Wuhan

by John Fletcher

  While he dug her grave, his eldest son had continued to sit on the ground staring at his mother. Wei raised him to his feet. Together they placed her in the grave. Wei poured some of the wild pear juice gently upon her to soothe her and then filled in the grave. As he did this Eldest Son looked away. He could not watch. There was no incense to soothe her spirit, no paper money for her to spend in the afterlife.

  After Wei had buried her, he and Eldest Son drank the last of the family’s water they had carried all the way from the farm. At least it meant one of them would no longer have to carry the heavy jar. They continued to carry the spade. Not because they intended to fight off an attacker with it – neither of them had the strength to do that – but because implicitly, without discussing it, either of them might have to use it to bury the other.

  They went slowly on their way.

  *

  As they walked Wei understood that all of his energy must now be concentrated on protecting and defending Eldest Son. He had no other function in life. It was his only reason for staying alive. His wife had been exactly right, Eldest Son would not now be in this terrible situation had not he, Wei, made mistake after mistake in his life. Feeding his elder sister when she should have starved, burying her close to the ancestors, allowing Spider Girl to live, showing affection to her and interest in her which had far exceeded the attention he had paid to his Eldest Son. Listening to her advice and coming on this disastrous journey. Everything now must be about protecting Eldest Son and returning him to his farm.

  Eldest Son felt no such resolution. He was bewildered. He no longer had any idea of how to see his father. He of course owed him filial piety and his word and deeds were law, but all through life, being closest to his mother, he had seen things as she saw them. This had not meant that he hated his elder sister Spider Girl as his mother had. Eldest Son was not capable of hatred, he was affectionate with all people. But his deep love was for his mother. He knew his father loved him, but he also knew his father had murdered his younger sister Baby Girl Wei. But his mother, whose will he always followed and who he knew loved him, had murdered not just a newborn baby but had also driven away Spider Girl and murdered his sister Cherry Blossom. If his father loved him – which he did – was he now likely to murder him? Was murdering people part of loving them?

  Rather than think about this any longer, Eldest Son’s mind escaped once again – as it had ever more frequently during the journey. He remembered back to the stable on the farm. He remembered how he loved grooming and brushing the gentle donkey’s soft black coat, again and again, as Second Son fed the donkey his dried sorghum and the goat his hay. The smell of the feed and the cheese. He especially loved the smell of hay, when it was fresh cut in the field with the aroma of every wild flower in it, but even more when it had dried and was in the barn and you stuck your face amid its prickly stalks and drank in its warm smell like new made bread or warm cow’s milk. He and Second Son had had such fun. Second Son telling jokes – which Eldest Son often didn’t understand – or competing to see who could pee highest up a wall. And that warm sunlight shafting down through the dust, yellow as the hay, as the animals lowed and shifted in the straw.

  Wei was watching his beloved Eldest Son. He saw him, lost in some vision, smiling to himself, happy in these awful circumstances. These tragedies which had occurred to the family – through his fault – had resulted in perhaps one positive outcome: the problem between Eldest Son and Second Son had been solved. Eldest Son was gentle and generous and happy. But he was not a natural farmer. Second Son was quick-witted, observant, hard working. He could adapt and think and haggle. The very qualities needed to be a farmer. Always on the lookout, aware of what was happening, moving swiftly to deal with problems. Eldest Son possessed none of these qualities. The slow-moving, easy-going Eldest Son would have become, as they became adults, a constant irritant to Second Son. His lassitude, his basic disinterest in farming, would have provoked constant friction between the two every time a decision had to be made – which in farming is frequent. But Eldest Son’s opinion would always have held sway since, simply, he was the eldest son, the revered one to whom all other family members must defer, the future head of the family. Second Son’s death, awful as it had been, partly removed this problem. The family would not in the future be torn apart by rows and ill-feeling.

  But it did not solve the rest of the problem. That the sweet and loving Eldest Son would make a poor farmer. Under his stewardship the family would suffer and could even lose its land. If his wife’s fervent wish that they should return to the farm should ever come true – and Wei had grave doubts about it – then it would be important that he returned as well as his son, for his son would need encouragement and guidance from him. It would be best to marry him off quickly to a fertile wife with not too strong a character, so that Wei himself, as he grew older, could have influence over their sons – especially the eldest – and train him to become a skilful and watchful and quick-witted farmer. (Families go forwards in time as well as backwards.)

  After several hours of walking Eldest Son started to grow thirsty. At first he did not complain – but Wei saw his mouth working, his frequent rubbing of his throat, his rasping coughing. Young people have tenderer mouths than old ones. Their taste buds are more sensitive, closer to the surface of the inner skin of the mouth. So when the whole mouth and throat start to dry and parch and pull, the pain inside their delicate mouths comes more quickly, more grievously than with older folk. The sand in the air aggravated it.

  Eldest Son complained about it. Wei gave him a dried bean to suck, hoping it would act like a sucked pebble that can moisten a mouth. It helped a bit.

  ‘Cheer up, son. If you suck it long enough it will soften up so you can swallow it.’

  Eldest Son gave him a nervous smile.

  Still around them ghostly figures continued to trudge relentlessly on, not giving up, leaning forwards into the dust, determined to find some shelter where there was water, food, rest. They were living testament to the strength and endurance of the poor, their bodies whipped and hardened by a lifetime of privation and labour. With little body weight to weigh them down, they did what they had always done, kept going.

  As evening drew on Eldest Son was tiring and faltering. The dried beans had not lessened his raging thirst though he’d swallowed several. He was starting to totter and his concerned father helped him as they walked. Wei did not think of his own tiredness. He was doing what he should do, supporting his eldest son.

  Wei decided to stop for the night. Eldest Son collapsed groaning on the ground. What could he do for his eldest son apart from cover him? He offered him the only thing of value that he possessed – his own urine. He peed into the crude earthenware bowl which had somehow survived the endless journey and held the small amount of liquid gently, cradling his son’s head with his other arm, so his son could drink from it. His son liked it. The heat and stone-like dryness of his mouth moistened and started to soften again. He declared himself profoundly grateful for it.

  They both relaxed a bit, sucking on dried beans.

  ‘Father,’ Eldest Son asked tentatively, ‘I know we had to come on this journey, you told us this and Second Son’ – his voice cracked a moment as he mentioned his dead younger brother – ‘explained to me what you had said and why we must come…?’

  ‘Yes, Eldest Son?’ asked Wei.

  ‘Well, Father,’ and there was apprehension in his voice because he knew it was a cause of grievous divisions within the family, ‘what I’d like to know is, we set off on this journey, but when is it going to end?’

  ‘I do not know for certain when it will end, dear son, but somewhere there must be water and food and shelter for us.’

  ‘I have heard people on this journey – people walking close to us – saying they are going to a place called Wuhan, where there is water and food and shelter. And someday we will get there.’

  ‘Yes, beloved son, there is a place called Wuhan, and there w
e will find water and food and shelter. And we will rest there.’

  He said this to calm his son, though he had no idea what or where Wuhan was. He had never heard of the place.

  His son fell asleep. But he did not sleep long. He tossed and turned throughout the night, his dehydrating body cramping and arching in pain. His worried father lay beside him, giving him what comfort he could. Towards dawn Wei, exhausted and weary himself, fell asleep.

  He awoke to find Eldest Son gone. Disappeared.

  Tottering slightly, he got to his feet. Looked around him. Nothing. Gathering together their few meagre possessions he walked forwards in the direction they had been walking, looking from side to side, asking fellow travellers if they had seen anything. None of them had.

  He did not have far to go.

  He came across another stream bed, fetid with trodden mud and sewage, little puddles and pools of foul water lying across it. And then he saw Eldest Son, sitting on the opposite bank. And then he saw that from his mouth came brown froth, that all the front of his clothes were stained and caked with brown faeces and mud.

  Eldest Son saw him and waved happily.

  ‘Father, Father, look, I have found Wuhan. Water. Look at all the water.’

  Wei waded horrified across the foul stream.

  ‘Eldest Son, Eldest Son, what have you done?’

  ‘I have found Wuhan, Father. And as they said there is water. Drink of it yourself. We will live.’

  ‘How many times,’ shouted Wei, almost across the stream, ‘how many times have I told you not to drink from these streams?’

  ‘But it is water, Father, it saves our lives. Lean down and drink of it.’

  ‘It is not water, it is poison.’

  Scarcely had he said this when, just as he came up to his son, Eldest Son’s face and body suddenly contorted and convulsed and out of his mouth shot a stream of brown bile and he started squirming in agony upon the ground, spontaneously evacuating his bowels and what little liquid there was in his bladder. Wei grabbed him, shit and blood and all, embracing him.

  ‘Oh my son. My son,’ he cried out.

  ‘What is it, Father, what is happening?’ asked his terrified, baffled son.

  What precious little fluids that were still in Eldest Son’s dried-up body were rapidly evacuating through mouth and anus. His heart, his lungs, both robbed of the vital fluid they needed to function, catastrophically failed, his whole body shaking and cavorting in agony.

  ‘What is happening, Father, what is happening?’

  He died in his father’s arms, baffled by life until its very end.

  *

  Wei buried his eldest son, his last son, his last child. Over him, to soothe him, he poured the last of the wild pear juice and then threw the bottle away. He would keep none of it for himself. He deserved only to die. Anonymous, abandoned, accursed. No link back to the family for him. Then he threw the spade away. If anyone attacked him he would not defend himself. He had destroyed the whole Wei family. Not only the living, but, because they would no longer receive prayers and incense and money from the living, his forefathers and ancestors also.

  The last living member of the Wei family set off across the endless, unremitting plain, slowly, a few steps at a time, the dehydration in his body shrinking it so his shoulders bunched inwards and his neck hunched his head downwards. When he remembered he looked up just to check his direction was correct, as ghostly travellers continued to walk ever south. Soon he would be a real ghost himself, wandering. Perhaps he would meet Baby Girl Wei’s ghost. She would only spit at him and curse him, her teeth chattering with fear and rage.

  Gradually he slipped into a world of fear and hallucination, inhabited only by monsters and demons and half-people. A land of screaming and flame and devouring pains. But as he passed through this land of fear and terror, he came across a most upsetting scene. There was his whole family – his father, his wife, Spider Girl, Eldest Son, Cherry Blossom, Second Son, Baby Girl Wei, Baby Boy Wei, even his just born son, it was a beautiful spring day and they were all sitting on the lush green grass that grows over the graves of his ancestors, the ancient wild pear tree above them having just burst into a cloud of white and cream blossoms waving high among the cold blue skies and around his family lay food – what splendid, mouth-watering food – and drink, rich wines and beers and sweet juices, and upon the small stone altar they burnt incense and poured libations and burnt paper money and all were chattering and talking with great animation and joy to all their ancestors who had joined them from below the earth – even his elder sister who waved to him.– but he could not join them, because a demon with slavering jaws was dragging him away into…

  With a start he regained his senses. He was standing still, staring at the ground. Once more he started to plod and waver onward across the plain.

  It is not a pleasant thing to die of thirst. While the physiological processes within the body that actually cause death are centred in the increasing malfunctioning and collapse of the heart and lungs through lack of fluids, the pain itself is centred horrendously in the throat and mouth as it dries and shrinks and cements slowly into stone. A traveller can deal with extreme hunger or fatigue – there is always the hope of finally arriving somewhere where he can eat and rest. He can be totally deprived of sleep for days on end and survive, somehow, pressing on and on. But one horror cannot be borne. The parching and drying of one’s throat and mouth so that breathing becomes ever more blocked and laboured – one’s nose and throat already clogged by sand and dried phlegm – so you must cough and splutter just to avoid choking. But then it is your swelling, ever=growing tongue which proves most deadly, for it expands into an already cramped mouth, monstrous swells up, barging back and forth, blocking the throat. As he walked it increased the rolling of his tongue, the choking, so that he had to sink to his knees, lie on his side on the sand so his fat dry tongue lolled to one side of his mouth and still left enough passage for air to creep through his parched, swollen throat and mouth. All his world became his mouth, the battle between tongue and air.

  It was at this time that he was robbed of the last of his money and his few beans and much of his clothing. But he noticed nothing, so great had become the struggle within his mouth and throat. Finally he gave up moving. There was one tiny passage left between air and lungs. He relaxed, awaiting the end. There was quietness. Peace. He started to drift off, into another world. The afterlife? Then there was this voice, coming to him. From a distance. There was something strange about it. It was almost as though he recognized it. It was quite distinct. Crying something. And suddenly, with a jolt, he knew that voice. He forced his eyes open, stared about him, trying not to choke. A woman was coming towards him. She was walking in a way he knew from somewhere. It was so familiar, the roll, the sway. She came right up to him, leant over him, looked down into his face.

  ‘Oh Father,’ she said, ‘dear Father.’

  It was his eldest daughter. Spider Girl.

  13

  The old train creaks through the night. I try to sleep but the carriage is too packed with people and belongings and Pekinese dogs and my mind is too packed with terrible images and wild imaginings of what has happened to my family. I lie atop a mountain of baggage as the young boy beside me kicks me as he has a bad dream. We are all probably having bad dreams. A baby sucks greedily on its mother’s tit. Just down the carriage some men play a raucous game of cards, slapping them down on the lid of a suitcase. Somewhere someone recites poetry. The smell of humanity is close and rank and accompanied by the intimate crawling of lice and fleas.

  After about an hour I abandon any attempt to sleep, carefully rise so I do not disturb anyone, then, gingerly stepping atwixt sleeping infants and birds in cages and squeezing around people sleeping standing up and between piled and swaying luggage, I make it, by way of an overused urinal, to the dining car. It is for customers only, which means quite a lot of people are sleeping there and have to be woken every hour by the waiter s
o he can pour some lukewarm tea into their bowls and collect their payment. Every table has a close-to-death potted plant, and spittoons litter the floor.

  I sit at a table. The waiter, at a nearby table, comes over and I order some tea. When it arrives it is so cold you could freeze an ice cube in it. I pay him an exorbitant fee and then rest my head against the cool and dirty glass of the window, staring into the darkness outside. The old locomotive is wrestling with its heavy load, wheezing and snorting, great clouds of yellow smoke billowing past the window. And beyond is engulfing darkness. Black as the hobs of hell. I see the red persimmon tree in our courtyard. I see my wife sitting beneath it. My wife immediately frowns at me and reminds me I must not afford myself the luxury of thinking about her. I shake my head and look around the carriage. I notice that the waiter, when he is wakening and serving a customer with their hourly tea, will often surreptitiously remove any newspaper they appear to have finished with. He has quite a large pile of them on his table and is reading them avidly.

  I order another ‘tea’ and when he brings it ask him if he’s read any news about Jinan.

  ‘Ah, Jinan,’ he says, charging me heavily, ‘you have family there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So do I. No, there is no news from Jinan in the papers. We’ll have to wait til we get to Xuzhou and read their papers. But I did speak to the railway telegraphist at our last stop,’ he continued, sitting down opposite me. ‘He’s a friend.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘No reports of anything serious or terrible. Not like Nanking.’

  ‘Thank goodness.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agrees. ‘I live there with my old mother.’

  We both sit there for a while with our own thoughts. Are the Japanese troops there behaving better or worse than the Chinese ones?

  ‘Any news in the papers about the war?’

  The waiter brushes aside a frond of the withered potted plant and lights a cigarette.

  ‘The usual Japanese advances, I’m afraid, all across the country, but there is a disturbing report in The Great Evening News, which I normally find reliable…’