by Rodney Hall
Such was his life as an escapee back in 1838 when he was young and without the least remorse.
And we came to know him as a moody dog, at home yet not at home, shut away inside himself, crowded in by that infernal racket of his own making. Inevitably, for dreadful moments at a time, rends must happen in the web of sound he has created for protection and then no doubt his memories of Myall Creek leap to life. Yes, heart crying out at the pain, for he has a heart or he would not be in hiding. Doubtless the silence reminds him, too, of those companions hanged—the first Englishmen to be condemned by English law for such murders—and those spared the hangman led away in chains, even while he, John Fleming, the only freeborn murderer among them, protected by settlers of his own class, and the one to get off, got out. Young still at the time. Free still. Think of it! Free!
It is the fearful peculiarity of his condition that, at any hour of his life, he must anticipate discovery, and at any opening of the door or pull of the bell at your garden gate, or any delivery of a letter (such as this) aware that his secret may take air and fire and explode in his face. Such is his life of safety!
As soon as I am able I shall bring the documents so far to hand, though there is nothing to be got from them but sorrow. Then, you should be warned, I shall pass the whole matter over to you. I most earnestly entreat and beg you to decide, by that juncture, what shall be done.
Till my return, your faithful cousin,
Rupert.
Li River
Broad and tranquil, the Li River meanders among a cluster of mountains jutting up from the plain. Wisps of early fog having briefly veiled river and rice paddies rise, fray and evaporate to disclose pinnacles so spectacular one might be excused for objecting that such exaggerated shapes belong only in ink-and-brush drawings by Chinese masters of a bygone age. Yet here is where the hired motor barge unarguably glides through the hazy sunshine of a new day, its wake gently belatedly breaking as scrolls of old gold along either bank at the rim of a landscape perpetually closing in—as witnessed by our film crew gathered on deck—hundreds upon hundreds of rocky crags crowding to the banks so that, at each bend ahead, the bright banner of water unfurls to open out an ever-kaleidoscoping vista of cliffs crowned with vegetation. Copses of motionless trees, buds breaking open, the mountains growing taller as they are looked at, air a weir of light and the clouds like great white rocks sailing above the drift of the current as it moves through their dark shadows. Momentarily there seems not enough air to breathe. Then suddenly canyons rupture and the stone clouds roll apart for a storm of light to break loose over everything. Nor do the mountains just stand where they are: they move, too, each on its own majestic turntable.
The awestruck cast (and even a few jaded stars) point out lonely shrines, picturesque hovels. Half-submerged water buffalo, snorting as they bask in the cool, wallow under sheets of silk among the inverted peaks. Then, on its leisurely progress toward the sea and in the certainty of brightness, the river unrolls the ancient city of Guilin for our inspection, only to let it pass, unstopped at.
Without doubt this film, a period piece featuring missionary nuns, a courageous doctor and his alienated wife, is going to have to measure up to distractingly gorgeous visuals. The location the scout negotiates has the whole crew buzzing: a timber house overlooking an expanse of water that curves to the right around a tongue of flat land raked with lines of rice and outlined by a deeply shadowed band of forest beyond. The finishing touch is a paid fisherman already in position down there, seated in his skiff, tame cormorant perched on the prow—a throttle round its throat to prevent swallowing what it catches—all mirrored by the stillness.
The first shoot is soon set up. The director, choosing to begin with a simple wordless episode from late in the story, explains that to have this in the can will set the tone for everything else. It’s a scene where the heroine experiences an epiphany: in a flash of inspiration she knows she must put the past behind her and accept that, as yet, there is no future. She must live in the present … the terrifying present of a cholera epidemic. Last-minute adjustments are made to the original 1920s frock she wears. And the make-up people improve details of flushed cheeks and perspiration appropriate for a hotter day than nature provides.
‘She walks across the verandah. So, at the rail,’ the director explains to our new young star and she nods a trifle nervously, making her own final check of the skirt with its tasselled sash, ‘at the rail she gazes down on the river. She gazes down on the reflected mountains—no, try it with your body half-turned that way—yes, lovely—perfect. She knows about the fatal disease emptying the fields of labourers, a tragedy’ yes, good—she can see dead bodies stretched out at the water’s edge—good, yes, though she’s perhaps more troubled by the sight, do you think?—horror—hands, yes, because a sense of foreboding—desperately afraid, afraid, afraid of the plague, afraid the frightened peasants might soon resort to violence—they are superstitious—blaming foreigners like her for the agony their families are suffering’she faces the fact that she may have only these few minutes of safety left, up here above the village—perfect. And again—just like that. Roll cameras. Action.’
‘What the fuck!’ shouts a nearby voice and an echo of similar protests ripples through the crew distributed about the location.
The director himself stares at his monitor screen in disbelief. Slap bang in centre frame, impertinently upright on the dirt track traversing our empty rice field on the other side of the river, just where his young star’s gaze is directed, two men have appeared from nowhere. Chinese. Some sort of locals. Our plague-emptied middle distance ruined.
‘Where did those guys come from?’ people ask and spread empty hands to demonstrate innocence of blame. Already runners are on their way down the slope, waving and calling out across the water. They signal wildly and bellow through megaphones. But no amount of fuss seems to attract the attention of the intruders, an old man and a young man, who continue strolling together, deep in conversation. The old one, dressed in baggy peasant pants, loose shirt and conical wicker hat pauses; so the young one, a workman perhaps, in jeans and t-shirt much like anybody, must also pause. All available members of the film crew, jumping about like rabbits, now try to attract the attention of the fisherman, mid-stream in a skiff with his dreaming bird, for him to pass the message on. But he has been paid good money on condition he takes no notice of anything, however weird. Whatever may happen, we ourselves told him, he and his cormorant must fish all day regardless. Dedicated to the task in hand, he turns out to be a man of his word. He hears but does not hear our interpreter beg him to row over to the other side and pass word to the trespassers at present ruining the shot.
*
Master and disciple, having observed a commotion on the far bank of the river and noted with surprise the absence of passing tourist boats, stand contemplating the scene in all its splendour. The remote babble of the foreigners, waiguoren, with big cameras on cranes and vehicles parked at odd angles is amusing in its way. Side by side they move in stillness, knowing each other so well. Their destiny has led them here to the white radiance of understanding, which is where they must part. Time suspended. The young one frames a question in mind. The question takes the shape of years of patient study, a question which, even as he asks, is heard—though never actually spoken.
Disciple’s thought: So finally, master, as we go our different ways, what is the Dao?
Master’s thought: This is the secret of secrets. I can only tell you if you have conquered your enslavement to the illusions of the temporal world.
Disciple’s thought: I have already conquered my enslavement to the illusions of the temporal world.
Master’s thought: And because the Dao is indeed the secret of secrets I can only tell you when you have mastered all the words in all the languages of the world.
They stand in that old gold hazy stillness of knowing. The remote gesticulation of the film crew ceases to exist. The fisherman, his cormorant and s
kiff (and the reflection of the fisherman with his cormorant and skiff) cease to exist.
Disciple’s thought: I have mastered all the words in all the languages of the world. I am ready to hear.
Master’s thought: Then I have already told you.
Book burial
The East is dark. Far beneath the cruising aircraft lies a sleeping land that mirrors the stars. The dark land a web of sparkling lights. Seen from above it shows itself as the stilled slice of everything. No one can say what it isn’t. But what it is is a time-form, complete in all respects, this eternal now. For the illuminated roads connect a lacework of empty towns even beyond the curve of earth. The East is dark. The relentless clock changes its evidence: 2:45 am. Another timeframe: 2:46 am. Another: 2:47 am. Each complete and never to occur again.
Down on the ground it is simply night. Dull ordinary night. Dust puffs up higher than the houses. Up into the dark. Gasoline fumes clog the invisible air. On the ground it is not at all like a mirror of the stars. It is dark and choked with the foul-smelling dust. For those awake, the night is simply night. Though some awake have work to do. Big trucks give off the fumes and kick up the dust. Their headlamps cluster here and there around appointed garbage dumps, around abandoned gullies and handy bomb craters left over from that old war so disastrously lost. Headlamps cluster where men work through the night in the dust, busy round a hundred pits, craters and dumps all across the landscape. Huge holes already half full of books. Which is why there are arc lamps too. The lamps glare down into the gaping earth. Also why bulldozers wait at night’s rim. Each with a driver whose orders are to stand by till the last truck backs out and then move in to complete the earthmoving. That’s what he has been told. There is plenty to do, with millions more books on their way. Soon to be delivered. Who ever thought there could be so many? Most of them, when you get a good look, new. A slagheap of books with glossy covers. Books scheduled to be buried in the vast grave of garbage dumps. Each minute ticking over is some writer’s last. And sure enough long lines of heavy vehicles arrive full and depart empty. The East is dark. Gasoline fumes clog the air. Waiting holes yawn up at the night sky. Each hole the centre of converging headlamps. High overhead an aircraft roars away in the distance. It has a long way to go. The country is big.
And there is one, an old man of twenty. He is so thin and so pale and so blue, leaning on the rake he has been issued. Grasping the rake with moon-pale hands. He asks: ‘Is this us? Are we doing this?’ Another man with the same brand of rake does not reply, looking at him as if he’s crazy. And the world turns for the next minute to pass. ‘Get on with it,’ he growls at last, ‘we’ve got this job here, haven’t we?’ And they use their rakes to scrape up any books that land on the rim and push them in. ‘But, I mean,’ says the old man of twenty, ‘is this what we must do from now on?’ His arms are thin. Deep shadows haunt his eyes. ‘The wall is a thing of the past,’ the other says, ‘that should be enough. And me and you … we’re getting paid to work.’ They rake some more. Little clouds of breath escaping into the long November night. The old-young man, so pale and blue, admits, ‘I suppose it’s one big party!’
The East is dark. An aircraft cruises high above a web of sparkling lights. The sleeping land a peaceful mirror of the stars. Empty towns and roads lie on the land as lacework. Everything down there is now. Nowhere left out. The clock stealthily changes evidence: 3:51 am. Another timeframe: 3:53 am. At an army base away in the west the ferment of urgency is alive with officers consulting maps. A task to be done. A plan to coordinate. The supervision of a thousand commandeered trucks’ the entire military fleet plus every available small-time van and empty semi-trailer—to be driven across the border through the dead of night. Secrecy essential. A newly liberated populace to be freed from doubt. By order. The atmosphere is cheerful.
Down on the ground it is simply night. Each truck, a link in the grand design, connecting two fixed points: a bookshop, a dump. Radio contact crackles repeated warnings of the deadline. Police coordinate to keep the roadways clear. The scale absolute. The sense of holiday infectious. In all directions for a hundred thousand square kilometres the intersections are kept clear. The operation proceeds. To bury an idea, nothing less tremendous than that. A bloodless coup. Secrecy essential for success. Every book on sale to be struck down before the new day dawns, cleared from mind, irretrievable as passing time and altogether buried under cover of night. Every last one taken out. The cleansing absolute with no exceptions. For nothing escapes history. The eradication of history itself being history. And the death of an idea implicit in the idea. The greatness of an idea its doom.
All Europe sleeps. Except booksellers living above their premises, who hear the lock burst and the downstairs door being smashed, who stand at the top of the stairs still in their dressing-gowns, speechless, shocked and helpless while workmen swarm in among the shelves—some with uniforms and insignia, others local garbage guys. Neighbours on either side lie low in bed, with no idea what’s going on, thanking their lucky stars that they are not the ones in trouble. They do not have a bookshop. But here the frightened owners in their night clothes stand at the top of the stairs and watch intruders armed with axes and crowbars trundling skips, pushing makeshift trolleys and wheelbarrows and tipping the stock off the shelves. Clearing out every book that can be found. No time for exceptions. Carting the books off to a truck in the street. With them goes the breathable air. Leaving only dust. Dust, wrecked shelves and homeless communities of silverfish. Then the trespassers tramp back to nail up the smashed door in case there may be money on the premises, furnishings—temptations of whatever sort. Looting and theft by amateurs on no account condoned. Through the letterbox they post an open letter promising an Owners’ Compensation Package to include fresh basic stock (approved titles) but not before the purpose is accomplished and the idea buried.
The truck waits at the door. Motor idling. At last the driver can get going. He clashes his gears and rumbles away along the long long road, the long lonely road of witnessing streetlamps, toward the designated crater or the tip with its bulldozer parked beside a ready heap of soil. The driver on his radio reports position and progress. Police cars are at the intersections of the long and empty road. Lights lights lights passing, their square reflections peeling off his windscreen as he drives. Books heaped in the back joggle soundlessly. In the dark. Soundless along the empty road and around the empty turnings. Books joggle right behind the driver who drives them through the empty night. To their destruction. And now he meets another truck. There are two trucks on the long long road. Three. And now a van. Ahead he sees the arc lights of the garbage dump. Cheerful police wave him through. Not a hitch. Smooth as surgery the books arrive. This is how it is. Dust puffs up at the dump. Foul-smelling dust. He swings his vehicle to join the glare of headlights shafting through the dust-smothered night, greeted by the thunder of revving bulldozers.
The old man of twenty, blue and thin with moon-pale hands, rakes at any books that land on the rim, pushing the last few into the hole. ‘What about them who give the orders?’ he says. ‘Do they know why we’re doing this?’ The other growls, ‘Of course they do. The guys with power know.’ He rakes some more to safely bury them. ‘But do they?’ asks the one with a rake in his moon-pale hands because it’s hard even to believe in his own life having a reason. And, if he were more used to voicing doubts he might well add, ‘What if this is all for nothing?’ But he does not have the habit. And nor does he have a reason really. Just that books don’t seem to him the right thing for bulldozers to bury.
Instead he surprises himself with two completely different thoughts. One thought he speaks out loud. ‘Of course, this is what we’ve all been praying for.’ The other thought he keeps to himself. And he looks round him at the dust-choked night, at the dump where he works, in case somewhere in the wreckage he himself might catch a glimpse of certainty, just a glimpse. ‘There’s something wrong,’ he nearly says out loud but thinks the better of it
just in time. All with no idea where these books are coming from or why they must be buried. Nothing of bookshops gutted of books and boarded up. Nor that an officer at army headquarters repeats the order that this fact must not, repeat not, be reported in the press. That is the point.
Let the country sleep undisturbed and wake to just another day of joyful reunions. Forget the fact that all across the sleeping land are bookshops with shattered doors and gaping shelves, bookshops boarded up by the very men who broke them down. The men who post an open letter through the smashed letterbox. The freight of dust boarded up. Hammers poised in the frozen moment of 4:08 am. The job done. 4:11 am. Pits and dumps filled before daybreak. Everyone paid overtime.
The East is dark. Seen from above and numerous as stars, sparkling lights converge on craters in the ground. Nothing will serve but burial. Burning, though that tradition goes way back, is known to take too long. And people are persistent when it comes to harbouring their prejudices … otherwise known as hopes. Lights mirror the stars. Liberation from doubt to be delivered on the doorstep by morning. Welcome to the Free World.