Sandalwood Death

CHAPTER SIXTEEN





Sun Bing’s Opera Talk

Good, all right, bravo, wonderful! Now the real drama has begun~~Sun Bing stands alone in his prisoner cage, down streets turned bright by the mid-autumn sun. Looking out through the bars, his gaze falls on kin and friends one by one. Yayi sound the call in front of crazed armed troops, swords unsheathed, arrows on the string, bullets in every gun. German devils, Chinese soldiers, nerves high-strung. All because Zhu Ba’s plans at the jail had come undone. Xiao Shanzi would have taken my place, but death I would not shun. Zhu Ba, oh, Zhu Ba, I, Sun Bing, was unworthy of you and your tribe, and to the yellow springs you have gone. Your heads now from the yamen wall are hung, but your names will live on in Maoqiang songs from this day begun.

—Maoqiang Sandalwood Death. Sun Bing’s death procession





1




Zhu Ba clamped his vise-like hands around my throat until I saw stars, my ears rang, my eyes bulged, and my temples throbbed . . . I knew my life was ebbing fast. But no, I cannot die like this; to have the life choked out of me by Zhu Ba would be a travesty. Alive I must be heroic, and I will be defiant unto death. Brother Zhu Ba, Sun Bing knows why you are doing this, that you are afraid of my being impaled on the stake. You are afraid that I will not be able to endure the punishment and will cry for my father and mother. You are afraid that the moment will come when both a speedy death and a life worth living are denied me. And so you plan to foil the Germans’ scheme by leaving them only my corpse. Take your hands away, Brother Zhu Ba, for killing me this way will ruin my good name. You should know that my resistance to the Germans has been only partially realized; if I shy from my goal now, it will be like a tigerhead start and a snake-tail finish, a cowardly abandonment. I look forward to walking proudly down the street singing a Maoqiang aria, to live like a warrior and die as a martyr. I want to stand tall and shout my militancy; I want to be the agent of a popular awakening and the cause of crippling fear among the foreign devils. Only moments before death claimed me, I suddenly knew what I had to do: I first clawed at my would-be killer’s eyes with both hands and then kneed him in the groin. Something hot and wet dripped down my body as the hands fell away, freeing my neck from danger.

As bright moonlight streamed down, I saw that Zhu Ba and I were surrounded by Imperial Guards, their faces bloated like inflated pig bladders. A couple of those pig bladders came up, grabbed me by the arms, and dragged me away, and as my vision cleared, I saw my old friend, the beggar Zhu Ba, lying crumpled on the ground and twitching uncontrollably. Gobs of foul-smelling blue matter were oozing from his head, and I realized that he hadn’t let go because of my struggle, but because he had been clubbed.

I was immediately bundled by a clutch of shouting men through the secondary gate, past the Exhortation Memorial Arch, and deposited on a platform in front of the Main Hall. I looked up, and was nearly blinded by the array of lanterns that lit up the interior of the hall while others, hung high from the eaves, threw the placard bearing the official title of Yuan Shikai into sharp relief. The Gaomi County formal hall lanterns had been moved to the sides. The soldiers carried me inside and flung me onto the stone kneeling bench. By propping my hands on the floor, I managed to stand up on wobbly legs, but only long enough for a soldier to kick me behind the knee and send me back to the stone bench. Again using my hands, I moved my legs out in front to use the bench as a chair. I refused to kneel.

Once I was in a comfortable sitting position, I looked up and laid eyes on the moon-shaped, oily face of Yuan Shikai and the long, gaunt face of the German von Ketteler. Magistrate Qian Ding was standing to the side, bent at the waist, his back arched, looking both pathetic and anxious.

“You, down there, villain.” It was Yuan Shikai’s voice. “State your name!”

“Ha-ha, ha-ha . . .” My laughter rang through the hall. “Excellency Yuan’s eyesight does not serve him well,” I said. “With pride I shall tell you who I am. I am the leader of the resistance against German aggression, once known as Sun Bing, but I have been anointed the great spirit Yue Fei, carrying the posthumous name of Wumu. I suffered cruelly when imprisoned in the Pavilion of Wind and Waves!”

“Bring the lanterns closer!” Yuan Shikai demanded.

Several lanterns materialized in front of my face.

“Magistrate Qian, what is going on here?” Yuan Shikai said icily.

Qian Ding rushed up, flicked his sleeves, and lifted the hem of his robe so he could get down on one knee.

“Excellency, your humble servant personally went to the condemned cells, where I found Sun Bing chained to the bandit’s stone.”

“Then who is this?”

The Magistrate rushed up and stood in front of me to get a closer look with the aid of the lanterns. His eyes flashed like will-o’-the-wisps. I thrust out my chin, parted my lips, and said:

“Take a good look, Eminence Qian. This is a chin you ought to recognize. There was a time when it sprouted a beard so grand that each strand stayed perfectly straight even when immersed in water. And in this mouth there were once two perfect rows of teeth so tough they could bite through bone and leave marks in iron. It was you who personally yanked out the hairs of that beard, and von Ketteler who knocked out my teeth with the butt of his pistol.”

“Well, if you are Sun Bing, then who is the Sun Bing in the cell?” Qian Ding asked. “Don’t tell me you can be in two places at the same time.”

“I cannot be in two places at the same time. It’s you who are blind.”

“Guards, sentries, be on your toes. Bolt the main doors and search the grounds,” Yuan Shikai commanded his men. “Bring every one of those villains to me, dead or alive.” Regardless of rank or station, they swarmed out of the hall. “And you, County Magistrate, take someone with you to the condemned cells and bring that Sun Bing here to me. I want to see for myself which is the true Sun Bing and which is a fake.”

Hardly any time passed before the soldiers returned with the corpses of four beggars and one monkey. Actually, four corpses is not quite accurate, for a gurgling sound rumbled in the throat of Zhu Ba and bloody drool formed in the shape of chrysanthemum blossoms around his mouth. I was no more than three feet away, close enough to see light streaming from his still-open eyes. It stabbed straight to my heart. Old Zhu Ba, we have been friends, more like brothers, for twenty years. I still recall how I brought my Maoqiang troupe to perform in town, and you invited me to drink three cups with you in the Temple of the Matriarch. You were obsessed with Maoqiang opera, and had already committed great portions of fine operas to memory. You had a voice like a gander, which imparted a unique quality to your singing. No one sang the old-man parts any better than you. Surges of emotion unsettle my heart when I recall the old days, my brother, and favorite lines of opera want to spill from within. I was about to burst into an operatic aria when I heard the commotion outside the hall.

The clanking of chains made its way into the hall, as Xiao Shanzi appeared in the custody of a clutch of yayi. He was wearing a ripped white robe and was shackled hand and foot. Dried blood stained his skin and clothing; his lips were cut and torn, and he was missing three teeth. Flames seemed to shoot from his eyes . . . his every step, his every move, his every gesture, were just like mine, though he had one more missing tooth than I. I was secretly shocked, seeing what a spectacular production Zhu Ba had put together. If not for that extra missing tooth, I’m sure my own mother could not have told us apart.

“Excellency,” the Magistrate came forward to report, “your humble servant has brought the foremost criminal Sun Bing to the hall.”

I watched as Yuan Shikai and von Ketteler gaped in wide-eyed amazement.

Xiao Shanzi stood straight, head up, and gave them a foolish grin.

“Insolent criminal,” Yuan Shikai thundered, “why are you not on your knees?”

“I am the great Song General,” Xiao Shanzi replied fervently in imitation of my voice. “I bow down before heaven and earth, I kneel at the feet of my parents, but nothing can make me fall to my knees in front of barbarians and mangy dogs.”

He was a natural, an actor with an ideal voice. Back when Zhu Ba had invited me to teach opera to the beggars in the Temple of the Matriarch, few of them could boast of much talent. In fact, he alone had the necessary adaptability, able to immediately grasp the essentials. I taught him to sing The Hongmen Banquet and In Pursuit of Han Xin, which he learned well, with perfect pitch and a splendid stage appearance; it was as if he were made for them. I tried to get him to join the troupe, but Zhu Ba wanted to keep him around to take over the leadership after his death.

“Good Brother Shanzi,” I said, saluting him with cupped hands, “you have been well since last we met?”

“Good Brother Shanzi,” he repeated my greeting, “you have been well since last we met?” His shackles clanked when he brought his hands together to return my salute.

How absurd, utterly preposterous that was, a performance of the true and false Monkey King there in the middle of the Great Hall!

“On your knees, condemned prisoner,” Yuan Shikai demanded majestically, “and answer my question!”

“I am like bamboo in the wind, which will break before it bends, like the mountain jade that will shatter before it is taken whole.”

“Kneel!”

“Kill me, take my head, do as you please, but I will not kneel!”

“Put him on his knees!” Yuan ordered, by now nearly apoplectic.

The yayi pounced on Xiao Shanzi like wild beasts, grabbed him by the arms, and forced him to his knees. But the minute they took their hands away, he shifted his legs out in front, just as I had done. Now we were sitting side by side. I grimaced; so did he. I glared; he did too. I said, “Shanzi, you are a scoundrel.” He said, “Shanzi, you are a scoundrel.” We were like performers in a comic skit, one aping the other, with the surprising effect of taking the edge off of Yuan Shikai’s anger. He actually chuckled, while von Ketteler, who was sitting right beside him, laughed like an idiot.

“In all my years as an official, I thought I had seen every type of bizarre behavior possible. But this is the first time I’ve watched two people vying to be a condemned prisoner. Gaomi Magistrate, you are a wise and worldly man,” Yuan said sarcastically. “Explain to me what has just happened.”

“Your humble servant is a man of little learning,” Qian Ding said in a reverential tone, “and requires guidance from above.”

“Then tell me which of the two people sitting on the floor is the true Sun Bing.”

Qian Ding walked up to us and looked first at one and then at the other. The look in his eyes said he was having trouble making up his mind, but I knew that this official, cleverer than a monkey, was able to tell the real Sun Bing from the fake at first glance. So why the hesitant look? Could it be as simple as trying to protect the father of his lover? Was it possible that he would willingly let a beggar suffer the sandalwood death in my stead?

The Magistrate studied the two of us for a long moment before turning to report to Yuan Shikai:

“Excellency, my eyesight is poor, and I truly cannot tell them apart.”

“Look closer.”

The Magistrate put his face right up next to us. He shook his head.

“I still cannot tell, Excellency.”

“Look at their mouths.”

“They are both missing teeth.”

“Do you see a difference?”

“One is missing three teeth, the other is missing two.”

“How many teeth is Sun Bing missing?”

“Your humble servant cannot recall.”

“The dog bastard von Ketteler knocked out three of my teeth with the butt of his pistol,” Xiao Shanzi eagerly volunteered.

“No,” I corrected him forcefully, “von Ketteler knocked out two of my teeth.”

“Gaomi Magistrate, you should remember how many of Sun Bing’s teeth were knocked out.”

“Your humble servant truly cannot recall, Excellency.”

“So you are telling me that you cannot tell the real from the fake, is that it?”

“My eyesight is poor, and I truly cannot tell them apart.”

“Well, then, if even the local Magistrate cannot tell them apart, there is no need to keep trying,” Yuan Shikai said with a wave of his hand. “Lock them both up in condemned cells. Tomorrow they will both have a date with a sandalwood stake. Gaomi Magistrate, tonight you will watch over them. If there is a problem with either one, it will be on your head.”

“Your humble servant will do his best . . .” The Magistrate bowed deeply, and I saw that the back of his robe was wet from perspiration. Nothing remained of his erstwhile poise and proud demeanor.

“This switch could not have taken place without the assistance of someone in the yamen,” Yuan Shikai said, having seen the obvious. “I want the jailer and all those assigned guard duties at the condemned cells here first thing tomorrow to answer some serious questions!”





2




Before Yuan’s soldiers could carry out his order, the jailer had hanged himself in the Prison God Temple. Yayi dragged his corpse out of the compound like a dead dog and deposited it alongside those of Zhu Ba, Hou Xiaoqi, and the others. While soldiers were dragging me over to the condemned cells, I saw executioners cutting off the dead beggars’ heads on someone’s orders. Sick at heart, I experienced intense feelings of remorse. Maybe, I thought, I’ve been wrong; maybe I should have done what Zhu Ba wanted me to do, which was to quietly slip away and foil the scheming collaboration between Yuan Shikai and von Ketteler. I’d wanted to render a great service, to leave a good name for posterity, and to have been loyal, trustworthy, merciful, and benevolent, but I wound up causing the deaths of so many. Enough; no more such thoughts. I’ll cast away all that has tormented me and somehow make it through the night, waiting for the light of tomorrow.

The County Magistrate had his men chain Xiao Shanzi and me to the same bandit’s stone and light three candles inside the cell and a row of lanterns outside. He moved a chair up and sat just beyond the door. Through the tiny window I saw seven or eight yayi assembled behind him and an array of soldiers behind them. The fire in the mess hall kitchen had been put out, but the air was still thick with smoke, and it was getting worse.

The fourth watch was sounded.

Roosters crowed, some near, some far, and lantern light dimmed; the candles in the cell had burned down halfway. The County Magistrate was still in his chair, head slumped down on his chest, like a wheat stalk weighted down after a frost, seemingly neither dead nor alive. I knew he was in a perilous situation, that even if he didn’t lose his head over what had happened, his days as an official were over. Ah, Qian Ding, what happened to that hard-drinking, poem-writing man you once were? County Magistrate, oh, County Magistrate, mortal enemies are bound to meet; my death tomorrow will erase all debts of gratitude and enmity.

Xiao Shanzi, Xiao Shanzi, whom I count as my protégé, by disfiguring your own face and taking another’s place in jail, you have earned a place in the annals of history for your incorruptible loyalty. Why did you adamantly insist that you are Sun Bing? Had you told the truth, you would have lost your head, but how much easier that would be than suffering the sandalwood death!

“Worthy brother, why did you do what you did?” I asked him softly.

“Shifu,” he replied in an even softer voice, “if I had taken the easy way out by letting them lop off my head, wouldn’t I have lost three teeth for nothing?”

“But have you given any thought to the sandalwood death?”

“Shifu, we beggars are hard on ourselves from the moment we’re born. On the day Master Zhu Ba took me on as his disciple, he made me stab myself with a knife. I have trained myself in the ruse of self-injury, and I have trained myself in taking a knife to the head. There are blessings in this world not meant for beggars, but no suffering we do not endure. I urge Shifu to disavow his claim to be Sun Bing; let them punish you with a quick death, and allow your young brother to take the punishment meant for you. By letting me suffer the sandalwood death in your place, it will be your good name that gains the credit.”

“Since your mind is made up,” I said, “then let us crash the Gates of Hell arm in arm. We will show them the meaning of a heroic death and give those foreign devils and treacherous officials a taste of Gaomi courage!”

“Shifu, daybreak is still a ways off,” Xiao Shanzi said. “While you have the chance, won’t you tell me about the origins of Maoqiang opera?”

“Yes, Shanzi, I will. My good young protégé, there is an adage that goes, ‘When death looms, a person can speak only good.’ As your shifu, I will relate for you the history of Maoqiang opera, from its beginnings up to the present.





3




“It is told that during the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor, in the eighteenth century, a truly remarkable man by the name of Chang Mao was born in Northeast Gaomi Township. Single and childless, he had but one companion, a black cat. A crockery mender by trade, he walked the streets and alleys from dawn to dusk carrying his tools and his cat in baskets on a shoulder pole, stopping to mend people’s cracked and broken crockery. He was very good at his trade and, as a man of fine character, was well liked by all. One day, at the funeral of a friend, as he stood before the gravesite, sadness welled up inside him as he thought back to how decently this friend had treated him, and he was moved to pour out his grief in a voice with such lush qualities that the family of the deceased stopped crying and everyone within earshot fell silent. Listening with rapt concentration, they were amazed to discover that a crockery mender had such an affecting voice.

“This was a seminal moment in the history of Maoqiang opera. Chang Mao’s sung recitation surpassed women’s cries of anguish and men’s dry-eyed wails. He brought solace to the grief-stricken and entertainment to the uninvolved, launching a revolution in traditional funeral expressions of bereavement and giving rise to a new era with fresh sights and sounds. It was like a Buddhist devotee laying eyes on the Land of Ultimate Bliss, with celestial flowers raining down, or someone covered in dirt slipping into a bath to wash away the grime, then drinking a pot of hot tea to force sweat out of every pore. And the talk began, how Chang Mao was more than a fine mender of crockery, that he had a voice that resounded like a brass bell, an unrivaled memory, and the gift of eloquence. As time went on, more and more grieving families requested his attendance at graveside ceremonies, asking him to appease the souls of the departed and lessen the sorrows of the survivors. Understandably, at first he declined the requests. Why in the world would he offer vocal laments at the gravesite of a total stranger? No, he’d say the first time, and the second. But the third invitation was always difficult to turn down—did not Liu Bei manage to get Zhuge Liang to his cottage the third time he asked? Besides, they would be fellow townsmen, tied together one way or another, people you could not help meeting from time to time, and in a hundred years or so, everyone would be related anyway. So if he could not do something for the sake of the living, he ought to do it for the departed. Seeing a dead man is like encountering a tiger; seeing a dead tiger is like meeting up with a lamb. The dead are noble, the living worthless. So he went. Once, twice, a third time . . . and he was always treated as an honored guest, warmly welcomed by all. Human waste spoils a tree’s roots; spirits and good food intoxicate a man’s heart. How could a lowly crockery mender not be moved by such expansive treatment? And so he put his heart into what he was asked to do. A honed knife is sharp; a practiced skill is perfected. Each funeral gave him an opportunity to whet his skills, until finally his artistry was unmatched. In order to introduce something new into his art, he called upon the wisest man in town, Ma Daguan, to whom he apprenticed himself as a student of tales, ancient and new. Then each morning he went alone to the riverbank to practice his singing voice.

“The first to ask Chang Mao to sing at funerals were humble families, but once word of his artistry began to spread, well-to-do families sought his services as well. During those days in Northeast Gaomi Township, any burial ceremony in which he participated became a grand event. People came from miles around, bringing with them the elderly and the very young. And the ceremonies in which he did not participate? However lavish the procession or plentiful the sacrificial offerings might be—banners and pendants blotting out the sun, forests of food and rivers of liquor—the turnout would be sparse. The day finally arrived when Chang Mao laid down his pole and mending tools for the last time and began life as a master bereavement singer.

“People spoke of a local family of bereavement singers in the Confucian homeland whose womenfolk had fine voices. But their specialty was to assume the roles of surviving family members of the deceased to wail and howl songs of piteous sorrow, and bore no resemblance to Chang Mao’s performances. Why compare those bereavement singers to our Patriarch? Because many decades ago, a rumor spread that the founder of our tradition had set out on the path of bereavement singing inspired by Confucian singers. So I made a special trip to Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius, and found that women who sang bereavements still existed there, but that their songs had few lines, mostly “Oh, heaven! Oh, earth!” Our Patriarch’s artistry went far beyond that. Comparing those women to him is like equating heaven with earth or a pheasant with a phoenix.

“Our Patriarch improvised at gravesites, weaving the life of the deceased into his lyrics. He had a quick wit and a brilliant tongue, rhyming in all the right places, colloquial and easy to understand, but soaring with literary grace. His lines of sorrow were essentially a funeral elegy. As demands to meet his listeners’ expectations intensified, he no longer limited his recitations to the life and virtues of the deceased, but introduced philosophical views of life in general. And Maoqiang opera was born.”

At that point in my narration, I turned to see the Magistrate, who was sitting outside the condemned cells, cocking his ear as if listening to what I was saying. Go ahead, listen. I want you to hear. If you don’t have an ear for Maoqiang, you’ll never truly understand Northeast Gaomi Township. Ignorance of its history means you cannot comprehend what is in the hearts of its residents. So I raised my voice even though my throat burned and my tongue ached.

“I said at the beginning that our Patriarch had a cat, a very clever cat, much like the Red Rabbit steed the Three Kingdoms hero Guan Yu rode. He loved that cat, and the cat loved him back. He never went anywhere without it. When he sang a graveside elegy, that cat would sit on the ground in front of him, listening intently, and when the sorrowful climax was reached, it joined in with a doleful howl of its own. The Patriarch’s voice stood out among his peers; the cat’s howls were themselves incomparable. Owing to the shared intimacy, people of the day took to calling him “Chang the Cat,” since the word for cat—mao—sounded the same as his name.

“Even now, there is a popular ditty in Northeast Gaomi Township that goes——

“Better to hear Chang Mao screech than listen to the Master teach,” Xiao Shanzi said with deep emotion.

“Well, one day the cat died; how it died is unclear. One version ascribes it to old age. Another insists that it was poisoned by an out-of town-actor who was envious of the Patriarch’s talent. There is even a version in which the cat was strangled by a vengeful woman who was rebuffed by the Patriarch in her desire to become his wife. Whatever the truth, the cat did die, an event that so traumatized our Patriarch that he held the cat in his arms and cried for three days and nights, interspersing his wails with songs of bereavement, until blood leaked from his eyes.

“After overcoming the worst of his grief, the Patriarch fashioned two items of cat clothing from the skins of wild animals. The smaller of the two, made from the pelt of a feral cat, he wore on his head for daily use—ears rising from each side, tail hanging down past the nape of his neck alongside his modest queue. The larger item, made from the skins of a dozen or more cats, was a ceremonial robe, trailing a long cat’s tail behind him; he wore it thereafter when he performed graveside bereavements.

“The death of his companion initiated a major change in the Patriarch’s singing style. Before that, cheerful banter had been woven into his songs; now forlorn strains dominated from start to finish. There was also a change in his singing style, for now the desolate contents were dotted with dulcet or melancholy or bleak cat cries that changed constantly, like a series of interludes. The new style not only has survived to this day, but has become the central feature of Maoqiang opera.”

“Meow—— Meow—” On an impulse, Xiao Shanzi interrupted my narration with a pair of cat cries pregnant with nostalgia.

“After the death of his cat, our Patriarch adopted the walking and speaking style of a cat, as if possessed by the spirit of his dead companion. He and his cat had become one. Even his eyes underwent a change: slitted during the day, they glowed in the darkness of night. Then one day the Patriarch died, and a legend was born that he turned into a large cat on his deathbed, but with wings that grew from his shoulders and carried him through the window and onto the limb of a giant tree. From there he flew straight to the moon.

“The vocation of bereavement singing died with the Patriarch, but his melodic, heartbreaking elegies never stopped swirling in the hearts of our people.”





4




“Later, during the nineteenth-century reigns of the Jiaqing and Daoguang emperors, small family troupes mimicked the vocal offerings of the Patriarch in performances, usually consisting of a male singer, echoed by his wife, and complemented by their child, dressed in a cat costume, who supplied the feline cries. When the opportunity arose, they sang funeral elegies for rich families—by then, ‘bereavement laments’ had become ‘bereavement songs’—but most of the time they put on public performances at open markets. Husband and wife sang and acted out their parts while their child moved cat-like, making a variety of feline sounds as he circled the crowd with his donations basket. Short performances were the order of the day, including such favorites as Lan Shuilian Sells Water, A Widow Weeps at a Gravesite, and Third Sister Wang Misses Her Husband. In reality, these performances were a form of begging. Maoqiang actors are cousins to professional beggars, and that is how you became my protégé.”

“Shifu speaks the truth,” Xiao Shanzi said.

“That was how things stood for several generations. Musical instruments were not used in the Maoqiang of those days, and there was no staging. It was operatic but not yet opera. Besides the small family troupes I spoke of a moment ago, there were peasants who made up musical interludes during leisure periods, accompanied by gongs used for peddling candy and clappers used by bean curd peddlers, singing them for themselves in cellars where straw sandals were made or on heated brick beds in their own homes, all to dispel loneliness and ease a life of suffering. Those gongs and clappers were the forerunners of today’s Maoqiang instruments.

“I was young and clever back then—I’m not boasting—and I had the finest voice in all of Northeast Gaomi Township’s eighteen villages. I began to gain a reputation when I joined my voice with others. People—locals at first, then outsiders—came to listen, and when the cellars and brick beds could no longer accommodate them all, we moved into yards and onto threshing grounds. People could be seated when they sang in those cellars and on brick beds, but not in open spaces, where movement was required. But then movement in ordinary clothing did not feel natural, so costumes were required. But then costumes and unadorned faces did not produce the right effect, so singers painted their faces. Costumes and painted faces needed something more—instruments more varied than gongs and clappers. Ragtag troupes from other counties gave performances in town, including the “Donkey Opera” specialists from Southern Shandong, who rode their animals onto the stage. There were also the southern Jiao County “Gliders,” whose ending note of each sentence glided from high to low, like sledding down a mountain slope. Actors in one so-called “rooster troupe” from the Henan-Shandong border area ended each line with a sort of hiccup, the sound a rooster makes at the end of its crow. All these troupes came with instrumental accompaniment, for the most part huqin, dizi, suonas, and laba—fiddles, flutes, woodwinds, and horns. The visitors played their instruments at our performances, and the effects were more impressive than those with singing alone. But I am so competitive, I’ve never been satisfied with someone else’s brainchild. By this time our opera was already known as Maoqiang, and I was thinking that if I wanted to create a unique opera form, it had to be all about cats. And so I invented an instrument called the mao hu—the cat fiddle. With that instrument, Maoqiang had found its place.

“My instrument was bigger than other fiddles; it had four strings and a double bow, which produced fascinating compound notes. Their fiddles were snakeskin-covered; for ours we used tanned cat skins. Their fiddles were good for ordinary tones, while ours could produce cat cries dog yelps donkey brays horse whinnies baby bawls maiden giggles rooster crows hen cackles—there wasn’t a sound on earth that our fiddles could not reproduce. The cat fiddle put Maoqiang opera on the map, and ragtag troupes found no place in Northeast Gaomi Township after that.

“I followed my invention of the cat fiddle with another—the cat drum, a small drum made of cat skin. I also came up with a dozen facial designs: happy cats, angry cats, treacherous cats, loyal cats, affectionate cats, resentful cats, hateful cats, unsightly cats . . . would it be an exaggeration to say that without Sun Bing, today there would be no Maoqiang opera?”

“Again Shifu speaks the truth,” Xiao Shanzi said.

“Of course I am not the opera’s Patriarch. That was Chang Mao. If Maoqiang were a tree, then Chang Mao would be our roots.”





5




“Worthy young brother, which operas did I teach you to sing all those years ago?”

“The Hongmen Banquet, Shifu,” Xiao Shanzi replied softly, “and In Pursuit of Han Xin.”

“Ah, those, both stolen—by me—from other operas. You probably are unaware that Shifu played bit roles with at least ten opera troupes in other counties in order to poach bits of their performances. My desire to learn opera took me down south, out of Shanxi, across the Yangtze, and into Guangxi and Guangdong. There isn’t an opera anywhere that Shifu cannot perform, and no role that Shifu cannot act. Like a bumblebee, I have taken nectar from all the operatic flowers to create the fine honey of Maoqiang opera.”

“Shifu, you are a miraculous talent!”

“Your shifu once had a grand desire to take Maoqiang opera to Peking at least one time before he died and perform for the Emperor and the Empress Dowager. I wanted it to become a national dramatic form. Once that happened, rats would disappear from the land north and south of the great river. What a shame that before I could put this grand plan into action, a treacherous individual yanked the beard right off my face. That beard was the symbol of Shifu’s prestige, my courage, my talent, the very soul of Maoqiang. Shifu without a beard is like a cat without whiskers like a rooster without tail feathers like a horse with a shorn tail . . . worthy young brother, Shifu had no choice but to leave the stage and drift through life as the owner of a little teahouse, fated to die with unfulfilled aspirations, something that has bedeviled heroic figures since time immemorial.”

At this point in my narration, I noted that the Gaomi County Magistrate was shuddering, and that Xiao Shanzi’s eyes were filled with tears.

“My young protégé, the featured opera in our repertoire is Chang Mao Weeps for a Departed Spirit, my first major creation. It has always been the first performed for each new season. If it is well done, the success of our run that season is ensured; if not, there are bound to be problems down the line. You’ve lived your life in Northeast Gaomi Township. How many times have you seen Chang Mao Weeps for a Departed Spirit?”

“I’m not sure, but it must be dozens of times.”

“Has it ever been the same twice, in your view?”

“No, Shifu, I always came away with something new,” Xiao Shanzi said dreamily, his thoughts going back in time. “I still remember the first time I saw Chang Mao Weeps for a Departed Spirit. I was just a boy then and wore a cat-skin cap. You played the role of Chang Mao, and when you sang, sparrows dropped out of the trees. But what impressed me most was not your songs. No, it was the big boy who played the role of the cat. He filled the air with cat cries, no two alike, and long before the opera was finished, everyone at the foot of the stage went crazy. We boys ran around, threading our way through the crowd of adults and making cat sounds. Meow meow meow. Three large trees stood at the edge of the square, and we fought to climb them. As a rule, I wasn’t very good at climbing trees, but that day I climbed so nimbly you’d have thought I was a cat. Well, the tree was already filled with real cats. I had no idea when they’d climbed up there, but they joined us in a chorus of loud meows, until the stage and the area around it, sky and ground, were alive with cat cries. Men women adults children real cats pretend cats, all joined together in opening up their throats to release sounds previously unknown to them and began to move in ways they’d never dreamed possible. Eventually they lay spent on the ground, bodies soaked with sweat, faces awash in tears and snot, like empty shells. We cat children fell out of the trees, one after another, like so many black stones. The cats up there floated down to the ground, as if they’d grown webbing between their paws, like flying mice. I still recall the last line of that day’s opera: ‘Cat oh cat oh cat oh cat oh cat, my dear, precious cat . . .’ Shifu, you drew out that last ‘cat,’ making it tumble skyward until it was a hundred feet higher than the tallest poplar tree, taking everyone’s heart into the clouds with it.”

“My young protégé, you are as capable of singing Chang Mao Weeps for a Departed Spirit as I am.”

“No, Shifu, but if I could be on the stage with you, I’d like to be the cat boy.”

I took a long, emotional look at this fine Northeast Township youngster. “My boy, you and I are right now acting out the second signature Maoqiang opera, which we can call Sandalwood Death.”





6




Tradition dictated that we be brought out to the Main Hall, where a tray with four plates of food, a pot of strong spirits, some flatbreads, and a bunch of leeks were laid out. There was braised pig’s head, a plate of stewed chicken, a fish, and some spicy beef. The flatbreads were bigger than the lid of a wok, the leeks fresh and moist, the spirits steamy hot. Xiao Shanzi and I sat across from each other and smiled. Two Sun Bings, one real and one fake, clinked glasses and then emptied them noisily. Tears spurted from our eyes as the heated spirits worked their way down; we were like members of a loyal brotherhood, impassioned. On Wangxiang tai, the terrace in Hell from which we can see our homes, we will walk hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, and fly up to the ninth heaven on a rainbow. So we feasted, swallowing the food nearly whole, since we were missing so many teeth. As we looked death calmly in the face, fearless and exuberant, a grand and solemn opera had begun. The prison van turned onto the main street, lined by jostling crowds. What actors want most is an audience bristling with feverish anticipation, and there is no more solemn, stirring moment in life than being taken to the execution ground. I, Sun Bing, had acted on the stage for thirty years, but this was going to be my finest day ever.

I saw light glinting off the tips of bayonets up front and shiny red- and blue-tasseled caps behind. My fellow townspeople’s eyes flashed on both sides of the street. Many of the country squires’ beards quivered, and many women’s eyes were wet with tears; many children stood with their mouths agape, slobber running down their chins. Suddenly, hidden there among all those women was my daughter, Meiniang, and I experienced a sadness that nearly made me weep. A true man can spill blood but not tears; he must not sacrifice his manly virtues for the love of family.

As the van’s wooden wheels rumbled down the cobblestone street, the harsh sunlight made my scalp itch. The clang of a gong leading the way was carried on an early fall breeze, and as I looked up into the azure sky, I experienced a sense of desolation. The blue sky and white clouds turned my thoughts to the puffy white clouds reflected in the crystal-clear waters of the Masang River. I had carried water from that river for customers who arrived from all corners. I thought of Little Peach, my wonderful wife, and of my two delightful children. My loathing for the Germans, whose railroad had destroyed the feng shui of our Northeast Gaomi Township, knew no bounds. Grievous thoughts made my throat itch, and I raised my voice in tribute to my fellow villagers and townspeople:

I travel amid shouting crowds, unafraid~~I wear a python-and-dragon robe, my hat of gold threads made. I swagger, my waist cinched by a belt of jade~~look at those pigs and dogs, who dares step on my heel in this parade~~

I had only managed those few lines before the teeming crowds along the street roared their delight—“Bravo!” Xiao Shanzi, my good protégé, did not miss a beat, chiming in with cat cries, each slightly different~~Meow meow meow~~adding a veneer of luster to my singing.

Look up at swirling winds of gold, then farther down lush trees behold~~a martyr’s spirit, I raise the flag of rebellion, as commanded on high, to preserve China’s rivers and mountains, and not allow a foreign railroad our land to enfold~~I have eaten the dragon’s liver and the phoenix’s brain, fiery spirits and ambrosia drink have made me bold~~

Meow meow meow~~

My fine young protégé filled in the gaps with his cries . . .

There were tears in my fellow villagers’ eyes, but then, starting with the children, they echoed Xiao Shanzi’s cat cries. It must have sounded as if all the cats in the world had come together at this place.

As my song and my fellow villagers’ cries swirled in the air together, I saw that the color had left Yuan Shikai and von Ketteler’s faces, and that the frightened soldiers, foreign devils included, were ashen-faced, as if confronted by mortal enemies. Sun Bing could now die with no regrets, in the wake of this spectacular operatic moment!

Good, wonderful, bravo, fellow townsmen do not fret——fret fret fret, all you traitors, be on your guard——watch watch watch, our people rise in rebellion——go go go, go tear up those tracks——die die die, die a good death——fire fire fire, flames reach into the sky——finish finish finish, finished not yet——demand demand demand, a cry for justice be met——

Meow meow meow meow~~

Mew~~