The master actor was now sitting backstage applying his makeup. His face was painted dark green and then dusted with golden powder; his lips were then painted crimson and again dusted with gold. Afterward, when he put on the queer large, red robe, he at once had a ghastly look. If he bared his tusks, Liang Xiangqian imagined, surely he would more resemble the green-faced and long-toothed King of Hell with a bloody mouth. It was a pity that he would not show his long teeth now, and no one knew where he hid them.
After an eerie sound from beating drums and striking gongs, the King of Hell, led by four ghosts and the judge, appeared on the stage. The King of Hell struck his pose and then let forth a roar that could shake heaven and earth. “A tall Taoist cap I wear on my head, the saw-toothed tusks lining both sides of my mouth, the drum made of human skin beaten on the side—I’ll preside at the trial and administer justice.”
Sitting in his ghostly palace, having interrogated a bunch of criminals and the ghosts of those who’d been wronged, the King of Hell roared, “The grievances heard make me boil with rage; I grind my teeth in fury.”
His two tusks, which had stood upward like two sharp swords, now bent and twined around his neck like two snakes and then drew back to his mouth, making a clicking noise all the while. Meanwhile Liang Xiangqian, as Ma Hong, knelt in the Hall of Darkness during the trial by the King of Hell. Now and then he raised his head, admiring the superb stunt. But it was hard for him to discover the secret of the trick from his kneeling position at a distance from the King of Hell, who was sitting high on the platform.
Wang Shiyun, however, was much luckier. Playing a ghost, with pitch-black face paint and a red beard, he followed the King of Hell wherever he went as the cases were tried. He supported the king’s right arm and left leg with his hands and then rested his head against the king’s back. Now and then the king would turn around toward the ghost to drop a hint, and the two tusks seemed to be entwining and swaying just in front of Wang Shiyun’s eyes. Liang Xiangqian was so envious of Wang Shiyun that he, with his eye sockets painted white, could only stare, dumbstruck.
All of a sudden the King of Hell shouted, “Bai Shigang is to be hung up in the eastern porch, and Ma Hong is to be detained in the western porch!” Before Liang Xiangqian knew what had happened, he was taken away by two devils to the backstage.
The detention of the criminals was no trivial matter. Word of the trial by the King of Hell came to Bao Wenzheng, a just and upright magistrate. Bao Wenzheng held a court session in the chief minister’s official residence to uphold justice.
Backstage, Hei Lao was telling Liang Xiangqian the story and instructing him on how to act. “The King of Hell has the scholar Zhang Chengyu, who was beaten to death, brought back to life. And the soul of Du Xiuying, who was wronged and driven to death, finds reincarnation in Ma Qunying’s corpse,” he said. “Thus, Ma Qunying becomes Du Xiuying and marries her cousin Zhang Chengyu in the magistrate’s court. Afterward, Bao Wenzheng punishes the evildoers: Bai Shigang, the looter and murderer, is to be cut in two at the waist, and Ma Hong, the perjurer, is to be put under the bronze hay cutter and beheaded.”
On hearing this, little Xiangqian burst out crying with fear, begging tearfully to his master, “I quit. I won’t act anymore!” It wasn’t the cutting a living person in half at the waist, taking out a person’s intestines and stomach, or cutting a person’s head off with a bronze hay cutter—these were all interesting theatrical scenes that the boy desired to watch with his own eyes. But he had never imagined that the person to be beheaded was none other than Ma Hong, whose role he was playing!
Backstage lay an iron hay cutter borrowed from a villager. Village productions used no stage props, so usually real items were borrowed from local villagers instead. The iron hay cutter could slice a bale of millet straw or cornstalk to short pieces with a stroke; impetuous and careless young men often lost their fingers or even an arm while chopping hay. And now a living person’s head would be put under the shining blade of the cutter. Who wouldn’t be frightened out of his wits!
Not only was the blade of the cutter gleaming with death, but to heighten the dramatic effect, Master Hei Lao had requested a pad of yellow paper with each sheet folded diagonally; he’d ordered these leaves pasted on both the blade and block of the cutter. Perhaps this was intended as an offering to the gods for protecting the actors from accidental injury. But the more devoutly they prayed to the gods for blessings, the more dangerous this trick appeared to be. Since the cutter was pasted with sheets of yellow paper all over, when the handle of the cutter was raised, all the sheets swayed together in the breeze, making a continuous rustling noise that added to the dramatic atmosphere of dread. It was no wonder that young Liang Xiangqian begged tearfully not to play Ma Hong anymore!
After three beats of the drum, the bronze cutter is laid.
I’ll be rock firm in executing the law.
Whoever breaks the law must be beheaded,
No matter whether they’re sons of princes and nobles.
After the dark-complexioned Lord Bao, with a half-moon painted on his forehead, sung out the order in a hoarse voice, the red-faced Wang Chao and black-faced Ma Han obeyed the order to bring up the criminals before the court. Just at that critical moment, however, Liang Xiangqian was behind the curtain refusing to appear onstage, although Master Hei Lao, now worried to death, tried everything he could think of to persuade him. Instead, Xiangqian began weeping more violently, shedding streams of tears and phlegm. The boy was so frightened that he threw himself to the ground, paralyzed, just like the play’s condemned criminal who was to be executed.
At this point, filled with both worry and irritation, Master Hei Lao gave Liang Xiangqian—still in white beard and face paint—a violent slap in the face. As if his anger hadn’t fully vented itself in the slap, Hei Lao cursed roundly, “I thought you were a piece of real gold, master-actor material; never did I imagine you were less than a piece of worn sackcloth, a sheer good-for-nothing. Just tell me, how am I supposed to deal with such an embarrassing situation?” Hei Lao lifted his hand to deliver another violent slap to Liang Xiangqian, who was choking with sobs.
Suddenly, someone grabbed his arm. Hei Lao turned and saw Wang Shiyun. Shiyun had just played a silent county runner, and then a silent ghost. Having finished his walk-on roles, he had nothing more to do for the moment; he’d been waiting quietly for the scene where the criminals would be executed. When he saw his master Hei Lao being worried to death and burning with wrath, he approached Hei Lao on tiptoe, gingerly, as if he had a rabbit tucked into his bosom. Nervously and timidly he said, “Master, if there is no other way out, let me act instead. Xiangqian is scared, but I’m not.”
Hei Lao was taken aback at first and was about to lose his temper, but not for an instant did his arm stop in the air. As if meeting with a savior, Hei Lao embraced Wang Shiyun’s shoulder with his arm and cried out excitedly in the shrill voice of the young girl he was playing: “Aha, it’s settled! The role suits you best now—there are no lines for you in the next part! Quick, change your makeup and costume. The role now suits you!”
With that, Hei Lao grabbed a white brush and painted the ridge of Shiyun’s nose and his eye sockets white, and then he tore the white beard off Liang Xiangqian’s mouth and put it on Shiyun’s. “The retainer’s red trousers are OK for the condemned prisoner. Bring a red felt cap—a red felt cap, please!” shouted Hei Lao as he took hold of a red felt cap from the old property man’s hand and put it on Shiyun’s head. “Go on!” he said excitedly.
The two actors playing Wang Chao and Ma Han gave a roar from behind the back curtain and carried the new Ma Hong around the stage. Afterward, they put the condemned prisoner’s head under the shining blade of the hay cutter on which the sheets of yellow paper were rustling in the wind.
Because of the beating and scolding by Hei Lao, as well as his own shame and fear, Liang Xiangqian sat on the costume trunk, sobbing and wiping his tears. More than that, he was inwardly d
isturbed: because his cowardice had led him to quit at a critical moment, Wang Shiyun had to be taken away to the court to be beheaded. It was improper to turn a dangerous and terrifying job that one was unwilling to do over to one’s senior. Moreover, the hay cutter was a real one that could truly chop a person in half. Would he have an easy conscience if Wang Shiyun’s head were accidentally cut off like a watermelon?
Liang Xiangqian forgot his own shame and began to worry about his friend. He jumped down from the trunk, tiptoed to the back curtain, and peeked underneath to see what would happen.
Bai Shigang, the murderer, was about to be executed. Bai Shigang was stripped to the waist and bound to a pillar. The red-bearded executioner stabbed a broadsword into Bai Shigang’s belly, and the criminal spurted a mouthful of red water, spattering both of them. When the broadsword was drawn out, the executioner pulled a length of intestine from Bai Shigang’s waistband, gnawed on it, and then went on to pull out the intestine, hand over hand, twining the bloody and swollen entrails around his own neck until they accumulated thickly.
Women and girls in the audience screamed with fright, and some children were so scared that they hid themselves in their mothers’ arms. However, Liang Xiangqian knew it was all fiction. What the executioner pulled out was not human intestines, but a pig’s small intestines left over from a slaughter the previous day. The pig’s intestines had been washed clean, left out to dry, and then hidden in Bai Shigang’s waistband. They were stretched and inflated as they were pulled out of the actor’s costume. Knowing all the secrets, Liang Xiangqian didn’t feel a bit surprised; he even laughed secretly at those in the audience who were so foolish as to be frightened, screaming and yelling. Little wonder people often said, “Actors are madmen while audiences are fools.”
The boy was pondering the serious question of “madmen” and “fools” when he heard Bao Wenzheng roar, “Cut!” Liang Xiangqian was startled by Lord Bao’s roar. His attention snapped to the gleaming white blade cutting into the neck of Wang Shiyun, who was costumed in the red felt cap and white beard. In an instant, with an earsplitting crash, the blade descended, and now blood was spurting in all directions—and Wang Shiyun’s head separated from his neck! Wang Shiyun’s head was rolling like a watermelon on the other side of the cutter; simultaneously, with a crash and a shudder, the red felt cap became a blood-red pot, and the long white beard became a cloud of smoke. When Liang Xiangqian saw with his own eyes his friend’s head cut off with the hay cutter, just like those careless young men who lost fingers and arms to the blade, he could not help crying out “Aaah!” He threw himself onto the blue brick floor behind the curtain and fainted.
The performance came to an end and the curtain fell, but the unexpected accident backstage threw the actors into utter confusion. Still in his makeup and costume, Wang Shiyun dashed over to Xiangqian, holding the junior student in his arms and calling repeatedly, “Xiangqian, what’s wrong? Xiangqian, what’s wrong?” After a long while, it seemed that Xiangqian’s soul returned faintly and slowly, and gradually a trace of breath appeared from his nose.
But as soon as his eyes half-opened and he saw the head with the red felt cap and white beard, the boy cried out hysterically, “Ghost, ghost, bring a piece of red cloth to cover my eyes!” He struggled to run away, but Shiyun only held him more tightly. To the small face as pale as death and two eyes staring vacantly, the older boy said, “Xiangqian, it’s me. It’s me!”
Liang Xiangqian fixed his eyes on the red felt cap, intending to raise his hand, but instead he blurted out, “Ah, blood! Bring a piece of red cloth to cover my face!” Suddenly Xiangqian’s pants grew wet and hot. Wang Shiyun looked down and saw that the junior student had been so terribly frightened that he had pissed in his pants without realizing. The older student couldn’t help feeling sorry for Xiangqian; slowly he explained, “It was playacting. It was fake, not real!”
“It was playacting, not real?” Xiangqian asked, staring blankly.
“If you don’t believe me, have a feel of my head.” Wang Shiyun held Xiangqian’s hand and pulled it up to the red felt cap he was wearing. Liang Xiangqian felt the red cap with a trembling hand. After a long while, he said with a quivering voice, “But I saw your head rolling on the other side of the cutter . . .”
“No, it was our master Hei Lao’s head,” Wang Shiyun explained. “When the blade came down, Wang Chao and Ma Han dragged my body aside and my head, together with my body, fell to this side of the cutter, while on the other side, a head popped up from under the table. That head was also wearing a red cap and a white beard, with eye sockets painted white, shaking like a rattle-drum—just like a human head being cut off! When the head stopped rolling, I saw that it was Master Hei Lao, acting under the table.”
“Was it really fake?” Liang Xiangqian was still not quite convinced. Having acted the whole night, he was utterly confused about truth and fiction. A good person had turned villain, a living person had been put to death, and a dead person had come back to life. The fake had become real, and the real had changed into the fake. A fool had become a wise man, and then a wise man turned into a fool. A nobleman had become a humble one, and the most valued one had suddenly turned worthless. Once it had been ideal to play this role; later it was better to play that one. What was playacting, and what was reality?
The cloud of dense fog and the terrifying vision of beheading still swayed before the eyes of Liang Xiangqian, who had pissed in his pants. Later, when his pants had been dry for many years, he was still lost in that cloud of fog, often unable to tell whether what was happening around him was mere play on the stage or the true essence of the human world.
Translated by Yang Narang
Zhao Xi
Zhao Xi, born in 1940, studied biology at Shaanxi Normal University. He worked in the biology department there and then went on to work for the Shaanxi Provincial Planning Committee; the writing team and political work team of Shaanxi Revolutionary Committee; Shaanxi Provincial Committee, Communist Youth League; Shaanxi Literary Federation; and Shaanxi Provincial Writers Association.
Zhao Xi served as deputy director of Shaanxi Provincial Committee Office of Communist Youth League; deputy editor in chief of Shaanxi Youth; a party member of Shaanxi Literary Federation; editor in chief of Oriental magazine; and party secretary and vice-chairman of the Shaanxi Provincial Writers Association.
His main works include the collections of novellas and short stories Soul of the Great Wall, White Grape Legend, and Moon on the Eighteenth Day of a Lunar Month. He has published five novels: Love and Dream, My Daughter River, Green Blood, Wolf Dam, and Playing the Mast. My Daughter River won the Shaanxi Double-Five Award for Literature. In 1992, a reading of the novel was held in Beijing and broadcast on China National Radio. The book details the life struggles of a group of young people living in the mountains during the reform era.
10
ZHAO XI
The Soul of the Great Wall
1
July is the springtime of the frontier north of the Great Wall. Hoping to draw a picture of the Great Wall that could reflect the spirit of China, I came to the border town at this time each year.
The desert, grassland, sand hills, and red lao’an flowers under the glow of a splendid sunset had the beauty of a soft, golden garment. I sat on the ruins of a beacon tower, drinking in the miracle of the scenery of the frontier. In this area, the ancient Great Wall was half-buried. Only a curved line of ridge remained, winding far into the distance. Still, this weather-beaten relic maintained an imposing grandeur as it stretched across the vast wilderness and off to the horizon.
There was a profound stillness. Not a sound could be heard. A soft wind carried the scent of sage from the grass pools. A small wheat-colored bird shook its wings and chirped now and again. Like the ancient Great Wall, everything in the desert, from the grove of snow-white oleaster to the verdant grass and wildflowers, appeared solemn and serene.
I was touched as I looked at this magnificent
scroll of scenery. I thought of the history of some two thousand years ago: a history of the scourge of violent times, the cruel labor of building the Great Wall, and the story of Meng Jiangnü, the legendary figure of the Qin Dynasty—when her husband died while building the Great Wall, her tears moved heaven and earth and caused the Wall to collapse. I thought of the folk song:
The sky is gray, gray,
And the steppe wide, wide.
Over the grass that the wind has battered low
Sheep and oxen roam.
The history was past, but this backbone of the nation remained there, traversing the land. I couldn’t go on painting. I sank into contemplation. Half the face of the russet setting sun lingered at the vanishing point of the desert, and flaming clouds drifted above the horizon.
What was it that suddenly broke the twilight serenity? An ethereal sound came from the foot of the Wall. Jingle, jingle, jingle . . . It was silvery and delightful. And then it was no more. It disappeared like the song of a brook or a bamboo flute played by a frontier guard centuries ago.
Following the direction of the sound, I saw a herd of donkeys grazing leisurely on the green fringe of grass at the foot of the Wall. They looked like a swarm of black ants trooping through the field. And then: jingle, jingle. The sound of the small bells rang clearer and louder.
I was stirred and my heart leapt. It was as though the Great Wall had come alive and moved and smiled. Was it whispering?
The frisky, rambling donkeys on the verge of the Wall drew my interest. I longed to draw a picture. It could be called Grazing at Dusk under the Great Wall. And so I took out my palette and began to paint.
Old Land, New Tales: Twenty Short Stories by Writers of the Shaanxi Region in China Page 24
