by Amy Tan
Simon looks up. “Hey, that’s what I was just thinking.” He leans over to smell the stew. “This is great material.”
“Don’t forget, we have to eat this great material.”
When the fire dies down, so does my available light. I slip the Leica into a jacket pocket. God! I’m hungry! If I don’t eat the chicken and its bloody broth, what are my other choices? There’s no ham and cheese in the fridge—there’s no fridge. And if I wanted ham, I’d have to slaughter the screaming pigs first. But there isn’t time to consider alternatives. Kwan is now at a half-crouch, grabbing the handles of the giant wok. She does a dead lift. “Eat,” she announces.
In the center of the courtyard, Du Lili has made a small twig fire within an iron ring. Kwan sets the wok on top and Du Lili passes out bowls, chopsticks, and cups for tea. Following her lead, we squat around our improvised dinner table. “Eat, eat,” Du Lili says, motioning to Simon and me with her chopsticks. I eye the pot, looking for something that resembles my supermarket version of packaged meat. But before I can find it, Du Lili plucks a chicken’s foot from the stew and plops it in my bowl.
“No, no. You take that,” I protest in Chinese. “I can help myself.”
“Don’t be polite,” she argues. “Eat before it gets cold.”
Simon smirks. I transfer the foot to his bowl. “Eat, eat,” I say with a gracious smile, then help myself to a thigh. Simon stares morosely at the once dancing foot. He takes a tentative bite and chews with a thoughtful expression. After a while, he nods politely to Du Lili and says, “Hmm-mmm. Good, very good.” The way she beams, you’d think she’s just won a cook-off.
“That was nice of you to say that.”
“It is good,” he says. “I wasn’t just being polite.”
I ease my teeth on the edge of the thigh and take a puppy nip. I chew, let it roll onto my tongue. No taste of blood. The meat is amazingly flavorful, velvety! I eat more, down to the bone. I sip the broth, so clean-tasting yet buttery rich. I reach into the pot and fish out a wing. I chew, and conclude that Chinese courtyard chickens taste better than American free-range. Does the tastiness come from what they eat? Or is it the blood in the broth?
“How many rolls did you shoot?” Simon asks.
“Six,” I say.
“Then we’ll call this six-roll spring chicken.”
“But it’s autumn.”
“I’m naming it in honor of Du Lili, who ain’t no spring chicken, as you pointed out.” Simon quivers and pleads, Quasimodo style: “Please, Mistress, don’t beat me.”
I make the sign of the cross over his head. “All right. You’re forgiven, you jerk.”
Du Lili holds up a bottle of colorless liquor. “When the Cultural Revolution ended, I bought this wine,” she proclaims. “But for the last twenty years, I’ve had no reason to celebrate. Tonight, I have three.” She tips the bottle toward my cup, sighs a protracted “ahhhh,” as if she were relieving her bladder, not pouring us wine. When all of our cups are filled, she lifts hers—“Gan-bei!”—and sips noisily, her head tilting back slowly until she has emptied the contents.
“You see?” Kwan says in English. “Must keep cup going back, back, back, until all finish.” She demonstrates by chugging hers. “Ahhhh!” Du Lili pours herself and Kwan another round.
Well, if Kwan, the queen of the teetotalers, can drink this, it must not be very strong. Simon and I clink glasses, then toss the liquor down our throats, only to gasp immediately like city slickers in a cowboy saloon. Kwan and Du Lili slap their knees and chortle. They point to our cups, still half full.
“What is this?” Simon gasps. “I think it just removed my tonsils.”
“Good, ah?” Kwan tops his cup before he can refuse.
“It tastes like sweat socks,” he says.
“Sweet suck?” Kwan takes another sip, smacks her lips, and nods in agreement.
Three rounds and twenty minutes later, my head feels clear, but my feet have gone to sleep. I stand up and shake my legs, wincing as they tingle. Simon does the same.
“That tasted like shit.” He stretches his arms. “But you know, I feel great.”
Kwan translates for Du Lili: “He says, Not bad.”
“So what do you call this drink, anyway?” Simon asks. “Maybe we should take some with us when we go back to the States.”
“This drink,” says Kwan, and she pauses to look at her cup with great respect, “this drink we call pickle-mouse wine, something like that. Very famous in Guilin. Taste good, also good for health. Take long time make. Ten, maybe twenty year.” She motions to Du Lili and asks her to show the bottle. Du Lili holds up the bottle and taps the red-and-white label. She passes it to Simon and me. It’s nearly empty.
“What’s this at the bottom?” Simon asks.
“Mouse,” says Kwan. “That’s why call pickle-mouse wine.”
“What is it really?”
“You look.” Kwan points to the bottom of the bottle. “Mouse.”
We look. We see something gray. With a tail. Somewhere in my brain I know I should retch. But instead, Simon and I look at each other and we both start laughing. And then we can’t stop. We laugh until we choke, clutching our aching stomachs.
“Why are we laughing?” Simon is panting.
“We must be drunk.”
“You know, I don’t feel drunk. I feel, well, happy to be alive.”
“Me too. Hey, look at those stars. Don’t they seem bigger? Not just brighter, but bigger? I feel like I’m shrinking and everything else is getting bigger.”
“You see like tiny mouse,” Kwan says.
Simon points to the shadows of mountains jutting above the courtyard wall. “And those,” he says. “The peaks. They’re huge.”
We stare in silence at the mountains, and then Kwan nudges me. “Now maybe you see dragon,” she says. “Two side-by-side dragon. Yes?”
I squint hard. Kwan grabs my shoulders and repositions me. “Squeeze-close eyes,” she orders. “Sweep from mind American ideas. Think Chinese. Make you mind like dreaming. Two dragon, one male, one female.”
I open my eyes. It’s as though I’m viewing the past as the foreground, the present as a faraway dream. “The peaks going up and down,” I say, tracing in the air, “those are their two spines, right? And the way the two front peaks taper into those mounds, those are their two heads, with the valley tucked between their two snouts.”
Kwan pats my arm, as if I were a student who has recited her geography lessons well. “Some people think, ‘Oh, village sit right next to dragon mouth—what bad feng shui, no harmony.’ But to my way thinking, all depend what type dragon. These two dragon very loyal, good chi—how you say in English, good chi?”
“Good vibes,” I say.
“Yes-yes, good vibe.” She translates for Du Lili what we are talking about.
Du Lili breaks into a huge grin. She chatters something in Changmian and starts humming: “Daaa, dee-da-da.”
Kwan sings back: “Dee, da-da-da.” Then to us she says, “Okay-okay. Simon, Libby-ah, sit back down. Du Lili say I should tell you dragon love-story.” We’re like kindergartners around a campfire. Even Du Lili is leaning forward.
“This the story,” Kwan begins, and Du Lili smiles, as if she understood English. “Long time ago two black dragon, husband and wife, live below ground near Changmian. Every springtime, wake up, rise from earth like mountain. Outside, these two dragon look like human person, only black skin, also very strong. In one day, two together can dig ditch all around village. Water run down mountain, caught in ditch. That way, no rain come, doesn’t matter, plenty for grow plants. Libby-ah, what you call this kind watering, flow by itself?”
“Irrigation.”
“Yes-yes. What Libby-ah say, irritation—”
“Irrigation.”
“Yes-yes, irrigationing, they make this for whole village. So everybody love these two black dragon people. Every year throw big feast, celebrate them. But one day, Water God, real low-level typ
e, he get mad—‘Hey, somebody took water from my river, not asking permission.’ ”
“Darn.” Simon snaps his fingers. “Water rights. It’s always water rights.”
“Yes-yes. So big fight, back and forth. Later Water God hire some wild people from other tribe, not our village, somewhere else, far away. Maybe Hawaii.” She elbows Simon. “Hey. Joke, I just joke! Not Hawaii. I don’t know where from. Okay, so people use arrow, kill dragon man and woman, pierce their body all over every place. Before die, crawl back inside earth, turn into dragon. See! Those two backs now look-alike six peaks. And where arrows gone in, make ten thousand cave, all twist together, lead one heart. Now when rain come, water flow through mountain, pour through holes, just like tears, can’t stop running down. Reach bottom—flood! Every year do this.”
Simon frowns. “I don’t get it. If there’s a flood every year, what’s the good chi?”
“Tst! Flood not big flood. Only little flood. Just enough wash floor clean. In my lifetime, only one bad flood, one long drought. So pretty good luck.”
I could remind her that she lived in Changmian for only eighteen years before moving to America. But why ruin her story and our good time? “What about the Water God?” I ask.
“Oh, that river—no longer. Flood wash him away!”
Simon claps and whistles, startling Du Lili out of her doze. “The happy ending. All right!” Du Lili stands up and stretches, then begins clearing away the remnants of our chicken feast. When I try to help, she pushes me down.
“So who told you that story?” I ask Kwan.
She’s placing more twigs on top of the fire. “All Changmian people know. For five thousand year, every mother singing this story to little children, song call ‘Two Dragon.’ ”
“Five thousand years? How do you know that? It couldn’t be written down anywhere.”
“I know, because—well, I tell you something, secret. Between two dragon, in small valley after this one, locate small cave. And this little cave lead to other cave, so big you can’t believe almost. And inside that big cave—lake, big enough for boat ride! Water so beautiful you never seen, turquoise and gold. Deep, glowing too! You forget bring lamp, you still see entire ancient village by lakeside—”
“Village?” Simon comes over. “You mean a real village?”
I want to tell him it’s another one of Kwan’s stories, but I can’t catch his eye.
Kwan is pleased by his excitement. “Yes-yes, ancient village. How old, don’t know exact. But stone house still standing. No roof, but wall, little doorway to crawl inside. And inside—”
“Wait a second,” Simon interrupts. “You’ve been in this cave, you’ve seen this village?”
Kwan goes on rather cockily: “Course. And inside stone house, many thing, stone chair, stone table, stone bucket with handle, two dragon carve on top. You see—two dragon! That story same age stone village. Maybe older, maybe five thousand year not right. Maybe more like ten thousand. Who know how old for sure.”
A prickle of goose bumps rises along my back. Maybe she’s talking about a different cave. “How many people have been to this village?” I ask.
“How many? Oh, don’t know exact amount. House very small. Not too many people can live there one time.”
“No, what I mean is, do people go there now?”
“Now? No, don’t think so. Too scared.”
“Because—”
“Oh, you don’t want know.”
“Come on, Kwan.”
“Okay-okay! But you get scared, not my fault.”
Simon leans against the water pump. “Go ahead.”
Kwan takes a deep breath. “Some people say, you go inside, not just this cave, any cave this valley, never come back.” She hesitates, then adds: “Except as ghost.” She checks us for a reaction. I smile. Simon is transfixed.
“Oh, I get it.” I try again to catch Simon’s attention. “This is the Changmian curse that man mentioned yesterday.”
Simon is pacing. “God! If this is true . . .”
Kwan smiles. “You think true, I’m ghost?”
“Ghost?” Simon laughs. “No, no! I meant the part about the cave itself—if that’s true.”
“Course, true. I already telling you, I see so myself.”
“I’m only asking because I read somewhere, what was it? . . . I remember now. It was in the guidebook, something about a cave with Stone Age dwellings inside. Olivia, did you read about that?”
I shake my head. And now I’m wondering if I’ve taken Kwan’s story about Nunumu and Yiban too skeptically. “You think this is the cave?”
“No, that’s some big tourist attraction closer to Guilin. But the book said that this mountain area is so riddled with caves there are probably thousands no one’s ever seen before.”
“And the cave Kwan’s talking about might be another—”
“Wouldn’t that be incredible?” Simon turns to Kwan. “So you think no one else has been there before?”
Kwan frowns. “No-no. I not saying this. Lots people been.”
Simon’s face falls. He rolls his eyes. Oh well.
“But now all dead,” Kwan adds.
“Whoa.” Simon holds up his hand, stop sign–like. “Let’s see if we can get this straight.” He starts pacing again. “What you’re telling us is, no one living knows about the cave. Except you, of course.” He waits for Kwan to confirm what he’s said so far.
“No-no. Changmian people know. Just don’t know where locate.”
“Ah!” He slowly walks around us. “No one knows where the cave is located. But they know about the cave.”
“Course. Many Changmian stories concerning this. Many.”
“For example.” He motions for Kwan to take the floor.
She furrows her brow and crinkles her nose, as if searching through her extensive repository of ghost stories, all of them secrets we would be sworn never to reveal. “Most famous ones,” she says after this pause, “always concerning foreigner. When they die cause so much trouble!”
Simon nods sympathetically.
“Okay, one story go like this. This happen maybe one hundred year ago. So I didn’t see, only hear Changmian people talk. Concerning four missionaries, come from England, riding in little wagons, big umbrella on top, just two mule in front pulling those fat people. Hot day too. Jump out two Bible ladies, one young and nervous, one old and bossy, also two men, one has beard, other one, oh, so fat no one from our village can believe. And these foreigners, they wearing Chinese clothes—yes!— but still look strange. Fat man, he speak Chinese, little bit, but very hard understanding him. He say something like, ‘Can we do picnic here?’ Everybody say, ‘Welcome-welcome.’ So they eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, so much food.”
I interrupt Kwan. “You’re talking about Pastor Amen?”
“No-no. Entirely different people. I already told you, didn’t see, only hear. Anyway, after they done eating, fat man ask, ‘Hey, we hear you have famous cave, ancient city inside. You show us?’ Everybody make excuse: ‘Oh, too far. Too busy. Nothing see.’ So old Bible lady, she hold up pencil—‘Whoever want it, take me see cave, you can have!’ Those days, long time ago, our people never yet seen pencil—writing brush, course, but pencil, no. Course, probably Chinese people invent pencil, we invent so many things—gunpowder but not for killing, noodle too. Italian people always say they invent noodle—not true, only copy Chinese from Marco Polo time. Also, Chinese people invent zero for number. Before zero, people don’t know have nothing. Now everybody have zero.” Kwan laughs at her own joke. “ . . . What I saying before?”
“You were talking about the Bible lady with the pencil.”
“Ah, yes. In our poor village, no one seen pencil. Bible lady, she show them can make mark just like that, no need mixing ink. One young man, family name Hong—he always dreaming he better than you—he took that pencil. Today, his family still have, on altar table, same pencil cost his life.” Kwan crosses her arms, as if to suggest pencil greedin
ess deserved death.
Simon picks up a twig. “Wait a minute. We’re missing something here. What happened to the missionaries?”
“Never come back.”
“Maybe they went home,” I reason. “Nobody saw them leave.”
“That young man also don’t come back.”
“Maybe he became a Christian and joined the missionaries.”
Kwan gives me a doubtful look. “Why someone do that? Also, why those missionaries don’t take their wagons, their mules? Why Bible church later send all kinds foreign soldiers searching for them? Causing so much trouble, knock on this door, that door—‘What happen? You don’t tell us what, burn you down.’ Pretty soon, everybody got same idea, they say, ‘Oh, so sad, bandits, that’s what.’ And now, today, everyone still know this story. If someone acting like better than you, you say, ‘Huh! You don’t watch, maybe you later turn into pencil man.’ ”
“Hear that?” I poke Simon.
Kwan sits up straight and cocks her ear toward the mountains. “Ah, you hear?”
“What?” Simon and I say at the same time.
“Singing. Yin people singing.”
We fall quiet. After a few moments, I hear a slight whishing sound. “Sounds like wind to me.”
“Yes! To most people, just wind—wu! wu!—blow through cave. But you have big regret, then hear yin people calling you, ‘Come here, come here.’ You grow more sad, they sing more louder: ‘Hurry! Hurry!’ You go see inside, oh, they so happy. Now you take someone place, they can leave. Then they fly to Yin World, peace at last.”
“Sort of a tag-you’re-it kind of place,” Simon adds.
I pretend to laugh, but I’m bothered. Why does Kwan have so many stories about switching places with dead people?
Kwan turns to me. “So now you know why village name become Changmian. Chang mean ‘sing,’ mian mean ‘silk,’ something soft but go on forever like thread. Soft song, never ending. But some people pronounce ‘Changmian’ other way, rising tone change to falling, like this: Chang. This way chang mean ‘long,’ mian mean ‘sleep.’ Long Sleep. Now you understand?”