Wu Ming-Yi - The Man with the Compound Eyes

“What can I do then?”

“What can you do?” he asked me back. I discovered his eyes weren’t like human eyes. They were more like compound eyes composed of countless single eyes, the eyes of clouds, mountains, streams, meadowlarks and muntjacs, all arranged together. As I gazed, each little eye seemed to contain a different scene, and those scenes arranged to form a vast panorama the likes of which I had never seen.

“What can you do?”

The question echoed back on a gust of wind, and I found myself standing over a sheer cliff, just like a mountain goat. It was like I was standing on an island. The distant sky was the color of a ginger lily, with dark green trees and a creek below.

I only found out later that the whole hunting party had been looking all over for me because something had happened to my father. My uncle’s gun misfired and shot my father in the right eye, rupturing his eyeball and ripping a hole in his head. Father did not die right away. On the third day he actually managed to take out his breathing tube and summon my brother and me to his bedside. He asked me, “Where did you go that day?”

“I don’t know.”

“He was found by a cliff, just standing there like he was dreaming,” my elder brother explained.

My father pointed at my brother. “You must learn to be a Bunun hunter.” Then he pointed at me and said, “You cannot be a hunter anymore, not after shooting the goat ear.”

“What should I do then?” I asked.

“Become a man who knows the mountains.” Father’s voice became very far away, and the blood from the wound to his right eye started seeping through the gauze again. He started losing consciousness. My elder brother pushed the button by the bed and the nurse rushed to find the doctor. My father held on in a kind of stupor for only seven more days before leaving us.

I didn’t tell him I’d met a man with peculiar eyes. I thought there wasn’t any need. Now my father’s eyes were shut for ever.

After that, every time I went hunting I was found standing in a daze at the edge of a cliff. People avoided taking me along. Luckily I did well at school, and ultimately I even went to a university on the west coast. By the way, have you ever seen this hat of mine? I really like it. Those are bamboo partridge feathers on top. When my father named me, he caught a bamboo partridge, fed me the meat and kept the feathers for me as a memento. This might well be my most precious possession.

After Millet left, I started coming back to the village now and again to help Anu operate the Forest Church. Maybe I’m slowly getting to know the mountains. Now I just feel we have to make sure mountains like this don’t disappear, mountains without potholed roads or tunnels, mountains where goats and boars and deer can run wild.

It’s been blazing hot the past few days. Yesterday, looking up at the mountain from the coastal highway, I saw many trees that seemed scorched by the fiery Foehn wind. One time my father took us swimming at the seashore. “When the sea is sick, the mountains will be sick, too,” he said, squeezing my little willy between his fingers.

I opened the Seventh Sisid because I wanted to have a dwelling with windows on all four sides. Because I’m afraid of houses without windows.

Dwelling places are really important to the Pangcah aborigines, because we think houses are for spirits to inhabit. Me and Ina drifted into the city, spent so long living there, but all the houses we lived in were haphazard, more like shacks. So the first thought I had when I made some money was to build a house of my very own, right by the seashore.

I remember Alice and Thom started building the Seaside House just when I broke the soil on the Seventh Sisid, so our houses were twins. Their house was really special, like nothing I’d ever seen before: it had solar panels on it, and the shape of it was unprecedented in these parts. I didn’t have relatives or friends in the local Pangcah village, but when I was building the house everyone still came out to help. Remember? When it was finished we held a mitsumod . You were there, weren’t you? You even helped me slaughter a pig Ah Jung’s family raised. Time sure flies.

Would you mind if I ask you about Millet? Ahem. I mention her because hearing you talk about her reminds me that I used to do the same kind of job. Maybe I understand how Millet felt, more or less. Besides, maybe at the same time as I was working she was doing the rounds in a place with little rooms somewhere else. You know? The worst part about the job is when you’re standing in the doorway, about to knock, and you don’t have any idea what kind of man is waiting for you on the other side. You can’t refuse, even if you don’t like him, even if he’s disgusting. You knock, the door opens, and you’ve got to spend an hour with a stranger.

I had a close friend at work at that time. Her name was Nai. She told me, try pretending you’re a real masseuse, not someone doing “dirty” work. Every guy who comes here must have some aches and pains. So when you massage a customer, ask him what needs special attention, where you should press harder, and when you massage those places it’s like … it feels like there’s something alive inside. Nai said that if you give those places a serious rub, the customer might initially say it hurts but eventually he’ll relax. Some guys go to sleep, others open up and start confiding in you. If you show him some tenderness a customer usually won’t be too demanding, because lust will have been replaced with something else.

But there are all sorts of difficult customers, and some are sick with you-know-what and they’re not too happy if you don’t want to touch them or let them touch you. Some guys really make a scene. Sometimes when you’ve done half the massage, the wife or girlfriend will call and you pretend you’re not overhearing, but it’s really awkward. Some customers who haven’t been able to come when time’s up will try to pay half price and leave. Some will toss the money on the counter downstairs and jump into a cab. And when the bookkeeper counts it there’s not enough. And other customers will even make harassing phone calls.

When I was doing you-know-what with the guys, I would turn off the lights and the TV. The room would get real dark, and I’d imagine I was on a small, deserted island somewhere.

I often thought: If I ever make enough money I’ve got to move someplace that’s sunny and bright.

Nai always told me, whatever you do, don’t fall for a customer. She told me for my own good, and for her own good, too. But there was one time when I almost did. I still remember the way his back looked. He had broad shoulders, with a long, tapering line from his neck to his waist, like this boy I knew in elementary school. He often came exhausted, with numerous knots or clots in his energy flow. I had to struggle to work them out. He hardly ever spoke, but you could sense his breathing was labored. Even though I almost never talked to him, I felt he wasn’t a happy guy.

When it was time, I would turn off the light and tell him, “Mister, you can lay on your back now.” He would turn over quietly, and I would sit by the bed with my back to him, holding his thing and relieving him. Sometimes he would gently touch my back with his big hands. Maybe you don’t believe me but a woman’s body can sense the emotion in someone’s touch. Even when you just lay a hand on someone or someone lays a hand on you, you sometimes get a sense of what the other person has on his mind, though you’re not real clear what it is. It’s kind of elusive, whatever it is that’s communicated through the skin. It’s hard to describe, but you know it when you feel it. You can sometimes tell whether another person loves you or not, just by touch.