by Zhang Yueran
Chun Chi didn’t speak to Zhong Qian after the child’s death. He had turned into earth and air, like her daughter. Even so, he didn’t leave her. She wouldn’t allow him to approach, but he continued to live within sight of her, neither near nor far.
His persistence, year after year, made him remarkable. He acquired a quality of something beyond the ordinary. No one would ever know it, but his strength and determination made him special.
22
By the time of the general’s final battle with Camel, Tsong Tsong had left the compound, apparently unaware of the explosive events that would soon take place.
She passed fleetly through the thick groves to the deepest part of the jungle. She knew there was a tall pagoda tree — its slim branches wilting down to earth, burrowing into it to form new roots. They encircled a patch of ground dozens of feet wide, a circular room she could hide in. Once, she had come here to watch the peacocks. Now that Camel’s men had captured them all, the place was uninhabited. It was the only place where she could find a bit of silence.
Tsong Tsong waited in the deep quiet of the jungle, a little gleeful: not far from here, two powerful men were fighting, and no one knew she was the cause. There was a kind of blood-lust hidden deep inside her. The island’s rivers would flow crimson now, each dead body an offering to her, a demonstration of her worth. This was the pinnacle of her existence. She could die at this moment with no regret at all.
After this, very quickly, she weakened. This was inevitable. She was too aware of her beauty, had made too much use of it. Such pride, to require the blood of so many others. Overly beautiful landscapes, overly sweet flowers, overly dazzling jewels — all are dangerous, unsettling, and finally will be taken back by the heavens.
When she bathed in the nearby lake, she noticed herself becoming ugly. When she touched her body, it felt foreign, as if belonging to another person.
The battle lasted a long time and caused much suffering. Tsong Tsong may have been the luckiest one, safely distant from the killing. But she was going through another kind of torment, a suspicion she tried to push away — but she couldn’t ignore the many symptoms. Her face had the same rash as Chun Chi’s, her belly swelled, she was never hungry and the wild fruit she had gathered lay neglected, rotting.
A month went by, and she didn’t bleed when her time came. Now she knew. Fate was toying with her again.
The battle finally ended. Camel’s mansion was flattened. Tsong Tsong found several bodies nearby that she recognised, Camel’s children. Looking at their tiny limbs trampled into the mud, she felt such sadness. Her stomach contracted and she vomited. For the first time, she recognised how great her sin was.
The surviving villagers told her that Camel and some of his wives had been taken prisoner by the general. They seemed unmoved — life and death were normal events. What did they care who their leader was?
Only Tsong Tsong still needed to know Camel’s whereabouts. The flames she had played with now burned her. This man was now connected to her for the rest of her life, a connection she would never be able to sever.
No one knew where Tsong Tsong went after that. That girl, so full of mystery and colour, disappeared like the setting sun. Some people said she’d seen Camel in his dungeon, the night before he was executed.
She made him a meal — the first time she’d cooked for a man. Wine would have been better, but there was no time to brew her own. Instead she exchanged some of her clothing for a jar in the village, steeping a few flower petals in it to soften its harshness.
Thus she prepared herself. She draped herself in her remaining clothes and, with a basket of food and wine, passed unrecognised all the way to Camel’s cell. She walked round the severe building again and again. It was hopeless. The execution was the next day. And so, she did the only thing she could — knocking on the prison door, she quickly came to an agreement with the guard.
The formerly imposing figure of the commander now lay, piteously broken, against the metal bars. He rubbed his loose scalp, creased with scars, and thought his life was as broken and rotten as his skin. So many women and children waiting for him in the next world — he imagined them looking down at him, like the stars (if only he could see the stars from where he was!). He would join them soon.
As he dozed, he heard a rustling through the long grass outside. Coming fully awake, he became aware of a man’s laboured breathing, and a woman’s faint moans. The noises splashed across him in waves. He opened his eyes wide, disbelieving, and then hurtled across the cell to press his ear to the metal grille, listening hard.
Outside, the woman was trying hard to suppress herself, her soft cries tinged with worry. He was a trapped animal, trembling, his legs shivering so hard they could hardly hold him up. Finally, he knelt heavily. The woman’s voice was a thousand drops of rain, landing hard on his face. He was so thirsty. His mouth opened, desperate for just a drop of water. His body tensed, absorbing every sound she made, pushing it deep within himself. These soft, warm sounds were his now. He gripped the bars, arms quivering, sweat pouring down into his mouth but not assuaging his thirst.
He could not calm down until the noises stopped. All was still then — no more grass rustling, no more moans. The sentry staggered in, still fastening his shirt. He looked dismissively at Camel before opening the cell door, depositing the food and wine at his feet, slamming it shut again.
Camel was exhausted. He tilted his head back and took a deep draught of wine. His teeth bit into a mandala bud, and the familiar smell made his sluggish blood flow again. He lay on the ground, limbs spread wide, eyes shut, chewing the petals in his mouth to extract every drop. Huge teardrops rolled down his face.
Kite
1
The summer she turned fourteen, Sibyl saw the kingdom of God in the evening sky, to the north-west of the city. She was at the time trapped in the nut-brown arms of a Siamese soldier, but the vision caused her to stop struggling and gaze at the glittering crystal palace in the clouds. Her eyes shut, and she prayed silently. The soldier’s teeth ripped through the strap of her dress, his tongue assaulting her shaking breasts, then further down. He broke open the sealed door, and wakened blood surged out.
As he writhed on her body, she felt preternaturally still, like Noah’s Ark rising above the troubled world. Earth and heaven would be renewed, and all would begin again. Ants crawled up her body, stinging the shivering, violated skin. The man wiped himself on her skirt. She was somewhere else, rescued, feeling neither pain nor shame. The evening sunlight reached down like a giant hand to wipe away her tears.
The palace in the sky was exactly as her father had described it, glassy and shot through with dull pink light. She heard the beating of wings. Finally, she believed her Daddy’s words. Heaven was real, and salvation was possible. She wept tears of joy.
2
Did it hurt the Heavenly Father to see his daughter lost in a foreign land, running on bare feet through humid jungle and steep valleys? Her father missing, her body streaked with blood and hurt, the sky darkening, the mountain road endless, not a soul within sight. After several hours, the only living creatures she’d met were a few squirrels who’d made a nest inside a tube of metal, part of an abandoned cannon — a whole family, busily gnawing at hard pine nuts.
She talked to herself as she ran, silently at first, and then out loud when she’d started crying and the words crammed deep in her throat could no longer be held back. She spoke loudly, her words echoing off the great mahogany trees. Her despair swirled through the jungle like a restless ghost.
Daddy said that the Lord is always with us, holding our hands to guide us from the mire of pain and danger. All we need is to trust in his guidance, and we can move forward with hope. She was a big girl now, and knew she should not despair. This was a test. But did the Heavenly Father know her feet were cut all over, blood and mud mixing as she ran, sharp twigs piercing her tender skin and widening her wounds? She couldn’t stop. Daddy said that wild animals came out at night. She had
to get out of the forest before dark. Did the Heavenly Father know she hadn’t eaten for two days? This torture was more than she could endure, and doubts begin to appear in her heart, the heart in which Daddy had always cultivated belief.
A clump of eye-catching mushrooms. Were they poisonous? But the alternative was to collapse here, too weak to move, waiting for death. She crammed one in her mouth, bright as a cherry.
3
Sibyl missed her Daddy very much. He’d given half his life to worshipping the Lord, and trudged across so much of the world to save his fellow man.
Sibyl’s Mummy was Chinese. Before she met Daddy, she was a performer in a Jiangnan Circus. Then one day, a tall foreign man with a chestnut beard came to see the show. Amazed by the girl who flew back and forth above the audience, he sought her out afterwards and asked, smiling, “Are you a bird?” When he left the small town, he took with him its most beautiful bird.
Sibyl was born in China. Her parents’ union was a noble thing, built on a foundation of serving God. Daddy said to her, Mummy was a brave Chinese girl, ahead of her time, one of the first to hear the voice of God. He had to keep her by his side, to guide her on her journey.
And what a journey. They travelled to Vietnam, Nepal, Burma, and finally India. This was a year ago, when the great fire finally stopped Mummy’s hurried footsteps. Now she would rest forever in a mountain of ashes. Daddy said this wasn’t a bad thing, because Mummy had now gone even further in her journey, all the way to the arms of our Heavenly Father.
At the time they were spreading the Word in Bombay, where a famine had been raging for years. They’d left thirteen-year-old Sibyl with a neighbour in Amsterdam. She was learning the Chinese language and how to cook a few simple dishes.
“Learn to be an independent child. This way, you can follow Daddy and help him in his work.” These were Sibyl’s instructions to herself. Every night before bed, she repeated them while making another mark on her calendar. Another day gone, one day closer to seeing her parents again.
4
Sibyl stood at the table counting as her hostess stuck candles into her birthday cake — yes, correct, thirteen candles. She could hardly believe it. She was now a young woman.
At that very moment, a lady in Bombay walked down a street alone, on her way to buy medicinal herbs. Turning a corner, she came upon the fire, like a twilight cloud come to earth. A tall Indian pagoda with flames bursting out in every direction. Without thinking, she ran towards it.
The flames are wishes, said the neighbour, handing Sibyl a candle for her to light the others from. Thirteen little fires, fresh-faced as flower petals. Thirteen Sibyls on the cake, shining the way to a gleaming future.
Thick smoke choked the tower. A young monk, blinded and stumbling, felt a woman’s slender hand close around his. Her faint oriental scent reached him through the flames. She guided him out carefully. He heard embers smoulder beneath his feet, beams crashing down behind him. They spiralled down the steep staircase. He couldn’t see her, nor understand the Chinese words she spoke to him, but from her warm hands he knew she was comforting him.
“Sibyl, make a wish,” said the people around her. Sibyl shut her eyes in delight, trying to control her excitement, and wished with all her might.
The lady ran up the tower again. The fire had reached the top of the staircase. She felt her way along the walls, inching towards the sound of weeping until she reached the children. Taking one in each hand and letting the others grab her sleeves, she stumbled down the stairs again.
Everyone smiled as Sibyl formed her long, silent wish, something about Mummy, and Daddy, and their noble calling, and the reunion that would soon take place.
Finally they reached the foot of the stairs. But now the lady faintly heard, from high above, an infant crying. For a moment she even thought it was her Sibyl trapped at the top of the pagoda. So she went back in, all the way up. There was no baby to be found. And now the fire had swallowed her path back, trapping her in the tower.
Having made her wish, Sibyl blew out until her insides felt empty and cold. All her desire was now outside her body.
Jumping was the only choice. The lady ran to the window. Such a high tower. People were moving about below, but how small they were. No one could save her. She saw her husband in the crowd, yes, he had come, an Angel must have brought him. He knew she was here. The lady looked at the handsome man she loved, his eagle-beak nose, his bronze sideburns. How strong his belief made him look. She laughed from sheer joy.
Sibyl blew out the candles.
The lady leapt from the top of the pagoda, flames lapping at her feet. From below, the crowd saw her pause for a moment in mid-air, as if uncertain whether to fly down to her love, or up to her Heavenly Father.
All thirteen candles were extinguished. Everyone clapped. Sibyl held the beribboned knife and plunged it into the cake, right through a gaudy icing rose.
The lady flew like a beautiful bird into the bosom of her lover. She looked at him with love, her vision unclouded. The world had never been so still. There had never been a moment when she could gaze at him like this, slowly, greedily, the brown hair on his face, his wide forehead, his deep eyes, his high nose, the clear line of his lips, the slight peak of his chin, she stroked them all with her sight, a new species of delight, just like the day they first met.
Time seemed to drift back fifteen years. He stood in the busy lane, pushing through the departing crowd, towards her. He was in a long, white robe, a cross before his chest, holding a thick soft-leather book. His skin was stark white and his eyes a pale blue. He looked as clean as a new-born child. Her curious eyes met his. When he spoke to her, he didn’t feel like a stranger, let alone a foreigner. In the grey of Jiangnan’s plum-season rain, he was a ray of sunlight lapping her face. That instant changed her. No longer a tumbling, airborne street performer, she gained gravity and stillness from him. From now on, she would be a lady.
He walked up to her, smiling. “Are you a bird?” That sentence, even in his awkward Chinese, worked a kind of magic. She discovered she was fully grown, ready to leave her village and travel far away with him. Such sudden joy and sorrow, coming all at once. She stayed outwardly calm as yearning blossomed inside her.
He told her the story of the Bible, of the Holy Mother Mary giving birth, of Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection, of Noah’s Ark. She listened with wide eyes, receiving the inconceivable stories he threw at her one after another. He said to her: “Do you believe?” Only if you believe can you be saved. She nodded, believing in him as much as in God. He was an angel, leading her to Heaven like the angels in his stories. The angel finished speaking, and now it was his turn to stare at her, rapt. He moved closer, kissing the tip of her nose, her eyelashes, her lips. Weren’t Westerners supposed to be rough? But this angel was gentle as spring rain. He held her tight. She tumbled into deep water. Easy to understand his talk of resurrection. His love was baptism, and she was pure again.
“Take me away from here. Take me with you.” Her arms around his neck, she asked him again and again. Her hazy spring days were drifting to an end. She would not be able to keep prancing about in the street, passing mistily from one day to the next. This man would bring her into a new life, somewhere free and full of life.
A week later, he held her hand and they disappeared from the streets of that small town. Fifteen years hurried by, as they walked down different streets, never stopping once, a longer journey than either of them had expected, filled with exhaustion and disappointment, but never regret.
She flew towards him because he was her faith. She would have done it all over again, even if it had to end like this. She hoped he knew this. He had caught her, his little bird, and only in captivity had she found her way, had she stopped being lost.
“Take me away from here,” she murmured again. Her flight ended, and the unyielding ground hit her hard.
Our Sibyl — brimful of expectation, poised on the edge of the world’s abundance, life as sweet as
the cake before her. Sibyl held a slice topped with half an icing rose, and delicately closed her lips around a mouthful of buttercream.
As the lady fell, tears surged to her eyes. He ran forward just as she launched herself, like a peacock, the flames a fantail behind her. The crowd scattered as the pagoda swayed, threatening to collapse. Only the man stayed where he was, holding his wife’s body and weeping. He gently pushed her wild hair back from her face and kissed it, so warm. How young she was, still a girl. Had she really been his? Had the last fifteen years been a dream? She was so virtuous, a price above rubies, all alone in this treacherous world, stolen away at last by the angel of death.
Later on, Sibyl would maintain she had witnessed the whole thing. Looking into the wavering candle flame, she had seen her mother’s leap, her sudden beauty as she soared through the air in flight.
5
Daddy broke his word. It was winter, and he still hadn’t returned. Every night, Sibyl sat in her new white dress with the fish-tail skirt, watching the front door, until her headdrooped and she fell asleep at the dining table. No one knocked for ages, and then one day after Christmas — tu tut tu. Sibyl looked down at herself. Her dress was wrinkled, the white embroidered edges stained with grease, and her hair hadn’t been washed or combed in days. She hastily prayed for God to turn her into a clean, pretty little princess, or Mummy would be angry to see her like this. Her prayer was answered after a fashion: her mother didn’t walk into the room, and no one would scold her for her slovenliness that day.
Daddy walked in slowly, looking like a ghost trapped for centuries in an old castle. Sibyl noticed at once the dark, solemn mood that trailed in with him. It was snowing hard outside, so that his footprints up the path had already been obliterated. Even before she knew what had happened, Sibyl thought sorrowfully, looking at the low, dark clouds as she shut the door, that this long winter would never come to an end.
The next few days must have been the hardest for Daddy. He shut himself in the house, speaking only to the Heavenly Father, not to Sibyl. A damp misery extruded from his room, enshrouding them both. Sibyl guessed what must have happened. A few days later, she knocked on his door and lifted her face to him, waiting to be told. He knelt and clasped her to his chest. His voice distorted by tears, he said, “Do you blame me for not bringing your Mummy back?” This man who had always thought himself favoured by God and protected by faith, wept like a lost little boy.