His coin brought the Electric Cassandra to life. She nodded, turned back and forth. Her jaw dropped and a voice said: “Seeker, ware—the future.” Her large hands shoved a card out of an opening in the glass: “After heartbreak, you find true love.” “Yours,” said Taña, putting the card in Wittman’s hand.
“Oh, no, it’s yours. You touched it first, your fortune. Mine’s the next one. I’ll take the next one.”
The next one was: “Follow your destiny to be rich or famous.”
“I choose famous,” he said.
“I choose rich,” she said. “I don’t think I could handle famous.”
“Realistically, in my life, Taña, I keep getting dealt a choice between time and money. An American peasant has to choose between time and money. I choose time.”
At the diorama of the Cosmos, the moon rolled around the Earth, the planets around the sun in blue space luxurious with silver and gold stars. The Cosmos is a music-box that twinkles and spins. A comet with rainbow tail arced slowly past. Then a brindle cow jumped over the moon, and a little dog laughed to see such sport, and the dish ran away with the spoon.
There were no other people about. They could jimmy the glass case, and try to fit inside Tom Thumb’s and Mrs. Thumb’s carriage. Finger-dance in the tiny kid gloves and the shoes with spats. “You fan yourself with the wee fan,” said Taña, “and the gloves will fit.”
In the photo booth on the mezzanine above the skating rink, they took wedding pictures, a strip of four for a dollar. The first picture, “for the folks,” they pantomimed feeding each other cake. The second, “our real selves,” she wore a nice smile, and he looked pissed off. The last two were for each other’s wallets, one of her by herself, and one of him by himself. Taña looked like a blonde movie star; Wittman looked like a wanted bandito. El Immigrante, his wetback passport picture i.d.
How is their marriage to work out when, as they could see from “our real selves,” they were not on the same trip at the same time? “It’s hard to take two-shots,” said Wittman. “Actors have to be well directed to appear as if they belong in the same picture.”
“You’re photogenic, Wittman,” she said. Good thing. How can those who are not photogenic walk about showing their faces? Or is she putting him on? Telling him what he needs to hear?
They hung over the balcony and watched the skaters going around. If we run downstairs and rent skates, could we be Orlando and the Russian princess zipping on the frozen Thames above the apple woman in the deep ice? Wittman, the fool for books, ought to swear off reading for a while, and find his own life.
For their wedding picnic—can’t go home, home have I none—they drove to the Palace of Fine Arts. Near the No Admittance sign, he showed her a hole in the cyclone fence, and helped her through it. The green grass grew all around. In a nest of it, they ate cheese and French bread, nectarines, snappy raw stringbeans, and drank a California champagne from the bottle. This Taña could be anyone, a perfectly good enough person to be married to. She had patches of freckles on her arms and on one knee. There was blue paint and green paint—her palette—under her nails. He had been wide awake when he married her, his daylight love. Forget the dreamgirl of the dark night.
“I’m going to own this palace,” he said. “We’re home. These are my ducks.” They threw them crumbs. They walked about, poking at the chicken wire and the insides of the hollow papier-mâché colonnades. The pink crust of the structure was breaking off in chunks. Lazy caryatids and atlantes, without a roof to hold up, draped their thick arms over the tops of the columns. The human couple walked all the way around and inside. From every angle, the giants turned their backs; backs are easier to sculpt than fronts.
“My palace was built to be viewed from up there,” said Wittman, and led the way climbing the slope to the street. From the bench, they saw across the greensward a pink city on a moat lagoon. It looked like the hideout of the hundred and eight outlaws, a mountain encircled by borders of water. The caryatids and atlantes were looking down into pens at—a dog fight? A cock fight? A people fight. “Nobody wants a land, I got uses for it. I’m going to take over this ghost palace, where the atmosphere is suggestive with deeds on the verge of taking place.”
“I will help you rule,” said Taña.
O Central Casting, she’s the consort of my life.
“The wedding present from me to you,” he said, presenting her with this World’s Fair site that belongs to all. He’s giving her every chance to speak up if to her it was but a bogus abbadabba marriage. She doesn’t like him, why, she can leave him here among the grasses and ruins. “This place and a starring role in my play that continues like life are yours. The army that we raised at breakfast will parade down Broadway and the length of Market Street. There will be a train of elephants, and in each of their howdahs, four soldiers, pointing rifles in four directions. Their uniforms are G.I. camouflage khakis. The eyes peering out from between their helmets and the tar on their cheekbones are Indochinese eyes. This part, I’m not making up. Have you read in the papers? The side we’re backing in Viet Nam goes to war on elephants. A patrol of four or six elephants pick through the jungle to search-and-destroy communists. Elephants have very sensitive trunks and toes. The disadvantage is that an expanse of elephant makes a too easy target. Because of the guilt of having dropped A-bombs, we are returning to a more natural warfare. Elephants and dolphins.”
Wittman was getting his inspiration from a book known as The Book of Evil; its title is something like The Water Verge. It’s Mao’s favorite book—his field guide—the acts of 108 revolutionaries. In preparation for warfare in marshes and rivers and rice paddies, the Pentagon was using this book too. There is a curse that anyone who tells or stages or discusses its legends would be struck mute, and his children and grandchildren also be mute. Wittman and the U.S. military may fall silent at any moment now. The ideas for strategic hamlets and agrovilles came from that book, and from Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura, which warns that animals often backfire in battle. War animals were part of the impedimenta that Hannibal took over the Alps. Generals, who were wizards of the wind, blew the animals—wild boars, tigers, lions, bulls—around, and they turned on their owners. Our engineers are keeping the elephants and dolphins under control with radio implants.
There used to be three peace books too. They were found in a cave by a wind wizard, and now they’re lost. This wizard had blue-green eyes and looked both young and old. He gave the books to a student who had failed his exams. This student learned control of the weather. Which could mean he had the charisma to change the atmosphere when he walked into a room. His young-old teacher said “You can rescue mankind. You will suffer,” and handed him The Way of Peace. That book’s title is all we know of it anymore; its contents are but suspect memorizations, argumentations, and rumors.
Ho Chi Minh’s favorite reading was The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and it’s a text at West Point too. Uncle Ho and Uncle Sam were both getting their strategy and philosophy from Grandfather Gwan, god of war.
Wittman continued telling his story as follows:
“Yonder palace is defended against the elephant army by knights on black stallions, Trigger palominos, and stout Mongolian ponies with trick riders that charge out of the intercolumniations into battle on the greensward. Archers on horseback and archers on the roof pull bows that shoot ten simultaneous arrows. On the water, a boat with blue cloths sails slowly by and collects the arrows in the cross-fire. Knights are fighting up and down those stairs that lead along the walls and into walls. Two beautiful ladies stand on those platforms amid the two clusters of columns, and sing about no one missing them. ‘Two leaves from off a tree, two grains dropped from a silo.’ They’re the two most beautiful women in the land, and Cho Cho, as we call him in American, the brothers’ archenemy, has built towers to keep them as his very own. On that tree hangs the red silk robe that he is giving as a tourney prize. Five arrows hit the bullseye, shot from horseback, shot riding backwards, s
hot hanging upside down from stirrups, shot from a single bow. The knights fight over it; then he gives all of them a red silk robe each. Kettle drums and cymbals and strings of ten thousand firecrackers echo like mad in the rotunda and across the water. Hookmen try to scale those turrets and the ice wall. Infantry run to it with pocketfuls of dirt, which they pile into a slope. Actors stride the tops of those ramparts. The platforms are for the soliloquies of heroes and for dialogues across chasms.
“The failed student with a peace manual and the power of the winds fights against the three brothers. His army in yellow scarves charge from over there, and the brothers charge, pounding the earth, from that side. They clang in the middle. The knights cross halberds, fleur-de-lis steel on X-ing lances. Trumpets blare, drums and gunpowder bang. Elephants trumpet. Liu Pei fights with a bullwhip; you can hear it cracking amid the firecrackers. Chang Fei flies like his name, his eighteen-foot spear before him, and pierces an elephant through the heart. Grandfather Gwan rides Red Rabbit, and cuts men in half with one swoop of his sword. You, Taña, gallop bareback on a white horse across the esplanade.
“At nightfall, the campfires (some are decoys) light up swaths of turf with a no-man’s-land of darkness in between. The outnumbered brothers ambush the enemy on three sides of that triangular palace. They set fire to the turf grass. The flames throw shadows of battle up among those watching giants. The sunrise or the fire enflames the world. Each side has its wind wizard howling the weather up. The special-effects guy goes wild. Rocks and elephants roll. The brothers confer. Their wizard advises to pour pig’s blood, goat’s blood, and dog’s blood down on the heads of their enemies, who were maybe Muslims. From the tiers of the palace cascades a storm of blood rain. Fireballs roll like burning tumbleweeds. Knights and horses and elephants explode.
“A silence descends for an interval. A black cloud settles on the field. Soldiers and animals land. The wind stops. Thunder stops. The bands stop playing. We’ve used up the fireworks. Rocks settle. Out of the smoke rides Liu Pei chasing Chang Chio, the student of the magic books, shooting arrows at each other from horseback. Chang Chio drops his bow, clasps his arm; he’s been hit. He turns his horse about; they fight hand to hand. Liu Pei wins, but the men in yellow break through the flames. And from around the back of the palace comes another army, red guidons high; it’s Cho Cho. His army drives the brothers to the Yangtze. Cho Cho does a victory dance in red silks up there on the rooftop.”
Along the street behind Wittman and Taña, a moving van passed back and forth. Those who have lived near a river and a highway know that one sounds much like the other.
“The city is on fire. The people run to the river. The brothers blow up the dam, and escape in a boat. Chang Fei has to hack away at the hands of allies who could pull the boat down. They sail through devastation. Liu Pei weeps, ‘Why was I ever born to be the cause of all this misery to the people?’
“Your part is coming up, Taña, and it gets larger, I promise. I have to talk fast. I may go mute at any moment. And the curse goes down three generations.”
“We’re going to have very quiet kids and grandkids who talk with their hands?” said Taña.
“We’ll love our little muties. I better warn you; there’s another curse. I’m going to tell you a wedding story from the tradition of the Heroic Couple on the Battlefield that will turn you into a Chinese. Ready?”
“Ready,” said Taña.
“Years go by; battles are lost and won; kingdoms rise and fall. Lady Sun, a beautiful princess with red hair and blue eyes, has beaten all of her father’s and brother’s knights using their choice of weapon. She wants to try combat in a real war. News reaches her that Liu Pei’s two wives have been killed. She could marry the famous old warrior, and be his partner, martial and marital. She sends him a proposal, which Liu Pei receives while mourning his wives. He has been singing an aria about growing old alone, having spent his life at war. To answer her, he sets off with a fleet of ten fast ships across the Yangtze to the southern kingdom of Wu, where Americans come from. Herding sheep and bearing wine jars, Liu Pei and half his army and navy go to the royal palace. The other half, dressed in their best civvies, shop all through the town for wedding presents.
“Liu Pei meets the gold-haired family: The old king, killer of a white tiger. Sun Ch’üan, the prince who is plotting against this would-be brother-in-law. The queen, one of the two women Cho Cho wants to keep in towers. She scolds her family, ‘You’re using my girl as a decoy duck.’ Underneath his scholar’s robe, Liu Pei wears light mail.”
“Charley’s not Liu Pei,” said Taña. “You are.”
“Yes, and you’re my Lady Sun. On our wedding day, we walk between lines of red torches to the bride’s apartment—which is a private armory. You’ve furnished your rooms with spears and swords, banners and flags, and your ladies-in-waiting are an amazon army. ‘Is this the ambush then?’ I ask.
“The women laugh at me, ‘What’s wrong? Haven’t you seen weapons before?’
“I ask them to take the deadlier ones with them when they leave.
“I part the curtains of the wedding bed. A Chinese bed is like a proscenium stage, and like a very private room. The three walls and the ceiling are carved out of wood, forests of animals and people with mother-of-pearl eyes; in the grain of the inlaid marble are misty mountains and waterfalls. There are doors and drawers, and shelves for books and vases. You could peek out through gingerbread and spindles. The beautiful redhead who’s in there says, ‘So you don’t like my weapons. Afraid of a few swords after half a lifetime of slaughter?’
“ ‘Take off your swords,’ I say. ‘Remove your armor. Disarm thyself.’ You do, and I love you, and you love me.
“The gold-haired family luxuriate me. They build me a castle, where I regularly dine off gold and silver. I read in a library. Musicians always play. My men practice archery and race their horses. They don’t see their leader much. A year goes by.
“Lady Sun gets her husband to swordfence with her every day, acquiring his abilities. Then we have tea in our tower, whence we look down at the beautiful land and the river. We sing duets. A wind whips up waves, rocking and pitching a tiny boat. ‘You southern people are sailors, and we northern men ride horses well,’ observes Liu Pei.
“At that, you jump from the balcony onto your white steed, galloping headlong downhill. You wheel around, calling, ‘So the southerners can’t ride, eh?’
“I lift my robe, jump on my horse, and full-gallop down the hill too. We ride side by side into the capital, where the people acclaim us.
“ ‘Beloved, is it true that northerners call their spouses “comrade”?’ you ask.
“ ‘I’ll call you “beloved,” my beloved southerner.’ Oi yun. Beloved.
“ ‘And are southern women the most beautiful?’
“ ‘Thou, the most beautiful, and the most beloved.’
“We often talk about how northerners and southerners differ. Northerners are stubborn; southerners are quick to revolution. Southerners are natural comedians; northerners laugh just hearing them speak Cantonese, the ugliest language in the world. Peking opera is for sissy academics; Cantonese opera has soul. Northerners are old; southerners are older. Educated people speak Mandarin; real people speak Cantonese, albeit the ugliest language in the world.
“One day near spring, I hear that Cho Cho, my lifelong enemy, is leading fifty legions to attack the one city that is mine. A man with the gift of tears, I weep in front of my wife.
“ ‘Why are you sad, my beloved husband?’ you ask.
“ ‘I’ve been driven hither and yon all my life. I’ve ridden past my ancestral village many times, and couldn’t stop at my parents’ grave. And another new year is coming.’
“ ‘Tell me the truth. You want to leave me.’
“ ‘I have to save my city. I have to go, but I don’t want to leave you.’
“ ‘Don’t be sad, my husband, my loved one. I’ll find a way for us to leave together.’
“We attend New Year’s parties all day, and toward evening, you say to your mother, ‘My husband is thinking of his parents. He wants to go to the river to make offerings toward the north.’
“ ‘As a good wife, you ought to go with him,’ says the queen.
“You ride in your palanquin, and I ride my horse at the head of our small entourage.
“Sun Ch’üan goes to bed after feasting. He wakes up after his sister and brother-in-law have had a night’s head start. Throwing his jade inkstone across the room, he says, ‘I want their heads.’ He sends cohorts after us. ‘Bring back their heads, or I’ll have yours. My sister plays war. I’ll teach her what war is.’
“Liu Pei and Lady Sun see a cloud of dust, soldiers coming. ‘You go on,’ you say. ‘I’ll stop them.’ But troops also block the road in front.
“ ‘I have something private to say to you.’ I dismount, and go inside your palanquin with you. We enclose ourselves from the rest of the world. ‘You’ve got me. I’m in your hands now. You win. I know there’s a plot to this marriage. If you want to kill me, go ahead. You’ve been kind to me, and I thank you.’ I face the utter paranoia of marriage.
“ ‘I don’t want to kill you,’ says my wife. ‘I don’t want you killed. I’ll save you.’ You hold me by the hand. We walk through the troops, whom you scold all the while. ‘My brother sent you, so you say. You fear him more than you fear me, do you? I’ll get him for this. You’re turning traitors. Or are you bandits who want money? What are your names?’ You take down the names of the officers. ‘You’re in trouble now, spoiling this holiday journey that my mother ordered. What have we ever done to you?’
“You lead your group onward, but companies of soldiers follow us. ‘Go,’ you tell me. ‘I’ll hold them off.’
“I ride away. You retreat behind your curtains. Your retinue stops in the middle of the road, waiting for the pursuers to catch up. They hear your voice, ‘What are you doing here, captains?’ They tell you to come home with them alive.
Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book (Vintage International) Page 23
