by Neil Clarke
“But this was also exactly what the poet would have hated.
“And so the editor chose another way to commemorate her friend. She paid to print and bind copies of the chapbook and mailed them to her friends, anyone who was willing to read the poems, the penniless writers, translators, teachers, editors, students, librarians. She wrote in the note accompanying the chapbook that if anyone wanted more copies to gift to others, she would mail them for free. And since she knew so little about the poet’s life, she couldn’t satisfy their curiosity.
“Year after year, readers who loved her work formed clubs like this one. We read and pass on her work, from one private shelf to another, from one library to another library. But we are not interested in superficial attention; we do not fabricate tear-jerking tales about her life; we do not manufacture illusions that would be popular. We only wish for readers to admire her through her poetry, and we disdain insincere blurbs, biographies, photographs, or interviews. In fact, we make it our mission to eliminate any material of that sort. If one of us discovers an image or biographical record of her somewhere, we do our best to delete it. Documents on the Web can be deleted, databases can be carefully edited, tapes and rolls of film can be cut and then pasted back together, and anything printed could be torn out and burned.
“Very few people have noticed our actions. Compared to making news, reducing attention was work that could be carried out quietly. Of course, it was impossible to accomplish what we did without anyone noticing. There will always be the curious who wanted to know the stories behind the poems, who needed to pierce the riddle. We have no right to stop them, but we will say: we do not know any secrets, and we do not want to know any. For us, the poems themselves are enough.”
The borrower finished speaking. He opened the chapbook in his hand and placed it in front of me. I saw a yellowed piece of paper between the pages, like a piece cut from an old newspaper.
“I cut this out of the newspapers collected in your library. I’m sorry that I damaged your property. Now I return this to you so that you can decide what to do with it.”
I looked at the piece of paper. There was a blurry photograph on it. Almost twenty pale faces, exposed to the sun, stared at me. Was one of them the poet? Which one? How would I know?
The answer to the riddle was its plain text.
I picked up the piece of paper with the tips of my fingers and brought it to the stove, tossing it in. The flame licked the paper, burst into an orange flare, and in a blink the paper had turned into a curl of ash.
I looked at the borrower, who smiled at me, extending a hand. I held his large and warm hand. I realized that it had been a long time since I last held a stranger’s hand. My eyes grew wet.
“How about we read a poem together?” he said.
We sat down in our chairs and flipped open the chapbooks to the first page. We read from the first character in the first line of the first poem. Our voices floated up, passed through the ceiling, rose against the falling drifts of snow, until they had returned to the eternal, cold, dark abyss.
Originally published in Chinese in Guangming Daily, June 5, 2015 Version 14.
Translated and published in partnership with Storycom.
About the Author
As an undergraduate, Xia Jia majored in Atmospheric Sciences at Peking University. She then entered the Film Studies Program at the Communication University of China, where she completed her Master’s thesis: “A Study on Female Figures in Science Fiction Films.” Recently, she obtained a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and World Literature at Peking University, with “Chinese Science Fiction and Its Cultural Politics Since 1990″ as the topic of her dissertation. She now teaches at Xi’an Jiaotong University.
She has been publishing fiction since college in a variety of venues, including Science Fiction World and Jiuzhou Fantasy. Several of her stories have won the Galaxy Award, China’s most prestigious science fiction award. In English translation, she has been published in Clarkesworld, Nature, and Upgraded.
Way Down East
Tim Sullivan
“Season’s starting early, eh?” Laurent said, standing on the pier and scratching his gray beard.
“Why do you say that?” Donny asked, grunting as he hoisted a lobster trap onto the deck.
“Look at that fella coming out of the CVS.” Laurent nodded toward Water Street. “He look local to you?”
A blond young man in a business suit and sunglasses was leaving the pharmacy with a white plastic bag in hand, walking up the hill toward the Penobscot Hotel. He was about the same age as Donny’s son, early thirties, but Little Donny had seldom acted as solemn as this guy, even when he was in church.
“He’s part of the Gleezer’s security detail,” Laurent said.
“Is he?” Donny asked. “Guess I forgot all about that thing,”
“Did you, now?”
Donny took a momentary break. His back was hurting so much that he was beginning to think he was getting too old for this work. Too bad he didn’t know how to do anything else.
“That guy could be a tourist,” he said, ragging on Laurent, who’d repeated every rumor he’d heard since the visitor from Gliese 581c arrived on the island yesterday.
“Wonder what they bought?” said Laurent.
“Could be anything.”
“They don’t sell just anything in the drug store.”
“Course not. I meant anything they sell in the CVS, wise guy.”
“That ain’t what you said.”
“Well, I’ll just have to watch myself from now on,” Donny said. “Make sure it’s not too complicated for you.”
“Wicked,” Laurent said.
“Ain’t it, though?”
“See on TV how the Gleezer can roll around naked and get away with it?”
“It ain’t naked,” Donny said. “It’s got that elastic thing on.”
“You can see right through it.”
“So what? What is there to see?”
“Quite a lot, if you ask me.”
“No reproductive organs, is what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.”
“Let’s get these traps baited. We can’t stand here all day gawking at everybody who comes out of the drug store.”
“All day? Ain’t even been two minutes,” Laurent muttered, climbing over the gunwale.
“If we don’t get to work, we’ll never get this boat paid off,” Donny complained. “Leave it up to you, we’d never even get away from the pier.”
“Maybe we should call it a day. Take a look at those clouds coming in from the east,” Laurent said. “We go out now, we’ll get wet.”
“A little rain won’t melt us.”
They finished baiting the traps, and Donny untied the painter. He wound it up and tossed it into the lazarette as Laurent started the engine. For a moment, he stared at the rainbow trail left on the water in their wake. He was glad he couldn’t see it anymore once they got into open water and Laurent opened up the engine to churn up some foam.
They did run into rain on the way back, enough to make them don their slickers. But it cleared off pretty soon, and once they were moored at the pier again they busied themselves putting their catch into the live tank.
A lot of the eggs attached to the female lobsters were orange, which meant they were dead. It was something they saw more and more every year. After they separated the berried ladies to be thrown back, and plopped the boys into the tank, they took a breather.
“Damn, ain’t this boat a beauty, though,” Donny said, patting the fiberglass transom.
“She sure is,” Laurent said. “High bow, low topside aft, and she cuts through the water like a dream.”
“What’ll we name her, now that we finally got her?”
“I don’t know,” Laurent said. “How about ‘Swifty’?”
“Oh, come off it. That’s just plain stupid.”
“So what’s your big idea?”
“Don’t have one yet.”
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“Well, I’d say ‘Swifty’ is better than ‘Don’t Have One Yet’.”
Donny sighed. Sometimes he wondered why he even bothered.
When they were finished at sunset, Laurent talked Donny into going to Salty’s for a beer. Donny argued that he should get home, but he knew Laurent was lonely nights since June left him, except when his daughters and their husbands and kids took the ferry over from the mainland. He ended up calling Beth on the cell and told her he’d be home in an hour or two.
They drove Laurent’s truck up the hill to Salty’s and found the parking lot nearly full.
“It’s Friday night, ain’t it?” Donny said.
“Good guess, Dick Tracy.”
They parked and went in, walking past the decorative fishing nets to join the crowd. The joint was jumping. A few summer people were already in town, and their well-heeled kids were hanging out and flirting with the locals, at least those old enough to drink or get their hands on phony IDs. The jukebox was thumping rap.
Donny and Laurent sidled up to the bar and took a couple stools.
Mike, the bartender, was wiping a glass. He had to shout to make himself heard over the music and the enthusiastic bellowing of the kids. “Hello, boys.”
“What’s the word, Mike?”
“Nothin’ much.” Mike put the gleaming glass next to the other clean glasses on the shelf. “What’ll you have?”
“Two Narragansetts,” said Laurent.
“I don’t want a Nastygansett,” Donny said. “Give me a Sam Adams.”
“Big spender.” Mike fetched two bottles and poured their drinks into two tall glasses, leaving a perfect head on each.
“You’re the master, Mike,” Laurent said, blowing a little foam off the top.
“That’s what they tell me,” Mike said. “See the Gleezer’s buddies in town today?”
“One of ’em, not fifty yards from the boat, before we went for our last jaunt.”
The song on the jukebox ended, and there was a lull before the next one started.
“I hear the Gleezer wants to go out,” Mike said, his belly hanging over the cedar bar as he moved closer to speak confidentially.
“Out where?”
“Out around the Bay.”
“Who told you that?”
“One of those Secret Service fellas traveling with it,” Mike said.
“Secret Service?” Donny said. “Is the thing running for president?”
“Nope,” Laurent said. “It wasn’t born in this country.”
That got a laugh.
“So how’d you meet Secret Squirrel?” Donny asked.
“He slipped in here for a quick one last night just before closing.”
“No kiddin’?” Donny had never thought of Secret Service agents having fun, the way they were always so serious when you saw them on TV.
“Would I kid you?”
Mike turned to attend to some other customers, and the music blared once again.
Donny and Laurent nursed their beers.
“I wonder how much they’re willing to pay,” Donny hollered.
“Huh?”
“For the Gleezer’s joy ride,” Donny said. “I wonder how much the government’s willing to fork out?”
“Secret Service probably arranged a cruise already.”
“Think so?”
“Well, they’d want a luxury boat.”
“That might draw too much attention.”
“Well, if Mike heard it last night. . . . ” Laurent was thinking it over.
“Maybe we should go over to the hotel and look into it.”
“Nah, they’ve already chartered a boat.”
“How do you know that?”
“Common sense.”
“That’s something you’ve always been short on.”
“Look who’s talking, you red-headed dummy.”
They each took another pull from their beers.
“We do need to start paying off the boat,” Laurent shouted.
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“I guess it can’t hurt to make an offer.”
“Guess not,” Donny said. “Glad you thought of it.”
Laurent downed the rest of his beer. “Me, too.”
“All right, first thing in the morning, then?”
“Why not go over there now?” Laurent said. “It ain’t even supper time yet.”
“I gotta get home.”
“Shouldn’t take too long,” Laurent said, up for an adventure now. “Frank Dunsmore’s workin’ the night shift.”
“Ain’t that just ducky?”
“Well, we know him. Now’s the time to go over to the hotel and ask him who the boss is.”
“Maybe the Gleezer’s the boss.”
“Let’s hope it talks our language then.”
Donny threw a few dollars on the bar and finished his beer. They rose from their stools.
“See you, Mike,” Donny said.
Mike waved at them, and they elbowed their way through the noisy crowd and out the door.
“Sure you’re okay drivin’?” Donny asked, glad to be away from the racket.
“I only had one beer.”
They got into the truck. “I’m thinking about the night you hit that bridge abutment in Rockland.”
“Thirty-five years ago, and you’re still talking about it.”
“You only had one before that little fender bender, as I recall.”
“I had more than one that night—’less you mean one six-pack.”
The two men laughed.
It didn’t take long to get to the hotel. In fact, it didn’t take long to get anywhere on the island. Donny didn’t mind, because he always felt lost when he went to Boston or Portland, or even Bangor. He was an island boy at heart, and he liked it that way.
The Penobscot Hotel had been built in 1896, with new wings added in the fifties and the eighties. It was elegant and expensive. Except for delivering lobsters to the kitchen loading dock, the only time Donny had been inside was his senior prom in 1973. He remembered smoking a joint in the men’s room with Laurent and some other boys with shag hairdos who were all long gone from the island now, except for one who taught at a nearby high school on the mainland . . . and Frank, the man they were going to see.
Laurent pulled into the parking lot. There were a few cars, an AIV, and some trailers and a TV van at the back of the lot, but nothing much. The public had gradually stopped paying attention since the initial buzz when the Gleezer splashed down, or the media would have been out in force. Only the likes of Laurent had kept up with the story until the Gleezer showed up on the island. Most people didn’t care all that much about it anymore, since the Gleezer had nothing to say and was kept out of sight most of the time. You could only look at the same two or three clips of it so many times.
Donny and Laurent got out without bothering to lock the truck. Nobody was going to steal from them here, because everybody either had money or were people they knew, including the Costa Rican chambermaids.
“We should have worn our tuxedos,” Laurent said as they approached the glass lobby door.
“Why, are we going to a costume party?” Donny asked, opening the door for his old buddy. “After you, Alphonse.”
“Merci, garçon.” Laurent went through his pockets as if searching in vain for a coin. “Quel dommage! J’ommet tous mes argent en l’autre pantalon!”
“You damn cheapskate frog.”
The olive green carpet was so spotless that Donny almost was afraid to walk on it. A couple of well-dressed people sat on well-upholstered chairs in the lobby, and he was pretty sure from their watchful attitude that they weren’t tourists.
The balding night manager was looking at a laptop as they walked up to him.
“Hello, Frank,” said Laurent.
Frank Dunsmore looked up and greeted them with the superior air Donny had always found so annoying. “Hello, Laurent. Long time, no see. How are you, Don?”
&nb
sp; “All right.”
“You two want a room?”
“Funny fella,” said Laurent. “No, we just want to talk to whoever’s in charge of the Gleezer’s bunch.”
Frank looked amused, and Donny wanted to smack him. He saw Frank as a smarmy local boy who’d always sucked up to rich people so he wouldn’t have to earn an honest living as a lobsterman.
“I can’t just send you up to their floor,” Frank said with his customary self-importance. “They’ve got it cordoned off.”
“Can’t you talk to somebody up there?”
“Why? What do you want with ’em?”
“We got a business proposition to make.”
“Now, what kind of business would you two have with our distinguished guest?”
Laurent glanced at Donny, who shrugged in return. “We hear the Gleezer wants to go for a boat ride, and we’re willin’ to take it out.”
“Oh,” said Frank. “Who told you that?”
“Grapevine,” Donny said, before Laurent could answer.
“Have you two jokers seen our penthouse guest?”
“Only online and on TV,” Laurent admitted.
“Well, it’s one thing to see a picture of it, and it’s another thing seeing it live.”
“I guess so.”
“This is a very special time for the Penobscot,” Frank said, looking impressed with himself. “And for our island.”
“God bless America and the state of Maine, too,” Donny said. “Does that mean you ain’t gonna call up there, or are you planning to mess with us the rest of the night?” He was fed up with Frank’s superciliousness. “We got better things to do.”
Frank was taken aback. “All right, Don, don’t get your shorts in a bunch. I’ll call ’em, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He got on the house phone and spoke to somebody.
“Couple of lobstermen have a boat to charter,” he said, among other things, including their names, which he repeated twice. He hung up after a minute and said, “You can go on up.”
“Thanks,” Laurent said.
“Just a minute,” Frank said. “I gotta go key the elevator or it won’t take you to the penthouse.”