A Single Swallow Read online

  Ian didn’t know that I wasn’t hesitating for God’s sake. On a day like today, there were so many drunks that even God wouldn’t be able to keep track of them. I was worried about Stella. She didn’t want to see Liu Zhaohu, especially not after what had happened with Snot. Liu Zhaohu also hesitated. Ian thought he was afraid of the commanding officer, so he grabbed his arm and started walking. He said, “Tomorrow, I’ll tell him I forced you at knifepoint, or gunpoint, or with a grenade, to drink with me. He can’t do anything to me.”

  Ian had nerves of steel. He couldn’t have known that Liu Zhaohu was also hesitant because of Stella. Just as Ian didn’t know why we hesitated, we didn’t know why Ian was so eager. Standing there between them, I realized that the hesitation and eagerness were tied to the same girl.

  We sat in the kitchen and opened a bottle. We held small bowls like old villagers, eating peanuts with grains of salt clinging to them as we drank the liquor. We each had an ear cocked like a rabbit’s, listening for a sound from outside the kitchen. Stella’s room was dark and quiet, but I was certain she was awake. There was no chance she didn’t hear us. But the whole night, she never so much as opened the door. We spoke of our plans after the war. Ian said he had to wait until he acquired enough points before being sent back to America. It might be three months, or five. He hoped it wouldn’t be more than half a year. After he got home, he intended to sleep for three whole days, then soak in a bathtub for three more. Then, he would watch all the movies he had missed. After that, he would visit his friends and family—at least, those who hadn’t died on the battlefield or of illness, fear, or sadness. “Then,” he said, pausing with a chuckle that showed his teeth, all lined up in two neat rows like soldiers in formation, “I’ll think about what to do after that.” I noticed a yellow stain had formed on Ian’s teeth. Perhaps it was the water or maybe his heavy smoking. The war had snapped a section of his youth off, and what he needed to do now was find the broken part and reattach it, like a good mechanic would do.

  I asked Liu Zhaohu what he planned to do. He thought for a moment, then said hesitatingly, “I’ll see what fate has in store for me.”

  I dug through his words earnestly, finding no hint of any plans to go home in them. The war had been a wheel of fire, carrying him on a crazed journey, a long escape. He had grown used to the speed, and now that the wheel of fire had stopped turning, he was at a loss. The war had called on him to cast everything aside, and now peace demanded that he pick it all up again. He seemed to have no idea how to deal with peace.

  I’d asked about their plans, but neither had asked me about mine. A sudden sadness came over me. I realized that they saw me as an old man. Old men didn’t have plans or make changes. Old men stayed in place. At most, they moved in a small circle, then returned to their original spot, waiting for death to come. A little angry, I volunteered my plans. I said I would return to America soon. It had been many years since I’d been there, and I wasn’t sure about my parents’ health. When I said this, I had no idea that I was serving as a messenger of fate. Each word, whether groundless or absurd, would soon be substantiated, one after another. A month later, I received a letter from my mother saying that my father was in critical condition. I also told them I intended to raise funds in America, a large sum that would allow me to come back and build a church and clinic, maybe even a school. I deliberately left the detail of its location vague. I didn’t mention Sishiyi Bu, since I hadn’t yet discussed it with Stella. She should be the first to hear.

  Liu Zhaohu said, “Pastor Billy, this is good. It’s much too hard for people in this region to see a doctor.”

  Excitedly, Ian patted my arm and said, “If we’re lucky, we might be on the same ship home.”

  That was when Zhaohu said solemnly, “Even if we all never meet again in this world, we should meet here again in the next.” The plan we formulated when he said that is finally realized today.

  You didn’t know that my plan was tied to a girl. Perhaps you thought an old man like me could only give advice about others’ romance and not possess love himself. When the bottles of whisky were gone and you finally went home, the sky was growing light. Birds don’t know time, only light. They sang a few timid notes, as if testing the sound. When one bird woke, all the birds in the tree followed. Then, the forest was awake, and even the leaves made sound. There was a thin stream of moisture on the dawn breeze, undetectable to the eye, but felt on the face. The air tasted fresh and sweet, like a cool velvet grass gently tickling the throat, making one want to make noise, just to ease the itch.

  I didn’t feel like sleeping. Though I’d spent the previous day celebrating with the crowd, only now was news of armistice cleared of the entangled mass of emotions to become a calm, true reality. The dust stirred up by the winds of war had finally settled, and the verdant green of life would gradually begin to reemerge. In the end, the chaos had been bound and received the judgment and sentence. This was the order of society and the order of the state. But what about my personal order? What was that? Where was it? Was the plan to build a church, a clinic, and a courtyard my answer? No, they were just the places in which I would establish order. They were the labels, not the substance. My order was Stella, the woman I hoped to make my wife.

  Wife. The word shocked me. It was only then that I understood my own mind and stopped avoiding the word that would end ambiguity. In the past, I used ambiguous words like “together” or “share a home” to envisage our future relationship. Wife. In the local dialect, the word suggested she would become a “woman of the house.” Yes, I wanted to make her a woman of the house, my house. I had been avoiding this thought mostly because of the age difference. I was thirty-nine, and she was just sixteen. I was old enough to be her father. But what was age? Age was just a number, just as a church was only a building. They were nothing without souls. Stella’s experience and courage were remarkable and belied her young years. I’d just been waiting for her body to catch up to her mind. I could easily wait until she was eighteen, then propose to her. I made up my mind. As soon as she woke, I would tell her about my plan to return to America.

  I also considered Ian. How could I miss the intention behind his sprinting to the church time after time? Of course, he didn’t think I’d noticed. Young people always think their minds are sharp as a knife while older minds have grown confused. I’d seen the sparks in their eyes when they looked at each other, but in my lexicon, a spark is a fleeting thing. Despite being a gunner’s mate first class with an innate understanding of weapons, intelligence, and guerrilla warfare, Ian was still unstable emotionally. The war had thrown him into the boring town of Yuehu. The only view in this place was Stella (and she would have been quite a view no matter where she was). I could practically guarantee that once Ian left Yuehu, it would only take a month, a week, or even three days before he forgot Stella. She would, of course, be upset, but I had prepared myself for her sorrow. Whenever she sank, I would be there to catch her, firm and steady. I had done it before, and I would do it for the rest of my life. And she would know that when there was nothing else in this world she could rely on, aside from God, I would be her unchanging constant. Thinking like this, I couldn’t wait any longer. Just as I was about to rap my knuckles against her door, reason suddenly woke me, telling me to wait till daytime. It was the longest wait of my life, from dawn until it was fully light outside. It seemed that ninety-nine nights passed in that short time.

  When Stella finally woke and opened the door, she saw me sitting on the floor in front of her door, leaning against the wall, and it startled her. She immediately noticed the smell of the alcohol on me.

  “My God, Pastor Billy, you . . . you’re drunk?” Her voice was ragged with the surprise of it.

  She’d never seen me drink so much before. No, she’d never seen me drink at all. The war, this cursed war, had turned a respectable pastor into a spy, a smuggler, a patron of the Green Gang, and now a drunk. I smiled at her.

  “I’d prefer you call me
Billy,” I said. “And I’m not drunk. I’ve never been as sober as I am today.”

  She helped me up, and we sat down in the kitchen, where the previous night’s unruliness and mess remained scattered across the dining table. I crushed the empty cigarette box Ian had left behind and tossed it into the stove. She took an egg from the bamboo basket, broke it into a bowl, and started to make a steamed egg custard for me.

  “Stella, come here. I have something to tell you,” I said.

  I took her hand and pulled her over to sit beside me. My fingertips were a little sticky, a hint of egg white transferred from her hand to mine.

  “I want to talk about your future,” I said.

  I noticed her eyebrows tense slightly. Almost immediately, they relaxed, as if she was afraid I would notice.

  For the first time, I became aware that she probably didn’t like the word “future.” When I was her age, I didn’t like it either. At the time, I felt this word was specifically aimed at my weak points. The word loved to fall on the apex of the heart, and as soon as it touched the heart, the heart was no longer free. When had I unwittingly stepped into my parents’ shoes?

  “Actually, what I want to discuss is how we should live after the war,” I said, trying to ease my tone.

  I carefully sliced my plan into pieces and tried to focus practically on each piece, avoiding the grand, lofty vision they formed when connected together. In the end, I couldn’t keep myself in check. I spoke of sending her to medical school, then about going back to the countryside to practice after she graduated—going back, of course, with me.

  “Two doctors with knowledge of medical theory and rich field experience in a place where there is a lack of medical care can open a medical facility that’s more than a clinic, but less than a hospital. That would be a practical goal,” I said.

  I deliberately omitted the most important part of the plan. I would tell her that on her eighteenth birthday. I should have returned from America by that time. Of course, I couldn’t know that my secret would remain with me, to be buried at the bottom of the ocean, alongside my body. She listened without saying anything, not once interrupting or asking any questions. After a long pause, she fell onto her knees in front of me. This wasn’t the first time she’d knelt before me. When she bowed to me before, I gave her a stern warning, saying that in the whole world—or at least in my whole world—she could only kneel to express respect before the Lord God. From then on, she hadn’t knelt before me again. My heart suddenly tightened. I felt her kneeling was going to bind me into a relationship I didn’t want.

  She kowtowed deeply.

  “You are my second father. I will always stay with you and care for you. When you are old, I will care for you until the end of your days, just as if you were my own father.”

  I went over each word she said in my head. She didn’t mention my plan at all, not one word of it. I felt like a stake had been driven through my heart. I didn’t know whether to pull it out or drive it in farther. Either way was equally painful. I had underestimated her emotional maturity. She had already guessed what I was waiting to say on her eighteenth birthday, so she took a step ahead of me and shut the door before I could open it, then locked it shut to me with the word “father.” I couldn’t keep pace with her. I couldn’t catch up with her mind. But I knew that, for her, the real lock barring my entrance was nothing to do with my role in her life. It was Ian. I was disappointed, but not desperate. As long as the lock was Ian, I still had hope. Ian was a lock made of paper, not fit to weather a season of wind and rain. All I needed to do was wait patiently at the door.

  “Stella, you have only one father in the world, just as you have only one Father in heaven. I can’t be your father. I want to do this, not only to help you but also for myself, because we are partners.”

  I had said the word “partner” in English. Pulling her up, I used a bit of tea to write the word “partner” on the surface of the table.

  “Partner means someone with whom you work toward a common goal,” I explained. Of course, I avoided the word’s other associations. I was afraid that would scare her.

  I told her I planned to travel to Shanghai in autumn, then take a transcontinental ship from Shanghai to America. I would leave enough money for her and would keep the cook and the manual worker to help her. I went over trivial matters related to the daily expenses of the clinic, the chain of medical supplies, and how to get help if there was an emergency. Then, I said solemnly, “I want you to promise me one thing. While I’m away, don’t make any major decisions. Wait for me to come back, then we can discuss it.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, she finally nodded.

  Several days later, when I was saying my nightly prayers, I suddenly heard a tok tok at my bedroom window. Someone was obviously looking for me alone, trying not to disturb anyone else in the house. It was a timid knock, hesitant, and mysterious, even a little strange. I opened the curtain and found Liu Zhaohu standing outside my window. He looked pale in the moonlight. My windowsill was high, so he had to stand on his toes to see in, and a deep wrinkle appeared along his brow. I gestured through the glass toward the door, indicating that I would go open it. He waved violently, stopping me, so I opened the window. Pulling his body up on the sill, he said to me in a voice barely above a whisper, “Pastor Billy, I want you to give a message. To her.”

  Of course, I knew he meant Stella.

  “Tell her yourself. I’ll call her,” I said.

  “She . . . won’t see me,” he stammered.

  “What is it, then? Go on,” I said, sighing.

  “Tell Ah Yan I’ve been in touch with my home. My mother is still alive—”

  “You mean Stella?” I interrupted rudely. I couldn’t stand the name Ah Yan. For me, it brought up filthy things in my mind, abhorrent in color, shape, and smell. Every time I heard this name, my mouth twitched involuntarily. He didn’t object, but just continued.

  “My mother still lives in the same old place. She said now that the war is over, she wants Ah . . . St-Stella to come home, if she will. She’s had the house cleaned for her, ready for her to come home.”

  I recalled that the day I took Stella from Sishiyi Bu, a woman had cried, “Ah Yan, your aunt is sorry. Please don’t blame me.” She followed us as we rowed off in the sampan. I had long forgotten her face, but I could recall her voice. That voice had an edge that could gouge out a chunk of flesh. That edge was guilt.

  “But has your mother thought this through fully? What status will Stella have if she goes back? Neighbor? Relative? Or friend?” I asked coldly.

  Liu Zhaohu seemed to be shocked by my words. He ran his hands down his uniform, as if he were in pain all over his body. The rustling sound in the silent night sounded like a beast in the forest chewing on rotten flesh.

  “When you’ve thought that through, then come back and talk to me.” I shut the window firmly.

  I heard his footsteps moving away down the dirt path. Each step sounded heavy, as if it would sink halfway into the ground. He didn’t come back to see me again.

  Before long, the troops in the training camp were ordered to travel to Shanghai, Nantong, and other cities in northern Jiangsu to accept the surrender of Japanese soldiers. The day before his departure, Ian came to see me.

  “Pastor Billy, I need to ask your opinion about something,” he said.

  “What treasure have you bought now?” I asked.

  Recently, Ian had been frequenting the market. Each time he bought an interesting item or two, he’d bring them to me for a look. He laughed, revealing two rows of teeth now stained with more yellow.

  “It’s not that. I want to marry Wende. There’s a rumor about some kind of wartime bride act that will let me apply for her to go to America. What do you think of that?”

  A huge swarm of bees filled my head in an instant. I’d been a pastor for so many years, I thought I could know someone’s intent from their words, measuring the health of their soul through the layer of skin,
fat, and skeleton based on just their expression. But I had been way off with Ian.

  “Pastor Billy, I haven’t discussed this with anyone else. I just want to hear what you think.”

  His voice punched a small hole through the swarm of bees in my head, coming to me faintly. At that moment, I just wanted to cover my ears and yell, “God, I beg you, take their secrets away! Make it as if I never had ears. Why must I only listen to their secrets? Do I have no secrets of my own? Why? Why?”

  “Pastor Billy?” Ian said again.

  The bees gradually dispersed, and the buzzing stopped. I came to myself.

  “You’ve . . . talked to Stella about this?” I asked.

  I stubbornly called her Stella, just as Ian stubbornly called her Wende. Neither of us were trying to convince the other. We were just recognizing each other’s stubbornness, even as we each held to our own ideas.

  “No, I thought I’d write her a letter after I’d asked about the application procedures at the wartime affairs office.”

  I was relieved. As long as Stella remained unaware, the lock was still secure, even if the key had not been completely discarded yet.

  “I’ve heard that the office will only start processing the application thirty days after the documents are submitted.” I finally calmed down and told Ian this information I’d gotten from a friend in Shanghai. “Do you know why?” I asked him.