The Three Leaps of Wang Lun (51 page)

Many myths evolved later around this journey of five simple brothers to the Lower Reaches where Wang Lun dwelt. What is true is that in all the towns and villages they passed through people whispered behind them; the queue strings, lamps, wicks, feather flowers, silk cloths, tobacco pouches they sold were thrown away after a day or two for fear they were bewitched. Those who had bought sweetmeats from them claimed to feel a tingling in their fingertips, numbness of the tongue, tried their best to vomit. The peddlars came and went so swiftly people were alarmed; the amazingly low prices of their wares aroused belated suspicions that were
strengthened by the grim, brooding expression on the face of T’ang, mourning old Chu’s death, and also by the curious unease of the five travellers. It is said to have been quite otherwise three months later, when T’ang passed through the same places with Wang Lun: happy and calm beside the calm, happy Wang Lun, both wrapped in the glorious spring weather in the cloaks of Taoist doctors; they took turns to push a little handcart with holy magical charms. On the shaft of this cart too dangled the bucket with the head of angry, dead Chu, which they meant to bury with his body.

The five peddlars sped through the provinces of Chihli and Kiangsu, following the line of the Imperial Canal; rich plains stretched endlessly in all directions. In Shantung they passed through New Year celebrations, noise, firecrackers. Every festival day reminded them of passing time, blew into their sails, nipped them in the calf. T’ang had a large amount of money with him, taken with threats from a merchant in Chihli before departing the villages, six solid bars of breaking-silver that he hid in the bottom of his cart under boards. They had to replenish their stock four times, change their clothing twice on the way to give them the appearance of local peddlars. In Kiangsu it was spring already. At last they had to reduce speed when Ch’en, a snake dealer, one of those who knew the dialect, was bitten in the heel while catching a viper. The little punctures grew inflamed, would not heal; on some days the whole leg swelled up like dough. The houses grew taller, had white brows; ivy, melon vines, strange broadleaved plants twined over them. Their roofs grew more ornate. Dark men came past them who spoke very fast, their voices strikingly loud and soft. Peasants rumbled by on four-wheeled buffalo carts. Broad rivers, named variously by the inhabitants, rocked whole towns of boats on which families lived. The terrible Huang-ho was crossed; once over the Huai-ho they took a more easterly course. They drew near
the Lower Reaches, that lakerich region north of the Yangtze-kiang which stretched low and fertile from the dykes of the Imperial Canal to the great seadyke, the Fan Kung T’i. In the market town of Fu-an, at the southern end of the great dyke, a man named Tai was said to live. This was Wang Lun. The five peddlars rattled past estates of great salt boilers. A bustling water trade was carried on here. The dyke was planted with waving cotton bushes, oil beans, maize.

They entered Fu-an one stormy noontime, crawled to their lodging, slept till bright morning. T’ang made himself friendly with the landlord, a sly, silent-creeping old fellow, asked him about the neighbourhood, about respectable people with money to spend and so found out where Tai lived, who apparently owned a cotton field, at present was out fishing.

The unlucky snake dealer’s worsening condition, his raging fever spared them further excuses for their protracted stay. They stowed the carts at the inn. T’ang pushed his precious cart through the long village streets, the other three men trotting behind. They squatted on the bank of the Yangtse, broad as a lake, that rolled in wild billows towards the sea. They had ample time until evening to watch the muddy yellow water. As in Chihli flocks of pigeons flew overhead with the sound of Aeolian harps; it was marvellously dainty, the piping of the little whistles in their tail feathers as they approached. Low cliffs hemmed in the river on both banks, in rocky bays the bobbing and diving of Mandarin ducks. Behind the four dreaming peddlars sounds of toil rose: water carriers called, seed was hauled up to the fields, boats pulled into side channels.

Towards evening the four jumped up and rubbed their knees. A fleet of forty junks approached the village, made fast. The Chihli scouts mingled with the disembarking fishermen carrying baskets and nets off their boats. Women and children chattered below the dyke. The sky rocked and slopped like an overfull tub of purple
dye, bright yellow, violet. The name Tai was shouted by bearers; a giant man with a gaunt face answered as he unloaded basket after basket from the rattling boards of a boat. The four Chihli scouts pushed into the throng. They put their arms over each other’s shoulders and their lively eyes gleamed. The cries, the jostling grew louder as the fishermen stowed their catch shoulder high on long, narrow racks along the bank. T’ang stood with his friends at the bony man’s rack, waited till the end of the operation. They followed Tai as he strode alone with his great dangling hands over a sunny elevation into the village. Broadshouldered T’ang’s cart cut across his path. As he passed, T’ang offered the dripping barefoot man a large red shawl.

The fisherman: “Hold it higher, it’ll get wet.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said T’ang.

“But it’ll make our ground red.” The bony man’s grin grew wider, he slipped past the cart. They moved on with him. T’ang swept his cart right across the path that led between erect t’ung trees. Tai, coming to a halt, addressed a furious “Ho-ooh!” at the clumsy peddlar. But the peddlar, holding on to his cart that sought to keep up its momentum, with his free left hand grabbed the salt bucket from the handle: he wanted to show him something else, he’d picked up the wrong thing just now; this was red as well. The fisherman’s wrinkling nose shrank back from the neckstump that thrust up from the rosy crusted salt. The other three ambled up, held the unsteady cart. T’ang stood politely beside the fisherman, whose little eyes hopped from one to the other. Placing the bucket on the ground he pulled old Chu’s head out by the stump, laid it face up on the salt. Tai bent lower, lower over it, squattered without a word beside the bucket, thrusting away T’ang’s hand. He seemed to be telling off identifying marks on the stinking blackbrown corpse face: the little matted beard, the furrowed skin,
the thick pads around the eyes, the projecting jaw. Then he peered at the wood of the bucket, shoved the head back in, jumped up, wiped his hands in the sand and shaking his fist at the four called them scoundrels, strode away to the village.

The five of them conferred in their lodging, in the snake dealer’s room. T’ang had to calm the others. Did they really think four bent backs and a grin could have settled the matter.

The landlord already knew they’d spoken to Tai, that he hadn’t bought anything from them. He advised them to wait very early by the river, where the cormorant fishers cast off. Men and women would be there in crowd. They weren’t exactly dependent on Tai’s closed purse.

As the sharp morning wind emptied its swollen whistling bag of air over the river the four men stood among the preparations. Dozens of long rafts bobbed on the water, narrow, slightly upswept at the bow. Several were gliding upstream in the pale grey morning light, steered by men at the bows pushing poles. As Tai dragged three long oars behind him over the sand the four peddlars separated from the crowd to go up to him. At the same time Tai saw them and called out. They leapt into action. After throwing nets and oars onto the raft, a broad one, they climbed onto it with him. To each of the men, walking slowly around them, he assigned a place and an oar. Beside each place on the heaving boards stood a tall basket. In the stern of the raft trained birds shrieked and hopped: cormorants.

While the fishermen followed the current, glided around rocks and sandbanks the birds dived, bobbed in front of the rafts, brought up in their beaks spattering fish that they dropped into the baskets, pecked at. The rowers, unsteady, splaylegged, spoke together in the Chihli dialect, not turning. Tai asked where they were staying in the village and where the bucket was. After T’ang answered and began uninvited to speak of Chu’s death, Tai then requesting him
in equable tones to do his work, that’d be best for him, they all fell silent. Slowly they floated, steered by Wang, towards a black vertical cliff, let the others raft pass by. The yellow water foamed, rippled under their bare feet. The birds fluttered.

Wang Lun turned round. “I already threatened you yesterday. You’re wasting your time coming here here with old Chu’s head. I’ll throw you in the water.”

T’ang retorted that one of them was still at the inn; they weren’t afraid.

The fisherman glared at him disdainfully, thrust at the rock. They floated on over the current. While they were calmly working, Wang suddenly screamed out: it was childish, it was despicable, dragging Chu’s head through all those provinces. What for? Who were they trying to please? Chu was old, he’d lived through a lot, wandered enough provinces. They might have left him his rest.

T’ang retorted that finally Chu had gone with the fighters. He’d wanted to fight on without rest against those foxes, those scalpers the Manchus. And this was now granted him.

“How so?” asked Wang.

T’ang took a step closer. “You know the answer. He’s calling you to battle.” His eyes blazed.

Wang Lun threatened, “I’ll throw you in the water.”

T’ang was scornful. “The cormorants will put us back in your baskets.”

Wang Lun: “The sharks’ll eat you.”

Wang Lun and T’ang squared up, brandishing oars. T’ang’s oar fell. He dropped to his knees. “I’m going to jump in the water. You want me to?”

As the fisherman moved forward menacingly, the peddlar stepped to the edge of the raft, the cormorants came whirring up. The bony man said thickly to the peddlar, “Get to your place.”
Some birds had swallowed the threshing fish as they flew. Canes whistled onto their backs; cawing the cormorants opened their bills, the fish slithered bloody into the baskets. The current tugged more strongly at the raft. The oarsmen braked and struggled with the water. Wang’s raft turned slowly towards the rest of the flotilla, which layoff a low settlement with flat roofs. While they leaned on their long poles against the river bottom, the fisherman cast wild looks at the toiling peddlars from under his enormous straw hat.

To Tang, who stood nearest him, he called, “Who put you on my boat?”

“You did.”

Wang raged. His steering pole slid sideways. They drifted.

“You’re lying. You’re all liars, good-for-nothings, idlers. Admit it. What do you mean coming to me for work? Your baskets are half empty. See how the cormorants are gorging, you apes. I’ve no use for the likes of you. Oh, such rogues would have to come across my path. And there are so many upright people here.”

In his rage he quite forgot to steer. Young Tang balanced across, bent to the steering pole, was grabbed by the shoulder and thrown back. Dripping, wordless, Tang slunk back to his basket, began to shiver.

Again Wang guided them slowly towards the flotilla. A thunderstorm was approaching with blue slate clouds, deep bass rumblings. The waves pressed themselves strangely flat. At once the chastised Tang, apparently losing his composure, began to scold: “If only it’d let loose, smash everything! Everything ought to be smashed, flung into the water. I wish it was.”

Wang watched him with flinty eyes. “You too? We’re going ashore. Nothing happens that quickly, Tang. The dragon won’t let loose. Only in made-up stories, I know that. No wishes. Just—no wishes.”

In a noodle shop they found in the little settlement, Wang treated the four as fellow natives of Shantung. Wang, like the others devouring a bowl of meat broth, immersed himself in the details of a fusty local quarrel. He settled back snugly, told them about his wife’s father who wanted to sell him the best part of his maize fields cheaply.

An old man, Wang’s friend, late in the afternoon steered the raft back with the muscle power of the four peddlars. Wang himself sailed with a neighbour, a well-to-do fisherman who had detained him.

The strangers spent the evening in Wang’s old cottage. He presented his young wife to them, a little smiling thing that gazed at the strangers in wonder, twice asked anxiously about their business, retired.

When Wang, having led her out tenderly by the hands, returned he stood in front of them by the doorpost as they squatted on the floormat and slurped tea; stretched out crossed wrists.

“Well?”

When they didn’t move, just blinked at him: “Didn’t you bring anything? Shame.”

His arms dropped. “It’d be simpler if you just tied me up and dragged me away. Instead of all this talking. But you seem so sure of yourselves. You can manage without ropes.”

The mat rustled, he sat by them, they cleared throats, said nothing.

“Tell me your names now and where you come from. Don’t tell me any more than that. It’s not necessary.”

Softly they named themselves.

“Now I know you. You four or five must think it’s a brave thing coming all this way from Chihli through Shantung and Kiangsu here to the great dyke? Once I made a great journey, to Shantung. Especially you, Tang, you have a sly face. Really, you’re heroes. It’s
not because you left the bucket with Chu’s head in it with your sick friend. The landlord found out about the head a long time ago. But you’re quite wrong if you think you’ve compromised me so I have to leave the Lower Reaches. I’m not so easily caught, you tame rabbits. Tell me now, you with the crooked shoulder, how did you come upon the Truly Powerless?”

One of the linguists among the Chihli emissaries, whose shoulder drooped, bowed: “I lacked for nothing in my village. My family is not poor. You’re a great worker of wonders.”

“I know, I know. That’s how it should be. It’s as if I’d sprayed poison around me. It goes on and on. Now tell me. How is it you’ve come here, sit here like this? You don’t need to be afraid of me. I’m not impenitent like my brother Ma No was when I spoke to him. When I saw you standing there on the bank I knew everything. My fate, my whole fate, my wife’s too. I’d been expecting you, feared your arrival for months! Everything’s going to pieces. Feared it. Oh.”