Howard Goldblatt (Editor) - Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused – Fiction From Today

He pauses, conceivably to consider if he has said something erroneous. This gives me an opportunity to explain the purpose of my visit.

"Hmm-Yellow Hair-well, it's been a real long time since I've seen him-uh, how come he didn't come? Uh, I miss talking to him-is he married? Hmm, no matter-talented fellow like that doesn't need to worry…"

I observe that he has used more than a few ahs, uhs , and hmms .

He subsequently comments that the weather is quite humid, oppressive really, but it just won't seem to rain, clearly the result of low pressure in the subtropics.

I agree with his meteorologic observations. "But where do you keep the painting?" I ask him.

He frowns, tracing his memory, and then finally says that the painting isn't here at his house; it's with a friend who is a graduate student at the Institute of Fine Arts. However, if he can locate that friend, he can get it back at any time.

That being the case, there's nothing more for me to say. As an afterthought, I ask Old Wu if he now knows the subject of the painting.

His mood shifts, and he says with pleasure and pride that he paid to have a frame made, that the painting has a white matting and looks much more impressive than it did. "Guess. I'll bet you won't be able to guess," he says in a mysterious tone. "It's a painting of a sleeping lion."

I want to comment but hold back. Such a long time has gone by since we've seen each other that it's better to let the talk flow naturally back to the conversation of old friends. I laugh and change the topic: "I hear your wife comes from a big family in society and is very pretty."

Old Wu is more than willing to acknowledge this fact, and of course the topic of the painting never comes up again. He says that someday soon he'll bring his wife to see me. Then he offers to give me a tour of his new house and to show me a color photo of his wife. In light of the fact that he is going to pay me a return visit, I could conceivably wait till later to regard his wife's beautiful countenance, but it would not be right to reject offhand this generous gesture. Who would have thought that no sooner is the bedroom door pushed open than he has a change of heart and slams the door shut again. "Forget it; it's a mess in there, and her foreign likeness isn't worth troubling ourselves over."

At this, my temper is sorely tested.

As I am about to leave, I say in all seriousness, "Old Wu, no matter who has that painting, let's get this story straight. The subjects of Han never once saw a piece of lion's fur, let alone a silk painting of a whole lion. But even if that thing were a rag used to clean people's feet, nobody should try to hog it for himself. If you want to keep it as a collector's item, you'd better come up with a price."

Old Wu blinks and says nothing.

And that is how the cursed sleeping lion returned from the underworld to the world of light, obsessing us for ten years and driving a wedge into our friendships.

Several days later, Yellow Hair comes by to check up on the situation. When I tell him what has transpired, he does not seem at all surprised, and although he cannot help saying a few things against Old Wu, his curses are less than enthusiastic; nor does he seem inclined to rush over to Old Wu's and settle the score.

"Forget it, I've got another way." Apparently, Yellow Hair's family owns a set of rosewood furniture, despite the fact that they are not gentry. "A little worn, but where can you get real rosewood nowadays? When there aren't any new ones, it doesn't matter if something is old." Rarer still, among the pieces of furniture was a rectangular ancestral altar.

I have seen that type of altar: it comes up to one's chest and is about four feet long. An incense burner and the family genealogy are placed on the top, where one can also honor the wealth god, the earth god, or Guanyin and Emperor Guanyu, gods enough for everyone; there's no doubt about there having been religious freedom back then. Yellow Hair says it was used as a cupboard for a while but even then wasn't entirely appropriate, being both too exalted and too lowly for such a purpose. It was only because the wood was so hard that it wasn't long ago chopped into kindling. Who would have thought that fortunes would shift to what they are today? That villagers would grow wealthy and want to worship their ancestors again? They might very well already own seven or eight of the ten required "big appliances," but if they are missing an ancestral altar, they cannot display their family's status and roots. Yellow Hair was able to sell the piece for a great deal of money.

I am relieved and share with him this thought: "Now you should burn a stick of incense to thank your ancestors for their secret act of benevolence."

He laughs loudly and leaves.

A crude and heroic man, Yellow Hair is also very practical, able to put the present in front of the past, able to use the old to serve the new.

But I have been too hard on Old Wu. He shows up, after all, although not in the company of his wife. As soon as he steps inside the door, he tosses the yellowed and spotty scroll onto the table, announcing with largesse that he is going to throw in the matting for free.

I unroll it, and sure enough, it is a picture of the object of many years ago. Carefully evaluating it, I realize I am a cultured man after all, for I can think only that there is nothing praiseworthy about the technique, that the brushstrokes are uninspired, and that the sleeping figure looks more like a dog than anything else. But old as it is, the silk painting is full of mystery and thus cannot be defamed.

Old Wu's seat is not even warm when he rises to leave. In an awkward moment, I urge him to stay. A couple of drinks?

"Got anything good?" he asks.

Napoléon brandy from an overseas relative.

He gives me a knowing look and sits down. In a matter of moments, he proceeds to instruct me. Foreign liquor can't be ingested with Chinese cuisine because the oil will destroy the flavor.

Happily, I obey him; I was not overly enthusiastic about cooking something to begin with. Instead, I locate a box of chocolates, open a can of pineapple, and slice a few preserved eggs, a sort of East-West combination plate. We begin to drink.

I savor the pure flavor of the brandy; as promised, it is marvel-ously different from anything I have ever had before. I drink more than usual. Foreign liquor kicks in more slowly than Chinese, but inevitably our faces flush bright red. Old Wu's words are endless, from Napoleon to the French Revolution; he says that the European lords could have been united and the heroic Napoleon could have strangled the July Revolution, and then history would have been pushed back many years. Here I add, "But then we wouldn't be able to enjoy this fine liquor, a loss that cannot be overlooked."

He isn't in the mood for jokes, so completely absorbed is he in his historical musings, saying further that it was Napoleon who once said that China was a sleeping lion. "Sleeping lion,…" he murmurs groggily as if he is very sorrowful, then suddenly bursts into laughter.

"What's so funny?"

He reeks of brandy, his finger poking in my face. "I'm laughing at you! And me! At everybody in the world."

I see he is drunk and hurry to brew some oolong, not knowing if it will have any effect on foreign liquor, since the tea leaves and teapot are Chinese products.

Still queasy, he murmurs, "Past events and dream shadows… fog before my eyes."

I think he must still be nostalgic about the French emperor and hand him a cup of strong tea, which he knocks over with a contemptuous snort. "These are the names of two books; take a look at them if you don't want to be a fool…"

Morning and night, all I have been thinking about is my "schol-arization," so how can I accept being a fool? I go to fetch the volumes and find that there is indeed a Record of Fog Before My Eyes , written during the Yuan or Song, and a Record of Past Events and Dream Shadows , written during the Guangxu period of the Qing, both histories of old paintings. I pull them off the shelf and immerse myself for two entire nights, after which I unroll the silk painting and compare it. Then I understand. Paintings like this, in which the ink doesn't bleed through the vitriol paste onto the silk and which make use of starch and crude-patterned silk sprinkled with gold dust, are characteristic of Late Qing and Early Republican paintings. When you add this to the fact that the illegible characters in the square seal are of an oil-based paint and are blue and not red in color, the conclusive evidence is that this filial mourner's carelessly scrawled painting of a lion could not have been made earlier than the reign of the ill-fated Emperor Guangxu.