Barry Hughart - Bridge of Birds

“Where his throat will probably be slit by somebody like Ma the Grub,” the abbot said sourly. “Who will be swindled by somebody like Pawnbroker Fang, who will sell the root to somebody like the Ancestress, who will squat like a huge venomous toad upon a folk deity whose sole purpose in life is to aid the pure in heart.”

“Reverend Sir, I have never heard of the Ancestress,” I said shyly.

The abbot leaned back and rubbed his weary eyes.

“What a woman,” he said with grudging admiration. “Ox, she began her career as an eleven-year-old imperial concubine, and by the time she was sixteen she had Emperor Wen wrapped around her fingers to the point where he took her as his number three wife. The Ancestress promptly poisoned the emperor, strangled his other wives, decapitated all but the youngest of his sons, elevated that weakling to the throne—Emperor Yang—and settled down behind the scenes as the real ruler of China.”

“Reverend Sir, I have heard all my life that Emperor Yang was a depraved and vicious ruler who nearly destroyed the empire,” I exclaimed.

“That's the official version, with parricide tossed in,” the abbot said drily. “Actually he was a timid little fellow, and quite likable. The real ruler was the Ancestress, which is a title that she awarded herself and which carries a certain Confucian finality. Her reign was brief, but gorgeous. She set about bankrupting the empire by decreeing that every leaf that fell in her imperial pleasure garden must be replaced by an artificial leaf fashioned from the costliest silk. Her imperial pleasure barge was 270 feet long, four decks high, and boasted a three-story throne room and 120 cabins decorated in gold and jade. The problem was finding a pond big enough for the thing, so she conscripted 3,600,000 peasants and forced them to link the Yellow and Yangtze rivers by digging a ditch 40 feet deep, 50 yards wide, and 1,000 miles long. The Grand Canal has been invaluable for commerce, but the important thing for the Ancestress was that three million men died during the construction, and a figure like that confirmed her godlike grandeur.

“When the canal was finished,” the abbot said, “the Ancestress invited a few friends to accompany her on an important mission of state to Yang-chou. The fleet of pleasure barges stretched sixty miles from stem to stern, was manned by 9,000 boatmen, and was towed by 80,000 peasants, some of whom survived. The important mission of state was to watch the moon-flowers bloom, but Emperor Yang did not watch the moon-flowers. The excesses of the Ancestress were being performed in his name, so he spent the entire trip staring into a mirror. ‘What an excellent head!’ he kept whimpering. ‘I wonder who will cut it off?’ The chopping was performed by some friends of the great soldier Li Shih-min, who eventually took the imperial name T'ang T'ai-tsung and who sits upon the throne today. T'ang shows every sign of becoming the greatest emperor in history, but I will humbly submit that he made a bad mistake when he assumed that little Yang was responsible for the crimes of the Sui Dynasty and allowed the Ancestress to retire in luxury.”

I suppose that I was pale as a ghost. The abbot reached out and patted one of my knees.

“Ox, you will be traveling with a man who has been walking into dangerous situations for at least ninety years, assuming that he began at your age, and he is still alive to tell about it. Besides, Master Li knows far more about the Ancestress than I do, and he is sure to exploit her weaknesses.”

The abbot paused to consider his words. Bees droned and flies buzzed, and I wondered if the knocking of my knees was audible. A few minutes ago I had been ready to dash out like a racehorse, and now I would prefer to dart down a hole like a rabbit.

“You are a good boy, and I would not like to meet the man who can surpass you in physical strength, but you know very little about this wicked world,” the abbot said slowly. “To tell the truth, I am not so worried about the damage to your body as I am about the damage to your soul. You see, you know nothing whatsoever about men like Master Li, and he said that he would stop in Peking to acquire some money, and I rather suspect…”

His voice trailed off, and he groped for the proper words. Then he decided that it would take several years to prepare me properly.

“Number Ten Ox, our only hope is Master Li,” he said somberly. “You must do as he commands, and I shall be praying for your immortal soul.”

With that rather alarming blessing he left me to return to the children, and I went out to say farewell to my family and friends. Later I was able to catch some sleep. In my dreams I was surrounded by plump brown children as I attempted to tie a red ribbon around a root of lightning in a garden where three million fake silk leaves rustled in a breeze that stank of three million real rotting bodies.

“A spring wind is like wine,” wrote Chang Chou, “a summer wind is like tea, an autumn wind is like smoke, and a winter wind is like ginger or mustard.” The breeze that blew through Peking was tea touched with smoke, and spiced with the fragrance of plum, poppy, peony, plane trees, lotus, narcissus, orchid, wild rose, and the sweet-smelling leaves of banana and bamboo. The breeze was also pungent with pork fat, perspiration, sour wine, and the bewildering odors of more people than I had dreamed there were in the whole world.

The first time I was there I had been too intent upon reaching the Street of Eyes to pay much attention to the Moon Festival, but now I gaped at the jugglers and acrobats who were filling the air with clubs and bodies, and at girls who were as tiny and delicate as porcelain dolls, and who danced on the tips of their toes upon enormous artificial lotus blossoms. The palanquins and carriages of the nobility moved grandly through the streets, and men and women laughed and wept in open-air theatres, and gamblers screamed and swore around dice games and cricket fights. I envied the elegance and assurance of the gentlemen who basked in the practiced admiration of singsong girls—or tiptoed into the Alley of Four Hundred Forbidden Delights if they wanted more action. The most beautiful young women that I had ever seen were pounding drums in brightly painted tents as they sang and chanted the Flower Drum Songs. On almost every corner I saw old ladies with twinkling eyes who sold soft drinks and candied fruits while they cried, “Aiieeee! Aiieeee! Come closer, my children! Spread ears like elephants, and I shall tell you the tale of the great Ehr-lang, and of the time when he was devoured by the hideous Transcendent Pig!”

Master Li had sharp elbows. He moved easily through the throngs, followed by yelps of pain, and he pointed out the landmarks and explained that the strange sounds of the city were as comprehensible to urban ears as barnyard sounds were to mine. The twanging of long tuning forks, for example, meant that barbers had set up shop, and porcelain spoons rapping against bowls advertised tiny dumplings in hot syrup, and clanging copper saucers meant that soft drinks made from wild plums and sweet and sour crab apples were for sale.

As he moved toward his destination, I assumed in my innocence that he was intending to acquire some money by visiting a wealthy friend, or a moneylender who owed him a favor. I blush to admit that not once did I pause to consider the state of the bamboo shack in which I had found him or the nature of friends that he was likely to have. I was quite surprised when he turned abruptly from the main street and trotted down an alley that reeked of refuse. Rats glared at us with fierce glittering eyes, and fermenting garbage bubbled and stank, and I stepped nervously over a corpse—or so I thought until I smelled the fellow's breath. He was not dead but dead-drunk, and at the end of the alley, the blue flag of a wine seller hung above a sagging wooden shack.