Bridge Of Birds (6 page)

“The house of Miser Shen,” said Fat Fu, pointing ahead to a large unpainted building in
front of which cheap incense burned before the statues of the Immortal of Commerical
Profits, the Celestial Discoverer of Buried Treasures, the Lord of Lucrative Legacies, and
every other greedy deity in the Heavenly Ministry of Wealth. “Miser Shen owns eight
flourishing businesses, six houses in six different cities, one carriage, one sedan chair,
one horse, three cows, ten pigs, twenty chickens, eight savage guard dogs, seven
half-starved servants, and one young and beautiful concubine named Pretty Ping,” said Fat
Fu. “He acquired all of them by foreclosing mortgages.”

Ahead of us was an old peasant with a mule that was hauling a stone-wheeled cart that
belonged in a museum.

“Manure!”
he shouted in a quavering melancholy voice.
“Fresh manuuuuuuure!”

Inside the house a rasping voice exclaimed, “Stone wheels? Stone wheels in Peking?”
Shutters flew open and an extraordinarily ugly gentleman stuck his head out. “Great
Buddha, they
are
stone wheels!” he yelled, and he vanished inside the house. A moment later I heard him
scream, “Cook! Cook! Don't waste a second!” And then the front door crashed open and Miser
Shen and his cook raced outside and fell in behind the ancient cart.

They were carrying armloads of kitchen cutlery, which they began to sharpen against the
slowly revolving stone wheels.

“At least two copper coins saved, Master!” the cook cried.

“What a bonanza!” howled Miser Shen.

“Manure!”
cried the peasant.
“Fresh manuuuure!”

Another pair of shutters flew open, and Fat Fu pointed toward a heart-shaped face and a
pair of luscious almond eyes.

“Pretty Ping,” she said. “Pretty Ping owns one cheap dress, one cheap coat, one cheap hat,
one pair of cheap sandals, one pair of cheap shoes, one cheap comb, one cheap ring, and
enough humiliation to last twenty lifetimes.”

“More cutlery!” howled Miser Shen. “Bring the hoes and shovels too!”

“One million mortifications,” moaned Pretty Ping, and the shutters slammed shut.

“Manure!”
the old peasant cried.
“Fresh manuuuure!”

“The heat,” Master Li panted, fluttering his fan in front of his face. “The stench. The
noise!”

“Our lord is weary and must rest!” Fat Fu shouted to One-Eyed Wong.

“Even this pigpen will do,” Master Li said weakly.

One-Eyed Wong rapped Miser Shen's shoulder with his gold-tipped staff.

“You there!” he bellowed. “A thousand blessings have descended upon you, for Lord Li of
Kao has condescended to rest in your miserable hovel!”

“Eh?” said Miser Shen, and he gaped at the gold coin that One-Eyed Wong slapped into his
hand.

“Lord Li of Kao shall also require a suite for his beloved ward, Lord Lu of Yu!” bellowed
One-Eyed Wong, slapping a second gold coin into Miser Shen's hand.

“Eh?” said Miser Shen, and a third gold coin smacked into his palm.

“Lord Li of Kao shall also require a suite for his goat!” bellowed One-Eyed Wong.

“Your master must be made of gold!” Miser Shen gasped.

“No,” One-Eyed Wong said absentmindedly. “His goat is.”

A few minutes later I found myself in Miser Shen's best room with Li Kao, the goat, and
the garbage. The fake gold coins were concealed inside fish heads and mildewed mangoes,
and Li Kao fed a shovelful of the stuff to the goat. This was followed by a pint of castor
oil, and shortly thereafter he raked through the mess on the floor with a pair of silver
tongs and extracted two glittering coins.

“What!” he cried. “Only two gold coins? Miserable beast, do not arouse the wrath of Lord
Li of Kao!”

A dull thump from the hallway suggested that Miser Shen had toppled from a peephole in a
dead faint. Li Kao gave him time to recover, and then tried again with the garbage and
castor oil.

“Four? Four gold coins?” he yelled furiously. “Insolent animal, Lord Li of Kao requires
four hundred coins a day to maintain the style to which he is accustomed!”

The dull thump shook the flimsy wall. After Miser Shen recovered, Master Li tried for a
third time, and now his rage knew no bounds.

“Six? Six gold coins? Cretinous creture, have you never heard of geometric progression?
Two, four,
eight,
not two, four,
six!
I shall sell you for dog food and return to the Glittering Glades of Golden Grain for a
better goat!”

The sound of the thump suggested that Miser Shen would be unconscious for quite some time,
and Master Li led me out into the hallway. As we stepped over the prostrate body he took
my arm and said quite seriously, “Number Ten Ox, if we are to survive our visit to the
Ancestress you must learn that a soldier's best shield is a light heart. If you continue
with that long face and soggy soul you will be the death of us, and we will attend to the
matter immediately.” He trotted briskly up the stairs and opened doors until he found the
right one.

“Who are you?” cried Pretty Ping.

“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.”

“But what are you doing in my bedchamber?” cried Pretty Ping.

“I am paying my respects, and my client is preparing to spend the night,” said Master Li.

“But where is Miser Shen?” cried Pretty Ping.

“Miser Shen is preparing to spend the night with a goat.”

“A goat?”

“It will be a very expensive goat.”

“A very ex...
What are you doing?
” cried Pretty Ping.

“I am undressing,” I said, because I had been well brought up and I would never dream of
contradicting so venerable a sage as Li Kao. Besides, I had been told to obey him by the
abbot, who was praying for my soul.

“I shall scream!” cried Pretty Ping.

“I sincerely hope so. Ah, if I could only be ninety again,” Master Li said nostalgically.
“Ox, flex a few muscles for the young lady.”

Pretty Ping stared at me, as Li Kao turned and trotted back down the stairs. I grinned
back at a young lady whose family had fallen into the clutches of a usurer, and whose
beauty had condemned her to the embraces of an elderly gentleman who was equipped with a
pair of glittering little pig eyes, a bald and mottled skull, a sharp curving nose like a
parrot's beak, the loose flabby lips of a camel, and two drooping elephant ears from which
sprouted thick tufts of coarse gray hair. Her luscious lips parted.

“Help,” said Pretty Ping.

The noises downstairs suggested that Miser Shen was acquiring a goat, some castor oil, and
a load of garbage, and Pretty Ping and I took the opportunity to get acquainted. In China
when young people wish to become acquainted they usually start by playing Fluttering
Butterflies, because there is no better way to get to know somebody than to play
Fluttering Butterflies.

“Eat!”
Miser Shen screamed to the goat.

After young people have become acquainted it is customary to warm things up with the
Kingfisher Union, because it is impossible to engage in the Kingfisher Union without
becoming close friends.

“Gold!”
screamed Miser Shen.

A cup of wine is then called for, and a discussion of relative merits that is usually
resolved in favor of Hounds by the Ninth Day of Autumn.

“Eat!”
screamed Miser Shen.

The young gentleman then plays the lute while the young lady dances in a manner that would
cause a riot if performed in public, and they inevitably become entangled in Six Doves
Beneath the Eaves on a Rainy Day.

“Gold!”
screamed Miser Shen.

Now that friendship has been firmly established it is but a step and a jump to become
soulmates, and the fastest way to become soulmates is Phoenix Sporting in the Cinnabar
Crevice.

“Eat!”
screamed Miser Shen.

This will lead to wine, love poems, and a return to Fluttering Butterflies, but slowly and
drowsily, accompanied by giggles, and so it goes in China until the dawn, when somebody
might calm down enough to consider testing the purity of gold coins.

“What is that appalling stench, O most perfect and penetrating of partners?” yawned Pretty
Ping.

“I fear that it marks the approach of Miser Shen, O beauty beyond compare,” I said sadly,
as I climbed out of bed and pulled on my trousers.

“And what is that angry noise, O most tantalizingly tender of tigers?” asked Pretty Ping.

“I fear that Miser Shen is arming his seven half-starved servants with clubs, O rarest of
rose petals.” I sighed, as I collected my sandals, tunic, jade-embroidered silver girdle,
fine tasseled hat, and gold-splattered Szech'uen fan.

“Merciful Buddha! What is the ghastly thing that is oozing obscenely through my
doorway?”
howled Pretty Ping.

“I fear that it is a mound of goat manure, beneath which you should find Miser Shen.
Farewell, O seduction of the universe,” I said, and I jumped out the window to the street
below.

Li Kao was waiting for me, well rested after a pleasant night with Fat Fu and One-Eyed
Wong, and he appeared to approve of the sparkle in my eyes. I bent over and he hopped up
upon my back, and then I raced through the streets toward the city walls while behind us
Miser Shen screamed,
“Bring back my five hundred pieces of gold!”

Our path toward the house of the Ancestress ran through steep mountains, and most of the
time Master Li rode upon my back. Sea sounds filled the immense sky as the wind blew
through tall trees - pine surfs, as the poets say - and the clouds looked like white sails
that were gliding across an endless blue ocean.

One day we climbed down the last mountainside to a green valley, and Li Kao pointed ahead
to a low hill.

“The summer estate of the Ancestress should be on the other side,” he said. “To tell the
truth, I'm rather looking forward to seeing her again.”

He smiled at a memory of fifty years ago.

“Ox, I hear that she's put on a great deal of weight, but the Ancestress was the most
beautiful girl that I have ever seen in my life, and the most charming when she felt like
it,” he said. "Still, there was something about her that rang warning bells in my mind,
and I was quite fond of old Wen. I was in high favor after the affair of Procopius and the
other barbarians - I was even allowed to approach the throne on an east-west axis, instead
of groveling up on my knees from the south - and one day I sidled up to the emperor and
said with a sly wink that I had arranged for us to spy upon some newlyweds who were about
to consummate the happy union. Wen was something of a voyeur, so we tiptoed to my suite
and I opened a small curtain and pointed a pedantic finger.

" 'O Son of Heaven,' I said, 'it would appear that marriage to a certain kind of female
can have unfortunate side effects.'

“The newlyweds happened to be praying mantises,” said Master Li. “The groom was happily
engrossed in copulation, and right on cue his blushing bride craned her pretty neck and
casually decapitated him. The groom's hindquarters continued to pump away while the bride
devoured his head, which says something about the location of his brains, and for a moment
the emperor had second thoughts about wedding bells. But the Ancestress got to him and I
was exiled to Serendip, which was quite fortunate because I wasn't around when she
poisoned poor Wen and began massacring everyone in sight.”

We reached the top of the hill and I stared down in horror at an estate that resembled a
vast military fort. It covered almost an entire valley, and it was surrounded by high
parallel walls. The corridors between them were patrolled by guards and savage dogs, and
everywhere I looked I saw soldiers.

“I understand that her winter palace is really something,” Master Li said calmly.

“Can we really get into her treasure chambers and steal the Root of Power?” I asked in a
tiny frightened voice.

“I have no intention of attempting such a thing,” he said. “We'll persuade the dear lady
to bring the root to us. Unfortunately that means that we will have to murder somebody,
and I have never truly enjoyed slitting the throats of innocent bystanders. We must pray
that we will find somebody who thoroughly deserves it.”

He started down the hill.

“Of course, if she recognizes me, the funeral will be ours, and for once she will abandon
the axe in favor of boiling oil,” he said.

In the last town of consequence Li Kao made certain arrangements, such as purchasing an
elegant carriage and renting the largest suite in the inn, and then he went to the town
square and tacked one of Miser Shen's gold coins to the message board. I assumed that it
would be stolen as soon as we turned our backs, but he drew mysterious symbols around it,
and the townspeople who approached the message board turned pale and backed away
hurriedly, muttering spells to protect themselves from evil. I had no idea what was going
on.

That evening the most alarming bunch of thugs that I had ever seen in my life paused at
the message board, studied the coin and the symbols, and began trickling by twos and
threes into the inn. Li Kao had set out jars of the strongest wine, which they swilled
like hogs, growling and snarling and glaring at me with their hands on the hilts of their
daggers. The animal noises stopped abruptly when Li Kao entered and climbed up upon a
table.

It was as if hands had been clapped over their filthy mouths. Their eyes bulged, and sweat
poured down their greasy faces. The leader of the thugs turned quite gray with terror, and
I thought that he was going to faint.

Master Li was wearing a red robe that was covered with cosmological symbols, and a red
headband with five loops. His right trouser leg was rolled up, and his left trouser leg
was rolled down, and he wore a shoe on his right foot and a sandal on his left. He laid
his left hand across his chest with the little and middle fingers extended, and he slid
his right hand back inside the sleeve of his robe. The sleeve began to flutter in peculiar
patterns as he wriggled the concealed fingers.