The Incarnations

by Susan Barker

  At dusk the Mongols stop and rest. They drink fermented yak’s milk by firelight as captured Jurchen jugglers and acrobats perform for them. The Mongols laugh and jeer, but never applaud.

  ‘I can’t walk another step. My knees are aching. My heels are weeping blisters. I am dying of thirst. I’ve not had a sip of water all day . . .’

  Gem-cutter Hu is at the age when humans start to shrink, when the spine buckles and the skin wrinkles and grows slack. He bends over his staff as he grumbles, his hair white and his eyes nearsighted from a lifetime of squinting at precious gems through a magnifying lens. Someone tells the gem-cutter that water-drinking time is near. Master Hu scoffs, ‘Ha! There’s just spittle in that flask by the time it gets to me. I’ll drop dead of thirst in no time, just you wait and see . . .’

  It’s drizzling and the thousands of hooves and wheels ahead of us have trampled the grasslands to mud that squelches through our shoes and splatters our legs. Staggering by my side, you look daggers at Master Hu. The old man brays on: ‘The Mongols ought not to treat us this way. Don’t these ignorant barbarians know who we are? They are marching us to our deaths. Won’t be long until I fall down and they cut my throat . . .’

  ‘Good,’ you mutter. ‘Fall down dead and spare our ears your whinging.’

  Master Hu spins round, squinting accusingly. ‘Who said that? The Tiger Boy? The boy with the branded face? You donkey’s afterbirth! How dare you speak to me like that? You are not one of us. You should have been killed in Zhongdu.’

  Shut up now, Tiger, I think. But you laugh in Master Hu’s face.

  ‘I heard you kept slaves in Zhongdu,’ you say. ‘I heard you beat them, and when they ran away, you caught them and cut off their ears. I heard you imprisoned your slaves in your cellar during the famine. Then you cooked and ate them, one by one.’

  Master Hu wheezes as though his heart has seized up.

  ‘If the Mongols slash your throat, Master Hu,’ you say calmly, ‘then that will be less than what you deserve.’

  Gem-cutter Hu shakes his crooked staff at you. ‘You are a liar and imposter! You are not Glassblower Hua! I knew Master Hua, and you are not him. I will tell the Mongols about you!’

  ‘Tell, and I’ll wring your neck.’

  ‘Not if I beat you to death with a rock first!’ hisses Swordmaker Fu.

  You laugh at the swordmaker. ‘And then will you eat me? Like you ate your own son?’

  The herd of old men turns on you. ‘Shut that evil Tiger mouth!’ they curse. ‘Imposter!’ ‘Lowbreed mongrel!’

  You open your mouth, to lash your tongue once more, but I grab you and say, ‘Tiger. Shut up.’

  You shut your mouth, but your eyes are amused. You won’t be civil to men for whom you have nothing but contempt. You let that be known.

  Every slave dreams of escape. Some daring souls flee into the northern wilderness, only to be shot down by Mongol arrows. Two Jurchen princes gallop away one night on stolen mares, only to be recaptured, rolled up in blankets and kicked to death (for the Mongols are superstitious about spilling the blood of royalty on the ground). Suicide is the means of escape for some. They weigh their tunic pockets down with stones and hurl themselves into fast-flowing rivers. Or they goad the Mongols into losing their tempers and beating them to death, and die smiling and satisfied.

  Puppetmaker Xia, whose beloved Concubine Sparrow is now a girl slave, is the most suicidal of our herd: ‘After the famine stole my wife and sons away, I prayed to the Lord Buddha to spare Concubine Sparrow. But now I regret that Concubine Sparrow did not die in the famine too, for death would have spared her the yoke of the Mongols.’

  The puppetmaker calls for Concubine Sparrow in his sleep, ordering her to bring his slippers and draw his bath, then wakes distraught because she isn’t there. One evening, when the Mongols are setting up camp, he sees Concubine Sparrow crouched behind the hindquarters of a cow, shovelling dung into a bucket. He stumbles over to her.

  ‘Sparrow,’ he calls. ‘Come here, my love . . .’

  But before the concubine hears Master Xia, a Mongol warrior strolls up behind her and drags her up by the hair. The bucket rolls sideways and the look on Concubine Sparrow’s face is one of weary resignation as the Mongol throws her over his shoulder like a rolled-up Persian rug and saunters into a yurt. Puppetmaker Xia turns pale as his own ghost.

  ‘How can she betray me like this?’ he cries. ‘I should’ve carved up her pretty face whilst I had the chance . . .’

  The puppetmaker reaches for the nearest rock and dashes the sharp, jagged edge across his wrist, over and over, drawing blood. Other slaves rush over to restrain him, grappling the wrist-cutting stone from his suicidal grip. It is a pitiful and tragic sight, but when I look at you, you are shaking with laughter, your eyes creased up.

  It’s just like you, Tiger, to find the humour in the bleakest of scenes.

  When the night is clear and starry constellations are scattered across the sky, the slaves sleep deeply as a battlefield of slain men. I lay behind you in the dark and breathe in your rankness, my heart thudding against your spine. My fingers count your ribs. They explore your bones, protruding under your stretched-taut skin. Your hip bones, your sacrum, your shoulder blades like wings. I reach down to your groin and stroke you to life. Slowly. Cautiously. One ear listening out. I clench my fist around your stiffness, and your breathing quickens as I draw it back and forth. After your warm, sticky release, I lick my hand clean. Then I bury my face in your wild, stinking hair and hold you. To hold you is to be at one with you. To be at one with the starry cosmos of ancient Gods above. As I hold you I will the night never to end. For our oneness fades with the disappearing stars. And by daylight you are other again.

  As the Mongol juggernaut moves north the grasslands become sparse and wither away. The earth becomes bone dry and rocks burn under our bare feet. The Mongols raid and lay waste to nearby villages. They steal two hundred head of camel and thousands of leak-proof barrels and leather casks. At the lake at Dolon Nor every barrel and cask is filled to the brim. The Mongol juggernaut splits up. Most of the caravan, Genghis Khan and the seventy thousand horseback warriors, journey to the west, to battle and conquer other lands. One hundred slave-drivers and a thousand Jurchen slaves trudge with the camels up to the north. You and I are amongst those bound for Karakarhoum.

  ‘Are we in Mongolia yet?’ I ask you.

  ‘After we cross the desert we will be in Mongolia,’ you say.

  ‘What desert?’

  ‘The Gobi, you fool.’

  The Wilderness of Stone

  The Gobi is a furnace of burning rocks, dry and monotonous and flat. We journey for a day without seeing a plant or a tree. We journey for a day and encounter nothing more than the scattered, sun-bleached bones of perished animals. The sun above the Gobi is swollen, brighter and fiercer than the ordinary sun. The Gobi sun blazes as though it wants to incinerate every living creature from the earth.

  The scorching winds are strong enough to knock you from your feet and make walking near impossible. But walk is all we do. We shroud our faces against the sand gusting from the western dunes with strips torn from our robes, and our eyes are gritty and red. The horseback Mongols are as stupefied by the heat as those on foot. The creaking of axles and wheels, snorting camels and our dragging feet are the only sounds. At dawn and noon and dusk we are allowed a few swallows of water from a leather flask. Ossified inside and out, we dream of water. We dream of an overcast sky. We dream of the shade of a single tree.

  At night in the Gobi the temperature plummets and we shudder with cold. We Jurchens don’t have slave girls and coats of animal skins to keep us warm like the Mongols do, so we huddle together on the scorpion-scuttling earth, skin against parchment-dry skin. Our tusk-like collar bones and hips knock together as we sleep, and we wake in the morning aching and bruised.

  The Puppetmaker

  On the second day of staggering through the Gobi, many slaves keel over, and even afte
r Mongol whips have criss-crossed their backs with deep, bleeding welts, don’t stand up. They are left for the razor-sharp beaks and claws of the carrion-eating birds.

  Our herd limps on, our robes the colour of dust, our bloodshot eyes dull and wretched with suffering. The one exception is Puppetmaker Xia, who has turned strange in the heat. As we drag our feet as though in heavy iron shackles, Master Xia swings his limbs like one of his own puppets, jerked by strings. His eyes are shining, aberrant and rapt. His rag has slipped loose from a wide grin that looks carved upon his face. The puppetmaker laughs, then says in a spirited voice, ‘My friends, I have an announcement to make!’

  We ignore him. Our shadows stretch out behind us, as though longing to break free of us and go back the way we came.

  ‘Concubine Sparrow is with child!’ Master Xia cries. ‘I saw her this morning. Her belly was swollen and she waddled as expectant women do. I am going to be a father!’

  The puppetmaker and bleak reality have parted company, and no one squanders breath on speaking to him. Most of the herd stopped speaking days ago anyway.

  ‘My sons died in the famine,’ Master Xia continues, ‘and I feared that there would be no heir to continue the Xia family line. But now another Xia is on the way . . .’

  Puppetmaker Xia witters on and on about his ‘son and heir’ and the herd ignore him. But you grind your teeth in irritation. You can’t suffer fools. You can’t stand delusions and lies. You tug the shroud from your mouth and iron-branded scars, and spit, ‘If you had even half your wits about you, Master Xia, you’d stab Concubine Sparrow’s belly with a knife. For that’s a bastard Mongol child she’s carrying. Not yours.’

  The puppetmaker laughs. ‘The child is mine! I know it in my bones. The child’s a Jurchen and mine!’

  ‘Tiger, shut up . . .’ I warn.

  But you won’t shut up until you have cured Master Xia of his delusions.

  ‘Whose seed do you think is planted in her belly?’ you continue. ‘Your impotent old man’s seed? Or the seed of one of the hundreds of Mongols who raped her? Open your eyes, Master Xia!’

  The puppetmaker shakes his head. ‘No,’ he moans. ‘No no no no . . .’

  The herd turns on you. They curse you with their elderly, creaking turtle-mouths. ‘Donkey’s afterbirth!’ ‘Evil mongrel!’ ‘Should have died in Zhongdu!’ You laugh at them. You laugh as though their hatred invigorates you. You spit defiantly, ‘Master Xia must accept the child isn’t his. The child’s a bastard Mongol’s and—’

  Puppetmaker Xia leaps at you and his knuckles thud against your skull. You stumble from the blow, and I rush to Master Xia, holding him back as he flails his old man’s arms to attack you again.

  ‘The child is yours, Master Xia,’ I say anxiously. ‘We believe you! The child is yours! Tiger here was just making trouble. Ignore him.’

  Blasting sour breath in my face, the puppetmaker shouts, ‘I’ll kill you, Tiger Boy! I swear to God, I’ll kill you dead!’

  His words strike fear into my heart. But you laugh and say, ‘Go on then, Master Xia. Kill me. It won’t make that child yours.’

  Puppetmaker Xia roars and lunges for you again, and Ogre, who had been dozing in the saddle, snoring out of his axe-battered nose as his mare plods at the herd’s rear, wakes up. He lashes his whip and we all move apart. Not even the puppetmaker is mad enough to defy Ogre and his hook-ended lance.

  Our herd staggers on through the furnace of burning rocks. You shroud your face again, your remorseless eyes staring out over the rags. You don’t care about making enemies. You care only about dragging out the truth, consequences be damned.

  Night. Descent of darkness and bitter cold. Slaves huddle against the winds howling across the Gobi’s barrenness. Outcasts from the herd, you and I sleep apart from them. And as weak and thirsty as I am, I lie in your arms and go to sleep a contented man.

  Daybreak, and you are gone. Disappeared into thin air. I look around and see you a few paces away, rubbing at some overnight bruises from the hard, stony ground. Hungry, we go to a slave girl ladling gruel out of a pot, holding out our cupped hands. Soon every slave is up and slurping gruel. Except for one. A lazybones who won’t rise and shine. The slave shudders as Stone-carver Peng kicks his backside. ‘C’mon, wake up, or Ogre will whip you.’ But the man does not stir. Stone-carver Peng bends over for a closer look.

  ‘Oh, the Lord Buddha have mercy on his soul!’ he cries.

  Stone-carver Peng has some tragic news. The slave is Puppetmaker Xia, and he is not sleeping. He has been strangled and he is dead.

  The Singing Dunes

  Around noon we enter an ocean of sand, the waves not lapping at a distant shore but frozen into luminous peaks and shadowy troughs. No scorpions scuttle in the dunes, and the carrion-eating birds that stalked us all the way from Zhongdu are no longer circling and swooping overhead. Here and there rocks jut out of the sand, like the tombstones of mass graves.

  The dunes slow the Mongol caravan down. The wheels of the ox-carts get trapped in the sand and the Mongols put us slaves to work pushing the carts from the rear, as the oxen, hooves slipping, pull with ropes in front. We slaves are not very strong. Wasted by starvation and charred by the sun, we are hardly worth calling men. We are gristle and bone. We are the parts the Mongol juggernaut has spat out, the parts not good to eat.

  Onwards the Mongols and Jurchen slaves creep. The sand dunes are long and narrow, stretching for a journey of many days to the west and one day to the north. But as we toil, knee-deep in the ever-shifting sands, I fear that there’s no end in sight.

  The landscape fades in the gathering dusk, and our weary bones creak and sigh as we sink down upon the supple bed of sand. We keep apart from the herd, who glare at you, their breath fouling the air as they mutter, ‘Murderer!’ ‘Strangled the puppetmaker!’ ‘Better watch no one throttles him in the night!’ The threats make me nervous, but you aren’t scared. You turn your back on them and drift off to sleep.

  The stars are brighter in the Singing Dunes. The silvery glow of the moon is iridescent upon the waves of sand. As you sleep you become a young boy again, and your iron-branded scars no longer seem menacing, but the marks of brutality and suffering. As you sleep, I vow to protect you, and I watch the craftsmen until every last one of them is out cold. During the famine of Zhongdu they slaughtered and ate their servants. They are cannibals. They are evil through and through.

  I am drifting off to sleep when the spectral lullaby begins, nudging me back to consciousness. I sit up in the moonlight and stare about me. The singing is eerie and ethereal, and not in any language of humans but that of some other species of being. Where is the singing coming from? I listen and listen until it becomes apparent. The singing is coming from within the sand. I shake you awake.

  ‘What is it, Turnip?’ you say groggily.

  ‘Listen, Tiger! The sand is singing!’

  You listen.

  ‘I don’t hear a thing,’ you say, and go back to sleep.

  I look around the dunes. The herds of Jurchen slaves are dead to the world, starved limbs as white as bones under the pale moonlight. The Mongols watching over the herds, huddled under the skins of wolves and swigging koumiss from leather flasks, show no sign of hearing the strange, otherworldly song.

  I shiver in the cold night. I lie down and shut my eyes to sleep. But sleep is impossible. I can no more sleep on the dunes than on a bed of knives. I lie awake and listen to the spectral singing. I watch the sand.

  On the second day in the dunes our progress is once more sabotaged by sand, as the wheels of the ox-carts and wagons are brought to a staggering halt and the Mongols force us to toil under the broiling sun, pushing the carts up slopes and lowering them with ropes down the other side. Around noon we pass some tall and craggy rocks called the Three Wise Men. A landmark we passed the day before. Orienteers consult maps and compass needles in dismay. We are straggling in circles. Lost in the foreverness of sand.

  Tempers are frayed in
the blistering heat. At water-drinking time Stone-carver Peng drops the flask as he passes it to you, spilling precious water. You curse him for dropping it. He curses you for murdering Puppetmaker Xia. He shoves you, and you shove him back. Master Peng glares at you, his nostrils spurting rage.

  Master Peng is old and wizened and would lose if he fought you on his own. But Master Peng is not on his own. The herd of shuffling, elderly slaves surrounds you. ‘Shame on you!’ they cry. ‘Shame on you for murdering Puppetmaker Xia!’ Ogre is standing with his brethren by a snorting camel, swigging water from a leather flask. Whip them, Ogre! I think. But Ogre watches with a lazy smirk as his herd turns on one of their own. Though the craftsmen are weak from marching to the brink of death, mob outrage lends them strength. They close in on you, stabbing you with their gnarled old men’s fingers. ‘Shame on you!’ ‘Brute!’ ‘We’ll beat you till there’s nothing left to bury!’ You laugh at first, at the stabbing fingers and threats of the white-haired old men. Then your face darkens as they begin to strike you. Thud. Thud. Thud. You struggle to fend off their blows

  My heart beating wildly, I run into the fray. ‘Leave him be!’ I shout, as I am beaten by their fists. ‘Leave him be!’ I drag you out of the scrum of old men. I drag you away with all my strength, and we tumble on to the sand. Your teeth are clenched and bared, and you are glaring, keen to go back and fight. I heave myself on top of you, holding you down.

  ‘Sixteen against one,’ I say. ‘You will lose. They will beat you to death, and the Mongols won’t stop them.’

  The will to fight drains out of you, but you glower at the old men.

  ‘I’d rather die fighting,’ you hiss, ‘than let those fiends push me around.’

  Sunset. The sky is blood-coloured, as though bleeding from the Death by a Thousand Cuts. We stare at the massacre in the sky and you say, ‘The sun needs a tourniquet.’

  The Mongols are spooked. The haemorrhaging of the sky is a portent of something bad. At dusk, they gather around fires of camel dung, praying to their animistic gods for protection and tossing in handfuls of sacred dust. When the shamanistic rituals are over and the fires die out, they go into their yurts.