Can Xue - Vertical Motion

“Hard to say. Nobody can be sure.”

Mr. Yun went back to his room to plait sandals. He liked working at night. He would work until midnight.

Mrs. Yun took another look at the ditch. She heard nothing now. For some reason, she visualized a motorcade on the marsh. She muttered, “Something is coming closer and closer.” When she went inside, her legs felt like lead.

Wumei told her that the last time she went to the market to sell papercuts, a group of women had surrounded her. They wanted a hundred of her works. Those countrified women seemed to come from a remote mountain area. There were two blind people among them.

“Did they buy your interlinked rings?” asked Mrs. Yun.

“Yes. They wanted to take them home and learn how to make the rings. When I asked where they came from, they just mentioned a strange place name. It definitely isn’t in our province, and yet I could understand their accent. One of the older ones told me that the sun shines there all year long, so they like black and they like circles.”

Mrs. Yun took stock of Wumei’s bedroom wall. Now there were no longer black rings pasted there, but many yellow ants. Looking at them was nauseating. Wumei was truly spirited and skillful. Such tiny ants: she could cut them out so they were lifelike. But why didn’t she cut some pleasant things?

Mrs. Yun was dazed as she stood in Wumei’s room. Wumei was staring at her, obviously urging her to leave soon. Mrs. Yun couldn’t imagine when Wumei had begun being so uncompromising. No matter what she was doing, she always had her own way. She sighed and went back to her own room.

The bedroom she shared with Mr. Yun was spacious. The old-fashioned bed with flowers carved on it was large, like a small house. When they first moved here, Mrs. Yun didn’t feel comfortable. And so, every day after dinner, Mr. Yun extinguished the lamp, making the house as dark as a cave. Mrs. Yun gradually felt better in the dark. Back then, night birds — usually more than ten of them — always flew over to their windowsill. They were small, and their songs were soft and gentle like crickets on the stove. Mr. Yun joked that he had summoned the birds to keep Mrs. Yun company. Sure enough, these soft sounds at night soothed her nerves. Later, they stopped coming, and Mrs. Yun raised more chickens, because chickens could also dispel her inner unease. Especially the hens that laid eggs.

As she stitched the soles for cloth shoes, Mrs. Yun was thinking of the lovely events of the past. The strange thing was that when she thought of the bizarre episode between Youlin and her, she didn’t feel guilty. She was merely curious. Occasionally, she thought that even if she told Mr. Yun about it, he probably wouldn’t care. She felt that in the last two years, father and daughter were bewitched by something that she had no way to understand. Nothing else would have made such an impact on them.

All of a sudden, she felt sleepy. Mr. Yun was still plaiting sandals, so she went to bed first. She lay in bed for a while, but no longer felt sleepy. When she heard the window rattling, she got up to close it.

“Who’s there?”

“Me. Youlin. I’m back from the market. I’ve brought some glossy paper for you.”

After tossing a package through the window, he hurried off.

Mrs. Yun picked it up and looked at it carefully in the moonlight. This glossy paper should be purple; in the moonlight it looked a little wicked. She lit the lamp uneasily. Sure enough, it was purple. It was the best kind of glossy paper.

When Mrs. Yun went to Wumei’s room, she was still awake. She was cutting those ants in front of the lamp. Mrs. Yun gave her the glossy paper. She said she’d bought it a few days before, but had chucked it into the kitchen cupboard and forgotten about it. She didn’t know if the color was right.

“It’s perfect. Did Uncle Youlin give it to you?”

“How did you know?”

“He said he wanted me to try the purple color.”

Wumei took out a sheet of paper and began cutting right away. Mrs. Yun looked on tensely.

She cut out a centipede, and on the centipede’s tiny foot she pasted even smaller centipedes. Twirling the scissors quickly, she explained her work: “These are eyes.”

Feeling increasingly uncomfortable, Mrs. Yun left. She went back to bed and fell asleep after a while.

=

The day that Mr. Yun carried hemp sandals to the market, the weird bird didn’t come over. But Youlin did. He spoke with Mrs. Yun at the courtyard wall.

“My business has been a little slow lately, but it still isn’t bad,” he said.

“What exactly is going on with the carts on the marsh? One has to see that kind of thing to believe it,” Mrs. Yun said.

“That’s too hard for you. It’s too dangerous for a woman to be there in the middle of the night. Even a man like me is sometimes afraid.”

“But you still stay there?”

“What I want to see hasn’t happened yet.”

“When you lived on Dragon Street, were you aware of our Plum Village? Back then, had you been to this marsh?”

“Dragon Street? No. The place where I used to live was ‘Yuegu Street.’ It was in the suburbs.”

“What do you mean? Aren’t you Youlin?”

“You can say that I am.” He was a little down in the mouth as he looked at her.

“You yourself said you used to repair tires.”

“I did repair tires.”

“Why are you so laid back?!” Mrs. Yun howled furiously.

“I am a little laid back.”

Mrs. Yun watched him lower his head and leave. She couldn’t help feeling afraid. She looked up at the sky; it was yellow. Giving it some more thought, she realized that the frightening thing had occurred about fifteen miles away; her home should be safe. But she still felt perplexed and alarmed. The handsome repairman who formerly lived on Dragon Street — the object of girls’ longing — no longer existed. The one she had run into was another person entirely. And she had become ludicrously involved with this other person. Probably the owl had flown over here from the marsh. But why was no one else afraid of it? Why was she the only one? Sometimes, she wanted to blot out the incident in the marsh, but that wouldn’t do. Her family members and the phenomena all around pointed that way, as if they all wanted that incident to be pinned in her heart forever.

Wumei had pasted a centipede on the courtyard gate: Youlin must have seen it. The purple centipede had been chopped into two parts in the middle; there was only a threadlike connection between them. Had Wumei pasted it there for him to see? Could he possibly be seducing Wumei?

“Wumei, you work too late,” Mrs. Yun said.

“I know, but I want to save money. People want my goods now, so I’d better make more of them. I’m afraid there won’t be an opportunity later on.”

“What are you saving money for?”

“To go far away. Isn’t that what you and Daddy did?”

Dazed, Mrs. Yun looked at the blocked wall. She felt as if her heart had been hollowed out.

“Do you want to go to the marsh?”

“No. I’ve been there once. I want to go to a place where I’ve never been.”

The beautiful Wumei held her head high, like a swan swimming past the wall.

Now only Mrs. Yun was left at home. The village was also quiet. There was only one old codger smoking as he sat under a tree. He was the Uncle Weng who had been dropped into the ditch. Uncle Weng was gesturing in the air with his pipe, as if arguing with someone. Five hens were bathing in the mud and dust at the wall; they looked very happy. Mrs. Yun made quick work of feeding the pigs, sweeping the courtyard, and mopping the floors in the house. Neither Wumei nor Mr. Yun would be home for lunch, and she had nothing more that she had to do. She stood distracted for a while in the courtyard. Then she couldn’t keep from taking another look at the mulberry tree: the owl still hadn’t returned. Uncle Weng was still sitting a little farther away. Mrs. Yun thought, Maybe he’s also waiting for the evil bird .