The Troupe That Lodged for the Night

You are hurrying along the night road, crossing Yellow Plum Ridge.

The rain begins toward late afternoon—a few drops at first, slapping your woven hat, then all at once it strings together into lines. You carry two baskets of mountain goods on a shoulder pole, and the slab-stone path is slick as oil. Around the bend there is no village ahead and none behind, so you climb toward the hillside shrine to take shelter.

The shrine door stands half open, and inside, strangely, a lamp is lit.

You push in. A smell of years-old tung oil mixed with face powder meets you. The hall is already occupied—no, a troupe of players. By the wind-shielded lamps they are putting up a stage; the curtain is faded purple, its edges eaten into small holes by insects. The troupe master is a dried-up old man in a bleached, frayed costume; he does not startle at your entrance, only plants his tassel-less old spear on the floor and squints at you.

"Young man," he says, "on the road?"

You nod and set your pole down under the eaves. The old man calls toward the back, and a hoarse, almost voiceless answer comes. Only then do you see the few "players" standing on the stage, thickly powdered, white as the dead, a smear of darkened rouge on the lips, utterly still, like temple statues carried up onto the boards.

The rain grows heavier; outside, the water roars. The old man sits beside you, takes a pull from a tin flask, offers it; you do not take it.

"Tonight's piece," he says suddenly, eyes brightening, "Mulian Saves His Mother—we're short one role."

You do not understand, take it for idle talk. He turns, and his gaze lands on you with a clack, like a weight dropped onto a scale.

"You," he says. "The build is right. Play a beggar. No lines. Just stand on the stage and hand Liu-shi her bowl."

You protest you cannot sing. The old man smiles, yellow teeth showing. "Who asked you to sing? On this stage, a living man stands up and the play makes itself. Just stand. Don't turn around. Don't step down."

He presses a grey, ragged jacket on you and leads you up. You step onto the boards and hear a hollow echo underfoot—the stage is built inside the hall over an old, already filled-in dry well, thin planks laid across. The lamplight presses down; you glimpse the audience below, packed black, yet when you look closely none of them have faces—or their faces turn to the dark, showing only the backs of heads, motionless.

The play begins.

The fiddle starts its wavering tune, unintelligible yet tightening the skin at the back of your neck. The "players" come alive, tossing white sleeves—but you smell on them the damp earth reek of things freshly dug from a grave. You sneak a count of the audience below, a black mass without end, the front row scarce three feet off yet breathing no human warmth, only the wet-earth smell of moss on a rain-washed grave. At the tune's sorrow the "Liu-shi" on stage turns her face—and only then do you see, beneath that layer of white powder, the faint float of another face, grey-green, mouth dragging down, like paper soaked in water. You hurriedly look to the place you are meant to fill: on a rack backstage hangs a brand-new costume, and beneath it a pair of embroidered shoes, mud still on the toes. Beside the rack a slip of paper, fresh ink: "Next role: the beggar—unfilled."

You suddenly remember what the porters said under the old locust at the village gate as you came in: three years ago a troupe lodged in this shrine, and at midnight began singing Mulian Saves His Mother. They sang till dawn; the villagers went up to look, and the stage was empty—only a costume and an old pair of shoes left behind, chests and all. No one ever saw that troupe again.

The fiddle quickens. You feel yourself growing light, feet on cloud, the thought "I am a traveler" dissolving bit by bit. You want to step down, but your legs will not move—under the boards, a cold hand has gently taken your ankle.

The old man watches you from the stage mouth, his look kindly to the point of terror. "Hold still, player. A play short a role must be filled; fill it, and the next traveler who comes for shelter can be invited."

At dawn the rain stops. Villagers come up to burn incense; the hall is empty, the stage still there, and on it, neatly laid, a grey ragged jacket and an old pair of muddy-toed shoes. The slip by the rack reads a new line: "Next role: unfilled."

The Midnight Record: on a rainy night, if you see a lit shrine and a troupe setting up, do not enter. Once in, you do not choose the role—you were always the missing one.