Black Dragon, Black Cat

by Brian Edwards

  Mao heated the water and set the two remaining teacups on the tray. She began crying again at the absence of the third cup, and had to bury her face in her hands to weep as she waited for the teakettle to whistle. She choked back her sobs yet again, sniffed the fluid back into her draining nose, and carried the tray over to Jai-tien. The old man took the teacup offered to him, and began to sip it impassively.

  Mao turned to the other side, walked behind Lu-chin’s chair so that she would not have to look upon the old woman’s lifeless face, and then sat down in her own seat on the other side. She began to sip her tea, trying hard to keep her tears at bay as she remembered her visits to this house over the many years that she had lived with Jai-tien. After many long minutes, the soothing effects of the tea calmed her grief, and she felt able to control her emotions and hold back her tears.

  All too early, they were finished with their tea and Mao stood up to collect the tea service. Jai-tien stood up at the same time, and again placed his hand on Mao’s shoulder. “I will remain here tonight and tend to matters tomorrow morning. You must go back to the house tonight and rest. Tomorrow morning, you must tend to all of the animals. After lunch, you must train by yourself, and then come back up here tomorrow evening at the usual time.” Then the old man sat back down silently in his chair, and Mao bowed herself out the door.

  Mao turned and left the house, without daring to look back at Lu-chin for fear of being overwhelmed with emotion. She walked hurriedly down the pathway, periodically pausing for a few moments as waves of grief washed over her. Several times she felt faint and stumbled before righting herself as the tears streamed from her eyes.

  Mao could not find her way to sleep that night, and turned restlessly over and over again upon her mat. The next morning she arose at sunrise, and began the daily routine of chores and customs. This took much longer than usual since she had to perform Jai-tien’s daily chores as well as her own, but she managed to finish them by the time the lunch hour was only half past.

  She did not feel like eating anything, and went straight to the training ground. She hoped that the rigorous physical exertion and necessary concentration required would keep her mind off of the tragic event of the previous evening. Yet there was no escaping the terrible thoughts, and Mao soon gave up trying and only half-heartedly paced through her daily training regimen. Her thoughts kept drifting to the past week when Lu-chin had placed another chair next to hers and had invited Mao to join in the tea ceremony as an equal for the first time. Mao struggled with the injustice of the fact that she had only a single week to enjoy the privilege before Lu-chin’s passing.

  The dinner hour came and passed, but Mao did not even bother to prepare a meal for herself. She had no energy for eating, and knew the walk up the hill would be excruciating under these circumstances. Nevertheless, at the appointed hour she closed the door of Jai-tien’s house behind her and headed up the pathway to the home of Lu-chin.

  As she neared the hilltop, Mao noticed a large pile of wood had been erected at the highest point of ground a short walk from the front door of the house. Jai-tien was standing in front of it, holding a burning candle in his right hand. He turned to Mao as she approached.

  “Master,” she inquired, “what is this? Why is it here?”

  “This is the funeral pyre of Lu-chin,” he replied, extending the candle in her direction. “Would you do her the honor of setting it afire?”

  Mao cringed backward as the candle was offered to her. Again, tears filled her eyes and she fought to keep them from streaming down her face. She shook her head and pleaded, “No, Master, I cannot! I do not have the strength to do it. It is your place to do it; you are her son.”

  “There is more strength within you than you have yet realized, my Maome. Lu-chin could feel that strength, and it is by her desire that this task falls upon your shoulders, not mine.”

  Mao was puzzled by this statement, but was not in a frame of mind to consider it further. Again she shook her head, but Jai-tien determinedly pushed the candle into the hand. With an engulfing reluctance, she hesitantly inched forward to the broad rectangular pile of wood, which soared above her head by several feet. She looked toward the top, and could see through the cracks the supine body of Lu-chin, wrapped in a blanket. She again stifled her urge to cry, and squatted down near the bottom of the pile. She hesitantly put the flame to the brush at the base of the pyre, and the flames leapt upward in a silent, instantaneous flash of light.

  In less than a minute, the flames had spread upward to engulf the entire pyre, and Mao shrunk backward from the intensity of the heat they produced. Jai-tien moved over to stand beside her, and together they watched as the flames consumed the pyre and the sparks leapt toward the sky. For hours it burned, and, with the darkness of night, the fire lit the sky with an unnatural glow that could be seen throughout the valley. Late into the night Mao and Jai-tien stood by the pyre as it slowly sunk downward to the earth. Completely exhausted from the lack of sleep the previous evening, Mao finally lay down on the ground beside the dwindling fire and fell into a deep sleep.

  The next morning Mao awoke, pried her eyes open, and squinted around her in the glaring sunlight. She lifted her head to see her master moving gingerly through the remains of the pyre, poking around among the dying embers with his walking stick. “Aha!”, he exclaimed after a few minutes of searching. Mao arose with an aching head from sleeping on the cold ground during the night, and felt her belly grumble with complaint over her recent fast. She walked to the edge of the burnt ground as Jai-tien bent over to inspect the central area of the fire more closely.

  “These are the ashes of Mother Lu-chin!”, he pronounced assuredly as he pulled a long black scarf from inside his tunic. He squatted down within the still glowing embers and began to scoop handfuls of ashes onto the black scarf, all the while ignoring the stinging pain from the intense heat they still contained within them.

  Mao had no idea how her master could be so certain that these were Lu-chin’s ashes, as those that he had indicated appeared as all the others. “How do you know those are hers and not from the wood?”, she asked.

  “You think I cannot recognize my mother’s ashes?”, he replied. Mao shook her head in disbelief.

  Jai-tien stood up and bundled the black scarf into a ball, encasing the ashes within it. He turned toward Mao, and quickly stepped out of the fire pit. “I constructed the pyre such that all of her ashes would be funneled through a small hole that ran from the top to the bottom and center of the rectangular base. Since I knew the general location where the ashes would fall, it was not difficult to recognize the difference between these ashes and those of the surrounding wood.” Mao was satisfied with this explanation.

  “Come with me!”, Jai-tien commanded, and then set out at a brisk pace toward the lone willow tree several tens of meters to the east of the house, just on the verge of a steep drop. From this vantage, Mao could see Jai-tien’s house far below, and the small shape of the cow grazing behind the barn.

  “This was one of Lu-chin’s favorite places, Maome,” the old man said, staring out over the valley. “She spent many hours here during the last years of her life sitting under this willow tree. It is a fitting place to release her ashes upon the east wind.”

  Jai-tien unrolled the scarf, and poured a large portion of the ashes into his hand and threw them with all his strength into the air. The east wind seemed to understand the significance of the moment, and stirred to life and bore the ashes skyward in a swirling vortex that dissipated into the blazing sun. He then repeated this a second time, leaving only a small handful of ashes laying on the black scarf.

  “Master,” Mao spoke up timidly with a tremor in her voice, “may I have the remainder of the ashes?”

  Jai-tien turned to her, and silently picked up the scarf and poured the remaining ashes into her outstretched hand. She slipped them into a pocket on the right leg of her pants, and patted them down so they would not sift out.

  Jai-tien tu
rned and strode off to the house. Mao waited for him patiently, but eventually walked over and peered into the house from the doorway. She was met by an emerging Jai-tien, who carried a small covered chest with him. “These are some of Lu-chin’s most precious things,” he said to her. “I will look after them now.” Then he walked past her into the morning sun.

  Mao looked back in the house for one last time, and her eyes fell upon the tea service sitting upon the corner table, as always. “Master,” she shouted after him, “you have left the tea service! Do you want me to get it?”

  Jai-tien kept walking toward the long pathway down the hill, but shouted back over his shoulder, “Of course not! Then with what would we drink our tea tonight?”

  An expression of confusion spread briefly across Mao’s face. Then she shrugged her shoulders, slid shut the door to Lu-chin’s house, and ran to catch up with her master.

  The walk down the hill seemed short and Jai-tien led the way at a brisk pace. As they passed the final bend, Jai-tien said over his shoulder, “I will put this box in the house, and then we must tend to the animals and the daily chores. Take care of your business and get to work.”

  Jai-tien strode off toward the house with the chest, and Mao turned to the right and ran toward the green pond. There she slid through the fronds of the willow tree, and sat down on her knees on the ground. She lifted the stone under which she had placed the ashes of the black cat, and carefully removed Lu-Chin’s ashes from her pocket and sifted them through her fingers onto those of the cat. Then she replaced the stone and patted it back into place. “Now I know where to find both of you when I need you,” she whispered. Then she stood up and ran off toward the house.

  A guarded secret?

  The chores were performed that day, and the lunchtime meal was served outside as the spring air had arrived on the east wind early that morning. For the first time since the death of Lu-chin, both Mao and Jai-tien ate heartily. Mao was surprised at how famished she had become, as she had previously had little appetite for food. Afterward she cleared off the table and carried the dishes inside the house, while Jai-tien walked off to the training ground.

  When Mao arrived, Jai-tien was already performing his stretching exercises on the ground. “Please, join me, Hei Mao.” He gestured to a spot on the ground directly in front of him. Mao set down on the ground and spread her legs in the fashion of her master.

  “We will concentrate on stretching even more in the future, Hei Mao,” the old man began. “If you are to be able to perform the complicated movements I will teach you, you must have a very limber body. Each day we will perform these stretching exercises at the beginning and end of our training. When you have a sufficient degree of flexibility, I will show you some advanced techniques that are very important and unique to our style of kung fu.”

  Mao was accustomed to daily stretching exercises, but she found this new regimen to be extremely taxing and painful. She was very happy that she would begin to learn new and more complex techniques, but considered herself to be flexible enough already for anything. She saw no point in the torture that she was currently enduring. Nevertheless, she kept her mouth shut and performed the stretches as Jai-tien directed, feeling every joint and muscle in her body complain from the stress.

  After the stretching session at the end of the daily training, Mao stood up painfully as her ankles and knees complained and failed to cooperate. She staggered backward as her right leg gave out from beneath her, and she landed in the dirt on her backside.

  Jai-tien looked at her pathetically and shook his head. “I am sure that you thought you were already limber enough for the training ahead, Hei Mao, but maybe you can begin to understand that your body has yet to be tested. If these new techniques were easy to perform, I would have already taught them to you. If you are to be a great warrior, you must be able to accomplish physical feats that normal people cannot do. Your body must be strained to meet these new demands, and your mind must be forged even stronger than before.”

  Jai-tien turned toward the house to begin the dinner preparations. Mao stood up carefully, with groaning knees, and wobbled off after him.

  Another heavy dinner followed the day’s training as Mao continued to recover her appetite after the recent events. Jai-tien prepared a large pot of stew and rice, and she devoured it rapidly and began to clear the dishes. She brought them into the house and washed them lazily, humming to herself as she patted them dry with a towel. After several minutes, she felt the sensation of probing eyes in her back, and turned around to find her master leaning on his walking stick.

  “Why are you spending so much time with the dishes tonight, Hei Mao?”, he asked her. “It is time for us to go up the hill to visit Mother Lu-chin.”

  Mao opened her mouth in surprise and an expression of confusion crossed her face. “But Master,” she replied, “why would we go there?”

  “For the tea ceremony! How could you possibly have forgotten? We have done it every day of your life here.”

  “But Master, Mother Lu-chin is not there. Why can we not have the tea ceremony at this house now?”

  “Because we have to visit Lu-chin,” he replied. “Her earthly body no longer resides there, but her spirit has not left her house. We will continue to visit her as usual, and have our tea.”

  Jai-tien turned and stepped outside. Mao followed him out, and slid the door shut behind her.

  The east wind picked up again to blow some gathering rainclouds off to the west, and the evening sun left a warm glow on the hillside. The walk up the pathway made Mao’s joints and muscles begin to ache again, and she arrived at the door of Lu-chin with relief. Jai-tien scratched at the door as usual, leaving Mao wondering why he bothered to do this since nobody was home.

  When Mao entered, she felt very strange not to see the old woman sitting in her chair. A sudden impulse to cry threatened to overwhelm her, but she managed to control it by setting her mind to preparing the tea. Jai-tien sat down in his chair, next to the empty one of Lu-chin, and Mao walked over to the corner to prepare the tea. This night, however, she had to start from scratch and light the fire in the stove before she could boil the water for the tea.

  Finally the water boiled and Mao poured the tea and handed a cup to Jai-tien. How strange it seemed to see the empty chair of Lu-chin and not to hand her a teacup. Mao sat down in her seat, and sipped her tea thinking about her experiences in this house over the long years of her life with Jai-tien. The tea crept into her subconscious mind, and her thoughts began to drift on the currents of the ether.

  After many minutes of this, Mao experienced a strange sensation over her shoulder, as if someone had touched her from behind. She turned quickly, but could see no one there. She looked at Jai-tien, but he had apparently not noticed anything. Mao closed her eyes cautiously, and let her mind drift back to the ether. Again she felt an odd sensation, but this time the feeling was one of an embracing warmth, as if she were wrapped in blanket. The sensation felt very comfortable and reassuring to her, and she let her mind slip into it and enjoy the feeling.

  Each day the regimen of stretching exercises was performed as spring turned to summer, and then summer to fall. One day, Mao realized that she no longer felt the burning pain but only a subtle tightness in her taut muscles. Her flexibility had definitely improved, and she felt that the range of motion of each limb had been noticeably enhanced. She also had continued to progress well at hiding her actions from her master, and in reading her opponent’s intentions from his physical postures and stances.

  Jai-tien began to teach Mao new complicated movements and techniques, each requiring a high degree of flexibility and dexterity that she had only recently acquired. Many of these he could demonstrate to her, but some of them were simply too difficult for him to perform properly. These he would describe to Mao in great detail and she would attempt to perform the movement without ever seeing it, except in her imagination. Thus, progress in this area was very slow, and Mao often became frustrated and
wished that her master was much younger so that he could demonstrate these techniques for her.

  The days of fall rapidly dwindled, and the long shadows appeared earlier each evening as winter approached from the north. The sun rose later each morning, and Mao had to awaken before sunrise to begin the daily chores. The frigid morning air reminded Mao of the days to come when she would have to pry her stiff bones out of bed at each daybreak.

  Her training grew more demanding, and new, more complicated material was incorporated into her practice each afternoon. She found herself consistently challenged by the new techniques, but she enjoyed the process very much. Each evening she left the practice ground feeling a mixed sense of accomplishment and pleasure.

  One particular afternoon during midwinter, Jai-tien introduced a new technique into Mao’s training. “Today I will begin to teach you a new technique that will require much patience and practice to become proficient at, but when you do, it will be one of the most impressive movements that you will ever learn. To begin, I want you to perform some cartwheel exercises for me. Watch this!”

  Jai-tien put both hands in the air, then rapidly bent over sideways and placed one hand on the ground, beginning a spinning motion. As his head circled lower, his legs arched over his head and his second hand touched the ground. The spin continued, giving the appearance of a rotating wagon wheel with his arms and legs representing the spokes. He completed the rotation and landed on his feet. “There,” he said, “now you do it.”