A Single Petal

by Oliver EADE

  Jinjin, seizing the opportunity, stepped forward. Together, he and Xiaopeng helped Feier to her feet. The boy seemed unable to take his eyes of Feng’s daughter as if, even in her dishevelled state, her beauty far ex-ceeded the near-legendary accounts he’d heard about her. Xiaopeng stood to one side as Jinjin took Feier to her father. Too ashamed to look up at her dear baba, her expression betrayed fear that accompanies unspeakable pain.

  “Feier... tell me, is it true?” Feier said nothing.

  “Feier, I need to know... and what they’ve done to you, too... I... “

  “I’ll kill the fiend who did this to your daughter, Teacher Feng, if it’s the last thing I do!” interrupted Jinjin.

  “Feng!” bellowed Yueloong. The teacher turned and saw his old friend surrounded by a group of village elders.

  “Feng, they’ve decided on leniency. Now that you’ve returned with Xiaopeng, they say to let your daughter go back with you to your village. In exchange for your scroll. We heard the thing’s worth a small fortune. Got word about it from Houzicheng. It might go some way to buying back our other sisters lost to the Imperial Court. But we none of us want anything more to do with you or your whore of a daughter. If you or the girl set foot in our village again, you’ll be returned home wrapped in shrouds.”

  Still Feier said nothing.

  “Wait!” warned Jinjin. “I’ll not stand by and listen to you address Teacher Feng like that! Do you know who I am? Can’t you people show any respect?”

  “Respect? He asks us to show respect after what’s happened?” questioned one of the elders. “And who is this urchin boy?”

  “Be careful what you say!” warned Feng. “This boy has been given the job of prefectural magistrate, and special agent to the emperor. We learned of his reward in Houzicheng. From Minsheng. Jinjin saved the emperor’s life! He saved China. The favour he asked, that one less than a thousand petals should satisfy any emperor’s appetite for pretty girls as well as weakening the enemy, has allowed us to return Xiaopeng to you. If you want to know how Xiaopeng got rescued ask the child! And whatever my daughter’s done - or hasn’t done - it could never deserve this!”

  “Teacher,” interrupted Jinjin, “no good can come of this. We must leave. I’ll help your daughter onto the donkey.”

  He lifted Feier onto Mimi’s back and led the donkey away. Half-turning, he called out:

  “Where is he, the man who did this... who destroyed her purity?” And he glowered at the elders.

  The villagers looked at one another. One spat and worked the gob into the dust with his foot, but all remained silent. Feng joined Jinjin, Feier and Mimi. They left the village, passing over the hills through the wood, past the lotus lake and the path leading up to the monastery. Feier uttered not a single word of explanation, and Jinjin remained uncharacteristically quiet. The boy kept glancing at the girl, and the teacher should have read the danger in his eyes. Instead, he mistook the look for one of disdain for the daughter who meant everything to him. If only he’d realised then how much the urchin-turned-government-official idolised the child who meant more to the teacher than life itself. He misread the signs and, like a donkey trekking a road that leads nowhere, his inaction forced all three along paths of uncertainty.

  Everyone in the Han village knew about Feier and Angwan. The young men hated the girl for ‘throwing herself’ at the Miao man who pretended to be a priest. It didn’t take much to persuade the women to side with the men, for jealousy comes easily to the yin when unbalanced by theyang, and the children... well, they had either forgotten how much they used to love the teacher’s daughter or had been told to forget. Children ran from the pitiful group as Mimi dawdled through the village towards the schoolhouse, shielding small noses with cupped hands against the dung and urine smells of the girl. No-one asked Feng about his long period of absence, or sought to enquire who Jinjin was, the urchin whose eyes were afire with anger. The teacher and the boy might well have been gui, visible to only a chosen few, as all stared at the girl with contempt.

  Jinjin helped Feier to dismount. What young man would show such courtesy to a girl he despised? But even such a gesture of deference was misinterpreted by Feng as he led his daughter across the schoolhouse courtyard which looked exactly as he’d left it. The teacher felt Feier had been humiliated enough; Jinjin, only a few years older than the girl, was surely now mocking his beloved child and he wanted to be alone with her when she recovered her speech.

  “You should leave now, Jinjin. Thank you, but I need no more help,” he said without turning.

  “But... “ the boy began, about to suggest he take the girl back to Houzi-cheng after she’d been fed and bathed, to formalize their union immediately.

  “Leave!” shouted Feng. “At once!”

  If the man wasn’t so blind in matters concerning Feier he’d have known everything the boy had done was with one aim in mind: to gain favour with the teacher and impress the man’s daughter. If Jinjin had explained this there and then, nothing might have happened. But the young boy, his secret infatuation with the girl now a reality, was overcome with emotions he’d never before experienced: jealousy, inadequacy in the face of such beauty, and fury. Raw, un-quenchable fury. He stared from the doorway when Feng took the girl inside and sat her down on the bed.

  “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, my child. Did they feed you in that... that cage... that animal prison?”

  Feier nodded.

  “What about other things? Could you sleep? You had no room even to lie down?”

  A shake of the head.

  “How could they be so cruel? Nothing my little girl might have done would deserve such treatment! And to think what I’ve been through to rescue that daughter of his! Why, you’d think it was his girl who’d been defiled! Curse them all!”

  Feier broke down. She sobbed uncontrollably and Feng hugged her, stroking her tousled hair.

  Jinjin, feeling excluded, turned and fetched Feng’s bamboo pole from beside Mimi where the teacher had dropped it, and ran without stopping the ten li back to the Miao village. He asked a lone child in which house lived the man who had disgraced himself with the Han teacher’s daughter. The boy led him there.

  “Will you kill him as well as Feier?” the child asked Jinjin, but the latter didn’t reply. “There! Angwan - the new priest.”

  The boy pointed to a larger house away from the main street. Jinjin went on alone, leaving the boy staring. It was surrounded by a yard littered with utensils and broken farming implements. Angwan’s father had been a skilled repairer. To the side was a pig pen where three silent, grey pigs lay stretched out in the dust.

  “Coward, show yourself!” he shouted.

  Not even the pigs responded. He spied a bamboo fence behind the house, separating the yard from the rice field beyond. There was a gap in the fence where a pole was missing. Perhaps the dog was cowering on the other side. Clutching Feng’s bamboo, Jinjin went to look. On approaching the fence he noticed the poles were roughly the same diameter as the one in his hand. There was something on the ground near the gap. Closer, he saw that it was an axe, and beside it were splinters of bamboo. When Jinjin picked up the axe and examined the blade, then he knew. The shape of the protuberance, opposite the pointed edge of the bamboo that had killed Feng’s merchant friend, perfectly matched the half-moon-shaped chip out of the middle of the blade. It was all suddenly so clear. Angwan and Feier. His anger erupted like a volcano.

  He checked behind the bamboo fence. Deserted! He ran back to the house, shouting the man’s name. Inside, he flung utensils off shelves, upturned tables, smashed jars and tore up the Miao priest’s scrolls. He struck at the walls with the axe. But the walls were blameless. And there was no need to do the deed himself. He had the evidence, and murder deserved public beheading whoever the victim had been. Punishment for the priest’s crime again
st the girl would come later when the man’s head-less, restless ghost would beg to escape from torment at the hands of ancestors.

  Jinjin left the axe embedded in a table and ran with Feng’s pole from the Miao village, back through the woods, past the lotus lake. As he passed the monastery path, muttering curses, he was too distracted to notice a seated monk hunched to one side halfway up the hill. Hearing Jinjin, Angwan looked up. He sprang to his feet and followed the boy to the Han village and the street with the schoolhouse. There he stood and listened from behind the trunk of a magnolia tree.

  “The murderer! I have proof!” the boy shouted.

  Feng, exhausted, appeared in the schoolhouse doorway.

  “On the bamboo pole! The cut end fits a notch in the blade of his axe. It was he who killed your merchant friend, teacher. The Miao priest who took Feier!”

  “What are you talking about, Jinjin? I’ve grown sick and tired of your ramblings!”

  “Work it out! I thought you had brains when we first met! This tongue here... “ He pointed to the rounded protuberance at the cut end of the bamboo. “It fits perfectly into the chip on the edge of Angwan’s axe-head like a... like...” He glanced at the girl standing beside Feng. “Ugh! He’s the one who killed your friend. And why? He must have done a deal with the merchant! He got the merchant to arrange for Farmer Li’s daughter to disappear so he wouldn’t be forced to marry the poor girl! Then he killed Chang because he was the only witness. He would have known you’d feel guilty, teacher, and go off on a trail of madness to satisfy your conscience. And he knew you’d trust Yueloong to look after Feier. So he could sink his... his... his filthy.”

  “It wasn’t like that!”

  Jinjin turned. Angwan, robed as a monk, stood but a few paces away. He was unarmed. Feier, who had followed her father to the schoolhouse entrance, looked up on hearing the Miao priest’s voice. Having just bathed, washed and combed her hair, she now wore a clean blue dress, embroidered around the bodice with delicate yellow and pink flowers. More beautiful than a painted goddess, she caused both boy and man momentarily to forget their dispute and gaze at her. The girl stared at the young Miao man, not knowing what to say or do. Feng placed a cautioning hand on her shoulder.

  “Angwan? Tell me, is this true?” asked Feng.

  “She hated the merchant! But none of you would understand that, would you? Not one of you truly knows anything about the girl! If you...”

  Maybe it was use of the words ‘knows’ and ‘the girl’ in the same sentence that gave Jinjin the courage to kill, or perhaps he was simply too young to comprehend, or too inexperienced to control his rage. Whatever the reason, there was no time for the priest to answer Feng. Jinjin ran at Angwan with the pointed bamboo before the other man could continue his verbal defence. Angwan, deflecting the blow, stumbled and fell backwards, banging his head on a large stone. Jinjin, a crazed animal, chose to play with his prey sprawled out, stunned, in the street. He held the bamboo high with both hands, for maximum thrust, its point directed at the belly of the man on the ground. He paused to savour the other man’s fear.

  “Is this how you did it, then?”

  Angwan saw only a blur of the figure above him. He opened his mouth, but no words came. Jinjin raised the pole even higher and closed his eyes. Feier screamed, broke free from her father, rushed forwards and flung herself onto Angwan’s body at the very moment when Jinjin struck down with the sharpened pole, driving the point into her body instead.

  In different ways, all three men loved the girl who rolled in the dust, shrieking and writhing and clutching at the bamboo stake sticking out from her side. Horrified by what he’d done, Jinjin ran from the courtyard and from the village. Feng knelt and cradled his daughter’s head on his lap whilst Angwan, dazed and splattered with the blood of the Han girl he so adored, rose to his knees, held her hands and wept like a child until her gasps ceased and the twitching stopped, until her body went still, all signs of life extinguished; then, after pulling the stake free from her limp body, he took her in his arms and cried out in grief whilst holding her against his chest.

  Although Angwan knew much about Feng from Feier, the teacher had little knowledge of the man he’d only ever thought of as the young Miao-would-be-priest-part-Buddhist. It had never occurred to him that the Buddhism was for Feier’s benefit, despite having seen the boy-turning-man hover outside the Miao village schoolroom whenever he and Feier had finished a class. Now, in shared grief, the two men took the body of the girl into the schoolroom, laid her gently on the floor and covered her with a silk sheet. Neither was able to formulate words, but there seemed no need for speech. They worked as one. Feng ran off for help whilst Angwan stayed kneeling beside Feier.

  The girl remained in the schoolroom until a coffin was fashioned and either Feng or Angwan would guard her body. The young priest chanted for hours on end; to Feng the words made no sense but the haunting sound gave credence to the man’s love for his daughter. Whether or not he had ‘taken her’ was of no importance. Her life and what they had done together whilst he and Jinjin were rescuing Xiaopeng now belonged to the past, lost somewhere in that tangled forest of the mind where memories merge like veils of morning mist and souls turn mad.

  After Feier’s funeral, Angwan could not leave the Han village. Treated with suspicion by other villagers, he lived with Feng and the two men would speak to each other although never about Feier. Then one cold winter’s morning, several moons after the funeral, Angwan left without a word. That was the day Feng visited the temple for the first time since Meili’s death. He’d hoped to find something there that might help him to understand - to forgive - but it proved to be a pointless visit.

  He returned to the village, to the very schoolroom where they’d laid out Feier’s body, took his scrolls from the shelf, and his ink and brushes, and squatted in front of the low teacher’s table; he prepared for the following day’s lesson, for he realised that’s all he was able to do: teach. All he could ever do. Why had he ever thought otherwise? Being a husband, a father - the things that mattered - they had no part in his destiny.

  A Single Petal

  Years later, Feng went back to the monastery near the lotus lake. What was left of his hair had turned grey. His once proud belly was shrunken and wrinkled and he walked slowly, with a stoop, as if he only had eyes for the ground at his feet since the horizon of his life had long since lost any meaning. He went back to that place because he’d heard there was a new sun wu kong and because he felt the closeness of death. Perhaps, at last, he might find comfort in prayer.

  Even as he approached the temple gate, the sickly scent of incense stirred memories of the past; time had become a ladle in its hand and his mind a pot of congee in which swirled images of Meili, Feier, and a friend who’d died and a friend he once lost. Whilst kow-towing three times to the Buddha he heard the approach of footsteps. He remained kneeling forwards, his hands stretched out palms down on the ground. Someone came and stood beside him.

  The teacher had turned recluse after losing his daughter. He only spoke to the children he taught, and since illness now prevented him from teaching, he spoke to no-one. If the stranger had been anyone other than the new sun wu kong he’d have got up and left the temple. He looked sideways from the corner of one eye and saw the sandals and yellow and brown robes of a monk. A helping hand reached down, easing him up onto one knee. Twisting round, he gazed at the monk’s face, perhaps more rounded than he remembered but otherwise little changed. The wheel of time had ceased turning. The path of the Buddha had delivered the one person who might finally ease his agony.

  “You?” asked the teacher as the other man helped him to his feet. “Angwan?”

  “Me, yes, but Angwan no longer,” replied the monk. “Now sun wu kong Niao. I was wondering when you’d get round to paying me a visit.”

  “I don’t understand. You. the sun wu kong? And here, of all p
laces?”

  “See over there! There’s a bench beside that banyan tree. Let’s sit and talk, teacher. We should have done this years ago. And I should have come back to you. I suppose I too was waiting for the pain to go away. Now I know it never will. Pain is our shared destiny. That’s why we must talk.”

  What is there to talk about? Feng followed the monk to the bench.

  “You’ve come to learn the truth, then? After all this time?” The sun wu kong stared ahead as if trying to decipher an invisible scroll on which had been written a painful lesson that had to be read aloud. Feng knew this was one path he could not avoid, for he could evade truth no more than death.

  “I’m dying, Angwan. For Feier’s sake please let me call you that again. Yes, I must know the truth. Hold nothing back.” Feng smoothed out the folds in his tunic as if it was important that his state of dress should be as close to perfection as had been his daughter’s beauty. “I do know,” he added. “Somehow I’ve always known from the moment she came running into the schoolroom that day, but never how. Or why.”

  Neither man looked at the other when sun wu kong Niao finally found the strength to read from that unwritten scroll.

  “Yes, Feier killed your friend Merchant Chang. But I don’t think it’ll be as you imagined.”

  The sun wu kong drew a deep breath. Clearly, for him to speak the truth would be as painful as for the old teacher to hear his words.

  “That day I had arranged to meet with Chang beside the lotus lake. He said he had information from one of the monks. About the sun wu kong’s links with a plot to depose the emperor. It all seems so unimportant now, doesn’t it, two emperors down the line? Chang had told me about the White Tiger League and how he’d offered his services to the emperor for fear the empress’s son would have been bad news for trade links to the west. You see, the White Tigers were divided in their loyalties. It wasn’t quite what everyone thought at the time of... “