China

by Edward Rutherfurd

  The setting, with the river Li flowing past the houses and winding its way through rice fields, under the gaze of the soaring green hills, was so lovely it made one gasp. The boy was also impressed by the different tribes he saw in the street. He admired the Zhuang men in their severe dark blue costumes, and their women, also in dark blue, but with brightly embroidered aprons. By contrast, the women of the Yao tribe wore gorgeous flowery robes, so covered with silver trinkets that he thought it a wonder they could walk. He counted at least five tribal communities all mixing in the streets in the easiest way.

  He saw tall wooden houses that began as hay barns, turned into dwellings higher up, and then into storerooms in the roof. “So high that even the rats can’t get at them,” the prefect informed him with a laugh.

  They went down to the river and saw the fishermen in their boats. “It’s probably the best-stocked river in the whole empire,” his father said. “There are two hundred different kinds of fish in these waters.”

  “Are they all edible?” Ru-Hai asked. His father didn’t know and passed the question on to the prefect.

  “The Cantonese will eat almost anything,” that worthy gentleman answered with a smile.

  In the marketplace they saw magnificent embroidered cloths for sale, each tribe having their own rich style. They watched a crowd listening to a pair of musicians, one with a flute, the other a horn, accompanied by an old fellow beating a big copper drum. “The drum’s probably hundreds of years old,” Shi-Rong explained. A group of singers came down the street. “They won’t perform for an hour or two, but you can hang around to listen if you want,” the prefect said. “If you stay here a year, you’ll see all kinds of festivals. They even have a bullfight, you know.”

  In short, by the time they came back to the prefect’s residence at noon, young Ru-Hai had almost forgotten his anger of the day before, having decided that Guilin was the most exotic and romantic place he had ever seen in his life.

  * * *

  —

  It was afternoon, still quite warm. Ru-Hai had gone into the town again. Mei-Ling had returned home, and she was sitting on a stone bench in the garden, half hidden from the path by a sweet osmanthus tree. She’d brought a small piece of embroidery with her, hoping to improve her skill. But she hadn’t yet begun when she became aware of someone coming along the path.

  She was surprised to see Ru-Hai. She’d assumed he was still down in the marketplace listening to the singers.

  She got a glimpse of his face before he saw her. He looked preoccupied. Not unhappy, but thoughtful. He’s probably come into the garden to be alone, she thought, and she was about to rise so he could have the place to himself.

  But when he saw her, he seemed quite pleased and sat down on the bench beside her. “Can I ask you a question?” he said.

  She bowed her head politely. “Of course.”

  “How did you become my father’s concubine?”

  “Oh.” She hadn’t expected quite such a blunt question. “Your father was very kind to my family,” she said after a slight pause. “But if I tell you how, you must promise not to repeat it to anyone—because it might embarrass your father.”

  “All right.” He frowned. “I promise.”

  “Some years ago, a cousin of mine got into trouble,” said Mei-Ling. “He was very close to me. My family had virtually adopted him. I called him Little Brother. Officially, your father should have arrested him, but Little Brother was young and your father let him get away. So I owed your father a debt of kindness that I thought I could never repay. After that, I didn’t see your father for years. But a few months ago, as he happened to find himself near our village, he came to call on us. My dear husband had died a year and a half before. Your father and I talked. I suppose I was lonely, and to tell you the truth, it seemed to me that he was lonely, too. And one thing led to another. And here I am.”

  “I didn’t know he had it in him,” Ru-Hai said. He looked impressed.

  “We none of us know everything, do we?” she suggested.

  “I suppose not.” He nodded sadly. “I felt angry with him because of Mother. I’d been thinking I’d go home tomorrow, unless Father stopped me.”

  “I don’t think your father would stop you,” she said. “But although he might not show it, he’d be very hurt.”

  “He’s hurting my mother.”

  “Does she know?”

  “No.”

  “Then, forgive me for saying this—you may think very badly of me—but do you have to tell her? You know I shall be going home myself in a while.”

  “You don’t think he’ll take you to the next place?”

  “Oh no, I have to return to my family,” she replied. “I believe your father will reunite with your mother.”

  “Maybe.” Ru-Hai considered for a moment. “Mother complains a lot,” he said gloomily. “She thinks my father should have been more successful.”

  “He seems successful to me.”

  “Maybe. Not to her, though.”

  He stared at the ground. He seemed to be ruminating, so she didn’t interrupt him. Suddenly he turned to her. “Do you think my father is a good man?”

  She stared at him, taken aback. What a question for a son to ask. Or for her to answer.

  “When we’re young,” she said carefully, “we expect people to be good or bad. But they aren’t, you know. We’re all just somewhere in between.” She thought of Nio. How many people had Little Brother killed, even before he went to fight for the Taiping? She didn’t want to know. “Not many people are good all of the time,” she went on. “More like some of the time. You just have to hope a person performs more good actions than bad ones. I think,” she concluded, “that one has to look for what is best in people.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “Well, you can try to change the things that aren’t so good in another person. I think we women try to change our men more than the other way round.”

  “Really?”

  “And one has to be careful. If you nag a man too much or hurt his pride, he’ll walk away. Most of the time it’s wiser to accept him as he is.” She gave a wry smile. Did he realize she was telling him about his mother? Probably. But he gave no sign. He seemed to be done with the subject, anyway.

  “So you think I should stay here?”

  “I do. It’s a beautiful place. I think you should enjoy your holiday.” She smiled. “I’m sure a handsome boy like you could make friends with the local girls.”

  He looked doubtful. “All the respectable girls are hidden indoors,” he pointed out. “Nobody’s allowed to see them until they marry.”

  “There may be others,” she said. She stood up. “I should go to see your father now. If you quarrel with him because of me, I shall feel bad. But if you don’t quarrel, I think you will be glad later.” She wondered if he’d take her advice.

  * * *

  —

  For Shi-Rong, that month was a happy period. He took Mei-Ling’s advice and spent as much time with his son as possible. They made tours of the area, and he was able to tell Ru-Hai all sorts of useful things about life in imperial service. They visited tribal villages, climbed up a couple of mountains, and even went fishing on the river together.

  The boy was also a great success with the prefect and his wife. They thought he was charming. The prefect’s wife said he was very handsome; and the prefect wrote about Ru-Hai in glowing terms to one or two friends who might be useful to him in later life.

  Peng also played his part. “Take the boy out in the evening a bit, if you would,” Shi-Rong had asked him. “He should have fun with someone closer to his own age.” They’d gone out drinking several times. “Though I doubt, with Peng for company, that he got into much trouble,” Shi-Rong confided to Mei-Ling.

  Halfway through the month, Shi-Rong told Mei-Ling: “I’ve h
ad a letter. When he leaves here, Ru-Hai should go to visit his mother’s relations in Beijing. So I wonder, as you are going downriver to Guangzhou yourself on your way home, would you mind if he accompanies you to the port? Then he can take a ship up the coast and the Grand Canal to Beijing.”

  Mei-Ling had been looking forward to her journey. River travel was both quicker and more pleasant than traveling by road. The weather should be warm and mild, and the scenery was beautiful. It would be the first time in her life, really, that she’d ever had a period of time without any responsibilities and completely to herself.

  But it would have been ungracious to him and unkind to the boy not to go along with such a sensible request, so of course she said she would.

  * * *

  —

  It was the prefect, a few days before Ru-Hai was due to leave, who suggested the visit to the caves. As was to be expected in a landscape of karst hills, there were quite a few caves in the region. The nearest was only a short walk from their house. Ru-Hai and his father had gone in a couple of times with lanterns to inspect the graceful curtains of stalactites hanging from its high roof. But it was quite small.

  “There’s an old musician working here,” the prefect said, “who told me that once his father showed him a deserted place, all overgrown with reeds, which he used to cut and make into flutes. His father told him there used to be a big cave in there, but he’d never seen the entrance and didn’t know anyone who had. It could be the roof fell in or something like that. But I’d be curious to know. I think it’s only about three miles away. Why not send your son with Peng to try to find it? That’d give them something to do. If they discover anything worth seeing, we’ll make an expedition to look at it.”

  Peng and Ru-Hai were delighted with the adventure and set off eagerly with the old musician the next morning.

  They came back that night flushed and excited. “It’s only three miles away, but it’s quite deserted. We had to cut a path through the reeds and dig around a bit, but we found the cave. And it’s huge!” cried Ru-Hai.

  “It is impressive,” Peng confirmed. “If the prefect wants to inspect it, master, we’d need some workmen, and two days to prepare.”

  “And lanterns,” said Ru-Hai. “Colored lanterns. A lot of them. A thousand.”

  “Certainly not,” said his father. “You’ll be lucky to get a hundred.”

  But when he told the prefect the next morning, that worthy gentleman laughed aloud. “Give him a thousand,” he commanded.

  * * *

  —

  It was quite a cavalcade. The first sedan chair contained the prefect, the second Shi-Rong; the next two, somewhat smaller, carried the prefect’s wife and Mei-Ling. After these came various lesser officials and local gentlemen, followed by a small company of guards and a retinue of servants all on foot.

  They made their way along the path that had been cut through the reeds until they came to a level clearing beside the rock face where Peng and Ru-Hai were waiting. The two young men greeted the prefect with low bows, but Shi-Rong could see that his son was grinning.

  As soon as all the party had gathered, they proceeded on foot up a steep track where the workmen had made some wooden steps to help them. It wasn’t far, not even fifty yards, before they came to the entrance, where a lamplit passageway led into the limestone rock. With Peng and Ru-Hai leading the way, they all filed down the glowing passage until suddenly they emerged into the great, cavernous hall.

  Shi-Rong stood beside the prefect, who was quietly chuckling. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” the worthy gentleman remarked. “I believe your boy has used every lamp we gave him.”

  It was a remarkable sight. The cave extended nearly three hundred yards, but it was divided into several sections. The largest was a huge curved chamber where stalagmites, like miniatures of the steep karst hills above ground, ranged themselves along the far side of a central underground lake. Cleverly, Ru-Hai had placed lanterns—blue, red, and green—amongst the stalagmites so that they were reflected in the water. It looked like a magical city. Having noticed that the ceiling of the chamber contained areas of mottled stone, he had placed white lamps just below so that it seemed as though the stone cityscape by the water was lying under gleaming, billowing clouds. For several minutes everyone stood motionless and silent, gazing at the beauty of this secret world.

  “May we lead the way, Lord?” Ru-Hai asked the prefect at last.

  “By all means.”

  The workmen had made a stony path that wound between little pools of water and stalagmites. From the ceiling long stalactites descended like fingers seeking to touch them in a friendly way. Here, too, the men had done a good job, alternating lantern light and deep shadow so that the fingers seemed to descend from ghostly forms unseen. They came to a jutting wall where the gnarled formations looked like a collection of stone waterfalls, and to another place where a single pitted limestone figure stood alone, as though it had come from a Chinese garden. “This has been a good idea,” the prefect said cheerfully.

  “It’s very beautiful. Quite wonderful,” said his wife. She turned to Mei-Ling. “Don’t you agree, my dear?”

  “It’s one of the loveliest things I ever saw in my life. Thank you, Lord.”

  “We should all thank the young men,” the prefect announced. “I only told them where the cave might be. They did the rest.”

  “With your permission, Lord,” said Peng, “there is something else we wish to show you, as a scholar.”

  “As a scholar, eh? Come along, Shi-Rong,” the prefect called, “we’d better both see this.”

  So the prefect, Shi-Rong, and several mandarins followed as Peng led them deeper into the cave, into a section less brightly lit. Half a dozen workmen, holding lanterns on long poles, were waiting beside a particular section of wall. At a nod from Peng, they raised the lanterns high, close to the stone.

  “Well, I never,” said the prefect.

  Inscriptions. Dozens of them, apparently made with big brushes directly onto the porous stone in ink. The script was archaic, but the characters were entirely readable. Shi-Rong and the prefect peered at them intently.

  “What do you think?” the prefect asked.

  “Tang dynasty. Early Tang, I’d say,” Shi-Rong replied.

  “I agree. This place must have been in use a thousand years ago.”

  “And by mandarin scholars, it seems.”

  “How many inscriptions are there?” the prefect asked Peng.

  “I have found seventy so far, Lord.”

  “We ought to have them copied,” said the prefect.

  “Peng,” said Shi-Rong, “you will copy them. You may take a month.”

  “Yes, master.” Peng bowed his head, whether in gladness or sadness, it was hard to tell.

  Only at this moment did Shi-Rong realize his son was not one of the party. He frowned. Ru-Hai should have been there to witness this demonstration of scholarship. He should have shown the prefect that he took an interest. He might have listened to his father explain why he could so easily identify the period from which the writing came. But he wasn’t there. Where was he?

  * * *

  —

  The prefect’s wife gazed around the cavern. When her husband and Shi-Rong had gone to look at the inscriptions, she and Mei-Ling had stayed in there with the rest of the party. And while Mei-Ling remained by the water, the prefect’s wife had moved to one side to survey the scene.

  With the guards and servants, there must have been twenty or thirty figures standing here and there on the floor of the great cave, some in shadow, some partly lit by the glow from the lamps, and two or three in black silhouette.

  Mei-Ling was standing alone by the side of the lake. The reflection of the colored lights on the water softly lit her face. She was staring across at the shimmering cityscape, oblivious to anything else
in that subterranean womb.

  How lovely her friend looked, her face lifted slightly, unearthly pale in the blue light. Her childbearing years must be near their close, the prefect’s wife thought, yet at that moment she seemed eternally young. What a pity Mei-Ling and Shi-Rong couldn’t marry. They’d have been happy together.

  But there it was. She turned her head. And then she saw the boy.

  Ru-Hai was standing by the wall. A red lantern illumined his face. And he, too, was staring with rapt attention towards the water. She tried to work out what the boy was watching so intently. It took her a moment to realize.

  The boy was staring at Mei-Ling.

  Just then Ru-Hai left the wall and moved across until he was standing beside Mei-Ling. He must have spoken, because she turned in surprise. He seemed to say something else, and Mei-Ling nodded, turning her gaze across the lake again. He’d probably made some remark about the panorama, the prefect’s wife thought. She waited a little longer, then walked over to them. As Ru-Hai saw her, he moved back from Mei-Ling’s side, though Mei-Ling remained quite still.

  Afterwards, as she and Mei-Ling were walking to their sedan chairs, the prefect’s wife remarked, “Young Ru-Hai’s in love with you. Did you notice?”

  “With me?” No woman could entirely object to such a proposition. “I hardly think so,” said Mei-Ling. “I’m old enough to be his mother.”

  “Such loves are well known.” Her friend smiled. “Besides, you hardly look more than thirty. I admire his choice.”

  Mei-Ling shook her head. “This is nonsense,” she said.

  “It was probably half in his mind, because you’re beautiful and you were kind to him. But I think it hit him suddenly in the cave.”

  “Oh. The cave.”

  “It was magical in there, you know.”

  “Well,” Mei-Ling said drily, “I’m sure he’ll get over it.”

  But if she thought her friend had finished with the subject, Mei-Ling was wrong.