The turmoil that is Seagem jerks and reels. It dashes east and west of the sun. It thrashes and shudders and hurls itself against the portal of the utmost Taoist heaven. A rather cranky-looking transcendent with a youthful face and old man’s eyebrows bustles out to meet her.
‘Now, now, my good woman,’ he says, ‘this really will not do, you know. Quiet yourself,’ Tapping one brocade-slippered foot, he waits while Seagem’s soul settles into a subdued quivering, taking on the semblance of her bodily form. Tell me,’ he asks in an officious tone, ‘what is so important that I must be roused from my duties – from my many duties – by the will of a – of that – of a bodhisattva?’
Seagem stammers out the story of her concern for her daughter. The Taoist official nods sagely. ‘I see,’ he says. ‘As a matter of fact I am familiar with the case, having been transferred – more or less promoted, actually – to a supervisory position over it by His Divine Majesty, the Jade Emperor. But I must say, for once that Buddhist – that is to say, the good Lady Guan-yin – was right. Before her birth your daughter chose a life of exile, and for –’ He begins to titter, then remembers that he must convey the dignity of the Celestial Administration to this mortal woman. ‘Well, shall we simply say she’s chosen it for a reason that some might regard as a bit peculiar?’
One thing Seagem’s upbringing has taught her well. Her long eyelashes tremble, her ripe mouth purses, a dainty sigh lifts the breasts that both her husbands have so admired. ‘And is there no one who can help me get some word to her?’ she asks in a musical, plaintive tone.
The official’s eyes grow wide. He chokes. No one watches. No one hears. Does he dare?
He does not. Except for this. ‘There is one chance,’ he whispers. ‘If – ‘ he pauses to swallow and to still the yang essence that rises within, all too eager to spill itself into the consuming yin of the creature before him – ‘if you go to the Western Motherqueen. She has ways of sending messages to the human realm, so – Perhaps.’
Now Seagem’s limpid eyes widen in genuine awe. The turbulence in her soul begins to swell again. Even during her dutiful life in the household of her father and the mansion of her father-in-law she heard of this mighty deity who dwells in the heights of the Kun-lun range: the Metal Mother, the Amah, the Western Motherqueen. But how is a poor mortal to persuade the tigerish goddess to send word? Seagem inquires soft-voiced, as a shivery, quivery, shimmy shakes her soul.
‘Don’t ask me,’ the official says, pulling his gaze at last away from her rounded hips and picking irritably at a loose thread on his purple robe. ‘You’re a woman. You should know.’
In the Palace of the Western Motherqueen
In the peaks of the Kun-lun mountains,
heaven looks like earth:
A soul flies west to the Amah
in Her palace by Malachite Pond.
It waits, a supplicant,
before the rose-gem gates.
And is received, no adept,
in an outer court.
Astride a milk-white tigress,
the Metal Mother comes.
Blue-black hair coiffed high,
attendant maidens play.
Canopied with feathers –
jade chimes ring the air;
Among immortal-peach trees –
pipes waft tremulous tunes.
It begs the Queen to free
a girl in the human realm.
Headdress strings of dawncloud
shake: the boon’s refused.
But She grants to the mortal seeker
secrets of the Way:
On silk made of moon hare’s fur,
a scroll with pine-black words.
PART TWO
New Year
in
Liang-jou
Here’s another city. Liang-jou. Step back and take a look.
Late Pleistocene: Glaciers grip the heart of the continent that someone someday will call Asia. Cold, dry winds blow outwards towards the Pacific, heavy with a fine calcareous dust that will give to the River Huang its tawny yellow colour, and hence a further boon, its name. Great sheets of soil are laid down, a hundred feet thick, or two, or more, covering tens upon tens of thousands of square miles where China is to be. A few scrawny bipeds scrabble out a living despite the fearsome storms. The soil cleaves vertically, forming fissures that will be a traveller’s bane, but it’s rather nice for carving out cool and dusky cavern homes. When the scrabblers have figured out agriculture, they will find the undulating landscape fertile. Some while later, other roaming bipeds will assign the stuff a name in their twisting Schweizer German: Loesch, ‘loose’. You will call it ‘loess’.
The Recent Holocene: That naming hasn’t happened yet. Right now the city governs the northwesternmost prefecture of a mighty empire, always keeping a nervous eye on the neighbouring barbarians and on the frontier lands farther to the north and west that slip in and out of China’s hands. At this particular moment, the twenty-fourth day of the last month of the thirteenth year of the golden reign of the Brilliant Emperor (may he live ten thousand years) – that’s ad 723 to you – the west is pacified by Tang troops, and Liang-jou is sitting easy. Looked at from the east, it seems exotic, though it has been safely tucked behind the Great Wall since perhaps 112 bc. From the west, it’s China sure enough.
Just at this moment, although the city takes a certain pride in its touch of foreignness – secure in the knowledge that it really is Chinese and not some mongrel colony town like, say, Dun-huang – the people are preparing feasts for the Kitchen God in the proper Chinese way. And within the entertainment district, in the Lutegarden House of a retired courtesan called Mama Chen, the servants have been sent home for a few hours with their families. Mama Chen and her girls are also gathered to celebrate the festival. It is rather early, but the house will be busy tonight, consoling men whose homes lie far away.
Outside, drumbeats fill the air, driving off the baneful spirits. From his niche above Mama Chen’s stove, the Kitchen God gazes sternly as she plies him with food and candy and prayers. He’s about to leave for heaven to make his annual report, and she wants to be certain that he’ll say nice things about her – no need to mention a slip or two in her reckoning of her customers’ accounts, no need to bring up the occasional curse or the beatings some of her more wilful girls bring on themselves. She’s decent to them once they fall in line with what’s expected, and she’s a busy woman, with a major establishment to keep up, no time to mollycoddle anyone. She knows that they’ll need an inner toughness if they are to survive their youth.
So Mama Chen places the soybeans and the vegetables before him. Her soft neck creases as she turns her head to urge the girls to join their prayers with her. The older ones, Bellring and Saffron and Glory, do just as they’re told. Little Pink chants out the loudest and most melodiously of all; she’ll make her debut over New Year, and she’s more than ready. Nephrite, one of the new apprentices, joins in, despite her thickish foreign accent. But the other new one, that Parrot, just stands there stupidly, off in one of her daydreams, until Nephrite reaches out to touch her arm.
In the months since Mama Chen chose the two as having the right combination of talent and looks and cheap price, she has wondered more than once if she made a mistake. Generally she has a good eye for hidden ability and gets her girls for considerably less than if she went for those already partly trained; the mistakes she can always sell off at a profit once they’ve learned enough to get through a decent performance of at least a song or two. Somehow, though, these two haven’t quite fitted in. She sighs. At least Nephrite tries, though Mama Chen is beginning to think she’ll never have the stage presence of a star performer. But Parrot! She could be good, quite good; that much is clear enough. Yet she’s always off somewhere with her head in the clouds.
The drums boom again, and Mama Chen’s eyes snap up to look at the paper image of the Kitchen God. She could swear she just heard him clear his throat in annoyance, as if to remin
d her of the proper focus for her thoughts. She reaches out to light another stick of incense and place it in the bowl of sand before the niche. Then it’s time for the Kitchen God to go, literally, up in flames. The paper bearing his image burns; the god ascends.
Upon his arrival at the heavenly court of the Jade Emperor, Mama Chen’s Kitchen God gathers with his peers to wait his turn to inform His Divine Majesty of the doings of the household. He holds his back erect while exchanging dignified nods with those around him.
Mama Chen has had a good year, yet her Kitchen God is feeling rather grumpy. He’s still ranked unconscionably low, stuck in that provincial town out in the sticks, so it’s quite a while before he can make his report. It’s little comfort that down in the human realm Mama Chen has scurried about all morning directing the cook and the kitchen maids and the girls as they cleaned for New Year, and put up poles before the gate, hanging banners from them to proclaim good fortune to come. What’s all that to him, after all?
Finally he is ushered into the Audience Hall. And then, one slight piles upon another: His Divine Majesty, for some reason, is less concerned with the excellent job the Kitchen God has done in increasing the prosperity of Mama Chen’s than with the conduct and circumstances of a little apprentice musician who has been there only since the autumn. Worse, some flunky from a minor department hovers nearby, practically breathing down the Kitchen God’s neck as he tries to give a smooth account of the household’s debits and credits through the year.
The young flunky actually has the audacity to interrupt. ‘About this Greenpearl, ah, that is, this Parrot. Has there been any sign… ? That is to say’ — his old man’s eyebrows twitch compulsively up into his young man’s forehead as he sneaks a nervous glance at the Jade Emperor – ‘have you noted any interference in her affairs on the part of Lady Guan-yin, or any other Buddhist, or even Buddhistically inclined, deity?’
The Jade Emperor himself leans forward, but the Kitchen God answers, as curtly as decorum will allow, that there has been none. He finishes his report, in no mood to hint at the suitability of a promotion in recognition of his more than capable performance, and hastens to make his final kowtows and go. But even that is not the worst. In the Starry Antechamber to the Jade Emperor’s Yang-Purple Palace, the same anxious flunky bustles up to him and clutches his arm. ‘A word, good sir?’ he asks, sotto voce.
What’s the Kitchen God to do? Flunky or not, this fellow is a member of the Celestial Administration. ‘Yes?’ he says.
The divine official draws him over to stand in the shadow of a cumulus pillar. ‘One more thing. One hesitates to ask it in the Divine Presence.’ His greyed eyebrows jump and he glances over one shoulder. ‘A question of tact, you know. About this matter of interference from, ah, other deities. You have affirmed that the Lady Guan-yin has not intervened?’
The Kitchen God looks at him coolly, refusing to acknowledge that this last has been put to him as a question. Is his word actually to be doubted by this bureaucrat?
‘Well, yes, of course you have. But, ah, one wonders if there might not have been some tampering in the case by anyone – or any One – else?’ The official pauses in what is meant to be a significant fashion, but the Kitchen God makes no reply. ‘More precisely, by, perhaps, the Western Motherqueen?’
The Kitchen God snorts, and shrugs, and flicks back to Mama Chen’s, just in time for a somewhat perfunctory offering of steamed kohlrabi. Today the whole cosmos is in a tizzy, and the humans pay less attention than, in his opinion, they should to kitchen gods. The souls down in the Yellow Springs move restlessly. The yang principle begins to grow towards fullness (a matter, granted, that is not viewed in the same way by all the gods and goddesses). And on earth, monasteries sponsor public lectures for the more pious folk, chickens and goats are sacrificed, bonfires are laid in the courtyards to be ignited when night falls, and people gather with their relatives to celebrate the renewal of the year.
There is an undertone of gloom at the Lutegarden House on this family holiday, not at all what the Kitchen God needs to cheer him up. Bellring, as eldest ‘daughter’ of the household, has served the dried-peach soup, and now she pours out cups of pepper wine from a silver ewer in the Persian style. But even she feels a pang when she thinks of her own parents, with whom she feasted long ago, before their need for money sent her off to be adopted by Mama Chen. ‘Have some more wine,’ Bellring says to Saffron, a thin-faced flautist with Indian features who is next to Bellring in age and her closest friend.
‘Oooo. I’ll have another cup!’ says Little Pink. ‘Pepper wine’s good for you. Keeps a person’s body light and active.’ Her cheeks have already turned from pink to brilliant red, and it is still barely afternoon. They are celebrating early at Mama Chen’s, since they will have to keep their minds on business tonight.
‘You’ll get your turn,’ snaps Mama Chen. The girl has been the pet of the household for too long and is rather spoiled. ‘You know the wine’s served to the youngest first at New Year.’ She nods towards Bellring. ‘Number One, when you’ve finished pouring this round, rest a bit and then you may each have one more cup. Parrot first. After that, it’s time for naps and makeup. It’s going to be a busy night.’ The military governor himself has summoned the four older girls to entertain at his banquet; this means a fat purse and a lot of prestige for Lutegarden House. Mama Chen rubs her thumb over one of the raised figures of Soghdian musicians that decorate her silver cup.
Little Pink scowls openly at Parrot, then begins to hum ‘Barbarian Enchantress’, the song she will open with tonight. Perhaps, thinks Mama Chen, this private celebration was a sentimental mistake. But she too was once the ‘daughter’ of a house like this one, in Chang-an, until a young officer brought her to Liang-jou with him and then left her here to make her own way in this hick town. She’s been remarkably successful and much prefers her independence to the life she’d have had if she’d wound up as someone’s ageing household entertainer, or a petty merchant’s wife. Still, at times like this she feels a bit lonely herself. Never mind – she drains the cup that Bellring has filled brimful for her – business is good, and watching Little Pink she thinks of the splash that she herself made among the gallants of the capital in her springtime years.
Which reminds her. ‘Little Pink!’ she says, and the girl looks over, though she continues her sulky humming. ‘Don’t forget to keep yourself a bit aloof from the men this evening, do you hear? I don’t want you to throw yourself at the first good-looking junior officer you meet.’
‘I know, I know,’ says Little Pink. ‘ “A person’s got plenty of time to find a patron. A person’s held to be more desirable if she maintains her modesty. The girls of Lutegarden House are skilled performers, and any gentlemen who want to be their intimate friends will have to earn the privilege with a long”’ –she hiccups, and her pouty mouth slides into a grin – ‘ “a long and profitable courtship.”’
Glory laughs her throaty laugh. Honestly, thinks Mama Chen, and not for the first time, that one’s nothing but a voice and a pair of fluttering eyelashes; she never once stops to think of the effect of her actions. Mama Chen prefers Little Pink’s liveliness to Glory’s simpers, but that doesn’t stop her from turning a stream of scolding onto either of them. ‘You’ll never hold a man if you laugh at every foolish thing that rings inside your empty head, I’ll tell you that much. And then where will you end your days? In some filthy public wineshop, selling smiles to every customer who’ll have you, that’s where.’
Glory’s lashes dampen in the way that several minor officials have already found enchanting. Little Pink sulks in silence. Saffron throws a knowing look at Bellring, while Nephrite stares uncomfortably into her untouched cup. Parrot continues to gaze, oblivious, into the embers of the stove, where the pepper wine has been left to warm.
The tomfoolery of the humans and this attention to the hearth lighten the Kitchen God’s mood just a bit. But at the same time it irks him that the only one to pay the sto
ve fire any mind is that new apprentice they were so worked up about in the Jade Emperor’s court. What’s more, if he takes a special interest in any member of the household, it’s in Little Pink, who’s fond of incense and lights a stick each morning before his niche. And now this new one’s upsetting her on an important day. A bit of unburned wood within the charcoal of the fire pops and flares.
Just then the gateboy of a neighbouring house sets off a string of firecrackers in the courtyard just across the Lutegarden wall. Mama Chen laughs to break the gloomy mood – so unsuitable for a holiday, these girls have no sense of how to behave, no sense at all – and the others look relieved. Except for Parrot. Off somewhere in her dreamland, she sees the flash of light in the stove, hears the hollow bamboo of the firecracker split and shatter as the gunpowder inside it ignites, and she jumps up with a shriek.
‘Ba-ba-ba-ba-baaaah!’ she cries. Nephrite reaches out a cool white hand to touch the younger girl’s arm. Little Pink seizes the moment, scoops up Nephrite’s cup, and drinks it down. No one notices. Then she giggles. ‘An evil spirit!’ she says. ‘Parrot’s afraid of the New Year firecrackers – she must be one of the demons Neighbour Tian is trying to scare away!’
Glory’s eyes grow large, and she edges closer to Saffron, away from where Parrot sits. ‘Nonsense,’ says Mama Chen, though everyone knows that evil spirits in disguise reveal themselves by their fear when the firecrackers explode. Nephrite offers a soothing sip of wine to Parrot, only to discover that her cup has mysteriously emptied itself. The Kitchen God feels pleased.
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