Ken Kesey - Demon Box

"Because Dr. Fung Yu-lan is not for anyone beneficent to meet with – ah? – even if such a personage is ."

– indicating that such a personage must still be in disfavor somewhere. But in what doghouse, in what province? Mude probably knew, for all the good that did; he had driven off to other inscrutable duties before I could pursue the point. Yet if he knew, others must. Who else? It was after we had left the shabby little gymnasium and were following Bling back across the campus that an obvious possibility suddenly occurred to me.

"Hey, Bling. What say you we swing by the philosophy department?";

"To ask after your fossilized egghead?" Bling laughed at me. "Man, I've spent weeks trying to track down profs I know live on this crazy campus, asking everybody. These Beijing bureaucrats don't know, don't want to know, and wouldn't tell you if they did."

Yet the first woman behind the first desk we came upon in the stark old building had lit up with delight at Bling's translation of my question. After listening to her chatter a moment, Bling turned to the rest of us, his eyes unslanted by surprise.

"She says yes, by golly, that he's very much alive, still on the faculty, lives about two blocks away, practically next door to the gym we just left! Furthermore, she wants to know if we'd like her to phone and see if he is amenable to a visit from some foreign pilgrims?"

So, at last, I was standing with my three companions before a small cottage hunched back under a grove of looming gum trees, waiting for a little girl in pigtails to go tell her great-grandfather that his visitors had arrived. We all stood in a foolish row, our Yankee banter hushed by the neatness of the small swept yard and the nearness of a man we had barely believed in and were yet to see. Beijing's afternoon pollution was still. The only sound coming through this undersea murk was a scratchy tune being played on a phonograph somewhere, faint and vaguely familiar.

"Say, isn't that a Goodman solo?" the photographer wondered in a whisper. "Benny Goodman and the Dorsey orchestra?"

Before anyone could wonder further, the screen swung wide and was held back by the girl. For a long moment there was nothing; then the old man was standing there in the gray Sun Yat-sen Maoutfit and gray felt bedroom slippers, as spectral and dim as last month's mildew.

Except for the eyes and the smile. The eyes came slicing out of a pair of wire-rimmed lenses, sharp as two chips of jade. And there was a gleam in the smile both mysterious and madcap – something between Mona Lisa and Mork from Ork. The old man let this expression play across the four of us for an amused pause without speaking, then held a liver-spotted hand toward me, standing nearest. One might have expected to see a pebble in the palm and hear him say, "So, Grasshopper… you have come at last."

Instead he said, in English as musty and precise as the pages of that old book back in my hotel room, "Gentlemen, please… won't you come in?"

I took the hand. One might have hoped I'd have the wit to reply, "Dr. Fung, I presume?" Instead I stammered, "Yeah yes we'd be happy to, Mister You Lawn… proud."

The child held wide the door and bowed slightly to each of us as we followed her great-grandfather into his home. We passed through a small foyer and into the room that was obviously his study and parlor. The windows were nearly covered by the drooping gray-green foliage of the gum trees, yet the room was by no means dim. The air in fact seemed brighter than it had outside. Light appeared to glow out of the ancient furnishings like foxfire from humus. It shimmered along the old troweled plasterwork and glistened between the tiny network of cracks on the leather upholstery. Even the dark wood of the kitchen door and the bookcases shined, rubbed to a rich luster by years of dusting.

No decorations adorned the walls save for a long calendar, hand-penned, and a framed photograph of students posing in a black-and-white past. Nothing obstructed the polished floor except one floor lamp, one empty urn, and three pieces of furniture – a leather divan, a two-person loveseat, and a stuffed chair that would have looked at home in any living room in middle America in the twenties. This was clearly the Doctor's chair. He stood beside it, smiling, nodding the editor and little Bling onto the divan and the beefy photographer into the wide loveseat. To me, as to a student called to his professor's office for a little tête-à-tête, he assigned the ceramic urn.

When we were finally situated to his satisfaction, Fung Yu-lan lowered himself into the stuffed chair, folded his hands in his lap, and waited, smiling at me. I could feel the blood rush to my cheeks and my head go empty. I began gibbering awkward introductions and explanations and stuff. Babble. I don't think I would have recalled a word of what was said in that room if I hadn't happened to nervously thrust my hands into the pockets of my bulky safari jacket and come upon filing's cassette machine. I still had enough journalistic presence of mind to surreptitiously fidget it on.

And now, weeks later and thousands of miles away, as I try to type up a transcript of the taped encounter in the privacy of my own study – to have some little sample of the wisdom of the Orient to send down to my minister friend in backsliding Berkeley – I still find the exchange almost too embarrassing to abide:

FUNG MEETING – BEIJING CAMPUS -

DAY BEFORE MARATHON

DR. FUNG: May I request you gentlemen some tea?

AMERICANS: Oh, yeah. Yes. Of course. Please.

FUNG: I shall do so. Pardon me.

An order is given in Chinese. There is the sound of the little girl's clog sandals on the floor, and the kitchen door spring creaking. For a moment, as the door swings, a big band can clearly be heard swinging through the jazz classic Sing Sing Sing.

FUNG: So please tell me: what brings you all to China?

BLING: Sir, me, I live here… a student at this very institution.

F: Ah? Studying what, may I ask?

B: Chinese Law and Track and Field.

F: Very good. And the rest of you?

DEBOREE: Sir, the rest of us are journalists.

F: Please. The years have made me somewhat deaf.

D: The rest of us are journalists! Here covering the big race! The Beijing Invitational Marathon? It happens tomorrow. Paul there is the editor of our periodical; Brian is the photographer. I am the writer.

F: Ah. A sportswriter…

D: Not really. Fiction, usually. Stories, novels. Actually, back home, I'm quite a big-time writer.

This evokes muffled Yankee snorts: Oh boy, will ya listen to that? Big-time Writer back home.

D: Also, I am a very big fan of the I Ching, the Chinese Book of Changes. I have been consulting the Ching oracle religiously for more than ten years, throwing it every day.

More snorts, low and inside: My, my, him also Big-time Ching Thrower, too.

D: But what I essentially came to China for, actually, was to find out what has become of you, Doctor. Perhaps you are not aware of it but for many years in our country, scholars of philosophy have been wondering, "What has become of Dr. Fung Yu-lan? What is Dr. Fung Yu-lan doing now?" I mean, those of us who have been seriously influenced by your work… have been wondering -

This is mercifully interrupted by the sound of the door swinging back open and the tinkle of the tea service.

AMERICANS: Thank you. This is very nice. You bet. Just what we needed…

F: You are all welcome.

Fidgeting. Sipping. Clink of china on china. And a kind of patient, silent amusement.

D: So, ah, here we are. How are you then, Doctor? I mean, what have you been doing all this time?