Death Watch

by Ari Berk

  Though always forgotten by dawn, a thousand stories are told each night. Incline your ear.

  Just listen to the man with seven sons by the table in the back. He’s been here in his cups a long time.

  A daughter drowned.

  An awful tale. But not unusual, for good girls sometimes come to bad ends. His sons tell him it was their sister and a boy. She went there to meet a boy from one of the big houses. That’s what the sons tell their father. The father doesn’t look up from his drink, but asks, where is your sister now? Lost, the sons say. That’s what they say. Every time.

  And the first son, the oldest, looks his father in the eye and nods.

  This is not a new story.

  Drowned in the millpond, the first says. We were too late, says the fifth son. Gone there to meet a boy. At night. And we were too late. She must have fallen. Fallen. In the dark. But we couldn’t help her, says the sixth of the sons. The seventh is silent and looks away from the others.

  The father notices the first son’s shirt is wet and a little green, just the arms up to the shoulder, as though he’s been holding something down under the surface of the water. Another round, says the father, closing his eyes.

  And here we go again.

  It’s the same every night. The family’s proud. And she never learns.

  Everyone’s always losing something. So folks always feel at home. Drink up. Your money’s no good here. But everyone must pay. Everyone must put a tale in the till, or who could bear it?

  And here’s a young man, looking a little lost.

  “Get him a drink,” someone shouts.

  “C’mon,” yells another, “let’s hear your news from beyond the door!”

  He doesn’t know they are speaking to him. He stands there gaping.

  Down from the end of the long, polished bar, someone calls out, “How about a story?” and throws a handful of peanuts that pelt him, rousing his attention.

  “Looking for my father,” the young man says, startled, and half a hundred heads look up at him.

  “You’ve come to the right place! Plenty of lost fathers here,” someone says. A bunch of men with faces like shipwrecks raise their hands, their eyes still guiltily in their cups.

  The young man looks. None of them are known to him.

  He says again, louder now, “I’ve lost my father,” hoping someone will stand up and meet his gaze, that someone he knows will know him. His dad, maybe just drinking at one of the back tables, unaware of how long he’s been there. Forgetful of how much time has passed, ready to put on his coat and come home.

  No one stands up. No one stands out.

  But someone shouts, “Not again!”

  “Heard it a hundred times!” another hollers, belching his words out from a gut full of beer and ennui. “We’ve all heard that one before!”

  Never raising his voice, the young man asks, “Then do you know how it ends?”

  And the whole back room answers as one—the travelers, the wastrels, the lost—all cry out: “No! Do you?”

  And the room erupts in laughter as the young traveler takes to his road.

  Silas walked on and farther on, and though the Peony Lantern Teahouse had seemed, in the tapestry, to be just around the corner from the tavern, he was walking and walking through the Narrows, all the way back up to what might have been Coach Street, then down the Sloop and along the sea, up Pearl Lane and through a back alley, finally to the place where he knew a ruined building stood in his own time.

  Mother Peale had told him that the building had once, at the turn of the century, been owned by a Chinese family, and catered primarily to those folk who had come to Lichport from the west coast by train as laborers, traders, and importers, bringing urns and carvings to be used in funerary rites by wealthy families who found the foreign fashionable at times of death.

  Here, within this building, those folk came who longed for a taste of the East. It had been a teahouse but also served as a market, importing familiar items for those far from home, and as a parlor of gossip, where news from faraway families might be obtained. A place to wait for ships or trains that came and went from the other towns and other coasts, bringing news or the arrival of a loved one, or rarely, the beginning of the long journey home.

  Mother Peale had showed him a ruin—leaning rooms of skeletal beams; broken benches; an old, abandoned chest in a filthy corner—but before him now, risen in the mist, Silas gasped at what he saw. The sweeping curved roof was tiled and adorned with ornate ceramic dragons. Roosting atop the teahouse and in some of the trees now standing next to it were large nests of cranes that sat patiently, waiting for those who exited the teahouse, although departures seemed to be few and far between. The teahouse stood on carved posts as though it were resting in the water. And indeed, the street below it had become translucent, and under the clear glass cobblestones, Silas could see enormous koi swimming in endless, dreaming spirals.

  When the traveler enters the Peony Lantern Teahouse, there is always a place to sit. A bowl of lemons rests on each low table, and your first cup of tea will come quickly, though not always your second.

  Lu Yu is the keeper of the Peony Lantern Teahouse, and it is Lu Yu himself who welcomes all who visit. The first cup is always poured for guests from his hands. So as the youth approaches the lacquered threshold of the teahouse, Lu Yu speaks first, joyfully, from within.

  “Xiansheng hao ma? Chi fan le ma?” says the keeper of the teahouse.

  “I am well, and I have eaten, thank you,” says the youth, as he steps within and shakes hands with Lu Yu without hesitation, for here, at the edges of the suburbs of Fengdu, the City of Ghosts, all words are familiar to the ears of a traveler.

  Vast as a province, yet cozy as its many private screened rooms, the teahouse is ancient, and in its gathering chambers, the dead eat and drink and wait to be served again. Many have lingered here for a long time, although the dead who pass through the doors of lacquered ebony do not mean to stay. But the teahouse seems familiar to them and reminds them so much of home, so they sit on silk cushions underneath lamps of jade the color of flowers and forget where it was they so desperately wanted to go.

  Ah! How delight in sensual pleasures may overcome even the cherished longings of the heart.

  They eat. They drink. They savor and listen to the sound of music and recline on the cushions and take familiar comfort in all the trappings of the teahouse, and forget.

  Though the food is tempting, the youth does not eat, does not drink. He sees that at some of the tables—when no second cup of tea is served by Lu Yu—the guests look anxious, even embarrassed at having to ask someone else, a stranger, to fill their empty cup.

  For some, it is like this. They wait and wait, and eventually begin to pour cup after cup for themselves. This is because they have been forgotten. No children, no grandchildren make offerings to them. No one speaks their names before a shrine. No incense is offered. Their names are not written with a brush onto the scroll of the names of revered ancestors and so, at the teahouse, they must wait to eat and drink, or serve themselves, which many find disgraceful. And because they have wandered so far from home, the ghosts of their children and grandchildren are not here to pour tea for them. These ghosts of the forgotten think: I will leave after a few more cups. But, oh! How excellent are the dumplings! Just one more.

  Some visitors to the teahouse stay longer than others. Some are ghosts of those who traveled far in life, those who settled where they found themselves and then seldom thought of home. Yet in old age they began to think once more of lands across the sea, and so longing entered their hearts. They long for the distant homes and familiar sights their ancestors knew: the green mountains of Wuyuan, the pavilion of Tengwang, the peaks of Jinggangshan, the villages of Xidi and Hongcun, the ancient river houses of Zhujiajiao. But the teahouse is so like the places they once knew, or heard of from parents, and so, why leave? They dream of something so far removed that they no longer know what they long for. Ea
sier to sit and sip and dream. For some, it is easier to imagine a thing than to try to attain it.

  Some will never leave, either because of fear or forgetting. Though you may be a wanderer, living out your days in exile, home is with you always, in blood-song and bone map, and in the echo of your mother’s voice as you tell her favorite tale to your children or the children who gather around you in the land of your exile. Home is your most constant companion. When that is forgotten, the doors of lacquered ebony close before you and the land of your ancestors is lost. Then here, in the Peony Lantern Teahouse you shall remain. You may make friends, even meet someone you once knew. If you are kindhearted and pour tea for others, they may repay the favor. Then you may drink, and eat, perhaps, but the joyous cry of your ancestors that might have accompanied your return is a song your ears shall never hear, and the special flavor of the food is diminished, just slightly. So you eat and eat, and hope to regain the savor of your meal.

  But be comforted. You will find it is easy to forget what you will never know. And there is music at the Peony Lantern Teahouse, the gu zheng, ruan, pipa, the gourd flute. Listen. One of the flute players is very fine and can imitate the sound of birds.

  The more fortunate stop at the teahouse only briefly. For them, the tea tastes robust, the dumplings full of joyous savor. But just one cup. Just one mouthful, then they pass once more through the doors of lacquered ebony to make their way home.

  The youth looks upon the lounging ghosts with a heavy heart, for what right has he to trouble them with his own grief, to press them with questions? But there is something about the floral hues of the light, perhaps the music, that makes him long to sit and rest. He passes from table to table, perhaps waiting for an invitation, yet few do more than incline their heads toward him briefly, and most seem not to notice as he walks among them. They only hold their cups up again and again to be filled.

  But there, at a table by a window that overlooks the ornamental pond, is an empty seat, and on the bench, a folded robe in pleasing white and gray silk, with a red sash, that the youth is sure would fit him. Lu Yu brings tea to the table, and shakes the youth’s hand again, as he helps him take his ease, encouraging him to drink and enjoy the excellent view. But as the youth sits down and lifts his full cup, one ghost looks up at him from the far wall of the room, where music is being played. This ghost looks at the youth as though she has been waiting for him; she holds him with her eyes, and the youth puts down his cup. She stops playing the gu zheng, and rises and gestures to him without words.

  He leaves his tea to cool in its cup and rises from the table to ask the ghost the question that had fled his mind when the light of the lamps of the teahouse so enraptured him: “Do you know where he is?”

  The girl shakes her head, but beckons the youth to follow her.

  Her white gown trails far behind as she walks past him. He can just see at the hems and seams of her dress a flash of bright red silk.

  The ghost leads the youth toward the back of the teahouse, where a constellation of staircases rises to upper floors. The ghost walks up the stairs without pausing, never looking to see if the youth is still behind her. She drifts up like rising steam, and as if in a dream, the youth follows.

  The two ascend many steps, past many landings and many floors and many screens that lead to many rooms. They come at last to a door, very roughly made of posts, the kind seen by travelers in the coastal villages, made from the remains of boats when they can no longer be mended. As they pass through, the youth’s heart is hopeful that they will arrive at some chamber where he might find the person he seeks, sleeping, or eating quietly, or playing mahjong with old friends. But it is not to be. The room is empty except for a chest and a lantern. Beside him, the ghost is wild-eyed as she points at the chest.

  The youth crosses the room and opens the chest, but finds only clothes, neatly folded, inside. He looks up, but the ghost-girl continues to gesture desperately and the youth pushes his hand deeper into the chest, until his fingers sweep board at the bottom. And there, hidden, he finds strips of folded paper, tightly rolled and wrapped with a piece of torn silk sash.

  The ghost weeps then, tears coursing down her face. Her body is rimmed all in expectant flame, and the tears turn quickly to steam on her skin.

  “Do you wish me to open this?” the youth asks.

  The ghost’s mouth opens as if wailing, although she makes no sound.

  “Do you want these?” asks the youth, as he holds the papers out to the ghost. She tilts her head back in agony.

  The youth looks at the papers and can see characters written on them, and dried flowers are bound up along with the pages. The scroll is warm in his hands, as though it had only a moment ago been clutched tightly in the hand against the heart. Here were love letters, the youth knew. Secret love letters. Unfound, still waiting somewhere beyond the mist. A young man’s words for this girl, maybe her words for him. Their private words for each other. Somewhere in the world, these letters sat hidden still, but might, at any moment, be found and read, calling her most cherished secrets from their hiding place back into the circle of the sun.

  “Shall I burn them?” says the youth, more sure now of what the ghost wants from him.

  While the ghost watches, her tears abating, the youth puts the strips of paper into the iron lantern. As the flames rise inside the lantern, the ghost smiles with an ancient and long-awaited joy. As the letters burn, she falls away to ashes, as though she too had been made of paper. Already her spirit, carried by a crane, is winging to the land of her heart’s desire; already her spirit is approaching her lover’s village in the province of Songjiang.

  When the youth turns and passes again through the posts, he finds himself back in the main room of the teahouse, close to the entrance.

  For those who may depart, Lu Yu may walk them to the threshold of the teahouse and speak parting words to them. The youth stands at the threshold and there, he hears these words from the ancient keeper of the teahouse:

  A thousand mountains

  will greet my friend at his departure.

  Always, it is the time of spring tea blossoming.

  I speak the blessings of spring upon his journey,

  whether in early mist or red cloud of evening.

  I envy him his lonely travels.

  May we meet upon the faraway mountain.

  May we share repast by the clear water fountain.

  Until then,

  light a candle

  and strike upon the bell of stone

  and remember where your journey began.

  The voice fades, and the mist appears, and the youth takes his leave at twilight from the teahouse that rises like a temple from the suburbs of Fengdu, the City of Ghosts. Because the youth had not eaten, because he’d not tasted even a single cup of tea, he made his way home without passing through the Hall of Twelve Corpses.

  As he left the ruin, the broken chest that had once lain on the floor was now burned black, and small embers still glowed on its charred edges. He didn’t stop to look closely. He knew the letters that had been hidden within it were ashes now. He walked away and did not look back.

  Silas couldn’t hear his own footfall, and he didn’t know how long he’d been walking or how long he’d been gone. His heart was heavy, and he was ready to go home. He could see now that asking the dead about his father was nearly useless, so burdened were they with their own losses and regrets and distractions. He had no right to press them. It was not enough merely to let them speak. If anything, he should try to bring them comfort, to shorten their suffering. Anything else was selfish, thoughtless, at best redundant. He was also finding it too easy to take on their pain, perhaps because he was more like them than he wanted to admit. Or rather, he had let himself become like them, a wanderer, someone lost in a world he had hewn from his own pain.

  He couldn’t keep the coffer of distraction at the back of his mind closed. His own past kept flying up around him like moths; old fears back again
, the ghosts’ problems only serving to remind him of his own. Even the little anxieties that nipped at his heels as a boy were back now as sharp-toothed dogs, following him, barking loudly, drawing more and more attention to themselves. Now, as he looked for his dad, Silas felt like he had as a boy: left behind, alone, forgotten. And he could see, now, his personal feelings made his encounters with the dead and his travels through their lands dangerous and filled with the possibility of entrapment.

  He thought he should just go home and forget about the last shadowland he’d planned to visit. He was only going because this place loomed so large on the tapestry and seemed so strongly connected with the seaside and the harbor where his father had spent so much time. Well populated, watching over the ocean, it seemed more likely to be a source of information. But as if thinking made it so, Silas suddenly found himself approaching the Yacht Club, which stood proudly on the rocks overlooking the sea at the southern edge of Lichport, its flags at full mast in the salty wind.

  He’d go forward, but he would ask no questions. He would merely greet these ghosts as neighbors and then go home. This was his plan. He was there, so okay, but then, Enough, he thought. It is enough.

  As Silas approached the ornate front of the Yacht Club, gentlemen in midnight blue blazers and white slacks poured from the now open doors toward Silas. Behind them, waiters with trays of drinks were running to keep up.

  At the Lichport Yacht Club, there are surprisingly few rules for the aspiring member. Only that you must leave your worries at the door and wear a jacket. Oh, yes, That Sort Of Thing may be all the rage at the other clubs, but not here. But if you wish a bit of gentlemanly company, brandy and cigars and leather chairs, come in and take a pew until Labor Day.