The Water Script

In Qin Shouzhuo's courtyard stood a jar. Not a water jar—an ink jar. It was of coarse pottery, a chip knocked from its rim and mended with tung-oil putty, the mend a shade darker, like an old scar. The water inside was black, as if the whole night's darkness had sunk to the bottom; a film too thin to see floated on the surface, and when lamplight struck it, fine glints scattered and wavered below, as though something asleep in the water had turned over.

He was sixty-three this year. The village called him Master Qin; the older folk called him the Water-Script Master. He had borne the title for many years and never explained it. Water-script is not written on paper. Paper keeps words, and keeps men too—he wanted neither. He wanted words that would dissolve. He wrote, and the ink bloomed in the water, stroke by stroke unraveling into grey threads, until before dawn even that grey sank to the bottom, and nothing remained. To unravel one dream, he wrote like this, once.

The village hid in a mountain hollow, some twenty-odd households, the sounds of chickens and dogs unable to carry half a li through the heavy fog. Qin had lived there his whole life. When young he had thought of leaving the mountains, yet each time he packed his things, each time he untied them again. Later, even the memory of wanting to leave was written into the water, and he thought of it no more. The villagers respected him, and feared him; behind his back they said the jar in his house opened onto the shadow-world, and only when a dream weighed so heavy a man could not breathe would they dare knock at his door in the dark. Children were frightened by their elders: misbehave, and the Water-Script Master will write you into the water, and you'll never be fished out again—and the children truly dared not, as if the jar could indeed swallow them. He heard, and was not angry; he only dimmed the lamp a little, and let them talk.

He tended the jar like an elder he dared not offend. Each day before first light he rose, first poured a circle of clear water around the jar's rim, then wiped the mouth clean with a cloth, lest dust fall and soil the words in the water. On the first and fifteenth of the month he burned a stick of incense by the jar—not to honor any god, only to beg the water to stay calm. Others found it strange, but to him it was the most natural thing: a Water-Script Master's life was bound to that black water; if the water was at peace, so was he.

Beyond the courtyard lay the ponds. The village had three; he alone shunned the black pond at the east end, taking the long way around. Asked, he only said the water was too cold. In truth it was not the cold he feared. The mountain autumn came early; once the frost fell, the wind carried a blade that tightened the nape of one's neck. Master Qin never latched his gate, yet whoever came knocking in the night to tell of a dream he would not admit to the main hall—he led them only to the courtyard, to sit around this jar. He said the inner room was warm, and warmth kept a dream from dissolving; the fright must be written into the water while the chill still clung, while the man still carried the night's reek about him.

Most who came came at night. Mountain folk feared dreams, especially those that repeated night after night, the same affair pressed again and again into your pillow. Master Qin lit no bright lamp; he set a single bean-oil lamp on the jar's rim, the wick trimmed to a thread, so the light cut slantwise into the water and opened a narrow bright slit. The guest sat on a low stool and told his dream. He listened without interrupting, his hand passing vaguely above the water's surface, as if feeling the shape of the dream—where it was sharp, where blunt, where it hid a knot that would not loosen. Only when the guest finished did he lift the goat-hair brush he had used thirty years, and dip its tip in the jar's water. Not ink—water. On paper the water, too, was colorless; but in the jar it showed characters, as if the words had lain at the bottom of the black water all along, and he merely fished them up stroke by stroke, onto the surface, then dissolved them stroke by stroke.

He called this "bearing another's fright." A dream is the fright clinging to another; he wrote it into the water, and the fright dissolved with the words, and when it fell back upon the other it was lighter—so light that on waking the next day not even the shadow of the dream could be grasped. He had always believed this. What he did not say was that each time he wrote, he sent something of his own into the water as well—a memory. As the years passed he could no longer recall which lane he had lived in as a child, what his mother had worn the day she died, in what year he had first unraveled a dream for another, even whether he had ever taken a wife. He took it for the wear of his craft, as a smith's hands tremble after long years at the forge; a Water-Script Master, writing long, must lose something, and if what he lost was his own, others rested easy—a fair trade.

Over these years the dreams that passed through his hands were beyond counting. There was the one who dreamed his dead mother stood at the foot of the bed, silent, watching. There was the one who dreamed a blind snake crawled from the stove-mouth and wound about her ankle, dragging her toward the fire. There was the one who dreamed her own child laughing by the well, laughing until the child was gone, and the child's laughter rose from the bottom, one peal after another. He wrote each into the water, and with each writing sent away a memory. Once he sent away the memory of his wedding night—he could never after recall what the bride had worn, only a roomful of red that made his heart race at the sight of red. Another time he sent away the memory of his first killing of a chicken: his hand had trembled, the chicken's blood spattered his face, and that warmth he had carried all his life was gone too. He was not alarmed. A Water-Script Master's memory exists to buy others a safe sleep—so he consoled himself.

But when memory is given away too long, a man begins to leak. First he forgot the medicine simmering on the stove, and burned the pot. Then he forgot the neighbor woman's name, and only nodded when he met her. Later still, he unraveled a dream for a man and looked up to find he did not know who sat before him; the guest said his name was Wu, and he nodded and said Brother Wu, yet inside was a hollowness, as if he trod on cotton. He did not think on it. A Water-Script Master's work is to use himself in place of another; he had long accepted it.

The worst of the leaking came with early autumn. He began to forget what he had eaten for breakfast, where he had set the brush. Once he lifted the brush to the water and the tip hung in the air a long while, unable to recall what character came next. He stared into the jar, and the jar stared back, black and heavy, as if keeping for him something he did not wish to remember. He felt no fear then, only took it for old age, oil spent and lamp guttering, the craft's end. He was almost proud—he had borne so many men's fright; when it came to his own turn, he could bear that too.

In these years he had handled other unravelings. Once the old man at the east end dreamed his dead son had come back, sat on the bed's edge peeling peanuts, eating one with each peel, the shells piling half the bed; the old man reached to touch him, and his hand passed through the son's body. Master Qin wrote, and sent away a memory of his own brother—he had once remembered the two of them sharing a single ox, riding its back and blowing on green bamboo leaves; that, too, was gone. Another time a peddler from town dreamed the characters in his ledger all turned to ants, crawling all over his hands, impossible to brush off. He wrote, and sent away the memory of his first trip to market, when he lost the copper coin his mother gave him and cried all the way home; that crying, too, sank to the bottom. With each memory sent, the water in the jar grew heavier by a fraction, the things at the bottom multiplied by a fraction, and the man grew lighter by a fraction, light as if the wind might sweep him from his own door.

There was the widow on the south slope who dreamed her dead husband returned to smooth the quilt at her side, his hand cold as stones from the well; she reached to hold it and closed her hand on a fist of water. Master Qin wrote, and sent away the memory of the old locust behind his own house—he had remembered the yard full of sweetness when it bloomed; now even that scent had sunk, and he caught only a wisp of it in dreams, gone on waking. He sent away so much that even what "sweet" tasted like he slowly could not recall, and took the strange reek of his jar's water for what others meant by sweet.

Li Shuisheng came on the third day after First Frost. Before he reached the door the smell of the pond arrived—he always carried about him the odor of one who has wrestled with water unto death, dank and cold, as if he had just climbed from some pond, the hem of his clothes still dripping. He said he dreamed he was drowning in a pond, not taken under at a stroke but sinking slowly, the water around him black as ink, he kicked, he struggled, could touch neither shore nor bottom, his limbs growing heavier, as if something dragged him from below. What he feared most was the moment just before the water closed over him: a face leaned from the surface, looking down at him—not to save, not to smile, only looking, watching him swallow mouthful after mouthful, watching his eyes close little by little. The dream had come seven nights running, exactly the same; by day he walked wide around any puddle, and at night dared not close his eyes, for the sound of water came the moment he did.

That face, Shuisheng said, he could not make out—only that it was "like one soaked through, gone white." Master Qin listened, his hand hovering above the water a moment, and said nothing. A clarity he could not name passed through him, as if he knew that face—yet he dared not think further, lest something in the water rise to meet the thought. He told himself it was only that he had heard too many drowning dreams, and dreaded on his own account.

Master Qin listened, his hand hovering above the water a moment. He did not ask about the face, nor answer. He only said, sit. Then he lifted the brush. The tip met the water and caught, at first, as if drawn across a film not yet frozen; then the ink spread in the water, writing a line neither he nor the guest could read—yet when it was written, Shuisheng woke the next day and dreamed of that pond no more, remembering only that he had slept well, better than in many years.

That time, Master Qin sent away a memory of winter. He noticed later he could no longer recall the year the snow caved in the east eave and his father carried him laughing through the snow, the snow falling down his collar, tickling him to giggles. That stretch was gone. He was not alarmed. But after that, the water at night was not right. The black water in the jar, which had lain quiet at the bottom, now now and then floated a wisp of grey in the lamplight, spinning, as if someone below were tracing, very slowly, the characters he had written by day. He took it for a trick of his own eyes; at his age, with the lamp wavering, everything looked alive.

The days between that and First Frost's Eve stretched more than half a month. Through those days the words on the water did not cease. At first only scattered marks, a stroke of "Qin" here, a stroke of "Shou" there, rising at midnight and dissolving again; he thought nothing of it, took it for the lamp's swaying shadow. But the marks came more and more, until they joined into lines, though he could not read whose life they told—until one night, by the moon's light, he made out that the water wrote the two characters "He Jiu," darker than all the rest, and when those two were done the jar gave a soft gulp, as if someone below had turned over in sleep. The sweat on his back went cold all at once. He was afraid then; he reached to stir the water, and drew his hand back—he feared that what he touched would not be water, but that swollen hand.

Then the widow at the west end came with a dream: a skinless dog crouched on her threshold, its tongue hanging long, and whenever it licked her ankle she woke drenched in cold sweat. He wrote as always, and sent away a memory—this time his mother's funeral rain; he had remembered the muffled patter on the paper banners, and that, too, was gone. That night, when he had finished writing, he heard a sound in the courtyard—not rain, but the fine scrape of a brush across water, so light and so long it was as if someone were writing, stroke by stroke, at his ink jar. He threw on his clothes and went to look; the moon was white as a shroud, the water in the jar gave off a cold light, and there was nothing. He stood a long while before going back in.

The night before First Frost's Eve was the coldest. He unraveled for a youth at the village's end a dream of a water-ghost dragging him down the river; he lay down, and half-asleep heard that fine scrape again. This time he did not hesitate—he threw on his clothes and went out. The moon was whiter than before, and lit the water in the jar like a mirror crusted with frost—and he was struck that he had long since feared to look in any mirror, yet this jar-water he looked into every day.

He leaned over it, and his body went rigid.

On the surface floated characters. Characters he had written. The brush's slant, its turns and joins, even the slight tremor he put in on purpose—all were exactly the hand he had trained over thirty years. But the hand was not his. Below the water, faintly, was another hand, pale, its knuckles swollen, black mud lodged under the nails, gripping an invisible brush, and following his very method it wrote his life, character by character, upon the water—then erased it, character by character.

First to go was his surname. The three dots of water in "Qin" dispersed first, like the ink blooming in his jar. Then "Shou," then "Zhuo." The name gone, he still stood; but then the hand below wrote faster, and his years, his house, his mother, the year his father carried him laughing in the snow—and every dream he had ever unraveled for another—one by one it wrote them, and one by one they bled into the water, as ink dropped into living water can never be held. He watched his sixty-three years of living wiped away, stroke by stroke, by his own characters.

He remembered suddenly whose hand it was.

Many years before, on such a night, by the black pond. He had been young, and done a shameful thing—that year a child was lost at the west of the village, and the child's mother knelt at his door, begging him to use water-script to find him. He should have been careful, but coveting the family's reward he read in haste and wrong, sending the search the opposite way. When the child was found, he was already drowned in the black pond, small, gone white. The child's mother afterward went mad, sitting by the pond each day calling her son, until her voice was raw, until the first snow of winter fell, still sitting there. Master Qin watched from afar a few times, and dared not go near. Afraid to bear the guilt, and more afraid the child's white face would come to him at night, he wrote that misreading stroke by stroke into the ink jar, his hand shaking so the grey threads at the bottom tangled into a knot. He thought that to write it in was to have hidden it, to have paid it back. He Jiu saw him.

He Jiu was from the same village, two years his elder, blunt of temper and quick of tongue; he came upon Qin burning the evidence, and would have cried it out, would have carried the matter out of the village, would have made Qin pay with his life. Qin panicked. That night he lured He Jiu to the black pond, saying he had something to discuss, and when He Jiu was off guard he put his full strength into it and shoved He Jiu under. The pond water bit like ice; He Jiu's nails dug into Qin's wrist and left two scars that have never faded. He held him down until He Jiu struggled no more, until the surface showed only his own reflection and a ring of ripples slowly settling. He crouched by the pond a long while catching his breath, set He Jiu's shoes side by side as if he had slipped them off and gone into the water himself, then went home in the night and wrote that affair, stroke by stroke, into the ink jar.

For many years after, the two scars on his wrist itched faintly whenever the weather turned, as if He Jiu's nails dug in again. He never showed the scars, keeping his sleeves drawn tight. He even tried once to fish that affair back from the water—drunk, he leaned over the jar meaning to read the written characters again, but the grey threads at the bottom scattered at a touch, and nothing could be pieced together. Then he understood: what a Water-Script Master writes into the water cannot be recovered, any more than the dead return, any more than He Jiu.

By that handiwork he lived out half a peaceful life in the village. No one spoke of the old affair again, and he himself gradually forgot why he had been afraid. He even became a revered Water-Script Master, unraveling dreams and calming night-terrors for a whole village; his name traveled the mountain road, and strangers came in the dark. He thought he had hidden it; he thought the water had pressed it down for him. But water never presses down—water only receives, and having received long, returns it. He did not yet know that the ink jar he looked into every day had at its bottom, all along, not only the fright he had written down, but He Jiu—and that He Jiu, in those grey threads, year upon year, had quietly learned by heart every character Qin had ever written into the water.

He thought He Jiu had sunk to the bottom and become a wisp of ash in the pond, gone forever like the characters he wrote; he thought the water had hidden it for him.

But the water remembered. The water of a Water-Script Master always remembers. What he wrote into the water was never another's fright—it was his own life, cut away piece by piece; the water kept it for him, kept it half a lifetime, and now the time had come to return it, character by character, in his own hand, with his own brush—He Jiu's hand, swollen, yet having learned to write more like him than he himself. He Jiu had soaked in the black pond all these years, soaking up the characters Qin wrote year after year, until he became one who could write Qin's whole life.

Master Qin reached to stir the surface and break it; his hand had barely touched the water when a reek of the pond rushed up his nostrils, so cold his lungs clenched and he coughed, coughing out a mouthful of chill. The hand below rose too, and through the black water the ten fingers met his—He Jiu's nails were as they had been when they dug into his wrist, gone blue-white. He understood suddenly: all these years, in sheer terror that someone would remember that affair, he had written his memories into the water, hoping the water would hide it for him. But water hides nothing from anyone; water only receives, and does not lose. The He Jiu he had shoved into the pond had been soaking in this very ink jar all along, soaking in the characters he wrote, until he became one who could write him.

As the sky began to lighten, the writing on the water stopped. He Jiu's hand sank, and the grey threads settled to the bottom; the jar was quiet again, as if nothing had happened. Master Qin stood before it, the night's chill in every limb, his teeth chattering. He tried to think his own name, and after a long while could recall only the character "Qin"—its three dots of water still there, the two characters after it blank, as if wiped with a wet cloth. He looked down into the jar, and the surface gave back a face—his, and not quite his—the mouth curved in a faint smile he had never worn, as if He Jiu, through the water, smiled for him.

Wind came from the direction of the pond, carrying its reek. He heard in the water, very faint, that fine scrape of a brush across the surface again—lighter than before, yet nearer, so near it was as if at his very ear. He dared not look again; he stepped back two paces and knocked over the low stool, the bean-oil lamp wavered and went out. The courtyard fell dark; only the water in the jar gave off, in the greying sky, a grey light that could not be named, and in that grey light there seemed yet a hand, slowly lifting the brush once more.

He stood in the dark and suddenly could not tell: when he woke tomorrow, would he still remember he was called Qin Shouzhuo; when the villagers came knocking with their dreams, would he still be able to lift that brush; would tomorrow's water go on writing, and dissolve, stroke by stroke, the little that remained of his "Qin"? He thought of every dream he had ever unraveled, the frights that should have fallen on others, now returned to him character by character—he had thought to bear another's fright, but in the end it was his own guilt, long owed to surface, that he bore. Water hides nothing from anyone; water only receives, and having received enough, returns it to you, principal and interest, stroke by stroke.

When full daylight came, the neighbor woman came to borrow salt, and knocked a long while with no answer. She peered over the courtyard wall and saw only the coarse pottery ink jar standing still, its surface flat as a mirror no one had ever looked into, and the tung-oil mend on its rim dark in the sun, like an old scar. The low stool by the jar lay overturned, the bean-oil lamp out, its wick still giving a thread of pale smoke. The woman called Master Qin several times and heard only the wind coming from the pond, carrying its reek, like someone laughing softly from under the water.

Later it was said the coarse pottery ink jar still stood in Master Qin's courtyard; no one dared touch it, no one dared take it. On rainy days the water in the jar would sound of itself, so faint and so long, as if someone were writing inside. No one in the village dared knock at that door with a dream anymore—what they feared was not the dream, but that beneath the jar's water there seemed always to be someone who knew each who had come, and knew every character Master Qin had written into the water, writing back, stroke by stroke, what ought to have surfaced.

Midnight Record notes: The Water-Script Master unraveled every nightmare under heaven, and only wrote himself into the water; and water has never hidden a single character for anyone.