The Invisible Valley

by Wei, Su; Woerner, Austin;

  Then he opened the door, admitting the roar of the rain. For a moment Autumn’s bare back and baggy peasant shorts hung silhouetted in the white glare of the morning sun; then, after a moment’s hesitation, he strode out into the teeming rain and was lost to Jade’s and Lu Beiping’s vision.

  Lu Beiping turned his head away so that Jade wouldn’t see the tears streaming down his face.

  Chapter 14

  Snakeclouds

  Even after their soul-rattling clamor had faded from hearing, the drums and gongs echoed on in Lu Beiping’s mind.

  A thick rampart of snakeclouds loomed on the horizon. Teeming and coiling, twisting and unwinding, the bruised red tendrils with their inky black fringes spilled eastward in a great, writhing mass, like a nest of phantom vipers that had been recently disturbed. As the wind tugged at them, the clouds unravelled in places to admit shafts of sunlight or jagged windows of sky, a bright scrawl of glyphs on a blood-red background like a message from the gods unfurling over Mudkettle Mountain.

  Lu Beiping made haste toward the hollow. When he walked up out of the tree-tunnel and saw Smudge hanging from the lychee tree, his blood ran cold: Autumn hadn’t come back.

  There’d been no sign of Autumn for the past two days. Last night Kingfisher had exploded at Smudge: This is your fault again, you imp! If Autumn doesn’t come back tomorrow, I’ll string you up!

  The drums and gongs had been beaten by a delegation of re-eds and workers who’d marched up from camp to pay him a surprise visit, waving flags, shouting slogans, and creating a scene of jubilant pomp of the kind that usually accompanied the announcement of one of the Chairman’s New Directives. Heading up the troop was Chu, drum in hand, who flourished a sheet of paper and read aloud: “On behalf of the Production Department of the Third Battalion of the Agricultural Reclamation Corps, it is our honor to present Lu Beiping, in light of his admirable efforts toward local integration and his outstanding contribution to revolutionary production . . .” What followed was an invitation for Lu Beiping to take part in an Experience Exchange Lecture Circuit for the Advancement of Mao Zedong Thought, organized by the propaganda desk at battalion HQ. After the initial hubbub subsided, Chu leaned over to Lu Beiping and whispered: Buddy, you’ve got it made. With the “integration” feather in your cap, once you come back from the lecture circuit you’ll be a prime pick for the next personnel call . . .

  Lu Beiping watched with a wooden expression as the rowdy brigade trooped off into the trees. Clearly the foreman had kept this measure up his sleeve all along: If he couldn’t shut Lu Beiping up, he’d invite him away, sealing his lips with garlands and glory and the promise of going home—a watertight solution if there ever was one.

  Under normal circumstances this news would’ve made even the most hardened, cynical re-ed jump for joy. But Lu Beiping just felt blank. And even Kingfisher, who was always acutely sensitive to goings-on down in the valley, didn’t ask him what the commotion had been about.

  The uncleared dinner table stood just outside the door of the lodge, and the whole family had gathered together under the lychee tree as if anticipating Lu Beiping’s arrival. The yard and the tabletop glowed crimson in the snakecloud-tinted light of the evening sun. Smudge, bound at the wrists, dangled two feet off the ground, his face a mask of furious resentment; it looked like he’d been hanging there for quite some time. Kingfisher, who hadn’t gotten around to beating him yet, squatted nearby, nursing his water pipe next to Stump. Jade sat stiff and erect on a wooden stool, like a hen on her nest, with Tick and Roach under her arms. Seeing Lu Beiping, the children bent their heads away, whimpering and wiping tears from their cheeks.

  Lu Beiping leaned over to Kingfisher, but before the question was out of his mouth Kingfisher said loudly:

  —Nope, I’ve been all over the mountain. Can’t find hide nor hair of him.

  With a lazy glance over his shoulder, Stump chimed in:

  —Aye, he’s gone. What’s a man to do? He’s found him another roost, nine parts certain. Then he gave Lu Beiping a sidelong look and said meaningfully: Hell! I’ve been saying all along, this hasn’t a damned thing to do with Smudge.

  Lu Beiping went pale. He hadn’t slept a wink in two days. Stump had never spoken roughly to him before, and now there was nothing for him to do but bow and accept it. Squatting next to Kingfisher, Lu Beiping said softly:

  —Kingfisher, Stump’s right. This isn’t Smudge’s fault.

  —Then you want me to take him down and string you up? Kingfisher said with a swift, barbed glance at Lu Beiping. Don’t put on faces for me, Four Eyes. Hmph. And I said you had grit. I don’t know what the hell got into my mind.

  At those words Lu Beiping felt as if the ground had cracked open beneath his feet, and before he knew it he was weeping. Nothing could have stung him worse than what Kingfisher had just said; with one blow, he’d shattered the brittle shell that had been the last thing protecting Lu Beiping’s heart. He sat there in a stupid daze while Kingfisher’s reproach boomed in his ear:

  —Gah! It makes me sick to my stomach to see a grown man cry! Listen, you all. I’m on Autumn’s side in this. I feel for him. I know there’s a world of worry hidden inside him which he couldn’t bring himself to share with us, but he could share with Four Eyes—Kingfisher emitted a cloud of smoke, studied the fumes as they dispersed, then continued: I could tell early on that Autumn took a shine to you, friend. If he’d wanted to make good with you and you didn’t, fine. There’d have been no wrong in that. But when you offer yourself to someone, you ought to stand by your word.

  Lu Beiping sat gazing at the ground, silent, secretly amazed that even through his thick cocoon of mysticism Kingfisher had seen straight to the heart of his and Autumn’s friendship. On a topic that seemed, more than any other, to lend itself to talk of sins and laws and the balance of light and dark, Kingfisher had a different system of logic, a different perspective.

  —Jade, Stump, I know what you’re thinking, Kingfisher said; then, raising the stick of mosquito incense that he used to light his pipe, he traced a character in the air:

  好

  —You’re thinking, even the figure for “good” is made up of mother and son, woman and man, shadow and light. Every good thing under the sun’s born out of that goodness. Good harvest, good health, good food, good luck, it all comes from the same place—Kingfisher paused for a moment to launch a gob of black spittle onto the ground two yards away—So, let me ask you this. Since that first goodness has given you every good thing you’ve ever known, can you make room in your hearts for every good thing born of it? Look at Smudge, Jade. He’s a bale-crossed devil child, a son of darkness—do you love him? Of course you do, he’s your pup, there’s space in your heart for him a hundred times over! I’m not blaming you, see. Goodness, love, is something you’ve got to fight for. Me, Stump, and Four Eyes have all fought over you, Jade. But if we can chase after love and fight to make it our own, we can’t keep Autumn from doing the same. Is it right for him to want Four Eyes instead of you, Jade?—Kingfisher rubbed his bald pate, then concluded: Last night, I couldn’t keep my head to the pillow for thinking about these things. And this is what I think. If Autumn wants to make good with Four Eyes, it’s not my place to get in his way.

  Stump spluttered as if he’d just choked on a mouthful of smoke.

  —Oy, yoy, yoy . . . Kingfish, this is loony talk! You’re the one forever affrighted of light and dark getting tipped out of true. If this isn’t . . .

  —Stump, Kingfisher said, expelling another cloud of smoke: Where do you think you are? The Forbidden City? Are you hoping to win a prize from the Emperor for doing such a good job minding his commandments?

  Jade and Stump chuckled. Kingfisher slapped a mosquito that had landed on his stomach and went on:

  —Like I’ve always said, in this world we live in now, bearing and sowing and sharing affection ought never to be a sin. Killi
ng, lying, and wasting are the only sins. Folks like us, who lay our souls open to the sun every day just praying we’ll live to watch it rise the next morning, have got no place fussing about virtues and commandments. When goodness is to be had, have it; that’s all we can do.

  Nobody spoke; silence was king beneath the lychee tree. After a short while Kingfisher looked up again and said:

  —What were we talking about? Right, Smudge—Kingfisher regarded the boy dangling from the branch, who stared back at him obstinately—I can’t blame a woman for being jealous or a common man for being common-minded. But I do blame you, Smudge! Scurrying around spying on people, playing the secret agent! And you, Four Eyes, chickening out at the very last minute, right when things came to a head. Both of those were small-minded, small-hearted things to do. If it hadn’t been for those two things—Kingfisher thumped his pipe on the ground—Autumn would be with us right now.

  At that Smudge burst into tears of indignation:

  —I didn’t mean to! he sobbed. I didn’t mean to make Uncle Autumn run off! Honest! I nay ever meant—

  —Don’t give me your cheap tears! Kingfisher barked: A bale-star’s what you are, boy—a kin-killer! When I heard it was you that started all this I just about hit the rafters. Bounty and bliss! First you cross your own pa, and now . . . I can’t hit you. I won’t. I don’t want the breath of shadow on me. But you’re not coming down off that tree till someone smacks some remorse into you! Stump—

  —I won’t beat him, Stump said doggedly. I told you, ’tisn’t the boy’s fault. I’ll not play the ugly one tonight.

  —Kingfisher, Lu Beiping interjected, let’s untie Smudge and keep looking for Autumn. That’s more important . . . Then a new thought struck Lu Beiping, and he added: Kingfisher, when you went searching for Autumn before, did you look near his rosewood tree?

  Kingfisher shook his head.

  —I’ve been three times up and down that valley, but I’ve had no luck finding that little pass he took me over. It’s vanished like a specter.

  —Four Eyes is right, Jade chimed in: Where else would Autumn go except to his rosewood tree? He told me he’d nearly got it chopped down.

  A look of alarm flashed across Stump’s face, and he whispered apprehensively:

  —Oy, yoy, yoy! When a felled tree still stands, your life’s in heaven’s hands.

  Lu Beiping’s heart sank. It was true; Autumn had said that he’d cut all the way through the trunk but the tree still hadn’t fallen. Springing to his feet, he announced:

  —I’m going back to my hut. Autumn forgot to take his notebook with him. I remember he drew a map in there that showed the exact location of his rosewood tree.

  Smudge burst out sobbing again.

  —Let me go! he cried. I wanna hunt for Uncle Autumn too! Please, let me go!

  Kingfisher dragged on his pipe, stone-faced. No one moved. Nobody dared take Smudge down, but nobody wanted to beat the boy.

  The light was draining out of the sky, the snakeclouds turning from red to black. At last Jade heaved herself to her feet and walked ponderously, tears gleaming on her cheeks, over to Smudge.

  —Smudge, she said, I want you to go too, I want you to help find your uncle Autumn so they’ll forgive you. They don’t want to hit you, they don’t want to touch . . . I guess I’m going to have to do it! They won’t take you down till I do!

  As if momentarily possessed by a demon, Jade began raining furious slaps on Smudge’s cheeks and shoulders. Then almost immediately, her arms fell slack, and she broke down into howls of grief.

  Flintlock rifle. Snakesbane bracelet. Brimstone rag. In addition to these Kingfisher had assembled a torch out of green branches, which he carried unlit over one shoulder as he stumped up the trail in front of Lu Beiping. Lu Beiping knew that those branches had also been cut from the snakesbane plant, whose sap was said to be effective against snake venom and whose smoke, if burnt, was believed to repel snakes. This time Kingfisher had broken out the heavy artillery. As they ascended the stone ledges along the babbling rivulet, then skirted the Sea’s Eye and passed through the glade where the stone memorial tablet lay, Autumn’s breath, the sound of Autumn’s voice, seemed to linger in the air. Lu Beiping followed wordlessly behind Kingfisher, leading Smudge by the hand. After ducking under several curtains of vines and hopping over a few fallen branches, they were soon swallowed up by the cavernous darkness of the jungle that filled the central bowl of the mountain.

  He’d left all his feelings of bitterness and regret behind him in the hollow—let them slip with finality to the ground. As they were about to walk out the door Jade had complained that she didn’t feel well, and Stump wanted Lu Beiping to stay behind and take care of her. What’s he know? He’s a city boy, Kingfisher scoffed. Laughing, Jade pushed Lu Beiping out the door, saying: Go do your business. I’m no fool, I can tell which is the more important matter right now. Lu Beiping could make neither head nor tail of this, and as he followed, perplexed, behind Kingfisher as they hiked up the trail into the jungle, he felt as if he’d been tossed into yet another unfathomable mystery, as if a vast, rumbling wave of the unknowable had bowled him over, wiping his mind clean, erasing everything.

  Nothing could be more unknowable than this wilderness, Lu Beiping thought. It feels like it really ought to be capable of erasing everything.

  Catalpa, ironwood, red lauan, pepper tree, parrot camphor, caneleaf pine, dragonbone gentian . . . The path Kingfisher chose wasn’t the same one by which Autumn had led him into the high valley; that time, they’d bushwhacked through stands of wild cane choked with vines, but now, everywhere Lu Beiping looked there were glades of towering, ancient trees rising from a rugged, ravine-cut landscape; the forest was still overhung with vines, but it was more spacious and airy. If they weren’t on such urgent business, this expedition would have felt like a stroll through a museum of rare tropical woods, where no doubt Autumn, had he been with them, could have regaled them for hours with exuberant lectures on history and botany. When he found the notebook, Lu Beiping had remembered what Autumn said to him the other night: Back when you were ignoring me, I’d go up there every day and talk to my rosewood tree. The others, hearing this, had nodded in agreement, saying: That’s Autumn for you, he’s got a strange cast of mind. Everyone became freshly optimistic about the possibility of tracking down Autumn, and Kingfisher, glancing at the map, had known exactly where to look for the tree. Now it was almost dark, but the forest still glowed with a faint, sourceless light that filtered down through the canopy, reflected off the trees’ broad crowns and thick trunks. Kingfisher, cigarette dangling from his lips, padded along at an unusually brisk pace, weaving and bounding among the trees like a leopard who’d long since eaten his way through the entire jungle. Before long all three of them were covered in sweat. Kingfisher seemed to be in a good mood. They paused for a moment while he lit another cigarette, which he offered first to Lu Beiping and then to Smudge; then he turned and hollered up into the pitch-dark valley, and as the long chain of echoes died away against a backdrop of eerie jungle noises Kingfisher chuckled to himself, and Lu Beiping and Smudge chuckled too.

  The breeze picked up, and fat water droplets began splashing down. Before they could find cover they were completely soaked, and Kingfisher’s cigarette had gone out. They laughed again. Peering up through the dense treetops they saw that the sky was still a clear, deep blue, a sign that this was not real rain but rainforest-made rain, a product of the jungle’s own interior microclimate. Before long the rain stopped, and billows of mist started rising from among the trees’ gnarled roots. Quick, it’s the vapors! Kingfisher cried. Let’s get going! The three of them hurried on.

  The trail became steeper—if you could call it a trail, since it seemed to exist pretty much only in Kingfisher’s mind. Threading his way through the forest, he guided them on a route almost free of obstacles, rendering the machete that hung at Lu Beiping’s
hip a useless encumbrance. Lu Beiping gazed up into the canopy’s teeming shadows and wondered just how big this rainforest was. Kingfisher, Stump, and Autumn felled trees up here every day, yet all their work had amounted to no more than clipping a single hair from the mountain’s skin. They’d taken only what they needed, Kingfisher had said; after they “weighed anchor” this place would revert entirely to wilderness. In those days “wilderness” was a dirty word—“Liberate the Land!” and “Vanquish the Wilderness!” were two slogans popular among workers on reclamation campaigns, and Fong, seeing him lope back into camp with skin tanned to the color of charcoal, liked to tease him by saying things like: Looks like you’re regressing into a state of nature! At that point Lu Beiping had no way of knowing just how fragile this wilderness was, how close to the brink of extinction his society had already pushed it, in its ignorance of other definitions of civilization besides its own. Already the Agrecorps campaigns had whittled away significantly at Mudkettle Mountain’s rainforests, and by the time Lu Beiping finished his cushy stint on the Experience Exchange Lecture Circuit, this tract of rare, primeval wilderness would have disappeared almost completely from the earth.

  Now it was totally dark. First Lu Beiping turned on the long-handled flashlight that he carried on a strap hanging around his neck, then Kingfisher and Smudge turned on their own small flashlights as well. Probed by their three frail flashlight beams, the forest seemed even huger. The trunks, branches, vines, and aerial roots that surrounded them retreated into the darkness, and the darkness itself became liquid, thick and palpable, engulfing and dissolving everything, rendering the forest abstract. Their location, the lay of the land, the direction in which they were heading all became highly theoretical matters. Kingfisher stopped, examined the map by the light of his flashlight, then took Lu Beiping’s flashlight and cast its more powerful beam over the big, dark shapes of the surrounding trees, saying: