Sandalwood Death

CHAPTER TWELVE





Crevice





1




The day after the massacre in Masang Township, the County Magistrate sat in his document room composing a telegram to the Prefect of Laizhou, Cao Gui, the Circuit Attendant of Laiqing, Tan Rong, and the Governor of Shandong Province, Yuan Shikai, to report that the Germans had perpetrated grave crimes in Gaomi County. The tragic scene from the night before kept reappearing in front of his eyes; the wails and curses of the citizenry swirled endlessly in his ears. His brush moved across the paper like a whirlwind, as rage swelled unchecked in his breast, solemn umbrage guiding each passionate stroke. His aging legal secretary entered as if walking on eggshells and handed the Magistrate a newly received telegram. Sent by Governor Yuan Shikai to Laizhou Prefecture and forwarded to Gaomi County, it contained the Governor’s demand that the Magistrate take Sun Bing into custody and bring him to justice without delay. The Magistrate was also told to come up with five thousand taels of silver as restitution to the Germans for their losses. Finally, he was ordered to prepare compensation for the German engineer whose head had been injured in the incident, personally deliver it to the Qingdao church-run hospital, and ensure that no more such incidents arose.

The Magistrate jumped to his feet, pounded the table with his fist, and cursed, “The bastard!” Whether the curse was directed at Yuan Shikai or the German engineer was unclear, but he saw his assistant’s goatee quiver and noticed a phosphorescent glimmer in the man’s tiny eyes. He had never been fond of this secretary, but he relied heavily on him, for he was skilled at preparing indictments and appeals, was experienced and astute, knew all the ins and outs of official circles, and just happened to be the brother of the legal secretary at the Prefect’s yamen. If the County Magistrate wanted to ensure that the document he had written would not be sent back by the Prefect, the secretary was indispensable.

“Have them prepare my horse,” he said.

“May I ask where you are going?”

“To Laizhou Prefecture.”

“May I ask the purpose of the trip?”

“I want to see Excellency Cao and demand justice for the people of Gaomi County!”

With no attempt to maintain decorum, the secretary reached down, picked up the document, and scanned it quickly.

“Is this telegram intended for the eyes of Excellency Yuan?”

“Yes, and I’d like you to put a final touch to it.”

“Eminence, my eyesight and hearing are beginning to fail me. My mind is not as sharp as it once was, and at this rate I am afraid I will do you a disservice. I beg you to release me from my duties so I can return to my native home to live in retirement.” With an awkward little laugh, he reached into his sleeve and extracted a letter, which he laid on the table. “My letter of resignation.”

The Magistrate merely glanced at the letter and, with a sarcastic laugh, said:

“It seems the monkeys are abandoning the tree even before it falls.”

Rather than lose his temper, the secretary laughed politely.

“Tying two people together does not make them husband and wife,” the Magistrate said. “Since you desire to leave, trying to stop you would be meaningless. Do as you please.”

“I thank you for your generosity.”

“After I return from Laizhou, I shall see you off with a banquet.”

“I thank you for your kindness.”

“You may go,” the Magistrate said with a wave of his hand.

The secretary made it only to the door before turning to say:

“Eminence, I am only an advisor, but if you want my opinion, you must not go to Laizhou and you must not send this telegram.”

“And why is that?”

“I humbly submit, Your Eminence, that you are in the service of your superiors, not the people. A conscience has no place in the life of an official. You must choose one over the other.”

With a snide grin, the Magistrate replied:

“Well spoken and very incisive. If you have anything else to say, now is the time.”

“Arresting Sun Bing and quickly bringing him to justice is Your Eminence’s only path to survival.” The secretary’s eyes flashed as he went on, “But I know you cannot do it.”

“And so you are leaving,” the Magistrate said, “not to return home to live in retirement, but to steer clear of trouble.”

“Your Eminence is very perceptive,” the secretary remarked. “In truth, if you could abandon your personal feelings for Sun Bing’s daughter, capturing him would be as easy as turning over your hand. And if you did not want to do so yourself, I, your humble servant, would gladly render his services.”

“Do not trouble yourself!” the Magistrate said coldly. “You may leave.”

Grasping his hands in a salute, the secretary said:

“Very well, then, farewell, Your Eminence. I wish you well.”

“Take care of yourself, Yamen Secretary,” the Magistrate said before shouting out the door: “Chunsheng, ready my horse!”





2




At high noon the County Magistrate, in full official regalia, rode his young stallion out of town through the north gate, accompanied by his trusted personal attendant Chunsheng and his messenger, Liu Pu. Chunsheng, astride a powerful black mule, and Liu Pu, on his black mare, fell in close behind the County Magistrate’s white horse. After being stabled through a long winter, the animals were energized by the broad expanse of fields and the scent of spring in the air. They kicked their hind legs in frisky abandon and whinnied excitedly. Liu Pu’s mare nipped at the rump of the Magistrate’s horse, which bolted forward. The rough road surface had begun to thaw and was now coated with a layer of black, gummy mud that made for tough going. The Magistrate leaned forward in the saddle and held tightly to the horse’s untidy mane.

After heading northeast for an hour, they crossed the fast-flowing Masang River and entered the broad expanse of Northeast Township. Gentle golden early afternoon rays of sunlight fell on dry, withered grass and on the downy green sprouts just now breaking through the surface. Startled jackrabbits and foxes leaped and bounded out of the path of the horses’ hooves. As they rode along, the travelers could see the raised roadbed of the Jiaozhou-Jinan rail line and the railroad workers laying track. Steel rails snaking across the landscape, a sight that sullied the vista of open fields under a towering blue sky, destroyed the Magistrate’s cheerful mood. Disturbed by scenes from the recent bloody massacre at Masang Township that flashed through his mind, he was having trouble breathing, so he dug in the heels of his boots to speed up the pace. His horse reacted to the pain in its sides by breaking into a gallop, causing its rider to bounce around in the saddle, which seemed to lessen his melancholy.

The riders did not enter Pingdu County until the sun was low in the western sky. In a little village called Qianqiu, they stopped at the home of a wealthy family to feed the horses and rest up. Their host, a white-haired old county-level scholar, displayed his respect for his superior, the County Magistrate, by offering tobacco and tea and ordering a welcoming banquet that included braised wild rabbit and carrots, stewed cabbage with bean curd, and, from his own cask, rice wine. The old scholar’s obsequious and generous welcome restored the Magistrate’s sense of well being. A nobility of spirit swelled in his breast; his veins felt the rush of hot blood. The old scholar invited them to spend the night in his house, but the Magistrate was determined to get back on the road. With tears in his eyes, the old scholar took the Magistrate’s hand and said:

“Eminence Qian, an upright official who unstintingly pleads on behalf of his people is as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns. The residents of Gaomi County are truly blessed.”

“Elderly squire,” the County Magistrate replied emotionally, “as an official whose livelihood is in the hands of the Imperial Court, I am entrusted with service to the masses and am obliged to spare no effort in carrying out my duties.”

He mounted his horse as a blood-red sunset spread in the west. After bidding farewell to the elderly scholar, who saw him to the edge of the village, he whipped the flank of his white charger, which reared up, a mighty steed, and shot forward with a burst of power, like an arrow leaving the bow. Though the Magistrate did not turn to cast a backward glance, a host of phrases from classic poems of parting rose up in his mind: the setting sun, a dazzling sunset, wilderness, ancient roads, a withered tree, winter ravens . . . all encapsulating a sense of solemn tragedy, yet filling his heart with boldness.

As they left the village behind, they rode out onto a landscape that was bleaker and more extensive than anywhere in Northeast Gaomi Township, with few signs of humanity on the low-lying land. The animals raced proudly, heads high, on a gray serpentine path that was mostly hidden in dry waist-high grass that brushed noisily against the riders’ legs. As the evening deepened, a new moon sent its silvery beams through the purple canopy of a starry sky. The Magistrate looked heavenward, where he saw the outline of the Big Dipper, the glittering Milky Way, and a shooting star ripping open the darkening curtain. Damp, heavy air chilled the riders as the night wore on. The horses’ gait slackened, from a gallop to a canter, then to a trot, and finally to a lazy walk. When the Magistrate used his whip, the horse reared its head and ran a few yards before slowing again, weary and sluggish. The Magistrate’s agitation was waning; his feverish body was beginning to cool down. Moisture-laden air on that windless night attacked exposed skin like razor blades, so he hung his whip on the pommel, buried his hands in his wide sleeves, and draped the reins over his wrist before hunkering down and letting the horse go where it wanted. In the surrounding wilderness, the animals’ snorts and the sound of dry grass brushing against the men’s pants were almost deafening. The occasional muted bark of a dog in a distant village deepened the cryptic sense of mystery and struck the Magistrate’s nerves like pangs of sorrow. He had been in such a hurry to leave, he’d forgotten to put on the fox fur vest his father-in-law had given him. That had been one of the more solemn moments in his life, for the item, a relic by any standard, had been given to his father-in-law’s father-in-law, the great Zeng Guofan, by the Empress Dowager Herself. Although time, the elements, and insects had eaten away at the fur, wearing it imparted an indescribable sense of warmth. Thoughts of his missing fox fur vest took the Magistrate back in time, to recollections of the life he’d lived.

Recalling the poverty of his youth and the hardships of endless studies, he was reminded of the joys of passing the Imperial Civil Service Examination and the marriage alliance formed between him and Zeng Guofan’s maternal granddaughter, for which he received the good wishes of his fellow candidates, including those of his classmate Liu Guangdi, known then as Liu Peicun. Even at that age, Liu was a fine calligrapher, his writing as bold and sturdy as he himself. Having also mastered the art of poetry in its many forms, he inscribed a pair of scrolls for the wedding: “Strings of pearls, girdles of jade” on one, “Talented scholar and beautiful girl” on the other. At the time, a bright road of unlimited potential seemed to open up before him. But as they say, “Better a live rat than a dead prefect.” He spent six years in the Board of Public Works, mired in such debilitating poverty that he had no choice but to take advantage of his wife’s family connections to secure an assignment in the provinces, where he moved around for several years before landing on the relatively fertile ground of Gaomi County. Soon after his arrival, he vowed to put his talents in the service of notable achievements, which would ensure his slow climb up the official ladder. But he soon learned that Gaomi, a place coveted by foreigners, was a fancy title but a poor launching site for official promotion. Managing to survive in office until his term ended was the best he could hope for. Sigh! The last days of the Imperial House were approaching; the death knell for sage men had sounded; the earthly doings of base men resounded like thunder. He could only follow the currents and try to maintain his integrity . . .

The Magistrate was startled out of his reveries by a series of frantic equine snorts, and when he looked, he saw four emerald-green eyes glimmering in the bushes close ahead. “Wolves!” he shouted as he dug his stiff legs into the horse’s sides and pulled back on the reins. With a whinny that shattered the silence, the horse reared up and threw its rider out of the saddle.

It all happened so fast that Chunsheng and Liu Pu, who had been riding close behind the Magistrate, their teeth chattering from the freezing cold, were dumbstruck. They remained in a sort of daze until they saw two wolves moving to run down the Magistrate’s white stallion, and their dulled brains began to work again. Shouting to their horses, they drew their swords, awkwardly, and drove off the predators, sending them scurrying into the underbrush, where they vanished from view.

“Laoye!” both Chunsheng and Liu Pu shouted as they jumped off their horses and half ran, half stumbled over to the County Magistrate. “Laoye!”

The Magistrate was hanging upside down, his foot caught in the stirrup. Spooked by Chunsheng and Liu Pu’s shouts, the stallion bolted and began dragging the shrieking Magistrate after him; had it not been for the dry grass, the hard ground would have turned his head into a bloody gourd. The more experienced Liu Pu told Chunsheng to stop yelling and, like him, call out to the horse gently: “Good horse, be good, white horse, don’t be afraid . . .” Aided by the bright starlight, they cautiously approached the animal, and when he was near enough, Liu Pu rushed up and threw his arms around its neck. Chunsheng seemed to have fallen into a trance. “Idiot!” Liu Pu shouted, “get over here and free the Magistrate’s foot!”

Chunsheng tried, but made a mess of his rescue effort, causing the Magistrate even worse discomfort. “Can’t you do anything right?” Liu Pu complained. “Come up here and keep the horse from moving.”

Liu Pu managed to free the stiff leg from the stirrup and then wrapped his arms around the Magistrate’s waist to right him. His leg buckled the minute it touched the ground, wrenching a painful scream from him as he sat down hard on the ground.

Feeling numb all over, the Magistrate could not get his body to do his bidding. His head and foot throbbed unbearably; he was nearly bursting with indignation, but did not know how to vent it.

“Are you all right, Laoye?” Chunsheng and Liu Pu asked tentatively as they bent down close to him.

The men’s faces were blurred; the Magistrate could only sigh.

“It’s damned hard trying to be an upright official,” he said.

“Someone up there is always watching, Laoye,” Liu Pu said. “Your good deeds are not going unnoticed by the old man in the sky.”

“The old man in the sky will see to it that Laoye receives the promotions and riches he deserves,” Chunsheng added.

“Is there really an old man in the sky?” the Magistrate wondered aloud. “I guess the fact that my horse did not pull me to my death proves something. Don’t you agree? Now, take a look at my leg and see if it’s broken.”

Liu Pu untied the band around the Magistrate’s leg, reached up inside, and felt around.

“You can breathe easy, Laoye,” he said, “it’s not broken.”

“Are you sure?”

“My father taught me the basics of therapeutic massage and bone-setting when I was a boy.”

“Who’d have thought that Peicun could be a bone expert, too?” the Magistrate said with a sigh. “While we were riding a while ago, I was recalling the days when your father and I passed the examination. We were filled with such youthful energy and high spirits, eager to shoulder heavy responsibilities and help the country be strong and prosperous. But now . . .” Momentarily overcome with emotion, he said, “I guess there must be someone up there, since my leg is not broken. Help me to my feet, men.”

The two aides picked him up by his arms and supported him as he tried to walk. But his legs failed him—they had a mind of their own, or no mind at all—and produced stabbing pains that shot from the soles of his feet all the way up to the top of his head.

“Gather some dry grass, men, and light a fire to warm us. I can’t ride a horse like this.”

The Magistrate sat on the ground rubbing his hands and watching Chunsheng and Liu Pu gather grass by the side of the path. Up and down their bodies moved, a bit of a blur in the starlight, like large creatures building a nest on the ground. The sound of their labored breathing and the snapping of broken stalks of grass were heavy in the surrounding darkness; the Milky Way shimmered in a shower of shooting stars that lit up the faces—dark and purple from the cold—of his trusted aides and the overgrown gray wilderness behind them. Those faces gave him an indication of what he must look like: in the cold air, weariness had erased the self-assured looks they had started out with. He was suddenly reminded of his hat, the official symbol of his position and status.

“Chunsheng,” he called out anxiously, “forget that for now. I’ve lost my hat.”

“Wait till we get a fire going,” Chunsheng replied. “We’ll need the light to find it.”

With this simple statement, Chunsheng not only had disobeyed an order but, for the first time, had actually offered an opinion of his own, which the Magistrate found quite touching. On that dark night out in the wilds, all standards and norms were subject to modification.

They piled up layers of grass until they had a small stack. The Magistrate reached out to feel the grass, which was damp with dew.

“Chunsheng, did you bring something to start a fire?”

“Damn!” Chunsheng replied. “I forgot.”

“I have what we need in my pack,” Liu Pu volunteered.

The Magistrate breathed a sigh of relief.

“You think of everything, Liu Pu. Start a fire, I’m freezing.”

The young man took a steel, a flint, and a tinder from his backpack, crouched down beside the pile of grass, and began striking steel and flint together. Weak polygonal sparks flew from his hands onto the grass, making faint sizzles as they landed. He blew on the tinder with each spark, and as it slowly turned red, a tiny popping sound produced the first actual flames. The County Magistrate’s mood lightened considerably, the flames temporarily driving away the physical aches and pains and the mental anguish. Liu Pu touched the tinder to the grass, which reluctantly caught fire, the weak flames barely able to stay burning. So he picked up a handful of grass and twirled it in the air to make the fire burn stronger and brighter, until it was a blazing torch, which he then touched to the stack. White smoke began to rise skyward, filling the air with an acrid fragrance and the County Magistrate’s heart with emotion. The smoke was soon so thick that a man could almost reach out and grab a handful; and then, seemingly without warning, golden flames licked through the darkness with a roar. The smoke thinned out as dazzling bursts of light turned a swath of wilderness into daytime. The three animals snorted, swished their tails, and edged closer to the warmth of the fire. What looked like smiles adorned their long faces; their eyes shone like crystal, and their heads seemed unnaturally large. The County Magistrate spotted his hat nestling in the grass like a black hen hatching an egg. He had Chunsheng retrieve the hat, which was mud-spotted and grass-stained. The crystal ornament that represented his rank hung to one side, and one of the pheasant feathers, which had the same significance, had snapped in two. All inauspicious signs, he was thinking. But so what, damn it! How lucky would I have been if I’d been dragged to my death a moment ago? So he put on his hat, not to reclaim his dignity, but to help ward off the cold. The bonfire quickly heated up his chest, but his back felt like a slab of cold steel. As it warmed up, his nearly frozen skin turned prickly and painful. He scooted backward, and the heat moved with him, so he stood up and turned his back to the fire; but that no sooner warmed up than the front had cooled off. He turned back to face the fire. And so it went, front and back, over and over, until his body could once more move freely, although his leg still hurt. Knowing that he had not sustained a serious injury helped his mood, so he turned his attention to the three animals, which, as he saw by the light of the fire, were hungrily grazing, the bits in their mouths making crisp metallic sounds. The white horse’s tail seemed made of silvery threads as it swished back and forth. The flames got shorter as the crackle of dried grass being consumed was less frequent and not nearly as loud. The flames moved outward in all directions, much as water seeks lower ground, and spread with great speed. The wind began to pick up. Furry things were visible in the light from the fire, jumping and leaping—rabbits or foxes, probably. Birds flew into the dark sky with shrill cries, skylarks or turtledoves. The fire directly in front of the three men slowly died out, leaving only scattered red cinders. The wildfire, on the other hand, was rapidly gaining in intensity. The Magistrate, excited by the sight, his eyes lighting up, called out happily:

“This is something we might see once in a lifetime, if that! Chunsheng, Liu Pu, this alone was worth the trip.”

They climbed back on their horses and set out once more for Laizhou. By then the wildfire had spread far into the distance, like an illuminated riptide. The redolence of fire suffused the cold night air.





3




The County Magistrate and his traveling companions arrived at the Laizhou outskirts as dawn was breaking. The city gate was shut tight, the drawbridge was raised, and no gate guards were at their posts. The trees and groundcover were blanketed with frost as roosters crowed in a new day. Frost even decorated Chunsheng and Liu Pu’s eyebrows, in contrast to the soot that covered their faces. One glance made it clear to the Magistrate what his face must look like, and he hoped that look—frosty white beard and hair and a road-dusted face—would not disappear before he met the prefectural officials, for that would impress his superiors. In the past, he recalled, there had been a stone bridge leading to the city gate. But that had been replaced by a pine drawbridge, an emergency measure to defend against a surge in attacks across the city moat by Righteous Harmony Boxers. The Magistrate disagreed with the policy, refusing to believe that farmers would rise up in rebellion unless they were starving.

The city gate swung open as the sun rose red above the horizon, and the drawbridge made a creaky descent. After reporting their purpose in entering the city, they crossed the moat, the shod hooves of their mounts clattering on cobblestone streets that were deserted except for a few early-rising residents who were fetching water at a well, as mist rose off the frosted wooden frame. The red rays of the sun fell on the travelers’ skin, creating a painful itch, which was partially eased by the comforting sound of metal bucket handles scraping against the hooks of carrying poles. People shouldering those poles watched the passage of the visitors with surprise.

A cook pot had been set up outside a small diner specializing in tripe on a narrow street fronting the prefectural yamen. A fair-skinned woman was stirring something with a long-handled ladle. Steam rose from the boiling liquid, suffusing the air around it with the fragrance of viscera and coriander. When the three travelers dismounted, the Magistrate’s legs could barely support him; Chunsheng and Liu Pu also had trouble standing, although they managed to help the Magistrate over to a bench beside the pot. Unhappily, his broad backside was too much for the narrow seat, and he wound up on the ground, his arms and legs pointing skyward. His official hat, which seemed unwilling to stay put, rolled off into a muddy ditch. Chunsheng and Liu Pu rushed to his aid, looking sheepish over failing to properly attend to their superior, whose back and queue showed the effects of landing on dirty ground. Taking a fall early in the morning and losing his official hat in the process were bad omens. Frustrated and angry, he felt like lashing out at his attendants, but a glance at the downcast looks on their faces sent the words back down his throat.

Chunsheng and Liu helped the Magistrate up, steadying themselves on legs that were still bowed from the long ride. The woman hurriedly laid down her ladle and ran over to retrieve the Magistrate’s miserable-looking hat, cleaning it off as best she could with the lapel of her jacket before handing it to him.

“My apologies, Laoye,” she said as she handed over the hat.

She had a clear voice, filled with such fervor that the Magistrate felt warm all over. As he took the hat from her and put it on, he spotted a pea-sized mole at the corner of her mouth. Meanwhile, Liu Pu did his best to clean the Magistrate’s queue, which was as filthy as a cow’s excrement-coated tail, with the wrapping cloth from his bundle. With fire in his eyes, Chunsheng railed at the woman:

“Are you blind?” he said. You should have had a chair ready for Laoye as soon as you saw him ride up!”

The Magistrate immediately silenced his rude companion and instead thanked the woman, who blushed as she ran inside to fetch a greasy chair and set it down behind the Magistrate.

The minute he sat down, every muscle in his body ached, and the appendage suspended between his legs was as cold and hard as ice. The skin on his groin felt like it was on fire. But deep down, he was moved by his own selfless behavior of riding through the night, buffeted by the wind and dampened by frost, all in the name of justice for the common people. A nobility of purpose swept over him like the aroma of the tripe cooking in the pot and spread out on the early morning air. His body was like an enormous frozen turnip that is suddenly exposed to the warmth of the sun, and as the outer covering begins to thaw, it releases foul liquids from within. All in all, it was an agonizing yet at the same time joyous process. Viscous tears oozing from the corners of his eyes blurred his vision and created the illusion of vast numbers of Northeast Gaomi Township citizens kneeling in front of him, their upturned faces imbued with affecting expressions of gratitude. From their mouths emerged simple yet moving mutterings: Our great and upright Laoye . . . Our great and upright Laoye . . .

The woman placed three large black bowls in front of them, each with a black spoon. Then she dumped pieces of flatbread into each bowl, followed by shreds of coriander and some spiced salt. Her movements quick and deft, she did not bother to ask what they would like, as if they were regular customers and she knew exactly what they wanted. As he looked into her fair, round face, a reservoir of warm feelings opened up deep down inside the Magistrate, who was struck by what seemed like an intimate connection between this woman and the one who sold dog meat back in Gaomi County. Having finished with the preparations, she stuck her ladle into the pot and stirred the bovine hearts livers intestines stomachs lungs in the bubbling mixture, beguiling the Magistrate with the mouth-watering aroma. Then she fished out a ladleful of the stew, dumped it into the Magistrate’s bowl, and filled it up with soup, topping it off with half a spoonful of ground pepper. “The pepper takes the bite out of the cold,” she said softly. He nodded, touched by her concern, and stirred the contents of his bowl with the spoon. Then he bent over until his mouth nearly touched the rim of the bowl and, with a loud slurp, sucked in a mouthful. It was so hot, it felt as if a burning mouse had been let loose in his mouth; spitting it out would have been undignified, to say the least, and holding it in his mouth would likely burn his tongue, so he swallowed it whole, and as the mixture burned its way down, a welter of feelings rose up and drove the mucus from his nose and the tears from his eyes.

After several mouthfuls of bovine stew had found their way into the men’s stomachs, beads of sweat squeezed out through their pores like itchy little insects. The woman’s ladle never stopped its motion in the pot, except to add increasingly rich soup to their bowls, which remained full to the brim. When they sped up, so did she; when they slowed down, she followed. Eventually the Magistrate brought his hands together in front of his chest to thank her. “Enough,” he said. “You can stop now, madam.”

“I’m sure you can eat more than that, Laoye,” she said with a smile.

Although he was energized by the bovine stew he had just finished, the pain in his legs had not gone away; but at least he could stand unaided. He noticed a crowd of rubberneckers watching from the wall behind them. What he could not tell was whether they were just watching to see what would happen next or if they were potential customers who dared not come forward while the man in the official hat was on the scene. He told Chunsheng to pay for the meal, which the woman refused to accept. “It was a great honor to have Laoye partake of my simple fare, for which I could not possibly accept payment,” she said. For a moment, he said nothing. Then he reached down and removed a jade pendant from the pouch at his waist. “Madam,” he said, “I cannot adequately compensate you for your extravagant hospitality, so please take this trifle as a keepsake for your husband.” As her ears reddened from embarrassment, she made as if to refuse the gift, but the Magistrate had already handed it to Chunsheng, who stuffed it into her hand. “Our Laoye wants you to have this, and courtesy demands that you accept it,” he said. The woman stood there, pendant in her hand, speechless, as the Magistrate tidied up his appearance, turned, and headed off to the prefectural yamen, fully aware that many eyes observed his progress. He was aware, too, that in years to come, people might tell the story of the Gaomi County Magistrate who stopped here and had a meal of bovine stew at this outdoor stand, embellished with each telling, maybe even introduced into the repertoire of an opera, his adventure narrated in song by a Maoqiang actor for generations. If only he had paper and a brush, he mused, he would happily give a name to this little diner whose proprietor had treated him so warmly. Or he might write a poem in the finest calligraphic style to be displayed as an attraction for future customers. He raised his head and threw out his chest as he walked along the main prefectural street, exuding the prestige and dignity of an official representative of the Imperial Court. As he walked, he entertained visions of the lovely Sun Meiniang and of the fair-skinned, fine-figured woman who sold bovine stew; he did, of course, also think about his wife. Three women: one was ice, another was fire, and the third was a warm bed.





4




The County Magistrate was granted an immediate audience with the Prefect. It took place in the Prefect’s study, where a scroll written by the famous artist and one-time Magistrate of Wei County, Zheng Banqiao, hung on the wall. The Magistrate had the look of a tired man, with dark circles under his eyes and red lids; he yawned constantly as he reported in detail what had led to the incident in Northeast Gaomi Township and its consequences, focusing on the massacre perpetrated by the Germans. His personal loathing for the Germans and sympathies toward the township residents were patently obvious in his report. After quietly hearing him out, the first thing the Prefect said in response was, “Gaomi County Magistrate, is Sun Bing in custody?”

The County Magistrate sighed.

“Excellency,” he responded, “Sun Bing managed to escape and has not yet been brought to justice.”

The Prefect’s penetrating stare made the County Magistrate squirm. With a dry little laugh, he said softly:

“Elder Brother, word has it that you and Sun Bing’s daughter . . . ha ha, what does the woman have that you find so bewitching?” The Magistrate was tongue-tied, his back cold with sweat.

“I expect an answer!” the Prefect demanded, his demeanor suddenly harsh.

“Your humble servant, Excellency, has had no improper relations with Sun Bing’s daughter. I simply find her dog meat to my liking . . .”

“Elder Brother Qian,” the Prefect, having resumed a friendly demeanor, replied in the manner of a counselor, “our lives are devoted to serving the nation, and to that end we are the beneficiaries of the Empress Dowager and the Emperor’s favor. Our conscience compels us to carry out our duties to the best of our ability. If, however, we serve our own selfish interests or bend the law to help friends or relatives and are unfaithful to our calling, then that . . .”

“Your humble servant would never . . .”

“The death of a scant few stubborn and unruly subjects means nothing,” the Prefect said dispassionately, “and if that will mollify the Germans and end the provocations, well, that would be a good thing, wouldn’t it?”

“But twenty-seven lives were lost . . . the common folk deserve fair treatment.”

“Just how do you propose to manage that?” The Prefect punctuated his question by pounding on the table. “Don’t tell me you expect reparations from the Germans or expect them to pay with their lives.”

“But something must be done, in the name of justice,” the Magistrate complained, “or how do I face the citizens back home?”

With a chilling laugh, the Prefect said:

“I cannot give you the justice you seek. Nor, I’m afraid, will you find it from Circuit Attendant Tan or Governor Yuan, not even if you were to present yourself to the Emperor or the Empress Dowager.”

“We’re talking about twenty-seven lives, Excellency!”

“If you had carried out your duties and taken Sun Bing into custody immediately after the incident and turned him over to the Germans, they would not have sent in troops, and those twenty-seven individuals would be alive today!” The Prefect patted a pile of documents on his desk and, with another chilling laugh, said, “Elder Brother Qian, people are saying that you facilitated Sun Bing’s escape by warning him. The last thing you want is for that sort of talk to reach the ears of Excellency Yuan.”

By now the County Magistrate was sweating profusely.

“And so,” the Prefect continued, “the most urgent task before my Elder Brother is not to seek some sort of justice for the people back home, but to arrest Sun Bing as soon as humanly possible and bring him to justice. Taking Sun Bing into custody will be good for all concerned—high, low, those within and those without. No one benefits from failing to do so.”

“Your humble servant understands . . .”

“Elder Brother,” the Prefect said with a smile, “this Sun Meiniang must be a raving beauty to have planted the seeds of desire so deeply in you.” He added in a mocking tone, “She doesn’t have two pairs of breasts and two points of entry, does she?”

“Your Excellency is making fun of me . . .”

“I’m told that you fell in the street a while ago, and that you lost your hat in the process. Is that true?” he said with obvious portent as he glanced up at the County Magistrate’s hat. Before the Magistrate could answer, he held out his teacup and banged the lid against the lip. “Elder Brother,” he said as he got to his feet, “be careful, be very careful. Losing one’s hat means nothing, but losing one’s head . . .”





5




The Magistrate fell ill upon arriving home. At first his symptoms included headaches, dizziness, vomiting, and diarrhea; those in turn led to a persistent high fever and periods of delirium. The First Lady split her time between tending to her husband, including seeing that he received appropriate medications, and offering up nightly prayers at an outdoor incense altar. Whether it was the efficacy of his treatment or the intervention of the gods, no one knew, but half a bowlful of dark, rank blood abruptly spewed from the Magistrate’s nose, and almost immediately his fever broke and the diarrhea stopped. It was then the middle of the second month, a time when telegrams pressing for the arrest of Sun Bing were streaming in from provincial, circuit, and prefectural offices, sending the county government clerks into a frenzy of anxious activity. Yet all the while, the Magistrate lay in the space between wakefulness and sleep, neither eating nor drinking, let alone returning to his duties; there was even concern that he might never recover from what ailed him. The First Lady personally went into the kitchen to prepare the finest food of which she was capable, but all to no avail—the Magistrate’s appetite for food had vanished.

One afternoon a couple of weeks before Qingming, the First Lady summoned the Magistrate’s loyal follower Chunsheng to the Eastern Parlor.

Chunsheng entered the hall nervously and was met by the First Lady, who sat in a chair, her brow deeply furrowed, a somber cast to her face, all in all looking a bit like a temple idol. Chunsheng fell to his knees and said, “I have come in response to the First Lady’s summons. What is it you would have your humble servant do?”

“It’s all your fault!” she said icily.

“What did I do?”

“What is going on between Laoye and the woman Sun Meiniang?” she demanded to know. “I assume that you served as a go-between, you little bastard!”

“Madam, that is untrue. I have done nothing of the sort,” Chunsheng defended himself. “I am merely a loyal dog at Laoye’s side, prepared to attack wherever the Magistrate points me.”

“Don’t you dare quibble with me!” insisted the indignant First Lady. “You little bastards have led Laoye astray!”

“I have done nothing of the sort . . .”

“Chunsheng, you dog-headed wretch, as Laoye’s most trusted follower, instead of admonishing him to be pure of heart and wary of desires, as a good official must be, you have encouraged him to have illicit relations with a common woman, a loathsome deed, and one for which you deserve to have your dog legs broken. But I may be prepared to be forgiving, since you have served him diligently and well for several years, but only this one time. From today on, you are to report to me everything that involves His Eminence. If you do not, you will be punished for your crimes, old and new!”

Chunsheng nearly soiled himself as he banged his head on the floor. “I thank the First Lady for not having me beaten. You will have no further need to be upset with Chunsheng.”

“I want you to go to that shop that sells dog meat and inform Sun Meiniang that I wish to see her,” the First Lady said with seeming innocence. “I will have words with her.”

“Madam,” Chunsheng screwed up the courage to say, “Sun Meiniang is a good-natured woman . . .”

“Shut up!” The First Lady’s face darkened. “Laoye is not to know about this. If I find that you have had the audacity to breathe a word of this to him . . .”

“I would not dare . . .”





6




When news of the County Magistrate’s lingering illness reached Sun Meiniang, she was so upset that she could neither sleep nor eat; her distress eclipsed even that which she had suffered upon the tragic deaths of her stepmother and her siblings. She tried several times to deliver spirits and dog meat to the yamen and, she hoped, see the Magistrate, but she was stopped at the gate each time by guards with whom she had gotten friendly over time. Now they acted as if they didn’t know her, almost as if there had been a regime change within. An order specifically forbidding her to enter had been handed down.

Meiniang was a woman without a soul, distracted beyond the limits of endurance. Day in and day out, she roamed the streets aimlessly, carrying a basket of dog meat and followed everywhere by malicious chatter, as if she were some sort of monster. She visited every temple in town, large and small, where she offered up prayers for the health of the County Magistrate to a host of deities and divinities. She even lit joss sticks and kowtowed in the celebrated Bala Temple, which was devoted to issues and concerns other than sickness, and when she emerged, she was surrounded by a clutch of children who sang a song that had obviously been written by adults:

Gaomi’s Magistrate has the lovesick disease, food has lost its taste, sleep can no longer please.

He spits blood up top and passes filth down past his knees.

Gaomi’s Magistrate has a beard so long, day and night one thought only, of Sun Meiniang.

One man and one woman, Mandarin ducks made famous in song.

A pair of Mandarin ducks, yet unhappily apart, he thinks of death, she has a broken heart.

But dying and crying the First Lady will not let start.

On the children’s lips, this sounded like a message from the Magistrate, and it raised towering waves of passion in Sun Meiniang’s heart. Now that she had learned that his illness was more serious than she had feared, tears spurted from her eyes. Silently she repeated his name, over and over, and, relying upon her imagination, conjured up a vision of the damage the illness had done to his face. Dearest, she said to herself, you have fallen ill, all because of me, and if something should happen to you, I could not go on living! I am miserable, I must see you, no matter what. I need to enjoy one last decanter of spirits with you, share one last meal of dog meat. Though I know you do not belong to me, in my heart you are mine, for I have tied our fates together. I know, too, that you and I are different people, and that the things you and I think about are a million miles apart. I also know that what you feel for me is not true love, that I just happened to be there when you felt a powerful need for a woman. What you love about me is my body and my passion, and when the luster fades from my body, you will simply cast me aside. Something else I know is that you were the one who plucked my dieh’s beard clean, and that while you may steadfastly deny it, you ruined his life and brought about the destruction of Northeast Gaomi Township’s Maoqiang opera. I am aware that you vacillated about whether or not you should arrest my dieh, but that if Governor Yuan Shikai promised you a promotion and a fancy title for taking Sun Bing into custody, you would do it. If His Imperial Majesty the Emperor ordered you to kill me, you would take a knife to me without hesitation, even though it would sadden you to do so . . . I know all these things, I know everything, especially that my infatuation will end tragically, and yet that knowledge has no effect on my obsession. The truth is, you happened to be there when I felt a powerful need for a man. What I fell in love with was your appearance and your knowledge, not what was in your heart. I do not know what is in your heart, but why should I care about that? Enjoying a passionate relationship with a man like you is enough for an ordinary woman like me. Because of you, I have neither the time nor the heart to worry about my own dieh, who has suffered the grievous loss of his family. In my heart, in my flesh, in my bones there is only you. I freely admit that I am in the grip of a sickness, one that claimed me on the day I first saw you; it is a sickness every bit as serious as the one you are suffering now. You have said that I am the remedy that can cure you. Well, you are the opium that sustains me. If you die inside your yamen, I will die out here. There are many reasons why you are dying inside your yamen, and I am but one of them; but there is only one reason why I would die out here, and that is you. If I die and you do not, you will grieve over me for three days; if you die and I do not, I will grieve over you for the rest of my life. If you die, in truth my life will be over. It is an unequal transaction, in which I am a willing partner. I am your loyal dog; you need only whistle for me to come running, wagging my tail, rolling in the dirt, nipping at your heels, whatever you desire. I know that you love me the way a greedy cat loves a nice fat fish; I love you the way a bird loves a tree. My love for you knows no shame. Because of you, I have forsaken my honor, my will, and my future. I cannot control my legs, and have no control over my heart. Since I would climb a mountain of knives or dive into a sea of fire for you, malicious gossip means nothing to me. From the children’s song, I have learned that it is your wife who has made it impossible for me to enter the yamen and see you. I know that she comes from a respected family of high officials and that she is endowed with great learning and a talent for scheming; if she were a man, she would surely climb high in the official ranks. I readily admit that I, the daughter of an actor and wife of a butcher, cannot claim to be her peer, but I am the blind man at the door: if it is closed, I am rewarded with a bloody nose, but I gain entrance if luck is with me and it is open. I’ve lost all sense of the rules of decorum and taboos. If the main gate stands in my way, I will go around to the back; if the rear gate is closed, I will try a side door; and if that too does not admit entry, I will climb a tree and jump over the wall. So all the rest of that day I paced the area around the wall, trying to find a way into the yamen.

A half moon illuminated the rear wall and the flower garden behind it, where he and his wife strolled on most days. The limb of a tall elm tree reached out across the wall, its moonlit bark shining like dragon scales—a living, glittering creature. She stood on her tiptoes to reach the limb, which, cold to the touch, reminded her of snakes. Into her mind flashed the recollection of a time, several years before, when she had been in the field, obsessed by the desire to find a pair of snakes, and that thought produced feelings of desolation and humiliation.

Dearest Magistrate, my love for you is torture, agony you cannot possibly comprehend. And your wife, descendant of a famous official, member of an illustrious family, how can she understand what is in my heart? Madam, I have no desire to take your husband from you. In truth, I am but a sacrificial object willingly offered up for the pleasure of a temple god. Madam, can you possibly not have noticed how your husband has become a thirsty stalk of grain finally getting the spring rain it needs, all because of me? Madam, if you are the open-minded, charitable person you are reputed to be, then you must support my relationship with your husband. If you are a woman of reason and good sense, then you should not bar my entry into the yamen. Trying to keep me out, madam, will prove to be futile. You may be able to bar the way to Tripitaka, the monk who went to India to fetch scriptures, and to his disciples, the Celestial Horse and Sun Wukong, but you will fail to keep me, Meiniang, from being with Qian Ding. Qian Ding’s glory Qian Ding’s status and Qian Ding’s property all belong to you, but Qian Ding’s body Qian Ding’s smell and Qian Ding’s sweat are mine. Madam, I, Meiniang, followed my father onto the opera stage to sing and dance from an early age. My body may not be as weightless as a swallow, but I am light on my feet; I cannot fly onto eaves or walk on walls, but I know how to climb a tree. They say that when a dog is frightened it jumps over a wall, and when a cat is frightened it climbs a tree. Meiniang is neither a dog nor a cat, but I am going to climb a tree and jump over a wall. I am not afraid to demean myself, and I am perfectly capable of reversing the yin and the yang. You will not find me waiting for the moon in the Western Chamber, like Cui Yingying. No, I prefer to leap across the wall at night, like Zhang Junrui, who scaled a wall to be with Yingying; Meiniang will leap across the wall to be with her lover. Eight or ten years from now, someone may act out this Western Chamber drama in reverse.

She took two steps backward, cinched the sash around her waist, adjusted her clothes, limbered her joints, and then, after taking a deep breath, leaped into the air and grabbed hold of the limb with both hands. It bent from the weight, so frightening a perched owl that it shrieked, spread its wings, and glided silently into the yamen. Owls were among the Magistrate’s favorite birds. Ten or more of them often perched on a large scholar tree in the grain-storage compound, and he was given to referring to them as its guardian spirits, the bane of rodents. He would sometimes walk by, stroking his beard and intoning: “Rodents in the storehouse, big as a large jar; if someone comes in, they stay where they are . . .” Dearest Magistrate, you of great learning, filled with classical wisdom, my lover. She pulled herself up until she was sitting on the limb.

The third watch had just been sounded, the sole interruption of silence in the yamen. From her perch she saw the silvery glass ball atop the pavilion in the center of the flower garden and the shiny ripples on the little pond beside it. Patches of light emerged from the Western Parlor, apparently the Magistrate’s sickroom. My dear Magistrate, I know you are craning your neck, hoping to see me; your mind must be as unsettled as boiling water. Do not be worried, my dear, for your Meiniang, daughter of the Sun family, is about to leap over this wall. I am determined to see you, even if your wife is sitting at your side, like a lioness keeping watch over her kill, even if she lashes me across the back!

After edging her way along the limb, she jumped down onto the wall, but what happened next was something she would not forget as long as she lived. Her foot slipped when it landed on the wall, and she came crashing down on the other side, decapitating stalks of green bamboo, with the accompanying noise. Her backside ached, her arms suffered painful scrapes, and her insides were badly jumbled. With difficulty she managed to stand by holding on to a bamboo stalk, and, overcome by resentment over having to go through this to see him, she focused on the lamplight emerging from the Western Parlor. She reached down to rub her backside and felt something sticky. What is that? Her first thought was that she was bleeding from the fall, but when she brought her hand up to her nose, the foul-smelling, sticky dark substance could only be dog filth. My god, what black-hearted, unscrupulous wretch thought up this sinister plan to turn Sun Meiniang into such a sorry figure? Does this mean I am reduced to seeing Magistrate Qian with dog filth on my behind? Could I even want to see him after the way he has disgraced and humiliated me? Utterly dispirited, she felt rage build up inside her alongside feelings of low self-esteem. Go on, Qian Ding, be sick and die, and leave your respectable wife to her widowhood. If she chooses not to remain a widow, she can take poison or hang herself in defense of her wifely virtue and become a martyr; the citizens of Gaomi will then contribute to the purchase of a commemorative stone arch dedicated to her chastity.

She walked up to the elm tree, wrapped her arms around the trunk, and started to climb. Where the nimble, springy, squirrel-like energy of only a few moments before had gone, she could not explain, but she barely made it halfway up before she slid back down, once, twice, several times, until her arms and legs were coated with a dark, smelly substance—more dog filth, which had been smeared all over the tree trunk. Meiniang wiped her hands on the ground, tears of indignation slipping from her eyes, when she heard the sound of mocking laughter from behind the rockery. Then two black-clad, veiled figures emerged, preceded by a lantern that cast a muted red glow, reminiscent of the lantern the legendary Fox Fairy used to lead people to safety. The two figures, who could have been men and could have been women, gave no signs of their true appearance.

Terror-stricken, Sun Meiniang raised her hands to cover her face, but stopped when she recalled that they were smeared with dog droppings. So she lowered her head and instinctively shrank back all the way to the base of the wall. The taller of the two figures held the lantern up close to Meiniang’s face, as if to illuminate it for the benefit of the shorter person, who raised a thin stick used to frighten snakes hidden in the grass, stuck it under Meiniang’s chin, and lifted up her face. Utterly mortified and ashamed, she was powerless to resist. So she squeezed her eyes shut and let the tears run freely down her cheeks. She heard the person holding the stick heave a long sigh, and could tell that it was a woman’s voice. It was only a guess, but she assumed that it must be Magistrate Qian’s wife, and in that split second, the anguish she had felt turned to defiance; she was energized. Holding her head high, she smiled and searched for the words that would inflict the most pain on her foe. Her initial instinct was to ask the First Lady if she was covering her face with a black veil to hide her pockmarks. But before she could get the words out, the person stepped up, thrust her hand down inside Meiniang’s collar, and yanked away a bright, shiny object. It was the jade Buddha the Magistrate had given her in exchange for the jadeite thumb guard, not exactly a pledge of love, more a protective amulet. She sprang frantically forward to retrieve the object, but a kick behind her knee from the taller person sent her down on all fours. She saw the First Lady’s black veil flutter and her body shift slightly. It’s too late to worry about saving face, since I am already soiled by dog filth, she was thinking, so now I need to find the most hurtful words possible as payback for how she has violated me. “I know who you are,” she said, “and I know all about your pockmarks. The love of my life tells me you have a terrible body odor, that your mouth smells like maggots, and that he hasn’t slept with you for three years. If I were you, I’d hang myself out of humiliation. Any woman who outlives a man’s desire is no different than a coffin anyway.”

Meiniang’s gratifying outburst was interrupted by a stern retort from the short black-clad individual: “You little slut, how dare you come whoring around the yamen. Beat her, give her fifty lashes, then kick her out through the dog door!”

The taller person took a whip out from under his black clothes, kicked Meiniang to the ground, and, before she could utter another curse, laid the whip across her buttocks. She shrieked in pain just before the second lash connected with her buttocks; she looked up in time to see the other figure, the Magistrate’s stinking wife, turn and wobble off. The third lash landed as hard as the first two, but the next one did not hurt as much, and those that followed got lighter and lighter, until the person was hitting the wall, not her. Meiniang knew that her assailant was a decent person at heart, although her exaggerated screams continued for their dramatic effect, to their mutual benefit. When he was done, the man dragged her over to the side gate of the Western Parlor, opened it, and shoved her outside, where she lay in a heap on the cobblestone lane east of the yamen.





7




Sun Meiniang lay on the kang, gnashing her teeth one minute and heartbroken the next. She gnashed her teeth out of hatred toward that savage, cold-hearted woman, while she was heartbroken that the Magistrate was confined to a sickbed, and cursed herself for a lack of willpower; even when she bit her own arm till it bled, she could not drive the image of the wonderful Qian Ding out of her mind. Chunsheng came to see her when her torment had reached a fever pitch, just the familiar face she needed to see. She grabbed him by the arms and said tearfully:

“Chunsheng, dear Chunsheng, tell me, how is Laoye?”

Her anxiety moved him deeply. After glancing into the yard, where Xiaojia was skinning a dog, he said softly, “He’s improving physically, but mentally he is in bad shape; he gets agitated easily. He’s wasting away, and if he doesn’t start eating soon, I’m afraid he’ll starve to death.”

“My dear Magistrate!” Sun Meiniang cried out mournfully, accompanied by a cascade of tears.

“The First Lady has sent me to ask you to take some millet spirits and dog meat to the yamen, both to make Laoye feel better and,” he said with a little laugh, “to get his appetite back.”

“The First Lady? Don’t mention her to me,” she said with a gnashing of her teeth. “Your First Lady is worse than a sadistic scorpion spirit.”

“Mistress Sun, our First Lady is kind and honest, and always reasonable. How can you curse her like that?”

“What do you know?” Meiniang replied angrily. “Kind and honest, you say? Well, I say that her heart must have steeped in a vat of black dye for twenty years, and that one drop of her blood would be enough to kill a horse!”

“What did the First Lady ever do to you?” Chunsheng said with a little laugh. “This is like a mugger getting angry instead of his victim, or a lack of tears from a child that has lost its mother but wails from one whose mother is still alive.”

“Get out of my sight!” Meiniang demanded. “I’ll have nothing more to do with anyone in that yamen.”

“Mistress Sun, does this mean that your concern for Laoye no longer exists?” Chunsheng said with a supercilious grin. “If you no longer care about Laoye, does that mean you no longer care about his queue? And if you no longer care about his queue, does that mean you no longer care about his beard? And if you no longer care about his beard, does that really mean you no longer care about Laoye himself?”

“I said get out of my sight! Laoye, Shaoye, what difference does it make? What could his death possibly mean to a commoner?” Despite her tone of voice, tears continued to flow.

“Mistress Sun,” Chunsheng said, “you might fool others, but not me. You and the Magistrate are so close you might as well be one person. Break the bone, and there’s still meat attached; tug on the ear, and the cheek twitches. But enough of that. Don’t pull back on the reins now. Get ready and come with me.”

“I will not step foot in that place as long as your First Lady is there.”

“But, Mistress Sun, she has ordered me to come for you.”

“Chunsheng, don’t treat me like a circus monkey. How could I face someone who did what she did to me?”

“Apparently, Mistress Sun, someone has done something terrible.”

“Do you really not know, or are you just pretending?” Meiniang asked in anger. “They used a whip on me in that yamen of yours!”

“What are you saying, Mistress Sun?” Chunsheng was clearly shocked. “Who would dare use a whip on you in the yamen? We who work there see you as the Second Lady. We try our best to get on your good side. Who in his right mind would dare to even threaten you with a whip, let alone use it?”

“That First Lady of yours, that’s who. She had someone give me fifty lashes!”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask for proof,” Chunsheng said as he moved to look under her clothes.

Sun Meiniang knocked his hand away. “Don’t get fresh with me,” she said. “Aren’t you worried the Magistrate would chop off your grubby paw?”

“You see what I mean, Mistress Sun, you do have feelings for him. All I did was stick out my hand, and you stopped me by bringing up his name. The truth is, the Magistrate is seriously ill this time, and the First Lady has no choice but to invite you, our Living Bodhisattva, to work your magic. Think for a minute—would she be doing this if there were any other path open to her? Even if she did order someone to use a whip on you, why is this so surprising? Sending me for you is an admission of defeat. This hill is the excuse you need to ride the donkey, so what are you waiting for? If your ministrations speed up the Magistrate’s recovery and set him on the road to health, even the First Lady will praise you for having performed a great service. What was once hidden will be out in the open; the private will be made public. That, Mistress Sun, will usher in good times for you. But it is your decision. Are you coming or aren’t you?”





8




Dog meat basket in hand, Sun Meiniang pushed open the door to the Western Parlor and spotted a slightly pock-scarred woman with dark skin and a downturned mouth seated in an armchair. Meiniang’s heated body abruptly turned icy cold, and the elation with which she had arrived was suddenly coated with frost. Dimly she sensed that she had fallen into another trap, one also engineered by the Magistrate’s wife. She was, however, the daughter of an actor, well acquainted with all sorts of poses; and she was, after all, the wife of a butcher, equally well acquainted with the glint of a knife and the sight of blood; and she was, in the end, the Magistrate’s lover, and thus familiar with the ways of officials. All that made it possible for her to bring her tangled emotions under control, brace herself, and match stratagems with the Magistrate’s wife. Two women, two pairs of eyes meeting, neither about to back down. As their gazes fought for supremacy, their hearts carried on a resounding dialogue.

Magistrate’s wife: Are you aware that I come from an old and distinguished family?

Sun Meiniang: It is clear to anyone with eyes that I am a great beauty.

Magistrate’s wife: I am his legal and formal wife.

Sun Meiniang: I am his most intimate soul mate.

Magistrate’s wife: You are nothing but a remedy for my sick husband, no different than a canine gallstone or bezoars of ox.

Sun Meiniang: You are, in fact, the Magistrate’s backroom ornament, a marionette, a clay sculpture.

Magistrate’s wife: All your bewitching talents and seductive airs can have little effect on my position here.

Sun Meiniang: What good is being the revered First Lady if you are denied the Magistrate’s love? He has told me that he fulfills his conjugal duties with you only once a month, but with me . . .

Thoughts of lovemaking with the Magistrate sent shivers through Meiniang’s heart, and as vivid scenes of romance flooded her mind, radiant lights, moist and bright, glowed in her eyes. The somber First Lady had become a blurred outline.

The Magistrate’s wife noticed that the face of the woman across from her, fresh and tender as a freshly picked honey peach, had flushed, that she was breathing fast, and that her eyes were suddenly unfocused, all signs that her emotions were heating up. She had, she felt, achieved a moral victory, and her face, taut and unyielding up till then, softened slowly as her ivory white teeth poked out between purplish-red lips. Tossing a jade bodhisattva on a red cord at Meiniang’s feet, she said arrogantly:

“I had worn that since childhood, until some dog stole it and covered it with ugly canine smells. Since dogs are butchered at your house every day, you should not find it objectionable. You may have it.”

Sun Meiniang blushed. The sight of the jade bodhisattva sent stabbing pains into her backside and brought back the memory of what had happened that night. Rage boiled inside her, and she’d have rushed up and scratched the woman’s pock-scarred face if her legs would have done her bidding. For the Magistrate, all for the Magistrate, you may have your little victory. She knew that more than just a piece of jewelry, the First Lady had tossed over her status, her position, her challenge, and her grievance. Meiniang wavered. Bending down to pick it up would feed the First Lady’s vanity; by refusing the offer, Meiniang could retain her dignity. Picking it up would satisfy the First Lady; not picking it up would outrage her. Satisfying the First Lady would establish a covenant for the love between Meiniang and the Magistrate; outraging the First Lady would erect a barrier between them. She had detected in the Magistrate’s comments about his old-fashioned wife that he revered her. Her illustrious family may well have been a factor in that. For despite its recent decline, the Zeng family retained some of its influence. If the Magistrate could kneel before his wife, why should simply bending over bother Meiniang? And so she bent down and picked up the jade bodhisattva, all for the love of Magistrate Qian. And she did not stop there. One does not build a wall without digging up mud, so it was time to let the curtain fall on this drama. She went down on one knee, as if to show her gratitude for an unexpected favor.

“This common woman thanks the First Lady for her grace.”

The First Lady exhaled loudly.

“Go,” she said. “The Magistrate is in the document room.”

Meiniang got to her feet, picked up the basket of dog meat and millet spirits she’d brought with her, and started to walk off. But the First Lady called her to a halt. With her dark eyes focused on the window, not on Meiniang, she said:

“He’s getting on in years, while you are young . . .”

The First Lady’s hint was not lost on Sun Meiniang. Her face was burning, and she did not know what to say to that. The First Lady walked out of the Western Parlor and headed to the rear of the compound. A welter of emotions fought for primacy in her mind—loathing, love, the pride of winning, and the humiliation of losing.





9




The Magistrate’s appetite gradually returned under Meiniang’s ministrations, and he grew stronger each day. Clouds of melancholy creased his brow as he read the documents that had piled up during his illness.

“Meiniang,” he said as he stroked her nicely rounded backside, “dear Meiniang, if I refuse to arrest your dieh, Excellency Yuan will arrest me.”

Meiniang rolled over and sat up.

“Magistrate, my dieh had good reason to attack the German. Yet they responded by killing my stepmother and siblings, and what’s more, they slaughtered twenty-four innocent civilians. Isn’t that enough? Why do they want my dieh arrested? Is this what people call justice?”

With a bitter smile, the Magistrate said:

“What does a woman know about such things?”

Meiniang grabbed his beard and said coquettishly:

“I may not know much about such things, but I know that my dieh is guilty of nothing.”

The Magistrate sighed.

“I never said he was. But I cannot disobey an order from my superior.”

“Be a good man and let him off the hook,” Meiniang said as she moved seductively on his lap. “Is a County Magistrate powerless to protect an innocent member of the community?”

“How can I make you understand, my precious?”

Meiniang wrapped her arms around his neck and began rubbing her silken body against him enticingly.

“Even by taking care of you the way I do, can I still not save my dieh?”

“Enough,” the Magistrate said, “that is enough. A carriage cannot reach the mountain without a road, but a boat can sail even against the wind. Qingming is nearly here, Meiniang, and, as in the past, I am going to have a set of swings put up in the parade ground for your enjoyment. I will also plant peach trees as a gift to the people. I am doing these things this year, Meiniang, because I cannot say where I will be next year.”

“By this time next year, you will have been promoted to Prefect, no, even higher!”





10




When he learned that Sun Bing had led an attack on the railroad shed on Qingming, the County Magistrate suffered a momentary lapse in his ability to function. He threw down the tool he was using to plant a peach tree and, without a word to anyone, crawled into his palanquin. He did not need to be told that his official career was about to end.

Back at the yamen, he summoned his clerks and secretaries.

“You must all know that today has signaled the end of this Magistrate’s official career,” he told them. “You are welcome to continue in your present positions and await the appointment of my replacement. If, however, you prefer to leave, I advise you to do so without delay.”

They exchanged looks, but said nothing.

With a bitter laugh, the Magistrate turned and went into his document room, slamming the door behind him.

The loud noise stunned them all. Deflated, they were at a loss for what to do. The revenue clerk went up to the window and said, “There is a popular adage, Laoye, that goes, ‘Confront soldiers with generals, and dam water with earth.’ What that means in essence is that heaven never seals off all the exits. We urge you to take a broad view.” His plea was met with silence from inside.

So he whispered to Chunsheng:

“Hurry out to the rear compound and tell the First Lady what has happened. Be quick, before something terrible happens.”

Meanwhile, the Magistrate had taken off his official garb and dropped it on the floor. Then he took off his hat and threw it into the corner.

“Happy is the man relieved of his duties,” he said to himself, “and lacking a head means no more worries. Your Imperial Majesty, Empress Dowager, I am unable to carry out my vow of fealty; Excellency Yuan, Excellency Fan, Excellency Cao, I am unable to complete the duties entrusted to me; dear wife, I am unable to fulfill my conjugal responsibilities; my dearest Meiniang, I am unable to stay with you. Sun Bing, you no-account son of a bitch, I have done well by you.”

The County Magistrate stood on a stool, untied the satin sash around his waist, and looped it over a crossbeam. Then he made a noose and inserted his head, carefully placing his beard outside the noose so that it fell neatly across his chest. He was able to see bits of the hazy sky and fine threads of rainwater through a hole poked in the paper covering of the latticed window, put there by a passing sparrow; he also saw his chief assistant, his clerks, his personal attendant, and his constables, all standing in the rain, as well as a pair of swallows that had made their nest under the eaves. Amid the hiss of falling rain and the twitter of swallows, the rich smell of life caressed his face. A light spring chill raised gooseflesh on his arms, in contrast to the sentimental longing for Sun Meiniang’s warm body that filled him up, body and soul. Every cell in his body thirsted for her. Woman, ah, woman, you are a miracle, a true wonder. I know that the destruction of my future occurred on your body, and yet I am still madly in love with you . . . The County Magistrate knew that if he let his thoughts go on like that, his courage to say good-bye to the world would slip away. So he clenched his teeth and kicked the stool out from under him. Vaguely he heard a scream, a woman’s voice. Was his wife coming to him? Or could it be Meiniang? Regret was already setting in, and he strained to reach up and free himself. But his arms were useless . . .