The Man with the Compound Eyes

by Wu Ming-Yi

  “Not necessarily. There are lots of recorded instances in Taiwan and abroad of lost climbers found without much clothing left on. Hypothermia gives people hot flashes. I don’t think it’s a distress signal. I think it’s a sign that they’re lost, that they’ve lost any sense of direction and are no longer in their right minds. We have to hurry.” Dahu was right. When they found the students, they were almost unconscious and nearly naked.

  Dahu sometimes went on international search and rescue trainings. Friends he met on these affairs had told him that when people are lost and haven’t seen a single soul for days on end, many will deliberately avoid rescue personnel because they can’t tell the difference between fantasy, illusion and reality anymore. Some retained their physical vitality but would not respond when called. Some would even hide like startled beasts. So on the current mission, sometimes Dahu called out their names, while at other times he just kept quiet, watching for signs. He asked the other searchers to keep it down as well. Not a few times he had the feeling something was out there, but it was always fleeting.

  Several days later the rescue team returned with nothing to show for its efforts, not even a corpse. This was a heavy blow for both Dahu and Alice. The hardest thing for Dahu to bear was the look of disappointment in Alice’s eyes. For a month after the incident, team after team of volunteers had gone into the mountains without making any progress. How was it possible? Dahu just didn’t get it. The paper described it as an unsolved mystery. After all, all the usual alpine tragedy involved was people dying in the mountains: there was always a body. But this time it was like looking for clouds that have turned to rain and fallen on a river, something impossible to identify or trace.

  As often happens in such enigmas, the search and rescue operations trailed off. The world was like an unimaginably immense machine that wouldn’t stop working because a few people went missing. But on account of his lingering suspicions and his promise to Alice, Dahu decided to go into the mountains one last time. This time he had a new route he wanted to try, and some new ideas.

  Not all aboriginal groups in Taiwan live in the mountains, but the Bunun are certainly a mountain people. Dahu, a second son, inherited his uncle’s name. “Dahu” means soapnut, a shrub that is plain and resilient, pretty close to Dahu’s own temperament. But no matter how tough he was, it was hard for him to face Umav by himself. He remembered how unstable Millet had become after conceiving Umav. No longer able to work at the spa, her income of a hundred thousand NT dollars a month suddenly dried up. But in this town, the only pleasure in life for a young woman like Millet was dolling herself up. Besides, like many masseuses, Millet had started using drugs while she was in the business. Dahu tried to force her to quit several times, but though Millet seemed dependent on Dahu’s tenderness and reliability, she still felt that there had to be more to life than this. She would take it out on Dahu, and Dahu would only face her with an attitude of resignation. Millet could not stand herself like this. She needed to forget herself, and the only way to do that was to keep buying drugs on the sly from a customer.

  As for himself, Dahu wasn’t too strong, either, yet he was unwilling to appear weak. All he did was drive longer hours to avoid conflict. One day he came home to discover the scooter gone, and when he opened the door he heard Umav sobbing in her crib, but no one else was there. Then Dahu saw the note Millet had left. She hadn’t written much, just, I’m going to Taipei. Take good care of Umav. It should have been easy to find her, but he did not go looking. Instead, he bought a safety seat at the Carrefour and kept driving the taxi. He put Umav in the passenger seat and talked to her as he worked.

  Umav’s eyes would light up like the eyes of a sambar deer when she listened to her father’s stories, but the moment a story ended her eyes would turn to stone. After Umav fell asleep, her tiny bosom would rise and fall, but sometimes the rhythm of her breathing would change and she would wake up and burst out crying. Though still an infant, she seemed to know some things. She was like a wounded bird. Every day Dahu worried about the world his daughter would have to face when she grew up, because he knew that for a wounded bird in a real forest death was inevitable.

  Dahu walked solitary along the path, then started wandering off. The way ahead got less and less distinct until finally it was just an animal trail. Dahu knew he had entered the “alpine interior.” It was a far cry from the mountain paths packed firm by many feet, mountain paths with ropes climbers have tied and plastic markers they’ve left behind. Moon and Stone kept running in and out of the woods. They would bark to let their master know where the target was. There was nothing more important to a Bunun man than choosing keen and brave Formosan mountain mutts. They were your companions in loneliness, not just hunting dogs. Father had told him to pay close attention to a dog’s eyes and tail: if the tail doesn’t perk up the dog is craven, and if the eyes don’t sparkle it’s not intelligent. Either that or it can’t calm down. A dog that doesn’t stay calm can’t really see danger in the forest.

  Moving fast through the forest was Dahu’s forte. He often joked with friends that for a Bunun man growing taller than five foot eight is a disability, because if you’re too tall you can’t shuttle easily through the trees. Moon and Stone were one step ahead of him. They had discovered a water source, a stream in the wilderness that made a silvery sound, like it was talking to you. Dahu got out his portable cooking stove and made a pot of tea. Dahu took in the view and drank the tea and seemed to forget for a while the troubles that he had brought up the mountain with him. It wasn’t quiet, though. It never was in the mountains, especially near water. Dahu had discovered that many creatures would sing their own unique songs with uninhibited delight when they found water.

  One time Father told him a story while they were out hunting. One of the main reasons why he liked going hunting with Father was that he was a good storyteller. Seeing him with the gun slung across his back, telling stories while they checked the traps along the route made Dahu happier than anything. They were resting by a stream and Father said, “Dahu, did you know that in the olden days streams never used to talk?”

  “Why did they start talking so much later on?”

  “Well, life was actually really hard in the old village deep in the mountains. People were too busy hunting and planting. They didn’t like to dance much, actually, but sometimes they sang. Nobody recorded their songs, though. One day a boy and a girl went up the mountain to do some work. In fact, they’d been secretly in love for a long time. They felt so happy to have the chance to go into the mountains together that they started taking turns singing songs they made up themselves. Well, they came to a stream, and over that stream was a log bridge. It was real narrow, but they still tried to cross it together. Unfortunately, maybe the boy wasn’t paying enough attention or maybe the girl wasn’t paying enough attention. Probably thinking about something else, eh? Whatever the reason, while they were crossing the girl fell off the log. The boy tried to save her, and he fell into the stream, too.”

  “Did they die?”

  “It wasn’t like dying, Dahu. You must understand that sometimes people aren’t alive, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve died. That’s the way it was for this couple, and they became the voice of the stream.”

  People aren’t alive, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve died? Dahu didn’t get it.

  “Folks say that from then on, the stream would always make a whispering sound. Listen, doesn’t it sound nice? Later, when Bunun people hunted or worked on the land, they would sometimes, often or always listen to the sound of the stream for a long time. Later some Bunun folks imitated that sound, and that’s how pisus-lig (harmony) came to be.”

  Dahu’s father was a good singer and hunter, but a failure in life on the plains. He often got depressed, lost control of himself, and got into fights with guys at the factory over little things. So on holidays he liked to take the gun and face the wild boar up in the mountains and reminisce about the glory and the terror of
the Bunun hunters of old. Dahu would always remember the look in his father’s eyes the first time he took him on a group hunting expedition. The dogs were tracking the prey, and Father was directing the hunters to form a ring around it. Dahu’s sweat kept dripping into his eyes, so much he could barely see the path. He had to rely more on hearing and intuition to scramble to his own position. There were gunshots all around him, which sounded like birds above the forest, flying, circling and sometimes leaving without a backward glance.

  Dahu wanted to sing, but there wasn’t anyone to sing along with him, and after a few phrases the feeling just wasn’t right. He took out some jerky for Moon and Stone and picked some watercress for himself to raise his spirits. He washed it down with tea. In the forest, Moon and Stone were family. He thought it over and decided he should make camp a bit higher this evening. There shouldn’t be any danger of a landslide at the place he had in mind, and it was close to water. He looked over at Moon and Stone and said, “Oh forget it, let’s have a good night’s sleep and keep looking tomorrow. Even the moon needs to take a rest. Isn’t that right?”

  Dahu looked up at the sky, the stars and the trees, thinking of the time when a village elder had told him, “You must often speak to the sky, the stars, the clouds and the forest, because they may be avatars of Dihanin (the host of spirits). If you don’t speak to them, Hanito (evil spirits) will descend upon you when you’re alone.” Dahu wanted to speak to them but did not know what to say.

  Nearby there was the dog-like barking of a muntjac and the buzzing and chirping of a chorus of insects. Some drab owlet moths appeared out of nowhere and started crawling around on his night light. A while later Dahu discovered that more moths had gathered, lots of them. Some were giant moths like the ones he’d often seen as a child. He’d heard a climbing buddy who knew a lot about insects call them emperor moths. There was another pale turquoise-colored moth with a long beautiful tail called an Indian Luna. And there were still other moths with eyespots on their wings, like innumerable eyes staring at him. Moths like that were usually giant silkworm moths. They don’t fly around much, just stick quietly to tree trunks, like they’re part of the bark.

  Suddenly Dahu felt faint, far-off shadows drawing slowly near. He looked up, hoping to see more clearly, only to find it was raining. Every thread of rain was glowing, as if the moon itself had turned to rain, like the moon was falling all around him.

  11. The Vortex on the Sea

  Hafay always felt her best cleaning up the Seventh Sisid first thing in the morning. The aromatic melange of seawater outside and sea-grass mats and wooden chairs inside was reminiscent of the smell of cookies, and this rather childish odor allowed Hafay to forget her cares for a while.

  On the first Sunday in July, Hafay saw a couple of new faces in the Seventh Sisid. A man and a woman came in right when Hafay opened, sat at the Lighthouse table, set up a camera, and didn’t move the whole morning. The man wore a cameraman’s vest that was literally covered in pockets and a huge backpack; he was big and strong, and had dark skin, a buzz cut, and single-fold eyelids. He looked like the kind of guy who likes working out and pays attention to detail. The woman was skinny, and with heavy eye makeup that made her face seem a bit unreal. And she was wearing silver high heels, in a place like this! She seemed made for TV. Well, I guess, Hafay admitted grudgingly, she is beautiful, but just barely.

  The woman had turned on her tablet right after sitting down and had been staring at the screen ever since, like she wanted to avoid looking at her partner. He had set up a telescope and a professional video camera, with a sticker deliberately covering the brand name. Hafay only needed one look to know they were definitely not there for the bird-watching. A few friends of hers who often went bird-watching had mentioned that, what with upstream factories diverting water into their weirs and discharging waste into the river, over the past few years the fish population at the estuary had collapsed and the birding had even gone to hell at the river mouth. Besides, looking out from the Lighthouse today there weren’t any birds at all, only a gray expanse.

  “Here on holidays?”

  “No, we’re here on business. Our job today is watching the sea,” the man said.

  “Well, I’ve been here watching the sea for many years now, and it’s really not a simple thing. Please take your time,” Hafay joked. Maybe they were here to do a story on Alice’s house. The past couple of years really quite a few of these media people had made the trip. She turned on the stereo and put in a CD from a long time ago. It was the aboriginal singer Panai’s song “Maybe Someday.” Panai was really popular with young people at the time, and one time Hafay heard Panai sing live at the seashore. It was so intense. To Hafay it seemed that though Panai was trying to be laid-back when she sang this song, there was this heavy vibe, as if maybe someday would never come.

  Maybe someday, you too will want to leave this bustling town behind.

  Maybe someday, you too will want to see that childhood place you keep in mind,

  “a place like Heaven,” Mama would say … maybe someday.

  The man ordered the daily special. Hafay called today’s special Three Hearts, because she made it out of screwpine hearts, silvergrass hearts and shellflower hearts. She had gathered the vegetables the day before. For the main course you could choose wild boar shank or steamed fish. The man came over to the cashier and presented his name card. As she expected, he was a videojournalist for some TV channel, and the woman was an on-location correspondent.

  “You can call me Han.”

  “My name’s Lily,” said the woman with the heavy eye makeup, long false lashes and turquoise eyes.

  “What are you reporting on? We do not want the attention.”

  “Hey, don’t get us wrong, ma’am. This is a great restaurant, and it’d be perfect for a feature. But we’re not working on a fine dining piece right at this time. We’re mainly here because we heard that this is where the trash island might hit.”

  “The what island?”

  “It’s been all over the news. It’s not really an island. I should call it the Trash Vortex. Ah, you don’t seem to have a TV here.”

  “Nope.” Television was one of the many things Hafay disliked, and she did not subscribe to a newspaper, either.

  Lily batted her false eyelashes and started to explain: “Some thirty years ago, scientists discovered ocean currents had been carrying people’s garbage into a huge floating trash dump. Hard to imagine, isn’t it? It’s just so fascinating: this heap of trash is floating this way, and the whole world is watching. You’ve got to help us, ma’am.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Hafay couldn’t understand what was so fascinating about it.

  “Let us shoot from here. You’ve got a great view. And when the time comes we’d like to interview you and get you to share your thoughts.”

  “Sorry, I don’t do TV.” Hafay waved her hand dismissively. “Will there be other reporters showing up?” she asked anxiously.

  By the afternoon, all the local inns and B&Bs were full of reporters. There were even quite a few foreign correspondents. Every so often helicopters and paragliders would fly by. Journalists of all shapes, sizes and colors covered the beach; some were even setting up tents. But except for Han and Lily, Hafay refused to serve any of them. She wished Han and Lily would leave, too, if possible, but she wouldn’t kick them out. She’d only turn away new customers. Han and Lily were thrilled when they heard about the house rule. “This way we’ll get exclusive footage. These days, no matter what the story, everyone interviews the same people and even gets the same camera angles. It really kills us when we can’t get anything unique.”

  Then Lily, who was still holding the tablet so she could stay online with the news studio in Taipei and the helicopter flying overhead, said, “The news copter has flown out on the open ocean and surveyed the edge of the vortex, but the tidal currents near the shore have been so strong lately; they’ve been pushing the trash offshore. So we really don’t k
now when it’s going to hit. The experts we consulted with predicted that once the low pressure system forming over Luzon starts moving north the airflows will cause the edge of the vortex to fragment. Part of it might spread to Japan, and another part may get sent here.”

  “Go up in the helicopter and you’ll get the shots you want,” Hafay said.

  “Sure, we’ve got aerial footage already, but the wind’s been too strong the past few days. And it costs a lot to fuel the news copter, so we can’t run it all the time. What we really want to capture is the moment when the vortex hits the shore, and then get local reactions to the incident,” Han said. “Oh yeah, is there a boat in the area we could charter?”

  “Maybe Ah Lung can take you out. I’ll give you his number.” Ah Lung was a local fellow who made wood sculptures and fished at the shore.

  Hafay took in the familiar stretch of sea, but try as she might she couldn’t understand what Lily and Han were talking about. It was like when she couldn’t understand an arithmetic problem as a girl. All those things we tossed out assuming the tide would take them away and the ocean would digest them were now floating slowly back?

  “Is there anyone living in that house over there?” Lily pointed at the only house in the line of sight of the Lighthouse. Hafay didn’t have to look to know that they meant Alice’s place.

  “Sure is.”

  Alice was getting used to things she just couldn’t understand coming in with the tide.

  Finding Ohiyo was like opening a door and letting in a ray of light. Every morning, she would wake up to the sound of Ohiyo’s meowing, and after pouring her food she’d sit at her writing desk by the Sea Window and zone out, or scribble whatever came to mind, without any particular aim. She wrote in a notebook rather than use a computer. She was not writing so much as performing a kind of ritual to the ocean, as if praying to it and beseeching it. Ohiyo’s appearance seemed to have given her faith that if serendipity had brought Ohiyo to her, then maybe it had delivered Toto to something else, maybe something that had ended up taking him in. This possibility dispelled her suicidal thoughts, at least for now.