Mulberry and Peach by Hualing Nieh Page B

mountain in the snow. By evening they weren’t far from the top. But it was too cold and they were too tired and they couldn’t go on. They finally got a fire started and nothing could make them leave the fireside. They lay in the snow and fell asleep. While sleeping one of the men felt a weight pressing so heavily on his chest that he couldn’t breathe. He woke and discovered he was buried in the snow. The people and the animals had vanished; around him was a vast expanse of whiteness. He yelled. Heads poked up through the snow. The animals were scattered. Snow blocked the pass.
    They climbed down to the valley and built several small huts beside the lake. Again and again they struggled to cross the mountain and when they failed, they would climb back down. When the food supply ran out, they. ate wild animals. Later they couldn’t even find wild animals to eat. Blizzard followed blizzard. They were starving and didn’t have the energy to gather firewood. After one month, the snow
was piled up eight feet high, as tall as their huts. The winter had just begun. Some of them collapsed from hunger and cold. Some died. They tried to think of ways to escape. They used the U-shaped ox yokes to make snow shoes. Whether they tried to escape or whether they remained there, death was certain. Those who tried to escape struggled with fate. Those who remained were resigned to the will of heaven. Their fate was the same, but they responded differently. Some gave in and some didn’t.
    Ten men, five women, and two boys set out wearing the ox-yoke snow shoes. They spent several days climbing the mountain. Wind and snow kept coming and they were snowbound again. Later the place where they were stranded was called the Death Camp. Bitter cold, exhaustion, hunger. They lay in the snow beside the fire. Those who fell asleep had their hands burnt to a crisp. Several people died. Those who survived starved for five days. Then someone chopped off the legs and arms of the corpses and roasted them over the fire. As they ate, they turned their heads aside and cried. After two days, even those who had refused to eat human flesh in the beginning were eating it. There was only one rule: they wouldn’t eat the flesh of their own kin. One girl stared wide-eyed at her little brother’s heart which was stuck on a twig, roasting over the fire. A wife agreed that the others could eat her husband’s corpse in order to save them from starvation. They cut off as much flesh as they could eat; the rest was made into jerky. Two men discovered deer tracks in the snow and they knelt down and wept and prayed, although they really weren’t religious. They killed the deer and lay on top of its body, lapping up its blood. They sucked the deer dry and their faces were smeared with blood. (Too bad that Mulberry, who is scared by the sight of blood, couldn’t have heard this story!) After thirty-three days, they finally reached safety. Only two men and five women were left.
    Back by the lake, more people were dying. Others tried to escape. One mother set out alone so that her child could have her share of the food. They lived in the snowpit, subsisting on animal skins, bones, and rats. The children slurped spoonfuls of snow from fine porcelain teacups and pretended it was pudding. Everyone lay in his own little hut. Going to others’ huts became an important affair.
    A man named Boone kept a diary. He referred to the people in the other huts as strangers. The rescue team finally reached them in February. One woman, crying, asked if they had fallen down from heaven. Snow blocked the mountain pass and was still falling. A group of women and children, the sick and the weak, went with a rescue team.
Two men, three women, and twelve children remained at the lake. They didn’t have the strength to leave.
    When the remaining survivors at Donner Lake had eaten the last animal skin, they dug up the corpses of those who had died of