trees are? Even after being under water, they’re as good as ever,’ she said to the frog. ‘Those nine trees have fed vast numbers of precious silkworms, but now they belong to someone else.’ She waded through the water up to the largest tree and stood there, pointing to the gourd vines wrapped around the trunk. ‘See that,’ she said to the frog. ‘That is Qiliang and me: one is a mulberry tree, the other a gourd. You are the lucky one, your spirit can go wherever it wants on those frog’s legs. Qiliang and I need a place where we can put down roots together. I’m not sure if mulberry trees grow up north, or gourds, and I wonder if there’s a place where we can settle down.’
As she stood beneath the tree, Binu took one last look at the limbs and branches of all nine trees; seeing them was like seeing Qiliang. The image of him washing his face early in the morning materialized out of thin air as the sun was setting; though it was autumn, she could see him as if in winter. Though she had not been able to hire a horse, she saw him riding down the slope of North Mountain on a great Blue Cloud horse, wearing the new winter coat she’d taken him. How handsome and valiant he looked! Could there be another Peach Village man dressed as smartly? A blue cotton coat crafted by the seamstress from East Village, brocaded hemp shoes from Hailing Prefecture, and a phoenix-patterned sash that cost half a bushel of rice. The sash had a jade-inlaid hook on which he could hang anything he wanted.
Binu picked a gourd from the ground around the mulberry tree. Tears flowed from her palms when she did so. The tree and the gourd cried too, wetting her hand. The gourd had been taken from the heart of the mulberry tree, just as Binu had been torn from the heart of Qiliang. The vine was unhappy, the tree was unhappy and the woman was unhappy. But she knew that, whatever her feelings, the gourd had to be picked, for she needed to settle the matter of her reincarnation before she left. The sorceresses of Kindling Village had revealed another strange fate, and the memory of that dark prediction made her tremble with fear. ‘You were once a gourd,’ they cautioned menacingly, ‘so you should not casually leave the safety of your home. People are buried in the ground all over the world, but for you, Binu, no grave awaits. If you die in a foreign land, your ghost will turn back into a gourd, discarded at the side of a road, just waiting for a passerby to pick you up, cut you in half and give one half to this family, the other to that family, both of whom will throw you into a vat and use you as a ladle!’
Mud covered the ground in Peach Village, partially obscuring its boundaries. As the flood slowly receded, the unique circular huts of Blue Cloud Prefecture rose out of the water, each looking like half a human head embracing the joy of having survived a disaster. They appeared to be searching tirelessly for their owners, but the inhabitants, afraid of the water, were not ready to leave the temporary residences on the mountain slope to which they had fled. With their many silkworm racks, pottery, farming implements, and a small number of pigs and goats, they darkened the congested incline; exactly what they were waiting for was unclear – even to them – perhaps a total retreat of the water or perhaps just the passage of time. Time was now submerged in the water and would remain so until the water retreated. Only then would time be diverted to the leaves of mulberry trees and the white bodies of silkworms, and the innate rhythms of life would return to Peach Village.
The people on the slope watched as Binu returned with a gourd in her arms and a frog hopping along behind her. They laughed at the sight. ‘Binu, Binu, why are you carrying that gourd? Where is the horse you hired? And why are you bringing a frog home with you?’
Binu was used to being mocked by her fellow villagers, but the frog found the malicious attitude intolerable and bounded into a pond to escape. Binu continued to walk home again, alone now. As she passed unperturbed below the slope, lifting up her wet skirts with one hand and clutching the gourd with the other, she felt as if she were passing a grove of stupid mulberry trees. She could sense the biting, venomous glares of the young Peach Village women, who, now that autumn had passed, were no longer friendly and caring. Their men had all gone up north, leaving behind a lonely, empty village, and these women were faced with a cruel and unforgiving world. Binu had become used to living in isolation, and to the way the Peach Village women looked at her with cold, questioning eyes. The husbands of both Jinyi, a mushroom reborn as a woman, and Qiniang, who had come from pot ashes, had been taken the same day as Qiliang, yet these women were unwilling to travel north with her. Possibly, the prediction of the Kindling Village sorceresses had instilled in them a fear of dying on the road while searching for their husbands, and they were afraid of coming back as a mushroom or a pinch of pot ashes. Binu was unafraid. She had picked the last gourd from the mulberry tree and brought it home, intending to find a good spot to bury it and bury herself. Her lack of fear seemed to cast doubt upon Jinyi’s and Qiniang’s chastity and love for their husbands, inciting their wrath. So when Binu passed by Qiniang’s shack, Qiniang came running after her to spit at her; and when Binu passed by Jinyi and smiled, she was rewarded with a spiteful glare and a contemptuous taunt, ‘Who do you think you’re smiling at, madwoman?’
Binu ignored the hatred directed at her by others, because it was nothing compared with the love she felt for Qiliang. Back home she prepared the gourd for washing. First she removed the lid of the water vat; the ladle was missing. ‘Who took my ladle?’ she shouted.
‘The pig herder, Sude, took it,’ someone outside replied. ‘He said that, since you are going to Great Swallow Mountain, he would take your ladle for his own use. He would have an extra ladle for the house down below when he returns in a day or two.’
‘In that case, if he’s so smart,’ said Binu, ‘why didn’t he take my water vat too?’
The person replied, ‘Didn’t you bring a gourd home with you? After you cut it in half and scoop out the insides, you’ll have two more ladles!’
Binu refrained from revealing what she had in mind for this last gourd. Why should she, since they would only laugh at her, saying: Do you think that burying a gourd will save you? You’ll still die on the road and be unburied! She bent over to check the pumpkins behind the water vat, and discovered that only two of the five remained. ‘Who stole my pumpkins?’ she shouted.
‘There’s no need to say it like that,’ the person outside replied. ‘Stolen indeed! You are going to leave, after all. You can’t eat all those pumpkins, and you can’t take them with you, so why not give them away?’
After calming down, Binu moved the two remaining pumpkins outside. ‘I might as well put them out here myself,’ she said, ‘then you people don’t need to continue being tempted by what belongs to me. Qiliang grew these pumpkins, the plumpest and sweetest in all of Blue Cloud Prefecture. Whoever wants to eat them, go ahead, but remember that they were grown by my Qiliang!’
After giving away her pumpkins, Binu had knelt on the floor and begun cleaning the gourd when a distant nephew, Xiaozhuo, whose head was covered with scabies, burst in through the door and shouted, ‘What do you think you’re doing, madwoman?’
‘I’m cleaning a gourd,’ she said.
‘I see that,’ said Xiaozhuo, ‘but you’re supposed to cut it in two and throw the two halves into the water vat to be used as ladles. So why clean it?’
‘People have cut up all the other gourds, but this one is mine, and it will not be turned into ladles.’
‘What right do you have to let other gourds be cut in two, but not this one?’ Xiaozhuo shouted derisively. ‘Is it the king of all the gourds?’
Binu said, ‘Xiaozhuo, have you forgotten that I was a gourd in a previous life? Haven’t you heard that I am going to the north and will die on the road? Well, when I die, I do not want to be cut in two to float in
