The Library of Legends

by Janie Chang

  He turned over and closed his eyes. He had to sleep. They would leave at first light.

  BUT MINGHUA 123 did not leave at first light.

  Instead there was shouting and commotion, fishermen from the village clamoring at the factory gates. The disturbance spread to the courtyard houses, where servants knocked on professors’ doors and called out in urgent hushed voices. Lian and Meirong threw on their clothes and ran out to the courtyard.

  “Stay here,” one of the professors said, hurrying past, ashen faced. “Tell everyone to stay here. Do not leave the premises.”

  But if the professors wanted to keep rumors at bay, it was a forlorn hope. The servants who opened the gates already knew why the fishermen had come running up from the lakeshore and the news soon spread. A student had been found dead at the edge of the lake. Drowned. The factory yard filled with anxious young men and women. They scanned the factory campus to look for their closest friends, reassure themselves.

  The murmurs in the yard began to echo one name.

  The faculty members and Mr. Lee returned, a somber parade. At any other time, it would’ve been a comical sight, the normally dignified academics in various stages of dress. Professor Zhang wasn’t wearing his socks and bare, bony ankles showed above his shoes. Professor Song’s head was still covered with the round crocheted cap he wore to flatten his hair while he slept.

  Without being told, the students gathered closer. There was no need to call for silence. Professor Kang cleared his throat.

  “There’s no easy way to break the news,” he said. “The fishermen found a student drowned in the lake. We’ve identified her as Wang Jenmei.”

  He waited for the cries and gasps to die down. “Mr. Lee and I are going to Hefei to get the police.”

  A shocked silence. Then the air began rustling with whispered speculations. And something else. Fear. But only after the donkey cart took Professor Kang and Mr. Lee out of the factory gates did the whispers rise to a fever pitch of noise.

  Drowned, the fishermen said, her head held underwater.

  Murdered for her politics. It must’ve been the Nationalists.

  The villagers brought her body to the coffin maker’s shop.

  Like everyone else, Jenmei’s roommates had been busy packing the night before and gone to bed early. She often returned late and they assumed she was at a meeting. They didn’t wait up.

  Lian backed away from the crowd and leaned against the wall of the library warehouse. All of Minghua 123 was milling about in the yard. She caught sight of Shao at the far side of the crowd with his friends, his face grim. Meirong was sobbing, her face pressed against Ying-Ying’s shoulder.

  Anyone who saw Lian would think she had tucked her hands inside her sleeves to keep warm. But she did it to hide their trembling. Had her words condemned Jenmei? Was this a warning to students? Was this all it took to pronounce a young woman’s death sentence? Suddenly, she wasn’t so sure anymore that Shao’s family, their wealth and connections, would keep him safe. She wanted to ask Mr. Lee what had happened. But she knew she would never muster the courage.

  Just the thought of speaking to Mr. Lee made her choke. He had lied, said Jenmei would only be expelled, perhaps sent to a reeducation camp. Had he been the one who killed Jenmei? Lian ran behind the library warehouse. One hand pressed against the wooden planked walls, she vomited, trying to disgorge her fear with every heave. But even as she retched, she knew Jenmei’s death would never relinquish its hold on her. All she managed to empty onto the hard soil was last night’s supper and none of her guilt.

  Lian straightened up, caught her breath. She had to behave as normally as possible for the next little while. It wouldn’t be difficult, it was all right for her to appear nervous and shocked. Frightened, even, because everyone was distressed.

  She returned to her room at the courtyard house, where several other girls were already sitting on their beds talking. Meirong sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, silently crying. Lian wanted to put her arm around Meirong, say something comforting, but she couldn’t. Whatever she said would come out stiff and stilted.

  “Why does this feel so awful?” Ying-Ying said, her hands twisting a grubby handkerchief. “I didn’t know Jenmei that well. I knew Mr. Shen better because I went to his tutorials. But I wasn’t this upset when Mr. Shen died.”

  “It’s because she wasn’t killed during a Japanese air raid,” Meirong said tonelessly, “or from any of the risks we’ve faced together during our evacuation. She was murdered.”

  Murdered. Lian clenched her fists to hide their trembling. Jenmei was dead and it was her fault.

  Chapter 16

  All the books and chalkboards had been packed up, but the faculty did their best anyway to give the students a day of classes while waiting for Professor Kang and Mr. Lee to come back from Hefei. They lectured from memory, organized discussion groups, and assigned short essays. Anything was better than idle time, time for talk that inflamed fear and speculation. For the next several hours, the routine of an ordinary school day dulled the horror of Wang Jenmei’s murder.

  In the late afternoon, the students rushed out to the yard, drawn out of their classes by the rattling vibrations of an engine in poor repair. A dusty black police car drove through the gates and two military policemen climbed out, followed by Mr. Lee and Professor Kang. From the sergeant’s irritated demeanor, Shao could tell he considered this trip to Zhongmiao Village highly inconvenient.

  The sergeant made a tour of the campus with Mr. Lee and Professor Kang. He went to the courtyard house and the room where Jenmei had slept and came out with a bundle of papers and notebooks. Then they all climbed back into the black car and drove down to Chaohu Lake. Some of the students followed at a run, trailed at a more sedate pace by a servant driving one of the donkey carts. Fishermen helped lift Jenmei’s covered body onto the cart, which then set out for Hefei. Professor Kang rode back to Hefei in the police car and Mr. Lee stayed behind.

  From start to finish, the policemen’s visit had taken less than an hour.

  Cook Tam and his assistant unpacked some equipment from the kitchen wagon and made an unusually substantial meal, fresh lake fish steamed with ginger and soy sauce, plenty of rice, and pickled vegetables. Students scraped leftovers into tin lunch boxes for the next day, not trusting they’d have time to eat on the road.

  “The police sergeant yelled at the coffin maker,” Shorty said, over a second helping of rice. “He was angry they had brought the body into the shop instead of leaving it by the lake. Disturbing the crime scene, he called it.”

  Already they were referring to Jenmei as “the body.”

  “The fishermen were being kind,” Chen Ping said. “They didn’t want to leave her just lying there.”

  “The sergeant kept complaining it was pointless and a waste of time to investigate since the body had been moved,” Shorty said. “But I got the feeling he was glad of an excuse.”

  Shao cupped his hands around a mug of tea. He hadn’t trooped down to the lake with the others. Jenmei was dead. Murdered. It was horrible. He felt ashamed of the rush of relief, the moment of lightness he’d felt when he first realized he would never have to face her again. Her knowing smile, the proprietary way she put her hand on his arm. Her determination to lay claim to him, mind, body, and ideology.

  “The villagers asked Professor Kang to pay for a priest to exorcise the spot where Jenmei was found,” Shorty said. “They’re afraid her drowned ghost will haunt their waterfront.”

  “I don’t believe in spirits,” Shao said. “But I’m sure the professor will do it to make them feel better.”

  “The professor will do it,” Chen Ping said seriously, “because he doesn’t want Jenmei’s ghost to wander the lakeshore for eternity.”

  AFTER DINNER, THE students assembled in the former library warehouse. Mr. Lee’s jovial smile was missing. To Lian’s eyes, he seemed genuinely distraught. Most of the girls were in a huddle at the center of the space, h
olding on to one another. She stood behind them, wary of what Mr. Lee might say, not wanting to catch his eye. She looked around for Shao and found him at the very front of the gathering.

  “Professor Kang is staying overnight in Hefei,” the director of student services said, “where he’s arranging for Wang Jenmei’s burial. He must deal with some officials and contact her family. What I want you to know is that our plans haven’t changed, only delayed by a day. Unpack only what you need to use tonight. We leave for Lu’an tomorrow as soon as the professor returns.”

  “Sir,” one of the senior students called out, “what about the investigation into Jenmei’s murder? What will the police do?”

  Mr. Lee shook his head. “There won’t be an investigation. We’re at war with both Japan and the Communist Party of China.”

  He didn’t need to say more. Jenmei had been an outspoken Communist. The military police had no incentive to look into her murder. Whoever killed Jenmei had nothing to fear. It might’ve been Mr. Lee, it might’ve been an outsider. It could even have been some other member of Minghua 123. But they would not be apprehended. They could do anything. To Jenmei, to Shao. To her.

  The students dawdled, delayed going back to their rooms for the night.

  “Do you think the murderer was one of the villagers?” one of the girls said.

  “In such a small place?” Ying-Ying scoffed. “It must’ve been an outsider, a Nationalist agent who slipped in and out to do the deed. Think of all the refugees who’ve camped here.”

  Lian didn’t mention the unthinkable. That the murderer might still be among them.

  “Those military policemen hardly spent any time here,” Meirong said, finally speaking. “The murder of a left-wing student hardly matters to them. What’s the purpose of a university if we can’t exchange ideas? If Jenmei was killed just for talking about her beliefs, they might as well kill us all.”

  “Please, Meirong,” Lian said, looking around. “Don’t say such things.”

  “I won’t let this affect the newspaper,” Meirong said. “Minghua 123 News is Wang Jenmei’s legacy. Lian, can you put in more time?”

  “Of course,” Lian said. Not because she wanted to, but at a time like this, how could she refuse Meirong?

  She left the warehouse with her classmates and crossed the yard to return to the courtyard house. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Jenmei had been killed for her politics. The murder was a knife stab of a reminder—as if they needed reminding—that China wasn’t just at war with the Japanese, but also fighting a civil war.

  Lian’s eyes were drawn to the entrance of the dining hall where Mr. Lee stood, surveying the yard. Cook Tam emerged from the kitchen and joined him. They spoke, their heads close together. As she turned back to her friends Lian felt, rather than saw, the two men gaze in her direction.

  Chapter 17

  Minghua 123 were on the road again by midmorning. Every so often they heard the buzz of aircraft but, mercifully, always from far away. The Japanese weren’t interested in Hefei at the moment and Minghua 123 was taking advantage of it. Walking in daylight was much faster and they had to make up for lost time. They were glad not to be traveling at night when the air was colder, the wind even sharper. It was a quiet exodus as the students trudged their way west, skirting the southern edge of Hefei.

  They lodged in the buildings of a small Buddhist temple, its halls barely large enough to hold all of Minghua 123, let alone the other refugees sheltering there. The students had a long five days of walking ahead of them but no one cared. They just wanted to leave Jenmei’s murder behind.

  PROFESSOR KANG CLIMBED the low rise of a path on a small hill beside the temple. A three-quarters moon cast its light on the road below. The path led him to a lookout point with a stone bench, put there for admiring the view. A granite stele stood beside it. The stele was inscribed with a date, fifteenth century. He ran the list of emperors through his head and placed it during the reign of the Yongle emperor. The professor sat on the bench and lit a cigarette, careful to hold it away from the book on his lap. Tales of Fox Spirits, Volume 100.

  He thought of Wang Jenmei and Shen. Tallied up against the number who had died so far in this war, against the deaths to come before the war ended, they did not even merit footnotes in history. If Minghua University survived, the two students might find their way onto a commemorative list of students and faculty lost during the war. If someone took the time to write a narrative about the evacuation, succeeding generations might learn how they’d died, where and when.

  But Jenmei and Shen were no longer his charge. What Professor Kang worried about now was how to avoid losing more members of Minghua 123. Hunger and fatigue were already taking their toll. Students caught colds and never got better. The students took their studies seriously, reading by the light of cheap oil lamps that smoked and irritated their eyes, so several had eye infections and would need attention when they reached a town with medical care. They were malnourished, another reason so many were prone to illness. Winter had set in and fresh vegetables were scarce. Professor Kang and his colleagues had given what money they had to Cook Tam for food. He hoped the government and their promises of cash would catch up to them in Wuhan, the next big city on their route.

  Professor Kang waved a hand in greeting when he saw the Star, her lithe form glowing as she came up the path. The acrid scent of cheap tobacco wafted around the stone bench and she lifted one eyebrow. He wasn’t smoking, just letting the ashes fall to the frozen ground.

  “I tried to buy this, just one cigarette,” he said, stubbing out the cigarette. “I met a man from Soochow on the road. He could tell by my accent I’m also from Soochow. When he learned I was a professor, he insisted on giving it to me. The smell reminds me of my rebellious youth, when I smoked mainly to annoy my grandparents.”

  She sat on the bench beside him. It was the first time they’d had alone since Wang Jenmei’s death. Despite the glow that radiated from her, he could tell she was tired. He remembered how upset she’d been after Mr. Shen’s death. How she had felt somehow responsible.

  “This was murder,” he said gently. “There was nothing you could’ve done. You’ve led our group to safety.”

  The Star nodded but didn’t look much happier. The professor gestured at the expanse of fields below, bisected by a road that extended from east to west.

  “Even the humblest of country temples somehow manage a good view,” he said. “I’m not a greedy man but I confess to a certain pleasure at seeing the landscape from above, horizon to horizon. It makes me want to own it all, as far as I can see.”

  “Animals feel safer when they can sight predators from afar,” the Star said. “Humans like high ground for the same reason. To see enemies coming from a great distance.”

  “And as the machines of war increase in speed and brutality we want to own more and more of that distance to keep them at bay,” Professor Kang said. “May I ask how your . . . comrades are doing?”

  “Word is spreading now,” she said, “and most know it’s time to leave. There’s some resistance, of course, especially from the ones who’ve inhabited earthly forms for a long time.”

  “But they return to a paradise,” the professor said. “Surely that must be a comfort.”

  “It’s comfort of a sort,” the Star said, “but what purpose will they have in that paradise? They’ve been guardians of rivers and lakes, forests and fields. Of a single tree or a humble hectare of land. Even if no more than a half-dozen farmers pray to them for a good harvest of beans, they’ve had a purpose.”

  Her brightness shone on the book of Legends. Tales of Fox Spirits, Volume I.

  “I see you’ve been reading, Professor. It’s not necessary to bring out the books anymore. The pages of the Library conjured up spirits, woke them up to begin the exodus. Now the exodus has gained momentum. Look, over there.”

  She pointed at the road below where a procession was coming into view. It was a vision of gaiety, the merr
ymakers holding red lanterns, banners fluttering from long poles. Every now and then, there was the snap and sparkle of firecrackers. The revelers carried cymbals and wooden clappers; they walked alongside musicians playing bamboo flutes.

  The shadows they cast under moonlight were of foxes, bushy tailed and slender legged.

  “Fox spirits,” the Star said, “young ones. They can’t just walk. It has to be a game. These spirits are dancing all the way to the Kunlun Mountains.”

  When he looked again, the dancing figures belied the parade’s apparent festivity. He sensed melancholy beneath a determined effort at exuberance. Thin reedy notes floated up to his ears, a tune that spoke of loss and departure. The professor and the Star watched in silence until the cavalcade of young Foxes vanished behind the hills. Every now and then the professor thought he heard the faint clash of cymbals, until finally the landscape was silent once more.

  “The only supernatural beings I’ve noticed leaving have been guardian spirits, benevolent immortals,” the professor said. “May I ask, what about the other creatures described in the Library of Legends? The demons and ghosts, the evil spirits?”

  “Death, suffering, and brutality run unchecked in this war,” the Star said. “Why would they leave when the pleasures they enjoy are all right here?”

  The professor sagged at the harsh truth of her words. They sat in silence for a while, then she touched him lightly on the sleeve.

  “In all this time, you’ve never asked me,” she said, “what happens after the Palace gates close.”

  “I’m guessing we’ll be left to find our own way,” Kang said, after a moment. “No matter how badly we do it.”

  “You guess correctly,” the Star said. “When the Palace gates close, the gods and guardian spirits will leave your skies. The constellations will shine as before, but they will be just what your scientists say they are, flaming balls of gas and rock. People might continue to pray, but whatever boons or burdens follow will not come from the gods. They will be of your own making.”