Under Fishbone Clouds Read online

  Yuying was soon up and wandering through the rows again; yet she would often stop and spend hours studying the points where the rayed corners of the fields dipped into the haze and smudge of the horizon, her mind elsewhere. She felt closer to ninety than nearly nineteen, her body a catalogue of aches, her mind awash with what could have been. She followed the others in when the sun crept down unexpectedly about her, and sat with them in the tiny kitchen jammed between the two bedrooms, chewing her food halfheartedly.

  ‘It hasn’t been a bad year overall for sweet potatoes, has it?’ Jinyi said, awkwardly trying to fill the silence. In response his uncle finished his unhealthily rushed spat of spooning and gulping and left the table, without a word, to begin whittling a thin stick with a dirty blade in the next room.

  ‘Why don’t we take them to the market together, next week? You could help me out this time. I think we ought to be able to get a bit of tofu, and maybe a few eggs, in return. What do you think, Yuying?’ he continued.

  ‘If you need me to, I will come,’ she sighed.

  He nodded, and it was settled. Yuying put aside her chopsticks and followed Auntie Hou to the storeroom at the back of the house, where the few candles were kept.

  Jinyi was left eating on his own, wondering how much he could bargain for the sweet potatoes and how much better they might do next year. He stopped himself, and thought of a little plan to cheer up Yuying – with a little wheat from the market, ground down to flour, he could make a few dumplings for her. He left the table for the bedroom, and was asleep within ten minutes. He slept in his clothes, letting them soak up the autumn sweat. The women would wash the dishes with murky water from the rain trough at dawn.

  In the storeroom the candles had been lit and Yuying and Auntie Hou had set the groaning loom into life, clanking the wooden frame to wind through the thick tease of cotton, picked from a spot not half a day away. In this way they ruined their eyes long into the night, stretching out and unpicking the fine string until it was ready to be knitted into winter underwear, socks, scarves and vests. With every turn of the mechanism the loom croaked and muttered to itself.

  ‘Pay attention, or else we’ll have to start from scratch. Come on, girl,’ Auntie Hou chided, though in a lowered voice so as not to disturb the men sleeping on the other side of the wall.

  ‘You don’t think much about death, Auntie?’

  Auntie Hou sighed, feeling her patience tested.

  ‘Death is everywhere, young lady. Life just gets in the way. That’s why we work, to do everything we can to keep death at bay, but it still creeps in somehow. There are even ghosts in the water trough, giving me frights when I dip to fill a bucket. But you get used to them. That’s just the way it is.’

  Auntie Hou paused, looked across at Yuying and shook her head. ‘At least they are together; they have each other. But down here, nothing changes. You’d do well to remember that.’

  Yuying nodded, not taking her eyes from the loom. ‘Yes, Auntie.’

  ‘Don’t lose concentration now! My heavens! There, come on now, carefully.’

  Even after Auntie Hou had shuffled through to bed, Yuying continued to tug at the frame, pulling and shuffling the fine strands. She had a plan.

  Later that night Jinyi woke and, feeling Yuying fidgeting beside him, tried to comfort her.

  ‘It’s going to be all right, you know.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘I’ve got an idea, to make sure the demon doesn’t find us again.’

  ‘Not the demon again, Jinyi. Please, just forget all that nonsense. We failed them, and it won’t do any good trying to find anyone else to pin the blame on.’

  ‘Don’t say that. Just listen, all right. I’ve been thinking, if we saved up a little, maybe got a bit of a loan from your father, then we could get our own plot of land not too far from here.’

  She shuffled in the bed. ‘Why?’

  ‘What do you mean, why? So we could grow crops, have a real home for our children, build a house with a little altar to my ancestors to make sure any demons won’t dare come near. What else could you possibly want?’

  She didn’t reply. Eventually Jinyi decided that she must be mulling over his suggestion, and he fell asleep. Yet Yuying still lay awake next to him, hoping that in her dreams the children might crawl back across the fields to be comforted, to be held once more.

  The walk to the market necessitated leaving the house in the dark. It was a relief to see the breaking sunlight swimming over a different set of fields, the dirt track between them swaying in the honey light, and Yuying imagined it washing over her, making everything new. They were soon marching as fast as they could and overtook a shepherd with a dwindling flock, undoubtedly heading the same way.

  ‘What’s in that bag?’ Jinyi asked, looking at his young wife more closely now that it was light. Hauled over both their backs were dirty sheets knotted to hold as many sweet potatoes as possible, but Yuying also had a smaller, brighter pouch, a remnant of their journey from Fushun, tied across a shoulder.

  ‘Things I’ve made.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Hats, bibs, nappies, socks, vests. You know. Embroidered. You’ve seen them.’

  ‘No, we packed the ones you and Auntie made last night. They’re at the top of my bag, with the mantou for lunch. Wait!’

  He stopped, forcing her to do so too.

  ‘What did you say they were?’

  ‘Hats, socks, vests, nappies –’

  ‘– and bibs, yes. Yuying, are those the baby’s clothes?’

  She started walking again, using up all her energy in forcing herself not to shout.

  ‘Yuying?’

  ‘No!’ was all she said, not slowing down, and her tone was enough to stop Jinyi from speaking again, though he could not help wondering whether she had kept the baby’s clothes for the next child, or whether they had been buried with the stillborn boy. He did not doubt, however, that she was telling the truth. It was another li before she opened her mouth again, still facing forwards.

  ‘They’re things I’ve made. After your aunt went to bed. We already have some to trade for food, which I helped to make. I just wanted to make a few more, to see if anyone wanted them today.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I wanted to try and get a little money.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that, Yu. We have enough, don’t we? I’m doing my best, and if there is something else you want, you should just say.’

  ‘It’s not for us. I want to write a letter to my family.’

  ‘Come on Yu, your family is here now.’

  ‘Do you want me to forget them? Honour your elders: that’s what you said; that’s what my father said; that’s what Confucius said. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? The memory of your family. Anyway, I just want to find out if they are all right, what with the war and everything.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Write your letter.’ Jinyi was stung – is this really why she thinks we are here? he asked himself.

  As he could not read or write, he had a fear of the power of letters, as though they were an act of magic. All the news and gossip in the fields was carried by voices alone, taking on the low cadences of the local accent, the sense of a rumour wholly dependent on who was recalling it.

  ‘There is a post office in Baoding, half a day or so from here. I’ve never been, but I’m sure they could help. Or we could try and find some people heading north, and ask them to take it with them. There must be some migrant workers going up to the coal plains soon. There are usually lots of them in the winter, especially after the harvest.’

  ‘I’ll go to the post office,’ Yuying said.

  ‘Wait, I have a better idea. We should save the money and spend it on medicine. You know, for your womb. At the last market there was a young man selling ground tiger bone. If we could save enough to buy a little, just a little, then everything would be all right.’

  ‘And the demon?’

  ‘Even demons are no match for that k
ind of strength. The strength of tigers.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Yuying said, if only to stop the conversation.

  At the market they squeezed between the crowds into the pulsing centre. It was simply an open stretch of flat dusty land between a few clumsily built brick buildings, and it seemed as though there was no order, no stalls – only relentless groups of people trying to barter one thing for another. Most people kept moving, eyeing up someone’s goods as someone else eyed up theirs, then eyeing up each other, wondering how good a deal they would get. The market was stuffed full of people with broad-brimmed wicker hats speaking in shouts, careful not to waste a single syllable. Yuying flashed the small embroidered bibs and vests in front of passing faces, hoping for a response. Jinyi made time amid the bartering to approach the young man who furtively opened a sack containing pale bone, but left him after only a few curt words. Tiger parts are expensive – after all, poaching takes time and energy. And trust me, the demons I know, the ones with frothing lips and reptile eyes, are not so easily put off. Once they set their minds on something, they will rip the world apart to get it.

  It seemed that no one ever got as much as they hoped for; the voices that drifted steadily from the muddy square in the late afternoon were indistinguishable in their little laments and sighs, the bodies uniform in their slouching shrugs and shuffling feet, everyone swinging their hard-bargained wares across their backs.

  ‘It could have been worse,’ Jinyi said as they started their walk back home, picking up the pace as the sun became tangled in the wiry branches of the trees lining the western rises.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘At least we got some flour. Not much, but if we ration it, easily enough for a couple of months. Eggs too. How much did you get for your letter?’

  ‘Not enough. Half a jiao maybe. A stamp will cost four.’

  ‘You’ll have to make a lot more bibs then,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not going to give up.’

  ‘I believe you. They looked nice, by the way.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Of course. Especially the one with the cranes on.’

  Jinyi paused, then picked up the pace again, looking directly forward as he spoke.

  ‘I used to watch for cranes, you know. Every autumn staring up as they went, every spring waiting for them to return. There aren’t many round here of course, but there are still some up by the lakes, and they used to fly past. It wasn’t just cranes, of course, but geese too. All of the big ones.’

  ‘I used to do that too, and we would celebrate spring when the birds came back.’

  ‘Oh, but it was the leaving I was interested in. Whole flocks jutting out with the same strange purpose, something they didn’t even have to remember: they just did it. I liked that idea. And as soon as someone told us kids that the world was round, well, I thought that must be what they were doing. Going all the way around, never touching down, just flying over the whole of the earth. I thought they were mapping it, taking it all in, and never stopping until they came home.’

  ‘Even though they came back from the same direction they left in?’

  ‘I know. I can’t have been too clever, can I?’ Jinyi’s voice lilted.

  ‘No, that’s not what I meant,’ she added quickly. ‘We were both watching them, though. That’s a nice thought.’

  Yuying did not mention that the birds’ Journey, exploring then returning, mimicked her private longing. It was too soon for that. She needed to sound out her family first, once she had saved up for a stamp with half a dozen more trips to the market. And so, as soon as they got back to the house, she set up the loom again, and squinted her way through the nights until the wicks were burnt down to waxy stubble. And once she had the twine, she could start to knit, and send the frail outlines of tigers, dragons and cranes dancing across the little sets of clothes.

  Confucianism stresses routine as a key virtue. Life is a set of actions, and the proper performance of these actions, whether in relation to respecting one’s elders or performing one’s job, however menial they might seem, is central to living a good life. Routines and rituals enable us to locate our position in the world. Yuying respected her husband, because she was his wife, and she knew that’s what wives should do. She worked because she was alive. Yet this repetition scared her, because there was only one way out from the endless routine, and even Confucius himself was famously silent on the issue of the afterlife.

  It took three more trips to the market to get four jiao for the stamp, though Yuying had lost track of what day of the week it was, what date of what month, and she realised that she had become the same as the rest of the household, measuring out trips to the market depending on the contents of the cupboard, the number of sweet potatoes still stored up and the size of the moon.

  ‘I’m going to go to the post office tomorrow. Is that all right?’

  ‘I guess. We can manage without you for a day, if we have to. Have you written your letter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you mention the demon?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Good. Writing things can make them more real you know.’ Jinyi paused. ‘So what does it say?’

  ‘You know what it says.’

  ‘I have no idea. And you know I can’t read it.’

  ‘It doesn’t say anything bad. Why would it? My parents care about us, remember. Both of us. It just asks how they are, and tells them how we’re getting on. I just want to talk to them.’

  ‘You can talk to me, you know. I’m still here.’

  ‘I know.’

  But they had nothing else to say to each other, and she had to get up in a couple of hours to start the long walk.

  The letter was written on a corner of wind-hardened poster paper torn from a brick wall that bordered the market. She had traced the characters in meticulously small handwriting, using an old painting brush and rainwater mixed with soot.

  It read:

  Ma. How are you? Please tell me of Fushun. Life here in Stone Monk Village is difficult, but I feel it is good for me to learn of hardships. My husband is taking care of me. Your darling grandson did not survive the journey. Those are the hardest words to write. I hope to hear from you soon. Your daughter.

  Yuying held it tight in her hands as she walked, not daring to fold it or press it into a pocket.

  In the house nearest to theirs lived a grumpy couple and their five sons. Yuying had passed the house a number of times on the way to the market, and Jinyi had told her the reason why she only ever saw one of the children at a time. They only had one pair of trousers between them, he explained, and so only the kid who left the house, to work, to fetch water from the well or to run an errand, got to wear them, knotted tightly or not so tightly with string, depending on their size. She had laughed when he had told her, thinking it was a joke, but the upward slice of his furrowed eyebrows showed her instantly that he was serious. Jinyi and his cousin had shared a single pair of plimsolls between them until he had left, and he would never forget that sticky feeling of pushing bare feet into the damp warmth of a recently worn shoe. As she passed the house, she wondered what they did all day, the four children left behind, the fire burnt down in the single room they shared, and nothing but their imaginations to make the hours pass.

  Yuying arrived at the post office in the early afternoon. It was staffed by two men, both of whom wore their faded uniforms as if they were second skins, saggy with age and hopelessly uncared for. They stood close together in the smoky warmth of the dim light trailing in from the window, tipping their cigarette ash away from the bags of unsorted letters surrounding them. The stamp was, as she had been told, four jiao.

  ‘But an envelope is going to cost another two, because we can’t deliver anything that isn’t properly sealed in an envelope.’

  She put the letter down on the wooden table that doubled as a counter, dizziness suddenly fluttering through her. The two men stood waiting, and though Yuying quickly pulle
d a hand to her face, she could not stop herself from crying. She coughed and half choked on her tears, but they only increased until she was letting out stuttered and snotty sobs, and she tried to speak in the midst of her hot and vinegary tears. Neither of the two men, still standing awkward and embarrassed in their official poses on the other side of the desk, could understand a word.

  ‘I haven’t, I haven’t got it. I haven’t got any more.’

  They were nervous, touching their lapels and rubbing their chins.

  ‘It’s the official policy –’

  ‘We’re both very sorry –’

  ‘Otherwise, of course –’

  ‘We wouldn’t hesitate –’

  ‘But, well –’

  ‘We’re both very sorry.’

  She nodded and tried to smile, rubbing her nose with her pulled-up sleeves. One of the men started rummaging between the bags to extricate a child-sized wooden stool, which he offered her. She sat and stared at the door.

  It took a full ten minutes of them pretending to be busy at work before one of them thought of a solution.

  ‘It doesn’t need to be one of our envelopes though! Look, you could fold up your letter –’

  ‘Yes, with your writing on the one side –’

  ‘And turn the corner over –’

  ‘And seal it with a little glue, of course –’

  ‘We have some here you can use –’

  ‘Then write the address on the other side, put the stamp on, and –’

  ‘And there you go.’

  Yuying sobbed her thanks until both men were blushing, and then delicately crafted the letter into its own envelope, remembering the delicate paper swans her classmates used to construct whenever they got a spare scrap of paper.

  The sun was already sinking when she left, so she steered away from the main track, looping closer to the scattered villages so that the only people she met would be women taking in the washing and tethering up the animals. If she barely saw any of the ragged men, deserters, beggars, migrants and wanderers she passed, it was only because she kept her eyes trained on the distance, watching for a horseman heading north with a saddle bag full of letters.