The Invisible Valley

by Wei, Su; Woerner, Austin;

  —Let him out! Let out the white rooster!

  Kingfisher leaned over and said to Lu Beiping:

  —Four Eyes, care to place a bet? Where I come from, we like to stake big money on cockfights.

  —Sorry, Lu Beiping said, laughing: I can’t. I don’t know the rules.

  —No gambling allowed! Jade cut in. If you want to bet something, bet your own damn selves.

  Just as they were speaking, the old Australian rooster alighted in their midst like a flash of white lightning, igniting mayhem among the fowl and excitement among the humans. Wings outstretched, he advanced through the frightened mob of chicks, then rushed at the usurper with a bloodcurdling screech. The two roosters drew their bodies taut and stood for a moment in a quivering stand-off: red against white, young against old, native-born against foreign interloper. Then they lunged, pecked, kicked, flapped, twisting themselves into a ball of claws and wings, raising clouds of dust and a shrill, murderous clamor. The chicks swarmed over to join the fray, darting in between the fighters to snatch morsels of food, their milling bodies and twittering voices adding to the chaos. The hen, however, didn’t seem the least bit concerned, strutting about with a queenly air and occasionally herding the chicks to the side and shielding them with her wings, then returning to pecking the crumbs of bran as if this violent showdown had nothing to do with her. As they fought she clucked quietly to herself, either praising the combatants or lamenting the whole foolish affair.

  Everybody watched, rapt. Kids and grown-ups alike took sides, egging on their favorites:

  —Come on, whitey!

  —Tear him up, Man Cheong!

  In the midst of all this Lu Beiping noticed that Jade, after portioning out the beef for the others, had taken none for herself, just sat sipping a bowl of porridge with a few bits of pickled cabbage floating on the surface.

  —Jade, he asked, why aren’t you eating any meat?

  Smudge, pricking up his ears, interjected:

  —Pa lost it to me! She’d wagered you’d not come, and I won her next meat supper.

  —Then take mine, Lu Beiping said, raking up the beef in his bowl and offering it to her: I already had some when they handed it out at camp.

  Jade waved aside his chopsticks and said, her eyes shining:

  —I’m not eating meat. I’ve been sick, remember? I haven’t got an appetite for . . .

  In the middle of her sentence Kingfisher slammed his beer bowl down on the table and roared, red-faced:

  —Smudge! Quit stirring the goddam cinders! You here to watch a cockfight or to pat your own chilly little butt? Sit down and eat your food, or else give it to the chickens!

  Lu Beiping laughed inwardly and caught a knowing glance that Autumn gave him from across the table. Jade got up hastily and snatched away Kingfisher’s beer bowl.

  —You’re drunk again, toothless baboon. Mind your tongue and finish your supper.

  Then Stump was on his knees, moaning in dismay:

  —Oy, yoy, yoy! My Man Cheong!

  On the plain of battle a victor had emerged. At the start the lusty Man Cheong had pressed a vicious offensive, pecking up a fluttering storm of white feathers, and the old Australian didn’t appear to stand much of a chance, just hung back as if hoping his opponent would exhaust himself, stealing an occasional peck between the other’s attacks. But after a few bouts the tide had turned. The watchers sat with heads lowered, silent, intent, and now amid the clouds of dust and the swirl of red and white feathers they discerned a fine spray of blood flecking the ground.

  —First blood! Kingfisher cried triumphantly. Looks like my old Aussie’s the king of the hill! Finish him off, whitey!

  Tail-feathers quivering, eyes bloodshot, the two roosters halted and stood in a glaring face-off. Then they flew at each other and renewed their duel with fresh venom. Blood droplets spattered the white rooster’s breast; white feathers matted the red rooster’s bare neck. While the hen clucked to herself off to one side, the two fighters launched into the final, fatal round.

  —Ha! Kingfisher guffawed, slapping Stump on the shoulder: So much for your pretty young Man Cheong, eh? Looks like old ginger’s stronger than new.

  The roosters pulled back from each other for a moment, and in a flash Jade was in the middle of the ring, scooping up the doomed red-and-white rooster in one hand.

  —That’s enough, boys! Any more and we’ll have a murder on our hands.

  —Put him down! Kingfisher barked, after a moment of stunned silence. What’s gotten into your head, Jade? Killing a rooster’s the whole reason we’re having this cockfight!

  He spat, then muttered to himself:

  —A murder on our hands. It’s a chicken, for shit’s sake.

  Jade snorted with laughter, then passed the rooster to Autumn and strutted toward Kingfisher with her bare breasts thrust out, smiling coyly.

  —Kingfisher. I can tell the kind of balefire you’ve got burning in your head right now. I’m the hen in your eyes—right? You want a fight? You fight. You and Stump are always jealous of me, just like those two roosters are jealous of that hen—she tossed her shoulders and gave a harsh laugh—so why don’t you men have it out? I think that’s the kind of cockfight you’re hankering for.

  —Damn right! said Kingfisher. He slapped his forehead and leapt to his feet, sending chicks twittering and scurrying in all directions. On your feet, Stump! Hen’s orders.

  Meanwhile Lu Beiping too had sprung up from the table. Seeing this, Kingfisher grinned at him and pushed him back into his seat, then, wiping sauce from his face, he said:

  —This has got nothing to do with you, Four Eyes. This is me and Stump’s turf. We’re going to have us a little boxing match to see whether old ginger really is stronger than new.

  Chuckling, Stump assumed a spread-legged fighter’s crouch and said:

  —Wit my stance, Kingfish? Been a long time since I played at fisticuffs.

  —Ha! Fighting stances and everything! Jade cried, applauding. Okay, boys, ready, set . . . but no blood now, alright? . . . fight!

  —Fight! Fight! Autumn and the kids chanted.

  The mountains trembled. The two men stripped off the checkered waistcloths that they wore for politeness’ sake whenever Lu Beiping was around and stood facing each other with legs akimbo, in the state of nature to which they were accustomed. Squatting down, they planted their hands on each other’s shoulders, their dark, sinewy arms spanning the space between them like parallel iron bridges. Then they began trying to push each other over in a contest of strength, muscles quivering, genitals dangling, like a pair of gorillas grappling for supremacy. Just as the tension in the air grew so thick that it seemed in danger of exploding, they fell apart with a gasp and staggered backward, and then the fight began in earnest: Out came tiger claws, crane palms, and mantis kicks, a fearsome bestiary of fists and feet whirling back and forth across the packed earth. The sun had already set, and in the darkness, through the lingering smoke from the hearth stove, the two figures danced, twisted, and flew, the black silhouettes of the trees and dim shapes of the mountains seeming to spin around them.

  Lu Beiping watched, his breath taken away. All throughout the cockfight he’d had the feeling that this evening’s pageant was somehow directed at him, that regardless of whether Kingfisher or Stump won this contest, he was at its center. But weirdly, he now felt liberated, his mind at ease. He thought about Kingfisher’s superstitions, about the play of light and shadow. From the bright outer world he’d fallen into this dark, hidden place at the earth’s edge; sometimes he’d truly felt as if he were walking downward toward the heart of the Land of Shadow. But now he was unsure. Which place was light, and which was dark? Which was the underworld he was trying to escape from, and which was the sunlit world he wished he could escape to? Watching the whirlwind of punches and kicks, he sat and wondered, utterly confused.

/>   Chapter 11

  Torches

  To his shock Lu Beiping pushed open the door of his hut and found Jade sitting on the bed, her face deathly pale.

  —What happened? It was Jade, not he, who asked. Four Eyes, are you alright? Look at you, you’re . . .

  Bloody cuts crisscrossed Lu Beiping’s face and upper body. Breathlessly, he said:

  —Into some deep shit.

  —You’re in trouble? Jade said, stiffening in alarm. Bounty and bliss, Four Eyes, you look like you’ve seen a ghost!

  —You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Lu Beiping said. Why are you so pale? Is there something wrong up in the hollow?

  For a moment the two of them faced each other, breathing heavily, saying nothing. Lu Beiping turned and set his satchel down on the floor, took out an array of bottles and jars: soy sauce, salt, oil, vinegar, kerosene. Trying his best to stay calm, he slunk over to the kitchen, ladled water into a bowl, and handed it to Jade, saying:

  —Here, drink some water first. Then we can talk . . .

  The turning of the seasons had changed the face of Mudkettle Mountain. In cool late autumn the rubber trees were at peak productivity, and those trees of rubber-bearing age that had survived the ravages of the typhoon had become wet nurses for the Revolution, forced daily to wring out Selfless Contributions to the “war effort.” In those days people were always making Selfless Contributions—on Labor Day, on Party Day, on National Day; to the Anti-Reactionary Campaign, to the Movement Against Outmoded Thinking, to the all-important cause of Promulgating the Party Line. With so few trees and so many Selfless Contributions, the cattle and the groves formed a vicious feedback loop, and the entire unit’s hopes for meeting their quotas rested on increased manure yields. Before, a manure-hauling team came only once every other month, and now the corral was cleaned almost weekly. Even the foreman, obedient soldier that he was, complained that they’d gone beyond sitting next to the nest and waiting for the hen to lay; now they were killing the hen for the sake of the eggs. Needless to say, after a rosy round of study sessions to Raise Awareness of the National Outlook, the grand pan-Agrecorps land reclamation campaign roared back into full swing, and all Tam-chow County marched to the tooting of bugles and the waving of crimson flags. Now manure-nannying became Lu Beiping’s full-time job—the cattle needed to eat more in order to shit more, and ever more straw was needed to turn the results into fertilizer. Every day Lu Beiping and his animals peregrinated across the mountainside chasing every last rumor of grass, and every night Lu Beiping hurried back and forth from the corral carrying mountains of fresh straw for bedding. The days of the carefree Turgenev-reading cowherd were over; the demands of the job were getting overbearing, and Lu Beiping was feeling a bit run ragged.

  And the worst of it was, more manure hauls meant more chances for the foreman to show up on his doorstep. The world of Mudkettle Mountain and the world outside were beginning to get tangled together.

  The first tangling agent was Gaffer Kam. These past few months Lu Beiping had all but forgotten about the Gaffer’s “petty capitalist” side business selling black-market tobacco, and he hadn’t put any thought to how the driftfolk had been filling their pipes—he remembered Stump mentioning that sometimes they’d dry papaya leaves, cut them into strips, and smoke them. But now, called upon to drive the oxcart up the mountain every week, the Gaffer, sensing a business opportunity, rekindled his relationship with the driftfolk, selling them tobacco and household goods procured downmountain. In those days one needed ration stamps to buy cigarettes and other daily necessities, so the Gaffer cut a deal with the driftfolk, picking up their lumber at fixed drop-off points around the mountain and trading them tobacco, soap, and rice paper in exchange. For the driftfolk this was a practical means of survival, and the Gaffer was just taking advantage of it to reap a little profit; but in those days, had they been caught, it would’ve been seen as a towering crime. Though up till now the Gaffer had no idea that Lu Beiping and the “vagrants from Whitesands” enjoyed more than a passing acquaintance, after a few trips up to the hollow he sensed that something was up. Always keen to gather dirt on other people and to keep his own dirt from falling into others’ hands, the Gaffer began sniffing around, alert to every possible speck of dirt—this was the special talent that those mistrustful times had bestowed upon him. At an unlucky moment Lu Beiping, on his way up to the hollow, bumped into the Gaffer on his way down, and it was the old man, goaded by suspicion and by his own guilty conscience, who would call down the first winds of the storm to follow.

  Lu Beiping threw a handful of cold water on his face and tried to steady his nerves. Guessing the reason for Jade’s visit, he asked:

  —So, did Kambugger come up to the hollow today?

  Jade nodded and sighed, then changed the subject quickly:

  —Four Eyes, tell me first what kind of trouble you’re in.

  —Don’t worry about that old bastard, Lu Beiping said, dusting off his hands. Then he announced in a solemn voice: Jade, I don’t mean to scare you, but today I saw the foreman . . .

  —What foreman? Whose foreman?

  —Foreman Kau, who heads my unit. He’s the Party Secretary down in the village.

  —The Party Secretary?

  —I told you, he’s the one whose daughter’s ghost I was forced to marry.

  —Four Eyes! Jade cried. But that’s the very same reason I came looking for you! That baleful business.

  They sat for a moment in silence, listening to the chattering of the creek.

  The Gaffer might not have seemed worth worrying about to Lu Beiping, but these past few days the foreman’s constant advances had been very much on his mind.

  There were lots of smiles, lots of talk. Friend Lu this and Friend Lu that. He’d laud Lu Beiping for taking such good care of the cattle, praise him for producing so much fertilizer; then, after a bunch of platitudes about Revolutionary Production and Lu Beiping’s Selfless Contributions thereto, he’d ask if he’d put any thought to the personnel call. Had Lu Beiping handed in his integration statement yet? Choi always said that Lu Beiping was the hardiest of the Canton re-eds, and thought it unfair that he, the foreman, had given Lu Beiping such a tough job! Choi mentioned that she always saw Lu Beiping driving the cattle toward Sector 12—the grazing’s great there in summer, but it must be getting thin now, no? Friend Lu, you think life’s hard up on the mountain, you’ve got no notion how tough things can get down at camp. Why, if you get bored or lonesome you can always go shoot the breeze with those migrants from Whitesands. But at camp, sometimes I feel like there’s not a single soul I can talk to . . .

  Except him, of course. But in all this talk, never once did the foreman mention Han. It was as if all their patter were dancing delicately around their fictive bond of kinship, though Han’s name was never mentioned explicitly. Yet, another name came up again and again: Choi. Intentionally or not, the foreman’s talk always looped back to Choi.

  That afternoon, while the cattle were feeding, Lu Beiping had slipped away for a quick trip to the supply co-op to trade in his sugar, kerosene, and soap stamps before they expired. On the way back, taking a shortcut across the creek, he heard, coming from the rubber grove on the opposite bank, a fit of breathless giggles. He paused, noting that this was Choi’s sector. Peering through the lace-pine windbreak on the far side of the creek he almost cried out in surprise: Lying in the grass, their bodies tangled together, were the foreman, buck naked, and Choi, wearing only her shirt.

  Rumors abounded that Choi (and others) had begotten “wildborn” children with various men in the village—or managed not to beget them by various means—and it was common enough for lovers, unable to consummate their desires at camp, to do so on the forest floor. But Lu Beiping could tell that this thing between Choi and the foreman was not a typical chapter in the grove’s colorful erotic history. Could it be that Choi, in her careless gossip, had let sli
p some card she shouldn’t have revealed, then, fearing retribution from the foreman, tossed Han’s blouse into Lu Beiping’s lap like a burning cattail-leaf fan—after which the foreman, hot on the scent, had tried to silence her with the trump card he held in his pants? Or had Choi and the foreman been sleeping together from the start, and as their affair deepened Choi realized that the blouse was a piece of dry kindling ready to ignite, at which point she unloaded it on Lu Beiping so that it wouldn’t endanger her? In any event, it was now clear to Lu Beiping why Choi, after giving him the shirt, had avoided him like the plague. In those days sex could be, among other things, a powerful tool for sealing lips.

  Suppressed laughter and lewd whispers echoed softly in the dusky quiet of the grove.

  Afraid that they’d recognize him, Lu Beiping beat a hasty retreat, cutting through a thicket of thorny vines and then bushwhacking home with his heart in his throat.

  —Heavens, and I thought you were in real trouble! Jade laughed after Lu Beiping described his near encounter with Choi and the foreman. Four Eyes, good thing you wear glasses, otherwise you’d have swollen eyeballs right now. I was afraid you’d seen a ghost, and it turns out you just got a pretty eyeful of someone else’s backside.

  —Jade, you don’t understand, I . . .

  But Jade cut him off. Gathering herself up, she adopted a serious tone:

  —Four Eyes, listen to me, this time Kambugger fouled things up even worse. Oh . . . Heaven have mercy on us!

  Lu Beiping bit his lip, swallowing the information about Han’s blouse that he was about to reveal to her.

  —Kambugger? Screw him. What trouble can he make?

  —What trouble? Jade seized his shoulder, her voice trembling: He

  . . . he told Kingfisher everything about you! Down to the last little detail. How you got ghost-married, how you’re the boss’s shadow-kin . . .

  —Didn’t he already tell Kingfisher? Lu Beiping said, still disdainful. I thought this would be old news by now.