Mo Yan - Sandalwood Death

1

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Please sit, dear wife. I cannot ask you to bother with the lowly chore of preparing food and drink. I have told you so a thousand times, and yet you treat my words as wind passing by your ear. So please sit, dear wife; tonight you and I shall drink to our hearts’ content, till we are both pleasurably tipsy, and then retire to my sleeping quarters. Do not fear the prospect of inebriation or how the spirits will loosen your tongue. Though it be true that we are in the depths of this compound, where secrets are safe, even in a teahouse or wine shop surrounded by a gathered crowd I would say what is in my heart, for I could not rest until I had my say. Dear wife, you are descended from a towering official of the Great Qing, born into a family of affluence, maternal granddaughter of Zeng Guofan, who came to the rescue of the dynasty, expending energy under the most difficult of circumstances, sparing no effort as a true loyalist amid a desperate state of affairs, to become a mainstay of the nation. The Great Qing would not exist today but for the Zeng family. A toast, dear wife, to us. Do not assume that I am drunk, for I am not. Oh, if only I were! While drink may have an effect on my body, my soul remains beyond its power. I will not mislead you, dear wife, nor could I if I tried, for this once-great dynasty is nearing its fated end. The Empress Dowager holds the reins of power; the Emperor is but a puppet. The rooster broods the eggs; the hen heralds the dawn—yin and yang are reversed, black and white all mixed up, with villains holding sway and black arts running wild. It would be a monstrous absurdity if the death knell of such a royal house were not struck. Let me have my say, dear wife, for I shall burst if I do not. Great Qing Court, you magnificent edifice on the verge of toppling, do so quickly and let your demise come swiftly. Why must you hang on between life and death, neither yin nor yang? Do not try to stop me, dear wife, and do not take my glass from me. Let me drink to my heart’s content and speak my piece! Revered Empress Dowager and He Who Has Received His Mandate from Heaven, as beneficiaries of a nation’s respect, how could You show no regard for Your exalted position and make a grand show of allowing an audience with an executioner? An executioner—the dregs of society, a man at the bottom of the heap! We who serve in official positions rise before dawn and do not eat until it is dark, performing our duties with diligence, and even a glimpse of the Dragon countenance is an event of earth-shaking rarity. Yet a bottom-feeding denizen spurned by dogs and pigs has been accorded the dignity of a grand and solemn audience, at which Her Royal Highness presented him with a fine ring of prayer beads and His Imperial Majesty favored him with the very chair occupied by His noble person, treatment that barely fell short of granting high rank and hereditary title. Dear wife, your esteemed grandfather, Zeng Guofan, devised strategies that ensured victory in his command of the nation’s armed forces in campaigns all across the land, winning glory in battle after battle, and yet His Imperial Majesty did not favor him with the chair in which He sat, did He? Your grandfather’s younger brother, Zeng Guoquan, charged enemy lines under heavy fire, engaging in bloody battles, narrowly escaping death time and again. But Her Royal Highness did not present him with a ring of prayer beads, did She? No, they chose to make gifts of a Dragon Chair and a ring of prayer beads to a bottom-feeding denizen spurned by dogs and pigs. And that overweening swine, a beneficiary of the Emperor and Dowager’s munificence, forced me to perform the reverential ritual of three bows and nine kowtows before the exalted chair and prayer beads—in other words, before him. If that can be tolerated, is there anything that cannot? Subjecting a successful candidate of the metropolitan examination, a grade five official, however modest his standing, to such humiliating treatment goes beyond indignation. And please do not insult me with the adage “A lack of forbearance in small matters upsets great plans,” for recent events make a mockery of so-called “great plans.” On the street, rumors are flying that the Eight-Power Allied Forces have reached the outskirts of the city and that Her Highness the Empress Dowager and His Majesty the Emperor are about to abandon the capital and flee to the west. The Great Qing Empire, many believe, will fall at any moment. At a time like this, of what use is forbearance? I forbear nothing! No, it is revenge I seek. Dear wife, when that swine placed the Dragon Chair and the prayer beads into my palanquin, I delivered two well-placed slaps across his cadaverous dog face, satisfyingly resounding blows with such force that the swine looked down and spat out two bloody dog teeth. The stinging sensation on my hand persists even now. Ah, how good it felt! Fill my cup again, please, dear wife.

Those slaps swept away every shred of the swine’s sense of esteem and made him slink away like a mangy dog with its tail between its legs. But I could tell that deep down he did not admit defeat, no, not for a minute, as I saw in his eyes, set deep in sockets so dark that no trace of white emerged, only rays of emerald-green light like will-o’-the-wisps. And yet that swine was no craven pushover. As we stood outside the yamen gate, I asked: “How did that feel, Grandma Zhao?” Do you know what he said? The swine actually giggled and said to me, “Those were fine slaps, Your Eminence, and one day I shall return the favor.” “Well,” I said, “that day will never come. I may one day swallow gold, hang myself, take poison, or cut my throat, but my demise will not come at your hands.” “My only fear,” he said, “is that when the time comes, Your Eminence will not be in a position to control his own fate.” He then added, “There are precedents for that.”

Yes, dear wife, you are right. I soiled my hand by using it on him. A County Magistrate, a representative of the Imperial Court, should not lower himself to vie with so lowly an antagonist. What is he, after all? A pig? No, a pig has more grace than he. A dog? No, a dog is nobler. But what was I to do? Excellency Yuan ordered me to extend the invitation, and once a grand official of that elevated status had spoken, I had no choice but to send messengers, who failed, necessitating my personal attention to it. One would be a fool not to see that in the eyes of Excellency Yuan, the Gaomi County Magistrate is of less worth than a common executioner.

Before we went into the hall, I took the hand of that swine—it was as hot as cinders and as soft as dough, a hand unlike any other—with the idea to lead him inside with feigned affection, making him uncomfortable but unable to say so. But the swine gently pulled his hand from mine and fixed his eyes on me with an enigmatic look. Sinister thoughts, impossible to interpret, were running through his head. He climbed back into my palanquin, where he draped the prayer beads around his neck and emerged with the Dragon Chair over his head, legs up. I was amazed to see that this skeletal dog of a man actually had the strength to carry such a heavy wooden chair. The swine then entered the hall, swaying from side to side under the heft of his protective talisman. Feeling incredibly awkward, I followed him inside, where I saw Excellency Yuan sitting shoulder to shoulder with the Jiao’ao Plenipotentiary, von Ketteler, looking rather bewildered. The foreign bastard was winking and making strange faces.

The swine, still holding the chair over his head, knelt in the middle of the hall and announced crisply, “Your humble servant Zhao Jia, a former executioner who was granted retirement from the Board of Punishments by Her Royal Highness and permitted to return home, is here in response to Your Excellency’s summons.”