by Can Xue
“Do you believe doctors?” Yunma’s eyes shone. “Let me tell you: you must never believe doctors! It was a doctor’s cure that killed my mother. If she hadn’t left . . .” Suddenly terrified, she stopped talking.
When Jinglan walked out of Yunma’s room, he saw a hand closing Yuanpu’s door across the hall. Who could that be? Jinglan suddenly got it, and he turned back to say to Yunma: “Was he outside listening to us?”
“Naturally. There’s no way to keep anything from him.” Yunma smiled faintly.
=
As he walked along the road, Jinglan felt uneasy. The shadows of the house shrouded his mind. His respected mentor had actually reached this stage. He had never expected this. He felt obligated to help him, but unfortunately Yuanpu didn’t want his help. Maybe he was even mocking him for not understanding the world! Hadn’t Yunma also felt that he was ridiculous? Anyhow, he must give up the idea of helping Yuanpu. Then Jinglan began doubting his former impressions of Yuanpu. Over the decades, his mentor had never appeared decrepit in spirit. He loved arguing, never wearying of it. While arguing, his very being glowed with an unusual luster. Jinglan was always involuntarily drawn to his mentor’s brilliance. And so, although Jinglan had left here years earlier, he still came back once a year. Actually, his mentor was the only person he couldn’t leave behind. Could it be that his former impressions were all false? How could someone like Yuanpu have lost his mind? The configuration of Yuanpu’s brain rose before Jinglan’s eyes. He saw a tree whose leaves had all fallen. Its trunk and branches could be distinguished clearly, for they were bare. This kind of person was anything but out of his mind. But which image revealed the real Yuanpu? Was it the one who sat at his desk and thought all day and night? Or was it the one who dozed on the chamber pot and tiptoed like a thief through the house? He definitely couldn’t believe what Yunma said; it was likely all slanderous. But her motive didn’t seem to be to slander Yuanpu; it seemed more likely that she meant to scare Jinglan and make fun of him. What sort of confused state had Yuanpu’s life turned into? Jinglan thought, too, that he shouldn’t trust what he’d seen with his own eyes. His mentor was still as strong as an indestructible city wall. He could sense this while sitting in front of him, even though he had changed on the outside.
=
Jinglan had already spent nine days in his hometown. Every day he went to the riverside and sat on the flood-control dike to look at the distant sails. Deep down, he felt a little at loose ends, and he also felt some melancholy that he couldn’t dispel. These last few days he hadn’t gone back to see his mentor, and he kept reproaching himself. The river here was a little old and its water was dark. But Jinglan could see its energy in the strength the boatmen exerted to row the boats. He knew this river well. First thing this morning, he’d been uneasy because he would leave this evening. At about noon, what he’d been expecting occurred at last. The man approaching him was Yunma’s cousin.
“He’s going to die in a couple of days.” Both his facial expression and his tone were indifferent.
“What happened?” Jinglan asked.
On the way to the house, Jinglan was on the verge of tears, but in the end he didn’t cry. Upon entering the house, Yunma’s cousin went directly to the kitchen, where a lot of people were gathered. When Jinglan went into the bedroom, he saw Yuanpu sitting on the bed, repairing a lock. All kinds of small tools were spread out on the quilt. Jinglan let out a sigh.
“Did they ask you to come?” Yuanpu asked without raising his head. “Don’t worry. I won’t die. I just fell. It isn’t serious. I fooled all of them. As soon as they came in, I pretended to be on my last legs.”
“But when I came in, you didn’t do that.”
“That’s because I knew it was you. When I saw Yunma’s cousin go out, I guessed you would come.”
He finally finished repairing the old-style copper lock and opened it a few times with the key. Then he put it and the tools into an iron box which he placed beside the bed. He looked toward the door and made a face, signaling Jinglan to open the door a crack.
The courtyard was noisy: a large coffin was being carried in. Yunma directed the porters to place the coffin under the oil-cloth rain shed. Jinglan noticed that she was dressed all in black. She looked refined and clean.
“This time, your joke has gone too far.” Jinglan turned around and said, frowning in disgust.
“It doesn’t matter. Yunma is an old hand at this. In the end, will it be she or I who wins this battle of wits? What do you think? This issue is just like a lock and this key. I think you’d better leave. This kind of environment is hard on you. And don’t come back next year, either. Why make yourself uncomfortable? Come, help me shift my legs a little. I’m already dead from the waist down because of my fall, yet my upper body is still vigorous.”
His legs were very heavy, bewilderingly so. Even when he shoved them energetically a few times, Jinglan couldn’t move them. All he could do was climb into the bed, bend down, and shift them with both hands. His face turned purple. After he had arranged Yuanpu’s legs and covered them with a quilt, he and Yuanpu looked at each other. He noticed that Yuanpu’s eyes were a little damp, and he felt his emotions surge.
“Go on, go on! Why haven’t you left yet?!” Yuanpu was energetically waving his hand, perhaps to cover his embarrassment or perhaps because he was weary.
Jinglan walked into the courtyard, where Yunma had just arranged the coffin. Looking at Jinglan, she gave him an unearthly smile. She said, “Come back again next year. Mr. Yuanpu always cares about you.”
“This . . .”
“Do you mean the coffin? This is just for looks. How can he die? He can fool the others, but he can’t fool me. Are you going now? Come back next year for sure. For sure! You’re all he thinks of!”
Jinglan quickened his pace, but Yunma was behind him, seeing him off. She was excited. She opened her mouth a few times, wanting to say something, but in the end she said nothing. She just silently watched Jinglan walk into the distance.
=
As Jinglan got back to the street, he thought he had no reason to despise Yunma. He had seen that his mentor seemed content with his lot in that eerie house; it was hard for others to understand what was so wonderful about his life. It seemed that Jinglan himself now had no choice but to consider himself one of the others. After all, he returned only once a year. Although he had thought of himself as his pupil, in the end, he hadn’t mastered some things—for instance, he didn’t understand Yuanpu’s relationship with Yunma at all. He could only understand the Yuanpu of the past—and evidently there was no connection between the mentor of the past and the mentor of the present. Had this change occurred only when he had a premonition that he would die soon?
Jinglan kept going, intending to thrust all of this behind him. Then he changed his mind and decided to board the boat and leave at once. He walked to the wharf. As it happened, a boat was waiting. No sooner had he entered the cabin and fallen onto the cot than the boat started up. Half-dazed, he heard the water grumbling below and felt it was a little absurd to have left immediately.
At midnight, he awoke with a start and walked onto the deck. When he looked up, he saw a large meteor fall from the sky. He looked down: everything was inky black. The events of the past few days once more weighed heavily on his heart. The boat had already gone a long way. For some reason, Jinglan felt that this was not like leaving, but instead like sailing straight toward the dark center of his hometown. It was a place where he’d never been before.
PAPERCUTS
=
The gigantic owl—twice as large as ordinary owls—had been coming around for days, each time at dusk. It sat on a branch of the old mulberry, its round eyes—of indeterminate color—like two demonic mirrors.
That day, Mrs. Yun returned from the vegetable garden carrying a pair of empty buckets on her shoulders. As she turned and suddenly saw this big thing, her legs went weak and she nearly fell. She wanted to run off, but she couldn’t move. It was as i
f something were holding on to her legs. She struggled for a long while and calmed down only when she reached her door. When she looked again at the tree and saw that thing again, she promptly shut the courtyard gate.
Mr. Yun was sharpening a hatchet. She noticed a ruthless expression looming on his face.
“What scared you so much?”
Walking over, he opened the courtyard gate and watched for a while.
“Hunh!” he said.
Then he closed the gate slowly. Mrs. Yun knew he didn’t feel like talking. And because of his explosive temper, she didn’t dare ask him anything. She heard the chickens hopping around uneasily in the coop. One old hen didn’t want to return to her nest. Finally, she grabbed the hen and thrust it in. With that, all twelve chickens in the coop went crazy, and Mrs. Yun’s heart thumped continuously. She remained in shock right up until she lit the lamp, finished her dinner, and washed the dishes. She wanted to open the courtyard gate to take another look, but she didn’t have the nerve.
Sure enough, that night the chickens and dogs were all in an uproar. The next morning, two chickens were missing. At the gate were chicken feathers and traces of blood. Mrs. Yun thought, was it the owl? Why did she think it was a man-eating beast? Mr. Yun looked at the feathers on the ground and said, “This doesn’t matter.”
Feeling uncertain, she stood next to the entrance, cupped her hands, and shouted through her tears: “Wumei! Wumei!”
She was calling her daughter. She’d had five children, but the first four had died. The only one left was Wumei. Her daughter leapt out from the dry ditch; she had cut a small bundle of firewood.
“What are you shouting about?” Wumei said disapprovingly. Her face was flushed.
Mrs. Yun reproached her: “What are you shouting about?”
Wumei set the firewood down and went to her room. Mrs. Yun knew she was making papercuts again. Recently, she’d become infatuated with a weird design—concentric circles. She cut them out of black paper and pasted them on the walls and windows. Mrs. Yun told her that looking at the rings made her dizzy. But Wumei didn’t care and continued cutting.
Mrs. Yun was a little indignant because no one else in the family was upset by what had happened the night before. And neither father nor daughter seemed to think the ill-omened bird was even there. They just went on doing whatever they had to do. She wasn’t one to make a mountain out of a molehill, but wasn’t it true that something had invaded her life? Those two hens were both new and were about to lay eggs. They had eaten a lot of food every day.
Sulking, Mrs. Yun began making a commotion with the dishes in the kitchen.
“Just ignore it. Isn’t it the same as if it weren’t here?” Wumei said in a low voice.
She was standing next to the door, her eyes wide open. Mrs. Yun couldn’t figure out what her bright black eyes were saying. She merely thought that her daughter was becoming more and more bewildering.
“What do you mean? It’s obviously in that tree. And we’ve obviously lost two hens.”
“We can raise more chickens.”
With that, she walked away.
Mrs. Yun got goose pimples at the thought of Wumei’s black rings. And so she sighed to herself: “Ah, she’s destined to survive.”
Mr. Yun went to the market with a load of hemp sandals. Mrs. Yun went to the farm to pull weeds. She didn’t ask Wumei to go along.
As soon as she opened the door, she saw it. Now it was coming in the daytime, too. What a cruel thing! What should she do? She thought and thought, but could find no way to deal with the situation. Whatever will be, will be, she concluded. After closing the courtyard gate, she went to the farm.
It was an overcast day. Mrs. Yun kept listening uneasily. If there was any movement, she could run home at once. But nothing happened all morning. When she went home, it had left the tree. For some reason, Mrs. Yun felt that without the owl the tree was a little lonely and was standing there listlessly. Had she been affected by her daughter?
Nothing happened that night.
=
Now Mrs. Yun was sitting in the doorway, stitching soles for cloth shoes, and the gigantic bird was in the tree across from her. The afternoon before, it had pecked a piglet to death—a tragic scene. Mrs. Yun reminded her husband of her father’s hunting rifle. Mr. Yun took the gun in his hands, looked around for a long time, and then put it down again. He said stiffly, “It’s useless.”
“Why? Why?” Mrs. Yun said impatiently, “Nothing’s wrong with this rifle. Last year, Yun Bao killed a lot of wild rabbits with it. It’s a good rifle.”
“Is this a wild rabbit?” Mr. Yun roared fiercely.
“Then, what do you think it is? It’s going to do us in.” Mrs. Yun was furious.
“It is—it is—bah!!”
Mr. Yun went to the kitchen and started the fire.
Mrs. Yun’s eyes blurred as she stitched the soles. It was as if the end of the world was coming. It took a long time for her to compose herself. She saw Wumei walk past the ditch with a basket on her arm. She was cutting pig fodder. She wasn’t the least bit afraid, nor was she concerned about the family’s losses. This child was a little callous. Whenever she told her anything, she said the same thing: “Just ignore it.” But Mrs. Yun noticed that her daughter had changed: when she cut firewood and pig fodder, she no longer went far away, and she seemed to be detouring around that evil bird. Mrs. Yun was a little excited by this discovery. Father and daughter were not ignoring this issue, after all. Could they figure out what to do? As a housewife, she knew she couldn’t make the decision in such a serious matter. She could only worry. When she looked again at the owl, it seemed bigger: it looked like a tiger sitting there.
From the kitchen came the sound of Mr. Yun singing mountain ballads. He seemed emotional. When he was young, he’d been good at singing these ballads. He was an educated person from the city, yet he had voluntarily settled down in the countryside. Mrs. Yun had come with him. Life in the countryside was quiet and dull, but because Mr. Yun liked it, Mrs. Yun subsequently came to like it, too.
Mr. Yun hadn’t sung for a long time. Now, hearing him, Mrs. Yun couldn’t sit still. She ran into the kitchen and started making pancakes.
“Are you making pancakes?” Mr. Yun was a little surprised.
“We have to celebrate!” Mrs. Yun said decisively.
“Oh, good point!”
The pancakes smelled delicious!
Wumei came home, and the three of them sat around the table eating pancakes. Mr. Yun was in a great mood; he even drank a glass of wine. Wumei had some wine, too, and her face glowed red. Looking at Mrs. Yun, she widened her eyes and said: “Are you going to leave us, Mama?”
“What?” Mrs. Yun thought she’d heard wrong. “What did you say?”
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” Wumei lowered her head and whimpered.
“She’s had too much to drink,” Mr. Yun said. “Why don’t you have a little, too?”
And so Mrs. Yun also took a glass of wine.
Mrs. Yun seldom drank; when she left, she was a little dizzy. Carrying a bamboo basket, she went out to pick beans. She had just reached the turn when she was ambushed. She was aware of a lot of whips lashing her body. Since she couldn’t avoid them, all she could do was roll around on the ground. She wondered if she would die. The bird was on top of her. How had it grown so many whips? Some struck her ruthlessly, as if hacking her body into two halves. She heard her tragic wail spread in the distance. After a while, she fainted; before she plummeted into darkness, she saw a terribly bright fireball.
When she sat up, she was in so much pain that it was like being pricked by needles. She moaned. From behind, someone pulled her up by her armpits. She screamed in pain, but she was steady on her feet. Ah, this was a middle-aged man, a stranger. When she looked at him again, though, she thought she’d seen him before. She remembered: when she was young, there was a handsome young man who had repaired cart tires at the roadside for a living. This one lo
oked much like him, but was much stronger.
Mrs. Yun was a little excited.
“Are you Youlin?” she asked. Her voice quivered from pain.
“Yes. And you’re Xiumei.” As he spoke, his eyes roved. “That evil bird wants to destroy you.”
“How did you happen to come here?”
“Why not? I often do. It isn’t far.”
“Not far from where?” Mrs. Yun looked at him in astonishment.
“My home. It’s nearby.”
“Your home?”
“Yes. Over there.” He was pointing toward the wasteland behind him.
It finally occurred to Mrs. Yun that she’d been leaning against Youlin all along. Was he really that Youlin? Why didn’t she feel at all shy? He supported her weight as she walked, and after she took a few mechanical steps, her pain subsided. Walking west, they crossed the wasteland and came to a vast swale. Mrs. Yun whispered to herself: Did he actually live in the marsh?
“Do you have a job, Youlin?”
“The same as before—fixing tires. That’s all I can do.”
“How can there be anyone in this wasteland who needs tires repaired?”
“There are always one or two. You haven’t noticed them. When it’s nearly sunset, they come over from the marsh.”
“The marsh?! No one can walk in it.”
“They’re light. They can walk over from above.”
At first, Mrs. Yun had been a little excited by leaning against a man she had dreamed of in her youth. Now, all of a sudden, it was as though she’d been splashed with cold water. She wanted to break loose from him, but when she tried, she was pressed even closer to him. Slowly, she began to desire him, but this feeling also frightened her. Her arms lengthened and tightly entwined him.
“Then, can you also walk over from above?” Her voice was trembling.
“Ah. Yes.”
They could see the marsh and an apple tree there. Youlin’s tools hung from a fork in the tree, and the chrome-plated wrench flashed with light. Looking at this scene, Mrs. Yun felt glum. But this didn’t hold her longing within limits.