by Can Xue
“It seems he doesn’t want our help. Take a look for yourself. You’ll see.”
Mrs. Yun limped the whole way over there. A lot of stones and clods of earth were piled up on the path.
“Uncle Weng, do you want me to help you? Or do you want me to call someone over to help?”
She was talking to the blurry ball below, but it didn’t answer. Quite the opposite: she heard a strange sound come from his mouth—like the menacing sound made by a cat when it encounters a suspiciously dangerous adversary. Frightened, Mrs. Yun turned and went home.
“What’s wrong with Uncle Weng?”
She saw Mr. Yun snickering.
“I guess he’s enjoying life in the ditch,” Mr. Yun said.
“If I open the courtyard gate, will our chickens, ducks, and piglets be safe?”
“Hard to say. Nobody can be sure.”
Mr. Yun went back to his room to plait sandals. He liked working at night. He would work until midnight.
Mrs. Yun took another look at the ditch. She heard nothing now. For some reason, she visualized a motorcade on the marsh. She muttered, “Something is coming closer and closer.” When she went inside, her legs felt like lead.
Wumei told her that the last time she went to the market to sell papercuts, a group of women had surrounded her. They wanted a hundred of her works. Those countrified women seemed to come from a remote mountain area. There were two blind people among them.
“Did they buy your interlinked rings?” asked Mrs. Yun.
“Yes. They wanted to take them home and learn how to make the rings. When I asked where they came from, they just mentioned a strange place name. It definitely isn’t in our province, and yet I could understand their accent. One of the older ones told me that the sun shines there all year long, so they like black and they like circles.”
Mrs. Yun took stock of Wumei’s bedroom wall. Now there were no longer black rings pasted there, but many yellow ants. Looking at them was nauseating. Wumei was truly spirited and skillful. Such tiny ants: she could cut them out so they were lifelike. But why didn’t she cut some pleasant things?
Mrs. Yun was dazed as she stood in Wumei’s room. Wumei was staring at her, obviously urging her to leave soon. Mrs. Yun couldn’t imagine when Wumei had begun being so uncompromising. No matter what she was doing, she always had her own way. She sighed and went back to her own room.
The bedroom she shared with Mr. Yun was spacious. The old-fashioned bed with flowers carved on it was large, like a small house. When they first moved here, Mrs. Yun didn’t feel comfortable. And so, every day after dinner, Mr. Yun extinguished the lamp, making the house as dark as a cave. Mrs. Yun gradually felt better in the dark. Back then, night birds—usually more than ten of them—always flew over to their windowsill. They were small, and their songs were soft and gentle like crickets on the stove. Mr. Yun joked that he had summoned the birds to keep Mrs. Yun company. Sure enough, these soft sounds at night soothed her nerves. Later, they stopped coming, and Mrs. Yun raised more chickens, because chickens could also dispel her inner unease. Especially the hens that laid eggs.
As she stitched the soles for cloth shoes, Mrs. Yun was thinking of the lovely events of the past. The strange thing was that when she thought of the bizarre episode between Youlin and her, she didn’t feel guilty. She was merely curious. Occasionally, she thought that even if she told Mr. Yun about it, he probably wouldn’t care. She felt that in the last two years, father and daughter were bewitched by something that she had no way to understand. Nothing else would have made such an impact on them.
All of a sudden, she felt sleepy. Mr. Yun was still plaiting sandals, so she went to bed first. She lay in bed for a while, but no longer felt sleepy. When she heard the window rattling, she got up to close it.
“Who’s there?”
“Me. Youlin. I’m back from the market. I’ve brought some glossy paper for you.”
After tossing a package through the window, he hurried off.
Mrs. Yun picked it up and looked at it carefully in the moonlight. This glossy paper should be purple; in the moonlight it looked a little wicked. She lit the lamp uneasily. Sure enough, it was purple. It was the best kind of glossy paper.
When Mrs. Yun went to Wumei’s room, she was still awake. She was cutting those ants in front of the lamp. Mrs. Yun gave her the glossy paper. She said she’d bought it a few days before, but had chucked it into the kitchen cupboard and forgotten about it. She didn’t know if the color was right.
“It’s perfect. Did Uncle Youlin give it to you?”
“How did you know?”
“He said he wanted me to try the purple color.”
Wumei took out a sheet of paper and began cutting right away. Mrs. Yun looked on tensely.
She cut out a centipede, and on the centipede’s tiny foot she pasted even smaller centipedes. Twirling the scissors quickly, she explained her work: “These are eyes.”
Feeling increasingly uncomfortable, Mrs. Yun left. She went back to bed and fell asleep after a while.
=
The day that Mr. Yun carried hemp sandals to the market, the weird bird didn’t come over. But Youlin did. He spoke with Mrs. Yun at the courtyard wall.
“My business has been a little slow lately, but it still isn’t bad,” he said.
“What exactly is going on with the carts on the marsh? One has to see that kind of thing to believe it,” Mrs. Yun said.
“That’s too hard for you. It’s too dangerous for a woman to be there in the middle of the night. Even a man like me is sometimes afraid.”
“But you still stay there?”
“What I want to see hasn’t happened yet.”
“When you lived on Dragon Street, were you aware of our Plum Village? Back then, had you been to this marsh?”
“Dragon Street? No. The place where I used to live was ‘Yuegu Street.’ It was in the suburbs.”
“What do you mean? Aren’t you Youlin?”
“You can say that I am.” He was a little down in the mouth as he looked at her.
“You yourself said you used to repair tires.”
“I did repair tires.”
“Why are you so laid back?!” Mrs. Yun howled furiously.
“I am a little laid back.”
Mrs. Yun watched him lower his head and leave. She couldn’t help feeling afraid. She looked up at the sky; it was yellow. Giving it some more thought, she realized that the frightening thing had occurred about fifteen miles away; her home should be safe. But she still felt perplexed and alarmed. The handsome repairman who formerly lived on Dragon Street—the object of girls’ longing—no longer existed. The one she had run into was another person entirely. And she had become ludicrously involved with this other person. Probably the owl had flown over here from the marsh. But why was no one else afraid of it? Why was she the only one? Sometimes, she wanted to blot out the incident in the marsh, but that wouldn’t do. Her family members and the phenomena all around pointed that way, as if they all wanted that incident to be pinned in her heart forever.
Wumei had pasted a centipede on the courtyard gate: Youlin must have seen it. The purple centipede had been chopped into two parts in the middle; there was only a threadlike connection between them. Had Wumei pasted it there for him to see? Could he possibly be seducing Wumei?
“Wumei, you work too late,” Mrs. Yun said.
“I know, but I want to save money. People want my goods now, so I’d better make more of them. I’m afraid there won’t be an opportunity later on.”
“What are you saving money for?”
“To go far away. Isn’t that what you and Daddy did?”
Dazed, Mrs. Yun looked at the blocked wall. She felt as if her heart had been hollowed out.
“Do you want to go to the marsh?”
“No. I’ve been there once. I want to go to a place where I’ve never been.”
The beautiful Wumei held her head high, like a swan swimming past the wall.
Now only Mrs. Yun was left at home. The village was also quiet. There was only one old codger smoking as he sat under a tree. He was the Uncle Weng who had been dropped into the ditch. Uncle Weng was gesturing in the air with his pipe, as if arguing with someone. Five hens were bathing in the mud and dust at the wall; they looked very happy. Mrs. Yun made quick work of feeding the pigs, sweeping the courtyard, and mopping the floors in the house. Neither Wumei nor Mr. Yun would be home for lunch, and she had nothing more that she had to do. She stood distracted for a while in the courtyard. Then she couldn’t keep from taking another look at the mulberry tree: the owl still hadn’t returned. Uncle Weng was still sitting a little farther away. Mrs. Yun thought, Maybe he’s also waiting for the evil bird.
Mrs. Yun went back to her room and sat down to stitch soles for cloth shoes. But she still felt uneasy. She felt that the peaceful phenomenon was nothing but an illusion. Recently, everything had changed irreversibly. Her Wumei was scheming to go far away. Of course this was a blow, but in her heart she also harbored a hope: maybe because of this her daughter would have a good future and be able to live the life she wanted. She thought, Probably she met someone from a certain place through her papercuts, and so she began preparing to go away. After all, she wasn’t an uncontaminated village child. Her ideas were very complex. As she thought of this, she felt proud of her daughter, even though their relationship had recently been a little strained. She looked at the papercut centipede on the window. This was a particularly large one. She didn’t know where Wumei had found such a large piece of glossy paper. The largest one at the market was one foot square, but this one was one foot two inches and deep purple. At first sight, this lifelike centipede was a little frightening. The most unsettling things were the little centipedes on the centipede’s foot. For Wumei to have cut such a design, she must be harboring devilish ideas.
“Mrs. Yun! Mrs. Yun!”
Uncle Weng was calling her! Mrs. Yun rushed out of the house. At a glance, she saw that a large part of the courtyard wall had collapsed. She called to Uncle Weng and asked where he was, and then ran over to the gap in the wall to look out. But Uncle Weng was nowhere to be seen. Where had he been when he called out to her? Taking another look at the demolished earthen wall, she saw two tracks in the mud and dust. A cart had rushed past, rammed this large gap in her courtyard wall, and then had disappeared without a trace. This person must despise her family in order to have done such a thing. Who hated her family? It seemed no one did. Mrs. Yun tidied up the mess with a spade and dustpan. Suddenly, she thought of something: it was Uncle Weng who had called out to her. He must know who had been pushing the cart! She put the spade down and set out for Uncle Weng’s house.
Weng’s wife was drying peppers in the courtyard. When she saw Mrs. Yun, she didn’t hail her, but just stared at her.
“Is Uncle Weng home? We’ve had an accident at our house. The courtyard wall has been pushed over. I heard Uncle Weng calling me and ran out to look, but I didn’t see him.”
“He isn’t home. Tell me frankly: Are you guilty of having done something very bad?” Her gaze was murderous.
“Me? No. Does this have something to do with what I did? Maybe the person accidentally rammed into my wall and then ran off,” Mrs. Yun said in bewilderment.
“Hunh. Let’s hope so.”
Distracted, Mrs. Yun went back to the courtyard and continued shoveling the mud and dust with her spade. Suddenly, her gaze halted at something in the pile of dust. A large-bodied fledgling that didn’t yet have feathers was struggling clumsily. Ah, a baby owl! It was inconceivable that the owl lived inside the earthen wall. Mrs. Yun bent down and shifted it to a heap of dried leaves at one side. The little thing sorrowfully swung its bald head back and forth and made a hoarse sisi sound. Leaning on the iron shovel, Mrs. Yun watched it and quickly associated this with something else. If this little thing had emerged from her courtyard wall, then had the large scary one emerged from here, too? More and more of these dark connected ideas crossed her mind, and she felt she was going crazy. No, she couldn’t cruelly kill this fledgling, but she didn’t want to raise it, either. Then, just let it live and die on its own. Probably its mother would come and feed it. Flustered and unable to go on spading the mud and dust, Mrs. Yun went home.
She sieved and cooked the rice. She thought and thought and still was uneasy, so she went back to the courtyard to check on the baby owl.
Oh, the fledgling had vanished without a trace. The gigantic bird squatted motionless on the old mulberry tree. Was the fledgling its child? Had it hidden it somewhere? Or was the fledgling unrelated? Mrs. Yun couldn’t keep from walking over to it again. The woman and the bird gazed at each other. Mrs. Yun started feeling feverish: she and the owl had begun communicating in a bizarre way. The gigantic bird’s faint green eyes brought a certain reality and calmness to Mrs. Yun’s empty, desolate heart. Mrs. Yun was no longer afraid of it. She even rushed to say to it: Wa, wa! The bird still didn’t move. Mrs. Yun thought it had discerned her deepest, innermost ideas. Actually, she herself didn’t know exactly what those ideas were.
When she went back to the courtyard, she sighed, “Today is really a long day.”
Wumei and Mr. Yun came back together. Mrs. Yun mentioned what had happened to the courtyard wall. Mr. Yun listened attentively as he ate. At last, he said lightly, “I noticed a long time ago that something was wrong with that wall. It warbles all the time.”
“The wall can make sounds? Why haven’t I heard it?” Mrs. Yun was puzzled.
“Because you haven’t tried. When I make sandals at night, the sound is awful.”
In high spirits, Wumei talked of her new discoveries. She said those women had returned, this time bringing four blind people along. The blind people were all experts at paper-cutting.
“Those designs . . . my God! No, I can’t explain it. What are the designs?! As soon as I saw them, I couldn’t say a word. For example, there are some feathers, but they aren’t feathers. No, they definitely aren’t feathers! They must be—”
Her eyes turned vacant. She was silent. When Wumei was like this, Mrs. Yun worried, but as usual Mr. Yun paid no attention. He always approved of Wumei.
Wumei washed the bowls. Mrs. Yun noticed that she was working like a puppet. She dipped her hands into the water for a long time without washing even one bowl.
The bird began calling. When she heard it, Mrs. Yun wept. She couldn’t bear it. In her mind, she kept visualizing the fledgling which had stared at her with blind eyes and whose beak had opened so wide. Mrs. Yun covered her face with her apron; she could still see it clearly.
“Mama! Mama!” Wumei shouted, horrified.
Mrs. Yun squatted down. Wumei closed the windows and doors tightly; only then did the bird’s whining weaken.
“Mama—oh, I love you!”
“I love you, too, sweetheart.” Mrs. Yun stood up with difficulty. She was dripping with cold sweat.
“Mama, I was the one who caused the wall to collapse. I wanted to see what was inside it. I shouldn’t have—I was too impulsive!”
“Where were you when the wall collapsed?”
“I ran off and later went to the market.”
“I want to find that little bird.”
“Its mother ate it.”
“Ah, so you saw it all.”
“I was hiding in the ditch. It was really shocking: the mother bird swallowed her baby bit by bit. Half-way through, she choked. I thought the mother bird would choke to death.”
As Mr. Yun’s footsteps sounded outside, mother and daughter both regained their composure. Wumei looked at her father, and acting as if nothing had happened, she went back to her bedroom.
“This might start happening frequently,” Mr. Yun said.
“What?”
“I’m speaking of Wumei. She’s getting gutsier.”
Mrs. Yun didn’t respond. She wanted to change her clothes because she was unbearably cold. When she left the kitchen, the bird’s whining
had stopped. As she changed clothes in the bedroom, she saw someone standing outside the window. It was Youlin. Saying “damn guy,” she shut the window with a bang.
Mrs. Yun awakened in the middle of the night from a deep sleep. She heard the wind repeatedly slamming against the window, its howling incessant. She sat up and so did Mr. Yun.
Side by side, the two of them stood at the window and looked out.
In the moonlight, the willow trees planted in the courtyard the year before were being blown from side to side, all of them taking on an unearthly lavender color. Fluttering in the air were some weeds from who-knows-where. All of them were burning. “Will there be a fire? Will there be a fire?” Mrs. Yun asked in a quivering voice. She kept shaking her husband’s arm. Mr. Yun was also looking on in disbelief.
“Where did the fire start? Why didn’t we see any smoke?” he mumbled.
But he evidently didn’t really want to know where the fire started, for he staggered back to bed.
After giving it some thought, Mrs. Yun put on a jacket and went outside. When she opened the door, a gust of wind almost knocked her down. Burning weeds no longer floated in the air. Instead, the air from the wind held a transparent purity. The full moon was a little dazzling. Because it had never been so bright, its rays were tinged with purple. When Mrs. Yun was about to go back inside, she suddenly saw a woman with disheveled hair standing at the gap of the courtyard wall.
“Who are you??” Mrs. Yun shouted sternly. She was trembling all over.
“Wumei!” the woman wailed.
In her bedroom, Wumei—by fits and starts—told Mrs. Yun of the night’s events. She and the women she’d seen at the market had arranged to meet tonight to take a bus to a valley in the north where expert paper cutters gathered. They said there was a lot of good, tough glossy paper there, made from a plant that grows on the mountain. Because the plant was inexpensive, the paper was also cheap, and so all the villagers made papercuts. Outsiders exclaimed over their extraordinary designs. At the market, when they showed her one design, Wumei had been speechless with astonishment. She and the women headed toward the marsh. After walking a long time, they had intended to board a bus they’d seen stopped along the road. All of a sudden, a woman ran up from the marsh shouting something. Running up to them, she pointed at Wumei and said repeatedly that she was a “traitor.” At that point, the women began driving her away. They lifted her up, threw her to the ground, and kicked her head. They trampled her until she fainted. Then they went off on the bus.