Wu Ming-Yi - The Man with the Compound Eyes

Dahu missed those days with Millet so much that he didn’t dare let himself get sentimental, or he might start ruining or revising those fragile and dangerous memories. Dahu missed Millet so bad, but he tried hard to forget, not wanting to get the present tangled up in the past.

Night fell and still no sign. The mountain Thom had registered to climb wasn’t that difficult, but it linked up with a few peaks that were actually a lot more treacherous than many famous climbs. The “famous climbs” were all well-traveled, had a continuous stream of hikers on them. The spot you set out from was often not too far from the summit. The essence of the experience, finding a new route up the mountain, had been lost, and all that remained was hiking, sheer physical exercise. These mountains weren’t like that. They remained mysterious, intuitive, like true mountains. Dahu often thought that when you start climbing a true mountain, common sense no longer applies. Anomalies always cropped up on the rescue missions he went on. There was this one time when several students got trapped on Nanhu Mountain. The rescue team kept finding discarded clothes along the path at a time when the temperature in the mountains was close to freezing. A young rescuer asked: “Could it be a distress signal?”

“Not necessarily. There are lots of recorded instances in Taiwan and abroad of lost climbers found without much clothing left on. Hypothermia gives people hot flashes. I don’t think it’s a distress signal. I think it’s a sign that they’re lost, that they’ve lost any sense of direction and are no longer in their right minds. We have to hurry.” Dahu was right. When they found the students, they were almost unconscious and nearly naked.

Dahu sometimes went on international search and rescue trainings. Friends he met on these affairs had told him that when people are lost and haven’t seen a single soul for days on end, many will deliberately avoid rescue personnel because they can’t tell the difference between fantasy, illusion and reality anymore. Some retained their physical vitality but would not respond when called. Some would even hide like startled beasts. So on the current mission, sometimes Dahu called out their names, while at other times he just kept quiet, watching for signs. He asked the other searchers to keep it down as well. Not a few times he had the feeling something was out there , but it was always fleeting.

Several days later the rescue team returned with nothing to show for its efforts, not even a corpse. This was a heavy blow for both Dahu and Alice. The hardest thing for Dahu to bear was the look of disappointment in Alice’s eyes. For a month after the incident, team after team of volunteers had gone into the mountains without making any progress. How was it possible? Dahu just didn’t get it. The paper described it as an unsolved mystery. After all, all the usual alpine tragedy involved was people dying in the mountains: there was always a body. But this time it was like looking for clouds that have turned to rain and fallen on a river, something impossible to identify or trace.

As often happens in such enigmas, the search and rescue operations trailed off. The world was like an unimaginably immense machine that wouldn’t stop working because a few people went missing. But on account of his lingering suspicions and his promise to Alice, Dahu decided to go into the mountains one last time. This time he had a new route he wanted to try, and some new ideas.

Not all aboriginal groups in Taiwan live in the mountains, but the Bunun are certainly a mountain people. Dahu, a second son, inherited his uncle’s name. “Dahu” means soapnut, a shrub that is plain and resilient, pretty close to Dahu’s own temperament. But no matter how tough he was, it was hard for him to face Umav by himself. He remembered how unstable Millet had become after conceiving Umav. No longer able to work at the spa, her income of a hundred thousand NT dollars a month suddenly dried up. But in this town, the only pleasure in life for a young woman like Millet was dolling herself up. Besides, like many masseuses, Millet had started using drugs while she was in the business. Dahu tried to force her to quit several times, but though Millet seemed dependent on Dahu’s tenderness and reliability, she still felt that there had to be more to life than this. She would take it out on Dahu, and Dahu would only face her with an attitude of resignation. Millet could not stand herself like this. She needed to forget herself, and the only way to do that was to keep buying drugs on the sly from a customer.

As for himself, Dahu wasn’t too strong, either, yet he was unwilling to appear weak. All he did was drive longer hours to avoid conflict. One day he came home to discover the scooter gone, and when he opened the door he heard Umav sobbing in her crib, but no one else was there. Then Dahu saw the note Millet had left. She hadn’t written much, just, I’m going to Taipei. Take good care of Umav . It should have been easy to find her, but he did not go looking. Instead, he bought a safety seat at the Carrefour and kept driving the taxi. He put Umav in the passenger seat and talked to her as he worked.

Umav’s eyes would light up like the eyes of a sambar deer when she listened to her father’s stories, but the moment a story ended her eyes would turn to stone. After Umav fell asleep, her tiny bosom would rise and fall, but sometimes the rhythm of her breathing would change and she would wake up and burst out crying. Though still an infant, she seemed to know some things. She was like a wounded bird. Every day Dahu worried about the world his daughter would have to face when she grew up, because he knew that for a wounded bird in a real forest death was inevitable.

Dahu walked solitary along the path, then started wandering off. The way ahead got less and less distinct until finally it was just an animal trail. Dahu knew he had entered the “alpine interior.” It was a far cry from the mountain paths packed firm by many feet, mountain paths with ropes climbers have tied and plastic markers they’ve left behind. Moon and Stone kept running in and out of the woods. They would bark to let their master know where the target was. There was nothing more important to a Bunun man than choosing keen and brave Formosan mountain mutts. They were your companions in loneliness, not just hunting dogs. Father had told him to pay close attention to a dog’s eyes and tail: if the tail doesn’t perk up the dog is craven, and if the eyes don’t sparkle it’s not intelligent. Either that or it can’t calm down. A dog that doesn’t stay calm can’t really see danger in the forest.

Moving fast through the forest was Dahu’s forte. He often joked with friends that for a Bunun man growing taller than five foot eight is a disability, because if you’re too tall you can’t shuttle easily through the trees. Moon and Stone were one step ahead of him. They had discovered a water source, a stream in the wilderness that made a silvery sound, like it was talking to you. Dahu got out his portable cooking stove and made a pot of tea. Dahu took in the view and drank the tea and seemed to forget for a while the troubles that he had brought up the mountain with him. It wasn’t quiet, though. It never was in the mountains, especially near water. Dahu had discovered that many creatures would sing their own unique songs with uninhibited delight when they found water.

One time Father told him a story while they were out hunting. One of the main reasons why he liked going hunting with Father was that he was a good storyteller. Seeing him with the gun slung across his back, telling stories while they checked the traps along the route made Dahu happier than anything. They were resting by a stream and Father said, “Dahu, did you know that in the olden days streams never used to talk?”