The Ancient Ship. Zhang Wei

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СКАЧАТЬ although, to their enduring sense of regret, no one had spotted them at the time: Someone had seen colorful snakes, more than he could count, crawl toward the riverbank; overnight a large pig had dug an astonishingly wide hole in its pen; hens had lined up atop the wall, cackling in unison before scurrying off together; and a hedgehog had sat in the middle of a courtyard coughing like an old man. But the people’s unease was caused by more than just these omens. Far greater worries and alarms had tormented them over the preceding six months. Yes, there were greater worries and alarms.

      Rumors flew over the village like bats. Panicky townspeople were talking about the news that had just come: Land was to be redistributed and factories, including glass noodle factories, were to revert to private management. Time was turning once again, just like the millstones. No one dared believe the rumors. But before long the changes were reported in newspapers, and a town meeting was called, where it was announced that land, factories, and the noodle processing rooms would be turned over to private management. The town was in a daze. Silence reigned as an atmosphere like that which had existed when lightning struck the old temple had the town in its grip. No one, not adults and not children, spoke; looks were exchanged over evening meals, after which the people went to bed. Not even chickens, dogs, or waterfowl broke the silence. “Wali,” the people said, “you unlucky town, where can you go from here?”

      The mayor and street monitors personally parceled out the land. “These are called responsibility plots,” they told the people. That left the factory and glass noodle rooms. Who would take responsibility for them? Not until many days had passed did anyone come forward to assume responsibility for the factory. Now only the processing rooms remained. The mills stood on the riverbank, wrapped in quiet, inauspicious mystery. Everyone knew that Wali’s essence—its misfortunes, its honor and its disgrace, its rise and fall—was concentrated in those dark, dilapidated old mills. Who had the courage to set foot in dank, moss-covered fortresses and take charge?

      The people had long considered the milling of glass noodles to be a strange calling. The mills themselves and the places where the strands were extruded were suffused with complex, indescribable mystery. During the milling procedures, the temperature of the water, the yeast, the starch, the paste…if the smallest problem arose in any of the stages, the process would fail: Suddenly the starch would form a sediment; then the noodles would begin to break up…it was what the workers called “spoiled vats.” “The vat is spoiled!” they would shout. “The vat is spoiled!” When that happened, everyone would stand around feeling helpless.

      Many expert noodle makers wound up jumping into the Luqing River. One was pulled out of the river and saved from drowning, only to hang himself in one of the mills the next day. That’s the sort of calling it was. Now who was going to step up and take charge? Since the Sui clan had operated the mills for generations, it made sense for one of them to assume responsibility. Eventually, Sui Baopu was urged to take over, but the forty-year-old red-faced scion shook his head; looking across the river at the line of mills, he muttered something under his breath, looking worried.

      At that juncture, a member of the Zhao clan, Zhao Duoduo, shocked people by volunteering to take on the job.

      All of Wali churned with excitement. The first thing Duoduo did after assuming responsibility was change the name of the enterprise to the Wali Glass Noodle Factory. People exchanged looks of incredulity as they realized that the industry no longer belonged to Wali, nor to the Sui clan. Now it belonged to the Zhao clan! Still, the old millstones rumbled from dawn to dusk. Where were they headed? People came to the riverbank to stand and gape at the mills, sensing that a bizarre change had occurred in front of their eyes, as extraordinary as hens lining up atop the wall or a hedgehog actually coughing. “Te world has turned upside down!” they said. So when the earth moved that early morning, they were terrified but not surprised.

      If there was a more immediate cause for the earth to move, the blame should rest with the drilling rigs out in the fields. For the better part of a year a surveying team had been far from town. But soon the rigs came so close that the residents grew uneasy. Among them, only the lean figure of Sui Buzhao was seen around the rigs, sometimes helping to carry the drills and winding up mud-soaked from head to toe. “These are for coal mining,” he said to the gathered crowd. Day and night the drills turned, until the tenth day, when one of the town’s residents stood up and said, “That’s enough!”

      “How do you know that’s enough?” the operator asked.

      “When you reach the eighteenth layer of heaven and earth, we’re done for!”

      The operator laughed as he tried to explain away their concerns. And the drills kept turning, until the morning of the fifteenth day, when the earth began to move.

      People flew out of their windows. The rolling of the ground sickened them and made them dizzy. All but Sui Buzhao, who had spent half his life on ships and easily adapted to the pitching and rolling of the earth beneath him. He ran fast, but then a thunderous roar rose up from somewhere and froze people where they stood. When they regained their bearings, they ran madly to a vacant lot, where they huddled with the crowds already there. The lot was what was left of the old temple that had burned down. Most residents of the town were there, and they were shivering, even though it was not a cold morning. The sound of their voices changed—they spoke listlessly, feebly, and even the fastest-talking among them stammered. “What has fallen?” they wondered. No one knew; they shook their heads.

      Many hadn’t had time to dress, so now they frantically covered their bodies. Sui Buzhao was naked but for a white shirt tied around his waist. He ran around looking for his nephews Baopu and Jiansu and his niece Hanzhang, whom he found under a haystack. Baopu was dressed—more or less—while Hanzhang had on only bra and panties. Crouching inside, her arms crossed over her chest, she was shielded by Baopu and Jiansu, who was wearing only a pair of shorts. Sui Buzhao crouched down and looked for Hanzhang in the darkness. “Are you okay?” he asked.

      “Yes,” she replied.

      Jiansu edged closer to her. “Go away!” he said impatiently.

      So Sui Buzhao walked around the square and discovered that the clans were all huddling together; wherever you saw a group of people, you found a clan. Three large clusters: Sui, Zhao, and Li, old and young. No one had called them together—the ground had done that; three shakes here and two there, and the clans were drawn to the same spots. Sui Buzhao walked up to where the Zhao clan had gathered. He looked but did not see Naonao anywhere. What a shame that was. Naonao, barely twenty, was the Zhao clan’s favorite daughter, a young woman whose beauty was spoken of on both sides of the river. She burned through the town like a fireball. The old man coughed and threaded his way in among the crowd, unsure which clan he should go to.

      The sky was turning light. “Our wall is gone!” someone shouted. And that is when the people understood the origin of the thunderous roar. With a chorus of shouts, they ran, until a young man jumped up onto the abandoned foundation and shouted, “Stop right there!” They looked up at him, wondering what was wrong. He thrust out his right arm and said, “Fellow townspeople, do not move. This is an earthquake, and there will be an aftershock. Wait till it passes.”

      The people held their breath as they listened to what he was saying. Then they exhaled as one.

      “The aftershock is usually worse than the first shaking,” he added.

      A murmur rose from the crowd. Sui Buzhao, who was listening intently, yelled, “Do as he says, he knows what he’s talking about!”

      Finally the square was quiet. No one moved as they waited for the aftershock. Many minutes passed before someone in the Zhao clan yelled tearfully, “Oh, no, Fourth Master didn’t make it out!”

      Chaos ensued, until another older СКАЧАТЬ