The Tapestries (39 page)
Dan recognized the fragile form of the eunuch standing on a wooden platform that reached out into the water. His face was hidden in the dark. In his hand he held a paper lantern. Its faded light flickered in the wind, gradually becoming a bright-red flame as Dan came closer. Behind the old man stood a team of guards, six men in the palace uniform, their metal clubs gleaming in spite of the dimness. In another hour the ledge where they stood would be submerged, denoting the time for the closing of the Meridian Gate.
Twenty yards from shore, Dan's oars brushed against the muddy floor of the river. Using his upper-body strength, together with the rising tide, he pushed on the paddles and thrust forward. The vessel ripped into the sludge, landing a few feet from the old man. Ung uttered a high-pitched wail when he saw Lady Chin's rigid corpse.
Dan leaped onto the soggy earth and anchored his skiff to a pole. Ven followed him. With his bare hands, he lifted the vessel out of the water, and left it lying at a slight angle on the soft ground. Silently, he returned onboard for the lady-in-waiting's body, which had grown stiff. During the journey, he had torn a panel of fabric from her outer tunic and draped it over her face. The eunuch stood a few feet away, his eyes on Dan and the corpse in his arms.
“She told me to wait for her here,” he said.
“She is gone,” answered the young man.
The weather was getting colder. Without a shirt, Dan shivered from the stirring air, and possibly from the contact with his inert burden.
“In that case, it was her wish that I am here to collect her body.” The eunuch paused, then added, “She left me careful instructions as to what to do after she passed on.” He reached inside his long sleeve to pull out a bamboo cylinder, sealed with wax at each end. “This is her will,” he said, breaking the seal to retrieve a small scroll. Turning to his men, he shouted, “Would one of you take delivery of my lady from this young gentleman? You will be rewarded handsomely for your service.”
One of the guards moved forward and eased Lady Chin from Dan's embrace. The breeze endeavored to rip the veil from her face; as the soldier pressed her against his chest, it remained over her, fluttering as if she were breathing. With the corpse in his arms, he turned and walked back to his initial spot, a few paces behind the old eunuch. “May I inquire whether any of the instructions pertain to me?” Dan asked.
“You will see soon enough, young Master,” Ung replied and unrolled the paper. “Would you prefer for me to read the full content of this note in front of these witnesses? Or should I just tell you in brief what it says, since I have full knowledge of my lady's wishes and commands?”
“You can tell me,” Dan said. “I will not contest whatever outcome she has reserved for me, because of my respect for your unblemished reputation and the unique relationship between you and the departed. Furthermore, during the period that I have spent with Lady Chin, especially in the Apartments of Peace, I came to trust her noble-hearted character, her generosity in rendering praise or rewards, and her fairness in retribution.”
“Very well then,” the eunuch said. “To fulfill her wishes I have brought the matter to the attention of the Queen Mother. Under Her Majesty's direct order, these soldiers are here to arrest the man who is responsible for the kidnapping and possible manslaughter of one of Her Majesty's highest-ranking ladies-in-waiting.”
Ven stepped forward, without realizing that she was now blocking the old man's path to Dan. The eunuch gave her a quick look of surprise before regaining his air of calm assurance.
“I do not understand,” said Dan. “Please explain your meaning. Kidnapping! Manslaughter! Sir, I do not challenge the wisdom of the court, but those are serious accusations.”
“They are,” Ung replied, “plus there are many other charges that I have not mentioned. However, the warrant of the arrest is not meant for you, Sir Nguyen. Even if there were doubts to be raised as to the nature of this crime or the validity of your actions, there must be explicit documents to support or deny these charges. It would be tragic to accuse an innocent, would it not? Lady Chin's last will and testament provides a way for you to prove your purity.” He lifted up the note and read loudly, “For Dan Nguyen to verify his innocence, look for my son's silver anklet on his wrist. Without this memento, he shall be tried as a murderer for my death, as well as the deaths of my son and husband. If he can provide such object, I hereby designate him as the new heir of my fortune, which amounts to fifty thousand silver coins. The money is temporarily in the custody of Mr. Dinh Ung. It will serve as the reward for his quest to bring the true killer of my family to justice. When this is done, he will thus accomplish my final wish.”
The old man paused, lowering his eyes until they looked directly at Dan's arm. “I recognized Master Bui's good luck charm the moment you came ashore. Congratulations, sir. Not only are you now free, but through the generosity of my mistress, you have an inheritance.”
The Road to Nirvana
D
an's living room, a blue rectangle with one window open to the front garden, contained only a few pieces of plain furniture. On the main wall, hanging from the ceiling almost to the floor, was a tapestry embroidered in black silk thread on white canvas, as stark and dramatic as if it had been brushed with coarse strokes of India ink. The room was always dark, and the image was too large for Ven to see it wholly. She had been here for five days, distracting herself from memories of the time-teller by studying the artwork.
At first she had thought it was an old Chinese scroll painting, depicting the evanescent details of life: a bamboo forest, a flock of sparrows, or maybe a misty valley in springtime. However, tonight in the hoary moonlight, as she sat in a chair next to the window, the black dots and lines in the tapestry above her merged into the figure of a young maiden. The girl's hand held an elegant lute. The long, idyllic slopes that Ven had taken for a brook running through groves of bamboo were the girl's dress. And the bamboo leaves were her eyes, seeming to demand a response from inside the room. Ven recognized that face, those long fingers, and the silky black hair that flowed like a watercourse. It was the girl from the house of Toan.
In the center of the room, sitting on a leopard-skin rug, Dan was ruminating over a blank piece of paper. Sketches of discarded brush-work, crumpled into irregular balls, lay scattered on the floor. A finely pointed feather was poised between his fingers; nearby sat a block of ink and a lantern. For hours this evening no sound or movement had come from him. Ven understood his concentration. Once he committed his vision onto paper, there was no turning back. The ink line, once laid down, could never be altered or erased. The moonlight flowed through the slats on the window and slid across him like a striped shirt. She wondered if she should open the shade so he would receive more light.
As she raised her hand toward the wood slats, he surprised her by asking, “Tell me, Ven, are you thinking of the tutor?” A corner of his eyebrow rose. He handed her the pen and said, “Come and sit next to me! Write down your thoughts if you would like to.”
From her youth she remembered delicate sheets of paper, covered with black marks, as they passed through the hands of the scholars—friends and acquaintances of her father. The time-teller had taught her the Western letters, scrawling them on the sand with a stick or using a piece of charcoal to mark a board. Never had anyone given her such paper, which had the smell of freshly cut wood. She got up from her seat and received the wet feather with both of her hands, fearful of dropping it on the animal skin.
“Go on,” he said.
The tip felt as light as a toothpick in her fingers. Dan put his hand on hers and guided the pen down the paper. She sat awkwardly on the floor beside him, thinking she had never held anything so delicate. She moved the pointed tip of the writing tool, slick with ink. The first mark came, wobbly and graceless, sweeping across the blank page like the path of a scratchy broom.
“That one is not your best stroke,” Dan said, pulling back his hand. “Now you try, alone. Forget about the brush and ink when you write. Just picture the letters.”
Ven gripped the frail handle more firmly. With a surge of confidence, she began to make small dots and lines by moving her wrist as Dan pinned the paper down with his palms. Like magic the letters took shape, a curve here, a straight line there. To Ven it was as thrilling as the first buds of spring. “
A…B…C…
” Her hand glided across the page.
“D…E…”
Next to her, Dan burst out laughing. “The alphabet,” he said. “How modest of you. Can you put the letters together to form a word?”
“
THE MAP
…”
His eyebrows furrowed. “What about the map?” he asked in a restrained voice.
Ven unfurled one of the crunched-up wads of paper. Shapes and shadows formed a landscape, similar to the tattoo they had seen on his father's back long ago.
Dan snatched the paper back from her. “This accursed map,” he said, smoothing it across his knee. “I have been re-creating it both from memory and from observing its partner on my mother's back. Together they form a diagram that leads to my father's treasure. By studying the riddle written at the bottom of the drawing in the old vernacular language, I guessed part of the secret. But without the first map, it is useless. I plan to embroider it into a tapestry, to teach my children someday about their ancestors' legacy.”
“
Tellme its secret,
” she wrote.
“Do you remember the verse on the first map?” he asked.
She nodded. He recited it, and she mouthed the words with him, approving his recollection. “The priests make charms out of nature by aligning the constellations, the sun, and the moon. Then they hold the constellations in their hands, and peering at the sun, they find the road to Nirvana. Many invalids shall be cured at the door.
“I remember what my father said about the riddle,” Dan said. “It was a famous poem in the early seventh century describing the Taoist rites in the history of the Sui dynasty. Since my father was a true believer that long life and good fortune could be achieved by magical means—the principles of Taoist philosophy—it is understandable that he chose this verse as the clue to his treasure. Look at the first group of characters:
The priests made charms out of nature by aligning them with the constellations, the sun, and the moon.”
His hand brushed over the red dots on the map that he had drawn. “These drawings are descriptions of nature, and the red marks represent the constellations, the sun, and the moon,” he said. “If we superimpose the two maps on top of each other, following the alignment of these dots, I believe we will see the whole picture.”
Ven moaned. Her forehead was damp from anticipation as she listened to his voice.
“And the second phrase,” he murmured. “
Then, they hold the constellations in their hands, and peering at the sun, they find the road to Nirvana.
This must refer to the way to the hidden treasure. By holding the drawings in the sunlight, we will see this path clearly.”
He scratched his head with a sigh. “The last line:
Many invalids shall be cured at the door.
I do not understand the meaning of this sentence, but it sounds like a warning of some sort. Invalids shall be cured—what about healthy people?” He shrugged and tore the picture in half. “Ah, let us not dwell on this matter any longer. It is unfortunate that we only possess a partial diagram. My father has carefully made certain that without one of the two maps, the other would be just a mystery.”
“
Make a tapestry,
” she wrote, “
for the Nguyens' legacy.
”
“You approve of this idea?” he asked. “So much blood has been shed, I fear to create another fallacy about the treasure to pass on to the next generation.”
She shook her head vigorously. Dan scrutinized her facial expression. She tried to form a smile in response to his glare.
“Dear Ven,” he said solemnly, “there is an important question that I must ask. You lived near Magistrate Toan for seven years, so you must understand his strength as well as his limitations. If you wished to take revenge on the old man, you must have had countless opportunities to do so. Yet, you waited for me to return. Why, Ven? “
She looked away. Her smile faded.
“Please do not refuse me the answer—tell me why you spared his life,” he said.
She dropped the pen on top of the stack of paper, lifted her hands to her face, and looked at him in silent panic. The bright moon passed through the wooden slats, streaking on both of them. He thrust the brush back into her hand.
With a loud bang, the front door was flung open. Against the dark background of Dan's garden, she saw a round, wrinkled face lit to pastiness by the frail beam of a lantern.
“Do you know, sir,” asked the visitor, “that your gate is never bolted? Generally I have to announce myself to the host in order to be led inside, but not at your doorstep.”
When Dan saw the intruder, he burst out, “Mr. Ung, come inside where it is warm.” Turning to Ven, he said, “Here is a dear friend of poor Lady Chin, Mr. Dinh Ung. You must remember him from the Truong Tien Bridge.”
The memory of his presence, along with the palace guards, on the riverbank was still fresh in her mind. She fell to her knees and knocked her head on the wooden floor, inches away from his black velvet slippers. Stealing out from the open tips of the shoes, his toenails were glossy with red paint: his guilty little pleasure. The eunuch gasped at the unexpected display of obeisance. He took a step back, almost tripping on the high threshold, but recovered.
“Raise her, please,” he said to Dan. “I am, after all, just a low-ranking eunuch, who does not deserve such reverence.”
She felt herself being lifted off the ground. “Do not fret,” Dan whispered in her ear. “Mr. Ung is a friend.”
He led her back to the chair next to the window. She could feel his fingers wiping the dirt off her forehead. “This is Ven, my guardian and friend,” he told the old man.
