He got used to it. Daily contact smoothed down oversharp sensitivities. Impelled hourly to speak, to decide, he quickly developed a nearness to the brothers that they needed, a leader’s nearness. He acted. This, more than thinking, freed and untied. He swam over obstacles. He felt sated, raised above doubt. The Nank’ou times began to dim. He was cast in the hard mould of his new tasks.
Wang’s teachings gushed cold. Many a character over whom they had first been sprayed could only rebel vehemently against them. In the poorer regions the unhandy, all skills unlearnt in the course of their trade on Nank’ou, couldn’t beg even the most trifling of necessities, were beaten, locked up for days: they made their way laboriously, suspiciously back, could hardly be persuaded to go among men. Their sidelong looks said they would soon go to the work they knew best. Ma No took them under his wing. It couldn’t be in Wang Lun’s plans to keep your arms folded, unpitying allow ruination. Others must be watched sharply: this one wandered merrily about, set off sprightly in the morning, reported back in the evening in high spirits, too high spirits; he’d found a clansman somewhere nearby, enjoyed his hospitality in peace. The work grew hugely as the current swelled and it was scarcely possible to keep track of who came: name, fate, whether the newcomer offended against the three precious rules of poverty, chastity, serenity, what he expected from the league of the Truly Powerless. Then escaped criminals found their way unimpeded into the league to conceal themselves; they had to be kept at arm’s length or accepted, each according to his kind, hidden or chased off. In the one case revenge could be expected, in the other investigation by the local police, prefectural officials. Occasionally the police summarily seized a few men and women on suspicion of harbouring criminals.
There grew a “Circle of Piety”, as it was called by the brothers. This curious idea arose spontaneously among them. They believed that in the closed circle of the Truly Powerless the force of contemplation would gradually enable them to reach that Ultimate that was sometimes called the Western Paradise on K’unlun, sometimes the fifth Maitreya, sometimes the Chin-tan powder that bestows eternal life.
Ma No was dragged roughly out of himself. He grew into his task. Memories of the Nank’ou Pass became harder to evoke. Nank’ou was the birthplace of the league; it was only weeks since the fisherman’s son from Shantung had spoken of the old Wu-wei. Ma walked taller in his long patchwork priest’s robe. His little sharp features like the face of a crow. There was uncanny animation in the twitching of his low receding forehead, the thoughts chasing about the thin lines of his mouth. When he gesticulated with his skinny hands, his look weaved ropes that held fast. He spoke as rapidly as before, but with greater penetration and control. Such was the vessel on which a multitude embarked for the Great Traverse.
With a group of two hundred men and women Ma No broke off from another which wandered northwards. They were not far from Chengting, a middling town on the Hut’o-ho, whose course they had followed from where it emerged out of the Wut’ai Mountains. Ma No wanted as quickly as possible to reach the lonely region of Talu Swamp, south of Chao. For reasons he did not grasp, he was driven towards a tranquil landscape. Near Chengting a number of men and women came to join Ma’s group.
The young Lady Liang-li, who came tripping supported by two maidservants, the loveliest lady of the town, was one of the famous Ts’ai family to which belonged, among others, the great Censor Ts’ai Jen-lung, who served during the time of the Ming Emperor Hsi-tsung. While still unmarried, Lady Liang was greatly attached to her father, who had graced high office and now devoted himself, a wealthy man, to his ancestors and his family in Chengting. Liang’s gentle mother, Ts’ai’s principal wife, had been poorly for years. The energetic daughter kept the two concubines under her thumb; together with her maidservants she took care of her young brothers and sisters, aided her father in the administration of his great estates. Ts’ai dearly loved his delicate wife, on whose cure he expended half his fortune. Every Wu, every exorcist who appeared in the town found that he could earn his first taels from Ts’ai. Whole processions were organized for the healing of his wife, who grew steadily weaker and more luminous, at times bled for days on end from nose and mouth, weeping fearfully all the while. Suddenly she was gone, and no burning of the soles, no needles under fingernails could rouse her.
The frightful tenacious vampire that had sucked the woman dry must have wanted more; at all events this vigorous man, an excellent boxer and wrestler, became unnaturally gloomy after his wife’s death. And something happened that was not noised abroad outside the walls of the Ts’ai household: the widower sought one moonlit night, after he had lit candles to his ancestors, to drown himself in a little pond. Made uneasy by the smell of candles in the night Liang threw a long gown around herself, ran in vain through the house to find her father, rushed into the garden. She pulled her father from the pond. Ts’ai recovered fully under his daughter’s care.
But after the terrible occurrence in the garden, there was a change in his relationship with the lovely Liang. His manner grew depressed. He avoided her, clung to the two young concubines, whose delights the widower seemed only now to discover. The man, who was in his middle fifties, stupefied himself in the beauty of these women. The daughter pursued him. Her hatred for the two women swelled beyond all measure. She slandered them to Ts’ai, contrived it so that he banished the younger, a harmless, mild-natured creature.
Even this brought her no peace. Liang did not put aside the mourning she wore for her mother. At her neck was the dead woman’s chain, her strings of pearls. Two silk purses containing the ashes of lotus leaves hung at her waist. From the jewel box she took two gold rings, two silver rings, betrothal presents from Ts’ai to his wife, pushed them onto her fingers. Ts’ai slipped away from the house. He visited the theatre, defeated public prize wrestlers. Gossip went around that he had a favourite in the painted houses. Before such desperate behaviour put an end to him his brother, who was living then as a graduate literatus in Taming, appeared in Chengting to investigate the unpleasant rumours he had heard.
He reproached the man, ten years his senior, with the disgrace he was bringing to the family name, managed in the course of an impassioned boat trip to which Ts’ai submitted to secure joint supervision of his estates by the family, finally to have the banished concubine, who had borne him a son in her exile, raised to the status of wife. When the brothers returned gravely home and informed the lovely Liang of this, after some play with her rings she bowed to her father, took off the necklaces, strings of pearls, placed them on the ground in front of him, requested that before his marriage he choose a husband for her. This was Hu-tse, who had given up hope of ever possessing Liang.
Both weddings took place. Liang lived in the house of Hu-tse, who deeply adored his young wife. The cool clever man did not succeed in casting out her dark nature. At first Liang dwelt in seclusion and seemed willing to accept Hu-tse’s love. She bore him no child, however. So he thought it would be better for Liang to move in society; he also had her set out in her room certain stones from the road and flowers that she should touch from time to time, for in them dwelt the souls of unborn children. The young wife laughed at it all and obeyed him.
She went to her father’s house. On this occasion she found him absent. She tripped through the well-known rooms, took from a chest that she removed from a draped trunk mementoes of her mother, her father’s betrothal presents, strings of pearls, lotus leaf ashes. In their place with a scornful laugh she threw the stones that Hu-tse had given her. In the following months she was much happier, with a treacherous velvety confidingness towards the man whose son she carried. At the sight of the child the hollowcheeked mother cried helplessly, sank into a stubborn gloom with frequent sobbing, clenching of fists, outbursts of rage, declared herself lost.
As soon as she was restored she had herself carried to her father’s house. Without a word to her husband she had dressed herself in her wedding gown: on a whim, as she explained to pacify her maids
. She wore the long veil, rings, bracelets, flowers of cloisonné. Thus she came before her father, looking just like her mother in her younger days, in her determined face the hollow features of sickness. She bowed and said, Here she was. Ts’ai bade her welcome and was aghast. They sat down side by side to eat.
Liang sat in a happy mood beside her father, whose heart began to pound, who was torn with pain, yearning, horror. Like husband and wife they went through the rooms; Ts’ai let his beautiful daughter have her way; she embraced, kissed him. She wound her arms around his neck without shame. They strolled through the dense garden. There, in a thicket, Liang ran ahead of her father, tore off the green veil, wound it around her throat, threw herself backwards, face towards her father, arms stretched out to him, into the pond. It took Ts’ai a long time before, with the help of a gardener he sent for, he pulled the woman out; after some hours she regained consciousness. It seems that she then cursed her rescuers, on the breast of the inconsolable Ts’ai burst into tears, recriminations and confused screams. She would not release him until, all willpower gone, he hugged her and whispered amid kisses that he wanted to die with her. She lay stretched on his lap there in the room, then towards evening closed her eyes calmly, stood up and said absently that she must go home to Hu-tse. Liang’s sedan chair never arrived at Hu-tse’s gate. All that came, delivered next morning by an unfamiliar courier, was a letter from her to Hu-tse: she was well, as she hoped he was and the son that she had had the pleasure of bearing him; and she would always remain devoted to him, even while living separated from him.
Then, drawn by the doctrine of acquiescence, she joined up with Ma No’s group outside Chengting in order to lead a life of poverty, chastity and serenity.
This was the lovely Liang-li, who in the camp had to part from her maidservants. For here no one was the servant of another. She went, like all the lilyfooted ladies, accompanied by a few men or sturdy women, to beg, sing, heal the sick.
Mrs Ch’eng sat next to her in the tall kaoliang. She was a simple vegetable hawker who lived to outward appearances in tolerable circumstances; she was a widow since a year ago, had an older boy of twelve and also a misshapen, scrofulous, ill-natured child. After the birth of this unfortunate creature she no longer coddled her elder darling. The younger boy, whose father gave him the name “Little Grandpa”, took all her attention, and increasingly so as his peculiarities developed. Although she was convinced it was all due to the midwife being a witch, for he was already the second abnormal child the midwife had delivered in that street, and in spite of all the ashes, water and stigmata she applied, she nursed a suspicion of herself: had she neglected some precaution during her pregnancy or before, had she made too little of a second child, or what. She observed the child constantly. Of the older boy she hardly wanted to hear a word; she said spitefully that his legs were straight, so that was all right. She began to scold the neighbour women because she thought people were making fun of Little Grandpa. It came to quarrels after Mrs Ch’eng finally beat some stranger children who had been bitten or scratched by her little boy at play. For Little Grandpa was fond of doing that.
In the early days, until the child was two years old or so, she hid it in the house. She had a boundless love for the creature, in the quiet of her parlour implored it to be clever, attempted absurd medicinal and magical practices of her own devising. They were fine weeks, when she’d tried something new on the boy and now every day made hopeful observations, deceived herself here, deceived herself there. Then, disappointed, she raged at herself that she had to be at odds with the whole world on account of this cripple, left the child lying. She uttered hard curses against the devil that had been hung about her neck.
Always her concern gained the upper hand. She brought him out to mix with playmates, made sure by her intimidating manner that no one dared tease Little Grandpa, that all in fact were afraid of him, allowed themselves to be tyrannized in all sorts of ways, whereby his naughtiness flourished mightily. She would have isolated herself completely on account of the child, if the neighbours hadn’t been so understanding. Mrs Ch’eng acquired a challenging nature; she tolerated no reference to her misbegotten child, no talk of him. She erected a wall of brusque defensiveness, not only where Little Grandpa was concerned. Her gossiping, her earthy humour disappeared for ever. She became a quick-tempered, unsociable woman.
At this time the great rumours came of the new, powerful sorcerers who were spreading south and east from the Nank’ou mountains. Reports multiplied. They struck the woman like bright lightning; she ran to the yamen, to the marketplace, where stories were told, soaked up the news, took it home with her. She was affectionate with Little Grandpa and the older boy, spoke excitedly to everyone she knew in the street; as the Truly Powerless drew near to Chengting entrusted the older boy and all her property to her next door neighbour, said she was off travelling for a few days, and walked to Ma No’s camp. There is no need to report how she and others fared there. They did not find what they sought, and realized at last that they had achieved everything imaginable. None of their wishes was fulfilled; they were divested of every wish.
Ma No’s horde encamped in the lush countryside west of the great swamp of Talu.
It was already the fifth month.
Such mild sweet breezes wafted through the summery air.
Towards evening a confusion of scents drifted across from the flowery banks around the edges of the swamp, like music snatched by the wind’s breath. A host of dazed pensive spirits darted across in phosphorous gleams, dimmed over the ground, tried to attach themselves to humans. Magnificent catalpa trees stood widely spaced on the long hills. Thick brown knurls swelled in sprays of bushy green twigs, thick and luxuriant as if the trees could not inhale enough of the blue wind, could not capture in their broad crowns enough of the hot golden drops of Yang. Every heart-shaped leaf showed off a glossy green, revealed without shame the closemeshed veinwork of its entrails. When a breeze came by from over the swamp, the naked leaves trembled, tossed, pushed the little spirits aside with a flick of the tongue, pressed lovingly together. Suspended from the swaying green mass, the green hanging carpet, tawny strands hung down on stalks and dropped curling on the grass like tawny writhing rainworms stunned by the fall, scattered all over the lovely moss. Where the hills levelled off and became valleys the ornamental micanthus grew rampant, erect manhigh stalks, bushes diagonally striped like a zebra, motionless tapering yellow and green on which drops of clear rain impaled themselves and their spectra.
On this fecund soil, turning already under the hoe as they came in from the west, Ma No’s band camped in peace. They awaited the arrival of Wang Lun, who a week ago had already reached Chu’s more easterly band.
It was on the seventh day of the fifth month that a young weak brother was carried in after being found unconscious on the open road. The five days’ fast that he had imposed on himself after an ecstasy was too much for him. The long, light man, who wore over both arms a sort of cowl fixed by a cord, was dragged in by a treetrunk of a man in soldier’s tunic; he bent his sweating head far forward to shade the face of the young man with his enormous straw hat. Everywhere shacks and tents had been set up, as if by an army. Ma No had twenty men take turns at pushing sailcarts with planks at the head and rear of the main column, for ailments caused by cold and damp were spreading through the brothers and sisters. In the shade of the catalpa trees the soldier, a deserter from the provincial garrison, laid down his burden on dry moss in front of a tent, poured green liquid from a tiny black glass flask onto the unconscious man’s scabbed lips, dabbed two drops behind each ear. The man groaned, tried to wipe off the drops behind his ears, chewed his lips, opened his eyes. The soldier regarded him, ordered him to hold his breath, now breathe slowly, now hold his breath.
The sun set. Ma No leaned against the boards of his hut until the grey dusk fell, counted, calculated, looked through hollowed hand at the stars, clutched his breast, lay with his forehead on the ground. Tomorrow was t
he Day of Perfection of Sakyamuni the Pure, the swordbearer of penetrating wisdom.
When Ma got up and squatted in the warm moss he began to smile reflectively, smoothed by the dark air. His eyes glittered; they stood out yellow in their narrow slits like puppies snapping from a half open box. People walked past him with paper lanterns, a happy singing of many voices came down from the women’s camp on the eastern hill. Now and again hard rhythmic calls of men. Somewhere people were praying. An impenetrable, heavy, fat-bodied sky pressed close to an earth that seemed, now the sun had left it, to be its kin; with a million twinkling stars it whispered anxiously to something near, came begging to this earth that it was wont, with imperial indifference, to let roll about its swollen feet. An accusing “caw, caw” approached, whirred around, thudded against the boards. Birds swept across from the thicket of bamboo, flew close by Ma’s shelter into the fields of micanthus. Ma closed his eyes. He saw the satyr birds as they flew in summer on Nank’ou and over the southern mountains: turquoise horns, round dark eyes in a black head; fiery swollen breast and belly; on the brown coat and brown wings of the little creatures shimmered eyeshaped rings. How they screamed.
Tomorrow they would celebrate the Perfection of glorious Sakyamuni. Ma did not move. They followed him, trusted him. Their welfare lay in his hands. He tasted bitterness on his gums and swallowed. Everything would row, swim, fly to the islands in the great ocean, everything would be for the best, everything was for the best: the boat prepared, the oarsmen ready, the rudder firmly mounted. Kuan-yin was the Ship-goddess who piloted the Traverse, standing in the bows, directing the wind. They chanted in front of their tents, the women sang, all lay snug in the shadow of Kuan-yin. He the bo’sun, the true helmsman. His welfare lay in their hands; he sought himself between their palms, saw himself crushed, pulverized, strewn over the grass. The wise prior of P’ut’o once refused him the class he wanted, the instruction of novices; he was a wise prior; now he had novices, as many as he wanted, they followed him wherever he wanted, and he was no longer proud.
The Three Leaps of Wang Lun Page 16
