Ho Lin

Landfall
(Conclusion)

RAIN HAS RELENTED this evening, and the chattering of the prostitutes drifts down, lazy as a feather, from the balconies. If one listens closely, one can hear the sounds of passion emanating from within the stucco walls, but the villagers who pass by associate love with defilement these days – the new moral codes have been handed down, and someday the police will knock on the doors of the Peach Blossom House, tidy little orders written up on rice paper, and with the tweet of a whistle and unyielding phrases repeated over and over – This place is now closed, you have five minutes to vacate, there are no exceptions, no stays, no arguments. This is the decree. When that day comes, the young villagers who have grown up bowing to the new moral doctrines like one cuddles up to a religion will nod their heads, pump their fists, and scream with mouths open and ugly, Glory to the new country! We salute the steadfast ways of the new government! The older villagers who remember happier days will observe the goings-on, dressed in the plain button-down shirts and polyester slacks that are all the rage, and shake their heads in puzzlement: Such passion for such a small thing…

But for now, the Peach Blossom House is enjoying the last withering days of summer. Long streamers flutter in the breeze, the calligraphy inscribed on them bending and breaking: Good fortune, ten thousand years of luck. Neon green floodlights, a gift from the former governor of the province, coat the faux-pagoda tiles with a temperamental glow. This is all strategic: on a rare day such as this, the sun in full bloody retreat, the air heavy with heat, one must pull in as many tired men as one can.

The madam leads the guest up the stairs, her slippered feet taking care to smooth the carpet as she walks. It has become a routine with her, so much so that she believes something is wrong if she cannot feel a particular lumpen bit of floor under her foot, or encounters a polished bit of balustrade where there usually is dust. Generous with an obsequious smile, she lays a hand on the man’s shoulder, and leans close, so that the scent of her perfume swarms over him. She is my very best, she says. So special that for the longest time, she would refuse to let a man touch her.

The guest coughs with the force of a bullet, and the madam snaps her head back to look at him, fearing that he will die on the spot. Certainly the man is dressed presentably enough, or as presentable as can be expected in these benighted days. His wide-brimmed hat is cracked after years of use, and his exposed wrists are as thin and emaciated as a woman’s. Who knows what madness or diseases this man carries? It cannot be helped, the madam sighs to herself. Already the Peach Blossom House is disintegrating before her eyes – walls peeling like dead skin, strict schedules in effect for conserving electricity or water. You had a difficult time with the client? You’re bleeding from the inside? You must wait until tomorrow, no more water tonight. The madam is not a malevolent woman; with her childlike forehead and the fine sets of wrinkles around her eyes she could be anyone’s favorite aunt. And so she brews her fine herbal tea, a blend of ginger, liquid cayenne, and ginseng, and brings them to her girls in tall glasses. She saves buckets of water for emergencies, and although the water often grows fetid with wriggling insects and random bits of debris, it does have its uses.

You are in for a treat tonight. My girl is very talented, she says reassuringly. Used to play the zither, before it was stolen by those damned rebels. I think she’s been a little lonely since then. She will love to have the company of a mature man. A nice touch, that, she thinks. Who would not be flattered by such a statement? But the guest grunts once and says no more.

The madam has reserved the gold chamber for the guest, gold in name only, for all the valuable linens and accoutrements of the room were lost or stolen long ago. Still, with its heavy velvet curtains damp with rain and the long mirrors that line the ceiling and walls, it exists in a different time and place than the rest of the house, the rest of this bombed-out town. One can say the word debauchery here, and not be met with a derisive giggle.

The woman for the evening stands in the center of the room, dressed in an ornate performing gown as requested. A soldier had left this dress as payment years before, and it smells of mothballs. On the woman, it is a bit long, only the tips of her fingers visible beyond the sleeves, and the madam approves of the look: Like a little girl. Glittering sequins and braids signifying family heritage and provincial origin dangle off the sides of her costume like afterthoughts. Her hair has been pulled into a bun, and her face has been painted in the ghost-like white of the opera actor. Greeting the guest with a short, stiff bow, she remains in place, waiting for an order, a request, any sort of approval.

He was once an important man, the madam told her before the guest arrived. She had scoffed at such a remark, for although she is an imperialist, she has no illusions about men from the old days, from the times of smuggled liquor and indiscriminate murders. And indeed, this man seems as corrupt as any of them, with that antiquated wide-brimmed hat and his long flowing robe. Does he think he’s in an old gangster movie? she muses.

Sensing the uneasiness in the room, the madam claps her hand together in a command. Don’t just stand there, help our guest. See to his needs. She backs out of the room, her feet shuffling, parental noises issuing from her throat, and then the door slams closed with a cavernous boom. 

My shoes, the guest says. The hat hides his face, so the voice seems to rumble from somewhere near the pit of his stomach. She recoils at the sound of it – he is clearly a septuagenarian, or even an octogenarian, and although his accent is that of the province where she grew up, his body wobbles with every sound he makes.

Don’t just stand there, he says again. Wipe my shoes.

So this is how it is, she thinks. There is nothing for it. Without a zither to play and with no other useful function in this house, she has resigned herself to being the same as the other girls in this brothel – it would have been too suspicious if she refrained from working. And leaving this place was out of the question, for who else would look after the girls? The madam meant well, but she was getting on in years, given to talking out loud to herself for the majority of the day, the cries of the other girls at night falling on ever-deafening ears.

She bends down to the guest’s boots and rubs at them with the corner of her gown. This is good, she thinks. This is almost normal. Much preferable to other alternatives. Already she is imagining the future: the old man’s arms around her like mangled stalks, the weight of him on her, the rank breath scarring her face, the interminable moment of release, the heaving body above her collapsing with the dramatic force of a piece of clothing falling in a clump to the floor. Considering these outcomes was good for her, for nothing in real life would ever quite approximate these dire illusions. There are always worse things, she would think.

I used to be a town magistrate, the guest says. My shoes would always be cleaned for me. I would need only lift my foot, and a servant would wipe, or even lick, if I commanded them to. Lick!

She dares to look up at him, straining to see the face under the hat, but it remains resolutely hidden.

Impudence, he hisses. You wonder why I don’t ask you your name? Because your name means nothing. Zero importance. Do you know the current value of this town? How much each building is worth, how much it would fetch in a liquidation sale?

No, she says.

The man’s body tenses, and she knows exactly what he is thinking: She dares speak! But her horrifying breach of etiquette seems to relax him. He crosses over to the dressing table on the opposite side of the room, sits before the mirror. The back of his bulbous hat stares at her.

Less than nothing, that’s how much, he says. The rebels don’t want this town. The imperials don’t want it. No strategic importance, no financial gain. I know these things because I used to be a magistrate. The current imperialists are idiots. They had no need of my services. Instead they throw their money into bigger tanks, bigger airplanes. Bigger things they can crash and destroy. No profit in it, none at all. Those glory-deluded bastards.

You think you would do better? she asks. Silently, on feet primed for stealth, she moves towards him, closing the space fast.

Wine is the thing, he sighs. In the old days, I could tell the brand and vintage of rice wine with a sip. Only one other man in the province could accomplish such a feat, and I had him put to death. That’s how much power I had. Ask me now, about any wine. Any at all.

Wildflower, she says without thinking. From the northern hills.

Ah! Ah… He sits bolt upright, shocked at his own capacity to remember. We are from the same province. I thought so, I recognized the accent. Perhaps the same town, eh? Maybe you were mine at one point. Is that possible?

She laughs. You don’t remember?

Why should I remember something like that? But wildflower … yes, the wine had a gold tint to it. It was the crushed dandelions that did it. There is nothing like a rice wine with a touch of dandelion in it. Such a lingering aftertaste too, much less sweet than the usual shit from the outer provinces … Delightful …

He removes his hat, and it drops from his fingers to the floor. His head is shaved bald, but the hair on the back of his neck is beginning to grow again, prickly little silver needles of it. In the dressing table mirror, she can see his face: smothered with makeup, layers and layers of it, the white makeup of the opera performer, the hollows around his eyes deep black, a clownish grimace wrapped around his trembling lips. Nary a wrinkle can be seen on his skin even as he turns to face her, exhaling deeply with the effort. 

A good wine, he says. A good choice. Do you have some of it?

You think we have anything here? she retorts. You said it yourself.

Did I? I forget what I say to people and when. So I try not to remember too much. Less to forget. Like your name. It’s an insignificant piece of information as it is, but you notice that I did not ask your name.

And what’s yours?

Mine? His face screws up with the effort to remember. Unconsciously, his jaw drops, and she sees a set of perfect false teeth. He wears the stubborn, stupid look of a boy. 

I -- I don’t know, he stammers. Maybe it’s in a book? You have books?

You want to know?

Yes, yes! He stands up, hands shaking before his chest, frantic. I must, I must! But no, it is not in any book. Because there are no pictures of me. I have never let a person take a picture of me. I spent all my days inside carriages. I would pass through town, so people knew I was there, so they knew that I was in complete control of their destinies, but I did not step outside the carriage even once. That was my power. No one could see me, no one could take a photograph and steal my soul. You understand? No, you are a stupid woman who does not comprehend such things. But surely you understand …

He claps both hands to his head. She has already opened up her dresser and retrieved the camera hidden under the false drawer bottom. It is rigged with an infrared lens so she can take note of distant troop and ship movements at night, the negatives passed on to her confederates to transport to the capital. Now she has the camera set on normal mode, and she bears down on the magistrate, his face in the dead center of the frame. With the failing sunlight throbbing through the windows, one could almost mistake this shot as something constructed in a high-class studio, like one you would find in the city, where cities still exist, where nights still blaze with electric light and your footsteps take you across the city square to the fountains and the sounds of music from cafés and the lazy rustles of trees against the wind.

What? Stop! The magistrate’s skeletal hands are before his eyes. Don’t do that!

Why not? I know you.  And she does; she has full recollection of him now, she remembers him even more than she remembers Old Hawk, which makes the realization all the more repugnant to her. She remembers the time she was with her father in the town square after a rainstorm, the mud in the streets like an invitation to play, and the magistrate’s carriage jerking up and down as it struggled down the roads. Realizing quite sensibly that it must have been an uncomfortable ride, she asked her father, Why does he not get out and walk? Old Hawk had patted her head and shrugged his shoulders. An excellent question. Why not go ask him? And although he meant it in jest, she accepted the suggestion without second thought and ran to the carriage, moving slower than a crawling baby down the street, and jumped up on the running board, peered through the window at the man inside, and there he was, the magistrate, with that damned hat, but he had taken it off to wipe the sweat from his brow, and he stared at her as if she was an apparition, his eyes dark and blazing with youth, and in those eyes she would recognize something she would not see again until she met the would-be warrior, that one night when they were both watching fireworks at the lake, and her would-be lover’s eyes were fixated at the tiny explosions in the sky, the lights as tiny as stars in his dark pupils. 

Don’t don’t don’t! the old man before her sobs. I’ll do anything!

You will lick my shoes? she says.

Yes!

You will do whatever I tell you, and you will not tell the madam?

He does not respond immediately, and she brandishes the camera before him like a weapon. He falls to his knees.

Yes, yes!

You will continue to come here and pay me?

Yes! A crazy hunger has seized hold of him, his fingers to his mouth. I have nowhere else to go! Nowhere!

Good. Good. She is kneeling too, the camera carefully placed on the floor. Later, when he is asleep, she will take a photo, for every man who speaks ill of the imperials needs to reported, or at least that is the dictum, but she is unsure if she will obey it – at least, not immediately. For now, she will abuse this man, because he is the only link she has left to that distant past, and she is desperate to see those dark eyes again, even though they are occluded with age. The old man is in her arms, his face pressed to her clothed breast, his lips puckered against the fabric, the action suggesting lasciviousness, or a return to an infantile state. She puts her hands to his face, the grease of the makeup slippery against her fingers, and holds him there, an embrace that smothers him entirely. 

***

The warrior frowns; it is so easy to be distracted these days by the accoutrements of life, the bits of flotsam that float through the average day. The particular smell of the eucalyptus tree outside an encampment, almost like turpentine. A mutilated playing card found on the roadside, the jack of spades decapitated cleanly at the throat. Currently snatches of popular songs peal away in his head as single mass of unrelated lyrics. His lips unconsciously mouth words: Like a bird I fly, when you are easily hurt you are easily loved, I’ll be seeing you in those familiar places… 

The reverie is interrupted by the sight of men gesticulating at him. Imperial soldiers. They yell in unfamiliar accents. He is walking across the floor of the valley. Jeeps, tanks, all other forms of transport have been picked off, one by one, angular carcasses everywhere. The enemy soldiers are backing away as he advances, sword in hand. They are not afraid, merely practical, for with their guns and long-range weapons, it is better to be at distance. Killing must be clinical, conducted under safe parameters. But they cannot move fast enough, as they are burdened with their utility packs and their heavy helmets and their jackets of armor, all of which are no help when the warrior’s unerring blade finds their exposed necks.

Moments before, he was among comrades. Somehow he has left them behind. There was no plan of attack in place, no scheduled movements, no anticipation of combat, and then the enemy was there, spread before them in the valley in a giant stain, and those who did not flee at the sight of it simply moved forward. There is no time to glance behind him to see if his comrades are still there. He is committed to advancement, it is as if he is swimming, one end of the pool to the next, and he cannot breathe until he arrives. Some of the dying enemy soldiers raise their arms from where they lie, unable to see that he is foe and not friend, wanting to tell him their names so someone can relate to their loved ones the story of their demise. He slaps the hands away and continues forward.

Behind him he hears a trumpet as it blurts out a new set of signals -- at least, it sounds like a trumpet, but the warrior is aware that it could be a recording, a set of artificially generated waves transmitted through a megaphone. Simulacra are easier to utilize than the real thing on the battlefield, the captain had told him once, during one of his more lucid periods. The word simulacra had an ominous bite to it.

The captain had gone missing for three days now. It happened in the middle of the night, in the midst of this latest foray, flash bombs piercing the sky on all sides of them, their forces in disarray, members of platoons finding themselves in the midst of squads that hailed from three provinces away, no one giving a damn about orders or structure or rank, cooperation reduced to essentials -- places to shit, places to sleep, food to eat. The warrior approved of this. Everyone must attain his own merit.

The captain had had enough. You fools! he whispered that night, his face scratched and bleeding from some fall he had taken. They can see you! They’re coming from below! He pressed his face to the ground, hard, so hard that the stones cut him, fresh rivulets of blood running down his cheeks. Hypersensitive in his madness, like animals who can divine the coming of natural catastrophes, he stated that the enemy were in the very soil. When the warrior laid a hand on his shoulder, he rolled away, hands to his face, perhaps imagining he was on fire, and then he was up on his feet and running at full speed, over the ridge and down towards the valley floor, towards enemy lines, his hands flat and chugging at his sides, looking to all like an athlete intent on winning the race. No one shouted for him to return, no one took a step in the direction he had taken. Only the warrior took note of his passing, his ear cocked to hear the inevitable sound of a bullet, but none ever came.

Now the warrior is running himself, towards the enemy stronghold, as indicated by the maps. He no longer takes note of place names and political divisions -- they change so frequently that to commit them to memory would be fruitless. He can only remember lines, measurements of scale (one centimeter equals one li), green for land, blue for water, tan lines for altitude gradients. The first people who drew maps must have been children; they alone could forsake text for the simplicity of illustrated representation. Did he not tell someone long ago that he would see the mountains, rivers, and lakes? 

Brilliant white smoke envelops him. Do not look down, and one can assume to be walking on the clouds. All the mythic heroes had clouds as their allies. Perch on one scarcely wider than yourself, hold a hand up to your eyes to shield them from the fierce sun, and you are off on your next adventure, the mist beneath you accelerating and bearing you away at your wish, whole continents unfurling below with their lopsided features. All the while the insane trumpet sounds. A man has caught up to him, one of his own, riding his cloud with him, a scared little boy with tiny, almost colorless whiskers for facial scruff. He shouts the name of a village on the coast. Platoon four is rendezvousing there! he says. We should --

The boy jerks, disappears into the mist, as if he has fallen miles down to earth. The captain was right, the warrior thinks, they are coming from below. He sees the imperialist soldier who has just fired his weapon, and he is aiming at him now. He sprints forward, taking the direct path, even as the man fires again, and the bullet hits him, of that there is no doubt, but he feels nothing. Perhaps it ricocheted off some extraneous bit of metal on his flak jacket, perhaps he is now invincible. Took long enough, he thinks wearily, and he is upon the soldier, seeing only the man’s wide white eyes, and he dispatches him with a compassionate thrust to the heart, death instantaneous -- he is familiar enough with killing that he knows when a man is dead, even as the body still jerks as if connected to electrodes.

The name of the seaside town the boy has given him is familiar. Yes, his memory still holds -- battlefields blur together and towns are united in their unremitting horror, and yet the name of a town in his home province has a sweet tang to it, a word that is not a word. He will finally have a chance to return, after how many decades? He quickens his pace, imagining that this town is just over the bend, although for all he knows he may be running in the opposite direction.

Planes soar overhead. He cannot see them, but their subsonic roar is quite close, and even this feels like it is emanating from the ground. Ride, cloud, ride! He runs forward, nothing left but forward, as the ground slopes upwards, shrubs giving way to pristine rocks and gravel. The planes are releasing objects, and they are hitting nearby with the force of sighs. Swirls of crimson and pink bloom within the white clouds. Cotton candy, he smiles to himself, but the scent they give off is the withering odor of a city sewer. Bodies caught in the chemical clouds are collapsing around him. It is like a mercy, their falling; they seem grateful to accept rest. A rebel has collapsed face-down to his left. The back of the man’s neck is bubbling like a pool of sulfur. The warrior’s eyes water but he is otherwise unaffected -- how can this be? Maybe it was the winters in the mountain, maybe the prolonged exposure to disease at every turn -- others grew weak and he grew strong. He runs on, the red and pink claws straining towards him. The trumpet’s melody is now discernible, and the warrior mouths the lyrics, happily swallowing dust and debris:

Under the red flag we remain vigilant
Across the golden fields we are constant
The sun shines brightly on the just
The moon will rise over a peaceful land

He hacks and spits out dirt from his throat. The words are nothing to him, they are more like a device, something one mutters to oneself before going to sleep at night, part of a routine to occupy the chattering part of the mind. He is not alone; other rebels are with him, just behind him, running with rifles high, shout-speaking the words. Many are falling, but some maintain pace. Somehow he has become the leader of a new troop.

Ahead, slouched against a rock that has a carved-out bottom like a throne, is the captain. He acknowledges the warrior’s arrival with a slight nod. His coat is riddled with bullet holes, and yet it remains a handsome coat, its charcoal fabric unfaded. Already some of the men are setting upon him, wrestling his empty regulation pistol away from him, emptying the jar of bullets that has fallen to the ground by his feet, stripping him roughly of the coat.

Congratulations, the captain says to the warrior. You made it. One of the young soldiers forces the captain’s arm out of the jacket, and the appendage flops uselessly to the side, the rest of the captain following it, until he is pitched on his side, mouth puckered open, eyes unseeing as another young soldier draws a knife and slashes, freeing his utility belt from his body.

Take it, the warrior says to no one in particular. He wrenches his flak jacket off him, tosses it at the other soldiers. His inner layers as well, his utility belt, his canteen, anything with an insignia or style that signifies allegiance. Soon he is stripped down to a T-shirt, his pants, and his boots. The other men, still hovering over the captain’s corpse, stare at him, the pile of belongings at their feet, and he can see deliberation in some of their eyes. Even though the thought may only last a moment, it is there: Should we kill him too? 

The warrior clears his throat. It is not meant as anything more than a pause, a moment to recuperate, but the sound has a guttural force to it, and the men take a step back as one. I’m done, the warrior says. It is like the world has stopped for a moment. No planes, no bombs, no presence of the enemy. Some of the men grab hold of themselves -- are they all dead, with no memory of their actual passing?

Without a thought of where he is going, the warrior staggers forward -- he only knows that he must reach the top of the ridge, and then the province beyond, and then perhaps the province beyond that, his once and future home. The other men trail him at a safe distance, without a word. The sun is rising, the morning mist is dissipating. Good-bye, cloud, he thinks sadly, looking down to see his knees, the khakis tattered by rocks and gunfire, a boot with a single hole slightly to the right of where the big toe would be. Amazing, he muses. He was shot and the bullet went through the space between his toes.

He is atop the crest, on the ridge. The enemy encampment there has been abandoned, and all that is left are circles of stones for fire, a tarp stretched taut across man-high poles, the center of the tarp slashed open and the sun streaming down on the dead commanding officer’s face. It has the garish unreality of a museum exhibition. And this is the type of encampment used by the imperial military in this area. Notice the organization of the firepits, and the placement of the command post…

A handful of rebels have survived the climb up the hill, and they stare at the warrior, who is unscathed, bloody sword in hand, his face sallow, his eyes unrelenting. They are afraid of this man, because he is not like a man but a ghost. The men remove their helmets and hold them at their chests, as they are all struck with the same thought: such a force must be feared and paid respect to. Someone is yelling over loudspeakers: The day is ours! The battle is ours!

The warrior looks upon the other soldiers incuriously, sword gripped tightly to hand, so tight that to separate hand from sword would result in the ripping of skin from hand. Tears stream down his face in a delayed reaction to the chemical gas, and he can feel them as the wind blasts him, like needles.

***

For each new client there is a change of dress, a change of mood, a bending of character and even one’s unspoken thoughts. Even the smallest gesture must be adapted. Tonight it is the doctor who brings in the precious vaccines, and this man who graduated with top honors from a national university can think of nothing but the high school in the distant town where he grew up, and a girl he admired from far, a thin young thing with the regulation school T-shirt and sweatpants for physical education class, her hair arranged in two symmetrical pigtails on either side of her head, her face immortalized with a photographed dimple. So with the thoroughness of a student preparing for an exam, she has researched this school, this town, this era, and fashioned herself an outfit that matches the doctor’s old love’s in almost every detail, save for the school insignia, which she has replaced with the characters for the Peach Blossom House, which look similar at a distance. Peach Blossom School.

She is one of the last in the house -- the other girls are sick, or aiding their families, or dead. The former cobblestone road that runs in front of the establishment has given way to a four-lane road, two lanes each way, and a set of traffic lights that are near-invincible in their regularity. Every night she looks out the window, and the lights wink in and out, bicycles cheerfully ignoring their warnings, cars honking horns at every opportunity. When an official dignitary is in town to declare yet another state of local emergency or carry out an inspection tour, a policeman is stationed at the light to ensure that everyone follows the traffic laws, but he is a young man and easily bored, and soon he makes vague gestures to oncoming traffic and pedestrians, resigned to their flow. Much of the town has been evacuated. Certain stores and restaurants remain open, their lights like little pockmarks in the night, and with each passing season there comes more bombs, more news of advancements and retreats as houses grow warped and gutted, and still the damned street lights remain as strong as ever.

In times of crisis such as this, there is a sort of regression in people’s thoughts -- immediately old tomes are dusted off, answers sought in obscure dice-throwing games and the wisdom of ancestors, concoctions that are little more than soiled weeds dumped in boiling water, portents of doom taken from books that were meant to be escapist adventures when they were first published. She was a young girl when these books and recipes and games of divination were first introduced. To all around her, she looks young, suspiciously so. Plastic surgery some suggest, but that would be impossible, not in this backwater town, not at this time. Some mysterious, romantic past at the capital then? The old people unfold their vinyl chairs in the street at night, lounge in their pajamas, fan themselves, and twitter on about the day when they were children and she arrived. Some kind of devil? A fox spirit? That is the most satisfactory answer, but no one dare utter it.

The doctor has heard these stories, and he enjoys the idea of a fox spirit, even though he does not believe it. He brings up this theory with the woman, and she snorts.

People will talk about anything, she says.

Yes, the doctor says apologetically, loosening his silk tie. One can ascertain his status merely by the glasses he wears -- they are sleek, thin, almost invisible against his high-boned cheeks. Now he takes them off and looks at the woman: her face is an oval blur.

Still, it is amazing how you stay so youthful. What’s the secret?

No secret, she says. She appraises her face in the dressing table mirror. There is the beginning of a wrinkle just above the bridge of her nose. Lately she has been given to renewing her morning martial arts routine in the remnants of the main hall. The chairs have been hacked up, random legs being used as obstacles or weapons. She knows the hall as well as she knows her own body, and she dodges and sways and strikes at thin air until her arms grow taut with sweat. Then she greedily swallows a pail full of fresh water and collapses on her bed, not to move again until noontime. The older she gets, the more she realizes she needs sleep. Maybe that is the secret, she thinks; you get older, you need more and more sleep to remain young, until finally sleep dominates everything, and you are dead.

Did you bring enough vaccine today? she asks.

He sighs. Last time he was a few vials short, and as a result one of the girls in the house had died during the night. There was little point in trying to save her anyway, as a cursory examination had revealed that she had already progressed to the second-stage fever, where life is reduced to a collision of percentages and probabilities, none of them favorable. And yet this woman who rarely smiles of her own free will, who sits as straight as a tree growing from the ground, threw her arms around the dying girl and stayed there all night, until the girl breathed her last and her body was a bag of sharp limbs, and even then she continued to hold her, until all heat had left the body and the lips were turning blue, and finally she laid the corpse down gently on the bed, staring at it until the morning hours, as if straining to understand something.

You take so much responsibility, he says. Why don’t you go to the capital? They could use someone like you.

She shakes her head. The school T-shirt she is wearing is itchy at the collar, and she scratches at her neck absently. No. I must stay. That’s my purpose. The rebels may try to retake the town.

He has divested himself of his shirt and pants, and lies on the bed in his underwear. On her dressing table a small stereo bops away with a funk rhythm, the tiny cosmetic cases littered on the table shuddering with each walloping beat. She finishes applying blush to her cheeks and turns to face him.

You’re sure you have enough, she says.

Yes. Come over. 

The stereo plays a new song, a love song. A piano spins a descending line that ends with a winsome tinkle, a memory of love yet to be lost. The singer, trilling with emotion, almost whispers: I’ve been on a chase all my life…chasing someone like you…

She approaches the bed shyly, her hands behind her back, her head tilted to one side, a pigtail brushing against her shoulder.

Can I tell you something? she says.

He stares at her with his nearsighted eyes, the breath caught in his chest, and he whispers: Yes.

I’ve always liked you, she finishes. She is now on the bed, kneeling down over him. I’ve liked you since the first moment I saw you.

I feel the same way too, he replies. He has said as such thousands of times in his head, dozens of times out loud, but for the first time he realizes he means it completely. He pulls her down to him, rips off the shirt, kisses at the red patch of her neck where she has been scratching. She says nothing as he undresses the rest of her, rolls on top of her and enters her. Her eyes are closed and the breath comes through her teeth in short gasps. He sees his face in the mirror mounted above the headboard, his mouth open, his slick hair falling down over his forehead in a boyish bang. Within minutes he is satisfied, his body lumpy with contentment as he tumbles off her, the day’s exertions overtaking him as he drifts into sleep on his side.

She waits a few moments to confirm that he is unconscious, and then she throws on her robe, opens the doctor’s case, and retrieves the vials of precious medicine. She can hear the unhurried whooshes of post-midnight traffic soaring by outside the windows. She retreats down to the girls’ private bedrooms, and visits them one by one, dishwashing gloves on her hands, the lower half of her face covered by a cloth mask -- precautions that she knows will do little good, but everyone must follow the government dicta, even if such dicta are archaic in the extreme. 
 
The same process, repeated over and over: a sick girl in bed, the curtains drawn, candlelights providing illumination (for those who are stricken are sensitive to bright light), her eyes wide and bright with the fever, the rest of her body like waxwork. Those who have been abused and bruised in the past have attained an unlikely glow to them, as old knife wounds and bites have disappeared. Some can barely speak but they nod their thanks, their eyes watering. It is almost too overwhelming for her, and she cannot wipe her eyes with the gloved hands, so she turns away with angry shakes of her head. She offers a pat on the shoulder, a sip of precious medicine, some herbal tea that the late madam gave her the recipe for, and a whispered good night.

Outside in the corridor, the man who was once the magistrate is tottering up and down, bringing kettles of boiling water to each room, keeping watch over the flickering candlelights, igniting fresh wicks when necessary.

The doctor’s here, he says.

Yes. Enough vaccine this time.

Vaccines, he huffs. Modern nonsense. You remember in the old days when we --

Shut up, she says. He has come to live in this house, this thing with the hunch of an old man and the face of a baby, and her affection for him has grown. Although he waits on her hand and foot, they have somehow gained equal footing with each other, his bellicosity a match for hers. As much as she would refuse to admit it, she has come to depend on him. The day before he had found her sitting on the floor of the kitchen, dizzy with exhaustion, and had ministered to her with a cup of tea, his clawlike hands fanning the air above her face. She had had more of these spells recently -- it was like being pregnant, although she knew full well that she was not. 

Together they retire to the kitchen, where cracked bowls are stacked high in the sink with the day’s vomit and blood. She turns on the television to see the news: a new imperial leader has been inaugurated, and he stands atop the palace wall, the throngs gathered under him. Perched on high like a saint, his gestures spastic like a puppet, he makes a new point about the war, about the end to all wars, about peace for the nation. The camera alights on the young face of a woman in the crowd, rapt with attention, nodding with each rehearsed word.

That was me, she says.

That’s still you, he says. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here, you stupid bitch.

And why are you here, old man?

Because you’re here. He is sucking at an orange; she keeps a bowl of them at the ready, the skins peeled off. His lips pucker and slurp with a power of their own.

You’re just desperate.

I’m too old to be desperate. I merely want.

Want what? She stands before him. The belt of her robe has come loose, and the front of it sags open so he can see all of her there. You want this?

His jaw works in agitation. I want you to leave here.

I still have my duties. I still follow orders.

I know. I knew all along. They told me about you. Fresh juice dribbles down his pancake-white chin. Avenging angel. It’s a sick joke.

You’re the sick one.

We’re all sick. I was sick back in the old days, you’re sick now. Does any of it matter?

To shut him up she pulls him up to her and forces her lips on his mouth. She drinks the juice there. They both sink to the floor. He coughs and wheezes as she pulls open his robe, and in the shadowed light of the kitchen she cannot see his body, cannot even feel him as he enters her. He is so emaciated, so light, that he seems to not be there. A knife is in her hand -- how did it get there? One of the spells is coming over her. It would be so easy to plunge the blade into the heaving ribs of this man, the bones so plainly visible underneath the jaundiced skin. Then perhaps herself? Like one of those old dramas about love and honor and dignity? No, too silly. People like that do not exist any more because they have killed each other off. Like a process of evolution. A mission, she was here on a mission. There was a certain person in town who must be killed. Yes, that was it, kill, the simplest directive of all. There were many of those kinds of things, but that was in the past. No more messages, no more commands, just her atop this old man, this is what is she is now. The old man’s mouth is wide open, a rattle rising from his throat, and she stares at it, half-expecting something fearful to emerge, her own mouth open and ready to accept it, while the politician on the television is making an important point: Sacrifices will need to be made. Some of the border towns are indefensible…

***

The temple is now a museum. Freshly painted, railings and carefully paved courtyards having replaced dust and knobby grass, it resembles a playground, and the warrior’s shoulders bunch ever so imperceptibly with outrage. This is not authenticity, he thinks. This is a sham, this is misrepresentation, this is erasure. If he was a less curious man, he would have fled right then and there, but he has trod on continents, burrowed into uncharted caverns, scoured countrysides at night, breathed death. He must experience even this.

So he pays the 10-dollar entrance fee. Nearby the chirpy young female guide explains history: Over here is the spot where the famous Master Lau sat in meditation, and the warrior restrains himself from adding, Close, but he actually sat ten paces closer to the east door for his daily snort of wine. The guide has already leaped forward a few decades, reflecting on the times of civil war and crisis, the forbears of the modern era, and as if applauding politely, gunfire crackles in the far distance. The armies are fighting about ten miles outside town, and he has heard talk that the area will be razed within the week, but among the visitors is no concern, no panic, for they cling to routine as if they would cling to life itself, and the guide goes on about the traditional teahouse that has been erected next to the east wing, where the servers will be happy to pour you a refreshing cup of pu-erh tea, for this region is famous for the leaves which produce pu-erh. 

The warrior has already separated himself from the tour group, and the guide calls after him with hurried formality, My apologies, sir, but the rules state that all visitors here must be accompanied by museum personnel. Terribly sorry for the inconvenience. She motions, and a young man with tousled hair and a cigarette jammed between his teeth is at his side. Together they walk into the temple, where the cavernous silence is like a blanket. Before him are the tapestries of those days, the monuments to great deeds and moments of clarity, tableaus of rolling clouds and hills, figures contorted in eternal rest. The warrior knows exactly which figure represents him, and his eyes fix on it. Yes, the sword, the boots, the flowing tresses that have since thinned a bit with age. His expression is that of a tiger, his incisors flaring out. Was I really that fearsome? he thinks. What was the story that inspired that painting? Was it a falsity even then? Useless to ponder. With each telling, a tale is shaped in a different way, so that a temple is twisted into a museum, a warrior is stretched into a legend. In his travels he has met historians, fierce defenders of truth and disclosure, and their tenacity was a marvel even to him. They would brandish phones like weapons, point fingers, rattle on like machines, ignorant of their own spit as it landed on the faces of those who debated against them. Truth is an absolute. Culture is an absolute. Those who adapt it or change it are doing so for their own impure ends. The stories must be told, and must be preserved. Anything else is propaganda. And the warrior would smile politely, choosing in his very silence not to take a side, but now he is in this renovated temple, and he finds himself thinking of these same words and phrases, as if they are a sickness that has seeped into him. Would it be pure to fight against this inevitable change, this revision and deletion? Perhaps it would be best to forget the past altogether, all pain, suffering, happiness. Each generation must discover these things on its own, without the clouded interference of ancestors. And he laughs again, this time loud enough so that his escort glares at him, as if he has committed a breach of conduct. What would Old Lau say to me now? he thinks. Such a disobedient boy, to disregard your forbears, to ignore the customs and traditions. Yes, disobedient to everyone, to the end. Times change and values change, but disobedience is forever.

A cloud of cigarette smoke surrounds the escort as he glances significantly at his watch. It is still hours before the museum is to close, but he appears eager to leave. Is it the guide? the warrior wonders. Maybe a liason. Such an odd match, those two. The girl could be a fresh-faced maiden from any era, but there is something so modern and hard about this man. It would be a good time to depart, and yet, the warrior cannot. Being in this place and drowning himself with thoughts is no way to pay respect. If nothing else, silence and a clear mind for Master Lau. Surely that, if nothing else. The master deserves that much. So he stands, hands clasped together, eyes closed, all sound whittled down to the breath that creeps in and out of his body, and he can taste the smell of the concrete floors, the fresh coated paint, and then it oozes out of him, and now even his breath seems distant, as if crossing a threshold into another chamber…

… And with an exasperated click of the tongue, the escort snaps: Hurry it up, hurry it up. Move it!

Breath, smells, his heavy limbs, the scrape of his feet against the temple floor, the musty tapestries that dangle before his eyes -- all back, that and an expanding rage that threatens to consume thought. Bastard bastard bastard is all that rings in his head, and he turns on the young man, who is already staring into the middle distance, lips in a half-pout, as if his patience has been pushed to the limit by a senile elder. You don’t even face me, the warrior fumes. I am less than an insect to you, you do not care to even face me. His hand tightens at his side, at the knife tucked at his belt. With one stroke, he could sever head from body, but then the look on the man’s face would remain, berating and torturing him. Perhaps a slower death, a limb or two, that would change the man’s expression, in fact it would be quite satisfactory if the man cringed a bit, maybe even begged for mercy. That would be much better.

Did you hear me? the young man says. His expression bleeds indifference. Callousness is not a shade with him, it is his entire being. And not even intentional callousness, that could be understood, admired even. The warrior has no doubt that when the man returns home at night, when he wakes up in the morning and lights a fresh cigarette, when he makes love to a woman, when he rabble-rouses with friends, that there is a place in his head that he will always remain, a Buddha in his own way, and it is intolerable, unfair.

Hard breaths contaminating his body, the warrior unclenches his fists. Someone who is him and not him snaps back at the young man: This is my money, not yours. I paid money to get in here, so what’s wrong with you?

What? he thinks as soon as he has said these words. Why? Money? Why did I think of that? The room is spinning now. The young man’s mouth hangs slightly open, like a dull animal’s, but his eyebrows are knitted together, and the warrior can see anger in their intersection, and it is spreading down his face, cheeks sucked in, shoulders hunched, and still the mouth hangs dumbly. And then darkness seems to descend everywhere, and he pushes past the escort and out of the temple, nearly stumbling over the raised threshold, and he is out in the sunlight again, the guide in the far distance, her bright and eager commentary ongoing, This was a time for heroes, the sonic bloom of another explosive sounding off quite near, then another, but she was undeterred, which led to the foundation of our great country, crack-crack, been the inspiration of, boom, never to be forgotten, boom boom boom.

***

Ordinarily the master of the tea garden closes his establishment at sunset, but tonight, on a whim, gripped with nostalgia on this dying summer day, he leaves it open. The master’s apartment in the village has been requisitioned by remnants of the local imperial forces, those stricken with the fever. Any time spent away from that hive of chaos is welcome, even as the master feels a twinge of guilt for his wife, who must tend to all under their roof, scurrying to and fro boiling fresh water, providing unsoiled blankets, stirring chicken stew for hastily improvised dinners. 

The master pours himself some of his favorite oolong blend. It is a sweetish variant that is supposed to relieve the joints on brisk nights as these. He sits back in his easy chair, admiring the muted glow of sunset, sucking on a hookah that has been replenished with tobacco that leaves the aftertaste of apples in the mouth. With the coming of winter, tobacco shipments will be scarce, he thinks. This will be the last in a long time.

Before the wars, before the incessant smoke and factory buildings, this garden had an unobstructed view of the entire region. Built atop one of the tallest hills in the area, it overlooks the river as it meets the sea, and even now if one turns to gaze inland one can see the patchwork villages, the bumps of the local mountain range, and the higher peaks that separate the coast from the interior. Once it had been a lookout post, a lonely collection of huts and a half-built cottage where soldiers took turns watching the sea for signs of enemy intrusion, then the grand mounds of black smoke where the precious coal plants were located, then the passes in the mountain range that refused to budge. They would carry out these observations by strict timetables, point to point, day to night, year after year. But as with all things, maintenance became too expensive, and the hill was abandoned, the tea plants glad to run riot, and the master had done what he could to rehabilitate the remains of the cottage, the cypress trees that had been introduced by foreign visitors ages before. An outdoor courtyard with stone tiles had been laid down; lanterns lit every night. Not surprisingly, the garden has been mostly ignored. From the town below, one must follow a certain alley, climb one particular set of steps among the latticework of steps that lead to temples, obscure districts, and canals, and then know enough to ignore the rusty iron gate that appears to forbid entrance, and simply push on through. The master makes his living on the tea leaves he harvests, and the garden is only for those he has known over his lifetime, or strangers who are absent-minded enough to let chance guide them up the steps.

The only customers this evening have been a trio of betel nut girls, still dressed in their bikinis from their day’s work, selling the nuts to passersby. Like pariahs, they must forever shuttle back and forth down the stretch of open street that serves as the outdoor market, dodging the irate food stand owners who feel their kind are bad for overall business. The master has heard about these girls -- twenty dollars for a bag of the nuts, one hundred dollars for extra services. Having acquired the habit of sucking on the nuts themselves, the girls huddled over their table in their dark transparent raincoats, puckering their lips, spitting the bloody juice onto the stone ground, picking the seeds from their mouths. There was something endearing about the garish blush on their cheeks and their naked knobby knees, but then they would talk, and it was all the master could do to not wince at the sounds. -- Did you know that she’s seeing him? -- But that’s crazy! Who would want to… -- I told you that he was in trouble! -- Stop making up lies like that! They would giggle and shove each other in the shoulders, and even the way they said master was like a casual insult: Master! Where’s more tea! Master! We need some more peanuts! Finally they left, complaining of the cold, clomping away in their platform sandals, random little piles of nuts and red spit left in their wake, and yet the master found himself missing them as he mopped up the mess, staring at the rounded stone seats where they had been.

In the distance, a single wisp of cloud has curled around the peak of the highest mountain. Soon he will need to set up the space heaters -- more money wasted on nonexistent customers. A natural fire would be best. Burn coal, like the old days. On television the other day they had talked about the health dangers of coal, but he had grown up with the scent of it, the comfortable sight of soot gathering around the brick stove, how the tiles were warm to the touch hours after the coal had burned white and then gray…

The gate to the garden swings open with a single rusty note. The master is immediately on his feet, his hands clasped together in the traditional pose of welcome.

Good evening, he says. Some tea, sir?

The visitor says, Jade Mountain pu-erh.

Ah, the master sighs. An aficionado, and a man who is from these parts, judging from the accent. Emboldened by this familiarity, he says, Of course, of course. A happy National Day to you.

The visitor does not respond; instead, he stamps over to the corner of the garden, to one of the marble tables under the cypress trees. With a single swipe of his coat sleeve, he shoos fallen leaves off the tabletop. Yes, the man is in a foul mood, the master realizes. He is well acquainted with the heavy, sulky footsteps, the almost childish need to be brusque in one’s movements, as if telling the world, Yes, I am angry and everyone will understand that I am angry. 

As he sets the tray with pot and cup down, the master regards the stranger with the practiced nonchalance that is required of all teahouse managers. The stranger’s face is confounding in its lack of definable features -- he could be a man of over sixty, but he could also be a man of thirty. It is impossible to tell with those furrows in the skin that may be merely signs of exhaustion, the dark beard that could be gray underneath the dirt, the stolid limbs underneath the coat. The master can smell alcohol on the stranger’s breath -- no doubt he has whiled away the entire day at one of the pubs down the road. 

The man has propped up a sword in its scabbard against the edge of the table, within easy reach. Who carries a sword these days? the master scoffs to himself. An affectation, like he’s from …

Care to have some? The master offers him the hookah pipe.

The man shakes his head in a manner that suggests he does not wish to be disturbed by friendliness. Abashed and a bit angered by the dismissal, the master shuffles back to his seat. Maybe I misspoke, he thinks. Maybe he is a rebel, after all. My wife will never let me hear the end of it…

They sit at their separate tables for a spell, and the sun disappears behind the mountains. Above, a few scraps of cloud crawl across the vermilion skies. A peaceful, windless evening, quite unusual. The master finishes his hookah and pours himself some fresh tea. This weather reminds him of an old friend he has lost touch with, and he reminds himself that he must attempt to write to him. The postal service is not to be trusted, but at least he must make the attempt, and the rest is up to fate. Maybe that is the problem: he believes in fate and his wife does not. Strange how they were ever married in the first place, with such a fundamental difference in philosophy. The master sighs: Poor woman. She must have known what would happen …

Unexpectedly, the stranger says: I don’t recognize anything around here.

Ah, the master thinks. Yes, that’s it -- this man is angry that this town has become what it is, a delirious merging of high-rise apartments and sickly alleys, razed ground and sparkling billboards. This is something he can well understand.

Yes, it’s awful isn’t it? he says. In the old days you always knew where to --

Do you know of the village just over the Jade Mountain? The stranger’s voice is slightly slurred from drink.

The master nods, eager to be pulled into a conversation, and away from his thoughts. I grew up in that area. Wonderful back then, all the fields and streams. Are you from there?

A long time ago, the man says. When there were estates outside of town. Before electricity, before the cars.

Wait a minute, the master snorts, how can that be? No electricity? That must have been over --

The gate creaks open again, heralding the entrance of a woman and an old man. The master recognizes the woman’s hooded cloak on sight: the zither woman from the Peach Blossom House. She has been here numerous times for meetings with visitors from afar, notes passed and single cups of tea shared. The master has never questioned the nature of these rendezvous, for he has it on good authority from one of the local imperial commanders that she is one of them, informing on the rebels. Or at least she was years ago, when he first heard of it, but this is the first time he has seen her in years. Who knows now? Who knows about anything now?

As an unspoken reward, the master has always provided the woman with the freshest leaves he has on hand for her tea, and she has thanked him for his kindness with a smile that must have bewitched many a visitor to the Peach -- Ah, I’m not young, the master thinks. But who is this old man? He has seen him somewhere -- perhaps a local drunk, he looks the type, especially with that down winter coat filthy from year-round use. Even now the old man is mumbling about wildflower wine. And yet the woman helps him solicitously to a table close to the stranger’s table and seats him.

Welcome young mistress. The usual? Actually, he cannot be too sure about such a title -- it is difficult to say how old she is. Certainly, she has the figure and demeanor of a courtesan. How the hell did she end up in such a place as this, he wonders, not for the first time, as he hurries into the kitchen to ready a fresh pot of the Jade Mountain tea. The woman whispers something in the old man’s ear, and then wanders off to the far side of the courtyard, all the better to gain a view of the mountains as they fade into the dusk. The stranger looks at the back of her, sturdy and forlorn in the sunset.

The old man is occupied with the crinkled remains of a leaf that has blown onto the table. Dissecting it with the curiosity of a child, he cracks it open along the veins with fingers that are miraculously steady. The stranger is absorbed in this industriousness, and is taken back to when he did the same as a young man, sequestered among the trees in the forest, the sounds of his hands and his breath like tiny detonations within the cathedral quiet of the woods. Then he sees something in the old man’s attitude, those dead eyes nearly buried under the jaundiced folds of his eyelids.

The stranger addresses him: Are you from here?

What? the old man says. I’m from the town over the mountain.

The stranger’s throat works ravenously as he downs the tea in a single gulp. His free hand comes to rest on the hilt of his sword.

You were a magistrate once, he says.

Magistrate? The old man has only a few teeth left in his mouth, and the stranger sees them, ugly nub-like things, as he chortles. Magistrate? Yes. Long time ago.

In the village over the mountain. You had a carriage.

Yes! The old man is enjoying this game, usually he plays only with himself, but with someone else taking an interest, he is free to search his mind, and remember things that he had forgotten for decades. Fine horses I had too, they were well-cared for. Animals are the most difficult things to treat well, it’s against our nature to do so. Easier to kick a dog when it annoys you. Horses, you must be careful with them, but when you break them, they are the most beautiful --

Old Lau. The monk. Remember him?

What? This is unexpected, the old man thinks; this isn’t playing by the rules. Monk? I don’t remember any monks. Why should I --

You had him killed.

The old man is not listening. He is murmuring to himself: People are just not worthy of discussion. The other day I was walking down the street and a man bumped into me. On purpose! Just walked up and pushed me aside as he walked, like I was less than dog shit. If I could I would have him put to death for that discourtesy --

The woman has returned, her head bent low, the hood obscuring her face. She stands between the old man and the stranger. She stares at the stranger’s sword.
 
Where did you get that? she asks.

The man rises, his face hidden under the shade of the cypress, dark shadows flowering over his body. It’s mine, he says.

It looks familiar, she says. She bites her lip. What was the name? Who was the man who had …? What a pathetic turn of events, she thinks. How can she not remember?

I’ve heard about you, the man says. The Peach Blossom House.

Struck with a chill, she digs her hands into the pockets of her cloak. Are you in need of service?

Everyone knows about the zither woman. Scourge of rebels anywhere.

Are you a rebel? Or a mercenary?

No. Just tired.

The master stands in the doorway leading from the house to the garden, a tray of piping hot tea in his hands. He looks at the woman, then the man. He dare not move, dare not make a sound, and yet seeing the two of them addressing each other, both so unspecific in their appearances, unstuck in time, has left him transfixed.

I have business with this old man, the stranger says.

Now she is at the old man’s side, and she lays a hand on the hunched shoulder. I’m taking care of him. You can see he’s not well.

He’s never been well.

He’s under my care. Besides, he’s so old, it’s not worth --

The master sets the tray down on the nearest table. The word please issues forth from his mouth as a strangled buzz, then the rest comes tumbling out: I have an extra hookah. You can share -- 

Somewhere in the distance, there is a flash of light, a blink against the darkening horizon. Night fire. The master curses silently. Not now! Who would dare --

The stranger draws his sword. It is polished and gleaming, like a collector’s item should be. Holding it before him, as if taking a vow, he mutters: Out of the way. I have business with him.

Surely this must be a joke, the master thinks. Who would go around, making such a --

Wait. The woman is completely still, she cannot breathe, she knows she must remember something -- a name, a bit of history, a crucial detail -- but the effort to grab hold of it drains every bit of her energy.

Out of the way, the warrior repeats. 

She is hyperventilating, her eyes like pearls in the fading light. She thinks: Somewhere in the woods, where the creek is shaped like a snake. There was a tree there, a tree with a hollowed-out bottom, so we could sleep away from the rain and the cold. 

The old man looks at both of them with dawning wonder. You two -- you --?

Out of the way, the warrior says to her.

Her hands go to her head. She cannot remember. It has been too long. Names were such a fleeting thing to begin with. The only thing she remembers is a snatch of story, an unjust moral. Anguished, she cries out:

The swordsman always dies! 

The warrior moves to strike. So many battlefields, so much close combat, it is like breathing to him. Her empty cloak flutters into the space between, impeding his attack, and the sword cleaves it neatly in two as she steps back, knives in each hand. Her hair is silver and falls carelessly past her shoulders. As she turns it whips around and he sees the young face, the dark eyebrows and pointed chin. Dazzled for a moment, he hesitates. From his position on his hands and knees, his eyes level with the top of the table, the old man watches as her hands flash in a perfect replication of her morning routine, just as strong as the time Old Hawk espied her practicing her forms in that sunlit courtyard eons ago, and knives clang against sword, weapons recoiling from the shock, their trajectories altered. But the warrior is already on the attack, fury informing his shout and the swing of his weapon, the chill of the evening air a shot of amphetamine -- this was how it was meant to be, one-on-one, a clear opponent to vanquish, his only chance for such glory. Her arms assume the motion of the panther as it leaps from rock to rock, following the form to its conclusion, as they intercede, block his blow. This time the force of the sword is too much to parry, and one of her knives clatters to the ground. She retreats, stepping from one foot to the next, like ballet, her remaining knife describing tight patterns, guarding the vulnerable areas on her body against attack. The warrior is disregarding her, dodging her, intent on the old man, who is slithering on the ground away from them, calling for her to help, and the master is pulling his cell phone out of the pocket on his apron, fumbling to call the police, even as he thinks, You fool, the police wouldn’t get involved with something like this, and he must call his wife, because then she could send the troops -- 

Before he can punch in the number the warrior is upon him, the sword jabbing as quick and delicate as a pin prick, the phone clattering to the ground in sections, and then the handle of the sword thuds against the man’s stomach, doubling him over in pain. The warrior whirls on the old man. She is in his way again, doubts surging through her mind, she cannot forget about that forest, the swordsman always dies, the inside of her mouth sticky with fear. Her remaining knife cuts a straight line like a boat glides across the surface of a lake, and blood clouds the warrior’s vision as the blade slices through the bridge of his nose, leaving a permanent scar. Even through the mist of red he moves by instinct, like a starving animal, already knowing where she is supposed to be, where she will move next, and so he slashes downward as a feint, and as expected, she moves to her left -- but how did he know she would do that? Too late, even as he asks himself the question his muscles move on their own accord and his sword hand snaps, the motion of the sword transitioning to a perpendicular angle that meets her arm just above the elbow, severing it cleanly, continuing further, into her side, and only through instinct and will does she escape what would have been a fatal blow as she twists away and falls, knife clattering to the ground. The old man has crawled to the front gate, and he is struggling to his feet, wrenching at the door, but those frail arms have no strength, and the warrior thrusts his sword forward, through the old man’s back, the body, the chest, to the gate, and the tip of the sword meets the metal with a bell-like clang. The old man goes rigid, and the warrior smells shit -- yes, the bastard has relieved himself, a common reaction. The warrior pulls the sword out, taking a moment to gaze incuriously at the black bits of gore that have accumulated on the blade. The old man has crawled away from the door, over towards a clump of bushes at the edge of the courtyard. He lays fingers on the coin-sized leaves, pulling them toward his face, trying to wipe away imagined blood. The true blood dribbles from his mouth and cakes the lipstick there.

Go ahead, he hacks. Go ahead.

The warrior stands over him. His wound just above his nose has opened up. He tosses his head angrily, and droplets rain on the old man. The old man is grinning even as his breaths grow more labored, and he licks his lips.

No!

She is upon the warrior, knife in her left hand, the blade aimed at the spot where his heart would be, between the ribs. Sensing the attack, he whirls, the knife enters his right side. The violent contact of steel and bone snaps the blade free from the handle, and as she loses her balance he slashes once with his sword, carving her belly, the wound superficial but the force of the blow propelling her backwards, until the backs of her knees hit one of the stone seats and she sits down with an unceremonious thump.

The three of them face each other, three points of a triangle. The broken knife blade protrudes from the warrior’s body, and he pulls it out with his hand, not caring that it slices his palm open. He blinks heavily. Somehow his head has cleared. Feeling is returning to his body, and pain with it. Good. Just the dull throb in his side, a minor wound. The cut above his nose, easily repaired with some stitches. He stares down at the woman. Her hair has fallen down over her face, and the ends of it are slick with blood. Her left hand holds the stump of her right arm, and he sees her chest rise and fall with painful breaths.

You -- he begins.

She is laughing and the unnaturalness of it chills him. The sound neither rises or drops in intensity, she is like an automaton whose on-switch has been pressed.

Do I -- know you? he says.

She stops laughing. A single eye is visible under the hair, and it fixes on him. She is not seeing him. She is delirious.

Pig, she cackles. You rebel pig. You’ll die the death you deserve.

Do I know you? he says again.

She laughs again and this time she does not stop. She points at him with her remaining hand. You’re-dead-hahahaha-your-time-is-over-hahahaha-the-nation-will-persevere-hahahaha …

Heavens preserve us -- The master is crouching down over the old man, who has fallen into a lounging position, on his side. If not for the blood one could almost believe that he is relaxing on a settee, lost in contemplation. His face has relaxed into a careworn smile. Staring at it, the warrior feels that it is almost possible that this man was loved.

Why do you smile like that? the warrior snarls. You’re dying. Why are you --

He’s dead, the master says.

No he’s not. He’s -- But the master is correct. The man’s arms have flopped to the ground, and the branches of the bush are free and wobbling. He wears a rictus grin, all sense of age and weariness lost.

It’s not right, the warrior thinks. I expected that of all things, this would be right. The rest of it, all those intervening years, were simply a process, a crucible, the ignition of circumstance and will. This was to be the return, the one clear act to emerge from a jumble of nonsense -- 

She half-sings, half-wails: You killed him you killed him you killed him you killed him --

The warrior turns to face her, and the master marvels at the sight of it, for the shift in the warrior’s head and shoulders is as weary as that of an old man, even older than the dead man cradled in his arms.

Do I know you? he says to her.

She is still at the table, having found her split cloak and wrapped it around herself like a blanket. She is splashing herself with the tea, cleansing the wounds, the tea leaves all over her body like scabs.

Wait -- the warrior says. 

She is backing away from him, inching towards the front gate. Even with the ruin of the upper half of her body, her legs and feet move with the purposefulness of a dancer, covering the distance with nary a falter. The wind tosses the leaves about the stone floor underneath her, and it carries a plangent sound with it -- a faraway siren. An air raid warning.

There is a squelch of feedback as a megaphone is activated in the distance, in the town below. Clear the streets! Get to your designated shelters! We are under attack! This is not a drill!

The warrior totters forward, lifting an arm, wanting to grab hold of her, believing that the slightest touch will bring her back, but she is beyond him now, through the front gate, skipping down the steps, wailing You killed him you killed him you killed him as searchlights burn the sky above like seizures. The warrior looks at the master, who dares not move.

Why? the master asks. He was just an old man …

The warrior rushes through the front gate and disappears. The master hears his soft footfalls for a few moments, and then the siren overrides it, whipping itself up in a tornado of vibrating tones. The old man remains on the ground where he expired, as if he is part of the establishment, an artful reliquary that reminds of previous eras. The master staggers over to his accustomed seat, paying no heed to the overturned tea trays, the shattered cups and mosaics of blood. His hookah is still there; the tip of it burns orange as he sucks in a long breath to calm himself. I’m sorry, he says out loud. I’m sorry, I should have been home tonight. The old man’s gnomic smile does not leave his face, and the master apologizes again, burying his face in his hands as a single jet passes overhead, a vapor trail smeared across the clear sky.

***

Cursing, the warrior pursues her, down steps that meet other variations of steps that lead in all directions. He is moving so slowly, the wound perhaps more serious than he thought, his skin ice-cold around the wound, brick walls and bewildering windows everywhere he looks, everything the same. He must use his sword to cut a path, that is the thing to do in unfamiliar territory, mark it and make it yours, and he stares down at his naked hands and realizes that he left the sword in the tea garden. His dazed eyes cannot adjust to the dark. He can hear her in the distance, she is moaning, and the echo carries and reflects off the alley walls so that it seems to hover before him. He makes a decision, not a wise one or a considered one, just a resolution to move forward, and he is at the bottom of the steps, atop another set of steps that cut steeply into the hill, passageways and cul-de-sacs and arches that seem like street entrances but are actually the gateways to stores and residences. The uneven cobblestones under his feet throw off his stride. Everywhere there is no movement, no hint of others. Her voice is getting farther and farther away. He moves forward, convincing himself that to go back is to lose her forever, but the voice grows more indistinct the further he walks, until finally he hears nothing but his own gasps for breath and the grinding of his boots against the steps, and he swats at the blood soaking his face, his foot missing a step -- he tumbles down to the bottom, coming to a full stop on his back, his teeth grinding so hard that he can feel one of them coming free, rolling inside his mouth along with the metallic sting of blood. He swallows the tooth, staring up at the sky, the short rooftops and barricaded windows, and overhead the searchlights continue to scour the skies for an enemy that might not come. This will be the sight he will remember years from now, this last view of this seaside village, the anonymous meeting of roofs and sky and searchlights. He is laughing, a great swell of laughter that he cannot contain, and even as he does so the pit of his stomach is curling into itself, wrapped in a knot that will not come undone, and he spits the words out so viciously that the blood in his mouth goes airborne and then lands on his face, his eyes, blinding him: I’ve done it! I’ve done it now! he shouts and he cannot hear his words because at that same instant the bomber flashes overhead, a single red light on its underbelly winking at him, teasing him, Come and get me, like another childhood game in the woods, the jet’s whining roar rattling his chest, and the explosion from the bomb comes before the sound of it, the world above him enveloped in black fog. He holds his breath but he can smell the granite, the earth, the building materials reduced to their original states, and then the sound of it rolls over him, crushing him flat.

***

The town is gone, wiped clean by cataclysm. Bodies are strewn in the main square, a quilt-like edifice of limbs, tattered clothes, blackened blood and skin. Save for the dust and ash drifting with the wind, there is no movement. She cannot smell the stench, perhaps because it has only been a day since it happened, or perhaps her own senses have been affected as a form of penance. A true gift in comparison. She stumbles through the charred streets, wrapped in her traditional gown, a sleeve flopping uselessly where her right arm used to be, the immaculately braided designs of dragons and flowers an affront. Humming old folk tunes to herself, scratching at an unseen wound on her pale cheek, she walks and walks, slow like shadows, one foot dragged before the other, tracing the path of an invisible tightrope. Those who have remained to care for the dying and bury the dead note her passing without a word and then hiss asides to their loved ones: She’s gone crazy! They say she caught the fever…

This place is nothing like the place she grew up -- not now, not a day before. And yet the street signs remain, having somehow survived the blasts, jutting out in clinical black and white, and she has used them as her guide, for the names of the streets have improbably stayed the same, through ruling parties and the disintegration of history. The signs lead her away, beyond the town’s collapsed outer walls, the central guard towers crumpled on the ground like discarded toys, out to the fields where the fruit and vegetables once grew. She limps through the scorched earth, espies a single human head where the squash once poked through the ground. The eyes in the head are dark where they had been burned out -- they must have gazed directly upon the explosion -- and yet the teeth sparkle white and beautiful, as if they have been sanded clean. She cannot hear cicadas or other insects. 

This is the end for her; she is aware of it without knowing quite how. The survivors with their fingers and noses skinned by the heat, already ballooning with infection, would cackle at such a statement -- Nothing wrong with that one, she just needs some food, they would say. But each time her foot touches the ground her body grows more rigid. It is like it is hardening, like rock, and soon it will be easier to just sit or lie down, and that position will be no doubt too comfortable to budge from. And there she will stay, choking on the ashes that are still settling everywhere, like frost.

She sees the old estate buildings ahead. No doubt of it, the road remains the same, even if it was a dusty path in a previous life. The iron gate that stands before the first establishment remains locked, more decoration than deterrent, the chain rusted so deep that it is a golden brown that seems too valuable to disturb. She bangs at the door, first with a sense of politeness, and then with escalating intensity: Open up! I know you’re in there! Let me in! She is certain that everyone is inside, Old Hawk and her mother and even Uncle and the magistrate, reclining under the willow tree, happily sweating away the afternoon in their exaggerated gowns and cloth boots, satiated with their own thoughts and not needing conversation, reassurance, even a hint of acknowledgment. All that is required is to sit and accept the sun that beats them all closer to death, minute by minute.

The iron gate gives way as the chain snaps, broken links falling to the ground, precious baubles in the sun, and she scoops as many as she can carry with her hand. She peers inside to see them all, sitting underneath the tree, no leaves now, just a stalk, but it is still there, they are still there, and she walks towards them, her body growing heavy, as she walks she rips off layer upon layer of her gown until the fabric falls like ribbons, trailing behind her, marking her progress. Her sandals list to the left due to the wear on the soles, and before long she is tramping barefoot, over the corpses, like struggling through molasses, toes tripping on pliant flesh, or banging hard against exposed bone, and still she sees her parents sitting under the tree, their eyes half-closed, still not noticing her, and she is intent on surprising them before they can detect her presence. She will lay hands on both their shoulders, like a hero of old surprising the enemy with a wry joke, the slightest touch, as if to say, I could slice your throats open and the smiles would still be on your faces as you fell to the ground, but I prefer to acknowledge you first, let you understand what I am. Above, the fleeing clouds offer protection from the sun, but every few seconds they break, and the light stings her. Maybe that is it -- she has lost her sense of smell, but her visual sensitivity has multiplied tenfold. Slapping her hand over her eyes, she cannot breathe for the choking leftover smoke of the bomb, but she moves forward, knowing without seeing, it is all shadows to her now, her parents gone, the bodies gone, and even as the sun teeters on the horizon she finds herself at the splintered ruins of the archway that leads to a home. It was her home. Holding up her blackened arms and hands, as if to praise or condemn, she pitches forward, utterly drained, and the sun goes dark in the gathering smog. She has fallen on her side, and looks up to see the front gates, flaming cinders swarming around it like fireflies. 

***

The two blond hikers have only been in the high country for two days, and they are utterly lost. They have heard all the stories -- beware bandits in the hills, be sure to travel in packs, go during the dry season, remember to carry your compass. He had been reluctant about this excursion, but she had insisted: Come on! You want to spend this entire trip with the tour group?

That was her, the adventurous one. It was his duty to be solemn with practicality, his strength and curse. The most recent map of the region was over a decade old. Perhaps the trails had been overrun with vegetation, he argued. In the highlands? Don’t be silly, she had replied. Documented shelters were few and far between; there would be a stretch where they would have to hike over 15 miles in a day. Look at the gradient, she said, no problem at all. She had that kind of certainty about her. Even when she was completely wrong, she was most convincing, like the time when she had mistaken bits of black bean sauce in the sink for rat droppings, and appealed to him to get a rat trap as soon as possible, please, and we need to keep the house a lot more clean because dammit, look at the sink!

They had rented packs and sleeping bags smelling of mothballs from the tourist shop in the old city, given strict instructions to their driver to meet them on the other end of the mountain range three days hence. The driver could be trusted -- a few days before he had taken them to a temple a few villages away, and had informed them the cost of the drive would be 40 dollars. Assuming it was 40 dollars per person, she had pulled out 92 dollars, including 15 percent tip, and the driver had politely refused, explaining that it was 40 for the both of them. Later, when her companion asked her why the ride was so cheap, she said that she had bargained down the price with the driver. You are amazing, he had said, and she had basked in the glow of her little white lie.

Her chronometer tells her that is close to six in the evening, and even in the summer, the sun dies fast in these climes. It had started innocently enough -- a quick consultation of the geodesic map, a firm pointing of her index finger towards the east: This way. We should hook up with the main trail in about an hour. And so they slogged on, through the deep woods where the sun burned pinholes through the foliage, branches the size of tree trunks barring the path, some of the earth so moist and soft that it was almost like quicksand, stray bushes and bits of rock bruising their feet. They had agreed on saving the last bits of beef jerky and condensed rice for dinner, so he had resigned himself to eating fruit and nuts, quite a bit more fruit than nuts, and he is now slightly delirious from the sugar high, given to yelling out loud at random moments, breaking into song, perhaps to scare off the poisonous snakes he has heard about. Hours since they were due to hit the main trail, they are still locked within these woods, no discernible path in view, the erratic movement of their flashlights across the forest floor more disquieting than the actual forest.

Her companion swears. We should have brought a compass from home instead of buying it here --

We’ll be fine, she says. She doesn’t begrudge him his anxiety, but she can feel something similar surging up inside her, and she must shut him up to shut herself up. Let’s keep going.

He unstraps his backpack with a single click of his belt buckle, and it escapes him, rolls to a lopsided stop on the ground. She has told him how to pack so all the weight is evenly distributed from the center, but many subtleties are lost after a few days of backpacking.

I have to rest, he says. My knees are killing me.

Okay, she says tolerantly. They both find a nearby log that is relatively free of the encroaching damp, and sit. Instinctively, they huddle close, their breaths already cloudy with cold. Flashlight clamped between her teeth, she studies the map while he pulls gently at the strands of her hair.

Where are we? he asks.

We should start a fire for dinner, she says. Can you gather up some wood?

With a verbal shrug he hauls himself up and wanders off. She can hear his feet crunch against the dead leaves. The map suggests they are close to a lake. A mountain lake, that would be nice. Probably freezing right now, though, she thinks. If some of the local legends are to be believed, a town once existed here, and one can imagine the etched drawings in the dusty, sun-bleached books about local legends she saw in the night market a few days before – tidy little places rendered charming in the simplicity of the art. The town was said to be devastated during one of the previous wars, the rubble serving as fertile soil that has nurtured these forests. Hard to believe that this was once fields and town roads, she thinks, but of course it is possible; how many centuries of history are layered atop each other, for ages on end? For that matter, how many places on the planet remain hidden, unknowable? There is a reason that people who fall out of airplanes are rarely found. The body lands in a swamp, or atop a mountain range, or within a seldom-traveled forest, and is left to decay, sink into the ground, its final resting place an eternal mystery.

Hey! her companion calls out, close by. You see that? Over there.

She squints -- she is not much good without her glasses -- and sees it: a single flickering light in the distance, suspended between the trees. Leaving her pack by the log, she rises on suddenly aching legs, shuffles towards the light. She hears him behind her. He is not breathing -- he is too scared to breathe.

Let’s get out of here, he says.

Wait, she says. Yes, it is the sound of water. Not the onrushing crash of a waterfall, or the seesaw swoosh of waves on shore, but the plink of a lake rising up to meet shore. A breeze blows in from that direction, as if to say, Yes, congratulations and welcome.

They walk onwards, their flashlights bobbing. Hello! she calls out in the local tongue. Hello! Without warning, the trees fall away. They are atop some crags, a conglomeration of them, shaped like the karst peaks in oil paintings. From here the land dips down to the lake, where moonlight wavers on the surface. A slab of stone the size of a full-length mirror juts before them, a single character carved across its face. She runs her index finger down the strokes, and the width of her finger perfectly matches the width of the furrow. Longevity. I think, she says out loud.

Smell that, he says. It is the unmistakable scent of burning flesh.

Get out, this is crazy, these are the bandits they’re all afraid of, she thinks, but the saliva floods her mouth, the stimulus cannot be resisted, her stomach fluttering at the thought of food, and she presses on.

The lake is completely enclosed by the forest, gently rising hills and woods on all sides. Crescent-shaped, it winds off to the left (south, she guesses), and the opposite shore is about half a mile away, where there are more crags. It must be man-made, she thinks; such a formation wouldn’t occur in this setting. Just ahead is a compact beach of firm sand and rocks on the near shore where one can sit, and if one squints enough, one can imagine that there might have been a platform there, perhaps a viewing spot for the time this area was populated. Everywhere there are shreds of debris, dollops of wood and unidentified metals. This is like an archeological find, she thinks. On the far end of the shore is a weathered canvas boat, a sailboat judging by the emaciated pole that juts up from the center of it, just large enough to accommodate one. For some reason the thought enters her head that this boat sailed in from far away, that it somehow maneuvered its way to this lake up a tributary that no longer exists, that it awaits the next shift of geography and history, when a waterway opens up again and it can put out to sea. 

Next to one of the larger rocks, all the trash has been cleared away so all that remains is a circle of pristine sand. Within that circle, his back to them, a man crouches down to nurse a campfire. The flames of it are narrow but feisty, rising over the top of his head.

She is about to say hello again when the man straightens, a thin, hardy piece of wood in his hand, something that would serve as an excellent walking stick. With a muscular, exaggerated movement his elbow straightens out and the stick whips forward, towards the rock, striking its face dead-on. She hears the tip of the wood splinter, and little bits of debris come to rest on the soft shoreline, pit-pit-pit. The man sweeps the ground with the stick, drawing half of a circle, and then the improvised blade is rising again, slashing against the rock face. Again a splinter, more pit-pit-pit. She instinctively knows that he will continue striking rock with branch until the branch inevitably splinters down to nothing, and then he will pick up another stick, the process repeated, some Sisyphus-like form of penance.

No, she mouths, sympathy welling up from somewhere within. He must be stopped, no one must endure something like this. Hello, she says loudly.

The stranger whirls around. Gifted with the look of a bandit, his eyes shrouded in shadow, there is something doleful in his sunken cheeks, the growth on his face that is between stubble and beard. He is disheveled but quickly smooths out his hair, pulls a bit at his simple dark coat to straighten it, his movements faintly chivalrous, and she must stifle her smile at the sight. He says something that she cannot entirely understand -- the accent is thick, the dialect not familiar -- but there are a few commonalities with the language she learned in college. Something about food, something about being welcome.

Thank you, she smiles at him. It’s all right, she says to her companion. He says we can join him for dinner.

Or we’re his dinner, he mutters.

She shoots him one of her well-practiced looks of disappointment and edges closer to the stranger. Placing a hand on her chest, she gives her name. The stranger looks at her, and for the first time good humor flickers in his eyes. He begins talking, and he does not stop. His face remains the same, his eyes remain fixed on her, but the mouth yaws open and grimaces and pronounces words with a will of its own. Her head hurts from the effort of trying to understand, and she tries to interrupt, Please, not so fast, I’m afraid I’m not so good -- And the stranger will not stop.

This isn’t good, her companion says. Let’s turn around --

The stranger is moving closer, enunciating clearly, it is amazing how his focus is so indomitable, the stick still in his hand. Her companion stumbles forward, interposing himself between the stranger and her, not at all heroic but supportive at least, yelling out in his own tongue: Hey, keep away from her!

The stranger’s steady stream of language ceases. He looks at the man, then the woman. Then, as if realizing what he has done, he scratches at his beard, abashed. He then says three words that the woman recognizes immediately: I am sorry.

It’s all right, she says.

The stranger nods. He turns around, facing the lake, and holds his stick out, as if saluting it. Then with a clock-wise motion he swings the stick around, completing the first set of a movement, his free arm held out as balance and artistic counterpoint, and with a quick pivot on his heel he has turned ninety degrees and he is repeating the movement, once for all four directions. She has seen these movements before in the city parks, the old people and their early morning exercise, but this stranger has force behind them, and for the first time she sees how they could be used to hurt, or kill.

What was he talking about? her companion asks.

She shakes her head in frustration. I can’t get a lot of it -- this is his hometown, he lives here now, he’s meeting someone here -- or maybe he met someone here. This language isn’t specific on the tenses.

The stranger has completed his forms and he gestures towards the fire. Spits have been mounted, meat impaled on the sticks. With a glance at the stranger for confirmation -- he nods -- she grabs one of the sticks, blows at the meat experimentally, and bites into it. She has no idea what it is, but it melts in her mouth. Seconds later her hands are stained with the juices of it, nothing left but bone. Her companion has grabbed one of his own and is gobbling it down, his cheeks stuffed with it. The stranger watches them all as a forbearing parent might watch their children commit a faux pas. He speaks again. She only half-hears the words, the sound of her masticating jaws is drowning it all out, but she picks up snatches: war … terrible time … long while I traveled … have news from capital?

Capital? she blurts.

The stranger nods, and pronounces a name she has never heard of. I don’t think we’re in the same country you’re from, she says. The capital of this country has a different name.

The stranger shoos off this notion with a polite little wave. Names … change … have news?

Finding difficulty in responding, she stares at the man’s regulation military boots, which rise to just above his ankles. Was that it, was he an army man? Certainly didn’t maintain himself like one, with all that wild hair and civilian clothing. No weapons either, just the damned stick.

No news, she says. The war ended a long time ago.

Again he gives the little wave. He makes a joke, laughing at his own punchline, and then explains further: Sometimes  … rest, but  … war … starts again. Always. Expect it.

He sits cross-legged by the fire, and she stares at him from the opposite side, through the flames. From her vantage point he looks ruddy, handsome. Her companion is beside her, whispering in her ear: I took a look at his pack. Just some clothes, cooking tools.

I told you, she said. You have to learn to trust people.

Ask him how to get back.

She does so. The stranger purses his lips; she sees they are cracked and bloody from the dry climate. No, sorry, he says. Don’t know …

For a moment she wonders if he interpreted her question correctly -- Did he realize we were asking about how we could get back, and not how he could get back? But the stranger is unzipping his pack to extract some thermal blankets. They are heavily wrinkled, like a microscope close-up of human skin, and he hands them to the two hikers. Please, he says.

Thanks very much, she replies, and she clasps her hands together in the formal symbol of gratitude. The stranger laughs at the sight. Good, he says, good.

Little more can be said. The three sit by the fire a bit longer, but the winds are picking up, and the two hikers are soon shivering, their arms around each other. The stranger looks upon them with a thoughtful expression. Love? he says to her, and the word sounds jowly coming from his lips.

What? She stammers a half-reply, not being clear. Her companion has picked up on the tenor of the query and shakes his head. Man, you can’t even… he begins.

She cuts him off: Let’s get some sleep.

Should we take turns standing guard? In case …

You can stay up if you want. She is disappointed in him, and yet a reasonable voice in the back of her mind is chastising her: How can you trust this man? It makes no rational sense. 

Clearing out their own sandy patches on the shore, they curl up in their blankets, their wool hats pulled down over their ears, both of them facing the stranger, who remains by the fire, rubbing his hands. He is speaking again, more to himself, or perhaps he is addressing someone that neither of them can see.

You hear that? her companion says.

Of course I hear it. He’s probably been alone out here.

She does not understand a word of what he says, particularly at their distance, but when she closes her eyes and wavers between consciousness and sleep she imagines fireworks raining over this lake as an autumn festival is celebrated. She can taste the small cakes composed of sweet beans and egg flour, pressed into medallion shapes. Out on the lake, a single wide-bottomed boat is anchored in the exact center, and a quartet of musicians strum their stringed instruments. The melody is something that refuses to resolve into happiness. As each individual firework dissipates and dies, the song celebrates their descent into nonexistence. Standing at the edge of the lake is a young man who bears some resemblance to the stranger, dressed in a formal robe with a collar that rises to meet his chin. She is walking up to him. She must not disturb him. She must not even place a supportive hand on his shoulder. He is meant to be alone, and all she can do is stand behind him and wait for the moment in which he strides forward without her, or collapses backward into her arms.

Her eyes snap open. She does not know the source of her surge to alertness, only that she is sitting up, the blanket falling off her. Her companion is on his back, mouth dumbly open and snoring. The fire has died to nearly nothing, save a few sputtering sparks. The moon has lone gone and stars have spilled into the sky to take its place. On the opposite shore, the crags and trees and hill have become a single soaring shadow. The surface of the lake is black and immense, and completely still. There is not a trace of wind. Over by the beached boat, the stranger stands at the water’s edge, his back to her. She rises quietly, not wishing to disturb him, wanting to witness whatever will happen next without being noticed.

The stranger stretches his arms absently, and tilts his head from side to side. He has dropped his coat and boots in a heap at his feet, leaving him dressed only in shirt, pants, and bunched-up black socks. She takes a step forward, maybe two, but drowsiness still has hold over her and she comes to an uncertain halt. 

The stranger’s hands are clasped behind his head in a pose that suggests relaxation, but even from her distance she sees his interlocked fingers digging into his palms, the tremors of tension there, as if he is attempting to rip his own head off. He is reciting something, a bit of poetry perhaps, and she is once again helpless, for anything sung or recited in the language is impenetrable to her. And yet there is no mistaking the plaintive rasp in the man’s voice, how he trails off after certain sentences, as if this tale is almost too sorrowful to continue. He concludes the recitation with a simple, declarative, rhythmic phrase, and she thinks she can make out a few words: something about the heart and spring flowers.

The man walks into the lake. She watches his progress, watches to see the instinctual recoil when he makes contact with the icy waters, but he is not slowed in the slightest and continues on, up to his knees, his stomach, and then as the lake bottom drops away, a sudden dip to just above his shoulders. The wake he leaves behind fans out, hits the edge of the shore, bounces back to follow him. His head has disappeared under the surface, and for a little while longer she can see a tiny depression in the lake’s surface that marks his movement, like a whirlpool. Then all is quiet and undisturbed once again, save the last remnants of ripples that spread and dissipate.

Falling to her knees, she counts off seconds. No sign of him. She is calculating his pace and how long it would take him to reach the opposite shore. Perhaps a few minutes. Strangely, she is not worried about him. Maybe it is the drowsiness that is threatening to overtake her, or something in his manner, or how the water did not seem to affect him. She is quite sure that he will make it to the opposite shore, or that he is perfectly safe underwater if he chooses to remain there, and will be safe for a long time. Her head is heavy, and the black lake offers nothing to justify renewed interest. She is gathering the blanket around herself, lying on her side, gazing at the water. Within moments she is asleep, and this time she dreams of only black and a tangle of plants far underwater, undulating with slow-motion clarity.

***

The next morning, she is awakened by the pulsing white sun as it rises through the trees on the opposite shore. East, no doubt about it -- that is their direction home. She shakes her companion roughly awake, and they both stare at the tidy section of beach where the stranger had made his camp. There is nothing there now except the remnants of a fire, the circle of smoothed-out sand. She holds out her hands close to where the fire was, but there is not a hint of heat there, no sign of the meat they had eaten the night before; the flames may just as well have been extinguished years before.

The stranger’s backpack is gone. The carcass of the boat, too, with not even a crooked trail in the sand leading down to the water. Caught up in fancy, she thinks that perhaps it just evaporated, frittering away to dust, carried away by the morning wind. She runs down to the edge of the water, taking care not to trip on the honeycomb bits of glass and wood dispersed across the beach. There are no footprints to be seen, no sign of the clothes and boots he left behind. Perhaps the tide washed away all traces earlier that morning. What left to do? Alert the authorities? Search the opposite shore?

Her companion is already struggling into his pack, not having said a word. You don’t care at all, she thinks. To you, maybe he didn’t --

You sleep all right? her companion asks her.

Yes. But --

We were lucky, huh? Good thing we found this lake. Don’t know what it would have been like camping in the middle of the forest. Nothing in his eyes suggests an acknowledgment of the previous night’s events, or even an indication that anything unusual had happened.

You don’t remember --?

What? Remember what?

Do you know any poems about the heart and spring flowers? she asks him.

Warmed by this question -- he was always the literary expert, she begrudges him that -- he laughs. Hundreds. One of the oldest clichés in the book.

Right, but what about the first time it was used? What if you’re the first person who ever spoke of the heart and spring flowers? Then it wouldn’t be a cliché. It would be new. 

Yeah, he says doubtfully. But it’s been done to death. Too late for us.

For us, she agrees. 

Let’s get back, he smiles. He offers his hand to her, the kindness almost unbearable, and she rubs angrily at her eyes with the sleeve of her coat. 

She doesn’t quite understand at that moment, but later in the evening -- after they have found their way back to their driver, who awaits and welcomes without a word, their hands intertwined as they sit in relieved silence all the way back to the guest house in the old city -- when they are sitting at the marble table in the courtyard, sodium lights dancing on the waters of the outdoor pool, cups of tea blessedly hot in their hands, the both of them laughing about something, she will see a film crew up on the second floor, no doubt filming an installment for an ongoing historical drama, blazing spotlights directed at a corner of a balcony where an actor dressed in ancient costume and a fearsome, protruding beard looks out over the darkened rooftops of tile and brick below, as if he is looking out over an ancient outpost, and she will think that one can easily be fooled into believing that this entire city is a giant set, and that the actor is actually on stage, and yet neither she nor her companion will ever be a part of it, and the thought will serve as comfort as the man in the ancient costume looks down mournfully, and his eyes find hers.