LI TANG

THE TOWN AT THE END OF THE WORLD, PART I

translated by David Huntington, Ru Jia, and Zhu Jiasheng

In the town at the end of the world, the first thing I do after waking is go to the seaside. The relentless wind roughs me with salt. When I stick out my tongue it gets washed in brine. From time to time, a wave leaps up and glitters at its crest. The seabirds cry out, revolving overhead, as piercing as steam whistles. They are waiting for food and salt. Their target spotted, they dive, skim the sea, and rise again ten thousand miles. Something like a fish or shrimp will be dangling from their beaks. Their acrid droppings will spatter the rocks.

As the sun lifts slowly from the face of the sea, layer by layer the colors change. Some children come from nowhere, as always at this time, and climb some big rocks by the shore, looking out at the rising sun. With their whooping and shouting, the sea cycles through many colors, continuing to shift until at last the sun is in the sky. Once the light’s too dazzling, the children cover their eyes and bustle off. Clouds like white sculptures drift in the air. That’s how our days begin. 

Each day is a reincarnation. The sun rises and sets, sets and rises. We stare blankly toward the sun, chatting, singing, sneezing. Once, when I was those kids’ age, I took a wooden pistol and shot the sun with a round of nothing. I was waiting for it to be punctured, to plummet with a crash. I was waiting, wanting, and yet I feared it (that it could happen). Of course, nothing can change the sun. It rises and falls. 

In the crisp dawn, groups of bald folks walk the sand in white robes. Rows and rows of footprints. Whose? Their identity is never made known to me. They are nearly expressionless. From their ears hang silver pendants. Unspeaking, in silence, they walk the shore, trailing those footprints. What are their intentions? There are never answers because no one asks. They are silent symbols. The wind fills their robes. After they leave, the sea gushes to lick the footprints.

In the end they always fade from sight. Once I saw a small, shaven-headed child running among them, with his wide white robes, flitting like a swallow fallen out from its group. 

I think, perhaps, I once was one of them too, but by now I’ve simply forgotten. At one time, I was barefoot like that child, running around their silent ranks. But later I’d gone and forgotten it all. Become an idle wanderer.

To preserve this fleeting vision, to grasp it firmly, I tear up countless rough sketches, the shreds of them all dancing and fluttering into white butterflies in that strip between the sky and sea. The sun illuminates them as if they’ve been bestowed with life by the divine creator. But it’s all illusion. I, too, am paper torn to pieces.

Those white-robed ones who never speak. Silver shackles clanking.

I’m standing on the bespattered rocks, holding myself tightly, or rather, failing to light a cigarette (hey, it’s hard!). All too easily a meager flame can get snuffed by the breeze. On one very pleasant day, I heard the sound of bones breaking under sunlight, a crisp sound. I shake my head and something rolls inside it. Something forgotten.

In the town at the end of the world, on just such a fine and sunny morning, I feel so very light. This lightness, it embarrasses me, shames me, nearly takes my courage. A little boat sets out to sea, and I can hear the sailors calling. Their strong arms are twinkling with flakes of dried salt. The ocean gently cups them. 

I know one of them, a guy named Lars. We grew up together. He has an honest smile and a wild beard. He’s also my only reader. I’ve written a book about the weather—that is, the weather in my imagination. The weather at the end of the world. The taciturn weather. The elusive but sometimes stagnant weather. The fleeting weather. The non-existent weather. The weather that cannot be seen. The suffering, melancholic weather. . . 

He says to me, I understand you.

I believe him. He really does understand the weather. It’s reassuring. But, alas, the weather is forgotten, along with the book. Sailors have no need for cryptic weather. They give it a wide berth. Then my book was stolen. I had no way of finding it (though I wonder if I had even looked). 

I crush my cigarette (crush it and crush it) and walk toward Lars’s boat. He holds his hand like the brim of a hat. From his direction, I am against the sun. 

White butterflies flutter and melt in the light between us.

2.

In the town at the end of the world, going to sea isn’t such a big deal. The boat bobs gently from the rough-hewn dock, making its way out over the deep ocean. Most of the time, life on the sea doesn’t come with many waves. You could even call it dull. The mates laze in the cabin, playing cards, sleeping, reading nautical adventures. They’ll never encounter the daring plots of those tales in their own lives. Like their fathers before them, every day they’ll go out fishing. At a fixed hour they’ll set sail, and then they’ll return. Sometimes, a novel will bring one of the younger ones to tears, and he’ll propose a distant voyage. Such youths will punt a boat out with bamboo poles into the deep sea. Some will simply not come back (though this is rare), while others will sneak home in the still of the night, careful not to be noticed. Early the next morning, the old sailors will see them and show no surprise. They’ll pass the time as always, playing cards, drinking, reading. These days at sea evaporate with the water.

In dreams I find myself on a swaying landmass. I wake to see Lars on the bow with a drink. He sits before the vast and boundless sea. Windless. It’s fated to be another uninspiring day (though why should I care?), even a soulless one. We—these two empty bodies—sit together, watching this ocean scenery we know all too well. Just then, a sort of feeling grows: we will always live at sea. The kind of feeling you might call despair. All of the land has sunk, the world now nothing but a watery expanse. We drift with the waves and slowly merge. . . our flesh, our bones, our minds all become water, become some salty fluid. . . 

Time at sea has reached a standstill. At some moment, together, we lost our memories. We set sail full of expectation, but then forgot what we’d meant to do.

The seabirds are all hung suspended in the sky.

The sailors tell me, You should write a book about the sea.

Yes, I do have the faint feeling I’ve got a book about the sea in me, in fact, I may have already written it. Sometimes I think this is all just a fantasy. Days at sea can slip so easily into illusion. (I’ve seen countless unexplainable holes spring up in the hold. The water won’t stop flowing. If it goes on like this, it’s not long before we sink . . . and yet we haven’t sunk. [An unsinkable boat?] The thought makes me angry, to the point that I take the iron hook hidden in the compartment and start boring holes in the hull. When I raise my head, I see Lars has been sitting on the bow all along, drinking his bottomless wine. I suddenly recall that all the little holes in the hull are of my own doing. This boat is indeed unsinkable.)

The needle sways on the dial of day and night. These are hopeless times. A red crab is crawling by my foot. The seabirds are suspended in the sky. Suddenly they are suspended somewhere else.

What are you writing? Lars asks me.

A novel, I say.

But you don’t write fiction, he says.

Well then it’s not fiction, I say.

I write: Eventually that day always comes: what the sailors call Reception Day. On that day, the coffins will float here from the Other Side. The sailors will set aside their cards, wine, and page-worn novels; they will hook the coffins and pull them to the dock. The boats will tug the coffins slowly.

We’re waiting for your novel! The sailor sitting beside us shouts at me. Stop writing about the bloody weather. 

3.

In the town at the end of the world, I enjoy the small things, like the cries of birds. Although no call is the same, they are all crisp and powerful, as if you could hold them. It’s true, every bird’s voice is different. And all are small. I sit by the window, as usual, thinking nothing.

I sit by the window, watching my face reflected in the glass. I cherish moments like this. My spirit relaxes. Fresh pine needles. A light tree-scent blows in from the grove. I inhale.

Outside the log cabin, it’s far from quiet. People are dragging heavy coffins, moving with great effort. They must deliver the coffins to the Orchard Cemetery before sunset. They rope the coffins to their bodies, securing the ropes firmly around their shoulders. They bare their teeth. The coffins scrape along the path, digging many ruts.

When they tire, the coffin bearers stand and rest a while, wiping sweat, chatting, catching a breeze. It’s a beautiful moment. They’ll share a few light words and carry on. If one of them is beat (had a few too many last night, most likely), those beside him won’t hesitate to lend a hand.

Then a black bird sets on my windowsill. It’s not a crow. I’m not sure what else it could be, but certainly not a crow. It dips its head, a tiny pocket watch in its beak.

I wait. After a while it sets down the watch and flies away. I know it’ll return.

Such moments seem to last forever. All things appear unchanging. I reflect on the last pinecone rain, fairly recent. It always comes without warning. It’s truly terrible. Prickly pinecones all over the place. It takes an enormous amount of energy to clean them up, and then they just fall again.

Someone is knocking.

I know it’s the Colonel without opening the door. As usual the Colonel just stands there, not entering. He wears an unassuming old-man smile.

Sorry, he says.

It’s nothing. I give him the watch.

He accepts it, brings it to his eye, then tucks it away.

He’ll be back, the Colonel says. Damn bird.

Right, I say. Cup of tea?

No thanks, the Colonel says. We’re playing the tooth game. Wanna join?

Sounds great, I say.

The Colonel and I leave the house together, walking side by side over the ruts. He found these teeth in the Garden of Ruins just a few days ago. When we arrive at his cabin, several men are already playing.

We play about two hours. People come and go. The sky darkens. At last the Colonel rises to gather the teeth.

It’s late, lads, he says.

And so one by one we leave the Colonel’s small home. The town at night is so different from during the day. Eventually it is just me on the road. I think I’ve lost my way, which is nothing new. 

I follow some road, completely unlit. Even the moon has dissolved into the night. An unchanging wind. I know I’ve gone too far. I can’t turn back. I can only continue. In the distance, I begin to distinguish the features of a valley.

Later, I hear someone call my name. It’s Lars. I stop walking and stand where I am. He will find me. My mind drifts to a girl I know who gets lost just as easily as I do. I haven’t seen her in ages. She likes to keep red butterflies.

I see Lars and others lighting torches. They notice me and walk over.

What are you doing here? Lars says.

I’m lost, I say.

Dinner’s starting. We’re having canned watermelon.

Fantastic.

We walk the road to the alfresco restaurant. Lars looks up at the sky and wrinkles his brow. He says there might be a pinecone rain tomorrow. I should prepare. But then he adds: Another girl was kidnapped by a giraffe today.

Where is Huihui? I ask. By now we can see the restaurant’s light.

Don’t know, Lars says. No one knows, not unless she wants them to.

4.

In the town at the end of the world, every morning I’m a little afraid. But the feeling is light enough that I can almost ignore it. It’s like a sleeping bird nestling quietly in my chest. Something like that.

The room starts to feel like a loaf of rising bread. I feel it begin to swell and soften. I press my hands into the wall and feel it breathing. I wonder if anyone else is like me.

I never get to zone out for long. There’s always an interruption. This time, it’s Lars. He’s knocking on the window and calling my name. I leave the bed and draw the curtains. I open the window and Lars hands me a climbing stick. He’s telling me it’s time to get moving. 

Today we are going to find the girl kidnapped by the giraffe. We know where she will be.

Lars carries a hiking pack with food and water. Several others I don’t know are also wearing packs. We ascend the trail into the woods. 

We arrive in the forest.

Winter is approaching. The leaves are thick and spongy underfoot. The sunlight dapples through the branches. Several birds beat their wings into flight and emit saw-like cries. I watch beams of sunlight touch the ground. Suddenly, I feel spent. Like I’ve lost the will to move. I have to stop.

What’s wrong? Lars asks.

I don’t answer. I lean on a tree and put a cigarette between my lips. I take out a match, but before I can strike it, it’s snatched away by Lars. He doesn’t look happy.

How could you do that? He clenches the match. How could you forget the fire?

Of course I haven’t forgotten. I was a kid when it happened, just like Lars. Our parents had gone to fight the fire in the woods. Many died in that fire, including Lars’s father. It’s said the fire started from a cigarette butt someone forgot to stamp out. It was also the beginning of winter then.

I’m sorry, I say.

Lars pockets the match and walks on without a word. I follow behind him. The feeling improves, but never leaves completely. I often have this feeling, but have never known why. I first felt it as a child, lying in bed, the sun shining, the scent of fresh sheets. I saw my shadow on the wall. Suddenly, the feeling seized me. I’ll never be able to forget it. Tears were streaming down my face, and I had no idea what had happened. It’s been more than ten years now and I still don’t know what happened.

A great cloud covers the sun. The woods darken.

We need to hurry, Lars says. The pinecones will fall soon.

We hasten our steps. We arrive at the riverside soon, and there’s the girl, lying on the bank. A blanket of leaves covers her body. 

This is what giraffes love to do. They slip into town in the night, use their long, soft necks to wrap up the girls, then scoop them back into the forest.

We rush to the girl’s side. I’ve seen her before, but we’ve never spoken. She is sleeping deeply, breathing delicately through her nose. The leaves over her body are freshly fallen from this morning. 

Lars wakes her. She stretches languorously and then looks at us with surprise, as if she doesn’t know what happened. 

Where’s the giraffe? Lars asks her.

She shakes her head absently. I don’t know, she says. I was having such a beautiful sleep.

We bring the girl back to the trail. The sound of the river grows more and more distant, until finally it has disappeared. A bird sits on a branch, turning its neck to watch us.

When I return to my cabin it is noon. The mailman is waiting on my steps. He hands me a letter. I thank him. He pats the dust off his pants and goes.

It’s from Huihui. I go to my desk to open it. But just then, there’s a gust of wind outside and a thundering on the ground. The mayhem of a thousand little children on the roof.

The pinecone rain has begun. 

5.

In the town at the end of the world, some things just happen naturally, like pinecone rain, like reading a long-awaited letter during a pinecone rain. Though the letter was unexpected, when it arrived in my hand I realized that I had in fact been waiting for it. Outside, the pinecones fall and fall. I open the letter.

From Huihui, the elusive girl. I read it through. (It’s very brief.) Then, sitting at my desk, I picture her. Meanwhile, endless pinecones are falling outside my window, bouncing and tumbling on the ground.

The pinecones persist for an hour, and then the weather clears. Some people emerge from their cabins and walk around on the bed of cones. Some kids run out and start throwing them at each other. The cows that had been hiding in their shed have wandered back into the pasture, again grazing peacefully. Everything has returned to normal, only covered in pinecones.

As people start to sweep up, Old Mo comes to sit in my cabin for a while. Still in his pajamas, he looks like he just woke up. I brew him a big cup of pine tea. He rotates the chair and sits resting his chin on the back. When I pass him the cup, I can really see it: he’s aged. His eyes are baggy, his eyelids drooping. His gaze is heavy with grief.

It wasn’t like this two years ago. Every day he had an inexhaustible energy, all day rounding up the animals without ever tiring. But since that one night when all the animals ran away, there’s been nothing to hold back his aging. 

I don’t want to talk about it, he says. He always says it like this, rubbing his eyes with his palms. 

We all feel for him. To this day, he has never recovered from that blow. We always see his figure in the abandoned zoo in the early morning, as if those animals will return some day. After it was abandoned the zoo quickly became the kids’ favorite spot for hide and seek. The head-tall weeds can obscure a kid completely.

I know precisely why he’s come here:

Did you guys see any giraffes today? Old Mo asks.

No, I say. We only found the girl. Not a trace of the giraffe.

Ah, he says. He nods. He puts down his cup and rises to leave.

Stay a little longer, I say.

Not today, thanks. He gives a smile, then goes.

I know he will never let go. After a while, Lars comes, and we talk about Old Mo. Before coming to see me, he had already asked Lars the same question and received the same answer. We know he will ask every one of us who went into the woods today. It’s always like this.

Old Mo is a good man, Lars says, sighing.

Yeah, I say. He just misses those animals so much.

We fall silent for a moment. I remember how Old Mo used to be so solitary but also so happy. All those animals always kept him company. From dusk till dawn he tended to those animals, speaking to them in a language none of us could understand. Later, one night, they just burst out of the zoo’s big gate. They abandoned Old Mo.

There will be a funeral in the Orchard Cemetery tomorrow, Lars says, breaking the silence.

After Reception Day there’s supposed to be a funeral. Normally it would be today, but it was postponed because of the pinecone rain and the search for the girl. The dead from the Other Side will be buried in the Orchard Cemetery. I think I’d better attend.

Okay, I’ll be there, I say.

After Lars leaves, I read the letter again. I can almost see a red butterfly dancing before my eyes. Tomorrow, I will meet Erin. We will probably go to the seaside together, or take a walk by the river together, or cook something together, after which we will spend the night together. But the whole time I will be thinking of Huihui, unable to admit it. Such an awful feeling. 

PART II