A Year at River Mountain Read online

  Now I breathe and chant with other monks, and plunge once a season, oftener in summer, into the river below the mountain.

  The sun burns hot. The day hangs fire. My heart rises at the scent of oil on my fingers, on the wooden shrine figures. All morning I stood or knelt beside bodies and felt the channels light up. As usual, hooded witnesses mildly curious about this work waited by my side, crosslegged watchers observing human-flavoured energy cycle and flare. Were you among them? I think you were.

  A year ago I sat in the branches of the warrior tree and watched Imogen swaying from her hut with her luggage. Two monks accompanied her downhill to the river and over the bridge. I lost sight of her in the trees on the other side, but waited for the return of the monks. They came walking briskly — the morning was cool and mist lay on the water and on the banks — and were laughing together.

  Next morning I lay sick on my mat and listened to the rain. I heard each drop hit the roof, roll down the tiles, fall through the air and hit the ground.

  Zhou Yiyuan stood in the forest to one side of the path as I swept. Morning light streamed through the dying leaves of the plum trees. He skipped left and right on the balls of his feet and a shaft of sun lit his dark face. His eyes, when he looked up at me, sparkled. They were very black.

  “You have not named a place. We have missed a festival. Meet my sister tonight on the bridge after the bell is struck, after the bus passes.”

  He was quiet a long time. A breeze moved here and there in the grasses and in the high branches above our heads.

  “This is the moment,” he said. “Otherwise conflict.”

  OUTER MOUND

  This meeting fills me with excitement and dread. I count steps everywhere, breaths, leaves, geese, half up the mountain and back, then all the way to the river. I count monks, villagers, days, productions, appearances, lovers, cities, but no number will provide me with a clue to what will happen next.

  She was waiting on the bridge already, the bus behind her, its windows shining through the trees, the engine loud until, with a huge wink, it shrieked into the night. Silence. A single frog croaking. A million crickets.

  Song Wei held an electric lantern and was dressed in a tight-fitting silver shirt and silver trousers. Her dusky skin looked black in contrast to the shimmering bands of fabric. She turned and hurried across the bridge toward the road. Her light went out and she was cutting upriver along the south-bank trail before I gathered my wits and followed. She was a white blur, easy to make out under the thick river trees, her black hair swinging across her silver back, a supple crease. Her bare feet slapped the dry path.

  Only after hearing car doors slamming did I register the sound of a motor being shut off on the road above. Footsteps and loose male laughter. A geometric tangle of light beams descending.

  The gang swept through drifts of leaves to arrive on the trail ahead of me and flowed like a wave toward the woman, who dropped her lantern, raised a hand. Flashlights converged on her and the moment was as fluid as mercury.

  Wind in high branches and the low gurgle of the river.

  They surged along the path. Some I knew from the settlement; others were strangers. I recognised Zhou’s squat form. Song Wei gave a sharp cry and was caught by the first to reach her, a boy and two men, who dragged her to a fallen tree.

  It was an old scene, an often-repeated set of actions, an eternal secret vile code that I possessed the capacity for witnessing, though this was not the night-scene of a black-and-white film. Now I charge myself with what I saw, but at the time I did nothing except pay attention.

  “Here is the extinction of luck,” her brother told me early this morning when we were shivering on the beach, the fire between us dead.

  “What does that mean?” I said.

  “An ancient remedy,” he said. “A boundary skirmish.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  The bell sounded from across the river to signal the beginning of the new day.

  “What a terrible thing!” I said.

  THE GREAT

  And then night, sleep and dreams; blame drunkenness for all, all the men were drunk and losing control, of their bodies, then restraints — forget work, forget colleagues, forget rules, morning will never come — forget ethics, order, reason.

  An inverse ratio: to the extent that our boundaries are weak, our exertion of control must be strong. Comes the declaration of war and the first battle plans. Do I know what I’m talking about? Rape as a setting of limits — a terrible thing. Nothing here makes the kind of sense I was educated to perceive. The village at night is full of turtles and fish; in every hut they swim, small and big, all colours, while people hang onto their bottles and continue to drink. I am with my father who falls into machinery when crossing a swingbridge. I meet an old friend whose face is dear to me, and an enemy, sober, who says the boat is sinking and suggests we swim home. “You are doing this all wrong,” he says. “You will never find your way if you go farther in that direction.” And my sister gives me a pet bug: a small praying mantis that immediately escapes its box.

  A bedtime game I played with my son: “Here’s writing on your back, writing on your chest, writing on your arms and legs, and on your fingers and on your toes. Now climb into your envelope. Here’s a kiss for a stamp. Now let’s mail you to dreamland. Think of where you want to be. Night-night, off you go.”

  Say it is research into causes, the work I am doing, and these are not monks and villagers (not inmates either), but players, and I write lines each night for them to perform next day, not knowing completely what I’m doing. What will happen at dawn? What will the river carry down or the road transport to our gate? I’m not confident that the events of tomorrow will fit well with the events of yesterday. The lines, the lines. We need to meet the lines anyway, meet them halfway, as they come, because if we don’t then this valley will lose its witness and will not know itself. Say all this is so, my father and mother dead, my wife dead and our son gone, I may have had to cast myself out. West is the usual heading, aiming for a complete revolution.

  WATERWAY

  First thing today I went to see Song Wei and her brother, without expecting to find them. But they were both there. She seemed shy and unhurt, her face pure and open. Confused, I told them I had no power in this community, no voice, that I was like them, an outsider, and from a culture that to almost everyone else in the valley was a dream, whereas this — and I waved my arm wildly — for me this was the dream. They did not seem interested. Zhou Yiyuan began at once to petition for my help.

  He knew I would help them now to gain favour with the master of the monastery.

  “How can I act after what happened last night?” I said.

  Zhou raised his eyebrows. He rubbed his hands together. He said he’d noticed that the timbers of the bridge were beginning to show signs of decay from exposure to the rain and wind and sun, and he would like to offer his services in undertaking to repair the bridge before winter, the present season being suitable, with the low level of the river and the warm dry days and, if agreed upon, he and his workers could begin at once.

  The formal rehearsed nature of this speech was terrifying. His chin jutted toward Song Wei. I saw her body arched across the dead tree, the men circling.

  “He has told me that you are my new master,” I said.

  He leered at me, his head weaving like a cobra. “Tell him,” he said to his sister.

  She turned slowly, then stared into my eyes. “We build a box in autumn, fill it through winter.”

  A long gleaming golden strand from her eyes hooked a sibling strand in mine and some plan, some shape materialised. Such forms as this are usually kept underground and are only hinted at in myth or brought out in performance. I know this because I’ve been in love. I’ve acted out of love. But I’m in a different land. These are forms I do not understand.

  RETURN

  Today we planted pines beside South River Shrine. Great Central Channel represented in
saplings. We carried water in buckets from the river, one per tree. We sang to each tree beginning with Wind Palace. For some reason, by the end I was weeping like a child. I fell to my knees and when I looked up everyone was standing, head bowed, everyone but the master, who was looking at me with a smile. I’ve never seen trees so tame and helpless or a sky so blue. Each needle glinting, isolate. The circle and silence were in service to every aspect and absence of aspect this side of art. Here was beauty again.

  Then Zhou Yiyuan walked into our midst with his own bucket and set it at my feet. There was an intake of breath. Even though I’ve put it away, I still recognise stagecraft. My face in the bucket of water was a shock.

  RUSHING QI

  This is the last day of the month and the hour of kidney, opposite to heart, fire burning on water. Zhou dozes head down outside the shrine while I write. He has brought me a black box, heavily ornamented, indicating that I am to give it to the master for the temple. The box smells smoky. It sits to one side of the folding desk, at the edge of the shrine deck.

  As the day closes, the master appears at the end of the path and pauses to lean on his stick.

  Zhou wakes and gazes at the master, then gets to his feet and backs into the bamboo.

  After dark I went to the master’s hut. He received the box with a bow. When I spoke Zhou Yiyuan’s name, he raised his voice and declared that the bridgework would begin in the morning. He announced that all the monks would sleep under the stars tonight to celebrate 9/9 of the yin calendar.

  Fog rolled in and I slipped through the forest downhill to the river. The nomads sat around their fires and barely stirred as I wavered there, out of breath, and Song Wei came forward to take my hand. We found a path into the heavy wild land. No one came here, only animals.

  The night fog continued to roll in and the leaves, fat with water, dripped on us as we lay together in the bamboo forest. I woke once in the night. Song Wei slept on her back. I watched her, then set my shoulders into the soft earth. We were side by side, facing the sky. It felt as though stars were bursting on my eyes.

  At the morning bell, I crawled to the warrior tree and prayed, then joined the monks in the storehouse courtyard between the well and the wishing tree. Our bodies were soaked from the dripping leaves, our eyes fresh from sleep. We ran through silken movements, then into the storehouse and lit the braziers.

  OCTOBER

  THIGH GATE

  AND SO THERE IS INDUSTRY ON THE BANKS, a new frenzy of hammering, and men splash around the pilings, calling to one another, while grassfires burn along the river. We all know the end of fine weather spells the beginning of winter.

  When Imogen was an adolescent I was a young man, newly married. Five years ago she was exploring the river by boat, naked under her white dress, the sun low in the sky, stepping onto the dock, the dark trees a backdrop, a simple fabric scrim. An accidental breeze the main character. The monks laughing and dipping their eyes.

  The dark ornate box was open on the floor of the master’s room, a long yellow swatch of silk spilling from the charred inside into the shadows under the single window. An evening bird sang from a near branch.

  The master said he wanted a small group of monks to go to three cities to meet physicians and journalists and give a demonstration of our practice, and to consult a woman prophet.

  “I have a story,” I said.

  “Tell your new master.” He poured hot water and prepared tea. He passed me a small green steaming cup. “You will go.”

  CROUCHING RABBIT

  The point is a small hole where something precious is buried. The rape I witnessed is a bucket I have yet to set down. When I approach the details my mind sheers away. I can remember only the feel of Song Wei’s dusky skin. Only her eyes.

  Early this morning, for the first time in a while, came the scream of the madman across the valley, and at dawn Zhou and his sister crossed the bridge, each carrying a small bundle and a lantern. The village watchman told the headman of the field party and he told me.

  YIN MARKET

  When the bell rang I realised I must talk to the bellringer. I left the shelter of the trees. The master was in the middle of the bridge casting something away, shaking a bag, container, vessel. Something wiggled free. Hemming him in were the idle crane and the empty scaffolding. The bridge repairs, barely begun, have been halted. No work yesterday or today. I hurried uphill to the knoll where the blind monk lived, feeling too close to the wind, the clouds, afternoon birds, the smell of apples, the last berries on the vine.

  “Fall is here,” I said.

  “It isn’t, not yet,” said the bellringer.

  “The brother and sister have gone. The master — ”

  “You have disturbed me. Go away.”

  I turned and retraced my path. The sun was out and the birds sang madly.

  BEAM HILL

  Last night a large deer craned his neck into the window of my hut. Antlers and stars, the half-moon behind. Even when I sat up, he did not withdraw. He huffed. A doe waited in the grass by the edge of the plum border.

  The idea of leaving the valley, even for a short time, is frightening. I’m not ready to represent anything or anyone, not even myself, and not the single-point treatment, the spontaneous analysis, the deep assessment. I’m also unprepared for restaurants and shops and taxis, noise and crowds and the stink of traffic.

  During my first years here I was calm. The phone had stopped ringing; the computer had faded. Now I am agitated. Song Wei has gone. I can’t even focus on Imogen. What a lot of work to develop that story: her boyish testiness, her lanky goofy beauty. Chaplin’s girl directed by Chaplin himself — that selfish, that fragile, that certain. Ah, but Song Wei tasted of north.

  CALF’S NOSE

  Away across the river to the bus and then dozing through the forest with a briefcase of letters, freezing cold, my fingers chilled, the afternoon nearly done, on our way not to find the prophet or demonstrate the power of the Great Point, but to convince the dwarf to return. The master angry with me, the floor gritty underfoot, the engine’s revving astoundingly desolate. A cloud mass seethed across the sky. No stars. No stars, no direction.

  We stepped down at midnight, trembling, at the coastal town on the outskirts of the port and walked icy streets to the small monastery where we warmed ourselves with food and then ran the day’s path along each other’s bodies.

  In sex and thoughts of sex I return to a small place in myself, a fissure in the ground at CV-6 say, and follow the blue in my forearms and wrists. This blood opens on a secret river.

  LEG THREE MILES

  I hold Stomach-36, lower Sea of Qi, and CV-6, Sea of Qi.

  Hello Dantian, Lower Cinnabar Field, yang point to tonify the kidneys, junior relative of Guan Yuan the yin gate of origin! Are you indicating qi deficiency of my fire zang? I hereby option original qi, dynamic qi dancing between the kidneys. I hereby promote pre-heaven qi to foster post-heaven qi of the earth. I hereby address the foundation of human life and all qi deficiency and the exhaustion of anything! The image is of this guy digging a hole long and deep enough to lie in.

  Zhou Yiyuan and his sister are well known here, an illustrious pair. Those we spoke to told us he was headman of a revolutionary gang and she a shaman from the mountains; they are outlaws. They show up most years in autumn, usually with a group of followers.

  We found him drinking tea with merchants in a market alley, the day bright and warm, his sister weaving with a group of women several feet away. We reminded him of his promise to mend the bridge and he shrugged. “Am I your master?”

  “Yes.”

  “You wish me to return?”

  “Yes.”

  “You will lose everything.”

  The merchants sipped milky black tea and laughed; Song Wei and I stared at each other; my brother monk was smiling, while hawkers with cages and carts bustled around us. The air a fizz of ecstatic flies. Parrots and pigs seemed related.

  UPPER GREAT VOID
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br />   I can’t see these words clearly and the words are not only smaller but they dance about. The night is cold. Numb fingers mean the words, smaller and dancing, come slower. I wish I could say the same for thoughts. Once upon a time and not so long ago thoughts came one by one and I woke before dawn to watch them trot around a track, the sense of control rising till I rose. Then I got within range of the little thoughts coughing in the dust of the big ones and here was the first of all lessons — don’t slow down or you’ll get lost in details. Every enterprise is an exponential whirligig. Speed keeps everything trim. You are safe and fluid as long as you increase.

  Those were happy people at the marketplace, at the cusp of increase and deficit. Zhou Yiyuan was loquacious. Of course he would return to finish the job he began. Wasn’t he the heart of the work force? Without him real work could not begin. The bridge would collapse without him. The machinery would seize, the crews disband. He bought wine for his friends and stumbled drunk from one side of the alley to the other. Now did we understand? Now did we see how essential he and his people were?

  I gave up trying to listen and set my eyes on Song Wei’s bright grace. The raw yarn running through her quick fingers was white and red.

  LINES OPENING

  The Great Point is the one that when released will set all in order. Spontaneous analysis or deep assessment will find this point. The trick is to know which approach to use. The full moon is on the wane and the sky bright with stars. Listen. On a similar night I walked along another alley, familiar and dusty, junk to either side, past the shuttered guitar shop, with my wife and son. I’m not trying to fool you. You’re the one thing I can’t lose.

  LOWER GREAT HOLLOW

  Imogen came to me in the night, younger than I had ever seen her, younger even than in her early films, carrying a feverish baby. We were inside a shadowy barn or stable and the baby was starving and we had to chew bread to moisten it . . . the little mouth opened . . .