Wu Ming-Yi - The Man with the Compound Eyes

“If you see a book you like please feel free.”

“Uh … for real?”

“A few books won’t make any difference.” In the end Jessie only took a collection of short stories by Isak Dinesen in the original. Head cocked, Alice asked, “You read Danish?”

“Oh no, it’s just, um, for a memento. Danish looks really neat.”

Before getting in the SUV Jessie came over and asked: “Professor Shih, will I see you around campus?”

“Probably not.”

“I was just wondering if I could send you stuff I write? I’d totally understand if it’s not okay.”

Alice had nodded, then shaken her head. Now, without any emotion, she remembered who the girl was.

After Mitch and Jessie left, Alice wandered into Toto’s room and flopped onto the bed, which once had that familiar smell. Now Alice did not have to worry about the fish dying, only about how she would die, which somehow did not seem to matter as much. She stared up at the map on the ceiling of the hikes Thom had taken Toto on. They had drawn it together. Often she’d be cooking while they were in here hatching secret plans. Mountain climbing was always their thing, and all these years, no matter how hard Thom tried to convince her, she just would not go. She would not go to church, either.

“Sometimes in life you should be able to say no,” Alice thought.

Alice would never forget her first climbing experience. More a hill than a mountain, the Emperor’s Hall was located in the rocky country to the southeast of Taipei. At the time intercollegiate coed socials were popular, and Alice got dragged along to one by a classmate. Never a sporty person, she was all right for the first half of the climb, but once she went past a little temple she had to pull herself along with a rope and clamber over roots, until she made it to this ridge where there was nothing to hold onto. People kept encouraging her, and at the time Alice was too timid to refuse. She carried on for another few minutes and then broke out in a cold sweat and suffered a panic attack. She did not scream to get some gallant boy to help her along, as a typical girl might have done. The tears just started falling. Why of all places did they have to come here? One boy offered his arm but she refused. The fellow looked polite but was actually empty-headed (as she had discovered riding on the back of his motorbike). Instead, she made her own way back down, half-walking and half-crouching. She had never gone hiking since.

The map had intersecting red and blue routes labeled with different colored flags. She did not know what the colors meant and could only try to imagine the alpine vistas Thom and Toto had seen. Who knows how much time they spent on it or what was going through their heads when they were drawing it? She followed the routes with her eyes. Although she never went climbing, she had often looked at the map and planned treks with Toto, as if playing a game. She knew the map just as well as Toto and Thom, but for some reason she had always had a funny feeling that a few routes were not drawn quite right, though she could not say why. Alice kept staring until her eyes glazed over. It started getting dark outside, and the routes on the ceiling gradually withdrew into shadow. Alice pictured Toto sitting on his high stool or standing on Thom’s shoulders as he traced out a route, until finally she lost track of time and sank into a deep sleep.

Sometime later that night there was a strong earthquake, strong enough to reawaken people’s childhood memories. At first, she was still half-asleep; after all, she had been living in earthquake-prone Haven for quite a while now and had felt worse than this. But when the earth was still shaking over a minute later, and the tremor was getting stronger and stronger, Alice sat up in bed automatically, instinctively wanting to take shelter or flee the house. How ironic! Why should a person who is ready to die care how it happens? Alice lay back down and seemed to hear a great dull roaring coming from somewhere, as if the mountain itself was about to move. She recalled that huge earthquake that hit when she was in elementary school. No one in her family was killed, but her school had collapsed, and a science teacher who really liked her named Miss Lin as well as a boy who sat next to her in class, often gave her treats and wore spectacles had both been crushed to death. After school the day before, he had walked with her in the student procession and given her five silkworms. Five days after, maybe as a result of eating mulberry leaves that had not been cleaned properly, the silkworms all produced mushy black poops and died, their bodies all shriveled up. Those were the two most intimate memories she had of the event. An earthquake does not have to kill you to induce mortal terror; it is enough that it can take away something dear to you, leaving nothing but a shriveled skin behind.

The rumbling sound lasted several minutes before the world fell silent again. Alice was so tired she fell right back to sleep. It was not yet light out when she awoke to the inexorable rhythm of the waves. She got up, looked out the window, and found herself standing on a remote island in the midst of an immense ocean, as frothy waves rolled relentlessly across the distance toward the shore.

The fog seemed to emanate from the ocean deep. It permeated everything, as all-pervasive as Kabang Himself. For a moment Atile’i wondered whether he was underwater. He might as well rest his oars, for what was the point of rowing in such a great fog? Seven days from Wayo Wayo, he was convinced that oars were useless in the open ocean. No wonder the islanders had established an invisible boundary around the fishing grounds, for any man who crossed it might never return. Not to mention the fact that his provisions of food and fresh water had run out. Though in spirit he had given up hope that his fate would be any different from any other second son, he had not despaired in the flesh. That’s when he started trying to drink seawater.

Near midnight it started to rain. The rain and the fog blurred the boundary between sea and sky. In the rain Atile’i assumed he had gone through the Sea Gate. Legend had it that at the extremity of rain and fog there was a gate in the sea, beyond which lay the True Isle, the abode of Kabang and all the other aquatic deities, the island of which Wayo Wayo was but a shadow. Usually this True Isle was hidden beneath the sea, only to rise above the waves at certain fateful hours.

Atile’i sought shelter under the palm-leaf awning he had made especially for his talawaka , but it was dripping wet underneath, not much drier than out in the open. He murmured, “A mighty fish has fled, a mighty fish has fled.” In the Wayo Wayo language this meant: Forget it, forget it. Though he had not said it out loud, Atile’i had already blasphemed in his heart: when he wondered whether, out here on the ocean, the ocean was greater than God. How could any god rule the sea? The sea itself was God.

At dawn, Atile’i realized his talawaka was sinking. Vainly but out of necessity, he bailed the water out, and only abandoned ship when it was almost submerged. Atile’i was a first-rate swimmer among the youth of Wayo Wayo, his legs as supple as a fishtail, his arms slicing through the water like fins, but in the open ocean even a jellyfish has more wherewithal than a man, even a man like Atile’i. Atile’i was swimming hard. No thoughts remained, not even the thought of quitting. Atile’i was like an ant that stumbles into a puddle and flails around, fighting for its life, knowing neither hope nor despair.

Though he had sinned against Kabang in his mind, Atile’i still prayed to Him with the words of his mouth. “O Kabang,” he chanted, “the only one who could dry up the sea, if You would forsake me, please let my corpse turn into coral and drift homeward for Rasula to find.” Atile’i lost consciousness as soon as his prayer was complete.