For a moment Lu Beiping thought he caught a whiff of a fetid odor, like the wind off of a swamp just across the border of the next world. He shuddered and dropped the blouse as if it had just burned his fingers.
—Enough! Autumn cried, throwing open the door and letting in a gust of night air and the loud whoosh of the rain. Let’s clear the air of these stinking vapors. Put that thing away, it and your foreman’s beer-breath have called up all the shadows of Hell and just about spoiled the fine, poetical atmosphere we’ve managed to work up tonight.
—Yeah, let’s not talk about this depressing stuff anymore, Lu Beiping agreed, cramming the blouse back into the satchel. He added more fuel to the lamp, turned up the wick, exhaled a sharp puff of air, and cried Good god! as if expelling a year’s worth of vexation all at once; then looked up, an easy smile on his face. He picked up Autumn’s journal, which lay on top of the bed, and began riffling through it, grunting approvingly. Alright, comrade! he said. I want a full report on your recent poetic pursuits!
Down in the gully the rain drummed on the creek, its deep roar swelling and subsiding by intervals.
—Want to hear more about my rosewood tree? Autumn said, excitement re-entering his voice: I almost forgot to tell you, I’ve been all over the valley with Kingfisher now, and we’re sure that that tree I told you about is the only red flowering pear tree in these parts, the only true amaranthine rosewood tree on all of Mudkettle Mountain! There are a handful of yellow pearwood trees, and those are rare and precious enough, but they’re nothing compared to this one—a true treasure, it is!
—Autumn, Lu Beiping said, laughing: I think you’re suffering from a case of rosewood-itis!
—I suffer from a lot of things, why else would I have joined the driftfolk? Autumn said with a self-deprecatory, slightly desolate-sounding laugh. But then he went on with unabated fervor: And now, I’ve almost got him! I tell you, Bei, felling one of those things is tough work, it’s not like a chinaberry tree which you can lick through in an afternoon even if it’s four hands wide. It’s hard as iron. I’ve been at it for a fortnight. Back when you were ignoring me—
—Hey! You were ignoring me!
—I’d go up there every day and talk with my rosewood tree. I’d heat it with fire, then cool it with water, then go at it with my knife and handsaw, then do the whole thing over again . . . It’s like carving a jade statue, working that wood! It takes a subtle hand.
—Seriously? It’s that hard to cut? said Lu Beiping, rather awed by Autumn’s description of the wood’s miraculous properties. Autumn, when will I have the honor of meeting this prince of the forest you’ve befriended? You’ve got to take me up there one of these days.
—A prince of the forest! Autumn said, his face all aglow. That’s a good phrase for it, alright! Takes a thousand years and all the finest essences of the earth to make a gem like that. Ha! They said they were extinct, yet I’ve gazed upon one myself—Autumn was pacing the room now, his eyes shining, gesticulating feverishly—But, Bei, it’s a queer thing. I sawed clear through the trunk, and I’ve cut away all the vines and creepers I can see, but still that tree just hangs there. It won’t fall. It’s uncanny!
Autumn was flying high. The wind had picked up outside and was rasping through the treetops, as if someone were really at work out there with a big two-handled wood-saw. Lu Beiping, feeling a bit wicked, decided to throw some cold water on Autumn’s exultation, and said:
—But, Autumn, if you’re right that this is the only amaranthine rosewood tree left, won’t chopping it down make it extinct for good? Do you really want to be the man who killed the last amaranthine rosewood tree?
—You’re right, Autumn said, sighing. That question’s troubled my mind for a long time. If you Agrecorps people weren’t laying waste to the forest right and left with all your campaigns and operations and such, burning down hundred-year-old forests in a month’s time, I’d leave that tree living, let it spread its seeds all over Mudkettle Mountain. But now even the best wood’s doomed to be kindling. What I don’t do with my saw, they’ll do with bulldozers and dynamite. There’s no saving it, I fear.
—So what are you going to do with the wood, then, when you finish cutting down the tree? Make some new furniture for your throne room?
Instantly Lu Beiping despised himself for saying this—even now, he still found himself slipping into a teasing, superior tone when he was around Autumn. Clearly Autumn caught the hint of ridicule in Lu Beiping’s words. His face hardened slightly, but he went on, undeterred:
—No matter what it gets made into, it’ll be an heirloom to pass down to future ages. People die, ashes fly, but amaranthine rosewood lives on. When you’ve cherished an artifact like that, your spirit’ll linger over it long after you’re gone . . .
Autumn paused, listening to the rain. Then he continued:
—That’s how it is with amaranthine rosewood. It’s a piece of eternity. You can see your forelife in it, and your afterlife too . . .
Lu Beiping felt a chill. No wonder Kingfisher said that the shadow air lay heavy over Autumn.
Autumn stood there in silence for a moment, gazing off into the rain. Then he said abruptly:
—Have you heard the story of the Three Life Stone?
—The Three Life Stone? Lu Beiping repeated quizzically. Clearly this was another relic from days of old that was missing from Lu Beiping’s knowledge base.
Autumn smiled, and said in a mild tone:
—It’s a story my dad told me. It’s about two monks in ancient times who were bosom friends, who agreed to meet again in the next life before a stone called the Three Life Stone, a magic stone with a living soul. Amaranthine rosewood is the Three Life Stone of woods. Some friends swear to meet again before the Three Life Stone, but I don’t know if there’s any soul in this world worthy of meeting again under the amaranthine rosewood tree.
The rain kept blustering away. Lu Beiping was silent.
—Autumn . . . he said finally, Are you talking about me?
—Nope, Autumn replied. I don’t think so . . .
Then he turned and walked into a dark, rain-loud corner of the hut, where he reached down, picked something up off the floor, and dusted it off. When he turned back again he was holding Lu Beiping’s long-forgotten harmonica to his lips. He walked over, sat down on the bed, and began to play.
Lu Beiping stared in surprise.
—Hey, I had no idea you could play harmonica too!
He was playing “Erquan by Moonlight.”
—You sure hide your light under a bushel, Autumn.
Lu Beiping sat and listened to Autumn play. Chords, melody, and ornaments were all well-articulated and confident. Against the background of the rain the tune sounded lost and wistful, like a lone traveler winding along a mountain path.
This is a man of many unusual talents, Lu Beiping thought to himself. As the last chord faded away, Autumn emerged beaming from within the music and said:
—When I was a little boy I always dreamed of having a shiny Dunhuang harmonica in my pocket. My family didn’t have the money to buy me one, though, and when I’d finally saved up enough, the Movement started.
Lu Beiping, feeling a rush of emotion at these words, said:
—Autumn, you might think this is silly, but . . . I want you to keep that harmonica. Hold on to it as a memory of our, acquaintance, as you say. But—why the heck didn’t you play for me before?
Autumn looked down, fondling the instrument. He didn’t respond.
—The poets . . . Autumn began slowly, What they wrote was meant to be sung, not spoken. Poems and songs, both are likewise . . . effusions of the soul, addressed to like minds. Thence the old phrase, “the music of the strings is the speech of the heart”—Autumn intoned, lapsing unconsciously into an archaic idiom—My dad loved to tell me tales of those gentlemen of old who’d play music for their friends, smash their zit
hers for their friends . . . Autumn held the harmonica under the lamp and inspected it closely: So, you’re really giving this to me? Well, I’m honored.
He slipped the harmonica into his shorts pocket, then went to the door and peered out into the rain. Then he walked back into the room and said, not looking directly at Lu Beiping:
—It’s late. But I don’t want to go back.
—Then don’t, Lu Beiping said, and was surprised to hear the words come out of his own mouth.
Autumn halted. He looked up and smiled at Lu Beiping.
—Only if you say so.
His eyes alighting on the bowl and cup of hillflower rice wine that sat half-empty on the hearth stove, Autumn picked them up, handed Lu Beiping one, tapped his drink against Lu Beiping’s in a toast, and downed it.
Lu Beiping threw his head back and quaffed the rest of the liquor. The wine’s aroma lingered in the air, subtle and dizzying.
(I’ll remember that smell forever, Lu Beiping sighed to Tsung. It’s engraved in my mind, my soul, my blood. Forever afterward, all liquor, from the lowliest yam beer to fine Moutai worthy of a state banquet, has seemed coarse and cloying in comparison.)
They sat in silence. The rain had stopped. Lu Beiping snuffed the lamp and said, jokingly:
—No talking from now on. Let all sound by silence be surpassed.
If the meeting of mountain and river is the natural result of rainfall and the turning of the seasons, then surely the meeting of mountain and mountain is a rare wonder, which only the cracking of the earth’s crust and the collision of slow-moving tectonic plates can bring about.
After the lamp went out neither of them were quite sure what to do. First they took off their clothes and lay side by side in bed, silent, both of them freighted with worry, frozen by their own reflexive reserve. They closed their eyes, listening to the sound of each other’s breath, feeling awkward and self-conscious. When their faces touched for the first time they pulled apart immediately. But both of them noticed the shiver that this touch triggered in the other’s skin.
—Too many rules, Autumn said, chuckling. I don’t like not talking.
He looked over at Lu Beiping’s dark, silent, motionless figure. Lu Beiping’s eyes were still shut. Reaching over and patting his friend’s cheek, Autumn said:
—You really want to keep playing dumb?
Still Lu Beiping said nothing. Lightly, Autumn stroked the curve of Lu Beiping’s jawbone, murmuring:
—You’re tired? You’d rather sleep?
Words can be a bridge, but they can also be a barrier, a protective screen.
Once more Autumn’s fingertips began to travel up and down Lu Beiping’s body.
Everything was dark. Autumn’s touch seemed to reach Lu Beiping from out of a distant place, another dimension: out of the clouds, out of the past, out of the rustling of yellowed pages, out of black and white photos of times gone by. Lu Beiping tried to focus on the actual, physical sensation of Autumn’s touch, to distill a real, solid person out of this eccentric character who’d walked straight out of the days of lords and lyres. But the sensation melted away under conscious thought, like snowflakes cupped in his hand. It was true, there was a chilly quality about Autumn; even now Lu Beiping noticed that Autumn’s skin seemed just slightly colder than his own. Autumn’s touch was the cold touch of another era, awakening Lu Beiping’s mind to vistas he’d never considered, penetrating some deep corner of his being and, at times, striking up a great music there. Sometimes he even fancied that Autumn was an apparition, a wavering portent on the border of light and shadow sent to remind him of something, to keep him from forgetting about something, an illusion so tenuous that any sudden motion would dispel it.
Autumn’s hands stopped.
—I like how you smell, he said softly in Lu Beiping’s ear.
Lu Beiping couldn’t see anything in the darkness. What he smelled like to Autumn he couldn’t guess, but he could clearly make out Autumn’s scent: a quiet, dark smell, edged with the gunmetal odor of sunlight, carrying a hint of the fragrance of wild grass. He even caught, amid the rain-washed odors of sweat and pipe tobacco, a faint, sweet suggestion of sugarcane.
There was a loud roll of thunder outside, and a silent, answering roll of thunder within.
This was the first, and only, time they truly opened up to each other, gave themselves freely to one another.
(Years later, Lu Beiping would say to Tsung: Hearing this, you might get certain ideas about me. But the thing is, it’s not true. For all I know it was just one of those fleeting adolescent phases people talk about. I wouldn’t say that it was the most amazing night of my life, but it wasn’t too terrible, all the same. Maybe the best way to explain it is this: It was one of those secret moments in one’s life when one’s personality spills out beyond its normal boundaries. It’s not something I’d trumpet to the skies, but I don’t see any reason to shrink before it either. Or maybe it’s just that my temperament wasn’t as rigid and earnest as Autumn’s; I didn’t take things so seriously, wasn’t so readily driven to extremes, to the point where this tendency could even become a destructive force. But I can’t deny that in the years since, I’ve often thought back fondly on that night. I’ve never done anything like it again; I’ve never gone looking for it. But it’s a memory I cherish, which no other friendship or romantic encounter can ever replace. To put it grandly, that was the evening when my soul came of age—when I came to understand, intimately, the many forms human affection can take, the many directions in which it can run.)
Halfway through the night the rain started up again. The sound of the wind in the treetops made Lu Beiping remember his first night on the mountain, when he lay awake till dawn listening to the wind’s eerie howling, scared stiff by the multitude of noises that made up the jungle silence. After a few sleepless nights, then a few nights of dreamless sleep, he’d whimsically named this place “Dreamless Vale,” imagining it to be the sphere of heaven that the Taoists sought when they sat in meditation, refining their inner gold. But tonight he dreamed. He dreamed shallowly, though his sleep was deep. In his dream, there was water. Under the water was the moon. Inside the moon there were people, and among them, you and me. In his dream he heard distant thunder, but when he woke up he found it was only his and his companion’s snores. Sometimes it was loud enough to cover the keen of the wind, and when another, very soft sound crept into their dreams, neither of them noticed.
Autumn woke first, when the wind rose back to a fever pitch just before sunrise—he was in the habit of waking while it was still dark out, and at first, when he opened his eyes, he had no idea where he was. Then, turning on his side, he heard heavy breathing, and realized with a start that there was a third person in the room.
A dark figure sat in the middle of the hut, facing away from them. With a jolt of fright Autumn woke up completely, then, managing to rein in his fear, he gave Lu Beiping a sharp shove.
Lu Beiping rolled over and opened his eyes. At exactly the same moment, both he and Autumn sat up in shocked disbelief.
The ample silhouette in the middle of the room belonged to Jade.
—Don’t light the lamp! came her sharp, husky voice. Her silhouette remained motionless. I don’t want to see you two.
Panic and awkwardness filled the intervening silence. Jade said, her alto voice trembling:
—If Smudge hadn’t brought me down here, I’d have had no mind to come at all. It’s not my business!
Smudge’s shadow wasn’t among those that crowded the edges of the room. There was just Jade, alone, her voice echoing in the rafters.
Then she whirled around to face the dark forms of the two men—Autumn had just groped up out of bed, and Lu Beiping still sat in the corner, frozen from shock—and said with an overtone of icy laughter:
—To think this is the secret you two big boys were keeping from me! I, I . . . Jade stamme
red for a moment, as if trying to lay hands on the appropriate curse: Shame my eyes! I must’ve been a real rat in my last life to have earned such a humiliation as this!
Lu Beiping saw Autumn’s silhouette bound forward.
—Sister, listen . . .
—No! Jade bellowed. Get back! I’m not your sister!
—Sister, Autumn insisted, Please, listen to me for just a moment—
—No, I won’t listen to you! I don’t want to hear it!
—I told you, Autumn went on stubbornly, I told you I wanted to make good with Four Eyes too.
—Make good? Jade spat. Good? That’s what you call it? Between two men? Oh, it’s a cruel Heaven that made me walk in on a thing like this!
—J-jade . . . Lu Beiping began at last, haltingly.
This tardy interjection called forth the full fury of the storm:
—Four Eyes! she yelled. Don’t be a two-faced bastard. It’s a world of trouble I’ve borne for this pup, and now I’ve had enough—enough! You say don’t you want this child, you say you don’t want to be this pup’s pa, and now . . . you do this! Damn it, it burns me to cinders!
Then Lu Beiping, against all wisdom, opened his mouth again and started to protest:
—Jade, I didn’t . . .
—You didn’t? Didn’t what? You faggot . . . Bursting into tears, Jade beat her chest while thrusting a trembling finger at Lu Beiping: Four Eyes! Me and this baby both want to be with you, and Autumn wants to be with you too. Which is it gonna be? Him? Or us? Tell me!
At that moment the darkness in the room seemed to freeze into a solid mass.
The roof leak kept belling out its limpid ostinato on the lid of the pot in the corner of the room.
Lu Beiping gasped:
—Jade, I can’t . . . I can’t . . . Listen, it’s unfair of you two to force me like this!
In the shadows, Lu Beiping saw Autumn blanch. Then his features contracted into an expression that was sober, frosty, and remote. He turned, looked straight at Lu Beiping, and said very slowly:
—Bei, I know it’s a hard thing for you to say. I can’t force you. There’s a lot in this world we’re powerless to change. It’s been good to know you, friend, and for that I’m content. So long.
The Invisible Valley Page 38