Binu and the Great Wall of China (17 page)

The guards noticed her mourning clothes and saw that the hem of her robe was already submerged in a puddle of water. They yanked her to her feet. ‘Why have you come here to cry instead of going to the graveyard? Even a three-year-old knows that there are no tears allowed inside the Five-Grain City gate. The punishment is death. A grown woman ought to know that.’

‘She’s just begging to die,’ exclaimed the consumptive, who had threaded his way back through the crowd.
‘Her tears have ruined Five-Grain City’s excellent
feng
shui
and for that she should lose her head.’

People stared sombrely at the guards, waiting for something to happen. The guards whispered among themselves for a moment before sending over a young guard with a spear. The crowd’s gaze fell on the shiny tip of the spear as he circled her. ‘They’re going to behead her right here. She’s going to lose her head.’

But someone who knew a bit about beheading was quietly critical of the guard’s weapon. ‘A spear? That won’t do it. They need to use an executioner’s blade.’

In a trembling voice, a woman warned her child, ‘Be good. Don’t get too close, or your clothes will be splattered with blood.’

Little by little, doubts were voiced in the crowd. ‘This doesn’t look like a beheading. Maybe they won’t do it. No, they’re won’t, they’re not going to behead her.’

The young guard’s next move came as a surprise; he simply lifted the sleeve covering Binu’s face with the tip of his spear and studied her tearful face. ‘Cry, go ahead and cry. We’ll let you have a good cry.’ It was impossible to tell if he was playing with her or truly urging her to cry. The crowd saw him touch her face with his index finger, then stare at it and shout, ‘Hey, look at this teardrop, it’s as big as a pearl. It can stand alone on my finger.’

‘Looking at it isn’t enough,’ said the other guards. ‘If it doesn’t taste right, it doesn’t matter how big it is. Go on, see how it tastes.’

The young guard chased away a few adventurous children before warily turning around to put the tear-dipped finger in his mouth. All eyes were on him.

‘He’s putting tears in his mouth!’ one of the surprised onlookers shouted. ‘What in the world is he doing? Are her tears some sort of delicacy?’

The young guard was focused on tasting the tear; suddenly his nervous tongue stopped working and his knitted brows smoothed out, as an excited light shone brightly in his eyes. ‘A very good tear,’ he shouted ecstatically. ‘A great tear. Not too salty, a trace of sweetness, a bit tart, slightly bitter, also somewhat spicy. It must be the finest tear in all of Five-Grain City.’

The other guards jumped for joy. One of them walked up and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Well done,’ he complimented the young guard. ‘You didn’t waste the time you spent in the pharmacy. Thanks to your tongue we have found the best tears in Five-Grain City.’

The guards at Five-Grain City were satisfied in the knowledge that they would be rewarded for something they had not done. The crowd had no idea what was happening. A rare beheading, the answer to their prayers,
was about to be played out when, inexplicably, it was over and nothing had been done. With disappointment showing on their faces, the mystified people bombarded the guards with questions.

‘What happened? Why did you spare the woman? Is this some sort of memorial day for the King? Is he going to pardon everyone?’

Unable to reveal details, the guards hinted that the woman was not destined to die. That answer did not appease the crowd.

‘Why was she spared? On what grounds?’

The guards, growing impatient, shouted, ‘On the grounds that her teardrops are big, on the grounds that her tears have five different flavours. Haven’t you heard that the tear soup in Master Zhan’s medicinal cauldron is drying up? It’s not worth getting excited about. Do we detect a hint of jealousy?’

Under the surprised watch of the crowd, Binu left a silvery trail of tears as she was carried through the gate by the guards. People standing at the front saw them deposit her by a pile of firewood, next to a wheelbarrow.

The refugees by the city gate watched as Binu and the firewood were arranged three times before she had a secure seat on the wheelbarrow. Only her face and a shoulder protruded from the pile. She cried, looking up
at the sky, while her body was swallowed up by the firewood. Her tears fell on the kindling like rain, causing some concern that it might not burn. The wheelbarrow was long gone before the people learned that she had not been taken to be used as firewood, that not only had she evaded a calamity, but she was actually being taken to the Zhan Mansion to work. To do what? To cry: to be a weeper. It turned out that the Zhan Mansion was in urgent need of human tears to brew medicine. No one in the crowd could believe their ears, which was only to be expected. A medicine pedlar who had close dealings with the Zhan Food and Medicine Section revealed to the crowd that the dark shadow of illness had settled over the mansion.

Prefect Zhan had sent for a one-time Longevity Palace doctor who had retired to the Pine Forest Temple. Believing that a malignant aura dominated the mansion, the doctor stressed the importance of supplementing and correcting the aura and gave them a prescription whose only special ingredient was tears that contained the five human tastes: bitter, salty, sweet, sour and spicy. Prefect Zhan thought that the doctor was playing with him, but he did not dare contradict him, given the man’s high status and excellent reputation, as well as the many difficult and unusual illnesses he had cured for three
kings. Prefect Zhan was the most powerful person in Five-Grain City, but all his power and money could not buy as many tears as he needed. He laid down the law to all the officers and soldiers in the city, so that they swore that they would find the saddest woman in Five-Grain city and present him with the largest, best-tasting teardrops of all.

Fortune had smiled on them this day, for they had discovered Binu’s tears. Not completely won over, the refugees discussed among themselves the medicinal value of tears. Some wetted their fingers with one of their own teardrops and chased after the young solider who had tasted Binu’s tear. But their self-promotions were all rejected. Once the wheelbarrow was on its way, a line of flags was raised high above the guard tower, sending a message to all four city watchtowers. An old man at the city gate, who had been a standard bearer in his youth, read the signal for everyone: ‘Found the saddest woman. The largest and best tears are on their way to the Zhan Mansion.’

Tear Brew

The servants in the Kindling Section made Binu take off her mourning clothes before entering the Zhan Mansion. Slowly she removed her robe, which she held in her arms in the firewood shed as she wept.

A servant came over and said to her, ‘Don’t cry yet. We don’t have a tear vat, and you’re wasting your tears by letting them fall on the firewood.’

They snatched away the robe and threw it on the firewood, but when they saw her tearful eyes fixed on it, they said, ‘Are you afraid we’ll take your robe from you? When they hold a funeral in the Zhan Mansion, even the stone lions wear white robes made of soft brocade. Don’t condemn us just because we work in the firewood shed.’

Binu continued to stare silently at the robe, inviting a scornful look from the servants, one of whom picked it up with a long stick and put it on the highest pile of wood. ‘You don’t want to part with it, is that it? Very well then, we won’t burn it. We’ll keep it for you for after you finish crying.’

An old man with a long beard came for Binu. Following a strong aromatic scent, he led her to a dark room where the medicine was brewed. A liquid boiling in the cauldron suffused the steamy room with a pungent odour. A cauldron worker tended the fire with great concentration, while another chopped herbs at a table and yet another stirred the mixture in the cauldron. In a corner of the room women and children – boys and girls – sat in the dark, crying into vats that they held in their hands.

‘We have a new weeper,’ the old servant said to someone in the dark corner. ‘Bring her the biggest vat.’

A thick-set woman emerged from the darkness with a vat that was about half her height. ‘I hear that your tears are large and very fine,’ she said to Binu. ‘I’d like to see just how large and how fine.’

The other weeping people had also heard that the newcomer had exceptional tears, so, from time to time, they looked up from their vats to appraise Binu, their eyes filled with suspicion and animosity. The servant who was chopping herbs came over and politely gave her instructions: ‘Take your time and aim at the vat. Stop to rest every once in a while,’ he said. ‘No need to cry your heart out. That does no one any good. All we want are your tears. Let me know when you have filled half
a vat. We must taste them before adding them to the cauldron.’

Binu sat down with the vat in her arms and watched the other weeping people cry into the vats with great precision. Their eyes were dripping like house eaves after rain, and the room was like a strange teardrop workshop. Binu looked around blankly, knowing it was time to start crying, and thinking that Qiliang’s winter clothes were still nowhere to be found. Consumed by worry, she was unable to cry.

‘My tears are sweet,’ remarked a boy who had abruptly stopped crying and was glaring at Binu. ‘What do yours taste like? You adults may have lots of tears but they are bitter, or sour, or salty. You can’t shed sweet tears.’

Before Binu could reply, a woman sitting nearby said, her voice dripping with envy, ‘She can shed the best tears in Five-Grain City. Sweet tears mean nothing. She sheds five-flavour tears. I wonder how big a reward she’ll get.’

‘What’s a five-flavour tear? There can only be one taste in tears from the eyes. Let me taste one of hers. It must be a hoax.’ Leaning over to check Binu’s vat, the boy was about to reach in with his finger when he saw it was empty. ‘Why aren’t you crying? Don’t you know how? Haven’t you ever had anything sad happen to you?’

‘I know how to cry, child. Many sad things have happened to me; it’s just that I can’t think of a single one when I sit down to cry.’

‘You must try. Think about the saddest thing ever. I think about how my father left me in a duck shed and I wasn’t found until someone came to gather the eggs. I was covered in duck feathers and duck droppings! Even now people call me Duck Feathers, and my tears flow whenever I think about my name.’ All the time he was talking he held his vat below his face to catch each falling tear. He continued, ‘The sweet tears of a child are the rarest, and it takes a long time to collect even half a vat. I have no idea what makes women sad or how to get them to cry. Go and ask those women over there.’

The few women who were busy crying were, at first, reserved, but after not hearing any sounds from Binu’s vat for some time, they looked up and glared at her.

‘Hurry up,’ one of them said. ‘You won’t be paid until your vat is full. I can tell you have had a rough life, so how can you not have something sad to think about? Close your eyes and you’ll be fine.’

Thinking that the other weepers were obstructing Binu, the medicinal worker came over to chase them away. ‘They’re waiting for your five-flavour tears at the cauldron,’ he urged. ‘A vat from you will probably be as
good as five vats from others, so make sure you give it a good cry.’

‘I want to,’ said Binu, ‘I really do, but crying like this is acting and I simply cannot do it.’

The worker blinked. ‘Didn’t someone in your family just die? Was it your husband? How will you spend the rest of your life without him? Think about that.’

‘Don’t put a curse on him!’ Binu cried out in shock. ‘My husband Qiliang is working on the Great Wall at Great Swallow Mountain. He’s not dead. Please, Sir, spit three times on the ground, please do that for me.’

The herbal worker spat three times on the ground and scraped the ground with his foot as an imperceptible smile appeared at the corners of his mouth. ‘Once he’s at Great Swallow Mountain, he’ll have only half a life left, whether he’s cursed or not.’ He looked at Binu and then at the women in the corner. ‘Your husband isn’t the only one there. Just ask those with the bitter tears; ask them how many of their husbands have come back alive.’

After a long silence, Binu heard a cacophony of confessions from the women who produced bitter tears.

‘More men died mining rocks at Great Swallow Mountain than anywhere else. They had incurred the wrath of the Mountain Deity, who sent avalanches down
on those who worked the hardest. My husband was one of them.’

‘More people died in my family than any others. My husband and three brothers all perished on Great Swallow Mountain. The youngest brother tried to escape but was caught half-way out and was buried alive.’

The confessions were followed by pitiful sobbing. Binu left her vat and went up to the Great Swallow Mountain widows. Grabbing the hands of one, she said, ‘Elder Sister, you said that mining rocks incurred the wrath of the Mountain Deity. My husband Qiliang is building the wall; he won’t incur that wrath, will he?’

The widow withdrew her hands and waved them in the air with a sad look. ‘Those mining the rocks incur the wrath of the Mountain Deity, but those building the wall cannot escape it either. They are all going to die.’

Extreme sadness and resentment filled the hearts of the Great Swallow Mountain widows and brought forth an abundant harvest of tears. Splattering sounds emerged from the vats in their arms. Spurred by the sound of that harvest, the older folks, who shed sour tears, and the young women with salty and spicy tears, even the children, with their sweet tears, all began to cry freely. The chorus of wails, accompanied by pained screams, splintered the dark room as weepers aimed their contorted faces at the
openings of the vats. Facing this sudden surge of tears, the cauldron and herbal workers did not know whether to respond with joy or with concern; they ran around reminding people to sob, not howl. The herb-chopping worker kept a calm watch over Binu, who was trembling in the midst of all the sobbing. He could see her face, white as a sheet in the dark room; then a silvery light flickered, followed by a gushing of tears.