The Last Mandarin

by Stephen Becker

  “It’s real,” he said. “It’s real, but you can’t see or hear or even imagine the most real part of it. It’s like the speed of light. A constant. We hold the universe together. Everything that ever happened made this miracle, this ultimate blessing.”

  “Someday,” she suggested, “we may even be friends.”

  “Friends!” Burnham was aghast but recovered. “All right. Later.” He kissed her, then again and again. “You cast a spell. You stole two hairs from my head, boiled them up in a pot and muttered incantations in ancient Chinese.”

  “And turned you into a pig.”

  “My truffle.”

  “Rooting and snuffling.”

  “Indeed,” he said, “an interesting suggestion.”

  “Just lie still,” she said sternly.

  They lay warm and silent, and the lord of all under heaven smiled.

  In the morning they gathered again in the kitchen, Burnham and Hao-lan exhausted and somewhat sheepish, the others amused and polite, until finally Burnham gave way to wholehearted laughter and they all rollicked for some moments. The wedding breakfast, was cabbage soup and steamed dough, but Dr. Shen had stolen out to purchase a cruet of wine, and they raised a toast, Feng going so far as to demand many children of them. After breakfast Burnham remembered to pay for the wine, and pressed more money on Shen and Teng for the hospital and the children—American money and no one in America would miss it. Shen and Teng passed it back and forth, riffling the bills and blinking in embarrassed gratitude, a gratitude that might have broken Burnham’s heart if his heart had not been so full, so whole, thumping and walloping like a bass drum, that he almost forgot about Kanamori. Burnham was in his American togs again, knife, pistol and smoker’s requisites all tucked away in his duffel bag. Hao-lan too had packed what life had left her, all in one suitcase; her little black medical bag sat forlorn on a shelf, supplies being short here.

  Feng restored his sanity: “And the Japanese?”

  They all stood silent for a time, each looking into another’s face. Then Shen said, “I believe he is harmless. Perhaps he should be Mother for the rest of his life. Perhaps he is Mother.”

  Burnham pondered. “He means nothing to me now.”

  “Well, then.” And Shen showed palm.

  “I am a bit uneasy,” Burnham said. “I suppose it is an archaic sense of duty. Feng, can you forgive Kanamori?”

  “My tenth Japanese,” Feng said sadly. “If the gentleman can forgive him, how can I not?”

  “He broke my nose, not yours,” Burnham said with a small smile. “And yet I remain uneasy. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, who did what Kanamori did, and who were not sentenced to be hanged, and not even tried. So on the one hand he is no more guilty than those thousands, but on the other hand, why was he tried? Why was I sent here?”

  “To find the lady,” Feng said primly.

  “For that I was sent by the gods,” Burnham said. “But why would the gods work through the American military?”

  Hao-lan laid a hand on his cheek, but did not speak. She had made her decision; this was his.

  “Well, go fetch this monster,” Burnham said. “Small heart: a night’s rest may have changed him.”

  “I will go with you,” Shen told Feng, “and examine him.”

  The others waited, gossiping of the war and the future. After some minutes Feng and Shen reappeared, flanking Kanamori. As if denying the previous night, Kanamori was once again Mother: the gown, the surgical mask. He stood quietly, his eyes on Burnham; at least he was sane and calm this morning, and knew in whose hands his fate lay.

  Burnham asked in Japanese, “You are Kanamori Shoichi?”

  After a long moment Kanamori shook his head.

  Burnham asked, “You are Mother?”

  Kanamori nodded.

  Burnham sighed. “You ask much of me.”

  Kanamori whispered in Chinese, “No. You ask it of yourself.”

  “Yes. That is true. And what do you ask?” Burnham tried to remember the agony of Nanking. It seemed remote, an ancient massacre, a primitive rite.

  Now Kanamori sighed. “In three years I have not spoken. In three years I have not wept.” He hunched and bowed his head. “In three years I have not thought. Each day I live my punishment; each night I dream my punishment. Do with me what you will.” Then he giggled, and they were shocked. He blinked rapidly and moaned.

  “What will you do here?”

  “Bury babies.”

  “Who is the last mandarin?”

  Kanamori raised his head; his frail chest heaved. “A dead one,” he croaked, “in the Cemetery of the Hereditary Wardens of the Thirteen Gates.”

  Another victim. Burnham was weary of old mysteries, vendettas, riddles. Kanamori had killed a man. Now he punished himself by trundling dead babies to the cemetery where that man lay. It made sense. As his calling himself Mother made sense, as his becoming Chinese made sense. As taking him to Tokyo and seeing him hanged would make no sense.

  “Kanamori Shoichi,” Burnham said, “go in peace.”

  Kanamori did not move for some seconds, and then stepped forward to Hao-lan, and knelt and touched his forehead to the floor.

  Hao-lan said, “Go in peace, Mother.”

  Well, it was no crazier than any of the rest of this, Burnham decided: Mother joined the party, and ate soup and even drank a cup of wine, and shortly Burnham had begun to think of him—her—as Mother again. When the moment came there were tears and laughter, and soon there was a small assembly in the courtyard, Nurse An and Mother openly weeping as if this were the wedding, and Shen and Teng entertained and exhilarated but also much moved. Burnham said, “Here we are in China, and there is not even a grain of rice to throw.”

  Feng fetched his pedicab and stowed the bags, and Hao-lan embraced the others, including Mother. When Burnham had shaken hands with Shen and Teng and kissed a dizzied Nurse An, he stood before Kanamori, looked him in the eye, and then, obeying what anarchistic impulse he never knew for sure, stuck out his right hand.

  Kanamori’s rose to meet it, slowly and stiffly, and Burnham clasped the slender, papery Japanese hand.

  “The war is over,” Feng said softly, and for a moment they all believed it.

  Then Burnham and Hao-lan boarded the pedicab, and Feng cried out, “All aboard for the airport!” and the others cheered and shouted “Hao! Hao! Good Luck! Long Life!” and Shen and Teng opened the gate with grand gestures, and Feng drove out yelling “Make way! Make way!”

  The crowded street seemed indifferent to this triumph of the higher passions. Carts and rickshas creaked and maneuvered. A tinker cried his wares and repairs, dodging traffic and beating vigorously on a shiny frying pan with a small mallet, and the shimmering song of his trade clanged above the alley’s busy bawling. Feng was compelled to dawdle, cursing cheerfully. Children scampered and shouted. To crown the confusion, an automobile growled slowly behind the pedicab.

  Burnham was barely aware of all this; he had turned to his love, and she to him, and they murmured. Feng slowed and halted. Annoyed but indulgent, Burnham saw a skinny cop with a pinched, angry face waving Feng to the wall, and heard the car rev up to pass. At the same time he saw a gang of coolies surge out of the crowd. The car gunned into the pedicab; Burnham went flying, bellowing and clutching for Hao-lan, and Feng was pitched into the wall, and then the pedicab tilted and crashed down on Burnham and Hao-lan screamed once. Burnham lay there pinned and yelling with a face full of spokes, and heaved and strained in fear, not for himself but because he saw the policeman grasp Hao-lan around the middle and toss her into the car, and his heart burned away, his heart and blood and bones, and all he could do was heave at the wreck and shout “Hao-lan! Hao-lan!” as the black car picked up speed and wove through the crowd. The coolies vanished like magic, and the car found the mouth of the alley and vanished also.

  And among the ashes of his heart and blood and bones Burnham saw again a round pockmarked little fellow in a dunce cap t
rimmed with squirrels’ paws, and he remembered that the man had said not “You will die in China” but “You will lose your life in China.”

  III

  The Last Mandarin

  27

  Burnham bulled his way free and blundered to the mouth of the alley, gulping for air. He saw nothing and his heart stopped. No cop, no coolies, no car—only the avenue, vendors, shoppers, kiddies, an early juggler drawing a small crowd as if the heavens had not just fallen. The pain was immense, crushing, the stab of loss like a branding iron. Sucking at the breeze and howling inaudibly, he ran back to the hospital and burst into the admissions office. “They took her!” he choked. “They took her in a car!” He waved blindly. “Yen,” he said, and grabbed the telephone. Miraculously an operator acknowledged him. Kanamori made snarling hoarse sounds. Burnham gave Yen’s number and stood heaving. A voice. “Inspector Yen. Emergency. Yen Chieh-kuo.” Inspector Yen was not on the premises. Burnham left a message. Kanamori was mouthing gutturals in his other ear. Burnham rang off and said, “Shut up.”

  “It was me they wanted,” Kanamori croaked.

  Insanity. Burnham’s shattered world shattered again. “You? Who wanted you?”

  “Wang.”

  “Wang? Wang who? What Wang?”

  “Wang Hsi-lin.”

  “Who the hell is Wang Hsi-lin? Fifty million Wangs out there and you tell me Wang!”

  Kanamori struggled visibly to gather his wits. Burnham took him by the throat, which was no help: “Say it, you murderous spawn of a syphilitic turtle! Who is Wang Hsi-lin and why does he want you?”

  Kanamori wheezed and struggled. Burnham plucked him off the floor and shook him until he flopped like a hooked fish. “I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you. I’ll—”

  Dr. Shen said “No, no,” grasped both Burnham’s middle fingers and bent them back sharply. Burnham roared “Yow!” and let go.

  Kanamori gasped and rattled. “The last mandarin,” he wheezed.

  “Yes. I am all right now and will not kill you, so listen, Kanamori, or whoever you are. Someone has taken Nien Hao-lan. Do you understand? You will tell me who and you will tell me why.” Burnham was aware that his pitch was rising again, but he could not seem to control his own sounds or meanings. He stood there huffing like a blown horse.

  “Oh yes,” Kanamori said. “It is Wang. I stole his hoard.”

  “His what? He took Hao-lan for gold?”

  “It was me they wanted.”

  “Oh Christ, of course.” Burnham groaned. “I found you for them! Anybody leaving Peking with the American!”

  “You found me for them.” Kanamori nodded as this profound truth sank in.

  “Oh, yes.” And I forgot all the simplest rules. Business before pleasure. Trust nobody. Cover your flanks. “Sung Yun,” he said. “Do you know the name? Sung Yun.”

  “Oh yes. Sung Yun.”

  “Take off that mask. Let me see your face.”

  Kanamori removed the mask. His lips twitched. “Sung Yun. I know the name. Oh yes.”

  “Speak up.”

  “I cannot remember.”

  “Then this hoard. Where is the hoard?”

  “At the cemetery,” Kanamori said.

  “They cannot want Hao-lan,” Burnham said rapidly. “They will discover their mistake and send her back. They cannot know that I have found you.”

  Shen said, “Perhaps they will ask her.”

  The gates of hell swung open. They would not ask politely. Somehow Burnham spoke calmly. “Kanamori, I will give you to them if I must. I will sell you to them for her.”

  “Oh yes. I must be punished.”

  “Is there still wine?” Burnham asked. “I want wine. And Feng. Where is Feng?”

  “There is wine but no Feng,” Shen said.

  “Then find him.”

  “I set a price on his head,” Kanamori said brightly.

  “Feng?”

  “Sung Yun. A troublemaker and a famous enemy of Japan.”

  Weepy Nurse An brought wine; Burnham drank from the cruet. The cemetery. Yes. Hao-lan would remember. He lunged for the telephone. He waited like a man praying. He gave Sung Yun’s number.

  Sung Yun answered, and Burnham offered fervent thanks. “Good morning. This is Burnham, the American.”

  “My dear Mr. Burnham! An exquisite pleasure so early in the day. Good news, I hope?”

  “The worst possible, Master Sung. Someone has stolen my good friend and woman.”

  A pause; he pictured Sung Yun, a baffled lion, taken aback by the mad foreigner.

  “But that is impossible! Your good friend and woman? A tragedy! I confess that I was unaware of her existence. But surely some error …” Sung Yun’s voice trailed off.

  “Error indeed,” Burnham said. “She was taken for Kanamori.”

  The lion roared. “Taken for Kanamori?”

  “Yes, and in the name of all the gods you must help me.”

  “Yes, yes! Only tell me how!”

  “I cannot say how. Only pass the story everywhere, and find her for me, and bring her safe and well to the Beggars’ Hospital. Her name is Nien Hao-lan. Go to anyone who cared about Kanamori and tell the story.”

  “In the name of all the gods I will.”

  “And hurry.”

  “I shall hurry. You are there now?”

  “I am. She is my life, Master Sung.”

  “It will be done,” Sung said. “And Kanamori?”

  Trust nobody. “Nothing.”

  “You have informed Inspector Yen?”

  “He is not to be found.”

  “Then much depends on me.”

  “All depends on you.”

  “Be easy, my American friend. And now to work.”

  Burnham hung up. Be easy! Shen trotted in. “Feng is nowhere, nor his san-luerh. But here are your bags.”

  “Nowhere! That misbegotten fry chose his time well! A villain and traitor like all the others! With my fifty dollars! The humble, faithful ricksha man!”

  The force of his anger and the shock of the event stilled them all. Burnham sat unmoving, wrapped in chains.

  Teng asked, “What does it mean?”

  “It means that every alley is Rat’s Alley,” Burnham said miserably, “and a thousand eyes have spied, and a thousand feet have trod my tracks. It means that I was sent to frighten the tiger so that others might make the kill. Only Old Man God knows what it means. They may even know that Kanamori is here.”

  “We must wait here,” Kanamori said, “and they will bring my lady when they come for me. It is my punishment.”

  “No, we will not wait here,” Burnham said, “lest they bring a battalion and raze the walls. Major Kanamori, you are now a man of prime importance. If they do not know that you are here, then they must not know it. If they do know, then they will not have you until I have her. And maybe not even then.” Burnham’s blood was sprinting again. “Let me tell you, my samurai, I am now angry. I want my girl back. I want to know what you have out there in the graveyard. I may yet slice a gizzard. The cemetery is where you bury the babies?”

  “Oh yes. The Cemetery of the Hereditary Wardens of the Thirteen Gates.”

  “Then let us go there,” Burnham said. “Damn that Feng! Where is he anyway? He hasn’t run off. I know he hasn’t. But we need him.”

  “Not Feng,” Kanamori said. “If they know that Kanamori Shoichi is here, then another departure by ricksha would be imprudent. Or if they do not know, but have discovered their mistake.” His voice was hoarse and cracked but no longer a madman’s voice.

  Trust nobody, Burnham thought again, but he waited for more wisdom.

  “Anyone leaving with you,” Kanamori said, and showed palm.

  “Then we must smuggle you out.”

  “You would let me leave alone?”

  “No. I will carry you out in a sack if I must.”

  “And be followed. You are unmistakable.”

  “But I will not sit here stewing and
dying slowly,” Burnham said. “Somehow we must smuggle you out.”

  “No,” Kanamori said. “We must smuggle you out.”

  All great ideas are simple, and most are unworkable. Burnham showed his appreciation, but said, “How? In a hamper of laundry? In a coffin?”

  “Nurse An,” Kanamori called.

  Nurse An was sniffling into a kerchief. “I am here.”

  “You can shave a head?” Again the tentative, rusty voice, the words emerging after ponderous effort but making sense.

  She blew her nose. “I can shave a head.”

  “Then you will shave this Japanese head. Dr. Shen, is there an old tattered jacket? Perhaps a pair of trousers?”

  “Yes. And a gown and a hat?”

  “No gown and no hat. So!” It seemed for a moment that Kanamori was about to rub his hands in satisfaction. “My punishment continues!” He giggled once more and darted to a cupboard.

  Burnham was too shattered to understand, but he sensed that forces beyond his control were converging on a situation beyond his control, and his instinct approved. He watched fascinated but impatient as Nurse An clipped and lathered and shaved, and when Kanamori stood before him bald as a bean, all one hundred and twenty pounds of the man in rags and tatters, Burnham saw the eternal scrawny coolie. He went to his duffel bag and extracted the knife, which he dropped into a pocket, and the pistol, which he checked, and the shoulder holster, which he strapped on outside his shirt. He then said feebly in Japanese, “All right, Major. You command. Where will we go?”

  “Why to the cemetery,” Kanamori said, and handed him a hammer, a chisel and a box of matches. “You must meet the last mandarin. Him you may trade for my lady. Kanamori is nothing.”

  28

  “My luck!” Feng spat. A fat man all in black, with a mandarin’s hat, a fat man reeking of money, had hailed him, but Feng could not stop. The fat man’s look of dismay was a consoling touch of humor, but it could not be good luck to pass up such a fare. Feng sighed, and bent to his work. Red Head Street. Good. A warmish morning, the breeze wet in his face and a film of slush on the streets. The false spring. In January always a few days of false spring. Feng’s skinned elbow ached and his head throbbed, but on the whole he was sound. A morning already full of event and mystery, and within Feng a morose griping. He too was heartsore. That good woman!