Of course, he was simply a Messenger, and he didn’t know anything about the letter he was delivering. However, the look in his eyes, his smile and his whole manner seemed to reveal something, even though he didn’t realise it himself.
-Franz Kafka
The poet stood on the long and narrow road and said: There, a needle is sewing together time with holy water.
The sky belonged to the migrating birds. They had been circling in front of the Messenger’s gloomy eyes for many centuries. Their soaring movements made the Messenger’s eyeballs ache. So, in the Messenger’s imagination these winter roads had long been mysterious and holy. The possibilities of endless centuries opened before the Messenger as he passed along them.
The wind, frustrated and angry, swept across the sky of migrating birds with a sigh. The Messenger’s journeys were peaceful, and their memories were sleeping. Amongst the leisurely life of a Messenger, my lust was awakened in vain. The Messenger communicated with a conventional world. The pleasures of life were something for the future.
The Messenger woke up together with the one called God on the same ordinary morning. As God did his fifth exercise, headstand, the Messenger’s naked feet waded through the virgin spring towards the sea of dust.
We know there was one who saw this upside down scene. He could also see the letters floating like a feather from the Messenger’s arms. No one would collect them all, because the street cleaner was still dreaming, and God’s workout had already reached the sixth exercise, the pantomime pose.
The Messenger descended to a bountiful land. He had to pass through the outskirts of time before he could enter that city of penance and humiliation.
God was a little hard of hearing. As a primary school student he was mischievous, and had been beaten until half-crippled by the old maid who taught Chinese. The place the Messenger was heading for was called the Whispering City. For God, it did not even exist.
The people of the Whispering City lived among sweet snippets of time. On the avenue of time crowds of people, men and women, young and old, were staggering along like ants. Their fervent lips were parted in gestures of intense expectation. Their puzzled expressions seemed to be a kind of exhortation, a hint that they were in the midst of a self-indulgent fantasy. Their unchanging history swept across their flaming and reed like brows. It peered into their inner beings at will, constantly harassing their souls. In dejected silence, their mournful eyes gazed at the Messenger’s sleepwalking hallucinations.
The letter was a sentimental and rustic exile.
I began to feel that the Messenger was from some fictional city in a book. He drew nearer to the gradually receding figures and the rainy scene, nearer to the bitter winter wind lashing the windows of warm houses, closer to the lazy dust falling slowly in the light. The people of the Whispering City waved their strong arms gently in the evening twilight. The Messenger understood at once that this was a joining of the seasons, a quick sketch of feelings, a mass writing of erotic sentences.
The letter quoted from the old scriptures for its own ends.
The Messenger listened over and over to the indistinct voices all around him. Terrified, his heart fell into a fast, palpitating rhythm. I held on to my feelings towards home, the naïve sentiments that had been lost to me, and my irrational belief in the beauty of the street scene before me.
The letter was a stranger playing his part in some unknown journey.
Everywhere on the night streets there were sad partings from pleasant dreams. Many stories would be forgotten, never to be heard again. The letter would float away. Like a traditional song it could be adapted to suit different occasions and people would do what they wanted with it.
The letter was a remote and otherworldly revelation.
It would inevitably become a pile of scrap paper after people tired of reading it. The setting sun was already out of sight. The distinct sound of water could be heard in the darkness. If I did not find a place to stay for the night, I would no longer be a conscientious Messenger.
The Messenger considered the contents of the letter: perhaps they were expressed in a melody (in music), in the warm lip marks on a just played instrument (in any kind of process), in the movement of the air after someone sighs (in sentimental reflections), in listening expectantly to discover something (in hesitating over what is rational), in the absence of human activity (in becoming one with nature), in the deep love underlying the whole of nature (in the journey towards transcendence), in ostentatious contemplation before a bloody bas-relief (in a deep scepticism of the human mind), in confused wandering and a pleasant stroll (in the examination of daily life), in desire for a new dawn (in hoping for good fortune), in the banishment of darkness (in perfection), in the violent twisting of abstract lines (in endless seeking), in air, water and seasons (in the whole of life), in rotting, infested earth and the fragrance of new life (in temptation and the resistance of temptation), in writing, in sending, in delivering, in receiving, and in reading (in the Messenger’s letter).
The letter was a state of affairs.
Its readers were everywhere.
The letter was a kind of tentative self-seeking, a mischievous but worthy pride. It was a cautious alteration of the individual and an unintentional disclosure.
“The Messenger’s Letter” was a popular song long ago, the anthem of an irresistible sleep. The ill-tempered writer of the song was also a Messenger. One day, in an adolescent reverie of mine, he took me to a dirty corner of a quiet street. In the dream he pulled out a crumpled envelope, and held it in front of my eyes. He casually said to me:
“Kid, take it, it’s a present from me to you.” This was the renowned song. As he gave it to me, I started singing it in my dream. Afterwards I found out that, that night, he drank more than usual. A while later this poetic, wine-loving Messenger breathed his last when he went to take in the fresh air of the summer night.
The wind scattered the clouds, and morning came. Before setting off I was still trying to shake off the after effects of a deep sleep. The murmurs of the night had disappointed with the first light of dawn. The doors along the street were about to open. Only a Messenger would go calling on people at the break of day. The sad truth was out, but nobody knew about the hard night I’d spent.
The letter was merely a gasp for breath.
Day and night the star gazer lost himself in a terrifying emotional lake. The Messenger’s quick steps were like two waves of fate. The Messenger followed rushing time, my keen blood pulsing continually through my exhausted body.
The letter was a hand on a disconcerting clock.
In the little known history of the Whispering City, there was a certain period that the people tried their best not to think about. Every day, the dawn light stole down on the streets. The morning brilliance rescued the cold streets from an indescribable tragedy with its brilliant spelndor.
The letter was a curtain falling over the Whispering City.
The avenue was overshadowed by another one. The days there passed quietly in a colorless hush. The one shaking his legs in the cold wind on the street corner was not some adolescent young hooligan. He was there to salute me. He told me that he was once a navigator.
“The Messenger was born with a nightwalker’s face. Look at me. I’m the last relic of the great age of snow.”
I could not make out what he was muttering. “I stand at the side of the street, like a sailor standing on deck.”
The letter was a rising of the anchor at the start of an uncertain, lonely voyage.
At that time, people were crazy about voyages. They needed salt covered cuts to add fire and purpose to their trivial dreams.
The letter was a cathartic release of emotional suffering.
“In my whole life, you are the first person to come and salute me,” the Messenger said.
“Moreover, I am the last person to salute you, because I am the only one at my post in the Whispering City,” replied the greeter.
The letter was like the long calm between two riotous festivals, a pause for breath between shouts, sanity faking dizziness.
Nobody knew where the greeter came from. In the Whispering City the greeter had to be a person of wide ranging knowledge, but at the same time a quiet and retiring sage. The romantic experiences of the navigator’s seafaring career gave him an encyclopaedic knowledge of the world, and an equally immense love of solitude. He was well-qualified for the mission. He described for me the memories he had of his first night: my gut reaction was that he was lying to me.
The letter was a dull, forever repeating pattern.
“From a certain way of looking at things, we are the same, the Messenger walking over the land, the navigator crossing the sea. I’d even say a Messenger is also a guard.”
“So, we can salute each other.”
“ No, we can pull tongues at each other!” laughed the greeter. The letter was a magic wand waved by hypocrites.
“The Whispering City has plenty of fantastic places to visit at night.” He could see I wasn’t interested, and quickly blurted out: “The baths, the smoking rooms, the taverns, the money houses, the ...”
“Crowded, chaotic places you mean.”
“No, no, hardly anyone goes to these kinds of places anymore.”
The Messenger thought to himself: the letter is like a summer vine. He thought again: No, maybe it is more a musical interlude in some wonderful circus show.
“Bustling, crowded places just make people feel more lonely.” How could the citizens of The Whispering City, dignified and graceful as they were, submit themselves to such nauseating pushing and shoving?
The letter was like the faint whispers of a recluse.
“Even so, I would like to take a stroll around these places.” I came to the Whispering City to deliver a letter.
“The letter can’t be for me, I haven’t received any letters for years. When I was at sea I used to write letters to myself. After every voyage I would read these letters from the sea. Since I stopped going to sea, I haven’t had the pleasure of reading like that.”
“It makes me sad to see you desolate, but this letter was clearly not sent from the sea, it has clearly not sent from the sea, it has merely been sent by way of the sea from another land. I don’t think it’s yours.”
“Yes, this letter is definitely meant for someone other than me.”
Most people in the Whispering City were not like the greeter. They were born with hard, proud faces. Old or young, man or woman, they all walked along the dirty streets in a fearless and haughty manner.
When the Messenger hurried to the notice board first thing in the morning, he arrived just in time to witness a mass brawl. The ring leader whispered something to the people around him, leaving them baying for a fight. But after he finished speaking, he disappeared. Some of the crowd threw themselves whole heartedly into the fight; others surrounded the scene to see what would happen. Enthusiasm was written all over their faces, but due to their natural reserve, they stood feigning indifference and watched.
The letter was a gesture of hatred, a malevolent chant unleashing violence and loneliness.
And that’s what I found. I heard from those around that public brawls had become a popular distraction in the Whispering City.
The letter was like the dream of a gully to become a bottomless abyss.
Let the beautiful weather shine down, and save the letter from becoming empty nonsense.
Just like every great race throughout history, the citizens of the Whispering City had a holy place that was the focus of their pride. Near the cattle pens of a farm on the outskirts of the City were the ruins of an ancient courtyard. On an afternoon that will one day be forgotten, the Messenger arrived there.
The monk’s market. I first heard this strange name from the wrinkled guard.
The valley was green and the earth fragrant, everything bathed in brilliant sunlight. In the intense brightness the threatening, solid shapes of the mountains were visible, but the whole earth was filled with fresh exuberance. If someone was looking from a distance, I would have looked like a simple pilgrim, stumbling along the rough track on the outskirts of the town.
There was indeed someone who saw the Messenger. His happy face appeared at his window. As the Messenger drew closer, the monk’s market revealed its own mournful routine. I was ready to believe that the journey was about to end right there. I was under orders to bring the message to its final destination. When the receiver appeared next to the corral, the whole matter would reach a conclusion.
The letter was a secret meeting between desperate lovers.
This one that the Messenger imagined to be the receiver was a cultured monk. He was popular in the monk’s market at the time. There was no way of tracing his ancestry, but he was full of extravagant stories. To his listeners it seemed that he would need the rest of his life to finish his memoir: My Life in the Royal Palace.
In the long and kaleidoscopic past of the Whispering City and its people, the goings on at the palace had always been the main talking point for all classes. There were hundreds of ragged, starving performers. For their whole lives they never got bored of talking about palace secrets in their pure, naïve way. They would sit under one another’s eaves talking no matter what the weather. They revelled in any opportunity to talk about the romance of past, recalling the affairs played out in such and such a dynasty or this or that palace garden. The Messenger saw that, apart from their idle speculation about the great happenings in the palace, their lives were empty and unremarkable.
The letter was the beautiful martyrdom of a coward.
Compared with those dispossessed and restless spirits, the author of My Life in the Royal Palace clearly came from a more “noble” background. His pride in his noble blood and the wide learning he had picked up with absent-minded ease led him to take liberties with reality. In his fanciful imagination, he lived in some imaginary ancient palace. The Messenger was skeptical.
By the end of the year, the Messenger still wouldn’t know the name of the cultured monk, whose tears began flowing before he had even written anything. In the midst of his poetic weeping he began to describe the sad history of the palace.
The letter was a terrifying leap over the abyss.
I came to the window of the weary looking writer. I thought he would say a few words to me before he continued working on one of his tedious paragraphs. The Messenger had not come to console him.
The letter was a streak of rouge passing itself off as the rose-pink light of dawn.
The window was left open in a welcoming manner, and the sound of pages turning could be heard inside. The sound made the Messenger feel warm and drew him in.
“It’s incredible that you are actually here disturbing me.” He spoke to me like a preacher. In a very relaxed manner he leaned against the window frame, and stretched out his neck towards me.
“I’m writing about friendship, love and death. I’m writing in an ambiguous style, trying to make each sentence as preposterous as I can. Do you think it’s impossible?”
I watched him take his thumb out of his mouth, and then put in his forefinger and middle finger one after the other.
“Will it take a long time to write the book?”
“Yes, because I still have to write about the funerals of the dead, and the recollections of the living. Tell me, in this world are there any more torturous ways to waste time than funerals or sentimental reminiscences? I think not... apart from me repeating it all on the page that is.”
“People say that you lived in the palace for many years.”
“It’s difficult to say. I’ll only be able to answer that question when I finish writing the book. People should not come to such hasty conclusions. We should at least look at what is written on the page.”
“So where do you get the ideas for your book?”
He smiled serenely: “From writing!”
The letter was an announcement of God’s vacation.
“May I look at a few paragraphs of your book?”
“Which part do you want to read? Women with silk shawls? Wine and poker games?
Or maybe an autumn outing that ends in disappointment.”
“Anything is fine. It’s up to you.”
“If it’s up to me, it’s better if you don’t read anything. You should really start reading from the crucial story of the mountain, but I haven’t written that chapter yet.”
The letter was a gentle, illusory silence.
“Aren’t you going to ask where I’m from?” the Messenger put his arms on the window frame. “I just might be from the palace you are writing about in your book. It’s not totally impossible.”
It seemed to the Messenger that this gifted writer was afraid of something regarding his book.
“It’s my palace!” the monk shouted out righteously.
That was how the monk writer died. He probably died from an angry rage. I don’t know if there are any other instances of this kind of death in the history of the Whispering City. As the Messenger is ready to talk about another monk now, the best thing to do is let him die.
May his book rest in peace.
San Ganlu was born in Shanghai. He is currently a member and director of the Shanghai writers' association, deputy director of the Shanghai Culture and Arts committee, and chief strategist at the Shanghai Weekly.
His works include the novel Breathing, Asking Women to Solve Riddles, and Remembering the Lady of Qin. He also has a collection of short stories and novellas, A Visit to Dreamland, collection of essays Dancing on the Ceiling and Slower than Slow, Shanghai over the years. His work has been translated into French, Russian, Japanese, English, Italian, and many other languages.
He is a winner of the Shanghai literature award.
Daniel Clutton is a translator and editor for the Contemporary Writers from Shanghai Series, published by Better Link Press, Shanghai Press & Publishing Development Co.
He Jing teaches at the School of English and International Studies, Beijing Foreign Studies University.