To the Lake
Desheng Zong
1. Mayen, a college junior attending school in Nanjing, received a letter from a high school classmate just a few days before leaving campus for home for the summer. The sender of the letter, Miss C, a high school classmate who was currently a college student in Shanghai, enquired whether he was going home for the summer.
�I happened to see your name in the newspaper today,� the girl wrote in the letter. �I could hardly believe my eyes. Is this really the high school mate of mine, I asked myself. How much have you accomplished in so short a time. Our teachers will be very happy when they know about this��
�If you are also planning to go home,� she suggested at near the end of the letter, �We could meet at the Shanghai station and take the same train home.�
The arrival of the letter was rather unexpected, and for a moment he could hardly think of anything about the girl except for a vague image of her in high school. He had almost no contact with Miss C since their years in high school.
As he read the letter over lunch however, some memories of her gradually came back.
His encounter with Miss C was brief and indirect. She was his secondary school classmate for a while. At the time she attended their school her family was passing through the town � they were waiting for the approval of their urban household register for the provincial city. But the approval did not come on anticipated date, and the family stayed on in the small town, for close to two years.
In any case, her short appearance at the school did not go unnoticed. She was an out-going and pretty girl with light skin and curving, sweet-looking eyes, and was the kind of girl who would immediately gain the boys� favor and the other girls� jealousy. He did not remember her having any close friends; he saw her often only with a near-sighted girl with a broad face and short and oily hair. Although none of them would openly admit it, behind the scene all the active boys in the class vied for her favor. He remembered one incident where some boy in the class got hold of the negative of a portrait photo of hers and produced an enlarged copy of it. The 8� by 10� black and white picture was circulated in a small circle of the boys for quite sometime and was the frequent topic of conversations at secret tobacco smoking gatherings.
That was all Mayen could think of her.
He had planned to make a trip to the library after lunch, but as he got up after having finished a short reply note to Miss C the pot of half dead plant on the large desk standing between the four bunk beds somehow caught his attention. He went to the washroom and fetched some water. But instead of emptying the glass after coming back, he ended up standing in front of the window with eyes gazed on a corner of the campus scene, having apparently fallen in a trance-like state.
He had little idea when this strange frame of mind first started, but it had been there even before the letter arrived. Whether he was on the routine trips to the canteen for meals, or to the boiler room for hot water, or standing in queue for the train ticket at the temporary service center the local train station had set up on campus, a joyful and often overwhelming feeling, unfamiliar to him until now, doggedly accompanied him around, much like the bright summer air in the light and moisture-filled void in front of his drowsy eyes. It was a feeling of dissolution: routine activities were transformed into a peculiar, weightless state where walking felt not much different from gliding, the general contours of objects drowned out by their details, and what was within seemed to have merged in one with what was without, with the denizens of the former, the ethereal mental realm getting mixed up with inhabitants of the dazzling light and vibrating air of the summer world.
It always started the same way. The moment he woke up to the roomful of bright morning sunlight and sat up in bed - often with fresh fragmentary images of brightly colored dreams - the moment it would suddenly surge forward from within, like the streams of morning sunlight that were pouring in the window. It would then remain and follow him around the rest of the day. Meanwhile a joyful tune, humming on itself own, kept coming up and continued on of its own accord.
Yet there was no apparent explanation what caused all this. Certainly the fact that the intense period of final exams was over could not have much to do with it, even though he had indeed for a short while experienced a happy feeling of relief after he came out the last of the exams. But that feeling had by now disappeared without a trace. The condition was also unlikely to have much to do with the fact he had secured a train ticket and would soon be heading home. He had always returned home for nearly all of the major holidays in the past two years, but he had never felt like this before.
In the afternoon he made a trip to the small post office just outside the university�s main entrance to mail off his reply to Miss C. It was the beginning of the siesta hour. The air dazzled under the sun, and the warm, slow moving wind felt sticky in the face the moment he stepped outside. The weather was so hot that even the usually loud chirping of the cicadas hiding behind the thick, oily leaves of the tall poplar trees -- which had long shaken off their caterpillar-like flowers and were now a lush green � sounded muffled in the sultry air.
Strangely, neither the heat nor the humidity bothered him. Several times he tried to think about the letter and the high school classmate who had sent it, but each time the train of thought got lost in the peculiar mixture of strange excitement that seemed to flow continuously all over his body and the floods of sensations that were coming in the weightless realm of broad light.
Summer had never felt this fresh and curiously exciting before, and he wondered what it would be like traveling on a train for two days with a girl he knew very little about.
2. It was noon when the Nanjing-Shanghai train arrived in Shanghai. Following Miss C�s instruction, he immediately started to look for the spot she had described for him in the letter once he came out the train station. It did not take him long to find it. With his dark gray traveler�s bag placed on the ground of cement blocks he began to look for Miss C, confident that it would not be long before her face showed up among the streams of people passing by him.
Shanghai Train Station had not changed much since his first visit two years ago on his way to the university. On the streets just outside the low and humble-looking station buildings was the familiar sight of two-car trolleys with red stripes painted on a background of white or milky yellow. The only major difference seemed to be the number of travelers; it had definitely increased during that short period of time. Wherever one turned one saw travelers in invariantly gray clothes, aimlessly dragging their universally dull colored synthetic bags, which often featured a picture of a zooming plane and an equally whooshing word �AIR TRAVEL�. Spots where there was less foot traffic, such as building corners, ornamental flower terraces, had been occupied and often turned into sleeping grounds by weary-looking travelers.
All this was part of what fell in his eyes on this day which he however failed to see. The summer sun and the hot wind excited his senses and kept the strangely carefree and joyful state of mind going just as they did back on campus in the past few days.
But an hour past, and then another, and still there was no sight of Miss C. After about three hours of waiting � during which a sorry-looking middle-aged woman with folded hands sticking in her jacket sleeves came up to him for small changes; �lost the wallet and need fifty cents to send home a telegram� -- he figured he had better go get his transfer ticket for the night�s train. In doing so he knew he ran the risk of missing Miss C should she show up in his absence, but he knew he could not afford to delay that any longer; missing the train would mean twenty-four more hours at the station.
With some regret he walked across the square strewn with piles of shabby luggage and crowds of people. By the time he reached the crowded ticket center he had already had in mind a draft of the telegram he was planning to send home; it was one that would cost him only $1.24; it read: �80th; arriving Friday.�
3. When he woke up from a catnap at sunrise the next morning the train had just stopped for water at a station. In the drowsiness he could hear the sharp echoes of a few train whistles; there were also the clear sound of hard objects knocking on metals coming from under the train.
It occurred to him only then that more than six hours had passed since the train left the Shanghai station. Yet he could remember very little about the events of the day before; he could not even recall how he spent the remaining afternoon and the evening, or how he boarded the train at midnight.
He got up and headed to the end of the car. The train was full, and there were even passengers standing in the aisles, but there was water on the tap. He felt much better after a simple wash with the refreshingly cold water.
As he got back in his seat he took a quick survey of the corner of the car where he had been sitting. Sharing a bench with him was a middle-aged, professional-looking woman in unassuming clothes of plain color; a few strains of gray were already visible in her neatly combed hair. Sitting on the opposite, there was a young girl and a mother with a preschool age boy. The girl, who still had her eyes closed and her head leaned against the back of the bench, was about eighteen or nineteen of age. She had very light skin, a thin and elongated face, long eyelashes sticking out from under the closed eyes, and a funny little nose. Her thin and supple hair of light brown was cut short along the ear line, but a few strands of the hair by the temples and the forehead were in disarray.
He remembered seeing the middle-aged professional-looking woman the night before but had no memory of the others sitting on the other side of the tray table. Either he did not notice them at the Shanghai station, or they must have boarded the train during the drowsy hours of early morning.
As the train started to move after having taken water at the station, the conductor warned the passengers as she was walking by that this would be the last stop they could get water for doing their morning toilet.
Hearing this, the girl struggled a bit to open her eyes, hurriedly got up and headed toward the connection between the cars to wash.
By the time everyone had done their morning wash the sun was already up above the treetops and the light was pouring in from the windows on the east side of the car. The service cart soon appeared and one could smell the strong greasy smell of noodles. The train was full and many had started to smoke; and even though most passengers had left the windows open after the breakfast the strong smell of noodles mixed with tobacco lingered on. Meanwhile, the train�s morning broadcasting had also begun, but it was mostly ignored as the noise of the train and the crowded condition had made it almost inaudible.
As the morning went on the condition of the train got worse. It appeared that there were more passengers got on the train at every stop than there were off. The situation in the small corner where he was had also suffered from the crowdedness. He now sat next to the window with one side of his body leaned closely against the wall; and there was little legroom. The girl sitting in oppose was in an almost identical situation.
He did not remember when he and the girl first started to speak to each other, but it most likely started after he had returned from a difficult journey to the boiler room in the front part of the train. On that occasion he slipped out of the window onto the platform when the train stopped at a station, ran all the way to the boiler room, returned and slipped back in the car from the window. The result was two mugs of boiled water, one for the middle-aged fellow passenger and one for himself.
�Could you tell me where you got the water?� the girl asked.
�The boiler room between the fifth and the sixth car,� he said. �Way in the front. Would you like some too?�
�Yes, I would,� the girl said, �Could you help me?�
She reached for her mug and started to clean out the brush and toothpaste that were in it. But it was too late; the train had started to move.
�Perhaps at the next stop,� he said.
�I�m in no hurry,� the girl said. �I can wait.�
�Are you going home for the summer?� asked the girl in a matter-of-fact tone.
�Yes,� he answered, a bit puzzled by the question as well as the tone, and did not immediately know how to answer her.
�I have a cousin who is also a college student,� she said. �He had just returned home for the summer a day before I left.�
That did not fully explain her judgment about his identity, but it at least provided a clue about where her remark was coming from.
�Are you riding the train long distance?� he asked.
�The final stop of the train,� she said quickly without thinking.
As if there was something in what she just said that bothered her, she promptly changed her story. Hesitating a bit, she added: �My sister has always warned me not to tell strangers about one�s destination, but I guess it�s ok to tell you that, since you are a college student. � I�m on my way to Guiling to join my sister.�
The sudden changes of her attitude and her apparent trust in him brought a stream of warmth as well as a strange sense of awe in him.
�Don�t remember seeing you at Shanghai,� he said.
�I got on the train at Jinghua,� she explained. �Mother, an uncle and I arrived there only yesterday; and they had returned to Wen Chou after seeing me off this morning.�
So she was from Wen Chou, and did not board the train until sometime after four in the morning. That explained why he had no memory of seeing her at the Shanghai station. There were commotions on several occasions during the night, but he was too sleepy to notice anything.
Since she had told him her destination, she wondered if he knew when the train would be passing by Guiling.
He looked at his watch. It was exactly ten in the morning, and the train was scheduled to arrive at the Guiling station at 12:00pm that night. That meant she would be riding the train for more than twelve hours.
�Twelve hours!� she exclaimed. �I�ve never taken a train ride that long.�
After the initial conversation the two did not speak to each other for some time. With his head slightly raised and his eyes narrowed he was enjoying the rough caress of the strong streams of wind that were coming in the window, and Miss Wen Chou had leaned back with her eyes closed, perhaps trying to catch some missed sleep.
4. The weather got hotter as the train traveled farther south, and the gradual increase of humidity in the air was also causing discomfort. The water supply on the train had run dry for quite sometime. At every major stop passengers struggled to get off the train and ran as fast as they could to the nearest water taps to get a cold wash.
On one occasion he and Miss Wen Chou both went to cool off at the water taps near the main station building when the train stopped. After refreshing themselves with a towel of cool water the two loitered on the platform near their car.
�Do you always ride this train when you go home?� she asked, standing about several feet away from him with two feet put close together. It was at that time that he first noticed that she wore a light colored shirt with tiny flowery designs and had buttons all tied except for the last one just beneath the neck; her thin face looked rosy after the wash and some loose hair hung on the part of her cheeks just under the ears. Her voice was often drowned in the loud noise from the station loud speakers and the rumbling engines on the tracks nearby.
�Yes,� he said. �I�ll have taken this train five times plus this trip.�
�This is my first time,� said she as her face broke into a coy smile, showing two shallow dimples in the cheeks and two small rows of white teeth. �Sister had traveled this route many times. She is in Guiling right now, and will be at the train station to meet me when the train gets there.�
She seemed to have forgotten that she had told him just that morning that she was on her way to join her sister in Guiling. It also came to his attention that every time she used the word �sister�, her tone showed a subtle change, giving one the impression that the sister was more of a mother figure to her than just an older sibling.
�What does she do there?� he asked.
�Sister runs a souvenir stall,� she explained. �This trip is to delivery her a supply of goods.�
At that moment they heard a loud whistle coming from the head of the train, and the conductor started to tell passengers still on the platform to return to the car immediately.
�To be able to go to college is a good thing,� she said after they had returned to their seats. �I�m very envious of you. You are lucky. Do you know that not everyone can go to college?�
She spoke the last sentence in a tone of a teacher addressing her student.
He nodded in agreement.
But just as unexpectedly, the tone of adult seriousness disappeared and she sighed: �I had hoped that I would be able to go to college. But mother had kept telling me that the family was short of hand, and that Sister and everyone else in the family always had so much to do, that I must do whatever I could to help them. So in the end, when I graduated from high school two years ago, I stayed home.�
She then turned and looked at him with a sympathetic look, as if she had just found someone who shared with her a common fate.
�You see,� said she in a tone of despair, �We are young people; and if you are a young person, then you are not independent, and then there are many things that you are just unable to do. Besides, young people like you and me have very little money. We are very poor. Do you agree with me?�
He nodded his head several times.
�Did I tell you that I have an uncle who lives in Swaziland?� she said after a while, and leaned her head slightly toward him.
He shook his head. Perhaps due to excess exposure to the strong wind, he felt a faint headache and slight dizziness; her voice sounded to him like something coming from afar, as if in a dream.
�He is an uncle on my mother�s side,� she continued. �And a well-known scientist. You are a college student so you probably have heard of his name. In any case, he is a Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry. He is really famous. He and mother have not met for many years.�
She was saying all this with little hesitation, as if she was relating some old family tales.
After she had finished telling him about her uncle, she changed her voice and started to speak in a grave tone, as if she was summarizing the moral of what she had just told him. �Knowledge is really very important, and our country needs lots and lots of young people with knowledge, don�t you think?�
Again he nodded. Strangely, although he thought he had listened closely to her, still a lot of what she said missed him. He was particularly feeling somewhat lost as she told the story about her uncle. For a while he thought she was talking about someone living in America, or perhaps New Zealand. Another moment he thought she was telling him something about some remote uncle who was coming to visit her mother very soon. His peculiar frame of mind seemed to have gotten worse on that day, for he seemed to have no problem understanding the individual words of what others were saying, but for some reason could not get the tenor of their stories.
5. As the train was slowly pulling in a major stop late in the afternoon a small commotion broke out. An armed train guard passed through their car in a hurry, pushing aside rather rudely those who did not get out of his way in time.
�What�s happened?� some startled passengers asked.
�They are trying to catch a thief,� someone answered. �A small gang boarded the train at the previous stop and one of them took a passenger�s luggage.�
Hearing that, both he and Miss Wen Chou subconsciously took a glance at the luggage rack. He noticed that his dark colored traveler�s bag was absent from the overhead rack; it had been in that spot since he boarded the train at Shanghai station. He became concerned.
�Could you have put it under your seat?� asked Miss Wen Chou.
�No, I don�t think so,� said he, but took a look under the seat nonetheless.
�There was a young man standing here a while ago,� a passenger remarked. �He just got off the train a moment ago.�
The armed train security person happened to be passing through their car for the second time. Mayen immediately told the man what he believed might have happened.
�Come with me,� the guard gave a hard grab on his shoulder. �Quick. We might still have time.�
�You could miss the train!� said Miss Wen Chou in a worried tone, realizing what he was doing.
�We must be quick,� said the train security. �No time to lose.�
The standing passengers stepped aside so the two could pass.
The two hurriedly made their way toward the end of the passenger car, and, once off the train, they ran toward one of the station turnstiles marked �exit�. The turnstile keeper saw the armed guard and understood that something had happened. He let them out without stopping them.
A large, near-empty square lay outside the station building in the drowsy afternoon sun.
�Do you see anyone that looks familiar?� ask the train guard as he surveyed the square.
�I�m not sure,� said Mayen, feeling strangely excited. There were a few passengers walking toward the other end of the square, but none fit the description the fellow passenger had given him.
�Then we�ll have to just go back,� the guard said. �Our train is leaving any moment.�
Actually the train was already starting to move. Luckily the conductor of the nearest car recognized the guard and opened the door for them. The two made a run and jumped on the train. When he was running he saw Miss Wen Chou waving to them in an anxious way a few cars down, her head sticking out of the window.
Mayen tried to thank the guard, but instead of listening to him the guard gave him a lesson on safe travel.
It took him a while to get back to the car. As he was getting near their seats he saw Miss Wen Chou. She was on her feet and looking anxiously his way. When she spotted him her face lit up.
�Thank Heaven you�re back,� she said excitedly. �I saw you and the train security guard coming back in the station when the train started to move, and my heart sank! I thought you would definitely miss the train...�
It turned out that, like him, this little episode had got her excited; her face was red, the pupil of her eyes were enlarged, and the wins on her tiny nose making short and quick flapping motions, as if she had just run with him.
�Now you�ve lost your bag,� she said. �What are you going to do?�
�There were a few books that belonged to the college�s library,� he tried to recall what he had in the bag. �Other than that, there does not seem to be any valuable things��
The hours after that incident were peaceful. The train was traveling in a province known for its forest resources. The green sceneries outside were pleasant to the eye and had a soothing effect on the mind, which was just what the exhausted passengers needed.
For a while the train stopped at an obscure station, perhaps to shun another train. While looking at the vegetations on the hillsides she pointed at a tree with large and round leaves and asked if he knew what it was.
He did not know.
�That�s a tung tree;� she said. �The tree is poisonous; you could die if you eat the fruit.�
She pointed at another tree that had canopy like foliage. �That one is a camphor tree; earlier on we passed through a city called �City of Camphor Tree�, do you remember?�
She seemed to know a lot about trees. Later on, when the train started to move again, she pointed at a shrub with small and partly red leaves.
�Back home we call that �shrub of chastity�,� said Miss Wen Chou.
He had heard that name before, and was also aware that it was an ingredient in traditional Chinese herb medicine, but he did not know it was a shrub and had little idea it also grew in these wild hills.
The sighting of the shrub triggered a lecture by Miss Wen Chou about chastity and other female virtues.
�Do you know why the plant is called �shrub of chastity�?� Miss Wen Chou asked, and did not continue until she saw him shake his head. �Because it symbolizes a woman�s virtue. To a girl, virginity is the most important virtue. She has to have self-respect, must not do demeaning and un-lady-like things��
Though he listened with eyes open and would nod his head from time to time, his mind was in a confused state. At one point her use of many words of virtue imbued a peculiar sense of awe in him, but he had little idea why this was so. In any case, the strange feeling got mixed with the foggy state of mind, and soon sent him into a daydream-like state.
6. Sometime near midnight, the train conductor walked by and announced the name of the upcoming stop. The train was approaching the city of Guiling.
Hearing this, both Mayen and Miss Wen Chou jumped to their feet. The time had come for her to get ready. Stepping on the seat he helped Miss Wen Chou retrieve her luggage. He had thought she had only light luggage, but it turned out that she had with her three pieces: two big bulging bags on the overhead luggage rack and one squeezed under her seat. After retrieving them he placed two of the bags on the floor next to her seat, and put the third one in a corner of her seat at her request.
She was excited; her eyes were glaring and her face beaming.
�In a little while,� she spoke after the two had returned to their seats. �When the train arrives at the station, I will first go look for my sister; once I find her I will come to the window to get the bags.�
�Not a problem,� he said. �I�ll just hand them to you from the window.�
�You are so kind,� she said. �It�s been very nice having you as a travel companion,�
�I feel the same way too,� he said.
Rays of light started to flash into the car. The two took a glance at the window. It appeared the train was already in the vicinity of the city.
She turned slightly toward the bag by her side, unzipped it, and started to grope in it.
�Here is a small gift from me,� she said, and handed him a small object. It was a pair of sunglasses. �Sister sells these in Guiling. It�s a small thing, but please take it.�
He accepted and held it in one hand. It was a pair of homemade sunglasses with rough edges and polished with inexpensive glaze; on one of the legs of the frame was a shakily glued on tag, but the English trademark on it was misspelled.
�Thanks for the gift,� he blushed, apparently did not expect something like this and was moved by her thoughtfulness. �It�s very nice of you to give me these; � too bad I do not have anything to give to you at the moment.�
They both laughed; they thought of the incident during the day.
�At least I still have my tooth brush and the towel,� he said, pointing at the small deck just beneath the table. They laughed again.
When the train slowly moved in Guiling station it was close to midnight. The train had been running on schedule for the past several hours.
While Miss Wen Chou made her way to the door with other passengers who were getting off at the stop he pushed up the window and stuck out his head to see. The platform was lit by multiple orange colored lights whose flickering beams made the scene fuzzy; there also appeared to be a lot of noise and quite a few people were running hurriedly up and down the platform with their heads raised high, as if they were looking for something.
Three figures showed up at the window. Their sudden appearance gave him a startle. But he immediately recognized the familiar face of Miss Wen Chou. She looked slim and short comparing to the woman and the man by her sides.
�This is my sister,� said Miss Wen Chou to Mayen as she came under the window, with her still very childish face raised upward; her eyes glittered in the dim light.
�Thanks for your kindness to Shao Mao on the trip,� the sister shook hands with him. He noticed the rough callous in her palm. This was also the first time he learned about Miss Wen Chou�s real name.
�Glad to meet you,� he said to the woman as he started to pass the bags out the window.
As the two adults handled the bags Miss Wen Chou came up and reached out to shake hands with him. Her small hands were soft and warm.
�My best wishes to you for the rest of your journey,� she said.
�I wish you a happy stay with your sister,� said Mayen
She turned and joined her relatives. The three quickly exchanged a few words amongst themselves before making their way toward the exit.
7. It had been a week since he arrived home. Summer was now in full swing. In the strong sunlight the air seemed to vibrate, and a strong smell of sunburned grassy green permeated the air.
For a brief period after returning home he seemed to have forgotten about the things that were still fresh on his mind not long ago: his receiving the letter from the high school classmate who did not show up, the peculiar state of mind he was in upon leaving campus and all through the train journey, and lastly, his brief encounter with the girl from Wen Chou. He received high school pals who came to visit him, paid his friends visits in return at their homes and sometimes at their workplaces. He roamed the slopes of the hills in the back of the town where lush undergrowth with striking yellow and purple colors thrived. In the evening on a few occasions he even ventured into the narrow streets of the old quarters of the town, and at one point even dropped in a teahouse and spent the evening watching a drama called �Little Shepherd�.
But one afternoon, as he lay under the strong sun after a walk on the grassy slopes of the hills dotted with groves of pine trees and several large century plants, memories of the girl from Wen Chou rushed back to his mind, together � rather surprisingly -- with a lot of other hereto deeply buried images and memories of things past, many of which dated back to times long ago.
The images and memories, joined by an ineffable kind of anguish and longing, formed a sudden, strong, but intangible stream that ran silently on and on inside. The stream�s strong torrents carried him along, tore the inside of him into pieces just as a real mountain summer stream would of everything in its path.
The invisible flow was not always there, but it always came and disappeared the same way. For brief periodes of his waking hours everything would seem to be going just fine; he could go about the daily routine without the slightest symptom of anything unusual, as if the stream had completely disappeared, no more, never to appear; as if it had never been there and would never be.
And then, often without any warning, the still, tranquil and yet continuous stream would suddenly appear; and once it appeared, it would run and run, like a river flowing within, deep, non-stopping, and carry his whole being with it till the end of the world.
There were foreboding signs of its coming as well. A slight feeling of nausea at first, this then followed by a churning feeling in the chest that became stronger as the minute went by. The stirring and churning feelings would eventually become so strong he had to lower his head and remain in that posture, as if to prevent the flow from completely sweeping him away.
For the first time in his life he found it almost impossible to stay indoors. Rooms seemed to get quickly filled up and leave little air for breathing. Even the hills in the back of the town eventually became too small a world for him. So when LJ, a high school classmate who was on the local cinema�s mobile film unit asked if he would like to join him on his evening show tours to the villages, Mayen immediately accepted the invitation.
LJ joined the army upon graduating from high school. When the war with Vietnam broke out, he was sent to the frontline and spent several weeks in that country. He retired from the army after the war ended and got his current job.
He learned all this on his first visit to LJ, who lived in one of the two small attics on the stage in the cinema�s main auditorium. The walls of LJ�s apartment were decorated with all sorts of war souvenirs. Among other things, there were pictures of LJ in army uniforms, pictures of LJ with a white turban tied around the head and a farmer�s black jacket on the shoulders, just like the militiamen in the movie Tunnel Warfare, and pictures of LJ with various kinds of firearms. Finally, there was a picture of LJ after he was slightly wounded in battle � a stout, short-necked young man with a simple smile on his broad face and one arm wrapped in bandage hanging on brace. He had his head bare in this picture. This was the image of LJ that he had remembered from the high school years.
As a member of the mobile unit LJ�s schedule was quite simple. In the afternoons he worked in the movie theatre�s technology room where he rewound the reels needed for the night�s shows, and in the evenings he went to the show sites. In most cases the village where the show would be that night would send a horse cart to pick up the heavy equipments during the day, so that all LJ needed to do when the time came was simply ride to the village on his company bike.
Although he sometimes would stop by during the day to have a chat with LJ while the latter was working on the old manual rewinder, most times he came just before LJ was about to leave for the day�s work site.
The ride was not always easy. The mobile unit served the villages and mining sites in the five-kilo radius of the town. If it had rained recently, riding a bike on the treacherous country roads could be a pain. The return trips were also risky, especially on night when there was no moon. The scene on the work site was also invariantly the same. The village ground was always a noisy place before the movie started. Children ran about, women chattered among themselves over stitching works, while crows that perched on nearby scholar trees cawed.
But all this was gone instantly the moment LJ turned off the work light and started the projector. The gentle and continuous rattle of the projector was the only thing left of this world of the mundane. Like the others in the audience, on these occasions Mayen also often had his eyes on the screen. But rarely, if ever was he aware of what was going on in the movie. As the show started in the darkness and silence under the open night sky, the mind would start to roam and the soul rise - over the flicking beams of light coming out of the projector, over the scores of motionless villagers, and over the tall wall on which the screen was hung before dissolving itself into the vast, starry sky.
Images of Miss Wen Chou often came up during these hours in the dark, but they had lost their earlier sharpness; nonetheless they lingered, and often fused with other fleeing fantasies of the mind, until they got perpetually lost into the vast and open night universe.
On quite a few occasions on their return from work sites they were caught by storms. Torrential rains poured down on the plain, turning it into a sea of whitish mist, and the dirt roads often disappeared from sight under fast running water.
Joys filled his restless heart on these turbulent occasions; it was something he had not experienced for a long time, perhaps since childhood. As the downpour continued and streams ran down his head and face, a great urge to break something open filled his entire body. He screamed, howled, and sang loudly, often with LJ joining him.
Some middle school friends came looking for him. The boys were on their way to bird hunting by the lake. They came on bikes with small caliber hunting rifles on their shoulders and cigarettes stuck on the back of their ears.
The season was in full swing. The air was clear as water and the bright summer daylight left nothing in the broad world untouched. The lake, which lay in the far distance between two ranges of mountains that resembled two parti-colored brushes on a painter�s canvas, looked like a motionless picture hanging in the remote eastern corner of the horizon.
The group headed toward the lake. The boys were talking loudly almost non-stop, but little of what they were saying came in his ears. Sinking deep in his latest delirium state of mind on that summer day, even the boys standing in front of him felt unreal. The boys� deeply suntanned skin, the noisy conversations they carried on, and the barrels of the long rifles that glittered in the sun, all this had become mixed with the vibrating air that dazzled in front of his eyes. Like the bits of white clouds in the blue sky, the tiny figures of the eucalyptus trees in the far distance, and the silent noise in the universe, they were all parts and bits of what went in to make this one whole thing called summer.
The heavy torrents within often slowed him down, and the distance between him and the other boys was increasing, so much so that the boys had to constantly call out at him. The boys also called every time they had made a kill so that he could see what they had got. But on this day their excited calls under the open sky invariably fell silent in the vast field, like the birds that came down after being hit.
At a shallow water crossing one of the boys shot down a bird; it dove down in his direction and fell noiselessly on the ground a few feet from him. He ran to the bird.
It was a large seagull with orange beak, orange feet and grayish white feathers on the wings. He got down and held the bird with both his hands. The feathers felt sleek in the hand. He could feel the spasms in the bird�s body; a small stream of blood was coming out of the wound.
The poor thing, its feathers so white, and the fresh blood only made them whiter; it�s so pure, so defenseless, so innocent and so graceful, even when it was dying. Yet, curiously, like someone whose heart�s feelings had no contact with his observational capacities, he looked at the same time at the bird with the indifferent eye of a three-year-old, coldly watching it flap, strike the last few struggles, and die in his hands.
He could hear the other boys calling him. They were on the move again.
He put down the bird and ran toward his bicycle.
The blue lake with the pin-sized, motionless white sails of fishing vessels pinned on it seemed to be ever receding under the sunlight-filled open sky. If someone were to tell him on that day that they would never make it to the lake, he would have believed him. But then it would not have mattered a bit to him whether they could make to it or not, for on this day his heart, nay, his whole being was on wings on a journey to becoming a perpetual part of the world of light blue at the end of the sky.
* The End *
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