Silk Road

by Jeanne Larsen

  Soon the maid arrived with the packet of herbs. Impatient though I was, I managed to wait until Baby sat up to drink the herb infusion before I began to quiz her on what had happened.

  At first I expected her to answer me with speech, but when I said she had talked and told her what she had said, she only looked blank – nearly as blank as she had in her trance – and, finally, shrugged. I was still worrying at her, saying, ‘But you spoke then. Baby! Just try!’ when Bellring came in to check on the patient.

  She must have seen how things were: Baby’s eyes abrim with a convalescent’s weak frustration, me flapping my arms as if about to grasp her shoulders and shake the speech from a wilfully silent mouth. ‘Lie back and rest now, dear,’ she said to Baby and signalled with her eyes for me to step outside. In the hallway, she told me how when ghosts slip within a human body and speak their messages, the medium has no awareness of what has passed. Such tales had always slid past my ears like unwanted memories. But in the shadowy hallway, the weeping blood-ravaged eyes of Nanny’s ghost fixed themselves upon me. I blinked in shock and they vanished, yet I knew then that the human realm was not the only one.

  So I let Baby gather her strength in peace and cosseted her with treats wheedled from the cook. When Nephrite returned and heard about the fit, she flew into the room to see how Baby was. Even as she encouraged our younger sister to rest, I saw a rare excitement in Nephrite’s eyes. Soon we left Baby napping, and Nephrite tugged at my arm to hurry me off to her room to talk. Was this, I wondered, the same Nephrite, usually so pale and cool, whose cheeks flushed as she laid her hand on me?

  ‘Oh, Parrot,’ she said. ‘So much has happened. They let me –even though I’m not ordained, they let me play the pipes one night. For a holy ritual. The Purified Teacher – oh, I’m not supposed to tell you much, but I’m learning to walk the star-walker’s walk, and some of the ways to recognize the Pure Ones, and what can happen if you truly enter into the Tao,’ She threw herself back on her bed. Her face still glowed. ‘The sisters are so kind. They’re going to help me buy out my contract from Mama Chen.’ She sat up. ‘Do you realize what that means. Parrot? I can study all the secret writings. I’ll be a novice, capped, a Lady of the Tao!’

  ‘You’re leaving?’ I asked. I knew that in taking up a religious life at Darkdazzle, she would be able to do as she pleased. Yet like a child who wants her nurse to stay with her until she falls asleep, no matter what the nurse’s other duties or desires, I was ready to weep with anguish and rage.

  ‘Yes, silly, as soon as I can, though it may not happen for a year or two. What good does Lutegarden do us? The Ladies of the Tao teach a better sort of music, and they say if I still want to pursue long life by gathering the vital energy of men, I needn’t do it here. Did you ever hear about a rite they call the Conjunction of Breaths?’

  Her words tumbled out with uncharacteristic joyful haste. My ‘elder sister’, for years the nearest I had to a mother watching over me, couldn’t even see my unhappiness. I sat dumb with surprise: this rapturous absorption in her own plans was something new. I shook my head.

  ‘That’s just as well, really,’ she said. ‘Officially it’s forbidden, and people tell such terrible lies about it, as if it were some filthy orgy. Never mind, dear one. Just tell me, are you coming with me?’

  ‘With you?’ My voice shook. So I needn’t be deserted once again. ‘But what about the money?’

  ‘That’s the best thing I have to tell you. They’re willing to help out with your contract too!’ Nephrite explained that several well-to-do older courtesans had recently taken holy orders at Darkdazzle, as well as a wealthy merchant’s daughter, all of them bringing substantial ‘dowries’. If the contributions of the pious were generous, the Ladies of the Tao would have enough to take in some novices with no funds of their own. The Purified Teacher considered it important that Nephrite join the sisterhood as soon as possible, and when Nephrite told her that she didn’t want to leave me behind at Lutegarden the Ladies had put their heads together and agreed to give Mama Chen the necessary funds as soon as their reserves built up a bit. ‘I’m sure you’ve noticed cash has been a bit tight here at Lutegarden lately, dear; she’ll be reasonable. I told the Ladies how good you are with words. Parrot, and how you’ve helped me read the holy texts. In fact, I said you’d begged me to let you come with me. I know you really want to study more –’ She broke off and looked at me, her face revealing her pride that she had arranged things for the best. j Something within me shifted. I didn’t want to be separated from Nephrite, but I didn’t want her to dictate the path I would walk either. I understood the filial obligations that morality demands we keep. Yet surely it wasn’t my duty to follow Nephrite’s plans for me?

  Another thought rose up strong inside me. What better path could I walk than devoting myself to deciphering sacred writings, holy mysteries, and poem exchanges with other Ladies of the Tao? I needed time to think. ‘What about Baby?’ I asked.

  Nephrite shrugged. ‘You know she wouldn’t come. And, Parrot, she was a sweet thing when we first knew her, but except for you she treats people pretty badly these days. I suppose it’s not her fault – that awful Iranian dancing teacher hurt her –but I think it’s best to leave her to her dancing and her jealousy and her sulks.’ She leaned forward to catch my arms with both hands. ‘Oh, we’ll have her up to Darkdazzle to visit. Perhaps when she’s older she’ll be ready to set her feet on the Way.’

  So Baby had somehow driven off even Nephrite’s generous goodwill. Suddenly I thought of another person who tied me to the world, one I was less certain of, yet all the more compelling for that reason. I didn’t even know if I would see him again; surely only a fool would give up the life of a Taoist Lady for some brief affair? But what of Baby’s feverish oracular demand that I go on to Chang-an?

  ‘Dragonfly!’ Jujube burst into the room, her feet adance with the importance of her message. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere. You have a caller, and he’s quite impatient. Hurry!’

  For a moment I simply stared at her. Nephrite and I had been speaking Khotanese of course, and in my confusion Jujube’s Chinese seemed a language I’d never heard. She could only have called me Dragonfly, yet for an instant I thought I heard her use the name I had hidden for so long it lay almost forgotten, the name that Baby had called out in her trance. ‘Greenpearl,’ I thought she said. ‘You must hurry!’

  Ghalib lounged in the reception room, his heavy eyebrows half frowning as he tried to follow Little Pink’s mixture of Chinese and broken Soghdian. He said something and her laugh tinkled her delight at his cleverness. My stomach contracted as I thought how plump and pretty she was – far more attractive than a skinny odd-faced thing like me. Then I scolded myself for my silliness. She had plenty of admirers and would hardly waste herself on a foreigner passing through. I should be grateful, I thought, that she’s kept him entertained.

  ‘Ah, there you are. Dragonfly!’ she called lightly. ‘I must say you’ve kept your handsome friend cooling his heels long enough. Come and try to make it up to him, dear. I’m afraid I’ve got to run.’ Though she addressed me, she spoke unusually slowly and distinctly. Turning back to Ghalib, she said, ‘I wish I didn’t have to go, sir. I feel we’ve more to say to one another. But I’m sure you’ll be happy with little Dragonfly. So many of the guests are.’ With that, she swept out of the room, leaving Ghalib to stare after her, bemused.

  I pressed my lips together, waiting to hear what he had to say. If he preferred a common flirt like Little Pink to the daughter of a general, I wasn’t going to throw myself at his feet.

  ‘So you’re here,’ he said, turning back to stare at me, his face impassive. ‘I’ve brought you a present, for some reason. Do you want it now?’

  ‘Only if you want to give it to me,’ I said. ‘I suppose you’d like to go up to my room?’

  And he just said, ‘Perhaps. Not right now, I think.’

  The small coldness in my stomach grew. I wouldn’t let hi
m see the effect of his indifference, though. ‘I’ll fetch some wine first-we’re a bit shorthanded right now – and then I’ll see the present, if that’s all right.’ If nothing else, I could sell the thing and present the money to the sisters at Darkdazzle. I could be as practical as any courtesan. I left the room in a rush.

  When I returned from the kitchen, Ghalib was standing in the open doorway, looking out at the garden. ‘What a lovely place you live in. Everything designed to allure and please,’ he remarked.

  ‘So it is,’ I said, coming up behind him with the tray. ‘But my favourite thing is that strange rock by the pond there. Because of its delicate pattern of streaks, someone uprooted it and brought it here, and yet it keeps its simplicity unchanged. Certainly it never asked to be here.’ I took a breath. ‘Sometimes I wonder what it would tell us if only we could read the signs nature has written on it.’

  He faced me then, a softer look in his eyes, though his mouth stayed a straight line. ‘Difficult to know the heart of such a thing from its surface,’ he said. ‘Sit with me. Little Parrot, and pour us some wine, and then I’ll give you the present.’

  We raised our cups and drained them, and Ghalib reached under the rosewood couch where he reclined. I knew what it was when I saw the shape of the bag protecting it. He held it out to me and, seeing my expression, smiled for the first time.

  ‘I thought you’d be happy with it. You’ve given me real pleasure, and this seemed the best thing for you. Open it now. Carefully.’

  He spoke like a father to a pampered child. And, child that I still was, I didn’t hear the farewell behind those words. I drew the lute from the damask bag.

  Any lute of my own would have made me happy, for I had used Mama Chen’s plain practice lute so long. But this one was truly lovely: made of the sandalwood called ‘purple rosewood’ and inlaid with figures of mother-of-pearl. I looked up at him, speechless. He might have given me any sort of expensive gift, or a number of trinkets, but he had thought to choose the one thing I wanted most. I took that as a sign of some bond between us, though perhaps what he was trying to do by the extravagance was make it up, somehow, to all the little slaves who had passed through his hands.

  ‘Here, girl,’ he said. ‘Look at this.’ He pointed out one of the inlaid figures and I saw it was a parrot, gleaming iridescent blue-green and pink and creamy white.

  Then the words poured from my lips quick as lively music, and I thanked him and began to tell him everything I knew about lutes. ‘And do you know,’ I babbled, ‘they say that since the inside of the instrument is empty, though what we see on the outside looks substantial enough, that it resembles heaven and earth themselves. And, look, the neck stands strong while the body yields in curves – a perfect expression of yang and yin.’

  I had to explain those last words as best I could in Soghdian –I had fallen into Chinese – and then I poured more wine and began to play for him. The tone of the instrument was rich and full. Soon one of us suggested we go to my room for more songs and wine; suddenly it no longer mattered who took the risk of asking for what we both wanted. We left the reception room for a more private place.

  In front of my door I glanced back at him. He frowned and I asked him what was wrong. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing. I was just thinking about the light way you walk and those bewitching green glints in your eyes. Perhaps I should call you Dragonfly after all.’

  From

  The Thousand-Insect Classic

  by Jin Luo-su

  DRAGONFLIES

  I. Interpretation of Names

  Dragonflies are known as Carmine Turquoises, or Ol’ Bluegreens. Those that are large and green are: Vertpavilion, Greengarden, Glaucous-tinkle and Lonely verdure. Those that are small and yellowish are Foreignpears. Those that are small and red are: Crimsontiger, Red-robed Messenger, Maroon Lepidopteron, and Scarletbanner.

  II. Assorted References

  1. ‘If, on the fifth day of the fifth month, one buries a dragonfly’s head in a doorway facing west, and does not eat for three days, then it will change into a precious green pearl. Others say one should bury it beneath the main gate.’

  2. ‘Dragonflies drink dew. They have six legs and four wings. Their pinions are delicate like those of a cicada. In rainy times, one encounters many of them.’

  3. ‘The Jun-nan-zi states: “As for toads becoming quail, and water scorpions becoming dragonflies, both are born of that which is not their species. Only holy persons understand these transformations. Those who do not understand are surprised; those who understand do not consider it strange.” Thus it is pretended that this kind of change is not at all surprising.

  ‘In fact, anyone who studies can understand this; one need not wait for a holy person. Since water scorpions become dragonflies, dragonflies accordingly return to the surface of the stream and scatter their eggs. Hatching, these in turn become water scorpions and water scorpions, in turn, become dragonflies.’

  III. Essential Pharmacopoeia

  Introducing Names In some places they are called Golden-heifers, or Silkywethers, in others, Childsflag, Riverfowl, or Mulberry roots. Some call the red-and-yellow ones Tawny kids. Some call the black ones with white spots Springcattle. Another common name is Gauzeox, because the wings are like gauze.

  Fragrance Slightly cool, not at all noxious.

  Major Pharmaceutical Functions The Alternative Record says, ‘Being strongly yin, it stops the semen.’ The Solar Efflorescence says, ‘Being vigorously yang, it warms the liver.’

  IV. Assorted Sayings

  1. From The Forest of Changes

  When dragonflies form clouds.

  The cities bar their gates.

  The country’s ruler guards.

  The people fear ill fates.

  2. From Proverbs Ancient and Modern

  When dragonflies go high, the grain will parch and die;

  When dragonflies go low, the levees overflow.

  V. Recorded Events

  1. From The Record of the Pure and Marvellous. In the Latter Tang, some palace women caught dragonflies in nets. Loving their halcyon-flashing tenuity, they used a gilding brush to paint them with tiny flowering boughs, and kept them in gold-wire cages as pets.

  2. From Miscellaneous Transcriptions of Wu-chen. A great dragon rose from the shore of Lake Tai in the southland as from a cocoon. Larvae emerged from among its crocodile-like scales; they quickly turned into crimson dragonflies. Those who caught them contracted malaria. Today, people who see crimson dragonflies call them ‘dragon scales’ or ‘dragon-descendants’, and do not dare to harm them.

  The above is a selection from a spurious scroll sold to that remarkable figure (explorer, imperialist, archaeologist, thief, as you will) Sir M. Aurel Stein. Purportedly a relic of one of the cave libraries at Dun-huang, the text has now been discovered to be a pastiche based chiefly on a corrupt version of the splendid eighteenth-century collec-taneus, the Gu-jin tu-shu ji-cheng.

  The Crystalline Palace of the Moon

  In the crystalline palace of the moon, the Moon Lady sits near the great cinnamon tree in her garden, breathing its subtle fragrance and reading a letter from the Shamanka Star. Sighing, she lets it fall onto her white jade desk. Just beside the sturdy pavilion where the Lady sits, the albino moonhare impassively pounds a great pestle in his alabastrine mortar. The seven moonmaids, her students, play ethereal melodies upon their flutes. Their music wafts among the pillars and roofbeams of the pavilion like opalescent filaments unwound from silk cocoons, but the Lady remains lost in thought.

  It is the sixth day of the month: outside the palace walls, beneath mountains of phosphorescent pearl, the people of the moon smelt silver and refine mercury over fires of frost, releasing a radiance like the glow of ancient sea ice. The moon’s newborn whitesoul – the womanly yin essence of the cosmos –hangs a slender hook, above the human realm. On the sixteenth day of the past month, the people of the moon began as usual to gather pallid flowers from the shadows of the fore
st called Wanewood, using them to wipe away the dwindling effulgence. The palace faded then from human view as if occulted by the ashes of a funereal sacrifice. But now the crescent grows again. And, wax or wane, the moonhare pounds tirelessly, preparing the catalyst for these alchemical transformations of light and dark.

  It pleases the Moon Lady to hear from her dear friend Dame Shamanka Star, who dwells now as the tail of the constellation Dragon. Long ago, the Shamanka Star served as Lady Adviser to the legendary monarchs of the Shang Dynasty; since her ascent into the heavens, she has ruled the mediums and sibyls who say sooth below. Consequently, she can most charitably be described as rather moody.

  Sister! (the Shamanka Star has written) I commend you on the splendour of this year’s harvest moon. And yet, busy as you must be with the Mid-autumn Festival soon upon us, I must respond to your last letter at once and ask, where are they now, the literary women of the terrestrial realm? You wrote to me that they flourish in this Great Tang. Outrageous self-deception!

  Sorry, dear! But who among the subjects of the so-called Brilliant Emperor can match the Han Dynasty’s Tsai Yen or Juo Wen-jun? Do the women of the modern aristocracy possess the wit and abstruse learning of a Hsieh Dao-yun? Do the chanteuses of today’s Entertainment Quarters display the creativity and amatory exuberance of a Midnight?

  Oh, I admit that even today the courtesans compose their lyrics, the princesses their rhapsodies, the palace women their plaints, the boatgirls and farmwives their songs, the Ladies of the Tao their transcendent odes. Yet for male poets this is the Golden Age, while for every female poet a hundred others languish, mute. What is to be done?