China

by Edward Rutherfurd

  “No, you mustn’t,” she cried. “Wait a little while.” She needed to gather her thoughts. “Stay a few more days. Don’t you want to see me? Will you promise me?”

  “All right,” he said reluctantly. And he seemed about to say something more when her father appeared behind them. He looked scared. “Someone’s at the door,” he said.

  “Say I’m not here,” she hissed. It could only be Mother. “Quickly,” she begged. But her father didn’t move. Like everyone else, he was afraid of her mother-in-law. “Father, please.”

  But it was too late. The front door swung open unevenly, revealing the outline of a figure in the fog. The figure stepped in.

  And then she saw, with joy, that it was her husband.

  She had to go with him, of course. He told her right away: “I guessed you’d be here. But we need to get back.”

  “I heard you on the bridge,” she said. “I thought it was Mother.” She looked at him anxiously. “Are you angry with me?” He shook his head. “What will we say to Mother if she’s missed us?”

  “I’ll say I took you for a walk.”

  “In the fog?”

  “She can’t prove anything else.” He smiled. “Nothing she can do.”

  “You are so good to me.”

  They passed the little shrine and turned down onto the track.

  “Do you know why I made them let me marry you, Mei-Ling?” he suddenly asked. “Do you think it was because you were the prettiest girl in the village?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It was because I could see your character—the kind spirit in your face. That is why you are beautiful. That is why I married you. I knew you would try to see your Little Brother, no matter what it cost. Because you love him. Because you are good. So I am happy.”

  “And I am lucky to have a husband like you,” said Mei-Ling. And then she told him everything about Nio and her fears for him.

  “It’s not good,” he agreed.

  “He’s so obstinate,” she explained. “You know that scar on his face? He got it here when he was a little boy. One of the older boys in the village was rude about my father. Said he was poor and stupid, and made the other boys laugh at him. And then Nio started fighting him, although the boy was twice his size. And Nio knocked him down, too, until the boy got his hands on a plank of wood and smashed Nio in the face with it. He’s still got the scar.”

  “Brave.”

  “Yes. But if he thinks he’s in the right, everything else goes out of his head. I never know what he’s going to do next.”

  “It will be difficult for you to meet him again,” Second Son said. “I don’t think even I can arrange it.” He brightened. “But I can talk to him for you. Nobody’s forbidden it. Maybe he’ll listen to me.”

  “You would do that?”

  “This afternoon, if you like.”

  “Oh, Husband.” She threw her arms around him. One wasn’t supposed to show affection, but in the fog no one could see them. They walked on. They were nearly at the little footbridge. “There’s something else I want to tell you,” she said.

  “More bad news?”

  “Good news. I mean, I’m not certain yet.” She paused a moment. “Not quite. But I think you’re going to be a father.”

  A huge grin spread over his face. “Really?”

  “I can’t promise it will be a son…”

  “I don’t care, if I can have a daughter like you.”

  “Why are you always so kind, Husband?” She didn’t believe him, of course. No family in China ever wanted a baby girl. Everyone congratulated the family who had a baby boy. If a girl was born, people just said nothing, or maybe something like “better luck next time.” Once she heard a man say to the father of a baby girl, “I’m sorry for your misfortune.”

  “No, really, I don’t mind. If there are no girls born, then soon there won’t be any more children. Obviously. No future mothers. It’s stupid the way people only want boys.”

  She nodded and then confessed: “I’ve always dreamed of having a little girl. But I never told anybody. People would have been so angry.”

  They had come to the bridge. The fog was getting thinner. They could see the handrails and the grey water below.

  * * *

  —

  When they entered the house, the village elder was still there, more or less awake now, sitting on the big divan and drinking tea. And so was Mother. She stood in the passageway, glowering at them. She addressed herself directly to Mei-Ling. “Where have you been?” She seemed ready to explode.

  “Walking with my husband, Mother,” Mei-Ling said meekly.

  “In the fog? Liar.”

  “We had things to discuss, Mother,” said Second Son. He let his mother’s angry eyes rest upon him and took his time. “My wife is going to have a child.”

  They both watched the older woman’s eyes narrow suspiciously. Did she believe them? If it wasn’t true, then they’d made a fool of her. A very dangerous thing to do. But if true…

  The eyes returned to fasten upon Mei-Ling. Then the voice spoke, with a frightening coldness. “Make sure, Mei-Ling, that it is a boy.”

  * * *

  —

  It was late afternoon when Second Son returned. He’d been on an errand to the next village. The mist had vanished hours ago. The hamlet, the rice fields, the duck pond, and the pleasant protective ridges above were all bathed in the light of the afternoon sun.

  Under the broad straw hat he was wearing against the sun, his face was smiling. Ever since that foggy dawn, everything had unfolded wonderfully. And now he had only one task remaining to bring a perfect end to what—it seemed to him—might be one of the best days in his life.

  He just had to make his wife happy by persuading this foolish young fellow not to run off to the big city and get himself into trouble. It might not be easy. But he didn’t mind the challenge. Indeed, when he thought of the happiness in Mei-Ling’s face if he accomplished his task, he welcomed it. He’d been rehearsing sentences of great wisdom all the way along the road.

  As he passed the little shrine at the entrance to the hamlet, he reached back over his shoulder to shake any dust from his pigtail. He pulled his tunic straight. He didn’t want anything to detract from the impression of quiet authority that was to be his today. As he went up the lane, he greeted several villagers politely, watching to make sure that they were returning his greetings with respect.

  When he came to the house of Mei-Ling’s parents, he knocked, and the door was immediately opened by her father, who made him a low and somewhat anxious bow.

  “I came to see the young man, Nio,” Second Son explained. “Mei-Ling wants me to talk to him.”

  “Oh.” Her father looked distressed. “I am very sorry. Very sorry.” He bobbed his head again. “Nio is not here.”

  “Will he be back soon?”

  “He has left. He went away before midday.” The old man shook his head. “He went to the big city. Not coming back.” He looked sadly at his son-in-law. “I think maybe we shall never see him again.”

  * * *

  ◦

  The red sun hung in the evening sky. Leaning on his ebony stick, old Mr. Jiang stared down the slope from his family’s ancient house, across the great flat sweep of the valley in which the Yellow River ran—almost a mile across—like a huge volcanic flow of gold.

  Yellow River. Its waters were clear when it began its journey. But then the river snaked through a region where, for aeons, winds from the Gobi Desert had carried the sandy soil known as loess, depositing it there until a vast orange-brown plateau had formed, through which the river waters churned, emerging as a yellow stream. Here in Henan Province, in the heart of old China, the waters were still yellow, and would remain so for hundreds of miles until they reached the sea.

  Four tho
usand years ago, the legendary Emperor Yu had taught his people how to control the mighty river, dredge it, and irrigate the land. That had been the true beginning of China’s greatness, the old man thought.

  Of course, as in all things, vigilance was needed. For the river dropped so much silt that it was creating a new riverbed all the time. This was not obvious to the eye because, with the water’s seasonal rise and fall, it carved new banks on either side. In fact, the current was now higher than the surrounding land. Dredging and maintenance were needed every decade. Indeed, a new dredging was due in a year or two.

  Well, that would be after his time, he thought. And he smiled.

  * * *

  —

  He was glad that the last evening of his life—at least in this incarnation—should be so beautiful.

  His plan was quite simple. He’d wait until after dark, when the household was asleep, before he took the poison. It was hidden in his bedroom, in a little Chinese box that only he knew how to open. The poison was carefully chosen. His death would look natural.

  He was going to make things easy for his sister and his son, Shi-Rong.

  Fifty feet behind him, the narrow gateway to the family compound—its tiled roof elegantly curved and splayed, in the best Chinese manner—seemed ready to welcome a new ancestral owner to the courtyards it protected. Farther up the hill, the wooden cottages of the village clustered beside the track as it made its way into the ravine, past half a dozen small caves in the hillside—some used as storehouses, others as dwellings—until it reached the steeper path that led, like a series of staircases, up the high ridge to an outcrop where a little Buddhist temple nestled among the trees.

  As he turned to look westward at the sun behind the hills, he had only one regret. I wish, he thought, that I could fly. Now, this evening. Just once.

  It was more than a thousand miles to the great Tibetan Plateau, that vast rooftop of the world, fringed by the Himalayas, over which the sun seemed to be hovering at this moment. One was nearer to the eternal blue Heaven up there, he supposed, than anywhere on Earth. From those celestial heights came the greatest rivers of Asia: the Ganges, Indus, Irrawaddy, Brahmaputra, and Mekong, all flowing to the south; and flowing eastward, the two mighty rivers of China—the Yangtze, making its stupendous loop down through the valleys and rice fields of southern China, and the Yellow River, moving like a huge serpent across the grain-planted plains of the center and north.

  The Tibetan Plateau: the silent land of frozen lakes and glaciers, the endless plain in the sky where the heavens and the waters met, and from which all life descended.

  He’d been there once, when he was a young man. He wished he could go there again, and he envied the red sun that could see it every day. He nodded to himself. Tonight, he thought, that plateau, and nothing else, was what he’d keep in his mind’s eye as he sank into the sleep of death.

  * * *

  —

  His sister was sitting at a small table. She was grey-haired now, but still beautiful; and since his own wife and daughter had both departed this life, he’d been lucky to have her for company.

  On the table, he saw some piles of I Ching sticks. Without looking up at him, she spoke: “I know about the poison.”

  He frowned. “The I Ching told you?”

  “No. I opened the box.”

  “Ah.” He nodded resignedly. She’d always been clever.

  Their father had spotted that at once, when she was a little girl. He’d hired a tutor to teach them both to read and write, along with a peasant boy from the village who had shown talent.

  The peasant boy was a respected teacher in the city of Zhengzhou nowadays, with a son of his own who’d passed the provincial exams. It was a noble feature of the empire that peasants could rise to the highest office through the education system—if somebody helped them by paying for their studies. By doing so, his father, who’d been a good Buddhist, had no doubt earned much merit.

  His sister had been frighteningly quick. If girls had been allowed to take the imperial exams, he thought wryly, she might have done better than me. As it was, she was one of a small group of highly literate women, perhaps only half a dozen in the province, who were held in high regard even by scholars.

  “You have been eating almost nothing for a month, Brother,” she said, “and you are hiding poison. Please tell me why.”

  He paused. He hadn’t wanted to tell her. He’d wanted to fade away quickly. Easily.

  “You remember our father’s death,” he said quietly.

  “How could I forget?”

  “I believe I have the same condition. Last month, when I made a journey into Zhengzhou, I went to see the apothecary. They say he is the best. He found my chi to be badly out of balance. I also had acupuncture. For a little while I felt better. But since then…” He shook his head. “I do not wish to suffer as my father did. Nor for you to have to watch it, nor my son.”

  “Do you fear death?” she asked.

  “When I was a young man, though I went to our Buddhist temple and also studied the Taoist sages, I strove above all to obey the precepts of Confucius. I thought of work, family duty, right actions in the world. In my middle years, I increasingly found comfort in Buddhism, and I thought more of the life beyond, hoping that a life well lived would lead to a better reincarnation. But as I grow old, I am increasingly drawn to things that have no proper name, but which we call the Tao. The Way.” He nodded to himself. “I do not strive for this life or the next, but I desire to surrender to the great flow of all things.” He looked at her benignly. “Besides,” he added, “every illiterate peasant knows that we live on in our children.”

  “Do not take poison yet,” his sister said. “Your son may be coming to see you.”

  “The I Ching tells you this?” He looked at her suspiciously. She nodded. He was not deceived. “You wrote to him. Do you know that he is coming?”

  “He will come if he can. He is a dutiful son.”

  The old man nodded and sat down. After a few minutes he closed his eyes, while his sister continued to stare at the I Ching hexagrams on the paper in front of her.

  And dusk was falling when the silence was interrupted by an old servant hurrying into the house and calling out: “Mr. Jiang. Mr. Jiang, sir. Your son is approaching.”

  * * *

  —

  Shi-Rong went down on his knees before his father and bowed his head to the ground. The kowtow. The sign of respect owed to his father and the head of the family. But how thin the old man was.

  The sight of his son, however, and the news that he brought seemed to put new life in Mr. Jiang. And he nodded vigorously as Shi-Rong outlined his hopes for the future. “This is good,” he agreed. “I have heard of the lord Lin. He is a worthy man. One of the few.” He nodded. “You should sit your exams again, of course. But you are right to take this opportunity. The emperor himself…”

  “He will hear nothing but good things of me,” Shi-Rong promised.

  “I shall make your favorite meal while you are here,” said his aunt with a smile. Of all the dishes of the province’s Yu cuisine, it was a fish dish that Shi-Rong had always loved the best, ever since he was a boy: carp from the Yellow River, cooked three ways, to make soup, fried fillet, and sweet and sour. And no one made it better than his aunt. But the preparation was complex. It took three days.

  “I have to leave in the morning,” Shi-Rong had to confess. He saw her wilt as if she’d been struck by a blow and his father stiffen. But what could he do?

  “You must not keep the lord Lin waiting,” his father cried a little hoarsely. And then quickly, to cover his emotion: “But I am sorry that you have to go down amongst the people of the south, my son.”

  Shi-Rong smiled. Even now, his father considered the Han of the Yellow River and the great grain-growing plains of the north as the only true Chinese.r />
  “You still don’t admire the people of the rice paddies, Father?”

  “Those people think of nothing but money,” his father answered scornfully.

  “You say that the lord Lin will be putting a stop to the barbarian pirates,” his aunt said anxiously. “Does that mean that you will have to go to sea?”

  “He will do as the lord Lin commands,” his father interrupted sharply. “He must be hungry,” he added.

  While his aunt went to prepare some food, his father questioned him closely about the mission. “Are these pirates the red-haired barbarians, or the other bearded devils?” the old man wanted to know.

  “I am not sure,” Shi-Rong replied. “Mr. Wen told me that the lord Lin told him that they once sent an embassy here. Also that he has heard they are very hairy and they cannot bend their legs, so that they often fall over.”

  “That seems unlikely,” said Mr. Jiang. “But I remember that when I was a young man, an embassy arrived at the court of the present emperor’s grandfather. I heard the details from people who were at court. The barbarians came by ship from a distant western land. Their ambassador brought gifts, but he refused to kowtow to the emperor in the proper manner. This had never happened before. The emperor understood that he was an ignorant and stupid man, but still gave him a magnificent piece of jade—though the fellow clearly had no idea of its value. Next the barbarian showed us goods from his country—clocks, telescopes, and I don’t know what—thinking to impress us. The emperor explained that we had no need for the things he brought, but was too polite to point out that they were inferior to the similar items already given him by embassies from other western lands. Finally this barbarian asked that his wretched people should be allowed to trade with other ports besides Guangzhou—where all the other foreign merchants are content to be allowed—and made all sorts of other foolish demands. He was absurd.” He nodded. “Perhaps these opium pirates come from the same land.”