Mo Yan - Sandalwood Death

“Are you all right, Laoye?” Chunsheng and Liu Pu asked tentatively as they bent down close to him.

The men’s faces were blurred; the Magistrate could only sigh.

“It’s damned hard trying to be an upright official,” he said.

“Someone up there is always watching, Laoye,” Liu Pu said. “Your good deeds are not going unnoticed by the old man in the sky.”

“The old man in the sky will see to it that Laoye receives the promotions and riches he deserves,” Chunsheng added.

“Is there really an old man in the sky?” the Magistrate wondered aloud. “I guess the fact that my horse did not pull me to my death proves something. Don’t you agree? Now, take a look at my leg and see if it’s broken.”

Liu Pu untied the band around the Magistrate’s leg, reached up inside, and felt around.

“You can breathe easy, Laoye,” he said, “it’s not broken.”

“Are you sure?”

“My father taught me the basics of therapeutic massage and bone-setting when I was a boy.”

“Who’d have thought that Peicun could be a bone expert, too?” the Magistrate said with a sigh. “While we were riding a while ago, I was recalling the days when your father and I passed the examination. We were filled with such youthful energy and high spirits, eager to shoulder heavy responsibilities and help the country be strong and prosperous. But now…” Momentarily overcome with emotion, he said, “I guess there must be someone up there, since my leg is not broken. Help me to my feet, men.”

The two aides picked him up by his arms and supported him as he tried to walk. But his legs failed him—they had a mind of their own, or no mind at all—and produced stabbing pains that shot from the soles of his feet all the way up to the top of his head.

“Gather some dry grass, men, and light a fire to warm us. I can’t ride a horse like this.”

The Magistrate sat on the ground rubbing his hands and watching Chunsheng and Liu Pu gather grass by the side of the path. Up and down their bodies moved, a bit of a blur in the starlight, like large creatures building a nest on the ground. The sound of their labored breathing and the snapping of broken stalks of grass were heavy in the surrounding darkness; the Milky Way shimmered in a shower of shooting stars that lit up the faces—dark and purple from the cold—of his trusted aides and the overgrown gray wilderness behind them. Those faces gave him an indication of what he must look like: in the cold air, weariness had erased the self-assured looks they had started out with. He was suddenly reminded of his hat, the official symbol of his position and status.

“Chunsheng,” he called out anxiously, “forget that for now. I’ve lost my hat.”

“Wait till we get a fire going,” Chunsheng replied. “We’ll need the light to find it.”

With this simple statement, Chunsheng not only had disobeyed an order but, for the first time, had actually offered an opinion of his own, which the Magistrate found quite touching. On that dark night out in the wilds, all standards and norms were subject to modification.

They piled up layers of grass until they had a small stack. The Magistrate reached out to feel the grass, which was damp with dew.

“Chunsheng, did you bring something to start a fire?”

“Damn!” Chunsheng replied. “I forgot.”

“I have what we need in my pack,” Liu Pu volunteered.

The Magistrate breathed a sigh of relief.

“You think of everything, Liu Pu. Start a fire, I’m freezing.”

The young man took a steel, a flint, and a tinder from his backpack, crouched down beside the pile of grass, and began striking steel and flint together. Weak polygonal sparks flew from his hands onto the grass, making faint sizzles as they landed. He blew on the tinder with each spark, and as it slowly turned red, a tiny popping sound produced the first actual flames. The County Magistrate’s mood lightened considerably, the flames temporarily driving away the physical aches and pains and the mental anguish. Liu Pu touched the tinder to the grass, which reluctantly caught fire, the weak flames barely able to stay burning. So he picked up a handful of grass and twirled it in the air to make the fire burn stronger and brighter, until it was a blazing torch, which he then touched to the stack. White smoke began to rise skyward, filling the air with an acrid fragrance and the County Magistrate’s heart with emotion. The smoke was soon so thick that a man could almost reach out and grab a handful; and then, seemingly without warning, golden flames licked through the darkness with a roar. The smoke thinned out as dazzling bursts of light turned a swath of wilderness into daytime. The three animals snorted, swished their tails, and edged closer to the warmth of the fire. What looked like smiles adorned their long faces; their eyes shone like crystal, and their heads seemed unnaturally large. The County Magistrate spotted his hat nestling in the grass like a black hen hatching an egg. He had Chunsheng retrieve the hat, which was mud-spotted and grass-stained. The crystal ornament that represented his rank hung to one side, and one of the pheasant feathers, which had the same significance, had snapped in two. All inauspicious signs, he was thinking. But so what, damn it! How lucky would I have been if I’d been dragged to my death a moment ago? So he put on his hat, not to reclaim his dignity, but to help ward off the cold. The bonfire quickly heated up his chest, but his back felt like a slab of cold steel. As it warmed up, his nearly frozen skin turned prickly and painful. He scooted backward, and the heat moved with him, so he stood up and turned his back to the fire; but that no sooner warmed up than the front had cooled off. He turned back to face the fire. And so it went, front and back, over and over, until his body could once more move freely, although his leg still hurt. Knowing that he had not sustained a serious injury helped his mood, so he turned his attention to the three animals, which, as he saw by the light of the fire, were hungrily grazing, the bits in their mouths making crisp metallic sounds. The white horse’s tail seemed made of silvery threads as it swished back and forth. The flames got shorter as the crackle of dried grass being consumed was less frequent and not nearly as loud. The flames moved outward in all directions, much as water seeks lower ground, and spread with great speed. The wind began to pick up. Furry things were visible in the light from the fire, jumping and leaping—rabbits or foxes, probably. Birds flew into the dark sky with shrill cries, skylarks or turtledoves. The fire directly in front of the three men slowly died out, leaving only scattered red cinders. The wildfire, on the other hand, was rapidly gaining in intensity. The Magistrate, excited by the sight, his eyes lighting up, called out happily:

“This is something we might see once in a lifetime, if that! Chunsheng, Liu Pu, this alone was worth the trip.”

They climbed back on their horses and set out once more for Laizhou. By then the wildfire had spread far into the distance, like an illuminated riptide. The redolence of fire suffused the cold night air.

The County Magistrate and his traveling companions arrived at the Laizhou outskirts as dawn was breaking. The city gate was shut tight, the drawbridge was raised, and no gate guards were at their posts. The trees and groundcover were blanketed with frost as roosters crowed in a new day. Frost even decorated Chunsheng and Liu Pu’s eyebrows, in contrast to the soot that covered their faces. One glance made it clear to the Magistrate what his face must look like, and he hoped that look—frosty white beard and hair and a road-dusted face—would not disappear before he met the prefectural officials, for that would impress his superiors. In the past, he recalled, there had been a stone bridge leading to the city gate. But that had been replaced by a pine drawbridge, an emergency measure to defend against a surge in attacks across the city moat by Righteous Harmony Boxers. The Magistrate disagreed with the policy, refusing to believe that farmers would rise up in rebellion unless they were starving.