What really terrified Mengliu about this case was not the method with which the criminal had been disposed, but the easy tone in which Juli spoke about it. She employed the same voice she might use if she were teaching someone to knit, ‘Loop the yarn over the right needle, insert the left needle into the loop, left, right…’ It was as if she was talking about a ball of wool, a few needles and the deft movements of the fingers as they manipulated them. He would need a strong constitution to keep his stomach from turning over when faced with such a casual attitude.
Mengliu was struck by the clear and sudden change as everything around him grew dark. A bitter wind attacked his flesh, and he wrapped his arms around himself.
Soon, he heard the comforting voices of the white-robed priests. With great relief he entered the church, and turned his eyes up toward the giant vault, around which he saw thousands of candles burning. The flames restored the warmth inside him. The priests in their pure clothing had serene faces. The music accompanying the hymns of praise was like larks flying through the forest. He felt a sense of enduring freedom.
‘No matter what,’ he thought, ‘with a girl like Su Juli, Swan Valley is a beautiful place.’
Inside the church the pair stood close together. As his shoulder brushed against hers, he felt her tremble slightly. The warmth of her body moved him again, as if her blood coursed through his veins. He glanced at her. Her eyelashes touched her cheeks, and a drop of sweat inexplicably trickled down her nose. For reasons he could not express, he rejoiced in the sight.
The only other thing worth mentioning about the inside of the church is that this first little bit of physical contact between Mengliu and Juli occurred there. Afterward, in order to avoid retracing their earlier route, they followed a bougainvillea-lined path into the forest. Its floor was covered with a variety of flowers, the roots of the huge trees were blanketed with lush wild grass, twigs and fallen leaves, and insects filled the air with a chirping sound from within the detritus. The deeper they went, the more moist it became, until the air above their heads was shrouded in a layer of fog. As he breathed in the rich odour of mulch, soil, and flora combined, Mengliu’s heart once again warmed. He felt like he was walking along the paths of paradise, with angels darting in the folds of Juli’s clothes and hair, and rustling between her legs with each movement. Sometimes he looked out at the tobacco plants growing on the hillside, or at the towering rocks, or to the spot where nameless flowers were in bloom on a strange tree. Otherwise his eyes remained on the creases in Juli’s skirts, an absorption interrupted only by his sudden loud sneeze that startled the birds from their perches in the trees.
In a strong voice Juli said to him, ‘It’s cool on the mountain. If you don’t feel comfortable, we can go home.’
He waved off the suggestion with his long slender fingers. He noticed that his hands were so pale they were almost transparent. Obviously his blood flow was slower than usual, and his breathing was ragged too. Still, he did not wish to abandon this journey, now that they were halfway to the ‘interesting place’ to which Juli had promised to bring him. And so, with a pretended ease, he asked, ‘How many metres above sea level are we?’
Juli told him they were around 4800 metres above sea level. Mengliu, having never been at such an altitude, suppressed his feeling of surprise. He made some amusing comment about the elevation, inducing a smile from Juli.
Perhaps it was out of boredom, but Juli began humming a tune to herself. It was one of those old folk songs with a melody that sounded like a Buddhist chant, making her voice bounce like a coiled spring. He instantly saw the angel’s notes tumble to the ground amongst the leaves. He thought, ‘Doing it at an altitude of more than four thousand metres would be out of this world.’ Then an even more specific thought crossed his mind, full of possibilities about how he and Juli might enter an even more spectacular realm.
He pricked up his ears and listened. The notes were like a school of lively fish splashing out from Juli’s throat. With their tails they created a stream of water, spraying the droplets onto his face. The melody flowed into his ears, and entered into the cramped confines of his soul. There, in a sudden burst, green trees sprouted and a cluster of pink camellias bloomed. At this moment he knew without a doubt that he was in love with her. His rapid heartbeat was certainly not the result merely of altitude sickness. Then his body alerted him to the fact that it wasn’t love, but lust, and that everything in and around him was waiting for him to take her.
But his mind sharply refuted the notion. How could anyone separate love from lust, any more than one could separate the flavour of chocolate out of chocolate ice cream? The two blended together to form one exquisite taste. He enjoyed this metaphor of his own that he’d come up with. Being with Juli had brought back to his mind a poetic sensibility, and he felt a strong lyrical impulse pulling at his heart. Without realising it, his thoughts began to follow the rhythms of Juli’s song, and some lines popped spontaneously into his head:
I am listening to someone sing
‘God bless the people whose bellies are full’
and so I think of those without food
wondering whether they are like me
— bellies empty, but ears full —
For them are life’s simple joys,
the morning dew on the grass
and a sense of piety in dark times
He got stuck there, and so stopped for a moment, bowed his head, and sought the next line. He wondered at his own gratuitous thoughts for the hungry, those who were too weary with life to change their own destinies — the silent majority, who had leapt right into his romantic imagination, squeezing their way into his thoughts. Each line of poetry was like a corpse laid in formation, here at 4800 metres above sea level, waiting for him to review it. He looked down to the foot of the mountain, to the river where his memories of Qizi flowed and to the ghostly quietness there, and he felt himself to be a bell so large it needed several men to ring it, swinging back and forth in a slow, methodical manner.
Juli hummed her tune. The edge of her dress was dirty with mud and grass stains.
He bowed his head and continued walking. There was a layer of fine fur growing on the tobacco leaves, their edges made jagged by the artistry of tiny insects. Riddled with disease, the plant was gradually giving up its hold on life, like a weary, emaciated figure making its final prayers before death. Before he could sift through the rapid changes of emotion going on inside him, the next verse came to him, riding the rhythm of the insects as they gnawed the tobacco leaves.
Only the wind enters the wilderness
Beating against the farmer’s gaunt form
Alongside the final rays of the setting sun
It sweeps over the tomb
There harvesting every last stalk
When the black cloth of night,
Completely covers weakness
Who, on his way back home
will contemplate the death of another?
By the time the rod is raised halfway
Destiny will cease its call for mutiny
Let us, like this, eat our fill
The sun shining on our bellies
We need no written word