Breaking Bamboo (63 page)

‘You sound like that old fool Wang Ting-bo or the countless others who justify disloyalty to the former dynasty!’

Guang looked round nervously to see if they were overheard, but the labourers had withdrawn and could be heard hammering and laughing at the back of the stage.

‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘Yet you are not fighting, Chen Song, as you could be. Loyalists to the old dynasty still hold out in the jungles of the south. Why not join them?’

‘It is true, I could do that,’ admitted Chen Song.

‘Unless,’ said Guang, pursuing a sudden thought. ‘You have returned to acting in order to accomplish the same. . . secret mission as when I first met you.’

Chen Song laughed hollowly.

‘You enquire whether I am a spy! If only that were so. There is no one left to spy for, Guang, that is the problem. No higher cause, just waking and eating and sleeping until the next day comes. I write and perform vulgar plays to fill a bowl with rice.’

‘Is no other way possible?’

‘You will be aware that, as a scholar, I am forbidden from holding office,’ said Chen Song. ‘According to the new emperor’s laws I rank lower than a prostitute! So I write plays to suit the popular taste and chant mournful poems in secret.’

‘I see,’ said Guang.

Chen Song examined his old friend. ‘Perhaps I could do a little spying on your behalf,’ he said.

‘Please explain.’

‘I am planning to take my travelling show all the way to Chunming Province. When I get there I could ask how things fare in Wei Valley. The fee I ask for this service is sharing a dozen fiery bowls when I return. As we used to, all those years ago.’

‘You are serious?’

‘Why not? So long as we don’t come to blows, of course. I’m quite flabby, you’d be sure to win.’

‘Chen Song,’ said Guang with great solemnity. ‘When we parted, you asked me to aim a little to the side if I saw you in my crossbow’s sights. I always checked if you were facing me.’

‘I’m glad,’ said Chen Song, dryly. ‘And also glad we were never put to the test.’

Distant shouting reached them from the river. The dragon boat races were reaching a climax. Soon the streets would fill again and another performance must begin. Chen Song bowed in farewell and went round the stage to find out what the labourers were doing to his banner. Guang departed for Apricot Corner Court with a lighter step than he had known in a long while, unaware his old friend’s sad gaze followed him until he vanished behind a high wall.

*

Spring winds stirred green buds and ruffled the downy feathers of chicks in their nests. The young felt it keenly, glancing slyly at one another. Roads were dusty and crops in the fields hardened their seeds.

The evening before the ceremony of
Treading the Green
, Guang produced a handful of sulphur matches he had bought at the market. It was traditional in Nancheng to await the sounding of one’s ward bell before re-lighting household fires after the Cold Food Festival. Guang had enlisted his nephews and nieces in a way Cao found worrying, as did Shih, though he pretended amusement.

The bell tolled out the eighth watch and Guang ordered his eldest nephew to ignite a sulphur match. To everyone’s surprise it flared almost at once. When the flame was dancing like a golden ear of corn, Guang allowed each child to kindle a taper and scamper to appointed stations round the courtyard. At his command they lit trails of black powder. Fizzing, flaring, white-hot snakes sped across the soil culminating in a series of loud thunder cracks and bangs that echoed into neighbouring courtyards. The youngest children were so excited they capered on the spot while Cao reproved their rowdiness. Uncle Guang chuckled at his brother’s alarmed expression and went off to purchase yet more green wine from Mao’s Refreshment Stall before the curfew drained the streets of life.

Ten thousand roosters greeted daybreak in the backyards and courts of Nancheng. For once the people were ahead of dawn.

Old, young, men and women of every class and trade were up early, woken by an excitement reminiscent of childhood, that time when nothing is wholly familiar or taken for granted. And
Treading the Green
was never without consequence: bungling the rites might displease influential ancestors and bring unthinkable consequences.

Shih was mindful of this as he dressed in the quarter-light before dawn. Cao snored in the bed beside him, her face at peace. She had grown stout since the children came, though their demands were enough to make anyone gaunt. Yet she rarely complained. He knew unspoken fears often besieged her – illness or accident sweeping away a precious life, losses too painful to be imagined. And sometimes he shared her anxious thoughts.

But now Guang had returned he felt nothing could go very wrong for their family. What had been broken was again whole. Shih wondered at their good fortune. A jealous, grasping desire occasionally made him scheme to keep Guang within Apricot Corner Court forever. Yet such feelings never lasted long. Was he to become Guang’s jailor as once he had been regarded by Father and poor Lu Ying?

Recollecting her brought Shih to the heart of his dilemma.

For he questioned the propriety of Guang’s intentions with regard to the dead lady. How would the ancestors regard her presence among them? Great-grandfather Yun Cai would surely greet her tolerantly. His faithful love for the singing girl Su Lin was still a matter of popular legend on account of his verses. Shih was less sure of the other ancestors. Grandfather had been notably stern when it came to unorthodox conduct.

As for Father. . . well, he hardly counted. When Shih imagined the ancestors gathered together, Father was always relegated to a corner where he sat in silence like a naughty, wilful child who has behaved very, very badly. That image fanned bright a glow of satisfaction until he recalled certain harsh words and questionable medicines forced down the old man’s throat –moments when he had behaved almost as badly as Father.

Treading the Green
offered a chance to tame poison dragons and Shih was far too practical a man to let that chance pass.

Yet now Guang threatened disharmony with his absurd demands – and all the while Shih knew he could deny his brother nothing.

‘Are you unwell?’ asked a sleepy voice.

He turned to see Cao propped on one elbow, looking up at him. The light piercing through gaps in the paper curtain left half his face in shadow. He did not reply but glanced at the floor.

‘You are still troubled by Guang’s plan,’ she said.

‘On a day when the dead draw near, who can help painful feelings?’ he asked.

She reached out and took his hand.

‘They are always near,’ she said. ‘You may be sure they want us to be happy. Even Lord Yun desires that now.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because we are the only future they have left. If we pass away their memory dies with us. Such things are well known.’

The hissing, staccato bangs of firecrackers startled them.

Shih ran a weary hand across his eyes. No need to say who had provided the children with fireworks.

‘Guang will make arsonists of them,’ he muttered, hurrying into the courtyard. ‘If he does not bankrupt us first by buying so much wine!’

Five penitent faces listened with downcast eyes as he admonished them for disturbing the neighbours’ peace. But after he had gone the children simply found a different game to play.

Two hours later the entire family – including Mung Po and Ibn Rashid’s Son – left Apricot Corner Court. Mung Po pushed a wheelbarrow laden with jars of wine and picnic food. It was the same wheelbarrow Shih and Cao had borrowed after her father’s death, repaired many times and as sturdy as ever.

Led by the two brothers they proceeded up North Canal Street. The whole city was streaming beyond the walls, sick of confinement and eager to tread the green of fresh spring grass, to listen with wonder to mating birds. However, the Yun clan followed an unconventional route. Instead of joining countless thousands heading for the fields surrounding the city they turned into Xue Alley and soon arrived at the Water Gate of Morning Radiance.

A guard waved them through and they emerged onto a narrow strip of land between the ramparts and the River Han

– the same place where Cao and Lu Ying had planted healing herbs. A little further downstream lay the rotting jetty where Shih had once recollected his enforced exile from Three-Step-House.

The base of a high, rectangular tower stood to one side; on the other spread endless
li
of water, twisting currents of shade and glitter, sinuous threads flowing all the way across the Middle Kingdom to swell rolling seas. For all its wild beauty –haunt of herons and wildflower, furze and butterfly – the strip of land was a strange place to tread the green. Indeed, the Yun clan had it quite to themselves.

Guang looked round while Mung Po and Ibn Rashid’s Son unloaded sticks to build a fire for boiling water.

‘When you told me we would be picnicking just outside the ramparts I did not anticipate
this
!’ he said.

Shih coughed apologetically.

‘When Father died the Mongols had just imposed new taxes on land purchase. I could not afford a plot of the best land, so I placed his gravestone here.’

‘I see.’

‘It occurred to me Father would like to be near water because he loved his fishes.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Evidently you believe I was at fault!’ whispered Shih, aware the children might overhear. ‘But when Father died we were going hungry! My income dwindled along with everyone else’s, especially after the Relief Bureau closed. It was the best I could do!’

Or a final act of revenge against the old man, thought Guang. Yet he remained silent. What saddened him was that he had heard his nephews speaking disrespectfully about their own grandfather. He could not doubt who had taught them such attitudes.

‘We must make the best of it,’ said Guang. ‘When the time comes we shall restore Father’s tablet to the ancestral shrine above Three-Step-House.’

Shih laughed.

‘Do you still believe that time will come?’

‘Yes! And your sons must be taught to believe it! And
their
sons. Until what was lost has been restored.’

Guang’s voice echoed off the ramparts to the flowing river.

‘I’m sure you are right,’ said Shih.

They swept Lord Yun’s gravestone at the foot of the ramparts, burning incense and offering food. As they did so, all were relieved to see other clans arriving to honour dead relatives who had been buried beside the city walls. Yet the newcomers were a decidedly cheap crowd and Dr Shih – aware his ancestors were watching – was inclined to forbid his children from playing with their offspring. But Cao whispered in his ear and he relented. Though their clothes marked them out as superior, the Yun children were soon throwing sticks into the river and digging muddy canals alongside the sons and daughters of mere artisans.

Guang took Shih to one side. He had rapidly drunk half a flask of special ‘thrice-blessed’ wine (the blessing had come from a sorcerer selling lucky spells in the market) and appeared agitated.

‘I would like to do it now, Eldest Brother,’ he said.

Shih blinked at this formal title; Guang had rarely used it since his return.

‘As you wish.’ Shih took his brother’s arm. ‘Do you have the contract?’ he whispered.

A neatly rolled document appeared from Guang’s girdle.

‘Did you write it yourself?’ asked Shih.

‘No, I hired a scribe.’

‘Ah. That is always more. . .’ Shih struggled for the word.

‘Yes,
proper
.’

The two stood uncertainly, watching the children throw handfuls of mud at each other. Cao and Mung Po rushed forward and the air filled with blame and declarations of innocence.

‘Let’s do it while they’re busy,’ said Shih. ‘We need no other witnesses.’

They advanced across the thick grass to Father’s grave tablet, bowing as they went. Guang had already cleared the earth in preparation. Now he laid down a plain stone tablet bearing the characters for Lu Ying and naming her:
First Wife of Yun
Guang
. A carving of an oriole, so crude one might easily have mistaken it for a crow or gull, had been attempted by the mason. Even that had strained Guang’s purse.

Once the tablet rested in the earth, Shih realised his brother had begun to sob and glanced round to see if the children had noticed. Guang’s was a painful, gasping way of crying; sorrow dragged out by cruel hooks. Shih placed an arm on his brother’s shoulder. Throughout these tears Cao’s querulous voice continued to nag the children, threatening that Big Eyes Yang would punish them with his terrible voice.

‘Burn the marriage contract now,’ urged Shih. ‘And remember to smile or her ghost will think you are not a happy groom.’

As though in a dream, Guang took the smouldering stick Shih fetched from the fire and lit the contract above Lu Ying’s new grave tablet. The flames spread along its length. He held it until his fingers were scorched then dropped the ashes onto the carved stone.

‘So you are now a widower,’ said Shih. ‘Lu Ying will clap with delight at the honour you show her.’

But Guang’s thoughts were in another time, so he did not reply. He glanced up at the blue sky and noticed an oriole skimming over the river. Golden wing feathers and a scarlet beak flashed in the sun. Then the bird landed with a light flutter on the battlements above them and, to his surprise, began a sweet, clear song of trilling notes, all the while dipping and raising its head, peering this way and that. Guang stared up, his lips parted. For half Lu Ying’s name meant oriole.

More tears gathered but he held them back. Shih was right, she must not see him weeping on their wedding day! Yet he longed to become a bird like her, to rise with her above the broad lands.

Still her song flowed as she crouched on the scarred stone of the fortifications. At last she fluttered golden wings one last time and flew upwards. Up, up until those she had known and loved were specks on a strip of land beside the flowing river.

Guang imagined that when she was truly high the Twin Cities themselves would diminish: Nancheng with its maze of streets and canals, its towers and decaying palace on Peacock Hill; Fouzhou where thousands toiled each day to rebuild what had been destroyed.