1

‘Everyone knows the names of a few birds, but hardly anyone can name a bat. Do you know what that tells us?’ He straightened his sleeve and tried, uncertainly, to persuade you. ‘People care about nothing beyond themselves. It is a self-centred way of seeing. We decide what is beautiful and good only from where we stand.’ He stopped to give you time, but you could not stop crying. He reached to comfort you, then drew his hand away just before it touched your thin shoulder blade. He was no longer young, yet his ideas remained simple. Realising this, you envied him.

Cloud covered the sun and the forest slowly chilled. He said no more, only stayed with you. Later he said he wanted a cigarette. He felt through his pocket for a lighter, stepped guiltily over the brush and went out to the open grass, leaving you alone. Tears had carried away most of your warmth; your calves trembled. When you stood, you saw the small flare of his cigarette in the air. In your eyes that point of light opened and slowly turned like a kaleidoscope. As its last glow darkened, you could no longer see clearly.

2

Many kinds of oak grew in the forest. Grey-green lichen hung from the branches and swayed in one direction when the wind came. Chestnut trees bore spined fruit; in autumn their leaves turned dark brown and lay deep on the ground, crisp beneath your feet. You had been here a long time and still did not know the forest’s size. At its lowest level were humus and fallen leaves, with moss, fungi, lichen, molluscs and hard-shelled insects. Above them grew thorny brush—beggar-ticks, datura and alpine rhododendron. Then pines, cypresses, chestnuts and high oaks formed a natural barrier, their branches reaching everywhere. Woodland birds startled at your passing and scattered in every direction. You noticed one with a dark-brown back and a belly crowded with grey-white spots. It looked a little frightening. Had he been there, he would have told you its scientific name and whether it migrated or stayed. He could imitate the calls of many birds perfectly.

Back at the dormitory, you used the shared computer to look up bats. Some drank blood, some ate fruit, most ate insects. Bats were divided into two suborders, megabats and microbats. The megabats included the fox-like flying fox; there were many microbats, indistinguishable to most people. Taxonomists around the world could not agree about them either. In many places bats symbolised danger. They carried many viruses shared by humans and animals while hardly becoming ill themselves. The demons that lured people to ruin in Western mythology had bat wings.

3

Most birds fly in sunlight and rest at night, as humans do. Nocturnal birds such as owls are different. Their cries are often mistaken for ghosts. Legend says their eyes see both the living and the dead; folk belief calls them birds of mourning, able to smell grave illness on a person.

He told you many nameless things floated through the sky and birds truly could see them. He spoke of your meditation these past days: train the mind and you can feel more of things as they are; what thought cannot grasp will reveal itself one by one. People must practise continually to reach this state. For animals, it is their nature. Birds, for example, possess neither future nor past. Time is whole to them, not divided by thought. They live always in meditation.

In Japan the owl is fortunate, a ward against evil and guardian of night—the opposite of Chinese folk belief. In Western myth it often represents long life and wisdom. Hegel wrote that Minerva’s owl takes flight only at dusk: only once an event has become history does its meaning grow clear. If he could choose a bird, he said, he would be an owl perched at dusk above the forest, watching light vanish with wise eyes, evening clouds gather and the worlds of yin and yang change places while dead people and animals drift like jellyfish through the air.

4

You went birdwatching together. His first gift was a pair of field boots: waterproof, but more breathable than rubber boots. On a wetland shoal he found you shade beneath a tree, then waded among the reeds. A grey bird rose vertically, paused in the air, folded its wings and dropped. He looked happy. For a moment you thought his happiness came because none of this concerned him, or you. A grey heron skimmed the water with elegant form and landed on a shoal nearby. Its gaze searched for fish; its sharp beak struck the water. Two blue-green kingfishers flew from the bushes, hung like flames for an instant, flicked their wings and crossed to the far bank. On the drive home, he explained the order Coraciiformes in a calm voice. In Japan, one bird’s call sounded like the words ‘Buddha, dharma, sangha’; monks living deep in the mountains believed it spiritual and called it the three-jewel bird. But the monks had made a mistake. Surrounded by many species, they heard calls without seeing their makers and attributed a scops owl’s voice to the dollarbird. ‘Owl’ itself names an entire order. The bright dollarbird certainly catches the eye more than the dull scops owl, but its real call sounds like this—he puffed his cheeks and gave a lilting hu-bu. He was the most interesting person you had known. At least then, he was exerting himself to be interesting, like a male bird swelling its coloured feathers and dancing strangely before a mate.

5

For a time you sought remote places and entrusted your life to the flash of a snow mountain. At the farthest point of exhaustion, inner peace arrived on time. You felt the endless falling short, the sense that everything was about to collapse, finally stop. Nothing needed an answer. Perhaps people invented so many goals only to prove that none were real. At first you thought nature was a way to escape reality. The more you climbed, the more you learned that the climb itself was real. Reality was not a list of problems awaiting solution but the solid sensation of being alive. On cold, oxygen-poor summits, each breath took a shape you had never felt before.

You met on a climb. At five thousand metres, thin air and continuous ascent had drained you; your face and lips were white and the muscles at the front of your thighs trembled. He descended lightly from the summit. Zhong Ding was a northerner about 175 centimetres tall, of average build, with a little beard, white teeth when he smiled and deep-set eyes when he removed his sunglasses. His gaze did not wander when he spoke. He said your pack was badly adjusted: tighten here, loosen there, until the weight sat on your hips rather than shoulders. It fitted your back as if grown from your body, and the strain around your kidneys eased. He taught you to control your breath and divide the steep final slope into small steps rather than urgent strides. Perhaps he was only like other men, trying to teach you something because they believed themselves entitled to improve you. You tried to tell the difference: when was a man displaying himself, and when was he showing care?

Descending together, he told you how to spare your knees. For a while you stopped understanding him. His words became strange; fatigue made everything unreal, its connections cut. Naturally you slowed and the distance between you widened, yet at each fork he stopped, drank water and waited. ‘Don’t hurry. We’re going down together anyway.’ The feeling was familiar. As a child you had climbed the long steps in Iron Pagoda Park with Father, panting while he waited and sheltered you from part of the sun.

6

You married on a lawn outside the city. The turf had been laid by a wedding company and, from its scars, had hosted hundreds of ceremonies. Sun and rain had bleached the wooden stage. Round tables wore pale-blue cloths matching the sky after yesterday’s rain. Champagne glasses rose in a pyramid. It was all so vulgar that you rather liked it. Before the ceremony, he worried you would have an anxiety attack. In his calm, rational voice he said he did not want this either: the wedding was for your parents, who could not accept a marriage without a host, a flowing banquet and a crowd of relatives and friends. Travelling away to marry as you had imagined was impractical. You could not tell him that you were actually happy. Many old classmates and present colleagues had come. Sometimes you liked being surrounded and watched, especially today, with your white dress trailing and your hair and makeup exact, the waiting music chosen carefully by you. If you felt any anxiety, it was from suddenly seeing how readily he compromised, how afraid he was to appear different. His face sank into fog; only a figure remained, greeting the elders. His new suit had wrinkled after one wearing. You noticed his back was broader than most men of his height, pulling that panel tight while the shoulders and neck hung strangely loose.

While waiting for everyone to arrive, you discovered that you could survive by smiling blindly and saying nothing. The whole burden of sociability fell on him. Wind crossed the lawn and people pinned napkins with plates. Someone’s hat blew away. She cried out, and only then did you notice she wore the denim skirt you had given her at university—perhaps it held some special meaning. You had been closest friends in the dormitory. You remembered how she fetched hot water when you menstruated and kept a seat in the study room; how you asked around about a boy in her class she liked. What happened between them? You frowned but could not remember. When your eyes met, you realised your awkwardness came from fear that you might truly have to speak to her.

Standing there longer, you realised you were genuinely hungry. The day was only half over and had already taken all your strength. The faces of university roommates, groom, parents and guests looking indifferently at their phones overlapped in dim layers. None meant what they said; all forced friendliness. At last steaming dishes reached the tables, and in despair you realised you were one of only two people still forbidden to eat.

7

You fought most fiercely while renovating the new home: where the pipes and wires should run, which tiles to buy, whether to open the kitchen into the living room. He was hard with you and yielded easily to the contractors. Much human dullness comes from a self-satisfied enclosure, nowhere more than in a man renovating a home. When he tormented you with it, you wanted to answer in kind but could not. Beyond hysteria, you did not know how to make him value your view. You began to doubt whether his earlier liveliness had been sincere—whether the peacock opened its tail only to court. Did any peacock display for itself? In fury you wanted to destroy everything: his neatly ordered books, silver-inlaid cutlery from Europe, the perfume lily bought last week and already near death.

Two years after the wedding, you sat at opposite ends of a long table in a psychology clinic, filling forms for couples counselling. Ten for completely true, one for completely false. You watched him give one point to question after question. With this childish protest he declared that nothing was wrong with the marriage. If anything was wrong, it was your overthinking: you could not separate events from feelings, mixed everything together—you, you, you. He had no idea what it felt like to live with himself. In his own eyes he embodied steadiness and reason. What you felt was suffocation, failed communication, incomprehension. The bedroom walls might close on you at any moment. Often only alcohol let you spend a little time with him in peace, while he accused you of drinking more and more.

Friends around you had divorced in less time. They could not understand why you still attended counselling and threw away one last sum of money. Unlike the therapist, they were wholly partisan. Yet after these two years, everything partisan looked suspect.

It was only money and effort. If anything could still alter the marriage, this was exactly its use. He too wanted to understand why ‘everything that was perfectly fine’ dissatisfied you, what mechanism produced your hysteria. Perhaps psychology supplied an explanation he could later use against you.

8

The counsellor was a bespectacled man of about forty. You resisted him, afraid that at some point he and your husband would rise together and swing their fists at you. He held your test results. No one was better placed to rule which of you was sicker, which had made the marriage impossible. In the next second, you thought, he would name you. But he did not mention the tests. His voice was a substantial bass, the kind heard on radio. For at least the first five minutes, his words held no prejudice or judgment; neither did his body or gaze. Like a diffuse lamp, he lit you evenly. Introducing himself, he described years of conflict with his wife. Once he left home and spent a week in a guesthouse nearby. They reconciled only because they had to collect their daughter from school for the weekend. Before beginning, he briefly mentioned a postgraduate qualification in a school of psychology in Britain. Then he turned to you and asked each in turn to express what you felt at this very moment. You noticed him lean forward.

Forty-five minutes into the session, Zhong Ding covered his face and sobbed. You had never seen this. His face flushed, tears and mucus running between his fingers without restraint. You could not sincerely sympathise. You felt unease: you had fallen behind in the contest, becoming the harder of the two, the one less capable of self-examination. Yet surely he was the one who held every advantage.

9

Soon you understood this was not the counselling you wanted. He became addicted to the new game instead, bought many books and lay in bed before sleep pretending solemnly to read them, which repelled you further. Though the counsellor voiced no judgment, he remained a man. You did not feel your predicament had been deeply or completely understood. Behind his acceptance was professional procedure, still far from genuine concern.

A colleague returned from leave at a meditation centre in Yunnan and called it a wonderful experience. He had stayed only briefly, but many people remained there. You asked cautiously what kind of meditation it taught. ‘Oh.’ His face relaxed into the vagueness of someone who had never pursued the question. There were many methods, he said. Any practice that lets a person observe the mind could probably be called meditation.

You followed the link he sent and studied the introduction. The centre lay in a valley beside a forest. Planned for years, only part was open. Its teachers had studied around the world; in photographs, men and women alike had unwavering eyes. A video showed them sitting cross-legged on grass with forest behind them: running water, birds, insects and a singing bowl unfolding overtones. You checked flights for the next few days. They were not too expensive.

You had to decide how to discuss it with him. Why abandon systematic psychology to rely on—what word would he use, spoken delicately by that rational mouth? Mysticism, perhaps. He would carefully avoid terms such as metaphysics, faith and spirituality, placing the matter within a comprehensible category. If all went well, he would finally say, all right, he would request extended leave, provided it was approved—not to mention the endless overtime awaiting his return. Rehearsing the conversation, you felt exhaustion surge with nowhere to go. You had forgotten when he stopped reminding you of Father. Living with him now felt more like living with a son. If so, why have children? Every theory of the father complex you had read buzzed in your ears like noise.

10

The receptionist, Teacher Gao, was a plump woman over thirty-five, with brown-yellow skin, heavy eye shadow, plum lipstick and a gaudy silk scarf. Her voice plainly lacked breath. She looked nothing like the website. Frowning, you listened and followed her through a photogenic glass meditation hall where anyone actually sitting would dehydrate before half a day. You had known another glass room. During the first year in your new flat, Zhong Ding built a miniature bird hide on the balcony, with an opening to the outside. He scattered sunflower seeds, peanuts and walnuts. Slowly birds began entering and treated it as a dining hall. He liked sitting silently at the far side of the balcony, especially in the morning, watching them pry shells open as though in a trance. Without work, he could sit all morning. You rose late and, in pyjamas, made coffee for you both. At first you bought many tools: grinder, French press, moka pot. Fresh oat milk always waited in the fridge.

Unused, the oat milk expired. Coffee beans tasted best for only thirty days; after that, woodiness surfaced and fragrance receded. Out of curiosity you bought concentrated coffee liquid. The tools gathered dust and one day you put them in a cupboard. A week passed before he noticed the coffee was no longer freshly brewed. Later, nuts in the glass house became empty shells and moulded with the rainy season. Fortunately the concentrate kept for a year. You believed the birds would return when the rains ended, but the rains never ended. The birds went north to where there was more sun.

You asked Teacher Gao what the course contained and found she knew almost nothing, though she was eager for a deposit. She sounded like an insurance salesperson on the telephone. ‘You’ve read online. Here we mainly study meditation, singing bowls and yoga—practices for calming the mind. Each course has its own teacher. Which schools? I’m not sure. Try a week. If you’re unhappy, everything is refundable. We have a proper chef and different food every day. I used to be slim. Working here made me fat.’ She covered her mouth shyly. What relaxed you slightly was that Zhong Ding showed no rejection; he seemed absorbed in the brochure. You were about to ask how to reach the forest shown everywhere in the publicity when he interrupted. ‘It’s fine. We’ll learn once class begins. Teacher Gao only handles reception; don’t make it hard for her.’ Her professional smile loosened. She had led you a long way and was already tired.

11

Men and women slept separately. Every female student, young or old, shared one dormitory. Apart from the absence of bunk beds, it resembled school. You collected the class uniform: a starched grey linen robe with a shiny film, no buttons, tied at the waist. You noticed small differences among the senior students’ clothes. They showed you the dye house and sewing room. Every colour came from forest plants.

Many people worked in the carpentry room after class. The uneven tables, chairs and shelves were all made there. Zhong Ding quickly began woodworking. There was no teacher; people shared discoveries and helped one another. After ten days, cuts marked his hands and light had entered his eyes. He gave you a walnut spoon he had made. You wondered why he adapted to new surroundings so quickly, and could leave them behind just as easily.

The meditation teacher was a woman whose hard, metallic voice came from her abdomen. The vitality-yoga teacher was a man with a feminine tone and charming expressions, his body more supple than any woman’s. The singing-bowl teacher was the most remote. His head was shaved, veins rose beneath the scalp, his eyes stayed half closed and he rarely spoke. None ate or lived with you. They appeared at fixed times and left by a path at dusk. You discovered it entered the forest when a senior student took you there at the weekend to gather dye plants.

Whatever student stood before them, the teachers’ manner scarcely changed. They refused to reveal their names, saying names reinforced stereotypes. During your first days you prepared many questions. The meditation teacher said your problem was believing too much in language. Privately you heard senior students discuss reality and awakening, the ascension of a new consciousness, experiences of dissociation. The teachers never used these solemn terms.

12

For several nights Zhong Ding’s back hurt so badly he rolled sleepless in bed. A senior said it was normal. Someone rubbed on a homemade salve; after midnight the pain eased. In daylight he asked you to feel two bumps on his shoulder blades, like teeth coming through. Days later cracks appeared across his back and white cartilage pushed out, small enough for you to snap easily. From then on he could only sleep face down. He dreamed often of flight. In his dreams humans had evolved from birds. Ascension, he said, meant returning to life’s origin. Many invisible things floated in the sky, and he was beginning to understand the world as birds saw it.

More days passed and sparse feathers grew. Beneath grey-white plumage, pink wings curved like two crescent moons. Other students changed too. Some climbed to high places and spent whole days on roofs. Some could sleep only with earplugs and claimed to hear high frequencies. Others grew sensitive to weather and predicted rain or cloud the following day.

In the shower you examined yourself in the mirror, unable not to treat it as a competition. You dreamed of sunlight washed clean beyond the window and strange silence over dining hall, meditation room and grass. They had left you and flown away first. The forest receded; birdsong and beating wings fell still.

Before dawn you could bear it no longer. You dressed and slipped into the men’s dormitory. He lay on his stomach, deeply asleep, the quilt raised over his back. You placed a hand there. His feathers had become full and strong. You cried not only because of the nightmare, but because the two of you had always been so different.

13

Among the practitioners, anyone growing blue or green feathers received respectful looks. Many Coraciiformes had blue or green plumage, which everyone considered a sign of true spirituality. No one knew what birds the three teachers were. Legend said that when they returned to the forest, raptors circled overhead.

One day in the shower you found it hard to extend your arms. A translucent membrane had grown between arm and rib. You pulled; with tearing pain it opened along your side. You tried to hide it, but days later pale-brown down appeared on your face and arms. Your sight worsened. In the dining hall you struck a table and spilled soup from your bowl. Soon everyone knew you were turning into a bat. Behind your back they tried to decide whether you would eat fruit or drink blood; no one knew the difference. No bat had appeared at the centre for years, though the forest held countless birds. A meddlesome senior told you that once the change was complete, you would fly into a deep cave behind the mountain and be swallowed by muddy darkness; the world would become ripples made from sound.

You stayed in the dormitory all day and joined no one. At night a collared scops owl landed on the balcony, its sand-coloured body freckled dark brown, its ear tufts sharp. It tilted its head and watched you, gave a short cry, stretched and withdrew its neck. In its pupils you saw yourself: an upright mouse-tailed bat, naked tail grown from a lengthening coccyx, great ears pointing upward, collapsed nose, dense tea-brown fur across the back. Mouse-tailed bats eat insects. This should have been unbearable; now nothing stirred you. Damp night mist rose from the forest under cold moonlight. The owl turned and flew. You opened your wings and leapt from the balcony, curved upward just above the ground, and followed its rounded call high into the forest.

16 February 2023