Bridge Of Birds (5 page)

“Where his throat will probably be slit by somebody like Ma the Grub,” the abbot said
sourly. “Who will be swindled by somebody like Pawnbroker Fang, who will sell the root to
somebody like the Ancestress, who will squat like a huge venomous toad upon a folk deity
whose sole purpose in life is to aid the pure in heart.”

“Reverend Sir, I have never heard of the Ancestress,” I said shyly.

The abbot leaned back and rubbed his weary eyes.

“What a woman,” he said with grudging admiration. “Ox, she began her career as an
eleven-year-old imperial concubine, and by the time she was sixteen she had Emperor Wen
wrapped around her fingers to the point where he took her as his number three wife. The
Ancestress promptly poisoned the emperor, strangled his other wives, decapitated all but
the youngest of his sons, elevated that weakling to the throne - Emperor Yang - and
settled down behind the scenes as the real ruler of China.”

“Reverend Sir, I have heard all my life that Emperor Yang was a depraved and vicious ruler
who nearly destroyed the empire,” I exclaimed.

“That's the official version, with parricide tossed in,” the abbot said drily. "Actually
he was a timid little fellow, and quite likable. The real ruler was the Ancestress, which
is a title that she awarded herself and which carries a certain Confucian finality. Her
reign was brief, but gorgeous. She set about bankrupting the empire by decreeing that
every leaf that fell in her imperial pleasure garden must be replaced by an artificial
leaf fashioned from the costliest silk. Her imperial pleasure barge was 270 feet long,
four decks high, and boasted a three-story throne room and 120 cabins decorated in gold
and jade. The problem was finding a pond big enough for the thing, so she conscripted
3,600,000 peasants and forced them to link the Yellow and Yangtze rivers by digging a
ditch 40 feet deep, 50 yards wide, and 1,000 miles long. The Grand Canal has been
invaluable for commerce, but the important thing for the Ancestress was that three million
men died during the construction, and a figure like that confirmed her godlike grandeur.

“When the canal was finished,” the abbot said, “the Ancestress invited a few friends to
accompany her on an important mission of state to Yang-chou. The fleet of pleasure barges
stretched sixty miles from stem to stern, was manned by 9,000 boatmen, and was towed by
80,000 peasants, some of whom survived. The important mission of state was to watch the
moon-flowers bloom, but Emperor Yang did not watch the moon-flowers. The excesses of the
Ancestress were being performed in his name, so he spent the entire trip staring into a
mirror. 'What an excellent head!' he kept whimpering. 'I wonder who will cut it off?' The
chopping was performed by some friends of the great soldier Li Shih-min, who eventually
took the imperial name T'ang T'ai-tsung and who sits upon the throne today. T'ang shows
every sign of becoming the greatest emperor in history, but I will humbly submit that he
made a bad mistake when he assumed that little Yang was responsible for the crimes of the
Sui Dynasty and allowed the Ancestress to retire in luxury.”

I suppose that I was pale as a ghost. The abbot reached out and patted one of my knees.

“Ox, you will be traveling with a man who has been walking into dangerous situations for
at least ninety years, assuming that he began at your age, and he is still alive to tell
about it. Besides, Master Li knows far more about the Ancestress than I do, and he is sure
to exploit her weaknesses.”

The abbot paused to consider his words. Bees droned and flies buzzed, and I wondered if
the knocking of my knees was audible. A few minutes ago I had been ready to dash out like
a racehorse, and now I would prefer to dart down a hole like a rabbit.

“You are a good boy, and I would not like to meet the man who can surpass you in physical
strength, but you know very little about this wicked world,” the abbot said slowly. “To
tell the truth, I am not so worried about the damage to your body as I am about the damage
to your soul. You see, you know nothing whatsoever about men like Master Li, and he said
that he would stop in Peking to acquire some money, and I rather suspect...”

His voice trailed off, and he groped for the proper words. Then he decided that it would
take several years to prepare me properly.

“Number Ten Ox, our only hope is Master Li,” he said somberly. “You must do as he
commands, and I shall be praying for your immortal soul.”

With that rather alarming blessing he left me to return to the children, and I went out to
say farewell to my family and friends. Later I was able to catch some sleep. In my dreams
I was surrounded by plump brown children as I attempted to tie a red ribbon around a root
of lightning in a garden where three million fake silk leaves rustled in a breeze that
stank of three million real rotting bodies.

“A spring wind is like wine,” wrote Chang Chou, “a summer wind is like tea, an autumn wind
is like smoke, and a winter wind is like ginger or mustard.” The breeze that blew through
Peking was tea touched with smoke, and spiced with the fragrance of plum, poppy, peony,
plane trees, lotus, narcissus, orchid, wild rose, and the sweet-smelling leaves of banana
and bamboo. The breeze was also pungent with pork fat, perspiration, sour wine, and the
bewildering odors of more people than I had dreamed there were in the whole world.

The first time I was there I had been too intent upon reaching the Street of Eyes to pay
much attention to the Moon Festival, but now I gaped at the jugglers and acrobats who were
filling the air with clubs and bodies, and at girls who were as tiny and delicate as
porcelain dolls, and who danced on the tips of their toes upon enormous artificial lotus
blossoms. The palanquins and carriages of the nobility moved grandly through the streets,
and men and women laughed and wept in open-air theatres, and gamblers screamed and swore
around dice games and cricket fights. I envied the elegance and assurance of the gentlemen
who basked in the practiced admiration of singsong girls - or tiptoed into the Alley of
Four Hundred Forbidden Delights if they wanted more action. The most beautiful young women
that I had ever seen were pounding drums in brightly painted tents as they sang and
chanted the Flower Drum Songs. On almost every corner I saw old ladies with twinkling eyes
who sold soft drinks and candied fruits while they cried,
“Aiieeee! Aiieeee! Come closer, my children! Spread ears like elephants, and I shall
tell you the tale of the great Ehr-lang, and of the time when he was devoured by the
hideous Transcendent Pig!”

Master Li had sharp elbows. He moved easily through the throngs, followed by yelps of
pain, and he pointed out the landmarks and explained that the strange sounds of the city
were as comprehensible to urban ears as barnyard sounds were to mine. The twanging of long
tuning forks, for example, meant that barbers had set up shop, and porcelain spoons
rapping against bowls advertised tiny dumplings in hot syrup, and clanging copper saucers
meant that soft drinks made from wild plums and sweet and sour crab apples were for sale.

As he moved toward his destination, I assumed in my innocence that he was intending to
acquire some money by visiting a wealthy friend, or a moneylender who owed him a favor. I
blush to admit that not once did I pause to consider the state of the bamboo shack in
which I had found him or the nature of friends that he was likely to have. I was quite
surprised when he turned abruptly from the main street and trotted down an alley that
reeked of refuse. Rats glared at us with fierce glittering eyes, and fermenting garbage
bubbled and stank, and I stepped nervously over a corpse - or so I thought until I smelled
the fellow's breath. He was not dead but dead-drunk, and at the end of the alley, the blue
flag of a wine seller hung above a sagging wooden shack.

I later learned that the wineshop of One-Eyed Wong was the most notorious in all China,
but at the time I merely noticed that the low dark room was swarming with vermin and
flies, and that a thug with a jade earring that dangled from one chewed earlobe did not
approve of the product.

“You Peking weaklings call this watery piss wine?” he roared. “Back in Soochow we make
wine so strong that it knocks you out for a month if you smell it on somebody's breath!”

One-Eyed Wong turned to his wife, who was blending the stuff behind the counter.

“We must add more cayenne, my turtledove.”

“Two hundred and twenty-two transcendent miseries!” wailed Fat Fu. “We have run out of
cayenne!”

“In that case, O light of my existence, we shall substitute the stomach acid of diseased
sheep,” One-Eyed Wong said calmly.

The thug with the earring whipped out a dagger and lurched around the room, savagely
slashing the air.

“You Peking weaklings call these things flies?” he yelled. “Back in Soochow we have flies
so big that we clip their wings, hitch them to plows, and use them for oxen!”

“Perhaps a few flattened flies might add bouquet,” One-Eyed Wong said thoughtfully.

“Yours is genius of the highest order, O noble stallion of the bedchamber, but flies are
too risky,” said Fat Fu. “They might overpower our famous flavor of crushed cockroaches.”

The thug did not approve of Master Li. “You Peking weaklings call these midgets men?” he
howled. “Back in Soochow we grow men so big that their heads brush the clouds while their
feet are planted upon the ground!”

“Indeed? In my humble village,” Master Li said sweetly, “we grow men so big that their
upper lips lick the stars, while their lower lips nuzzle the earth.”

The thug thought about it.

“And where are their bodies?”

“They are like you,” said Master Li. “All mouth.”

His hand shot out, a blade glinted, blood spurted, and he calmly dropped the thug's
earring into his pocket, along with the ear that was attached to it. “My surname is Li and
my personal name is Kao, and there is a slight flaw in my character,” he said with a
polite bow. “This is my esteemed client, Number Ten Ox, who is about to strike you over
the head with a blunt object.”

I wasn't quite sure what a blunt object was, but I was spared the embarrassment of asking
when the thug sat down at a table and began to cry. Li Kao exchanged a bawdy joke with
One-Eyed Wong, pinched Fat Fu's vast behind, and beckoned for me to join them at a table
with a jar of wine that was not of their own manufacture.

“Ox, it occurs to me that your education may be deficient in certain basic aspects of
human intercourse, and I suggest that you pay close attention,” he said. He placed the
thug's jade earring, which was quite beautiful, upon the table. “A lovely thing,” he said.

“Trash,” sneered One-Eyed Wong.

“Cheap imitation jade,” sneered Fat Fu.

“Carved by a blind man,” sneered One-Eyed Wong.

“Worst earring I ever saw,” sneered Fat Fu.

“How much?” asked One-Eyed Wong.

“It is yours for a song,” said Master Li. “In this case a song means a large purse of fake
gold coins, two elegant suits of clothes, the temporary use of a palatial palanquin and
suitably attired bearers, a cart of garbage, and a goat.”

One-Eyed Wong did some mental addition.

“No goat.”

“But I must have a goat.”

“It isn't that good an earring.”

“It doesn't have to be that good a goat.”

“No goat.”

“But you not only get the earring, you also get the ear that is attached to it,” said
Master Li.

The proprietors bent over the table and examined the bloody thing with interest.

“This is not a very good ear,” sneered One-Eyed Wong.

“It is a terrible ear,” sneered Fat Fu.

“Revolting,” sneered One-Eyed Wong.

“Worst ear I ever saw,” sneered Fat Fu.

“Besides, what good is it?” asked One-Eyed Wong.

“Look at the vile creature it came from, and imagine the filth that has been hissed into
it.” Master Li bent over the table and whispered, “Let us assume that you have an enemy.”

“Enemy,” said One-Eyed Wong.

“He is a wealthy man with a country estate.”

“Estate,” said Fat Fu.

“A stream flows through the estate.”

“Stream,” said One-Eyed Wong.

“It is midnight. You climb the fence and cleverly elude the dogs. Silent as a shadow you
slip to the top of the stream and peer around slyly. Then you take this revolting ear from
your pocket and dip it into the water, and words of such vileness flow out that the fish
are poisoned for miles, and your enemy's cattle drink from the stream and drop dead on the
spot, and his lush irrigated fields wither into bleak desolation, and his children splash
in their bathing pool and acquire leprosy, and all for the price of a goat.”

Fat Fu buried her face in her hands.

“Ten thousand blessings upon the mother who brought Li Kao into the world,” she sobbed,
while One-Eyed Wong dabbed at his eyes with a filthy handkerchief and sniffled, “Sold.”

In the country my life had been attuned to the rhythm of the seasons, and things happened
gradually. Now I had entered the whirlwind world of Li Kao, and I believe that I was in a
state of shock. At any rate, the next thing that I remember was riding through the streets
with Li Kao and Fat Fu in a palatial palanquin, while One-Eyed Wong marched ahead of us
and bashed the lower classes out of the way with a gold-tipped staff. One-Eyed Wong was
dressed as the majordomo of a great house, and Fat Fu was attired as a noble nurse, and
Master Li and I dazzled the eyes in tunics of sea-green silk that were secured by silver
girdles with borders of jade. The jeweled pendants that dangled from our fine tasseled
hats tinkled in the breeze, and we languidly waved gold-splattered Szech'uen fans.

A servant brought up the rear, dragging a cart filled with garbage and a mangy goat. The
servant was a thug of low appearance with a bandage around his head, and he kept
whimpering, “My ear!”