Under Fishbone Clouds Read online

  Following Jinyi and Yuying on their travels, I was reminded of another journey made by pimple-speckled young men and women over a decade earlier. After brief periods of coexistence, the Kuomintang, led by Chang Kai-shek, had begun a series of purges in an attempt to destroy the Communists. By 1933, around half a million Kuomintang surrounded the city of Jiangxi, one of the last strongholds of the Communists, aiming to stop the vital flow of trade and force them to surrender in a war of attrition. At the end of the next year, the weakened and starving Communist forces, sick of the humiliating failure of their attempts to attack the surrounding army, had little choice but to mount a full-scale retreat towards Hunan, leaving Jiangxi to the sieges of the Kuomintang. That was the beginning of what became known as the Long March.

  And because they could not take bodies with them, instead of leaving them lying in fields, they slid their friends beneath the water, then waded through themselves, as the corpses bobbed downstream. The water stopped at the tops of their stomachs, their chests, and they were thankful for that. Time to pick up pace. They too avoided the roads, ploughing instead through forgotten villages where there was no difference between electricity and magic, for both were the stuff of legends. Coughing fits, gangrene, exhaustion, trench-foot, babies abandoned in fields (their cries would give the troops away), landmines, dodgy amputations carried out by people with little to no medical training, shrapnel, barbed-wire gashes, traitors turning in the soldiers for a pocketful of change, flu, measles, heart attacks, heatstroke, leeches, fleas, worms, pneumonia, malaria, frostbite, diarrhoea, dehydration and too many other dangers to mention. This was the red army: bloody, battered and unrepentant.

  From October 1934 to October 1935 they retreated across the country, always moving west and north. They were walking backwards into the future: a few ragged mules, single-file on mountain tracks, and men with typewriters and bone-bending munitions balanced on their backs.

  That is where knowledge receded into the plains. They might have been tempted to believe that history had ended, that each day was a repetition of the one before, with one crucial difference: each day fewer and fewer of them made it to the camps, barns, caves, forests or safe havens before darkness distorted their line of vision and drew in their borders. Trees transformed into soldiers at night, their branches machetes, guns, the glinting edge of a bayonet. They avoided lighting fires, and instead lined themselves close for warmth, lain out top-to-toe like the dead, limb pressed close to clammy limb, shivering through the sleepless nights.

  Against all odds, they picked up more peasants as they went – these men would later say that they joined because of firm belief in the Communist ideal, though historians have argued over how many were actually kidnapped, blackmailed or lured by female officers with offers of sex that never materialised. They bit their tongues through nettle patches. Some of them did not even know why they were fleeing. It was not only the Kuomintang, but the Communists themselves, under Mao’s direction, who carried out purges of their number. Who, they must have wondered, could they trust? Their throats were raw just from breathing in. Tens of thousands deserted, and disappeared from history.

  Then, in 1935, they changed tactics. They broke up into smaller units which were harder to find, and moved in twisting, unpredictable patterns, like the flick of a dragon’s tail. Towards Shaanxi, to regroup with other troops and begin the war afresh.

  Fourteen years later, at the end of the civil war, their fortunes had swung full circle, and it was then the Kuomintang who were forced to beat a lightning retreat to Taiwan, laying fields of mines and setting fire to prison camps with prisoners still inside as they went (incidentally, taking all of China’s gold reserves with them).

  And if it does not seem possible to see between the myths, the heroes, the propaganda, the hindsight and the tall tales, then do not panic: this is the way the house of history is built, and you are already locked inside. The door has no key, and what you thought windows are simply finely drawn pictures, blurred from the touch of too many fingers.

  ‘So what are we going to do?’ Yuying tried not to let her voice betray her tiredness.

  They had stopped, as high as the trail took them around a series of hills that rubbed together like hunched shoulders in a crowded train carriage. Above them, cranes soared towards the distance. The last village, where they had spent a night amid hooded ploughs and ox tethers in a barnyard loft, was almost eight hours behind them. She will know it, Jinyi thought to himself; even if I only think of giving up, she will know it. She will be able to sense my confusion. Ahead they could see nothing but the thinning of the mountain range and perhaps, if they squinted, the glint of the river they had been using to locate themselves.

  Jinyi thought for a moment as the two of them leaned together, catching their breath. ‘We’ll have to find somewhere to camp down for the night.’

  She looked at him. ‘There’s no other choice?’

  ‘Don’t worry. We’ll find somewhere sheltered, soon, before it gets dark, then find some wood and start a fire. Should be fine. We’ve still got enough food in the bags for a picnic. We’ll get a bit of water from one of these mountain streams, and boil it up on the fire. It’ll be good for us.’

  Wawa coughed up a mouthful of sick, thought about wailing but decided against it, and instead nuzzled into his mother’s damp clothes.

  As the trail started down again the grass was darker, stunted and foot-worn where it wound between the chalk and stone. Yuying walked behind Jinyi, one hand on his shoulder, the other clutching the baby knotted in a sash against her chest. The sun hung above them like a vulture on the watch for carrion.

  When she was a girl, Yuying had occasionally been allowed to accompany her father on little business trips. It was brief phase and could not have lasted more than a year, and yet it seemed to swell and fill the memory of her childhood. She had spent afternoons sitting at restaurant tables, waiters competing to entertain her with small magic tricks and flattering fortune-telling while her father discussed things she did not care about with other middle-aged men. Each time they left a restaurant, her father would set her before one of the twin Fu Lions which guarded the entrances, stopping her each time she tried to reach for the rattling stone globe trapped between the beast’s stone teeth. ‘Listen,’ he would whisper conspiratorially, ‘I share the lion’s eyes’. And she would look between them and note the similarity of the huge dark irises. ‘So, even if you can’t see me, I will always be able to see you,’ her father would continue. ‘If you can see a Fu Lion, then I am never far away, so you will never need to feel scared.’ Yet there were no Fu Lions on the hilly passes or within the forests, Yuying thought as they continued walking; only wailing wolves and jittery bats.

  ‘We’ll be there soon,’ Jinyi said, trying to sound upbeat. He made a point never to ask how she was feeling, and never to tell how he really was. In this way he hoped to save up their strength, to harden them. Though really it made no difference: when she was tense or exhausted he felt it throughout his whole body.

  ‘What is it we’re looking for? A cave?’

  ‘Could be,’ he said.

  ‘Are you teasing me, Jinyi? Don’t you know?’

  ‘Not yet.’ He had said it. Though since neither had the energy left to argue, they laughed – what began as a self-conscious giggle grew into a shared belly laugh, unstoppable and absurd.

  ‘You have no idea where we’re going!’

  ‘The baby knows. Ask him, he’ll tell you.’ Jinyi turned around and grinned, and though she tried her best to keep her expression fixed and serious, Yuying soon started smiling too.

  They found a ring of well-dressed trees overhanging a dip in the rocks and, below a rig of wiry bramble, a stretch of grass. They squeezed themselves down into the covered patch, and became invisible from any soldiers or bandits passing on the trail, protected by the bulky shade of the sinewy firs and the fencing of the sharp brambles. Jinyi set down the bags along with twigs and branches he had collect
ed along the way. He spilt these into a ragged circle, and prepared to rub them into fire. Yuying pulled out blankets and some spare clothes, to arrange as bedding and padding for the three of them. Wawa lay on his stomach, chirping as he bunched the folds of the clothes around him.

  They drew as close to the flames as they could without getting mouthfuls of smoke and ash. The twigs began to burn down quickly, and Jinyi aimed a longer stick to hook out the bubbling tin of water set in the little fire’s hollow centre, as though he were luring a twitching fish up from a line. They had stale corn bread and what was left of a string of dried mushrooms, long-stalked and squat-topped, shriveled and rubbery, wrapped in blotted newspaper from a village supper two days back. They tore these up and shared them. Yuying heated up a jar of thick, pale rice stock, which she slopped into a thimble-sized cup for the baby, as she was no longer strong enough to produce any milk for him. He feeds on mountains instead, they told each other, and sucks moisture from the clouds.

  ‘It will make him strong enough to fight demons, to wrestle meteors. Nothing wrong with rice stock. More than I had,’ Jinyi said, tearing a long mushroom from the string. Yuying nodded pensively.

  He sighed. ‘Women worry too much.’

  ‘And men not enough.’

  He laughed. ‘You’re right. I’m not worried. Don’t you remember what I told you on our wedding night? I will look after us.’

  ‘I remember that when you said it your knees and feet were shaking beneath your clothes, despite the warmth.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean it wasn’t true.’

  ‘Nor did it mean that I didn’t believe you.’

  ‘Oh.’ He considered another hardened chunk before stuffing it into his mouth. ‘And now?’

  ‘I don’t have to believe you anymore, I’m beside you.’

  ‘But believe me anyway. He will be our little emperor.’

  ‘Because his father is a dragon?’

  ‘Because his father is here.’ It is nearness, Jinyi thought, that binds lives. Not words, nor touch, nor money – just knowing someone is near.

  As the fire started to flitter down and the baby settled noisily in the covered crib, they curled up, resisting everything but each other. Their sex was sweaty, silent, quick. In the half-light of red embers in which they drifted to sleep, they did not notice that the baby was unusually quiet. But when stray comets of dew began to blink across the grass, he coughed and howled, and they woke, their lungs aching as though birds were trying to fly free of their chests.

  By noon the river was in sight again. It was ugly and wide, and unavoidable.

  It grew as they got closer, the scuffed path stopping at the slippery banks. The water was silty, as thick as coffee, and almost as dark. ‘It looks like the type of lumpy noodle that apprentices always make on their first attempt,’ Jinyi said to his tired wife.

  A dirt road started up again on the other side, thirty-odd metres away. A group of men loitered on the opposite bank, sitting on the arms of a scruffy seat like unwashed, ragged kings.

  ‘Is this the way to Pig Snout Village?’ Jinyi hollered across.

  ‘Of course,’ they shouted back.

  ‘Then where’s the bridge?’

  At this they moved, getting up and feigning a bewildered search. There were five of them, clasping hands over foreheads, looking up and down the river in shock and searching frantically beneath the seat. Before long, this small pantomime descended into giggles.

  ‘It must have been blown apart by the armies passing through.’ Jinyi said to Yuying. He had no idea which army, nor which ‘tactical’ retreat, would have taken apart this bridge, though they both knew that the practice was common enough.

  ‘So what do we do?’ she said.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t look too deep, so …’

  ‘No! No way. There has to be another bridge somewhere, or … or a thin stretch with stepping stones, or, or something.’

  Jinyi shook his head. The men on the other side had stopped play-acting, and started waving instead.

  ‘Hey! Hey! You really want to go over?’

  ‘Sure,’ Jinyi called back.

  ‘You’re in luck. It’s pretty cheap.’

  ‘How much?’

  They haggled about the price in raw shouts over the flow, the numbers bouncing off the bare rocks on either side. Yuying looked at her husband, knowing full well that he had no idea what they were agreeing a price for. But they still had some money left from her parents, and she wanted to find a bed instead of a bundle of crunching leaves to lie on that night. She hugged Wawa tighter, and the men agreed upon a figure.

  At this the five men started arguing amongst themselves, until four of them picked up their seat by its four corner-poles. It turned out to be a hastily constructed sedan chair, with a poorly knitted cover. They hoisted it over their shoulders then unceremoniously scrambled down the bank. In the centre of the river the heaving water darkened the top pockets of their ragged jackets, but they strode forward regardless. The empty chair, held as if it bore an invisible emperor, appeared to glide above their heads. They gradually began to rise, their wind-licked hair bobbing like upturned ducks’ tails, their rust-coloured teeth sharpening into focus.

  When they had finally hauled themselves up the other side of the bank, they dropped the chair at Yuying’s feet, and stood panting, their ribs billowing in and out beneath their soaking clothes. She sank down into it, Wawa still clutched to her chest, blinking in the cold. Jinyi held out a bag. She raised her eyebrows but didn’t protest when he set it on her lap. He thought better of trying to give her the other one as well, and lugged it back up over his shoulders. Then she was hoisted up above their heads, and the grubby group descended to the water.

  The river slinked towards the distance, a coiling tail with flinty scales shimmering in the loose shifts of light. Rivers are controlled by the spirit dragon, which also has power over the rain. When the dragon is angry, rivers flood. Jinyi stumbled, sinking deeper, and his knees quickened. He walked as if gravity had been forgotten and the world was suddenly heavier. The dragon-god purred, its currents driving faster past the fields. The water sloshed up to Jinyi’s chest, pulling to his left, and he held on tightly to his bag to stop it being tugged away by the tow.

  Yuying juddered above his head, in the hard square of straining shoulders. Her round face peered out, somewhere between nervous and stubborn. Jinyi silently dared her to look down at him as they slowly crossed, but her eyes remained fixed on the steep and muddy tracks of the banks at the other side. The chair overtook him, and he struggled to find his footing, to push on with the bag held ever higher against the flow.

  It was as the four men were rising on the bank that Jinyi slipped completely, and ducked under. His head rose quickly, spitting out sour water as the heavy bag trawled behind him. He gripped it with both hands, and his eyes opened to a burning blur; he could just about make out a furious, shoving movement on the banks. The one idle man had already dived into the water, and the other four turned and dropped the sedan chair, letting it thump and slip back toward the water. Yuying screamed and called out for help, echoed by the baby’s shriller imitations, as the chair slid backwards, skidding down the wet soil, tilting back until a pole caught and suspended them in the mud. The water licked at her ankles and pulled at the trails of her skirts as she felt the pole begin to shudder; it would only be seconds before the river claimed them both from the almost-overturned chair and swept them away. Yet the five men had forgotten her, and were already sloshing through the water towards Jinyi, elbowing and punching each other out of the way.

  Jinyi tried to shout – Don’t be idiots, forget me, help my wife and my son! – but then he looked around. It was not him they were coming for.

  The pockets on the front of his waterlogged jacket had burst open, and paper money was swimming out from him in all directions, as hard to grasp as handfuls of oil. The last bits of cash that Old Bian had given to Jinyi were now bobbing off with the current. Their were
so many banknotes floating out on the surface of the river that if I had still been mortal, you can bet that I’d have been scrabbling around in the water too. The five men were pushing back through the flow, and suddenly Jinyi was surrounded.

  He pushed his head up higher as the splashes of the men whipped up around him, trying to keep his wife in sight. While keeping the wailing baby held close to her chest, Yuying was attempting to struggle up from the abandoned sedan chair as it slipped backwards. She couldn’t manage it. Each time she put out a foot she skidded in the streams of mud building up around her. He had to get to her.

  Yet for a second something stopped him. He reached out a single arm, not daring to let go of the bag. Heaving himself forward he grabbed one, two, three banknotes, but soon there were twelve scrabbling hands sifting angrily through the water and clawing for the cash. He flung out his elbow, smacking one of them in the back of the head and sending him reeling backwards into the water. His grabbing hands latched onto another note, then another. Jinyi tried to think of what some of his friends had said in support of the Communists – that they would do away with money altogether, that money would become meaningless, unnecessary, because if everyone worked together then everyone would have everything they needed. They were fools, he decided, as he thrust his hand out once again.

  Then her scream caught him. It snapped him back and he realised it was he who was the fool. Though the men were still splashing around for the last of the cash, Jinyi made a choice; he bit his tongue, grunted, and pushed past them, towards his family. There was nothing else he could do.

  Jinyi put his arms around her and hauled her up to the top of the bank, where the pair of them slumped onto the waterlogged bag. Wawa stopped crying, kicked his feet, and stared up at the two soaked adults peering down at him. He smiled. They could still hear the men in the river fighting over the last of the banknotes.