THE OLD FERRYMAN COULDN’T GUESS WHAT THE OBSTACLE WAS, OR HOW TO FIX IT. HE’D LIE IN BED, MULLING IT OVER UNTIL FINALLY IT BEGAN TO OCCUR TO HIM THAT PERHAPS CUICUI LOVED THE YOUNGER BROTHER, NOT THE ELDER. THAT MADE HIM SMILE, AN UNNATURAL SMILE FROM FEAR. IN TRUTH HE WAS A LITTLE WORRIED, BECAUSE IT SUDDENLY OCCURRED TO HIM THAT CUICUI WAS LIKE HER MOTHER IN EVERY WAY. HE HAD A VAGUE FEELING THAT MOTHER AND DAUGHTER WOULD SHARE THE SAME FATE. EVENTS OF THE PAST SWARMED INTO HIS MIND AND HE COULD NO LONGER SLEEP. HE RAN OUT THE DOOR ALONE, ONTO THE HIGH BLUFFS BY THE CREEK. HE LOOKED UP AT THE STARS AND LISTENED TO THE KATYDIDS AND SOUNDS OF THE OTHER INSECTS, CONSTANT AS RAIN. HE COULD NOT SLEEP FOR A VERY LONG TIME.
She wrote directly overtop of the denunciations on the poster, so that “brother” appeared over “leader,” “vague” over “reactionary,” and “high bluffs” sat overtop “demon-exposing mirror.” Borrowed words over borrowed words, they were all attached to one another now. She turned and saw the soft shapes of paper on the floor. They had been blunted by falling and the words which had looked like joints turned out to have no weight at all. She dropped the red marker on the floor and felt consoled by its sharp clatter and went on, down the hallway until she came to the office that Sparrow shared with Old Wu. The door was closed but unlocked and Zhuli felt lightened as she entered the room. Nobody had ransacked the office. The records and books, few as they were, the portraits of Chairman Mao, Premier Zhou Enlai and Vice-Premier Liu Shaoqi, everything remained neat and ordered, as if they belonged to another time and place. She stared at the portraits and saw her own shadow in the glass. There she was finally, completely visible, the girl and the sky and fate twisted together.
“Sparrow will understand,” she told herself, knowing that it was not true. But maybe he would understand, there was a devil inside her and Zhuli had no choice. She had to protect it. She could not let them restrain it.
She laid some of her cousin’s records on the floor and studied them. My first sentence was “Make revolution.” Mahler’s Fifth, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Prokofiev’s Fifth, Beethoven’s “Emperor.” I took the oath, to dare to think, to speak up, to act. She did not want to hear a violin and so the record she put on was Bach. She wanted to walk slowly, there was no longer any need to rush. Time extended inside Bach, there were repetitions and canons, there were circles and spirals, there were many voices and honest humility as if he knew that reincarnation and loss were inseparable. The music no longer seemed to come from the record player, but from some chamber of her memory. She thought of Kai and then resolved to think of him no more. In her mind, she feared most for Sparrow, because she knew him as well as she knew herself. He would let his talent burn away, he dared not admit that talent was a precious thing. She wanted to tell her mother and father that she had come to a high plateau from where she could see in every direction, and she wasn’t afraid. It wasn’t fear she was walking away from, but discontinuity. She could not stand the loneliness. In this brief window when she still knew who she was, before they broke her down again, she wished to choose a future and to leave. How could she put these thoughts in a note? She wanted to preserve the core of herself. If they took away music, if they broke her hands, who would she be? A note would be taken up by the Red Guards, a note would only cause further humiliation. She had a strong belief that Wen the Dreamer was alive, that Swirl and Big Mother Knife were safe, and a fervent desire that they understand her choice. When she had turned the record over and both sides had finished playing, she took the rope from her coat pocket, removed her shoes, climbed up onto Sparrow’s desk, careful not to disrupt his papers. She attached the rope to a long pipe that ran along the wall. She climbed down and pushed the desk away, keeping the chair where it was. She looped and carefully tied the rope. It was very quiet and she wondered if she should say something, if she should speak and make a noise. Zhuli did not mean to weep but it was beyond her, this body and its responses, this body and its desires. She thought of the hidden library. She opened the lid and looked inside, she saw the ancient instrument on which she had first learned to listen. She thought of Sparrow, how young he was when he had opened the door that let her into this life. Was it possible to walk away, to abandon him and at the same time, to protect him? The first aria of the Goldberg Variations was also its end. Could it be that everything in this life had been written from the beginning? She could not accept this. I am taking this written record with me, she thought. It is mine and I’m the only one who can keep it safe. She let go.
—
Sparrow woke in the dark, aware of the front door opening. It seemed to remain open for a long moment before finally, almost imperceptibly, shutting. Sparrow felt as if he were groping through a dream that still continued, he had to shoulder through it, he had to make it burn away. The dream involved men walking on a frozen river and machetes hacking through the ice. Finally, it broke. He opened his eyes and the shape beside him became the outline of a window. An elongated figure widened into a bookshelf. He reached for the thin cover but it had already fallen away. After a moment he stood up and, careful not to creak the floorboards, went to the room that Zhuli shared with Aunt Swirl. He touched the empty bed.
Zhuli had gone to see the Old Cat.
He did not know how he knew this; he could think of no other reason for Zhuli to break curfew. The bed still seemed warm from his cousin’s body.
In the stickiness of the hot night, his shirt had glued to his back. Sparrow poured water into Zhuli’s basin and washed his face. When he caught sight of his reflection, he was surprised at his thinness. Had he fallen ill, he wondered. Had he lost weeks or months of time? In the glass, he looked as if he were still a young man, almost a student. He pondered his reflection, half expecting it to vanish. Back in his room, he changed his clothes; he pulled one of Da Shan’s red armbands over his left sleeve. The armband would make him invisible. Once more, he ran his hands over his face and looked into the glass. There were voices drifting in through the closed window. Young men, Red Guards it seemed, in the alleyway. Sparrow could hear the detritus of a fire being kicked and smothered. He could smell burning. They were singing, softly, as if they were suddenly concerned about the residents of the laneway and did not wish to wake them. Slowed-down beats of music, dreaming auras of song. A young man’s pure, strong tenor, sliding off the walls of the alleyway. This is the beautiful Motherland / This is the place where I grew up.