The Soundless Road

The road closed up behind me.

I did not see it close. I only turned my head at some point and found there was no road behind me anymore. The yellow-paper road ran from a step behind my horse all the way to the edge of the sky—no village, no locust tree, no one.

I gripped the reins. The white horse did not stop. It walked on the yellow-paper road with steady steps, one, one. I looked down at its hooves: the shoes were bright and new. But when they came down, there was no sound.

I watched a long time before I believed it: the horse's hoof on the ground, silent.

It was not that the road was soft. The yellow paper was hard; I leaned down and pressed it with a finger, and the surface was brittle, like sun-dried pages of an old book. But the hooves came down on it without sound.

I looked up. The sun hung high, a pale white, as if covered with paper. I watched it for a while and saw that it did not move. Not the "moving slowly" kind of not moving—it simply did not move. I did not know how long we had traveled. An hour, perhaps. A day, perhaps. But I was not hungry, not thirsty, not tired. Those feelings had been taken away from me, like something lifted off a shelf.

The trees on either side of the road I knew—the row of poplars beyond the village, where I had gathered cicada shells as a boy. Now those trees cast no shadows. The branches did not stir. There was no wind.

No wind.

But my coat, my sleeves, the hair at my temples—they moved. As if something unseen were passing me, going fast.

"What road is this?" I asked.

The guide walked ahead without turning. His voice came back to me, so light it might not have been spoken at all:

"The road to the examination."

I opened my mouth, and did not ask again. Because I saw a dog lying on the earthen bank by the roadside. It was the Wangs' yellow dog, the one that barked at everyone, that had chased me three times and once made me run out of a shoe. It lay on the bank now, front legs stretched out, chin on the ground, watching me.

It did not bark.

It watched me ride past. Its tail wagged once behind it, once, and stopped.

The horse passed it. I looked back. The dog had turned its head away and was watching the end of the road.

"The Wangs' dog," I said. "It knows me."

The guide did not answer. We went on a little way, and he said:

"It has seen many men off."

I did not understand that. I did not understand it then. I only felt cold—cold coming up from inside, not from the skin.

The road went on laying itself ahead. The yellow paper ran one stretch after another, and the poplars became trees I did not know. The leaves were grey, as if dusted; the trunks were scored with cuts, deep ones, old ones, new cuts laid over old.

Farther on, a village appeared by the roadside.

It was an empty village. The houses stood, the earthen walls stood, the chimneys rose from the roofs, section by section, like the joints of a spine. Smoke rose from one chimney, thin and white, as if someone were cooking. The smoke came in puffs—not scattered by wind, but spreading on its own and thinning to nothing. But there was no one in the village. I looked in: the lanes were empty, the threshing ground empty, the grain stacks still standing at its edge with straw mats on their tops, as if the harvest had just come in. A stone roller sat at the side of the ground, stopped halfway, as if the man pushing it had vanished. A well stood in the middle of the village; a carrying-pole lay across its rim, two empty buckets still hanging from it, the ropes hanging down into the well, still swinging a little.

The horse passed outside the village. I heard the well rope creak, once.

I looked back at the village. The smoke from the chimney was gone. The two buckets hung still.

The hoofbeats were still silent.

And I thought, suddenly: what is my mother doing now. Is she in the kitchen, or sitting on the doorstep. Can she hear my horse.

I wanted to speak. I wanted to ask the guide how long this road was, where the examination hall was, what examination. I cleared my throat and was about to speak—

The horse stopped.

I looked down. On the yellow paper by the roadside lay a writing brush.

It was a new brush. Wolf-hair, bamboo handle, the shaft lacquered vermilion, bright enough to catch the eye. The tip still held ink—wet ink, as if someone had just used it, just set it down and turned away.

I leaned down and picked it up. The shaft was warm, as if held a long time.

I knew this brush.

No. I reminded myself: I did not know this brush. Song village had no such brush; I had been to every shop in the county town and none sold vermilion-lacquered handles. I did not know it.

But when my hand closed on it, it closed exactly at the place worn smoothest on the shaft.

"Whose brush is this?" I asked.

The guide did not turn. "Pick it up. Carry it."

"What if its owner comes looking for it?"

The guide stopped walking. He stood there, not turning, a long time. Then he said:

"There is no owner here."

I held the brush and asked nothing more. I put it inside my sleeve. The shaft lay against my arm, warm.

The horse went on. The trees grew thicker, grey leaves joining into one mass, hiding the pale sun. A wood appeared ahead. At the entrance stood a stone tablet with three characters. I stared a long time: *No One's Wood*.

I shuddered. I could not say why.

The road in the wood was narrow. The white horse walked ahead; the guide led it. There was no birdsong in the wood, no insects, and even my own breathing sounded out of place. I gripped the reins; my palm was sweating. The horse was not walking fast, but it felt fast. Deep in the wood I saw something flicker—white, like the shadow of a horse, gone in an instant. I rubbed my eyes. There was nothing. Wind came through the wood, smelling of earth, cold.

"How much farther?" I asked again.

The guide said: "Almost there."

And when he said it, the wood grew light. Not daylight—a clearing had opened ahead. In the clearing, the road forked.

The left branch was laid with yellow paper, running straight on.

The right branch was a dirt road, grass growing at its edges, the grass green. In the grass bloomed a small yellow flower, the kind I had picked on the field-ridges as a boy.

The guide did not hesitate. He led the horse onto the left branch, the yellow-paper road.

And then I saw the man at the fork.

An old man, in a straw rain-cape, a wide hat on his head, squatting by the right-hand road as if watching his own crops from his own field-ridge. When he saw me, he raised his head. Under the hat was a face without features. No eyes, no nose—only a mouth, an old, cracked, dry mouth.

He raised his hand and waved it at me.

As if to say: don't take this road.

The white horse had already stepped onto the left branch. The hooves were silent.

I turned to look at the old man once more. The fork was empty. The dirt road was still there, the grass still green, the small yellow flower still in it. Only the tablet with *No One's Wood* still stood at the wood's edge, watching me.