Death Fugue

by Sheng Keyi

  Her chest heaved as she sat watching the flames. He looked at her silently, secretly surprised at his own cool head. The warm fire and the pretty young woman had failed to stir his body, or the appetites of the little beast within him.

  Perhaps this was a good omen.

  21

  ‘What did you say? The nursing home is actually a crematorium?’ Esteban’s voice issued from the dark grey mattress, blurred and cold. ‘Oh…is that right? Then so be it. It’s no big deal. When one is old one is useless, and fire has a purging power.’ He was a completely changed man.

  There was no heating system in the mill, and it was filled with sacks of grain which lay everywhere, piled up to the windows. It wasn’t too cold, but Esteban’s words were frigid, his body like a toppled mountain. There was no energy in his voice. A half hour earlier, when Mengliu and Suitang had set out on their bikes to the mill, as if they were just out to enjoy the scenery, they hadn’t expected to find Esteban in such a state. They had to put aside the matter of the nursing home and concentrate on the condemned man’s health.

  Mengliu knew what the punishment was for a man who had committed adultery. Those who kept repeating the crime would be put to death. First-time offenders might be condemned to five years of service as a coolie, living in exile with only vegetables to eat. The sick were not allowed to see a doctor. They laboured during the day, while reading and making notes at night in order to keep their minds from degenerating to the point where they would be of no use after their release from imprisonment. In truth, some were ruined, but some were completely transformed, becoming thinkers and gaining a very different understanding of life. They buried themselves in books, gave lectures, engaged in theoretical discussions, became admired and celebrated gurus.

  In Swan Valley, anything was possible.

  Esteban wasn’t concerned about his health. Mengliu, afraid he had contracted the plague, encouraged him to apply for permission to see a doctor. This was blasphemous to Esteban, who believed himself to be a sinner and fully intended to atone for his wrong-doing. There was nothing Mengliu could do about his pious repentant attitude, and Esteban’s stubbornness was driving him crazy.

  Suitang looked on anxiously. Several times she started to speak, but Mengliu stopped her because he knew she had nothing positive to say. All the way there she had cursed Swan Valley, saying the people were deranged, lacked any discernment, were clearly a bunch of idiots. He replied that they enjoyed simplicity, the natural state of people living in abundance and reunified with their spirit. She included him in her ridicule, saying Swan Valley had made him short-sighted and weak-minded, as if he had been struck ill too.

  ‘Dr Yuan,’ she leaned the bike next to the trunk of a tree, speaking in a deliberately pinched tone, ‘if this continues, you will be just like them in time.’ She pretended her jacket needed a good beating to clean the spots on it, stomped the snow from her shoes, and looked up contemptuously at the snow-capped mountains.

  All of this made Mengliu think of Qizi. But when Qizi was angry, her eyes welled up with tears and she would shout and yell.

  He had not quarrelled with Suitang before, and he secretly admired her energetic expression of discontent. He felt that a man should never engage in a war of words with a woman. A woman was like candy, and all you needed to do was keep her in your mouth and allow her to soften quietly until her hardness had completely disappeared.

  So he smiled and said she was right. Swan Valley really was rotten and not worth bothering about, but for the sake of friendship he should try to help. He did not say that he was curious, or that uncovering Swan Valley’s secrets was of great interest to him, for that was too much even for him to believe. Other than women, he wouldn’t normally take the trouble to investigate into the truth of anything. The thought suddenly brought to mind his past silent self, like a pig eating, drinking, relieving itself and sleeping, day after day.

  This deeply engraved image of his past streamed through the empty spaces in his heart and quickly engulfed the last ray of light there.

  ‘No matter what you believe, you must be treated, rather than insisting on your so-called…faith.’ Mengliu decided he would try one last time with Esteban. As he got up from the millstone and walked to the dim lamp, he smelled decay. ‘Sometimes faith is nothing but a guard who exists in name only at the gate of a village. If you are arrogant, you can walk through easily, but if you look left or right before you enter the gate, he will stop you and interrogate you.’

  Esteban did not move. He looked like a dead man.

  ‘If you are stopped at the gate, what else can you do? There’s nothing you can do but dream.’ Mengliu came at it from another angle. ‘And love…yes, you remember you are a father? Surely you don’t want your child to be born fatherless? You have become enslaved because of him, but you have to grit your teeth and carry on living. Even if it is for your…so-called faith.’

  Suitang’s expression said that she thought Esteban’s faith was a load of bullshit. ‘For pilgrims, the temple is everything, all culture and happiness,’ she muttered. But she did not speak that softly.

  She seemed impatient, so much so that she left the mill and went out to stand in the cold, looking up at the sky.

  Mengliu was shocked. She said so bluntly exactly what he meant. He felt a little awkward but, even more, he was relieved, since to say anything else would be superfluous. He assumed Esteban had also heard Suitang. Seeing some movement, he thought the other man was trying to sit up, not imagining that he was simply changing his position so he could continue sleeping.

  ‘A poet can do without poetry. Why can’t a sinner who is sick go without a doctor?’

  Mengliu was about to leave when he suddenly heard this barbaric logic coming from Esteban. He turned to see that Esteban was standing up, and looked like an African tribesman. His face was the canvas of a colourful oil painting, his hand clasped a spear, and was pointing the end of it towards Mengliu’s breast. He couldn’t move, as if the lack of oxygen had made his brain sluggish.

  Just then, Darae came in. Perhaps because of the cold, he looked bleak, dreary of spirit. That wise handsome young man had become sluggish and dull. After pulling something from a box, he placed dishes on the millstone. There were four pieces of tofu, a wilted cabbage, and two slices of corn bread. It was standard criminal’s fare, coldly waiting for a mouth to devour it.

  ‘Darae, what has happened to your excellent skills?’ Mengliu, very carefully moving his body away from where he thought the tip of the spear might go, tried to inject a bit of humour into his voice. He really didn’t blame Darae, but the meal was too rustic to overlook. If he were still Head of a Thousand Households, he would have the best food served to Esteban.

  ‘I gave him something good, but he won’t eat it. What can I do?’ Darae said.

  ‘Are you also sick Darae? I know the recent flu has been very powerful…No, I should say, since the epidemic began…’ Mengliu tried to get a good look at Darae’s face. ‘I’m worried that Esteban’s illness…maybe you can persuade him…’

  Darae just shook his head.

  Mengliu suddenly felt discouraged. He saw Suitang pacing outside. Her image made him think of the situation with Juli. He engaged in some more useless talk, saying how a child couldn’t possibly soak in alcohol, how they shouldn’t be manipulated, how they should take Juli to the mountains to give birth, staying until things had blown over and she could come back.

  Darae laughed, his laugh like a blast of cold wind piercing Mengliu’s body, but he finally agreed to go with them to the nursing home. He agreed to help them, to serve as a lookout. He said he too wanted to know, once and for all, what was going on.

  But Mengliu backed away from Darae in the end, feeling he could not be relied on. Suitang seemed to hate his half-dead attitude. She thought they didn’t need to drag anyone else into it. Regardless of the outcome, it was a Swan Valley problem.

  22

  Accommodating two women at the same time alw
ays leads to trouble. Mengliu found that Yuyue had become difficult to get along with, never saying what she meant, remaining aloof, or merely answering any question with, ‘You should ask her.’ This ‘her’ referred to Suitang. When she was with Suitang, Yuyue always seemed warm and friendly, as if they were sisters. They would even crowd him out of their private conversations, with one of them always ready to throw menacing glances at him. Mengliu knew that Yuyue intended him to feel in the wrong, and that they were the innocent ones, and women should always unite. Perhaps in their imagination he had already turned into something wicked, but he had no idea what he had done wrong. At first, neither of them cared for him, but now, probably because each had found a competitor, they were both inspired to possess him. He lamented at how diabolically clever the two goblins were. They never showed their true intent, they hid their dark hysteria behind happy faces. He once overheard them talking. They were quick to reach the consensus that he would write poetry one day, and that he would again ‘rise up.’ He didn’t like this sort of prediction. It was like witches telling fortunes by casual divination. It was just superstition. Especially when it came to a matter as serious as poetry. They shouldn’t make such irresponsible comments. No one had a right to tell him what he should do. His intentions were like his personal beliefs, and his privacy should be respected and protected. As usual, he didn’t lose his temper but repeated his old line, ‘I am a surgeon, unable to do anything related to poetry. Please don’t waste your fantasies on me.’

  The night before visiting the nursing home, they had dinner at Juli’s house. The dishes were rich and the rice wine sweet. She was in good shape, not as worried as he thought she would be about Suitang, and not in the least surprised by her arrival. Yuyue had already corrected Juli’s view on the matter, by declaring that Suitang was not Mengliu’s girlfriend. They were simply colleagues who had sometimes worked very closely together in the past. The three of them had come to persuade Juli to try to escape Swan Valley, but in the end they didn’t say anything. As soon as they entered her house, they knew that it would be a waste of breath to do so. Juli had more backbone than anyone. Dinner turned into a joyous affair. The rice wine made them tipsy and they lost all inhibition, laughing with abandon, and making Mengliu feel that he was a lascivious, fatuous, self-indulgent ruler in the midst of his wives and concubines. During the gathering Juli, pregnant though she was, performed a dance. Her body moved sinuously as her hands held her belly. It was as if she were at the harvest, the light from the fire turned her face golden, and her shadow formed weird shapes on the wall. She was excited, quite different from her usual self. When they told her about Esteban’s appearance at the mill, she was lukewarm, indifferent, as if the burden of his forced labour, the atonement, and the hanging between life and death were all normal aspects of love.

  This beautiful life cannot be false. Even if it is, it is still beautiful. If it is not for the sake of rebuilding, why bother destroying it? The idea popped out of nowhere in Mengliu’s head, throwing him into confusion. It is perverse to shake people out of their dreams. They don’t need the truth. The truth is like a leftover scrap of bread, it’s unnecessary.

  At this point, their entertainments were turning ridiculous because they had become overly merry. It was as if they were all play-acting even though they were sincere. Under the influence of alcohol Suitang and Yuyue both urged Mengliu to recite poetry, booing and hissing when he refused to be drawn into their pranks. Suddenly he saw the balalaika on the wall, and was grateful for the timely rescue. He took the instrument down. It had a solid body with an open-mouthed dragon carved at its head. The neck was made of rosewood and the drum covered with python skin. It looked very old. He plucked a few strings, and the sound was full-bodied, it lingered like smoke. He said he would perform a storytelling and ballad sequence in the Suzhou dialect, employing chen diao. When Yuyue asked what chen diao was, Suitang said, ‘I’m afraid it means clichéd tunes and phrases.’

  As Mengliu continued to pluck, testing the strings, he said that there were three genres of pingtan – chen diao, ma diao, and yu diao. They were skeptical at first, not believing a traditional surgeon could play pingtan. When he really did begin to play, they fell silent. He sang softly, and his face became strangely animated. No one understood the words, but they were mesmerised by the music. While they were indulging themselves, he ended the performance with a few violent chords.

  ‘I have not seen anyone who could play that instrument,’ Juli said, holding her belly and wearing a look of perfect mental and physical well-being. ‘You play beautifully. I feel that tonight you are close to the heart of a poet, and your music reveals the secrets of that heart.’

  ‘You’re wrong. I have no secrets. It’s your own imagination.’ Mengliu smiled, stroking the head of the instrument. ‘On the contrary, what was on my mind just now was a surgical procedure,’ and he described the whole process, every bloody detail. They all listened quietly, none of them in the least horrified. He, on the other hand, was uncomfortable. He was remembering how he had caused Jia Wan’s death with his own hand, and how he had harboured hatred toward him in his mind, a so-called poet who had sold out his friend for glory. A scumbag who had used poetry to cheat on a girl’s affections, and in the year of the Round Square incident acted as a mole, betraying people in the Wisdom Bureau. But what was really dirty was the government who awarded Jia Wan the supreme poetry prize – that was equivalent to a public reward for a lackey, and a contemptuous insult to all poets. Thinking of this, Mengliu had become emotional. But he quickly recovered, fleeing behind the safety of the walls he’d erected around himself.

  After their brief alliance, the three women went back to their own concerns. Only the crackle of the fire could be heard. There was a trace of hostility in the atmosphere, and the wind outside was whistling and sharp, distant and sorrowful like a wolf on the prowl. Inside it was like an oil painting in a warm hue; the non-living and the living alike were quiet. Yuyue burped softly, then quickly covered her mouth. Juli stood up and began to clear the dishes. Suitang helped to empty the rubbish into the bin. Suddenly, they all found something to busy themselves with.

  Mengliu thought of the journey to the nursing home the following day. Would Suitang or Yuyue be the lookout? Yuyue’s mother was inside, so it stood to reason that she should go in, but Suitang thought that Yuyue, being from Swan Valley, should be the lookout. If something happened, people would believe her. She and Mengliu were both outsiders – if they disappeared, so what? But Yuyue insisted she wanted to go in, saying that the plan had been hatched before Suitang had arrived. ‘It’s my mother who is in there, not yours.’ They were like children bickering over a sweet.

  But only two people could sit in the cable car.

  In the end it was Juli who came up with a solution. When she had cleaned up, she cut two small pieces of paper, wrote on them, crumpled them up, and then like a general presiding over a meeting said, ‘You two draw lots to determine who will go and who will stay.’

  The scheme worked, leaving neither girl with anything to say. They reached out to draw lots, each took a small ball of paper. Just as they did so Shanlai came into the room, his body emitting a chill and his face blue.

  ‘Señor Esteban has gone to the nether world.’

  His weird expression made it appear that he was joking. Those in the room looked down at him in surprise.

  ‘He was lying there, and no matter how I called, he wouldn’t wake up.’ Shanlai looked at his feet. His pudgy shoes were embedded in circles of mud, making them look even clumsier. He raised his head and looked at them again and said boldly, ‘He’s dead…really dead.’

  The house was like a grave. Then the commotion began.

  Five minutes later, everyone left. The snow crunched under their feet as they ran toward the mill.

  23

  Mengliu didn’t sleep a wink all night. Time flowed from the rising sun, and stopped at eight o’clock. According to Yuyue’s news, Michael would
be leaving on the cable car at twelve, escorted by a male underling. Again and again, Mengliu imagined the scene. They would lurk around, waiting, their faces hidden behind black cloths, just like in a movie. If necessary, they would carry small arms, ready to stun or kill the underling, then rescue Michael and tell him that going to the nursing home was certain death. Michael would be so frightened by the sudden turn of events that he wouldn’t resist. Completely misunderstanding Mengliu, he would stammer, and say he could go back to the hospital and do whatever was required of him – he was not a man who liked leisure. He would slap his arms and legs, and show how robust his body was. He would tremble and beg for mercy. Mengliu would have to knock him unconscious, just to shut him up, and then drag him into the bushes. In his own imaginings Mengliu was a tall and powerful figure, cool in his fighting moves as he dealt with the monsters around him. But in reality, when he saw the sun rising over the windowsill, he grew nervous. He didn’t want to resort to violence. He preferred to settle it all with a civilised conversation. He had no confidence in a fight.

  Today Esteban would be transported to the mountain. His attitude toward atoning for his sin and his bravery would earn him a high-level snow burial, and all charges of wrong-doing would be expunged at the funeral. He was an intellectual of Swan Valley, and would be placed in a three-inch-thick ice coffin. A snow tomb would be erected, along with a giant ice sculpture for a tombstone. In good weather, everyone would be able to see the tombstone on the peak from the foot of the mountain, like a shining sword.

  The previous night Shanlai had stayed at the mill while the others returned to Juli’s house, where they alternated between sharing their memories of the deceased and moments of respectful silence. The glory of the dead had nothing to do with Juli’s fate, and the law wouldn’t spare the child in her belly. It would have to undergo the alcohol test as if nothing had happened. She was very confident and persuasion was useless. She was the only one who slept that night, and in the morning, full of energy, she made eggs and pancakes and porridge for breakfast, without any sign of grieving for her lost love. Mengliu, smelling the aromas from the kitchen as he went through his morning ablutions, thought of the war games that were soon to come. He was surprised at the murderous expression in the eyes of the man who looked back at him from the mirror, hovering above his overnight beard, below his shiny forehead. Maybe he should do as Suitang had said and carry a dagger and pepper spray with him, in case words didn’t work. Yuyue said it was best to use an anaesthetic, since it wasn’t life-threatening. ‘If he says anything, just poke it up his arse, and he’ll really sleep. Or use a brick and knock him out.’