Sometimes Hsiu raised a flag that announced in blood-red characters, Rice for sale. But that wasn’t usually necessary; as soon as we lay still, small boats and rafts would row towards us from all sides. Then Hsiu would give a handful of rice or millet to the first to reach the junk. He would refuse even to bargain with the vessels that followed, closing the portholes and hatches and ordering them all to keep their distance. Their threats and insults would gradually turn into pleas, and eventually they would produce their last few coins from rags between their clothing and their skin. Sometimes they offered us art objects, but Hsiu tended to turn those down. He would accept only the ones that appealed to him personally, adding them to the collection in his suite. I saw him refuse the most exquisite jades – pendant earrings, flutes, perfume bottles – and even ancient treasures, simply because he already owned one or more similar pieces. A number of peasants must have starved to death for that reason. But people have died of less significant causes. In truth, we were all opposed to this kind of trade: Fong Shen thought it was tedious; Godunov despised it because it was non-violent and not dangerous enough; the old man, All-But-One, felt that any form of work was beneath his dignity; and I was ashamed to see the starving people surrender their money and valuables, the last barriers between them and starvation, into Hsiu’s greedy hands. He fed on that flood of desperation like a giant fungus on a waterlogged, inundated field. We could express our disapproval to each other only by gestures and the looks on our faces. It wasn’t until much later that we worked out a kind of lingua franca of Chinese, English and a few Mongolian words. Not knowing, back then, that we would be together for a long time to come, we didn’t make much effort to understand one another. Even Fong Shen and All-But-One had no common language. She came from Hunan, he from Shantung45; she, a woman of the people, did not speak Mandarin, and he didn’t speak her dialect.

  Maybe it was the impossibility of communicating with each other in those early days that made us, in spite of our disgust, meekly follow Hsiu’s instructions. He had armed us with staffs that had sharp points and edges. When the peasants became too insistent, we pushed them away. It was dangerous work. Sometimes dense crowds surrounded the stationary junk and the people who were pushed away, wounded and roaring with anger and pain, urged the others to seize our supplies, which were there for the taking, by force. But it never came to that. They were timid, slavish creatures, accustomed to extortion and oppression. When the mood turned threatening, Hsiu and Fong Shen would open their outer robes to reveal the sickle and arrows embroidered in red on their black garments. As soon as the peasants saw the emblems of the most dreaded robbers’ guild, they would give up the fight. The foolhardy peasants who had climbed onto the ship would jump overboard, never to be fished out of the water. And this only happened a few times in any case. Our affiliation with that secret society soon became common knowledge in the area, and the starving peasants threw themselves on our mercy. Women held their children high for us to see, their upper bodies bare, the hollows between their ribs so deep that their chests looked like cages in which only the hearts were still alive, fluttering without will, just as their eyes were the only living parts of their fleshless faces. Their mouths had slumped into loose, half-open grins.

  For a long time, I could not eat. Everything I put in my mouth turned into a reproach that I was feeding myself even though I had no love of life as long as the people out there, stripped of every possession but life, were losing that too for lack of nourishment. At first I saved some of my own food and gave it away, but Hsiu noticed and forbade me to do it; it was bad for business. By then I was past pity anyway, and no longer feeling generous, because our rations were kept very scanty. Only Hsiu ate course after course; but since I was in disgrace, I never joined him, while the others were invited to his quarters one by one. It made no difference to me, and I eventually became blind to the starving people, however close they came, in rows on the benches of their boats, holding out their hands to us with despairing grimaces, as if rejected by the underworld and doomed to an eternity on earth, begging the living for pity and food. But this was unreal and untrue; there was nothing but the great grey water. What did it matter that birds landed there and took off again, fish sometimes leapt into the air, people fell out of boats or washed out of houses and floated away, sinking into the silt somewhere or getting tangled in the trees? Generations came and went; the people remained, multiplying in times of plenty, shrinking in times of want. Whether the plain was brown and arid or muddy and swamped, overcropped or neglected, it always endured. Sometimes the river changed its course, bursting its banks. A few months later, it had carved itself a new bed and laid waste to a region.

  The only thing I had left was a desire, which sometimes arose irresistibly, to buy one of the little girls held out to us in the raised arms of parents who had no more money to offer. But what would I do with her? Wasn’t my own fate miserable enough? But to those people, it must have seemed enviable; after all, I had food and would someday leave the famine-struck area. Sometimes I couldn’t resist taking one of the wrinkled brown creatures in my arms for a moment; then I would return her and give her parents alms. Their faces would crease with disappointment, if they were still capable of expression.

  Hsiu rarely showed himself. When he came on deck, he would sit in a heavy chair, his flabby figure wrapped in a loose robe, and even then he would act as if nothing was any of his concern. And yet it was he who arranged everything, down to the slightest details: the route, the prices, the quantities for sale. One day he was suddenly full of life, carrying on a long, excited conversation with the skipper as he scanned the horizon line with his binoculars. Then he handed them to me and asked me to tell him what I saw. In the distance, the water ran, carrying branches and leaves along with it, and for the first time in a long while I saw something other than roofs: here and there, the top of a windowpane was already surfacing. I told Hsiu what I had seen. He called out to the skipper. The dinghy was hoisted in, and straight away, the crew tried to set us in motion. But we’d been at rest there for many days, and she’d sunk into the mire. When at last we freed ourselves, it was dead calm. The east wind had gone elsewhere. The large reed sail didn’t help; they fetched the big oars, but none of those were very strong, so even All-But-One and Hsiu had to help out, which they did, with a great show of contempt. Eventually, the skipper’s strength and Hsiu’s weight prevailed. But the original riverbed, which we were trying to reach, was still far away, and by the time darkness fell the junk was grounded again.

  Now the water began to move. Branches, roofs, objects from houses, all sorts of things floated past us, singly or in dark clumps underwater. Sometimes a hand, foot or twig broke the surface. But as the moon rose there came a stasis so complete that the water no longer rippled. Then it flowed back in the other direction a little. Hsiu became hopeful again, puffed thick clouds of smoke out of his pipe and had wine served to us for the first time since Minyang. The water stilled again, the dirt settled and then we saw the reflection of the moon, dull at first, but shining brighter as time went on, appearing to us at a depth the water did not have. Then the night sky also grew clear, the stars took their places, and the earth was reduced to a level surface in which nothing could be discerned but lighter and darker strips and shades of grey.

  We stayed out on deck until late, and for the first time since we’d been together we enjoyed each other’s company. Hsiu recited a poem46:

  The world is hidden under water

  The ripe moon sees its own countenance

  The wheel of existence has turned onwards ...

  He repeated it several times with scarcely detectable variations; only the moon kept its place in the rhythm of the verse. Then Fong Shen sang a sad, droning tune. All-But-One told a story in which spirits of people and flowers kept taking on new guises, falling into each other’s arms and fleeing again. Sylvain sat still and silent, and Godunov now and then let out his booming laugh.

  All of a sudden flocks of birds came out; some landed on treetops rising from the water. Others went on circling high in the sky. They were vultures, and an hour later the wind rose and the water started to flow again. When the birds had arrived, everyone had started preparing for departure. Hsiu ordered one hatch opened, a couple of heavy crates were brought up from below and, with our combined strength, we shifted them out onto the roof of the deserted farmhouse next to us. Then we heaved our last bags of rice overboard – their market value had dropped anyway as the water had risen – and at last our vessel was fully afloat. The current had grown stronger, drawing the water back to the old riverbed, and the junk was carried along. There was no need for the oars; a couple of crewmen kept watch with fishing spears to push away dangerous driftwood, and the skipper and a few other men leaned on the steering oar. Once we had almost reached the old riverbanks, we heard grinding and creaking underneath the vessel; large branches whipped upward, making the water splash and fly all around us. Again the junk came to a standstill; this time she was immovable.

  Morning came, grey and wan. It seemed that the water was no longer flowing back towards the river, but hanging over the plain in a mist. The branches of the driftwood kept reaching further and higher over the deck; caught in a tangle of trees and a bed of silt, we could forget about breaking free. I was curious how Hsiu would get himself out of this; I imagined he would take off in the shore boat with his profits, leaving us to our fate. After all, we could find our own way back to dry land. Godunov and All-But-One seemed to have the same suspicions; one of them was always on deck and close to Hsiu. He made no attempt to get away, and we later realised he had no intention of leaving. He acted just as if there were no trees and branches sticking up out of the water all around us, as if the junk were not sinking ever further into a watery jungle; he sauntered to and fro, spoke casually and smoked his pipe. I couldn’t resist discussing his inexplicable serenity with the others, and that meant Godunov, because All-But-One and Fong Shen were just as indifferent as Hsiu to our plight.

  ‘Why hasn’t Hsiu abandoned us here and gone on to Lanchow47?’

  As usual, it took a while before Godunov replied. He first had to recover his breath after one of his convulsive fits of laughter. Then finally he answered, ‘Don’t you know that for Hsiu the main event has just begun? Did you think he left his office in Taihai to sell rice? That was another masquerade, like the fair in Minyang.’

  ‘So what does he have planned?’

  ‘Now he intends to take the guns and ammunition to Chungking. The first and second acts are over now; the third and most important act is beginning.’

  ‘But how will we fetch those crates from the farmhouse?’

  Laughter seized him again. ‘Did you think Hsiu would mount an entire expedition for the sake of two crates of guns? Those were ballast, that’s all. The bulk of the shipment is making its way along the river embankments. We have to wait for it here.’

  Then I asked him if he was going to Chungking too.

  ‘Who else could teach the civilised slant-eyes how to use their weapons?’

  ‘Well, Sylvain, for instance.’

  ‘Sylvain? Sylvain is always sleeping, and when he wakes up, it’s just so that he can go back to sleep, deeper than ever. Not that it matters. As soon as we make our getaway, the weapons will be ruined again anyway.’

  ‘Who else is going?’

  ‘Not Hsiu. He has other business to attend to, and he’ll be careful not to get too close to Chungking. Otherwise he’d wind up a hostage.’

  ‘Then which of the two of us will lead the operation?’

  A new fit of laughter began, but this time astonishment won out, and then derision.

  ‘Which of the two of us? Hsiu needs you here. With your experience as a sailor, he’ll want you to keep an eye on the grounded junk and get her out of the river safely next time it floods – a few years from now, no doubt.’

  The prospect of spending years here on this flooded plain while the others went ever deeper into the interior was so distressing that I didn’t stop to ask myself whether Godunov’s story was plausible. Besides, I felt there was no other way for me to preserve my dignity – so I attacked him. He was much shorter, but tougher and more muscular than I was. He grabbed me with his long gorilla arms and squeezed the breath out of me, and in my confusion I did something desperate, forcing him to the edge of the deck with the last of my strength and almost sending us both tumbling overboard. But at the final instant, he let go of me, overcome by yet another fit of laughter. At first I thought it was a response to my fighting technique, but he pointed behind me and muttered, ‘His name means “Son of the Turtle”, but he should be called “Son of the Jellyfish”.’ I turned around and saw Hsiu standing in the moonlight. He had crept up on us as we stumbled around the deck, dressed only in wide-legged trousers with one leg rolled up. His flabby upper body quivered like shark’s-fin or bird’s-nest soup with every movement he made. He was furious and told us we both could have drowned. He must have felt we had some value after all, although probably of a very transient nature; in six months, he might wish us all the torments of the underworld, and do his best to dispatch us there.

  When he heard what we were fighting about, his astonishment knew no bounds. I don’t know whether it was sincere or feigned.

  ‘So the barbarians think they will command my operations? If I decide to leave you, All-But-One will carry out my will, and if he dies, I would rather appoint Fong Shen to replace him, even if she is a woman, than either you or Sylvain.’

  Godunov exploded again. ‘How I’d love to bow down before the princess with the carbuncle on her face!’

  Hsiu did not deign to reply, crept back into his quarters, and the two of us had nothing else to say to each other. We were equals again: the hirelings of a Chinaman we both despised, each just as deeply humiliated in the other’s presence.

  It was hard for us to keep out of each other’s way. I stared inland and Godunov took the river side. The water level kept dropping, now exposing the rotting leaves of the bushes, tangled with algae and hung with dead fish and birds, all looking equally desolate. Then came the long-anticipated moment when the top of the embankment emerged above the water. Even the boat could no longer go anywhere; there may have been a foot of water left. The lightest of our party, All-But-One, was sent off on a light raft. He had just reached the dike when the waterlogged structure fell to pieces. He pulled himself up the slope, his long robe clinging to his body, and, probing out ahead of him with his cane, headed towards Lanchow. His silhouette was like a withered branch against the soot-grey sky, unbroken by any house or hilltop. No ship sailed along any visible horizon, and suddenly he had disappeared as if into dead endlessness. None of us thought we would ever see him again.

  ***

  But he returned, though not alone. On the afternoon of the third day after his departure, far beyond the dike, which now rose half a yard above the water, a long line of porters made their way toward us, preceded by what looked like a shuffling row of grey and brown hillocks.

  The camels’ arrival in this waterlogged landscape, perhaps from the stony deserts of Central Asia, made me sad. I greeted them as exiles from the other side, and for the first time I sensed for a moment what I sought, which—though my doubt outweighed my faith—surely had to exist, somewhere far away, but not beyond reach. Later, too, once the heavy crates were resting against their ungainly flanks on both sides of the humps, I held onto that sense and that memory. Running my fingers over their hide, or walking alongside them for a while, in the same slow plod, was enough to bring it back.

  All-But-One, the porters and the drivers remained on the dike. Six of the camels, the foremost bearing a Mongol herdsman, cautiously descended the slope and lumbered towards us, their sluggish legs sinking into the boggy soil with every step. One of them could not free itself. Its mournful face stayed above water for a long time, writhing back and forth on its curved neck and staring at us accusingly, like a great dying swan.

  The others completed the difficult crossing to the side of the junk and were loaded, like lighter barges, with crates and sacks holding everything Hsiu wanted to salvage. On their final trip, they carried us to the dike. We arrived safely to find All-But-One and, some distance away, a group of coolies resting in the mud. They took some of the sacks and led the way. Then the camel drivers went to work, and the convoy set off, at a lethargic pace, towards Lanzhou. We remained in sight of the walls of Lanzhou for seven days, probably waiting for part of the company to join us, but they never did, and finally Hsiu gave orders to move on.

  Chapter 8

  Hsiu, Godunov and All-But-One usually headed the caravan, with Fong Shen not far behind, and Sylvain and I lagged to the rear as the day went on.

  We passed through rice paddies at first, and later through fields where cogon grass48 rose metres high. Then without warning the steppe lay ahead, rough country and seemingly deserted – the locals dwelt in caves and hollows in the side walls of the many shallow ravines. Looking down the steep slopes from the path, we sometimes caught a glimpse inside, where they swarmed like bees on a honeycomb. Viewed from a distance, that landscape was nothing but a wide, wrinkled expanse of yellow. I did not look back once; I tried not to think of the past any longer, still afraid that the spectre of that past would catch up with me here, but that fear diminished by the day. I was escaping – for good, I thought. Still, I didn’t expect to find a different future beyond the horizon; instead, it was as if we were on our way back, leaving the near past behind and riding out to meet the other, greater past of the country, open only to the sea, closed and hardened in the middle, between the salt lakes, the mountain ranges, and the stony deserts. This mesmerising monotony remained unchanged for the rest of the journey, even though the obstacles we encountered and the incidents we stumbled into were hard and complicated enough. The journey itself resembled the shifting of a glacier, invisible and inevitable. The disasters rolled across it like loose boulders, leaving deep tracks and wreckage behind them, but without ever slowing the shifting mass.

 

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