Embers of the Broken River

Chapter 7 Pasting Windows

A window faces the road leading to the courtyard gate. This is the road my son took when he left home. When he was five, he and Chen Tongfu planted the locust tree outside the window. The sapling was picked up from the riverbank; the roots were still covered in mud. He hugged the sapling tightly, saying, "Dad, when will it grow as tall as me?" Chen Tongfu stretched out his arms to show it, but my son, standing on tiptoe, couldn't reach it. Now, the locust tree has been eaten away by locusts, leaving only white bark, its bare branches pointing to the sky. The character "安" (An, meaning peace/peace) on the trunk is still there, the strokes distorted by insect damage, but every cut is still there.

The rebuttal was pasted on the locust tree, and Lu Mingyuan was the seventh signature. Chen Tongfu stood by the window, his hand on the window frame. He didn't open the window; opening it would lead directly to that road. His son had walked that road too, without looking back, not because he didn't want to, but because his back hurt and he couldn't turn. Lu Mingyuan had also walked that road, pausing for a moment, not waiting for "come back," but for "Mingyuan, come back." The two of them turned the same corner on the same road and disappeared in the same direction.

He stood by the window, his fingers tracing the old knife marks on the window frame. His son, as a child, had carved those marks with a chisel, making line after line, saying, "Dad, this is a tree." He was carving bamboo slips then, not turning around. Now those marks remained, but his son was gone. The wood grain on the window frame had been broken by the chisel, the edges worn smooth by repeated rubbing. He didn't know if he had touched it himself or if Ah Heng had.

The image of his son looking back on the day he posted the rebuttal shattered in his heart. It wasn't Lu Mingyuan turning around, it was Chen Anbei. That day, his son had carried a bushel of grain for Grandpa Wang, fracturing his spine when he shouldered it. He hadn't turned back as he walked out of the courtyard gate—not because he didn't want to, but because his back hurt and he couldn't turn. He stood by the window, watching his son's back, waiting for him to turn around. His son didn't turn around.

The rebuttal was now pasted on the locust tree, and Lu Mingyuan's name was pasted in the upper left corner of the window frame. Chen Tongfu didn't go out to tear it down. He just stood there, his fingers pressing the knife marks on the window frame. There was wind outside. Spring winds in Guanzhong are strong, blowing in from the direction of the Qinling Mountains, carrying yellow soil and fragments of locust shells. The rebuttal rustled in the wind, the edges of the paper being lifted and then slapped back, lifted and slapped back. He heard the sound of the paper struggling against the tree, a sound exactly like the sound of the window paper being torn by the wind.

The window paper was torn. It had been soaked by the rain the day Lu Mingyuan left. Rainwater seeped through the stitches of the patch, softening the hemp paper, making it crack easily in the wind. The hole wasn't big, about the size of a fist, just enough to see the locust tree outside the window, and just enough to see the refutation poster on the tree. Chen Tongfu didn't paste it. He left the hole there, not because he was too lazy to mend it, but deliberately. He wanted to be able to look up and see outside the window every day when he sat at his desk carving bamboo slips. To see what was pasted on the tree his son had planted. To see Lu Mingyuan's name being the first to rot in the wind.

Aheng didn't mend that window. Not that she forgot; she mended the window paper every day, and since she married into the family, the patches on that window had piled up layer after layer. She was the first person to notice the window was broken. The night Lu Mingyuan left, when she lit the lamp, she noticed that a patch of the window paper was wet from the rain, the hemp paper limply clinging to the window frame. Her hand was already outstretched, needle and thread already between her fingers. Then she saw the locust tree outside the window. There was a refutation on the tree. Lu Mingyuan's name was on the refutation.

She put the needlework away. She left the broken window for her husband. Not out of laziness, but because she knew he was watching. He spent his days hunched over his desk carving bamboo slips, looking up only when he was tired. He needed a direction to look in. She couldn't cover the window up; if she did, he would only be able to look at the wall.

She simply turned and went into the kitchen. The stove was cold. She crouched down, took out a flint and steel from the firebox, and began to strike it. It took her three strikes to get it lit. The flames licked at the embers, leaped up, and illuminated her face. She stuffed the stack of old window paper she hadn't been able to burn last time, one sheet at a time, into the firebox. The sounds of the clamor outside the window still echoed in the wind as she watched the flames burn the old window paper to ashes.

The paper on the windows was pasted with glue by her son when he was five years old, before he left home, before he took over Grandpa Wang's grain supply, and before he built the border wall in the north. She shoveled the ashes deep into the stove, stood up, and started boiling water. Before the water boiled, she looked up at the window again. What was she looking at? At the locust tree, at the paper rustling in the wind, at the name on the paper of the child she had taught stitch by stitch how to sew.

Chen Tongfu stood by the window. The words "farming season" were inscribed on the bamboo slips. Farming season. These were the words his son had asked him when he was a child. "Dad, when do we plant wheat?" He couldn't answer. He only knew that wheat was to be planted after the first frost, but he didn't know why. He had only learned this time from his father, who had learned it from his grandfather. No one had ever asked "why." His son had asked. He didn't answer.

He paused, pen in hand. He placed the carving knife on the corner of the desk, stood up, and walked to the window. Outside, snow was falling. Spring snow in Guanzhong comes late; a thin layer of white had already accumulated on the locust tree branches. The empty bird's nest in the branch was half-filled with snow; the bird never returned. The snow fell on the rebuttal, blurring the ink. Lu Mingyuan's name was blurred by the snowmelt; the ink seeped from the paper, flowing down the locust tree bark, into the scars gnawed by locusts, and over the character "An" his son had carved.

He took the returned letter from the pile of bamboo slips. It had been sitting on top for a long time, and he would put it back on top every time he added new bamboo slips. He had read the words on the letter countless times: "No such person found." Four characters, and he recognized every stroke of each one. He recognized the final stroke of the character "查" (chá, to check); it was drawn out too long, the old official's hand trembling as he wrote the last stroke.

He recognized the horizontal stroke of the character "无" (wu, meaning "nothing" or "nothing"). He paused twice; the old official couldn't bear to write the character "死" (si, meaning "death"). He put the letter back where it belonged, placing it on top of the newest bamboo slip. That slip was inscribed with the questions he had just written: about the Green Sprouts Act, about the border wall, about his ancestors. He didn't write his son's name.

Aheng knew. Every night, after he fell asleep, she would take the returned letter from the pile of bamboo slips and read it under the lamp. She was illiterate, but she recognized the horizontal and vertical strokes, the character "安" (ān), the character "北" (běi), and the character "人" (rén). But she couldn't recognize all four characters: "查无此人" (chá wú cǐ rén).

All she knew was that the letter was about her son, who was dead, and whose name had even been forgotten. She turned the letter over; on the back were her husband's engraved questions. She couldn't understand them either. She simply put the letter back, placing it on top of all the bamboo slips. Then she went back to her bed and tucked the blankets in.

As dawn broke, the snow outside the thatched cottage stopped. The rebuttal hung on the locust tree, torn by the wind. It didn't start tearing from the edge, but from Lu Mingyuan's signature. The last stroke of that name had been torn by the wind the day before yesterday, soaked by snowmelt yesterday, and completely ripped apart by the dry, cold wind this morning. The piece of paper was ripped from the tree, rolled past the locust treetop, and landed in the yard. Aheng saw the paper when she went out to gather firewood. She recognized the character, "Yuan" (meaning "far"). She didn't pick it up. She stepped on it.

Lu Mingyuan's name was the first to become rotten.

Chen Tongfu stood by the window, looking at the locust tree. The hole in the window paper was still there, perfectly framing the character "安" (peace) on the tree trunk, and perfectly framing the corner of the refutation that had been torn off. Through this hole, he could see every scratch, every piece of paper, every withered branch swaying in the wind. He didn't intend to cover the hole. He wanted it to remain there, a reminder to him, and to everyone who sat by this window.