Susczhelle

 

By Doug Pinkston

 

There lived once, a long time ago, a Tibetan mountain girl named Susczhelle who had a very bad disposition. It was said that her disposi tion was so awful she could enter the most gay occasion, the wedding of a Princess say, and what was at once joyous and tumultous became forlorn and overall full of dismay. She brooded such that her forehead came to accept deep lines across it like furrows in a field and these worry lines in turn would cause her more despair when she happened toglance at her reflection in a looking glass or when walking beside a still pond, such was her state of general depression.     No one from the mountainside, or from the village below had an explanation for Susczhelle's unceasing melancholy, and if they did have a conjecture they kept it to themselves for the most part and did their best to ignore the poor child, simply adding further cause for her sadness. Susczhelle lived high on the mountainside with her mother, five younger sisters and the youngest of her family, her brother. Her father had been the son of a Tibetan warrior, Prince of the Aszata Temple and a noble man; thus, he was also a man of spirited and high-born blood who was by instinct a servant to the Tibetan God. He had come to the mountain to raise his family and to farm goats and grow, when the weather would allow it, wheat, in a field above the house. Susczhelle knew her father as a very wise and strong man, so wise he could talk to animals and take handfulls of soil from the mountainside and tell for certain whether rain would come soon, or not so. He'd stand behind his ox forcing the plow into the hard ground like he were made of marble and the ground mere sand, then, when his field had been furrowed, he'd hitch the yak, put away his plow and walk to the house looking across the mountains as if he owned a part of them, and them a part of he. Susczhelle, tending a goat by the steps, would peek at him and see the bronze valley in his shoulders and snow-capped peaks in his hair. Often her father would take Suszchelle and the older daughters on a trip on the back of their yak, up into the mountains, or down, to the villages. Sometimes they'd visit streams and waterfalls and deep canyons where their shouts seemed to echo forever. Although

Susczhelle's father hardly talked at all, when he did speak, pointingout the sight of a battle, or a mountain peak called after a brave soldier,  he spoke like a King, and it seemed to Susczhelle he knew everything a person would ever want or need to know. As for Susczhelle's mother, she was a very big woman, who also was very wise and strong and quiet. She had ancestors who had once been palace guardians and people of vast wealth. She would spend most of her time looking to the children, her big hands holding them upright when they talked to her, her eyes like two granite marbles that couldsee through any tale and sight out foolish devilry before it'd even begun. She'd sit to the front of their house seaming clothes or watching a pot, or beating out the wheat, and she'd look off at her husband and then the mountainside and the villages now concealed by a low, low cloud and think something to herself that made tears fall out, but she'd say not a word, even when Susczhelle questioned her as to her wonderings. There was no question that Susczhelle's broodings were due in large measure to her father's death. He'd fallen into a cavern that went, some said, for miles, deep into the mountain where no one, not even a spirit, could follow. He'd been looking to a wandered goat when the entire cliff up and came loose from the mountain and down they all went, her father, the goat, and the boulders of the ledge. A hunter had seen it all, even to the proud man's look as he gazed up to the sky for the last time. There followed in great amounts an outpouring of grief and sorrow from their friends on the mountain and in the village. Dying as he had, into a bottomless canyon , they had no way to recover his body and bury him as the rituals of their Tibetan God required. Without such a burial they knew his soul would never be put to rest, but would wander the mountains forever, full of woe and restlessness. The death threw his widow into a cavern of dark thought, like the weight of a snow avalanche. When at last she had stopped her weeping, the seasons had changed, making things even more difficult, for their son was soon to be born. To Susczhelle, her father's death had been like the taking away of the ground beneath her feet, so much did it seize her. She came to see her father in the field working, and, in time, standing over her, looking into the distance, his chin mighty and full of truth, but a voice would call her, or a bird would sing, and she'd be distracted away from her vision and fall to coldness and quiet.

Her bad mood became then a feature of her daily life, so that while the others in her family, her mother as well, worked hard and came to enjoy what they could of their lives----particularly once the son arrived, she rena fined skeptical of everything she saw and heard, seeing everyore as if they were a ghost, of a devil sent to bade her bad will. During the afternoon she'd walk down the mountainside, her scarf over her head, looking only to the path before her, eyes like wells, as if her mind were deep in thought. When she looked at a deer by the side or gazed at fish down by the bridge she'd throw upon them a countenance that made even the animals turn away and be wary. Her mood was naturally unsettling to the people in town with whom she traded. They'd often look away when she started their way with her vegetables and milk, or sometimes they'd yell to her with shouts of derision. "It's Susczhelle, the puppet!", they'd shout, or worse things intended to shake her from her solemn pace. People would laugh aloud and offer her scarves to cover her face from view. There were individuals, indeed, who would offer her at least a smile and a gesture of sympathy but secretly, as they scuttled among themselves they considered her mood quite a nuisance. They could not help but notice that her eyes, when she'd look up at certain moments, seemed to be filled with such an intensity of rage and gloom that their color would turn as bright as pears, enough to make one step back and shudder. It made her naturally reticent.

In the first year following her father's death the gloom reached it's darkest state. It was particularly difficult for her during the winter days. Once the crops were in and stored away she had not even the fields and the reprieve of her work to help her along. Weeding the fields or tending to the garden unceasingly during the long summer days had left her somewhat at ease with her outlook, if not temporarily removed altogether. With the winter coming she would awake with the sun as it came streaming over the mountains later and later and, bundling up, she'd tread to the goat shed and gather the milk. She would sit there beside them with her pail, her tears falling into the warm yellow-white liquid, steaming in the cold air. The goats would gather around her to feel her warmth and f for some reason this also made her sad.

Her mother most days would make soup for them, using onion and barley and sprouts and spices which she said came from the east; or sometimes she'd bake sweetbread and pies, but Susczhelle ate less than her part and gave the rest to the son, or to her sisters, so deep was her remorse. Her sisters would play games sometimes all day and dance and sing, prodding her to join them, but of course such behavoir was out of the question. Susczhelle would shake her head and put her hand to her mouth, then look to her mother with dissapointment.

"Why is it?", she asked once, standing at the window, watching the snow come down like dove's feather, piling up on the mountainside (her mother had stepped over to her side), "each snowflake looks different and yet alike?" Her mother would shake her head and look to the ledge where Susczhelle pointed. "See! Each one so exact the finest sculptor could not have fashioned it in a year. Nevertheless, they fit together. Like the flowers of winter. They're flowers I say." She turned toher mother for an opinion, but she had none, her face alight at her daughter's strange words, but troubled, at a loss to see a thing beyond the whiteness and the cold, and hear above them the slow creaking of the roof as the snow grew heavier and heavier.

During the long, cold winter, when the mountians would be entirely covered in snow and the only things a person might see from their house were the icy trees,, an occasional ram, and the deep blue sky, Susczhelle took more and more to wondering. She'd stand by the window and stare, it seemed, for an entire day, and say almost nothing, then loudly turn and blurt out a revelation that would make her sisters stop their play and quiet down, so outlandish and stark were her comments. Though the oldest of her sisters, Matura and Li-Tsong, often liked to join her at her window and look out over the soft, gleaming stretches, dreaming of princes and marriage, and gowns hemmed with gold, they simply had no replies to Susczhelle's strange methods of conversation. Matura knew that her sister was suffering from some sort of sickness. She had heard of such things many times: people who lost all bearing of natural sense and went around parading like a rooster, or sat stock-still for days, shaking, afraid of their own shadow. In older times people stricken with such illness were locked away or cruelly whipped until they came once again to their senses or were overcome, at last, by their affliction. Of the younger sisters, most of them were too busy with their mischief and chatter to take much notice of Susczhelle's unhedging melancholy, but they did, nonetheless, avoid her disconsolate starewhen she'd look at them in her darker states of anguish. The son, Chikio-nell, was growing larger by the day, and much of the girls' time was taken up in tending to his every whimper and teasing him constantly until Susczhelle's mother would put it to an end. Even Susczhelle could not help being drawn to the new member of the family. She'd sit at night, when she was the only one left awake, and cradle Chikionell by the fire, humming soft tunes, looking at his face and wondering. Each time she looked at Chikionell she saw her father, despite the fact his features were nearly all his mothers, and for all her comfort in holding him and singing, such thoughts again lent their way to sorrow.

Susczhelle began to feel also during this strange time that somehow the progression of the seasons had slowed down to a crawl, perhaps even locked into an eternal winter. She could feel, at times, the cold air seep right into her bones, and she sensed it would be with her always; that each day, for the rest of her life, she'd awake, bundle herself by the red coals of the same fire, push her way through the dry snow and weep into her milk-pail; and every day, for the indefinite future, she'd be destined to spend her hours standing at the window, peering out over shimmering, rolling, icy mountains, with no vacillation whatsoever. In this foreboding state of premonition there arose yet more of her fanciful imaginings, tending to make her conjectures more impetuous and full of exagerations. She came to invent hundreds upon hundreds of warriors, who would march up the mountain to slay her and her family, over and over. And she would think up the most hideous monsters ever imagined, huge creatures with bellows that shook the rocks, and they'd tromp through the snow, leaving tracks filled with carnage. Of all this she, of course, said nothing to her mother and sisters, because of the alarm it might cause them. Yet often the desire struck her to step out their door, just as the most recent monster approached them and be utterly and finally consumed. But each time she had such an urge she would falter at the last second, convinced in her heart that a more gruesome and dreadful demise must undoubtedly await her. So she travailed week after week, complacently imprisoned by the endless winter, by her gloom and her urges to be victim to the leagues of monsters and villains who attacted her.

Just as it seemed that these dreams and depressions would swallow her alive there came the inevitable change in the scenery. She awoke one morning and, looking far off, down the mountainside, she caught sight of the first patch of a green sprig of grass, sprouting triumphantly in the still and cool snow cover. This meant, of course, that winter would not last forever, as she had come to accept, and that spring would soon return as it always had. As her sisters and even her mother sang songs of happiness and rejoiced at the signs of awakening all about, Susczhelle saw it all as but another proof of her redundant and pernicious ill-fortune, for once more her world had turned in upon itself and failed her miserably in its attempt to remain constant and coherent. What was more, she knew with spring she'd once again be compulsed to take up their hoe and oversee her sisters in the long, hard job of tilling, planting and weeding the wheat plants, which always reminded her of days past, and of the plight of all people, and thus was a cause for suffering.

It seemed anything and everything could be turned to her disadvantage once she put her mind to it. It changed her point of perspective, so that she looked for signs of despair in everything she surveyed, causing her to look at things more closely than she would otherwise, so when she looked at a flower bending in the wind she could instantly count the petals (thinking they would sum to an unlucky number), and note precisely the hue, how near the yellow was to the color of a goat's beard, and the bee humming his song irritably would look at her suspiciously and move on to the next flower. She felt linked to these elements of the natural world, as though they were concious of her predilection and were slyly making efforts to enlarge her shade. She heard the creatures whisper behind her back, watched them scheme seditiously in a corner of the garden.

One day a blackbird actually called her name. This is what happened: She had been milking the goats when she suddenly heard it's voice over her shoulder, calling her name. She had looked up, at once terrified of this harbinger of doom and curious as to its motives.

"Shoo!", she had said. The bird slipped its perch one step over.

"Shoo!", the bird repeated, then it said her name once more, a shrill unearthly voice: "Susczhelle."

"Who sent you?" the girl cried, "And I'd advise you to hold your

tongue." She wagged her finger visciously, giving the bird her worst stare. The blackbird laughed, ruffled its wings and exited.

This encounter was to be the beginning of Susczhelle's conversations with the blackbird, and the gestation of several troublesome riddles. Though initially the blackbird did restrict its comments to brief phrases----such assessments as "Good!", or "Windy today, isn't it?"----the bird became bolder in its parlance when Susczhelle's attention was aimed its way. She began to argue when the blackbird gave a misjudged opinion on her horticultural technique or insulted her dreams.

One afternoon, late in the day, as the sun was slipping over the mountaintops, throwing a red glow on the hillside, they had a particularly involved conversation. Susczhelle had been pulling weeds on the northern edge of the wheatfield, just below the long knotted limb of an oak tree. The blackbird spied her from far above and glided down to the tree silently, so she would not be aware of its appearance.

"It's quite dirty," the bird said.

Susczhelle turned quickly, frightened by its scratchy voice.

"Oh!", she cried, "It's just you. The stupid blackbird. Why must you always state the obvious?" She taunted the bird, regaining her nerve, not expecting a reply.

The blackbird stood still for several moments, looking away, searching for a caterpillar.

"The truth is always obvious. That is, once you realize what is true.."

"Hmmmmm. And I suppose you know?"

"I know that is dirty work."

"What do you know of work?", Susczhelle gnarled back, irritated at the blackbird's shortsightedness. "Why, you sit all day on a tree limb, then, when the slightest hunger pang hits you, you peck at the wheat you neither grew nor nourished."

"I can take a hint," the blackbird said and flew off to God knows where.

After such a dialogue Susczhelle would always go on with her work until the job was done, dreaming of rainclouds and horse-drawn carriages rolling noisely through the heavens. When she returned to the house she said nothing of her conversations with the bird, of course, for the agitation it might cause. In all the world there was no one who could understand the thoughts walking like young deer through her mind, impatient, full of remorse. It was a fact of her existence that everything looked different to her (a matter of perspective), and thus it was impossible for her to talk with her sisters for very long before the exchange turned tangled up and confused. Susczhelle would sigh and walk away when this happen and shake her head in agreement with her own sad convictions.

It was not necessarily true, however, that Susczhelle believed the bird was a total nuisance. All that seems bothersome can be products only of scenery. Susczhelle had only a few strong beliefs about the spin of time and weather. This she did believe, however, with almost as much conviction as she believed in her own eternal condemnation, the blackbird knew things it was not telling. Occasionally it would slip out accidently, or she'd trick it with a clever paradox.

"Blackbird," she'd say (she'd be sharpening her hoe, or perhaps walking a goat up the hillside), "Besides me, you probably can't get a fool in the world to listen to your gibberish."

"And it's not evident that even you listen, sad one."

"Oh I listen. As I listen to the wind in the rocks, the bull ram crying across the ledge. As I listen to teardrops."

"As you listen to a little boy crying for his mother?"

Susczhelle turned away, silent, mulling over some disturbing idea. (They would continue up the hill.) "Why is it, blackbird, that you persist in spying on me, looking to criticize my every step? You should be off flying in the sky, racing the clouds."

"Boring, boring, boring," the blackbird would say. "Nothing to that. I'd as soon plant wheat, annoy the bluebirds."

"You know the bluebirds?"

"Of course. Some of them have become great enemies. Silly birds, simplistic, willing to accept all fate as a blessing. Too reticent to ward off a single blackbird infringing on their berry tree. They would talk to you too, only they know you'd laugh at them and then shoo them away." The blackbird looked out the corner of his eye at Susczhelle.

She was looking down the hillside toward the village temple. The wind picked up a little and blew her black hair behind her small round face, a greeting to the white-capped mountaintops far above. Susczhelle knew full well the bluebirds couldn't talk. It was the blackbird who was the silly one.

More cause for consternation crossed her path late in the summer. It occured one day as Susczhelle was walking back up the mountainside she had been in the village, trading her goat's milk and tomatoes for yeast and rolling pins [the carpenter's son, Alsatia, had offered to help her with her pails (an awkward child with two left feet), but she had politely refused, knowing better than to involve the poor soul in her contagious gloom----if only transiently. To her ears came the sounds of thrashing in a pool not far from the walking bridge. She set her baskets down and ran to the pool's edge. There she saw a small fawn struggling to keep its head above water, fighting the current which threatened to sweep the animal into oblivion. Without the merest concern for her own safety Susczhelle dove headfirst into the stream, reached beneath the fawn, wrapped her arms around its front legs and began treading toward the bank. The added weight on her shoulders was enough to drag her under the current, but she had resolved to finish her task and therefore could not let go. The fawn struggled frantically in her grasp and the sharp hooves of the tiny deer cut into Susczhelle's back and legs, making her cry out. The water rushed across Susczhelle's face so that she had to capture breaths of air between submerging, fighting toward the bank. Finally, Susczhelle's feet found the muddy bottom near the edge and she heaved with all her might. The fawn stumbled into the grass, shook off the muddy water and trotted away in search of its mother. Susczhelle pulled herself from the stream and looked across the bridge. Her bags had been stolen. Someone had run off with her goods. The water dripping from her nose and hair onto the thick grass, she looked down solemnly at her feet and trudged back to the house.

She told her adventures to her mother as she combed her hair out long and straight.

"Mother," Susczhelle said, "Do you think the world is inherently evil?" Her mother worked out a small knot near her ear. "Why not at all my young girl. You must not think such thoughts. Everything turns out for the best."

"Do you believe that?"

Her mother said, "Of course I do." (Though it's true, she did have her own suspicions.)

Not even Susczhelle's dark clouds were a match for the ever-raging winds of fate, though this was not easily learned. A week had passed since her misfortune at the bridge and the day was near its end. The family had gathered near the porch to have a snack of rice cakes before they would tread to the creek to wash off the dust and get ready for supper. Susczhelle, possessing her usual superior alertness, took first notice. An old man, hunchbacked and dark with age, was approaching them up the hill. At his side was a young boy, perhaps Susczhelle's age, perhaps younger, carrying two baskets. Susczhelle recognized the bundles while they were still far off. But she said nothing. In time the pair made their way to the house and the old man spoke.

"We have come to return your possessions." The boy stepped forward and set the baskets down on the porch.

"I am the one who stole your tools. I saw them laying there by the bridge and I thought someone had forgotten them. I should have tried to find their owner. I offer my regret and my apology."

"This is my son, Samsu. I am Tintara. As a condition of his shame I have assigned Samsu to your labor. He shall do as you ask until the moon is once more black in the heavens."

Samsu bent down to one knee and lowered his head. The old man looked at Susczhelle, a strange light in his eyes, as if he knew some truth about her that troubled him, or was on the verge of a disquieting comment.

Susczhelle's mother waved her hand. "It is enough, Tintara, that you have returned our goods and offered your apology. We do not require your further recovery."

"Nevertheless," the old man said, turning, "it is done," and he hobbled back down the hill.

The girls, with the exception of Susczhelle, huddled together, looking over this strange specimen, suddenly thrust into their conveyance, half-renegade, half-deliverer.

"Stand up young man, and come here." Samsu, though small in stature, had a full muscled frame. She was unsure how far to trust such a boy, given the circumstances, or how diligent he would be in the tasks at hand. "Our work is done for the day, Samsu. We begin tomorrow, on the sunrise." And she waved him away. He returned back down the mountainside until the next morning. Despite Susczhelle's general reluctance to aid Samsu in his education concerning the care of their crops, he picked up on the craft quickly. Before long he was accomplishing easily twice what Susczhellie could do in one day, not to mention her younger sisters. While Susczhelle distanced herself from this new member of the tribe, her sisters persisted in following him between their chores and spying on him when he was busy at some job. Though the work was indeed hard, and if Samsu had had his druthers he would have foregone the drudgery for the simple days overseeing his father's sheep down the hillside, in time he began to enjoy the company of the family and was drawn to Susczhelle's odd ways. She would catch him leaning against his hoe, dusty sweat dripping from his square nose, doing nothing but watching her work.

In a jitter, she would turn her head away, her chin held upward, and move from sight. In the afternoon, when they would all be on the porch cleaning their tools or shelling peas, Samsu would tell stories about the travels of his father, Tintara. The girls would look at him with a quiet smile on their faces, listening in on every word. Tintara had traveled to the east, Samsu told them, to an ocean that never ended, where whole cities floated on the water. Susczhelle knew it was all nonsense. She would listen to only so much of the tales, then she'd shake her head disconsolately and slip into the house with her basket or wander into the woods, looking for the blackbird.

`The blackbird, during these days, had taken on a most peculiar attitude. He would only come around when Susczhelle was alone, often when she was milking the goats, early in the morning. The blackbird would alight on a low rafter and begin picking at lice in his feathercoat. "Another day," the bird would begin.

"So it is," Susczhelle would echo.

"I see you have a new friend."

"Friend. Hah! Thief. More cause for caution and discouragement."

"Probably so. You know: Once a thief . . ."

"You sound tired blackbird. You sound sick."

"Just a sniffle, that's all. Caught it from a magpie. Uncultured lot. No matter. The riddle remains hidden from sight, a ghost."

Susczhelle suddenly felt a breeze slip by her shoulder as if the cold hands of her father. She turned and the blackbird was gone.

"Not even the blackbird has a clue," she said, to no one; that is, no one except maybe to the sleepy goats. The goats shifted their balance and remained otherwise undisturbed by the dilemma.

The wheat had been in for a day when Samsu came upon a sight which caused him to yell aloud to the others in the field, Matura, Li-song, Anella and Susczhelle. They came running toward the big oak near the western corner, aroused by his shouts. When Susczhelle arrived they were all in a huddle peering down with silence at a sprawled black bird, its eyes a deep, thick purple. Flies and bees had taken residence around the hole in its breast. A hawk floated lazily overhead. There could be no doubt as to which black bird lay there. Susczhelle stared down at the form as if she were staring into a dark memory, while her sisters drew back, at once fascinated and repulsed by the dead animal.

"The blackbird," she said. Her sisters knew the tale well. The boy looked up incredulously. Susczhelle's eyes were emptied out like a dry well full of dusty disbeliefs. She wished she could run away,flee her own past, into the mountains, but such a course would be too simple, alas, too easy for such a maligned young girl. She buried the bird that afternoon, beneath the old oak where many of their:conversations with the bird had taken place. Even as she patted her hand on the mound of dark earth she expected one further comment from her antagonizer, one last gasp of defiance at the mortal world, perhaps the answer to a riddle.

Nothing was heard. Only the wind whistling in the tree leaves. Susczhelle walked back to her hoe, her chin held forward, at once unashamed of her affinity to the deceased and confident that its demise forebade additional ill-wind. This was all in keeping with her general gloomy outlook. Yet, as she finished up her days work, pulling some fiesty weeds in the garden, assigning her sisters to the wheat stalks, leaving Samsu with the dirty job of cleaning out the goat's barn, there came to pass in her heart a strange lifting of spirit, not a feeling of joy in even the remotest sense, but an odd impression that some form of pain had passed through her frame, as though some weight had been buried, perhaps in same shallow grave as was the blackbird.

That night she took Chikionell to the porch and looked up at the, clear, twinkling night sky (the first chilly breezes of fall had begun stirring), and she made a wish on the brightest star. Chikionell's eyes were half-closed with sleepiness. He rubbed a fisted paw across his cheek, yawned stoically and reached to hug Susczhelle's neck. Suczhelle held him steadily with one strong arm and kissed his cheek, the briefest of smiles on her lips. Would her wish be granted? That too was a riddle. Though in the following days Suschelle's natural instincts persisted in making her cautious of Samsu, suspicious that behind his playful grin was maliciousness and misery, their daily routines forced them into a strange alliance. Samsu, as much as he disliked the monotony of his duties, could find time for capriciousness and song in nearly every element of his day. It was a marked contrast to Susczhelle's hushed posture. He would sneak up on her at times and shake the tree limbs behind her, as if it were alive, then dash away, laughing like a crazy man. He was all the time putting the younger sisters on the acks of the goats and leading them around the yard. Though Susczhelle's mother also harboured concern, she knew the value of laughter and silliness and so said nothing.

One day Samsu invited Susczhelle to visit with him and his father, Tintara, and have supper. Susczhelle would never have considered such an offer had not her mother insist that her refusal would be an act of extreme poor manners, considering the price that Samsu had had to endure. Reluctantly, she washed her finest white blouse and made the quiet trip down to the old man's cottage. Samsu welcomed her in his front yard, chewing on a blade of grass, then he showed her inside. Tintara was about eighty years old. Obviously, he was not Samsu's real father. But this fact was never mentioned

He brought from the oven pita bread and a rich bowl of fried rice and sweet chicken which seemed to melt in Susczhelle's mouth without chewing. They ate quietly as the sun set into the cold mountains. Following the meal Tintara set them down some tea, lit up his pipe, sat back and began talking. The soft light of his large white candles danced around the room. Samsu snuck out some spicy cinnamon cookies and passed them around.

"You may not believe this," the old man began, his.voice just above a whisper, "but I was the original architect of the Great Wall, many centuries ago. I know you find it amazing Susczhelle---- why even Samsu has his doubts----but it is of no matter, this story will stand on its own merits, regardless of your youthful cynicism."

 

Tintara's Tale of the Great Wall

 

"I was living in Lanchou, my friends, when word first came around that Shih Huang-ti intended to build the greatest wall ever constructed. You see the Chinese were tired of being harassed by the Huns in thenorth. Even though this was before the time of Atilla and his murderous hordes, the Huns were nevertheless an intolerable lot. Their manners were atrocious. After raping our women, they would kill the men and children, eat the cattle and ride southward, their monstrous horses pounding up the dust as they looked for further spoils. The meager defenses the isolated communities could assemble were nothing more than a nuisance to the Hun's advance.

"While previous Kings were unquestionably irritated by these attacks retaliation was complicated by the length of the northern border and the hazards of the terrain. There were even some who rumored that the King's Leutenants did not bring the necessary enthusiasm to their pursuits. Something needed to be done. Well, when I caught wind of the plan I was naturally excited. Stone masonry was my craft, my art. My grandfather had been a stone mason, and hisson, and now me. I had established quite a reputation in my limited area and I placed the estimate of my abilities very high. I knew the tricks. Cunningly, I did not wait to be drafted into service. Instead, I volunteered at once, and with unrestrained gusto. I made it known in no small way that I was no ordinary conscript.

I met the King's engineer, a fat man, most of the time too busy with concubines and wine to know which side of the wall we should be on. Under his guidance the construction was slow and awkward. Twice, wehad to remove entire sections of stonework because he'd neglected to provide for proper drainage. In time the King grew impatient. The Engineer deferred command to his son, who was equally inept, then the nephew of one of the King's mistresses, Czhen-Li, got saddled. He at least knew something about stone masonry, but the workers thought him silly, standing on each completed section, wearing a long robe, his assistant's echoing his redundant directives across the ranks. Morale worsened. The Huns continued their ravages. The King visited our worksite and shook his head, reconsidering his strategy.

"While these shenanigans played out I bided my time, overseeing small projects and making a few alliances. The crew began to develop a respect for my techniques, an appreciation for my advice. Due to the excesses of our overlords more and more of the daily details of the actual construction were pressed into my tending, as though by some unspoken caveat. Czeh-Li was quite aware of the arrangement, but he had his own problems to contend with as the King was growing more restless. "One day the Queen and her entourage were strolling the wall, inspecting the handiwork of a guard tower I'd recently fashioned when upon inquiry her counsel took note of my name. I became famous by rumor.

By the week's end Czhen-Li was shipped to the slopes of Kalgan to attend to a less vital project and I was left, a taught strand of twine in my hand, in charge. Such glory, young ones, you may only dream of, but there I was, the full and regal resources of the Dynasty, mine to compress in the noblest of human ventures: the defense of the fatherland. Oh, how my heart roared! I would build a wall to rival the King's own palace; if not in luxuriousness, then in restrained fidelity. It would take the form of the many dreams imagined in my idle wonderings. It would be simple and elegant, beautiful to those whose heritage it honored, a dragon of deep warning to any whose approach was unkindly. I would make it the greatest wall every built.

"The men whose plodding I commanded warmed to my management. I divided the laborers into groups based on the nature of their task, gave each a group captain, appointed master craftsmen for each division. Though the specific measurements and techniques came from my own expertise, I allowed them the autonomy to organize and direct withouth undue constraint. We split up the workdays, enlisted the finest bakers. Once a week we served rice cakes to the entire company. You can't believe how quickly the work progressed from that point on. The King saw our progress and awarded me a gold medallion, in the act advising me to keep my pressure on the peasants, indulge in the scenery. I held his hand, laughed when he made jokes. He didn't know that I was serious about my stonemasonry." Outside a light breeze circled the old man' dwelling. Tintara turned behind him, filled up his pipe, slapped Samsu on the knee powerfully. Samsu took a sip from his tea, trying to make out the riddle in his stepfather's account.

"If at any point along our route the geography appeared suspect, I personally surveyed the lay of the land, drawing easily on habits developed long ago. How little I knew about the prattlings of power," he wheezed. "How little I knew about anything! Susczhelle," he said. "How foolish they were. More regal piddling flared. The King's nephew was reinstated. I was assigned second-hand surveywork." Tintara rubbed his long beard, drawing in breath. "I'll tell you even now you see the results of such poor planning. Our Great Wall continually falls apart, like chess."

Susczhelle was uneasy, worried that the old man might be, in some hidden way, half-mad, or that his tale might never end. Tintara's eyes were half-closed. He slowly shook his head. "My children. Be careless. Take danger." He put his hand over Susczhelle's. She was trembling. The candlelight made his gray eyes flicker like lanterns. "Have some plan prepared when you walls begin their inevitable disintegration."

It was time for Susczhelle to depart. She bowed, excused herself from the table and walked outside. She walked solemnly up the hillside, thinking she heard Samsu's call over the trees, but of this she was uncertain. Through the next few days of Samsu's servitude Tintara's tale swirled in Susczhelle's mind like a whirlwind. She asked him questions about the old man , drawing back when Samsu would give a crafty grin and spell out his descriptions. By the last day of Samsu's internment all the wheat had been harvested and cleaned. They'd.stored up more cheese in the last few weeks than they'd managed in a year and the goat's barn could hardly have been cleaner. Susczhelle had acquired from her parents the capacity to work dilligently and without complaint, but her insistence on Samsu's continual choredom came from some different corner of her fertile mind. She had tested his endurance and patience beyond the needs of mere administration, yet Samsu remained unruffled, allowing away her eccentricities and excessive demands with a smirk and a shrug, happy just for the chance to pester her young sisters and gaze upon Susczhelle's lovely face.

When Samsu had been gone for two weeks Susczhelle took to wondering in the garden. Her mother approached her.

"You look off," her mother said, "so darkly to the mountains one wonders what dreams have residence in you. Are you saddened by Samsu's departure?"

This, of course, was the riddle Susczhelle's thoughts wrestled. How could a young man be both friend and bane? It was no worry. No storm's wildness could wall out Samsu's fascination with Susczhelle. Even as they spoke in the garden they could see his glistening form marching his way up the rocky paths. The autumn season came along, bringing crisp breezes, carrying Susczhelle to the tender shelter of Samsu's strong arms. He took every opportunity to drag her down the mountain, where they could sit beside the cool streams, or hold hands on the path down to the village. The flowering of Susczhelle's youthful form and the flowering of the young couples friendship coincided. A mist rose silently from the valley and a small bird, turning a southward wing, sang of uncompromising love.