The Promise Bird

by Zhang Yueran

  She grabbed an umbrella, still unsure, the coins rattling uneasily in her hands.

  “Come here,” I said huskily, my voice creaking with sadness. I reached for her, but she stayed at the doorway, staring at me. Lightning streaked across the sky, the cold light flashing through the half-open door, striking the full buckets of beans, the pain-stricken cat, the distraught woman. And she would have seen me, my proffered embrace. She threw the umbrella aside and ran into my arms.

  Her long-dammed tears finally emerged. They came to find me, soaking through my clothes and into my skin, precious — the last moisture in her body, her final drops of womanhood, stored deep inside herself and now, finally, spent on me.

  She returned to her senses while leaning on my shoulder. Perhaps just for an instant, she remembered our life together, and what she’d felt for me. The old Hua Hua. She touched my face, and whispered, “You’re so cold towards me. But I know you like me, deep down, don’t you?”

  The same words as the night before my voyage. The time and place were different, only she was the same. As if it were destined, her next murmured words were: “That’s enough for me. I feel lucky to have that.”

  How many times had she repeated these lines to herself? Even now that fate had crushed her totally, they lingered in her mind. She couldn’t know how important they were to me. Just like that night, long ago, I felt a moment’s liberation. If this was all her free will, and if she felt lucky, then my guilt was much reduced.

  “Go. Get medicine for Baby, and then we’ll all go home,” I said lightly.

  She was reluctant to leave me. Still, she went, glancing at the cat, picking up her umbrella, and disappearing into the night. I watched her stumble downhill, growing smaller, finally swallowed by the rain.

  Closing the door, I realised that the floor had become soaked. The beating rain had blown in and plastered the wildcat’s fur to its body, making it look even thinner, its spine a high ridge with sharp cliffs on either side. It lay still, like an excavated statue, desolate and out of time. Its distinctive scent seemed to come towards me on its gaze, tinged with resentment — but even this was faint, already a thing of the past, unable to break past the encrustations of time. It seemed to understand all things — its striped face holding a vast consciousness.

  I bent to it. Scared as it was, it didn’t have the energy even to shrink from me. All it could do was open its eyes a crack. Its eyes were warm, clearer than dewdrops, strangely familiar. Shaken, I stroked its spine and asked, “Are you really Baby?”

  It liked being touched in this way. its lower jaw quivering with pleasure. Had it recovered a little of its energy? “The heavens sent you to help me, didn’t they?” I stroked its neck now, and it rested its head on my arm, nuzzling me. I took this as consent — it was agreeing to help me, until the very end.

  I stood and crossed the room to the coffee beans, grabbing a handful and, tilting the cat’s chin back, prised its mouth open and shoved the beans down its gullet, pushing them all the way in with my fingers. I lacerated its throat, and blood filled its mouth. The beans I pushed in turned red as they passed through. Shoving a corner of my sleeve into its mouth to soak up the liquid, I continued.

  It had been sent by the heavens to help me. It would help me until the very end.

  The animal never struggled. Its great suffering seemed to ebb out of it with its blood. Its huge eyes stared at me, soft and calm, soothing my fears.

  When I let it go, its belly was swollen. I thought I could feel each individual bean through its skin, rubbing against each other with my touch. The sound was bewitching. I ran my fingers over its stomach, eyes shut, listening to the noises like little sparks, tearing open a channel, plummeting downwards into water, from where I could hear Chun Chin’s memories bubbling out.

  So close.

  When my eyes opened, the cat’s were closed. Its body was wrinkled cloth in my hands, almost weightless. Its eyes never opened again. It was silent. Even that peculiar scent was fading. The wildcat’s life folded shut, like an umbrella.

  Follow the spiral staircase all the way down. This buried kingdom isn’t hell. Keep going, until the sound of wind fills your ears and dust blinds your eyes and vines still your feet. Only then will the memory-keepers appear.

  She would never forget that scene: the Dutch man turning, raising his great knife, plunging it into her husband’s neck. Blood spattered across the Dutch man’s face as her husband fell. Hiding in the bushes, she wept quietly, pulling her nine-year-old son towards her so he wouldn’t see. The Dutchman’s face, his eyes, were engraved in her memory. Taking her son by the hand, she ran deep into the jungle.

  Three months later, they joined one of the native hunting tribes. A crippled widower took them in. She hated how this man looked as he slept, and could never get used to the bamboo-cooked rice he loved. Still, the man taught her son to use a blowpipe six feet long, capable of killing both animals and enemies. The son got very good with practice, and soon could hit any target.

  Eleven shrunken heads hung from the rafters of the longhouse they lived in. These were his family’s trophies of war. She wasn’t afraid of them — in fact, they made her feel at home. When the man brought her son out shooting, and she stayed at home with her weaving, the heads produced a deep, low hum each time the wind blew. She looked up at them from time to time. As soon as her son reached adulthood, the Dutch man’s head would hang from the same place. And for the rest of her life, she would have the pleasure of hearing his head sing for her.

  13

  The rain had petered out into a drizzle by the time Hua Hua returned with the doctor. She opened the door and saw me at the table, my back to her, not turning even when she called my name. I don’t know if she saw the knife or the blood on my hands first. She screamed as she ran over, her tangled hair scattering water droplets, splattering my face, the fresh air cutting through the bloodsmell of the house.

  She pushed me aside, and started crooning, “Baby, Baby.” After staring at the table for a while, as if something had scorched her, she shut her eyes and knelt, banging her head against the table.

  Shaking violently, she stood again, forcing her eyes open as if hoping it might be an illusion. What she saw burnt her again, and her eyes blinked shut. Shaking her head, stumbling backwards, she shrieked and shrieked and then ran from the house.

  Still holding the knife, I continued with my work. The doctor stepped further into the house so he could see the contents of the table: a tawny yellow wildcat, its belly sliced open, intestines hanging out and oozing blood, limp on the table and skittering about with my frantic hands. I finally cut its tangled viscera free and squeezed out bright red beans, like little buds containing mysteries, spreading a strange fragrance.

  The doctor leaned against the doorframe and vomited at length. Finally, he said, “Where is the child? I was called here to heal a child.” When I did not respond, he left.

  The sky was clear and white as I washed the coffee beans. No matter how I scrubbed, they still smelt faintly foul, and in the sun were a dull red, like moles on a woman’s face — tears from a past life. I put them in a bag and went to see Miss Bessie.

  The crimson beans were even more alarming than my bloodshot eyes. When I tipped them into my palm, Miss Bessie and her interpreter looked fearful.

  “That’s all I have. Please don’t ask any questions. All I can tell you is that these are the last coffee beans of this kind. There won’t be any more.” My voice was flat.

  She looked at me suspiciously, but had to trust me — my expression hard, the beans in my hands as bright as precious stones.

  “Why are they red?” she had to ask.

  “I can’t explain. I can only tell you, they’re the last of their kind.”

  She nodded thoughtfully.

  “And I have to beg you — please give me the last three shells. I don’t have much time left. I need to go back to see my mother.” As I waited for her answer, my mind filled with countless thoughts,
my heart cooled, and I was unable to keep pain from showing in my face.

  She seemed aware of my sorrow, and said, slowly, “I don’t know why, but the first time I saw you, I felt close to you. You’re different from the other people here. But I’m very sorry — we had an agreement, and I can’t go back on it. Please keep your word and find another way to produce the number of beans we agreed on.”

  I nodded and turned to go. The interpreter called after me that I’d forgotten my bag of beans.

  “They mean nothing to me now.” And with that, I walked away, into the poison green of the afternoon jungle. Only a few steps in, someone shouted my name — the interpreter again. I waited as he ran up to me and opened the cloth bag he held. The last three shells smiled dazzlingly up at me.

  “Miss Bessie changed her mind. They’re yours now.”

  I took them, and had no words to say in reply. They were bright with cunning, those shells. I held them under the bright sun, staring at them. The light pooled into dappled green butterflies. I kept staring until I could see their bright white outlines, and delicate features emerged from them. They were Chun Chi, and Baby, and Hua Hua. They were myself.

  14

  The three shells were heavy, knocking against my back as I carried them up the hill, reminding me of the night Chun Chi abandoned me, running home with frozen steamed buns thumping against my back. All that long, cold way, my feelings for her remained undiminished — in fact, grew stronger. I was already dimly aware then that this relationship was on a cliff-edge, possessing unbelievablestrength, shaped and contained by suffering.

  I ran along the rain-slick road, as if it were home that lay before me, as if I would see her soon, sitting moodily at the eight immortals table, the room dark, waiting for me to have breakfast. I was still that uneasy child, head bent over my bowl of Yangchun noodles to avoid meeting her eyes.

  Tears began to form as I ran. It had been so long since I cried — I only thought of crying when I was with her, as if all the tears in the world could win a shred of tenderness from her.

  Almost at the house, I saw a flicker of red fabric from between the thick jungle plants. From this distance, it looked like a tropical bird flitting across the doorway. Coming closer, I could see Hua Hua’s naked thigh, her long hair tangled with the grass. I stopped running, and approached her slowly.

  She had garrotted herself. The rope was tight around her neck — it took me a long time to find the knot. The scar around her snow-white neck was beautiful, a garland of pink and scarlet flowers. I brushed the dirt off her little face — clear as porcelain, a container that had once held worry, sorrow, too many painful thoughts — now all taken away, empty, as bright as if new-born.

  In death, she had finally returned to beauty. Her face was radiant and pure, shaming me. The day left together with her; sunset that day was unusually early.

  I sat in the centre of the house with my shells, Hua Hua’s body on the bed behind me. No light, no heat, no aggression, no desire. The air was as still as a grave.

  Three Dragon Palaces lay before me. Only a few steps now to Chun Chi’s memories. My hand hovered, unwilling to begin the work of polishing. It would happen fast — as soon as I unlocked the right shell, the flood of memories would push me before it, no need for thought or sense, all the way to the very end.

  I turned to look at Hua Hua. Once again, she brought me back to my youth, to our first meeting. Fourteen-year-old Hua Hua by the stone trough in the courtyard, bending to look at the colourful shells in the water, asking them her future. The shells are eyes, insatiable, fed on human tragedy. They weigh her with their cunning gaze. An invisible rope already circling her neck, the other end tied to that grave, burdened body.

  Some people cannot be taken with you. They walk beside you, and then can go no further — then they are no more than scenery, and you must leave them there, in the past, behind you.

  Standing before the bed, I tidied her clothes, combed her hair straight. Goodbye, Hua Hua.

  I thought I saw the thin slip of her soul, passing through the gap in her teeth, out of her slightly open mouth. She stood in a moonbeam, transparent as rain, waving at me. No expression on her face, just the movement of her hand.

  My breath stopped. I watched her float, weightless as a feather, into the air, further and further from me. Remembering what she said when our child died: “You can’t see him, because you didn’t love him enough.”

  And then I was on the boat back to China.

  Chun Chi’s memories were strong, muscling their way into my thoughts day after day, churning in my mind, sweeping over me like a tsunami.

  Vessel

  1

  The Indian Ocean, the Andaman Sea. A ship from China built of mahogany, its red paint peeling unevenly, light and dark patches flashing in the sun like fish scales. A couple of elderly servants sunning themselves on the deck, glancing uneasily at the vast ocean around them. They come from far inland, and this is their first sight of so much water. It’s hard for them to believe they are here, precariously balanced on these uneven waves. Thankfully, the pleasant warmth of the sun is enough to dispel any fears.

  Down the carved wooden passageway, into the hold. A small cabin contains a bed, and the bed contains Chun Chi’s mother. Chun Chi herself sits watching her mother sleep. The weather at sea is unpredictable. A few days of blazing sun, followed by storms and squalls. Her mother fell ill not long into their voyage, and for a few days now has drowsed uneasily, taking neither food nor water. Chun Chi boiled some herbal medicines for her, but they seemed to have no effect. Still, she orders the servants to make some more, and returns to her mother’s side.

  Chun Chi at the age of seventeen has sparkling eyes and hair loosely swept back, lightly brushing her neck, jet black against the white of her skin. She will never be more beautiful than at this moment.

  This long voyage is to end in Chun Chi’s marriage. Her husband-to-be is a Malay-speaking Baba, a reportedly easy-living Young Master. In his country, it is summer all year round, and so he lies on the beach all day as the sunlight dapples through the fusang trees onto his skin, glossy as the red oil palm. In Chun Chi’s imagination, he is a leopard, a strong body covered in exotic markings. (Her long and lonely youth has given her a yearning for unspeakable power, crouched in the jungle like a dangerous beast, to suddenly leap from its hiding place and overcome her.) She’s heard that his mansion hangs in the air, like a palace in the clouds (of course, this is because the soil is too damp to build on in tropical countries), surrounded by lush flowers and trees, a wide balcony from which every star in the night sky is visible (she hadn’t discovered yet how sparse the constellations are on the equator).

  Chun Chi spends a lot of time imagining this distant, strange kingdom, its misty buildings, its men — she needs to make herself believe that as long as she can get to the end of this difficult journey, then she and her mother will have a good life.

  This is a choice her father made for them. She reminds herself to trust his judgement. She often dreams of him, waving to her from a beach brimming with coconut trees, his silver-hemmed robes blowing in the wind, opening before her eyes into an intricate map of this mysterious kingdom, its little roads clear as a spider’s web. She watches, entranced, but is suddenly unsure whether the man standing on the opposite shore is really her father.

  2

  Chun Chi’s grandfather served his emperor well in battle, and for his efforts was made a general, covered in glory. Her father grew up in the saddle, and at a young age was made military governor, in command of five regiments.

  Chun Chi was born within the high walls of the governor’s residence, and was never alone as a child. Her father adored her, but they were never close. Strict protocol surrounded her father like a curtain; Chun Chi could hardly see what he really looked like — he exists in her memory like a distant mountain, a green-black silhouette far away.

  She remembers the mornings of her childhood: father in his dark blue court robes, mot
her kneeling beside him straightening the creases in the satin. Then her father walking with great importance from the house to the palace. This was during the brief time when her mother was the favoured concubine. Later on, when her father married younger and younger women, they took over that position, just as her mother had usurped the concubines before her, all of whom had knelt by her father’s feet at dawn arranging his ceremonial robes. The women may have changed, but the clothes remained the same, delicately hemmed with silver thread, immaculate.

  Father was strict with Chun Chi, perhaps because of her mother’s previous life; she had been a song-prostitute on a Qinhuai River boat. He was besotted when he brought her home, and came to regret his impulsiveness later. She was from a poor family, and had to scratch a living for herself from a young age. Even though she was an artist of sorts, the bohemian milieu she moved in had left her with a worldliness that did not sit well within a noble family. When she gave birth to a daughter, her face as clean as the new moon, her eyes as bright as stars, he was overjoyed, but also troubled. This girl grew into a true beauty with a melodious voice, far surpassing her mother. When he cast her horoscope, the fortune teller said she would have good fortune in youth, but suffer later in life. When her father asked if she was tainted, he mumbled something about rising from the mud but remaining pure. Angered, her father threw him a couple of coins and had him sent away, warning him not to tell anyone about their exchange.

  For as long as she could remember, Chun Chi lived in a restricted world. Her father forbade singing, dancing, even going outside. He ordered her nanny to bind her feet, but when no one was looking, she unwrapped the long white bandages, slipping into comfortable shoes to rest her tortured feet. Her mother, devoted to her, often allowed herself to be punished to protect her darling. After years of this, Chun Chi’s feet hadn’t shrunk by even half an inch. She was a jungle plant, growing free and wild.

  3

  Father’s career ran smoothly. When he was summoned by the Emperor to the new capital, he left the south and movedthere. There was a grand ceremony when they finished building the Forbidden City, which he attended.