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  • The Wall Builder
  • Cao Kou (bio)
    Translated from Chinese by Chen Zeping and Karen Gernant

1

Before I was sent to build the Great Wall, I had been trading around Yangzhou, and whenever I returned to my home in Quanjiao, I would walk along the path embraced by yellow rapeseed flowers. From afar I saw her leaning against the fence and peering at the crossroads. As I got closer, I could see she was blushing. She lowered her head and ran into the house. When I entered the yard, her mother was the one who came out to greet me. Over her mother's shoulder, I could see her hiding behind the half-open window.

She would become my wife. We should have had a baby, but we hadn't. But maybe she was pregnant when I left her. Now I could only console myself with this thought.

I had been doing business in Yangzhou city for years. A pretty widow lived in an alley there. She painstakingly built me a nest without a future. I had never held out hope for Yangzhou, so I had no hope for her either. Our relationship was only temporary. My disappearance, like her late husband's, added another old scar to her boudoir.

I had left both women behind and I was now on my way to the northern frontier.

The road was long and winding. Every day we set out at dawn and walked till night, passing through countless towns and villages. Some of us had already died on the road, and still more were yet to die. Men's lives were fragile. Along the way I constantly fought my fear of death and prayed to the gods for their mercy.

The dry northern air made my lips crack and peel, and I had difficulty urinating. At the side of a dry well, my tears overflowed.

When we finally arrived at our destination in the boundless mountains, we could only sigh. Cutting down the trees and clearing away the weeds, we found the foundation of the wall from a former dynasty. The wall had collapsed into ruins long ago, and now wild animals crossed over it unimpeded.

2

Among the rocks, the wall builders sat barebacked as they hewed the stones. [End Page 33] The monotonous sound of striking the stones made even the sunlight terrifying. People fainted and died every day.

I had not died, yet.

Sometimes, I sang southern folk songs to ease the loneliness of group living and listened to the chorus of men responding in tears. On an autumn night when torrential rains caused flash floods, I dimly saw the green of a reed flute in the endless darkness. The performer, a skinny man from Shaoxing, created a dewy, fantastic nostalgia with his music. But a shadowy figure approached him from behind, and his music stopped abruptly. The reed flute cracked, and before long he was dead.

3

The winter clothes finally arrived.

I wasn't sure who had sent me winter clothes. Was it she? Or she? Perhaps neither. Or perhaps they both had, but their parcels had gotten lost long ago on the way, and the articles I was holding now were sent by another woman to another me, and the other me was dead. Because many of us had died, we had extra winter clothes, so no one could be sure that what he had received was really from his relatives.

Inside the parcel was a letter. But the letter had no words. It was full of varied circles: some bigger, some smaller; some regular, some irregular; some complete circles, some not. Neither she nor she was literate, but that couldn't prove that it was from either of them, just as I couldn't be sure that the winter clothes—even though they fit me—were meant for me.

Tears poured down my cheeks, and my sleeves could not wipe away my grief.

4

This section of the wall was completed, connecting the eastern and western parts, and towering above us like a dragon stretching to infinity. We were told we'd be able to go home after the imperial inspector approved our work...

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