The Ancient Ship

“Fourth Master!” they shouted in unison.

A man in his fifties or sixties walked slowly up a path that had been opened for him, casting glances all around from his glimmering dark eyes. Then he lowered his eyelids and looked only at the ground. His shaved head and beardless face glinted in the starlight. His neck was fleshy, the skin moist and ruddy. Thick around the middle, he stood straight when he walked; his reddish-brown jacket was ringed at the waist by a stiff leather belt. He wore a somber look that day; his eyebrows twitched. And yet his face emanated kindness and gentleness, even with his mouth tightly shut, which both consoled people and filled them with resolve. The clothes he wore were handmade, with close stitching and neatly placed buttons, the sleeves cut to show off his powerful shoulders and upper arms. He had large hips that moved easily as he approached the tent. Not until that moment had anyone noticed that the street director, Luan Chunji, and Party Secretary Li Yuming were behind Fourth Master, who stood at the opening to the tent and coughed softly. The musicians, who sat impassively when they were working, now stood up and bowed, forcing smiles onto their faces. Without a word, Fourth Master signaled for them to sit down. Then he bent slightly at the waist and poured each of the musicians a cup of cold tea before turning and walking over to the hut.

All sounds came to a halt. The old woman grabbed her young son’s hand and rushed up to Fourth Master, taking tiny, rapid steps. She was choked with tears. Fourth Master took her hands in his and held them for several minutes, and as her shoulders slumped and heaved and quaked, she seemed to be getting smaller. She was too grief-stricken to speak for a moment. “Fourth Master,” she managed to say, “what happened to Dahu has upset you! What do I do? How do…I do it? I am fated to suffer, the whole Sui clan is fated to suffer. Fourth Master, this has upset you.” He let go of her hands and walked up to look at Dahu’s photograph, where he picked up a bundle of incense sticks and lit them, then bowed deeply as Zhang-Wang stepped out of the shadows and stood beside him. Her lips were pressed together more tightly than ever; her face looked very old as she glanced at the wrinkles on Fourth Master’s neck. Noticing a leaf on his clothes, she removed it.

Next to enter the hut were Luan Chunji and Li Yuming, who tried to console Dahu’s mother, telling her what a good son he was, the pride of Wali, and urged her not to be too sad; they wanted her to shun superstitions as much as possible. A little of that can’t hurt, they said, but her heroic son deserved something better. Overhearing what they said, Zhang-Wang narrowed her eyes and glared at them, exposing her black teeth. They quickly turned away.

No one else spoke, inside or outside of the hut, for a long while, for the most solemn moment had arrived. People outside could not see what Fourth Master was doing, but they assumed that he was involved in some sort of mourning ritual. The Sino-Vietnam war had seemed alien and distant to them, but now it was linked directly to the town of Wali, right there where they could touch it, as if the fighting had broken out at the foot of the city wall. Cannon fire rocked the town; the iron-colored wall of ancient Donglaizi was spattered with blood. Wali had sent not just one of its sons to fight, but the whole town…Fourth Master emerged from the shack, walking slowly, as always. This time he did not stop at the tent but continued on.

His back rocked slightly as it disappeared into the darkness.

The flute started up again. Regaining their sense of responsibility, the musicians signaled each other with their eyes, and the music recommenced.

Baopu sat in the midst of the crowd, feeling like a man carrying a heavy boulder on his shoulders. He wanted to cry but had no tears to shed. The chilled air cut into him. Finally, wanting to hear no more of the flute or the musicians, he got up and left. When he walked past a haystack, some twenty or thirty feet from the hut, sparks flew out. “Who’s in there?” No response. He bent down to get a better look and saw his uncle, Sui Buzhao, curled up amid the loose straw. And he was not alone: Li Zhichang, Technician Li of the mine prospecting team, and a laborer were in there with him. Baopu edged in and sat down. His uncle, who was leaning to one side, was muttering between drinks he took from a bottle. The younger men were talking, with an occasional interruption from Sui Buzhao. The air grew increasingly cold as Baopu listened to the conversation about the front lines and about Dahu, which was to be expected. But what he heard loudest of all were the sounds of the flute and a constant rumbling. Did it come from the mill or was it the sound of heavy guns? He wasn’t sure. But the distant image of a smiling Dahu took shape in the hazy night air. With the sound of heavy guns to the rear, Dahu waved to him, put on an army cap camouflaged with leaves, and ran off.

Following several months of training, Dahu and his men had driven off to the front. A place like this was particularly hard on soldiers from the north. They would be sent into the fighting in another month, and they seemed anxious to get started. Get it over with early was how they saw it. Dahu was promoted to squad leader during his first month at the front. Dahu, whose name meant “great tiger,” was called “Squad Leader Tiger” by everyone, including Fang Ge, the company commander, who said, “Now we need a Squad Leader Dragon to realize the saying ‘Spirited as a dragon, lively as a tiger.’ ” Dahu told him about a friend named Long—“dragon”—but he was in a different company. Fang Ge took the news with obvious disappointment as he walked along, resting his hand on the back of his squad leader’s neck. He was especially fond of this handsome, clever, yet reserved son of the Luqing River, who had all the qualities of a man who could be relied upon to get the job done.

A few days earlier he had sent Dahu for ammunition for the company. Carts from the other companies had returned empty, while his had rolled in with a full load. “The person in charge of the armory must have been a pretty girl,” Fang Ge teased him. Dahu just smiled. Next he was sent to scare up some prefabricated steel frames for camouflage to supplement the ones they had. Dahu happily took on the assignment, for during his training he’d met a pretty girl named Qiuqiu who lived in a nearby village. At the time she was off making bamboo cages in another village, and he hoped to give her a ride back home while he was on this assignment. Everything went according to plan: he brought back several steel frames and the pretty girl.

The company was planning a banquet for the upcoming May Day celebration, to which the local villagers would be invited. Soon after this special holiday they were to be sent to the front, so it was time for the finest liquor and everyone’s favorite songs. For Dahu it was also a chance to see the girl he’d fallen for. All the time he was singing, drinking, and dancing, he had one thing on his mind, and when he finally managed to see her, he was bursting with desire. The temperament and traits that seemed to exist in all members of the Sui clan were displayed with extraordinary tenacity in Dahu. He was like a man on fire, pulsating with passion. This was further evidence, if anyone needed it, of how members of the clan generated more fervor than anyone, no matter where they went, fervor that nothing and no one could constrain. At the banquet he sang a special song, one the others had not heard before but which everyone in his hometown, young and old, knew by heart. It had come generations before from sailors who had tied up at the Wali pier.

“Clouds often hang on the Kunlun glass. Beating gongs and drums, we set off on a decorated ship. When it reaches Chikan, the ship turns and heads toward Mt. Kunlun. The mountain is truly tall, but with a following wind we pass it quickly. The ship will not put in at Pengheng port but will head straight to Mt. Zhupan, whose peak shines bright. Mountains of bamboo line both east and west. One of the two Luohan islands is shallow, and we reach Longya Gate after passing Baijiao. The man sails for barbarian lands in the South Seas and the Western Ocean; his wife and child burn incense at home. She kneels to pray for a good wind to send him safely to the Western Ocean. The man sets sail for the South Seas and Penghu to sell tortoise shells and turtle boxes. He keeps the good combs for his wife and sells the bad ones. The now finished ship looks newer than new, with a hawser like a dragon’s tail and anchors like a dragon’s claws. It will fetch a thousand pieces of gold in Hong Kong and Macao.”

As Dahu sang along, someone rang a small copper bell as accompaniment.

It was a simple song with few highs and lows, but inexplicably a strange power emanated from it, eerily taking the listeners into a semiconscious state. Everyone was seemingly lost and dazed.

“That’s strange, Dahu,” Fang Ge said. “I’ve never heard such a wonderful song.”

His nose beaded in sweat, Dahu replied shyly, “Have you heard of Wali? Well, everyone there knows it.”

When his comrades told him they’d never heard of the town of Wali, he sat down dejected, as some of the soldiers followed his song with one of their own, “Well Water at the Border Is Clear and Sweet.” But it sounded plain by comparison.

As soon as the singing was finished, the drinking began, with good liquor and plenty of it. Everyone was in a festive mood when one of their superiors came up to toast his men. When that was done, he walked off, and the serious drinking commenced. Fang Ge reminded them that this was International Labor Day and that fighting a war was a form of labor, which meant it was their day to celebrate. The political officer gently corrected him, saying it was their day to celebrate because they were fighting to protect their countrymen’s labors. White foamy liquor filled the glasses, and when one of them broke during a toast, another quickly took its place. One of the men, his neck red from drinking, urged Dahu to sing another Wali song. Dahu ignored him. He could think of nothing but the girl Qiuqiu. A disco song was put on a tape deck, background to the men’s drinking. “Victory is ours!” someone shouted, but for Dahu there was only a buzzing in his ears. Seeing that no one was paying attention to him, he slipped away and headed for the bamboo grove.

Darkness reigned in the dense grove, the bamboo stalks swaying in the night winds, movements that reminded him of Qiuqiu’s lithe figure. He was breathing hard; a sweet warmth rose up in his heart. When he reached a stand of dead bamboo he took five paces to the left and ten paces forward. Then he crouched down and waited, barely able to keep from shouting. After about ten minutes, a breeze bent a nearby stand of bamboo, and when the stalks straightened up again, Qiuqiu stepped into the clearing and wrapped her arms around him. He was trembling. “How can you fight a war like this?” she asked. He just smiled. Their bodies were entwined. “Your hands are so cold,” she said. Then: “Oh, how I’d like to give you a good spanking!” Dahu held his tongue as he placed one hand gently on the nape of her neck and reached under her blouse to touch glossy skin that emanated intense heat. When his hand stopped moving he rested his head on her breast. Ashamed and overjoyed at the same time, she pummeled his back with her fists, but they were little more than love pats. There was no sound from him. Had he fallen asleep? Wind whistled through the bamboo grove and carried with it the sound of distant artillery. The thuds were particularly ominous that night, since when morning came, the wounded would be brought back from the front. Qiuqiu and other village girls had organized a unit to clean the wounded soldiers. She stopped hitting him when the gunfire commenced, and Dahu looked up. “When do you leave?” she asked.

“The day after tomorrow.”

“Scared?”

Dahu shook his head. “A fellow from my hometown, Li Yulong, went up to the front over a month ago.” Someone coughed nearby. The sound so surprised him he was about to remove his hand when a beam of a flashlight hit him in the face. Before he could say a word, the man called out his name; it was a voice he knew—one of the regiment officers. He let go of Qiuqiu and stood at attention.

Dahu spent the rest of that night confined to quarters, since his actions on the eve of their departure for the front were considered a serious offense. Though Fang Ge, his company commander, was fond of him, he was powerless to come to his defense. A company meeting was hastily called the following afternoon, at which the regimental decision was to strip Dahu of his unit command but give him a chance to redeem himself by being assigned to the dagger squad.

Qiuqiu wept at the company campground and refused to leave. Grabbing the company commander by the sleeve, she said tearfully, “He did nothing wrong. What did he do? He’s about to go into battle. Give him back his command, you can do that at least.” Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. Dahu stood off to the side looking at her with cold detachment. “Dahu, it’s all my fault,” she said. “I’m to blame!”

Dahu clenched his teeth and shook his head. “I’ll see you when the fighting’s done, Qiuqiu.” With one last lingering look, he turned and walked away.

As he passed the row of tents Dahu took off his army cap and crumpled it in his hand. His freshly shaved scalp made him look like a teenager. He walked on aimlessly until he found himself in front of the large surgical tent. He heard moans from inside. This was no place to stop, but before he could leave, an army doctor came out and laid a large basin by the tent opening. Dahu went up to it but stepped back and cried out in horror when he saw what was inside—a bent and bloody human leg. He staggered off, his heavy steps reflecting his mood. But he hadn’t gone far before he turned and headed back to camp. It was suddenly important to learn the name of the comrade-in-arms who had lost his leg. It was, the doctor informed him, Li Yulong! Dahu’s legs came out from under him; he buried his face in his hands.

Dahu stepped on the dying sun’s blood-red rays as he made his way back. On the way he encountered armed soldiers escorting prisoners. He glared hatefully at the gaunt, sallow, pitiful enemy soldiers, their lips tightly compressed. How he would have liked to pick up a rifle and put a bullet in each of them. One, he saw, was female. He stood in the fading sunset watching them pass.

Dahu’s unit moved out the following day.

Every day, without fail, Qiuqiu climbed the highest hill in the area, gazing out at puffs of smoke from the big guns. “Dagger squad,” she muttered. “Dahu.” When she shut her eyes she conjured up the image of the bamboo grove and Dahu’s head resting on her breast. But then the number of wounded increased, and her unit was so busy attending to the injured soldiers that she had little time to go out alone. It was hard to look at the soldiers carried back on stretchers, their uniforms soaked in blood, the looks on their faces too horrible to bear. Some were little more than skin and bones, with pale, brittle hair and uniforms shredded almost beyond recognition. Only by actually seeing them would anyone believe that human beings could be reduced to that condition and still be breathing.

The women soon learned that the enemy had sealed off these latest arrivals in the mountains for nearly three weeks, with no food or water. How had they survived? Impossible to say. What could be said was that they had not surrendered. Most were country boys who had been in the army a year or two, joining up directly from the farms for which their fathers had been assigned responsibility. Raised to be frugal and obedient, one day they were tilling a field, the next they were fighting for their country. Supplied with more canned food than they’d ever seen before, they ate with a sense of shame as they thought of their fathers, who were still out working the fields. The girls changed uniforms and cleaned wounds, barely able to keep their hearts from breaking.

Late one afternoon the first wounded members of the dagger squad were carried in. Qiuqiu could not hold a pair of scissors, not even a bandage. She shivered as she went up to look at each man carried in. Her heart sank as she checked one face after another. Finally, she bent over to clean the blood from a dead soldier with the top part of his head missing. She removed his torn, bloody uniform and emptied his pockets. There among his meager possessions was her own hankie…she screamed. People rushed up to her. Her face was buried in her hands, which were shaking uncontrollably, streaking her cheeks with blood that was still dripping through her fingers. She stood like that for a long moment before she was suddenly reminded of something. She let her hands down to search for the serial number on the man’s uniform, her eyes clouded by tears. And then she fainted.

Just before the sun went down, an urgent signal sounded in the mountains. Heavy artillery continued to send sound waves through the air. Thrushes sang in the bamboo grove, as before. The autumn winds had blown to the east of the mountains the day before; today they were blowing back. Night had fallen, immersing everything in its inky darkness.

The sky darkened until Baopu could not see a thing. The thrushes’ songs grew indistinct in the darkness of night. Now the mournful strains of a flute alone held sway.

The young man from the Sui clan who was now sleeping for eternity could hear the flute being played on the bank of the Luqing River, and his soul would follow the familiar tune all the way back to Wali.

After letting his hands fall away from his face, Baopu looked at the people around him. Technician Li of the survey team and Li Zhichang were silent; Baopu’s uncle lay on the straw, dead drunk. Suddenly he began shouting shrilly, but no one could understand a word, though the cadence was of a seagoing melody.

Li Zhichang turned to Technician Li and said hoarsely, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were no more wars? That way people could devote themselves to the study of science.”

Technician Li shook his head. “War is inevitable. The world has never known total peace. A good time is any time people aren’t fighting a world war.”

“Do you think one of those will break out any time in the next few years?” Li Zhichang asked.

Technician Li smiled. “That’s something you’ll have to ask those running the show, the higher up the ladder the better. But there isn’t a person alive who’s willing to give you a guarantee one way or the other. My uncle is a military expert, and I’m always looking for a chance to get him into a debate. It’s great fun. One of our favorite topics is what they call ‘Star Wars.’ ”

Baopu, who was listening in on the conversation, was reminded of the nickname people in town had given Technician Li: Crackpot.

“Last time you went too fast,” Li Zhichang said. “I’d like to know more about those Star Wars. You were saying something about a NATO and a Warsaw Pact. What’s that all about? I mean, like they’re a couple of persimmons, one softer than the other…”

The laborer standing beside Crackpot laughed, but Crackpot cut him off. “I don’t know which persimmon is softer, but those are military blocs. NATO is led by the United States; the Soviet Union leads the Warsaw Pact.”

“I’ve got that,” Li Zhichang said.

Crackpot continued, “If those two persimmons ever bang into one another, they’ll both be crushed. They are the key to whether or not there’ll be a world war. Both sides need to be careful not to cross the line. The year the Soviets shot down a South Korean airliner, America sent its army into Grenada. Then the Americans announced plans to place midrange missiles in Western Europe, so the Russians countered by upping the number of missiles siloed in Eastern Europe. They also broke off weapons talks on three occasions and boycotted the Olympics. It was tit for tat, with both sides digging in their heels, till they reached an impasse. Relations between the two countries were deteriorating rapidly, and the rest of the world looked on anxiously, detecting the smell of gunpowder in the air. The US and USSR faced off like that for more than a year before relaxing tensions a little. In the end the foreign ministers of the two countries sat down in Geneva and talked for more than seventeen goddamned hours…”

“Everything was ruined by people who knew nothing about water,” Sui Buzhao bellowed, his body twisting in the hay. “After Uncle Zheng He died, the goddamn ships, all eight or ten of them, sank, killing all those people. There were cracks in our hull and we tried to stop the leaks with our bare bodies. They didn’t trust the Classic of the Waterway, so they deserved to die, disregarding even the life of the helmsman. How the hell could it end well? I puked until there was nothing but bitter bile in my stomach, and the barnacles cut me bloody when I went down to stop up the leaks. I bled while reciting the Classic of the Waterway until I was hoarse. The ship sailed to Qiyang zhou, and as stated in the book, ‘You must fix your direction with care and make no mistakes in your calculation. The ship cannot veer. If it heaves to the west it will run aground, so you must heave east. If you heave too far to the east the water will be dark and clear, with many gulls and petrels. If you heave too far to the west, the water will be crystal clear, afloat with driftwood and many flying fish. If the ship is on the right course, the tails of birds will point the way. When the ship nears Wailuo, seven geng to the east will be Wanli Shitang, where there are low red rock formations. The water is shallow if you can see the side of the boat and you must be careful if you see rocks. From the fourth to the eighth month, the water flows southwest, and the currents are quite strong…’ But no one paid any attention. These men finally had to cry when the waves rose up around midnight. It was useless to cut the mast, for the current ripped the ship apart. I’ll curse them for the rest of my life because of what happened to that ship.”

“All arms races are fierce competitions,” Crackpot continued. “Tey start out on land or at sea, but that doesn’t hold their interest for long, so then it moves to outer space. When the Americans say they’re going to do something, they do it. They decided to put up their Strategic Defense Initiative in three stages: The tests would take them up to 1989, they’d finalize the design in the 1990s, and the program would be functional by the year 2000. Maybe earlier. Then they could shoot down any missile, no matter where it came from, using guided weapons with lasers or particle beams. At that point it would no longer be necessary to fight on land. Everything would be taken care of out in space. Space, the new frontier. The Star Wars initiative is part of what the Americans call advanced frontier strategy. The newspapers call it a multilayered deep-space defense system. If they’re allowed to actually succeed in this, the long-standing balance of power between the US and the USSR will no longer hold, and that will be a challenge to the whole world.”

Crackpot ignored Sui Buzhao’s shouts as he carried on a lively onesided conversation with Li Zhichang, who nodded and occasionally made a mark in the dirt with his finger, as if recording scientific data. “What I don’t understand,” he said, looking in the direction from which the notes of the flute carried over in the darkness, “is how the foreigners can spend all that money making enough atomic bombs for any contingency and still not be content.”

Crackpot slapped his knee. “The more A-bombs you have the less you have to be content about. That’s the whole point. Consider this: A few powerful countries have labored for years to produce nuclear weapons, more than they could ever use, and they could double their present arsenal, and it wouldn’t make any difference. There are so many of the things that no one dares to use a single one. Whether you launch the first attack or not, that’s the end for everyone. It’s a perfect example of the concept that when things reach an extreme they develop in the opposite direction. When the number of bombs reaches a certain point they can’t be used and have to lie sleeping in their silos for all time. But if the Americans’ Star Wars initiative becomes operational and can intercept the other guy’s missiles in space and keep them from hitting friendly targets, that changes everything, don’t you see?”