The Years of Rice and Salt (43 page)

My poor monkey dropped its peach

The new moon forgot to shine.

No more climbing in the pine tree

No little monkey on its back.

Come back as a butterfly

And I will be your dream.

One day not long after that, Pao brought Kang a small black queue, found buried in the mulberry compost by a servant who had been turning the muck. It was cut at an angle that matched the remnant at the back of Shih's head.

Kang hissed at the sight, and went into Shih's room and slapped him hard on the ear. He howled, crying, “What? What?” Ignoring him Kang went back to the women's quarters, groaning, and took up a pair of scissors and slashed through all the silk cloth stretched over the frames for embroidering. The servant girls cried out in alarm, no one could believe their eyes. The mistress of the house had gone crazy at last. Never had they seen her weep so hard, not even when her husband died.

Later she ordered Pao to say nothing about what had been found. Eventually all the servants found out about the discovery anyway, and Shih lived shunned in his own house. He did not seem to care.

But from that time, Widow Kang stopped sleeping at night. Often she called to Pao for wine. “I've seen him again,” she would say. “He was a young monk this time, in different robes. A hui-hui. And I was a young queen. He saved me then, we ran off together. Now his ghost is hungry, and he wanders between the worlds.”

They put offerings for him outside the gate, and at the windows. Still Kang woke the house with her sleeping cries, like a peacock's, and sometimes they would find her sleepwalking in between the buildings of the compound, speaking in strange tongues and even in voices not her own. It was established practice never to wake someone walking in their sleep, to avoid startling the spirit and causing it to become confused and not find its way back to its body. So they went in front of her, moving furniture so she would not hurt herself, and they pinched the rooster to make it crow early. Pao tried to get Shih to write to his older brothers and tell them what was happening, or at least to write down what his mother was saying at night, but Shih wouldn't do it.

Eventually Pao told Shih's eldest brother's head servant's sister about it, at the market when she was visiting Hangzhou, and after that word eventually got to the eldest brother, in Nanjing. He did not come; he could not get away from his duties.

Note that if it had been his father sick at home, or beset by ghosts, he would certainly have been given leave to go.

He did, however, have a Muslim scholar visiting him, a doctor from the frontier, and as this man had a professional interest in possessions such as Widow Kang's, he came by a few months later to visit her.

2
                                                                                                            

The Remembering

Kang Tongbi received the visitor in the rooms off the front courtyard devoted
to entertaining guests, and sat watching him closely as he explained who he was, in a clear if strangely accented Chinese. His name was Ibrahim ibn Hasam. He was a small, slight man, about Kang's height and build, white-haired. He wore reading glasses all the time, and his eyes swam behind the lenses like pond fish. He was a true hui, originally from Iran, though he had lived in China for most of the Qianlong Emperor's reign, and like most long-term foreigners in China, had made a lifelong commitment to stay there.

“China is my home,” he said, which sounded odd with his accent. He nodded observantly at her expression. “Not a pure Han, obviously, but I like it here. Actually, I am soon moving back to Lanzhou, to live among people of my faith. I think I have learned enough studying with Liu Zhi to be of service to those wishing for a better understanding between Muslim Chinese and Han Chinese. That is my hope, anyway.”

Kang nodded politely at this unlikely quest. “And you have come here to . . . ?”

He bowed. “I have been assisting the governor of the province in these reported cases of—”

“Soul-stealing?” Kang said sharply.

“Well. Yes. Queue-cuttings, in any case. Whether they are a matter of sorcery, or merely of rebellion against the dynasty, is not so very easy to determine. I am a scholar for the most part, a religious scholar, but I have also been a student of the medical arts, and so I was summoned to see if I could bring any light to bear on the matter. I have also studied cases of—possession of the soul. And other things like that.”

Kang regarded him coldly. He hesitated before continuing. “Your eldest son informs me that you have suffered some incidents of this kind.”

“I know nothing about them,” she said sharply. “My youngest son's queue was cut, that I am aware of. It has been investigated with no particular result. As for the rest, I am ignorant. I sleep, and have woken up a few times cold, and not in my bed. Elsewhere in the household, in fact. My servants tell me that I have been saying things they don't understand. Speaking something that is not Chinese.”

His eyes swam. “Do you speak any other languages, madam?”

“Of course not.”

“Excuse me. Your son said you were extremely well educated.”

“My father was pleased to educate me in the classics along with his sons.”

“You have the reputation of being a fine poet.”

Kang did not reply, but colored slightly.

“I hope I shall have the privilege of reading some of your poems. They could help me in my work here.”

“Which is?”

“Well—to cure you of these visitations, if such is possible. And to aid the emperor in his inquiry into the queue-clippings.”

Kang frowned and looked away.

Ibrahim sipped his tea and waited. He seemed to have the ability to wait more or less indefinitely.

Kang gestured to Pao to refill his teacup. “Proceed, then.”

Ibrahim bowed from his seat. “Thank you. Perhaps we can start by discussing this monk who died, Bao Ssu.”

Kang stiffened in her wall seat.

“I know it is difficult,” Ibrahim murmured. “You care still for his son.”

“Yes.”

“And I am told that when he arrived you were convinced that you knew him from somewhere else.”

“Yes, that's right. But he said he came from Suzhou, and had never been here before. And I have never been to Suzhou. But I felt that I knew him.”

“And did you feel the same way about his boy?”

“No. But I feel the same about you.”

She clapped her hand over her mouth.

“You do?” Ibrahim watched her.

Kang shook her head. “I don't know why I said that! It just came out.”

“Such things sometimes do.” He waved it off. “But this Bao, who did not recognize you. Shortly after he arrived, there were incidents reported. Queue-chopping, people's names written on pieces of paper and placed under wharf pilings about to be driven in—that sort of thing. Soul-stealing activities.”

Kang shook her head. “He had nothing to do with that. He spent every day by the river, fishing with his son. He was a simple monk, that's all. They tortured him to no purpose.”

“He confessed to queue-clipping.”

“On the ankle press he did! He would have said anything, and so would anyone else! It's a stupid way to investigate such crimes. It makes them spring up everywhere, like a ring of poison mushrooms.”

“True,” the man said. He took a sip of tea. “I have often said so myself. And in fact it's becoming clear that that is what has happened here, in the present situation.”

Kang looked at him grimly. “Tell me.”

“Well.” Ibrahim looked down. “Monk Bao and his boy were first brought in for questioning in Anchi, as he may have told you. They had been begging by singing songs outside the village headsman's house. The headman gave them a single piece of steamed bread, and Bao and Xinwu were apparently so hungry that Bao cursed the headman, who decided they were bad characters, and repeated his order for them to be off. Bao cursed him again before leaving, and the headman was so angry he had them arrested and their bags searched. They found some writings and medicines, and scissors—”

“Same as they found here.”

“Yes. And so the headman had them tied to a tree and beaten with chains. Nothing more was learned, however, and yet the two were pretty badly hurt. So the headman took part of a false queue worn by a bald guard in his employ, and put it in Bao's bag and sent him along to the prefecture for examination with the ankle press.”

“Poor man,” Kang exclaimed, biting her lip. “Poor soul.”

“Yes.” Ibrahim took another sip. “So, recently the governor-general began looking into these incidents by order of the emperor, who is very concerned. I've helped somewhat in the investigation—not with any questionings—examining physical evidence, like the false queue, which I showed was made of several different kinds of hair. So the headman was questioned, and told the whole story.”

“So it was all a lie.”

“Indeed. And in fact all the incidents can be traced back to an origin in a case similar to Bao's, in Suzhou—”

“Monstrous.”

“—except for the case of your son Shih.”

Kang said nothing. She gestured, and Pao refilled the teacups.

After a very long silence, Ibrahim said, “No doubt hooligans in town took advantage of the scare to frighten your boy.”

Kang nodded.

“And also,” he went on, “if you have been experiencing—possessions by spirits—possibly he also . . .”

She said nothing.

“Do you know of any oddities . . . ?”

For a long time they sat together in silence, sipping tea. Finally Kang said, “Fear itself is a kind of possession.”

“Indeed.”

They sipped tea for a while more.

“I will tell the governor-general that there is nothing to worry about here.”

“Thank you.”

Another silence.

“But I am interested in any subsequent manifestations of . . . anything out of the ordinary.”

“Of course.”

“I hope we can discuss them. I know of ways to investigate such things.”

“Possibly.”

Soon after the hui doctor ended his visit.

After he was gone, Kang wandered the compound from room to room, trailed by the worried Pao. She looked into Shih's room, now empty, his books on their shelves unopened. Shih had gone down to the riverside, no doubt to be with his friend Xinwu.

Kang looked in the women's quarters, at the loom on which so much of their fortune resided; and the writing stand, ink block, brushes, stacks of paper.

Geese fly north against the moon.

Sons grow up and leave.

In the garden, my old bench.

Some days I'd rather have rice and salt.

Sit like a plant, neck outstretched:

Honk, honk! Fly away!

Then on to the kitchens, and the garden under the old juniper. Not a word did she say, but retired to her bedroom in silence.

That night, however, cries again woke the household. Pao rushed out ahead of the other servants, and found Widow Kang slumped against the garden bench, under the tree. Pao pulled her mistress's open night shift over her breast and hauled her up onto the bench, crying “Mistress Kang!” because her eyes were open wide; yet they saw nothing of this world. The whites were visible all the way around, and she stared through Pao and the others, seeing other people and muttering in tongues. “In challa, in challa”—a babble of sounds, cries, squeaks—“um mana pada hum”; and all in voices not hers.

“Ghosts!” squealed Shih, who had been wakened by the fuss. “She's possessed!”

“Quiet please,” hissed Pao. “We must return her to her bed still asleep.”

She took one arm, Zunli took the other, and as gently as they could, they lifted her. She was as light as a cat, lighter than she ought to have been. “Gently,” Pao said as they bumped her over the sill and laid her down. Even as she lay there she popped back up like a puppet, and said, in something like her own voice, “The little goddess died despite all.”

Pao sent word to the hui doctor of what had occurred, and a note came back with their servant, requesting another interview. Kang snorted and dropped the note on the table and said nothing. But a week later the servants were told to prepare lunch for a visitor, and it was Ibrahim ibn Hasam who appeared at the gate, blinking behind his spectacles.

Kang greeted him with the utmost formality, and led him into the parlor, where the best porcelain was laid out for a meal.

After they had eaten and were sipping tea, Ibrahim nodded and said, “I am told that you suffered another attack of sleepwalking.”

Kang colored. “My servants are indiscreet.”

“I'm sorry. It's just that this may pertain to my investigation.”

“I recall nothing of the incident, alas. I woke to a very disturbed household.”

“Yes. Perhaps I could ask your servants what you said while under the . . . under the spell?”

“Certainly.”

“Thank you.” Another seated bow, another sip. “Also . . . I was wondering if you might agree to help me attempt to reach this . . . this other voice inside you.”

“How do you propose to do this?”

“It is a method developed by the doctors of al-Andalus. It involves a kind of meditation on an object, as in a Buddhist temple. An examiner helps to put the meditating subject under a description, as they call it, and then the inner voices sometimes will speak with the examiner.”

“Like soul-stealing, then?”

He smiled. “No stealing is involved. It is mainly conversation, you see. Like calling the spirit of someone absent, even to themselves. Like the soul-calling done in your southern cities. Then when the meditation ends, all returns to normal.”

“Do you believe in the soul, Doctor?”

“Of course.”

“And in soul-stealing?”

“Well.” Long pause. “This concept has to do with a Chinese understanding of the soul, I think. Perhaps you can clarify it for me. Do you make a distinction between the hun, the spiritual soul, and the po, or bodily soul?”

“Yes, of course,” Kang said. “It is an aspect of yin-yang. The hun soul belongs to the yang, the po soul to the yin.”

Ibrahim nodded. “And the hun soul, being light and active, volatile, is the one that can separate from the living person. Indeed it does separate, every night in sleep, and returns on waking. Normally.”

“Yes.”

“And if by chance, or design, it does not return, this is a cause of illness, especially in children's illnesses, like colic, and in various forms of sleeplessness, madness, and the like.”

“Yes.” Now the Window Kang was not looking at him.

“And the hun is the soul that the soul-stealers supposedly roaming the countryside are after. Chiao-hun.”

“Yes. Obviously you don't believe this.”

“No no, not at all. I reserve judgment for what is shown. I can see the distinction being made, no doubt of that. I myself travel in dreams—believe me, I travel. And I have treated unconscious patients, whose bodies continue to function well, in the pink of health you might say, while they lie there on their bed and never move, no, not for years. I cleaned her face—I was washing her eyelashes, and all of a sudden she said, ‘Don't do that.' After sixteen years. No, I have seen the hun soul go and return, I think. I think it is like most matters. The Chinese have certain words, certain concepts and categories, while Islam has other words, naturally, and slightly different categories, but on closer inspection these can all be correlated and shown to be one. Because reality is one.”

Kang frowned, as if perhaps she did not agree.

“Do you know the poem by Rumi Balkhi, ‘I Died As Mineral'? No? It is by the founder of the dervishes, the most spiritual of Muslims.” He recited:

I died as mineral and came back as plant,

Died as plant and came back as animal,

Died as animal and came back a man.

Why should I fear? When have I ever lost by dying?

Yet once more I shall die human,

To soar with angels blessed above.

And when I sacrifice my angel soul

I shall become what no mind ever conceived.

“That last death I think refers to the hun soul, moving away from the po soul to some transcendence.”

Kang was thinking it over. “So, in Islam you believe that souls come back? That we live many lives, and are reincarnated?”

Ibrahim sipped his green tea. “The Quran says, ‘God generates beings, and sends them back over and over again, till they return to Him.' ”

“Really!” Now Kang regarded Ibrahim with interest. “This is what we Buddhists believe.”

Ibrahim nodded. “A Sufi teacher I have followed, Sharif Din Maneri, said to us, ‘Know for certain that this work has been before thee and me in bygone ages, and that each person has already reached a certain stage. No one has begun this work for the first time.”

Kang stared at Ibrahim, leaning from her wall seat toward him. She cleared her throat delicately. “I remember bits of these sleepwalking spells,” she admitted. “I often seem to be some other person. Usually a young woman, a—a queen, of some far country, in trouble. I have the impression it was long ago, but it is all confused. Sometimes I wake with the sense of a year or more having passed. Then I come fully into this world again, and it all falls apart, and I can recall nothing but an image or two, like a dream, or an illustration in a book, but less whole, less . . . I'm sorry. I can't make it clear.”