Ch 31 The Story of Chinese Dragon

Wang Yao reached out both hands and clenched on Ivan's wrists hanging over his shoulders. His fingertips felt the strong beating pulse, suddenly taking him back to the distant childhood when his mother first taught him how to measure pulse. He could never forget that touching moment of amazement and delight. If it was grandmother's graveyard that made him realize the earth's fascinating spell of giving and taking of lives, then, the seemingly endless surge of blood made him realize that he was a part of this everlasting land, and, along with the land, would never age or die.

He was reluctant to take his hands off from Ivan's wrists!

"Vanya! You are life itself!" he annouced with a loud and clear voice, like a boy.

"Only people studying biology would say something like this." Ivan recovered his calm and humorous composure, "I'm just a painter. My job is to put life on paper and give them a second life with my own interpretation."

Now, Wang Yao remembered that his portrait sketch had been in Ivan's gripping hands all this time. He quickly grabbed the paper—luckily, only the corner was wrinkled and soaked with sweat in Ivan's palm.

"Look what you did! Should be more careful!"

"When the war's over, I'll make you a better one. This one is nothing…"

The portrait was drawn on a piece of paper torn off from a student notebook that Ivan probably brought from home when their unit reclaimed the village of Bereza. One couldn't wish for high quality drawing paper and paints on the battlefield, but Wang Yao indeed loved this simple pencil sketch. Especially that pair of eyes, exhibiting a faint expression on the verge of smile—those were his own eyes, familiar but refreshingly novel. When he looked into the mirror before the war, he never discovered such expression.

But he knew that he wouldn't be looked anything different. Because these days he could see such expression on Toris' and Natasha's faces, as well as Vanya's—lucid, bright and melancholic, like the winter sky…

He couldn't remember how he tiptoed, surrounded his arms around Vanya's neck, and placed his lips onto his lover's with a solid kiss. All he could remember was his burning face when those strong and warm arms surrounded his waist.

"How could you say the drawing was not good!" He finally broke free from him, barely able to keep down his shyness from their intimacy owing to his own forward gesture, and pointing aimlessly with his finger. "Look at the eyes, they are just wonderful…"

"You're pointing the neck." Ivan smiled and winked; but to Wang Yao, that smile was like watching a monkey show. To prove himself not being a monkey, Wang Yao cleared his throat like all the important people do before they spoke, and said with all seriousness, "Look at these eyes. They are truly like putting eyes on a dragon's painting."

The Russian expression for "finishing touch" escaped his mind, so he said this idiom of his native language. As expected, Ivan raised an eyebrow in confusion, so he quickly added, "You draw a dragon, then put eyes on it, and it will suddenly come to life!"

"Then tell me what this 'dragon' is?"

Wang Yao cheered up in an instant. In front of this Ivan who always treated him like a little guy, he could finally claim a sense of "superiority". "In my country, dragon, or 'Loong', is a magical being in legends. People respect it and honour it. My mother almost named me 'Loong'…" Then he gave him a lecture of all kinds of things related to Chinese dragon until Ivan begged him, "Please, tell me that story of drawing eyes on dragon!"

"About one thousand and four hundred years ago—which is even earlier than Grand Duchy of Moscow!" He raised his chin complacently, "There was a great painter in China. Things he drew looked so vivid, almost like real—maybe you'll be like him! One day, he painted four dragons on the wall but only put eyes on one of them. A moment later, thunder and lightening came out of nowhere and that dragon with eyes flew away…"

"…Why?"

"Because dragon is a spiritual and divine creature…you drew eyes on it and it would fly away. The ones without eyes stayed on the wall."

"Yao…did that dragon fly back?"

"Dragon is the freest of all. Who could bound a dragon? It flew away and never came back…"

Suddenly, a moment of dull pain struck his heart but he couldn't see his own face turning ghastly pale. For a second, he thought that his two feet took off the ground—Ivan grabbed his shoulder and knees, swinging him into those big arms like they did in the woods before new year. How happy they were back then…

He didn't struggle nor make a sound, but only buried his face deeply onto Ivan's shoulder, not letting Ivan see his eyes, like when they were in the Bereza woods when Ivan kissed him for the first time.

"Well, we're back on this topic again." He heard Ivan's low voice, "This little dragon will eventually fly away, right? But what if I just hold you like this, not letting you fly away?"

"I won't fly away…I will always stay on the ground…Vanechka, do you remember your own words? Both of us are workers of the land, and in the future, we shall have our names side by side in the name of the land. Land is mother…"

He couldn't continue, fearing that he would burst into tears.

"But everyone got mother of their own—that's what you're trying to say?"

"You don't have to think about that." He struggled down from Ivan's arms—he yearned for those arms, but he knew that he would completely give in if lying in there for any longer. "Just keep in mind that I am with you right now…"

The war never ceased to dominate people's destiny in its own way. By the end of January, 1942, several German divisions redeployed from western Europe had turned the Vyazma front back to a favorable situation to the Germans. The war was almost propelled forward by inertia. Offensives were dampened and rhythms broken—it seemed that they would shift back to defence for another peroid of time.

The name list was frequently crossed off to add in new soldiers. Some names were crossed off before they were remembered. In the very recent offensive, the reconnaissance infantry unit suffered trememdous loss once again. Natasha was busy taking care of wounded soldiers and sending them off to the medical tent. Wang Yao, Toris and other unjuried ones were digging graves without a word. Ivan Braginsky was not among the grave diggers. His left shoulder was wounded and his sister just wrapped it up. Now, he sat aside and brushed his left arm hanging from bandage. His gloomy eyes watched the livings placing the deads into freshly digged pits.

As soon as Wang Yao finished his work, he came over and sat down beside him, silently placing one hand on his knee. The company borrowed a big wagon from nearby village, planning to send one person accompanying the wounded soldiers to the medical tent. Wang Yao assumed the role. The wounded soldiers lied down on the straws, quickly falling asleep from the bumpy ride. Only Ivan was sitting upright and silently watching Wang Yao's back as that person drove the horses, as if his gaze could go around to meet that pair of dark round eyes of solitude and contemplation.

When the medical tent appeared in front of their eyes, Wang Yao turned around and rubbed that light blonde hair, "Vanya! Don't worry. Stay here for a short while and you'll come back…"

Wang Yao didn't return immediately since he wanted to wait for the assessment of Ivan's injury. The head nurse whom Wang Yao came to know earlier unwrapped the bandages on Ivan's shoulder, frowned and chatted with the chief physician beside her. She then announced, "Your wound is not severe but it's at a tough location. You must do surgery. We decide to send you to the hospital in Moscow."

"I'm not going anywhere!" Ivan suddenly yelled. "I'm staying right here in the tent. If you don't treat me, then I'll just turn back to the front!"

The head nurse raised those two thin brows in annoyance, "What is wrong with you? Your friend here…" she raised her chin towards Wang Yao, "He was being such a nice boy when he stayed here, but you just have to be difficult…"

"Vanya…" The person standing silently beside him finally opened his mouth, "She is right. Shoulder wound is hard to care. The joint takes longer to heal…"

They both knew! If a wounded soldier stayed at the medical tent, he would be able to return to his original unit after recovery; but if he was sent away to hospital at the rear…then it would be hard to say where he would be assigned to after discharge.

"I'm sorry." Ivan breathed heavily, "But what if I don't go to the hospital? What then?"

"Then it'll be very long. It'll leave you with complications if it did heal." The head nurse answered with complex tone, "If you aren't lucky, you might have to amputate. So, if you want to keep this arm, go to Moscow and have the surgery."

Ivan lowered his head, not talking anymore. He couldn't remember how he got on the truck to Moscow, nor how he said goodbye to Wang Yao. All he remembered was when the truck had driven far away, his eyes were still fixed at that pale-faced person standing on the roadside. The whisper remained in his ears:

"I will find you…There's not a person that Wang Yao cannot find."