David Wingrove - Chung Kuo 03 by The White Mountain

Author:The White Mountain
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

Willow Plum Sickness

ON THE OPEN windswept hillside the small group gathered about the grave. Across the valley, cloud shadow drew a moving line that descended, crossing the water, then came swiftly up the slope toward them.

Ben watched the shadow sweep toward him, then felt the sudden chill as the sun passed behind the cloud.

So it is, he thought. As swift as that it comes.

The wooden casket lay on thick silken cords beside the open grave. Ben stood facing the casket across the darkness of the hole, his feet only inches from the drop.

Earth. Dark earth. It had rained and tiny beads of moisture clung to the stems of grass overhanging the grave. In the sunlight they seemed strange, incongruous.

It was still unreal. Or not yet real. He felt no grief as yet, no strong feeling for what he had lost, only a vacancy, a sense of his own inattentiveness. As if he had missed something …

They were all in black, even Li Yuan. Blackness for death. The old Western way of things. His mother stood beside the casket, her face veiled, grieving heavily. Beside him stood his sister, and next to her Li Yuan’s Chancellor, Nan Ho.

A cold wind gusted from the south across the hilltop, blowing his hair into his eyes. A sea breeze, heavy with brine. He combed strands back into place with his fingers, then left his hand there, the fingers buried in his fine, thick hair, his palm pressed firmly against his forehead. Like an amnesiac. A sleeper.

He felt like an actor, the outer shell dissociated from the inner core of himself: the “boy in black” at the graveside. An impostor. Neither loving nor dutiful. Cuckoo in the nest. Too distanced from things to be his father’s son, his brother’s brother.

Had he ever even said he loved him?

Two of Li Yuan’s men came and lifted the casket on its cords.

Ben moved back as they lowered the casket into the earth. A cassette of death, slotting into the hillside.

And no rewind … no playback. Hal Shepherd existed only in the memories of others now. And when they in their turn died? Was it all simply a long process of forgetting? Of blinded eyes and decaying images? Maybe… but it didn’t have to be.

The earth fell. He closed his eyes and could see it falling, covering the pale wood of the casket. Could hear the sound of the earth tumbling against the wood. A hollow, empty sound.

He opened his eyes. The hole was a shallow depression of uneven darkness. The T’ang’s men had ceased shoveling.

He felt the urge to bend down and touch the cold, dark earth. To crush it between his fingers and feel its gritty texture, its cool, inanimate substance. Instead he watched as Li Yuan stepped forward and pressed the young tree into the pile of earth, firming it down, then moving back to let the servants finish their task.

No words. No graven stones. This was his father’s wish. Only a tree. A young oak.

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