Binu and the Great Wall of China (11 page)

Once she saw that this was a real deer, she said, ‘Deer, where would you have me go? Let me sit here for a little while. I won’t be here for long before Death comes to claim me.’

Dawn was about to break, and human sounds emerged from beyond the edge of the forest where the residents of Hundred Springs Terrace were getting out of bed, but Binu closed her eyes with exhaustion; it had become a habit to clutch her bundle to her before going to sleep, but now there was nothing to hold. She groped the ground around her with both hands and touched the loose chains lying beside her. She picked them up and heard the grass at the Deer King’s gravesite swish back and forth, making her wonder if an unknown ghost was
hidden in the grass. She dimly saw the wind blow up motes of dust, followed by puffs of blue smoke, as a child with horns on his head rose out of the grave. He had the limpid eyes and downy skin of a deer. He pointed to the gravesite and said to Binu, ‘Stop grumbling and come with me into my grave.’

The only kindness Binu had been offered in the forest came from a graveside apparition. It frightened her enough to make her turn and run towards the deer shed, where the sound of boys skipping around the forest had already started up. She wondered if the gourd boy had forgotten about getting the shovel and the hoe. He was her gravedigger, he would cover her grave, and she knew she had to find him. She ran as the first rays of morning sun reached her through the trees overhead, weeping into the hands that covered her face. A storm of tears sprang up on the forest floor, pools of water were left on the ground where the hem of her dress brushed past, and all the dead leaves and branches, all the withered ivy and wild mushrooms, were touched by the sorrow of the young woman from the south.

Soon she caught sight of her gravedigger, carrying a hoe and a spade over his shoulder as he walked through the forest in search of her. ‘It’s almost light out,’ said
the boy, handing her the hoe. ‘Why didn’t you take advantage of the dark to die? Now that the sun’s coming out, they’ll all be up, and they’ll see you, no matter where you dig.’

Human footprints and deer hoofprints were visible all over the muddy ground; there were signs of digging next to a layer of fallen leaves. She stopped – she couldn’t help herself – and began scraping at the ground with her hoe. She guessed what the deer-boys had buried there, and a sliver of hope, however illusory, rose in her: perhaps she could retrieve some of Qiliang’s winter clothing, even a single sandal would do.

‘I thought you said you wanted to die,’ the boy remarked. ‘So what are you doing, scraping the ground like that? I think you don’t want to die at all, and you lied when you said you had to die because of a few tears. All along you wanted me to get you a hoe and a shovel so you could dig for your bundle.’

‘I wasn’t lying. I would just like to see some of Qiliang’s things before I die,’ Binu said. ‘I cannot accept the way things have turned out. I didn’t lose sight of my bundle all the time I was on the road, avoiding bandits and highwaymen. But I couldn’t avoid you boys.’

‘Don’t blame us. We didn’t ask you to come into our forest.’ Innocence shone in his eyes. ‘You’re not going
to find anything down there. The stuff in that bundle of yours is scattered all over the place. Each one of us hid what he took.’

‘Child, you could keep the sabre coins, I wouldn’t mind. But you shouldn’t have taken all of Qiliang’s winter clothing. He’s a grown adult, so his clothes will not even fit you.’

‘Who cares if they fit? We can sell them in the marketplace.’ The boy watched Binu for a while longer before running over and snatching the hoe out of her hands. ‘Use a tree branch if you want to dig for your bundle. You can’t use my hoe. I know you lied to me, because everybody’s afraid to die. What makes you different? Put anybody else in a grave, and all they want is to get out and run away. You’re alive and well, so why would you want to dig your own grave? You’re digging for your bundle, that’s what you’re doing.’

Binu gazed sadly at the boy and sighed. ‘All right, I’ll stop looking for my bundle. Let’s go and find a spot facing the sun to dig a grave.’

The boy threw the hoe and shovel on the ground and looked towards Hundred Springs Terrace. ‘What’s this facing the sun business? What good will that do? Hear that? It’s the horn sounding the morning hunt. Lord Hengming’s horses will be out any minute now. Didn’t
you say I’m your gravedigger? Well, what’s in it for me, now that your bundle is gone?’

‘I was a gourd in my last life, child, and after I die I’ll come back as one. You can pick it, take it home and cut it in half, and you’ll have two ladles. If you don’t want to do that, cut a hole in it and use it as a salt cellar. You can even make a lantern out of it.’

‘Who’s interested in your ladles? Or your salt cellars?’ The boy grunted with disdain, walked over, and felt inside the sleeves of Binu’s robe. ‘But money can make the Devil turn a millstone. Do you have any sabre coins left?’

Binu patted her robe. ‘This is all you left me.’ Seeing the disappointment on his face, she reached up and removed a silver clip from her hair. ‘You take it. It won’t do me any good now. However I comb my hair, Qiliang will never see it. You can give it to your wife someday.’

‘My wife? Do you think you can hire me for this little trinket? That sounds like a bad deal.’ He grumbled and pondered the situation for a while, but in the end he accepted Binu’s hair clip, which he studied closely. ‘Is it real silver? This isn’t a trick, is it?’ Once he received Binu’s sworn assurance, the boy smiled reluctantly, stuck the hair clip inside his ear and twisted it around, removing a glob of earwax. ‘Lord Hengming cleans his
ears every day. The rich and the powerful like to do that, so from now on I’m going to use this to clean my ears, every single day!’

To make good his promise, he began fulfilling his duties as gravedigger. First, he fixed his gaze on an open spot beneath a pine tree, measured it, and, with some branches, outlined a rectangle big enough for someone lying down not quite flat. ‘After all,’ he said, ‘you’ll be dead, with no need to cook or eat, so you won’t need windows or doors; heat or cold won’t be a concern, and you won’t need a roof to keep out the elements. And you’re small, so this will work fine.’

Binu looked over the outlined gravesite and dimly spotted Death rising up from the rectangle, waiting eagerly for her. She was not afraid, but faced with the imminence of passing from life to death, of being buried in the forest with no one to raise a funeral banner and no one to shed a tear over her, her willingness to die became conditional. She decided that, before she died, she would have one last, tearful cry. So she walked around the rectangle and let her tears flow unchecked. They rained to the ground. Her long black hair, no longer bound by the clip, sobbed loudly in spite of its newly gained freedom, sending down a shower of tears.

‘What are you doing?’ cried the boy in alarm.

‘I am encircling my grave, I am wailing at my grave. No one else will mark my death, so I must do it.’

He stared at her in disbelief. ‘You women cannot leave well enough alone, alive or dead!’

When she had completed the ritual, she looked down at the gravesite through a veil of tears and thought about being interred beneath the pine tree. It was not near a road and did not face the sun, so it was not a good choice no matter how you looked at it. ‘Child,’ she said, offering one final suggestion, ‘could we not pick a brighter spot somewhere? I will return as a gourd, and this spot gets no sunlight. If, after I am under the ground, no gourd can grow, then what?’

‘Sunlight? A gourd?’ The boy shouted. ‘I knew all along that dying was the last thing you wanted. Well, you can be difficult if you want, but not with me playing Death.’

‘I am not being difficult. I’m just worried that, with so many deer in the area, if one of them were to eat the newly sprouted seed, there would be no gourd, and I wouldn’t be reborn. Then I’d have died for nothing.’

The boy flung his hoe at her feet, stood beside the spot for the hole, hands on his hips, and snorted angrily, ‘You’re a liar! Dig your own grave and bury yourself! I’m not going to let you trick me any more.’

They faced one another for a moment. The woman headed for death struggled to defend herself; the gravedigger was very angry. A tuft of brown feathers fell from the pine tree. The infuriated boy looked up and spotted a bird’s nest in the treetop. The way it rose above the fork of the branches gave him an idea. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I know a place, one where you’ll never have to worry about not seeing the sun or about deer eating the vine. I’ll tie you up, hang you from the tree, and let you die there.’ A cold, excited glare shone from his eyes. He picked up his hoe, went into the brush, and cut down some twigs. He selected one, rolled it up to test it and then let it snap back. ‘You said you want sunlight, right? Well, then, I’ll tie you to the tree. Three of these ought to be enough for a skinny thing like you.’

Binu looked up into the tree, where she saw the nest. ‘I am not a bird,’ she said, ‘and I’m not going up into a tree! Besides, even a bird falls to the ground when it dies. So does a leaf. How could you think of hanging me from a tree?’

‘You’re the one who said I’m your gravedigger,’ the boy complained. ‘I concern myself only with your death. And if I want you to die on a tree, then that is where you will die.’

He stepped towards her, twig in hand, and was caught
by surprise when she raised the hoe above her head. Though her face was bathed in tears, an unmistakeable resolve shone through. She would not die on a tree, she simply wouldn’t. Even the boy could see that an emotionally overwrought woman who wanted to die was not about to yield on this point, and he found this amusing. ‘How can you be so stupid? After you’re dead, you won’t know anything, so why not just think of yourself as a tree branch? They all die on trees, don’t they?’

‘I am
not
a tree branch!’ Binu replied angrily. ‘You cannot let me die up in a tree, child!’

The boy thought deeply and frowned. It was time for an ultimatum. ‘If not
in
the tree, then
under
the tree. This is your last chance. Does that sound all right to you? If not, then I’m leaving. I’ll give you back your hair clip, and you can find someone else to dig your grave.’

It was Binu’s turn to compromise. She stepped towards the tree and studied the canopy of branches and leaves. ‘I suppose I’ll have to do without sunlight. I shouldn’t be so fussy, child, so don’t be angry with me.’ She lifted up her skirt and squatted down in the grave plot, then tried lying down on her side. ‘It’s big enough to allow me to be buried like this,’ she said eagerly. ‘You’re a clever boy, and I’m lucky to have you to cover my grave. I am like your big sister, so who else would I get to do it?’

The forest floor was damp and loose, the sound of their digging muffled and soft. It should not have disturbed anyone outside the forest, and certainly no one in Hundred Springs Terrace. So when a retainer in a purple robe raced towards them, the boy was dumbfounded. ‘We’ve been spotted by Far-Seeing Eye,’ he shrieked in alarm. ‘Let’s get out of here!’ He threw down his hoe and took off running, only to be caught by the retainer almost as soon as he started.

Far-Seeing Eye, holding the boy in one hand and a flag in the other, walked menacingly up to Binu. ‘I had you in my sight last night as you prowled along the side of the moat. You must be an assassin.’

Dangling from the crook of Far-Seeing Eye’s arm, the boy said, ‘She’s no assassin, she’s a weeper.’

‘A weeper? I’d say she’s a thief. You’re right, she doesn’t look like an assassin, so she must be a tree thief.’ Far-Seeing Eye said smugly, ‘I could tell there was a tree thief from the other side of the moat just by the movement of leaves. So here I am, right again. You’re here to steal a tree, aren’t you?’

‘I am no thief,’ said Binu, pointing to the hole in the ground. ‘We’re digging not to steal a tree but to bury someone.’

Obviously frightened of Far-Seeing Eye, the boy
added, ‘I didn’t choose to bury her. She hired me to dig a grave because she’s tired of living.’

Far-Seeing Eye released his grip on the boy and glared, first at him and then at Binu. The boy quickly shinnied up the tree and peered down at Far-Seeing Eye, a look of practised innocence on his young face. Binu, head lowered, kept her eyes fixed on the gravesite, a track of glistening tears on each cheek; both hands were shaking uncontrollably. Far-Seeing Eye kicked a clod of earth. ‘Who do you think you are, digging a grave here?’ he thundered, as he stuck his flag into the ground. ‘Whose forest is this, tell me that.’ He pointed to the golden panther on the flag. ‘You can die anywhere!’ he shouted. ‘But you decided to pick this forest, one of Lord Hengming’s treasured properties, a place of superb
feng shui
passed down from generation to generation. Not even we retainers are worthy of burial here, so how can a woman from who-knows-where expect it?’

Far-Seeing Eye’s menacing words sent the boy higher up into the tree. ‘Where should she be buried, then?’ he shouted, holding on to a branch.

With a glance at Binu, Far-Seeing Eye pointed to the northwest. ‘The potter’s field. You people don’t seem to have eyes. Anonymous people who die in the streets
are dragged off to be buried in the northwest potter’s field.’

Binu looked in the direction he was pointing. There at the far end of the forest was a patch of grey sky. It was the sky above the potter’s field. She had seen that plot of wasteland on her way to Hundred Springs Terrace, weedy ground dotted with mushroom-shaped grave mounds. Crows filled the sky above. Where she was standing was a vast improvement over the potter’s field; she stuck a tentative toe into the barely begun hole, then gazed pleadingly at Death. ‘Climb down out of that tree, child, and talk to this gentleman for me. All I want is this tiny spot of land. Why can’t I have it?’

The boy rebuffed her from his perch in the tree, refusing to come down. ‘Why did you have to be so choosy? If you had let me do my job early on, you’d be in the ground now. Well, it’s too late for regrets. Go and die in the potter’s field.’