Sheng Keyi - Death Fugue

In a strong voice Juli said to him, ‘It’s cool on the mountain. If you don’t feel comfortable, we can go home.’

He waved off the suggestion with his long slender fingers. He noticed that his hands were so pale they were almost transparent. Obviously his blood flow was slower than usual, and his breathing was ragged too. Still, he did not wish to abandon this journey, now that they were halfway to the ‘interesting place’ to which Juli had promised to bring him. And so, with a pretended ease, he asked, ‘How many metres above sea level are we?’

Juli told him they were around 4800 metres above sea level. Mengliu, having never been at such an altitude, suppressed his feeling of surprise. He made some amusing comment about the elevation, inducing a smile from Juli.

Perhaps it was out of boredom, but Juli began humming a tune to herself. It was one of those old folk songs with a melody that sounded like a Buddhist chant, making her voice bounce like a coiled spring. He instantly saw the angel’s notes tumble to the ground amongst the leaves. He thought, ‘Doing it at an altitude of more than four thousand metres would be out of this world.’ Then an even more specific thought crossed his mind, full of possibilities about how he and Juli might enter an even more spectacular realm.

He pricked up his ears and listened. The notes were like a school of lively fish splashing out from Juli’s throat. With their tails they created a stream of water, spraying the droplets onto his face. The melody flowed into his ears, and entered into the cramped confines of his soul. There, in a sudden burst, green trees sprouted and a cluster of pink camellias bloomed. At this moment he knew without a doubt that he was in love with her. His rapid heartbeat was certainly not the result merely of altitude sickness. Then his body alerted him to the fact that it wasn’t love, but lust, and that everything in and around him was waiting for him to take her.

But his mind sharply refuted the notion. How could anyone separate love from lust, any more than one could separate the flavour of chocolate out of chocolate ice cream? The two blended together to form one exquisite taste. He enjoyed this metaphor of his own that he’d come up with. Being with Juli had brought back to his mind a poetic sensibility, and he felt a strong lyrical impulse pulling at his heart. Without realising it, his thoughts began to follow the rhythms of Juli’s song, and some lines popped spontaneously into his head:

I am listening to someone sing

‘God bless the people whose bellies are full’

and so I think of those without food

wondering whether they are like me

— bellies empty, but ears full —

For them are life’s simple joys,

the morning dew on the grass

and a sense of piety in dark times

He got stuck there, and so stopped for a moment, bowed his head, and sought the next line. He wondered at his own gratuitous thoughts for the hungry, those who were too weary with life to change their own destinies — the silent majority, who had leapt right into his romantic imagination, squeezing their way into his thoughts. Each line of poetry was like a corpse laid in formation, here at 4800 metres above sea level, waiting for him to review it. He looked down to the foot of the mountain, to the river where his memories of Qizi flowed and to the ghostly quietness there, and he felt himself to be a bell so large it needed several men to ring it, swinging back and forth in a slow, methodical manner.

Juli hummed her tune. The edge of her dress was dirty with mud and grass stains.

He bowed his head and continued walking. There was a layer of fine fur growing on the tobacco leaves, their edges made jagged by the artistry of tiny insects. Riddled with disease, the plant was gradually giving up its hold on life, like a weary, emaciated figure making its final prayers before death. Before he could sift through the rapid changes of emotion going on inside him, the next verse came to him, riding the rhythm of the insects as they gnawed the tobacco leaves.

Only the wind enters the wilderness

Beating against the farmer’s gaunt form

Alongside the final rays of the setting sun

It sweeps over the tomb

There harvesting every last stalk

When the black cloth of night,

Completely covers weakness

Who, on his way back home

will contemplate the death of another?

By the time the rod is raised halfway

Destiny will cease its call for mutiny

Let us, like this, eat our fill

The sun shining on our bellies

We need no written word

To lord it over us

Each stage of life’s cycle

Is a ringworm settled between my fingers

But I remain master of myself

My ulcer-racked body lying on the earth

Sees next year’s cotton erupt

From my own navel

Then, we may all be blank slates

We will break the tyrant’s muzzle

And slowly make our escape

‘The tyrant’s muzzle? Mr Yuan what did you say?’ Juli asked.

Only then did he realise that he’d given voice to his song. The moment he looked at her, he realised it was Bai Qiu’s poem. One evening years ago Bai Qiu had sat by the Lotus Pond at the Intellectual Properties Office and composed it all in one sitting. It had immediately spread far and wide. By the time the sun had gone down, a group of influential poets had initiated a movement in which they used verse to stir the soul of the people. In the spirit of the real Three Musketeers, they swore themselves to a common destiny in life or death, to honour and loyalty, and to action at the critical moment.

Juli did not need an answer from Mengliu, nor did she wait for him to speak. Pointing ahead as they stepped out from the cover of the forest to a rock that protruded over the valley, she continued, ‘We’ve arrived. That’s it —’

Looking in the direction she pointed, Mengliu saw in the distance the ‘interesting place’. Across the valley on the slopes opposite them were the green tiles and flying eaves of white buildings standing transcendentally among the vibrant hues of flowers and leaves. Green vines climbed the walls and roofs, and purple blossoms dotted the facades, scattered like stars across the sky. Down the face of the mountain beyond flowed a waterfall, which looked as if it was falling from the heavens, creating a mystical atmosphere. Rising through the clouds was a cylindrical tower constructed of beautiful red brick. As the wind blew and the clouds parted, they saw at its top a giant clock, which filled the valley with its music as it struck the hour of three.

‘Oh, it looks like a lovely holiday resort.’ Mengliu gazed at it for a long time, then asked, ‘Does it have any special significance?’

‘Upon reaching fifty years of age, anyone can live there.’ Juli’s face wore an expression of longing. ‘It’s the best nursing home in Swan Valley. I’ve heard that they have everything there — library, cinema, theatre, chess matches, debating clubs, athletic events…or you can just laze about all day on a huge sofa in the café, listening to music and chatting while you consume unlimited supplies of fresh fruit juice. You will never feel like a lonely old person living there.’

‘Go into a nursing home at fifty years old? Things are very different in a welfare society,’ Mengliu said, laughing. ‘But, I’d rather work till I’m eighty, growing vegetables and rearing chickens in my own garden. I’d never want to live in a communal facility.’