Decoded
Page 3
The baby survived, but this certainly wasn’t a matter of congratulation for the Rongs – they did not even recognize him as a member of the family. For the longest time, anyone who wanted to talk about him called him the ‘Grim Reaper’. One day, Mr Auslander happened to walk past the front door of the old servant couple who were tasked with looking after the baby and they politely invited him in, hoping that he could choose a new name for the child. They were both pretty elderly by this time and found it most unpleasant to speak to the baby like that, as if he had come there to kill them. They had been thinking about changing his name for a while. To begin with they had tried to come up with a name themselves – the kind of baby-name that other children in the village had – but they couldn’t find anything that really seemed to stick; they used it but no one else did. Hearing their neighbours call him the ‘Grim Reaper’ all the time gave both of the old people the willies and they found themselves often having nightmares. That is why, for want of any better suggestion, they were forced to ask Mr Auslander to think of something, something that would appeal to everyone.
Mr Auslander was the foreigner who all those years before had been invited to the house to interpret Grandmother Rong’s dreams. Grandmother Rong adored him, but he was certainly not every rich man’s cup of tea. There was the time when, down at the docks, he interpreted the dream of a tea merchant from another province: that earned him a crippling beating. Both his arms and legs were broken, but that was not the half of it: one of his bright blue eyes was put out. He crawled back to the Rong family mansion and they took him in, thinking of it as a good deed that would help the old lady to rest in peace. Once he had entered their household he never left again. Eventually he found himself a job to do which suited him right down to the ground – as befitted such a wealthy and prominent family the Rongs decided that they needed a genealogy compiled. As the years went by, he came to know the various different branches of the family better than anyone. He knew the history of the clan, the men and the women, the main branches and the illegitimate offspring, which ones were flourishing and which had failed, who had gone where and done what: everything was sitting in his notes. So when it came to this baby, other people might be completely in the dark, but Mr Auslander knew exactly which branch of the family he came from and what scandals surrounded his birth. And it was because he knew exactly who the baby was that picking the right name for him was such a ticklish issue.
Mr Auslander thought about the matter and decided that before choosing a proper name for the baby, they would have to deal with the issue of a surname. What was the baby’s surname? Of course, he ought to be called Lin, but to put it mildly that surname now had unfortunate connotations for everyone. He could take the surname Rong, but it would be most unusual for someone to take their grandmother’s maiden name – it didn’t really seem suitable. It would of course be perfectly acceptable for him to take his mother’s surname, but what was the mystery woman’s name? Even if they knew it, it would hardly be appropriate to use it: that would be rattling the skeletons in the family closet with a vengeance! Thinking about it carefully, Mr Auslander decided to put the issue of choosing a proper name for the baby to one side for the moment and concentrate on finding a suitable baby-name for him. Mr Auslander thought about the baby’s huge head and the suffering that he would face having lost both his parents so young, how he would have to make his way without any help from his family, and suddenly an idea flashed into his mind. He decided to call the baby ‘Duckling’.
When this was reported to Mrs Rong in her prayer chamber, she sniffed the incense meditatively while she spoke: ‘Although people called his father horrible names too, in the case of the Killer, he was actually responsible for the death of his mother, a truly wonderful woman and a great credit to the Rong family. You could not find a better name for him if you searched for a month of Sundays. On the other hand, this baby was responsible for the death of shameless whore. That woman dared to blaspheme against the Buddha, a crime for which she deserves a thousand deaths! Killing her doesn’t count as a crime: it’s a work of merit. Calling the poor little thing the Grim Reaper does seem a little unfair. In the future we can call him Duckling, though it is hardly likely that he is going to grow into a swan.’
‘Duckling!’
‘Duckling!’
No one cared where he came from or who his parents were. ‘Duckling!’
‘Duckling!’
No one cared about whether he lived or died.
In all that great mansion, the only person who treated Duckling
like another human being – who treated him as he would any other child – was Mr Auslander, who had drifted there from the other side of the ocean. Every day after he had completed his morning tasks and had his midday siesta, he would walk along the dark little pebble path overhung with flowers to where the old servant couple lived. He would sit down next to the wooden crate in which Duckling was playing and smoke a cigarette, talking in his own language about the dream that he had had the night before. It seemed as though he were talking to Duckling but in fact he was talking to himself, because Duckling was still too little to understand. Every so often he would bring the baby a rattle or a little pottery toy, and bit by bit Duckling came to adore the old man. Later on, when Duckling learned to walk, or to be precise when he learned to crawl, the very first place he went on his own was to Mr Auslander’s office in the Pear Garden.
The Pear Garden, as the name suggests, was named after its pear trees: two hundred-year-old pear trees. There was a little wooden house in the middle of the garden, the attics of which had been used by the Rong family for storing their supply of opium and medicinal herbs. One year, a female servant disappeared in mysterious circumstances – to begin with they imagined that she had eloped with some man; later on they discovered her body, already badly decomposed, inside this building. The woman’s death was impossible to cover up: soon every single member of the Rong family and their entire staff knew all about it. Subsequently the Pear Garden became the subject of ghost stories and people were scared to go there; people would change colour when its name was mentioned and if children were being tiresome, their parents would threaten them, ‘If you don’t stop that immediately, we’ll leave you in the Pear Garden!’ Mr Auslander took advantage of other people’s fear of the place to live quietly and without interference. Every year when the pear trees flowered, Mr Auslander would look at the misty sprays of blossom and smell their intensely sweet fragrance with the feeling that this place was exactly what he had been looking for all these years. When the pear flowers fell, he would sweep up the fallen petals and dry them in the sun, before placing them in the building that he might enjoy the fragrance of the blossoms all the year round – a kind of eternal spring. When he wasn’t feeling well, he would make tea with the flowers. He found it very settling for his stomach; it made him feel a lot better.
After the first time that Duckling came, he came every day. He would not say anything, but he would stand underneath the pear trees and watch Mr Auslander in silence, timidly, like a frightened fawn. Since he had practiced standing up in his wooden crate from a very young age, he walked a little bit earlier than most other children. On the other hand he was much slower at learning to talk. At past two years of age, when other children of the same age were stringing together their first sentences, he could only make one sound – jia . . . jia. This made people wonder whether he might not prove to be mute. However, one day when Mr Auslander was taking his lunchtime siesta on a rattan chaise longue, he suddenly heard someone call out to him in a desolate voice:
‘Dad . . . dy!’
‘Dad . . . dy!’
‘Dad . . . dy!’
Mr Auslander realized that someone was trying to call him
‘Daddy’. He opened his eyes and saw that Duckling was standing next to him, tugging at his jacket with his little hand, his eyes wet with tears. This was the first time in his life that Duckling had ever called out to anyone, and he thought of
Mr Auslander as his father. Since his father had seemed to him to be dead, he started crying, and when he cried, he brought his father back to life. That very day, the foreign gentleman took little Duckling into the Pear Garden to live with him. A couple of days later, the eighty-year-old Mr Auslander climbed up into one of the pear trees to hang a swing, to be little Duckling’s present on the occasion of his third birthday.
Duckling grew up surrounded by pear flowers.
Eight years later, just as the pear flowers were beginning their annual dance off the trees, Mr Auslander looked up at the flurries of petals whirling through the sky. Moving along with tottering steps, he carefully mulled over every word he planned to use. Every evening, he wrote out the lines that he had composed during the day. Within a couple of days he had formulated the letter which he sent to Young Lillie – the son of Old Lillie – at the provincial capital. That letter resided in a drawer for more than a year, but when the old man realized that he did not have much longer to live, he took it out again, telling Duckling to put it in the post. Due to the war, Young Lillie had no fixed abode and often moved around, so the letter did not reach him for a couple of months.
The letter said:
To: The Vice-Chancellor of the University
Dear Sir,
I do not know if writing this letter to you will be the last mistake I ever make. It is because I think I might be making a mistake, and because I would like to spend more time with Duckling, that I will not immediately put this letter in the post. By the time this letter reaches you, I will be dying; in which case – even if it is a mistake – I will no longer care. I can use the special powers granted to those who are about to die to refuse to carry any further the burdens life has placed upon me. These burdens have been, if I may say so, quite sufficiently numerous and heavy. However, I am also planning to use the all-seeing eyes supposed to be granted to the dead to check up on how seriously you take the points raised in my letter and what you propose to do about them. In many ways, you could say that this is my last will and testament. I have lived on this difficult and dangerous planet for a long time – almost a century. I know how well you treat the dead in this country, not to mention how badly you treat the living. The first is entirely praiseworthy; the latter is not. It is for this very reason that I am certain you will not disobey my final instructions.
I have only one regret and that is Duckling. I have been his guardian for many years, faute de mieux, but now I can hear the bell tolling for me and it is clear that I have only a few days left. It is time for someone else to take care of him. I beg you to take over as his guardian. There are three reasons that you would be the perfect choice.
1. It is thanks to your bravery and generosity – you and your father (Old Lillie) – that he was ever born at all.
2. Whether you admit it or not, he is a member of the Rong family and his grandmother was the person that your father loved and admired more than anyone else in the world.
3. This child is very clever. These last few years, he has been my new-found-land. At every step, I have found myself amazed and impressed by his truly remarkable intelligence. Do not be misled by his somewhat misanthropic and cold personality; I believe that he is just as clever as his grandmother was, not to mention the fact that the two of them are as alike in appearance as two peas in a pod. She was exceptionally clever, extremely creative; an amazingly forceful personality. Archimedes said, ‘Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth.’ I believe that he is that kind of person. However, right now he needs you, because he isn’t quite twelve years old.
Believe what I tell you and take the child away from here. Bring him up in your home because he needs you, needs your love, and needs an education. Perhaps more than anything else, he needs you to give him a name. I beg you!
I beg you!
This is the first and last time I have ever begged anyone for anything.
The dying R. J.
Tongzhen, 8 June 1944
2.
1944 was the worst year that the people of the provincial capital, C City – and N University at its heart – had ever experienced. First they suffered in the front line of battle; then they were ground under the heel of the Nanjing puppet government. This brought about an enormous change not only to the appearance of the city, but also to the hearts of its people. When Young Lillie received Mr Auslander’s letter, the worst of the fighting was already over, but the chaos unleashed by the bad faith of the temporary government had reached the point of no return. By this time Old Lillie had been dead for many years and Young Lillie’s position at N University had been adversely affected by the collapse in his father’s fortunes, not to mention the intransigent attitude of the puppet government. Nevertheless, the puppet government thought very highly of Young Lillie. First of all he was famous, which meant that he was useful to them in a way that an ordinary man wouldn’t have been; secondly the Rong family had suffered a great deal at the hands of the KMT government, so they were hoping that he would prove amenable. So when the puppet government was first established, they generously offered Young Lillie (at that time just acting vice-chancellor of the university) the job of chancellor, imagining that this would be all that it took to buy him. They were not expecting that he would tear up the brevet in front of everyone and proclaim in a stentorian voice: ‘We Rongs would rather die than betray our country!’
As you might imagine, Young Lillie’s answer was very popular, but it guaranteed that he was not going to find himself with an official position. He had already been thinking for some time of avoiding the repulsive overtures of the puppet government (and the associated ferocious infighting in the university) by going into hiding in Tongzhen, but Mr Auslander’s letter unquestionably speeded his departure. Still mulling over the letter, he stepped off the paddle-steamer. At a glance he picked out the steward of the Rong mansion from the crowd huddled together against the rain and wind. The steward asked him politely if he had had a good journey. Instead of responding, he asked abruptly, ‘How is Mr Auslander?’
‘Mr Auslander is dead,’ the steward said. ‘He passed away some weeks ago.’
Young Lillie felt his heart thump in his chest. Then he asked: ‘Where is the child?’
‘Who do you mean?’
‘Duckling.’
‘He is still at the Pear Garden.’
He was living in the Pear Garden, that was right enough, but no one seemed to know what he was doing in there, since he hardly ever came out and very few people bothered to go in. Everyone knew that he was living in the mansion, but he seemed to move from place to place like a lost soul, with hardly anyone even catching a glimpse of him. According to the steward, Duckling was the next best thing to a mute.
‘I don’t understand a thing that he says to me,’ the steward said. ‘He doesn’t often speak, and when he does, he might as well not bother, because no one can understand it.’
The steward also said that according to the servants in the main mansion, it was only because the old foreign gentleman got down on his hands and knees and kowtowed three times to the Third Master that he agreed to allow Duckling to carry on living at the Pear Garden after his death. Otherwise they would have thrown him out onto the street. He went on to say that Mr Auslander had left his savings of many decades to Duckling and that was what he was living on, since the Rong family couldn’t possibly afford to pay for his food.
It was lunchtime the next day when Young Lillie walked into the Pear Garden. The rain had stopped by then, but having fallen continuously for several days, it had washed the buildings clean while creating a thick squelchy layer of mud underfoot. His footsteps left deep prints in the mud and in some places it was deep enough to cover his galoshes. As far as Young Lillie could see, there were no other footprints to be seen – the spider’s webs in the trees were empty, the spiders having retreated under the eaves to get out of the rain. Some of them were now busily occupied spinning a new web in front of the door. If it were not for the smoke rising
from the chimney and the sound of something being chopped on a block, he would have believed the place to be deserted.
Duckling was chopping up a sweet potato. There was boiling water in the pot on the stove, in which a few grains of rice were bobbing about. He did not seem alarmed at Young Lillie’s intrusion, nor was he angry. He just looked at him for a moment and then went back to his work, as if it was his grandfather who came in after a short absence – his grandfather or perhaps a dog? He was smaller than Young Lillie had been expecting, and his head was not as large as people said. His skull was dolichocephalic and oddly pointed on top; almost as if he were wearing a homburg hat – perhaps it was because of this that his head did not appear abnormally huge. Young Lillie did not find anything at all remarkable in his appearance; however, his cold, calm manner made a very deep impression; he was like a little old man. The only nice pieces of furniture in the room were the medicine chest (left over from the original use of the building), a table and a director’s chair. There was a large volume lying open on the table, a musty smell emanating from its leaves. Young Lillie closed the book so that he could read the title on the spine: it was an English book – one volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Young Lillie put the book down and looked questioningly at the child. Then he asked, ‘Are you reading this?’