Bridge of Birds

by Barry Hughart

  He turned to the abbot. "Reverend Sir, in your studies of myth and folklore, have you ever encountered a ghostly handmaiden who pleads that birds must fly?"

  The abbot shook his head negatively.

  "Or ghosts who beg people to exchange things for feathers? Possibly things like this?"

  He took the tiny flute from his smuggler's belt. The abbot studied it with interest but without recognition, and Li Kao sighed and lifted it to his lips and blew gently into the mouthpiece. Then he hurled the flute to the floor, and all three of us jumped back and stared at it as one might view a cobra.

  No flute sound came from that incredible thing. Instead we heard an old woman whose voice was so rich and warm that she might have been the grandmother of the entire human race.

  "Aiieeee! Aiieeee! Come closer, my children! Spread ears like elephants, and I will tell you the tale of a girl named Beauty, and of her wicked stepmother and her good fairy godmother, and of the magic fishbone and the carriage and the little slipper that fell from Beauty's foot and led her to a handsome prince!"

  Li Kao lunged. He grabbed the flute and covered the first of four tiny fingerholes and the voice stopped abruptly. He covered the second fingerhole and blew lightly into the mouthpiece.

  "Aiieeee! Aiieeee! Come closer, my children! Spread ears like elephants, and I will tell you the tale of the old woman and her little boy, and of the cow and the corn and the peddler, and of the beanstalk that grew to the clouds, and what happened when the little boy climbed it into a world of wonders!"

  Li Kao tried the other fingerholes, and each one produced a tale that had been delighting Chinese children for at least two thousand years, and which have even spread to the barbarian tribes. He stopped the last tale and glowered at the marvelous thing.

  "Master Li, we could exchange that flute for ten thousand tons of feathers," I whispered.

  "With the island of Taiwan tossed in for good measure," the abbot said shakily.

  Master Li looked from the flute to the infirmary where the children lay, and back to the flute.

  "That does it!" he snarled. "Ox, we have an evil duke who reads minds and laughs at axes, treasure troves that are hidden in labyrinths that are supposedly guarded by monsters, flutes that tell fairy tales, an incomprehensible ghost who might have come from one, an ancient children's game, and a ghostly message from Dragon's Pillow. If you're wondering about the wicked stepmother, just wait, because she's bound to turn up."

  He replaced the flute in his belt, and shook a finger in front of my nose.

  "Nothing on the face of this earth — and I do mean nothing — is half so dangerous as a children's story that happens to be real, and you and I are wandering blindfolded through a myth devised by a maniac. Mark my words!" he shouted angrily. "If the Key Rabbit can slip us into another one of the duke's treasure troves, we will most certainly shake hands with a two-hundred-foot armor-plated winged water moccasin that can hit the eye of a gnat with a spit of venom from twenty miles away, and that can only be slain by a hero who was born inside a knitting needle during a total eclipse of the moon on the thirty-first day of February."

  I flushed, and looked down at my toes.

  "If it's all right with you, I'd rather worry about real heads splashing into real basins filled with real blood," I said meekly.

  "You have a point." He sighed.

  Master Li looked wryly at the abbot and shrugged his shoulders.

  "The supernatural can be very annoying until one finds the key that transforms it into science," he observed mildly. "I'm probably imagining complications that don't exist. Come on, Ox, let's go out and get killed."

  The Duke of Ch'in had left on his annual tax trip, with the Key Rabbit and Lotus Cloud, and we caught up with them in Chuyen. Unfortunately, the Key Rabbit's apartment was high in an unclimbable tower in the palace of the duke's provincial governor. There were no vines to cling to, and no foot- or handholds, and every entrance was guarded by soldiers. Master Li did not appear to be greatly disturbed.

  "Ox, I learned a valuable lesson in natural history when I was exiled to Serendip," he said. "When a foraging ant discovers something of value, it grabs a sample and dashes back to the colony screaming, 'Awake! Arise! Beat the drums! Sound general quarters! I have discovered wealth beyond the dreams of avarice!' Then the whole colony follows the ant back to the treasure, but are they content to take what they see? Not if it is a trail of something. Ants that find trails of something they like will follow those trails to the source, even if it means crossing half of the world. Do you see the significance of that?"

  "No, sir," I said.

  "You will," said Master Li.

  In the marketplace he bought a large jar of honey and a box that contained a colony of ants. Then he bribed a maid to bring a message to Lotus Cloud, and on the first cloudy night we scaled the outer walls of the governor's palace, slipped past the guards, and made our way to the tower. I hooted three times like an owl. Lotus Cloud, who was enjoying the game immensely, opened her window and poured the jar of honey that the maid had brought down the wall, and when the thick sweet trickle reached us Li Kao opened the box and released the ants. They plunged into the honey with bulging squeals of delight, discovered that it was a trail, and started to climb.

  The last ant was the biggest, and it was towing a gauze thread that was lighter than a feather. It scrambled over Lotus Cloud's windowsill, and she detached the thread and tugged three times. Li Kao tied a fine length of string to his end of the thread and tugged back, and Lotus Cloud began pulling it up. Then came a cord tied to the end of the string, and a rope tied to the end of the cord, and Lotus Cloud tied her end of the rope to something sturdy inside the apartment. Li Kao hopped upon my back and in a matter of minutes I had climbed an unclimbable wall and flopped over the windowsill.

  "Boopsie!" Lotus Cloud squealed happily.

  I dumped my pearls and jade at her feet. "Do I have a story to tell you!" I panted.

  "Later," Li Kao said warningly.

  Footsteps were approaching the door. I took Master Li on my back and swung back out the window, and then I clung to the rope and lifted my eyes back up over the windowsill. A pasty-faced lout crashed through the door, staggered across the room, dumped an armload of pearls and jade on top of my pearls and jade, fell to his knees, wrapped his arms around Lotus Cloud's legs, and buried his face against her thighs.

  "My surname is Chia and my personal name is Chen and it is my unhappy lot to serve in this miserable rathole as the duke's provincial governor, and I have worshipped you ever since you grinned at me in the garden this morning," he moaned.

  Lotus Cloud laughed happily; her fingers played with his hair.

  "I shall call you Woofie," she said.

  I sighed and sadly climbed back down the wall.

  "Woofie?" said Master Li. "Ox, far be it for me to interfere with your affairs, but there would appear to be certain drawbacks in forming a close relationship with Lotus Cloud."

  "I love her as much as ever." I sighed.

  He patted my shoulder comfortingly. "At least you will never be lonely," he said. "You and her other admirers can hold annual conventions. Perhaps the imperial elephant stables might be large enough for the purpose, and if not, you can rent an impoverished province. I hear that the grain harvest in Hua has been miserable this year, and the peasants should be delighted to entertain sixty or seventy thousand visitors with money in their pockets. Although I am talking nonsense, since every one of you will be bankrupt."

  "Great Heavens!" the lout yelled above us. "There is a rope tied to your bed!"

  "Rope? What rope?" said Lotus Cloud.

  The pasty-face peered over the windowsill, and under the circumstances there was little that we could do except smile in a friendly fashion and wave. The provincial governor pointed down at us and squawked,

  "Burglars! Fear not, my beloved, I have my trusty sword!"

  And then the bastard cut the rope.

  We had ample time t
o survey the landscape as we plunged toward the courtyard. In another part of the palace a banquet was breaking up and the departing guests were climbing into carriages and sedan chairs. We were plunging straight toward one of the latter, and we landed upon the vast belly of an enormously fat fellow. I bounced off to the cobblestones, but Li Kao was much lighter and he continued to bounce up and down like a ball while the fat fellow's dinner sprayed into the air.

  Pigeon-egg soup, with lotus roots and dumplings and crushed pine kernels was followed by ducks' tongues cooked in sesame oil with mushrooms and bamboo shoots, which were followed by the ducks themselves — at least three — which had been stuffed with shellfish and steamed inside a cover of hardened bean curd, which were followed by spider crabs simmered in sweet white wine, which were followed by lamb kidneys sauteed with minced walnuts, which were followed by honeycakes, which were followed by candied fruits, which were followed by sweetmeats, which were followed by green tea, which was followed by plum wine, which was followed by Daffodil Digestive Tonic, which was followed by Seven Spirits Regulating Tonic, which was followed by Fragrant Fire Vitality Tonic, which was followed by hiccups, which were followed by a pair of hands that clamped around Li Kao's throat.

  "What have you done with my case of compasses?" screamed our porcupine merchant.

  17. A Miraculous Transformation

  In a way we were quite lucky. The Duke of Ch'in was continuing his tax trip with the Key Rabbit — Lotus Cloud was to rejoin them in a week or so — and in his absence we received a very considerate death sentence from the provincial governor, who was understandably annoyed because we had delayed his entrance into Lotus Cloud's bed.

  "You may choose your own method for departing this earth!" he yelled.

  Then we were marched up to the roof of the tallest tower and the door was bricked up. This left us the choice between slowly starving to death or jumping to the cobblestones one hundred feet below, and I sat down miserably and buried my head in my hands. How much longer could the children last? Two months? Three? The keen-eyed bonzes that the abbot had posted would stare in vain from the roof of the monastery, because Master Li and Number Ten Ox were not going to return with the rest of the Great Root of Power. I wept until I realized that some of the sounds were coming from below me, and with a startled sense of hope I saw that the soldiers were unsealing the door.

  Hope faded quickly when I understood that they were merely opening the door in order to shove another condemned prisoner up upon the roof, and as they bricked it up again Master Li took note of a pair of little pig eyes, a bald and mottled skull, a sharp curving nose like a parrot's beak, the loose flabby lips of a camel, and two drooping elephant ears from which sprouted thick tufts of coarse gray hair.

  "Would you care to buy a goat?" he said with a polite bow.

  To our astonishment Miser Shen ran to embrace us with cries of joy.

  "What good fortune!" he cried. "I had feared that I would never have the opportunity of thanking my benefactors in person!"

  "Benefactors?" I said.

  "Thanking us?" said Master Li.

  "For saving my life!" cried Miser Shen. "If it had not been for you, the Key Rabbit would not have determined the extent of my wealth, and if he had not determined the extent of my wealth he would not have invited me to tea, and if he had not invited me to tea I would still be the stingiest and most miserable miser in China. Lotus Cloud," he said proudly, "made a new man of me."

  "Let me guess," Li Kao said. "She bankrupted you in a week?"

  Miser Shen drew himself up proudly.

  "Great Buddha, no! Why, such was the extent of my wealth that it took the dear girl almost a month to reduce me to abject poverty. Of course I owe a good deal to luck," he added modestly. "After Lotus Cloud ran through my countless chests of buried gold I was able to get very good prices for my eight businesses, my six houses, my carriage, my sedan chair, my horse, my three cows, my ten pigs, my twenty chickens, my eight savage guard dogs, my seven half-starved servants, my — Dear boy, do you happen to remember my young and beautiful concubine?"

  "Vividly," I said.

  "I was very lucky there, because I was able to buy three more days of Lotus Cloud by selling Pretty Ping to an up-and-coming young fellow in the brothel business. Lucky for Pretty Ping too, because one of her customers fell in love with her and made her his number-three wife, and now he showers her with the gifts and affection that she never received from me. Poor girl, I treated her terribly." Miser Shen sighed. "But then I was not truly human, because I had not yet met Lotus Cloud."

  "I am finding this fascinating," said Master Li. "What did you do when you had nothing left to sell?"

  "Why, I turned to crime, of course," said Miser Shen. "I am particularly proud of my performance during the Dragon Boat Festival. It occurred to me that the boats originally raced to sacrifice to the spirit of Ch'u Yuan, who drowned himself as a protest against corrupt government, but that the festival has degenerated into little more than a professional boat race upon which vast sums are wagered. Well, there was the betting boat with the bookmakers and other dignitaries on board, and there came the dragon boats skimming across the water, and there I came, walking upon the surface. I was on stilts, of course, and I wore an exact copy of the ancient ceremonial costume of Ch'u Yuan, and I had a long staff and a big black beard.

  "'Insolent dogs!' I roared. 'You dare to turn the occasion of my honorable death into a sporting event? I shall smite you with pestilence, typhoons, and earthquakes!'

  "It was very effective because I had covered my head with protective ointment and my false beard with pitch, and at that moment I set fire to the beard," said Miser Shen. "When Ch'u Yuan came striding across the waves with a halo of flames around his head, the people on the betting boat dived into the water and swam for their lives, and I cut the anchor rope and climbed on board and sailed away with all the money. I spent every cent on pearls and jade, but the soldiers caught me before I could give it to Lotus Cloud, so here I am."

  Li Kao turned and stared at me.

  "This happy, vibrant fellow with an admirable talent for crime is Miser Shen?" he said incredulously. "Ox, this transformation is nothing short of miraculous!"

  He turned back to Miser Shen and bowed.

  "We must dispense with titles," he said. "My surname is Li and my personal name is Kao, and there is a slight flaw in my character, and this is my esteemed client, Number Ten Ox. We have something important to do, so we must escape from this tower as soon as possible, and we would be honored if you would care to accompany us."

  Miser Shen wiped tears from his eyes. "It has been forty years since anyone wanted me to accompany them anywhere," he sniffled. "Unfortunately there is no way to escape from this tower."

  "Something will turn up," Master Li said confidently.

  He was right, although when it turned up he was as astonished as I was. There was a loud commotion at the gates and a mob burst into the courtyard and demanded to see the governor. The governor stepped out, along with our porcupine merchant, and the mob parted to reveal a furious farmer, a cow, and two gentlemen of low appearance. A babble of voices drifted up to us, and we were able to piece together the following account:

  The farmer had heard a commotion in his pasture and he had rushed out to discover that a bald gentleman was down on his knees with his arms wrapped lovingly around the legs of one of the farmer's prize cows. A fat gentleman, who was carrying a small funeral urn, was weeping his eyes out, and he turned and wept on the farmer's shoulder for a while. Then he recovered enough to relate a marvelous tale.

  The bald fellow's beloved mother had expired some time ago, and her son had honored her rather unusual request to be cremated. One night the ghost of his mother came to see him in a dream, and she expressed the wish to have her ashes placed among the lohans at Lung-men. So the bald fellow and his dear friend had set forth with the ashes on the pious pilgrimage, only to discover that the ghost had something else in mind. The road to
Lung-men passed by the farmer's pasture, and the cow had been waiting for them. The bald fellow had recognized the soft brown eyes immediately.

  "Mother!" he screeched. "My beloved mother has been reborn as a cow!"

  The reunion had been emotional, and the farmer was forced to shed a few tears himself as he watched it. The cow's eyes were streaming with tears of joy as she lovingly licked the bald fellow's skull. "Mother! What joy to see you again!" he sobbed, kissing her hairy legs.

  What choice did the farmer have? He felt the warm glow of a deed well done as he watched his cow dwindle in the distance with the arms of the two gentlemen wrapped around its neck. He was only a gentleman farmer, and he was quite surprised when he was informed that cows always weep when they lick salt.

  "And that includes salt that has been sprinkled upon a bald skull!" the farmer yelled.

  "How dare you accuse us of fraud?" screamed Pawnbroker Fang.

  "We shall sue!" howled Ma the Grub.

  When the farmer took off in pursuit he was joined by neighbors who had also experienced the wiles of Ma and Fang, and now they wanted the governor to hang these crooks from the highest tree.

  "Lies, all lies!" screamed Pawnbroker Fang.

  "We demand compensation for slander!" howled Ma the Grub.

  "Ox, you know these creatures well. What will they do now?" asked Master Li.

  "They will go on the offense," I said firmly. "I don't know how, but they'll manage it."

  "Splendid. Gentlemen, let's get out of here."

  There was a huge silk flag with the duke's tiger emblem fluttering from a pole on top of the tower, and the soldiers were too interested in Ma and Fang and the lynch mob to notice when I cut it loose and hauled it down. From the wreckage of an old bamboo pigeon coop we made a basket to stand in, and the lanyard from the pole attached the basket to the flag.

  "The principle is the same as that of a falling leaf, which drifts down gently because the air that pushes up against its surface almost counterbalances the weight that pushes it down," Master Li explained. "This flag may just be large enough to hold enough air, although I would be happier if the tower were another hundred feet high."