Sheng Keyi - Death Fugue

Of course he didn’t do anything like that, he just watched as Juli turned around, her clothes bulging and then instantly deflating as she turned back to face the wind again. He didn’t do anything at all except for maintaining the reserved, aloof demeanour of a poet, though Juli’s skin was now emitting a bronze shine, smooth as satin.

He began to appreciate his poetic demeanour.

Turning to Mengliu, Juli said, ‘In 1876, the year the US celebrated a century of independence, an international expo was held in Philadelphia, with thirty-seven countries taking part. The latest British steam locomotive was on display and America’s high-powered electric motors and generators, along with Germany’s precision machine guns…Can you guess what China exhibited?’

Mengliu cited several things, such as porcelain, cheongsams, various kinds of facial makeup from the Peking opera, and so on. Juli said all were wrong, it was an earwax cleaning set made of pure silver, and embroidered shoes for binding feet. She was very interested in the bound feet of Chinese women. Such topics played right into Mengliu’s hand. He immediately recited, in an exaggerated dramatic tone, a few lines from a famous poem by the Tang poet Li Shangyin, ‘Paper made from the river is the colour of peach, with verses inscribed in praise of little feet.’ Then he followed with a made-up story similar to the one about the King of Chu and his obsession with tiny waists.

Yuan Mengliu could not be bothered with the location of the church. The steeple emerging some distance from the forest might be their destination, but he preferred to go about things in a rather nonchalant manner. Su Juli’s skirt occasionally flapped against his legs, tapping out a playful rhythm. Several times Mengliu thought she was about to fall straight into his arms. His legs, having endured the onslaught of flirtation, felt fresh one minute, limp the next, and then perkier than ever, while his chest alternated between feeling full to the point of bursting, and completely deflated. His heart moved at a pace similar to that of a woman walking on bound feet, trembling and shaking all the way.

Judging by the constant changes in distance between himself and Juli, Mengliu guessed that her feelings must also be fluctuating. He noticed one small detail in particular. On the journey from the foot of the mountain to its peak, the distance between them had reduced from three metres to just twenty centimetres. From that progress, he anticipated that before they’d travelled another hundred metres, they would at last achieve an earth-shattering zero-distance.

But Mengliu’s method of calculation proved not to be a useful guide. They suddenly pulled apart, for he had stopped, noticing a round object hanging from the wall, like a bell with a dangling tassle. The bell, rotating in small circles as it hung from the stone surface, suddenly turned to show a face, pale as a piece of paper and baring white teeth. Its eyes were wide open, and the blue eyeballs protruded, like glass orbs. He felt two rays of blue light on his eyes, then the face turned away again. Mengliu was a battle-hardened man and he had used his scalpel on bloodied bodies, confronted dead men and even watched some die, but this lonely hideous hanging head still gave him a fright. The unlucky unpleasant piece of human debris struck him like a gunshot, scaring the fledgling of love from his heart, and leaving behind only a few downy feathers twirling in the wind.

Glancing at him, Juli said blandly, ‘Actually, criminals aren’t so readily executed in Swan Valley. For the most part the penalty of forced labour is preferred, since it’s more useful to make them work than to kill them off.’ With her hand she pressed down her floating skirt. Mengliu caught a glimpse of a tattoo on the back of her wrist, a captivatingly beautiful poppy in bloom.

‘That…why…’ As he held out a stiff finger towards it, the human head turned around again, as if complying with his summons. The features, those of a handsome white man, were graced with a goatee. ‘What was his crime?’

Juli brushed her fingers along her forehead, where the breeze had blown a few strands of hair into her eyes. She continued walking then, as cavalierly as if she were talking about nothing more significant than washing up, or brushing her teeth, or making her bed. ‘Adultery. He was tied up and left hanging for two days. When he was barely alive, they cut him down and, while his heart was still beating, castrated him, dug out his intestines, ripped out his heart and lungs, then threw them all into the fire and burned them to ashes. Finally…’ she turned and made a chopping motion in Mengliu’s direction, ‘finally they dismembered him and hung his head on the city wall for a week.’

For a moment, Mengliu’s blood seemed to freeze in his veins. It was as if a blade had been jammed into his teeth. His whole body ached, and chills ran down his spine. On more than one occasion he’d heard Hei Chun speak about how to use torture to achieve social stability. Allowing the masses to hear the condemned’s screams and witness the suffering caused by the execution, would be a warning that carried more impact on the inner person than any amount of moral education or effort on the part of the legal system. To be shot dead wouldn’t be all that horrifying, since such a quick death would be painless. The criminal law’s unique charm, its deterrent force, lay in its ability to make the public quake in terror, forcing them into submission.

What really terrified Mengliu about this case was not the method with which the criminal had been disposed, but the easy tone in which Juli spoke about it. She employed the same voice she might use if she were teaching someone to knit, ‘Loop the yarn over the right needle, insert the left needle into the loop, left, right…’ It was as if she was talking about a ball of wool, a few needles and the deft movements of the fingers as they manipulated them. He would need a strong constitution to keep his stomach from turning over when faced with such a casual attitude.

Mengliu was struck by the clear and sudden change as everything around him grew dark. A bitter wind attacked his flesh, and he wrapped his arms around himself.

Soon, he heard the comforting voices of the white-robed priests. With great relief he entered the church, and turned his eyes up toward the giant vault, around which he saw thousands of candles burning. The flames restored the warmth inside him. The priests in their pure clothing had serene faces. The music accompanying the hymns of praise was like larks flying through the forest. He felt a sense of enduring freedom.

‘No matter what,’ he thought, ‘with a girl like Su Juli, Swan Valley is a beautiful place.’

Inside the church the pair stood close together. As his shoulder brushed against hers, he felt her tremble slightly. The warmth of her body moved him again, as if her blood coursed through his veins. He glanced at her. Her eyelashes touched her cheeks, and a drop of sweat inexplicably trickled down her nose. For reasons he could not express, he rejoiced in the sight.

The only other thing worth mentioning about the inside of the church is that this first little bit of physical contact between Mengliu and Juli occurred there. Afterward, in order to avoid retracing their earlier route, they followed a bougainvillea-lined path into the forest. Its floor was covered with a variety of flowers, the roots of the huge trees were blanketed with lush wild grass, twigs and fallen leaves, and insects filled the air with a chirping sound from within the detritus. The deeper they went, the more moist it became, until the air above their heads was shrouded in a layer of fog. As he breathed in the rich odour of mulch, soil, and flora combined, Mengliu’s heart once again warmed. He felt like he was walking along the paths of paradise, with angels darting in the folds of Juli’s clothes and hair, and rustling between her legs with each movement. Sometimes he looked out at the tobacco plants growing on the hillside, or at the towering rocks, or to the spot where nameless flowers were in bloom on a strange tree. Otherwise his eyes remained on the creases in Juli’s skirts, an absorption interrupted only by his sudden loud sneeze that startled the birds from their perches in the trees.