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Candle in the Attic Window

Page 26

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia


  •

  Lien dreams of women in bonnets and children in straw hats. She can’t see their faces, and their voices are strange and muffled, so that no matter how much she strains to hear their words, the sounds remain elusive. They sit in the dark, clustered around a tiny fire. Around them, the night is an empty, starless void. They are small and vulnerable, and the children are shivering in their cotton clothes, but she can’t find any blankets in the dark, and the women don’t respond when she tries to tell them the children are cold. The figures and their fire seem to grow smaller and more indistinct. Then they are simply gone and Lien is alone in darkness.

  She awakens to warmth and light, but above her is the starless void. She realizes gradually that she is not in her tent, on her cot; she is lying on hard, frozen earth, without a blanket, and her limbs are stiff with the cold. She tries to sit up and screams as pain sears through her head.

  One of her legs is immobilized. In the dim firelight, she can see that it has been splinted with slender branches. It aches dully and attempting to move it results in a sharp, grinding pain that takes her breath away. She must have broken it in the fall, she muses, though her thoughts are hard to grasp, slippery as eels.

  She wakes again later to more light and warmth, the fire having been fed and burning brightly. A few feet away, on the ground, she sees the shape of another person, lying prone. She slowly sits up, fighting pain in her head as she does, until she can make out some details.

  “Fa?” She cries, recognizing the bruised face turned toward the fire. Fa’s eyes are closed. Even though she calls his name several times, he does not wake. She fears for a moment that perhaps he’s dead, but then sees that his chest is rising and falling with slow, even breaths. His right arm and right leg have both been splinted in the same manner as hers.

  With the fire burning so brightly, Lien can at last make out her surroundings. She is ensconced in a cavern with vaulted ceilings so high they are hidden in shadow. She can’t determine which way is the entrance; she licks a finger and raises it as high as she can, hoping to feel the chill breeze coming off the mountains, but the air is still.

  Terrified and desperate, she tries to crawl around the fire to join Fa, hoping to find comfort beside her teacher. Constant pain sings in her head and every movement of her broken leg is excruciating. She is sobbing in agony by the time she reaches him. She grasps for one of his limp hands; unconsciousness swells up and over her and drags her down into darkness.

  Again, Lien dreams, but this time, there is a pale man at her side, ministering to her injuries. He is mumbling in some foreign tongue, so quietly that she can barely make out the sounds. She tries to speak to him, but her words are only gibberish and he ignores her. She tries to make out his features, but they are indistinct; she can’t determine the colour of his eyes or the shape of his mouth, no matter how intently she focuses.

  When next she wakes, she is still beside Fa, but she is on her back, once again looking up at the ceiling shrouded in darkness. Beside them, the fire burns low and a copper tea kettle nestled in the flames is whistling, the shrill sound echoing in the massive cavern. Baffled, Lien looks about for the invisible caretaker who put the kettle on the fire. The cavern remains empty and mysterious, giving up none of its secrets.

  Her head protesting the whistling, Lien crawls to the fire and snatches out the kettle, barely avoiding burning her fingers. A copper cup rests beside the fire ring and she fills it with boiling water from the kettle. The scent of coffee rises up with the steam and Lien grimaces; she despises the American drink. She is desperate enough to drink a few mouthfuls of the bitter brew, however, much as she detests the strong flavour.

  Next, she pours coffee for Fa, and awkwardly – ignoring the burning in her head and the cramping in her leg – she raises the cup to his lips. She pours a little into his mouth, and he sputters and spits it out without waking. The second time, she is more successful and he drinks a little, smacking and pursing his lips in displeasure.

  Exhausted, Lien drinks a little more coffee and then returns to her prone position beside Fa. Her stomach burbles hungrily and she wonders whether their mysterious benefactor will provide them with food. She feels, at least, less afraid and more hopeful, with warm drink in her belly. She drifts off into a dreamless sleep.

  When she wakes again, she is cold. The fire has died down to mere coals, and a fierce breeze has entered the cavern and spoiled their warm hideaway, carrying with it a flurry of snow.

  Lien thinks she hears voices and sits up, crying out wordlessly and then shouting, “Here! We’re in here!” Her head feels as if it will split in two, so she collapses back to the dirt and remains silent, until the voices are louder and she can be sure she isn’t imagining the sound. She calls again. This time, she receives a faint reply.

  “Li? Li?”

  Is that … Bao?! She sits up again and calls to him, then has to stop because the pain in her head is unbearable. Darkness threatens to take her into unconsciousness again, but she won’t let it, not so close to rescue.

  Finally, the voices are nearby, and she hears Bao saying, “Li? Li, is that you? You’re alive!” He appears beside her, his brown face suffused with joy, his smile wider than she has ever seen it.

  “And Fa, too,” says another familiar voice: Foreman Storbridge, whose lumbering bulk appears behind Bao, looking down with disapproval at the injured workers. Several other workers, all Chinese, gather around him. They’re wearing heavy furs and boots. Some carry lanterns and climbing ropes.

  “I’m alive; someone’s been taking care of us,” Lien tells Bao. Tears stream from her eyes. “They made us a fire and put splints on our broken bones. And there was coffee.” She casts about for the copper tea kettle with its matching cup, but both are gone.

  Bao’s expression is worried as he looks at her broken leg.

  “Who did this?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” Lien says. She starts to shake her head, but has to stop because of the pain.

  “I only remember a pale man. I must have been feverish; I don’t remember much.”

  “It’s good work,” he confesses. “This stranger saved your life.” Then he sighs and turns to her with earnestness sparkling in his black eyes. “I have to tell you; we thought you were dead. We came down here to look for a tunnel and collect your bodies.”

  “But we’re not dead!” Lien declares.

  “And it’s truly a miracle!”

  Storbridge says something gruffly to Bao, so low and rapid that Lien doesn’t understand with her limited English. Bao replies; Storbridge walks away with a curt nod.

  “We’re going to set up camp here and explore these caverns,” Bao explains. He gets up and goes to check on Fa, who remains unconscious, then returns to Lien. “I wish we knew who was taking care of you.”

  “I’m sure he’ll return. He has to,” Lien offers. Her stomach growls and she laughs. “Until then, do you have some food?”

  The workers are experienced in setting up camp rapidly. Tents are erected, the fire stoked to a healthy blaze, and tea kettles set to whistling within the hour. Both Lien and Fa are fed, though Fa is still unconscious and is given primarily tea. Lien devours dried fish and fruit from Bao’s rations, and gulps down hot tea while it’s still boiling.

  The Chinese workers sit near their injured brethren and listen to Lien describe the pale man who cared for her wounds. When she describes how she couldn’t focus on his face and make out his features, they start murmuring. She hears the whispered word “demon”.

  “Stop being foolish,” Bao chides the men. “We owe a debt of gratitude to this mysterious stranger, not whispered accusations.”

  “He saved my life!” Lien confirms.

  But when the stranger doesn’t return that evening, the murmurs grow and Lien catches suspicious glances from the other workers. She asks Bao to sleep beside her that night.

  “I don’t trust the others,” she confesses.

  Bao nods.

/>   “They’re superstitious because this is all so mysterious. We really weren’t expecting to find you alive.”

  Something about his guilty expression makes Lien ask, “Exactly how long have we been down here?”

  Bao swallows.

  “Three days. That fall should have killed you, Li.”

  Lien’s stomach churns. She thinks of the stories about demons and ghosts her parents told her as a girl and mutters a quick prayer to the ancestors.

  “Can we set up a shrine?” she asks.

  “That’s a good idea. The others will be comforted by a shrine, as well. We don’t have incense, but we can make do.” Bao goes to tell the others, and they begin to construct a small, makeshift shrine with the items available in their packs and in the cave. They build it closest to Fa, who clearly needs the most help from the ancestors. Soon, small offerings of dried rations and tea are sitting before a chalk outline of the characters meaning “noble ancestors”.

  With Bao’s help, Lien limps to the shrine, where she says a prayer and lays an offering of dried fish. She doesn’t feel different as she returns to her position near the fire, but at least the other workers aren’t glaring at her, anymore. She is able to sleep, though her leg throbs after the movement and wakes her many times during the night.

  Once, she wakes and swears she sees movement near the shrine. She sits up and squints to see a figure hovering over Fa. She calls out to the figure, and it turns and disappears into the darkness. Beside her, Bao is deep in slumber, undisturbed by the noise, so Lien assumes that she must be dreaming and lies down again.

  The second time, she wakes because something is prodding her broken leg and the pain rouses her. She looks down to see a hulking figure crouched by her leg: Storbridge, barely visible in the dying firelight.

  “Stop that!” she cries and tries to pull away from him; she gasps with pain when she tries to move the throbbing limb.

  Storbridge turns and regards her, eyes narrowed in suspicion. There is something dark and menacing about him. She doesn’t like the way he looks at her, rather like a cat observing a bird with a broken wing. Lien reaches for Bao, but finds to her horror that his cot is empty.

  “Your friend went to answer nature’s call,” Storbridge says, and though she doesn’t understand all the words, Lien comprehends that Bao has stepped away, leaving her unprotected.

  “Leave me alone,” she warns him. She’s trying to sound intimidating, but instead, she sounds mewling and womanish.

  The huge foreman tilts his head and regards her with increased interest.

  “There’s something not right about you,” he says, his voice low, speaking more to himself than to her.

  “Go away,” Lien says. She looks about for help; the other Chinese workers are safely in their tent, far from the fire, and Fa remains unconscious beside the shrine.

  Was that movement she saw in the shadows behind the shrine?

  “Help me!” Lien calls out in English. This time, her voice definitely gives her away; she has dropped all pretense and sounds like the woman she is.

  Storbridge looms over her, his eyes fixed and unblinking. With shocking alacrity, he reaches down and tears at the blanket covering her. Lien screams as he rips open her tunic to reveal her chest; she tries to cover her small breasts with her arms, but her lie has been undone, the truth of her sex as obvious as her Chinese heritage.

  Storbridge guffaws once, but then his shock turns rapidly to disbelief, as he remembers that Lien is a member of his crew, and then rage as he recalls how quickly and skillfully the Chinese workers blast new tunnels and lay new rails, putting his white workmen to shame. And here, all along, there was a woman hiding among them. Maybe there are others; maybe the little yellow men have made a fool of him all along.

  Lien screams as the foreman rushes her with a growl. The fire suddenly dies and engulfs the cavern in blackness.

  Lien covers her face, expecting to be beset at any moment, but she remains miraculously unmolested. Slowly, she uncovers her eyes and looks about; she can see nothing in the total darkness, but she can hear the sounds of combat: the smack of fists on flesh and the thud of someone heavy hitting the ground, the soft “oof” of someone being punched in the gut.

  Then she hears Bao’s footsteps, unmistakable to her after their months together and her growing infatuation, and she calls out to him, “Bao! Help me!”

  Bao rushes over to her, his hands seeking her in the dark. She reaches for him and they embrace clumsily. When the fire suddenly flares to life again, they both look down to see that her bare breasts remain exposed, pressed against his chest, and she quickly pulls the torn tunic closed over them.

  “You’re … you’re … a woman!” Bao stutters, backing away from her.

  Lien won’t look at him. She clutches the tunic closed.

  “I thought you knew. Xiong figured it out.”

  Bao looks down to see the foreman beside him, on the ground, so bruised and battered that his face is barely recognizable. One of his arms hangs limp from the socket, twisted underneath his torso at an unnatural angle.

  “What happened?” Bao asks, looking at her accusingly.

  “You really think I could do that? To Xiong?” she asks.

  Bao looks at the man on the ground – who groans softly and gurgles some blood onto the cave floor – and shakes his head.

  “I don’t know. You’re ... you’re ....”

  “Female, but not a demon – not strong enough to do that.” Lien gestures to the crumpled body of the Foreman. Tears rise to her eyes as she says, “After all this time together, you really think I’m capable of that?”

  Bao starts to say something in retort, but the other workers come rushing out of the tent just then, pulling on their boots, stalling his words. The men rush over to the Foreman, taking in the scene with expressions of shock and horror, and then glance at Lien. The tableau of her sitting helpless on her cot tells them a story. She holds her shirt closed with shaking hands, her face averted in shame.

  The men all look to Bao, their eyes seeking. Lien knows that Bao holds her future in his rough brown hands; with a word, he can condemn her or save her. Finally, without looking at her again, he sighs and says, “Help me,” and lifts the Foreman’s ankles.

  “What are you doing?” Lien demands as the workers gather up Storbridge and begin shuffling toward the cave entrance.

  “If he lives, you’ll never be safe again, Li – if that is your name,” Bao says.

  When the men return from dumping Storbridge’s body in the snow, the others go to their cots in the tent and Bao feeds the fire. He makes sure Fa has slept through the adventure, and then he returns to sit beside Lien, in a meditative pose, saying nothing.

  “Lien,” she says softly.

  He looks at her, his eyes searching her face for the truth.

  “My real name is ‘Lien’,” she repeats. “My parents called me ‘Li’ and pretended I was a boy, because I was their only child. I left to get away from them, but I don’t know how to be a woman, so I stayed Li even when I came over the ocean.”

  “Did you kill Xiong?” Bao asks.

  “No.”

  “Then who did?”

  “I don’t know,” she insists and begins sobbing uncontrollably. Her careful house of lies has been demolished. Without her secrets, she feels exposed and afraid. And now her closest friend, the man she thinks she might love, can’t trust her and thinks she committed murder. “He attacked me,” she tries to explain.

  To her surprise, Bao places a hand on her knee and pats it comfortingly. “I believe you. But if you didn’t kill him, who did?”

  “He’s dead?” she asks.

  Bao nods.

  “His neck was broken. He died while we carried him outside. Unless you truly are a demon, you don’t have the strength to kill a man like that. So, I believe you, because even if you aren’t the man you claimed to be, I can’t believe that you’re a demon.”

  Lien hugs him in relief, t
ears flowing even more freely now. “I don’t know … what happened … the fire died ...,” she says, through sobbing hiccoughs.

  Bao lets her cling to him. “Did you see what happened?”

  She shakes her head against his chest.

  “The white men say this place is haunted.”

  Lien looks up at him.

  “They do?”

  “A lot of the white men didn’t want to come here. About twenty years ago, some settlers moving west were trapped in this valley during the winter. They all died. The survivors … they ate their dead. They’re cursed people, now, and Donner Valley is cursed by their memory.”

  Lien shudders, remembering the women and children huddled around the tiny fire. Were these the victims of the hungry, wives and children devoured by their fathers and husbands?

  “How horrible,” she whispers, her dreams taking on sudden dark import.

  Bao holds her close and strokes her hair.

  “But not all ghosts are evil,” he says, staring out into the dark of the cavern, unafraid. “Some are just waiting.”

  •

  The sun rises to find the group of Chinese rail workers already on foot, making their way slowly up the ravine to the mountain. The small group of eight men takes turns carrying the two invalids, both of them fortunately small and hardly burdensome. In the evening, they make camp on a rocky promontory, overlooking the valley. One of them, the smallest, who has a broken leg, limps out of the tent at sunset to watch the glorious colours retreating in the sky as night settles over the ravine.

  The others now know Lien’s secret, but they’ve sworn to keep it as best they can. She knows it won’t remain secret for much longer – if Shen finds out, word will be all over camp faster than a swallow flies. As she watches the sun set, she thinks with dread of returning to the camp and lying about the fate of Storbridge. But what is the truth? What difference does it make whether he fell from a cliff wall or was pummeled to death by ghostly hands?

  When darkness slides across the landscape, she retreats to her cot in the tent beside the other men. They sit in awkward silence, unsure how to behave now that her secret has been laid bare. She asks that they leave a lamp lit, even when they sleep; the darkness is unbearable for her now. She swears that she can hear Storbridge’s husky breathing, or the soft murmurings of the pale doctor who bandaged her wounds. Even years later, married to Foreman Bao and mother to his children, she will not sleep without a lantern’s glow or a stoked fire. She does not want to dream of the faceless, bonneted women and their strange children, or remember the frozen nights spent in that mysterious cavern.

 

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