The Ancient Ship

“Another member of the Sui clan has died!” The news traveled stealthily through town for several days. At first no one knew who had died, but word slowly leaked out that it was Dahu, who had been sent up to the front. Half the town knew before anyone told Dahu’s family. Word came first from a mine prospecting team. A young worker’s elder brother who had been in Dahu’s team wrote home. Then Technician Li told Sui Buzhao, and the news continued to spread until one day people saw Dahu’s mother carrying a set of her son’s clothing as she ran wailing up and down the street. “My son!” she was crying, “my unmarried, teenage son!…” People stood around gaping at her. Now that she had been notified of her son’s death, she sat down on a rush mat and wept until she lost her voice. A pall settled over the town and did not lift all that afternoon. Even the workers in the noodle factory were silent. After Zhang-Wang closed the Wali Emporium, old men on their way to have a drink turned back and went home. When night fell no one lit lamps; people groped their way through the dark to sit with the old woman as she mourned her loss.

A tiny, three-room hut with incense curling into the air produced the smell of death familiar to all the town’s residents. Several chests were piled up to form a sort of pulpit covered by a mat and a bedsheet. Various bowls and cups vied for space with gray-yellow candles on top. The bowls were mostly filled with glass noodles dyed in a variety of colors, topped with slices of egg-filled pancakes and decorated with lush green cilantro. Behind were photographs of the only person qualified to enjoy the offering. The photos, all of them small, were fitted into a large frame. The one in the middle, in red and yellow, had been taken six months after Dahu left home. Dressed in an army uniform, he struck a handsome, commanding pose, which had drawn the admiration of nearly every girl in town. Under the flickering candlelight, old folks leaned on their canes and bent forward to examine the photo.

At midnight Zhang-Wang came over with a stack of coarse yellow paper and a bundle of incense sticks, which she handed to the old woman, who then told her young son to record the items in pencil. With a solemn look, Zhang-Wang mumbled something before taking a twig from the old woman to draw an oval shape on the ground. She burned the yellow paper in the middle of the oval. Still mumbling, she sprinkled liquor around the flames; a few drops fell on the fire, which leaped up suddenly. The smoke got thicker, making people cough and tear up. Zhang-Wang sat down on the largest rush mat, her eyes downcast, her sleeves and her shoulders drooping. Her dusty neck was slender but strong, and with her chin pressed inward, she began to chant in a low voice like the whir of a spinning wheel. The people around her began to sway to the rhythm of her chants, the range of their movements widening as they went along, as if they had been dumped into a giant washbasin and were being stirred rhythmically. That went on till daybreak; Zhang-Wang never wavered in her chanting, but some of the people fell asleep and slumped to the ground. The old folks held on to their canes with both hands, their heads drooping down between their legs, their purplish mouths hanging slack. Some of them dreamed they were in the old temple listening to monks reciting sutras; they barely managed to escape when the temple caught fire. It was daylight when they finally woke up. The windows were red from the morning sun and the candles had burned down. Zhang-Wang rose from the rush mat to leave but was stopped by the old woman and her son, who held tightly to Zhang-Wang’s sleeve. Mother and son let her go only after she told them what they wanted to hear.

The Sui clan moved to the yard in front of the hut when the sun was high in the sky and set up a rush tent. They placed a vermillion table and chairs inside and set the table with tea servings. It was late in the afternoon when all was ready, and Zhang-Wang brought in five or six strangers with musical instruments; they sat wordlessly at the table. Then, at a silent signal, they picked up their instruments and began to play. And that was the cue for Zhang-Wang to enter the tent, where she sat on a rush mat that was spread out on the ground. The music was indescribably moving; there were people in town who had never heard ancient music like that before, and others who had a vague recollection of hearing it in the past. People streamed over, crowding the tent until latecomers were forced to stand outside. The noodle factory was virtually empty; when Duoduo came over to find his workers, even he was captivated by the music.

The musicians, whose sallow faces were unfamiliar to the townspeople, had exhausted their emotions over a lifetime of playing and now performed their mournful songs with expressions that revealed no emotion. One of them, who seemed not terribly bright, was barely holding on to his instrument and playing nearly inaudible sounds, calm and unhurried. People sat on the ground, their eyes closed as they listened intently, feeling as if they had been transported, trancelike, to a mystical land of wonder. When the musicians stopped to rest and drink a cup of tea, the listeners, near and far, exhaled loudly. At that moment it dawned on someone to ask who had invited this musical group, and they were told that Zhang-Wang had made the arrangements. That surprised no one. A moment later the music started up again and the people once more held their breath and narrowed their eyes. But then a shrill noise cut through the music. All eyes popped open to search out the source. The music stopped.

Someone spotted Gimpy, who had slipped in among the others and was sitting tearfully on the doorsill. He had taken out his flute. Angered by his presence, they told him to leave, but he began to play his flute, undeterred even when someone in the crowd kicked him. Erhuai, the pier guard, walked up with his rifle and threatened to snap the flute in two. But Gimpy held on to it for dear life, rolling on the ground to protect his treasured instrument; finally, he managed to run off.

The musicians played till late into the night, when everyone’s hair was wet with dew; moisture on the stringed instruments altered their sound until they seemed to be sobbing. Then the shrill sound of a flute came on the wind from the floodplain, each note like a knife to the heart. There is nothing quite like the sound of a flute at night, and the full extent of its mystical power was felt by the townspeople that night. The sound was mistaken by some for a woman singing or a man sobbing, boundless joy pierced through with limitless sadness. The tune was as cold as autumn ice, constantly rising and falling like a barrage of arrows in flight. When and why had Gimpy decided to play the flute like that? No one knew. But the music quickly immersed the people in thoughts of their own suffering and their own pleasures. They were reminded of how Dahu had gone down to the river as a boy, naked, to spear fish, and how he had walked around tooting on a green flute he’d fashioned from a green castor bean plant. Once he’d climbed an apricot tree and tasted some of the sap, mistakenly assuming it would be much like one of Zhang-Wang’s sweets. As shrill notes from the flute continued to drift over, the people conjured up an image of Dahu lying on the ground in his tattered uniform, his forehead ashen white, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth. The musicians in the tent began to sigh; one by one, they laid down their instruments and, like everyone else, listened intently to the flute. And so it went until the music stopped as abruptly as it had begun. The sense of disappointment was palpable as people looked around helplessly. Stars hung low in the clear, bright night sky as the dew settled. Erhuai, still carrying his rifle, came running over, stepping on people as he went to clear a passage. Everyone turned to look.

“Fourth Master!” they shouted in unison.

A man in his fifties or sixties walked slowly up a path that had been opened for him, casting glances all around from his glimmering dark eyes. Then he lowered his eyelids and looked only at the ground. His shaved head and beardless face glinted in the starlight. His neck was fleshy, the skin moist and ruddy. Thick around the middle, he stood straight when he walked; his reddish-brown jacket was ringed at the waist by a stiff leather belt. He wore a somber look that day; his eyebrows twitched. And yet his face emanated kindness and gentleness, even with his mouth tightly shut, which both consoled people and filled them with resolve. The clothes he wore were handmade, with close stitching and neatly placed buttons, the sleeves cut to show off his powerful shoulders and upper arms. He had large hips that moved easily as he approached the tent. Not until that moment had anyone noticed that the street director, Luan Chunji, and Party Secretary Li Yuming were behind Fourth Master, who stood at the opening to the tent and coughed softly. The musicians, who sat impassively when they were working, now stood up and bowed, forcing smiles onto their faces. Without a word, Fourth Master signaled for them to sit down. Then he bent slightly at the waist and poured each of the musicians a cup of cold tea before turning and walking over to the hut.

All sounds came to a halt. The old woman grabbed her young son’s hand and rushed up to Fourth Master, taking tiny, rapid steps. She was choked with tears. Fourth Master took her hands in his and held them for several minutes, and as her shoulders slumped and heaved and quaked, she seemed to be getting smaller. She was too grief-stricken to speak for a moment. “Fourth Master,” she managed to say, “what happened to Dahu has upset you! What do I do? How do…I do it? I am fated to suffer, the whole Sui clan is fated to suffer. Fourth Master, this has upset you.” He let go of her hands and walked up to look at Dahu’s photograph, where he picked up a bundle of incense sticks and lit them, then bowed deeply as Zhang-Wang stepped out of the shadows and stood beside him. Her lips were pressed together more tightly than ever; her face looked very old as she glanced at the wrinkles on Fourth Master’s neck. Noticing a leaf on his clothes, she removed it.

Next to enter the hut were Luan Chunji and Li Yuming, who tried to console Dahu’s mother, telling her what a good son he was, the pride of Wali, and urged her not to be too sad; they wanted her to shun superstitions as much as possible. A little of that can’t hurt, they said, but her heroic son deserved something better. Overhearing what they said, Zhang-Wang narrowed her eyes and glared at them, exposing her black teeth. They quickly turned away.

No one else spoke, inside or outside of the hut, for a long while, for the most solemn moment had arrived. People outside could not see what Fourth Master was doing, but they assumed that he was involved in some sort of mourning ritual. The Sino-Vietnam war had seemed alien and distant to them, but now it was linked directly to the town of Wali, right there where they could touch it, as if the fighting had broken out at the foot of the city wall. Cannon fire rocked the town; the iron-colored wall of ancient Donglaizi was spattered with blood. Wali had sent not just one of its sons to fight, but the whole town…Fourth Master emerged from the shack, walking slowly, as always. This time he did not stop at the tent but continued on.

His back rocked slightly as it disappeared into the darkness.

The flute started up again. Regaining their sense of responsibility, the musicians signaled each other with their eyes, and the music recommenced.

Baopu sat in the midst of the crowd, feeling like a man carrying a heavy boulder on his shoulders. He wanted to cry but had no tears to shed. The chilled air cut into him. Finally, wanting to hear no more of the flute or the musicians, he got up and left. When he walked past a haystack, some twenty or thirty feet from the hut, sparks flew out. “Who’s in there?” No response. He bent down to get a better look and saw his uncle, Sui Buzhao, curled up amid the loose straw. And he was not alone: Li Zhichang, Technician Li of the mine prospecting team, and a laborer were in there with him. Baopu edged in and sat down. His uncle, who was leaning to one side, was muttering between drinks he took from a bottle. The younger men were talking, with an occasional interruption from Sui Buzhao. The air grew increasingly cold as Baopu listened to the conversation about the front lines and about Dahu, which was to be expected. But what he heard loudest of all were the sounds of the flute and a constant rumbling. Did it come from the mill or was it the sound of heavy guns? He wasn’t sure. But the distant image of a smiling Dahu took shape in the hazy night air. With the sound of heavy guns to the rear, Dahu waved to him, put on an army cap camouflaged with leaves, and ran off.

Following several months of training, Dahu and his men had driven off to the front. A place like this was particularly hard on soldiers from the north. They would be sent into the fighting in another month, and they seemed anxious to get started. Get it over with early was how they saw it. Dahu was promoted to squad leader during his first month at the front. Dahu, whose name meant “great tiger,” was called “Squad Leader Tiger” by everyone, including Fang Ge, the company commander, who said, “Now we need a Squad Leader Dragon to realize the saying ‘Spirited as a dragon, lively as a tiger.’ ” Dahu told him about a friend named Long—“dragon”—but he was in a different company. Fang Ge took the news with obvious disappointment as he walked along, resting his hand on the back of his squad leader’s neck. He was especially fond of this handsome, clever, yet reserved son of the Luqing River, who had all the qualities of a man who could be relied upon to get the job done.

A few days earlier he had sent Dahu for ammunition for the company. Carts from the other companies had returned empty, while his had rolled in with a full load. “The person in charge of the armory must have been a pretty girl,” Fang Ge teased him. Dahu just smiled. Next he was sent to scare up some prefabricated steel frames for camouflage to supplement the ones they had. Dahu happily took on the assignment, for during his training he’d met a pretty girl named Qiuqiu who lived in a nearby village. At the time she was off making bamboo cages in another village, and he hoped to give her a ride back home while he was on this assignment. Everything went according to plan: he brought back several steel frames and the pretty girl.

The company was planning a banquet for the upcoming May Day celebration, to which the local villagers would be invited. Soon after this special holiday they were to be sent to the front, so it was time for the finest liquor and everyone’s favorite songs. For Dahu it was also a chance to see the girl he’d fallen for. All the time he was singing, drinking, and dancing, he had one thing on his mind, and when he finally managed to see her, he was bursting with desire. The temperament and traits that seemed to exist in all members of the Sui clan were displayed with extraordinary tenacity in Dahu. He was like a man on fire, pulsating with passion. This was further evidence, if anyone needed it, of how members of the clan generated more fervor than anyone, no matter where they went, fervor that nothing and no one could constrain. At the banquet he sang a special song, one the others had not heard before but which everyone in his hometown, young and old, knew by heart. It had come generations before from sailors who had tied up at the Wali pier.

“Clouds often hang on the Kunlun glass. Beating gongs and drums, we set off on a decorated ship. When it reaches Chikan, the ship turns and heads toward Mt. Kunlun. The mountain is truly tall, but with a following wind we pass it quickly. The ship will not put in at Pengheng port but will head straight to Mt. Zhupan, whose peak shines bright. Mountains of bamboo line both east and west. One of the two Luohan islands is shallow, and we reach Longya Gate after passing Baijiao. The man sails for barbarian lands in the South Seas and the Western Ocean; his wife and child burn incense at home. She kneels to pray for a good wind to send him safely to the Western Ocean. The man sets sail for the South Seas and Penghu to sell tortoise shells and turtle boxes. He keeps the good combs for his wife and sells the bad ones. The now finished ship looks newer than new, with a hawser like a dragon’s tail and anchors like a dragon’s claws. It will fetch a thousand pieces of gold in Hong Kong and Macao.”

As Dahu sang along, someone rang a small copper bell as accompaniment.

It was a simple song with few highs and lows, but inexplicably a strange power emanated from it, eerily taking the listeners into a semiconscious state. Everyone was seemingly lost and dazed.

“That’s strange, Dahu,” Fang Ge said. “I’ve never heard such a wonderful song.”

His nose beaded in sweat, Dahu replied shyly, “Have you heard of Wali? Well, everyone there knows it.”

When his comrades told him they’d never heard of the town of Wali, he sat down dejected, as some of the soldiers followed his song with one of their own, “Well Water at the Border Is Clear and Sweet.” But it sounded plain by comparison.

As soon as the singing was finished, the drinking began, with good liquor and plenty of it. Everyone was in a festive mood when one of their superiors came up to toast his men. When that was done, he walked off, and the serious drinking commenced. Fang Ge reminded them that this was International Labor Day and that fighting a war was a form of labor, which meant it was their day to celebrate. The political officer gently corrected him, saying it was their day to celebrate because they were fighting to protect their countrymen’s labors. White foamy liquor filled the glasses, and when one of them broke during a toast, another quickly took its place. One of the men, his neck red from drinking, urged Dahu to sing another Wali song. Dahu ignored him. He could think of nothing but the girl Qiuqiu. A disco song was put on a tape deck, background to the men’s drinking. “Victory is ours!” someone shouted, but for Dahu there was only a buzzing in his ears. Seeing that no one was paying attention to him, he slipped away and headed for the bamboo grove.

Darkness reigned in the dense grove, the bamboo stalks swaying in the night winds, movements that reminded him of Qiuqiu’s lithe figure. He was breathing hard; a sweet warmth rose up in his heart. When he reached a stand of dead bamboo he took five paces to the left and ten paces forward. Then he crouched down and waited, barely able to keep from shouting. After about ten minutes, a breeze bent a nearby stand of bamboo, and when the stalks straightened up again, Qiuqiu stepped into the clearing and wrapped her arms around him. He was trembling. “How can you fight a war like this?” she asked. He just smiled. Their bodies were entwined. “Your hands are so cold,” she said. Then: “Oh, how I’d like to give you a good spanking!” Dahu held his tongue as he placed one hand gently on the nape of her neck and reached under her blouse to touch glossy skin that emanated intense heat. When his hand stopped moving he rested his head on her breast. Ashamed and overjoyed at the same time, she pummeled his back with her fists, but they were little more than love pats. There was no sound from him. Had he fallen asleep? Wind whistled through the bamboo grove and carried with it the sound of distant artillery. The thuds were particularly ominous that night, since when morning came, the wounded would be brought back from the front. Qiuqiu and other village girls had organized a unit to clean the wounded soldiers. She stopped hitting him when the gunfire commenced, and Dahu looked up. “When do you leave?” she asked.

“The day after tomorrow.”

“Scared?”

Dahu shook his head. “A fellow from my hometown, Li Yulong, went up to the front over a month ago.” Someone coughed nearby. The sound so surprised him he was about to remove his hand when a beam of a flashlight hit him in the face. Before he could say a word, the man called out his name; it was a voice he knew—one of the regiment officers. He let go of Qiuqiu and stood at attention.

Dahu spent the rest of that night confined to quarters, since his actions on the eve of their departure for the front were considered a serious offense. Though Fang Ge, his company commander, was fond of him, he was powerless to come to his defense. A company meeting was hastily called the following afternoon, at which the regimental decision was to strip Dahu of his unit command but give him a chance to redeem himself by being assigned to the dagger squad.

Qiuqiu wept at the company campground and refused to leave. Grabbing the company commander by the sleeve, she said tearfully, “He did nothing wrong. What did he do? He’s about to go into battle. Give him back his command, you can do that at least.” Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. Dahu stood off to the side looking at her with cold detachment. “Dahu, it’s all my fault,” she said. “I’m to blame!”

Dahu clenched his teeth and shook his head. “I’ll see you when the fighting’s done, Qiuqiu.” With one last lingering look, he turned and walked away.

As he passed the row of tents Dahu took off his army cap and crumpled it in his hand. His freshly shaved scalp made him look like a teenager. He walked on aimlessly until he found himself in front of the large surgical tent. He heard moans from inside. This was no place to stop, but before he could leave, an army doctor came out and laid a large basin by the tent opening. Dahu went up to it but stepped back and cried out in horror when he saw what was inside—a bent and bloody human leg. He staggered off, his heavy steps reflecting his mood. But he hadn’t gone far before he turned and headed back to camp. It was suddenly important to learn the name of the comrade-in-arms who had lost his leg. It was, the doctor informed him, Li Yulong! Dahu’s legs came out from under him; he buried his face in his hands.

Dahu stepped on the dying sun’s blood-red rays as he made his way back. On the way he encountered armed soldiers escorting prisoners. He glared hatefully at the gaunt, sallow, pitiful enemy soldiers, their lips tightly compressed. How he would have liked to pick up a rifle and put a bullet in each of them. One, he saw, was female. He stood in the fading sunset watching them pass.

Dahu’s unit moved out the following day.

Every day, without fail, Qiuqiu climbed the highest hill in the area, gazing out at puffs of smoke from the big guns. “Dagger squad,” she muttered. “Dahu.” When she shut her eyes she conjured up the image of the bamboo grove and Dahu’s head resting on her breast. But then the number of wounded increased, and her unit was so busy attending to the injured soldiers that she had little time to go out alone. It was hard to look at the soldiers carried back on stretchers, their uniforms soaked in blood, the looks on their faces too horrible to bear. Some were little more than skin and bones, with pale, brittle hair and uniforms shredded almost beyond recognition. Only by actually seeing them would anyone believe that human beings could be reduced to that condition and still be breathing.

The women soon learned that the enemy had sealed off these latest arrivals in the mountains for nearly three weeks, with no food or water. How had they survived? Impossible to say. What could be said was that they had not surrendered. Most were country boys who had been in the army a year or two, joining up directly from the farms for which their fathers had been assigned responsibility. Raised to be frugal and obedient, one day they were tilling a field, the next they were fighting for their country. Supplied with more canned food than they’d ever seen before, they ate with a sense of shame as they thought of their fathers, who were still out working the fields. The girls changed uniforms and cleaned wounds, barely able to keep their hearts from breaking.

Late one afternoon the first wounded members of the dagger squad were carried in. Qiuqiu could not hold a pair of scissors, not even a bandage. She shivered as she went up to look at each man carried in. Her heart sank as she checked one face after another. Finally, she bent over to clean the blood from a dead soldier with the top part of his head missing. She removed his torn, bloody uniform and emptied his pockets. There among his meager possessions was her own hankie…she screamed. People rushed up to her. Her face was buried in her hands, which were shaking uncontrollably, streaking her cheeks with blood that was still dripping through her fingers. She stood like that for a long moment before she was suddenly reminded of something. She let her hands down to search for the serial number on the man’s uniform, her eyes clouded by tears. And then she fainted.

Just before the sun went down, an urgent signal sounded in the mountains. Heavy artillery continued to send sound waves through the air. Thrushes sang in the bamboo grove, as before. The autumn winds had blown to the east of the mountains the day before; today they were blowing back. Night had fallen, immersing everything in its inky darkness.

The sky darkened until Baopu could not see a thing. The thrushes’ songs grew indistinct in the darkness of night. Now the mournful strains of a flute alone held sway.

The young man from the Sui clan who was now sleeping for eternity could hear the flute being played on the bank of the Luqing River, and his soul would follow the familiar tune all the way back to Wali.

After letting his hands fall away from his face, Baopu looked at the people around him. Technician Li of the survey team and Li Zhichang were silent; Baopu’s uncle lay on the straw, dead drunk. Suddenly he began shouting shrilly, but no one could understand a word, though the cadence was of a seagoing melody.

Li Zhichang turned to Technician Li and said hoarsely, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were no more wars? That way people could devote themselves to the study of science.”

Technician Li shook his head. “War is inevitable. The world has never known total peace. A good time is any time people aren’t fighting a world war.”

“Do you think one of those will break out any time in the next few years?” Li Zhichang asked.

Technician Li smiled. “That’s something you’ll have to ask those running the show, the higher up the ladder the better. But there isn’t a person alive who’s willing to give you a guarantee one way or the other. My uncle is a military expert, and I’m always looking for a chance to get him into a debate. It’s great fun. One of our favorite topics is what they call ‘Star Wars.’ ”

Baopu, who was listening in on the conversation, was reminded of the nickname people in town had given Technician Li: Crackpot.

“Last time you went too fast,” Li Zhichang said. “I’d like to know more about those Star Wars. You were saying something about a NATO and a Warsaw Pact. What’s that all about? I mean, like they’re a couple of persimmons, one softer than the other…”

The laborer standing beside Crackpot laughed, but Crackpot cut him off. “I don’t know which persimmon is softer, but those are military blocs. NATO is led by the United States; the Soviet Union leads the Warsaw Pact.”

“I’ve got that,” Li Zhichang said.