drying, well, hanging warm next door now. We found you washed up on the bank of the Fen River. You have been out for days. To be honest, I was not sure you would pull through at first, but you are tough. I suppose it is the least I should have expected from the man who assassinated the Chairman.”
Wolf backs up against the headboard, but Zhang does not seem threatening. He sees little point in denying the truth. “How did you know?”
Zhang laughs like he said something stupid. “An American so far into the mainland, weeks after the Chairman’s death, wearing a uniform that belongs to no country or militia in the world. It is not a hard conclusion to come to,” he mocked. “But your feat is impressive, though I doubt very much you
achieved it alone.”
Just then the door bursts open and the woman guarding the door calls after a young girl who rushes in and throws her arms around Zhang. Wolf hides his embarrassment of having been so frightened by the intrusion of a little girl. She wears a red and gold dress and as she peers over at him, Wolf feels as if he is looking at a ghost.
In Chinese Zhang addresses the girl, comforting her while she explains her disappointment to him. He rolls his eyes and sympathetically laughs off her discontent, turning back to the soldier in bed.
“Please excuse my daughter, she is upset that the kitchen is serving broth again tonight,” he explained, brushing the hair out from her eyes. “Children do not understand the strains that war places on such necessities. When food was plenty I would take great pleasure in cooking for the community, but with recent events our deliveries from the local farms have ceased and we have had to stockpile, making do with what we have.
“All I can offer you is broth, it is not much but you must keep your strength up,” he said.
Wolf nods. “Yeah, thank you.”
Zhang stands up and takes his daughter’s hand, ushering her out of the small building.
“There is a change of clothes under the bed, do you need any assistance in getting dressed?”
He looks outside to see the young woman eagerly waiting by the door. Absolutely certain, Wolf refuses.
“Very well, we shall be right here when you are ready,” Zhang said, closing the door behind him.
Built in a cave on the side of a mountain, the temple is a marvel to gaze upon, the kind of place that he thought only existed in distorted perceptions of the country and works of fiction. The complex is full of life, buzzing with song and festivity. Children play in the courtyard, while the adults drink to a hard day’s work well done. The desolate land decimated by nuclear warfare seems like a distant reality that these people have managed to save themselves from.
Hobbling the long way down to the courtyard for the sake of his leg, Zhang is pleased to see the amazed look in Wolf’s eyes.
“I didn’t think there would be a place left like this,” Wolf said, stopping to take in the view.
“We first sort refuge from the war three years ago. None of us could bear the thought of our families being torn apart, sent to the frontlines to be senselessly massacred for a government whose actions did not speak for us,” Zhang began. “The mountain has hidden our presence ever since, and we have made homes from the ancient temples and palaces that run along the mountain side. Over the years our little community has grown considerably, people come from far away, seeking to rebuild China and to find asylum from leaders who would have us condemned by our nation’s troubled history.”
“You sound like your pleased to have the Chairman dead,” he chuckled.
“In respects, we are thankful to see the collapse of the old regime. Now we can begin to return to simple values and philosophies that allowed our people to prosper for thousands of years.”
Wolf laughs again. “A future built on clichés.”
“Proverbs,” Zhang corrected him in the same humour. “You can build a lasting peace on a foundation of proverbs, you are in bed with a fool if you take a cliché as advice.”
They continue walking and Wolf finds himself enjoying Zhang’s company. He is not like anybody else he has ever met in his life, having been filled largely up to this point with weathered soldiers and shady politicians. Zhang has the rare qualities of leadership, a generous heart and good natured wit. There is something though that piques Wolf’s curiosity.
“Your English is excellent. Where did you learn?”
“My wife and I spent many years in England working for the conglomerate government, we returned to China when she fell pregnant with Li,” he explained.
He watches Li walking by her father’s side and judges by her age that Zhang’s return would have coincided with the end of the South Asian conflicts, when fear of China was at its most volatile. They could have fallen victim to the mass deportations, or smuggled into the country as espionage agents, hence the political differences and the formation of a separatist community. Wolf knows better than to enquire any further.
After dinner, Zhang puts Li to bed and asks Wolf to join him outside the grey brick buildings that overlook the mountain. Feeling as if he cannot refuse after the generous hospitability he has been shown, he arrives to find two chairs already set out. As the temperature dips, somebody comes to give him a quilt to keep warm.
It is a still night. The two men sit nursing their nightcap under the stars.
“Thank you for everything you have done for me, I appreciate that supplies must be limited. I won’t put you out for much longer,” Wolf said.
“Nonsense, stay for as long as you need to.”
“Wish I could, but I have contacts waiting for me up north.”
“In Russia?” he asked rhetorically, knowing he probably wouldn’t get an answer. “If you expect to return to America by crossing into Alaska, I hate to be the one to tell you, that might not be a possibility anymore.”
“I suspected as much,” Wolf admitted.
“Heading north through Mongolia would be suicide and the National Forces must be looking for an alone American soldier trying to cross the border. You should head west, then north through Xinjiang, from Altay you would be a stone’s throw away from Russia. Passage to Western Europe would be easy since the Russian provisional government signed a treaty with England.”
He studies Zhang, bewildered by the careful consideration he has put into this, suspecting an ulterior motive. Cautiously he pries further.
“It would be a longer journey.”
“On foot, yes,” Zhang agreed, “it would easily take over a month to reach Altay. But by car…”
Wolf repositions himself to let Zhang know he will not be conned into doing him any favours and yet Zhang counters with a smile, easing his assertive posture.
“Life in China is going to be hard,” he said, changing the subject abruptly. “There is no immediate way we can measure the extent of the damaged cause by the bombs. The Nationalist Forces of Beijing and Shanghai will eventually march across the whole country attempting to unify China under their rule. It is only a matter of time until our way of life here in the mountains is disrupted.
“Perhaps the farms never recover and our food stock is never replenished. Maybe the heat of the summer dries up the streams. Or radioactive matter is swept up by the winds and we breath in the contaminated dust. Regardless, with poverty comes sickness. And maybe we survive the harsh winters and endure the hot summers, when the Nationalist Forces come, will we be transported to work camps or just executed in our beds?”
“I thought this was the beginnings of a brighter future?” he commented, not wanting to downplay the truth in Zhang’s concerns.
“Yes, but a seed does not grow into a forest overnight. Before that tree can fully blossom, it must survive the changing seasons. This is no place to raise a child,” he concluded.
“So, what is it that you are asking of me?” Wolf said impatiently.
“Take Li with you. Take her as far as England, I have a friend there who would be happy to look after her. In exchange, you may take one of our vehicles.”
Downing the rest of his drink, the soldier mulls over the offer. The journey would be safer, putting a comfortable distance between him and the Nationalist Forces. The land to the west is rural and the people more accommodating. Once in Russia, their journey would be easy.
“You’d never see your daughter again,” Wolf warned him. “There is no guarantee that we would even make it.”
Zhang climbs out from his seat and walks over to the banister, hiding the tears that gather along his lower eyelid. “Believe me, this is not a decision I am making lightly and have considered the risks involved. But there is nothing for her here.”
“A life without her father would be worse,” he said to no response.
The alcohol hits him an
d rather than arguing with his host, Wolf rests the glass on the ground and retires for the night.
Struggling up the steps, guilt rattles his mind. Convinced Zhang is right behind him, he turns around only to find him still looking out at the view.
*
He cocks his pistol, reintroducing himself to the weight of the weapon, the slide does not pull back as smoothly as it once did. Securing it in its holster, he does one last equipment check. To conceal his armour the community provided him with robes and a scarf. A pair of red-tinted, round-lensed sunglasses were also left for him.
Leaving the small temple building that served as his home for the past couple of weeks, he heads towards the courtyard where everyone is waiting. It is early in the morning, but already he can tell it’s going to be glorious day, probably the last one of the year. As they travel northwards, winter will approach them even sooner.
The community load up two backpacks full of food, bottled water and any medication they can spare. Again, Wolf finds himself indebted to the people of Mianshan.
He waits for Zhang to say his goodbyes. Now the time has come, it is harder than he could have possibly imagined. Li, dressed for their long journey to the west, cannot comprehend why she must leave. Zhang glances at Wolf from over her shoulder and the soldier gives him a firm nod. Her father fixes her up and makes sure the backpack isn’t too heavy.
Pulling himself together, Zhang holds out a paper note. Inside is a London address.
“When you reach England…”
“Consider it done,” Wolf interrupted. “If you don’t hear about us, it’s a good thing.”
The two shake hands.
“Safe travels.”