The Lantern-Maker

Old Geng made soul-lanterns his whole life. When someone in town died, the relatives would carry a flimsy coffin over and hand him a slip with the birth date, and Old Geng would sit beneath the oil lamp, cutting bamboo, pasting paper, and mixing that pot of lamp-oil whose recipe no one could ever explain. The lanterns he made were not lit with candles; they were lit with the "lead"—by the hour of the dead person's passing, he would take a wisp of fire from the kitchen hearth and draw it down to the wick, and inside the paper shade a dim yellow would rise, as if someone were breathing against the paper from within. The relatives all said that so long as the lantern burned, the dead would not be afraid, and could follow the light back to where they belonged. Old Geng believed this. But he would never say out loud that he believed it; he would only set the lantern on the threshold and say: a craftsman's work is to do it well, and that is enough.

Old Geng was not a local. He had come to the town at twenty, following his master, Blind Zhou. Blind Zhou had lost one eye to a splash of lamp-oil while making a lantern; the remaining eye was brighter than anyone else's, and he said it was because "after you look at lanterns long enough, the eye gives itself to the light." Blind Zhou taught him to make lanterns, and his first lesson was this: a lantern-maker's hands must not tremble; if they tremble, the lead goes crooked, and the dead walk the wrong road and come back to find you. Old Geng remembered that for the rest of his life.

He was particular about his work. The bamboo frame had to come from three-year water-bamboo grown on the riverbank, and it had to be split along the grain; split crooked, the frame leaned crooked, and the dead would stagger as they walked. Splitting the bamboo gave a sound like a sigh, and Old Geng loved that sound—he said the bamboo sighed for the dead, and only then did the lantern sit steady. The paper was a thin skin called "longevity paper," rice paste mixed with cinnabar, which dried to a cold, lotus-colored pallor; when it was laid on the frame it went rustle, rustle, like someone turning over inside the lantern. The oil was the dearest part—tea oil cut with pine resin, then buried in the stove ash and simmered three days and three nights, and when it came out it carried a smell you could not say was sweet or bitter, only scorched, and you could catch it from far off. The town's children, passing his courtyard, would cover their noses and run, saying the smell gave them bad dreams at night. Old Geng only laughed and said that dreams, too, were how the dead came to say hello, so what was there to fear. He would often lose himself in the making, forgetting whether it was day or night outside, feeling only the lantern's light warming his stiff, frozen fingers.

The first time he noticed something wrong was when he was forty-two. After the Beginning of Autumn it had been overcast for half a month, and on the river there was always that something—mist or water-vapor, you could not say which—drifting just above the surface, as if someone had spread a thin quilt along the bottom of the water. One evening, having closed his stall, he stood in the middle of the courtyard to "air his shadow"—that is what country folk say, that a man must stand in the sun to gather his spirit—and looking down, he saw that his shadow was a good deal shorter than it had been at the start of spring. The heel of it had been bitten off by something quiet, and on the blue bricks there was simply an empty stretch. He crouched to touch it; the brick was cool, and the shadow was just shorter, not a hair more or less, exactly half an inch.

He thought nothing of it. What craftsman does not carry some wear? The smith has calluses, the seamstress has needle-holes; he was a lantern-maker, and what he spent was shadow—that, too, was his capital.

The second time was at forty-nine. That year the town was swept by a pestilence, and in half a month seven coffins went out. He stayed awake night after night, making lantern after lantern, burning through three pots of oil until the burnt crust at the bottom clogged his throat. When it was over, his wife, mending clothes by the lamp, looked up suddenly and said, why do you walk so close to the wall these days, as if you were afraid of stepping on your own shadow. Only then did he go back to the courtyard to look, and the shadow had shortened again, this time to the calf. He ran his hand along the wall and thought it was probably the tiredness, the oil-fumes, that a man's living warmth was like lamp-oil and would dry up if burned too long. Still he did not think deeply about it. A craftsman's wear is invisible to others, and he did not care to look closely himself—look closely, and the work would not get done.

At fifty-eight, the shadow was short to the knee. At sixty-three, to the ankle. Only then did he panic. Not from fear, but because at last he had reckoned the account. The lanterns he had made lined up in his mind, one by one: the young man who overturned his wedding cart, the woman who bled to death after childbirth, the child fished up from the river, the old man still clutching his pipe when the lightning took him, the widow who hanged herself, the peddler who drank poison… the number matched, and the number of shadow-inches lost matched, one inch of shadow to one lantern, to the fraction.

And that was wrong. A lantern was meant to hold the lead, the light, the road home for the dead—so how could it be holding his own shadow?

He dug out the old notebook where he kept his work. On the first page was the line his master had passed down: make one lantern, spend three shares of yang, the lantern done the soul returns, the craftsman's ordinary due. Three generations of master and apprentice had taken it for the price of the trade, like callus and needle-hole, wear paid for with the capital of their bread. No one had asked: spent of what, exactly.

Old Geng went to ask the oldest geomancer in town, who was his martial uncle, paralyzed in bed for more than ten years, his body withered like a length of aged bamboo, but his eyes frighteningly bright, like charcoal soaked in water. The uncle listened to the whole story and was silent a long while, and in the end said only one thing: the lanterns you make are not soul-lanterns. They are borrowing-lanterns.

Borrowing-lanterns—Old Geng heard the name for the first time. The uncle said, a soul-lantern leads the dead, and inside it is a road; a borrowing-lantern borrows a living man's shadow, and inside it is a debt. Long ago some lantern-makers, hard up or greedy at heart, would not light their own lead when making a lantern, but would steal a living man's light to fill it; fill it long enough, and the living man's shadow shortened year by year, until it was gone, and the man became a wisp inside the lantern, never to return.

Cold sweat broke over Old Geng. He had never stolen anyone else's light. Every lantern he had lit honestly with the lead, the hearth's fire, the hour of passing. Yet his shadow had truly shortened, year by year. The uncle closed his eyes and said: the lead you light was never fire.

Old Geng turned that saying over for many years. Only later did he slowly understand—when he made a lantern, his heart was always fixed on the one who "waited." The waiting one must not be afraid, or the lantern would not sit steady; that was his master's teaching. But he had forgotten that the very first "lead" had been given by himself. The year his master died, making a lantern on his own for the first time, his hands had trembled badly, afraid the light would go out, and he had fed the warmth at his own breast to the wick first, thinking that as long as the lantern burned, his master could find the road. From then on, with every lantern, he added a little of his own without meaning to—and what he added was never fire, but the very proof that he stood in this world and could be cast into shadow by the sun. The lantern burned, the dead walked off along the light, but inside that light was a length of his shadow. He had always taken it for the wear of his craft; in truth he had been giving himself away to the lanterns, year by year.

Then—had the "light" inside those lanterns reached where it was meant to go?

Old Geng began to check them, lantern by lantern. Most of the lanterns he had made had been burned or buried with the bereaved families, and left no trace. But a few, where the family was too poor to spare the burning, had been set on the beams of the ancestral hall, or in the fork of a tree above a deserted grave; wind and sun had yellowed the paper through, yet the light inside had not gone out. Old Geng looked through the paper shade, and the light did not flicker, it held steady, as if someone were gripping it in a hand. He reached out to touch, and the shade went rustle, the paper skin as brittle as an old man's fingernail. And suddenly he was afraid—not of the lantern, but that the light inside knew him, like an old acquaintance calling his name through the paper.

The first that filled him with dread was a drowned child. Seven years old; he forgot the name, remembering only the mother who came holding the dripping little body, weeping until she could not catch her breath. Old Geng made the lantern, lit the lead, and the lantern burned, but the child's small shadow turned three circles inside the light and would not leave, as if it could not find its mother. Old Geng crouched by the lantern and kept watch the whole night; only at near dawn, hearing a very faint "mother" from inside the lantern, did he dare rest. Later that lantern was burned with the family, but he kept hearing that "mother" in the half-space between sleeping and waking, drifting on the river, never able to reach the shore.

Then there was the widow who hanged herself—her husband dead three years, she had dragged up two children alone and at last could hold no more. Old Geng went to make the lantern, and stepping into the room caught a smell of mildew mixed with the bitterness of stove ash. The widow's lantern, when lit, burned a greenish light, not the warm yellow of others. The uncle told him later that a lantern with green light held a dead one bearing resentment, and was hard to lead. Old Geng's hands had trembled for the first time, making that one.

The old man struck by lightning, his body charred black, still clutching that dry-tobacco pipe. Old Geng made his lantern, and the lead went out three times before it held on the fourth. As the old man's soul walked off along the light, Old Geng saw a scorched mark inside the light, exactly like the one he would later find on his own lantern.

Once, past sixty, he went to a deserted grave to look at a lantern resting in the fork of a tree—that of an itinerant doctor who had died early that year. The sky was overcast; he picked his way through the dead branches, and the light inside the lantern suddenly leaned toward him, as if it knew him, and on the paper shade a thin shadow rose, the very shape of a man bending to treat a patient. He stepped back, and his foot snapped a dry branch, crack. The shadow inside wobbled, then steadied, and still watched him, as if waiting for him to hand something over. Only then did he understand: what was trapped in those unburned lanterns was not necessarily the dead—the dead had long since walked off along the light, and what remained was his own shadow, fed in year by year.

After sixty he made fewer lanterns. Not that he did not want to, but that he dared not. He was afraid that one more inch lost would bring him to the sole of his foot, and then to nothing, and he too would become a wisp inside a lantern. Yet people still came to the town, weeping, saying the old one was gone, the child was gone, begging for a lantern so the dead would not wander the wilds, would not come back to trouble other households. Old Geng looked at them and remembered his own early words: a craftsman's work is to do it well. And so he made another. One lantern, and the shadow lost another inch. He worked with his eyes shut, not daring to look at his own heels; when the lantern was done he set it on the threshold and turned straight back into the house, as if afraid the lantern would recognize him.

The year of the Winter Solstice, a newly married woman from the east end came crying, saying her husband had drowned in the river and been fished out three days ago, but the lantern would not light under him. Old Geng went to see; the man was white from the water, and inside his shirt was an undelivered red cloth bundle holding a half-finished pair of shoe-soles. Old Geng made the lantern, lit the lead, and it burned, but the man's soul did not walk off along the light—the light circled the room once and returned to the corpse, as if it could find no road home. Old Geng knew the man carried something unresolved in his heart, and the lantern could not lead him. He set the lantern by the body and said: if the one you wait for is still in this world, the lantern will wait for you as long as need be. He said it carelessly. But for many years after, he kept returning to those three words, "the one you wait for," like a thorn that drove deeper the more he thought of it.

He himself had had a one who waited.

The first time he saw her was also at the bridge. That year, not long after he had finished his apprenticeship, he was resting at the bridge when she came up with a plain lantern and said her mother had just died and she wanted to ask for a lantern, but had no money. Seeing how slight she was, he made one for her for nothing. She thanked him and walked off with the lantern; at the middle of the bridge she turned and smiled, the corner of her mouth curving just a little. He thought later that that one smile had ruined him for life.

When he was young, by the bridge at the ferry, there was a girl whose surname he had long forgotten; he only remembered that she loved to stand at the bridge waiting for him to close his stall, always holding an unlit plain lantern, white paper, unpainted, unmarked, saying she would wait until he had finished the last lantern, and then walk home with him. She was quiet, and spoke little; when she smiled the corner of her mouth curved just a little, like a lantern-flame giving a small jump. He was young then, and thought a lifetime was a very long thing, and the lantern-maker's work was endless, so he let her wait. She waited through many an evening; the river wind tangled her hair, and she did not mind, but stood there holding the plain lantern, like a quiet shadow at the bridgehead.

He remembered one early-summer dusk when he had finished his lanterns and packed the stall to walk toward the bridge, and from far off he saw her standing under the old willow with the plain lantern. That day the setting sun had burned the river to a stretch of orange, and her shadow dragged long, longer than his. He came up to her and she showed him the plain lantern, saying the oil was nearly gone and to bring some next time. He took the lantern, and his fingertips touched her hand—cool as a stone just lifted from the river. They stood there, listening to the water slap the bridge piers, listening to the paper lantern rustle in the wind. She said suddenly, you make lanterns to lead so many people home; who leads you home? He did not answer; he gave the lantern back and said, come, let's go home. On that walk he felt for the first time that a shorter shadow, perhaps, did not matter so much.

Once, in a great flood, the far side of the bridge had collapsed halfway and the water rose to the piers. She was still waiting. Through the rain-curtain he caught sight of that bit of white and shouted for her to go back; she shook her head and lifted the plain lantern, meaning she would wait for him. Later the water rose higher, and he was busy helping people save their coffins and make emergency lanterns, and forgot her at the bridgehead. After the water went down, someone said a lantern-bearing girl had drowned at the bridgehead. He did not go to identify her, and did not dare to. He told himself it was not her; plenty of lantern-bearing girls had drowned. But that plain lantern, he saw it once in the space after sobering up—the lantern was lit, and inside the light there was no her, only his own shadow, shortened by an inch, floating alone inside the paper shade.

He had always taken it for the lantern he had never finished making.

Until he was seventy-one. His shadow had shortened to only a sliver before his toes, almost gone; standing in the sun, his feet seemed empty, as if he were treading on someone else's shadow. He panicked at last, and in the night went down to the bridge by the river, wanting to see how much of himself was left, and wanting to see whether that name was still there.

The old willow at the bridgehead was still there, its branches knocked aslant by the water but still alive. The water had drawn back, exposing the bridge pier's dense carving of marks—the names of those who had drowned over the years, added by the townsfolk year after year, stroke upon stroke, as if the bridge were keeping the river's accounts. He crouched to look, and at the very bottom was an old carving, the name bleached white by the water, its strokes scattered, yet he knew it at a glance: it was hers. He remembered that the last stroke of her name was a hooked bend, like the corner of her mouth when she smiled.

And suddenly he remembered everything. It was not the lantern he had never finished. It was the one he had made.

That year of the great flood, she stood at the bridgehead with the plain lantern, and the water rose and rose to her waist, and she did not run, but held the lantern like a thought she would not put down. When he rushed over she was half-submerged, hair plastered to her face, still holding that plain lantern, its fire long out, the paper soaked transparent. He panicked, and by instinct held out the soul-lantern he was making—he meant to use the lead inside it to "lead" her out of the water, back to the bank, back among the living. But that lantern had been lit by another's birth hour; its fire did not match her fate, its light did not know her as a person.

The moment the lantern reached her hand, her fingers loosened, and she was drawn in, whole, into the paper shade. The paper skin burst into flame with a whoosh, and in the firelight he heard a very faint "ah," like a lantern-blossom popping, or someone calling his childhood name. The fire went out, and the shade was quiet; he held the burned lantern, his hands shaking too hard to hold it.

She had been burned to death inside the lantern.

He had taken it for another's lantern, the wrong person led. He had taken it for her simply drowning, carried off by the water downstream, to a place he could not see. He had split the thing in two—one half "she drowned," the other half "I handed over the wrong lantern"—and forbade the two halves ever to meet. He had lied to himself for decades.

But what goes inside a lantern never takes the wrong person. The lantern knows the person, not the birth hour. That one lantern led the very person he had been desperate to lead when he handed it over—he had wanted to lead her back to life, and the lantern burned her into a wisp of its own, kept forever inside the light. From then on his shadow shortened an inch each year, and every inch was light fed to that lantern, the life he had wanted to give back to her and could only give in this way.

And that lantern—in his madness that year, without even burying it in earth, he had thrown it straight into the river.

Where was it now?

Old Geng stood at the bridgehead until dawn. The river wind poured down his collar and he shivered, and found his shadow flat on the blue stone, thin as a film of water not yet dry, as if a gust would dissolve it. He looked at the carving on the pier, and beneath that old name, someone had newly added a line, carved shallow but clear: the lantern is, the one who waits is.

He understood. That lantern had long since been fished up from the river. The one who fished it up was her. She held the lantern that had burned her, waiting at the bridgehead, year after year, waiting until his shadow shortened to nothing, until he too became a wisp inside the lantern, so she could go with him, to the place he had wanted to lead her to that year.

On the wind came a smell of scorched lamp-oil, very faint, as if far away a lantern were burning, its flame small but stubborn. Old Geng lowered his head and saw the shadow before his toes stir a little—not blown by the wind, but because from the far side of the bridge, someone holding a lantern was walking, step by step, toward him.

Past sixty, once he had started awake in the middle of the night to a rustling in the courtyard, like a paper lantern shaken by the wind. He threw on his clothes and went out; no one was there, only the river wind blowing cool. But on the threshold, he did not know when, a small puddle had appeared, mixed with that bitter smell of lamp-oil, as if someone had just stood there with a wet lantern. He crouched to look at the puddle, and by the moonlight it looked a little like the print of a small toe. He did not dare wipe it, did not dare speak of it; he turned and went back inside, and did not close his eyes all night. After that he bolted the courtyard gate tight every night, yet the sound came back every so often, as if whoever waited at the bridge, by old habit, still came to wait for him to finish the last lantern.

He wanted to step back, but his feet were nailed to the blue stone. He wanted to cry out, but his throat was stopped with lamp-oil, too thick to make a sound. The one from the far side came nearer, and the light in the lantern swayed; he saw clearly now that what floated in the light was not a face, but shadows shortening inch by inch—himself at forty-two, at forty-nine, at fifty-eight, at sixty-three, shortening year by year. The lantern rose to the level of her brows, and at last he saw her face, still wet as at the bridgehead that year, the corner of her mouth curving just a little, like a smile, or like someone waiting for him to hand over the lantern.

She did not speak. She only held the lantern out to him.

Just as, that year, he had held the lantern out to her.

He did not take the lantern. Yet his hand had already reached out. In the river wind the rustle of the paper lantern drew nearer, mixed with the bitter sweetness of the lamp-oil, beat by beat, like someone sighing in his ear. He suddenly understood that all the lanterns he had made in his life, all the dead he had led, had at last poured into this one—the shadow he had given year by year to the lanterns was all gathered in the light she held. What he owed was never the wear of his craft, but a life. The one at the bridgehead stopped walking, and stood three paces away, holding the lantern, waiting for him. Old Geng lowered his head and saw his own shadow, at last, shortened to its end.

The river wind grew colder. Old Geng stood at this side of the bridge, his hand hanging in the air, his shadow so thin it was nearly gone. The one at the bridgehead drew nearer, holding the lantern, and half the light inside it was his own.

Midnight Record note: a lantern-maker sells the light but never the fire. The fire is his own; when it is burned away, the man becomes a wisp inside the lantern, and waits for the one at the bridge to come and claim him.