Ghostwritten

by David Mitchell

  My heart had slowed by the time I reached the cave. The Holy Mountain fell away below me, and the windy forest moved like the ocean in my dreams. I wrapped myself in my shawl, and watched the light of heaven shine through the holes in the night until I fell asleep.

  My father was black with bruises, but he was up and limping through the wreckage of the Tea Shack. His mouth looked like a rotting potato. “You caused this,” he scowled by way of greeting, “you fix it. I’m going to stay with my brother. I’ll be back in two or three days.” My father hobbled off down the path. When he returned he had become an old man waiting to die. That was weeks later.

  My daughter was blossoming into a local beauty, my aunts told me. Her guardian had already turned down two proposals of marriage, and she was still only twelve. The guardian was setting his sights high: if the Kuomintang forces took over the Valley soon, he could possibly arrange a union with a Nationalist administrator. He might even get himself a fat appointment as a clause in the marriage negotiations. A photographer had been paid to take her picture, which was being circulated among possible suitors in high places. When I wintered in the Village an aunt brought me one of these photographs. She had a lily in her hair, and a chaste, invisible smile. My heart glowed with pride, and never stopped.

  My daughter’s father, the Warlord’s Son, never lived to see her blossom. This causes me no sorrow. He got butchered by a neighboring Warlord in alliance with the Kuomintang. He, his father, and the rest of his clan were captured, roped and bound, slung onto a pile at a crossroads down in the Valley, doused in oil, and burnt alive. The crows and dogs fought over the cooked meat.

  Lord Buddha promised to protect my daughter from the demons, and my Tree promised that I would see her again.

  Far, far below, a temple bell gongs, the surface of the dawn ripples, and turtledoves fly from the wall of forest, up, and up. Always up.

  ————

  A government official strutted downbound out of the mist. I guessed he’d been driven to the summit. I recognized his face from his grandfather’s. His grandfather had scraped a living from the roads and marketplaces in the Valley, shoveling up manure and selling it to local farmers. An honest, if lowly, way to get by.

  His grandson sat down at my table, and slung his leather bag onto the table. Out of his bag he produced a notebook, an account book, a metal strongbox, and a bamboo stamp. He started writing in his notebook, looking up at the Tea Shack from time to time, as though he was thinking about buying it.

  “Tea,” he said presently, “and noodles.”

  I began preparing his order.

  “This,” he said, showing me a card with his picture and name on it, “is my Party ID. My identification. It never leaves my person.”

  “Why do you need to carry a picture of yourself around? People can see what you look like. You’re in front of them.”

  “It says I am a Local Cadre Party Leader.”

  “I daresay people work that out for themselves.”

  “This mountain has been incorporated into a State Tourism Designation Area.”

  “What’s that in plain Chinese?”

  “Turnpikes will be placed around the approach routes to charge people to climb.”

  “But the Holy Mountain has been here since the beginning of time!”

  “It’s now a state asset. It has to earn its keep. We charge people one yuan to climb it, and thirty yuan for the foreign bastards. Traders on state asset property need a trading license. That includes you.”

  I tipped his noodles into a bowl, and poured boiling water onto the tea-leaves.

  “Then give me one of these licenses.”

  “Gladly. That will be two hundred yuan, please.”

  “What? My Tea Shack has stood here for thousands of years!”

  He leafed through his account book. “Then perhaps I should consider charging you back rent.”

  I bent behind the counter and spat into his noodles, stirring them around so my phlegm was good and mixed. I straightened up, chopped some green onions, and sprinkled them on. I put them in front of him.

  “I’ve never heard such nonsense.”

  “Old woman, I don’t make the rules. This order is direct from Beijing. Tourism is a prime thrust of socialist modernization. We earn dollars from tourists. I know you don’t even know what a dollar is, and don’t even try to understand economics, because you can’t. But understand this: the Party orders you to pay.”

  “I’ve heard all about the Party from my cousins in the Village! Your bubbling baths and your flash cars and your queue-jumping and stupid conferences and—”

  “Shut your ignorant mouth now if you want to make a living from the People’s Mountain! The Party has developed our Motherland for half a century and more! Everyone else has paid! Even the monasteries have paid! Who are you, or your chicken-fucking country cousins, to dare think you know best? Two hundred yuan, now, or I’ll be back in the morning with the Party’s police officers to close you down and throw you in jail for non-payment! We’ll truss you up like a pig, and carry you down the mountain! Think of the shame! Or, pay what you owe. Well? I’m waiting!”

  “You’re in for a long wait then! I don’t have two hundred yuan! I only make fifty yuan in a season! What am I supposed to live on?”

  The official slurped up his noodles. “You’ll have to shut up shop and ask your country cousins to let you pick fleas from their sows in the corner. And if your noodles weren’t so salty you might sell more.”

  If I’d been a man I’d have thrown him into my cesspit, Party official or no Party official. But he had the upper hand here, and he knew it.

  I unfolded a ten-yuan note from my apron pocket. “It must be a difficult job, keeping track of all the tea shacks up and down the Mountain, who’s paid what …”

  He swished out his mouth with green tea, and sluiced out a jet that spattered against my window. “Bribery? Corruption? Cancer in the breasts of our Motherland! If you think I’m going to agree to postpone the victory of socialism, to smear the bright new age that is our nation’s glorious destiny—”

  I unfolded another twenty yuan. “That’s all I have.”

  He pocketed the money. “Boil those eggs, and pack them with those tomatoes.”

  I had to do as he said. Once a shit shoveler, always a shit shoveler.

  Two monks ran out of the mist, upbound, gasping.

  Running monks are as unusual as honest officials. “Rest,” I said, unfolding a fresh cloth for them. “Rest.”

  They nodded gratefully and sat down. I always serve Lord Buddha’s servants the best tea for free. The younger monk wiped the sweat from his eyes. “The Kuomintang are coming! Two thousand of them. The Village was being abandoned when we left. Your father was climbing into his cousin’s cart—they were going into the hills.”

  “I’ve seen it all before. The Japanese wrecked my Tea Shack.”

  “The Kuomintang make the Japanese look civilized,” said the elder monk. “They are wolves. They loot what food and treasure they can carry, and burn or poison what they can’t. In a village down the Valley they cut off a boy’s head just to poison a well!”

  “Why?”

  “The communists are gaining momentum all over China now, despite the American bombs. The Kuomintang have nothing to lose. I’ve heard they’re heading to Taiwan to join Chiang Kai-shek, and have orders to bring what they can. They scraped the gold leaf off the temple Buddhas at Leshan.”

  “It’s true!” The younger monk shook some grit from his sandal. “Don’t let them get you! You have about five hours. Hide everything deep in the forest, and be careful when you come back. There might be some stragglers. Please! We’d hate to see anything happen to you!”

  I gave the monks some money to burn incense for my daughter’s safety, and they left, running up through the mist. I hid my best cooking utensils high in my Tree, and, asking His pardon, hid Lord Buddha up above where the violets grew.

  The mist cleared, and it wa
s suddenly autumn. When the wind blew the leaves streamed up the path like rats before a sorcerer.

  The trees grew as tall as the Holy Mountain itself. Their canopy was the lawn of heaven. Follow, said the unicorn’s eyes. Lay your hand on my shoulder. Corridors of bark and darkness led to further corridors of bark and darkness. My guide had hooves of ivory. I was lost, and happy to be lost. We came to a garden at the bottom of a well of light and silence. Over an intricate bridge inlaid with jade and amber, lotus flowers and orchids swayed gently. Bronze and silver carp swam with the dark owls around my head. This is a peaceful place, I thought to the unicorn. Will you stay awhile?

  Mother, thought the unicorn, a tear growing bigger and bigger in her human eye. Mother, don’t you recognize me?

  I awoke with the saddest feeling.

  Hiding in my cave, watching the rain, I wished I could change into a bird, or a pebble, or a fern, or a deer, like lovers in old stories. On the third day the sky cleared. The smoke from the Village had stopped. I cautiously returned to my Tea Shack. Wrecked again. Always, it is the poor people who pay. And always, it is the poor people’s women who pay the most. I set about clearing up the mess. What choice is there?

  The communists came with early summer. There were only four of them—two men, two women. They were young, and wore neat uniforms and pistols. My Tree told me they were coming. I warned my father, who, as usual, was asleep in his hammock. He opened one eye: “Fuck ’em, they’re all the same. Only the badges and medals change.” My father was dying as he had lived. With the minimum effort possible.

  The communists asked if they could sit down in my Tea Shack and talk with me. They called each other “Comrade” and addressed me respectfully and gently. One of the men was the lover of one of the women—I could see that immediately. I wanted to trust them, but they kept smiling while I talked. I’ve always been wronged by smilers.

  The communists listened to my complaints. They didn’t seem to want anything, except for green tea. They just wanted to give things. They wanted to give things, like education, even to girls. Health care, so that the ancient plague of China would be vanquished. They wanted an end to exploitation in factories and on the land. An end to hunger. They wanted to restore dignity to motherhood. China, they said, was no longer the sick old man of Asia. A New China was emerging from somewhere called Feudalism, and the New China would lead the New Earth. It would be here in five years’ time, because the international revolution of the proletariat was a historical inevitability. Everybody would have their own car in the future, they said. Our children’s children would go to work by flying machine. Because everyone would have enough for their needs, and so crime would naturally die out.

  “Your leaders must know powerful magic.”

  “Yes,” said one of the women. “The magic is called Marx, Stalin, Lenin, and Class Dialectics.”

  It didn’t sound like very convincing magic to me.

  My father rolled out of his hammock. “Tea,” he told me. “We’re very glad to see the communists bring a bit of order to our Valley and Mountain,” he said, looking at the girls and picking his teeth with his thumbnail. “The Nationalists raped her.” He jerked his head at me. “Must have been desperate.”

  I felt hot shame rising. Had he really forgotten it was the Warlord’s Son? The girl who was in love came over and held my hand. Such a young hand, it was, so pure that I was afraid for it.

  “The old regimes violated plenty of women. That was their way of life. In Korea the Japanese army herded up all the girls in a township, gave them Japanese names, and they spent the whole war on their backs. But those days are gone now.”

  “Yes,” said one of the men. “China has been raped by capitalists and imperialists for centuries. Feudalism relegated women to cattle. Capitalism bought and sold women like cattle.”

  I wanted to tell him he didn’t know anything about being violated, but the woman was being so kind to me, I could barely speak. Other than my Tree and Lord Buddha, nobody had ever shown me such kindness. She promised to bring me medicine, if I needed any. They were kind, bright, and brave. They addressed my father as “sir,” and even paid for their tea.

  “Are you going up the Holy Mountain on a pilgrimage?”

  The boys smiled. “The Party will free the Chinese race from the fetters of religion. Soon there will be no more pilgrims.”

  “No more pilgrims? So isn’t the Holy Mountain going to be holy?”

  “Not ‘holy,’ ” they agreed. “But still very impressive, for a mountain.” And I knew right then that even though their intentions were true their words were chickenshit.

  When I wintered in the Village that year, distressing news reached me from Leshan. My daughter, her guardian, and his wife had fled to Hong Kong, after the communists had ordered their arrests as enemies of the revolution. Everybody knew that nobody ever returned from Hong Kong. A tribe of foreign bandits called the British spread lies about Hong Kong being Paradise, but the moment anybody arrived there they were put in chains and forced to work in poison gas factories and diamond mines until they died.

  That evening my Tree had promised I would see my daughter again. I didn’t understand. But I have learned that my Tree tells truths that don’t make sense until the light of morning.

  The fat girl wore stripy clothes that made her look fatter. She looked at the noodles, steaming and delicious, and looked at me. She slurped up a mouthful, held them in her mouth for a moment, shook her head, and spat them onto the table.

  “Foul.”

  Her witchy friend took a long drag on her cigarette. “That bad, huh?”

  “I wouldn’t feed it to a pig.”

  “Old woman, don’t you have any chocolate?”

  Nothing was wrong with my noodles. “Any what?”

  Fat Girl sighed, bent down, scooped up some dirt, and sprinkled it onto the noodles. “That might improve the taste. I’m not paying a yuan for it. I wanted food. Not pig swill.”

  Witchy Friend snickered, and looked in her bag. “I’ve got cookies somewhere.…”

  Anger is pointless on the Holy Mountain. I rarely feel it. But when I see food being wasted so wantonly, I feel such rage that I can’t control myself.

  The noodles—and dirt—slid down Fat Girl’s face. Her skin shone under the grease. Her wet shirt clung to her neck. Her mouth was an “O” of shock. She gasped like a surfacer, flapped her arms, and fell backwards. Witchy Friend had leapt up and stepped back, flapping her wings.

  Fat Girl climbed to her feet, red and heaving. She started charging at me, but changed her mind when she saw I had a pot of boiling water ready to douse her. I would have done it, too. She retreated to a safe distance, and yelled. “I’m going to report you you you you bitch! You wait! Just you wait! My brother-in-law knows an undersecretary at the Party office and I’m going to have your flea-infested Tea Shack bulldozed! With you under it!”

  Even when they were out of sight around the bend their threats floated downwards through the trees. “Bitch! Your daughters fuck donkeys! Your sons are sterile! Bitch!”

  “I can’t abide bad manners,” said my Tree. “That’s why I left the Village.”

  “I didn’t want to get angry, but she shouldn’t have wasted the food!”

  “Shall I ask the monkeys to ambush them and remove their hair?”

  “That would be a very petty revenge.”

  “Then consider it done.”

  The time that famine came up the Valley was the worst of all times.

  The communists had organized all the farms in the Valley into communes. Nobody owned the land. There were no landowners anymore. The landowners had been hounded into their graves, had donated their land to the people’s revolution, or were in the capitalists’ prisons with their families.

  All the peasants ate in the commune canteen. The food was free! For the first time in history every peasant in the Valley knew he would get a square meal in his stomach at the end of the day. This was the New China, the New Ear
th.

  Nobody owned the land, so nobody made sure it was respected. The offerings to the spirits of the rice paddies were neglected, and at harvest time rice was allowed to rot on the stalk. And it seemed to me that the less the peasants worked, the more they lied about how much they worked. When pilgrim-peasants from different communes in the Valley sat in my Tea Shack and argued agriculture, I watched their stories get taller. Cucumbers big as pigs, pigs big as cows, cows big as my Tea Shack. Forests of cabbages! You could get lost in them! Apparently Mao Tse Dong Thought had revolutionized production techniques, and was even spreading to the woods. The commune planner had found a mushroom as big as an umbrella on the southern slopes.

  Most worrying of all, they believed their own chickenshit, and attacked anyone who dared used the word “exaggerate.” I was just a woman growing old on a Holy Mountain, but no radish of mine got bigger.

  That winter, the Village was bleaker, muddier, madder than I ever knew it.

  I lived with my cousin’s family. Rice farmers for generations. I asked my cousin’s husband, why had they all become so lazy? The men got drunk most evenings, and didn’t stir from their beds until the middle of the next morning. Of course, the women ended up doing most of the things the men were too hungover to manage.

  It was all wrong. Bad spirits sat with the crows on the rooftops, incubating ill-intent. In the streets, alleyways, and the market square, nobody was walking. Days passed without a kind word. The main monastery in the Village had been closed. I wandered through it sometimes, through its moon gates and ponds choked with duckweed. It reminded me of somewhere else. The Village was suffering from a plague that nobody had noticed.

  I went to speak to the village elders. “What are you going to eat next winter?”