Sandalwood Death

Sandalwood Death - By Mo Yan



Translator’s Note

The challenges for the translator of Mo Yan’s powerful historical novel begin with the title, Tanxiang xing, whose literal meaning is “sandalwood punishment” or, in an alternate reading, “sandalwood torture.” For a work so utterly reliant on sound, rhythm, and tone, I felt that neither of those served the novel’s purpose. At one point, the executioner draws out the name of the punishment he has devised (fictional, by the way) for ultimate effect: “Tan—xiang—xing!” Since the word “sandalwood” already used up the three original syllables, I needed to find a short word to replicate the Chinese as closely as possible. Thus: “Sandal—wood—death!”

Beyond that, as the novelist makes clear in his “Author’s Note,” language befitting the character and status of the narrators in Parts One and Three helps give the work its special quality of sound. Adjusting the register for the various characters, from an illiterate, vulgar butcher to a top graduate of the Qing Imperial Examination, without devolving to American street lingo or becoming overly Victorian, has been an added challenge. Finally, there are the rhymes. Chinese rhymes far more easily than English, and Chinese opera has always employed rhyme in nearly every line, whatever the length. I have exhausted my storehouse of rhyming words in translating the many arias, keeping as close to the meaning as possible or necessary.

As with all languages, some words, some terms, simply do not translate. They can be defined, described, and deconstructed, but they steadfastly resist translation. Many words and terms from a host of languages have found their way into English and settled in comfortably. Most of those from Chinese, it seems, date from foreign imperialists’ and missionaries’ unfortunately misread or misheard Chinese-isms: “coolie,” “gung ho,” “rickshaw” (actually, that comes via Japanese), “godown,” “kungfu,” and so on. I think it is time to update and increase the meager list, and to that end, I have left a handful of terms untranslated; a glossary appears at the end of the book. Only one is given in a form that differs slightly from standard Pinyin: that is “dieh,” commonly used for one’s father in northern China. The Pinyin would be “die”!

This is a long, very “Chinese” novel, both part of and unique to Mo Yan’s impressive fictional oeuvre. There are places that are difficult to read (imagine how difficult they were to translate), but their broader significance and their stark beauty are integral to the work.

I have been the beneficiary of much encouragement in this engrossing project. My gratitude to the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation for its generous support, and to Ed, Mike, Jonathan, and David for writing for me. Jonathan Stalling has been in my corner from the beginning, as have representatives of the University of Oklahoma Press, for whose new and important series this is the inaugural work of fiction. Thanks to Jane Lyle for her meticulous editing. Finally, my thanks to the author for making clear some of the more opaque passages and for leaving me on my own for others. And, of course, to Sylvia, my best reader, sharpest critic, and, from time to time, biggest fan.

HOWARD GOLDBLATT





BOOK ONE


Head of the Phoenix




CHAPTER ONE


Meiniang’s Lewd Talk

The sun rose, a bright red ball (the eastern sky a flaming pall), from Qingdao a German contingent looms. (Red hair, green eyes.) To build a rail line they defiled our ancestral tombs. (The people are up in arms!) My dieh led the resistance against the invaders, who responded with cannon booms. (A deafening noise.) Enemies met, anger boiled red in their eyes. Swords chopped, axes hewed, spears jabbed. The bloody battle lasted all day, leaving corpses and deathly fumes. (I was scared witless!) In the end, my dieh was taken to South Prison, where my gongdieh’s sandalwood death sealed his doom. (My dieh, who gave me life!)

—Maoqiang Sandalwood Death. A mournful aria





1




That morning, my gongdieh, Zhao Jia, could never, even in his wildest dreams, have imagined that in seven days he would die at my hands, his death more momentous than that of a loyal old dog. And never could I have imagined that I, a mere woman, would take knife in hand and with it kill my own husband’s father. Even harder to believe was that this old man, who had seemingly fallen from the sky half a year earlier, was an executioner, someone who could kill without blinking. In his red-tasseled skullcap and long robe, topped by a short jacket with buttons down the front, he paced the courtyard, counting the beads on his Buddhist rosary like a retired yuanwailang, or, better yet, I think, a laotaiye, with a houseful of sons and grandsons. But he was neither a laotaiye nor a yuanwailang—he was the preeminent executioner in the Board of Punishments, a magician with the knife, a peerless decapitator, a man capable of inflicting the cruelest punishments, including some of his own design, a true creative genius. During his four decades in the Board of Punishments, he had—to hear him say it—lopped off more heads than the yearly output of Gaomi County watermelons.

My thoughts kept me awake that night, as I tossed and turned on the brick kang, like flipping fried bread. My dieh, Sun Bing, had been arrested and locked up by County Magistrate Qian, that pitiless son of a bitch. Even if he were the worst person in the world, he would still be my dieh, and my mind was in such turmoil I could not sleep, forestalling any possibility of rest. I heard large mongrels grunting in their cages and fat pigs barking in their pens—pig noises had become dog sounds, and dog barks had turned into pig songs. Even in the short time they had left to live, they were tuning up for an opera. If a dog grunts, it is still a dog, and when a pig barks, it remains a pig. And a dieh is still a dieh, even if he does not act like one. Grunt grunt, arf arf. The noise drove me crazy. They knew they would be dead soon. So would my dieh. But animals are smarter than humans, for they detected the smell of blood that spread from our yard, and could see the ghosts of pigs and dogs that prowled in the moonlight. They knew that daybreak, soon after the red rays of sun appeared, would mark the hour that they went to meet Yama, the King of Hell. And so they set up a yowl—the plaintive call of impending death. And you, Dieh, what was it like in your death cell? Did you grunt? Bark? Or did you sing Maoqiang? I heard jailers say that condemned prisoners could scoop up fleas by the handfuls in their cells and that the bedbugs were as big as broad beans. You had lived a steady, conservative life, Dieh, so how could a rock one day fall from the sky and knock you straight into a death cell? Oh, Dieh . . .

The knife goes in white and comes out red! No one is better at butchering dogs and slaughtering pigs than my husband, Zhao Xiaojia, whose fame has spread throughout Gaomi County. He is tall and he is big, nearly bald, and beardless. During the day he walks in a fog, and at night he lies in bed like a gnarled log. Since the day I married him, he has badgered me with his mother’s tale of a tiger’s whisker. One day some roguish creature goaded him into pestering me to obtain one of those curly golden tiger whiskers that, when held in the mouth, confer the ability to see a person’s true form. The moron, more like a rotting fish bladder than a man, badgered me all one night, until I had no choice but to give in. Well, the moron curled up on the kang and, as he snored and ground his teeth, began to talk in his sleep: “Dieh Dieh Dieh, see see see, scratch the eggs, flip the noodle . . .” He drove me crazy. When I nudged him with my foot, he curled up even tighter and rolled over, smacking his lips as if he’d just enjoyed a tasty treat. Then the talk started again, and the snoring and the grinding of teeth. To hell with him! Let the dullard sleep!

I sat up, leaned against the cold wall, and looked out the window, to see watery moonlight spread across the ground. The eyes of the penned dogs glistened like green lanterns—one pair, another, a third . . . a whole stream of them. Lonely autumn insects set up a desolate racket. A night watchman clomped down the cobblestone street in oiled boots with wooden soles, clapper beats mixed with the clangs of a gong—it was already the third watch. The third, late-night, watch in a city where everyone slept, everyone but me and the pigs and the dogs and, I’m sure, my dieh.

Kip kip kip, a rat was gnawing on the wooden chest. It scampered off when I threw a whiskbroom at it. Then I heard the faint sound of beans rolling across a table in my gongdieh’s room. I later discovered that the old wretch was counting human heads, one bean for each detached head. Even at night the old degenerate dreamed of heads he had chopped off, that old reprobate . . . I see him raise the devil’s-head sword and bring it down on the nape of my dieh’s neck; the head rolls down the street, chased by a pack of kids who kick it along until it rolls into our yard after hopping up the gate steps in an attempt to escape. It then circles the yard, chased by a hungry dog. Experience has told Dieh’s head that when the dog gets too close—which it does several times—the queue in back lashes it in its eye, producing yelps of pain as it runs in circles. Now free of the dog, the head starts rolling again and, like a large tadpole, swims along, its queue trailing on the surface, a tadpole’s tail . . .

The clapper and gong sounding the fourth watch startled me out of my nightmare. I was damp with cold sweat, and many hearts—not just one—thudded against my chest. My gongdieh was still counting beans, and now I knew how the old wretch was able to intimidate people: his body emitted breaths of shuddering cold that could be felt at great distances. In only six months he had turned his room, with its southern exposure, into an icy tomb—so gloomy the cat dared not enter, not even to catch mice. I was reluctant to step inside, since it made me break out in gooseflesh. But Xiaojia went in whenever he could and, like a snotty three-year-old, stuck close to his storytelling dieh. He hated to leave that room, even to come to my bed during the hottest days of the year, in effect switching the roles of parent and spouse. In order to keep unsold meat from going bad, he actually hung it from the rafters in his dieh’s room. Did that make him smart? Or stupid? On those rare occasions when my gongdieh went out, even snarling dogs ran off as he passed, whining piteously from the safety of corners. Tall tales about the old man were rampant: people said that if he laid a hand on a cypress tree, it shuddered and began to shed its leaves. I was thinking about my dieh, Sun Bing. Dieh, you pulled off something grand this time, like An Lushan screwing the Imperial Concubine Yang Guifei, or Cheng Yaojin stealing gifts belonging to the Sui Emperor and suffering grievously for it. I had thoughts of Qian Ding, our magistrate, who had claimed success at the Imperial Examination, a grade five official, almost a prefect, what’s known as a County Magistrate; but to me, this gandieh, my so-called benefactor, was a double-dealing monkey monster. The adage goes, “If you won’t do it for the monk, then do it for the Buddha; if not for the fish, then for the water.” You turned your back on the three years I shared your bed. How many pots of my heated millet spirits did you drink during those three years, how many bowls of my fatty dog meat did you eat, and how many of my Maoqiang arias swirled in your head? Hot millet spirits, fatty dog meat, and me lying beside you. Magistrate, I waited on you with more care than any emperor has known. Magistrate, I presented you with a body silkier than the finest Suzhou satin and sweeter than Cantonese sugar melon, all for your dissolute pleasure; now, after all the pampering and the voyages into an erotic fairyland, why will you not let my dieh go free? Why did you team up with those German devils to seize him and burn down our village? Had I known you were such an unfeeling, unrighteous bastard, I’d have poured my millet spirits into the latrine, fed my fatty dog meat to the pigs, and sung my arias to a brick wall. And as for my body, I’d have given that to a dog . . .





2




With one last frenetic banging of the watchman’s clappers, dawn broke. I climbed down off the kang, dressed in new clothes, and fetched water to wash up, then applied powder and rouge to my face and oiled my hair. After taking a well-cooked dog’s leg out of the pot, I wrapped it in a lotus leaf and put it in my basket, then walked out the door and down the cobblestone road as the moon settled in the west. I was headed to the yamen prison, where I’d gone every day since my dieh’s arrest. They would not let me see him. Damn you, Qian Ding; in the past, if I went three days without bringing you some dog meat, you sent that little bastard Chunsheng to my door. Now you are hiding from me; you have even posted guards. Musketeers and archers who once bowed and scraped when I arrived now glare at me with looks of supercilious arrogance. You even let four German soldiers threaten me with bayonets when I approached the gate with my basket. Their faces told me they meant business. Qian Ding, oh, Qian Ding, you turncoat, your illicit relations with foreigners have made me angry enough to take my grievance to the capital and accuse you of eating my dog meat without paying and of forcing yourself upon a married woman. Qian Ding, I will do what I must in the name of justice, and I will strip that tiger skin from your body to reveal what a heartless, no-good scoundrel you are.

Reluctantly I left the yamen, and as I walked away, I heard those little bastards having a good laugh at my expense. Little Tiger, you ungrateful dog, have you forgotten how you and your damnable father got down on your knees and kowtowed to me? If I hadn’t spoken up for you, do you think a common little sandal peddler could have enjoyed the lucrative benefits of a yamen guard? And you, Little Shun, a common beggar who sought warmth from a cook stand in the dead of winter, if I hadn’t put in a good word for you, do you think you would now be one of his select archers? I let Military Inspector Li Jinbao kiss me and feel my bottom and District Jailer Su Lantong feel my bottom and kiss me, all for you two. How dare you make fun of me! Dogs think they are better than humans; well, you dog bastards, if a curing rack fell over, I would not be tempted by the meat, nor pay for spirits even if I were falling-down drunk. I will be back on my feet one day, and when I am, I will make sure that each of you gets what is coming to him.

I put the wicked yamen behind me and walked home along the same cobblestone street. Dieh, you old fool, as you moved from your forties into your fifties, instead of leading a Maoqiang troupe down city streets and country roads to sing of emperors, kings, generals, and ministers, or playing the roles of worthy scholars and beautiful maidens, toying with star-crossed lovers, earning a lot or a little, dining on spoiled cat and rotting dog, drinking strong spirits and rice wine, and when your belly was full, spending time with no-account friends, scaling cold walls to sleep in someone’s warm bed, enjoying your pleasures, big and small, and living as if in a fairyland, you decided to strut around saying whatever popped into your head: things a highwayman would not say found voice with you, and things no bandit would dare try were for you a challenge. You offended yayi and you provoked the County Magistrate. Even when your backside was beaten till it bled, you refused to bow your head and admit defeat. You challenged a foe and lost your beard, like a plucked rooster or a fine horse without a tail. When you could no longer sing opera, you opened a teashop, a move that promised a peaceful life. But you had to let your wife go off by herself and court disaster. A man laid his hands on her body, and that should have been the end of it; but you could not swallow your anger, as an ordinary citizen would have done. As they say, a loss suffered is a benefit delayed, and patience is a virtue. You succumbed to your anger and clubbed a German engineer to the ground, bringing a monstrous calamity down on your head. Even the Emperor fears the Germans, but not you. So, thanks to you, the village was bathed in blood, with twenty-seven dead, including your young son and daughter, even their mother, your second wife. But you were not finished, for you ran to Southwest Shandong to join the Boxers of Righteous Harmony, then returned to set up a spirit altar and raise the flag of rebellion. A thousand rebels armed with crude firearms, swords, and spears sabotaged the foreigners’ rail line with arson and murder. You called yourself a hero. Yet in the end, a town was destroyed, civilians lay dead, and you wound up in a jail cell, beaten black and blue . . . my poor benighted dieh, with what did you coat your heart? What possessed you? A fox spirit? Maybe a weasel phantom stole your soul. So what if the Germans wanted to build a railroad that ruined the feng shui of Northeast Gaomi Township and blocked our waterways? The feng shui and waterways are not ours alone, so why did you have to lead the rebellion? This is what it has come to: the bird in front gets the buckshot; the king of thieves is first to fall. As the adage has it, “When the beans are fried, everyone eats; but if the pot is broken, you suffer the consequences alone.” What you did this time, Dieh, sent shock waves all the way to the Imperial Court and outraged the Great Powers. People say that Shandong Governor Yuan Shikai himself was carried into the county yamen in his eight-man palanquin last night, and that the Jiaozhou Plenipotentiary rode his foreign charger in through the yamen gate, a blue-steel Mauser bolt-action rifle slung over his back. The archer Sun Huzi—Bearded Sun—who stood guard at the gate, tried to stop him, for which he was rewarded with a taste of the foreign devil’s whip. He slunk out of the way, but not before a gash the width of his finger had opened up on his fleshy ear. This time, Dieh, the odds are stacked against you, and that gourd-like head of yours will soon hang at the yamen entrance for all to see. Even if Qian Ding, Eminence Qian, were of a mind to free you as a favor to me, Governor Yuan Shikai would not permit it. And if he wanted to free you, Plenipotentiary von Ketteler would not allow it. Your fate is no longer in your hands, Dieh.

With the red sun before me, and my mind a jumble of thoughts, I trotted down the cobblestone road, heading east, enveloped in aromatic waves from the dog’s leg in my basket. Puddles of bloody water dotted the roadway, and in my trance-like state I saw Dieh’s head rolling down the street, singing an aria on the way. For him, Maoqiang opera was the bait to attract a wife. He turned a minor musical form that had never quite caught on into a major one. His voice, soft and pliable, like watermelon pulp, captivated scores of Northeast Gaomi Township beauties, including my late niang, who married him solely on the strength of his voice. One of the township’s true beauties, she even turned down a marriage proposal on behalf of Provincial Licentiate Du, preferring to follow my impoverished dieh, the opera singer, wherever he went . . . Licentiate Du’s hired hand, Deaf Zhou, was walking my way with a load of water, bent over by the weight, his red neck stretched forward as far as it would go. His white hair was a fright, his face dotted with crystalline beads of sweat. He was panting from the exertion, taking big, hurried strides, splashing water over the sides of his buckets that formed liquid beads on the road stones. All of a sudden, Dieh, I saw your head in Deaf Zhou’s bucket, where the water had turned into blood that filled my nostrils with its hot, rank odor, the sort of smell that bursts from the split bellies of the dogs and pigs my husband, Zhao Xiaojia, butchers. Not just rank, but a foul stench. Of course, Deaf Zhou had no way of knowing that seven days later, when he went to the site of my dieh’s execution to listen to a Maoqiang aria, a bullet from a German devil’s Mauser would rip open his belly and release guts that slithered out like an eel.

When we passed on the street, he strained to look up and greeted me with an ugly smirk. Even a wooden-headed deaf man is audacious enough to smirk at me, Dieh, which can only mean there is no way you can escape death this time, not even if His Imperial Majesty—forget about the likes of Qian Ding—were to come to stop it. I am discouraged, of course I am, but unwilling to give up. “You hit the tree whether there are dates or not; you treat a dead horse as if it were alive.” If I had to guess, I would say that at that moment Magistrate Qian was with Governor Yuan, who had come to the yamen from Jinan, and Clemens von Ketteler, who had ridden over from Qingdao, all lying on an opium bed in the guest house to enjoy a pipeful, so I decided to wait till Yuan and the foreigner left before taking my dog’s leg into the yamen. If they would let me see the Magistrate, I was sure I could get him to listen to me, for at that moment he would not be Magistrate Qian, but Creepy Eminence Qian, who keeps circling me. What frightens me, Dieh, is that they will transport you to the capital in a prison van. We can deal with them so long as they carry out the sentence here in the county. We’ll find a beggar to take your place, what they call stealing beams and changing pillars, to manage a bit of trickery. You were so mean to my niang, I should not be trying to save your skin; once you are dead and buried, you can never hurt another woman. But you are my dieh. Without heaven there can be no earth, without an egg there can be no chicken, without feelings there can be no opera, and without you there could be no me. Tattered clothes can be replaced, but I have only one dieh. The Temple of the Matriarch is up ahead, and I rush to prostrate myself at the Buddha’s feet. When you are sick, any doctor will do. I will beg the Matriarch to display her powers and extract you from the jaws of death.

The Temple of the Matriarch was eerily dark, too murky to see a thing, but I heard bats flying around, their wings flapping against the rafters—oh, maybe they were swallows, not bats, yes, that’s what they were, swallows. Slowly my eyes adapted to the darkness, and I saw a dozen beggars lying on the floor in front of the Matriarch. My head reeled from the stink of urine, farts, and spoiled food; I nearly retched. Revered Matriarch of Sons and Grandsons, how you must suffer, forced to live with these wild tomcats. Like snakes emerging from their hibernation, they stretched their stiff bodies and got lazily to their feet, one after the other. Zhu Ba—Zhu the Eighth—the white-haired, red-eyed beggar chief, made a face and fired a gob of spit my way.

“Bad omen, bad omen, truly bad omen!” he shouted. “This rabbit’s a female!”

His motley pack followed his lead and spat at me, then shouted in unison:

“Bad omen, bad omen, truly bad omen! This rabbit’s a female!”

A red-bottomed monkey was on my shoulder like a bolt of lightning, frightening two and a half of my three souls right out of my body, and by the time I gathered my wits, the little bastard had reached into my basket and stolen my dog’s leg. It scampered over to an incense table and in a flash was perched on the Matriarch’s shoulder. All that movement produced jangles from the chain around its neck, while its tail swept up clouds of dust that made me sneeze—ah-choo! The damned, stinking monkey, as much human as beast, perched on the Matriarch’s shoulder and bared its teeth as it gnawed noisily on the dog’s leg, making a mess of the Matriarch’s face with its greasy paws. But she bore it meekly, without complaint, merciful and benevolent. If the Matriarch was powerless to control a monkey, how could she possibly save my dieh’s life?

Dieh, oh, Dieh, your bluster knew no bounds, like a weasel on a camel, the biggest mate it could find. You have forged such a monstrous calamity that even the Old Buddha, Empress Dowager Cixi, knows your name, and Kaiser Wilhelm himself has been told what you have done. For an ordinary, worthless opera singer who haunted city streets and country roads to put food in his belly, you now know that your life did not pass through the world unnoticed. The opera lyric says: “Better to live three days and go out in a blaze of glory than to live a thousand years as a timid soul.” You sang on the stage for most of your life, Dieh, acting out other people’s stories. This time you were determined to insert yourself into the drama; you acted and acted, until you yourself became the drama.

The beggars surrounded me. Some held out rotting arms oozing with pus; others exposed their ulcerated midriffs. Catcalls and jeers rose from their ranks, a cacophony of bizarre sounds, some loud, some soft: songs, calls to the dead, wolf bays, donkey brays, every sound imaginable, all tangled, like feathers on a chicken.

“Help me, Dog-Meat Xishi, please, Sister Zhao, be charitable. Hand over a couple of coppers now, and you’ll find two silver dollars on your way home . . . if you refuse, I won’t worry, for in this life you’ll be sorry . . .”

All the time they were filling the temple with their horrid noise, those dogshit bastards pinched me on the thigh or squeezed my bottom or manhandled my breasts . . . groping here and fondling there, whatever they could do to have their way with me. I tried to get away, but they grabbed my arms and held me around the waist, so I threw myself at Zhu Ba. “Zhu Ba,” I said, “Zhu Ba, let this be between you and me.” Well, he picked up a willow switch and poked me in the back of the knee, dropping me to the floor. With a smirk, he said:

“When a fat pig comes to your door, you’d be a fool not to kill and eat it. Boys,” he said, “Magistrate Qian might feast on the meat, but you can have a taste of the soup.”

The beggars piled onto me and pulled my pants down. Out of desperation, I said, “Zhu Ba, you dog-shit bastard, a true burglar does not wait for a fire. You may not care, but my dieh was imprisoned by Qian Ding, and now has a date with the executioner.” He rolled his pus-filled eyes.

“Who is your dieh?” he asked.

“Zhu Ba,” I said, “your eyes are open, yet you pretend to be asleep. How could you not know who he is, when all of China knows? He is Sun Bing, from Northeast Gaomi Township, the Sun Bing who sings Maoqiang opera, the Sun Bing who pried up railroad tracks, the Sun Bing who led the fight between local residents and the German devils!” Zhu Ba rose up, cupped his hands in front of his chest, and said:

“Do not take offense, Elder Sister; I did not know. We were aware that Qian Ding was your gandieh, but not that Sun Bing was your real dieh. Qian Ding is a no-good bastard; your dieh is a hero who courageously stood up to the foreign devils, pitting sword against sword and gun against gun. How we envy him. If there is anything you need from us, do not hesitate to ask. On your knees, boys, and kowtow to the fair lady as an act of contrition.”

As one, the gang of beggars knelt down and kowtowed to me, banging their heads on the floor, which marked their foreheads with dust.

“Great blessings for Elder Sister, great blessings!” they shouted in unison.

Even the monkey crouching on the Matriarch’s shoulder tossed away the dog’s leg and bounded headlong to the floor, where, in imitation of the men, it kowtowed to me in its own strange way, to my delight.

“Boys,” Zhu Ba announced, “tomorrow we deliver several dog’s legs to the fair lady.”

“That is not necessary,” I said.

“Your generosity is appreciated,” said Zhu Ba, “but these boys can catch a dog faster than they can pluck a flea out of their pants.”

The beggars laughed, some revealing yellow teeth and others toothless gums, and I was struck by the feeling that these were decent men who lived simple yet interesting lives. Sunlight burst in through the temple entrance, its red, warm rays lighting up the smiles on the beggars’ faces. My nose began to ache; hot tears filled my eyes.

“Elder Sister, do you want us to break him out of jail?”

“No,” I said, “that you cannot do. My dieh is no run-of-the-mill case, and the prison gate is guarded not only by yamen soldiers, but by armed Germans as well.”

“Hou Xiaoqi,” Zhu Ba said, “go check things out. Report back with anything you hear.”

“Understood!” Hou replied as he picked up a bronze gong that was lying in front of the Matriarch. Then he strapped on a sack and whistled. “Come along with your papa, my boy.” The monkey leaped onto his shoulder, and Hou Xiaoqi walked out of the temple banging his gong and singing, the monkey riding on his shoulders. I looked up at the Matriarch, whose body exuded ancient airs, and whose face, like a silver plate, was beaded with sweat. She was making her presence known; she was telling me something! Use your power, Matriarch, to protect my dieh!





3




I returned home full of hope. Xiaojia was already up and was out in the yard sharpening his knife. He smiled at me, a warm, friendly greeting. I returned the smile, equally warm and friendly. After he tested the point of the knife on his finger and found it still not sharp enough, he went back to work—zzzp zzzp. He was wearing only a singlet; the exposed skin showed off his taut muscles, like cloves of garlic, a powerful man with a patch of black chest hair. I walked inside, where my gongdieh was sitting in a sandalwood armchair made unique by a dragon inlaid with gold filaments; he’d had it sent over from the capital. He was resting, eyes closed, and softly muttering as he fingered the sandalwood beads of his rosary, and I could not tell whether he was reciting a Buddhist sutra or mouthing curses. The room had a gloomy feel, with faint streams of sunlight filtering in through the latticed window. One of those sunbeams, bright like gold or silver, lit up his gaunt face: sunken eyes, a high nose bridge, and a tightly shut mouth that sliced above his chin like a knife. No hairs decorated his short upper lip or his long chin. No wonder there was talk that he was a eunuch who had escaped from the Imperial Court. His hair had thinned out so much he could make a queue only by adding black thread. His eyes slitted open, sending icy rays my way. “You’re up, Gongdieh,” I said. He nodded without interrupting the fingering of his beads.

A routine had developed over the months for me to groom his queue with an ox-horn comb, a task ordinarily performed by a maidservant, which we did not have. That was not something daughters-in-law were expected to do, and if word had gotten out, rumors of an incestuous relationship would have swirled. But something the old man knew put me at his mercy, and if he wanted me to comb his hair, I did so. In fact, it was I who had started the routine. One morning soon after his arrival, as he struggled with a comb with missing teeth, his son, my husband, went up to do it for him.

“Dieh,” he said as he worked, “I have sparse hair, and as a boy I once heard Niang say that most of it had fallen out from scabies. Is that why yours is so sparse?”

My idiot husband’s clumsy hands forced a grimace onto the old man’s face. He was lucky enough to have a son willing to comb his hair, though his head was being scraped like a debristled hog. I had just returned from Magistrate Qian’s and was in a decent mood, so to make them happy, I said, “Here, let me do that.” By adding black threads to the scant few strands of hair, I gave him a nice thick queue, and when I was finished, I handed him a mirror. He pulled the thing around front—half hair, half threads—and the gloomy look in his eyes gave way to glistening tears. It was a rare event, to say the least. Xiaojia dabbed at his father’s eyes.

“Are you crying, Dieh?” he asked.

The old man shook his head.

“The Empress Dowager had a eunuch whose only task was to comb Her hair,” he said, “but She never used him. That responsibility She handed to Her favorite eunuch, Li Lianying.” I had no idea why he was telling us this, but Xiaojia, who was besotted by anything having to do with Peking, begged him to say more. Ignoring his son, the old man handed me a silver certificate.

“Go into town and have some nice clothes made, Daughter-in-law. That’s the least I can do considering how you’ve looked after me these past few days.”

The next morning, Xiaojia woke me out of a sound sleep. “What are you doing?” I snapped.

“Get up,” he said with uncharacteristic boldness. “My dieh is waiting for you to comb his hair.”

This unexpected news made me very uncomfortable. The door to goodness is easy to open, they say, and hard to close. What did he expect of me? You are not the Empress Dowager, old wretch, and I am not Li Lianying. For the favor of having those few scraggly strands of washed-out, smelly dog hair combed out one time, you can thank eight generations of your pious ancestors. But like a cat that’s had a taste of fish, an old bachelor who’s had a taste of the good life, you can’t get enough. Did you really think that a five-ounce silver certificate was all you needed to buy my favors? Hah! Ponder for a moment who you are and who I am. I climbed down off the kang, boiling mad and of a mind to say exactly what I thought and teach him a lesson. But before I could open my mouth, the old wretch looked up and, as if talking to himself, said to the wall:

“I wonder who combs the County Magistrate’s hair for him.”

I shuddered. The old wretch was not human, I felt, but an invisible, all-knowing ghost. How else would he know that I combed Magistrate Qian’s hair? Having said what he wanted to say, he turned back around, sat up in his chair, and fixed his gloomy eyes on me. My anger suddenly gone, I meekly walked around and began combing his dog hair. And as I was doing that, I unconsciously thought about my gandieh’s nice black hair—sleek, glossy, fragrant. And when I grabbed hold of a queue that resembled nothing so much as a shedding donkey’s tail, my thoughts drifted to my gandieh’s heavy, fleshy queue, which seemed capable of moving all by itself. He could brush my body with that queue, from the top of my head down to my heels, gentle claws that burrowed into my heart and squeezed waves of seduction out of every pore.

I had no choice but to work the comb. It was time to drink the bitter brew of my own creation. Whenever I combed my gandieh’s hair, he began touching me, and before I had a chance to finish, our bodies were intertwined. I found it hard to believe that this old wretch was unmoved by my ministrations, and I was waiting for him to start climbing the pole. Old wretch, if you even try, I’ll make sure you can’t climb down once you’re up there. Yes, when that happens, you’ll start doing my bidding, and I’ll be damned if I’ll ever comb your hair again! Rumors swirled that the old wretch was in possession of a hundred thousand in silver certificates; sooner or later, he would have to bring it out for me to see. So I looked forward to the day when he would try to make the climb; but that day had yet to come. Still, I was not prepared to believe that there is a cat anywhere that does not like fish. Old wretch, we’ll see how long you can hold out. I loosened his queue and ran my comb through those soft, scraggly hairs. I was especially gentle that day, though it was a struggle not to vomit as my fingers touched the base of his ears and I pressed my breasts against the nape of his neck. “My dieh has been arrested,” I said, “and thrown in jail. With all the time you spent in the capital, and the reputation you enjoyed there, you can get him out.” He made no sound in response. He sat like a deaf mute, so with a gentle squeeze of his shoulder I repeated myself. Still no response. As the sun’s rays drifted by, they made the brass buttons on his brown silk Mandarin jacket shine, and then moved on to his hands, with which he unhurriedly fingered his sandalwood Buddhist beads. Pale and soft, those delicate hands seemed not to belong to someone of his sex and age. You could put a knife to my throat, and I still could not believe that they wielded an executioner’s sword. At least that is what I thought at the time; now I wasn’t so sure. I pressed myself even harder against him and said coyly, “Gongdieh, my dieh did something bad, but you, after all you’ve seen and done in the capital, you can do or say something to help him.” I squeezed his bony shoulder a second time and rested my full breasts on the nape of his neck as my lips formed a series of provocative sounds. When I used tricks like that on Qian Ding, Eminence Ding went limp and was ready to do whatever I asked. But the balding old wretch in front of me now was like an egg that could never be cooked; I could bounce my soft, supple breasts up and down in front of him or send enough seductive waves his way to submerge Gold Mountain Temple without getting a rise out of him. But then he abruptly stopped fingering the beads; I thought I saw those small, meaty hands begin to shake, and I was ecstatic. Have I finally gotten to you, you old wretch? A toad can hold up a bedpost only so long. I don’t believe you can keep those silver certificates hidden forever, and I don’t believe you will use my relationship with the County Magistrate to force me to comb your dog hair. Dieh, help me think of something. So I kept up the seductive act behind him, until, that is, I heard a contemptuous laugh, like the chilling hoot of an owl emerging from a graveyard deep in a dark woods on a moonless night. I froze. It felt as if ice ran through my veins, and all my thoughts and wishes flew off to I don’t know where. The old wretch, was he even human? Could a human being produce a laugh like that? No, he was not human; he was a demon. And so he must not be my gongdieh. In more than a dozen years with Xiaojia, I had never heard him say he had a dieh who lived in the capital. And he was not alone: our neighbors, too, who had seen much of the world and knew a thing or two, had never mentioned him. He could be a lot of things, but not my gongdieh. He and my husband looked nothing alike. Old baldy, you must be a beast in human form. Others might fear demons and spirits, but not the people in this family. I’ll have Xiaojia butcher the black dog out in the pen and keep its blood in a basin. Then, when you’re not looking, I’ll dump it over your bald pate to reveal your true form.





4




A light rain fell on Tomb-Sweeping Day; dirty gray clouds rolled lazily low in the sky as I walked out of town through South Gate, along with colorfully dressed young men and women. I was carrying an umbrella decorated with a copy of the painting Xu Xian Encounters a White Snake at West Lake, and I had oiled my hair and pinned it with a butterfly clip. I had lightly powdered my face and dabbed rouge on each cheek, had added a beauty mark at a spot between my eyebrows, and had painted my lips red. I was wearing a cerise jacket over green slacks, both of imported fabric. However terrible foreigners might be, their fabrics are first-rate. On my feet I wore full-sized cloth shoes whose green silk tops were embroidered with yellow Mandarin ducks floating amid pink lotus flowers. You people laugh at me because of my unbound feet, don’t you? Well, I’ll give you something to look at. I stole a glance at the quicksilver mirror, and there I saw a radiant, amorous beauty. That was someone even I could love, to say nothing of all those young men. Of course I was griefstricken over my dieh’s situation, but my gandieh once said that the deeper the sadness, the more important it was to put on a happy face and not give the impression of being a slave to your emotions. All right all right all right, take a look. Today this old madam is going to see how she stacks up against Gaomi’s city girls. I don’t care if it’s the daughter of the provincial licentiate or the apple of the Hanlin scholar’s eye, they cannot compete with one of my big toes. Big feet are the only things holding me back. When my niang died so young, there was no one at home to bind my feet, and it hurts me even to hear feet mentioned. But my gandieh says he loves big, natural feet, loves the natural feel of them, and whenever he is on top of me, he has me pummel his bare bottom with my heels.

“Big feet are best!” he shouts when I do that. “Big feet are best! Golden ingots, better than bound feet, those goat hooves . . .”

Back then, even though my dieh was playing with magical powers and had erected a spirit altar in Northeast Gaomi as part of his plan to engage the Germans in mortal combat, and even though his activities drove my gandieh to distraction, and even though he was depressed over the deaths of twenty-seven citizens, peace reigned in the town. The bloody events that had occurred in Northeast Township had had no effect on the big city. My gandieh, Eminence Qian, had built a swing set out of China fir on the grounds of the military academy outside South Gate, attracting boys and girls from all over town. The girls dressed in their finest; the boys combed and oiled their queues until they shone. Shrieks of joy and whoops of laughter filled the sky and were joined by the shouts of peddlers:

Candied——crabapples——!

Melon seeds——peanuts——!

After folding my umbrella, I made my way into the crowd and looked around. My eyes fell first on the young mistress of the Qi family, who was attended by a pair of maidservants. Renowned as someone who wrote especially well—verse and prose—she was splendidly dressed and resplendently jeweled. Too bad she had a long, horse-like face, pale as a salt flat, on which lay two anemic grassy clumps—her eyebrows. I also saw the daughter of Hanlin Scholar Ji, who was attended by four maidservants; she was reputed to be peerless in the art of embroidery and was a talented musician, proficient in instruments from the zither to the lute and balloon guitar. Sadly, she had a small nose and undersized ears that combined to make her look like a little bitch with tiny, toad-like eyes. The whores who walked out of Rouge Alley, on the other hand, laughed and wiggled like chimps and had a lively good time. After taking in everything around me, I held my head up proudly and threw out my chest, drawing approving stares from all the young scamps, who looked me over admiringly. Their mouths hung open like dark caves; slobber wetted their chins. I smiled and struck a pose. My dear boys, my little darlings, go home and enjoy your erotic dreams. Take a long look—this is my good deed for the day. Well, they stood there besotted for a while, and when they finally regained their senses, they let out a roar that made the ground tremble. Then came the lusty shouts:

“Dog-Meat Xishi, the best in Gaomi!”

“Look look look at that peach-blossom face and willow waist. The graceful neck of a mantis and the shapely legs of a white crane!”

“The top part is to die for; the bottom part will petrify you! Only Eminence Qian, with his strange obsession, can appreciate the big feet of a living fairy!”

Watch your tongues, boys. What you say by the roadside is heard in the grass. If someone reports you, you’ll be whisked inside the yamen to have your backsides turned to mush by forty swats of the paddle.

Go on, little monkeys, say what you want. I’m in no mood today to take offense. Who cares what you imps think as long as His Eminence likes what he sees? I’m here for the swings, not to listen to your silly talk. I know you’d just love to lap up my pee.

At the moment no one was using the swings, their thick, wet ropes swaying in the drizzle, waiting for me. I tossed away my umbrella, which was caught by a little monkey that ran up as I jumped forward, like a carp leaping out of the water. I grabbed the ropes, jumped a second time, and landed on the swing seat with both feet. Now you children will see the advantage of having big feet. “Hey, boys and girls,” I shouted, “open your eyes and take a lesson on the art of swinging. Coal looks clean compared to the face of the fat, clumsy girl who sat on the swing before me. A millstone is tiny compared to her backside, and water chestnuts are bigger than her feet. What was someone like that doing on a swing set? How mortifying! She looked like a lizard. What is a swing set, after all? It’s a moving stage for an actor to display her skills and show off her face; she’s a sampan riding the waves, she’s the wind of desire, the surge of seduction, the rage of passion, the epitome of lust. This is a chance for a woman to act the siren. Why do you think my gandieh chose this spot to build a swing set? Because of his devotion to the people? Hah! You think too highly of yourselves. I’ll tell you why. He built it for me, as my Qingming gift. Go ask him if you don’t believe me. I took dog meat to him last night, and after our frolic in bed, he put his arms around me and said, ‘Tomorrow is Qingming, my pet, my precious, and I have built you a swing set on the Southern Academy parade ground. I know you once played the sword-and-horse role, so go out there and put your feet to work. You might not make a splash for all of Shandong, but for my sake make one for all of Gaomi County. Let those commoners know that Qian’s little pet is special, another Hua Mulan! Let them know that big feet are better than bound ones, and that Qian will change prevailing customs by prohibiting the practice of binding women’s feet.’

“I said, ‘Gandieh, you have been so sad about what happened to my dieh. You are taking a risk by protecting him. And when you are unhappy, I am in no mood for entertainments.’ Well, he kissed my foot and said with an emotional sigh:

“’Meiniang, my dearest, I want to use Qingming to sweep all gloomy, inauspicious signs out of the county. The dead cannot be brought back to life, but the living have a right to a little gaiety. No one sympathizes with a grumbler, who winds up being the butt of jokes. But if you square your shoulders and get tough, tougher than everyone else, ready to take them on, you’ll have them where you want them. Writers will put you in their books; playwrights will write plays about you. So climb onto those swings and show them what you’re made of. Ten years from now, the repertoire of that Maoqiang opera of yours might well include a play called Sun Meiniang Raises Eyebrows on a Swing!’

“’I may not be able to do much, Gandieh,’ I said as I lifted his beard with my feet, ‘but I will not cause you embarrassment when I am on the swing.’”

Holding the ropes with both hands, I squatted down, bent my legs, and stood on the balls of my feet; then, sticking my rear end out and leaning forward, I threw out my chest, raised my head, and, with my midriff as a fulcrum, began to swing. I pulled the ropes back toward me and, feet on the seat, again threw out my chest and raised my head, pushing with my legs, bent at the knees. The metal rings cried out with urgency as my swing gained momentum, higher, faster, steeper, harder, deeper; the taut ropes sang like the wind; the rings made a fearful noise. I was transported to a fairyland; I felt like a bird soaring aloft, my arms transformed into wings, feathers sprouting on my chest. At the summit, the swing and my body hung in the air together, while tides of ocean waves surged through my heart—swelling high, then falling low, one wave hard upon another, foam gathering in the air. Big fish chasing little fish, little fish chasing shrimp. Waa waa waa waa . . . higher higher higher, not yet high enough, just a little higher, a little more . . . my body laid out horizontally, my face bumped into the soft yellow belly of a curious swallow; I felt as if I were lying on a cushiony pad woven of wind and rain, and when I reached the highest possible point, I bit a flower off the tip of the highest branch of the oldest and tallest apricot tree around. Shouts erupted on the ground below. I was carefree, I was relaxed and at ease, I had achieved the Tao, I was an immortal . . . and then, a breach in the dam, the waters retreated, waves returning to sea, taking foam with them; big fish tugged on little fish, little fish dragged shrimps, la la la la, all in retreat. I reached bottom, and then flew up again. My head pitched back between the twin ropes as they grew taut again and trembled in my hands, and I was nearly parallel to the ground. I could see fresh soil where purple sprouts of new grass were beginning to poke through. The apricot blossom was still between my teeth, its subtle fragrance filling my nostrils.

All the while I was having a frisky good time on the swing, my earthbound audience, especially all those sons and grandsons, those little hooligans, were as frenzied as I was. They ooh-ed on my way up and aah-ed on my way back down. “Ooh, there she goes! Aah, here she comes!” My clothes fluttered in the wind, carrying fine drops of rain—damp and cloyingly sweet, like wet cowhide—which filled my heart to overflowing. Sure, my dieh had gotten into a terrible fix, but a married daughter is like water splashed on the ground—it cannot be taken back. You will have to look out for yourself, Dieh, and I will do the same from here on out. I have a kind and simple husband at home, a man who can keep out the wind and the rain for me, and a powerful, affectionate, and entertaining lover outside the home. There is strong drink when I feel like it, meat when I want it, and no one can stop me from crying or laughing or flirting or causing a scene. That is the definition of happiness. It is the happiness that my devout, sutra-chanting, long-suffering niang made possible for me; it is the happiness that fate had in store for me. I thank the heavens for that. I thank the Emperor and Empress for that. I thank His Eminence Magistrate Qian for that. I thank my dull and peculiar husband, Xiaojia, for that. And I thank Magistrate Qian’s supernatural “club” for that. It is a rare treasure seldom found in heaven or on earth; it is the medicine that cures my ills.





5




A popular adage has it that “When the moon is full, the decline begins; when the river is high, water flows away. When someone is too happy, bad things happen; and when dogs feel good, they fight over shit.” While I was the center of attention on the swing, a mob from Northeast Gaomi Township, armed with shovels, pickaxes, pitchforks, carrying poles, wooden spears, and rakes, and led by my dieh, Sun Bing, was surrounding a railroad shed that housed German rail workers, killing many of the invaders’ lackeys, and taking three German soldiers hostage. After stripping the soldiers naked and tying them to scholar trees, they sprayed their faces with urine. Then they burned the wooden construction signs, dug up the tracks and dumped them into the river, and carried the railroad ties home to build pigsties. They also burned the shed to the ground.

At the height of my arc, above the public wall, I could see the warren of houses in town; I also saw the cobblestone street in front of the yamen and rows of tiled buildings in my gandieh’s official compound. I saw his four-man palanquin being carried out through the ceremonial gate, led by a black-clad yayi in a red cap who banged a gong to clear the way. He was followed by two rows of yayi dressed the same way, carrying tall poles with banners of his official insignia, sunshades, and fans. Two sword-bearing guards walked directly ahead of the chair, holding the shafts with one hand. The procession behind the chair included the secretaries of the six bureaus and personal servants. Three long and one short clangs of the gong were followed by impressive shouts; the palanquin barriers moved with swift, nimble steps, as if their legs had springs. The chair rose and fell rhythmically, like a boat tossed on ocean swells.

My gaze carried beyond the town, to the northeast, where the German-built rail line was crawling our way from Qingdao like an elongated insect with a crushed head, trying to squirm forward. A swarm of men on fields bursting with early spring green sprouts waved multicolored banners, heading for the railroad tracks. At the time, I did not know that my dieh was leading the rebellion; if I had, I would not have been so self-indulgent on the swing set. I watched as black smoke billowed from spots along the tracks, like dark trees on the move. Thudding sounds came on the wind.

My gandieh’s procession drew ever nearer to the city’s South Gate. The sound of the gong grew crisper by the minute, the shouted commands clearer. Banners hung low in the drizzle, like bloody dog pelts. I saw beads of sweat on the carriers’ faces and heard their labored breathing. People lined the street, heads bowed, afraid to make a sound or a false move. Even the notoriously vicious dog that belonged to Provincial Scholar Lu knew better than to bark. Anyone could see that my gandieh was a more intimidating presence than Mt. Tai, since even animals shied away from him. The buildup of heat in my heart was like a stove warming a decanter of wine. My dearest, thoughts of you have entered the marrow of my bones; you are steeping in a decanter of wine. I stood tall on the swing seat to give him an unobstructed view of my figure when he looked through the parted curtain.

From my perch I could see the black-haired mob—a ground-hugging cloud of humanity—though at that distance they all—man or woman, young or old—looked alike. I have to admit that the waving banners dazzled my eyes. You were all yelling and shouting—truth is, I couldn’t hear any of you, but I’d have been surprised if you weren’t shouting. My dieh was an opera singer, a second-generation Maoqiang Patriarch. Maoqiang had emerged from the masses as a minor form of popular drama, and prospered thanks to my dieh: it traveled north to Laizhou, south to Jiaozhou, west to Qingzhou, and east to Dengzhou. In all, it gained popularity in eighteen counties. When Sun Bing sang, women wept. He was always ready to shout something, so how could he not shout with such a martial following? This was too good a scene to miss. I pushed harder to get a better look. The nitwits on the ground, who assumed that I was merely putting on a show, were dancing joyously, all of them, dizzy with the thought that I was doing it for them. I was wearing only a thin garment that day, yet I was sweating—my gandieh liked to say that my sweat smelled of rose petals—and I knew that those two little darlings on my chest were in full view. With my bottom sticking out in back and my breasts jutting out in front, I gave those lecherous little devils an eyeful. Cool breezes found their way under my clothes and made little eddies in my armpits. There was a mixture of sounds—of wind and rain, of peach blossoms opening and drooping heavily with rainwater. Shouts from the yayi, the urgent cries of the metal rings, the hawking of peddlers, and the lowing of calves formed a chorus. It had turned into a lively Qingming Festival, a flourishing third day of the third month. White-haired old women burned spirit money in an ancient cemetery in the southwest corner; dust devils curled the smoke straight up, little white arboreal columns that merged with the stand of dark trees. My gandieh’s procession finally passed through South Gate and immediately caught the attention of the gawking crowd below. “His Eminence the County Magistrate is coming!” someone shouted. As the procession made a full turn around the parade ground, the yayi perked up, throwing out their chests and sucking in their guts, eyes staring straight ahead. Gandieh, I see your feathered cap through the gaps in your bamboo curtain, and I see your square, ruddy face. You have a long beard, so straight and wiry-stiff it will not float if immersed in water. That beard is what binds our hearts together, the red silk thread cast down by the man in the moon. If not for your and my father’s beards, where would you have found such a sweet melon as me?

Once the yayi had paraded their prestige, which, in truth, came from you, they set the palanquin down at the edge of the parade ground. Flowers bloomed in profusion on peach trees bordering the ground, producing a fine pink mist in the drizzle. A yayi with a sword on his hip parted the curtain to let you emerge from the palanquin. You straightened your feathered hat, shook the wide sleeves of your official robe, clasped your hands, brought them up to your chest, and bowed to us all.

“Local elders,” he said in a booming voice, “citizens, a joyous holiday to you!”

That was just an act. I thought back to when you and I were frolicking in the Western Parlor, and could barely keep from laughing out loud. But when I thought of all you had suffered this spring, I was on the verge of tears. I stopped swinging and, steadying myself with the ropes, stood still on the seat. My lips were pursed, my eyes moist, my heart assailed by waves of emotion—bitter, acrid, sour, and sweet—as I watched my gandieh put on a show for the monkeys.

“In this county we have long promoted the planting of trees,” he said, “especially peach trees——”

His lackey from the Southern Society, Junior Officer Li, cried out:

“His Eminence sets an example for us all; he is first in all things. On this drizzly Qingming day, he has come to plant a peach tree to bring blessings to the common people . . .”

My gandieh greeted this interruption with a stern look at Li, then continued:

“Citizens, go back to your homes and plant peach trees, in front and in back, and on the borders of your fields. Citizens, as the poet reminds us, ‘Spend less time meddling in others’ affairs and idling in the marketplace, and more on reading good books and planting trees.’ In fewer than ten years, Gaomi County will enjoy wonderful days. The poem also says, ‘Thousands of trees with peach-red flowers, the people sing and dance, celebrating world peace.’ ”

After intoning the lines of poetry, he picked up a shovel and began to dig. Just as his shovel hit a buried rock and sent sparks flying, Chunsheng, who hardly ever left his side, rolled up to him like a dirt clod and fell frantically to one reverent knee.

“Laoye,” he said breathlessly, “it’s bad, really bad.”

“Bad?” my gandieh demanded. “What’s bad?”

“The unruly citizens of Northeast Township are in revolt!”

Without a word, my gandieh dropped the shovel, shook his sleeves, and climbed back into his palanquin. The bearers picked it up and ran with it on their shoulders, followed by a contingent of yayi, who stumbled along like a pack of homeless curs.

Gripped by ineffable dejection, I watched the procession head away from me. Gandieh, you have ruined a perfectly good holiday. Listlessly I alighted from my perch and walked into the clamorous crowd, where I was manhandled by little imps as I tried to decide whether to lose myself in the grove of peach trees and all those flowers or go home and prepare some dog meat. Before I could make up my mind, Xiaojia, my dullard husband, strode vigorously up to me, his face beet red, eyes wide, lips trembling.

“My, my dieh,” he stammered, “my dieh is back . . .”

Strange, strange, how very strange: a gongdieh has dropped into our laps. I thought your dieh was long dead. Hasn’t it been more than twenty years since you heard from him?

Xiaojia was sweating profusely. “He, he’s back,” he stammered. “He’s really back.”




6




Together with Xiaojia I sped toward home, and was soon gasping for breath. “How could a dieh just show up out of nowhere?” I asked. “He’s probably looking for a handout.” But I wanted to see what sort of goblin had just entered my life. If he was all right, well and good. But if he had a mind to upset me, or tried anything funny, I would break his legs and deliver him to the yamen, where, guilty or not, he’d get two hundred strokes with a paddle, leaving his backside bloody and covered with his own filth. Then we’d see if he dared pass himself off as somebody’s dieh. Xiaojia stopped everyone we met along the way to say enigmatically:

“My dieh is back.”

And when it was obvious that they could make no sense of what he was talking about, he raised his voice:

“I have a dieh!”

Before we’d reached home, I spotted a horse-drawn carriage outside our front gate and a swarm of curious neighbors, including top-knotted youngsters who were threading their way in and out of the crowd. The horse was a young, dark red, overfed stallion. The accumulated dirt and grime on the vehicle gave ample evidence of the distance it had traveled. I received the strangest looks when the people spotted me, their eyes flashing like graveyard will-o’-the-wisps. Aunty Wu, who owned a general store, greeted me with a false display of good wishes:

“Congratulations!” she said. “’Fortunate people live a life of ease; the wretched among us spend their life on their knees,’ as the adage has it. The god of wealth favors the rich, that’s for sure. You were already the envy of others, and now heaven has sent you a super-rich gongdieh. Good Mrs. Zhao, a nice big porker has landed at your door, while your stable is crowded with horses and mules. You are blessed, truly blessed!”

I glared at the woman, with her piss pot of a mouth, and said, “Aunty Wu, does that mouth of yours ever stop spouting gibberish? If your family is short a dieh, you can have this one. I certainly don’t cherish him.”

“Do you mean it?” she said, with a false laugh.

“Yes, and anyone who doesn’t take me up on it is the product of a horse-humping donkey!”

Angered by the argument, Xiaojia put a stop to it:

“I’ll screw the life out of any woman who tries to take my dieh away!”

Aunty Wu’s flat face turned bright red. Known in the neighborhood as an inveterate gossip and rumormonger, she knew all about my dealings with Magistrate Qian, and was so full of sour jealousy that her teeth itched. After being humiliated by me and cursed by Xiaojia until her bunghole itched, she stormed off in a huff, muttering to herself. I walked up the stone steps and turned back to the crowd. “Come on in, good neighbors, for a really good look. If you don’t want to, then get your dung beetle asses out of here and stop being so damned nosy!” Soundly embarrassed, they left. I knew they spoke of me in glowing terms to my face and gnashed their teeth, cursing me, behind my back. They’d have liked nothing better than to see me singing in the street to fill my belly. Appealing to their better instincts and treating them with courtesy was a waste of time.

Once inside the yard, I commented loudly, “I wonder which heavenly spirit has dropped into our world? Let’s see, maybe I can broaden my mind.” This was no time to be genteel. I needed to give him a firm warning, whether he was a real gongdieh or not, to let him know who he was dealing with and to keep him from trying to lord it over me in the future. A gaunt old man with a scrawny queue was bent over carefully dusting a purple sandalwood armchair with gold inlay and a silk pad. The wood was so highly polished and dust-free I could have seen my reflection in it. He straightened up slowly when he heard my blustery entrance, turned, and sized me up coolly. Mother dear! His sunken, furtive eyes were colder than the steel of Xiaojia’s butcher knife. My husband stumbled across the yard and, with a foolish laugh, said ingratiatingly:

“This is my wife, Dieh. Niang made the match for me.”

Without even looking at me, the old wretch emitted a throaty, indecipherable noise.

Just then, the carriage driver, who had eaten a big meal and washed it down at Wang Sheng’s restaurant across the way, walked into the yard to say goodbye. The old wretch handed him a silver certificate and gestured politely to show his gratitude.

“Have a safe trip, driver,” he said in fine-sounding cadence.

Well, the old wretch spoke the standard Peking dialect! Like Magistrate Qian. When the driver saw the amount printed on the bill, his scrunched-up little face blossomed like a flower. He bowed deeply, not once but three times, and repeated rapidly:

“Thank you, sir, thank you, sir, thank you, sir . . .”

So, old wretch, you have an interesting background! None but a rich man hands out money that freely, and those bulges inside your jacket must hide wads more. Certificates worth a thousand ounces? Maybe even ten thousand! All right, then. Anyone with breasts can be my niang, and anyone with money can be my dieh. I got down on my hands and knees to kowtow with a good, loud banging of my head.

“Your obedient daughter-in-law respectfully welcomes the father of her husband!” I intoned in a stage voice.

Xiaojia could not follow my lead fast enough. He banged his head on the ground but said nothing, for he was too busy chortling.

The old wretch, thrown off balance by my excessive show of courtesy, reached out—I was struck dumb by the sight of his hands; what strange hands they were—as if he wanted to help me to my feet. But he did not; nor did he assist his son. He just said:

“No need for that. After all, we’re family.”

Stung by the snub, I stood up, and so did Xiaojia. The old wretch reached under his jacket, which made my heart race in wild anticipation of being rewarded with a handful of silver certificates. It seemed to take him forever to find what he was looking for, but he finally produced a small jade-green object, which he held out to me.

“I don’t have much to give you on this, our first meeting,” he said. “So take this little bauble.”

As I accepted the gift, I parroted his earlier comment: “There’s no need to give me anything. After all, we’re family.” It felt heavy in my hand, but supple and smooth, and it was so green I couldn’t help but like it. In all the years I’d slept with Magistrate Qian, I’d received much cultural nurturing, until I no longer considered myself to be a vulgar person, so I knew at once that this was no common gift, but I had no idea what it was.

Xiaojia clicked his tongue and gazed mournfully at his father, who merely smiled.

“Head down!” he commanded.

Xiaojia complied without a whimper. The old wretch hung a glistening silver pendant on a red string around his son’s neck. Xiaojia showed it off to me, but when I saw that it was a longevity talisman, I couldn’t help but curl my lip. Why, the old wretch treats his son like an infant on his hundredth day.

Sometime later, I showed my first-meeting gift to my gandieh, who recognized it as an archery thumb guard, one carved from the finest jade. More valuable than gold, such a prized object was something that only members of the Imperial family and the nobility could afford. With his left hand on my breast, he held the thumb guard in his right and said admiringly, “This is wonderful, truly wonderful.” When I told him he could have it, he replied, “No, this is yours. ‘A superior man does not take someone’s prized object.’” “But why would a woman consider an archery thumb guard a prized object?” I said. In an uncharacteristically prudish tone, he waved me off. “Do you want it or don’t you?” I asked him. “If you don’t, I’ll smash it to pieces.” “Aiya, my little treasure,” he blurted out, “don’t you dare. I’ll take it, I’ll take it!” He slipped it over his thumb and held it out, so engrossed in looking at it that he forgot the important business of fondling my breast. But later, he draped a red string with a jade bodhisattva around my neck. I took an immediate liking to that, a woman’s gift. I tugged on his beard. “Thank you, my fine gandieh.” He laid me down and started riding me like a horse. “Meiniang,” he gasped, “Meiniang, I’m going to find out everything I can about this gongdieh of yours . . .”





7




With his gloomy, grim laughter as a backdrop, dizzying whiffs of sandalwood abruptly emerged from my gongdieh’s armchair, and the prayer beads in his hand and made my heart flutter. He was unmoved by my dieh’s plight, and my flirtatious moves were wasted on him. He stood up on shaky legs and tossed away the prayer beads that virtually never left his hand, star-like flashes of light bursting from his eyes, a sign that something had either pleased him or struck fear in his heart. Those demonic small hands of his reached out to me as he muttered something under his breath, a look of deep anxiety in his eyes. The ferocity of his gaze was gone, completely gone.

“Wash my hands,” he pleaded, “I need to wash my hands . . .”

I ladled cold water from the vat into our brass basin and watched as he thrust his hands into it. A hissing sound escaped from between his lips, but he gave no hint of what that meant. His hands were as red as hot cinders, his delicate fingers curling inward like the feet of a young red-legged rooster. I was struck by the image of fingers of molten metal, underscored by the sizzle of the water in the basin, which had begun to bubble and steam. I had never seen anything like it, and did not expect to ever see it again. Immersing his feverish hands in cold water obviously brought soothing comfort to him, since he seemed to sag and go limp all over; his eyes were slitted, and every intake of air whistled through his teeth. The way he held his breath each time was the sign of an opium addiction, the sort of otherworldly languor that only an old donkey like him could manage. It all seemed quite sinister, and unexpected. He was, it was now clear, the embodiment of an evil spirit, a worrisome old degenerate.

Once his self-indulgence had run its course, he took his red hands out of the water and returned to his chair without drying them off. Now, however, instead of shutting his eyes, he kept them wide open and fixed on his hands to watch drops of water slide down his fingers to the ground. He was relaxed almost to the point of lethargy, physically spent but luxuriantly content . . . like my gandieh when he climbs off my body . . .

That was before I knew that he was a renowned executioner, and when all I could think about were the silver certificates tucked into his clothes. “Gongdieh, I said in as solicitous a tone as I could manage, “it seems I’ve made you comfortable. Well, I expect my dieh’s life to end either tonight or tomorrow morning, and given our family connection, won’t you help me think of something? Mull that over while I go inside and prepare a bowl of congee with forbidden rice and pig’s blood.”

I felt empty inside as I washed rice at the well. When I looked up, I saw the flying eaves of the towering City God Temple, where pigeons were cooing and crowding together, and I wondered what they found so interesting. The crisp clack of horse hooves resounded on the cobblestone road beyond the gate. Some German devils were riding by, their tall, rounded, feathered hats visible above the wall. The sight made my heart pound, since I was sure that my dieh was what was on their minds. Xiaojia, who by then had sharpened his butcher knife and readied the necessary tools, picked up a hooked Chinese ash pole and went into the sty, where he selected a black pig and quickly hooked it under the chin. Squeals tore from its mouth, and the bristles on its neck stood straight as it struggled to back up, its hind legs and rump flat on the ground, blood seeming to seep from its eyes. It was no match for Xiaojia, who hunkered down and pulled so hard that his feet sank at least three inches into the dirt, like a pair of hoes, as he backed up, one powerful step at a time, pulling the pig along like a plow, its feet digging furrows in the sty. In less time than it takes to tell, Xiaojia had pulled the pig up to the killing rack. Then, gripping the hooked pole in one hand and the pig’s tail in the other, he straightened up and, with a loud grunt, lifted a creature weighing two hundred jin up onto the rack, so disorienting it that it forgot to struggle—but not to squeal. Now that all four legs were sticking straight up, Xiaojia removed the hook from the pig’s chin and tossed it to the side, picking his razor-sharp butcher knife out of the blood trough in the same motion. Then—slurp—with the sort of casual indifference of slicing bean curd, he plunged his knife high in the pig’s chest. A second push and it was buried deep inside the animal, bringing an end to the squeals, which were replaced by moans that lasted only a moment. Now all that remained were the twitches—legs, skin, even the bristles. Xiaojia pulled the knife out and turned the pig over to let its blood spill into the trough below. Great quantities of bright, hot blood the color of red silk pulsed into the waiting trough.

The stench of fresh blood hung over the half acre of our courtyard, which was big enough to accommodate dog pens and pigsties, Chinese roses and peonies, plus a rack for curing meat, vats to hold fermented drink, and an open-air cook pit. The odor attracted blood-drinking bluebottle flies that danced in the air, a testament to their keen sense of smell.

Two yayi, attired in soft red leather caps, black livery secured around the middle with dark cloth sashes, and soft-soled boots with ridges down the middle, swords in scabbards on their hips, opened the gate. I knew they were constables, fast yayi from the yamen who tracked down criminals, but I did not know their names. Feeling a lack of self-assurance, since my dieh was in their jail, I smiled. Normally I would not have deigned to look their way, not at contemptuous toadying jackasses who were a scourge of the people. They returned my courtesy with nods and tiny smiles squeezed out of their fiendish faces. But only for a second. One of them reached under his tunic and pulled out a black bamboo tally, which he waved in the air and intoned somberly:

“We bring orders from His Eminence the County Magistrate to escort Zhao Jia to the yamen for questioning.”

Xiaojia came running up, bent humbly at the waist, still gripping his bloody butcher knife, and, with a bow, asked:

“What is it, Your Honors?”

With frosty looks, the yayi asked:

“Are you Zhao Jia?”

“I am Xiaojia; Zhao Jia is my dieh.”

“Where is your dieh?” one of the puffed-up yayi demanded.

“In the house.”

“Inform him that he is to accompany us to the yamen.”

I had taken all I was about to take from this pair of nasty dogs.

“My gongdieh never goes anywhere,” I said angrily. “What offense has he committed?”

My display of temper was not lost on them.

“Mistress of the Zhao home, we merely follow orders,” they said, looking for sympathy. “And we are only messengers. If he is guilty of an offense, we do not know what it is.”

“One moment, good sirs. Are you inviting my dieh to the yamen for a social visit?” Xiaojia asked, his curiosity bubbling over.

“How should we know?” the yayi said with a shake of his head and an enigmatic grin. “Maybe he’ll be treated to some nice dog meat and millet spirits.”

Of course I knew exactly what kind of dog filth and cow crap had come out of the little mutt’s yap: a not so subtle hint at what went on between Magistrate Qian and me. Xiaojia? How could a blubber-head like him have any idea what this was all about? He was only too happy to run inside.

I followed him in.

Qian Ding, you f*cking dog, what are you up to? You arrest my dieh, but hide from me. Then early this morning, two of your lackeys show up to take my gongdieh away. The plot certainly thickens. First my own dieh, then my husband’s dieh, and now my gandieh, three diehs coming together in the Great Hall. I’ve sung the aria “Three Judges at Court,” but this is the first time I’ve heard of “Three Diehs at Court.” I doubt that you can stand being away from me for the rest of your life, damn you, and the next time I see you, I’m going to find out what you have in your bag of tricks.

Xiaojia wiped his oily, sweaty face with his sleeve and said excitedly:

“Good news, Dieh! The County Magistrate has invited you to the yamen for some millet spirits and dog meat!”

My gongdieh remained seated in his chair, his bloodless little hands resting squarely on the arms. He made not a sound, and I could not tell whether he was resting calmly or putting on a show.

“Say something, Dieh. The yayi are out in the yard waiting for you.” Xiaojia’s nerves were beginning to show. “Will you take me with you, Dieh? Seeing the Great Hall would be a real treat. All those times my wife went, she never once agreed to take me along . . .”

I jumped in to put a stop to what the buffoon was saying:

“Don’t listen to him, Gongdieh. Why would they invite you for a social visit? I’m sure they plan to detain you. Have you committed a crime?”

My gongdieh lazily opened his eyes and sighed.

“If I have,” he said, “it is what was expected of me. As they say, ‘Confront soldiers with generals and dam water with earth.’ There is nothing to get excited about. Go invite them in.”

Xiaojia turned and shouted out the door:

“Did you hear that? My dieh wants you to come in.”

With a hint of a smile, my gongdieh said:

“Good boy; that’s the right tone for people like that.”

So Xiaojia went outside and said to the yayi:

“Are you aware of the fact that my wife and Magistrate Qian enjoy a close relationship?”

“You foolish boy,” his dieh said, shaking his head in exasperation before fixing his gaze on me.

I watched as the smirking yayi pushed Xiaojia to the side, hands on the hilts of their swords, resolute and ruthless in their determination as they rushed into the room where we were talking.

My gongdieh opened his eyes a crack, barely wide enough for two chilling rays to escape and smother the two men with contempt. Then he turned his gaze to the wall and ignored the intruders.

After a quick exchange of looks that seemed to bespeak their embarrassment, one of them said officiously, “Are you Zhao Jia?”

He appeared to be asleep.

“My dieh is getting on in years and doesn’t hear so well,” Xiaojia said breathlessly. “Ask him again, but louder.”

So the fellow tried again:

“Zhao Jia,” he said more forcefully, “we are here by order of the County Magistrate to have you visit him in the yamen.”

“You go back and tell your Eminence Qian,” he replied unhurriedly, without looking at them, “that Zhao Jia has weak legs and aching feet and cannot answer the summons.”

That prompted another quick exchange of looks, followed by an audible snigger from one of the men. But he turned serious and, with a display of biting sarcasm, said:

“Maybe His Eminence ought to send his palanquin for you.”

“I think that would be best.”

This was met with an outburst of laughter.

“All right, fine,” they said. “You wait here for His Eminence to come in his palanquin.”

They turned and walked out, still laughing, and by the time they were in the yard, their laughter was uncontrollable.

Xiaojia followed them into the yard and said proudly:

“My dieh is really something, don’t you think? Everyone else is afraid of you, but not him.”

One look at Xiaojia set them off laughing again, this time so hard that they weaved their way out the gate. I could hear them out on the street. I knew why they were laughing, and so did my gongdieh.

But not Xiaojia, who came back inside and asked, clearly puzzled:

“Why were they laughing, Dieh? Did they drink a crazy old woman’s piss? Baldy Huang once told me that if you drink a crazy old woman’s piss, you can laugh yourself crazy. That must be what they did. The question is, which crazy old woman’s piss did they drink?”

The wretch replied, but for my benefit, not his son’s:

“Son,” he said, “a man must not underestimate himself. That is something your dieh learned late in life. Even if the Gaomi County Magistrate is a member of the Tiger group, someone who passed the Imperial Examination with distinction, what is he but a grade five County Magistrate whose hat bears the crystal symbol of office in front and a one-eyed peacock feather in back? Even though his wife is the maternal granddaughter of Zeng Guofan, a dead prefect is no match for a live rat. Your dieh has never held official rank, but the number of red-capped heads he has lopped off could fill two large wicker baskets. So, for that matter, could the heads of nobles and aristocrats!”

Xiaojia stood there with a foolish grin on his face, his teeth showing, likely not understanding what his father had just said. But I did, every word of it. I’d learned a great deal in my years with Magistrate Qian, and my gongdieh’s brief monologue nearly froze my heart and raised gooseflesh on my arms. I’m sure my face must have been ghostly white. Rumors about my gongdieh had been swirling around town for months and had naturally reached my ears. Having somehow found a cache of hidden courage, I asked:

“Is that really what you did, Gongdieh?”

He fixed his hawk-like gaze on me and said, one slow word at a time, as if spitting out steel pellets, “Every—trade—has—its—master, its zhuangyuan! Know who said that?”

“It’s a well-known popular adage.”

“No,” he said. “One person said that to me. Know who it was?”

I shook my head.

He got up out of his chair, prayer beads in his hands—once more the stifling aroma of sandalwood spread through the room. His gaunt face had a somber, golden glow. Arrogantly, reverently, gratefully, he said:

“The Empress Dowager Cixi Herself!”