A Single Swallow

by Ling Zhang

  But not every factor could be planned for. As they approached the warehouse, the captain noticed a glow about two paces away. It flickered. Someone was smoking. From the hat, he guessed it was a Japanese soldier who, against orders, had snuck out of the warehouse, where smoke and fire were strictly prohibited. Perhaps catching a sound beneath the wind, the soldier turned abruptly, and their eyes met. That split second the Japanese soldier needed to drop his cigarette was just enough to give the captain the chance to leap like a panther and, fast as lightning, clamp a hand over his mouth. He struggled in the captain’s arms, like a fish flopping on the shore. The captain glared at Liu Zhaohu and spat out, “Knife!” Liu pulled out his dagger and slammed it into the man’s chest. A warm, wet, sticky substance splattered onto Liu’s forehead, running down the ridge of his brow into his eyes. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, then rammed the knife into the soldier’s chest another six or seven times. He struck with too much force, almost throwing himself off balance. The last stab seemed to strike something hard, making the point slip and get stuck. He jiggled it a few times before managing to remove the knife. The rope binding the man’s organs, sinews, and bones broke, and his body went limp, like a noodle.

  In the pale light of the first-quarter moon, he saw the face of the man lying on the ground before him. It was very young, with a shadow of mustache on his upper lip and a bunch of purple scars on the sallow face left behind by a summer heat rash. His eyes were open wide, the moonlight pooling in them so clear that one could almost see the mind underneath. He fixed his eyes on Liu Zhaohu, his lips moving slightly. Liu leaned closer, and after a moment, Liu realized he had said, “Oka-san.”

  Snot asked Liu quietly, “What did that devil say before he died?”

  Leaning against the tree, Liu sighed heavily and whispered, “He called for his mother.”

  They fell silent.

  Two men went over to strip off the dead man’s belt and boots, but Liu brandished the dagger while kneeling in front of the body and said softly, stressing each word, “Who dares?” The blood had congealed on his face, and his eyes stared out from beneath it like two icy flames. Shocked, the men froze, but cast a tentative glance at the captain. The shoes they wore in summer were straw, while their winter shoes were cloth. They’d never had leather shoes and couldn’t bear to see a good pair of boots rot on a corpse. They hoped the captain would weigh in. But the captain didn’t respond. He just lowered his head silently and wiped the blood from his hands with a leaf. Liu Zhaohu took a stone and placed it beneath the man’s head. Removing the blood-soaked military jacket, he laid it over the mutilated body. Only after this did he regain composure.

  “We don’t have much time. Let’s get ready for action,” Ferguson whispered, patting Liu’s shoulder.

  At the edge of the illuminated area, they stopped in the cover of the reeds. Ferguson gestured for Ghost to stand by for orders, and he sat alert beside Ferguson. Liu Zhaohu knelt on one knee, supporting his rifle with the other. His gun was different from the others and had been fitted with a silencer. On such a clear night, shooting at such a distance, the silencer wouldn’t muffle the gunshot completely, but it would control the brightness of the flash and change the sound so the person in the watchtower wouldn’t know for sure if it was a gunshot or where it came from. While Liu was preparing, Snot picked up the rabbit filled with explosives, ready to go. Liu’s first target was the sentry facing them. At the same time, the lighting made the sentry a highly visible target, and Liu could see him easily. Squinting, he aimed between the man’s eyebrows, then squeezed the trigger softly. After a sound like beans jumping in a wok, the sentry on the tower shook, like his body was tripped by an invisible rope. He twitched oddly a few times, then fell. The other sentry turned, raised his weapon, and fired a volley of shots into the night sky. This was the alarm. The gun blocked his face, so Liu aimed for his heart. He squeezed lightly, and the man fell against the wall. The arm holding his gun dropped. The man tried to lift his gun again, but his arm no longer obeyed. Liu found his forehead and fired again. His shoulders twitched a few times, then his body slumped to the ground like a sack.

  Snot took off toward the warehouse. He didn’t stay among the reeds, but ran on the dirt road. There was no cover, and he was exposed in the light, but there was no alternative. The reeds were too tall and would slow him down. He had to get there before others had time to get to the front gate. That’s when the second unexpected thing happened. Hearing the gunfire, the five trucks parked in front of the watchtower turned on their headlights, and five gunmen stood up on each vehicle. They were military guards who had been spending the night in their vehicles, waiting for dawn before setting out on their journey. They didn’t come all the way out, but balancing their guns on the guardrail of the trucks, they observed the situation around them. In such bright light, the team would be given away by the slightest movement, so they could not provide cover for Snot as planned and had to stay low in the reeds, frozen. The lights in the warehouse came on one by one, and orders were shouted amid noisy footsteps. Soldiers had already climbed the watchtower and were crouching up there. Ferguson couldn’t see their bodies, but he saw the fearfully black muzzles of their guns sticking out from the embrasures in the brick wall. Heavy fire broke out. Although it was an unfocused deterrent, Ferguson and his comrades had fallen into a hopeless situation. As soon as a search began, they would be discovered.

  Snot had made it to the wall before the hail of bullets began. Leaping lightly, he threw the dead rabbit over the wall. But he didn’t retreat according to plan, running instead toward the river. With a loud splash, he leaped into the water behind a big rock, his body creating an arch of waves on the calm water. At the same time, he shot a few rounds from his Thompson into the night sky. He was trying to draw the enemy’s attention to cover his comrades’ retreat. The guns in the watchtower and trucks did in fact aim at Snot, spraying the river with a volley of bullets. Snot’s body sank and a layer of dark red foam appeared on the surface of the water, but he kept his arms in the air, firing the Thompson with one hand and the revolver with the other. He varied the timing of his shots to create the illusion of more people.

  The captain ordered a quick retreat. Just then, something slammed to the ground at Ferguson’s feet, hissing. It was a hand grenade. They were never sure if it had been thrown at random or if something had tipped off the Japanese, but either way they were lost. In the nick of time, Ghost leaped up and grabbed the grenade in his mouth, then took off running. His mother’s speed and his father’s intelligence had woke at that moment and formed a powerful alliance. Ghost ran like a puma, feet hardly touching the ground. As he reached the dirt road, he glanced back at Ferguson. That was his final farewell. Ferguson’s last impression of Ghost was the gray arc of his body in midair, and his sad eyes as he glanced back. With a bang, Ghost’s body was shattered into pieces in the night sky.

  Another explosion erupted behind Ghost, and the warehouse was engulfed in flames. Compared to this, the earlier shots had been like a drizzle before a thunderstorm. This sound seemed to come from the center of the earth. The ground continued to tremble, and the branches shook in horror for a long time afterward. Ferguson saw the captain’s lips moving, but couldn’t hear the words. The unit retreated in the chaos. Liu Zhaohu saw that the captain was limping on one leg and was gradually falling behind. Shrapnel from the grenade explosion had sliced off a chunk of his flesh at the ankle, and his pant leg was soaked in blood.

  Liu Zhaohu squatted.

  “Get on,” he shouted.

  The captain hesitated, then realized that Liu meant to carry him.

  “You can’t carry me!” he said, continuing to drag his leg forward.

  “Do you want your comrades to die because of you?” Liu said, his face falling.

  The captain relented and climbed onto Liu’s back. Liu lurched forward, one knee falling to the ground. Gritting his teeth, he gathered all his strength and let out a low roar. He push
ed to his feet shakily and staggered with the first step. But that first step opened the path, and the rest continued from its momentum. With the captain on his back, Liu looked like a skinny horse carrying a mountain, bones creaking under the weight. But he carried the burden, staggering, all the way to the sampan. Liu collapsed in the sampan, panting heavily. A few men came over and took off their jackets to bind the captain’s wounds. The captain roared, “Where’s the water? I’m damned thirsty.”

  One of the soldiers handed over a canteen with a little water left at the bottom. The captain was about to drink, but then stopped and handed it to Liu Zhaohu as they rowed away from the shore. Safely on the water, Ferguson drew the cigarette case from his pocket and found that there were two cigarettes left. He lit one and handed it to the boatman, then lit the other, took a drag, and handed it to the soldier beside him. He took a drag and passed it on. By the time it returned to Ferguson, it was only a butt.

  No one had spoken. Looking at the fiery red sky behind them, they knew the Japanese would have to march through rain and snow without proper clothes this winter. But they couldn’t rejoice. Their eyes were on the empty seat in the sampan. When they had set out, they were sixteen men and a dog. Now they were just fifteen men. They had left their comrade behind forever.

  Snot’s corpse was returned to camp the following evening.

  Ferguson learned later through a long trail of rumors that when the Japanese reached Snot, he dropped the Thompson into the water and put a hole in his temple with the revolver. When the Japanese pulled him to shore, they cut off his head and hung it on the wall as a trophy. Later, the captain’s brother made a deal with a Japanese soldier, paying ten silver coins for Snot’s body. As Snot’s body was carried into the village, the bugler played a long string of low notes, like water running over stones at a river’s mouth. The Chinese students and American instructors lined the road two rows deep, saluting their fallen comrade.

  Ferguson had seen the bodies of fallen soldiers return to America, their coffins covered with the Stars and Stripes. But this body was just covered with an old straw mat, and the coffin had been borrowed since there had not been time to make one. Snot’s neighbor, the cook for the Chinese students, had sent two men to the river early that morning for a few buckets of water to wash Snot’s body. When the cook removed the mat, the sight made him collapse to the floor.

  “Oh God, what will I tell his mother?” the cook wailed, sitting on the floor.

  The captain and Liu Zhaohu took over the task of washing Snot’s body. They wiped the bloodstains from his body, neck, and severed head with a towel, then dressed him in a clean uniform. The clothing covered the sieve of his bullet-riddled body, but not the holes in his head, where he’d taken his own life rather than be captured. Snot must have had a strong will to live. So many bullets, but he died by his own hand. The entrance wound was hardly noticeable, but the area around it had caved in, like a wormhole in a melon rind. What was more obvious was the exit wound, a large hole with torn edges and jagged corners. Liu Zhaohu wrapped a towel around Snot’s head to hide the wounds.

  Finally, the body was washed and properly dressed, but his eyes stayed half-open. Liu tried to close them, but couldn’t. Snot’s expression wasn’t an unwillingness to resign himself to death, but more like mockery. His mouth was turned slightly up at the corner, a kind of smirk at some sinister joke he was waiting impatiently for everyone else to get. Liu asked for old silver coins to place on the eyelids.

  The captain sighed and said, “Forget it. He was that way when he was alive. Let him be.”

  They lifted Snot’s body and were about to put it into the coffin when they heard someone at the gate shout, “Wait.” Then the whizzing of a bicycle coming to a stop. Without looking, everyone knew it was the American missionary Pastor Billy, since he was the only one who had a bicycle. A young woman holding a white cloth bag dismounted from behind him. When the captain saw Pastor Billy, he waved and said, “Forget it. Give him a break. He didn’t believe in your God while he was alive. Do you expect him to believe now that he’s dead?”

  Shaking his head, Pastor Billy pointed to the woman, saying, “I’m not here to pray. I brought Stella. She wants to send him off.”

  She walked over to Snot’s body and knelt on the ground. It looked like she might bow, but she sat on her heels, pulled Snot’s headless body over, and placed it on her lap. Liu Zhaohu looked panicked. A few days earlier, this girl had accused Snot of attempting to rape her, and he’d been sentenced to death by the commanding officer, spared only to go on the mission at Stella’s request.

  “What . . . What are you doing?” Liu stammered.

  She did not answer or even look up, as if Liu were as invisible as air. As they watched, Stella carefully picked up Snot’s head and placed it on her lap. It looked almost like she were holding a delicate porcelain jar. She opened her bag, took out a roll of thick thread and a big needle, and squinted in the failing light as she threaded the needle. Then she aligned Snot’s chin with the center of the uniform. She looked him over carefully, then poked the needle into his neck. The crowd of onlookers gasped. She began to sew Snot’s head onto his body. Each time she inserted the needle, she hesitated, as if afraid of hurting him. However, each stitch was made decisively, her fingers steady and strong and without any trembling. Snot was thin and small, and his body had shrunk in death. His sleeves and pant legs had to be rolled up to show his hands and feet. On her lap, Snot looked like an oversized child clinging to an adult, refusing to get up from bed. The woman’s patient, gentle smile was like that of a mother coaxing a mischievous child to sleep.

  After a long sequence of hesitation and resolution, she made the broken body whole again with her needle. Holding the head, now reconnected to the body, she leaned back and examined it, as if admiring a piece of fine embroidery. She took off the scarf tied over her braid and wrapped it around Snot’s neck to cover the seam, then placed him gently on the ground.

  Ferguson watched her walk out of the courtyard calmly, dust rising from the road with each firm step, her loosened hair shaking softly. This girl made all the women he’d ever known—even his mother, his sister, and his former girlfriend—seem pale and weak.

  That night, the entire village gathered for the long-awaited performance of Xiao Yanqiu’s famous theater troupe. Even the American soldiers had been given special permission to attend. The older residents of Yuehu counted on their fingers, then declared that it had been thirty-six years since a theater troupe had last visited the village. They had still been under the rule of the Qing emperor, who held the imperial jade seal in the Forbidden City. News of the troupe coming had been circulating for months, stirring up even the village chickens, whose eggs seemed a little more pink than usual. Tonight’s performance was to be The Butterfly Lovers, though the older villagers might have preferred something more action-packed, like Madame White Snake. But the troupe was performing in exchange for one night’s room and board, not even asking to be paid, as a charity to the soldiers, so they would happily listen to whatever the troupe chose to sing. And anyone younger than thirty-six didn’t know any operas anyway, so if the actors had just walked around the stage waving their sleeves, that would have been novelty enough.

  The stage was small, with a curtain fashioned from six red sheets sewn together. There was no room for the musicians, so they sat among the audience, but no one minded. Crowds surrounded the stage so tightly that if a member of the troupe had wanted to go to the latrine, they would not have been able to squeeze through. The troupe was used to such situations. In fact, whenever Xiao Yanqiu’s name was advertised, it was always like this. But this performance was different in one important detail: there was a coffin in the best seat in the front row.

  The performance that evening was dedicated to Snot.

  Ghost and Millie: A Dialogue

  Day 1

  Ghost:

  Millie, my dearest Millie, you’ve been here since this morning when they erected t
he tombstone for me until now, when the mountain has cut off half the sun’s face. Almost the whole day, not eating, not moving, not speaking. Your master, the one my master calls Wende, brought your favorite, a bowl of chicken bones, at noon, but you didn’t even look at it.

  I know you’re angry with me for abandoning you for my master. In that moment—a half second or even less—I didn’t think of you. I didn’t have time to think of anything. In that hair of an instant, I did what any dog would do out of instinct. I protected my master. We aren’t cats, or goldfish, or parrots. They can live as pets, enjoying comfort and staying unconcerned about the fate of their humans. But we’re dogs. Our fate was decided in our mothers’ wombs. We have no choice. The purpose of our lives is to serve our masters.

  If I’d been given a choice, I would’ve chosen to live as a sheep dog, concerned only about the weather and the flock. I could have devoted the rest of my energy to you. We could roll across every inch of grass on the hill and lick every inch of one another’s bodies. If I get another life, I don’t want to be a military dog again, exhausting my mind and body for a delicious reward. I wouldn’t choose to be forced to fly when I hadn’t even learned to walk yet. They—those military dog trainers—tried to turn me into a half man, half dog. No, they wanted me to become a superman. They forced me to become an extension of human senses, using me to detect faint smells they couldn’t sense, see clues they missed, and hear the birdsong and wind they couldn’t hear. They sought to push the limit just a little further, until finally it broke. But I didn’t have a choice. A collie-greyhound mix, with gray fur, a roughly one-year-old male. I was perfect for a military dog, so I was put through the meat grinder of war. When I went in, I was a good dog with strong body and mind. When I came out, I was just a bit of minced meat.