A Single Swallow Read online

  “The Japanese are too fierce. We can’t withstand them. A regiment will become a battalion, and a battalion will be left with one company, all in the blink of an eye. We can’t wait until the tea harvest is finished,” he said.

  Hearing this, my mother’s heart shattered into ten thousand pieces. She couldn’t say a word, knowing only how to weep. Ah Yan’s mother pulled her sleeve and said we should figure something out quickly, perhaps find a place for me to hide. The security group leader shook his head.

  “Don’t even think about it. Their men are guarding the way in and out of village. Military boats are stationed at the exit of the river, just to prevent anyone from escaping.”

  My mother fell to her knees and clasped the security group head’s pant leg.

  “My other boy, Longwa, isn’t here. He’s always traveling as a carpenter. Huwa is my life. Please, I beg you.”

  My mother repeated the word “please” over and over countless times. She knew the word was cheap, not worth anything, but worthless things could accumulate into something of value. That was something my late father had taught her from his own experience.

  The security group head said, “I told Ah Quan just before the Qingming Festival, but he couldn’t get the money together. Now, even if you have the money, you won’t be able to find anyone to take his place. It’s fate. People can’t change fate.”

  The security group head’s own son had paid someone to take his place. He had changed his fate. Ah Yan’s mother knelt and grasped the other leg of the security group head’s pants.

  “Ah Quan just passed away. If Huwa goes too, how will this family survive?”

  The two women clung to the security group head’s pants, their tears dirtying his shoes. He couldn’t free himself, and he couldn’t kick them off, so he just sighed and said, “I wish every young man in the village could be spared, but it won’t matter what I say. Since it’s come to this, you should prepare some money for Huwa to take with him. I heard that they’re setting out for Anhui, and it’s colder there. Give him some copper coins. A little bribery may get him an extra set of clothing and rice to keep him from cold and hunger along the way.”

  The women didn’t take any of this in. They simply clutched the security group head’s pants and wouldn’t let go. It was like those pant legs were a rope tied to the bank, their lifeline as they floundered in the current. I couldn’t watch anymore. I bent over and pulled my mother up. She refused to rise from the ground, and her tears turned the dust into a dull gray paste that clung from her eyes down to her neck. I felt the flesh on my cheeks throbbing, and a string of words was about to rush its way from my belly to my mouth. Ah Yan caught it. She knew that these words, having found their way out, would create a reality no human power could undo, so she rushed forward and blocked the way. She walked over to the security group head and bowed with great deference.

  “Sir, if you want to take my husband, don’t you have to give a reason?” she said.

  The security group head was surprised. “Your husband? When did you marry Huwa? Why didn’t I hear about it?”

  Quickly catching on, my mother stood up. She said, “Last year, our families exchanged betrothal cards. We planned to hold the wedding banquet after the harvest, but we didn’t expect such a huge tragedy. During our mourning period, we couldn’t openly hold a wedding.”

  Suspicious, the security group head looked at Ah Yan’s mother. Ah Yan’s mother’s mind cleared too. She stood up and said, “Our families always intended this. The betrothal cards were exchanged last year.”

  The security group head’s eyes shifted to me. I hadn’t yet spoken. My lips twitched, but before I could speak, my mother clasped my arm in a death grip. I pulled away. Ah Yan gently whispered something that finally calmed the blood raging through my body.

  “You don’t want to join that army, right? Let’s get out of this first.”

  The security group head sighed again and said, “Well, this is good. In this confusion of war, a girl might as well marry early to be out of harm’s way. But you’ll still have to supply an able-bodied man.”

  Ah Yan again bowed and said very courteously, “Sir, isn’t it the rule to take one son out of two? Huwa doesn’t fit that. We don’t want to make things difficult for you, but it’s true.”

  The security group head’s eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean, not make things difficult for me? Explain yourselves.”

  “Huwa is an adopted son-in-law, becoming the son of the Yao house. Each home, theirs and ours, only has one son, so you can’t draft Huwa,” my mother said, picking up Ah Yan’s thread.

  The security group head looked at my mother suspiciously. “You’re willing to let your son take a different surname?”

  My mother was stunned for a moment, like she was a student who had been studying for an exam all year, but was confused by the first simple question.

  Ah Yan’s mother coughed softly, bringing back my mother’s resolve. My mother said, “Yes. Yes, it’s a natural conversion.”

  The security group head asked, “Do you have documentation? It’s one thing to say it, but they’ll need to see it in black and white.”

  My mother was silent again, then said, “We . . . we haven’t finished the paperwork. You know what just happened to our family. We haven’t managed to complete the paperwork yet.”

  The security group head stamped his foot. “What use is that? Who would believe you?”

  Ah Yan said, “It’s just paperwork, right? I’ll ask Yang Deshun to come now.”

  Before she had even finished speaking, she was out the door.

  The security group head said to me, “Your wife is more anxious than you are. You’re acting like someone without a care in the world.”

  Within five minutes, Ah Yan returned. She held a stationery case in her hand. Yang Deshun followed behind her. The old man had most likely been dragged out of bed. The buttons on his tunic were not buttoned up properly, his eyes were pasty with sleep, and as he opened his mouth like a fish to catch his breath after running to our house, we could all smell how foul his breath was.

  Ah Yan had already explained the situation to him along the way. Yang Deshun didn’t say much, but immediately prepared his pen and ink. There was no telling how many documents of this sort Yang Deshun had written in his lifetime. It was nothing more than a matter of who, at a specific time and place, made a contract with whom, on the basis of which, never to regret, and so on. Yang Deshun accomplished it in one try.

  When we gave it to the security group head, he just shook his head. He said, “Do it again and change the date. If you put today’s date, it’ll be too obvious. Put some day last year.”

  Yang Deshun said, “The men of both households are gone. Whose fingerprints do we use?”

  The security group head said, “The women will stand in. No one will look that closely.”

  Our mothers pressed their thumbs against the paper with all the force of their gratitude. Ah Yan and I put our own thumbprints beneath theirs.

  When the security group head finally left, we all breathed a sigh of relief. Thinking of something, Ah Yan’s mother pulled my mother aside.

  “When her father was still alive, our families had discussed this, but we didn’t negotiate in detail. Have you asked Huwa what his intentions are?” I heard her ask quietly.

  My mother hesitated a moment, then said, “His father was going to ask him, but didn’t have the chance.”

  Ah Yan’s mother glanced at me and said, “I don’t know whether Huwa likes our Ah Yan.”

  My mother said urgently, “Don’t worry. Everyone knows he cares more for Ah Yan than anyone else.”

  At breakfast, we brooded on these matters silently. No one even looked up. We all kept our heads bent over our bowls, hardly tasting the food as we ate. In the urgency of the moment, no one had taken the time to really think about it. Now that the emergency had passed, we realized some things couldn’t be rushed, and if they were, the flavor would be chang
ed.

  After we’d eaten, Ah Yan said, “Huwa, can you help me get some more bamboo baskets? Some of them were damp after yesterday’s rain, and the water will add weight.”

  I went, and Ah Yan followed.

  Checking that no one was around, she whispered, “When the harvest is over, I’ll row the sampan and send you part of the way, then you can go catch up with your classmates.”

  Looking at her blankly, I said, “Ah Yan, do you understand the consequences of us putting our thumbprints on those forms?”

  She shook her head.

  “No one will want to marry you in the future. Do you understand?” I said.

  She looked at me and said, “You don’t want to marry me?”

  I sighed deeply, and said, “Did you hear what the security group head said? The casualties on the front line are very bad. Eight or nine of every ten people who are sent don’t come back.”

  She twisted her lips. I thought she was going to cry. I didn’t expect her to simply grunt in acknowledgment and say, “If you don’t come back, then it’s fine. I’ll just stay with my mother.”

  After a moment, she added, “And your mother.”

  My throat tightened. I hadn’t imagined it would not be her crying, but me.

  “OK, OK,” she said. “Don’t be sad. Let’s get to work.”

  There was a tea stem stuck in her hair from the previous night. Haltingly, I reached and pulled it out.

  “Silly girl, you really are something,” I mumbled.

  Ah Yan tied down the sampan and told our mothers to go on ahead. She checked the stern again and found the tea bowl still there, upside down. No one seemed to have moved it. That was how she could tell. The plank below the tea bowl was loose, hiding a hole, and in the hole was hidden a bundle wrapped in tarpaulin. Over the past few days, with the excuse of washing her feet and tea baskets, she had brought everything I needed for my journey, including the knife I’d buried, onto the sampan. My plan had a number of small problems, and she’d managed to smooth them all out, tying up the loose ends in a tidy little knot. This knot was clutched in her palm, waiting for her to untie it. Today was the seventh day after our fathers’ deaths. After burning incense, making the offering at their grave, and eating lunch, she would say she needed to go to the river to wash clothes, and I would say I had to go to the tea garden to gather some tools. Then we would meet at the river, and she would take me in the sampan to begin my journey.

  The period between Qingming and the Grain Rain was the worst season of the year. The weather was rarely clear, but on this day, not only was it not raining, there wasn’t even any wind. The river was so tranquil, we couldn’t see a single ripple. In such conditions, it only took an hour or so to reach the market in Wu Village by sampan. Ah Yan could definitely get back before dark, and I could walk from Wu Village to Zhuji, saving myself a lot of time by avoiding the mountain path.

  I left my copy of Evolution and Ethics with Ah Yan. “While I’m gone, if you get a chance to study, you can learn a few more words. If I come back, I’ll help you understand this book. If I don’t come back, then keep it in remembrance of me.”

  She turned away, hiding her face.

  “I don’t have anything for you,” she said.

  Later I found out she did have something for me. Her gift was a pair of shoes. She had made them for her father during the first month of the lunar year. They had strong cloth soles and a thick blue twilled satin insole, and they were strong as a copper coin, but unfortunately, her father was gone before he had a chance to wear them. By glancing at a pair of shoes I had taken off, without measuring, she knew I’d be able to wear the pair her father had never gotten to try. She’d spent two nights embroidering them with flowers. They were not ordinary flowers either, but twin lotuses on one stalk, one pink and one white, cheek-to-cheek. She didn’t want to embroider these flowers on the outside, for fear they would make me a laughingstock, so she stitched them on the inside. It was more than a decade later that I first saw them. They were well preserved inside the tarpaulin bundle, but ultimately couldn’t withstand the passage of time. By the time I got to them, they were covered with mildew. When I saw the two flowers embroidered on them, I understood her intentions when she stitched them. She hadn’t had the courage to give me those shoes then, only daring to put them among my belongings so that I would find them along my journey. If I wore these shoes, my feet would touch the flowers. Such solid shoes would carry me very far. No matter how long the journey, the flowers would stay with me all the way. When I finally wore those shoes, I was already in my coffin. But of course, that’s later in the story.

  After we had settled on a plan for my departure, Ah Yan had changed. With each casual glance or exchange of words, she would blush. Our mothers assumed it was shyness about our changed relationship, but I knew it was more than that. Ah Yan was keeping my secret. She was a part of my plan, and it was exciting. The more time passed, the larger the secret grew, becoming almost too big for her to contain. She felt she would burst into pieces as it swelled inside her. She couldn’t wait to tell the birds in the trees, the clouds floating overhead, or the oleanders bursting with buds, but she couldn’t say anything. Sometimes when she saw fellow villagers in passing, she couldn’t help but wonder what secrets they might be keeping too. I asked her if she was afraid our mothers would be angry with her when they learned that she’d kept this secret. She said, “I’m not worried. If a person goes through life without secrets, what’s she living for?”

  We climbed the mountain road to the new grave. Someone had been there before us to make their offerings. A wisp of smoke lingered. From a distance, Ah Yan thought that the color of the grave was strange, like a cloud was casting a shadow over it. Looking up, she saw that the sky was like a piece of blue cloth pulled taut. As we grew closer, we noticed something was also strange about the soil: it was black. The soil forming the mound of the grave looked like it had been loosened and was trembling slightly in the wind, but there was no wind. Ah Yan drew her face close, and in an instant, every hair on her body stood up. What had made the ground change colors was ants.

  Thousands? Tens of thousands? Tens of millions? Ah Yan wasn’t sure if there was a number bigger than ten million. She didn’t know the word for billions. She only thought that all the ants in the world had crawled onto the grave. She couldn’t see a single bit of bare soil. They were all pressed together, shoulder-to-shoulder, hand-in-hand, completely covering the grave. They formed a great black mass, moving in unison without beginning or end, because they moved in a circle. Round and round, nonstop, as if they would eventually lift the grave and move it to another place.

  “Your fathers are not resigned to their deaths,” Ah Yan’s mother said. Her legs grew weak, and she dropped to the ground.

  Ah Yan lit a joss stick and knelt before the grave. “Pa, Uncle, you came to a terrible death, and we know you feel injustice in your hearts.”

  Ah Yan suddenly straightened up and said to me, “Huwa, tell them you’ll get revenge for them. Tell them, now.”

  Her eyes drilled into mine.

  I said, “If I don’t get revenge for you, I’m not a man.”

  “Pa, Uncle, Huwa has made an oath to you. If you believe him, tell the ants to go away,” she said.

  The ants continued to swarm on the grave. I held a joss stick in hand, closed my eyes, and knelt on the ground. I had lots to say, but I couldn’t say it. Pa, this may be the last incense your son burns for you, I said in my mind. Ah Yan knelt beside me, her face to the ground. Her shoulders trembled beneath her blouse, as if insects crawled there too. She was also talking, talking to her heaven. I did not know if her heaven and mine were the same, but I knew my name was in her prayers. Pa, keep your son safe on his journey. Even if I lose an arm or leg, please let me come home. When I come back, I’ll visit your grave. And I’ll give you grandchildren, I said silently.

  “Pa, if you can hear me, please make the ants go away.”

  When I opened m
y eyes, I saw that the grave was still blanketed in black. The sun was shining, the river was there, the trees were there, and the ants were there.

  “Pa, do you have a message for me?” I was suddenly startled. A chill climbed my spine, and I shivered.

  My mother slapped her forehead and said, “I’m so stupid. I left the wine at home. Your father loves wine. He’s blaming me.”

  She asked me to take her home to get the wine. On the way back, my mother’s head suddenly started hurting, and she started babbling. She said, “Someone is pounding my head with a hammer. The hammer’s crashing down, and stars are bursting out, and they’re blood-red.” My mother had always been hardy. She’d never had this sort of pain before, so I assumed she was just exhausted. This was our busiest tea season, and it had taken a lot out of everyone. I told her to rest at home. After I brought Ah Yan and her mother back from the mountain, I would get her a healer. Thinking back on it now, I can see that my father and Ah Yan’s father were shouting from the grave, trying to tell us something. Unfortunately, my mother was the only one who understood. That day, she stayed home.

  When I had gotten the wine, I rowed back to the grave. The sun had risen above the fork in the trees, and morning was turning to midday. The sun washed everything white, bleaching the sky, water, and trees to almost the same color. Just then, I saw a strange green movement on the slopes. The green seemed to have rolled in dirt and was so dirty, it was almost yellow. It seemed to have emerged from the ground suddenly. It had no legs, and I heard nothing, but saw it shifting back and forth, floating in the bushes. There were sticks standing up among the green. Oh! They weren’t sticks. Sticks wouldn’t be so sharp or bright. The things that looked like sticks but weren’t were shining in the midday sun, emitting flashes of light, hurting my eyes. After a moment, I realized that they were bayonets.

  God! They were coming! Here they were, actually coming to our village.

  My analysis of the terrain and offensive and defensive strategies wasn’t wrong. But I missed two crucial factors. First, there was no garrison defense here, so our door was wide open. Second, my understanding of the terrain matched that of the Japanese. They had sent a detachment to explore the area and see if they could build a secure supply warehouse nearby.