Quan Barry - She Weeps Each Time You're Born

In your travails on earth, do not forget the wisdom of the animals. Even the Conquering Buddha lived numerous animal lives as the Monkey King, the Deer King, the Goose King, the King of the Elephants, the King of the Rats .

RABBIT OPENED HER EYES. THE DISTANT RINGING OF BELLS lingered in the air. The heat in the room was unbearable. She could hear the wood swelling in the door jambs, tears raining down the mirror. Moonlight poured through the window hot as sunbeams. She threw back the sheets and got out of bed. For the moment nothing else mattered. After the darkness she’d witnessed in My Kan, she needed to see it, needed it to rise to the surface of the water with its ageless face and wrinkled carapace and bestow its good fortune on her. She pulled on some clothes and slipped downstairs and out into the courtyard.

From the color of the night she guessed it was well after two. In the courtyard there was the smell of lemons. Something stirred in one of the trees. Lady, said the male parakeet, hopping out on a branch. May I serve you? Yes, said Rabbit. Swiftly the bird flew down off the bough and landed on her shoulder.

The strange black car with the tinted windows was still parked outside the gate, but she paid it no notice. For once the great wooden doors swung open silently as if oiled. On the right-hand door a small twig shot straight out of the wood, a furled green bud just at the tip where a leaf would open with first light.

Rabbit turned left on Hang Buom, the Street of Sails, and headed east to Hang Ngang. Everywhere people slept out on the sidewalk. On hot summer nights families dragged their mats down out of the upper floors of apartment buildings to sleep out in the open. At the end of the Street of Beautiful Women, Rabbit could see the water shining through the trees. The city was preternaturally quiet. Nothing moved, not a leaf or a blade of grass. Even the few fires they’d passed along the way burned as if frozen, their flames scarcely grabbing at the air. Rabbit began to wonder if something else were at play, if the world had stopped and she and the bird were walking outside of time. What if it doesn’t come to you, said the parakeet. Then that will be my answer, said Rabbit.

A couple was sitting on one of the stone benches beside the lake. The woman was straddling the man’s lap, her dress hiked up over her thighs. Rabbit breathed a little easier. Time had not stopped for these two lovers on the stone bench, each of them rubbing their arms up and down the other’s back. Rabbit thought of the palest shade of blue, a memory of a man’s ring on her skin. On the bench the woman threw her head back and moaned.

On the other side of the Bridge of the Rising Sun she could see Jade Island where Ngoc Son Pagoda rose just behind the trees. A little farther down the path she chose a bench and sat down, the smell of lemon just at her ear. I will never leave you, said the parakeet. Hush, she said. I know. Rabbit began to scan the lake. Even when you should, you won’t.

They could see things floating on the surface of the water. Plastic bags, empty soda cans, candy wrappers, all manner of trash blowing down out of the Old Quarter and into Hoan Kiem Lake. In the moonlight everything looked like something else. They sat watching the surface for any changes. After a while Rabbit said do you know the legend of the lake? No, lied the bird. Please teach me.

There isn’t much to it, Rabbit said. The Golden Turtle God gave young Prince Le Loi a magical sword called Heaven’s Will. The prince used it to defeat the Chinese. When the battle was over, the Turtle God reappeared and snatched the sword out of the prince’s hand and carried it back to the watery kingdom of the gods. And that’s why they call it Lake of the Restored Sword, said the parakeet, but just then in the water the animal lifted its great head, neck ridged where the thick skin folded up on itself, its aged face somehow full of both benediction and indifference. The turtle moved as if bearing a great weight. In the moonlight the animal was as long as a man. As it came forward, it wagged its ponderous head from side to side, swimming right up to the edge of the lake and stopping as if to speak. The animal floated in the dark water, its eyes glistening. Lady, is this all you wanted, said the parakeet. I don’t know, said Rabbit.

It was a soft-shelled turtle, its carapace without scales, its back leathery rather than infused with the intricate series of plates like its hard-shelled cousins. All throughout Asia the soft-shelled turtle was preferred for eating, its shell smooth, almost pliable at the edges where the upper shell met the lower shell. In Chinese medicine the turtle was associated with the liver and kidneys. Nobody knew how old the turtle of the Lake of the Restored Sword was. Some of the local people said a hundred years. Some said it swam these very waters two thousand years ago when the Buddha walked the earth.

Uncle, said Rabbit. She remembered how as a child she addressed everybody as em , even her elders. The turtle extended its head, its wrinkles disappearing as the skin grew taut, its head and neck almost annelid in nature, not the bulbous head of a tortoise but something more like an eel, smooth and gelid. In the moonlight she could see the open sores on its back, each one the size of a dinner plate, the inflamed skin pink and suppurating. It’s dying, whispered the parakeet. No, said Rabbit. It’s just manifesting the world it lives in.

Rabbit sat for a long time simply looking at the animal, the moon casting everything in a silvery light. The local people believed a sighting of the turtle would bring you good luck. At New Year’s the shores of Hoan Kiem Lake were crowded with people straining for a glimpse. And if I never see you again, thought Rabbit, would I still be me? Nearby a fish jumped in the water.

Suddenly a moonbeam came pouring through the trees. For an instant the turtle appeared healed of every sore, the skin of its back smooth and healthy looking. Then the animal retracted its head and turned to swim back toward the center of the lake. As it began to submerge down into the dark waters, Rabbit could see the sores still oozing on its back.

Lady, said the parakeet. Rabbit opened her eyes. Had she fallen asleep? The moon was shining in the heavens, another moon on the water. It was almost like the dream she’d just had — two moons at opposite ends of the sky.

Someone was sitting on the other end of the bench. Neither she nor the parakeet had seen him sit down. He turned to her and smiled. Even in the shadow of the trees she could see it. I have been waiting for you, the man said. If we are to have any chance at all, we must leave tonight.

Rabbit rubbed her eyes. After all this time. More than half her life. It was true. Life is a wheel. A small red diamond shining on the edge of the man’s scalp.

Life is a wheel. The way we end up where we begin. From here everything rises — the worn path, the moon with its long bright ears. Imagine water traveling back up into the sky, the sound of it climbing like a question. Who would we be if we had stayed?

LINH WAS STARTING TO STIR IN THE BACKSEAT. THERE WERE goose bumps on her arms, the AC on the highest setting even though the sun was still rising. Rabbit didn’t know what to tell her when she woke up. In the rush to leave they had left almost all of their possessions behind. Rabbit herself wasn’t sure where they were going or how they would get there. For the past few hours the moon followed their every move, but it was starting to fade. Outside, the terraces were scattered with dry rice, the hills stubbled with stalks. Dry rice grew easily. The local people prepared the land by burning it and then threw the seed out on the bare ground. The yield was only a quarter of the harvest from a traditional paddy, but it was the way people had grown rice for thousands of years when traditional paddies weren’t possible.