Yellow Emperor's Cure (9781590208823)

by Basu, Kanal

  He asked her to show him the seventh channel. Fumi had described it as the “great traveler.” “This one goes all over the body. Starts from the forehead, then drops down to the bladder, sending out branches everywhere including the toe. From headache to sore muscles, it governs all pain, including the sweet pain of intercourse.”

  “Show me where it begins and ends.”

  Fumi asked him to rise from his stool and remove his clothes. She watched him closely as he stood naked before her in the courtyard. Then traced the seventh channel on his skin with her forefinger.

  Sipping his plum wine in the evening, Antonio couldn’t think a single thought about Fumi. Image after image invaded his mind, preventing it from examining her properly: the image of Fumi with the yellow bird or dancing in the courtyard before him. She seemed to be no more than a well-crafted form. Unlike anyone he had met before, she’d made him feel overcome by a strange sensation, unwilling to ply his charm and win her over.

  “You will suffer from oriental sicknesses,” Dom Afonso had warned him before he left Macau. “They’ll affect the mind before they affect the body. Your medicines won’t have an answer to them.” Was this his first brush with an oriental sickness? The sickness of images that were more vivid than any he could remember?

  He had promised that he wouldn’t think about women. Like a fish entered into new currents, he’d alter his breathing. He’d planned to disguise his instincts during his travels, to avoid the flower boats and brothels on shore. He had had to remind himself of his resolve whenever Dona Elvira tempted him as they strolled on the Praya Grande. “You must taste the yellow beauty before you return home!” As he sat alone in his pavilion, his old habit returned to trouble him. Restless, he paced his lodge, reminded of what he missed most.

  What would she do if she knew my thoughts? He had been on his best behavior with Fumi, hadn’t cast even a single amorous glance at her. He had stayed away from the usual games: staring needlessly into a woman’s eyes and unleashing a devastating smile; passing her a secret note, even touching her “by accident.” He didn’t know what Fumi would do if he did unleash his devastating smile. Will she ignore me and simply go on? Will she stop? She seemed impervious to his attraction. He wondered if her indifference came from a deep attraction, if in fact it was the cleverest of ploys to keep up her guard with him.

  Was the dead Dutchman her lover?

  He must prolong his morning sessions with Fumi, he concluded, to test that indifference. Calling Wangsheng and Tian over to the lodge, Antonio explained his plan to them.

  “The early rice mustn’t come too early.” He stopped, hoping his attendants would understand him. “Otherwise, it’ll cut short my lesson. My teacher will leave in the middle of our discussion. You must wait till I ask you to bring it.”

  Wangsheng looked confused. “But the early rice must be served when the cooking is finished. Otherwise it’ll turn cold.” He nudged Tian for support. “If it’s cold, it’ll taste bad and hurt your stomach.”

  “Then you mustn’t start to cook too early.”

  “But …” The older eunuch appeared unable to follow his argument. “The vegetables and the meats will spoil unless we cook them soon after we’ve brought them from the market.”

  Antonio scolded him. “Then go to the market late. It’s as simple as that.” He was annoyed with Wangsheng.

  “Unless we go early, the shops will sell out. We’ll have nothing left to buy,” Tian said in a small voice.

  Antonio overruled their objections, and laid down his strict rules about early rice. When Fumi arrived next morning, he prepared for a long and uninterrupted session. I must make a deliberate error or two, he thought, to hold her back at the pavilion, have her go over the lesson with me once more. I must argue with her, even make her angry. Tian came over frequently to fill their teapot with boiling water, and he reminded him each time with stern eyes to obey his plan. His stomach growled for food, but he pressed on, surprising Fumi with his persistent questioning.

  “Your attendants must’ve grown used to you by now.” She watched Tian running back to the kitchen. “Their lives are the saddest in the palace, saddest in China.” She seemed to be waiting for a cue to leave, and Antonio praised himself privately on his cunning plan.

  “And concubines? Aren’t their lives sad too?” He thought he’d ask Fumi about the old concubine he’d seen. What did she die of? Why was she brought to the Palace of Clouds? Did they wish to preserve the body. …? He shivered, imagining a palace full of embalmed corpses. A waft of pleasing smells came from the kitchen. Fumi raised her nose, and smiled at Antonio.

  “You must be hungry to be thinking about things other than your lesson!” Then she left him sitting on the student’s stool.

  Antonio entered the kitchen and smashed the pot on the oven. He shouted at his “empty-headed” attendants for failing to keep the kitchen window shut while they cooked early rice, just as his teacher had ordered.

  He grew impatient if Fumi arrived late. The tea turned cold by his elbow; he paid no attention to Wangsheng, who begged him to eat. A whole day seemed empty and wasted, and he’d send Tian over to the palace’s forbidden parts to find his teacher.

  “But the empress is asleep, no one can enter her quarters now,” the young eunuch would protest.

  “Damn the empress. Go find Fumi.”

  Tian hid in the kitchen and Wangsheng scratched his head on days when Fumi didn’t come for the morning lessons. Antonio drowned them with questions. Did they know if she was sick? Was she with another student? Did they know her little secret, that she’d gone away like Xu? Or worse, that she’d resolved to stop teaching the foreigner?

  His anxiety grew manyfold when he thought how easy it’d be for her to simply leave him and disappear. Once Xu returned, she’d be reduced to a kneeling form in the courtyard, the silent form that no longer danced or laughed or caught birds with her bare hands. How hard will it be for her to stop being my teacher?

  After a few weeks with Fumi he felt light in the head but possessed of a dead weight. Her image recurred day and night, as heavy as a dream that refuses to leave, as real as the rats biting his toes and keeping him awake. Alarming himself, he’d rush out of the lodge as he imagined her sitting on the teacher’s chair and waiting for him long after she’d left. He thought less about insects, growing fond even of the ant army and the yellow moth that circled him like a devout pilgrim.

  Awake in his lodge, he asked the questions he wanted her to ask him, then worded his replies carefully. Perhaps she’d want to know about Lisbon, about ships; how could it be possible for him to come this far? She might ask him if he was married, then question the reasons behind his lingering bachelorhood. You must have several wives if you haven’t found one yet. … Men find it impossible to live without any! He could hear her laugh. Don’t you have someone special waiting for you? He didn’t wish to tell her about Arees. Perhaps she’d ask him about his mother. Even now he could hear his mother singing in the kitchen as she baked her pastéis … é varina, usa chinela … imitating the Varina of her song, moving about like a cat … tem movimentos de gata … é varina. … He remembered her mostly through his father, who had a habit of bringing her up whenever they had to decide about something important. “Your mama wouldn’t want us to leave the marzipan cake behind but take it home.” Or make him obey a house rule without having to scold him. “If you sleep with your boots on, poor Mama would have to clean the sheets for you.” The bombas won’t hurt him, his father would assure him on the night of fireworks, as his mama couldn’t bear to see her Tino cry. Even when he was older and at the Faculdade, his father would remind him to wear his gown to the annual ball or risk being taken for “just a rotten drunk,” as his mama would’ve said.

  He wished he could sing Mama’s song for Fumi. What if I take her back with me? He imagined them in Lisbon, arriving at a lavish ball thrown by his friends. A commotion would surely follow them, heads would turn and glasses drop to the floor
at the spectacle of the dashing Dr. Maria accompanying a pair of slanted eyes. They’d escape the gossip, and head for the gardens to see the seven hills of the city risen like giant seahorses from the Tagus. How far was the China coast? She might ask him. They’d hear the steamships bellow at Baixa harbor, bound for Estado da India.

  … na canastra a caravela

  … no coraça¯o a fragata

  He’d hum his mother’s tune as they roamed the Alfama, still smelling of the sea from those who had come over on caravels and frigates. What if they went to Praça da Alegria, where half-naked ladies cursed their clients and drunks sang odes to their favorite whores?

  And Arees? What will she make of Fumi?

  His nightmare returned, just when he thought he’d been cured. It was the very same band of syphilitics but without his father, joined by a woman with alien features. She was taking off her chemise that came down to her knees, and a scarf folded like a turban around her head, each movement clear and languid like a dancer’s steps. Her luxuriant hair sprouted like foliage under the shade of a giant tree, as if she was a flower blooming that very moment. Following her to a river, he caught a glimpse of her naked body covered by a thousand rosebuds. She waited for the howling band to pass before she stepped into the water. Like a swan, she turned a few majestic turns then disappeared under without a ripple. In his nightmare he saw himself raising a cry and charging into the river, fighting the waves in vain as she slipped further away into darkness.

  Antonio woke with a start and found Tian at the door. Fumi had come for him and left. She’d be gone for a few days now, he said, smiling nervously.

  “Why didn’t you stop her?” He leaped from his bed and took the eunuch by the throat, rushing blood to his face.

  With Fumi away, he persuaded his attendants to take him to a village outside the palace. “You’re only a prisoner if you think like one,” Joachim Saldanha had reminded him during his last visit. Antonio called Wangsheng to the lodge and asked him to fetch bearers to take him out on a sedan. The eunuch looked uncertain. Dr. Xu hadn’t left him any instructions, he said.

  “I don’t need Xu’s permission to go out,” he told Wangsheng firmly.

  His attendant closed his eyes to think up a suitable excuse or propose something to divert his master. “We can take you for a walk to Suzhou Street by the lake.” Then he tried to offer an even better plan. “You can go to the Peony Terrace to see the flowers.”

  “I don’t want to go to the lake, or anywhere else only to be told that I can’t be there because your invisible empress might catch a glimpse of me.” He made as if to go out of the pavilion himself to search for bearers. Wangsheng followed him to the courtyard, and made a valiant attempt to stop him.

  “Our Tianfen can play a wrestling game with you.” Overhearing them from the kitchen, Tian fled the pavilion.

  “I just want to go to a village to see things for myself,” Antonio tried to explain to Wangsheng. “How the villagers keep their animals, how they build their homes, how they spend their evenings. We might have some fun if there’s a festival going on.” He made faces and jumped all around the courtyard. “You’ve seen clowns, haven’t you? And jugglers?” Picking up the camphor pots, he tried to juggle them – crashing a few onto the ground – danced like a demon and made shrill noises. Wangsheng started to laugh. “Ah! festival!”

  “Yes! Just think what fun there’d be!” Antonio grabbed him and twirled him around.

  “Then we must go to the festival of insects.” Wangsheng slipped out of his hold and called Tian over. Together they went looking for the bearers.

  Antonio sat on his sedan chair with the dog on his lap, and thought he was riding a magic carpet with a sea of heads under his feet. His two attendants struggled to keep pace as the bearers moved quickly. Reaching the village, he was struck by the lotus lake and the full moon that floated over it. Lanterns shaped as insects buzzed in the breeze – beetles, dragonflies, ladybugs, silverfish and moths – casting shadows on the shop windows that lined the streets. Children chased after butterfly-shaped kites fluttering over their heads, dangled from the balconies by women in silk. The butterfly chasers waved their nets wildly to catch the pretty kites. The catchers will be rewarded, Wangsheng whispered into Antonio’s ear, tempting him to have a go. It was a good omen to catch one of these in the festival of insects. A lady will throw down sweets if a child manages to capture her pretty butterfly. “She will give you more!” Wangsheng pointed to a smiling face on the balcony. “Grown men can’t be rewarded simply with sweets. She’ll call you upstairs!” He smirked at Tian, who followed them carrying their pet dog in his arms.

  A group of widows huddled before a fortune-teller’s door. Wangsheng made fun of them. “What can he tell them except when they’ll die?” Each woman had a chit of paper fished out from a wicker box, each marked with a character. “The fortune-teller will tell them to pick another one. The two chits will make up their fortune. If one chit has the sign of the sun, the other that of a rooster, it means the owner will have a long life. If a man picks two chits, one marked “woman” and the other “roof,” it means he’ll have a good wife.”

  “What if one chit says man, the other dog?” Tian called out to his friend.

  “It means the man will have a dog’s life!”

  Eyes reddened by smoke from the street lamps, Antonio gave his attendants the slip and entered a tent full of groaning and cursing men to watch a singsong show. A few foreign faces dotted the crowd, among them a blond man with rough features who was cheering on the actors. Antonio spotted Xu in the front row. Has he returned already from his little trip? his heart skipped a beat. A young man greeted him and started to polish his boots, another pushed a pipe into his hand. An usher offered to find him a seat in the front row, and named his price with his fingers.

  Two young boys bumbled on before a bored crowd to the beating of drums, like a pair of chimps, both of them viciously maimed, unable to stand upright on their crushed knees and twisted ankles. They followed their master with sad eyes as he went about collecting money from the cheering men. “The animals! You’ll see plenty of them in China,” Antonio recalled Joaquim Saldanha telling him in the carriage. “Our orphanages are full of them – little boys maimed by their masters and forced to earn a living as dancers and clowns.” His eyes narrowed as he considered the deformities, reaching instinctively for the absent surgical box.

  Tian was in tears. Like Antonio the dog too had escaped, and he’d searched for him everywhere before giving up. Maybe a lady in silk has scooped him up like a butterfly in her net. “Maybe he’s sitting happily on her lap now, in his new home,” he grumbled. “Dogs or men, it doesn’t matter, both ready to jump at a woman’s smell!” His eunuch friends led Antonio back to the butterfly street and handed him a net.

  Which butterfly? Antonio scanned the balconies, setting off a roll of laughter.

  He imagined Fumi among the women, her painted face gazing down as she swept her butterfly over his head. Bright amber wings tinged green at the tips fluttered like a kingfisher’s wings. Clearing a space before him, he started his chase, keeping his net down to avoid catching the wrong kite by mistake, resisting the temptation to go for an easy win. Shrieks and sighs filled the balconies as he ducked under a team of butterflies, and stalked his favorite. She teased him, pulling up her kite to a speck in the sky then dropping it down to his nose; had him fooled, standing still in the middle of the street like a shipwrecked sailor. Her face appeared on several balconies all at once, made him swear and dash across the street, ignoring her friends who begged to be trapped in his net. He disappointed the children, catching each of the butterflies barring the one he was after, and letting them go without claiming his prize. The cheers started to die. Someone tried to snatch the net away from his hand. The disappointed ladies pulled up their kites one by one, and left him under the empty balconies on the deserted street glowing with lamps.

  Cries came from the kitchen after the sedan bearer
s had brought Antonio back to the pavilion. Wangsheng sat in the courtyard, head in hand, a trail of blood before him. Antonio rushed into the kitchen to find the young eunuch holding the dog in his arms, a leg almost severed and bleeding as it lay frothing in the mouth. A village cart had run him over, and the driver had thrown the animal into a ditch. “Dunghead!” Wangsheng growled. He tried to take the dog away from his friend, but he refused to let it go. “Of what use will he be now?” He tried to reason with Tian. Without a leg he wouldn’t be able to catch the kitchen rats, he’d be no match for the ugly beetles even, grow fat eating and sleeping all day till he died. “Better to …” Wangsheng brought out the knife used for slaughtering ducks and chicken. Antonio snatched it from his hand and ordered him to bring the surgical box from his lodge. It’d take no more than a simple cut to amputate the damaged leg then sew up the wound.

  As he dipped the knife in warm water, Tian shook his head and spoke to his friend. He doesn’t want the dog to be amputated, Wangsheng whispered to Antonio, for it to be incomplete, like a eunuch, live like a wingless moth, flutter about all day without the power to fly. The poor dog would be sad all his life if he couldn’t chase rats, if he couldn’t fulfil his purpose. Tian laid the whimpering creature on the kitchen table and drew the slaughtering knife as Wangsheng looked away.

  It took Antonio a few moments to grasp what was about to happen, then he pushed the young eunuch away from the kitchen table and took out a different instrument from the surgical box, the stone crusher used by doctors to pierce a patient’s bladder and crush the stones inside. He held the dog down on its back, and plunged the crusher deep into its heart, till it stopped breathing.

  Tianfen was his favorite nephew, Wangsheng said. He had brought the little boy over to the palace to save him from hunger after their family had been devastated by floods. He had chosen his nephew’s future– a sad life over certain death. Antonio sat with Wangsheng in the temple’s shade while Tian knelt before the priest with the dog’s coffin. A sad life with a dog for a friend, a minor eunuch serving the empress. An empty head couldn’t take him very far, Wangsheng whispered; he was too weak to be a soldier, bereft of talents except the urge to sing in a shrill voice. The palace would keep him safe and alive.