Xu Xiaobin - Dunhuang Dream

Wuye was carrying her on his back! Only the two of them seemed to exist in the vast grayness. She clutched him as if she were clutching her own life. But he knelt. He really did seem to climb like a camel making his way through the gray sand. She wanted him to stop, but she couldn’t say a word. She had no other way to express herself except by grasping him. She saw blood in the moving sand beneath her.

It was only later that she learned Wuye had been more severely injured than she. He had lost a lot of blood from his badly scraped knees. The blood made her recall that dream and the far-off young man who had died. Drowsily, she tried her best to keep from vomiting. By the time Wuye had carried her to the bus stop, his face was deathly pale, his body was covered with sand, and his trouser legs were wet with blood. The sight of him left the experienced dispatcher tongue-tied with fright.

Much later, she commented, “I was so moved at that time. Bleeding though you were, you carried me to the bus stop.”

“I carried you the way Jesus was forced to carry the cross.” Amazed, she examined him. His seriousness, without the slightest trace of humor, made her suddenly recall that day and how, at the sight of all that blood, she had expressed a womanly surprise and concern, which he had stubbornly if not brutally dismissed.

As she recalled it later, the gray day of the sandstorm was forever closely linked to that clear, cold autumn evening seventeen years before. At dusk that autumn day, at a bend in that lonely bluish road, she saw the following announcement, which was colored the same blue by the streetlight:

The counterrevolutionary Yan Xiaojun, whose every thought was reactionary and who was extremely active, venomously attacked the Central Cultural Revolution Committee and venomously attacked the standard-bearer of the Cultural Revolution during the Great Cultural Revolution. On x day, x month, 19xx, Yan, who illegally possessed a huge quantity of reactionary pamphlets, sought to flee, and the Public Security Bureau gave pursuit. The suspect put up a desperate struggle and was killed at the scene.

She stood for a long time in front of the announcement. Suddenly, blood seemed to spread on that thin piece of paper, staining it purple. The blood began to drip. At the time, she recalled the young man she had seen three days earlier at the station and how his bright eyes had been reduced to a bloody pulp. Died at the scene? How much blood did such a living person have to shed? In that bloody light she vomited a dry purplish. .

“At twenty-nine, the female benefactress will encounter difficulties and be deprived of a loved one!”

That awful Dayejisi! He was off by one year. She was seventeen and not eighteen. This year, it was twelve years after she was eighteen. No wonder. . she thought of Wuye, his deathly pallor and his bloody knees, and her heart trembled.

11

But she was already powerless to resist. The night of the accident, Wuye kissed her. It was a brief kiss, but both of them were trembling. Tears welled up in Xiao Xingxing’s eyes.

“Xingxing, I think you are very strange.”

“What?”

“You’re the miraculous combination of the civilized and the natural. You. . have such a beautiful body and you are so intelligent. .”

Xingxing looked at him, surprised and bewildered. Such a beautiful body? It was the first time anyone had said that to Xingxing.

“Do you really think I am beautiful?”

It was Wuye’s turn to be surprised: “You mean no one ever told you before?”

“Ever since I was very young I have been ashamed of my body.” She laughed unconcernedly. “Everything is out of proportion and nothing goes together.”

“What do you mean out of proportion? Are proportion and beauty the same thing?” Wuye’s eyes were as docile looking as a lamb’s. “As far as I am concerned, only the different is beautiful. Those of us who have taken anatomy class are completely familiar with the female body. But only one in ten thousand is different, and she should be the queen of all women.”

“You should study painting or art.”

“That’s right. And if you let me paint my ideal beauty, I’d paint one more distinctive than Picasso or Matisse.”

She put her arms around him and pressed her face to his. He was young and his flesh firm. She could feel the hot blood flowing through his veins. Had Heaven returned Xiaojun? Seventeen years earlier, when Xiaojun had embraced her in Miyun Reservoir, she had felt the same flow of hot blood. Unfortunately, she didn’t know anything at the time, she didn’t understand a thing. She understood now, but it was too late. Eleven years separated them! That was a whole generation! The warmth from his breast enveloped and moved her. She wept. No, she wanted to live one more time and love once more, completely. Who was afraid of a hell of fire? Shakyamuni had threatened Ananda with such a hell and Ananda had given in, which just showed that Ananda’s love for his wife was not deep enough. Perhaps love was no longer suited for the ever changing rhythm of modern society, but true love has its own unique rhythm that struggles free of all others. Disregarding others and letting down one’s defenses, one will have no complaints regardless of how one is wounded. Do you want to love? Then you must be brave and take risks and at the same time dispel any illusions regarding a happy ending. There is no end for true love.

“We should go to Sanwei Mountain to watch the sun rise tomorrow,” she said.

12

She had never seen the sun this color anyplace else.

The sun was slowly rising over Sanwei Mountain. The sun glowed a feeble white against the light purple backdrop. How strange was Sanwei Mountain. It filtered the golden light of the sun, which tenaciously squeezed through a gap in the mountain, a patch of auspicious Buddha light, and the sun became white like a negative.

A fresh breeze whispered, blowing across their heads and shoulders. She saw his eyes glow with a little golden light.

“I’ll take your picture, Wuye.”

“Okay.”

She raised her camera and he turned to look directly at her. The little gold immediately disappeared from his eyes. It was just reflected from the light of the Buddha and not emitted from his own eyes.

“How’s that?”

“Good.” She smiled.

“Let me take one of you.”

She shook her head resolutely. He gently embraced her. She responded coldly at first then put her arms around his neck. He was burning.

“It’s good.” He softly kissed her hair.

“What?”

“Everything, everything is good.” Tears actually welled up in his eyes. “If only we could stand like this forever and become two stone statues.”

“You’re so sentimental,” she said, pressing her face to his chest where she could feel the vigorous throb of his heart. Once again she felt the vibrancy of his youth. He was too young. He was hers, but she would soon lose him. She couldn’t bear the pain of losing him.

“It’s too bad that I’m too old to fall in love,” she said, removing her arms and holding herself as if she were cold.

“So love knows age? The fortune-teller said you are ten years younger than your actual age. He also told me that I am ten years older than my actual age. In that way, I’m much older than you.” He looked at her tenderly. Her hair had a soft sheen to it; it was parted in the middle revealing her white scalp. He raised her chin and leaned to kiss her. Her eyes appeared misted over and she turned away.

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t like this.”

“Why?”

“It’s too easy for people like you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s not my concern.”

The tears vanished from Wuye’s long eyelashes. She was a labyrinth to him. He wound around for ages only to find himself lost. But he liked labyrinths and the uncertainty. He took it all as an intellectual challenge of sorts.