Part 2 (1/2)

The abbot paused to consider his words. Bees droned and flies buzzed, and I wondered if the knocking of my knees was audible. A few minutes ago I had been ready to dash out like a racehorse, and now I would prefer to dart down a hole like a rabbit.

”You are a good boy, and I would not like to meet the man who can surpa.s.s you in physical strength, but you know very little about this wicked world,” the abbot said slowly. ”To tell the truth, I am not so worried about the damage to your body as I am about the damage to your soul. You see, you know nothing whatsoever about men like Master Li, and he said that he would stop in Peking to acquire some money, and I rather suspect...”

His voice trailed off, and he groped for the proper words. Then he decided that it would take several years to prepare me properly.

”Number Ten Ox, our only hope is Master Li,” he said somberly. ”You must do as he commands, and I shall be praying for your immortal soul.”

With that rather alarming blessing he left me to return to the children, and I went out to say farewell to my family and friends. Later I was able to catch some sleep. In my dreams I was surrounded by plump brown children as I attempted to tie a red ribbon around a root of lightning in a garden where three million fake silk leaves rustled in a breeze that stank of three million real rotting bodies.

5. Of Goats, Gold, and Miser Shen

”A spring wind is like wine,” wrote Chang Chou, ”a summer wind is like tea, an autumn wind is like smoke, and a winter wind is like ginger or mustard.” The breeze that blew through Peking was tea touched with smoke, and spiced with the fragrance of plum, poppy, peony, plane trees, lotus, narcissus, orchid, wild rose, and the sweet-smelling leaves of banana and bamboo. The breeze was also pungent with pork fat, perspiration, sour wine, and the bewildering odors of more people than I had dreamed there were in the whole world.

The first time I was there I had been too intent upon reaching the Street of Eyes to pay much attention to the Moon Festival, but now I gaped at the jugglers and acrobats who were filling the air with clubs and bodies, and at girls who were as tiny and delicate as porcelain dolls, and who danced on the tips of their toes upon enormous artificial lotus blossoms. The palanquins and carriages of the n.o.bility moved grandly through the streets, and men and women laughed and wept in open-air theatres, and gamblers screamed and swore around dice games and cricket fights. I envied the elegance and a.s.surance of the gentlemen who basked in the practiced admiration of singsong girls - or tiptoed into the Alley of Four Hundred Forbidden Delights if they wanted more action. The most beautiful young women that I had ever seen were pounding drums in brightly painted tents as they sang and chanted the Flower Drum Songs. On almost every corner I saw old ladies with twinkling eyes who sold soft drinks and candied fruits while they cried, ”Aiieeee! Aiieeee! Come closer, my children! Spread ears like elephants, and I shall tell you the tale of the great Ehr-lang, and of the time when he was devoured by the hideous Transcendent Pig!”

Master Li had sharp elbows. He moved easily through the throngs, followed by yelps of pain, and he pointed out the landmarks and explained that the strange sounds of the city were as comprehensible to urban ears as barnyard sounds were to mine. The tw.a.n.ging of long tuning forks, for example, meant that barbers had set up shop, and porcelain spoons rapping against bowls advertised tiny dumplings in hot syrup, and clanging copper saucers meant that soft drinks made from wild plums and sweet and sour crab apples were for sale.

As he moved toward his destination, I a.s.sumed in my innocence that he was intending to acquire some money by visiting a wealthy friend, or a moneylender who owed him a favor. I blush to admit that not once did I pause to consider the state of the bamboo shack in which I had found him or the nature of friends that he was likely to have. I was quite surprised when he turned abruptly from the main street and trotted down an alley that reeked of refuse. Rats glared at us with fierce glittering eyes, and fermenting garbage bubbled and stank, and I stepped nervously over a corpse - or so I thought until I smelled the fellow's breath. He was not dead but dead-drunk, and at the end of the alley, the blue flag of a wine seller hung above a sagging wooden shack.

I later learned that the wineshop of One-Eyed Wong was the most notorious in all China, but at the time I merely noticed that the low dark room was swarming with vermin and flies, and that a thug with a jade earring that dangled from one chewed earlobe did not approve of the product.

”You Peking weaklings call this watery p.i.s.s wine?” he roared. ”Back in Soochow we make wine so strong that it knocks you out for a month if you smell it on somebody's breath!”

One-Eyed Wong turned to his wife, who was blending the stuff behind the counter.

”We must add more cayenne, my turtledove.”

”Two hundred and twenty-two transcendent miseries!” wailed Fat Fu. ”We have run out of cayenne!”

”In that case, O light of my existence, we shall subst.i.tute the stomach acid of diseased sheep,” One-Eyed Wong said calmly.

The thug with the earring whipped out a dagger and lurched around the room, savagely slas.h.i.+ng the air.

”You Peking weaklings call these things flies?” he yelled. ”Back in Soochow we have flies so big that we clip their wings, hitch them to plows, and use them for oxen!”

”Perhaps a few flattened flies might add bouquet,” One-Eyed Wong said thoughtfully.

”Yours is genius of the highest order, O n.o.ble stallion of the bedchamber, but flies are too risky,” said Fat Fu. ”They might overpower our famous flavor of crushed c.o.c.kroaches.”

The thug did not approve of Master Li. ”You Peking weaklings call these midgets men?” he howled. ”Back in Soochow we grow men so big that their heads brush the clouds while their feet are planted upon the ground!”

”Indeed? In my humble village,” Master Li said sweetly, ”we grow men so big that their upper lips lick the stars, while their lower lips nuzzle the earth.”

The thug thought about it.

”And where are their bodies?”

”They are like you,” said Master Li. ”All mouth.”

His hand shot out, a blade glinted, blood spurted, and he calmly dropped the thug's earring into his pocket, along with the ear that was attached to it. ”My surname is Li and my personal name is Kao, and there is a slight flaw in my character,” he said with a polite bow. ”This is my esteemed client, Number Ten Ox, who is about to strike you over the head with a blunt object.”

I wasn't quite sure what a blunt object was, but I was spared the embarra.s.sment of asking when the thug sat down at a table and began to cry. Li Kao exchanged a bawdy joke with One-Eyed Wong, pinched Fat Fu's vast behind, and beckoned for me to join them at a table with a jar of wine that was not of their own manufacture.

”Ox, it occurs to me that your education may be deficient in certain basic aspects of human intercourse, and I suggest that you pay close attention,” he said. He placed the thug's jade earring, which was quite beautiful, upon the table. ”A lovely thing,” he said.

”Trash,” sneered One-Eyed Wong.

”Cheap imitation jade,” sneered Fat Fu.

”Carved by a blind man,” sneered One-Eyed Wong.

”Worst earring I ever saw,” sneered Fat Fu.

”How much?” asked One-Eyed Wong.

”It is yours for a song,” said Master Li. ”In this case a song means a large purse of fake gold coins, two elegant suits of clothes, the temporary use of a palatial palanquin and suitably attired bearers, a cart of garbage, and a goat.”

One-Eyed Wong did some mental addition.

”No goat.”

”But I must have a goat.”

”It isn't that good an earring.”

”It doesn't have to be that good a goat.”

”No goat.”

”But you not only get the earring, you also get the ear that is attached to it,” said Master Li.

The proprietors bent over the table and examined the b.l.o.o.d.y thing with interest.

”This is not a very good ear,” sneered One-Eyed Wong.

”It is a terrible ear,” sneered Fat Fu.

”Revolting,” sneered One-Eyed Wong.

”Worst ear I ever saw,” sneered Fat Fu.

”Besides, what good is it?” asked One-Eyed Wong.

”Look at the vile creature it came from, and imagine the filth that has been hissed into it.” Master Li bent over the table and whispered, ”Let us a.s.sume that you have an enemy.”

”Enemy,” said One-Eyed Wong.

”He is a wealthy man with a country estate.”