Sandalwood Death (23 page)

“My dear . . . my darling . . . thoughts of you are killing me . . . be merciful . . . take pity on me . . .
The County Magistrate is an immortal peach, the embodiment of manly might! I fall in love with an image that after three lifetimes still burns bright. I long to make it mine, but the best fruit is at an unreachable height, behind a leaf and out of sight. Your willing slave looks up to see your face, she thinks of you day and night. But her love you do not requite. I salivate hungrily as I shake the tree with all my might, and if the peach will not fall, the tree . . .”

In her heart, that monologue, sizzling with passion, quickly evolved into a Maoqiang aria of infatuation, which, as she intoned it over and over, brought a glow to her face and a salacious twinkle to her eyes, leaving the impression of a moth performing a fervent dance around a flame. Her actions threw a grievous fright into the gate guards and yayi, through whose minds raced fantasies of ravishing the woman, although thoughts of the trouble that would bring down on them brought their lust under control. Flames of desire engulfed her; an ocean of passion threatened to submerge her. But that all ended when she spat up blood.

The act of spitting up blood opened a seam in the confusion that gripped her mind. He is a dignified County Magistrate, a representative of the Royal Court. What are you? The daughter of an actor, the wife of a butcher, a woman with big feet. He lives on high, you exist in the dirt; he is a unicorn, you are a feral dog. This one-sided burning lovesickness is doomed to lead nowhere. You could exhaust yourself mind and body over him, and he would not so much as notice. But if somehow he did, he would react with a disdainful smirk, one devoid of feeling for you. You can torment yourself until there is no more breath in your body, and people will conclude that you got exactly what you deserved—no sympathy, and certainly no understanding. People will not merely laugh at you, they will hurl insults. They will mock you for thinking too highly of yourself and for your inability to think straight. They will fling abuse at you for your fanciful thoughts, for acting like a monkey trying to scoop the moon out of the lake, for drawing water with a bamboo basket, for being the warty toad that wants to feast on a swan. Wake up, Sun Meiniang, and know your place in the scheme of things. Put Magistrate Qian out of your mind. For all its beauty, you cannot take the moon to bed with you. For all his wondrous ways, he belongs to heaven. Forcing herself to purge all thoughts of Magistrate Qian, over whom she had now spat up blood, she dug her fingernails into her thighs, pricked her fingers with a needle, and thumped her head with her fists, but his spirit clung to her. It followed her like a shadow, unshakable by either wind or rain, impervious to knives and flames. Holding her head in her hands, she wept out of despair.

“Defiler of my heart,” she cursed softly, “set me free . . . I beg you to let me go, for I have changed and will bother you no more. Is it your wish to see me dead?”

In order to forget Magistrate Qian, she led her doltish husband to the marital bed. But Xiaojia was no Magistrate Qian, as ginseng is not Chinese rhubarb. He was not a cure for what ailed Meiniang. Sex with her husband only increased the urgency of her longing for Magistrate Qian; it was like spraying oil on a raging fire. When she went to the well, the skeletal reflection in the water nearly made her pass out; something brackish and saccharine sweet stopped up her throat. Heaven help me, is this how it ends? Is this how death will claim me, my quest unresolved? No, I mustn’t die; I need to keep going.

In an attempt to revitalize herself, she took her basket, in which she had placed a dog’s leg and two strings of cash, through the town’s winding streets and alleys to Celestial Lane in the Nanguan District, where she banged on the door of Aunty Lü, the local sorceress. She placed the fragrant dog’s leg and greasy strings of cash on the altar to the Celestial Fox—Aunty Lü’s nostrils twitched at the smell of the meat; her dull eyes lit up at the sight of the money. She stilled her labored breathing by lighting a stemmed datura flower and greedily sucking in its smoke.

“Good Sister,” she said at last, “you are terribly ill.”

Sun Meiniang fell to her knees and sobbed.

“Please, Aunty, save me . . .”

“Tell me about it, my child.” As she breathed in more of the datura smoke, she took a long look at Sun Meiniang and pronounced, “You can fool your parents, but not your healer. Tell me about it.”

“I cannot, it is too hard . . .”

“You can fool the healer, but not the spirits . . .”

“I have fallen in love with someone, Aunty . . . and that love is destroying me.”

With a crafty laugh, Aunty Lü asked:

“With a face like yours, Good Sister, can you not have anyone you desire?”

“You do not know who he is, Aunty.”

“Who could he be? The Spirit Master of the Nine Caves? Or perhaps the Arhat of the West.”

“No, Aunty, he is neither of those. It is County Magistrate Qian.”

Radiant light shot from Aunty Lü’s eyes. As she held her curiosity and deep interest in check, she asked Meiniang:

“What is it you wish to do, Good Sister? Are you hoping that I will work some magic to help you achieve your aim?”

“No, no . . .” Tears spilled from her eyes as she struggled to say: “Heaven and earth are separate realms, so that is not possible . . .”

“Good Sister, you are a novice in the affairs of men and women. If you are willing to pay your respects to the Celestial Fox, the man will take the bait even if he has a heart of stone.”

“Aunty . . .” Meiniang buried her face in her hands; hot tears oozed from between her fingers. “Work your magic,” she sobbed, “to help me forget him . . .”

“Why do you want to do that, Good Sister? Since he is the one you desire, why don’t we make something good happen? Can there be anything in the world more perfect than the love between a man and a woman? Clear your mind of those foolish thoughts, Good Sister!”

“Could something good really . . . happen?”

“If you are sincere.”

“I am!”

“Kneel.”

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4

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Following Aunty Lü’s instructions, Meiniang ran into a field carrying a spotless white silk scarf. After a lifetime of an unreasonable fear of snakes, on this day snakes were precisely what she was looking for. Aunty Lü had told her to kneel before an altar, close her eyes, and offer up a prayer to the Fox Spirit. Aunty Lü then intoned a chant that quickly brought the Fox Spirit into her body. At that moment, her voice turned shrill and tinny, like that of a little girl. The Fox Spirit commanded Meiniang to go into the field, where she was to find a pair of mating snakes and tie them together with the silk scarf. Once the coupling was over, the snakes would separate, leaving a spot of blood on the white silk. “Take this silk scarf,” the Fox Spirit said, “to the one you love and wave it in front of him. He will then be yours, since his soul will forever after reside in you. The only way to then keep him from wanting you is to kill him with a knife.”

So Meiniang, bamboo staff in hand, went to a weedy area far from the county town; there she chose a marshy spot where water plants grew in profusion. Curious birds noisily circled the sky overhead. Butterflies kept a respectable distance from her as they flitted to and fro. With her heart mimicking the dance of those butterflies, her feet sank into the spongy ground, nearly making her fall as she beat the bushes with her staff, scaring hordes of grasshoppers, katydids, hedgehogs, and jackrabbits . . . but no snakes. Snakes—what she sought and what she feared. Harboring those contradictory feelings, she continued pounding the bushes. Suddenly there was a raspy hiss, and a big brown snake wriggled out from the bushes to confront her with a hideous look, its forked tongue flicking in and out. Its eyes were hooded and gloomy, but there was a grin on its triangular face. An explosion went off in Meiniang’s head, and everything went black. For a brief moment she was blinded, but she heard a meandering scream tear from her mouth just before she sat down hard on the grassy ground. By the time she had come to, the snake was long gone. Her sweat-soaked shirt felt clammy; her heart was pounding wildly, as if someone were hurling rocks inside her chest. Her lips parted, and she spat out a mouthful of blood.

What a fool I was, she chided herself, to put any faith in the sorceress’s false words. And why do I keep thinking of Qian Ding? He is, after all, only a man, someone who eats and drinks and then eliminates it all, just like everyone else. Even if he climbed onto my body and squirmed in and out, it would be a sexual encounter and nothing more. What distinguishes him from Xiaojia, anyway? Get a grip on yourself, Meiniang! The rebuke, in a somber voice, seemed to come from high above, so she looked up into the clear blue and cloudless sky, where passing birds were calling out happily. Her mood was a mirror of the blue sky—clear and bright. She sighed, as if waking from a bad dream, then stood up, brushed off some blades of grass that had stuck to her dress, straightened her hair, and started walking home.

But as she passed the marshy spot, her gay mood underwent a change, for she spotted a pair of white egrets standing in the shallow water of a tiny pool whose surface shone like a mirror. Neither of them moved, as if they had been standing in the same spot for a millennium. The female was resting her head on the back of the male, whose head was turned so he could look into her eyes. They were lovers for whom no speech was needed to draw full enjoyment from mutual intimacy. Suddenly, all that changed, owing perhaps to Meiniang’s unexpected arrival on the scene, or maybe they had been waiting for her to show up, and it was now time to put on a special show. They thrust out their long necks, spread their wings to reveal black feathers hidden beneath the white, and in loud voices, as if shedding their hearts’ blood, welcomed her into their midst. The passionate greeting completed, they entwined their long, snake-like necks. She could hardly believe that any neck could be that soft and supple, with his and hers forming a long braid of deep emotion. Over and over they coiled and uncoiled, a seemingly endless process, one that could have gone on forever, never to end. But then they separated and began to preen one another’s feathers, tenderly yet with amazing speed. Their affection was manifest in the caresses, one feather at a time, and each feather from head to tail. The display of love between the two birds moved Meiniang to tears. Prostrating herself on the damp ground, she let her hot tears merge with the grass as her heart beat a rhythm on the muddy earth. With emotions flooding her soul, she muttered:

“Heavenly beings, transform me into an egret, then do the same with Master Qian . . . with humans there are high and low, noble and base. But all birds are equal. I beg you, heavenly beings, let my neck entwine with his until we form a red rope. Let me cover his body with kisses, every inch and every pore. What I long for is his kisses covering my body. Oh, that I could swallow him whole, and be swallowed whole by him. Heavenly beings, let our necks entwine for all time, let us fan our feathers like a peacock’s tail . . . I can imagine no greater pleasure, nor any more profound gift . . .”

Her feverish face wilted the grass beneath it; her fingers dug so deeply into the mud that she was pulling up roots.

Then she stood up and walked toward the birds as if in a stupor, a radiant smile creasing her mud-and-grass-covered face. She held out her white silk scarf, which billowed slightly in a breeze. Her thoughts took flight.

“Birds,” she murmured, “birds, give me a drop of your blood. One drop, no more, and make my dream come true. I am you, birds, and you are him. Letting him know what is in my heart is knowing what is in your hearts, so let our hearts beat as one. All I ask, birds, is some of your happiness, just a little. I am not greedy; a tiny bit will do. Won’t you take pity on me, birds, a woman whose heart has been seared by love?”

The egrets abruptly spread their wings and took off together, four strange, rail-thin legs breaking the mirrored surface of the pond in what some might have seen as awkward and others as nimble steps that left tiny ripples in their wake. Faster and faster they ran, their strength increasing, each step producing a sound like crackling glaze and sending modest sprays of water into the air. Once their legs were as straight as they would ever be, they fanned out their feathered wings, lifted their tails, and were airborne. Flying. At first they skimmed the surface, and then began to settle, reaching a spot opposite the pond, where now they were nothing but white blurs . . . Her legs had sunk into the loose mud, as if she had been standing there for a millennium . . . deeper and deeper, until the mud was up to her thighs and she felt her heated buttocks sitting on the cool mud . . .

Xiaojia rushed up and pulled her out of the mud.

For a very long time Meiniang was deathly ill, but even after the sickness passed, her longing for Magistrate Qian hung on. Aunty Lü slipped her a packet of yellow powder and said sympathetically:

“Child, having taken pity on you, the Fox Fairy has asked me to give you this love-lost powder. Take it.”

With her eyes fixed on the powder, she asked:

“Aunty Lü, what is it?”

“I’ll tell you after you take it. That is the only way it will be effective.”

So she dumped the powder into a bowl, added water and stirred it, and then, holding her nose, swallowed the foul-smelling stuff.

“Tell me, child,” Aunty Lü said, “do you really want to know what it is?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I’ll tell you, then,” she said. “Your aunty is too soft-hearted to see a vivacious young beauty like you come to grief, so I have conjured up my ultimate power. The Fox Spirit disapproves of my decision, but you are too far gone for it to save you. What I have come up with is a secret passed down from my ancestors, one that can be applied only to daughters-in-law, never to daughters. I will hold nothing back from you. What you just drank was distilled from the feces of your beloved. It was absolutely genuine, and very costly, not a cheap imitation. It was not easy to get my hands on it, I can assure you. I paid Magistrate Qian’s chef, Hu Si, three strings of cash to fetch it from the master’s privy. After baking it on a clay tile, I ground it into powder, then added croton seed and Chinese rhubarb to create a powerful medicine that can relieve internal heat. Believe me, I did not prepare this lightly. You see, the Fox Spirit told me that this method can shorten the practitioner’s life. But I felt so sorry for you that I was willing to give up a couple of years of my life. Child, there is one lesson you must take from ingesting this nostrum, and that is that the excretions from even a great man like Magistrate Qian are foul and smelly . . .”