Binu and the Great Wall of China (24 page)

Binu pushed the basket aside and turned away. Xiaoman picked it up and stood in front of her, obviously ready to put his pole to use if necessary. ‘We are all unfortunate people,’ he said angrily. ‘You are not the only woman whose husband died, and you are not the only one who wants to cry. My three brothers and I came here together, and now I am the only one left. You can cry
all you want, but do you know how many people will suffer because of it? I’m going to count to three, and then I’ll pick you up if you won’t get in the basket on your own.’

Pointing his pole at Binu, he began to count. Binu stopped crying at the count of one, and struggled to her feet at the count of two. When he counted three, Xiaoman realized that she was preparing to jump off the cliff. Dropping his pole, he rushed over, grabbed her and carried her back to the basket. She was light as a feather, but abundant water from her body splashed him in the face. He was rubbing his eyes, which had been forced shut by the tears, when he heard a crackling noise coming from his basket. It was the sound of the willow rotting away from the assault of tears.

‘Don’t cry. Your tears are ruining my basket. Without it, we can’t get down, and you’ll have to jump. Then what will I do? I’ll have to jump with you.’ He could not keep his eyes dry, but quickly discovered that the tears were his own. He strained to keep his eyes open, while looping the pole through the basket handles; they snapped off the instant he tried to lift the pole. ‘Didn’t I tell you not to cry? See, you’ve ruined the handles of my basket. Now how can I take you down?’ He raised his pole, but it fell to the ground. Then he saw a familiar
face, ancient like that of his mother and sad like that of his sister. The woman sat in the basket, like his mother or his sister, crying to him. A watery sky spread out in her eyes and rain began to fall. Xiaoman sat down on his pole and sobbed.

From the valley beneath Broken-Heart Cliff the souls of the dead arose and spread through the air like a fog. The valley was bathed in a tearful white light; the wind and clouds sobbed in mid-air; trees and grass cried on the hills; tears flowed from rocks, from dark green bricks, and from yellow earth on the wall. A hawk skimmed past Xiaoman’s head, sending drops of cold water down on his forehead; he assumed they were hawk’s tears. He heard the baskets crying to each other; it was impossible to tell which basket cried louder, which was sadder. The sun shimmered. Xiaoman was about to search for the sun’s tears when he heard a northern wind rise up and send a gust of yellow sand rolling across the mountains and over the ridges. Through the flying sand, he saw Wan Qiliang’s wife crawl out of the basket and untie the gourd at her waist. He saw her final arrangements for the gourd, and how it tumbled over the wall and rolled down the steep hill. He could not tell whether she had offered the gourd to the valley or to Qiliang’s soul. For the first time in his life, he heard a gourd crack
open and saw an eruption of bright shiny tears gush from it, like bolts of lightning. He saw the tears plunge into the valley; Great Swallow Mountain trembled and the Great Wall shook imperceptibly. An indescribable terror overcame Xiaoman, for he sensed that the mountain was on the verge of splitting open. He cried out to Binu, who was standing at the edge of the cliff, ‘The mountain is crumbling. Don’t stand there. Come back to the basket.’

Binu knelt in the sand and wind, and banged against the wall. Finally she was able to cry out, ‘Qiliang, Qiliang, come out.’ She pounded and pounded. ‘Qiliang, Qiliang, come out or let me in.’

The wall, the store of arrows and the beacon tower all resounded to the pounding of the grieving woman. The rocks and the dirt let out muffled rumbles. Wind was now coming from every direction, hitting Xiaoman in the face with yellow sand that was sharper than knives. Terrified, he picked up a basket and ran down the slope, but threw it away when he saw that it was now filled with frogs from the ponds and rice fields of Blue Cloud Prefecture that were croaking in a hoarse but unified voice. He shouted at Binu, ‘Big Sister, please don’t cry. You cannot cry. The frogs are here to cry in your place.’ He snatched the pole and kept running down the hill.
Flowing yellow sand was creating steps down the hill, up which a swarm of beetles was climbing. He knew they were insects that could cry. In the spring, they ate leaves in Blue Cloud Prefecture’s mulberry groves. Each bite of a leaf brought forth a teardrop of remorse. Xiaoman made way for the beetles and turned to shout, ‘Big Sister, don’t cry. You’ll run out of tears. You cannot cry. The beetles are here to cry in your place.’

He kept running down the hill, encountering white butterflies with beautiful golden marks etched on the tips of their wings. He knew they were golden thread butterflies, native to North Mountain, where they were rumoured to be the three hundred spirits that had cried for their wronged ancestors. When he looked up to watch the butterflies flying past him, drops of warm butterfly tears fell on his face. He wiped his face, and held up his pole to welcome the spirits of his ancestors. But the butterflies did not land on his pole, and he knew that they no longer recognized him. The spirits of his wronged ancestors had forgotten a descendant who had been away for so many years. They had flown over a thousand li to come to Great Swallow Mountain, to cry with Qiliang’s wife at Broken-Heart Cliff.

Xiaoman ran down the hill until he reached a beacon tower, where he met Shangguan Qing and his dejected
constables. Carrying ropes in their hands, they headed for higher ground to look in the direction of Broken-Heart Cliff.

‘Where’s the woman we told you to carry down?’ they demanded of Xiaoman. ‘Why is she crying on Broken-Heart Cliff and making the mountain quake?’

Ignoring their outstretched hands and their ropes, he kept running. He saw a group of workers near a pile of arrows; they had put their work aside and were engaged in a heated discussion. They waved when they saw him. ‘Stop running. There is no more work. Even General Jianyang has stopped working. He has mounted his horse and is following a bird back to the steppe.’

‘You can’t work even if you want to.’ Xiaoman shouted back at them. ‘Wan Qiliang’s wife’s tears have brought down the Great Wall.’ He turned and pointed at the cliff. ‘Can you hear that? Listen! It is the sound of the mountain crumbling. The wall at Broken-Heart Cliff has collapsed. Wan Qiliang and the others are rising up from the ground!’

Also by Su Tong, available in English

Raise the Red Lantern (
originally printed as
Wives and Concubines)

Rice

My Life as Emperor

About the Author

BINU AND
THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA

Su Tong was born in Suzhou, China in 1963 and currently lives in Beijing. He is the author of the novel
Rice
and the three-novella collection
Raise the Red Lantern
, the title story of which was made into an Oscar-nominated film by Zhang Yimou.

Howard Goldblatt, a renowned authority on Chinese literature and culture, has translated many of China’s greatest writers into English. He is Research Professor at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, where he lives with his wife and fellow translator, Sylvia Lin.

Copyright

First published in Great Britain in 2007 by Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE

First published in China in 2006 by the Chong Qing Publishing Group,
205 Chang Jiang Er Lu, Yuzhong District, Chong Qing 400 016

This digital edition first published in 2009 by Canongate Books

Copyright © Su Tong, 2006
English translation copyright © Howard Goldblatt, 2007

The moral right of the author and translator has been asserted

The publisher acknowledges subsidy from the State Council Information Office of the People ’s Republic of China towards the publication of this volume.

ISBN 978 1 84767 663 4

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on
request from the British Library