Sandalwood Death (17 page)

With a slight upward tilt of his chin, Excellency Yuan signaled the swine to answer.

“About as long as it takes to smoke a bowlful of tobacco,” he said, “but it is hard to say. Some die on the spot, like lopping off the branch of a tree.”

Von Ketteler said something to the interpreter, who translated: “The Plenipotentiary does not approve. He says death might come too fast and will not serve as a proper warning to people with evil thoughts in their heads. He would like you to find a uniquely cruel method that will inflict the maximum amount of suffering and draw it out as long as possible. The Plenipotentiary would like to see an execution where the subject holds on for at least five days. Ideally, the man would still be alive on August twentieth, the day the section of railroad between Qingdao and Gaomi is completed.”

Excellency Yuan said, “Think hard, is there any punishment that fits the bill?”

The swine shook his head. “He’d die if you hung him up for five days and did nothing else to him.”

Von Ketteler said something to the interpreter. “The Plenipotentiary says that China is backward in everything but punishment techniques. This is one area in which the Chinese are world-beaters. Inflicting unbearable pain on someone before killing him is a uniquely Chinese art and is at the core of its governing philosophy.”

“Horse shit,” I heard Excellency Yuan mutter under his breath. But he quickly smothered that with a loud, impatient command to the swine: “Think hard,” he said, before he turned to von Ketteler and said, “Esteemed Plenipotentiary, if such a punishment exists in your country, I would be happy if you taught him. It would take less effort to learn that than how to build a railroad.”

The interpreter did his job, after which I saw von Ketteler scrunch up his forehead as he pondered a response. With his head down, the swine was trying to come up with something.

Then, abruptly, he excitedly jabbered something to the interpreter.

“The esteemed Plenipotentiary says that there is a punishment in Europe that guarantees prolonged suffering before death. The condemned is nailed to an upright cross and left there.”

But then, just as abruptly, the swine’s eyes lit up, and he blurted out excitedly, “Excellency, your humble servant has an idea. Years ago I heard my shifu say that during the Yongzheng reign, his master’s master put to death a man who had emptied his bowels in the Imperial Mausoleum by means of what he called the sandalwood death.”

“What does it consist of?” His Excellency asked.

The swine said, “My master described it to me only in vague terms, but the gist of it is that a pointed sandalwood stake is inserted into the subject’s grain passage and forced up all the way to the nape of his neck and out. Then he is bound to a tree.”

With a satisfied sneer, His Excellency said, “Great minds think alike. How long before the man died?”

“Three days, I think,” the swine said, “or maybe four.”

Excellency Yuan told the interpreter to immediately inform von Ketteler, who reacted almost rapturously. He stammered in stilted Chinese, “Good, the sandalwood death, that’s it!”

His Excellency said, “Since Plenipotentiary von Ketteler approves, that is what we shall do. Sun Bing will suffer the sandalwood death, but you must make sure that he lives five days. Today is the thirteenth of August. Tomorrow you make your preparations, and the day after that, the fifteenth, the punishment will be carried out.”

The swine fell to his knees. “Excellency, your humble servant is getting on in age and is not as spry as he once was. He will require an assistant for an execution of this magnitude.”

His Excellency turned to me. “Have an assistant chosen from among the executioners at Gaomi’s South Prison.”

The swine objected: “Excellency,” he said, “I would rather that the county not be involved.”

Excellency Yuan laughed. “Are you afraid they will steal your thunder on this?”

The swine merely said, “I ask that Your Excellency grant me permission to have my son serve as an assistant.”

“What does your son do?” Excellency Yuan asked.

“He butchers pigs and dogs,” the swine replied.

Again His Excellency laughed. “He sounds qualified. All right, then, in battle one relies on his brothers; in a fight, only father and son will do. Permission granted.” The swine remained kneeling on the floor.

“What else do you have to say?” Excellency Yuan asked.

“Excellency,” the swine said, “carrying out the sandalwood death will require a thick post with a crossbar on top of a high wooden platform, with an access plank on one side.”

“Make a drawing and give it to the County Magistrate for construction,” Yuan said.

The swine said, “I will also require two stakes made of the finest sandalwood and shaved down like spikes. Your humble servant will personally do the work.”

“The County Magistrate will see to that,” Excellency Yuan said.

Then the swine said, “I will also require two hundred jin of refined sesame oil.”

Excellency Yuan laughed. “Are you planning to fry Sun Bing to go with fine spirits?”

“Excellency,” the swine said, “after the stakes are properly carved, they must steep in sesame oil all day and all night if they are to slip through the body without soaking up blood.”

“Have Gaomi County take care of everything,” Yuan said. “Is there anything else? Now is the time to give me the complete list.”

The swine said, “I will also require ten strips of leather, a wooden hammer, a rooster with white feathers, two red felt caps, two pairs of high-top boots, two sets of black clothing, two red satin sashes, two bull’s-ear daggers, plus a hundred jin of white rice, a hundred jin of wheat flour, a hundred chicken eggs, twenty jin each of pork and beef, half a jin of top-quality ginseng, a medicinal pot, three hundred jin of kindling, two buckets, a water vat, and two woks, one large and one small.”

“What do you need ginseng for?” Excellency Yuan asked.

The swine said, “Hear me out, Excellency. The subject’s stomach will not be affected by the insertion of the stake, but there will be a significant loss of blood, and keeping him alive will require a daily infusion of ginseng. That is the only way your humble servant can ensure that the subject will last five days.”

Excellency Yuan said, “Can you guarantee that he will not die for at least five days with the infusion of ginseng?”

“Your humble servant guarantees it,” the swine replied emphatically.

Excellency Yuan said, “Gaomi County, go make a list and have it filled without delay!”

The swine would still not rise.

“Rise,” Excellency Yuan said.

But the swine kept knocking his head on the floor.

“That’s enough,” Excellency Yuan said. “I don’t want you to break that dog head of yours. Now listen carefully. If you satisfactorily carry out this assignment, I will reward you, father and son, with one hundred ounces of silver each. But if something goes wrong, I will have you both speared with sandalwood stakes and hung on posts until you are desiccated corpses!”

With one last resounding kowtow, the swine said, “Thank you, Excellency.”

“Gaomi County,” Excellency Yuan said to me, “the same goes for you!”

I said, “Your humble servant will spare no effort.”

Yuan stood up and, together with von Ketteler, started out of the hall. But he had taken only a few steps when he turned back, as if he’d forgotten something. “Gaomi County,” he said nonchalantly, “I hear you have brought Liu Peicun’s son here from Sichuan and given him an official position. Is that true?”

“Yes, Your Excellency,” I replied frankly. “Liu Peicun was from Fushun County in Sichuan Province, where I was once posted. When his widow and family returned to Fushun with his coffin, I paid my respects as someone who was born in the same year as he and made a gift to the family of ten ounces of silver. Not long after that, his grieving widow passed away, but not before turning her son, Liu Pu, over to my care. When I saw how intelligent and conscientious he was, I gave him a job in the county yamen.”

“Gaomi County, you are a straightforward man of integrity,” His Excellency said somewhat enigmatically, “not someone who curries favor with the powerful, a man with a big heart. But you show a lack of judgment.”

I laid my head against the floor and said, “Thank you, Excellency, for your instruction.”

“Zhao Jia,” Excellency Yuan said, “you are the sworn enemy of Liu Pu for killing his father!”

The swine’s clever response was, “I was carrying out Her Royal Highness’s decree.”

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4

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Dear wife, why aren’t you pouring? Pour! Fill them up! Let’s drink. You are so pale. Are you crying? Don’t cry, dear wife, I’ve already decided what to do. I’ll make sure those hundred ounces of silver never reach that swine and that von Ketteler’s plot falls through. And I will stop Yuan Shikai from getting his wish. Yuan saw to it that my brother, my own flesh and blood, was sliced to shreds. Cruel! Barbaric! Savage! Yuan Shikai has honey on his lips but murder in his heart. A dagger is hidden in his smile, and I know that he will not lightly spare me. Once he has disposed of Sun Bing, he will come for your husband. Since death is inevitable, one way or the other, dear wife, why not do it right! In times like this, only the dead are men; the living are dogs. Dear wife, you and I have been husband and wife for more than ten years, and even though we have been denied a child, we treat each other with respect in domestic harmony. I want you to leave for Hunan tomorrow morning. Your transportation has already been arranged. There you will find ten acres of paddy land, a five-room house, and savings of three hundred ounces of silver, enough for you for the rest of your life if you live frugally. After you have left, there will be nothing for me to worry about. Please, dear wife, do not cry. It breaks my heart. We are living in chaotic times, hell on earth for officials and commoners alike. It is better to be a dog in peace than a human being in times of chaos. Dear wife, when you are back home in Hunan, adopt one of Second Brother’s sons. He will take care of you in your old age and see to your funeral. I have written a letter to that effect, and they will not object. When a bird is about to die, its cry is sorrowful; when a man is about to die, there is kindness in his words. Do not talk like that, dear wife, for if you were to die, who would burn incense and spirit money for me? You must leave, for if you were to remain here, my willpower would suffer.

Dear wife, I have a confession to make to you. I have wanted to own up to this for a long time, but you probably already know. For the last three years, I have carried on a liaison with Meiniang, Sun Bing’s daughter and the daughter-in-law of Zhao Jia. She is now pregnant with my child. Dear wife, in light of more than a decade of marriage, I ask that if the child is a boy, you will find a way to have him brought to Hunan with you. If it is a girl, let that be the end of it. Consider this my last will and testament, dear wife, and an expression of Qian Ding’s enduring gratitude.

B
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T
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C
HAPTER
F
IVE

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1

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Qian Ding, newly appointed Magistrate of Gaomi County, had a spectacular beard that cascaded from his chin down across his chest. At his first official audience, this beard served to warn the wily clerks in the six boards and three ranks of devilishly crafty yayi against insubordination. His predecessor, a man with protruding lips and the chin of an ape, from which had sprouted a few dozen ratty whiskers, had bought his position. The man had been ignorant and incompetent, his only skill the accumulation of riches. He’d sat in the audience hall pulling his ears and scratching his cheeks like a macaque monkey. His wretched appearance and shameless immorality had created a psychological benchmark for his successor, Qian Ding. The gathered petty officials witnessed something fresh and appealing in the dignified demeanor of the new County Magistrate, and Qian Ding was struck by the light of amicability in the eyes of the men arrayed in front of him.

Qian had passed the Imperial Examination with distinction, achieving one of the highest rankings, in 1883, the eighth year of the Qing Guangxu Emperor’s reign, sharing honors with Liu Guangdi, one of the renowned Six Gentlemen of the Wuxu Reform Movement. Liu was the thirty-seventh successful candidate of the Second Rank, Qian the thirty-eighth. After passing the examination, he spent two years in the capital in a minor government office, then bribed his way into a provincial assignment. He had served as Magistrate before, first in Guangdong’s Dianbai County, and then in Sichuan’s Fushun County, the latter being the birthplace of Liu Guangdi. Both Dianbai and Fushun were remote, inaccessible locales with barren mountains and untamed rivers; the people led such impoverished, wretched lives that even had he aspired to be a corrupt official, there was no grease to skim. And so, for his third posting, he came to Gaomi, where access was convenient and riches abounded. While it was a lateral appointment, in his eyes it was a promotion. A man of spirited aspirations and robust vitality, he had a radiantly ruddy face, eyebrows like sleeping silkworms, and a gaze that had the quality of lacquer; every strand in his beard was as thick as horsehair and long enough to touch the desktop behind which he sat. An impressive beard represented half of what it took to gain credibility among the governed. His colleagues were fond of teasing him: “Elder Brother Qian,” they would say, “if the Old Buddha Herself were to lay eyes on you, at the very least you would be posted as a Circuit Magistrate.” Unfortunately, there had been no opportunity to display his dignified demeanor in the Imperial presence, and as he sat at his mirror combing out his beard, he could only sigh and lament, “What a shame that this face, with its dignified appearance, and this fine, ethereal beard are ill regarded at Court!”

On the long journey from Sichuan to take up his new post in Shandong, he had stopped at a small temple on the Yellow River in Shaanxi to draw a divination lot, and was rewarded with great good tidings. The inscribed poem read: “Should the bream reach the western Yangtze, thunder will rend the sky.” This tally swept away the deep-seated depression that had accompanied his career failures, and instilled in him confidence and high hopes. Upon his arrival in the county, despite being fatigued and covered with dust after a long journey, not to mention suffering from symptoms of a minor cold, he set right to work. After receiving the symbols of office from his predecessor, he summoned his subordinates to the audience hall, where he spoke to them for the first time. Splendid words flowing from a cheerful frame of mind gushed from his mouth. His predecessor had been a simple-minded dolt who could not string three simple sentences together. He, on the other hand, had a full-throated, richly seductive voice that at this moment was enhanced by a slightly nasal tone caused by the cold. The looks in the eyes of the listeners arrayed below him signaled success. When his speech was finished, he stroked his impressive beard with his thumb and forefinger and announced an end to the formal audience. His gaze then swept across the faces of the gathered functionaries, each of whom felt that the honorable Magistrate was looking only at him. The enigmatic look in those eyes seemed to include equal parts warning and encouragement. He then stood, turned, and walked out of the hall, a neat, orderly departure, like a breath of fresh air.