Did you know that our senses have a memory, separate from the memory of the mind? My hands twitch with the memory of squeezing their necks. My nose wrinkles at the spoiled meat of their breath and the whiff of elderly incontinent bowels. I shudder all over with the memory of their flailing, death-resisting limbs.
‘I did it to protect you,’ I say.
They were evil men through and through, and deserved to die. So why are your eyes so harsh and unforgiving, as though strangling them was somehow wrong? You drop the skewered bird in the fire and the greedy flames gobble it up. You stand up and back away from me.
‘Tiger, where are you going?’
‘Stay away from me,’ you warn.
You disappear into the trees.
You go up into the branches. The soles of your feet, dirty and pale, dangle from a bough as the rest of you is obscured by leaves. You are in a filthy temper, so I stay out of your way. I hunt for birds’ nests in the trees furthest from you. I go and swim on my own in the lake but, lonely without you, thrash my limbs with none of the joyousness of the day before. I am worried about you. Should I take you some water? You must be very hot and thirsty up in that tree.
The sunset is a lake of fire in the sky when you at last climb down. I leap up in relief as you come over to the water’s edge.
‘Tiger,’ I say, ‘come and eat. I fetched you supper.’
You ignore the bird’s nest of speckled eggs and pink baby-bird corpses I am holding out to you. You go to the lake and drink long and deep from its waters. Then you gather up the ragged robes you shed the day before, pulling them over your nakedness as though they are the last shreds of your dignity.
‘I am leaving,’ you say.
‘Leaving?’
You nod and I take a deep breath. I must dissuade you from this foolishness.
‘We can’t leave now. We are not strong enough yet. Why don’t we stay here longer? Rest more, eat more. . We will die out there in the Singing Dunes. .’
‘I am leaving,’ you say. ‘Without you. The time has come for us to part.’
I shake my head. Every part of me feels as though it is sinking in dismay.
‘Why don’t you want to stay with me?’ I ask.
‘You are a murderer.’
‘But aren’t you a murderer too? You fed us dead men in Zhongdu.’
‘Taking flesh from the dead is not the same as taking life from the living.’
The descending sun is an inferno in the sky. You stare out at the dunes, casting your mind to the journey ahead, and I am in agony, because I can no more make you to stay than spear your shadow to the ground.
‘Don’t go,’ I beg. ‘You can’t go. You will die out there.’
You gaze back to me and say, ‘Do you want to know how I got these scars, Turnip?’
I nod. Since the day we met, I have wanted to know.
‘When I was a child,’ you say, ‘I was sold into slavery. I ran away when I was twelve, but had only a few days of freedom before my master caught me and brought me back. He branded my face as punishment. He warned me the second time I ran away he would slit my throat. But the threat of death didn’t stop me from escaping again. .’
You stare at me, your eyes blazing. ‘Because I would rather die than be a slave. I am a slave to no one. Not to the Mongols. Not to the Lake of the Crescent Moon. And not to you.’
‘You are not my slave!’ I protest. ‘I am your slave and you are my master. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you!’
You shake your head, as though I have failed to understand. Then, without even a farewell, you stroll out to the dunes. Sand gusts to the sky in the blustery winds, and you walk into the distance. You can’t go. We are brothers. I will die without you.
‘You are not leaving!’ I shout after you. ‘Over my dead body are you leaving!’
The sand is singing now, histrionic and shrill. My heart is thudding, valves slamming as blood surges within, and my chest heaves with the fight yet to come. For I won’t let you go without a fight.
‘Wait!’
You don’t wait. So I run and leap on your back, and we crash to the sand. Over and over we roll, and you fight me off with your fists. Your skull butts my skull. Your knee thuds my groin. And though I am in pain, I cling to you. I won’t let you go.
Other than our grunts and the dull thud of knuckles, we fight in silence. Over and over we roll, until I am straddling your chest as you are bucking beneath me, panic in your eyes as my hands close around your throat with a strength that is not my own but lent to me by the Singing Dunes. Kill him! Kill him! shrills the sand. Blood vessels bulge in your temples, and you flush with blood as I throttle you. Tears shine in your eyes, and I am stricken, for it’s the first time I have ever seen you cry. But they won’t let me stop. I wring and wring your neck, until there is nothing left to wring out.
The sun descends beneath the Singing Dunes. The flaming sky above fades to darkness and stars. The moon rises and scatters its lunar beams upon the sand. I cradle your limp body in my arms. I speak to you gently and reproachfully. What madness possessed you to make you want to leave, Tiger? We had everything we needed here at the Lake of the Crescent Moon. Why did you have to spoil everything? I admonish you, weeping tears on your branded cheeks. Then I dig a shallow grave in the sand and bury you there.
Away from the Lake of the Crescent Moon I go. I stagger through the night, the stars pulsing brightly overhead and the demons that possess the sand serenading me with their song. I walk until daybreak and I have reached the end of my strength. Then I collapse upon the Singing Dunes and spread my arms wide to embrace the sand.
‘Very well,’ I say. ‘Take me away.’
14. The Birthday Gift
THIRTY-ONE DAYS is the length of time Wang’s willpower holds out. Thirty-one days of driving in frustrated circles around Beijing as passengers slam in and out of his cab. Thirty-one days of being excessively irritated by roadworks, drilling and engine-thrumming traffic jams. The worst days were when the polluted sky threw a cloak of invisibility over the city, obscuring buildings a hundred metres away and darkening Wang’s mood. The pollution seems like a curse to him, the curse of the million-year-old fossils, excavated out of seams deep in the ground and burnt as fuel. The spirits of the ancient trees and animals, protesting at being dug out of their resting places with lung-blackening particulates that poison the air.
On the thirty-first day of driving around Beijing, Wang caves in. He parks the taxi and walks down the side-alley, neon-lit at dusk, past the baijiu and tobacco sellers and the prostitutes behind glass. Alone in the barber’s, Zeng beams as Wang pushes through the door. Zeng, with the fading handsome looks. Zeng, with the sinewy, wiry body of a contortionist, making Wang self-conscious of his middle-aged sag and spread.
‘Driver Wang. What can I do for you?’ he asks, and before Wang can even respond, shakes out the hairdressing cape.
Wang hands himself over to Zeng. Allows Zeng to cape him, swivel him in a chair, lather him up with shampoo, rinse him in the sink, trim and blow-dry. And then finally, wordlessly, lead him to a back room, a room of shadows and secret extramarital goings-on, messy with tissues, foil strips of condoms and pump-action dispensers of lubricant. Wang sits on the clean-sheeted, firm-mattressed bed, and Zeng sits beside him and strokes his cheek. He leans to Wang and kisses him, chastely, on the lips. ‘I have been waiting for you,’ he says. ‘I have been waiting for the past ten years.’ And Wang rests his confused and weary head on Zeng’s shoulder and closes his eyes. He does not know how long Zeng holds him for. He does not know how he ends up lying back on the bed with Zeng moving over him; his lips grazing his neck, his tongue blazing a trail of goosebumps as it roams; his hands sliding under his shirt and the waistband of his jeans. It’s as though it’s predestined, and out of his control. Later, they lie side by side, staring up at the ceiling and the halo of light cast by the lamp’s round shade as they speak in murmurs. Wang speaks of the emptiness of driving around Beijing. He speaks of feeling only half alive. ‘Except for now,’ Zeng says. He shapes cigarette smoke in his mouth and blows it out in concentric rings. Then he leans on his arm, propping his head up and gazing at Wang as though his eyes are made of electricity. Wang has to break from Zeng’s gaze. Shifting his eyes back to the ceiling, he says, ‘I liked your letter.’