Red Moon

TA SHU 7 Tao Yuan Xing Source of the Peach Blossom Stream (Wang Wei)

A try in English at the poem by Wang Wei, written in common year 718, when he was nineteen. The poem was his adaptation of a famous fable by Tao Yuanming, written in 421.

Wandering we came on a swift river.
Clear water, granite pebble bottom.
Riffles and rapids and long still pools,
Willows hanging over the banks,
Big fish tucked in the shadows,
And floating down like little boats,
Peach blossoms. Lots of them.

We climbed upstream to find the trees
Dropping these petals of floating pink.
The river narrowed, rose into a defile.
We had to clamber, one side then the other,
Feet wet at one crossing, hands on rock looking down.
Then the gorge opened and we were in a high valley.

Fields of grain, neat houses, and yes: peach trees.
They lined the banks, dropping their blossoms
On the slow meander of a little river.
People came out to greet us:
Where are you from? What’s the news?
They fed us and showed us a bower to sleep in.

These people were peaceful, calm, kind.
The valley was fertile and full of animals.
We stayed until we saw what it was: a good place.
To live here would be fulfillment.
So we said to each other, let’s get our families
And bring them back. Let’s move here.

We left that place and picked a way
Down the narrow gorge, back into the world.
Traveled home and made our accounting,
Convinced who we could to go back with us.
Off we went with packs on our backs,
Back to that place where the peach blossoms fell.

We could not find it. Somehow the hills were
Not the same. No such river where we thought.
Back and forth we made a search, back and forth
But nothing. Different streams, different lands.
That place in space was a moment in time:
You can never find your way back.
Search all your life you will only despair.
Dustless garden, how to tell? Where to find?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN shoulie laohu Tiger Hunting

The time of the flight back to the moon passed for Ta Shu in a kind of fugue state of mourning and apprehension. There was no way to communicate with Zhou Bao that might not be overheard, and he didn’t want that. Best to have his meals with Bo and Dhu, and ask them questions about their work, chat them up, see what he could find out by what they said. But as it turned out they were quite reticent, and mostly answered one question with another, playing the same game he was. These were very polite and uninformative meals. And eating in weightlessness was an effort, it took some concentration. He was getting better at it, but during these meals he could pretend he wasn’t, and thus avoid talk altogether.

Then he glimpsed the moon, looking big through the little window, and a few hours later he saw it again, rushing at him with the same rapidity that had given Fred Fredericks such a start on their first arrival. Ta Shu figured that landing in such a fashion was no more or less dangerous than any other time of a flight through space, no matter how alarming the speed. So he went to a window seat and watched with interest as they shot toward the great white ball. It did look like they were headed for an awful smash.

As before, however, they landed without incident, and again without even feeling the moment when their spaceship was magnetically captured by the long piste. All they knew was that their chairs swiveled around so that they were eyeballs in when deceleration began. That pressure was less bad than their launch g, and soon enough their ship was stopped and they were getting out of their restraints and learning again how to move in the lunar gravity so gently holding them down. For some reason Ta Shu found it harder this time than before, harder and less entertaining.

Bo and Dhu looked to be first-timers on the moon, perhaps a little overconfident at first, and as they walked ahead of Ta Shu they banged off walls, floor, even ceiling. By the time they got into the subway to the Peaks of Eternal Light the two men looked ready to sit and strap themselves in again, Bo chastened, Dhu chuckling uneasily. Off to the big central station on the highest peak of eternal light.

When they were in that station Ta Shu followed Bo and Dhu again. They were still bold, despite their frequent gaffes. “I thought we would be better this time,” one of them said to the other. Ta Shu couldn’t afford to run into things as hard as they were, and he gripped the handrails and pulled himself along cautiously. The people in the station included some familiar faces, but no one he knew. They treated him with a deference not shown to him before, and he supposed this might be one result of Peng Ling now being his sponsor (if that was the word for it). Emissary of a member of the standing committee: there would be few persons on the moon as well connected as that, and if it was known—and he guessed by the looks on people’s faces that it was—it would make a difference.

And indeed he was taken to a room on a level higher than the Hotel Star, clearly some kind of distinguished visitors’ quarters that he had not qualified for during his previous visit to this station. While he was putting his things away he felt a buzz on his wrist and saw something had come in from Zhou Bao. A brief message, asking him to come up the Libration Line to see him as soon as he could. No RSVP necessary.

As Ta Shu wanted to confer with Zhou, this message was welcome; but it wasn’t likely that he would be allowed to go up the Libration Line by himself. He thought about it for a while, wishing again he could consult with Peng directly about how best to accommodate Bo and Dhu. He had tried calling her again several times, but still she hadn’t answered. Were they to accompany him everywhere? And if Peng wanted that, did that necessarily mean that Ta Shu wanted it also? He wasn’t sure.

. · • · .

In the end he informed Bo and Dhu that he wished to go up the line to see his friend Zhou, and they nodded and asked if they could come along, and Ta Shu said yes, of course. The next day they met at the station and took the train line north to Petrov Crater.

When they got to the station at Petrov, they went to Zhou’s office on the top floor. Earth was currently below the horizon, the black sky overhead packed with stars, the great braided white cloud of the Milky Way arcing overhead. Uncountable stars, although someone said it was around ten thousand. Dhu was looking up the time for Earthrise on his wrist, Bo was looking around Zhou’s office. Zhou had known that Ta Shu was coming with guests, so he sidled in unsurprised, and more animated than usual, playing the part of the friendly host.

Still, they were now faced with a difficulty. Zhou had asked him to come, and now he was here. But what could Zhou say with Bo and Dhu there in the room?

Soon it became clear to Ta Shu that Zhou himself didn’t know the answer to this; Zhou spotted Dhu looking at his wrist and then at the horizon, and quickly followed that lead, talking about the slowness of Earthrise—how it pricked the horizon like a sapphire, how the lack of an atmosphere on the moon meant there was no warning of that arrival, how the sight of Earth oriented everything once it bulked there in the sky. How big it looked compared to the moon from Earth—eight times bigger, yes: amazing.