Ch’ing laughed outright, and fought hiccups. He held his nose and sipped soup, laughed more, belched and finally wiped his face again. “You will eat,” he said, “what the camels have already eaten.” Then he giggled for a time.
Jake drank up, tingling, in the grip of a rare excitement. Deserts. The wilderness and the solitary place!
They allowed him to pay the bill. As usual he tipped well, and in a moment was glad of it; as they bumbled heavily down the wooden stairs, their waiter leaned after them and shouted the amount of the bill and the amount of the tip, and a chorus of hao-hao’s approved. Jake was tipsy and full and beamed upon the street-floor customers, who nudged one another and pointed: look, look, a foreign village idiot.
In the street Ch’ing set a rendezvous. If there was any change he would notify Kao. “God help me,” he grumbled, and then said fiercely, “Listen, no foreign wines. No foreign bottles.”
“I eat what you eat,” Jake said. “I drink what you drink.”
“Then God help you too,” Ch’ing said, and walked off, bowlegged and shaking his head.
Kao said, “You did well.”
“That was a meal,” Jake said. “I want to come here again.”
“I think not,” Kao said. They ambled up the busy street. “From now on you will never go to any place a second time.”
8
The room was handy to the Western Gate and only half a mile from the Field of Camels. “But don’t hang about the Field,” Kao told him. “Don’t even go there. Don’t hang about anywhere.”
“Nobody knows me,” Jake said.
Kao sat plumply on the stone bed; the straw mattress crackled. He touched his flaming lighter to the wick of a small oil lamp, and reset the grimy glass chimney. The room was suddenly bright as day. Kao loomed, fat. “Draw the curtains, please,” he said.
“You make a great fuss.”
“Well, you see,” Kao said almost apologetically, “we are such a poor country.”
Jake looked his puzzlement.
“To turn you in would earn anyone praise, also a cash reward. And even the smallest cash reward—you see. Think,” Kao said gently, “how grateful your own authorities would be. Think what a hero they would make of some local cop on the beat.”
Jake said, “I can’t sit here doing nothing for ten days.”
“No no no,” Kao said. “We must prepare. We have shopping to do, and I must tell you of the west, and of my friends there. But certain elementary precautions I insist upon. As you see, for example, I had your wooden chest brought here; but I suggest that you wear the long gown and the low hat, and save the khakis for Mongolia. We shall use, for another example, enclosed rickshas, though the season be warm.”
“Why can’t I stay at the Palace?” Jake knew the answer and knew how sullen he must sound, like a kid in trouble, with his lower lip stuck out.
“Now now,” Kao said. “Of course not. This is not bad, here. A good mattress, your chest, a table and a stool and a lamp, and the conveniences just out back. Now. Are you ready?”
“Whatever you say,” Jake answered. “This landlord here, what about him?”
“Absolutely safe.”
“He looks a villain.”
“He is a villain,” Kao said. “You will like him. He is a quiet, easy-going fellow. His hobby was knifing Japanese at night. All in this alley fear him, so you will be comfortable.”
“All right then,” Jake said. “Let’s go shopping.”
With Kao he prowled remote bazaars, vast sheds like hangars with naked steel beams high above and only screens or partitions separating the flower merchant from the costume jeweler, or the foreign toilet bowls from the crickets in cages. Customers, wholesalers, police and sweepers swarmed and chattered. Cries echoed, and low arguments.
“Yes, goggles, here we are,” Kao said. “Look at that; a diver’s helmet.” He carried a cloth bag heavy with bank notes. The dealer was obsequious. Jake sampled goggles and bought a pair used but intact, much like the foolish goggles that adorned aviators’ helmets in the five-and-ten when he was a boy.
“Would you like some sweet corn? Hot off the grill, about a block from here. Later, perhaps,” Kao said. “Here we are. You’ll want maps, I think. Linen maps. Expense no object. You know how to read maps?”
“You bet I do. But in western letters.”
“Those we have. Good day, master.”
They stood at a booth near one end of the great bazaar. Kao’s roving eye checked the entrances, and the street beyond. The young map-seller made them welcome.
“This inspection of exits and entrances is rather vexatious,” Kao complained. “I am accustomed to order and serenity.”
“You worry too much,” Jake said. “If we have trouble, you don’t know me.”
“Ta-tze!” Kao’s features sagged in pained reproach. “Business is built on trust. Never would I sell you out.”
Jake said solemnly, “I am unworthy.”
And Kao said sternly, “You are a troublemaker, and incurably frivolous. One does not cross the Gobi smiling.”
Nights he took a humble meal at a place called Cheap Restaurant: boiled rice with plenty of sand and gravel, fatty lumps of pork and pale vegetables like boiled celery. He sent out for sweet corn; the boy returned with half a dozen three-inch ears, the kernals tiny and white. This was real life, Jake decided. You ate dirt and corncobs.
After supper he stood in the street, or in his own alleyway, observing and overhearing, learning. Girls passed by who spoke of working in factories. A repairman of bicycles lived next-door. In this alleyway were hovels, houses of earth and stone, and none of the frilly lattices or spacious courtyards he had known. Sometimes his landlord joined him, a gnarled man of middle age, and they gossiped. They agreed that peace was better than war, and that all government was bad. Nights were balmy now, and the mutter and tinkle of the city were soothing. “Well enough in summer,” the landlord said. “But in winter there is nothing to eat and coal is expensive, and they make stacks of the dead on corners.”
Another night the landlord said, “The body contains barrels of blood. It is astonishing how much. If you use a long blade, and go in here,” he touched Jake between the left ribs and the right, “striking upward, there is less mess. If you use a pistol, use a heavy caliber unless you are sure of a perfect shot. I’ve seen men who were killed and took a long, long time to die. Unpleasant. Unworthy. Undignified.”
One night at a light knock Jake prickled; he padded to the door and asked, “Who is it?” and was given, as he should have known he would be, the Chinese answer: “It is I.” He then did the Chinese thing, and opened the door, and it was Mei-li, who rushed into his room, and his arms.
They did not sleep, but caused spring showers and made the beast with two backs, as well as snake-eats-snake. Waves of desire shook Jake, and strange aches, and not only between the legs. He was on his way to somewhere he had never seen; and certain familiar places, like Mei-li’s bub and thatch, were all he knew of hearth and home. He clung, and his heart contracted like a schoolboy’s, and afterward he felt sheepish, almost cowardly. He touched all of her with all of him, as if some magic might rub off, and protect him.
In the middle watch they lit the lamp and smoked a pipe. “First the Chinese flatfeet swarmed like bees,” she said. “Then the officers came, your officers, and asked questions.”
“And had no answers.”
“No answers. No one knew who you were. You had not come there before.”
“Dushok,” he said.
“He did not speak of you.”
Jake forgot what they were talking about. With his cheek on her belly he dreamed dreams and saw visions. Later she lay with her cheek on his belly, and his tired little private first class warm between her breasts; at ease, at rest.
At dawn she left. They dressed quickly, and Jake hesitated. He made an effort to think, to think like Kao, like a fine gentleman. He nodded. He did not offer money, but went into the street with
her, and found a bicycle ricksha for her, and paid the man. When she was comfortably settled he placed his palms together and bowed slightly, and she inclined her head like a great lady and dazzled him with a devilish look and a bright smile, and he was cheerful all the morning.
The binoculars were Kao’s gift; Jake recognized them, and why not? He had hijacked them. “With a good stout leather case,” Kao said. “Thus you will see with your eyes and with mine.”
“If I could only think with your mind.”
“Your own is good, your own is good,” Kao insisted.
“I jump into things,” Jake said unhappily. “I move before I think.”
Kao’s eyes narrowed as he recollected. “‘Chi Wan thought thrice, and then acted,’” he quoted. “‘When the Master was informed of it, he said, “Twice may do.”’”
“Ah,” Jake said. “What a fine people you are.”
“We are like all people,” Kao said. “Now. You have cloth shoes for lounging. A compass, goggles, linen maps, binoculars.”
“Pistol and ammunition.”
“A good knife.”
“Both kinds,” Jake said. “A killing-knife and a six-small-tools knife.”
“That reminds me,” Kao said. “You must mention Ch’ing to no one.”
“No one,” Jake said. “Not a word.”
“Good.” They were in the heart of another market. “It may be a near thing,” Kao went on. “We may squeeze through by no more than a gnat’s tooth. Hints of unwanted attention have come my way.”
“Not good.”
“Not good. You see, we must look ahead. Next trip I think we shall move west altogether, in partnership. I am laying serious plans, even now. Myself the practical man, a professor, if I may say so, of the marketplace; you a famous traveler and linguist, a man of action, and also a representative of, well, other lands and cultures.”
“A foreign devil.”
“Ah, that phrase. Not worthy of us, I fear.”
“Or a Big-nose.”
“Now that,” Kao said, “is mere vulgarity. Never have you heard the words on my lips.”
“Never.”
“These are troubled times and we are groping,” Kao said, “but the longest journey begins with one step. In a year or two this part of the world will surely be unpleasant for the creative businessman. But Turkestan! The border areas! A trader’s paradise.”
“A new life,” Jake said. “I owe you much.”
“Nothing,” Kao said. “We are sincere partners.”
And together they acquired a first-aid kit, a few bricks of cocoa butter for sunburn oil, two bandannas, a packet of buttons for the strange foreign fly, and a dozen K rations. They considered a quilt, against cold nights on the desert, but decided not: too bulky, and there would be sheepskins and robes, and Jake was to be as much like the others as possible. Drugs they had. Pills, magical. An untimely clap was ruinous to trade; who could negotiate shrewdly, oozing and burning? Kao would supply the flashlight and cigar lighter from his own stock. “What’s the best kind of money to carry?” Jake asked him.
Kao said, “That’s for tomorrow.”
“All right. And where’s all my goods?”
“They will be delivered to the Field of Camels in plenty of time. They are important,” Kao said, suddenly sober. “Every bundle. This is, when you think of it, a daring venture.”
“You’re a great executive,” Jake said.
“Indeed,” Kao said modestly. “And do you know where I would be if I had lent my talents to the government?”
“Where?”
“Behind a desk,” Kao said sourly, “waiting in vain for my salary to catch up with the inflation.”
“It’s an awful thing,” Jake said.
“It is. The only safety is in gold. Do you know that professors wait six months for their cost-of-living augmentation, by which time it is worthless. The best of the country is dying. I tell you, in bad times the true patriot must turn anarchist, and salvage what he can from the ruins.”
“Well, I guess that’s me,” Jake said.
Later the thought came to him that he might spend the rest of his life in exile. Others had done so. He would make a home and a business and raise a family, perhaps a few families; it was done here. It would not be painful. In many ways it would be more pleasant. Interesting and busy and not so cheap and grubby. He would amount to something, be a man of importance. And the women were superior. Not just prettier but nicer people. They were not loud, painted or vicious, and their husbands did not die young.
He studied his maps. The Gobi was a large space with few dots, few names. Caravan trails. A few dry streams, broken lines. To the west, a long river running north. And the names changed. They became Mongolian names, and from the look of them they were spoken the way they were spelled. Dengin Hudag. Was that Den-jin or Den-ggin? He would like to see Dengin Hudag.
He would like to see rivers of gold, and mountains of jade, and women of ivory.
They would call him Ta-tze, and speak of him in the marketplace, and he would wear fur-trimmed boots.
9
Jake and Kao rode to Gold Street in a two-man bicycle ricksha, Jake wearing the long blue gown and the coolie hat, and sitting well back under the black cloth roof. “My friend is a foreigner, and very sensitive to the sun,” Kao had explained, and the bustling young biker had manipulated his convertible top. Gold Street was in the outer city, south of Ch’ien Men, and so were Precious Stone Street, Furniture Street, Hardware Street, and others. No shuttling all over town. You came to a street here and found ten, twelve shops all selling the same sort of merchandise. True competition, Kao said with approval.
At the True Weight Precious Metal Shop the driver announced that he would wait. Kao rebuked him and began to pay him off, but beggars gathered from nowhere. Kao said hastily, “Wait then,” and tugged Jake quickly into the shop.
Jake was curious: “Why shouldn’t he wait?”
“The beggars see the ricksha. They too wait. They are ferocious here.”
The two were received by a withered, bright-eyed old man who looked as if he might burn away in a warm wind. Shining from an infinity of wrinkles, his eyes were like restless mice in dry grass. His hands were pale, smooth and graceful; he pressed them together and bowed.
Kao made oily introductions, and they all exchanged honorifics and best wishes. They then discussed the sad state of the gold and silver business. Trade in all but ornaments was, the ancient explained, punishable by death. Anything over fourteen karats was dangerously illegal. He was only jacking up prices before the serious talk began but Jake and Kao expressed sympathy. It was indeed sad. Honest tradesmen were being squeezed. Forced into undignified procedures. It was barely possible to stay alive. Some months one actually lost money. Above all if one gave honest weight, which was the age-old boast of this shop.
A false balance, Jake remembered suddenly, and said it aloud, translating as he went, awkwardly but gravely, “is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is his delight.”
The old man sighed his own delight. “It is not every day that we hear such elevated sentiments.” He cast a shrewder eye on Jake.
There followed some jokes. The phrase for “weigh out” was p’ing tui; the p’ing was the p’ing of Peiping and another tui, on the same tone, meant correct, or in agreement. The jokes were elegant for a country boy and Jake was pleased with himself.
Also surprised. He was not so well-spoken in his own language. It did not seem normal to make good jokes in another.
Kao was pleased with him too, and it bothered Jake that Keo looked pale again, with a light sweat starting so that he mopped his face and asked for a chair. The old man had a boy set one out immediately. Jake wondered if Kao had a weak heart: a fat man.
The goldsmith liked Jake. He was gladdened by the jokes. It was not every customer these days who could joke. Most came with dry mouths and a smile writhing, and a bracelet or ring in a secret pocket.
He remi
nded them again that the penalty was death, and added that after all, the penalty for living was death.
Jake exhaled admiration. This fellow was a thinker. Eight half-ounce pieces at seventy dollars U.S. the ounce. Seventy! Ah, but the penalty was death. And after all, honest weight. The pieces were round and unmarked, and not milled. There were also ounce pieces but those were harder to change. One of the ounce pieces was a farmer’s earnings for a whole year.
By this time the boy had served tea.
Should Jake perhaps take rings? a bracelet? an armlet? He was in some doubt. These last were more conspicuous. Earrings would be torn off by evil persons. Ornaments, perhaps, in the shape of animals: with a small foundry in the shed out back, anything could be cast—
“Such tea!” Kao cried. “Tea for the gods!”
The goldsmith subsided, blinked, bowed.
“And that pot,” Jake said.
Ah, the inestimably precious gentleman had noticed! There was no lid to the teapot! The old man was charmed. He demonstrated, turning it over: it was filled through a hole in the bottom, into which, when the pot was righted, a valve settled. Most ingenious. Appropriate for a worker in fine designs, a goldsmith.
“Indeed,” Kao said. “I think coins are the only answer.”
They settled on two hundred and fifty dollars. “Because Master Kao and I are old friends,” the ancient said.
“And have done much business together.”
“Have we not!” the old man said. “And will again.”
Politely, with care, he counted the pieces into a small cloth bag. Politely but with a magician’s skill he counted the notes Kao had peeled off, and carelessly he tossed them to the counter where they lay ignored while the three men drank another cup of tea. They performed a few bows, and wished one another good health and long life. By its drawstring Jake hung the bag around his neck beneath the gown. The old man approved, and bowed. Jake bowed. Kao was outside when the old man touched Jake’s hand and nodding gently, with a faint, dreamy, affectionate smile, said, “I wish you a safe journey.”
The Chinese Bandit Page 7