Can Xue - Vertical Motion

Mrs. Yun went back to her room and sat down to stitch soles for cloth shoes. But she still felt uneasy. She felt that the peaceful phenomenon was nothing but an illusion. Recently, everything had changed irreversibly. Her Wumei was scheming to go far away. Of course this was a blow, but in her heart she also harbored a hope: maybe because of this her daughter would have a good future and be able to live the life she wanted. She thought, Probably she met someone from a certain place through her papercuts, and so she began preparing to go away. After all, she wasn’t an uncontaminated village child. Her ideas were very complex. As she thought of this, she felt proud of her daughter, even though their relationship had recently been a little strained. She looked at the papercut centipede on the window. This was a particularly large one. She didn’t know where Wumei had found such a large piece of glossy paper. The largest one at the market was one foot square, but this one was one foot two inches and deep purple. At first sight, this lifelike centipede was a little frightening. The most unsettling things were the little centipedes on the centipede’s foot. For Wumei to have cut such a design, she must be harboring devilish ideas.

“Mrs. Yun! Mrs. Yun!”

Uncle Weng was calling her! Mrs. Yun rushed out of the house. At a glance, she saw that a large part of the courtyard wall had collapsed. She called to Uncle Weng and asked where he was, and then ran over to the gap in the wall to look out. But Uncle Weng was nowhere to be seen. Where had he been when he called out to her? Taking another look at the demolished earthen wall, she saw two tracks in the mud and dust. A cart had rushed past, rammed this large gap in her courtyard wall, and then had disappeared without a trace. This person must despise her family in order to have done such a thing. Who hated her family? It seemed no one did. Mrs. Yun tidied up the mess with a spade and dustpan. Suddenly, she thought of something: it was Uncle Weng who had called out to her. He must know who had been pushing the cart! She put the spade down and set out for Uncle Weng’s house.

Weng’s wife was drying peppers in the courtyard. When she saw Mrs. Yun, she didn’t hail her, but just stared at her.

“Is Uncle Weng home? We’ve had an accident at our house. The courtyard wall has been pushed over. I heard Uncle Weng calling me and ran out to look, but I didn’t see him.”

“He isn’t home. Tell me frankly: Are you guilty of having done something very bad?” Her gaze was murderous.

“Me? No. Does this have something to do with what I did? Maybe the person accidentally rammed into my wall and then ran off,” Mrs. Yun said in bewilderment.

“Hunh. Let’s hope so.”

Distracted, Mrs. Yun went back to the courtyard and continued shoveling the mud and dust with her spade. Suddenly, her gaze halted at something in the pile of dust. A large-bodied fledgling that didn’t yet have feathers was struggling clumsily. Ah, a baby owl! It was inconceivable that the owl lived inside the earthen wall. Mrs. Yun bent down and shifted it to a heap of dried leaves at one side. The little thing sorrowfully swung its bald head back and forth and made a hoarse sisi sound. Leaning on the iron shovel, Mrs. Yun watched it and quickly associated this with something else. If this little thing had emerged from her courtyard wall, then had the large scary one emerged from here, too? More and more of these dark connected ideas crossed her mind, and she felt she was going crazy. No, she couldn’t cruelly kill this fledgling, but she didn’t want to raise it, either. Then, just let it live and die on its own. Probably its mother would come and feed it. Flustered and unable to go on spading the mud and dust, Mrs. Yun went home.

She sieved and cooked the rice. She thought and thought and still was uneasy, so she went back to the courtyard to check on the baby owl.

Oh, the fledgling had vanished without a trace. The gigantic bird squatted motionless on the old mulberry tree. Was the fledgling its child? Had it hidden it somewhere? Or was the fledgling unrelated? Mrs. Yun couldn’t keep from walking over to it again. The woman and the bird gazed at each other. Mrs. Yun started feeling feverish: she and the owl had begun communicating in a bizarre way. The gigantic bird’s faint green eyes brought a certain reality and calmness to Mrs. Yun’s empty, desolate heart. Mrs. Yun was no longer afraid of it. She even rushed to say to it: Wa, wa! The bird still didn’t move. Mrs. Yun thought it had discerned her deepest, innermost ideas. Actually, she herself didn’t know exactly what those ideas were.

When she went back to the courtyard, she sighed, “Today is really a long day.”

Wumei and Mr. Yun came back together. Mrs. Yun mentioned what had happened to the courtyard wall. Mr. Yun listened attentively as he ate. At last, he said lightly, “I noticed a long time ago that something was wrong with that wall. It warbles all the time.”

“The wall can make sounds? Why haven’t I heard it?” Mrs. Yun was puzzled.

“Because you haven’t tried. When I make sandals at night, the sound is awful.”

In high spirits, Wumei talked of her new discoveries. She said those women had returned, this time bringing four blind people along. The blind people were all experts at paper-cutting.

“Those designs. my God! No, I can’t explain it. What are the designs?! As soon as I saw them, I couldn’t say a word. For example, there are some feathers, but they aren’t feathers. No, they definitely aren’t feathers! They must be—”

Her eyes turned vacant. She was silent. When Wumei was like this, Mrs. Yun worried, but as usual Mr. Yun paid no attention. He always approved of Wumei.

Wumei washed the bowls. Mrs. Yun noticed that she was working like a puppet. She dipped her hands into the water for a long time without washing even one bowl.

The bird began calling. When she heard it, Mrs. Yun wept. She couldn’t bear it. In her mind, she kept visualizing the fledgling which had stared at her with blind eyes and whose beak had opened so wide. Mrs. Yun covered her face with her apron; she could still see it clearly.

“Mama! Mama!” Wumei shouted, horrified.

Mrs. Yun squatted down. Wumei closed the windows and doors tightly; only then did the bird’s whining weaken.

“Mama — oh, I love you!”

“I love you, too, sweetheart.” Mrs. Yun stood up with difficulty. She was dripping with cold sweat.

“Mama, I was the one who caused the wall to collapse. I wanted to see what was inside it. I shouldn’t have — I was too impulsive!”

“Where were you when the wall collapsed?”

“I ran off and later went to the market.”

“I want to find that little bird.”

“Its mother ate it.”

“Ah, so you saw it all.”

“I was hiding in the ditch. It was really shocking: the mother bird swallowed her baby bit by bit. Half-way through, she choked. I thought the mother bird would choke to death.”

As Mr. Yun’s footsteps sounded outside, mother and daughter both regained their composure. Wumei looked at her father, and acting as if nothing had happened, she went back to her bedroom.

“This might start happening frequently,” Mr. Yun said.

“What?”

“I’m speaking of Wumei. She’s getting gutsier.”

Mrs. Yun didn’t respond. She wanted to change her clothes because she was unbearably cold. When she left the kitchen, the bird’s whining had stopped. As she changed clothes in the bedroom, she saw someone standing outside the window. It was Youlin. Saying “damn guy,” she shut the window with a bang.

Mrs. Yun awakened in the middle of the night from a deep sleep. She heard the wind repeatedly slamming against the window, its howling incessant. She sat up and so did Mr. Yun.