The Village-Keeper

Old Shuan is seventy-three this year. His hair is clean white, and the skin of his face hangs like a dried tangerine. He cannot recall the year he was born, only that when he first came to watch the village the officials above still wore their hair cropped short as a pigtail. By now that official is surely in the earth, yet Shuan still keeps his watch. The villagers once called him Brother Shuan, then Uncle Shuan, and then, when there was no one left to call him anything, he became the only thing that moved, beyond the two locust trees at the village mouth. He was up before first light. The ash in his kitchen stove was still warm. He reached in and probed it; his fingertips came away dusted with a fine white, and he could not tell whether it was ash or something else. Outside, a thin fog had settled. The village in the hollow lay behind that fog like an upturned black wok. He took up his polished peach-wood staff and stepped out, heading for the mouth of the village.

The boundary at the village mouth was one he had raised himself. Two old locust trees framed a gap in the hillside. The left one leaned half-ruined to one side; the right had hollowed out at the heart years ago, and when the wind passed through it, a low humming came from the cavity. Between the two trees he had tied three ropes of red, and on those ropes he had hung a string of copper coins, a few dried peppercorns, and a broken plow he had picked up in some year he no longer remembered. The plow was rusted down to its frame, and every year he brushed it with tung oil until it looked like a thin dog lying down. The ropes were twisted from coarse hemp and soaked in chicken blood; when the sun struck them they gave off a dark red light. Beneath their roots lay two blocks of bluish stone, carved with signs he could not read. A wandering priest had left them long ago, he was told, saying that so long as they were set, what was inside could not scatter. The day he raised the boundary it had snowed; the snow covered the ropes so that red and white were indistinguishable, and he had crouched in it feeling his way rope by rope, not at ease until his hand found the coins. Forty years have passed, forty snows fallen, and he has felt his way forty times — and every time he finds the coins, and every time he fears the next time he will find nothing. The ropes are renewed each year, hemp twisted and soaked in blood, spun by his own hands until the palms callused. The first few nights a new rope was set, the sounds within would grow louder, as if something had noticed the fresh barricade; later it would accept it, and only walk lightly, against the rope.

The broken plow he had dug from the mud at the village mouth. The year the village was sealed, the blacksmith's plow had been left by the ditch, unclaimed, its point driven into the earth like a foot that would not leave. Old Shuan had carried it back and set it at the center of the red ropes, saying so long as the plow stood, the land stood, the people stood, the village stood. He had spoken to that plow more than to any living soul. Some nights when the wind rose and the frame creaked, he took it for the blacksmith trying the plow, turning the field that would never be finished.

His first task every day was to pull those three ropes tight again. When a rope had gone slack, he knew something inside had strained against it in the night. This morning the ropes were slack; the left one hung so low it nearly touched the ground. He crouched and drew it back in. Coin struck coin, a clear clinking in the fog. He listened. From inside the village came the sound of someone walking, very light, like bare feet on broken tiles, step by step, from the east end to the west and back again. No voices. No coughing. Not even a dog.

The village had stood empty for forty years. Forty years ago the plague came, and in a single day half the village fell. Those who remained tried to walk out, but at the mouth of the village their legs would not carry them, and one by one they dropped outside the red ropes. Later the authorities came and sealed the road, walling off the whole hollow, saying what was inside was unclean, that the living must not enter and the dead must not leave. Old Shuan was the one they left behind. He had come from the neighboring village, delivering tofu here for a few years, and he knew the people. When they asked if he would keep watch, he nodded, and he had kept it ever since. What he kept was not really a village but a door. On the other side of that door were the whole village who had never walked out. They had not made it, and so they stayed inside, living in empty rooms, tending empty stoves, rising at night to move about as if they still kept house. Old Shuan did not go in. He only walked the outside of the boundary, listening to the sounds within, tightening the ropes, freshening the ash in his stove. He let no living soul in, and let nothing out. A living soul who went in would hardly come out again; and if they came out, there was no telling to which mountain, which river, which sleeping pillow they would drift.

He remembered that spring a household in the village had taken a bride. He had carried two boards of tofu to congratulate them, and the bride, seated in the great red sedan, had lifted a corner of her veil and smiled at him. Less than half a month later, that whole family was gone. The first to fall was the blacksmith at the west end, who had been well at dawn and then dropped by his forge after a single hammer-stroke, the furnace fire reddening his face to a shine. Next the widow at the east end, who sat on her threshold with her child; the child fell asleep first, and she slept holding him, the two face to face as if sharing one dream. The plague came without reason — the physician blamed the water and soil, the witch blamed an offended mountain spirit, and the men above said nothing, only drew a line of lime in the night and walled off the hollow. Old Shuan was the last living soul to walk out. Beyond the red ropes he turned for one last look: the whole village sat in its own yards, quiet, as if waiting for something. He thought then that when the plague passed they would all live again. But the plague did not pass, and they did not live again; they only stayed inside, in the look they had in life and the sounds they had made in life, passing the days, one after another, in the empty village.

He stayed to keep the village, not for the order from above, but for a bowl of tofu he never ate. The day before the sealing, the bride's family had sent word that the day after the wedding they would feast him, and had kept the seat of honor for him at the table. He had agreed; but the next day the village was sealed, the feast never eaten, the people gone. He thought someone ought to remember that table, the empty seat of honor, the way the whole village had sat, one by one, quiet, back in their own yards. To keep watch was to remember them; and to remember them was to let them still be.

In forty years he had learned the sounds within by heart. The blacksmith at the west end walked heavy, his tread carrying wind; the widow at the east end walked light, as if afraid to wake the child; the bride who had smiled at him from the sedan had the prettiest step of all, making no sound even on broken tiles, as if she walked on tiptoe. With his eyes shut he could count who was walking the heart of the village tonight, who was drawing at the well, which child ran laughing down the lane. He had never seen any of them die, yet he had never seen one of them live; they lived only in sound, day after day, keeping the days he remembered for them.

The fog thinned, and he could see the few half-collapsed earthen houses at the village mouth. Weeds grew from the eaves, their tips hung with dew, and the dew fell and darkened the threshold with a ring of damp. Old Shuan watched that ring for a while, and then he felt it was wrong. Inside the threshold, the stove ash was warm — and he had not lit a fire the night before. He turned to look at the small room he lived in. Its stove was cold; its ash was cold. But the village's stove was warm.

He stopped and cocked his ears. The sounds within had changed. This time it was not walking but the sound of drawing water, a wooden ladle against the water vat, gulp, gulp, as if someone were drawing at the well to cook the morning meal. Old Shuan knew there were no living inside, yet the sound was too much like something. It was exactly the sound his mother made, crouched at the well before first light in the years she was alive. His throat closed. He stepped back half a pace and snapped a dry branch underfoot; the crack was loud in the stillness.

The sounds within stopped. After a long while they came again. This time it was a door hinge, creak, creak, as if someone were pushing open their own door to come out. Old Shuan gripped his peach-wood staff; his palm was slick with sweat. He stared at the gap. The red ropes swayed faintly in the wind; the coins had fallen silent, as if they too were holding their breath. The hinge sound drew nearer, from the heart of the village all the way to its mouth, and stopped three paces from the red ropes.

Then there was nothing. The wind blew the fog across his eyes. When it cleared, the village mouth was still the village mouth: two locust trees, three red ropes, one broken plow, quiet as could be. He let out a breath — but before it was fully spent he heard, behind him, the sound of a door hinge as well.

He whirled around. Behind him was the small room he lived in, its door shut. Yet that sound had come from inside the door, as if someone, in his absence, had pushed open his door, sat on his stool, touched his bowl. He felt the door bar. It was set, barred from the inside. He had set it before sleep.

Suddenly he could not tell. Which side was inside, which outside. He had kept this boundary all his life: on this side of the ropes, the living; on that side, them. Yet now the warm ash, the creaking hinge, seemed to belong to neither end of the rope. He looked down at his hands. In the cracks of his fingers still clung the dark red he had smeared tightening the ropes that morning, the very color of the chicken blood soaked into the hemp. He could not say whether that red had come off the rope, or from somewhere else, or seeped out from inside himself.

At noon he dared not return to the room. He crouched outside the boundary and ate two cold buns. The sun warmed his back, but the length of his spine stayed cold. The hollow was unnaturally silent; not even a bird called. He remembered the early years of watching, when wild rabbits would still dart out through the gap, but now even the rabbits were gone, as if living things too knew not to come near. He chewed and thought of the first years, when he would still talk to the village — saying the wind was high today, saying the rain was heavy, saying the people outside were well, telling those within to rest easy. Later he spoke less, and then he heard something answer from inside, a thin voice as if through a layer of earth, and after that he dared not speak at all. He thought of that first year, on the eve of the new year, when he had shouted across the red ropes that there were firecrackers outside, that the snow this year was deep, that those within should eat a hot meal too. The inside had been silent half the night, and then, past midnight, he heard the sound of someone kneading dough in a kitchen stove, thud, thud, thud, one strike after another, as if truly keeping a bowl of new-year food for him. He leaned against the rope until dawn, his tears frozen to his face. Year after year it was so: he called, and the inside answered, only ever more faintly, until at last there was only the wind through the hollow of the locust, humming, like something answering, like nothing at all.

His eyes were failing. By day the red ropes were three; by night they were two, and sometimes one, and sometimes a red mist. He did not mind — counted or not, the ropes held, the village held, and so he held. Only lately he wandered in and out of himself, dream and waking hard to part. Crouched by the rope in daylight he might suddenly hear his mother calling him to eat from the kitchen, and look up to find only the shadow of the broken plow, slanting, like someone standing there waiting for him.

In the afternoon, as the sun leaned west, he walked the boundary once around. The boundary was a circle, holding the whole hollow within; beyond the three red ropes he had also driven seven peach-wood pegs, each wound with the same red cloth. He felt them one by one. The seventh lay in the most shaded gully, its cloth rotted by dew into a sauce-colored red. He crouched to mend the cloth, and his fingers touched the earth beneath the peg — the earth was loose, as if freshly turned. He started and drew his hand back. Beyond the gully was a cliff; no living man could climb down, no creature climb up. Who had turned this earth? He watched that loose soil a long while, and in the end dared not dig to see. Returning to the village mouth, he looked back at the seven pegs, with the feeling that behind one of them stood something watching him — thin, motionless, silent.

In the afternoon a traveler with a carrying pole came down off the ridge and, seeing the hollow from afar, thought to cut across it by the short way. Old Shuan blocked the red ropes and spread his arms. No, he said, this village is sealed; the order from above is that the living may not enter. The traveler laughed at him. An empty village, he said, what is there to fear. Old Shuan did not laugh. He drove his peach-wood staff into the ground. Listen, he said. The traveler inclined his ear; the hollow was silent, nothing there. You hear what is not, Old Shuan said, I hear what is. The traveler did not understand, but the look in those eyes was the look of one who has seen something unclean, and in the end he took the long way around.

Old Shuan walked him to the mouth of the ridge and turned back to look at the village. The setting sun drew the red ropes into a line of blood, and the shadow of the broken plow stretched long and slanted across the earth at the village mouth, like a shut door. He thought suddenly what the traveler would see, should he truly walk in. He would see every house in the village lit, every stove warm with ash, every wellside hung with freshly washed clothes, and not a single person. He would hear the whole village moving — walking, drawing water, shutting doors, murmuring — and never meet a face. He would walk to the heart of the village and find he could never reach its end, never return to the gap he came through. And then night would fall, and he on the far side of the ropes would become one on this side, quiet, straining outward no more.

At dusk he went, as was his custom, to tighten the ropes a second time. This time all three had gone slack; the left dragged the ground, the right sagged, only the middle held its shape, yet the coins were all gone from the rope, leaving only a few peppercorns, dry and bare. His heart gave a lurch. He looked up at the locusts. In the hollow heart of the right one there seemed to be something more — a dark clump, as if someone were crouched inside watching him. He rubbed his eyes; when he looked again there was nothing, only the wind through the cavity, humming low.

He crouched to retie the ropes, his hands a little unsteady. As he tightened the middle rope he heard, from beyond it, the sound of footsteps, very light, on broken tiles, from east to west and back, exactly as that morning. He stilled his hands and listened. The footsteps stopped beneath him, at the very spot where he crouched, directly below, as if someone walked along the ground under his feet. He sprang up and jumped back a step, looking down. The earth was solid; the tiles were still; there was no mark at all.

Yet his soles went numb for a moment, as if someone had just stepped on them from below.

That night he dared not sleep deep. He hugged his peach-wood staff and leaned against the locust by the ropes, eyes half open. A wind rose in the hollow, carrying the smell of grass, of earth, and a sweet rankness he could not name, into his nose. He knew that smell. Forty years ago, when the plague came, it was on the bodies fallen at the village mouth — like fruit gone too ripe, sweet turning to rot.

When the wind died, the sounds within rose again. This time they were livelier, like a festival. A woman calling a child, soft, drawn out long; a man splitting wood, crack, crack, crack; a child's laugh running down the lane, giggling, running past and back. Old Shuan listened, cold through. He had heard these sounds countless times, yet tonight they were truer than ever, true enough that he almost saw the shapes swaying in the lamplight, true enough that he almost answered. The wind also carried a smell of food — sweet-potato porridge mixed with pickles, steaming, drifting from the lit rooms at the heart of the village. His throat worked; only then did he remember he had eaten nothing proper all day, and the two cold buns were long digested. That smell of food hollowed his chest, and his feet moved forward half a step on their own, his toes already touching the outermost red rope. The coins on the rope were ice-cold, and the cold jolted him awake; he drew his foot back. He understood: this smell was no true smell either, only the last meal the whole village had cooked that night forty years ago, left in the wind, for him, the only living man, to smell.

He bit through the tip of his tongue, and the pain woke him clear. He reminded himself: these were those who never walked out, gone forty years now; all that remained was sound, and the warm ash clinging to a thought of home. He must not answer. To answer was to become one more of them.

Yet he could tell the sides apart less and less. By day he kept outside the ropes and was a living man; but by night, listening to the sounds within, his body grew warm too, as if he had sat down in someone's kitchen and someone had fed his fire. He looked at his hands; the dark red on them, at some point, could no longer be told from the chicken blood on the rope, or from a smear picked up elsewhere, or from something seeping out of himself. He tried a step out past the ropes, and stepped back; he tried a step in past the ropes, and stepped back. In and out, he trod the line many times, and in the end never learned which side he stood on.

Past midnight the dew came, and a cold crept up his trouser legs. He drifted half shut, and dreamed he walked back to the heart of the village. The old well was still there; clothes hung at its side; the kitchen lamp was lit; his mother crouched at the well drawing water and turned to call him — Shuan, come home to eat. He answered, and stepped forward.

He woke with a start. He found that, without knowing when, he had come to stand two paces inside the red ropes. Beneath his feet were broken tiles; before him the half-collapsed earthen houses; the kitchen lamp seemed to give a faint yellow light. Every hair on him stood. He whirled and ran back, crossed the ropes, crossed into his own small room, set the door bar, and leaned against the door, gasping a long while before he steadied.

But when he had steadied and thought again, he was muddled. The way he had run back — had it been from the village heart toward the ropes, or from the ropes toward the village heart? The bar he had set — had he set it from outside, or from within? The room he lived in — which side of the rope did it stand on?

He dared not light the lamp, for fear that to light it would reveal others already seated in the room. He hugged his peach-wood staff and lay open-eyed in the dark, listening out. Outside there was wind, and in the wind the smell of grass, of earth, and that sweet rankness. The sounds within had stopped, but his own kitchen stove — its ash was still warm.

Near dawn he finally drifted off. When he woke, the fog had risen again, a thin layer over the hollow. He pushed open his door and saw the boundary at the village mouth still there: two locust trees, three red ropes, one broken plow, quiet. The coins had returned, hung on the rope, damp with fog, glowing dimly. He let out a breath and crouched to tighten the ropes; his fingertips met the dark red on the hemp, warm.

He thought suddenly whether last night's walk had truly gone out, or never gone out at all. All his life he had kept this door — but had he shut them inside, or shut himself inside as well? This side of the red rope, that side; whose ash stays warm, whose voice rises in the night, who, after the hinge has creaked, settles quietly into some room to wait for someone who will never come back.

He finished tightening and stood, looking toward the village mouth. In the fog the village lay quiet, like an upturned black wok. He heard someone walking within, very light, on broken tiles, from east to west and back. No voices. No coughing. Not even a dog.

He stood a long while and shifted his peach-wood staff to the other hand. And then he heard, beneath his own feet, footsteps too — very light, on broken tiles, from east to west and back. He did not dare move, did not dare look down, only gripped the peach-wood staff to the bone. Those footsteps circled once at his feet and stopped, as if someone stood beside him, looking out at the village in the fog, as he did. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed a second shadow at his side — thin, hunched, the very shape of himself. He did not turn his face, for fear that if he did, the shadow would turn its face too, and smile at him — like the bride who lifted her veil in the sedan forty years ago, like the blacksmith who dropped by his forge, like all who never walked out, standing now at his side, waiting for him to go back with them, to the heart of the village.

The fog thickened; the outline of the village slowly dissolved, as if it too would scatter into the mist. Old Shuan stood where he was. The footsteps at his feet had stopped, the shadow at his side had stopped, yet he knew they had not gone. They only stood, with him, keeping this boundary that none could leave and none could enter. When full daylight came the fog would lift, the red ropes would brighten, the coins would sound, and the village would stir again with that faint, dreadful tread. And he, still, could not tell whether he kept his watch inside the door, or out.