A Husband for Kutani

by Frank Owen

  “What are you saying? Are you mad?”

  “No, sane, and therefore out of place in a world gone mad, where men are blasted to pieces in the name of peace preservation and where souls are placed in eternal jeopardy in the name of the one and only God. Oft-times the term madness is applied to something beyond one’s comprehension. But of this, enough. Before you stands gracious Ko Juan, her body still slightly warm after two centuries’ pause. Age is merely a matter of erroneous mathematical calculation. One of the greatest blights in any universe is the acceptance of time as a measurement for age. I have always believed that if you could conquer time, you could conquer age. One need not grow old unless one is completely absorbed in the process. Why live according to laws set down by philosophers of old who could not even understand the spurious axioms they mouthed? Two hundred years ago, I conquered time with the help of sundry chemical formulae and divine emulsions known only to myself. For two centuries I have never divulged my secret to anyone, yet today it is my whim to admit you to my confidence. Yon golden girl is still alive, after two centuries she still lives, and time can do nothing about it. Occasionally she speaks and talks. Sometimes, here in this room, she dances for me.”

  Ko Juan seemed to be smiling at them as Pan Tun gazed into her eyes. “Make her dance for me,” he implored.

  “If I do,” Dr. Shen Fu began meditatively, “you must promise me one thing, that you will never leave these rooms until I give my permission.”

  “Willingly do I promise.”

  “Nor must you mention what transpires here to anyone.”

  “I shall respect your secret.”

  “There is one thing more. This experiment, of which you are to be a witness, will be fraught with considerable peril to yourself. This girl can only breathe freely, stepped out from her state of suspended animation, when the temperature of the room has been bolstered up to a point that is highly dangerous to ordinary human beings. You may not be able to survive the mounting heat. It may kick at your heart and banish you from life.”

  By this time Pan Tun’s enthusiasm had been worked up to such a pitch that he was willing to risk anything.

  “What matter,” he said impatiently, “if you are able to provide me with a new impulse?”

  “Have no fear on that score,” the Doctor assured him. “If you survive, before the day is ended, you will be pleading with the gods who watch over the chaos of the world, to make you immortal.”

  “I am waiting,” said Pan Tun.

  Dr. Shen Fu walked across the room to a table on which stood many vials and bottles. For a few moments he mixed sundry drugs into a glass. Finally as a scarcely perceptible blue vapor commenced to rise from it, he returned to the side of Pan Tun.

  “Drink this,” he directed. “It will strengthen your heart and at the same time increase your caloric resistance.”

  Pan Tun lifted the glass and drained the contents at a single gulp. It coursed through his body like old wine but a strange old wine that did not warm but made him cool. And as the seconds ticked away there came a gradual change over his entire body. The chill intensified until his blood was so cold his fingers felt numb. His lips became blue, his body shook. Weakly he sat down in a huge chair. His heart action slowed up until his pulse-beat was scarcely perceptible. He gazed around frantically as though in quest of some scarf or shawl that he could draw about him.

  “Steady, steady, my friend,” Dr. Shen Fu said soothingly. “All will be well.” As he spoke he turned what appeared to be a small lever in the wall. At once the air quivered, the whole vast room seemed to vibrate. And with the vibrations came lassitude, a surcease from cold. Pan Tun sat watching intently. His gaze concentered on the body of the lovely Ko Juan. The slow beat of his heart was forgotten, perhaps because it had increased in tempo. No longer was his body cold. An invigorating warmth seemed to flood the room in great billows and he floated along on its brink. The heat waves seemed to have texture. They were visible. Like the heat rising from the yawning jaws of a great swamp, fetid, occasionally fragrant, sometimes as sweet as the breath of opium. The heat increased to an amazing degree.

  Dr. Shen Fu sat down in a chair beside Pan Tun. “I am sorry,” he said apologetically, “if my prescription caused you exceeding discomfiture but it was necessary for me to give you a stimulant to withstand the onslaught of this terrific heat. Your body heat was brought up far above normal and that is why the resultant sensation was one of extreme cold. It is necessary for the heat of this room to be exactly one hundred and forty degrees Fahrenheit before Ko Juan arouses from her trance and becomes a creature of warm flesh once more. I might add that the air passes through an elaborate filtration system before it is given her to breathe. That is why it is so sweet to the taste, as though it carried with it the breath of flowers. And that is what Ko Juan deserves. Her cheeks are petal soft, her smile would haunt the moon and when she speaks her voice is music sweet and low.”

  Pan Tun did not reply. He could not. He felt as though he were on the verge of delirium. The heat waves trembled perceptibly. The air was so hot it was almost liquid. And now Ko Juan stirred. Her eyelids flickered. She smiled. Pan Tun uttered a little cry that was almost a sob. What matter the terrific heat that was beating against his body as though in an effort to shatter it? What matter though the air was molten as he inhaled it? Ko Juan was smiling. If only he could place his fingertips against those lush warm cheeks.

  “The blood in her veins has melted into life,” Dr. Shen Fu murmured.

  Pan Tun watched intently. He could not speak. He could not move. As one hypnotized, he watched her step down from the dais on which she had been standing. She walked across the room and knelt at the feet of Dr. Shen Fu who extended a claw-like hand and placed it upon her head as though in benediction. In the heat-charged atmosphere his face was as gaunt and colorless as a death mask. Odd that this old mystic should be the master of life.

  “Rise, Ko Juan,” he whispered.

  She did so and stood before them, tall and willowy, like a flower trembling in the breeze. Her eyebrows slanted upward like moon bridges. Her eyes were dark limpid pools. And her lips were cinnabar lacquer.

  Dr. Shen Fu signaled to a servant who brought them tea instantly as though he had been standing on tip-toe waiting. He poured “the liquor that does not intoxicate” into fragile cups. Pan Tun reached for his eagerly. His throat was parched. Dr. Shen Fu showed more restraint. He waited to be served. Ko Juan took hers gracefully and as she did so, Pan Tun noticed the slender glory of her hands. They held him fascinated, long tapering fingers, that reached out and touched his heart. And as he gazed at them steadily his life slipped under the spell of a dream. Reality dropped from him like a snake’s shed skin, wrinkled and torn and done with. He sipped the tea, jasmine scented, and it replenished his depleted strength. But Ko Juan did not drink. She merely sat and inhaled the pungent aroma. Her eyes were dark and slumbrous, her breasts quivered faintly as she breathed in the spirit of the tea.

  Nothing was distinct, all was fragrance and music and color-magic. Ko Juan spoke but little and when she did her voice “was like bells over roofs at dawn, when a bird flies and the sky changes to a fresher color.” She seemed entranced as she stopped occasionally to breathe the perfume of a flower. Now for the first time Pan Tun noticed that there were flowers almost everywhere, not cut flowers, but growing in casks of earth.

  “I believe in the purple springtime of a mystic garden,” Ko Juan whispered, as though she were reciting a verse vaguely understandable. “I believe in the green grass, a warm robe that covers the breast of the hilltop. I believe in the sweet odours of herbs and the blossoms of fruit trees. Spirits react to subtle perfumes, for all the loves of earth are reflected in flowers.”

  Even though her words did not make a pattern profoundly intelligible, Pan Tun cared little, for there was magic in her tones. Later she drew a lute from behind a curtain and sang softly to him, gentle songs of the peonies which she had learned in her childhood more th
an two hundred years ago. Sitting there beside her it seemed unbelievable that she had been born so long ago, yet it was no more incredible than the fact that only a few short hours ago she had been an image, like a temple figure before which one might bow down in worship. But now there was nothing in her appearance that suggested this strange metamorphosis. She had absented herself for a moment and had returned arrayed in a costume of the softest silk. A costume of green of an elusive tone like the blended sun-tipped green that glazes a pastoral picture.

  Ko Juan’s speech had not the harshness of modernity. She was little interested in the happenings of the past century for of them she had never been an integral part. There were times when for years Dr. Shen Fu did not bring her back to flesh and blood existence. Her first trance had lasted for fifty years. Though he had discovered how to keep her forever beautiful in a state of suspended animation, it had taken him half a century to perfect his theory of controlled animation. Dr. Shen Fu had gained complete supremacy over death. But he had already reached seventy before his efforts were fruitful. Now he had arrived at a sort of pause in his journey through the years. He would grow no older. He would never die until he willed to die, and even then it would be hard for him to make his peace with death, for he had turned it into a travesty. Learned indeed was Dr. Shen Fu for he dealt in immortality.

  Now he was experimenting with certain brews of magic herbs in an effort to concoct a broth that would give him his youth again, that would rekindle desire. This accomplished, he would make Ko Juan his wife and they could live eternally in those fragrance haunted corridors beneath the earth, down among the roots and sprouts of growing things. Perchance at times they could listen enchanted to an awakening spring, when the earth mother stirs in her sleep and prepares to empty the bounty of her fruitful womb. There is something spiritual about the earth, the dark chamber that precedes the entrance into life of so many living things.

  Perhaps some day Dr. Shen Fu would grow young once more. Like autumn leaves the years would fall from him and a blessed east wind would blow the frost from his hair and the lines from his cheeks. Maybe this would take another half century. But what is a half century if at the end of it one can find youth? In the meantime, one thing troubled him. Ko Juan was beautiful. Her flesh was ivory-white and of orchid texture. Her body was a graceful reed, like a columbine swaying. But did she have the power to love? Was she capable of any sustained emotion? Was she warm and sensuous, or were her slumbrous eyes the reflection of nothing? If Dr. Shen Fu found youth, he wished affection. Why wait a half century to know? By that time he would have found the secret of youth even as he had conquered age and death. So when Pan Tun walked into Dr. Shen Fu’s drug shop, although he did not know it, he was walking into a laboratory where he was to be used as a sort of amatory guinea-pig. Pan Tun was personable. If Ko Juan could succumb to anyone, she would succumb to him. If the affair became too far advanced, it would be a simple thing to render Pan Tun unto dust.

  Meanwhile Pan Tun was all unconscious of what was going through the mind of Dr. Shen Fu. The Doctor smiled graciously. His eyes were kindly. Apparently he was but an aged philosopher who cared for nothing but a quiet spot where he could smoke his long-stemmed pipe, meditate and rest.

  That evening, although there was nothing in the surroundings to proclaim that day had drawn its curtains, they sat down to a feast of thirty courses. And because he was a guest Pan Tun partook of each one of them. But he scarcely noticed the food so engrossed was he in the picture of Ko Juan who talked but little and ate scarcely anything. As a rule women in China do not sit at the same table with men but then Ko Juan was no ordinary woman. She was ageless. Pan Tun felt like prostrating himself at her feet. Somehow as the hours passed, her beauty seemed to intensify, though perhaps it was due to the fact that Dr. Shen Fu had lighted a huge yellow lantern, round as a sun that cast off warmth. Its golden glow illuminated the face of Ko Juan, reflecting in her eyes. Her lips were more vivid than ever and when she smiled, even the flowers trembled.

  When at last the meal was over and the servants had taken away the last course, Ko Juan rose to her feet and departed. A servant brought hot towels upon which they wiped away any flickering traces of the feast. Then Dr. Shen Fu rose to his feet and led the way to a distant room where they could smoke in silence. He poured a small glass of an iridescent liquor which he handed to Pan Tun.

  “To reduce your body temperature,” he said.

  Pan Tun drained it and at once he felt as though he were burning up. “Have no fear,” Dr. Shen Fu told him. “You will be all right in a few moments. This is but a necessary readjustment. The temperature of my rooms will soon be normal once more, and for a few hours, it is my wish that you be in the same state. There are several things I would like to discuss with you. But first I wish to know what you think of Ko Juan.”

  “There are no words to describe a girl so exquisite,” Pan Tun replied quickly. “She is like a lovely jewel or a pearl-orchid.”

  “Your words gratify me,” Dr. Shen Fu said slowly. “Ko Juan is the oldest woman in the world and the most beautiful. She will remain beautiful always. Age cannot harm her.”

  “And therefore,” Pan Tun whispered, “she has no age.”

  “That is true. Age at best is too elastic to be a term of any consequence. One is never old until one pauses to admit it. Earth and sky are ageless and there is no reason why man who walks between them and enjoys both should not share this quality with them. You have now arrived at an important moment in your being. All that is to come may hang on your decision now. Do you wish to remain in these rooms with Ko Juan and forget that anything else exists, or would you prefer to return to the tangle of ennui and boredom that was your life up till yesterday?”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Pan Tun replied vehemently, “I wish to remain here forever with Ko Juan.”

  Dr. Shen Fu nodded. “That is well. So shall it be. And now, if you wish, I will show you to your room. Sleep well and may your sleep be guarded from Yau-kwei.”

  Long after Dr. Shen Fu had left him that night, Pan Tun lay upon his bed thinking. Sleep was far from his eyes. His mind was a chaos of imagery. So many pictures, so many moods were fighting for remembrance and he was afraid lest he forget a single one. Lovely, awesome memories that were breathtaking. Now the fire that seemed to be consuming his body was banked. The air was delightful. No longer was it difficult to breathe. And Ko Juan, where was she? Why had she vanished after they had all dined together? And then a great desire to see her for one last moment seized him. Perhaps in some far corner of those gorgeous rooms she was seated in a chair dreaming. Perhaps those dreams were of him. Pan Tun listened intently. There was not a sound to break the harmony of solitude.

  He rose to his feet and crept through the deserted rooms to that crypt where he had beheld the form of Ko Juan for the first time. It was not difficult for him to find his way for the lamps were still lighted, not quite as brilliantly as before but adequately for him to find his way about. And now he had reached Ko Juan. Once more she stood before him as he had first beheld her. Once more she was inanimate, immeasurably beautiful but apparently without life. Scarcely breathing, he stepped forward and brushed her cheek with his hand, a cheek soft and, perhaps he only imagined it, still warm.

  Meanwhile Dr. Shen Fu was a silent spectator of all that was transpiring. He gazed at Pan Tun with such a malevolent expression he would have shuddered had he beheld it. But now as he stepped forward his face changed. He readjusted his mask of benevolence.

  “Come,” he murmured. “Return to your room. It is growing late. You must be tired. You must prepare for dawn in a cavern that acknowledges no dawn. Be not afraid because of what you have beheld. The usual should never cause alarm. Ko Juan has been in a state of suspended-animation for two centuries and more. A few additional days should be of no importance. Sleep and find rest. Prepare for the centuries that lie before you.”

  As Dr. Shen Fu spoke he turned away to hide a smile of intens
e hatred. Pan Tun was a fool, he reflected, but even a fool may be used in a scientific experiment. Besides, a fool has merit to some extent. One need not feel badly over his ultimate destruction.

  During the days that followed, Pan Tun forgot everything except his love for Ko Juan. Once more she had made her entrance into life. Once more the temperature of his body had been brought up to a pitch that could endure the intense heat of those chambers. And though it was somewhat difficult to breathe the flaming, pungent air, Pan Tun made no complaint. For he, too, like Dr. Shen Fu, was experimenting with elements that were breathtaking. He was teaching the philosophy of love to a girl who had not trifled with such an emotion for two centuries. Yet Ko Juan showed no echo of age. It was like singing love songs to a tender girl. Ko Juan listened to his words and smiled. They seeped into her consciousness and gave her much pleasure. Pan Tun was handsome. His face could match the moon in splendour. He was tall as an elm. His voice had a quality to it comparable to the night wind’s caress.

  Dr. Shen Fu was aware of what was happening. It endowed him with secret satisfaction. Ko Juan had bloomed once more. She exhaled the fragrance of love. Now more than ever he experimented in his laboratory, searching frantically for that charmed concoction that would give him his youth again. Not for a moment did he doubt that eventually his efforts would be successful. In chemistry there is no such thing as failure.

  Ko Juan and Pan Tun spent much of their time alone but neither of them was unduly concerned about the Doctor’s neglect. And it so happened, as such things do happen, that the desires of Pan Tun became infused into the thoughts of Ko Juan. When he suggested that they run away at the first opportunity she was receptive to the suggestion.

  “We will journey to Peking,” he told her, “so that the jewel of women may dwell and glow in the jewel of cities wherein she belongs.”

  If Dr. Shen Fu had the faintest suspicion of what was transpiring he gave no indication of it. All his attention was diverted toward alchemy. His complete absorption apparently blinded him to anything.