The Blue-Eyed Shan

by Becker, Stephen;

  The baths were sunken basins of stone. Olevskoy shouted for hot water and soap. When there was no response, he shouted promises of castration, broken bones and merciful hanging. Shortly the attendant, assisted by a goggling boy, padded swiftly in with buckets, poured, vanished, returned; the basin filled. Rough towels were stacked on a wooden bench.

  Olevskoy had already stripped Hsiao-chi. The old man lingered to salivate; Olevskoy kicked him. “Go away. If you come back before I call you, I shall strike you slightly above both thighs and then strangle you with my bare hands. Do you understand?” Old Hairy Ears absented himself willingly.

  Olevskoy stripped himself as well and led Hsiao-chi into the bath. She giggled. “Allez, glousse,” he said. “Giggle away. You are about to be transformed, rendered immaculate body and soul.”

  “It is hot,” she said.

  “How perceptive. It is indeed hot. No purification without agony. If you want to live in a stinking crib for the rest of your life, all right; but if you listen to me you can be the sawbwa’s mistress. Or some commissar’s. Sit still, now.” He soaked her down. He scrubbed her first with soap and then with the stiff brush. She cried out. “In the name of God,” he said, “the dirt is peeling off like orange rind. You’re three shades lighter already.” He soaped her again, and in detail, paying happy attention to her nipples, her crotch and her navel. “Sit there in your lather,” he ordered. He then soaped himself, rinsed, soaped again, rinsed. “Bath man!” he roared. Clogs clattered. “Four buckets more, tepid, and hurry it up!” The old fellow stared at Hsiao-chi, who sat like a doll, hair lank, body streaked white; he darted away, and returned with four buckets. “Be off,” Olevskoy said. He washed Hsiao-chi’s hair. He washed his own hair. He rinsed them both. He handed her gallantly out of the tub and dried her vigorously. “There!” he said. “By God, that’s better! You’re almost human.”

  She was that. She was, he acknowledged, rather pretty. She was sniffing at her own fresh skin, running her fingers along her lustrous breasts and belly with little cries of pleasure. To Olevskoy’s joy, he found his penis erect and peremptory. “Let us make the fish with two backs,” he said.

  “This one will surely do,” Yang said. “A good round barrel.”

  “But a sore on one ear,” said Major Wei.

  “For a few days only it won’t matter.” They were in the sawbwa’s corral, of thirty-odd mou, the general judged; or two hectares or five acres; I am a citizen of the world now.

  Donkey Woman said, “Two years old. Look at those quarters.”

  Major Wei said, “How odd. Her teeth are seven or eight years old.”

  “A vastly accomplished little girl,” Olevskoy said. He sat at ease in the secretary’s office, one leg crossed over the other, boots gleaming. He drew happily on a Russian cigarette—this sawbwa must be quite a fellow—and sipped at good green tea.

  “She’s pretty,” the secretary conceded. “How old?”

  “Fifteen.” Olevskoy was firm.

  The secretary allowed dubiety to fleet across his glossy face, but made no protest.

  “Nothing like a mule,” Donkey Woman said. “Strong, reliable and uncomplaining.”

  “Independent and obstinate,” Yang said.

  “This one will load two hundred catties.”

  “She’s right,” Wei said. “The sawbwa’s hay is good stuff.”

  The secretary asked, “Truly talented? The full range?”

  “I guarantee it.”

  Hsiao-chi stood shyly against the wall, eyes cast down.

  “You understand,” the secretary said easily, “our sawbwa is something of a connoissuer. A lifetime of lore, also practical knowledge. He is no dilettante.”

  “I can tell that by his tea,” Olevskoy said. “Fit for the gods.”

  The secretary bowed acknowledgment.

  “I myself,” Olevskoy went on, “am not without experience. An exile, you understand. Thirty-five years of international service, so to speak.”

  “I regret more than ever that the sawbwa cannot make your acquaintance,” said the secretary.

  “How many is that now?” Yang asked.

  “Four mules, eighteen ponies, twenty-one donkeys.”

  “Every one as good as a horse,” Donkey Woman said. She was a homely little thing but had, to Yang’s surprise, short silky hair.

  “How many will we need?” Yang wondered aloud.

  “We are down to the hard core,” Wei said. “Who has endured until now should be loyal.”

  “Or curious, or opportunistic, or imaginative; but some will not want to leave Chinese soil. Think, Major Wei, it has come to this: thirty-eight years of the Republic of China have left to the world one general, one colonel, two majors, two lieutenants and fifty-two exhausted, underpaid soldiers.”

  “And when we cross the border—”

  “The end. Some must hold out in the northwest, but not for long.”

  “Then we shall make a new world,” Wei said lightly. “How good to be single, without obligations, and trained in the military arts.”

  “Just so,” said Yang, and to Donkey Woman, “now, little lady, choose the best of the ponies for the officers. And which are the two sturdiest pack mules?”

  Major Wei said, “Ah yes. The footlockers. One day you will tell us, I hope.”

  “When the time is right,” General Yang promised. “Until then, only remember: they are worth all the tea in China.”

  “You do have a sense of humor,” said Major Wei, “sir.”

  “An ounce of gold!” The secretary was outraged.

  “Think,” Olevskoy said. “The sawbwa can have what he wants, agreed, but here is a filly all broken in, docile, four-gaited and genuinely affectionate. How many of the sawbwa’s women actually love it? And some are foreign, some querulous and demanding, some will desert him in time of trouble. Not little Hsiao-chi.”

  “You argue well.” The secretary sipped. “Show the goods.”

  Olevskoy gestured to Hsiao-chi, who unbuttoned her gown and let it slip to the floor; she stood in her cloth shoes only. And now sadness veiled her face, and loneliness shaded her moist eyes.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” the secretary conceded. “A bird of paradise indeed. The breasts are very much what the sawbwa likes, round and high and with those large brown nipples. He kept a Khmer woman for a time whose nipples were three inches broad. And I like the long pale thighs; and the hair between seems quite feathery.”

  Olevskoy gestured again.

  Hsiao-chi shied. “Must I?”

  “Do as I say.”

  Reluctantly she glided forward, and the secretary stroked her mons. “Good girl. Turn about, please.” He stroked her buttocks. Olevskoy almost laughed aloud at this dispassionate connoisseur. Perhaps the fellow was a capon. “Splendid. Very well, Colonel. I see no need to haggle. Our new masters will surely confiscate specie.”

  Olevskoy said, “They may also confiscate the sawbwa. He had best enjoy his last days of sin and glory.”

  “She even has good teeth,” said the secretary.

  Hsiao-chi spoke again, imploring; her voice trembled. “You will not take me with you?”

  “You understand,” said General Yang, “the sawbwa will pay.”

  Donkey Woman stood sullen.

  Yang understood and sympathized. It was an old story. He dug into his watch pocket. “Take this, now, for your good counsel; and take some advice too. When the Communists come, go to an officer of the highest rank possible, and go as soon as possible, and tell him of the evils that have been done to you here.”

  “They will put me to slavery in the tin mines,” Donkey Woman muttered.

  “They will not,” Yang said. “Not the army. Later when the politicians come, all will be at sevens and eights. But the army pays for what it takes, and respects women who labor. They are my enemy, yet I tell you this. Also, they will be looking for grievances to avenge; they will be pleased with you. Do you understand? Donkey Woman will be a heroine.”
r />   Donkey Woman laughed a harsh, mannish laugh. “I understand. And by the gods I hope you are not wrong.” She glanced at the tiny coin. “But this is gold!”

  “Chin yü chih yen!” he said cheerily. “Your advice was worth gold and jade!”

  She did not know the classics, and stood confused. Then, because she was a blunt woman who spoke mainly with animals, she looked him in the eye and said, “I hope yours is as good.”

  Major Wei sat later like a giant of old in Fang-shih’s Emerald Tavern, arguing soberly with Major Ho, Lieutenant An and Lieutenant Chi. Ordinarily Major Wei did not argue but commanded. Ordinarily he carried—showing off, and he knew it—a Browning automatic rifle rather than the light carbine that now stood propped against the wall beside him. Ordinarily he drank beer and not gassy foreign soda waters, but there seemed to be no beer in Fang-shih. Extraordinary times indeed!

  “I would not mind knowing what is in those footlockers,” Lieutenant Chi said. “If we are merely an armed guard for a million in gold …”

  “Not gold,” said Wei. “Too light. Gems, perhaps.”

  Lieutenant An looked more like a slim provincial teacher than a warrior. “I have never set foot outside China. It feels like treason.”

  “I have a large family in Shansi,” Lieutenant Chi said. “Mother and father and their mothers and fathers, and innumerable brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts and cousins.”

  Wei said, “I stay. This is the only fighting general I ever knew, and so far the only truthful general. He pays his men and goes hungry when they do. As far as I know, he has not one copper in any bank anywhere, and no gold ingots in foreign lands. Do you know another general of whom that can be said? And what will you do when the Communists come to hang you?”

  Chi made a frog’s mouth and shook his head emphatically. “They must forgive. They cannot hang half the country.”

  “They welcomed generals,” Major Ho said.

  Wei said, “Pah! Generals brought them whole cities, whole armies. What can majors and lieutenants offer?”

  “Love of country,” Chi said. “Soldiers’ skills.”

  “It is so,” An said. “You go ahead, wander the face of the earth and end your days buying and selling in Rangoon or New Delhi. Not me.”

  “And where would he take us?” Chi asked. “Into those cursed mountains, across those devilish rivers, and through headhunter country.”

  Major Wei said, “That’s for me. You do what you like, wear numbers on your back or study Marxism for the rest of your life. I have yet dragons to slay.” He glanced about him at the lazy, chatty, unconcerned drinkers and snorted. “Look at them! Civilians! Sheep!”

  That night Yang’s gang, war-weary but once more spruce, sat, stood, sprawled and smoked cigarettes in the dingy barracks of the Fang-shih constabulary, vacated by the local police at the first approach of these killers and pariahs, the Nationalist army. Olevskoy sat beside the general. Yang counted the house: only forty-one.

  “Lao-tzu says, ‘The way that can be traversed is not the way.’ But we have had no choice; we have traveled our road and I believe with honor. We now come to a fork in the trail. Like all generals, I tell the truth only with reluctance, but you have earned it.” The men emitted a nervous rill of laughter. Yang smiled moderately.

  “The old China will make its history and its presence felt in various ways henceforth, and in odd places, and by odd refugees like us. It was my obligation to lead you out, but in a few days my mandate will not run: our China is gone, and outside its borders I am only an elderly civilian.” A ripple of protest greeted this, and many chuckles.

  “We shall leave the Road tomorrow and take to the hills, and eventually enter Burma. We cannot say precisely where because to this day the frontier has never been mapped. I do not lead you to some heroic old soldiers’ utopia; I only take you to neutral territory and let you start a new life.

  “Some of you even now, on this last evening, will decide to stay in China. I must counsel you to vanish discreetly overnight.

  “Those who join me will make a short but difficult journey to a border village called Pawlu. Its people are friendly enough and its poppies ripple like lakes of blood. Pawlu means freedom, a new life, riches. The crude opium is traded down to Hsenwi and then out; it is cheap now, but Chinese opium is about to come under tight control and foreign markets are opening. Revenge at last: for a century the foreigners made fortunes addicting the Chinese people, and now you may return the favor.

  “I expect some of you will pass through Pawlu as I did in nineteen forty-four, maintaining the courtesies and paying for what you need. Some will scatter by ones and twos and threes to the great cities of Burma, India, Thailand, Indochina, Malaya. Some will even, in time, go back to China to be forgiven and humbled.

  “Whatever you decide, you have my thanks. You have been more than good soldiers, you have been good men; you have endured privation, pain and the loneliness of forlorn hopes. If there are questions, you must ask them now.”

  There were rarely questions, but tonight a current of unease excited the roomful. China was the Middle Kingdom; the rest of the world was Outside.

  Major Ho stood at stiff military rest. “Sir.”

  “Major.”

  A rustle of exhalations, an air of expectancy.

  “I have fought beside the general since before Taierhchuang.”

  “You were a sergeant then.”

  “And the general a colonel.” In his gruffest tone Ho said, “Sir. The men have talked much among themselves, and have asked me to be one voice from ten mouths.”

  General Yang’s calm interest invited further revelations.

  Ho hesitated. “Many would feel better knowing …” Ho’s glance darted about, seeking help; none came.

  “Proceed, Major. You have full immunity if you speak for the men.”

  “Well, sir,” Ho said, “they would march on with lighter hearts if they knew what was in those footlockers. With permission, sir.”

  “Of course,” said Yang, taking a moment to smile understandingly at Olevskoy. “But will you believe me?”

  The silence was embarrassing, until finally Major Wei spoke up. “You have a home.” It was the ancient way to say that a man was reliable, that his word could be trusted, and in the circumstances it was an epic joke. The tension vanished in an explosion of laughter. Even Olevskoy whinnied.

  “Well then,” said Yang, “as I have a home, and as generals love truth, here it is: in those footlockers are the bones of my ancestors. Nothing more and nothing less.”

  An ill-timed jest, for all that it was true; Yang could almost hear the esprit de corps shattering. He could show them the bones. No! One was a general or one was not. If they all left him he would strike out for Pawlu alone.

  Firmly he said, “I have told you the truth,” and then more crisply, “We rendezvous tomorrow morning at eight in the square before the sawbwa’s corral. That is all for now. Dismissed.”

  Men and benches creaked and scuffed; his soldiers avoided his eye. This was a bad moment, but he could not resist an afterthought: “To those who remain with me, one last consideration.” For a summery instant his smile warmed them all. “I offer you more than freedom. I offer you anarchy.” A few, he thought, might understand.

  “The neighborhood is run-down,” Yang complained. “Here they once served fried bees. I have no idea how to cook them, but they were fat and delicious. One could tuck away hundreds.”

  “Be grateful for fresh beef,” Olevskoy said. “With luck we shall never again eat as badly as we have this past year.” They were in Fang-shih’s Burma Road Wine Shop gobbling diced beef with leeks and ginger. Business was bad. A couple of customers sat morosely nursing cups of tea. Yang’s rice was delicious, fresh meat a joy, hot wine a luxury. The restaurant was dim and shabby, lit by oil lamps, to the rear a cook-fire flickering, casting restless shadows.

  “As far as the ford,” Yang said, “which is perhaps thirty miles as the crow flies but will m
ore like eighty on the trail, we shall be a caravan in single file, following narrow trails across the face of steep slopes. From the next ridge each man will be nicely outlined against the mountain. Like the ducks in the booth at the fête foraine. What do you call them?”

  “Jeux de tir. Shooting galleries. Are there Communists in those hills?”

  “Not to my knowledge. There is, however, a surfeit of free enterprise.”

  “Ah. Bandits. Many many, I suppose.”

  “Eastern Burma is not oppressed by rules and regulations,” Yang said. “Now: bandits travel in small packs.… I wonder if anyone has ever written about that?” Yang shoveled rice into his mouth and ruminated.

  “Written?”

  “The natural laws that govern banditry. If there are more than ten or so, stresses destroy the way of life: a permanent woman seems necessary, a servant class is established, large and reliable supplies of food became desirable—in short, a tendency to bourgeoisify makes itself felt. I should think the ideal pack would be four to seven.”

  Olevskoy grunted.

  “Quite right; I digress. It is not the trail that worries me; there is little purpose to killing men at long range and watching them tumble a thousand feet into an inaccessible valley. I worry about the ford, and about the hostile territory beyond it.”

  “Scouts on the flanks,” Olevskoy said. “A beachhead assault at the ford.”

  “We shall be lieutenants again.”

  “Life improves.” Olevskoy returned the smile. “I could scarcely ask for more. Had a fine little girl and am rid of her with no fuss and no clap. Now eating a good dinner for the first time in days. And an old-fashioned military exercise coming up. Dry cup!”

  “Dry cup!”

  “What is in the footlockers?”

  “I told the truth, Nicky.”

  “Bizarre.”

  “Let us trust each for yet a week or so,” Yang said carefully. “A genuine armistice during a difficult troop movement. When you can no longer trust me, I shall tell you so.”

  “But will I be able to trust you to do so?”

  Yang’s smile was at full stretch.