The Three Leaps of Wang Lun (45 page)

Close by a gate Ngo felt himself grabbed by the shoulder; Wang pushed him away panting with a wild look, stood there heaving, looked as he threw away his sword at the wide cut on the palm of his left hand, repulsed Ngo’s endless whimpering. Ngo pulled a rag from his coat, bound up the red expanse. Quickly Wang made off without a word, without a backward glance.

Next day the gentle snow flurries ceased; through a dazzling landscape shimmered the tinkling of sleds, happy laughter. The plain outside the gate was flecked black with strolling men and
children. Under the wall Ngo and Wang squeezed past the beggars who lay in rows displaying mutilated limbs, shovelling from tubs the dogrice that welfare organizations gave them. Beyond the prison cage it was quieter. They continued, not speaking, along the foot of the wall.

A pipeseller, a tall fellow, walked past them. The bamboo tubes he carried on his shoulder grazed Wang on the neck with their whitebrass sumps; Wang started and turned round. He cast an evil look at the hawker, who continued unconcerned over the snow. On the elevation they had climbed during the snowfall a throng of children stood, boys in bright caps; a tambourine jangled. In the circle of children leapt a man with a chained black bear. The man shook the furcovered frame over his head, on his back, twirled about. The bear walked gingerly around him, upright, tried to touch the man’s shoulder with his forepaw. The children screamed.

Wang, relaxing visibly, said that the news of Ma No’s fate had affected him more deeply than he’d have believed. It was like a rockfall he’d seen once in the gorges: two survivors had sat there and laughed and laughed. It was just like that with him. He spoke some more in this fashion, in an unnaturally calm matter-of-fact tone.

When Ngo, whose agitation was returning and who didn’t feel up to excitement, asked what Wang intended to do, the great beggar smiled a strange sad smile and looked vacantly before him. They turned back. And when they reached the top of the merry children’s hill, Wang hugged his brother and they walked arm in arm.

It had all turned out so incalculably, said Wang; he had no desire any more to change things or bring anything about or do anything of any consequence at all. He led Ngo, who followed uneasily and didn’t understand him, along the hill to watch the beardance. At the sight of these ragged figures the children drew back in silence; the tambourine man pulled his sullen growling beast behind
his back. The two men turned away with a dismissive gesture.

Yes, he was happy, Wang continued. It was all incalculable, but finally Ma No had been proved right. He’d warned at the Talu swamp against using Yellow Leaper; it would offend against the teaching of non-resistance. Because he, Wang Lun, was of a different opinion they’d parted company. Then the calamity in the Mongolian town was conjured up. In the end the sword rebounded on his own breast; it was useless to resist. Ma No prophesied his fate and he’d denied it.

Ngo objected: what reason then was there for laughing and being happy.

As much reason, said Wang, his eyes shining, as anyone has who’s suddenly been taught a fundamental lesson about himself, as if a skin has been peeled from him. You feel content. You feel ground beneath your feet. You know where you are with yourself.

Wang was clearly too distracted, elated, diverted left and right to speak much. Later he chattered, but such strange trivialities that Ngo was astonished. Wang showed interest in the sleds, made fun of the tottering ladies and the fops swanking along in their wake, told tales of swindles. Ngo observed how Wang’s exhausted face took on new, astonishing features. A peasant joker, another man with another voice, shambled beside him.

On a sudden whim of Wang’s they sat down with a couple of beggar groups at the gate, threw dice with them. Ngo was alert for a peculiar gesture, a look of pain from Wang, but Yellow Leaper’s guardian seemed ever more at ease among these greedy, idle, filthy riffraff. He was cheerful and relaxed, spread his limbs, paid no attention to Ngo.

When he took onto his lap a grimy creature, the common property of the beggar band, Ngo stood up in disgust. In gnawing confusion he slipped off towards the gate.

At the entrance Wang and the girl caught up with him. Both were shaking with laughter. Wang had told her how the captain had left the Emperor’s service because of a catamite. The girl was ready to break up in her delight at the crazy fellow and squealing she asked Ngo the boy’s name, at the same time touching her index finger to her forehead. Ngo strode quickly into the town. He heard Wang call behind him, “Farewell, dear brother! We’ll meet again in the Western Paradise,” and jostle the gate guard to amuse the girl.

After these events the brothers lost sight of him entirely. Ngo kept quiet about the encounter. When the Imperial decrees appeared, and Wang Lun from Hunkang-ts’un, Hailing, Shantung was promised total amnesty and toleration for his doctrines, the former leader of the sect was settled on his smallholding in the Lower Reaches, went fishing with cormorants; his wife knew him by the name of Tai. He was a shrewd man, respectful to the magistrate, comradely, not quite dependable in his dealings. In matters of the spirit he did as all peasants do: prayed to the gods who promised him the greatest advantage. Of all the migrants of the past few years come to strengthen the Great Dyke against spring floods, Tai was the most esteemed.

Within a few weeks the prefects of districts and towns in Chihli and Shantung learned how strangely the outrage in Yangchou-fu had affected the Yellow Lord.

Further persecution of adherents of the sect was prohibited simultaneously by the Board of Rites and the civil and military authorities. An Imperial edict to the Tsungtus and prefects of the circuit revealed how completely the highest authorities had changed their attitude towards the movement. Magistrates and literati in the western part of Chihli were punished with severe fines and demotions for having submitted false reports on the nature of the
sectarians. The Court of Astrologers in the Vermilion City let it be known that the outrage in Yangchou had resulted in difficult constellations for the Yellow Lord.

In literati circles, in the temples of Confucius, the thunderstruck sat together. One thing was certain: this change of attitude on the part of the Emperor dated from the visit to the Imperial court in Jehol of the Lama Paldan Ishe. The irregular provenance of this deviation from the heresy laws was remarked on: no indication of memorials from the Court of Censors; the Astrological Bureau had brought up the rear, so the initiative hadn’t come from that source. “Lamaism at court”: that old pregnant alarm call roused the conservative elements; they stirred themselves. Whispers circulated of the old ruler’s gloomy disposition, of an abuse of dark senile moods by mystical priests.

Pogroms against the Truly Powerless erupted with extraordinary ferocity. The decree was made public in scarcely a quarter of the land, for form’s sake pasted up on walls overnight, torn down by hired ruffians. Embittered meetings, discussions, resolutions of the Confucians ensued. In western Chihli the first clashes occurred. In several places brothers were struck down and flogged. Often they scattered; martyrdom drew new believers.

In the fateful region of Talu swamp were two bands. Hemmed in by their odious persecutors, swept along by a few desperate men they defended themselves, indeed in a blind passion gave veritable battle to the attackers which ended in victory for the sectarians. This was the beginning of a demented pogrom against wandering bands in the region. To the north of Peking, in southeastern Chihli the same thing occurred. Local authorities independently organized attacks on them. Here and there lamaic priests were assaulted.

Chia-ch’ing, strong princely Chia-ch’ing, did not doubt that his father was mad, befuddled by the insidious Tashi-lama. In his palace,
before the eyes of Chao Hui and Song who were visiting him, he tore up a copy of the conciliatory decree. When news came of spreading rebellion his eyes glinted with pleasure. He was urged to declare for a faction. He could count for support on all friends of Confucius, all true patriots who observed with loathing the victory of the yellow gowns at court. He kept his own counsel; but after one such angry exchange he threw the key to his treasury to his head gardener. Now something astonishing happened: the authorities in the provinces abruptly ceased their actions. Thereupon the sect grew as never before, and the adherents seemed seized all together of a tumult of fury, a madness of bloodlust that swept away all meekness in one great wave. The eunuchs in Chia-ch’ing’s service had stealthily caused several thousand demobilized soldiers to be hired in various places, with orders to join the Truly Powerless and await orders from Peking. In a few weeks the sect had undergone a terrible change.

With great skill two acts of terror were arranged from Peking: an attempt on the life of general Chao Hui’s only son, and an apparent attack on Mukden while the Emperor was in residence. Chao Hui, now in the Emperor’s entourage, was incensed at the disgrace to his house; Lao-hsü recovered only slowly. The general dragged his misfortune along by the Emperor’s side.

The preoccupied Emperor was an eyewitness to the outrage perpetrated by the sectarians in Mukden. From his garden he saw the tonguing flames that lapped at a pagoda and a memorial arch he himself had erected in honour of his mother. He also heard the death cries of the sectarians—poor soldiers who had been promised large sums of money for their families, and an expensive funeral.

He left the Manchu tombs, journeyed to Jehol. Reluctantly he opened reports despatched by the Tsungtus: rebellion, open rebellion was in the land.

Deathly silence in the Imperial residence as the reports were laid before the Son of Heaven. He remained in seclusion. At noon on the following day he climbed alone and bent into the Hall of Ancestors, where he stayed until evening. Ch’ien-lung felt limp and miserable. He feared the approach of death at any moment. That horrible ghostface from the Mongolian town hadn’t altered its features. He couldn’t change it. He couldn’t atone to his ancestors. His life was ending in shame. Heaven had cast this over him. This ending was ordained.

And during these days when the old Yellow Lord was turned in on himself to wrest an outburst of anger from his soul, he was struck by a blow aimed at him from his own house.

In a clique that assembled in a house in Peking for the furtherance of gossip, intrigue, the staging of theatrical performances, a leading role was played by a woman named P’ei, whose past was known to few of the distinguished visitors to the house.

Madam P’ei claimed to be the daughter of a mill owner in the west called P’ei Szu-fu; orphaned at an early age, she’d been packed off to a suburb of Peking where she was adopted and raised by a retired mandarin. This elegant creature certainly had the graces of the educated classes, spoke purest kuan-hua; only now and then committed solecisms in elementary matters, misunderstood literary allusions. This didn’t happen very often, since for the most part she cultivated an extraordinary reserve. No one from the suburb of Peking in which she had in fact been “raised” would have recognized in the striking and clever Madam P’ei the little house slave of a widowed barber Yeh, in whose squalid house she added to the dirt, suffered daily beatings from the barber’s neglected offspring and came close to starving. She ran away, and it seems she worked at first in the kitchens of one of the painted houses along the Canal,
then, having picked up the rudiments, took higher vows and was accepted into the society of the mandarin-ducks.

She did not, however, rise to become a queen of the flowers and willows in her quarter. At the age of eighteen she contracted an eye ailment, and though she donated many gifts to the once reliable Goddess of Eyesight, brought silver spectacles with ivory sidepieces, only the right eye healed, leaving large white spots on the left that greatly reduced Miss P’ei’s market value.

She used all her refined flirtatiousness to induce a wealthy judicial officer to take her as his concubine. She wanted to escape the painted house. Only two and a half years later she left the judge’s residence, having received a severance payment from his legitimate wife.

Now Madam P’ei occupied a little house with several servant girls, lived in retirement, now and again received visitors, consorted only with families of distinguished name. In her room she relived her memories. She had not been altogether averse to entertaining gallants in the painted establishment. She set out smoking bowls of incense in which every day she burned amber, the saliva of dragons. Every morning she took her usual bowl of ginger soup. Even her warm wine she drank alone, wine on wine, drunkenness on drunkenness, as the saying goes. The servants had no idea what Madam got up to half the day in her locked room. When they heard her trilling and strumming the yüeh-ch’in, they became curious.

When Madam clapped to be made up and dressed for her afternoon visits and despite all her dignity was seen to be excitable, happy, restless, they began thinking. Conversations with the neighbours strengthened their suspicions, which amounted to nothing less than that Madam P’ei was a Wu, a sorceress, who cosseted ghosts up in her room.

The young woman noticed the girls’ timid whispering. A flower
woman brought the rumour to her ears, and Madam P’ei grew thoughtful. On an idle caprice she took up the strange augury, went to a renowned Wu, who cawed himself hoarse laughing: so she nurtured soft memories of the flowery lane, and people thought her a practising witch! You could not summon shades with tenderness! She begged him to instruct her in a sorcerer’s invocations and usages, just a little; she only wanted to drive fears from others; she’d be frightened to summon a real shade. Since she put down a hefty deposit the canny Wu accepted the deal, promised he wouldn’t show her the least little shade, only conjure one up in the vicinity.

And so she learned to name the various kinds of spirits, ghosts, demons, to distinguish their characteristics, their transformations into werewolves, foxes, rat demons, how to capture and unmask them, how to employ ashes, amulets, papers, swords, water.