The Invisible Valley

by Wei, Su; Woerner, Austin;

  —So . . . Kingfisher said slowly, gazing up at the ceiling with his shoulders hunched, the whites of his upturned eyes looking unnaturally large: You really have no idea who it was, eh, Four Eyes? This is a queer matter, for sure. What could that young man in army clothes have done that’d send him running into the jungle to burn paper money? And why’d he burn that board too?

  —I told you, Jade cut in from over by the hearth stove: It must have been one of the Tam-chow tribesfolk setting a fire to flush wild hogs. It’s not worth sweating about, Kingfish.

  —Then why’d he turn tail and run when he heard Stump coming? Doesn’t sound like a hill man to me.

  —I bet he thought Stump was me, Lu Beiping said quickly. All the hill folk on this side of the mountain know me by sight. Not long ago I almost lost my foot in one of their hog traps, and afterward I had it out with them and told them never to hunt hogs in my area again.

  Kingfisher stared at him for several seconds, as if weighing his words, then said:

  —Maybe what you say is true. But the whole business still strikes me as a mite shadowy. Mark my words, Four Eyes: We can rile ruffians and tribesfolk all we want, but we can’t afford to make enemies with the spirits. Eat, lad, eat.

  With the matter temporarily closed, joviality reigned over the dinner table once more. Jade yakked and guffawed, spinning the conversation in circles around her. Autumn fed himself silently, heedless of the others, while Stump, as usual, ate like it might be his last meal. Smudge slurped amaranth soup as noisily as possible, kicking Lu Beiping from time to time beneath the table. Once Jade leaned over, a devilish grin on her face, and deposited a big chunk of pork in Lu Beiping’s bowl, then returned her attentions to her own bowl of soup, throwing Lu Beiping a honeyed glance over the rim. Lu Beiping noticed that before Kingfisher lifted his chopsticks, he once again turned toward the shrine in the alcove by the door and murmured a quiet prayer.

  These folks, Lu Beiping thought, are the most uninhibited, yet at the same time the most cautious, people I’ve ever met.

  There was a brief rain shower after dinner, then night fell, and it was time to extinguish the lamps. Smudge and the two little ones pestered Lu Beiping to play the harmonica, but by the end of the second song all three had plopped wearily onto the bed and drifted off to sleep, their small bodies curled together like cooked shrimp in a pot. During dinner Kingfisher had announced that he’d pulled a muscle sawing, and afterward Jade went with him into the big lodge to firecup his back. Lu Beiping heard Stump call out mockingly: Strained your back, eh, Kingfish? Careful not to strain your pecker too! Lu Beiping wondered whether this was one of the usual stratagems by which the three men managed to share one woman. By the precedent he himself had set, he ought to have left right after dinner so that he could be in his own hut by nightfall, but Smudge had nagged him relentlessly, and after a pointed glance from Jade he decided not to press the issue. He was already eating “off the registers”; he might as well sleep there too.

  He straightened out the jumbled bodies of the children so that there was enough room for him in the bed, pulled down the mosquito net, dimmed the lamp, then took a bamboo dipper to the pool behind the lodge in order to wash his face.

  A dash of rain turns July into November, one of the handbooks they’d been issued before departing for Hainan had advised. It was true—nothing dispelled the summer fug better than a light rainfall in the evening. The water splashing over Lu Beiping’s skin was a delicious sensation in the cool night air. As he stood by the pool’s edge, stretching his back and humming to himself, he heard a sudden movement behind him and tensed. Before he could turn to look a pair of soft arms had circled his waist.

  It was Jade, of course.

  —Selfish boy, she said, her voice purring like a gentle breeze over his ear: Enjoying yourself out here without a thought to anyone else.

  —Selfish? Lu Beiping said, looking at the wrists crossed over his navel. He glanced back at her, laid one hand lightly on her forearm. You think I’m being selfish, Jade?

  —Yes, Jade said. You’ve been avoiding me.

  —Really? He laid his other hand on her other arm, then said hesitantly: Uh, Jade, weren’t you going to . . . massage Kingfisher’s back, or something?

  —Is this bothering you? she asked, squeezing his waist and chuckling. You know, it was Kingfish who sent me here to keep you company. He said that that meat supper made his back feel better!

  —Kingfisher sent you? Lu Beiping asked in amazement. Surely that must be against your laws.

  —Against our laws? Jade’s voice betrayed her own surprise as well. I wanted to make good with you, and Kingfisher and the others agreed. Kingfish always says: What’s law in the valley isn’t law on the mountain. Living and loving, bearing and sowing, none of that’s against our laws. Death is the only crime, the only sin. Life is light; death is shadow. Only through sowing life can we make the light grow, push back the mountain’s shadows. That’s what Kingfisher says. You get me, Four Eyes?

  —Not at all, Lu Beiping said, thinking: These people sure have some strange laws.

  —You really don’t get me? We’re all in this together, Four Eyes. Man and woman, scraping by whatever way we can. What’s wrong with that? Love is no sin—only killing, lying, wasting is sin. So Kingfisher says. You still don’t get me?

  —Nope, said Lu Beiping, laughing. So . . . we’re all in this together, you say? Does that include me?

  —Stop playing the idiot, Jade said, slapping his lips playfully. Then she laid her cheek on his shoulder and began running her hands over his body, caressing his chest, his sides, his stomach, and on down.

  —Don’t, Lu Beiping whispered, grabbing her wrists: We’ll wake up the little ones, and they’ll see.

  Jade laughed.

  —So what? We’ve got no secrets around here. You can’t hide from the sun. What’s a mother to care if her child sees the flesh he’s born of?

  —Can’t hide from the sun? What’s that supposed to mean?

  By this point Lu Beiping was already rather aroused, and was just making pointless patter.

  —What do you think it means, stupid? she said, pinching him on the side. The sun sees everything. You, me, the pups. Every little bit of us. What’s to be ashamed of? Me and the men, when we sleep together we never hide it from the little ones. Once Kingfisher caught Smudge spying on us and gave him a good licking, said: You can watch the grown-ups in bed all you want, but spying—that isn’t allowed!

  Another lesson in Kingfisherist philosophy, Lu Beiping thought. Another dose of mumbo-jumbo. Jade slipped her hands into his shorts and discovered his present state of excitement.

  —Mercy me! I’ve found your horn, Bull Devil.

  —My horn? Am I your Horn, Jade?

  Jade laughed.

  —Sure. Just for tonight.

  Lu Beiping closed his eyes, breathing heavily. Then he turned and, straining with all his might, hoisted Jade off her feet and heaved her into the pool.

  —Take that! You can’t hide from the moon, Jade!

  Lu Beiping took off his shorts and tossed them into the water, then, as Jade shed her thin cotton blouse, waded in toward the silver silhouette swimming on the pool’s moonlit surface.

  —Ha! You’re stronger than I thought! Jade called out, laughing.

  Chapter 7

  The Flood

  Lu Beiping pulled the burnt board out of the tall grass and flung it at the Gaffer’s feet. The old man hopped back with a yelp of dismay.

  —Ruin and balefire! Where’d you find this accursed thing? the Gaffer hissed, probing Lu Beiping with his perennially bloodshot eyes.

  Lu Beiping chewed his lip and said nothing.

  —You know what this is? This is Han’s grave marker! What used to mark her grave over in that weedy patch! The Gaffer gestured in the direction of the waste clearing at the edge of the
rubber grove, then spluttered a voluminous stream of questions: How’d you get your hands on that? Why’s it all burnt up? Bless me, boy, were they telling the truth when they said you’re kin to shadow? I’ll bet your dead sweetheart showed up in a dream and told you where—Fah! Get! Go on!

  The Gaffer swatted away a pair of cows that had moseyed over to show their affection, then laughed at Lu Beiping.

  —Friend Lu, seems you and our foreman’s daughter were tight as cane twine a few lives back.

  Lu Beiping, having heard what he’d come to hear, turned and walked away without saying a word. The Gaffer followed close behind, spewing Friend Lus, but Lu Beiping ignored him and hollered to Alyosha. He was eager to be gone from this blighted place.

  —Leeleelooloowaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

  The Gaffer, loitering undeterred in the trees behind Lu Beiping, let out one of his ululating swine calls, and the herd rumbled to a halt like a bulldozer with a broken starter. Lu Beiping stood there fuming as the cattle appealed to him with bewildered lows.

  —Looks like you could still learn a few tricks from an old codger like me, the Gaffer said, sidling over to Lu Beiping, dangling the board at arm’s length between thumb and forefinger. And don’t forget this, young master Lu! You can leave me behind, but you can’t leave your own wife’s grave-marker!

  He dropped the board at Lu Beiping’s feet. Lu Beiping stared at it expressionlessly.

  —Shut your foul mouth, Gaffer.

  —You think my mouth’s any cleaner than that bale-crossed thing? the Gaffer said, peering sidelong at Lu Beiping as he continued to needle him: You think you can toss me aside like an old yam chip? Wring the juices out of me and then just chuck me in the ditch? Mercy me! After all the hard knocks I’ve been through, I’m not going to let you spill a bucketful of your own bad air on my head and then just walk away.

  The Gaffer glared up at Lu Beiping, his arms folded, his leathery chin jutting out defiantly. Lu Beiping stared back at him, wiped a drop of the Gaffer’s spittle off of his cheek. Then he told the old cowherd the story of the board, how a young man wearing an army cap and fatigues had burnt it and left it by the creek near his hut. He left out the part about Stump.

  —So, Lu Beiping said, Who do you think that guy was?

  —It was Wing, the old man replied without hesitation.

  Lu Beiping’s chest went hollow. It was just as he suspected. Guano-green fatigues were Wing’s signature outfit; he was never seen in public wearing anything else.

  —Pardon me for being frank, the Gaffer said with a broad smile that revealed a row of smoke-blackened teeth: But this is all plain as day to me. You married his sister, of course he’s going to burn you her grave marker, that’s the sign over her door. That way your souls can find each other. She won’t stand in his way anymore now. You set him free!

  Lu Beiping looked back and forth between the feverishly gesticulating Gaffer and the burnt board lying at his feet. He chuckled drily. Then, without warning, he erupted into a fit of crazed laughter.

  —Ha! I set him free?

  He spat on the board, kicked it, jumped on it, trampled it, all the while laughing wildly and cursing at the top of his lungs:

  —Wing! You motherfucker! Fuck your mother’s goddam fucking cunt!

  The Gaffer, frightened by this irrational outburst, grabbed Lu Beiping’s arm and threw an anxious glance in the direction of camp.

  —Lu! Shhh! Quit it! Has a devil got into you? Quiet down!

  Lu Beiping slumped down at the foot of a rubber tree and stared blankly at the burnt grave marker, cradling his forehead in his hands. He wondered in what previous life he’d had the misfortune to get tangled up in this filthy, unfathomable affair. The more he resigned himself to whole thing, the more he tried to keep Han at a healthy mental distance, the tighter she clung to him, like a glop of day-old, congealed rubbermilk.

  The trees gazed down at him with their wizened old faces, weeping tears of latex from their lumpy knife scars. The cicadas abraded his ears. Once more he smelled the foul odor of human influence, the combined reek of sweat, old rubbermilk, and manure that always pervaded the rubber groves. The Gaffer leaned down to inspect the grave marker, jabbing a finger at the near-illegible characters as he read off laboriously the words written on the charred oaken tablet: Our . . .

  beloved . . . daughter . . . Then, lowering his tarry teeth to Lu Beiping’s ear, he whispered:

  —That’s the foreman’s handwriting. I’ll bet this goes deep, my friend.

  —What? Lu Beiping said quickly, looking up at him. What did you say?

  —Nothing! the Gaffer said, stiffening and waving a hand in denial. I don’t know a thing!

  Lu Beiping stared at him.

  —Gaffer, I’m not a dry old yam chip either.

  —Don’t ask me, boy! Ask Choi.

  —Choi? This is Choi’s grove we’re in right now, isn’t it?

  No sooner had this question escaped his lips than a crackling flurry of footsteps through the underbrush stole the breath from both his and the Gaffer’s lungs. Turning to look, they saw a familiar female figure hustling off down one of the orchard lanes, latex bucket in hand, her rubber boots squawking loudly as she fled. Choi—who was, indeed, responsible for tapping this grove—had heard them talking, crept over, hidden behind a rubber tree, and listened in on most of their conversation.

  —Well! the Gaffer cried, If it isn’t Choi, the light of my eyes! Affecting the mincing croon of a singshow actor, he sang out after her: Halt, fair princess! Why—hie—you—hence? Won’t you honor this pooooor, pooooor wretch with a glance?

  Lu Beiping scrambled to his feet and hurried after Choi.

  —Choi! Wait! Stop!

  Without looking back Choi quickened her pace, crackling and squawking through the underbrush as fast as her clumsy rubber boots and heavy pail would permit her.

  Lu Beiping stopped, fell into his grade-school relay-runner’s crouch, then bounded forward at a full sprint, catching up with her in a matter of seconds. Choi whirled around to face him, panting, her large breasts heaving visibly beneath her latex-spattered, sweat-darkened work suit. Her face, which like many rubber tappers’ was unusually pale from working a mostly nocturnal schedule, was now even paler from fright, and her lovely almond eyes spat flames at him.

  —Lu Beiping, she yelled: If you take one more step, I’ll pour this pail of rubbermilk over your head!

  Lu Beiping halted, gasping for air.

  —You . . . you were eavesdropping on our conversation! Just tell me—

  —Go to hell! she shrieked. Don’t corner me, city kitten! You—you—if you’d tasted half an ounce of salt in your life, you’d be terrified your children’ll be born without assholes! You think that just because you’ve been ghost-married into the foreman’s family, you can storm around like you own this place and hound me to death? You shit-licking pissant! You miserable little kinkiller! I hope you die bleeding in the dirt!

  Choi turned and walked away, cursing and huffing, her pail thumping at her side. Lu Beiping stood staring after her, thunderstruck.

  . . . honor this pooooor, pooooor wretch with a glance! Behind him the Gaffer’s voice echoed mockingly in the trees.

  The stench of the corral battered the clouds, crushing Mudkettle Mountain beneath its stomach-turning weight. The creek gurgled fetidly, like a case of the runs; the birds darted pell-mell, driven from their nests by the manure’s ammoniac reek; even the buzzing of the cicadas had lost its usual insolent tone, and now sounded like the hoarse weeping of a princess fallen from favor. Fat, mildew-spotted rainclouds jostled in the sky, plugging the valleys like big clay jugs, within which the odor of cowshit bubbled and stewed, thick, choking, and unbearable. Only the cattle seemed lighthearted today, lowing amiably as they nibbled grass down by the creek, pleased, no doubt, that the humans had finally taken it upon themselves to clean
their filthy abode.

  The day before, Lu Beiping had ventured into camp to summon the maintenance crew to haul out the manure. Today he’d been awoken from an early afternoon nap by a hubbub of voices on the hill above the banana grove where he’d been sleeping, and rushing up the slope he discovered to his shock that the foreman himself was leading the team. This was the first time during his tenure as cowherd that he’d encountered his “father-in-law” here in the jungle. The foreman, a giant by Southern standards, seemed to tower over Lu Beiping’s hut as he stood joking loudly with one of the hands, his presence lending the whole scene an oppressive air. Among the milling bodies Lu Beiping immediately picked out his new brother by ghost marriage, the honorable princeling Wing, his jaunty green cap cocked conspicuously on his head. And sashaying along in the crowd behind him Lu Beiping saw, to his even greater surprise, his former girlfriend, Fong.

  What were all these people doing here? Lu Beiping had assumed that everybody was off on “campaign,” burning down rainforest in a neighboring county. Why had they all appeared at once on his home turf? Wing greeted him with a nod, then took off his hat and fanned himself with it while muttering about the heat. Fong sauntered out of the trees, a pair of empty wicker cargo baskets dangling from her shoulder yoke, and looked around with an impassive air, pretending not to notice Lu Beiping. A few of the hands hectored him good-naturedly. He glanced furtively toward the back of the crowd and saw the Gaffer perched atop one of the tongues of the oxcart, leering at him. This particular array of people, turning out en masse to clean his corral, seemed uncomfortably like a show of force.

  The foreman swept his gaze around Lu Beiping’s campsite, noting every detail. He even lifted the lid off of his frypan and peered inside, smiling.

  —How’ve you been holding up, son? the foreman called over to him.

  —Fine, Lu Beiping answered nonchalantly as he led a group of workers up the hill toward the corral. I’m getting used to it.