by Chi Zijian
It was Hase’s life-threatening illness that drove Berna to leave us.
A big mushroom took Hase away. When the autumn rain finally ceased, mushrooms of all sorts popped up in the forest. One grows quite oddly, for its cap is large and crimson and sports a layer of thick mucus. We call it the ‘sticky mushroom’.
Sticky mushrooms don’t seem to like light, and typically flourish in shaded, moist areas of the forest floor. Hase stepped smack on one, slipped and fell motionless on the ground. He wanted to get up but couldn’t. By then he was already seventy.
When they carried him to his shirangju, he instructed Luni that he should not be treated under any circumstances. He was a bag of old bones, and saving him would be a waste.
‘Hase, you’ve got a broken bone,’ said Valodya, and he made preparations to take him to the clinic in Jiliu Township.
‘I won’t go!’ said Hase. ‘I want my bones cast in the mountains. Maria’s are here.’
These sad words made our hearts ache. The day Hase slipped his faculties were still good, but the second day he began to babble and couldn’t drink a drop. Luni looked at Nihau with tears in his eyes, and Nihau knew what Luni wanted him to do, but she gazed gloomily at Berna and Maksym. Maksym was still a child and ignorant of what had happened within his clan, and he continued playing happily with the wooden man that Luni had whittled for him. But Berna was scared white. She bit her lip, trembled, and looked as lonely and helpless as a fawn surrounded by wolves.
That very afternoon Berna took flight. We assumed she’d gone to gather mushrooms, for she relished mushrooms like the reindeer. But at dinner she still wasn’t back. Everyone waited until nightfall and the stars came out, and then we realised something wasn’t right and we split into groups to search for her. We searched all night but found no sign of her. Luni cried and so did Nihau.
Nihau buried her head in Luni’s chest. ‘Stop the search. Unless I die, she’ll never come back!’
The second night after Berna’s disappearance, Maikan sang that song of hers again. This time we heard the lyrics clearly. It seemed to be for the man who played the flute, but also for Berna and herself:
To the riverbank I came clothing to wash
But a fish snatched my ring
And dropped it on the riverbed.
Down the mountain I came firewood to gather
But the wind blew my hair
And ensnarled it in the reeds.
To the riverbank I came to claim my ring
But the fish kept their distance.
Down the mountain I came to claim my hair
But the wind made me tremble.
Hase struggled for three days and three nights and finally closed his eyes.
Luni went to Jiliu Township to inform Dashi of his father’s death and to search for Berna. But he found no trace of her there.
When Luni brought back Dashi and Zefirina, he looked very sad. When he saw his son Maksym, he grabbed him and drew him to his chest and held him as tight as death itself. The boy squirmed and cried. Nihau rescued Maksym from Luni’s embrace, and Maksym stopped crying, but Luni wept.
After Hase’s burial, Dashi and Zefirina returned to Jiliu Township.
The scent of musk floated around Nihau again, and I knew this time the scent announced the end of her youth. Indeed, Nihau never mothered another child.
***
In 1968, the year after she married, Tatiana gave birth to her beloved Irina. It was in Jiliu Township that I first saw my granddaughter, still in her swaddling clothes. Ironically, this happened at a funeral. Ivan’s funeral, that is.
Who’d have imagined that both Dashi and Ivan would be struck down by calamities that fell from the sky? The roots of the disaster lay in the map that Commander Yoshida gave Vladimir when he left Kwantung Army Garrison for good decades ago.
By this time during the Cultural Revolution, Sino-Soviet relations had ruptured and Soviet revisionist spies were being arrested everywhere. Long filed away as military data, the map was rediscovered in a search conducted by a Rebel Faction of the Red Guards in the army. There was a sentence in Russian on the back of the map: ‘The mountains are finite, the waters are infinite.’ The rebels reckoned that a Soviet spy drew this map, and when its origins were investigated, Ivan’s name emerged.
The rebels came rushing in a car, driving several hundred kilometres to Jiliu Township where they interrogated Ivan: ‘Was this map obtained from the Soviets?’
Ivan said the map was given to him by Dashi, who in turn got it from Vladimir. So they brought Dashi in for questioning. When he heard the map was linked to the Soviets, Dashi said: ‘How could that be? The Japanese gave the map to Vladimir.’
‘We relied on that map later to locate and destroy several fortifications established by the Kwantung Army,’ explained Ivan. ‘A map like that could only have been drafted by the Japanese.’
‘So how come there’s a sentence in Russian on the back?’ queried the Rebel Faction’s interrogator.
Ivan asked the meaning of the Russian and once it was clarified, he continued. ‘That Japanese named Yoshida despised the war. He must have been making an analogy between the mountains and Japan that was bound for defeat, and between the river and mighty China. That’s why he wrote “The mountains are finite, the waters are infinite”.
‘As to why he used Russian to write it, he’s probably the only one who can say,’ said Ivan. ‘But on the eve of Japan’s surrender he committed hara-kiri on the banks of the Argun.’
‘Anyway, how can there be so many Soviet spies running around now?’ said Dashi. ‘When I was trained at the Kwantung Army Garrison, I was even sent to the Soviet Union where I photographed the Soviet’s railways and bridges for the Japanese. Based on what you say, doesn’t that make me a spy too?’
Dashi’s words only deepened the rebels’ suspicions, and they hauled him and Ivan away the next day.
The third day after they were arrested, Township Head Qigede gathered a dozen or so hunters without discussing his plan with the County Party Secretary. Hunting rifles at their backs, they rode in horse-drawn carriages for one day and one night until they found the place where Ivan and Dashi were jailed.
‘Either you lock us up with Dashi and Ivan,’ said Qigede to the Rebel Faction, ‘or you free them and let them join us again!’
In the end Dashi and Ivan were taken back to Jiliu Township, but by then both had been crippled. Ivan lost two fingers, and one of Dashi’s legs was broken. Ivan bit off his own fingers when his outrage reached its limits during his interrogation, and the rebels fractured Dashi’s leg.
After Ivan returned to Jiliu Township, he coughed up blood for two days, and then he departed. Before he died he was very lucid. ‘Bury me in the earth with my head facing the Argun, and erect a cross before my grave.’
I understand that the cross was Nadezhda’s embodiment. But if Nadezhda went to that world too, she’d certainly be upset about Ivan’s missing fingers. She loved his hands so.
No one in Jiliu Township recognised the pair of fair maidens all in white who made a sudden appearance at Ivan’s funeral. They said simply that they were Ivan’s goddaughters, and, learning of his departure, they had rushed to send him off.
By that time Yveline was already so feeble that she couldn’t even lean on a walking stick and needed someone’s arm to support every step she took, but she insisted on coming to Jiliu Township to bid Ivan goodbye. We let her ride a reindeer.
Even though she was elderly, her intuition was still sharp. ‘Those two maidens must be the pair of white foxes Ivan spared in the mountains when he was young,’ she confided. ‘They feel gratitude towards him, and knowing that his own children are unable to mourn him, they’ve disguised themselves as his goddaughters to reward his act of mercy.’
I wasn’t entirely convinced, but it’s a fact that after Ivan’s burial the pair vanished miraculously from the gravesite.
When I first saw my granddaughter Irina sleeping in Tatiana’s em
brace, her tiny pink face lost in angelic sleep, I took her in my arms, and to my surprise she opened her eyes and smiled at me. Her eyes were so radiant. A child with such eyes will be blessed with good fortune.
Dashi and Zefirina returned to the mountains with us. Not only did they come back from Jiliu Township without a child, they lost a leg. When Vladimir saw Dashi appear in the camp leaning on a cane, he embraced him and cried.
Because of the Ivan affair, Qigede was stripped of his title and returned to the mountains. Not long thereafter, Party Secretary Liu brought a man wearing a Mao suit into the mountains to see Valodya. He said the hunting peoples intended to nominate Valodya as the new Head of Jiliu Township. What did Valodya think?
Valodya gestured to me. ‘Never mind that I’ve cut my long hair. I’m still her Chieftain. If she doesn’t leave the mountains, then this Chieftain must stay at her side.’
Qigede died that winter when he slipped and fell into an animal trap. His clansmen still treated him as their respected Clan Chieftain and held a solemn funeral for him.
I’ve already told too many tales of death, but it’s unavoidable, because everyone will die. Each person’s birth is similar, but each person’s path to death is distinctive.
The year after Ivan passed away, in the summer of 1969 that is, Kunde died, followed by Yveline. Their deaths were expected because they were already in their seventies. By that time an old person resembles the setting sun about to drop into the mountains – no matter how sad you are, you can’t stop its descent.
But the deaths of Kunde and Yveline were still unique. Imagine this: Kunde, who feared neither ferocious wolves nor almighty black bears, was scared to death in the end by a black spider.
An’tsaur was nine years old and he wasn’t a naughty child. But that day in the forest he caught a big black spider the size of a jujube pit. He was intrigued by it, so he picked a long blade of grass, cut the grass into sections and tied up the spider with them, and then wandered about with his catch.
Kunde was seated outside his family’s shirangju and squinting as he basked in the sun. ‘Looks like you’re dangling something there. What is it?’ Kunde asked, his eyes widening as the boy passed by.
An’tsaur didn’t say. Instead, he leaned over and suspended the spider right in front of Kunde so he could get a good look.
The spider was bound but its feelers were still waving freely in the air. ‘Tian ah!’ moaned Kunde. Whereupon he gasped, his head tilted sharply, and he dropped dead.
Yveline was seated next to the hearth in the shirangju drinking reindeer-milk tea. When Nihau and I told her Kunde had been frightened to death by a big spider, Yveline chortled gleefully. She hadn’t laughed for a long time now.
‘So Kunde’s chicken-heartedness killed him in the end? Years ago if he’d been brave enough to take that Mongolian maiden for his wife instead of me, he and I both would have led happy lives. Well, well. He lost his life thanks to his cowardice. Now that’s fair!’
Kunde had long before instructed that he wanted to be buried with his clansmen. So when Kunde breathed his last, Luni dispatched a messenger to inform Kunde’s clan of his death, and when they came, they brought a horse-drawn carriage to take his body to his clan’s cemetery. The carriage stopped at the end of the road used to transport timber out of the mountains, but that was still some three or four li from our camp.
Luni and Valodya constructed a pine-pole stretcher and got ready to carry Kunde to the paved road. I still recall Yveline’s last words as she saw off Kunde whose corpse, covered in white cloth, was about to begin its journey to its resting place in the soil: ‘No matter how many times you whipped me, Kunde, you were just a coward. Good riddance!’
After Kunde’s departure, Yveline seemed a bit more energetic. Leaning on her walking stick, she could walk again, though she swayed precariously. She used to love raw meat, but in her last days, like Viktor she refused to smell or touch animal flesh. She drank a little reindeer milk every day, and An’tsaur collected fallen flower petals for her. She said she wouldn’t live much longer, but before she departed she wanted to clean out her gut.
An abscess festered on the neck of five-year-old Maksym. It ached so much that he cried all day long. At dusk we were seated beside the hanging pot cooking fish when Yveline arrived.
‘Why is he crying?’ she asked, gesturing towards Maksym in Nihau’s arms.
‘Out of pain,’ said Nihau. ‘Maksym has a boil on his neck.’
Yveline pursed her lips. ‘Why didn’t you say so sooner? I’m a widow now, so if I blow a few breaths of air on the wound, won’t it heal right away?’
In our clan there is an old saying that wherever a child has a boil, if a widow draws three circles around it with her index finger and then blows three puffs of air on it – three times over – then the sore will heal.
Nihau carried Maksym over to Yveline. Yveline’s hand shook as she extended her index finger that resembled a wizened tree branch. She drew circles on Maksym’s neck and then blew on the abscess with all her might. After each puff of air she had to lower her head and inhale deeply again. She trembled as she blew the last puff and suddenly dropped airily by the hearth. The firelight quivered against her face, making her look as though she still wanted to open her mouth and say something.
Indeed, after Yveline’s funeral the abscess on Maksym’s neck did heal.
It was in that year that a man on a horse suddenly arrived in our camp. He brought us liquor and sweets. But if he hadn’t said it himself, we wouldn’t have recognised him as the Han youth who stole our reindeer and caused Nihau to lose the infant still in her womb. He was a mature man now.
‘You gave me back my life. I want to return the favour,’ he said to Nihau.
‘My daughter Berna has run away. If one day you can find her and bring her back for my funeral, that will do.’
‘If Berna is still alive, I’ll find her for sure.’
We lived in relative tranquillity for the next few years. An’tsaur was a big child and could go hunting now with Luni. Maksym grew tall too and especially loved to play with the fawns. He’d bend over and pose like a reindeer, announcing he wanted to lock antlers. You could see that his hornless head would be no match for a horned adversary, but Maksym’s playfulness brought us all much joy.
Valodya and I grew older day by day. Even though we slept together, we lacked the passion to make wind-sounds. It seems the real Wind Spirit resides in the Heavens. The two rock paintings I made those years were both associated with the Wind Spirit. The Wind Spirit I painted had no facial features and you could say it was a man or a woman, and it had especially long hair, as long as the Milky Way.
Using the excuse that he was documenting our folk songs during winter and summer vacation, the Jiliu Township teacher Gao Pinglu came again and again to visit Maikan and propose marriage.
But whenever Vladimir heard talk of a match for Maikan, he’d start to howl. No matter who came to our camp to ask for her hand, Vladimir shook his head. He always said Maikan was just a child, even though she was already a young woman in her twenties.
***
After Dashi returned with a broken leg, he was cheerless. He couldn’t go out hunting as before. He often said he was useless, and could only stay behind in the camp and do lighter chores of which he was capable. Each time Luni, Puffball and Valodya came back from the hunt and gave him his share of the catch, Dashi’s face creased in sorrow. He often cursed Zefirina for no reason, but since she knew the bitterness in his heart, no matter how he insulted her, she tolerated it.
In the autumn for 1972 our hunting luck was especially good, and our chores were heavier because of the large catch. Typically, after the men brought back their kill, it was up to the women to skin it, separate the meat from the carcass and tan the hide. While the women toiled, the men loved to smoke and sip tea recounting the day’s hunting exploits.
As Dashi could only do chores along with the women, he helped us to skin the catch and strip
the meat. But he handled the tanning on his own.
On this particular day, as the men recounted the tale of how they had shot the wild deer, Dashi sat on the ground skinning it. The more exciting their tale, the gloomier he grew.
After Dashi had skinned the catch and stripped the meat off the bones, Nihau and I began to cook it. When the meat was half cooked and we called Dashi to come and eat, a rifle shot rang out from nearby. No one had imagined that Dashi would use a hunting rifle to make himself his last kill! Excellent marksman that he was, he used just one bullet.
Poor Zefirina! When she saw Dashi’s blood-drenched head, she knelt down and, treating it like a piece of fruit blown to the ground by a strong wind, she held it tenderly in her arms and kissed it.
She gently licked clean the splattered blood on his face. And while we were occupied with cleaning his body and dressing him for burial, she slipped away into the forest and swallowed a handful of poisonous mushrooms so she could join Dashi.
We buried them together. The autumn leaves danced and Vladimir used the sound of his mouth harp to see off his dear friend. It was a heart-wrenching melody. That was the last time I heard Vladimir blow on it. He stuck it at the head of the grave of Dashi and Zefirina, and that mukulén became their tombstone.
The members of our urireng were fewer and fewer and we were deeply shrouded in death’s shadow. If it hadn’t been for An’tsaur, our lives would have been even more depressed. But An’tsaur’s simple-mindedness resembled bright rays of sunlight that pierced the dark clouds and brought us light and warmth.
One day not long after we buried Dashi and Zefirina, An’tsaur was in high spirits. ‘At last the mukulén on the grave has been rescued!’ he said to Valodya and me.
I asked him what he meant.
‘Ever since the mukulén was stuck on the grave, the weather has been dry. I thought it might die of thirst. But now the rain has come and nourished it, so it’ll grow again.’