The Invisible Valley

by Wei, Su; Woerner, Austin;

  The two kids ran over and clung to the woman’s thighs, but Smudge hung back timidly. The woman barked at him:

  —You happy now? I brought back the four-eyed smelly-footed cowherder you’ve been going on about.

  Four eyes and smelly feet. Once again the magic phrase lightened the atmosphere. He heard the two men, who had yet to offer him any sort of greeting, chuckle quietly.

  —Get back inside now, the woman ordered Smudge. Look at you shivering. You ought to be in bed.

  Smudge, pulling the blanket tighter around him, gave Lu Beiping a conspiratorial look.

  —I’ll go with him, Lu Beiping said quickly.

  Leading Lu Beiping by the arm, Smudge tugged him in the direction of the lodge from which the cooking smoke rose.

  Lu Beiping wished he’d had the presence of mind to ask Smudge what it was he’d whispered in his ear while the dog was barking. But it was too late—dinner was ready.

  —Suppertime! the woman yelled out the door. Wash up and come eat!

  A minute later three men trooped into the lodge. Another man, Lu Beiping thought. He was the first to enter, a tall, heavyset fellow with a crew cut and skin as dark as the others’. Now, probably to show politeness toward their guest, the men had washed off their sweat and covered their nether regions. The heavyset man and the lean, bald man both wore red-and-white-checkered Teochew waistcloths, and the man he’d seen from behind, who had longish hair parted down the middle, had swapped his briefs for a pair of faded running shorts. As if they’d coordinated, each man carried a fat bamboo water pipe. The big man, stooping as he came through the door, was the first to greet Lu Beiping.

  —Care for a smoke? he asked, offering the blackened tube.

  The three kids probably slept jumbled together on the big bed in the middle of the room. Beneath a tattered and patched mosquito net lay a heap of rumpled, line-dried clothes, a baby sling, and a worn wooden comb tossed off to one side. Another water pipe with a piece of red yarn tied around it leaned against the bed—this one obviously belonged to the woman.

  The two younger kids played at the woman’s knees, following her back and forth between the hearth stove and the long, low dinner table, which was nailed together from scrap boards of various sizes.

  The man with the crew cut grinned and chuckled.

  —Soon’s I heard Wildweed barking up in Crackbowl Hollow I wit it was our smelly-footed friend come to jolly with us. And sure enough. Pleased to know you. My feet’ve been stinking for years, but these folks nay ever took such an interest in them, as in yours.

  He talks like Smudge, Lu Beiping thought.

  The woman slapped the man’s wrist reprovingly.

  —Sit down and eat. You’ll make us all sick, talking like that.

  The other men laughed. The bald man took a gurgling drag on his pipe and acknowledged Lu Beiping with a perfunctory nod.

  The fellow with the center part, who looked younger than the others, caught Lu Beiping’s eyes in silent greeting. His skin was dark too, but his features were delicate, with a somber cast. The big bamboo pipe looked rather incongruous in his hand.

  Lu Beiping studied this motley gang, trying to piece together the relationships between them. Smudge seemed to be a point of convergence, having both the woman’s features and the heavyset man’s accent. Was he their kid? But the bald man appeared to be the one who called the shots—Smudge was skittish around him, and the woman looked at him frequently. He must be the head of the household, if a household was what this was. As for the younger guy, the only time any animation came into his eyes was when he glanced at Smudge, suggesting some kind of allegiance between them—this was another mystery.

  (A Shangri-La? Lu Beiping said, smiling at Tsung’s question. I wouldn’t call it that. More like a den of thieves, an outlaw hideout.)

  Before he could come to any conclusions, the woman brought out the food. A crock of boiled taro and another of yam porridge, small dishes of pickled bamboo shoots, taro pickles, salt turnips, fish jerky. Lastly, after a wink at the bald man, she carried out a steaming black-and-yellow wood-ear scramble, then went back into the kitchen and returned with a massive, foul-smelling bowl of yam beer, whose cloudy depths swung and glinted when she plunked it down in the middle of the table, to the general excitement of those gathered.

  Crap, Lu Beiping thought. Yam beer. He wrinkled his nose. The bald man gave a pleased grunt and elbowed him.

  —Help yourself.

  God, no. Lu Beiping could tell that once again he wasn’t thinking straight. He had to say something, couldn’t just sit there like a mute. But he didn’t want to make a fool of himself like he’d done in the Kaus’s cookhouse.

  —No, no, he spluttered as he picked up his chopsticks: Elders first! Help yourself, Mr. . . .

  But by this point he’d already started to reach for the food. He froze, glanced at the others, then looked back at the bald man.

  —I’m sorry, sir, I don’t even know your name.

  Poor Lu Beiping. Just at that moment, the woman had gone to feed the dog.

  —Well, Lu Beiping blurted, I guess you must be Smudge’s pa.

  Smudge gave him a vicious pinch under the table. His wits returned to him, and he realized that the atmosphere around the table had turned ice cold. The bald man’s face had grown so dark it looked like it might burst into thunder and lightning, and his chopsticks hung motionless at the lip of his bowl. The other two men slurped porridge intently, pretending they hadn’t heard.

  (As soon as that yam beer came out, I completely lost my head, Lu Beiping told Tsung. I was overwhelmed by the reeking memory of that night in the foreman’s cookhouse. Even as I opened my mouth to ask the question, I knew it was the wrong thing to say. That it actually escaped my lips was purely an accident.)

  The woman, who’d heard too late what had happened, hurried through the door.

  —Mercy me! she said, giving Smudge a sharp look. Then she lifted the beer bowl, sloshed some out into a cup, shoved it in front of the bald man, and said to Lu Beiping with a tense chuckle: You’ve got the wrong idea, friend. I’m Smudge’s pa.

  —You are not.

  The bald man glared at her. Looking back at Lu Beiping, he said slowly, punctuating the air with his chopsticks:

  —Son, you’re welcome to eat at our table, but only if you don’t sin against our laws.

  Now it was the woman’s turn to be offended. She reached out and flicked the man’s chopsticks with her own.

  —Damn it, give him a break! You want to talk laws, do it someplace other than at supper.

  But right after she said this she drew the bald man’s head to her breast and fondled it. Smiling at Lu Beiping, she said:

  —Shame on me for not making things clearer. This mean-eyed bastard’s my friend Kingfisher, the toothless baboon. All howl and no bite.

  Lu Beiping felt himself blushing. The woman’s peacemaking attempts were just making him feel more sheepish. He knew that Cantonese country people had some unusual naming customs, but he’d never heard of a mother being called “pa.” And why did the man object so vehemently to this? Just what was the woman’s relationship to Smudge? And to this Kingfisher fellow, and to these two other men?

  —All howl and nay bite, eh? the big man cut in. As I’ve ever heard it, he bites and you do the howling.

  He howled with laughter, and soon the others were laughing too. Now the woman went to the big man, circled him with her arms, and slapped him playfully across the lips.

  —Listen to this man, flapping his jaws like a monkey wrench without a screw. Four Eyes, this is Stump. Thick as a hunk of wood—she rapped his head—in case you couldn’t tell.

  —Heh! Kingfisher chortled. A hunk of wood. You’d know, wouldn’t you?

  Now the woman went over and embraced the man with the center-parted hair, who hadn’t said a word throughout a
ll of this.

  —And this is Autumn. He’ll help drive your animals home tonight. He’s like a brother to me, he’s my bloodless kin.

  —Bloodless kin? A bond boy! Kingfisher whooped, and Stump gave a hoot of assent.

  —You’ve got some nerve, talking like that about an educated man. Autumn, I think you’ll like our friend here, he’s a scholar. Bows like this—she aped Lu Beiping’s courteous bend at the waist—and hauls around a big bag of books when he’s out herding, so Smudge says. Even calls his animals by queer foreign names, Thisky and Thatsky, Maggie-laggie and Rascally-cascally-kov and such. Like handmaidens for some European queen!

  She laughed, gesticulating more and more energetically as she spoke. By now the three men had almost emptied the big bowl of beer. From beneath the woman’s dancing arms Autumn gave Lu Beiping a knowing smile. Lu Beiping nodded back, feeling like they’d established a kind of rapport between peers. Autumn’s eyes had an unmistakably melancholy look, Lu Beiping thought.

  The woman seized the bowl and drained what was left of the beer, then grabbed the two roughhousing kids and dragged them to her side.

  —And these brats are Tick and Roach. Tick’s almost six, she’s about old enough to start helping round the house. And Roach, he’s in charge of wetting the bed. A right mess, just like his Uncle Stump.

  She grinned wickedly at the big man.

  —Smudge you already know. And I’m Jade. I’m the den mother. I cook and clean for these bandits.

  —You’re drunk, den mother, Kingfisher interjected, wrestling the bowl from her. Don’t mind her, Four Eyes. Drink makes her run at the mouth. You look hungry, eat some more.

  —I’m eating, I’m eating, Lu Beiping said automatically. Now that Kingfisher had relaxed a bit, Lu Beiping thought that there was something noble looking about his craggy, iron-dark face. This woman, though—Jade—had thrown him into total confusion. Den mother. She clearly wielded some kind of domestic authority. But what was her relationship to these men? She seemed to have a measure of intimacy with all of them. He had a hunch, which had been gathering momentum throughout this conversation, but his thoughts were now cut short by Jade shrieking in alarm:

  —Smudge! Heavens above!

  Lu Beiping turned and saw Smudge lying in bed, his face deathly pale, gripping the blanket and shivering violently. Smudge hadn’t made a sound all throughout dinner, Lu Beiping realized. He put down his chopsticks and was about to rise, but Kingfisher stopped him short with a bark.

  —Eat! Can’t we have one goddam meal in peace around here?

  He glared at Jade.

  —Woman, you have a guest. That boy’s been twitching for days now, you ought to be used to it.

  Jade ignored him. She hurried from the kitchen with a bowl of medicine broth and sat down at the bedside.

  Kingfisher sucked porridge loudly. Once again, the mood had gone to ice.

  The cattle rested on the slope. They’d grazed their fill and now sat huddled together in the grass waiting for their master. As Lu Beiping approached, a few steps behind Autumn, the animals raised their voices in warm, baritone greeting.

  Lu Beiping hollered to Alyosha, and as the herd assembled and began trooping down the hillside he heaved a huge sigh of relief.

  Strange place. Strange people. Nothing he’d experienced in his life up to this point had prepared him to understand this kind of strangeness.

  The chilly moonlight refreshed him. Splashes of silver shone on the dark bluffs to either side, and framed in the hollow’s mouth lay the sprawling form of the mountain, like an octopus easing its tentacles in deep, moonlit waters. There was a cold breeze, and when Lu Beiping stepped into the creek he gasped despite his rubber boots. Autumn was barefoot. The cattle sloshed along happily, hastening homeward with an eagerness that Lu Beiping didn’t share.

  Once again the jungle’s fermented odor filled his nostrils. Amid the familiar night noises he searched for something to say to Autumn, something to break the silence. He felt a sudden need for talk.

  —The dog’s not barking, he said finally. When I came up he was making quite a scene.

  —It was me that tied him up then, Autumn said, opening his mouth to speak for the first time since Lu Beiping laid eyes on him that afternoon. You scared him good, marching up there with your thunderous army.

  They both laughed quietly. After walking in silence for a while, Autumn spoke again.

  —How old are you? When’d you come to the country?

  —Guess.

  —I can’t tell. City people’s features all look alike to me.

  —City people’s features? Lu Beiping repeated, chuckling.

  —I’d say you’re younger than me, Autumn said. I graduated from junior high in sixty-five. You?

  —I would’ve graduated in sixty-nine. But I actually never went to junior high, at least not to class. They closed the schools right after I finished sixth grade. Three years later I got downcountried.

  —But you know Jesus, Peter, Judas. Where I come from, even high schoolers don’t know those names.

  Lu Beiping glanced at Autumn. He knew them, obviously.

  —Yeah, but there are a lot of things I never learned. Like, Rectify Ideological Outlook. Never Forget Class Struggle. Venerate, Emulate, Integrate, Participate, Evaluate, Interrogate, Repudiate, Annihilate. That stuff gave me a headache. I failed every current events test.

  Lu Beiping laughed and slashed with his machete at the grass that grew alongside the creek. Autumn smiled tensely.

  —Let’s not talk about that stuff.

  Lu Beiping wanted to ask Autumn where exactly he came from, and how long he’d been in Hainan. But he felt that he shouldn’t press a “driftperson” for these details, so he bit his tongue, trying to think of something else to say. The two young men waded on down the creek. Up ahead Lu Beiping heard a quiet swishing noise in the water, probably some creeping night creature, and was about to fling his machete in order to scare it off when Autumn laid a hand gently on his arm.

  —Don’t. It’s a snake, crossing the water. Don’t rile the snakes, don’t wake the spirits. That’s one of Kingfisher’s laws. I should’ve told you.

  That was something to talk about.

  —So, what law of Kingfisher’s did I break back there?

  Autumn was quiet for a moment. Then he said:

  —Kingfisher has lots of laws . . . lots of sins. I’m one.

  Lu Beiping turned and gazed at him. In the branch-filtered moonlight his expression looked even more somber and remote than usual.

  —Smudge’s dad died, Autumn said slowly. Was smudged. We don’t say die, we say smudged. Smudge’s dad was smudged flat by a falling tree. When Smudge was born, his dad named him that, said mean folks need mean names, give a man a low name and death’ll pass over him. But death took him instead. Smudge crossed his own dad. So—Autumn lowered his voice—they don’t like him.

  They? Lu Beiping remembered the rude scene at the end of dinner and felt a chill.

  —Is Jade Smudge’s mother? he asked.

  —Yep. He’s her oldest. She mothered Tick and Roach too.

  —By . . . Kingfisher? By Stump? Lu Beiping asked carefully.

  —Yep, Autumn said. But it’s Smudge she cherishes most. She has him call her Pa in secret. Never when Kingfisher’s around.

  —So, Lu Beiping said, now brimming with curiosity: What about snakes? Why can’t you rile them?

  Autumn gazed at him for a moment, then said slowly:

  —On account of what your people call Antiquated Thinking. Some folks hold that everything has a spirit. I believe that. The way Kingfisher says it, spirits of warm-blooded animals are good spirits, divines. But spirits of cold-blooded animals, snakes and insects and the like, are haunts. Weirds.

  —What about dead people? Lu Beiping asked with a catch in his voice, think
ing of Han. Are their spirits good or bad?

  —Dead people’s spirits are cold-blooded. Warm blood turns cold, that makes shadow air, killing air. Kingfisher says Smudge has got the killing air about him.

  —What about you? You said you’re . . . a sin?

  —They say I’m cold-blooded. They’re right.

  Lu Beiping shuddered. He thought of Han again, couldn’t bring himself to think further, and walked on in silence.

  After a while he asked:

  —Who do you all report to? Are you part of a unit? How do you get by, felling trees up here in the mountains?

  —We belong to Whitesands County. This bluff here is the border between Tam-chow and Whitesands. Whitesands is afraid you down in Tam-chow are about to burn the mountain clean of wood, so they let us up here to log and ship timber down to sell. Kingfisher has papers.

  He spoke reflexively, as if recounting a well-worn story. Sighing, he said:

  —Logging’s hard work. Who to do it, but us driftfolk?

  The cattle had stopped. They’d come to the clearing from which Lu Beiping and Jade had waded into the creek that evening. Lu Beiping hollered them onward, then turned to Autumn.

  —You can go back now. I know the way.

  —It’s early yet, Autumn said. I’ll walk with you a spell, take a look at your . . . abode.

  Lu Beiping laughed inwardly to hear his hut described in such lofty terms.

  —Sure. Actually, that’s a great idea. I can give you medicine for Smudge. That’s not . . . against your laws, is it?

  Autumn smiled bitterly, and the two quickened their steps at the thought of Smudge’s illness. After skirting a ravine they emerged at the third bend of the creek, and the cattle celebrated their arrival with cheerful lows. Familiar smells filled the night air, and the beasts trumpeted and fussed eagerly. Before long they were shouldering at the corral gate, and managed to kick it open. Lu Beiping hollered sharply to Alyosha, raked down some of the hay that he kept piled near the corral and tossed a few armfuls through the fence slats, then as the cattle crowded round to feed he leapt up onto one of the shafts of the oxcart and counted them.