She recalled, too, how the vet’s wife had looked while she stared at her. Apparently, the villagers had all anticipated the present situation. She was the only one who was confused. Had Wumei really gone out on the mountain roads? Although the mountains around here were only some small hills and had no wild animals, this was still enough to make people uneasy. Mr. Yun said she had to “try a new path.”
She saw that child. Head down, he was walking ahead, holding at his chest a large bird that had just grown feathers. Mrs. Yun thought it was the bird from the courtyard wall at her home.
“Hey, kid, why did you come back?”
“I forgot to take this bird with me.”
With that, he scampered off.
Mrs. Yun glanced at the trees next to the road. Why had all the leaves turned an off-white color? Suspecting something was wrong with her eyes, she massaged them a few times and looked again: the leaves were still off-white. And not just the leaves, either: even the brown dog that she knew so well had turned into a gray dog. Her body felt as light as a swallow’s wandering in an expanse of off-white scenery. The gigantic owl that she hadn’t seen for a long time also appeared. It was watching her from the mulberry tree. Its eyes had turned into two points of cloudy white light. Its faded feathers looked old. When Mrs. Yun saw a rough bamboo pole lying on the ground, she was seized by a whim. She bent down and picked up the pole to drive away the owl. Although she tried several times, it didn’t move. Just as she set the pole down and sat down to rest, she suddenly heard it cry out sadly. By the time she looked up, it had changed into a tiny black dot and vanished into a spot deep in the ashy white sky. Mrs. Yun was shaking from the depths of her being. Why was it so grief-stricken? Was it because it had lost its child? In the past, it had been so ferocious! An image of the docile piglet that had been killed came to Mrs. Yun’s mind.
After cleaning out the pig dung, Mr. Yun sat in the courtyard shelling soybeans.
“Something’s wrong with my eyes. Everything I see looks ashen,” Mrs. Yun said.
“The same thing happened to me once, but it went away after a few days.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“I was afraid you’d worry.”
“The owl won’t come back, will it?”
“No. Next time, it will be its son.”
“I’m still worried about Wumei.”
“No need to worry about her. Just take it as the old owl did. How much worse can it be?” This made sense to Mrs. Yun.
“Do you suppose the vet will return to the village?”
“Of course. But our pig is better now.”
Mrs. Yun went to look at the pig right away. Mr. Yun had left food for it, and it was eating slowly at the trough. From a distance came the sound of trucks. Mrs. Yun didn’t bother to go out to take a look. She quietly picked up a broom and swept the pigpen until it was perfectly clean.
After Mrs. Yun left the pigpen, she stood on a slope and looked into the distance. The colors of the things before her were gradually restored, and the sky was no longer so cloudy, either. As she stared into the distance, a shadow appeared in her field of vision. As she looked more closely and the shadow neared her, it grew more and more focused — and it even waved to her! Ah, it was Wumei! Where had she gone? The road she walked on seemed close and yet at the same time it seemed far away. Mrs. Yun could see even her backpack very clearly. Something seemed to be wrong with her legs: she was limping.
“W— u— u— m— ei—,” she shouted.
Something blocked her voice. No matter how hard she tried, her voice wouldn’t carry. Suddenly, she knew: Wumei was separated from her by several mountains. How could she see so well? It certainly was Wumei, because — for many miles all around — she had never seen anyone else with such a distinctive backpack. And there was also the way she walked — a little like a squirrel now. Mrs. Yun felt a twinge in her heart, and she almost lost her breath. She bent her head, and carrying the bucket, she went home.
“I saw Wumei,” she said to Mr. Yun.
“So did I. After this, we’ll see her often,” Mr. Yun said insipidly.
“Is this all we get for bringing up a daughter?”
Mr. Yun laughed. “Isn’t it true that your colored vision has also been restored?” he asked.
“You’ve been there, right?” She blinked her eyes and understood.
In Wumei’s room, her mosquito net swayed in the breeze. Those small green serpents all seemed alive. They were moving around. Mrs. Yun looked at them woodenly, and her legs went weak for a while. Mr. Yun came over and led her out of the room, and then locked the door with a copper lock.
“We can see her whenever we want to,” he said.
Mrs. Yun couldn’t figure out her feelings: she seemed to want to weep and yet she seemed to rejoice.
Translators’ Acknowledgments
We thank Bradford Morrow, editor of Conjunctions, for publishing three of the stories included in this volume: “An Affectionate Companion’s Jottings” (No. 47, fall 2006); “Moonlight Dance” (No. 50, spring 2008); and “Rainscape” (No. 53, fall 2009). We also thank Heide Hatry for including “The Roses at the Hospital” in her book Heads and Tales (New York: Charta Art Books, 2009).
All of the other pieces appear here for the first time in English. We are grateful to Can Xue for graciously making available two stories that have not yet been published in Chinese, “Vertical Motion” and “Papercuts.” We have worked with Can Xue for nearly ten years, and our association with her is one that we treasure.
We also wish to thank Open Letter’s Chad W. Post and E.J. Van Lanen for their enthusiastic response to our submission of this book. We greatly appreciate E.J. Van Lanen’s skill in editing this manuscript. He made light use of the blue pencil, and we’re grateful for his helpful revisions and queries. We thank him, too, for his stunning cover design, and we thank N. J. Furl for the attractive interior book design.
Translating takes time from those who are central to our lives. Chen Zeping thanks his wife Weng Zhongyu and Karen Gernant thanks Louis Roemer for their understanding and patience.
Author Bio
Can Xue, meaning “dirty snow, leftover snow,” is the pseudonym of Deng Xiaohua. Born in 1953, in Changsha City, Hunan province, her parents were sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution, and she only graduated from elementary school. Can learned English on her own and has written books on Borges, Shakespeare, and Dante. Her publications in English include Dialogues in Paradise, Old Floating Cloud, The Embroidered Shoes, Blue Light in the Sky and Other Stories, and most recently, Five Spice Street.
Translator Bio
Karen Gernant, professor emerita of Chinese history at Southern Oregon University, and Chen Zeping, professor of Chinese linguistics at Fujian Teachers’ University, collaborate on translating, and more than thirty of their translations have appeared in literary magazines. This is their tenth book.
About Open Letter
Open Letter — the University of Rochester’s nonprofit, literary translation press — is one of only a handful of publishing houses dedicated to increasing access to world literature for English readers. Publishing ten titles in translation each year, Open Letter searches for works that are extraordinary and influential, works that we hope will become the classics of tomorrow.