Mulberry and Peach

by Hualing Nieh

  ‘I’m sure it will rain tomorrow. When it rains, the waters will rise.’

  ‘Do you really believe in sandwriting?’ I ask. ‘Was it you writing with the sticks or was it really Tu Fu and Chu-ko?’

  ‘You young people these days!’ He strokes his beard. ‘Here I am, an old man, would I try to deceive you?’ He pauses. ‘I really believe that heaven cares about us and answers prayers. Let me tell you a story from the Chronicle of Devoted Sons. There was a man called Yü Tzu-yü who was accompanying his father’s coffin through the Chü-t’ang Gorge. In June the waters rose and the boat which was supposed to carry the coffin couldn’t sail. Yü Tzu-yü burned incense and prayed to the Dragon King to make the waters recede. And the waters receded. After Yü Tzu-yü escorted the coffin through Chü-t’ang Gorge, the waters rose again.’

  ‘Who’s the devoted son aboard this boat?’ asks Peach-flower Woman with a laugh.

  No one answers.

  ‘How long have we been stranded here?’

  ‘Has it been five days?’

  ‘No, seven.’

  ‘Six days.’

  ‘Well, anyway, it’s been a long, long time.’

  ‘The moon has risen.’

  ‘Ummm.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘If the moon is overhead, it must be midnight. Do you have a watch?’

  ‘Yes. It’s stopped. I forgot to wind it. Who else has a watch?’

  ‘I do, but I can’t see what time it is. It’s too dark.’

  ‘It’s so quiet. Only the sound of water on the rocks.’

  ‘Is everyone asleep?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why don’t you say something?’

  ‘I’m so hungry and thirsty.’

  ‘There went a big wave.’

  ‘How can you tell? You can’t see them from here.’

  ‘I can hear them. It’s very quiet, then suddenly there’s a loud splash and then everything’s quiet again.’

  ‘Can you hear anything else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are they still fighting?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Those people on the bank.’

  ‘Oh, they won’t come down here to fight. Mountains on both sides, water below, sky above.’

  ‘Hey, everyone, say something. OK? If nobody speaks, it’s like you’re all dead.’

  ‘What shall we say?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘When it’s quiet like this and nobody is speaking, it’s really scary. But when you talk it’s also scary, like a ghost talking.’

  ‘Well, I’ll play my flute, then.’

  ‘Good idea. I’ll tell a story while you play the flute.’

  ‘I’m going to play “The Woman and the Great Wall”.’

  ‘It was a moonlit night. Quiet like this. He woke up smelling gunpowder . . .’

  ‘Who is “he”.’

  ‘The “he” in the story. He woke up smelling gunpowder. There were ashes everywhere. Even the moon was the colour of ash. When he woke up, he was lying under a large tree on a mountainside. The slope faced the Chialing River. Thick black columns of smoke arose from Chungking on the opposite bank. Reflected in the waters of the river, the black pillars of smoke looked like they were propping up the sky. Between the columns of smoke everything was grey as lead, as if all the ashes in Chungking had been stirred up.

  ‘He stood up, shaking ashes and dust off his clothes. He had just woken up. He had been hiding in the air raid shelter dug into the mountain for seven days and nights. The Japanese bombers had come squadron after squadron, bombing Chungking for more than one hundred fifty hours. More than two hundred people had hid in the shelter. Eating, drinking, defecating, urinating, all inside the shelter. He couldn’t stand it anymore and had gone outside. Another squadron of bombers appeared, and he didn’t have time to run back to the shelter. He heard an ear-splitting crash and sand scattered in all directions. When he awoke, he saw someone digging at the entrance of the shelter. A bomb had destroyed the shelter. He took to his heels, afraid he might be dragged back by the dead inside the shelter. He ran and ran. He didn’t know where he was running to. Only by running could he be safe. Suddenly he heard a voice calling out, “Let me go, let me go!” ’

  ‘Hey, keep on playing the flute, don’t stop.’

  ‘You want me to keep on playing the same song over and over?’

  ‘Yeah. Go on with the story.’

  ‘All right. The voice kept repeating. “Let me go. Let me go.” He stopped, looked all around. There was no one in sight, only some graves. There weren’t even any tombstones. He walked to the right. The voice came from the left. He walked to the left. Then the voice came from the right. He walked straight ahead. The voice was behind him. He turned and walked back. The voice was silent. He couldn’t keep walking in the opposite direction. That direction would take him back to the shelter that was full of dead bodies. He had to keep going forwards. He heard the voice again. “Let me go, let me go.” The voice seemed to come from under his feet. He stopped. It was coming from the right. He walked to the right and the voice got louder. He saw an empty grave. The coffin had probably been removed recently. A woman was lying in the grave, her head sticking out of the grave, her eyes closed, repeatedly mumbling, “Let me go.” He dragged her out of the pit. Then he recognised that she had been among the people hiding in the shelter. He couldn’t tell if she was the ghost of someone killed in an explosion, or a living person who had escaped the bombing. He had a canteen with him. He poured some water down her throat. She regained consciousness. He asked her how she got out of the shelter and into the grave. She stared at him, as if she hadn’t heard. She said, “Tzu-jao, can’t you run faster than that?” He told her his name was Po-fu. The woman said, “Don’t try to fool me. Has the soldier gone?” He said, “The bombers have gone.” She became impatient and repeated over and over, “I mean the Japanese soldier who tried to rape me. Has he gone?” The man said, “There are no Japanese soldiers in Chungking.” ’

  ‘The flute sounds especially nice tonight. That poor lonely woman looking for her husband and crying at the Great Wall. What about the woman?’

  ‘Which woman? The woman at the Great Wall or the woman in the grave?’

  ‘The one in the grave. Hurry up and tell us the rest of the story. It’s like a modern-day Gothic.’

  ‘OK. The woman sat down, beating the ground with her fist over and over. “This isn’t Chungking. This is Nanking. We’ve just gotten married. The Japanese have just invaded the city.” The man groped for his watch in his pocket, struck a match, and showed her the name Po-fu engraved on the watch. The woman said, “Don’t try to fool me, Tzu-jao! This is a matter of life and death. Run quick. The Japanese are combing Nanking for Chinese soldiers. They think that anyone with calluses on his hands is a soldier: rickshaw pullers, carpenters, coolies. Yesterday in one day they took away one thousand three hundred people. The dogs in Nanking are getting fat, there are so many corpses to feed on.” The woman looked around and asked, “Has the soldier gone?” He could only reply, “Yes, he’s gone.” The woman pointed to the river. “It was on that road through the bamboo thicket. I was walking in front. He was walking behind me. You know, Tzu-jao, we have been married more than a week and you still haven’t been able to touch me. You called me a stone girl.” ’

  ‘What do you mean, “stone girl”?’

  ‘Stone girl. It means a girl who can’t have sex.’

  ‘Go on, you’re just getting to the best part.’

  ‘The woman kept on talking like that. She said, “It happened on that road through the bamboo thicket. I was walking in front. He was walking behind me. In full daylight, he stripped off his clothes as he followed me, throwing his uniform, boots, pants, underwear down at the side of the road. He stripped naked, leaving only his bayonet hanging by his side. When he was wearing his uniform, he seemed so much taller. Naked he looked shorter, even shorter than I am. He ri
pped off my clothes. He tossed me about like a doll. He threw down his bayonet. Just then, Tzu-jao, you came running up. Don’t you remember? You ran out of Nanking, but you came back into the city. That Japanese was a head shorter than you. When he saw you, he jumped on your back, two hands gripping your neck. He was biting the back of your neck with his teeth. You reached back and grabbed his penis. You couldn’t hold onto it. It was too small. As last you got it. You pulled it back and forth with all your strength. He screamed. Some people from the International Relief Committee came running up. The head of the committee was a German. He ordered the Japanese soldier to leave. But the soldier kept biting your neck. You wouldn’t let go of his penis. Finally the German put out his arm and the Japanese saw his Nazi insignia. He slipped off your back and ran. He didn’t even pick up his clothes or his bayonet.”’

  ‘What a good story. Then what happened to her?’

  ‘When? After the rape incident in Nanking? Or after the bombing in Chungking?’

  ‘After the bombing.’

  ‘Her husband and son were looking for her. Just before the bombers hit, her two-year-old son started crying in the shelter. The people in the shelter cursed him and wanted to beat him to death. The father had to take the child outside. The mother was too anxious to stay in the shelter. She went outside to look for her husband and son. Then the bombers hit and bombed the shelter. After the bombing was over, she didn’t know how she got into the grave. She didn’t remember anything. She thought she was in Nanking and was reliving the past. Her husband had gone with their child to the police station to look at the list of the dead. I took her to the police station. She was still suffering from shell-shock and didn’t recognise her husband and child. She said she had just gotten married and didn’t have any children. She still believed she was in Nanking and was reliving the slaughter. When I saw that she was reunited with her husband and child, I left.’

  ‘You? Are you telling us a story, or is that something that really happened to you?’

  ‘It really happened to me. We’ve been stranded here so long that it seems like a story from a former life,’ says the old man.

  Refugee Student is still playing ‘The Great Wall’ on his flute.

  With the New Year comes the spring

  Every house lights red lanterns

  Other husbands go home to their families

  My husband builds the Great Wall

  A big wave passes with a crash. Then it’s quiet. Another crash, then it’s quiet. Human heads are bobbing in the water, their eyes wide open and staring at the sky. Everything is silent.

  A large eagle flies overhead. It circles the heads and flaps its huge black wings. It is beautiful. It is dancing.

  Suddenly the old man and Lao-shih are sitting on the eagle’s wings, each sitting on one side, like on a seesaw. The eagle wheels in the air. They wave at me.

  Refugee Student suddenly appears, riding on the eagle’s back. He begins to play his flute to the rhythm of the eagle’s dance.

  The eagle carries them off down the river.

  The human heads float downstream.

  I call to the eagle, begging them to stop. I want to fly away on the eagle, too.

  Peach-flower Woman, her breasts exposed, appears, riding the crest of a wave. She waves at me. She wants me to join her on the waves.

  The sound of the flute gets louder.

  I wake up. The flute is coming from the stern. Lao-shih, the old man, and Peach-flower Woman are all asleep. Peach-flower Woman hugs her child to her bare breasts.

  I sit up.

  The sound of the flute suddenly stops.

  I go out of the cabin and walk around the bales of cotton which are piled in the stern.

  Refugee Student, bare-chested, is lying on the deck.

  The gorge is black. He reaches up to me. I lie down on top of him. We don’t say anything.

  My virgin blood trickles down his legs. He wipes it off with spit.

  The Sixth Day Aground.

  There is shouting on the river.

  We run out. A ship tilts down over the crest of a wave. It spins around in the whirlpool. The people on the ship scream, women and children cry as it spins faster and faster, like a top.

  White foam bubbles around the lip of the whirlpool. The foam churns up into a wall of water, separating us from the spinning ship. Then the wall collapses with a roar. The ship splits open like a watermelon. Everyone on board is tossed into the water.

  Another huge wave rolls by. Everyone in the water has disappeared.

  Silence.

  The river rushes on. The sun dazzles overhead.

  The beating of the drum begins.

  Refugee Student, his shirt off, thick black hair bristling in his armpits and above his lip, is pounding on the drum, every muscle straining, teeth clenched. He raises the drumsticks over his head and pounds on the drum with all his strength. He isn’t beating the drum. He is beating the mountains, the heavens, the waters.

  The mountains, the heavens, the waters explode with each beat.

  ‘Don’t stop, don’t stop. A victory song,’ shouts the old man.

  A crow flies toward our boat.

  Refugee Student throws down the drumsticks and glares at the crow.

  ‘Black crow overhead, that means if disaster doesn’t strike misfortune will,’ Peach-flower Woman says as she holds her child.

  I pick up an empty bottle and throw it at the crow. ‘I’ll kill you, you stupid bird.’ The bottle shatters on a rock.

  Lao-shih picks up a bowl and hurls it at the crow. ‘You bastard. Get out of here!’ The bowl shatters on a rock.

  The crow circles overhead.

  The old man shakes his fist at the crow. His face turns purple. ‘You think you can scare us, don’t you? You think I’ll just die stranded here, do you? When the warlords were fighting, I didn’t die. When the Japanese were fighting, I didn’t die. Do you think I’m going to die now, on this pile of rocks? Hah!’ He spits at the crow.

  ‘Goddam motherfucker,’ shouts Refugee Student, leaping at the crow. ‘You can’t scare me. Just wait and see. I won’t die. I’ll survive and I’ll raise hell, that’ll show you. Mountains, waters, animals, crows. Can you destroy the human race? You can destroy a man’s body, but you can’t destroy his spirit. Ships capsize, people drown, mountains are still mountains and water is still water. Millions of people are being born, millions of people have survived these rapids. The world belongs to the young. Don’t you know that, you bastard? People won’t die out. Don’t you know that? They won’t die out.’

  The old man claps his hands. ‘Attention, please. Everybody. This is a matter of life and death. I have something to say that I can’t hold back any longer. I think the captain has been playing a game with our lives. This gorge is even more dangerous than Hundred Cage Pass. Of course he knows this danger. He’s been sailing these gorges all his life. This boat should only carry freight; they shouldn’t allow passengers. He certainly shouldn’t take our money before we arrive safely at our destination. The ticket for this old wooden boat costs as much as a paddlewheel. But since he has taken passengers and taken our money, he is responsible. First, he ought to ensure our safety; next, he ought to take care of feeding us. When we cracked up on New Landslide Rapids, we were delayed four days in Tai-hsi. We trusted the captain. We didn’t ask him to return our money. We got back on the boat. Then the tow-line broke at Yellow Dragon Rapids. We’ve been stranded here since then. The Yangtze River, several thousand miles long, is the greatest river in Asia, and we have to ration drinking water. What a joke. From that day on, he took no emergency measures. Not only that, but when we were screaming for help at the top of our lungs, he made sarcastic remarks. The captain and the crew know how to handle boats. In case anything happens, they’ll know what to do and how to escape. We don’t know what to do. The passengers and the crew make thirteen people, but there are only six of us, and we are all either too old or women and children. We’re outnumbered and we can’t f
ight them. And so, I want to stand up and be counted and speak out for justice. I represent the six passengers, including the baby, and I demand that the captain do something.’

  The oarsmen and the passengers are silent.

  The captain, squatting on deck, blank expression, sucks the empty pipe in his mouth. ‘You people just don’t understand the difficulties in sailing these Gorges. We boatmen make our living by relying on the water and the sky. If it doesn’t rain, the water won’t rise and there’s nothing we can do about it. Whether it’s sailing the river or riding a horse, there’s always danger involved. There’s a slippery stone slab in front of everyone’s door. No one can guarantee you won’t slip on it and crack your skull. For human beings there is life and death, for things there is damage and destruction. It all depends on the will of Heaven. If you want someone to die, the person won’t die. But if Heaven commands it, he will die. All I can do now is ask that you passengers calm down and wait patiently a while longer.’

  ‘God, wait for how long?’

  ‘If we have to wait, we at least ought to have food to eat and water to drink!’

  ‘There’s plenty of water in the river, and plenty of fish.’ says the captain. ‘If there’s no more firewood, then eat raw fish. If there’s no more alum, then drink muddy water. We boatmen can live like that. Can’t you?’ He sucks hard on his pipe. ‘When our tobacco is gone, we smoke the dregs; when that’s gone, we smoke the residue.’ He reaches down and strikes the drum. ‘Those who can’t eat raw fish can chew the leather on this drum.’

  Refugee Student spits at the captain. ‘I’ll chew on you.’

  The captain throws his head back and laughs. ‘Go ahead and chew. Go ahead and slice me up. Kill me. What good will that do? When the water rises and the ship floats up, you will need someone at the rudder.’

  ‘Dice!’ I yell as I cross the aisle into the ‘Boys’ Dormitory’. The old man is sitting on his bunk, rolling three cubes of dice around in his hand. I snatch them away and cast them on the bunk. ‘Come on, let’s gamble. Everybody, come here.’