Sandalwood Death: A Novel (Chinese Literature Today Book Series)

by Mo Yan

  Dressed in a red jacket atop green trousers beneath a floor-length green skirt, Meiniang looked like a cockscomb flower transplanted onto the street. Warm southern breezes carried the fresh fragrance of ripe yellow wheat on that resplendent sunlit day. It was the season for women in love, teased by those warm spring breezes. Burning with impatience, Meiniang wished that she could transport herself to the yamen in a single step, but the full-length skirt kept her from walking briskly. A restive heart agonized over the slow pace and was tormented by the distance that lay before her. So she scooped up the train of her skirt, lengthened her stride, and quickly overtook all the bound-footed women, who proceeded in mincing steps, hips undulating from side to side.

  “What’s the hurry, Mistress Zhao?”

  “Where’s the fire, Mistress Zhao?”

  She ignored the women’s queries, intent on making a beeline from Dai Family Lane all the way to the yamen’s secondary gate. Half of the flower-laden branches of a pear tree at the home of Dai Banqing spread over the wall above the street. A subtle sweet aroma, the buzzing of bees, the twittering of swallows. She reached up and plucked one of the flowers and tucked it behind her ear, the barely perceptible noise drawing a string of barks from the always alert Dai family dog. With one final brush of nonexistent dust from her clothing, she let the hem of her skirt drop to the ground and entered the compound. The gate guard nodded, she responded with a smile, and before she knew it, she found herself in front of the entrance to the Third Hall courtyard, her body moistened by a thin coat of perspiration. Attending the gate was a young, fierce-looking yayi whose accent marked him as an out-of-towner, the one she’d seen at the battle of the beards. She knew that he was one of the Magistrate’s trusted aides. He nodded, and once again she responded with a smile. The courtyard was filled with women, children running freely in their midst. Meiniang pushed her way into the crowd, slipping sideways up to the front, where she had an unobstructed view of a long table in the passageway beneath the Third Hall eaves. Two chairs behind the table were occupied—the one on the left by Eminence Qian, the one on the right by his wife. In her phoenix coronet and ceremonial dress, she sat with her back perfectly straight. Her red dress shone like a rosy cloud under the sun’s bright rays, while her face was covered by a gauzy pink veil, which allowed for a blurred view of the shape, but none of the features. The sight had an immediate calming effect on Meiniang, for now she knew that what she had feared more than anything else was that the Magistrate’s wife had a face like moonbeams and flowers. Her unwillingness to show her face in public must mean that she was, in fact, unattractive. Instinctively, Meiniang threw out her chest, as hope was rekindled in her heart, just as she detected the heavy aroma of lilacs. She looked around and spotted a pair of mature lilac trees, one on each side of the courtyard, in full bloom. She also spotted a row of swallow nests beneath the Third Hall eaves, busily attended by adult birds flying in and out, accompanied by the chirps of fledglings inside. Legend had it that swallows never built their nests in government yamens, choosing instead the homes of good and decent farmers. But there they were, flocks of them, all tending their nests, which could only be a wonderful omen, good fortune brought to them by His Eminence, with his immense talent and strong moral character, but, needless to say, not by his veiled wife. Meiniang’s gaze drifted over from her face to his, and their eyes met. To her it felt as if his eyes held the promise of adoration, and tender feelings welled up in her heart. Your Eminence, oh, Your Eminence, how could someone who is nearly an immortal take as his wife a woman who must cover her face so as not to be seen? Do pockmarks scar her face? Does she have scabby eyelids, a flat nose, a mouth full of blackened teeth? I grieve for you, Your Eminence . . . Meiniang’s thoughts were a wild jumble, but then she heard a tiny cough, and that sound from his wife dispelled the intensity in the Magistrate’s eyes. He turned and had a whispered conversation with her. A maidservant, her hair combed into tufts above her ears, walked up with a basket filled with dates and peanuts, which she tossed to the crowd by the fistful. Chaos erupted as the children fought over the scattered delicacies. Meiniang watched as the First Lady casually adjusted her skirts, revealing a pair of tiny, pointed golden lotuses. A gasp of admiration rose from the crowd behind her. The woman had exquisite feet, and Meiniang felt ashamed to show her face. Granted, Meiniang’s skirt covered her feet, but she could not help feeling that the woman knew that her feet were big and ugly. And there was more—she knew about Meiniang’s infatuation with her husband. Revealing her golden lotuses had been a conscious act, intended to humiliate her, to go on the offensive. Meiniang did not want to look, was unwilling to look at the woman’s bound feet, but she could not help herself. They had pointed, slightly upturned tips like water chestnuts. And what beautiful little shoes, green satin embroidered with red flowers. The First Lady’s feet were magical weapons that subdued Meiniang, the girl from the Sun family, as she felt a pair of mocking rays pass through the pink gauze and land unerringly on her face. No, not her face—they passed through the veil and her skirt to land on her big feet. Meiniang was sure she saw a haughty smile on the lips of the Magistrate’s wife, and she knew she had been beaten, roundly defeated. She had the face of a goddess, but the feet of a serving girl. Her thoughts in total disarray, she began backing up. Was that mocking laughter behind her? And then it dawned on her that she had set herself apart from the others, putting on a performance in front of the Magistrate and the First Lady. Her humiliation now complete, she backed up in earnest, feet moving all over the place, ultimately stepping on the hem of her skirt and ripping it just before she fell backward in the dirt.

  In the days to come, she recalled that when she fell to the ground, the Magistrate jumped to his feet on the other side of the table, with what she confidently believed was affection and concern in his eyes, the sort of look one expects only from someone near and dear. She also knew with the same degree of confidence that she saw the Magistrate’s wife angrily kick him in the calf with one of her tiny feet just as he was about to leap over the table and come to her aid. Momentarily dazed, the Magistrate slowly settled back down in his seat. Interestingly, despite his wife’s movements under the table, she remained poised and proper, as if nothing were amiss.

  Meiniang picked herself up off the ground, her sorry plight accentuated by the humiliating laughter behind her. She scooped up her skirt and, without pausing to hide the big feet that had been shamefully exposed to the Magistrate and his wife when she fell backward, pushed her way back into the crowd. She kept herself from crying only by biting down on her lip, although tears had begun spilling from her eyes. Finally, she was as far away from the front as she could get, only to hear giggles and praise for the wife’s tiny feet from the women she had just left behind. She knew instinctively that the woman was showing off those bound feet without giving the impression of doing so. How true the adage that “One beauty mark can negate a hundred moles”! Her perfectly bound feet more than compensated for a face that needed to be veiled. As she was leaving the site, Meiniang turned for one last look at His Eminence, and once more there was a bit of magic when their eyes met. His, it seemed, was a mournful look, as if to console or perhaps show his sympathy. With a sweep of the arm to cover her face with her sleeve, she ran out through the Third Hall gate into Dai Family Lane and wailed at the top of her lungs.

  Meiniang returned home utterly distraught, only to have Xiaojia cling to her in search of the sweets. She shoved him away and went into the house, where she flung herself down on the kang and wept piteously. Xiaojia, who had followed her inside, stood beside the kang and cried along with her. She rolled over, sat up, grabbed the whiskbroom, and began lashing her feet. Frightened out of his wits, he stayed her hand. Then, looking up into his ugly, stupid face, she said, “Xiaojia, get a knife and cut my feet down to size.”

  ————

  3

  ————

  The First Lady’s tiny feet were like a bucket of ice water that cleared Me
iniang’s head, for a few days at least. But after encountering the Magistrate three times, especially that one time when he had looked at her with infinite concern and emotion, the scenes of their encounters waged a staunch resistance against those tiny feet. In the end, their image grew increasingly murky, while the look of tenderness in the Magistrate’s eyes and his elegant features gained increasing clarity. Magistrate Qian filled the void in her mind. If she stared at a tree, it flickered and swayed until it was transformed into Magistrate Qian. If she spotted a dog’s tail, it shook and wagged until it was turned into Magistrate Qian’s thick queue. If she was stoking a fire in the stove, the flames danced and cavorted until Magistrate Qian’s smiling face appeared before her. She bumped into walls when she was out walking. She cut her fingers when she was chopping meat and felt no pain. She burned a whole pot of dog meat without noticing the smell. Whatever she laid eyes on became Magistrate Qian or some part of him. When she closed her eyes, she felt Magistrate Qian come and lie down beside her. She could feel his rough beard prickle her soft, dainty skin. She dreamed of Magistrate Qian touching that skin every night, and her nocturnal screams frequently sent her husband rolling off the bed. She developed a sickly pallor and lost weight at a perilous rate; but her eyes shone and were continuously moist. For some strange reason, she suffered from hoarseness, releasing the sort of guttural, husky laughter that is unique to women in whom passion burns hot. She knew she had a severe case of lovesickness, and was aware of how frightful an affliction it could be. The only way a lovesick woman can survive is to share a bed with the man over whom she obsesses. Absent that, her veins will dry up, she will be consumptive, and once she begins spitting up blood, she will wither away and die. Meiniang had reached the point where home could no longer contain her. Things that had once interested or pleased her, like earning money or admiring a flower garden, now seemed insipid and meaningless. Fine spirits lay flavorless on her tongue; lovely flowers turned ghostly white in her eyes. Carrying a bamboo basket that held a dog’s leg, she passed in front of the county yamen three times a day, hoping for an accidental meeting with the Magistrate, and if that was not to be, she would be content to spot the green woolen curtain of his palanquin. But Magistrate Qian was like a giant turtle hiding in deep water, leaving no trace of his existence. Her hoarse, wanton laughter as she passed by the yamen gate so enticed the gate guards that they rubbed their ears and scratched their cheeks in anxious delight. Oh, how she would have liked to shout deep into the compound, purging her heart of pent-up lustful thoughts, loud enough for Magistrate Qian to hear. But she could only mutter under her breath:

  “My dear . . . my darling . . . thoughts of you are killing me . . . be merciful . . . take pity on me . . . The County Magistrate is an immortal peach, the embodiment of manly might! I fall in love with an image that after three lifetimes still burns bright. I long to make it mine, but the best fruit is at an unreachable height, behind a leaf and out of sight. Your willing slave looks up to see your face, she thinks of you day and night. But her love you do not requite. I salivate hungrily as I shake the tree with all my might, and if the peach will not fall, the tree . . .”

  In her heart, that monologue, sizzling with passion, quickly evolved into a Maoqiang aria of infatuation, which, as she intoned it over and over, brought a glow to her face and a salacious twinkle to her eyes, leaving the impression of a moth performing a fervent dance around a flame. Her actions threw a grievous fright into the gate guards and yayi, through whose minds raced fantasies of ravishing the woman, although thoughts of the trouble that would bring down on them brought their lust under control. Flames of desire engulfed her; an ocean of passion threatened to submerge her. But that all ended when she spat up blood.

  The act of spitting up blood opened a seam in the confusion that gripped her mind. He is a dignified County Magistrate, a representative of the Royal Court. What are you? The daughter of an actor, the wife of a butcher, a woman with big feet. He lives on high, you exist in the dirt; he is a unicorn, you are a feral dog. This one-sided burning lovesickness is doomed to lead nowhere. You could exhaust yourself mind and body over him, and he would not so much as notice. But if somehow he did, he would react with a disdainful smirk, one devoid of feeling for you. You can torment yourself until there is no more breath in your body, and people will conclude that you got exactly what you deserved—no sympathy, and certainly no understanding. People will not merely laugh at you, they will hurl insults. They will mock you for thinking too highly of yourself and for your inability to think straight. They will fling abuse at you for your fanciful thoughts, for acting like a monkey trying to scoop the moon out of the lake, for drawing water with a bamboo basket, for being the warty toad that wants to feast on a swan. Wake up, Sun Meiniang, and know your place in the scheme of things. Put Magistrate Qian out of your mind. For all its beauty, you cannot take the moon to bed with you. For all his wondrous ways, he belongs to heaven. Forcing herself to purge all thoughts of Magistrate Qian, over whom she had now spat up blood, she dug her fingernails into her thighs, pricked her fingers with a needle, and thumped her head with her fists, but his spirit clung to her. It followed her like a shadow, unshakable by either wind or rain, impervious to knives and flames. Holding her head in her hands, she wept out of despair.

  “Defiler of my heart,” she cursed softly, “set me free . . . I beg you to let me go, for I have changed and will bother you no more. Is it your wish to see me dead?”

  In order to forget Magistrate Qian, she led her doltish husband to the marital bed. But Xiaojia was no Magistrate Qian, as ginseng is not Chinese rhubarb. He was not a cure for what ailed Meiniang. Sex with her husband only increased the urgency of her longing for Magistrate Qian; it was like spraying oil on a raging fire. When she went to the well, the skeletal reflection in the water nearly made her pass out; something brackish and saccharine sweet stopped up her throat. Heaven help me, is this how it ends? Is this how death will claim me, my quest unresolved? No, I mustn’t die; I need to keep going.

  In an attempt to revitalize herself, she took her basket, in which she had placed a dog’s leg and two strings of cash, through the town’s winding streets and alleys to Celestial Lane in the Nanguan District, where she banged on the door of Aunty Lü, the local sorceress. She placed the fragrant dog’s leg and greasy strings of cash on the altar to the Celestial Fox—Aunty Lü’s nostrils twitched at the smell of the meat; her dull eyes lit up at the sight of the money. She stilled her labored breathing by lighting a stemmed datura flower and greedily sucking in its smoke.

  “Good Sister,” she said at last, “you are terribly ill.”

  Sun Meiniang fell to her knees and sobbed.

  “Please, Aunty, save me . . .”

  “Tell me about it, my child.” As she breathed in more of the datura smoke, she took a long look at Sun Meiniang and pronounced, “You can fool your parents, but not your healer. Tell me about it.”

  “I cannot, it is too hard . . .”

  “You can fool the healer, but not the spirits . . .”

  “I have fallen in love with someone, Aunty . . . and that love is destroying me.”

  With a crafty laugh, Aunty Lü asked:

  “With a face like yours, Good Sister, can you not have anyone you desire?”

  “You do not know who he is, Aunty.”

  “Who could he be? The Spirit Master of the Nine Caves? Or perhaps the Arhat of the West.”

  “No, Aunty, he is neither of those. It is County Magistrate Qian.”

  Radiant light shot from Aunty Lü’s eyes. As she held her curiosity and deep interest in check, she asked Meiniang:

  “What is it you wish to do, Good Sister? Are you hoping that I will work some magic to help you achieve your aim?”

  “No, no . . .” Tears spilled from her eyes as she struggled to say: “Heaven and earth are separate realms, so that is not possible . . .”

  “Good Sister, you are a novice in the affairs of men and women. If you are willing
to pay your respects to the Celestial Fox, the man will take the bait even if he has a heart of stone.”

  “Aunty . . .” Meiniang buried her face in her hands; hot tears oozed from between her fingers. “Work your magic,” she sobbed, “to help me forget him . . .”

  “Why do you want to do that, Good Sister? Since he is the one you desire, why don’t we make something good happen? Can there be anything in the world more perfect than the love between a man and a woman? Clear your mind of those foolish thoughts, Good Sister!”

  “Could something good really . . . happen?”

  “If you are sincere.”

  “I am!”

  “Kneel.”

  ————

  4

  ————

  Following Aunty Lü’s instructions, Meiniang ran into a field carrying a spotless white silk scarf. After a lifetime of an unreasonable fear of snakes, on this day snakes were precisely what she was looking for. Aunty Lü had told her to kneel before an altar, close her eyes, and offer up a prayer to the Fox Spirit. Aunty Lü then intoned a chant that quickly brought the Fox Spirit into her body. At that moment, her voice turned shrill and tinny, like that of a little girl. The Fox Spirit commanded Meiniang to go into the field, where she was to find a pair of mating snakes and tie them together with the silk scarf. Once the coupling was over, the snakes would separate, leaving a spot of blood on the white silk. “Take this silk scarf,” the Fox Spirit said, “to the one you love and wave it in front of him. He will then be yours, since his soul will forever after reside in you. The only way to then keep him from wanting you is to kill him with a knife.”