Sandalwood Death

CHAPTER SEVEN





Elegy





1




On the Chinese lunar calendar, March 2, 1900, was the second day of the second month in the twenty-sixth year of the Great Qing Guangxu Emperor. According to legend, that date is when the hibernating dragon lifts its head. After that day, spring sunlight begins to raise the temperature on the ground, and it is nearly time to take the oxen out into the fields to begin the plowing. For the citizens of Northeast Gaomi Township’s Masang Town, who themselves had emerged from a sort of winter hibernation, it was time to crowd into the marketplace, whether or not they had business there. Those with no money to spend strolled around the area taking in the sights and watching a bit of street opera; those lucky enough to have money enjoyed buns fresh from the oven, passed the time in teashops, or enjoyed glasses of sorghum spirits. It was a bright, sunny day that year, with a slight breeze from the north, a typical early spring day when the chill of winter gives way to the warmth of spring. Fashion-conscious young women changed out of their bulky winter clothes into unlined jackets that showed off their curves.

Early in the morning, the proprietor of the Sun Family Teashop, Sun Bing, climbed up one side of the steep riverbank with his carrying pole and down the other to the Masang River, where he stepped onto the wooden pier to fill his buckets with fresh, clean water for the day’s business. He saw that the last of the river ice had melted overnight, replaced by ripples on the surface of the blue-green water, from which a chilled vapor rose into the air.

The year before had seen its problems—an arid spring and a soggy autumn—but since the area had been spared hailstorms and locusts, it could not be considered an especially bad year. As evidence of his solicitude for the people’s well being, Magistrate Qian had reported a flood to his superiors, which had led to a fifty percent reduction in taxes for all of Northeast Gaomi Township—making their lives even better than in years with good harvests. To show their gratitude, the residents contributed to the purchase of a people’s umbrella and chose Sun Bing to present this token of respect to the Magistrate. He did everything possible to decline the request, so the people simply dumped the umbrella in his teashop.

Left with no choice, Sun Bing carried the people’s umbrella to the county yamen to present it to the Magistrate. It would be his first time back since losing his beard, and as he walked down the street, though he was not sure if what he felt was shame or anger or sadness, a painful chin, hot ears, and sweaty palms were proof of something. When he met people he knew, his cheeks reddened before a word of greeting was exchanged, for no matter what they said, he detected a mocking tone and a note of derision. Worst of all, he could find no valid excuse to react with anger.

After entering the yamen compound, he was led by a yayi to the official reception hall, where he deposited the umbrella and turned to leave, just as the sound of Magistrate Qian’s booming laughter was carried in on the air. Qian walked in wearing a short jacket over his long gown, a red tasseled cap on his head and a white fan in his hand. He looked and acted every bit the part of an impressive County Magistrate. He strode forward, hand outstretched, and said cordially:

“Ah, Sun Bing, a competition has formed a true bond between us.”

The gamut of emotions—sweet, sour, bitter, hot, and salty—crowded Sun Bing’s feelings as he gazed at the beautiful beard adorning Qian Ding’s chin and thought back to the beard he had once sported, only to be replaced by an ugly, mangy-looking pitted chin. He had prepared a biting comment, but was able only to sputter, “Your humble servant has been deputized by the people of Northeast Township to present Your Eminence with this umbrella . . .” He opened the red umbrella to display the signatures of the official’s subjects and held it up for him to see.

“My, my,” Qian Ding uttered, clearly touched by the gesture. “How can I, a man with few talents and no virtue, accept such a grand honor? I am unworthy, truly unworthy . . .”

Qian Ding’s expression of humility had a relaxing effect on Sun Bing, who straightened up and said, “If Your Honor has no further instructions, your humble servant will take his leave.”

“As a representative of the good people who have honored me with this umbrella, you cannot simply leave. Chunsheng!” he shouted.

Chunsheng rushed in and bowed. “What can I do for Your Eminence?”

“Have the kitchen prepare a grand banquet,” Qian Ding commanded, “and while you’re at it, have my correspondence secretary deliver invitations to the banquet to senior members of the local gentry.”

It was indeed a grand banquet, at which the Magistrate personally poured spirits for his guests, who took turns proposing toasts and, in the process, getting Sun Bing roaring drunk, too drunk to stand. The grudge he had carried in his heart and an indescribable sense of awkwardness vanished without a trace. So when he was lugged outside, he burst into song, a line from a Maoqiang opera:

In Peach Blossom Palace a king alone is hidden, as thoughts of the fair maiden Zhao come to him unbidden . . .

Over the year just passed, residents of Northeast Gaomi Township had felt good about things in general; but it had not been a year without troubling concerns, and foremost among them was that teams of German civil engineers had begun laying track for a rail line from Qingdao to Jinan, which would run through Gaomi Township. News of the impending construction had been in the wind for years, but had not been taken seriously. Not, that is, until the year before, when the rail bed had reached their borders. This, they all felt, was serious. All one had to do was stand on the Masang River levee to see that the rail bed had already come out of the southeast and lay across the flat open country like a turf dragon. The Germans had erected a construction shed and material storehouse to the rear of Masang Town, in the vicinity of the new rail bed, which looked from a distance like a pair of enormous ships.

After returning with his buckets of water, Sun Bing put down his carrying pole and told his newly hired helper, a youngster called Stone, to boil the water while he went out front to clean off the tables, chairs, and benches, wash the teapots and cups, and open the door to the street. That done, he sat behind the counter and enjoyed a smoke as he waited for customers.





2




The forcible loss of Sun Bing’s beard had introduced profound changes in his life.

He lay in bed that morning staring up at the rope hanging from the rafters, waiting to hear whether or not his daughter had been successful in her intended assassination. He was ready at a moment’s notice to take his own life, for he knew that however the attempt turned out, he was not likely to avoid implication, which would mean imprisonment—again. He knew the horrors of the county lockup from his earlier experience, and would kill himself before going back there.

He stayed in bed the whole day, awake most of the time and sleeping the rest, or lying somewhere between the two, and at those times the image of that thug seemed to fall out of the moonlit sky straight into his head. Big and tall, he had powerful legs and moved like a black cat, quick and nimble. Sun Bing had been walking down the narrow cobblestone lane that ran from Ten Fragrances Tower to the Cao Family Inn; the stones beneath his feet turned a watery bright in the moonlight, as he dragged a long shadow behind him. His legs were rubbery, his head foggy, thanks to his drinking and whoring at Ten Fragrances Tower, so when the man in black suddenly appeared in front of him, he thought he was seeing things. But the man’s chilling laughter quickly cleared his head. He instinctively dug out the few coins he had in his pocket and tossed them to the ground in front of him. As the coins clinked on the stone-paved road, he slurred the words “Friend, my name is Sun Bing; I’m a poor Maoqiang actor from Northeast Gaomi Township. I just spent all my money on a bit of debauchery, but come see me where I live someday, and I’ll sing a whole play for you.” The man in black did not even look at the coins on the ground. Instead, he pressed closer and closer, so close that Sun Bing felt a chill emanating from the man’s body. He was clear-headed enough to realize that he was face to face, not with a run-of-the-mill mugger who wanted money, but with someone intent on harming him. His mind spun like a carousel as he scrolled through his potential enemies and backed up slowly, all the way to a corner formed by a pair of walls, out of the moonlight. The man in black, however, remained in the light, silvery rays reflecting off his body. Though his face was masked, the outlines of his face were discernible, and the loose black sack that hung from his chin down past his chest flashed into Sun Bing’s field of vision, a sight that opened up a crack in his mind to let in the light of understanding; the image of the County Magistrate seemed to emerge from the cocoon of black clothing. A sense of terror was abruptly replaced by loathing and contempt. “So, it’s His Eminence,” he said disdainfully. More chilling laughter was the response of the man in black as he took hold of the loose sack and shook it, as if to confirm the accuracy of Sun Bing’s conjecture. “So tell me, Your Eminence,” Sun Bing said, “what do you want from me?” He clenched his fists in readiness to engage the County Magistrate, who was disguised as a man of the night. But before a punch was thrown, his chin felt as if the skin had been ripped off, and he saw that the man was holding a handful of his beard. With a screech, Sun Bing rushed at his attacker. Half a lifetime of singing opera had taught him how to execute a somersault and perform tumbling acts, and although these were only play-acting martial moves, in a fight with a scholar they were more than adequate. Sun Bing’s anger stoked his fighting spirit as he moved into the moonlight to accost the man in black. But before his first punch landed, Sun Bing was lying flat on his back, his head reverberating from thudding against the stones in the lane; he lost consciousness from the excruciating pain, and when he came to, the man in black was standing over him, his foot planted on Sun Bing’s chest. He had trouble breathing. “Your Eminence,” he said with difficulty, “didn’t you already pardon me? Then why . . .” More chilling laughter, but not a word in response. He reached down and grabbed Sun’s beard, yanked hard, and pulled most of it out of his chin. Sun Bing screamed in agony. The man in black tossed the beard away, picked up a stone, and stuffed it into Sun’s mouth. Then, with amazing skill and strength, he jerked out the remaining whiskers. By the time Sun Bing struggled to his feet, the man in black was gone, and if not for the searing pain in his chin and the back of his head, he’d have thought it had all been a dream. But there was also the stone that filled his mouth, which he removed with his fingers and immediately burst into tears. He looked down on the ground, and there, in the moonlight, he saw the remnants of his beard on the cobblestones, like clumps of water grass, still twitching sadly.

Just before nightfall, his son-in-law walked in buoyantly, tossed him a chunk of flatbread, and walked out, still buoyant. His daughter did not return until it was time to light the lamps. In the glow of red candlelight, she appeared to be wild with joy, not at all like a woman who had just killed someone, not even like a woman who had tried but failed to kill someone. She was acting like a woman who had just returned from a wedding banquet. Before he could open his mouth to say anything, she said sternly:

“Dieh, you could not have been more wrong if you had tried. Magistrate Qian is a scholar whose hands are as soft as cotton batting. How could someone like that be a masked thug? If you ask me, you let those whores of yours pour horse piss down your throat, and you went half blind and half mad. I can’t think of any other reason why you would say something so crazy. Think about it: if His Eminence wanted your beard removed, do you really think that he, a high official, would do it himself? Besides, if he wanted your beard gone, he could have made you do it yourself after the contest, couldn’t he? Why go to the trouble of pardoning you? Not only that, but with what you said about him, he could have had you killed on the spot or put you in the local lockup and left you there to die, like so many before you. But instead he challenged you to a contest. Dieh, you have already left your forties and entered your fifties, so you ought to act your age instead of whoring around and womanizing. The way I see it, the old man in the sky sent someone down to remove that beard of yours as a warning, and if you don’t wise up, the next time it will be your head.”

His daughter’s rapid-fire rebuke made Sun Bing break out in a sweat, and he gazed at her, feeling that something was amiss, however serious she might look. The absurdity of it all had him thinking that most of what she’d said sounded nothing like his daughter. She’d become a different person in the space of a single day.

“Meiniang,” he said with a sneer, “what magic has that Qian fellow performed on you?”

“Is that the sort of thing a father says to his daughter?” she replied angrily. “Magistrate Qian is an upright gentleman who would not look cross-eyed at me.” She took a silver ingot out of her pocket and tossed it onto the bed. “He said about you, ‘He’s a damned actor acting like a turtle awaiting an Imperial Edict.’ No proper man acts like that. He is giving you fifty taels of silver to disband the opera troupe and go into business for yourself.”

Burning with indignation, Sun Bing was tempted to throw the silver back to show what a Northeast Gaomi Township man was made of. Instead, once he picked up the ingot, its cold heft made it impossible to let go.

“Daughter,” he said, “this ingot isn’t lead wrapped in tinfoil, is it?”

“What are you talking about, Dieh?” Meiniang’s anger was palpable. “Don’t think I don’t know how you treated Niang. The way you cheated, it’s no wonder she died an angry woman. Then you let our black donkey nearly bite me to death! For that alone I’ll hate you for the rest of my life. But I’m stuck with you. No matter how much I resent you, you’re still my dieh. If there’s only one person in the world who wishes you well, that person will be me. Please, Dieh, take Magistrate Qian’s advice and do what’s right. If you can find the right woman, marry her and live a peaceful life for as long as you have.” And so Sun Bing returned to Northeast Gaomi Township with the silver ingot, a trip characterized by nearly uncontrollable rage one minute and unbearable shame the next. When he met people on the road, he covered his mouth with his sleeve to keep them from seeing his blood-streaked chin. Not long before he arrived home, he stopped alongside the Masang River to take a look at his reflection; looking back at him was a truly ugly face, striped with wrinkles, frosty gray temples, all in all the face of a doddering old man. With a sigh, he scooped up some water to wash his face, no matter how much it hurt, before heading home.

Sun Bing disbanded the opera troupe. Since he’d already had an intimate relationship with Little Peach, an orphan who sang the female leads, he went ahead and married her. They seemed well suited to one another, despite the substantial difference in age. With the silver given by Magistrate Qian, they bought a compound that faced the street, made some modifications, and opened the Sun Family Teashop. In the spring, Little Peach delivered twins, a boy and a girl, which made him deliriously happy. Magistrate Qian sent a congratulatory gift, a pair of silver necklaces, each weighing an ounce. The news spread like a thunderclap through Northeast Gaomi Township. Congratulations arrived from so many township residents that a banquet consisting of forty tables was necessary as an expression of appreciation. In their private conversations, people began referring to Magistrate Qian as Sun Bing’s semi-son-in-law and to Sun Meiniang as a semi-Magistrate. When this talk reached Sun Bing’s ears, he was, of course, mortified, but as time passed, apathy set in. Now that he had a smooth chin, like a wild horse shorn of its mane and tail, he had lost the air of intimidation and was no longer so easy to anger. A nearly permanent scowl was replaced by a gentle, mellow look. Life was good for the new Sun Bing. His face had regained its color, he was at peace with the world, and he had become a country squire.





3




At mid-morning, customers filled the teashop. Sun Bing, who was wearing only a thin jacket with a towel draped over his shoulder, was sweating as he went from table to table with a long-nosed brass teapot to fill people’s glasses. As a one-time singer of old men’s roles in opera, he had a sonorous voice with a tragic air, a talent he put to use in his business, shouting out orders as he worked, rhythmical and cadenced. He moved quickly and poured with great accuracy, his hands and feet in perfect harmony with a distinct tempo. His ears seemed always to echo with the enchanting sounds of Maoqiang drumbeats, the strumming of a Maoqiang zither, a lute, and flutes: Lin Chong Flees at Night. Xu Ce Runs to the City Wall. Three Kingdoms Operas: The Wind and Wave Pavilion, Wang Han Borrows Money at Year’s End, Chang Mao Cries over His Cat . . . As he made his rounds with the teapot, those operas drove out thoughts of his past and concerns for the future, keeping him focused on the joy that his work brought him. A kettle whistled in the yard out back. He ran out to replenish his teapot with boiling water. There his helper, Stone, stood by the fire, ashes in his hair and soot on his face, which made his teeth look snowy white. He reacted to the appearance of the shopkeeper by redoubling his efforts with the bellows beneath a four-burner stove on top of which sat four brass teapots. The fire blazed and crackled as drops of boiling water splashed onto the flames and turned to white, fragrant steam. Little Peach was holding a toddler in each arm, on her way to the Masang Market to take in the sights. The children’s laughing faces were like bright, shiny flowers.

“Bao’er, Yun’er, say hello to Dieh-dieh,” she said to them.

Together they slurred a greeting. Sun Bing set down his teapot, wiped his hands on his sleeves, and picked them up, one in each arm; and as he affectionately touched their tender little faces with his scarred chin, he breathed in their delightful milk smell. They giggled from the tickly feeling, which all but melted his heart, like soft candy, the sweetness reaching a peak before turning slightly sour. Now he moved more quickly and nimbly in the shop; his voice had more of a ring than ever as he responded to his customers. He was all smiles, and even the dullest among them could tell that he was a happy man.

Managing to steal a minute out of the busy morning, he leaned against the counter, lit his pipe, and breathed in deeply. Looking out through the double door, he watched his wife and children mingle with the crowd as they headed to the market.

A rich man with big ears was sitting at the window table. His family name was Zhang, and while he had both a formal name—Haogu—and a style name—Nianzu—everyone called him Second Master. For a man in his early fifties, he had a healthy, ruddy complexion. Perched atop his rounded head was a black satin skullcap into which a rectangular piece of green jade had been sewn. Second Master was Northeast Gaomi Township’s preeminent scholar, a man who had purchased an appointment to the Imperial College. Having traveled south to the Yangtze Valley and north beyond the Great Wall, he told of spending a night with Sai Jinhua, the notorious courtesan of Peking. No one who started a conversation with him ever found him unworthy of bringing it to an end. A regular at the Sun Family Teashop, he monopolized every conversation for as long as he sat there. Picking up his glazed porcelain teacup, he removed the lid with three fingers and made the leaves on top swirl a bit before blowing on the surface and taking a sip.

“Proprietor,” he called out after smacking his lips, “why is this tea so bland? It has hardly any taste.”

After hurriedly knocking the ashes out of his pipe, Sun Bing trotted over and, with a bit of bowing and scraping, said:

“Second Master, it’s the same tea you always drink—the best Dragon Well.”

Second Master took a second sip.

“No, it still lacks taste.”

“Why don’t I make some in a gourd?” Sun Bing said, anxious to please.

“Scorch it ever so slightly.”

Sun ran back behind the counter, where he stuck a silver needle into an opium pill and held it over a bean-oil lantern that burned all day long, turning it round and round. A peculiar odor spread throughout the shop.

After drinking half a cup of the strong, opium-infused tea, Second Master was clearly invigorated. His gaze swept the faces of the other customers like a pair of lively fish, and Sun Bing knew that he was about to launch into one of his voluble monologues. Gaunt, sallow-faced Young Master Wu Da opened his mouth to reveal teeth stained black by tea and tobacco.

“Second Master,” he said, “any news of the railway?”

Second Master put down his teacup, puckered his upper lip, emitted an audible snort, and, having formed a response, declaimed:

“Of course there is. I have told you people about our family friend Jiang Runhua of the Wandong District, the lead editorial writer for the Globe, who has installed two teletypes to receive the latest news from Japan and the West. Well, yesterday he received an urgent message that the Old Buddha Cixi received Kaiser Wilhelm’s special envoy in the Longevity Hall of the Summer Palace to discuss the construction of the rail line between Qingdao and Jinan.”

Young Master Wu clapped his hands.

“Second Master,” he said, “don’t tell me, let me guess.”

“Go ahead, guess,” Second Master said. “If you’re right, yours truly will pay for everyone’s tea.”

“Second Master is a forthright man who is unafraid to show his emotions,” Young Master Wu said. “No wonder the people all love him. Here is my guess: Our mass petition worked. They are going to alter the planned route.”

“Glory be! Great news!” muttered an old man with a white beard. “The Old Buddha is wise, truly wise.”

But Second Master shook his head and said with a sigh:

“Sorry, gentlemen, but today you will have to pay for your own tea.”

“They’re not going to change it?” Young Master Wu said, his hackles rising. “Our mass petition was a waste of time, is that it?”

“Your mass petition was probably used by some official as toilet paper,” Second Master said resentfully. “Just who do you think you are? The Old Buddha said, ‘We can alter the course of the Yellow River, but not the course of the Jiaozhou-Jinan rail line.’ ”

Dejection settled over the room, punctuated by long sighs. County Scholar Qu, he with the facial blemish, said:

“Well, then, did the German Kaiser send his envoy to pay restitution for the destruction of our burial grounds?”

“Scholar Qu has finally touched upon something,” Second Master said animatedly. “When the special envoy was led into the Old Buddha’s presence, he prostrated himself three times and kowtowed nine before handing up an account book printed on vellum that could last millennia. ‘The Great Kaiser,’ the envoy said, ‘will under no circumstances do anything to bring harm to the people of Northeast Gaomi Township. We will pay a hundred ounces of silver for every acre of land utilized and two hundred for every gravesite disturbed. A steamship with a load of silver ingots has already been dispatched.’”

The news was met with a moment of stunned silence, then greeted with an uproar.

“Damned liar! They took an acre and a quarter of my land, and gave me eight ounces.”

“They destroyed two of my ancestors’ gravesites, and gave me twelve.”

“Silver? Where is it? I don’t see any silver.”

“What are you all bawling about?” Second Master demanded unhappily as he banged his fist on the table. “All your complaints don’t make a damned bit of difference! Silver? I’ll tell you where it went. It was skimmed away by those crooked interpreters, traitors, and compradors, that’s where!”

“He’s right,” Young Master Wu agreed. “You all know Xiaoqiu, who sells oil fritters in Front Village, don’t you? Well, he worked as an attendant for a man who interpreted for a German engineer for three months, and wound up with half a sack of silver dollars that he picked up off the floor during their nightly card games. As long as you’re involved with the railroad—you can be a bloody tortoise or a bastard turtle—you’ll strike it rich. Let me put it differently: ‘When the train whistle blows, gold in thousands flows.’ ”

“Second Master,” Scholar Qu said tentatively, “does the Old Buddha know any of this?”

“Why ask me?” He wore a scowl. “I’ll just have to go ask someone else.”

His comment was met with forced smiles all around, before the men returned to their tea, slurping loudly.

An awkward silence settled over the room. Second Master cast a furtive look out the door to make sure that no one was outside listening.

“And that’s not the worst of it,” he said softly. “Interested in hearing more?”

Every eye turned to Second Master’s mouth, waiting expectantly.

After looking around the room, he said with a sense of heightened mystery:

“A good friend of the family, Wang Peiran, works as an assistant to one of the Jiaozhou yamen officials. He tells me that many strange incidents have occurred over the past few days, including men who have woken up in the morning to find that their queues have been cut off!”

Looks of incomprehension decorated all the faces around him. No one dared utter a word. Ears pricked, they waited for him to continue.

“The immediate effect has been light-headedness and a general weakness that spreads to their limbs. They then fall into a trance that nearly destroys their ability to speak. They have become blithering idiots, impervious to medical intervention, because they do not suffer from a physical malady.”

“I hope this won’t usher in a second Taiping Rebellion,” Young Master Wu said. “I’ve heard old people recall the time in the Xianfeng reign when the Taipings came north, how they first cut off queues, and then heads.”

“No, nothing like that,” Second Master said. “This time it’s German missionaries casting their secret spells, or so I heard.”

Scholar Qu had his doubts.

“What could they expect to accomplish by cutting off queues?” he asked.

“Don’t be such a naïve pedant,” Second Master replied, clearly annoyed. “Do you really think that’s what they are after, a bunch of queues? What they want is our souls! Why else would those particular symptoms appear in men who lost their queues? It’s a clear sign of losing their souls.”

“I still don’t quite understand, Second Master,” Scholar Qu said. “What good can it do the Germans to take all those souls?”

Second Master smirked in response.

“I think I know the answer,” Young Master Wu said. “It’s tied to the construction of the railway, isn’t it?”

“Our young Wu is nobody’s fool,” Second Master said. Then he lowered his voice and added in a mysterious tone, “What I am going to tell you now must remain here with us. The Germans bury men’s queues beneath the railroad tracks, one for each railroad tie. Every one of those queues represents a soul, and each soul represents a hale and hearty man. Here is something to think about: The trains are manufactured out of pig iron and weigh a ton. They neither drink nor eat, so how can they move across the land? And not just move, but move at an unthinkably high speed. What powers them? Think that over.”

The mind-numbing thought produced an eerie silence. The whistle of a teakettle out back pierced the men’s eardrums. Disaster loomed; they all felt it. Chills ran down their necks, touched, it seemed, by an invisible pair of scissors.

As anxiety over the safety of their queues gripped the men, the young clerk from the town dispensary, Qiusheng, scurried into the teashop as if flames were nipping at his heels.

“Proprietor Sun,” he said breathlessly, “bad news . . . my shopkeeper sent me to tell you . . . German engineers . . . making improper advances to your wife . . . shopkeeper says you have to hurry or something terrible could happen . . .”

The news stunned Sun Bing, who dropped the teakettle in his hand and sprayed hot water and steam all around him. But shock quickly turned to anger and a pulsing of hot blood through his veins. The patrons looked on as his scarred chin began to twitch and the peaceful, benign look on his face took wing and flew away, supplanted by a fiendish grimace. Using his right hand for leverage, he leaped over the counter and grabbed the date-wood club resting against the door before running out into the street.

The excited teashop customers were all abuzz; still reeling from the frightful news about pigtails, they had now been given a second dose of bad news, with Germans taking advantage of a Chinese woman, effectively transforming terror into anger. A storehouse of resentment had been building among local residents ever since the Germans had begun construction of the Jiaozhou-Jinan line, resentment that had spilled over into loathing. Courage that had long been hidden within the residents of Northeast Gaomi Township burst to the surface, and a sense of righteous indignation took hold in people’s hearts, erasing all concerns over their own physical safety. Sun Bing’s patrons fell in behind him, shouting loudly on the road to the marketplace.





4




The wind whistled past Sun Bing’s ears as he ran down the narrow street, the blood in his veins surging to his head, causing his eardrums to throb and hum and his eyes to glaze over. People along the way might as well have been made of paper the way they rocked back and forth as bursts of air emanating from his frantic passage hit them in waves. Distorted faces brushed past his shoulders. He saw a tight circle of people in the square in front of the Jishengtang Pharmacy and the Li Jin General Store. He could not see what they were looking at, but he heard his wife’s screams and curses and the bawling of his twins, Bao’er and Yun’er, coming from inside the circle. He roared like a lion, raised his club over his head, and leaped into the fray, the crowd parting to make room. What he saw was a pair of long-legged German engineers, their heads looking like wooden clappers, one in front and one in back, with their hands all over his wife. She was fighting off their grasp, but could not keep their hands away from top and bottom at the same time. The Germans’ soft pink hands, covered with fine hair, were all over her, like octopus tentacles; their green eyes seemed lit up with will-o’-the-wisps. Several Chinese lackeys stood off to the side clapping and shouting encouragement. Sun’s twins were rolling and crawling on the ground and sending up a heart-rending howl. Roaring like a wounded animal, Sun charged the man who was bent over fondling his wife’s crotch with both hands, his back to Sun, and brought the club—so heavy it felt like iron or steel—down on the back of his head, as if carried by a dark red burst of wind. A sickening crunch announced the meeting of the silver-gray, glossy, elongated head and the date-wood club, which vibrated in his hands. The German’s body jerked upward in a strange arc before going limp; his hands were still inside Little Peach’s pants as he fell over, taking her with him, and pinning her to the ground. Sun Bing saw a rivulet of blood flowing from the engineer’s head a brief moment before he smelled it. The next thing he saw was the almost demonic look on the face of the other German, who had been fondling his wife’s breasts, no longer the silly grin that had borne witness to the fun he was having. Sun tried to raise his club a second time to repeat the scene on the foreign devil who was fondling his wife, but his arms suddenly seemed paralyzed, and the club fell harmlessly to the ground. The fatal blow had used up all his strength. Yet out of the corner of his eye, he saw aligned behind him a small forest of raised weapons: carrying poles, hoes, shovels, brooms, but mainly fists. A deafening battle cry pounded his eardrums. Railway workers and the Chinese lackeys who had been looking on grabbed hold of the terrified engineer and carried him out of the way, stumbling past the angry mob and leaving the clubbed German at the mercy of the crowd.

After standing there nearly dumbstruck for a few moments, Sun Bing bent down and, with what little strength he could muster, pulled the still-twitching German engineer off of his wife. The man’s hands seemed to have taken root in her pants; his blood was smeared all over her back. Sun Bing was sickened and felt like throwing up. The urge to vomit was stronger even than the desire to help his wife up off the ground. She managed to get to her feet on her own. Her hair was a mass of tangles, her gaunt face disfigured with smears of mud, tears, and blood. She looked ugly and scary. With a burst of sobs, she threw herself into his arms. And all he wanted to do was vomit. He was too weak to even hold her. Abruptly, she broke free and rushed to her children, who were still on the ground, still bawling. He stood there staring down at the German engineer, whose body was still wracked by spasms.





5




Faced with the German’s corpse, which lay coiled like a dead snake, Sun Bing vaguely sensed that something terrible lay in his immediate future. And yet a voice inside rose to his defense, presenting him with the rationale for his action: Those men were molesting my wife, this one with his hands inside her pants. And look what they did to my children. I hit him; what else was I to do? Would you stand by and watch while somebody did that to your wife? And I never meant to kill him. Who knew he’d have such a soft skull? Imbued with a sense of righteous behavior, he claimed a just and reasonable defense. My fellow villagers saw it all; they are my witnesses. So are the railroad workers. You can even ask the other German engineer, who will back me up if he has a conscience. It was their fault for molesting my wife and abusing my children. I reacted instinctively with understandable anger. I wouldn’t have hit him otherwise. And yet Sun Bing’s sense of reason and justice did nothing to make his legs less rubbery or his mouth less dry or foul tasting. Foreboding filled his mind and would not go away, no matter how hard he tried; it incapacitated his ability to entertain complex thoughts. Large numbers of the spectators were slipping quietly away; roadside peddlers scampered to pack up and leave: the risks of hanging around even a minute longer were too great. Shops on both sides of the broad avenue shut their doors—for inventory, the signs said—in the middle of the day. The gray avenue was suddenly broader and emptier than it had been, clearing the way for a strong wind to send dead leaves and scraps of paper tumbling and swirling in from the north. A small pack of dirty mutts that had taken refuge in one of the lanes set up a chorus of barks.

A blurry image of his family performing a drama at center stage in front of a large audience took shape in his head. Probing rays beheld them from cracks in shop doors, from neighborhood windows, and from many dark, gloomy places. His wife stood there shivering in the cold wind, holding both children in her arms and looking pitifully up at her husband, silently pleading for his forgiveness and understanding. Both children buried their faces in the folds of her jacket, like terror-stricken fledglings so worried about their heads that they left their backsides exposed. He felt as if his heart had been gouged out of his body. His suffering was immeasurable. His eyes burned, his nose ached, and a sense of impending tragedy was born. He kicked the twitching German’s foot. “You can goddamn stop playing dead!” he cursed and then looked up at the converging gazes and said loudly, “You all saw what happened here today. If the authorities come to investigate, please, whoever you are, tell them what you saw; do that for me, please.” With his hands clasped in front, he made a turn around the square. “I am the one who killed him,” he said. “I will take full responsibility and not implicate any of you, I promise you that!”

As he swept his children up in his arms, he told his wife to hold on to his jacket for the slow walk home. A blast of cold air sent chills up his spine; his sweat-soaked shirt scraped against his skin like armor.





6




Bright and early the next morning, he opened the shop and began the day as always by wiping down the tables and chairs. His helper, Stone, was out back pumping the bellows with all his might to keep the water boiling. Four brass teapots steam-whistled on the stove. But even after the sun came up over the eastern horizon, not a single customer had stepped inside. The street in front was cold, cheerless, and deserted. Gusts of chilled wind blew leaves past his door. His wife held tight to the twins’ hands and stuck to him wherever he went, flashes of sheer terror emanating from her eyes. He patted each of the children on the head and said with a light-hearted laugh:

“Go back inside, there’s nothing to be afraid of. It was all their doing, taking advantage of a good and decent woman. They’re the ones who deserve to lose their heads.”

He knew he was saying that to calm himself as well, since the hand holding the cleaning rag was shaking. Eventually, he managed to get his wife to go out back, so he could sit alone in the shop, tap a beat on a table, and sing a Maoqiang aria:

She is home and far away, who will watch over her, I cannot say. What will happen to me, good or ill, and will she survive to live another day? Ha! Fear squeezes sweat from my feverish body, let this all end well, I pray . . .

The song ended, the dam burst, and a lifetime of opera tunes poured out of him. The more he sang, the sadder he became, and the more despondent. Two lines of tears snaked down his cheeks and onto his naked chin.

The residents of Masang Township all quietly listened to Sun Bing’s songs that day.

And so he sang, all that day, till sunset, when the blood-red rays of a dying sun shone down on the willow trees lining the river, where flocks of sparrows perched in the airy canopy of the highest tree to announce the day’s end, as if sending him a sign. He closed up the shop and sat at the window, club in hand, after ripping off the paper covering so he could see everything that was happening outside. Stone brought him a bowl of cooked dry millet. The first bite stuck in his throat, and he erupted in a series of hacking coughs that sent kernels of millet shooting out of his nose like buckshot.

“Youngster,” he said to Stone, “I am in big trouble. Sooner or later the Germans will be here to exact revenge, so get out of here while you can.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Shifu,” Stone said as he brought a slingshot out from under his shirt. “I won’t let you fight them alone. I’m a crack shot with one of these.”

He let the boy have his way, in part because he was so hoarse he could barely talk. The pain in his chest was nearly unbearable, the same sensation he experienced when his voice cracked as he was training to sing opera. And still, though his hands trembled, now joined by his feet, he hummed arias to himself.

The clack of hooves on the cobblestone street sounded to the west soon after a crescent moon had ascended into the sky. He jumped to his feet, gripped the club tightly in his feverish hand, and readied himself for a fight. In the weak starlight, he saw the outline of a big, black mule running his way with an awkward gait. The rider, all in black, wore a mask.

The rider slid neatly off the mule in front of the teashop and knocked at the door.

Gripping his club even tighter, he held his breath and hid behind the door.

The pounding was not loud, but it was persistent.

“Who is it?” he asked hoarsely.

“It’s me!”

He recognized his daughter’s voice immediately. The door opened, and in rushed Meiniang, all in black.

“Don’t say a word, Dieh,” she said. “You have to get out of here.”

“Why?” For some reason, this made him angry. “They’re the ones who took liberties with a good and decent woman—”

She cut him off.

“It doesn’t get any worse than this, Dieh. The Germans have already sent a telegram to Peking and Jinan. Yuan Shikai has ordered Magistrate Qian to arrest you. The constables are on their way, and will be here soon.”

“Is there no justice, no fairness anywhere—”

She was in no mood to let him defend his actions.

“How can you jabber about things like that when the flames are singeing your eyebrows? If you want to get out of this alive, you must go into hiding. If not, then wait here, for they won’t be long.”

“What happens to my family if I run away?”

“They’re almost here,” she said, cocking her ear. The sound of horses was faint for the moment, but getting louder. “Are you leaving or are you staying? It’s up to you.” She turned and ran out the door, but immediately stuck her head back in and said, “If you go, tell Little Peach to fake madness.”

He watched as his daughter nimbly jumped into the saddle and leaned forward until she looked like she was part of the mule she was riding. With a snort, the animal took off running, its flanks flashing for a moment before it disappeared in the surrounding darkness. The sound of its hooves sped east.

He shut the door, turned, and saw Little Peach standing in the room, her hair already down around her shoulders, soot smeared over her face. A torn blouse revealed her fair bosom. She came up to him and, in a voice that brooked no nonsense, said:

“Do as Meiniang said: leave, and leave now!”

An agonizing emotion welled up inside him as he looked into his wife’s eyes, which flashed in the dark room, and in the midst of that seminal moment, he realized that this woman, so gentle and fragile in appearance, was blessed with great courage and a quick mind. He wrapped his arms around her, but she pushed him away.

“There’s no time; you must go. Don’t worry about us.”

So he ran out of the shop and headed down the street he knew so well from fetching water, then ran up the Masang River bank and hid behind a large willow tree, where he could look down at the peaceful village below, the gray street, and his house. He could hear Bao’er and Yun’er—they were crying—and that nearly broke his heart. The new moon, hanging low in the western sky, was especially beautiful; the vast canopy of sky was dotted with stars that twinkled like diamonds. Every house in town was dark, and yet he knew that the occupants were not asleep, but were silently and expectantly listening for any activity outside, almost as if darkness was their best protection against bad tidings. The clack of horse hooves neared; dogs began to bark. A dark, tight formation of horses approached—how many it was impossible to say—and reddish sparks flew as the staccato beat of horseshoes on cobblestones announced their arrival.

The posse rode up and, after some confused jockeying, stopped in front of the shop. He witnessed the blurred silhouette of constables appearing to dismount from the blurred outlines of their horses, a spurt of boisterous wrangling seemingly intended to alert people to their purpose in coming. That accomplished, they lit torches they’d brought with them. The burst of light illuminated the street and nearby houses, as well as the willows on the riverbank, where he cowered behind the tree, from whose branches a flock of startled birds flew off. With a backward glance at the river behind him, he readied himself to jump in to save his skin, if necessary. But the constables took no note of the sudden bird migration, and gave no thought to searching the riverbank.

Now he could see clearly enough to count the horses—altogether nine piebald animals, a few black and white, some of the others red and brown, and all local horses: unattractive, neither plump nor robust-looking, with ragged manes and well-used saddles and fittings. Two did not even have saddles, their riders forced to make do with gunnysacks thrown over their backs. In the flickering light of the torches, the horses’ heads looked big and clumsy, but their eyes were bright and clear. After shining the light of their torches on the signboard over the door, the constables calmly knocked at the door.

No response from inside.

They attacked the door.

From his vantage point, he had a vague suspicion that the constables had no intention of arresting him. They would not have dawdled like that if they had, and they would have knocked more aggressively. No, they would have scaled the wall to get inside if they’d had to, something many of them were good at. Agreeable feelings toward the constables washed over him. He did not have to be told that Magistrate Qian was in the background, and behind him, his own daughter, Meiniang.

The door eventually gave way to the assault on it, and the torch-bearing constables swaggered into the shop. Almost immediately, he heard his wife’s feigned wails of insanity and crazed laughter, accompanied by the bawling of his terrified children.

The constables put up with the racket as long as they could before reemerging with their torches, some jabbering something he couldn’t hear, others yawning. After a brief discussion in front of the shop and some shouted commands, they mounted up and rode off. As soon as the hoofbeats and torchlight disappeared, peace and quiet returned to the town. He was about to come out of hiding when lights flared up in town, all at once, as if on command. Everything stopped for a moment, and then dozens of lanterns appeared on the street, forming a luminous, fast-moving line that snaked its way toward him. Hot tears slipped out of his eyes.





7




Relying on the guidance of an experienced old man, he hid during the daylight hours over the days that followed and slipped back into town at night, when the streets were quiet and deserted. He spent his days in the woods on the opposite bank of the Masang River, where there were a dozen or so cottages the villagers used to cure tobacco. That was where he slept during the days, crossing the river to return home late at night. He headed back to his cottages first thing the next morning with a bundle of flatbreads and a gourd filled with water.

Many of the willow trees near the cottages were home to nesting magpies. He would lie on the kang, eating and sleeping, sleeping and eating. At first he could not screw up the courage to step outside, but gradually he grew less guarded and slipped out to look up at the squawking magpies in their nests. He and a tall, well-built young shepherd struck up a friendship. He shared his flat-breads with Mudu, the simple, honest young man, and even told him who he was—Sun Bing, the man who had killed the railroad engineer.

On the seventh day of the second lunar month, five days after killing the German, he finished off several of the flatbreads and a bowlful of water in the afternoon and was lying on the kang listening to the magpies and to the tattoos of a woodpecker attacking a tree. As he slipped into that twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness, the sharp crack of gunfire snapped him out of his stupor. He had never before heard the sound of a breech-loading rifle, which was nothing like that of a local hunting rifle. He knew immediately that this was bad. Jumping off the kang and picking up his club, he flattened himself against the wall behind the door to await the arrival of his enemies. More gunfire. It came from the opposite bank. Unable to sit still in the cottage, he slipped out the door, bent at the waist, and scrambled over a series of crumbling walls to move in among the willow trees. A cacophony of shrill sounds erupted in town: his wife was crying, his children were bawling, horses whinnied, mules brayed, and dogs barked, all at the same time. But he could not see a thing. Then an idea struck him. Slipping his club into his belt, he began climbing the tallest tree he saw. When the magpies spotted the invader, they launched an attack, but he drove them off with his club, once, twice, over and over, until they retreated. He stood on a limb next to a large nest and, holding on to keep from falling, looked down at the far side of the river. Now he could see what was happening, all of it.

At least fifty foreign horses were arrayed in front of his teashop, all ridden by foreign soldiers in bright, fancy uniforms with round, feathered caps, and firing bayonet-fitted blue-steel automatic rifles at the shop door and windows. Puffs of white smoke, like daisy blossoms, floated out of the muzzles and hung in the air for a long moment. Sunlight danced off the brass buttons on the soldiers’ tunics and the bayonets attached to the barrels of their guns, blinding bright. A squad of Imperial troops wearing red-tasseled summer straw hats and tunics with white circles in the center, front and back, was arrayed behind them. Suddenly dazed, he dropped the club, which fell to the ground, banging into one limb after another on its way down. Lucky for him he was holding on to a branch, or he’d have followed the club down.

Panic took hold. He knew that this was the calamity he had dreaded. But he held on to a thread of hope that his wife’s acting skills, honed over the years, especially her convincing acts of madness, would work on the German soldiers the way they had on His Eminence Magistrate Qian’s constables, that they would make a fuss until they were sure he was not there and then leave. At that moment he promised himself that if they somehow escaped with their lives, he would pack up and move his family away, far away.

Nothing could have been worse than what happened next. He watched as two of the soldiers dragged his wife, kicking and screaming, down to the river, while a third soldier, bigger and taller than the others, followed with the children, dragging each of them by one leg, as if they were ducks or chickens, and deposited them on the riverbank. Stone broke free from the soldier who was restraining him by biting him on the arm. But then he saw Stone’s small, dark figure back down off the riverbank, down and down, until he bumped into the rifle of a soldier behind him. The glinting blade of the bayonet ran him through. It looked like he screamed, but there was no sound as he rolled like a little black ball down the bank. From his vantage point up in the tree, Sun Bing was blinded by the sight of all that blood.

The German soldiers backed up against the riverbank, where some of them got down on one knee and others remained standing as they aimed at the townspeople. Their aim was unerring—one victim fell for each shot fired. The street and yards were littered with corpses, either face down or on their backs. Then the Imperial troops ran over and put a torch to his shop. First came the black smoke, rising into the sky, followed by golden yellow flames that crackled like firecrackers. The wind rose up and blew the smoke and fire in all directions, even carrying thick, choking clouds of smoke and the smell of fire up to his hiding place.

Then came something even worse. He looked on as the German soldiers began shoving and pulling his wife back and forth, slowly ripping off her clothes as they did so, until she was stark naked. He bit down on the branch he was holding and hit it so hard with his head that it broke the skin. While his heart flew to the opposite bank like a fireball, his body remained bound to a tree; he couldn’t move. They lifted up his wife’s fair body, swung her back and forth, and then let go, her momentum carrying her into the Masang River like a big white fish. Sprays of white transparent water splashed into the air without a sound and fell silently back. Finally, the soldiers speared his children and flung them into the river, too. His eyes filled with blood, nightmarishly, and his heart was on fire, yet he was frozen in place. He struggled with all his might, but in the end he could only roar, freeing his body from its paralysis; bending forward, he managed to topple over, snapping several branches as he fell before landing on the spongy ground at the base of the willow tree.