Barry Hughart - The Story of the Stone

Rest of it unprintable. Hear six hawk moths diving at my tea, look around for hawk moths, see Moon Boy doing something with his throat. Screams of rage very close, lynch mob gallops over hill. Leader has pitchfork, drags weeping boy. Moon Boy accepts tea. Leader screams accusations, Moon Boy sips tea. Leader charges with pitchfork. Moon Boy smiles—air turns sulphurous. Smiles wider—hills shimmer with heat waves. Moon Boy tickles leader beneath chin, purrs like cat: “Come here, sugar.” Escorts leader behind large rock, boy stops weeping and starts laughing. Offer tea to lynch mob. Lewd sounds from behind rock, boy can't stop laughing. Offer rice to lynch mob. Leader emerges, adjusting clothing. Refuses tea and rice and drags boy away by ear. Moon Boy saunters from behind rock, whistling. Master Li awakes, regards Moon Boy and departing lynch mob, mutters, “If only I could be ninety again, goes back to sleep.

Our route back toward Ch'ang-an took us past the village of Moon Boy's birth, at which point I began to suspect that Moon Boy's moral turpitude resembled his art: almost supernatural.

Road past small temple, priest emerges. Stares at Moon Boy, lifts robe, races toward village: “Lock up the boys! Lock up the men! Lock up the goats and donkeys!” Moon Boy smiles proudly. Enter village, woman emerges from cottage: “My son!” Faints. Father emerges waving horsewhip: “Shame! Scandal! Infamy! Ignominy! Odium! Obliquity!” Father apparently fairly well educated. Priest runs up and sprinkles Moon Boy with holy water, begins beating with rod. Moon Boy tickles beneath chin: “Kitchy-koo.” Priest faints. Mother revives: “Witness, O Heaven, that I was blameless!” Topples back to ground, Moon Boy smiles proudly. Neighbors gather, Moon Boy blows kisses. Father follows from village waving horsewhip: “Agony! Abasement! Depravity! Degradation!” Moon Boy blows kisses. Horses, goats, bulls, donkeys: whinnies, bleats, bellows, brays. Moon Boy blows kisses, Master Li mutters, “Rather an active childhood.” Buy boat, push off into stream. Strange low hoarse sound, Moon Boy doing something with throat. Swans swim up. Great white glowing clouds of swans, canopy of wings lifting over Moon Boy, feathers shining in sunlight. Beautiful. Unreal.

If I am ever invited to take a ride on one of those tubes of Fire Drug that streaks up into the sky, goes bang! and hurls sparkling comets across the sky, I will bow politely and say, “A thousand pardons, but this humble one has already made the trip.”

One of Moon Boy's most remarkable attributes was that he was completely without jealousy. When Grief of Dawn felt like climbing into my bedroll, which she did now and then, all Moon Boy did was lift his handsome head to the night sky and sing to the rabbit in the moon, asking for a soft silver blanket of moonbeams for Grief of Dawn and Number Ten Ox. Master Li would cry in mock agony, “Ah, if only I could be ninety again!” (actually, I think he was happy to be free from the tyranny of sexual desire), and it was clear that, for reasons of his own, he was becoming fascinated by the maid without a memory.

Grief of Dawn was a walking collection of contradictions. She was a simple peasant who spoke the pal hua of the people, like me, but at times she would unconsciously toss in wen li phrases that would have done credit to a courtier. She painted her forehead yellow but refused to pluck and paint her eyebrows: half-patrician, half-peasant. She was shameless enough to walk around with her hair uncovered, yet she was furious when she saw a man in mourning for his mother who carried a staff of oak rather than the appropriate mulberry. She was a prostitute who indignantly refused a fan Moon Boy bought because it was folding, and the symbolism was indecent, and ladies should always carry fixed fans.

Master Li's eyes lit up. “I haven't heard the fan taboo since I was a tad of six or seven!” he exclaimed.

“Little Miss Spotless Sandals,” I teased.

“Everybody should dust his sandals now and then,” she said demurely, and then she stepped behind me and dusted hers with two swift kicks to my rear end. “Turtle Egg!” she yelled.

Master Li collapsed with laughter. When he recovered he explained that people once believed turtles could conceive through thought alone, which made parentage impossible to establish, so “turtle egg” became a euphemism for bastard. Master Li swore that the insult had last been delivered during the Usurpation of Wang Mang, and he was willing to bet that at some point in her wanderings Grief of Dawn had found work in one of the moldy priories where antiquated old maids preserve ancient sayings and customs they learned from their great-great-grandmothers. Another time Grief of Dawn got mad at Moon Boy and called him “Forgetter of the Eight!” and even Master Li had to pause before connecting it to the corrupt courtiers whom Mencius swore had turned their backs on filial piety, politeness, decorum, integrity, fidelity, fraternal duty, loyalty, and sense of shame: the Eight Rules of Civilization.

Grief of Dawn was perfectly aware of Master Li's growing interest. She began to regard him with a speculative expression that had a hint of mirth in it, and I wondered if Moon Boy could read her mind, because he picked up the exact same expression. One scorching afternoon we reached a stream and in an instant Moon Boy had stripped and was gliding through the cool water like one of his swans. Grief of Dawn had plenty of secluded places to use if she liked, so Master Li and I undressed and dove in after Moon Boy. There was another splash. Grief of Dawn swam like a seal, and wasn't exactly shy about displaying her supple athlete's body. She stood in a shallow spot, apparently to give Master Li a good view of her lovely firm breasts.

“Venerable Sir, how many wives have you had?” she asked innocently.

“Buddha, I started to lose count somewhere back toward the beginning of the Sui Dynasty.”

“And how many wives do you have now?”

“Not one,” the old man said complacently. “They kept growing old and dying on me, so when I reached the point where I could no longer enjoy the Play of Clouds and Rain, I decided to settle for selfishness and comfortable clutter, and I haven't had a wife since.”

“But is that wise?” Grief of Dawn batted her eyes as though the bright sunlight bothered her. (She had beautiful eyelashes.) “Wives are useful for many things, and there are potions and incantations that can do wonders with the Play of Clouds and Rain…”

I stopped listening and tried to make my clumsy mind come to grips with Grief of Dawn's point of view. The more I thought of it, the more sensible it became. Prostitutes are called “flowers of smoke,” and brothels are “smoke and blossom camps” because worldly pleasures are transitory, and nothing is more transitory than beauty. A whore's hopes can be measured in the distance between two wrinkles, and what could Grief of Dawn look forward to? If she married me, it would mean a farm and children and heartbreak when she was compelled to run off after Moon Boy and resume her restless wanderings. But if she married an ancient sage? Master Li would merely laugh if she ran off, and take the opportunity to smash up the shack with some old-fashioned drinking brawls, and laugh some more when she returned, and when he died she would become a respectable widow with a roof over her head.

“… then you wash the dragon bones and grind them into a fine powder, and put the powder into tiny silk bags and put the bags into the body cavities of dead cleaned swallows and leave them overnight…”

Master Li was smiling faintly as he listened to the innocent folk remedy. He began whistling very softly. I felt my face turn red, and Moon Boy had a hard time suppressing laughter, and Grief of Dawn flushed and began stumbling over words. The tune was “Hot Ashes,” and for some peculiar reason the phrase “scraping hot ashes” refers to incest between in-laws—a young wife and her son-in-law, for example—and could it be said that I was something of a substitute son to Master Li? The arrangement that Grief of Dawn had in mind could become rather complicated, and Master Li held up a hand and cut her short.