“We were friends, weren’t we?” she said, her voice trailing off, returning to a faraway place in eternity.
“Friends,” I said, rushing to embrace her vanishing mist before it was gone. But it was gone, and without a goodbye.
“Grandma, that was not a good visit,” I said. “I’m now worse off than before I came.”
She did not hear me, my grandmother, because she was no longer there and neither was I, who was now back on the train weaving its way through Sicily, stopping at every station grand and little at every village great and small. The hunter had returned to his seat and the bread eater to his. Each nodded to me, then went about his silent, brooding business. The bread eater looked hungrier than ever without his bread, the hunter forlorn without his hares.
“I should have reconciled with your grandmother long ago,” my uncle said abruptly. “But then, you know how pride is—harder than granite. And then, when you are ready to make up, it is too late.”
Before I could answer, the short Sicilian said, “I should never have stolen that bread. Just for hunger, just for hunger. Now I’m chased all over Sicily for a few crusts.”
Before I could answer either of them, not knowing in fact what to answer them, the compartment door opened with a sly rush. I looked, thinking to see the two policemen reappear, but instead the young man with his mandolin entered, flashing us a jackal grin to show us he was friendly.
He began playing a Neapolitan love song much favored at weddings. A tearjerker it was, sung at the end of the evening, after dinner and dancing and when the wedding guests were in their sentimental cups.
“Across the sea of time, I think of you, across the sands of time I think of you, of you, of you, my love,” he sang, as the train rattled about from town to town, making no stops.
The longer he sang, the more I began to remember him. Until I finally fixed him as the singer at my own wedding years and years ago. He had not grown older, which was the reason I had not immediately recognized him, because who does not get older with time, with the passing of thousands of weddings and countless other festivities?
If I were ever to get married again, I thought, I would never hire him to sing. Somehow, I blamed him for the souring of my marriage; he had put a bad spell on it from the start. I wondered how many other marriages he had jinxed with the sweetness of his song, with his singing of eternal love that only taunted the gods to do their mischief and shatter all conjugal dreams of joy and permanence.
These were my thoughts as we rode high above the Bronx River, the botanical gardens in view, burning in the summer heat. My traveling companions did not seem to notice the conflagration, so intent they seemed on their own thoughts and memories. The singer sang away, one song to another, indifferent to the fires below and to the heat in the compartment. He had many songs left in his bag, an eternity of them.
I could see now that all the trees were on fire and the river too, all the flowers in the botanical gardens and the roses turning into fists of flames, the earthworms and grubs and caterpillars, everything that lived in and above the soil was burning. My grandmother’s black dress burst into flames as she was tearing the dandelions from their roots, and the children who were mocking her flared into packages of fire. The Greek temple where my grandmother and I had prayed crumbled under a cascade of smoke and dust, the goddess who had lived there taking flight in some passing clouds. Everything in the Sicily below us was on fire, everything in the Bronx was burning away to ashes, everything but me and its memory.
—Homage to Elio Vittorini
Moonlight Dance
Can Xue
—Translated from Chinese by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping
I BELONG TO THE MOONLIGHT; the lion belongs to the darkness. The strange thing is that the lion is always walking back and forth, bathing in the moonlight in the wasteland, and I am generally tilling the humus soil with the earthworms. I only till, never harvest. Sometimes, I work my way out of the ground to stand beside the shrubs and wait. When a bat stops to rest, I jump onto her back. Then, carrying me, she flies to the ancient cave. I don’t want to describe my experience in the dark cave: it’s a place eerier than hell. Even in the daylight, every now and then the tragic cry of slaughter comes from the cave. I wait in the cave until nightfall, when my friend carries me on her back and flies toward the forest. When she stops on a pine tree, I leap to its highest branch. From there, I look out: the wasteland undulates in my field of vision, and the lion is anxiously looking for food. His objective is the zebra on the opposite shore of the stream; my objective is the Hon. But why does he never attack? Does he like the high he gets from being dominant?
It’s dark, and my friend has flown off. The branch is swaying in the wind, and I am holding onto the branch, clinging to it with my belly. I imagine myself canoeing in the ocean. The moon has risen, and I see the lion at rest. The zebra is also resting. Only a shallow stream separates them. How does the lion dispel his hunger pangs? This is his secret, and it is also my secret question. The moonlight dyes his long mane silver. His face is as ancient as the rock beside him. I’m enthralled by his face, but his face also troubles me day and night, because I can’t find the solution.
The forest becomes noisy as usual: in the moonlight, these fellows won’t be quiet. There are all kinds of sounds everywhere. Branches crack with a sound so vigorous that it’s as if they want to turn the entire forest into ruins. Luckily, there are fireflies here—so many that they stream like waves of stars before my eyes. Some—the wingless ones—pause on the withered leaves on the ground and shine silently. Their light can reflect only a little spot under their feet. These are blind insects. I once tried to lure these wingless fireflies to go with me into the earth. They ignored me; they’re too proud. It can also be said that they are complacent and self-sufficient. Their idea is that they till their own bodies. The lion has turned around; his back is to me now: what a sorrowful view it is. Now even the zebras are in a stupor; trusting to luck, they’ve entered dreamland.
On vast Mother Earth, silhouettes of some other lions have emerged. They aren’t real lions, but a trick of the moonlight. These illusions form a single line, extending to the horizon. Have you heard the lion weep? No, the lion’s weeping can’t be heard. My vision is blurred, and I’m weary from standing on a high place. I have to go down. Once I’m mixed in with those noisy fellows in the night, I relax, body and soul.
I know that my friend is working right now, so I’d better walk back. I walk a very long time before reaching the land I was tilling. In the moonlight, the large expanse of dark earth looks a little like a gloomy graveyard. Below the bosk is assembled a heap of wingless fireflies. What is this all about? Is it some kind of ceremony? The heap of tiny fires was gleaming, and gradually grew dark! Beside the land I was tilling, they burned up their inner fire. These tiny insects had limited choices. I smelled the charred flesh: the odor left me in a bad mood. From the cave, I burrowed underground. I slept as I tilled. Sometime in the middle of the night, I encountered the earthworms. There were two of them—one above me and one below me, and they kept advancing along with me. It was always like this. I couldn’t see the earthworms, and yet they were always with me. As soon as they came toward me, I sensed them at once, for in the depth of the soil, the sensors were subtle. I could even sense their mood. The one above me was brimming with enthusiasm; the one below me was a little depressed. They were both time-tested believers. What did they believe in? They believed in everything, just like me. It was a faith born of the source. We were the moonlight school. The dark field was the place where we carried out our faith. I am going to fall into a dream: I knew I would dream of my grandfather. My grandfather was a creature between an animal and a plant, a little like the ocean’s coral. But he was born in a place deep in the earth. In his lifetime, he couldn’t move. He was always in the same place, thinking, thinking. After he died, it is said that his body fossilized in the place right under where I’m tilling—deep down, very, very deep. Th
ere will always be a day … .
I awakened. It was another day. Without emerging from the ground, I felt the heat from the sun’s rays. I was anxious to know how the lion was doing. When I left him the day before, he was weeping. As soon as he wept, my brain went blank. He was so gloomy inside. Why did I care so much about him? Because he was king of the earth? Or was there another reason? Anyhow, my caring for him was connected with my faith: I hadn’t chosen this; rather, I had been born with it. I couldn’t go out yet, for my skin couldn’t stand the sunlight. I had to get a lotus leaf from the pond beside the field and cover my head with it.
As I was swimming in the pond, I saw the corpses of lots of winged fireflies floating on the surface. Alas, those corpses of the moonlight nearly brought me to tears! I selected a lotus leaf, placed it on my head, and swam to shore. Something in the water pulled at my foot: it was an old fish who lived at the bottom of the pond. I was too weary to go to his home. The old fish was the most boring fellow in the world, and his home wasn’t like a home, either: it was no more than a clump of waterweeds in the silt. Most of the day, he was in a daze as he squatted in the clump of waterweeds. He didn’t think about anything; he was a fish devoid of any thought. He called me “the tiller”; I knew that was a slight. He also called my work “repairing the globe.” “The world can’t become square just because you’re repairing it,” he said. Of course, the old fish was experienced and astute, but his experience and astuteness for sure didn’t come from his thought; it came from—how to say it? A certain instinct. He was one step ahead of anything that happened in this pond. For example, just now, when I was still in the field and he knew that I was about to arrive, he overcame his inertia and swam up, squatted in a cave beside the pond, and waited for me to pass by. I wouldn’t go to his home; he knew this, but he was still unwilling to give up. Since quarreling with him the year of the hailstorm, I had vowed I would never step foot inside his house. That hailstorm was different from ordinary hailstorms: thickly dotted egg-sized hail fell for a day and a night, and a thick layer of it piled up in the pond. The old fish hid in an earthen cave next to the pond; the earth caved in and sealed the cave entrance. He slowly bored his way out; he struggled for two days before escaping. It was only because I felt uneasy that I went into the pond. That day, he and I resorted to staying in the stone cave. I was trembling from the cold; I was almost frozen stiff. In the beginning, we talked about this hailstorm, and then we began arguing, because I was well intentioned and advised him to move into the stone cave, but he not only wasn’t grateful but cursed me for being a “coward.” He said he couldn’t imagine bamboozling himself. “Where is your home? Isn’t it under the pile of hail? Why don’t you go home? Why do you have to hide here?” I countered. At the time, he kept opening and closing his big mouth. He must have wanted to refute me, but since he couldn’t think, he didn’t know how to refute me. The old fish didn’t say anything, but the expression in his eyes terrified me to the core. It was a steely, bewitching expression. I felt completely defeated by him. I can’t say for sure how he had defeated me, but anyhow, I had suffered a deadly attack. I was in low spirits for several days. Luckily, I had my work: tilling was an omnipotent magic device. It could cure any injuries to the soul.
With the lotus leaf on my head, I streaked ahead. As I ran, I whooped impudently. If I didn’t shout, my body would dissolve in the sunlight: I was convinced of this. Finally, I reached the old poplar tree, and concealed myself in the dense branches and leaves. This was much better for my skin. I climbed up to the highest branch. The zebra had already left. I heard that the zebras were just passing by; they were on their way to Africa. They belonged to the sun. Was it because of this that the lion was profoundly awed by their stripes? The lion was blocked by a large rock; I could see only the profile of his head. What was he thinking about? At night, did he launch an attack against the zebras? I really wanted to shout at him, but I knew that my voice couldn’t carry that far. And besides, he wouldn’t pay any attention to me. When I thought of the animals that he ate, I felt disgusted with him. I abhorred killing. I—and the earthworms too—ate only the earth, and even that, we didn’t really eat. We merely let the earth travel through our bodies, that’s all. We were benign animals. Underground, we dreamed of the moonlight and dreamed of our ancestors. Although he was disgusting, our esteem for him took the upper hand: after all, he was the king who dared to subdue Mother Earth. For example, right now: I was watching him with tears in my eyes. Did I fall in love with him? Nonsense—who could love a lion? He started moving. He was walking toward the riverside, and in the sunlight, his shadow was thick and black, as though another lion, a black one, were walking behind him. He was drinking water; he drank for a long time. How could he drink for so long? Was he extinguishing an inner fire? An oriole dropped to his head. The little fellow began singing at once; it was such a sweet, clear sound—so resounding! Even I could faintly hear it. The lion stopped drinking water; he was listening too. He didn’t move lest he frighten the little bird. I noticed that while the bird was singing, the lion’s shadow disappeared. When the bird stopped singing and flew away, the shadow returned. The lion squatted with his back to the sun, and the shadow circled around in front of him. His image gave me an impression of agony. I wanted to go back, for the moisture on my body had all evaporated; this was very rough on me.
With the lotus leaf on my head again, I scampered off with a whoop. I shouted even more hysterically than I had before, because the sunlight was particularly strong and I was afraid it would spell the end of me. I ran and ran, and finally got home. I plunged headfirst into the dark cave, and stuck my wrinkled skin tightly against the cold, wet earth. I nearly fainted. Not far from me, the earthworms were working systematically. These creatures of the moonlight in fact went their whole lives without seeing the moonlight, but they transmitted messages to me, telling me that they profoundly venerated the moonlight. And so, like me, they were looking into their ancestry. The earthworms’ skin was even more fragile than mine. If they encountered sunlight, they would melt into water. It’s said that this occurred many times in the past. Then why did they have to hide even from the moonlight? Why? They didn’t tell me.
I recovered my strength, and began plunging down, down, into a deep spot in the ground. I wanted to till vertically. I had tried this earlier, but I had stopped each time I penetrated to the limestone. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to continue, but that I couldn’t stand the smell. The strange thing was that no matter which direction I took in plunging down, in the end I always arrived at the layer of limestone. I couldn’t detour around it. Perhaps it was only a thin layer, or perhaps it was a very deep mineral hell. Either was possible. This time, in desperation, I resolved to risk danger and explore one time. I thought there must be a way to get through this; otherwise, how had Grandfather and the others made their way down? I didn’t believe that he had been born underground. I heard a slight noise behind me: it was the earthworm following me. He? Following me? This was suicidal! Just think about his skin. I was about to reach that place, and I already had a headache. My rigid eyeballs were also on the verge of softening. Following the course I had set, I circled toward the right. Circling for a long time, I put up with the odor. My eyeballs had already turned extremely turbid: I could see almost nothing. What was this? A natural cave! A tunnel stretching down! This was unexpected. Naturally, I stuck my head inside. It happened that this cave could accommodate my body, so I went on for a while and then grew frightened. Was this a journey with no return? However, it was already too late to return. I had walked so far. If I turned around, I didn’t know how many days it would take. It was great that the earthworm behind me kept making noise, as if to boost my courage; otherwise, I would have lost my nerve. Although there was also a limestone odor in the tunnel, it was better than outside. Bit by bit, as my vision was restored, I saw some strange decorative designs on the wall of the cave: they were everywhere. After observing enough of them, I concluded that this wa
s a bunch of similar designs that were constantly changing places. They were dispatched and reformed once and again, giving the eyes a constant sense of novelty. These simple, primitive designs took the edge off the dread I was feeling. How could there be this kind of tunnel? How had I happened to find it? Could it be that it was Grandfather’s masterpiece? The moisture in my body began bubbling up, and I heard that fellow behind me excitedly grow even noisier. He was beating against the wall of the cave. Each time—in fact, he was rubbing the wall with his head—the wall of the cave made a strange sound, as if saying, “That’s right, that’s right … .” I felt comforted that he was there—my good friend. Otherwise, I probably would have fainted in disbelief. I don’t know how long I crept through the tunnel because underground there was no distinction between day and night. However, I remember that in those moments, the distinctions between all things vanished. There was neither any sound nor any image: even the earthworm behind me didn’t move. No matter how much energy I expended knocking my head against the wall of the cave, I couldn’t make any sound nor could I see anything. Was it possible that this was “death”? But this situation didn’t last long. When my ears made a rumbling sound, my feeling came back (was it simply a problem with my feeling?). With each passage I crept along, “death” repeated itself. Later on, I grew used to this. Not only was I no longer afraid, but I even looked forward to it a little. In moments like that, my brain was transformed into an endless ocean. The lion’s incomparably huge silhouette appeared; he lay on the blue water. A nightingale flew over behind him. This scene appeared time after time, and I had the illusion that this trip wasn’t to find Grandfather, but to find the lion. How could one go underground to find the lion? This was a question that would normally be raised, but now, in my thinking, I had already abandoned normal logic. I recognized that I was looking for the lion; and planned too to talk with him after I found him—even if it meant being eaten by him. I wouldn’t mind.
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