Barry Hughart - Bridge of Birds

The mighty heart pounded beneath us, and the wings beat with all of the Falcon's strength, and we left the Bridge of Birds far behind, and China vanished. My eyes swam with tears from the wind, and I could see nothing, and I held on for dear life. For an hour I had no idea where we were, but then the racing wind began to bring a hundred familiar odors to my nostrils. The pace slackened, and I pried my eyelids open, and the Falcon slid down from the sky and dipped its wings in salute above the watchtower on Dragon's Pillow. As the monastery grew closer we could see the watching bonzes point in wonder from the roof, and then the bells began to ring. Lower we drifted, and then the Falcon landed lightly in the courtyard.

Li Kao and I climbed off and bowed deeply, and the prince of the birds of war looked at us with its yellow smoky eyes.

“I shall not say good-bye. The Raven has told me that we are destined to meet again, at the great confrontation with the White Serpent in the Mysterious Mountain Cavern of Winds. The Raven is never wrong,” said the Falcon, and its wings beat once, twice, and then it shot into the air and sailed away to rejoin its bridge and its princess.

Li Kao and I raced into the infirmary, where the abbot ran to meet us. He was wasted with weariness, and one glance told us that the endurance of the children was almost at an end.

“We have the Great Root!” I yelled. “Master Li found the Queen of Ginseng, and she has agreed to help us!”

Master Li and the abbot began preparing the vials, and I ran from bed to bed. I held the root toward the children's faces and recited their names and gave brief ancestries. I suppose that it was a foolish thing to do, but I remembered that the story of Jade Pearl had begun when the Queen of Ginseng had taken pity upon a child and had asked if she was lost, and the children of my village were lost indeed. Then I ran up to Master Li, and he reverently placed the root in the first vial.

I cannot possibly describe the aroma when Li Kao finally removed the vial from the pan of boiling water and removed the stopper, but old Mother Ho, who caught some of the steam full in the face, tossed her cane away and hasn't used it since. The abbot and Master Li began making the rounds: three drops upon each tongue.

The children's faces flushed, and the covers lifted with deep breathing, and they sat up and opened their eyes to the private world of the Hopping Hide and Seek Game.

The second treatment of three drops, and the happy smiling faces turned as one toward Dragon's Pillow. “Jade plate, six, eight, fire that burns hot, night that is not, fire that burns cold, first silver, then gold!” chanted the children of Ku-fu.

The third and final treatment, and there was just enough essence to go around. The children suddenly stopped chanting, and they sat motionless, with wide unseeing eyes. Nobody dared to breathe. The monastery was completely silent until Big Hong could stand it no more. He ran to his son and waved his hand in front of the boy's bright eyes. Nothing happened.

Big Hong fell on his knees, and his head sank to the little boy's lap, and he began to weep.

Master Li is convinced that the true story of the Bridge of Birds is far too crude to please priests and palace eunuchs, and that suitably polite and pious legends will be invented to account for the extraordinary event that stunned the empire on the seventh day of the seventh moon in the Year of the Dragon 3,338 (A.D. 640), and that there will probably be a lover's festival that celebrates a meek little goddess who weaves seamless robes and a meek little god who milks cows, with a few magpies tossed in for comic effect. Perhaps, but in the village of Ku-fu in the valley of Cho we will continue to celebrate the moment when the Queen of Ginseng probed and tested, and then tentatively reached out and took ku poison into her heart. Little Hong blinked. His eyes lowered.

“What's the matter, Daddy?” he asked.

Her majesty was gaining confidence, unleashing all of her power, and child after child blinked and shook his head, as though clearing cobwebs, and wanted to know why his parents were weeping. They were very weak.

“Outside!” Master Li yelled. “Carry the children out to the courtyard!”

A long row of beds moved out to the courtyard, and the children stared in wonder at a strange glow upon the horizon, like the rising of a second moon, and then the Bridge of Birds lifted above Dragon's Pillow. Surely the Queen of Ginseng smiled to see her beloved goddaughter provide the final step to the cure. The world was wrapped in the fragrance of green twigs and branches, and a divine light climbed higher and higher toward the stars, to the great song of billions of birds. A trillion wings splintered moonbeams into rainbows, and a roar of thanksgiving came from the Great River, and the Star Shepherd hurled his crook away and bounded across waves and rocks, and the untended stars began to spill over the banks. The August Personage of Jade ordered all Heaven to erupt with bells and gongs and trumpets, and the children of Ku-fu jumped from their sickbeds and began to dance with their parents, and the abbot and his bonzes swung lustily through the air as they hauled on the bell ropes, and Master Li did the Dragon Dance with Number Ten Ox, and showers of stars, torrents of stars, great glorious explosions of stars streaked across the sky of China while the Bridge of Birds reached the boundary of paradise, and the Star Shepherd opened his arms to receive my darling Lotus Cloud, the Princess of Birds.

I shall clasp my hands together and bow to the corners of the world.

May your villages remain ignorant of tax collectors, and may your sons be many and ugly and strong and willing workers, and may your daughters be few and beautiful and excellent providers of love gifts from eminent families that live very far away, and may your lives be blessed by the beauty that has touched mine.

Farewell.

THE END

Lin Yutang has translated Miser Shen's prayer to Ah Chen slightly differently. See The Importance of Understanding (World Publishing Co., New York, 1960).