The Deserted Temple

> The journal of Ning Caichen, examination candidate of Zhejiang, traveling north to take the civil examination. The journal was found among his effects after the affair at Lanruo Temple; the temple keeper swears he never saw the traveler write by day. The paper has aged unevenly, as if the pages were turned many times before the ink dried.

> — Note of the Keeper, Lanruo Temple

**Ninth day, the tenth month. Wind.**

The last town was twenty li behind me when the sky turned the color of a bruise, and the rain that had been promising all day finally kept its word.

I had heard of Lanrui—of Lanruo—Temple before. The peddler on the road said: "Stay at the temple, it has no monks left, the gate is open for travelers. Only—" and here he spat, as if the word had a bad taste—"only, don't stay in the east wing. The east wing has no door."

I thought it over. I had walked thirty li that day; my shoes were soaked through; the rain was coming down like an announcement of judgment. If the east wing had no door, there would be other rooms.

The temple appeared out of the rain like a thing that had been standing in it for a very long time. Two stone lions squatted at the gate, one whole, one headless, both worn smooth as water. The gate was open. Beyond it, the courtyard was a lake of white water, and through the curtain of rain I saw the main hall—roof intact, walls intact, but the door frames hanging empty, so the hall looked like a skull missing its eyes.

I did not know then that this was the last moment in which I could still have turned back.

Inside the temple, the rain was louder, as if the building were collecting it on purpose. The main hall had no monks, no Buddhas—the statue plinths were bare, and one plinth had a single red prayer candle standing on it, unlit, dry, as if someone had lit it yesterday and left it to wait for tomorrow.

I walked the two wings. The west wing had three rooms, doors intact, roofs sound. I chose the middle room.

It was dry. It was almost warm. For the first time that day I felt my shoulders come down.

I was spreading my bedding on the dust-covered platform when a voice came from the doorway, light and dry, like a leaf dragged across the floor:

"Traveler."

I turned. An old man stood in the doorway in a brown robe, holding a long pipe, looking at me the way a man looks at an old acquaintance he had hoped not to meet.

"An old servant of the temple," he said. "The temple has been empty a long time, but I keep the candles." He walked in without waiting to be asked and crouched by the platform, studying the dust between his fingers. He looked up.

"There are mice in the east wing," he said.

"Then I'm well placed," I said.

He did not laugh. He put his pipe to his lips, drew, and the smoke came out in a single long line, like a thread someone was pulling.

"Traveler," he said, "you have chosen well. Only—" and he paused, the way the peddler on the road had paused—"only, do not be startled by anything you hear at night. In this temple, at night, there are sounds."

"What sounds?"

He did not answer. He knocked the ash from his pipe, and the ash fell and did not scatter—it lay in a small grey pile, as if it were heavier than ash should be.

"Sleep well, traveler," he said, and left.

I lay down, tired to the bone, and slept.

I woke once in the night.

The rain had stopped. The temple was silent in a way that seemed deliberate, like a person holding his breath. I lay still, listening, and heard it: from the east wing, through the wall, a woman's voice, very soft, reading aloud.

Not singing. Reading. The words were too soft to make out, but the rhythm was like a prayer, or a list, repeated over and over.

I told myself: the east wing has no door, and a woman is reading there at midnight. There is a traveler's explanation for this, and a temple's explanation, and I did not need either one at that hour. I closed my eyes and did not open them again until the roosters of the village crowed.

In the morning I saw the east wing clearly for the first time. It had a door. It stood ajar, showing a dark room.

The peddler's words came back to me: "the east wing has no door."

I went out to the village and bought food. At the inn, the innkeeper—a fat man with the face of a sleeping cat—served me and did not ask where I stayed. So I told him: "At the temple."

He did not look up. "The Lanruo Temple?"

"Yes."

He wiped the bowl, and was quiet so long I thought he would not answer. Then he said:

"Go to the west wing. Do not go to the east wing."

"Everyone tells me that," I said.

"Everyone tells everyone," he said, and turned to the pot.

I asked him: "Is it true there is a woman in the east wing?"

He stopped. The ladle was raised halfway. Then he set it down, looked at me, and said:

"Traveler, that is not a question to ask in the daytime."

I bought my rice and left. As I was going out the door, he called after me:

"Tonight there will be no rain. And tomorrow, if you are still there, come again—there is something I want to show you."

I thought he meant nothing by it. I went back to the temple, cooked my rice, ate, and, as the light began to fail, I found myself looking at the east wing.

The door was shut now.

I went back to my room and lay down early. I meant to stay awake a while and listen. But I was a man who had walked thirty li, and the darkness in that room was heavy as a blanket, and my eyes closed on their own.

I do not know how long I slept. I know this: I woke with the moon already high, and the temple was silent again, holding its breath.

And then, through the wall, I heard it—a voice, very soft, very clear, in the room next to mine:

"Traveler. Traveler, are you asleep?"

Not the east wing. The room next to mine. The west wing.

I did not answer.

"Traveler," the voice said, "you left your shoes outside the door. I have brought them in for you. Aren't you going to thank me?"

I sat up. My shoes were not outside the door. I had brought them inside; they were under the platform, both of them.

Unless someone had moved them.

"Traveler," the voice said, closer now, as if the speaker had crossed the wall, "the temple is cold at night. Let me in."

I reached for my sword. My hand closed on the scabbard, and I held it, and I said, loudly, into the darkness:

"Who are you?"

Silence. A long silence.

Then, from the east wing—no, from directly outside my door—a small, light sound:

A sigh.

And then a voice, almost gentle:

"I am a girl who has been dead a long time. The innkeeper said you asked about me. Why do you ask about me, and then not let me in?"

I did not sleep again that night. I sat against the wall with my sword across my knees, listening.

At dawn, I found the door of the east wing ajar.

And in the courtyard, in the fresh dust, there were footsteps—small, bare, coming from the east wing, crossing the courtyard, stopping at my door.

They stopped at my door and did not come in.

Then they went back.

The old man—the temple keeper—stood at the gate as I came out, smoking. He watched me for a long moment, then said:

"You are still here."

"Yes."

He nodded slowly, as if this were not a surprise, and said:

"The innkeeper wants to show you something. Go. But be back before dark."

"What is it he wants to show me?"

He looked at me, drew on his pipe, and the smoke came out in that one long thread, and he said:

"Where the dead are buried."

I went back to the village. The innkeeper was waiting for me at the inn door. He did not speak. He only picked up a shovel and walked south.

I followed him.

South of the village, outside the temple wall, he stopped under a white poplar tree. He dug. The earth was soft, as if it had been turned recently. The shovel went in three times, and then the blade scraped against something hollow.

He knelt, pulled aside the earth, and I saw it: a small coffin. Not old, not new. The wood of the lid had been scraped clean of earth, as if someone had opened it recently, and the scrape marks were fresh.

The innkeeper did not open it. He only crouched beside it, looked up at me, and said:

"Beneath this poplar there is a grave. It is not the only one."

He stood up, and brushed the earth from his hands, and looked at the temple wall for a long time.

"When you first arrived," he said, "I asked myself whether you would be here in the morning. I did not expect the morning to come and find you whole."

I said: "The woman in the east wing asked to come in last night."

He went very still.

"Did you open the door?"

"No."

He let out a breath, and it was a long time before he spoke again.

"Good," he said. "You are a cautious man. A cautious man can survive a temple like this."

He turned, and started back to the village. At the edge of the field he stopped, and without turning around, he said:

"There are more graves. By morning, dig nothing up. And when you go back tonight—" he paused, "—do not look at her face."

That night the moon rose red, and I went back to the temple, and I barred my door, and I waited.

The voice did not come from the east wing.

It came from inside my own room.

"Traveler," it said, "I am already in. Won't you look at me?"