Sandalwood Death

by Mo Yan

  In the days to come, she recalled that when she fell to the ground, the Magistrate jumped to his feet on the other side of the table, with what she confidently believed was affection and concern in his eyes, the sort of look one expects only from someone near and dear. She also knew with the same degree of confidence that she saw the Magistrate’s wife angrily kick him in the calf with one of her tiny feet just as he was about to leap over the table and come to her aid. Momentarily dazed, the Magistrate slowly settled back down in his seat. Interestingly, despite his wife’s movements under the table, she remained poised and proper, as if nothing were amiss.

  Meiniang picked herself up off the ground, her sorry plight accentuated by the humiliating laughter behind her. She scooped up her skirt and, without pausing to hide the big feet that had been shamefully exposed to the Magistrate and his wife when she fell backward, pushed her way back into the crowd. She kept herself from crying only by biting down on her lip, although tears had begun spilling from her eyes. Finally, she was as far away from the front as she could get, only to hear giggles and praise for the wife’s tiny feet from the women she had just left behind. She knew instinctively that the woman was showing off those bound feet without giving the impression of doing so. How true the adage that “One beauty mark can negate a hundred moles”! Her perfectly bound feet more than compensated for a face that needed to be veiled. As she was leaving the site, Meiniang turned for one last look at His Eminence, and once more there was a bit of magic when their eyes met. His, it seemed, was a mournful look, as if to console or perhaps show his sympathy. With a sweep of the arm to cover her face with her sleeve, she ran out through the Third Hall gate into Dai Family Lane and wailed at the top of her lungs.

  Meiniang returned home utterly distraught, only to have Xiaojia cling to her in search of the sweets. She shoved him away and went into the house, where she flung herself down on the kang and wept piteously. Xiaojia, who had followed her inside, stood beside the kang and cried along with her. She rolled over, sat up, grabbed the whiskbroom, and began lashing her feet. Frightened out of his wits, he stayed her hand. Then, looking up into his ugly, stupid face, she said, “Xiaojia, get a knife and cut my feet down to size.”

  ————

  3

  ————

  The First Lady’s tiny feet were like a bucket of ice water that cleared Meiniang’s head, for a few days at least. But after encountering the Magistrate three times, especially that one time when he had looked at her with infinite concern and emotion, the scenes of their encounters waged a staunch resistance against those tiny feet. In the end, their image grew increasingly murky, while the look of tenderness in the Magistrate’s eyes and his elegant features gained increasing clarity. Magistrate Qian filled the void in her mind. If she stared at a tree, it flickered and swayed until it was transformed into Magistrate Qian. If she spotted a dog’s tail, it shook and wagged until it was turned into Magistrate Qian’s thick queue. If she was stoking a fire in the stove, the flames danced and cavorted until Magistrate Qian’s smiling face appeared before her. She bumped into walls when she was out walking. She cut her fingers when she was chopping meat and felt no pain. She burned a whole pot of dog meat without noticing the smell. Whatever she laid eyes on became Magistrate Qian or some part of him. When she closed her eyes, she felt Magistrate Qian come and lie down beside her. She could feel his rough beard prickle her soft, dainty skin. She dreamed of Magistrate Qian touching that skin every night, and her nocturnal screams frequently sent her husband rolling off the bed. She developed a sickly pallor and lost weight at a perilous rate; but her eyes shone and were continuously moist. For some strange reason, she suffered from hoarseness, releasing the sort of guttural, husky laughter that is unique to women in whom passion burns hot. She knew she had a severe case of lovesickness, and was aware of how frightful an affliction it could be. The only way a lovesick woman can survive is to share a bed with the man over whom she obsesses. Absent that, her veins will dry up, she will be consumptive, and once she begins spitting up blood, she will wither away and die. Meiniang had reached the point where home could no longer contain her. Things that had once interested or pleased her, like earning money or admiring a flower garden, now seemed insipid and meaningless. Fine spirits lay flavorless on her tongue; lovely flowers turned ghostly white in her eyes. Carrying a bamboo basket that held a dog’s leg, she passed in front of the county yamen three times a day, hoping for an accidental meeting with the Magistrate, and if that was not to be, she would be content to spot the green woolen curtain of his palanquin. But Magistrate Qian was like a giant turtle hiding in deep water, leaving no trace of his existence. Her hoarse, wanton laughter as she passed by the yamen gate so enticed the gate guards that they rubbed their ears and scratched their cheeks in anxious delight. Oh, how she would have liked to shout deep into the compound, purging her heart of pent-up lustful thoughts, loud enough for Magistrate Qian to hear. But she could only mutter under her breath:

  “My dear… my darling… thoughts of you are killing me… be merciful… take pity on me… The County Magistrate is an immortal peach, the embodiment of manly might! I fall in love with an image that after three lifetimes still burns bright. I long to make it mine, but the best fruit is at an unreachable height, behind a leaf and out of sight. Your willing slave looks up to see your face, she thinks of you day and night. But her love you do not requite. I salivate hungrily as I shake the tree with all my might, and if the peach will not fall, the tree…”

  In her heart, that monologue, sizzling with passion, quickly evolved into a Maoqiang aria of infatuation, which, as she intoned it over and over, brought a glow to her face and a salacious twinkle to her eyes, leaving the impression of a moth performing a fervent dance around a flame. Her actions threw a grievous fright into the gate guards and yayi, through whose minds raced fantasies of ravishing the woman, although thoughts of the trouble that would bring down on them brought their lust under control. Flames of desire engulfed her; an ocean of passion threatened to submerge her. But that all ended when she spat up blood.

  The act of spitting up blood opened a seam in the confusion that gripped her mind. He is a dignified County Magistrate, a representative of the Royal Court. What are you? The daughter of an actor, the wife of a butcher, a woman with big feet. He lives on high, you exist in the dirt; he is a unicorn, you are a feral dog. This one-sided burning lovesickness is doomed to lead nowhere. You could exhaust yourself mind and body over him, and he would not so much as notice. But if somehow he did, he would react with a disdainful smirk, one devoid of feeling for you. You can torment yourself until there is no more breath in your body, and people will conclude that you got exactly what you deserved—no sympathy, and certainly no understanding. People will not merely laugh at you, they will hurl insults. They will mock you for thinking too highly of yourself and for your inability to think straight. They will fling abuse at you for your fanciful thoughts, for acting like a monkey trying to scoop the moon out of the lake, for drawing water with a bamboo basket, for being the warty toad that wants to feast on a swan. Wake up, Sun Meiniang, and know your place in the scheme of things. Put Magistrate Qian out of your mind. For all its beauty, you cannot take the moon to bed with you. For all his wondrous ways, he belongs to heaven. Forcing herself to purge all thoughts of Magistrate Qian, over whom she had now spat up blood, she dug her fingernails into her thighs, pricked her fingers with a needle, and thumped her head with her fists, but his spirit clung to her. It followed her like a shadow, unshakable by either wind or rain, impervious to knives and flames. Holding her head in her hands, she wept out of despair.

  “Defiler of my heart,” she cursed softly, “set me free… I beg you to let me go, for I have changed and will bother you no more. Is it your wish to see me dead?”

  In order to forget Magistrate Qian, she led her doltish husband to the marital bed. But Xiaojia was no Magistrate Qian, as ginseng is not Chinese rhubarb. He was not a cure for what ailed Meinia
ng. Sex with her husband only increased the urgency of her longing for Magistrate Qian; it was like spraying oil on a raging fire. When she went to the well, the skeletal reflection in the water nearly made her pass out; something brackish and saccharine sweet stopped up her throat. Heaven help me, is this how it ends? Is this how death will claim me, my quest unresolved? No, I mustn’t die; I need to keep going.

  In an attempt to revitalize herself, she took her basket, in which she had placed a dog’s leg and two strings of cash, through the town’s winding streets and alleys to Celestial Lane in the Nanguan District, where she banged on the door of Aunty Lü, the local sorceress. She placed the fragrant dog’s leg and greasy strings of cash on the altar to the Celestial Fox—Aunty Lü’s nostrils twitched at the smell of the meat; her dull eyes lit up at the sight of the money. She stilled her labored breathing by lighting a stemmed datura flower and greedily sucking in its smoke.

  “Good Sister,” she said at last, “you are terribly ill.”

  Sun Meiniang fell to her knees and sobbed.

  “Please, Aunty, save me…”

  “Tell me about it, my child.” As she breathed in more of the datura smoke, she took a long look at Sun Meiniang and pronounced, “You can fool your parents, but not your healer. Tell me about it.”

  “I cannot, it is too hard…”

  “You can fool the healer, but not the spirits…”

  “I have fallen in love with someone, Aunty… and that love is destroying me.”

  With a crafty laugh, Aunty Lü asked:

  “With a face like yours, Good Sister, can you not have anyone you desire?”

  “You do not know who he is, Aunty.”

  “Who could he be? The Spirit Master of the Nine Caves? Or perhaps the Arhat of the West.”

  “No, Aunty, he is neither of those. It is County Magistrate Qian.”

  Radiant light shot from Aunty Lü’s eyes. As she held her curiosity and deep interest in check, she asked Meiniang:

  “What is it you wish to do, Good Sister? Are you hoping that I will work some magic to help you achieve your aim?”

  “No, no…” Tears spilled from her eyes as she struggled to say: “Heaven and earth are separate realms, so that is not possible…”

  “Good Sister, you are a novice in the affairs of men and women. If you are willing to pay your respects to the Celestial Fox, the man will take the bait even if he has a heart of stone.”

  “Aunty…” Meiniang buried her face in her hands; hot tears oozed from between her fingers. “Work your magic,” she sobbed, “to help me forget him…”

  “Why do you want to do that, Good Sister? Since he is the one you desire, why don’t we make something good happen? Can there be anything in the world more perfect than the love between a man and a woman? Clear your mind of those foolish thoughts, Good Sister!”

  “Could something good really… happen?”

  “If you are sincere.”

  “I am!”

  “Kneel.”

  ————

  4

  ————

  Following Aunty Lü’s instructions, Meiniang ran into a field carrying a spotless white silk scarf. After a lifetime of an unreasonable fear of snakes, on this day snakes were precisely what she was looking for. Aunty Lü had told her to kneel before an altar, close her eyes, and offer up a prayer to the Fox Spirit. Aunty Lü then intoned a chant that quickly brought the Fox Spirit into her body. At that moment, her voice turned shrill and tinny, like that of a little girl. The Fox Spirit commanded Meiniang to go into the field, where she was to find a pair of mating snakes and tie them together with the silk scarf. Once the coupling was over, the snakes would separate, leaving a spot of blood on the white silk. “Take this silk scarf,” the Fox Spirit said, “to the one you love and wave it in front of him. He will then be yours, since his soul will forever after reside in you. The only way to then keep him from wanting you is to kill him with a knife.”

  So Meiniang, bamboo staff in hand, went to a weedy area far from the county town; there she chose a marshy spot where water plants grew in profusion. Curious birds noisily circled the sky overhead. Butterflies kept a respectable distance from her as they flitted to and fro. With her heart mimicking the dance of those butterflies, her feet sank into the spongy ground, nearly making her fall as she beat the bushes with her staff, scaring hordes of grasshoppers, katydids, hedgehogs, and jackrabbits… but no snakes. Snakes—what she sought and what she feared. Harboring those contradictory feelings, she continued pounding the bushes. Suddenly there was a raspy hiss, and a big brown snake wriggled out from the bushes to confront her with a hideous look, its forked tongue flicking in and out. Its eyes were hooded and gloomy, but there was a grin on its triangular face. An explosion went off in Meiniang’s head, and everything went black. For a brief moment she was blinded, but she heard a meandering scream tear from her mouth just before she sat down hard on the grassy ground. By the time she had come to, the snake was long gone. Her sweat-soaked shirt felt clammy; her heart was pounding wildly, as if someone were hurling rocks inside her chest. Her lips parted, and she spat out a mouthful of blood.

  What a fool I was, she chided herself, to put any faith in the sorceress’s false words. And why do I keep thinking of Qian Ding? He is, after all, only a man, someone who eats and drinks and then eliminates it all, just like everyone else. Even if he climbed onto my body and squirmed in and out, it would be a sexual encounter and nothing more. What distinguishes him from Xiaojia, anyway? Get a grip on yourself, Meiniang! The rebuke, in a somber voice, seemed to come from high above, so she looked up into the clear blue and cloudless sky, where passing birds were calling out happily. Her mood was a mirror of the blue sky—clear and bright. She sighed, as if waking from a bad dream, then stood up, brushed off some blades of grass that had stuck to her dress, straightened her hair, and started walking home.