Landfall: A Novella (Part 2)
Ho Lin

Every day, the rain falls on this seaside village. The townfolk can measure the time of day by it: The rain has started, it must be two in the afternoon. And sometimes after a typhoon, the dead fish wash up on the beach, gray and prickly, and the children play their games, who can scoop up the most fish in the least amount of time. Their clothes stinking of oils and salt and clumped sand, they wait as their fathers sail in every night, and there is always that moment of silence as the boats brush up against the shore, fathers and sons soiled with their day’s work and staring at each other, straining to see if they are related. Then the moment passes, the shouts of greeting are heard, and all one feels is the warmth of flesh and smiles.

Within the town, it is pleasant to sit indoors as the rain carves into the street. The elders gossip, tiles clack incessantly as games are played, and the neon lights burn crisply at night. If one must venture out into the alleyways, away from the light and sound and smell of congested coal smoke, one must have an innate sense of location and direction – a simple wrong turn leads to an unfamiliar gathering of tin roofs and ankle-high puddles, or into the hive of an military watchpost, where glum young men sit, aching for the opportunity to consume, kill, harass.

Contingents of soldiers pass through the town every day – ninth army, fifteenth regiment, the numbers and names lose all their meaning. The elders, who are skilled at listening while speaking, gather snatches of information from these visitors: Provincial government is collapsing … imperial capital is sending reinforcements … the rebels are now in the southeast … Like wide-eyed children, the smarter soldiers will sit at the feet of these oldsters, listening to the accumulated updates, and rub their chins. The others spend their first night at the local tavern, then stagger down the street to the Peach Blossom House, kicking up water, their voices shouting heavenwards, as if trying to catch the ear of the gods, but really, they are speaking to themselves, yelling to confirm that they are indeed here and alive.

Time passes, and the rains continue. The first blush of excitement fades, and the soldiers settle into the ennui, as easy as falling asleep after a long journey. Boots are exchanged for flip-flops; regimentally creased slacks are rolled up to the knees. The daily trek to the Peach Blossom House slows to the pace of a sleepwalker. The fine-grained floor at the local hotel develops another crack. The winds pick up, breaking the spine of another unfortunate umbrella. One grows accustomed to seeing the world through rain-speckled windows, where the passing carts and bodies seem perpetually drunk. When the rare truck lurches down the town’s main street, it resembles a creature emerging from the depths, struggling onto land only to die.

The clouds are always overhead, not threatening, not protecting, merely observing, and when the day accelerates into night, they curdle, expended of their watery tears. The days grow shorter, and soldiers and merchants saunter down to the Peach Blossom House thirty minutes earlier, an hour earlier. Business is always good, and the manager runs a respectable operation. In the main hall, guests are feted with tea and music, but no one tarries for long. The chairs are short, stubby, low to the ground, all straight angles, and the tables are of the finest cherrywood, speckled with sparkling stones that could be pearls. The soldiers may be confident young men, but they are after all only the sons of farmers and fishermen, and are ill at ease with these formal settings, afraid to even scratch the tops of these tables with their tea cups. An enemy on the battlefield is a surmountable entity, but who knows the depth of a brothel owner’s wrath should his property be damaged? Besides, it is a rare, good thing for an establishment such as the Peach Blossom House to throw its doors open to the common man, and they will not tempt their luck.

And so, just as the owner intended, the young men are ready to get on with business after a cursory cup, so they are led to terraces and balconies sheltered under cloth awnings. Another calculated stratagem: it is always too rainy and cold to linger on the balconies, but with a neatly timed shiver, a sigh that whispers It is very cold tonight, isn’t it? each woman huddles close to her man, appealing to a gallantry that is in all aspects no different from vanity, and the soldiers will wrap their half-dried cloaks around the women, thinking of a wife or former girlfriend, a night like this, the tenderness that can be generated through mere proximity. And so to the bedchamber, where the walls are draped with red satin, the bed with a divot in the center where bodies have been many times before. Once gratification has been achieved, the soldier will pull over the pouch where he keeps his money, count out each coin or wrinkled bit of currency, lay them one by one on the woman’s lap, teasing her with the slowness of it, both of them laughing, the woman landing a weak jab to the soldier’s shoulder and singing out to him, You are so irritating!

Downstairs in the main hall, a young woman of surpassing beauty sits alone in the center of the room, the tables gathered around her in an informal circle. She is playing the ancient instrument, a zither that rests on her lap, the strings laid out before her like silvery souls needing to be touched. It is said that only a few thousand still have the ability to play this instrument. Her fingers are long and catlike as she scratches at the strings, and yet the violence of her movements is belied by the shivery streams of melody she constructs. After each note, a silence that is not quite a silence as her fingers slide up the strings to the next notes, each silence leading to the next note, and then swirls and clusters of them, like a spring wind. As she plays, one of the older soldiers, a captain, pulls up his chair to converse with her. She does not respond to him, nor does he expect her to, but he does not often have the chance to expound on his knowledge of this instrument: Your empty tones are wonderful, he compliments her. A man who leads others to battle and death would only be greeted by blank looks from his men if he ever spoke of such matters in front of them.

Originally this instrument had five strings, he says. Tonight he is drinking chrysanthemum tea, and the residue of the flower sticks to his teeth. He presses his tongue against the offending bits as the woman plucks out a combination of melodies. Each pluck of the strings is a match for the rain falling outside, each strummed chord is the splash of the rain against the ground. She is playing snatches of different songs, like one might try on different dresses. The captain can hear a snatch of a famous poet: I hear the autumn wind through the pines … and then another song takes hold: I exit the gate at the sounding of the cock’s crow …

The strings represented metal, wood, water, fire and earth, he continues. And then one of the early emperors added a sixth string to mourn his dead son.

Although her expression does not change, the woman plucks this sixth string in an almost impish gesture – and indeed, it rings sonorous, trembling like the lips of an aged father.

Yes, the captain chuckles, and then his successor added a seventh string, to stir his men when they went to war.

She reaches over as if to pluck that string, but pulls her hand away, a fresh trickle of notes skipping out, gaily ignoring the seventh string.

Quite right, the captain laughs. Now is not the time for war. What would happen if we continued to add strings to this instrument, I wonder? It would probably be too difficult for one to play. Or perhaps if two of us…?

For the first time, she looks at him, and he reads nothing in her gaze. The music is in her head, her eyes, dominating her attention.

Are you with the rebels? she asks.

He sighs, and the loose bit of flower in his mouth dives down his throat, without warning. Always it comes back to politics. It is almost distasteful – this need to announce your beliefs, reinforce them, drive them. The other soldiers have already wandered off with their women; it is just her and him now.

Would it matter? he asks.

She does not answer. Instead, she strums a new melody: Peach Blossom Journey. Curious, the captain thinks – a lament, a song of isolation.

It’s not a secret that we are freedom fighters, from the east, he says. The clothes and the money may come from the imperials, but everything else… He taps his chest in a self-deprecating manner. And yourself?

She shakes her head. She is mouthing the words of the song silently:

At dusk, along the water,
The fishermen and woodsmen return.
To escape this troubled world, they left men's society,
Living as if they are immortals, no reason now to return.
We gaze at the empty clouds and hills in the distance.
We all know that magic place is so hard to find,
And our worldly hearts cannot stop thinking of home.

Chilled by the lyrics, he pours himself a fresh cup of tea and downs it in an uncouth manner, as if emptying a gourd of wine.

An old song from an old age, he says. Beautiful, but it must make way for the new –

Just outside the Peach Blossom House, there is a great roar – good news has arrived, that much is obvious. A victory on the battlefield? More supplies arriving from the capital? Or perhaps a rowdy group of men toasting their fortune at being alive. The captain looks towards the entryway, but he only sees the darkness of the street outside, the rain falling from the eaves, darkening the threshold like pale ink. He turns back to the woman, but she has vanished. Her instrument remains, and he can feel the warmth on the bottom of it, where it rested on her lap. Compared to everything else in the room, it blazes with life, and in his exhausted state, it is as if he can see flames erupting from it.

***

Each morning, the warrior enacts the same ritual: salute the rising sun in the east with a flourish of arm and sword, repeat the same form facing west, then north, then south. Even high in the mountains, drunk on lack of oxygen, he follows through with every movement, straining to hold each position for the allotted time. 

The rebels have been stranded here, between seasons, on this mound of earth they call a peak, on the Tiger Route. To the west, where they originated, the rebellion has been overrun, and even in this remote place they hear of the beheadings, declarations of imperialist victory slamming down like a final shut of the door, immediately followed by the riotous splashes of blood, the executions carried out in public. Many moons ago, the only voice to be heard was that of one of the more boisterous men in the squad when they began their march; he insisted on composing a song to celebrate this adventure: In this year of the Tiger, we prowl these verdant mountains / to seek the destiny of a single flag … Someone else joked – they still told jokes at the beginning – that the words were painful, the melody even worse. The would-be composer began again: On these verdant mountains / a single flag will fly / and the imperialist rulers / will come to understand our will … and then he was interrupted by the sound of an approaching bomber, but this was something to be scoffed at, brushed aside like a mosquito, for that is what it sounded like, an annoying little insect, a mere blot in the sky. And indeed, the bomber took no notice of them, instead it was darting towards the town they had left hours before, and soon afterwards white acrid plumes rose just over the crest of the mountain they had crossed. From their vantage point, they looked like the incense one burns at the foot of a stone god, a fortuitous blessing for the journey ahead, and the men instinctively bowed their heads at the sight, already celebrating their fortune -- Imagine if we had stayed there a few hours more …. 

Now that singing man, dead from starvation, is being immolated here in this miserable patch of earth. These mountains are uninhabited, unmarked, save for the prayer flags adorning every local peak. Maybe once there was an intention to build dwellings, places for worship and animal sacrifice, and these prayer flags were the first step, but now they lie collapsed on the ground, the rough sticks holding them aloft splintered by the wind long ago. The flags themselves are still brilliant in the sunlight, and if one blinks one can imagine a carpet of them, checkered with reds with fire, blue for sky, yellow for earth, green for water, white for heaven. Thoughtlessly, without debate, at twilight the rebels wrap the bodies of their fallen comrades in the flags and ignite them. The fires of the burning corpses last for hours, and the survivors huddle around them for warmth, too tired and empty of stomach to even retch at the smell of the flaming carcasses.

The warrior chooses to stand back from the bonfire, for his olfactory senses have not been deadened by the cold, and he prefers to be alone, in any case. He has nothing in common with these university boys and peasants with gapped teeth. These are the same people who in previous times would scoff and spit in his direction: A warrior in this day and age? There are no kingdoms left to fight for, that idiot … Even where the warrior stands, skeletal remains tap at his feet. Perhaps soldiers in the past had found themselves at this same extremity, endured the same outcomes. Soon the imperialists will arrive, a last stand will be made, and there will be honor in that. But who will remember? Certainly not those who will be killed. The victors, then. But even the taste of survival, tangy like orange pulp pressed between the tongue and the roof of the mouth, gives way to distance, and then neutrality, the memory simply one event classed among many, and forgotten.

Old Lau, would you have laughed at me? the warrior wonders.

He rubs his face with a cloth that has beaded up with crusted mud, pressing it hard until the mere contact of fabric to skin is like a slap. He repeats regulations and credos to himself, his mouth moving in slight quivers. He despises the way his hands twitch from exhaustion even though he is fixated on complete stillness. To compensate, he draws his sword, he swings at nothingness, and yet in his mind it is as if he is making contact with hard stone, and his movements waver like an old man’s. Still he maintains this regimen, repeating words that Old Lau would condemn as the ravings of an idiot: This separates you from madness, this saves you from yourself. 

That sword is not regulation.

The squad leader has joined him. Days short of university and the only rebel besides the Warrior who has made a pretense of maintaining a neat uniform, his face has shrunk, the grayness in his pallor an unearthly match with his starched jacket and collar, as if he is a museum piece. And yet, his eyes still dance with a mad inner light. Lately he has been given to pronouncements that can be interpreted as an evaluation of the current situation, or a prophecy of some unknown event in the future. They are flanking us, he will say, pointing skyward at ice-capped peaks unfit for anything resembling a human. Supplies plentiful there. Or once, when they were passing through a lifeless valley, he screamed: You fools! They can see you! They’re attacking from above! The others, perhaps overjoyed at the idea of combat, brandished their guns, sought refuge among the gnarled trees and boulders. Status reports were passed on with stopwatch precision. For hours this continued, until the moon glared upon them, and the squad leader, as if awakening from a dream, asked in a child’s voice: Why are we here? Let’s move on. No time to waste. And they all rose, half-wanting to see the enemy around them, battle banners radiating with pageantry, uniforms creased and dauntless. But they were only greeted by the wind from the northwest, whispery and insinuating, as if the tribesmen of those lands had all spoken in the same moment, and their words were only now arriving, piggybacking on the howl of the wolf from several mountaintops away. All the men thought the same thing at that moment: This is what the squad leader heard. This is what he believed. A man finely attenuated to the world around him. And so their faith in him was reaffirmed, while the warrior, running a cloth down the length of his sword, shook his head. 

Tonight the squad leader seems to have regained his tenuous hold on normalcy, and he shakes his head, pointing a bony finger at the Warrior’s sword. That sword is not regulation, he repeats. In his other hand a tin jangles. He collects bullets, dozens of them, even those that have already been fired and are squashed little lumps. His reasoning is that one never knows what weapons one will find in the course of his duties, and woe be the fighter who does not have the proper ammunition ready. He has even convinced himself that the used bullets will be melted and re-forged into fresh configurations, although no one in the squad has that knowledge.

The warrior nods. Best not to engage the squad leader in conversation – the man’s insanity bubbles out that way. Speak nothing, merely exist, and perhaps the world will spin back on its axis for him. He does not sheathe his sword, but lowers it until it cannot be seen in the darkness. The squad leader grins, as if he has just witnessed a magic trick. 

Hey! Hey! Look at this! A ruckus has seized the men around the fire, and the warrior winces, the silence of the moment shattered – the squad leader is raising a shaking hand to his head, scratching the back of his neck like he does when he is about to be seized by another vision. A small boy bundled like a barrel in clothes of fur has wandered into the encampment. Perhaps a local resident, or just a nomad separated from his caravan. He smiles at everyone, proud of his dirty teeth. Taking pity, the rebels have offered him a bowl of dried-out millet, and while he eats with greedy stubs of fingers, the men howl and tousle the boy’s hair, which has the consistency and thickness of a bird’s nest. They egg him on: He's like a little dog! Dance little dog, dance! In the bonfire, his face the color of lava, his dazzled eyes watering at the smoke, it is as if he is a flame himself, sputtering up and down. The men are all around him now, pushing and prodding, heavy coats and legs obscuring him. The warrior watches this display, his mouth set in a grim line. In another time, this would be a moment to cherish, but something besides hunger has seized his stomach – the churn of ill fortune, the foreknowledge of what is to come, for the soldiers are stroking the boy’s fur, desirous of warmth, spitting in their hands and wiping the boy’s face, grasping his arms as if to gauge thickness.

The squad leader has divined his thoughts, and giggles. In these days, anything can happen, he says.

Unacceptable, the warrior hisses. We must be better than that.

You can be better, can you? The squad leader looks away, as if disgusted with him. That’s what you believe, right? Do you dare prove it?

With three long strides the warrior is at the fire, and he raises the boy in his arms. A great roar goes round, for the men believe that this is the preliminaries for what is to come, something that they themselves are not sure of, but they know that it will involve blood, and struggles, and the little boy in their hands like a puppet, and perhaps even the taste of fresh meat in the mouth. The moment passes, the warrior clasps the boy hard to his chest as if protecting a newborn from the elements, and he runs. Within a few yards the breath is heaving from his chest, his heartbeat pounding his head, the high altitude squeezing him like a devil, and behind he can hear the muffled footsteps of his pursuers -- the other rebels are chasing, but they are also falling victim to the thin atmosphere. Before him, the land is like a vast sea of undulating gray, even as shrubs stab him in the legs. When he was a child, he lost himself in the golden fields behind his Uncle’s house, the grasses higher than his head, and he would call out for help with his loudest shout, even though he knew he was perfectly safe -- there was just something comfortable in the thought of being so safe, and luxuriating in that knowledge. Now he hoists the boy over his shoulder so he can see the way ahead, no tall weeds obstructing the view here. He cannot judge the distances ahead, he knows of stories in which men stranded high in the mountains, glued to the landscape by pure exhaustion, plead to passing wanderers for help, and the wanderers do nothing, because to their oxygen-deprived minds, such sights are figments, impossible to consider, much less pursue. The boy still grins, this is all a game, perhaps it is something he played when he was younger with his parents, if he had parents, if he did not live and sleep and defecate and run across these mountains on his own, like a skittering stone in search of a resting place.

The warrior trips on an outcropping and falls. In reflex, he relaxes his hold on the boy, who somehow lands on his bottom. The boy is laughing, a loud lingering Waaaaahaaaa! The warrior struggles to a sitting position, his military-issue pants torn at the knee, the sweet sting of warm blood flowing down his leg. Not far behind them, he can hear the other soldiers calling out: Come on! Come back! We’ll all share! We’ll leave some for you!

Go, he says to the boy. He says it in his hometown dialect, the official language, every other dialect he can think of. Go on! Run! Get out!

The boy does not run, either unable or unwilling to comprehend. Still the damned grin as he jumps from side to side, as a defense against cold, or part of a private language.

The warrior climbs to his feet. Before them, the parched gray of the land gives way to a ceaseless boundary of black. They are at the edge of a cliff. The voices of the other soldiers are drawing closer: This way? No, over here! That bastard, making us run!

Slowly, the warrior draws his sword. He holds it before him, both hands clasped around the hilt as he whispers: If you could go home, would you?

The boy stops dancing for a moment to stare at him dumbly. His breath erupts from his mouth in great clouds.

Nearby, boots crack against the chilled ground. The rebels are nearly upon them. The boy hears the sound, and for the first time, something approaching fear seizes hold of his face. His eyes fixed on the warrior, he takes a step back. Another one. Instinctively, as if they are tied together with string, the warrior moves forward, towards him, one step, two.

There! Someone calls out. Over there!

In an unblinking instant, the child takes another step back, and his arms fall away, as if he is diving into a deep, dark pool, the rest of his body following, his remaining foot scraping against rocks at the edge of the cliff, and then he is gone, taken by the darkness beneath.

No! someone calls out from behind the warrior. Why’d you do that? You let him die!

The warrior whirls to face the rebels and their torches, their faces devastated under the flickering lights, and still grasping his sword, he gazes at them, mask-like, his eyes black. Each of the men stare at him, but ever so slowly, they crack under the intensity, and look away, until the only thing that returns the warrior’s glare is the relentless torch lights. 

***

There is a woman who roams the seaside town every night, and just prior to the midnight bell she stands before the house where she once lived. She pounds on the door, as loud and startling as a hammer, in ostentatious rhythm, or agitated swells and bursts. She calls out: Let me in! Let me in! Once she had a husband there, and the husband jilted her for a mistress. Soon after that a fire had gutted the interior of the house, and now all that remains is the solid wood of the door, and the stone arch that houses it and marks the threshold between the street and cooled-out ashes within. Still the woman insists that her husband is home, drunk, deserving of a good scolding. She stares at the door through curls that have grown wiry with age, and she continues to bang, for hours on end. The neighbors have complained to the authorities many times, but in these days, what can one do? The prisons are overcrowded, and no one has the stomach to execute a madwoman pining for the past. Some believe her to be a ghost, trapped in an eternal repeat of a single night’s events. There is even a sneaking, unspoken feeling among others that if the day arrives in which the door opens for her, it is a propitious sign that all will be well.

The captain stumbles down the alley, ruddy-faced, as the woman bangs on the door, and being relatively new in town, he approaches her. Madam, there is no one home, he says.

The woman turns to face him, her face ghastly, frozen in mid-rage. The captain retreats a step, his foot crashing into a deep puddle. Just as quickly as she turned, the woman is now back at the door, pounding. Let me in, you good-for-nothing! she shouts.

Retreating, limping as he seeks to keep weight off his soaked foot, the captain presses fingers against his forehead and rubs. So much to drink tonight, perhaps this is all imagined, he thinks. He cannot remember how long he has been in this town. Somewhere not too far away a battle is being fought – or perhaps that was all a trick of the mind too. The flashes in the distance could be lightning rather than cannons, the muffled booms thunder instead of explosions. He is lost again – in this town, each alley runs into the next, an infinite loop of wet cobblestones and laundry hanging in windows. He hears voices that seem to come from fairy tales, lilting sounds of joy, and no matter where he turns, which empty street he blunders into, the voices never seem to grow closer. From the home across the street, someone has turned up the volume on his radio, no doubt to dampen the sounds of the madwoman, and a popular song chirps: I’m waiting for you to come home, I’m waiting for you to come home … before the war he was in a ballroom festooned with chandeliers and mirrored glass, tugging at the starched dress shirt that cut into his neck, taking the hand of a woman with petite legs and the neck of a swan, dancing to this song, rendered boppy by a jazz band -- Funny thing this jazz, it refuses to stay in one place, and yet you feel like you must move with it, and it is as if everything else is standing in place, but you have found your own footing.

Open the door! the woman continues to screech. Right now! I’m waiting!

At the mercy of his headache, seized with what he believes is pity, the captain draws his service revolver. He points it at the back of the woman’s head. Someone has to take responsibility, he muses. And of course nobody will but me …

He aims carefully, but the woman’s head bobs up and down in irregular syncopation. The captain coughs, annoyed. He will only use one bullet for this, anything more would be extravagance. This is a battlefield. Anticipate the opponent. And as he breathes a long shuddering breath that serves to lock his body in place, his gun hand bobs with the woman’s head, finds that elusive rhythm, locks in. Yes, he nods in satisfaction, well done, top marks.

Wait, someone whispers behind him.

The captain turns. A cloaked figure is standing there straight and steady, something of the cat in his manner, the way his legs are slightly bent, as if made casual by exhaustion. But there was precision in his voice, that single word.

Captain? the figure says.

Who are you? What do you want?

Will you follow me, please? I wish to speak to you.

Regarding?

Please.

No doubt, it is a woman. Lady of the night, as they say. The captain lights himself a cigarette. A few streets away, he can hear an old man as he pulls his cart, the single rusty wheel insistent as he calls out: Scrap parts here! Give me your scrap parts!

Lead on, he says. He gives a little exaggerated wave ahead. But make it worth my time.

The figure turns and walks forward, and the captain trails behind. The woman at the door has not spoken, but she continues to pummel away, and the sounds send shivers down the captain’s back. He feels the itch to do something. Perhaps grab this stranger from behind, clamp his arm around her tidy waist, take her right there. But time has domesticated him. This is ridiculous, he suddenly decides. Return to camp, get a full night’s rest for once. He has not even paid his daily visit to the Peach Blossom House. Instead, he had welcomed in a cozy sort of depression, downing beer after beer at the local tavern, staring at the label on the bottle and admiring its artistic purity, not caring for the sound of his own voice or anyone else’s.

As if reading his thoughts, the woman asks, Are you unhappy?

Not quite hearing her, he murmurs: A street at night used to be magical. He smells the fetid sewer water as it overflows onto the stones thanks to the day’s rain, sees the ripped-up awning where once was a prosperous store, thinks of how these stone and wood walls are of little use against the night chill. Perhaps the Beach Blossom House is the right place to go. If nothing else, the tea, the illusion of love, the heavy scent of perfume on a courtesan’s wrists, the way a robe falls to the ground like a feather.

The memory of a zither in his head, he stops. They have already turned onto the crooked alley that leads to the Peach Blossom House. I’m sorry, he says. I’ve changed my mind. He approves of the lovely commotion emanating from the taverns on this street, the locals playing their drinking games, one group of people belting out a snatch from a folk tune -- The nine dragons dance along the mountaintops … followed by a shouted challenge: Your turn, your turn, it’s your turn! And then an answering tune by the competition, stealing a melody line or theme from the previous song: One cup of wine, we sing along the river, ten cups of wine, we sing from the mountaintops … Your turn, your turn, it’s your turn! Yes, he sighs, this is where the sounds begin. Mission accomplished.

You are with the rebels, the woman whispers.

With a deep sigh, the captain waves a dismissive hand. What of it? he huffs.

When do reinforcements arrive?

The captain laughs -- a forced guffaw that dies out as a cackle. You tell me! You know how long I’ve been waiting for them? Stranded in this joke of a town …

You have no fear? the stranger asks.

Of you? Are you in the Imperial Army?

No.

Well then. The captain flicks his cigarette to the ground, and in the same moment his free hand has moved to his side, where his revolver is holstered. He had seen something like this at the pictures, and is satisfied with his approximation. Your turn, your turn, it’s your turn! the revelers shout.

Where are you going?

The Peach Blossom House, if you don’t mind.

Rebels should not go there.

I’ve already been. Move aside.

The flashes and booms were lightning and thunder, after all – the clouds have opened up overhead, and rain tumbles down. His senses shocked awake, the captain can hear each little plink as the water hits the cobblestones. He wipes the incipient drops off the brim of his cap, his hand still at his revolver.

No need to be violent on a night like this, he says reasonably. Do you really have something to be that angry over?

Yes, the stranger answers, and in the space of that one word she is up close against him, as if she has sailed across the stones. The captain lifts his revolver, but something white and hard slashes the air, like a miniature lightning bolt, and the captain lifts an eyebrow as he sees something on the ground, it is another revolver, funny, why would someone leave a revolver on the street? But it is his revolver, and someone’s hand is wrapped around it, actually it is his hand, and it is much too dark to see the blood, so that it looks as if the hand has grown from the ground, the revolver pointing harmlessly at no place in particular. He then looks up, at the stranger, and the sword flashes again, stealing his breath as his chest is cut open, and then he is on his side, face to the smelly street, Your turn, your turn, it’s your turn!

The stranger stands over him. He stares upwards, the rain blinding his eyes, and then the stranger moves even closer, shielding him from the weather, and he releases a shuddering breath in thanks. He wishes to speak, maybe even say a few words of appreciation – Such magnificent skill – but it is as if his chest is frozen, merged with the ground, air unable to leave or enter. Now his throat is rattling – So this is where the rattle comes from, he thinks – and he can only smile. The stranger’s face is inches from his, and he sees that it is the woman from the Peach Blossom House, the one who plays the zither, and her eyes are fixed on his, her lips barely parted, not a single raindrop making contact with her face. Such a pale, beautiful face, he thinks. She reaches down, her hand moving over his eyes, closing them, and he hears her footsteps, lighter than the sound of the rain on the street, just as the doors of the nearby bar fling open and the emerging crowd laughs.

***

Thrown to the ground by the force of the blast, the warrior is on his back for just a moment, but in that moment he sees the branches of the willow tree above, only a single crown of abundant leaves at the top, the rest suffocated and dead. The sun is blotted out by black smoke. Its tendrils are like hair. For the first time in years, he thinks of her. The shells scream overhead and one of his comrades screams – What was his name? No time to remember now – in the pregnant pause before the man is blown apart. He wipes the snow from his eyes, but his hand brushes his cap, and fresh crystalline powder falls from the rim, blinds him. He wipes the powder away, and still he is blind. Smoke everywhere, blood and bits of what could either be dirt or cauterized human remains billowing. These new bombs have their own vapor, their own scent, but this one also has a sweltering weight to it, sucking all air away. The warrior rises and flees, and it is as if he is trying to outrun a hurricane.

He remembers a face: her face. The way a single strand of hair fell over her eye, as perfect and cloying as that of a painting, but the way she focused on you, ever-watchful, the way she would breathe ever so slightly before her lips met yours, the warmth of it hitting you before the physical contact. He sucks in that breath now, he sees the squad leader pressed up against the embankment, one hand covering his ear, the other shaking out the bullets in his tin, counting them as they scatter on the soil, mouthing four, five six with the intensity of a classroom child. Retreating bodies blur around him, like flapping wings. He never heard what happened to her, there was no time, you betrayed me Uncle, why did you go to the trouble of arranging our meeting and then refuse to tell me what happened to her? Snow collapses into slush, and then soil and gravel scarred by horses and motored vehicles. The dried-out wooden pillars and thatched huts of the village are catching fire, but none of the locals are emerging from within, it is understandable, why die in the company of uncouth strangers and their horrible weapons? Much better to remain in private, arms wrapped around loved ones. Her home was burned just like that, he sifted through the scorched rubble with his bare hands until they were black with failure, and he never found her. Snow kicks up like sand, something is coming at him, a monster with six legs, misshapen and slogging. So legends are true, the warrior notes with distant satisfaction, and he holds up his sword – only fitting to encounter a mythical beast with the most traditional of weapons. Two of the legs divorce themselves from the main body, and a man emerges. An imperialist soldier, he can see the flag embroidered on his shoulder. He swings wildly with his sword, flag gone, shoulder gone, the man falls, his horse nodding violently as his other hand, still gripping the reins, also falls. He wrestles the reins away. In his hometown, he would ride for hours, and she would accompany him, keeping pace, in fact with her lighter frame she would rise higher in the air with each leap, and inflamed with jealousy, he would push off harder with his legs, to the point where his knees nearly buckled with the stress, and still he could not jump as high as she, but now he might as he mounts the horse and slaps its head even as he whispers kindly: Fast as you can. The smoke has descended, thick as trees, when he was a child he would hack at the trees for practice, and they would bleed white with sap, and she would refuse to join him in this endeavor, she preferred to slice against the air, twisting like a dancer in the midst of her solemn routine, and he would anticipate her next move, slide in behind her, throw his arms around her, but she was dropping, down onto her knees, escaping his grasp, the tip of her sword now at his neck, notching a small dimple on his chin, laughing at his defeat, but it was not a defeat because his hands were around her, and he remembers the canopies of leaves, how they swayed at night, and there are no leaves here, just the rawness of ground, more Imperialists coming, they are dragging something with them, some kind of cannon, he gallops at them, they stare at him dumbly with their mouths open, and he beheads one of them, another one grabs his arm, his sword is lost somewhere in the white, he draws his pistol, he hates his pistol but there is no alternative, right in the face of one of them, the gun goes off, the face evaporates in a cloud, the remaining soldier is shrieking like a maniac, easy to assume that he is a maniac, What have I done, Old Lau?

Find the sword, there is always the sword, why couldn’t the monks understand that? They didn’t have to like it, or applaud it, but they did not even understand. Even Old Lau, getting himself killed like that. To hell with all the talk of transient life and detaching oneself, the sword is fused to his hand, and he will live with it, forever if necessary. There it is, the silver hilt visible in the ground, he leans over to pick it up, sliding haphazardly over the horse’s back, and the animal takes advantage of the imbalance to buck, very flinty this one is, but he pulls on the reins until its head snaps over, and she halts. The last enemy soldier cannot be seen, he has moved behind the cannon, swallowed up by it, he is pointing it in his direction, and he rides, towards one of the huts, spittle flying back from the horse’s mouth, landing on his face. Behind him the air collapses with another explosion, debris nipping at their heels, and he urges the horse on, more soldiers in his way, stationary like scarecrows, friend or foe he cannot tell, he slashes at them and it is like striking phantoms, everything seems to fall away, he is moving through a cloud of snow, blind, beyond the boundary of the village. He looks down at his arm – a bullet has hit him there. It is like he is a scientist, examining the patch of the blood as it oozes bright red. A good, healthy red. It does not hurt, does not even feel as if a needle has lanced his skin. And all the crying young men are so scared of being shot, he thinks. Something is ahead, the end of something, he cannot see it but he senses it, and already the horse is slowing to a forced canter, throwing its head back and forth, it does not want to move on, but the roar of battle threatens to swallow him, and he is determined to leap off the edge, this is his chance to atone, this is his chance to be her equal at leaping, and soar higher than the boy did, and with a belligerent kick he forces the horse forward, both of them forward, limbs waving frantically, the sword still in his hand, he does not care if he impales himself with it, a branch collides with his right hip and the shock of the pain silences him, cuts off his breath, he sees the water rising from below, solemn and undulating, she was always solemn even in moments of levity, she always had a knowledge of something, what was it, why didn’t she ever say? He reaches up with a hand that could have been her hand, so thin and delicate now, and in the distance he can hear the clarion call of a trumpet, not an Imperialist trumpet, it is a rebel anthem, he knows that much, it is just a trumpet after all, and then he and the horse break the surface of the river, crashing through the pithy ice, his hand remaining above the water for a moment, like a final salute of farewell, and then they are submerged, the reins still knotted around his arm, everything so still and quiet, he cannot see bottom, he is being ushered along, the current unseen but strong. He climbs back onto what he believes is the horse’s back, he sees the shape of a neck, the head above water, Smart horse, smarter than me, and with his remaining strength he grasps the neck and kicks himself back into a seated position, head and back crashing through the surface, gulping delicious frozen water, they are being borne downstream, he does not know if the horse is moving on its own accord or if it is being carried, like he is. Its eyes are sightless and unmoving, the animal could be dead, but he clutches its neck as if it is his last link to life, and ahead he can see the river spread out into the valley like spilled paint, and it could be a trick of the atmosphere, but he also believes that he sees blue in the far horizon, and the hint of green, days or years away, but it is there. He retches out water, paralyzed with cold and shock, reveling in his newfound agony.

***

The beach is lined with steel structures that look like jumping jacks, children’s toys, but they are two stories tall, meant to hold off any invasion by sea. The waves crash morning and night, and trash from all regions makes its way here, deposited at the foot of these barricades, adding to their formidability, to the point where the trash is nearly at the same height as the top of the steel jacks, a dam ready to burst. During the day the children play here, sifting through the garbage, collecting odd artifacts from abroad, and although their parents warn them to avoid the place – there have been stories, apocryphal and otherwise, about children cutting themselves, getting infected, dying lingering deaths – they cannot prevent their coming.

In the evening, the mist rolls in, and rain steams rather than falls. The children are careful enough to know that rummaging through the garbage at this time is too great a risk, and so the beach is deserted, save the night watchman, who prefers to set up his folding chair well back from the shore, where the sound of the waves is just peaceful enough to ensure sleep, and slumbers with empty beer bottles rolling at his feet.

An elderly man stands atop one of the barricades on a lookout platform, what is left of his hair gossamer in the failing light. Once a month he comes here, bearing a message by scroll within the folds of his sleeve. It is scrawled on precious parchment, rolled evenly, each edge kin to the next. The curious browser would look at the words inked there, a less-than memorable attempt at simple poetry, and pass it off as another family heirloom. Quietly, he stands and waits. His eyesight is poor, and he requires a cane to stand still for any length of time, yet his mind remains active, and he notes the position of the tides, how the water creeps closer to the shore with each wave.

The water is nearly to the foot of the barricade when she arrives. She holds a candle-lit lantern, for anything more powerful would be too conspicuous. Dressed in a dark cloak, only her attentive eyes visible, she greets him: Hello, Uncle.

The old man’s throat catches whenever he sees her – she is a reminder of former places, acquaintances, defeats. She is his penance.  

Please don’t call me Uncle, he says.

She laughs shortly. More of an Uncle than any uncle I have.

I have news from the capital. And instructions. The scroll slides out from inside his sleeve, and by erratic candlelight, she reads it aloud. He always enjoys these moments – being unable to read the scrolls by himself, it is like a story is being told to him for the first time.

The rebels’ eighth army has been routed, but some have escaped, she says. They may make their way here soon, they may not.

Not very definitive, he mutters.

Nothing is any more. We must maintain watchfulness.

What else?

Greetings from so-and-so … The battle goes well … the usual. I brought some bread from the Peach Blossom House. Would you like it?

Don’t you want to stop? he asks.   

Her eyes look away, toward the east and the ocean running rampant. When the war ends, she says.

That could be years –

My choice.

Old Hawk would not have wanted –

Don’t say his name.

She produces a loaf of bread from within her cloak and thrusts it at him. He accepts it with a wince.

He was a friend. We were all friends. You know that. 

The bread is hard, she says. I’m sorry, supplies are growing limited.

Too hard for these old teeth, he sighs.

She gently takes the bread back, tears off the end of it, and places it in her mouth. As she chews, he goes on: You are welcome to live with me, you know. I only have a small apartment now – the army has sequestered itself in the old estate. The mosquitoes find new ways to get in all the time, but it’s comfortable. You’ll lack nothing.

She removes the softened bread from her mouth and holds it before him, pouting, mimicking what she wants him to do. With an affectionate huff, he complies, and she passes the bread into his mouth.

I have nothing left there.

Someday my nephew will return. I’m sure of it.

Where is he now?

In the northwest, Uncle says. He is getting quite good at this kind of storytelling. It began with the neighbors, poking through his door with their damn smiles, demanding What happened to him? I heard about the massacre the other night. And with a blithe shrug of the shoulders and the offer of some oolong tea, he would reply, Oh, that was a misunderstanding. He’s off to join the Imperial Army, do his bit for our nation. I hear he’s already on the front lines, gaining merit.

His detachment gained a proclamation of merit from the capital, he tells her. Fought off hundreds of rebels at the Tiger pass. A bloody battle, I hear it was. The rivers red with blood. Now he’s off to the capital. Another promotion, I reckon. 

Good, she says. He does us all proud.

Uncle’s eyes narrow. Her tone suggests that of a girl in a classroom, reciting a passage from a textbook, appropriating language and intent.

The rebels did unforgivable things to your family, he says. I just wish I could –

She quiets him with a fresh bit of bread in his mouth. They both chew silently, and both think the same thought: If anyone came by at this moment, they would think we were related, both of us chewing.

You’re looking well, she says.

He harumphs. You’re the one who’s well. Everyone else grows old, the land goes to pot, and you’re more beautiful than ever. Why is that?

Hate, she says.

He squints to get a better look at her, but in the encroaching darkness, with his failing eyesight, it is a useless attempt. Now this, he thinks, is not from any textbook. Then you don’t believe the monks, he mutters.

Of course not. Will this world see peace? Never. Do you ignore the anger around you? No. You feed on it. You swallow it whole and it lights you.

Where did you learn this?

This is my own wisdom. The only wisdom I have.

And you live on anger forever? Till the end of life?

Time. What are we standing on? She stamps hard on the barricade beneath their feet. This beautiful, terrible thing? Someone created it in a fit of anger. They said: Nothing will get past this shore, and damned are those who would try, those with the gall to even think of coming in and killing me and my kind. And this structure is so powerful that I cannot even bruise it.

Her cloak swirls in the mist as she draws her sword, her arm tense to the point of bursting as she wheels back with a cry, and then as easy as drawing a line in the sand, carves a straight line in the platform between the two of them. Uncle instinctively totters backward, but even his eyes can discern that the steel at their feet remains unblemished. 

See? She laughs. And look. They’re coming. It’s started.

She points out to the ocean. In the far horizon, impossible to tell how distant, crimson flowers of fire are blooming. Armadas are clashing, and the winner will proceed on, no record or indication of their passing, while the defeated plunges with a fatal cloud of black smoke, all the way to the bottom, young men shouting commands one moment and drowned the next, their exact location never to be pinpointed, unless a day comes when the seabed is emptied of water and the crusted remains of their vessels will lay there like precious jewels. These thoughts grip Uncle as he strains to get a better look at the battle, his jaws still working on a stubborn nub of hard bread, his hands mottled blue as he grips his cane, and she leaps from foot to foot in a spontaneous dancing jig, pointing the baton of her sword towards the sky, conducting this faraway orchestra, her face blemished with tears even as she chuckles at the sight, overtaken with the realization that something has just ended. The navies continue to fight, their conflagrations lingering in the mist, pulsating with glorious life.

***

Noonday, and the fresh piss on the sidewalks rises in snaking bits of steam. The crowds seem to be everywhere, families with children, some standing, the younger ones squatting and holding their parents’ hands, the tips of their tiny fingers barely curled around the adult’s thumbs. Many of the babies wear nothing below the waist, and they defecate into the street, their fathers and mothers too tired to even let them down from their shoulders. It is impossible to say how long these people have wandered the alleys. Perhaps hours, perhaps days. The hot sun reduces everyone to an equal state of dishevelment and exhaustion. Everyone except the warrior, for although his dress is simple, he takes fanatical care of it. His tunic is a rustic brown that requires little in the way of cleaning, his boots are always smooth, and dust rolls off his light and feathery coat.

He has been in this town for days, wandering alongside these people, searching for a familiar landmark or face. So many cities over the years, he cannot remember all the names. What he remembers most about these towns, he finds, is the places he sleeps – the particular curve of the glass on a shower stall as he splashes water against it and watches it course down, the blemished outline on a wall where a painting once hanged, the burly cat who greets him along the staircase every morning with squinched eyes. 

It is almost like a game, maneuvering through these crowds and streets, and he has been cornered, no spaces left to occupy. This might have been a bustling commercial district once, but today all the windows are shuttered, storefronts are barricaded with mounds of bric-a-brac, and there is nowhere left to proceed but straight ahead, and from that direction a giant mass of people are advancing on him. They are staring at him with dead-eyed intent. He cannot dodge. Stamping his feet into the dust-baked street, he sets himself, hand curled around his sword, unleashing a defiant stare at all of them and none of them. They loom closer and closer, a hellish wave of mismatched limbs and strutting feet, and it is the most terrifying thing he has seen in his life, because there is no strategy to them, no objective, nothing but sheer crushing movement. But before he can even think of ducking or calling stop or committing some other shameful act, they continue on, through him, somehow not touching him although he cannot see daylight through the rampaging bodies, cannot even feel the breeze of their passing. It is as if he is a ghost, or they are ghosts. He takes a step forward; still the crowds flow on. Another step, more, then running, and his feet meet ground although he cannot see it, and the clammy darkness of the bodies around him continues. All sense of bearings lost, his head whirls. He looks down at his hands, to reassure himself that he still exists. Too much motion, too much darkness, he sees nothing. He cannot even reach back to his hip for his sword, for there is no such thing as a hip, a sword. His eyes close. It all ends at this moment.

Attention, a nasal voice announces. Attention all citizens. It comes from somewhere above, buzzing like a winged scavenger.  And as one the crowd stops. They are all looking up, towards the source of the noise, and the warrior drops to his knees, hands meeting toes and weatherbeaten sandals as he crawls and slithers. Daylight ahead, and he is through, flopping onto his back, gulping giant breaths of air that stinks of gas and sewage, but at last he can see again, and he looks up, along with the citizens, at the loudspeakers mounted high on the telephone poles.

The voice continues: In light of the current water shortage, we must all conserve. Therefore, starting tomorrow, all citizens over the age of 60 will bathe no more than once a week. 

As one, the crowd pushes forward again, as if connected by telepathy. The warrior scrambles to his feet. He is in the middle of the street. 

The voice has adopted a more conciliatory tone: Fortunately, recent studies have shown that as one grows older, it is better to bathe less, as this will help the skin retain moisture, and improve complexion. 

The oncoming bus bleats in tired fashion, and the driver gazes at the warrior, through him, a perfect mirror of the crowd’s stare. The warrior launches himself out of the vehicle’s path, but the front left bumper makes contact with his leg, alters his trajectory so that he lands in a heap along the curb, his face pressed to rotten banana peels and cabbage. Hacking, he rights himself. A hand reaches down for him. It is an older gentleman, blinking rapidly in the sunlight, and it dawns on the warrior that no one else in the city blinks.

How long has it been like this? the warrior gasps.

Since the war started, the old man answers.

But that means – it's been as long as –

Yes.

Then why are you –   

The old man shrugs. There is no help for it.

There must be a train station. The warrior is certain he saw one nearby. Staying off the sidewalks, he runs, like he has been trained to do, but his legs want to do something else. The one-two, one-two beat of boots on ground, far too military, he cannot stand it right now. 

Here it is: the train station. The front gates have been flung open, but there is no discernible entry point. The citizens are clumped around the gate, everyone pushing everyone else, as if holding back a landslide, and some are perched atop the pointed iron fences trying to climb over, but the security officers with their neat blue caps are beating them back with clubs. Just beyond the gates, the warrior hears a low hum, as if hundreds are muttering in prayer. With a kick of heel to ground, the warrior bounds halfway up the gate, just high enough to get a view of the train station’s courtyard but not high enough to risk the security officials’ ire. The courtyard is about one hundred meters wide, with fifty meters between the gates and the train station entrance, and everywhere he looks, he sees people. He rubs his eyes -- for a moment, he swore he could see waves, as if the people are the surface of a lake. Yes, he understands it now; he sees bodies. Scrawny corpses are being passed along the tops of people’s heads, floating with no particular destination. No one in the crowds is directing this traffic. The bodies simply flow with the break and wash of the shoving living bodies beneath them. Every so often one will slip through a crack and disappear beneath the bobbing carpet of heads and arms, but others seem to take their place almost instantaneously. Hovering above it all are voices, groans, cries, ejaculations. Together, they form a mesh of sound, the hum the warrior heard earlier, and it is impossible to discriminate one person’s voice from any other’s.

The warrior climbs back down to the sidewalk, even as an officer perched atop the fence, driven mad from the heat, shouts: You there! Yes, you! You stay right there and be arrested! The warrior takes a step back in retreat, and the officer hurls his stick at him. With a deft side-step, the warrior angles his body to offer the least possible area to hit, and the stick glances off his side without even a sting of pain. The officer is yelling, but in his fervor he has neglected the citizens that are crawling up the gate towards him, and now they have him by the collar. With a yelp cut short by the ground, he falls.

The warrior backs away from the scene, but as he does so he sees that the crowds stretch away from the gate, down the street. At the end of the block and beyond, the people stand quietly, the families and children, awaiting their turn. From every angle and around every corner, more people are arriving, and the line is bulging like a clot. The warrior can even see the old man he spoke to earlier – he has arrived with his group. Silently, they wait. Eventually the line will swell to the point where tempers will ignite, and people will begin to push, and climb the gates, and soon they will be in the station courtyard, swarming in serpentine patterns, many of them dying before reaching their destination, and being borne aloft, and outside the gate more and more will arrive, until everyone in the city will be waiting outside the gate, and all the other cities, until everyone is at the gate and the crush will blot out everything: gates, courtyard, station, city.

To be concluded next issue