Binu and the Great Wall of China Read online

  Binu ignored the ravings of the pig herder and, with worry written all over her face, led the frog past Sude’s pigs, sighing over her fruitless trip to Banqiao. With Qiliang gone, it seemed that nothing remained!

  Clouds filled the Blue Cloud Prefecture autumn sky. Though weak and fragile, they rolled northward, passing over winding mountain ranges and abandoned groves of mulberry trees. Binu dreamed endlessly of Qiliang coming down the slope of North Mountain. Up in the sky the silvery Weaving Maid, Vega, was pointing the way home to Qiliang. Binu complained to people that she had seen him coming down North Mountain in the morning. ‘So why is he still walking when the sun drops below the mountain at dusk? Why won’t he come down?’ she said.

  Someone answered, ‘You mustn’t think such thoughts. You were having a bad dream. If Qiliang had come down the mountain in the morning, by nightfall his head would be rolling on the ground.’ They told her that all the Blue Cloud Prefecture men who had escaped from their labours in the north and come home had been caught and taken back. Their captors had then dug a huge pit on the other side of the mountain and buried the escaped labourers alive. With all those corpses down there, the people went on, it is likely that the mulberry trees on the back slope will grow tall and lush next year.

  Qiliang had once said to Binu, ‘If you cross those mountains and pass through seven prefectures and eighteen counties, you will reach Great Swallow Mountain.’ But he had never told her how long that would take. As she walked along the riverbank on her way home, she gazed up at the far-off mountains, which appeared to retreat farther and farther into the distance the longer she looked. She wondered why there were so many mountains in Blue Cloud Prefecture, and could not imagine what a place without mountains might look like, what sort of world it might be. Many of the residents of her village had travelled to the plains and returned filled with envious stories of the splendour and richness of those places, whose residents did not, as foretold, have three heads and six arms, but were graced with the good fortune of vast land holdings. Binu had never seen a plain, and the people’s descriptions of such places made her head spin. She was reminded again of the Kindling Village sorceresses’ prediction, that if she did not hire a Blue Cloud horse, she would be struck down by illness and die on the plain. Who would come to bring her home? Would she die in a mulberry field or in an irrigation ditch, or would she die on a heavily travelled public road? Did people who lived on the plain grow mulberry trees? Did they grow gourds? If there were no gourds, there would be no one there to bring them home and, after she died, would she turn into a lonely wandering ghost?

  Binu anxiously made her way home. At the village entrance, she changed direction and led the frog toward the nine mulberry trees. They had been submerged under the flood waters, yet all nine stood there calm and composed, looking as if they’d been planted in a paddy field. ‘You see how fine those nine mulberry trees are? Even after being under water, they’re as good as ever,’ she said to the frog. ‘Those nine trees have fed vast numbers of precious silkworms, but now they belong to someone else.’ She waded through the water up to the largest tree and stood there, pointing to the gourd vines wrapped around the trunk. ‘See that,’ she said to the frog. ‘That is Qiliang and me: one is a mulberry tree, the other a gourd. You are the lucky one, your spirit can go wherever it wants on those frog’s legs. Qiliang and I need a place where we can put down roots together. I’m not sure if mulberry trees grow up north, or gourds, and I wonder if there’s a place where we can settle down.’

  As she stood beneath the tree, Binu took one last look at the limbs and branches of all nine trees; seeing them was like seeing Qiliang. The image of him washing his face early in the morning materialized out of thin air as the sun was setting; though it was autumn, she could see him as if in winter. Though she had not been able to hire a horse, she saw him riding down the slope of North Mountain on a great Blue Cloud horse, wearing the new winter coat she’d taken him. How handsome and valiant he looked! Could there be another Peach Village man dressed as smartly? A blue cotton coat crafted by the seamstress from East Village, brocaded hemp shoes from Hailing Prefecture, and a phoenix-patterned sash that cost half a bushel of rice. The sash had a jade-inlaid hook on which he could hang anything he wanted.

  Binu picked a gourd from the ground around the mulberry tree. Tears flowed from her palms when she did so. The tree and the gourd cried too, wetting her hand. The gourd had been taken from the heart of the mulberry tree, just as Binu had been torn from the heart of Qiliang. The vine was unhappy, the tree was unhappy and the woman was unhappy. But she knew that, whatever her feelings, the gourd had to be picked, for she needed to settle the matter of her reincarnation before she left. The sorceresses of Kindling Village had revealed another strange fate, and the memory of that dark prediction made her tremble with fear. ‘You were once a gourd,’ they cautioned menacingly, ‘so you should not casually leave the safety of your home. People are buried in the ground all over the world, but for you, Binu, no grave awaits. If you die in a foreign land, your ghost will turn back into a gourd, discarded at the side of a road, just waiting for a passerby to pick you up, cut you in half and give one half to this family, the other to that family, both of whom will throw you into a vat and use you as a ladle!’

  Peach Village

  Mud covered the ground in Peach Village, partially obscuring its boundaries. As the flood slowly receded, the unique circular huts of Blue Cloud Prefecture rose out of the water, each looking like half a human head embracing the joy of having survived a disaster. They appeared to be searching tirelessly for their owners, but the inhabitants, afraid of the water, were not ready to leave the temporary residences on the mountain slope to which they had fled. With their many silkworm racks, pottery, farming implements, and a small number of pigs and goats, they darkened the congested incline; exactly what they were waiting for was unclear – even to them – perhaps a total retreat of the water or perhaps just the passage of time. Time was now submerged in the water and would remain so until the water retreated. Only then would time be diverted to the leaves of mulberry trees and the white bodies of silkworms, and the innate rhythms of life would return to Peach Village.

  The people on the slope watched as Binu returned with a gourd in her arms and a frog hopping along behind her. They laughed at the sight. ‘Binu, Binu, why are you carrying that gourd? Where is the horse you hired? And why are you bringing a frog home with you?’

  Binu was used to being mocked by her fellow villagers, but the frog found the malicious attitude intolerable and bounded into a pond to escape. Binu continued to walk home again, alone now. As she passed unperturbed below the slope, lifting up her wet skirts with one hand and clutching the gourd with the other, she felt as if she were passing a grove of stupid mulberry trees. She could sense the biting, venomous glares of the young Peach Village women, who, now that autumn had passed, were no longer friendly and caring. Their men had all gone up north, leaving behind a lonely, empty village, and these women were faced with a cruel and unforgiving world. Binu had become used to living in isolation, and to the way the Peach Village women looked at her with cold, questioning eyes. The husbands of both Jinyi, a mushroom reborn as a woman, and Qiniang, who had come from pot ashes, had been taken the same day as Qiliang, yet these women were unwilling to travel north with her. Possibly, the prediction of the Kindling Village sorceresses had instilled in them a fear of dying on the road while searching for their husbands, and they were afraid of coming back as a mushroom or a pinch of pot ashes. Binu was unafraid. She had picked the last gourd from the mulberry tree and brought it home, intending to find a good spot to bury it and bury herself. Her lack of fear seemed to cast doubt upon Jinyi’s and Qiniang’s chastity and love for their husbands, inciting their wrath. So when Binu passed by Qiniang’s shack, Qiniang came running after her to spit at her; and when Binu passed by Jinyi and smiled, she was rewarded with a spiteful glare and a contemptuous taunt, ‘Who do you think you’re smiling at, ma
dwoman?’

  Binu ignored the hatred directed at her by others, because it was nothing compared with the love she felt for Qiliang. Back home she prepared the gourd for washing. First she removed the lid of the water vat; the ladle was missing. ‘Who took my ladle?’ she shouted.

  ‘The pig herder, Sude, took it,’ someone outside replied. ‘He said that, since you are going to Great Swallow Mountain, he would take your ladle for his own use. He would have an extra ladle for the house down below when he returns in a day or two.’

  ‘In that case, if he’s so smart,’ said Binu, ‘why didn’t he take my water vat too?’

  The person replied, ‘Didn’t you bring a gourd home with you? After you cut it in half and scoop out the insides, you’ll have two more ladles!’

  Binu refrained from revealing what she had in mind for this last gourd. Why should she, since they would only laugh at her, saying: Do you think that burying a gourd will save you? You’ll still die on the road and be unburied! She bent over to check the pumpkins behind the water vat, and discovered that only two of the five remained. ‘Who stole my pumpkins?’ she shouted.

  ‘There’s no need to say it like that,’ the person outside replied. ‘Stolen indeed! You are going to leave, after all. You can’t eat all those pumpkins, and you can’t take them with you, so why not give them away?’

  After calming down, Binu moved the two remaining pumpkins outside. ‘I might as well put them out here myself,’ she said, ‘then you people don’t need to continue being tempted by what belongs to me. Qiliang grew these pumpkins, the plumpest and sweetest in all of Blue Cloud Prefecture. Whoever wants to eat them, go ahead, but remember that they were grown by my Qiliang!’

  After giving away her pumpkins, Binu had knelt on the floor and begun cleaning the gourd when a distant nephew, Xiaozhuo, whose head was covered with scabies, burst in through the door and shouted, ‘What do you think you’re doing, madwoman?’

  ‘I’m cleaning a gourd,’ she said.

  ‘I see that,’ said Xiaozhuo, ‘but you’re supposed to cut it in two and throw the two halves into the water vat to be used as ladles. So why clean it?’

  ‘People have cut up all the other gourds, but this one is mine, and it will not be turned into ladles.’

  ‘What right do you have to let other gourds be cut in two, but not this one?’ Xiaozhuo shouted derisively. ‘Is it the king of all the gourds?’

  Binu said, ‘Xiaozhuo, have you forgotten that I was a gourd in a previous life? Haven’t you heard that I am going to the north and will die on the road? Well, when I die, I do not want to be cut in two to float in other people’s water vats. I must make myself clean and then bury my namesake whole in Peach Village. Once that is done, I can set out with peace of mind and can save Qiliang from worries.’

  Sensibly Binu used the last remaining water in the vat, first to clean her gourd, then to wash Xiaozhuo’s hair. However badly the boy treated her, she was, nonetheless, fond of him. But she could not stand his filthy head, nor its sour stench. When she finished washing his long hair, there was not enough water left for her to wash her own, so she dipped her comb in the little water that remained; but before she had finished combing out her hair, she ran outside, hairpin in her mouth, to see what time it was. The sombre look on her face gave everyone to believe that she was planning something. Later, when her neighbours recalled her final moments in Peach Village, they remarked that her immense calm had been more memorable than her madness. They watched her hair billow out like a black cloud as she led Xiaozhuo up the slope, dripping water along the way. She was still carrying her gourd, the top half covered by a not-quite-new silk handkerchief, a red thread pendant hanging from the bottom half. Seeing the villagers’ disdainful gazes, Xiaozhuo wore a look of sheer embarrassment, but Binu held his hand tightly. ‘Madwoman!’ he shouted. ‘Where are you going to bury that gourd?’

  Binu gazed up at North Mountain, where her mother and father were buried. ‘I would like to bury it next to my mother and father but, since I am married to Qiliang, I belong to him and will not be able to attend to the Jiang family gravesite.’

  ‘Then why gaze up at North Mountain? Let’s bury it in Qiliang’s ancestral tombs.’

  ‘Qiliang is an orphan, like you. But you are better off than he is, because he has no ancestral tomb in Peach Village.’

  ‘So, where will you go?’ cried Xiaozhuo impatiently. ‘Just find a spot anywhere. After all, you’re burying a gourd, not yourself.’

  ‘Burying a gourd,’ said Binu, ‘is the same as burying myself. I need to find a good spot, a place with a tree, so that the vine can climb. It may be all right to suffer above ground, but not below. The terrain on this slope is high and dry, with daily sunlight, but too many people pass by; a wicked person might come along, dig up the gourd and make ladles out of it.’

  ‘Then bury it lower down.’

  Unsure what to do, Binu examined the slope. ‘This is no good either,’ she said. ‘It is where Sude lets his pigs feed, and if one of his rooting pigs were to dig up this gourd, that greedy Sude would take it home.’

  Xiaozhuo’s patience had run out. ‘This place is no good, that place is no good, so forget about burying it,’ he said. ‘Toss it into somebody’s water vat instead.’

  Binu pushed Xiaozhuo away in a fit of pique and walked the slope alone until she reached an old willow tree, where she saw the frog again. Now that Xiaozhuo was seemingly not around, it had returned, hiding timidly under the willow tree, thinking human thoughts. With the arrival of the frog, Binu once again saw the gaunt shape of the drowned mountain woman, dressed in black and wearing her straw hat. The woman was crouched under the willow tree waiting for Binu; the woman’s ghost was waiting for her. Binu was able to see the ghost, because no one knows sorrow better than sorrowful people, and she felt a deep sadness for the mountain woman. Knowing how hard it had been for a blind woman to search alone for her son, Binu had sought a companion to travel north with her. The Peach Village women had avoided Binu and her idea like the plague. Even wild geese fly north and south in flocks, and anyone setting out on a long journey is on the lookout for companions. From summer to autumn Binu had looked in vain without finding a single one. Then along came the frog, which was not her ideal companion, but which she could not drive away because it was intent on travelling with her.

  ‘You are too eager,’ Binu said to the frog. ‘How can I set out before I have buried my gourd? You are a frog, hopping from place to place in search of your son, and you are more fortunate than I am, because when I die I will become a gourd. If I do not bury myself, I will be left at the side of the road waiting for a passerby to find me.’

  The frog kept its vigil beneath the willow tree, listening intently to Binu’s footsteps. Holding the gourd to her bosom, Binu took a turn around the willow tree. Towards the east, she saw a hillside covered with some waterlogged locust trees. Off to the west, she saw higher ground and an old juniper tree, the tips of its high branches ringed with an auspicious sunset. But someone had set loose a small herd of goats to graze there and, even if she drove them away, it was not the right spot; the villagers could find her too easily. ‘Peach Village is so big, why can I not find a place to bury my gourd?’ she cried.

  Finally, she abandoned the search for the ideal burial spot of her imagination and, looking morose, turned her attention to the willow tree. ‘You’ll do,’ she said. ‘You are not a shady tree to which people pray for good fortune, and I am not blessed with wealth and status, so neither of us can afford to be choosy about the other.’ She looked at the locust trees to the east and the old juniper to the west. ‘Let the others have their pines, their cypresses and their locust trees, I don’t care. This willow is the one I want.’

  The young Xiaozhuo had by then climbed the heights of North Mountain to look down at Binu as she performed her solemn, secretive burial rite for the gourd. He had rich experience in burials: he had helped his father bury his grandfather, he had helped his mother bury
his father, and finally he had buried his mother all by himself. Other youngsters would be interested in a gourd burial, but not Xiaozhuo – he had become too used to burying people. Nevertheless, he followed Binu’s progress with keen interest.

  Binu was crouched, busying herself beneath the willow tree, and when she stood up again, the gourd was nowhere to be seen. Cupping his hands around his mouth, Xiaozhuo trumpeted down the mountain, ‘Come and look. Binu has buried herself!’ The words were barely out of his mouth when he choked on a gust of wind, which stopped him from revealing Binu’s secret. It would be the last time he laid eyes on his aunt. Everyone, including him, had heard the prediction by the Kindling Village sorceresses that she was fated to die on the road. Xiaozhuo considered the spot beneath the willow tree a good place and thought Binu’s choice of burial site was the only wise thing she’d done. On the day before she left Peach Village, Binu buried her gourd, and so buried herself in her hometown in advance of her death.

  Bluegrass Ravine

  The mountains around Bluegrass Ravine had been badly eroded by heavy human traffic, until what had once been a steep slope had been flattened out and become almost unrecognizable. The area was densely populated, and each gust of wind carried smells of fried cake and cow manure. It was one of Blue Cloud Prefecture’s border regions. About thirty li away was the legendary Blue Cloud Pass, beyond which lay Pingyang Prefecture, a seemingly boundless expanse of cultivated flatland. People said that the King’s horse-drawn carriages were speeding across that plain on a mysterious southern excursion.

  Binu walked on until she spotted wheeled carts, which were drawn by donkeys and oxen, as the horses had all been consigned up north. Equipped with brass bells, they were harnessed to carts and assembled at the side of the road to wait for heavy loads. There in Bluegrass Ravine, the animals showed their diverse natures: the oxen, taken from dreary fields, loudly snorted confusion, while the donkeys, suddenly highly valued, voiced a kind of heady arrogance.