LI TANG

THE TOWN AT THE END OF THE WORLD, PART II

translated by David Huntington, Ru Jia, and Zhu Jiasheng

6.

In the town at the end of the world, the biggest crowds gather during the funerals at the Orchard Cemetery. On such days, even people you would normally never encounter all come together to stand beside you—silent, or speaking softly. Their hearts are heavy, unconsciously reminded of all those who died in the forest fire. Those who lie deep and tranquil in the Orchard Cemetery.

Across the way, even the fruits in the orchard seem to have gone into hibernation. If it were midsummer, this place would be decorated with all kinds of fruit, a profusion of colors, suffusing the air with juices, intoxicating. We all love such seasons.  

But now, winter’s here. It’s a day that suits the silence.

As I enter the Orchard Cemetery, someone greets me, but as hard as I try, I can’t recognize him. He asks if I’ve finished writing my book, and I reply truthfully that I don’t know what to write. He nods, not looking at me, and mutters to himself, yes, it’s always like this. He shakes his head and leaves.

The Orchard Cemetery is already packed with people. I enter the crowd.

At once I notice Erin, almost at the same time that she sees me. She waves, tries to call me over. I don’t go because the funeral is about to start. This isn’t the time to be walking around.

The graves have long been dug. All that remains is to lower the coffins.

When will we be done with days like this, huh? A stranger behind me says. I don’t recognize him.

The day you’re lying down in there too, someone else answers.

After this, no one talks, because the ceremony has begun. Several people lift a coffin with rope, lowering it slowly into the grave, covering it in soil. When one is finished, they do the next. Over a dozen in all.

In the crowd I see Lars and Old Mo, standing together. Old Mo is still wearing those filthy pajamas, his eyes moist, like an old horse, gazing at the coffins and the pitch-dark graves.

After the ceremony, Erin comes over, takes my hand.

Hi, it’s been a while. Erin blinks.

The others are setting the table, preparing a dinner party right in the Orchard Cemetery. Lars and Old Mo walk over.

Hi, Erin. Lars says.

Hi, Lars. Erin looks cheerful.

Old Mo’s in his own world, gazing off.

How come the Colonel isn’t here? I ask Lars. I haven’t seen him in the crowd this whole time.

He’s been hanging around the Garden of Ruins, Lars says. I hear that he found some new toy again. 

Someone calls Lars to lunch, so we say goodbye and leave the Orchard Cemetery through the big door. After a pinecone rain, the weather is always wonderful. The sky gives out a pure deep blue, not a wisp of cloud or a bird in sight. It’s as if anything that appears in a sky like this gets swallowed up in blue.

Erin clutches my hand tightly. We arrive at the seaside. Erin has two cans of watermelon, which we eat as we sit on the rocks. The ocean breeze is salty as always, but the canned watermelon is sweet and fresh. The stuff coming out of the cannery just keep getting better.

Erin and I eat, watching the sea, holding our silence. The sweetness spreads out distinctly from my tongue across my body. At the same time, I feel cold. The sugar dissolves rapidly inside me.

This is not the time to be out at sea, but I can still see several boats floating out on the water. They are the meditators among the sailors. At this moment, everything is deep blue: the sky, the water, and my mind. My mind is a sheet of the deepest blue. But I don’t understand this color, and more, it gives me a sense of fear, of breathlessness.

Let’s go, I say.

We descend the rocks, leaving the empty cans where we were sitting.

7.

In the town at the end of the world, I like to be in the woods. Beside the river, there’s a cabin built of stones. No one knows when it was built, or who built it, or why. Erin and I often spend the night in the stone cabin. Inside, it smells of death.

As I enter, I can almost see the form death takes. But I don’t know what real death looks like. I enter the body of the house as if it were the body of death. Death temporarily takes us in, but refuses to reveal itself.

Erin also likes this feeling. She often says to me, this feels really great. So when we describe this house to other people, we always call it Death. I had once wanted to write a book about Death, but I had no way of precisely describing that feeling, so I gave up. Now, we just stay inside Death.

It’s said that the domain of Death was once very grand. In ancient times, many people of the town gathered here, dancing and singing day and night, decorating the place like a palace. But that era is just a legend; no one witnessed it. Over the years, the domain of Death became smaller and smaller, more and more worn down, until the people have nearly forgotten it, or rather, they’ve become no longer willing to mention it. People prefer to leave it buried in the depths of the forest. So all that remains is this lonely figure, and no one knows exactly what fate it met.

Beside it, there is the river. I like this river—actually, I like all rivers. I often sit by the river on a big rock (I know it is not a part of Death), watching the leaves, branches, and little fish eddying around in the rushing current. The fish in the river look mindless. When I look at them, they also stop swimming, and gather to look at me. We often sink into an endless staring match, until Erin comes with the fishing net, and they all scatter.

Basically, they aren’t actually dumb. (Sometimes I think all of this is rife with false impressions, or maybe I will them to be false impressions.)

Erin and I lie on Death’s bed. It’s already nighttime. Moonlight shines through the window, lighting the sheets. I stretch out my hand—now my hand catches the light. I caress it. The moonlight is flowing between my fingers. All around is quiet, there is only the sliding of the water. Erin turns over beside me.

You seem to have something on your mind, she says.

It’s nothing, I say. The moon today is beautiful.

I don’t like it when you hide things from me, she says.

Then a sleepiness comes over me. A sticky, stifling sleepiness. My eyelids become impossibly heavy. I don’t know what to say. This is all so perfect; for the first time I feel like I am getting close to Death. I’ve passed countless days and nights here, but I don’t understand it at all. Is it just a bare and desolate stone cabin? I feel something drifting, dropping in the darkness. I reach out, grasping nothing. It is falling in the dark.

I see a red butterfly in the night, soundlessly fluttering. I follow the spiral staircase all the way down. I don’t know where it leads, perhaps the end of the world.

Erin shakes me awake. Her eyes are flashing like an owl’s. Of course, it’s only an illusion. Tears are streaming endlessly from her beautiful eyes, falling on my shoulder and arm. Their coolness reminds me of the river flowing outside.

Huihui wrote me a letter, I say.

Erin remains silent. She waits in the dark.

She said she was with a blue tiger, I say.

That’s all? Erin asks.

That’s all.

Why did she write that?

I don’t know, I say.

For a long time there is no answer. I drift back into sleep. In my dream, I walk out of Death. Outside, the moon is curiously big, shimmering with dazzling light, as if it were day. It stops over my head, and I gaze at it for a long time. I don’t hear a single sound. Even the running water has faded away. As if time has stopped. Death is right behind me. I don’t know if this is really a dream.

8.

In the town at the end of the world, I often feel a kind of hunger. When I wake up in Death, the birds are singing outside. I open my eyes and see empty sheets beside me—I don’t know when Erin left. Suddenly I am hungry—it is a mild yet irresistible hunger, the kind that consumes my thoughts.

I get dressed. As I leave the cabin, I see it enveloped in sunlight. Its shape appears different than it does at night.

But I can’t think straight. At this moment I only want to find something to eat. I leave Death, leave the river, leave the forest, and return to my cabin. It is still just as before, a small reassurance.

I scrounge up some food and a half bottle of wine.

After my hunger is appeased, a comfortable weakness fills my body. I soon forget what I ate. I recall again the flavour of canned watermelon. Sitting by the window, I don’t know what to do. Some people I don’t know walk by outside.

I think, I should go to the Garden of Ruins, it’s a good place to pass the time. So I put on a peacock blue coat—my favorite coat. I like the color. Like all my clothes, it’s rumpled, but wearing it gives me confidence.

The sunshine today is good. I walk slowly in its abundance, feeling its temperature. I stick my hands in my coat pockets. My feet skim the dusty path. On such a clear morning, the sunlight is sweet. Two pieces of white are in the sky, like a pair of spotless white gloves.

Hummingbirds flutter their wings beside my ears. They hover around me, at times motionless in the sunlight, at times suddenly gone. I follow one of them (leaving the path), and find its nest—it’s on a branch, not too high. I climb the tree, and take the wine from the nest. The wine made by hummingbirds has a special fragrance. They carry fresh fruit to the nest, brewing the wine from it—that’s why they are usually intoxicated. People often see drunk hummingbirds sprawled on the ground. Then you can only gather them in your hands and blow softly, softly, until they slowly awaken, and fly away.

As I take the wine from the nest, a hummingbird swoops towards me, landing several pecks on my hands. It clearly despises my thievery. I can only jump down and head straight for the Garden of Ruins. Pumping its wings with all its might, the little bird pursues me for a while, but at last it gives up. When its wings are out of hearing, I relax my pace.

This weather, this sun, this light . . . I don’t want to walk too fast.

The Garden of Ruins can already be seen in the distance. I carry the wine, strolling along. Just then, I see something flash once on my left, then immediately twice more. I stop my steps, and look towards it.

Sure enough, it’s lightning on a clear day.

This situation is very rare, but not impossible. I walk over to find it lying in the grass, flashing one moment and darkening the next. Its shape is beautiful. I dare say it’s the most exquisite lightning I have ever seen. It’s about the size of a thumb. I can’t touch it directly, so I set down the wine, remove my coat, and wrap it inside.

The peacock blue coat suits it perfectly.

Just like that, using both hands and with great care, I collect the bundled lightning and continue toward the Garden of Ruins. However, now I can’t carry the wine. I stand there for a moment, thinking. I figure it will be fine to come back for it.

Decided, I continue on my way.

Upon entering through the gate (the courtyard walls are made of clay), I see the Colonel sitting atop the highest mound of dirt, squinting and basking spiritedly in the sun. He sees me and calls out my name.

In my arms there is a tiny flash.

9. 

In the town at the end of the world, the old Colonel scours the Garden of Ruins every morning. Sometimes he’ll dig something up, but more often he’ll come up with nothing. After digging, he’ll sit on the highest mound to rest, wipe his brow, and bask in the sun. Now, he is doing just that, his eyes squinted, a wisp of silver hair stuck to his forehead.

The hill is very high, with a ladder propped beside it. I climb up the ladder and sit next to the Colonel. From here I can see the Garden in its entirety. There are countless pits, large and small. Beside each pit is a mound the size of a hill, and amid the pits and mounds are excavated objects, strewn about.

What’s that there? The Colonel asks.

Lightning, I say. I open my bundle, only to find it empty.

It vanished, I say.

It’s often like this, the Colonel smiles.

Then I remember the wine. I tell the Colonel I should go back and get it.

Not necessary, he says. I’ve dug up plenty.

We climb down the ladder from the mound, then another ladder into a pit. It is very deep. This underground world is furnished with two sofas and a tea table, all dug out from the ground. We each take a couch. The Colonel pulls out two bottles of wine from a drawer beneath the tea table, opens them, and sets them on the table. Then we get to drinking. We clink glasses.

Excavated wine has a particular flavour, the kind of flavour forgotten by time. It’s easy to get drunk off it, so we both drink with care. I look up occasionally, towards the mouth of the pit. Light shines down. But no wind.

I like this quiet moment. Neither of us talk, just drinking in silence. But silence can never be held for long. Several boys I don’t know poke their heads in.

Hey Colonel, one of them shouts.

Hello, the Colonel says.

We’ve come to play the tooth game, another says.

Good, come on down, the Colonel says. But today I want to play the almond game.

The almond game works too, they say.

So the three boys descend the ladder.

We start to play the tooth game. The Colonel appears a little drunk, his face red, eyes falling shut. But he puts in a good effort to play with these boys, because they’re having a good time.

The game finished, the three young men leave, still full of energy. The Colonel leans back on the couch, looking beat, even his hair in disarray. He smiles to himself self-deprecatingly, says his energy is no match for young men.

So this is how old I’ve become, he mutters.

The pit has returned to silence. We finish the wine left in our cups and sink into the sofas, putting our two legs up on the tea table, watching the changing light through the opening above. At one point the sun appears briefly there, and in that moment, the whole cavern shines like gold. The light is so strong, stinging our eyes, making them impossible to open, and simultaneously a warm current flows into our bodies. But soon the sun leaves, and the cold returns.

I hear that you dug up something new a couple days ago? I say.

That’s right, the Colonel says. I thought you might be interested, so I asked Lars to tell you to drop by when you have time.

Well, I’m interested, I say.

I follow the Colonel up out of the pit, then back down into a slightly smaller one. This pit has no sofas, no wine, only a writing desk. On top of the desk is something draped in a cloth. As this pit is more shallow, I can feel the breeze, unceasingly blowing in from above.

What is it? I ask.

The Colonel lifts the cloth. It’s an orange typewriter.

I dug this out just recently, he says.

I examine it closely.

It seems to just be a typewriter, I say.

Wait, the Colonel says. Wait for a stronger breeze.

As a gust of wind blows over the typewriter, I see it start to type on its own. The keys depress one by one, as if some unseen person were controlling it, though it has no paper.

That is definitely interesting, I say.

Indeed, the Colonel says. I’m planning to put it in my museum.

Preparing to construct a museum of artifacts, digging things up to put inside—the Colonel is always at work on such things.

10. 

In the town at the end of the world, we like to sit in the small bar. Even if we aren’t doing anything at all, we still enjoy sitting there. In the daytime, the small bar is dusky inside, and come evening, it grows bright. Cats are always running between our legs. We don’t know how many cats there are, but we do know they all love canned watermelon.

Lars and I like to drink a wine we don’t know the name of. We sit at a small table and drink through straws. Old Mo is sitting at another small table not far from us, sipping at a glass of melancholy-coloured wine. A black and white striped cat slips under his table. In a tantrum, Old Mo stamps and makes a clamor until the cat skirts off again. Old Mo loves all animals, with the sole exception of cats.

There are some other people in the tavern, but we don’t know most of them.

I tell Lars about the typewriter that types by itself. He listens intently.

So it only works when the wind blows? he asks.

Right, I say, because then it feels comfortable. When the Colonel dug it out it was probably suffocating.

That’s really something, I want to see it too, Lars says.

We each empty our glass of no-name wine, then order two more. The bartender attentively switches out our straws. What time is it? We have no idea. In the tavern, time is suspended, swirling in the alcohol.

The tavern is built in a blue basin. That’s why, when we are in this space, time also feels sunken. Sometimes when we look out the windows, we see a sparkling blue, like a view of the bottom of the ocean.

Have you seen Huihui? Lars asks.

No, I say. That girl never leaves a trace.

Finishing the rest of our wine, we walk out of the tavern, out into the blue basin. The sky outside has already darkened. An enormous moon hangs on the horizon, and beside it, the stars have opened like eyes. Sometimes, walking on the road, the grass on either side emits a song. We don’t understand it, because it is in the language of grass and crickets, but still it pleases the ear. Every time we hear it, our mood brightens. Particularly when we’re a little tipsy, not too drunk, but just enough that our steps glide, the song has a sort of hallucinatory effect. I feel the grass alongside me growing longer and higher, slowly submerging my body. Everything around me is getting bigger (or maybe I am getting smaller), until little stones seem like hills. The grass becomes a jungle. A gargantuan cricket passes right by, like a swift elephant. I lift my head, and the moon and stars have become so remote they can barely be distinguished. I start to cry, but I don’t know the reason. The sound of my crying is so soft that even a breeze could snuff it out. The giant cricket stops in place and rotates its eyeball, curiously watching me. A moment later it has leapt into the air, disappearing into the distant jungle. Now I’m all cried out. I just lie on the ground, dazedly descending into dream.

When I wake, I find myself lying in the grass. No one in sight. Everything around me has returned to normal. A cricket is chirping beside my ear, like a miniature hopping alarm clock. I stand up, brushing off the grasses sticking to my body. The field has been flattened where I’d lain, revealing the shape of my body. Where is Lars? Wasn’t I with him? Maybe I drank too much, muddled my memories.

Behind me is the blue basin, the little tavern in its midst letting off an indigo light, and in it I can vaguely see some human shadows, swaying. I slowly start walking onward. I’m not sure how far, but when I look back again, the tavern is already out of sight, the blue basin too. I know—I must have lost my way again. There is only the infinite night. It’s soft shell enclosing everything.

Without knowing, I’ve returned to the Orchard Cemetery. Beautiful flickers of light are shimmering all around. Through thick layers of earth, I can almost see the roots of the fruit trees piercing deeply into the coffins, entering the human bodies laid to rest there. Those bodies—their final substance is gathered up as an offering to the plants’ roots. They lend their radiance to new forms of life, allowing them to survive the winter.

Gorgeous, fiery wisps, like flowers blooming in the darkness, are burning lovingly. I admire them in silence for a while.

I don’t know the road ahead, and I can’t see my surroundings clearly. I can only go forward. I can’t stop, because the night is cold, and my clothes are thin. I wave to the sweet wisps. They leap about with joy.

I hear the sound of the river, and I stop. The moon has emerged. By its clear light, I know I have arrived at Death. It’s just as before, hasn’t changed at all. I approach it, extending my hand. It’s cold.

I enter, and light the wood in the furnace. This time I’m in urgent need of some warmth and light. The fire catches, a small flame, warming my hands and flickering. The house gradually heats up.

The smoke meanders up the chimney, melding back into the night.

Something flashes by the window. A face. I know what it is. But I don’t move. I sit by the small furnace, feeling its warmth. It puts me at ease.

There’s something knocking at the door. I open the door, and I see it.

The blue tiger.

It’s been such a long time since I saw it last. If it wasn’t for that letter, I wouldn’t have known it was still alive. I recall the last time was at Old Mo’s zoo. How many years has it been? Back then it was as small as a cat, huddling in its cage, watching us apprehensively. But now it’s grown into the full figure of a tiger. Its coat is still blue.

Its four limbs look powerful, and the eyes flicker with a dull light, fixed on me. I look beyond the doorway, and of course Huihui’s silhouette is there. She stands at the riverside, as if observing something within.

The tiger slowly turns around, making way for me to pass. I walk out of Death, down to the riverside. I stand with Huihui. I tilt my head slightly to see her face. She looks just the way I remember.

Neither one of us speaks.

Moonlight sprinkles the flowing water. I can see the fish swimming inside. I even recognize a few.

The blue tiger is pacing not far from us, like a loyal guardian. His fur looks beautiful in the moonlight. Everything is silent, only the fireflies are dancing in the dark grass.

Death is quietly bathed in moonlight. Its appearance has changed again, a change I haven’t noticed before. It is always changing. Now it is more beautiful, almost glowing in the darkness. The shadows of flames are swaying in the window. Such a splendid evening, I can’t help but whistle.

It’s an old nocturne I’ve whistled since I was young. A sad tune, not so much my favourite, but the only song I know in full. So I whistle the little nocturne from beginning to end. I whistle it to perfection.

I like this song, she says. It’s the first time she’s spoken tonight.

Thanks, I say.

Now it’s silent again. This night will go on forever. This is good. We are fixed in this silent picture. The blue tiger’s close by, looking all around, but not at us. It’s blue tail waves lazily.

I want to leave here, she says. The second thing she has said.

Where will you go? I ask.

I remember something that makes me sad. I remember my childhood, and even some time before that. We weren’t like this then. I don’t know how things got like this. We never really think about things until they’ve already happened.

What are you thinking? She says.

Nothing, I say. I want to go back inside.

Okay then, she says, let’s say goodbye. She gives me a smile.

Returning inside Death, I stand in the window, watching the figures of Huihui and the tiger slowly depart. The tiger shrugs as it steps, up and down.

Just then, I wished to be a fish, swimming into the deepest depths of the river.

PART I ｜PART III