damned equal of one of your ancestors’ cock hairs!’ A cold cinder that has risen from the temple roof floats down, like a piece of early spring poplar fluff, to settle lightly on the Wise Monk's shaved head. Then another, its sister, does the same, settling lightly on his head and emanating a subtle, timeless aura that embodies a hidden flirtation. Scars from twelve burning incense sticks adorn his head in a bright pattern, investing it with extraordinary solemnity. Those are signs of honour for true monks, and in the hope that one day I too will possess twelve identical scars, Wise Monk, please let me continue—
My home, a big house with a tiled roof, was so cold and dank that the walls were covered by a layer of frost and my breath left a film, like fine salt, atop the blanket as I slept. They'd finished building the house in time for the first day of winter, and we moved in before the plaster on the walls was dry. After Mother got out of bed, I scrunched down under the covers to escape the cold air knifing into the room. Ever since my father ran off with his slut, Mother was determined to be a strong woman and make a living through her own hard work. Five years passed like a single day and, thanks to that hard work and her native intelligence, she'd put aside enough to build the tallest and sturdiest five-room, tiled house in the village. Any mention of my mother gave voice to the respect in which she was held by all the villagers—they called her a fine example of womanhood. And when they praised her they never forgot to criticize my father. When I was a boy of five, he ran off with a woman known in the village as Wild Mule; where they went no one knew.
‘Predestined relationships exist everywhere,’ the Wise Monk mutters, as if talking in his sleep, an indication that, even though his eyes are shut, he is paying attention to my story. The woman in the green dress and the red flower behind her ear is still sprawled in the breach in the wall. She fascinates me but I cannot tell if she knows that. The powerful feral cat, a pretty green bird in its mouth, glides up to the temple door like a hunter parading a trophy. It stops in the doorway and, cocking its head, tosses a glance at us, its expression like that of a curious schoolboy—
Five years passed and, while we received no reliable news, rumours about Father and Aunty Wild Mule came every now and then, like the beef cattle that arrived at our tiny station on the local freight train, that were then slowly herded into the village by the yellow-eyed beef merchants and then finally sold to the village butchers (our village was in truth a glorified slaughterhouse). Rumours swirled round the village, like grey birds wheeling in the sky. Some had it that Father had taken Aunty Wild Mule into the great forests of the northeast, where they'd built a cabin out of birch logs, complete with a big oven in which they burnt crackling pine kindling. Snow covered the roof, hot chilli peppers were strung on the walls and sparkling icicles hung from the eaves. They hunted game and gathered ginseng by day and cooked venison at night. In my imagination, the faces of Father and Aunty Wild Mule reflected the burning fire, as if coated with a red glaze. Others claimed that Father and Wild Mule, wrapped in bulky Mongolian robes, roamed the remote stretches of Inner Mongolia. During the day, they rode their horses, sang shepherds’ songs and tended herds of cattle and sheep on the vast grassland; at night, they slipped into their yurt and made a fire with cow chips over which they hung a steel pot. The fatty stewing lamb entered their nostrils on the wings of its fragrance, and they washed the meat down with thick milky tea. In my imagination, Aunty Wild Mule's eyes sparkled, like black onyx, in the light of the cow-chip fire. Yet another rumour alleged that they'd secretly crossed the border into North Korea and opened a little restaurant in a little border town. During the day they made meat-filled dumplings and rolled noodles to feed the Koreans; at night, after the restaurant closed, they cooked a pot of dog meat and opened a bowl of strong white liquor.