Barry Hughart - Eight Skilled Gentlemen

“The kidneys, my misguided friend, are not to be trifled with,” Master Li said gently, waving a cautionary finger in the fellow’s face. “The season of the kidneys is winter, and their orientation is north, and their element is water; their smell is putrid, their taste is salty, and their color is black; their animal is the tortoise, their mountain is Hang Shan, and their deity is Hsuan-ming; their virtue is wisdom, their emotion is fear, and they make the low moaning sound yu; the emperor of the kidneys is Chuan-hsu, they take the spirit form Hsuan Yen—the two-headed stag commonly called Black Darkness—and of all body parts they are the most unforgiving. What have you been doing to these great and dangerous organs?”

The old man has sharp bony knuckles rather like chisels, and plenty of snap in his right arm when it comes to short body punches.

“You have been drowning them in the Shaoshing wine of Chekiang!”

“Eeaarrgghh!”

“The Hundred Flowers wine of Chen-chiang!”

“Eeaarrgghh!”

“The Orchid Stream wine of Wusih!”

“Eeaarrgghh!”

“The Drip-Drop wine of Taming!”

“Eeaarrgghh!”

“The Golden Waves wine of Chining!”

“Eeaarrgghh!”

“The Grain of Paradise wine of Hunan!”

“Eeaarrgghh!”

“The Fragrant Snow wine of Mouchow!”

“Eeaarrgghh!”

“The Old Cask wine of Shanyang!”

“Eeaarrgghh!”

“The Peppery Yellow wine of Luancheng!”

“Eeaarrgghh!”

“The White Double wine of the Liuchiu Islands!”

“Eeaarrgghh!”

“The December Snow wine of Kashing!”

“Eeaarrgghh!”

“The Top of the Cask wine of Kuangtung!”

“Eeaarrgghh!”

“The Spring on Tungting Lake wine of Changsha!”

“Eeaarrgghh!”

“And the Double Pepper wine of Chingho!”

“Eeaarrgghh!”

The sage stepped to the front of the platform and addressed the audience in solemn tones, while the patient held his wounded parts and moaned pathetically.

“My friends, consider the wondrous nature of the kidneys, and the beneficence of the deities who have granted them to us,” Master Li intoned. “It is the kidneys that produce bone marrow and give birth to the spleen. The kidneys convert bodily fluid into urine, and give birth to and nourish the hairs. The kidneys are the officers of bodily strength, and thus the top pair are attached to the heart. The kidneys are the officers of intellect, and thus the bottom pair winds through the pelvis and climbs up the spinal cord into the brain. The kidneys store the germinating principle that contains the will, and their song is ‘Somber Darkness,’ and their dance is ‘Engendering Life,’ and when mistreated they become swollen, sensitive, and very, very sore.”

“Eeaarrgghh!”

“Fortunately,” said Master Li, opening a large case to display rows of small vials, “the Academy of Imperial Physicians is allowing me to part with a very limited amount of Pao Puh Tsi’s amazing tonic for the kidneys known as Nine Fairies Elixir, and you need scarcely be reminded that this is the very elixir that saved the life of Emperor Wen. The ingredients are cinnabar, flowers of sulphur, olibanum, myrrh, camphor, Dragon’s Blood, sulphate of copper, musk, burnt alum, bear’s gall, yellow lead, centipedes, earthworms, silkworms, plum blossoms, cow bezoar, toad spittle, white jade dust, borax, tree grubs, and snails, and while some may consider the price slightly steep, the wise will consider the alternative.”

“Eeeeaaaarrrrgggghh!”

Yen Shih was in charge of the show, not Master Li, and he politely but firmly prevented the old man from shearing the sheep right down to the skin. “After all,” he pointed out, “I have to return year after year, and it is difficult to entertain lynch mobs.”

I just said that Yen Shih was in charge, and the next sketch requires some expansion on the theme. To begin with, right from our first meeting I had sensed two very powerful elements in the puppeteer’s being. (Leaving out the tragedy of smallpox that disfigured him; the shock must have been unimaginable, because his natural movements and gestures were those of a good-looking youth who had grown into a handsome man.) The first was the light dancing deep inside his eyes when danger threatened, and I suddenly remembered the boy we had called Otter in my village, and his glowing eyes when he prepared to do a pelican dive into the shallow water in the quarry pit, far below at the base of Torn Tree Hill—a feat the rest of us didn’t dare daydream about. I often felt that staying too close to the puppeteer would be like staying too close to a fire where a thick piece of bamboo is burning slowly and steadily, meaning that at any moment the flames may reach a large air pocket surrounded by soft sap, and the explosion may send you sailing in a ball of fire through the wall of your cottage. That leads to the next fact about the puppeteer. He was an aristocrat, and I don’t mean that as a figure of speech.

“From a noble family? Oh yes, or so I assume,” Master Li said when I asked him about it. “He practically reeks of a rarefied upbringing. Confucianism mandates a family’s continued nobility whether they maintain imperial favor or not, and the empire teems with proud younger sons working incognito as fishermen and gamekeepers, so why not puppeteers? Yen Shih may decide to tell us his story someday, and until then we can at least extend the courtesy of keeping our mouths shut.”

The scene I want to describe is this. We had reached an inn on the outskirts of a town and been held up by rain that turned the roads to mud. Yen Shih had started drinking early in the morning in the large common room, seated by himself at a small table in the corner. He was still drinking, slowly and steadily, in late afternoon, showing no ill effects from the strong wine, but sinking more and more into his own private world. Yu Lan (thank Buddha!) was resting in the wagon. Suddenly the door burst open and a party of noblemen strode in. They were dressed for the hunt and drenched to the skin, and the others deferred fawningly to the leader, who had a flushed petulant face and hot hasty eyes. He yelled for wine and a larger fire, ordered us peasants out, and in almost the same breath he turned to the closest peasant and commanded him to sweep the stinking floor clean enough to receive superior feet. The closest happened to be Yen Shih, who leisurely arose and picked up a broom that was propped against the wall. He surveyed the nobleman with speculative eyes.

“Gad, the resemblance is remarkable,” he drawled. “Would Your Magnificence perchance be related to radiant Lord Yu Yen?”

The sheer audacity of a worm daring to address a tiger left the lord speechless. Besides, Yu Yen means “Fish Eyes.”

“No? How odd. I could have sworn you were brothers,” Yen Shih said. “Masters of the hunt, legends in war—Lord Yu Yen, for example, having heroically won high rank, medals, and military command upon the field of primogeniture, was granted the honor of accompanying the Son of Heaven upon a bandit-hunting expedition, and as fate would have it he was granted an early opportunity of displaying his worth when his men encountered a band of marauding Miao-chia.”

The nobleman had finally grasped the incredible fact that this low creature was addressing him in familiar language, and he uttered a roar of rage and pulled his sword from the scabbard. I started forward, but Master Li grabbed my shoulder and held me back. Yen Shih was casually balancing the broom on his right forefinger and seemed to be unaware of the shining sharp steel that glittered coldly in the afternoon sunlight.

“What a hero he was,” the puppeteer said admiringly. “ ‘Send forth your champion!’ cried valiant Lord Yu Yen. ‘He against me! Man to man and hand to hand!’ It was seemly said, but one regrets to report that the rabble to which it was addressed was disgustingly drunk.”