Part 15 (1/2)

Huaishan Han said, ”You are as good with words as is your G.o.d, Mao.”

”My G.o.d is Buddha,” Zilin said. ”I would have thought that self-evident.” He had picked up several slender shoots of bamboo. Now he pulled a folding knife from his pocket and commenced to make cuts here and there, bending the supple shoots in a complex pattern.

Davies, eating a triangle of sandwich, said, ”What are you doing?”

”I am hungry.” Zilin said. ”I am doing something about it.” He rose and, reaching up, brought down a handful of hemplike vines. His hands moved in a blur, then he went off, disappearing into the underbrush.

Several minutes later he reappeared and came back to where he had been seated before. ”I think.” he said, ”that I will have a bit of this wine now.” He sipped it with slow deliberation, savoring it on his tongue and in his throat. ”One does not often find such excellent wine in China these days.”

”Listen to him,” Huaishan Han said. ”Does he sound the Communist now?”

”Politics follows the force of conviction,” Zilin said. ”It is those who are dogmatically righteous in life who are most often struck down.”

”Conviction by its very nature is unbending,” Huaishan Han pointed out.

”I speak of the conviction of purpose,” Zilin said. ”In maintaining the good of the people one discerns the elasticity of means. If we are dogmatic only, then we shall surely fail in our goal of protecting the people from poverty, ill health, foreign intervention.”

Huaishan Han downed the last of his wine, asked for a refill. ”My belly grows empty,” he growled.

”There at least,” Zilin said, ”a Nationalist and a Communist may agree.” He rose again and disappeared. When he returned from the underbrush, he was carrying a hare which had been caught in his homemade snare. ”Lunch,” he proclaimed, and, as he set about killing and skinning the creature, he said, ”You see, Mr. Davies, the land must support its people. It is a universal law.”

Davies brushed crumbs off his lap. ”Didn't Buddha preach that killingany killingis wrong?” He opened his silver case, took out a cigarette. Huaishan Han took one as well. Davies put a match to both. ”I have heard that priests will not even put a spade into the earth for fear of killing an insect or a worm,” he said, drawing smoke into his lungs. ”Is this true, s.h.i.+ tong zhi?”

”It is,” Zilin said, gutting the hare, ”but I am not a priest. We all have our various functions on earth, Mr. Davies. Perhaps I am more like the fox than I would prefer to be. But the world, you will find, is an imperfect place at best. One must learn to accept what one is. Don't you agree?”

Without being asked to do so, Huaishan Han made a fire, first clearing a bare spot in the ground. In time, the two Chinese were roasting the beast on a rough-cut spit made of green branches. The fat crackled and hissed as it dropped into the fire and the aroma of roasting meat perfumed the air.

Davies could not find it in himself to indulgehe saw only the head with the dull glazed eyes staring blankly at him. He much preferred his tobacco.

Zilin and Huaishan Han shared the fragrant flesh, seeming totally absorbed in eating. Nothing more was said until they were done. Davies was astounded to see that nothing whatsoever was left over. Even the innards, wrapped and slow cooked in the embers while the flesh was consumed, were devoured at meal's end.

”Perhaps you've been wondering why I invited Huaishan Han along this afternoon,” Ross Davies said.

Zilin said nothing. He had found that gratuitous responses were the province of the foolish.

”What wethat is he and Iwould like to enquire is whether you would consider”Davies cleared his throat; he seemed to be staring at the s.h.i.+ny tips of his boots”coming over to, ah, our side.”

Another man might have leapt up in indignation. An ideologue, a righteous man. Zilin contemplated these two men and wondered what about this situation was wrong. There was an inconsistency, a sense that whatever strategy was on display here was subtly out of kilter.

”By *our side/ ” Zilin said carefully, ”I take it you mean the Nationalist cause.”

”It is the American cause as well,” Davies said.

Zilin nodded. ”Yes, Mr. Davies, we have already been made abundantly aware of your patriotism.”

Davies looked sheepish. ”It shows that much, huh?”

”Like a s.h.i.+ning beacon in the darkest night,” Zilin said with more than a trace of humor. ”But there is something refres.h.i.+ng in your transparency. I hope that, at least, will not be ravaged by war and time.”

”All this banter may be very amusing,” Huaishan Han said, ”but you have not answered our question, Comrade.”

Zilin looked directly into Huaishan Han's dark eyes. ”That is because I did not take it seriously. Besides, I do not for a moment believe that it was *our' question at all. Mr. Davies would know better than to ask something so fatuous of me.” But already Zilin was aware of the tension that had come into Huaishan Han's frame, the intensity building, and he thought, What is it that I am missing here?

”This is not a joke, Comrade,” the other Chinese said, switching to Mandarin. ”It is a matter of some urgency for us to elicit a true response from you.”

”But my dear sir,” Zilin said in the same dialect, ”you have already gotten it. I would no more contemplate joining the Nationalist forces than I would think about taking my own life. All of China hangs in the balance. Her future and her well-being is of the utmost importance to me. You are not asking me to betray Mao tong zhi but rather China itself.”

Huaishan Han, who had been studying Zilin during all of this, gave a quick decisive nod. But, oddly, it was directed at Ross Davies.

”Well,” Davies said, beginning to gather up the leavings of their lunch, ”I believe it is time we returned to Chungking.”

Deep in the night, Zilin was caught in a dream. The spirits of those Chinese who had died at the hands of the faan gwai loh wailed, speaking to him in tongues long lost. A rhythmic tattoo.

Rain beating against the window of his room. The same sound as the gossamer sheets of his dream, shredding. The bamboo shutters rattled. A shadow beside them. Long, angular, rising along the edge of the closed door. A shadow that should not have been there.

Zilin set his breathing, deepening it, returning to the crystal path, shuijing ban de xiao-lu, in order to determine the ident.i.ty of the anomaly in the room.

Now he could hear the breathing, his and another's, through the other sound of nature: the storm. Another brief flicker and then the thunder cras.h.i.+ng heavily, rolling across the heavens.

He had been looking at the right place at the right time. The crystal path had shown him the way. Huaishan Han was in his room!

Zilin remembered the Nationalist's tension, the intensity in his eyes. This is not a joke, Comrade. It is a matter of some urgency for us to elicit a true response from you. He remembered, too, the pistol that Davies, this man's ally, had leveled at him.

Slipped out of bed, his mind prepared for battle. He had no intention of attacking; but he knew that he would defend himself to the death.

”s.h.i.+ tong zhi,”

Rain like a mailed fist.

”s.h.i.+ tong zhi!”

Rattling the shutters angrily.

”I am here.” After he spoke, he moved to another place in the room, but the Nationalist made no aggressive move.

”I must speak with you.”

”You choose an odd and mannerless method.”

”No more mannerless than the war within which we find ourselves.”

”True,” Zilin acknowledged. ”Speak your piece. I will turn on the lamp.”

”No!”

Zilin was stopped by the urgency of the voice.

”I beg you make no light here. There must be no hint at all that I have made this visit.”