Quin?s Shanghai Circus

by Edward Whittemore

  Mama smiled.

  Northern yet southern. Our ancestors, after all, are a paradox. The house and the people in it contradict each other. Their three holy symbols were a round disk of polished metal, a curved piece of jade, a sword. The sun and the new moon and the lightning of fate. What plans do you have now?

  I leave in a few days on a freighter.

  Well, then it is over, whatever you hoped to do.

  She was dressed in a black kimono. An emerald hung in the middle of her forehead. She touched the jewel now with a slender finger.

  I didn’t know the name of the circus master then.

  I didn’t know what became of the son your mother had by the General, nor what became of the son I had by your father. I didn’t know then, but no matter. What has been remains in our emerald world, the jewels of our minds where the circus of the past is never forgotten. The man I knew wanted to control his destiny. But lives cross, the sun and the moon contradict each other, we are enmeshed in a network of doing and feeling. Others become part of us and the pasts of others are beyond us. He sacrificed everything to build his own network of destiny. I met him only once for a few hours, yet it changed my life. Why is that?

  He didn’t do it alone, he did it with another. When I went to the warehouse that night I thought my life was over, but when I listened to the words of the circus master I discovered this wasn’t so. An anonymous giant had already returned life to me although I didn’t know it until that moment. But then I knew it and knew that even then I had something to give in return, so I did.

  Long ago they changed my life, those two anonymous men. The one by listening, the other by speaking. And although now I know the name of one of them, the one who was your father, the other is still unknown to me after all these years. Is this best? Perhaps. Perhaps it can be no other way with us. Perhaps that kind of mercy must always remain a mystery.

  Yes, she added, it seems so.

  She went on to speak of the General and his death, her flight to China, the year in a narcotized Shanghai dream watching false images being projected on the wall. She spoke of the night a rickshaw carried her down Bubbling Well Road to the outskirts of the city, to the gloomy cavern of the circus master’s last performance.

  She took his hand.

  When he was gone she went to her shrine and drew back the straw curtains. On the platform stood the ivory elephant supporting the dais in the shape of a lotus. The shrine faced west. She climbed up to the lotus and seated herself as the sun dropped over the city.

  She sat in za-zen, her hands forming the mudra of knowledge. The first part of her life had been given to the ten thousand men who had come to explore her tattoo, the mythical epic of the dragon, the last part to the General and the circus master, so unalike and yet so similar in the grotesque ways in which they died.

  She recalled the apocryphal chronicle from the Han dynasty that had described the terrors of the Gobi Desert. The chronicler had feared the sandstorms and the disappearing rivers, the mirages, above all the secret agents who represented the princes and despots of a thousand lawless regions, a danger thereby to the rule of the Son of Heaven.

  He claimed this was his concern, but then he asked a question that revealed the true nature of the fear that had made him tremble when the caravans passed, a possibility far more frightening than the massed armies that might be sent by a thousand lawless princes and despots, a vision that horrified him because it was the ultimate threat to the Son of Heaven and the integrity of his rule.

  Or is it perhaps that they represent no one at all?

  Mama sat in her thatched hut raised on stilts, a structure still used by peasants in the countryside in the tradition of a shrine first built in Japan two thousand years ago on a peninsula in the south.

  The sacred object in that shrine was a round metal disk, the mirror that had belonged to the sun goddess before she was enticed from her cave by music, thereafter to become the ancestress of Japan’s emperors. For two thousand years, at the end of every second decade, the shrine of the sun goddess had been torn down and rebuilt exactly as it was before, thus to survive unchanged through the reigns of one hundred and twenty-four emperors.

  And so it was with men who were destroyed in order that the shrine might never grow old, through change to remain the same, destroyed and resurrected by ten thousand men or by two men who painted tattoos on their minds, followed the tale of the dragon, joined a caravan that yet again was setting out across the desert in search of a fabled kingdom.

  The tiny woman bowed her head. Fate had taken her sons and she had nothing else to give, but still there were no tears in the emerald eye that gathered together the final light of that autumn day above the Imperial moat.

  NICHIREN

  8

  No, they will not believe you but you must tell them the truth all the same. You must say that once a man dreamed a wind would come, he dreamed it and willed it, and because he did the wind came.

  —The monk Nichiren speaking to his disciples after he destroyed the fleet of Kublai Khan

  THE DAY BEFORE HIS SHIP sailed Quin received a postcard at his hotel across from Tokyo station. The postmark showed that it had been sent to his old address at the time of Big Gobi’s funeral. There was a picture of a fishing village, an illegible message, and a scrawled signature.

  Geraty.

  Quin asked about the village and was told it was three hours away by train, on the coast south of Kamakura. For weeks he had been trying to find Geraty, but the answer everywhere was the same. No one had seen the giant with the bulging eyes since early in the summer. It was assumed that he had either died or left Tokyo.

  There was only one train to the village and it left in a few minutes. Another returned late at night. Quin ran across the street to the station and found the train just as it was beginning to move.

  They reached the tiny village early in the afternoon. Quin went first to the police box on the square. After that he intended to try the post office, the inn, lastly the shops that sold horseradish.

  The policeman seemed to understand a few words of English. Quin used his hands to describe his man.

  A foreigner. Also an American but much taller, much fatter. A long, filthy overcoat, a black hat pulled down to the ears. Layers of sweaters and a swath of red flannel at the neck. Alcohol. Horseradish. Head shaved, white stubble. Purple veins in the face. A gigantic nose, sacks for arms. A belly this far out. Eyes a skull could not hold.

  The policeman watched him politely. When Quin finished he asked questions with his hands and his few words of English.

  Huge? Yes, he understood.

  Whiskey? Sake? He frowned. Impossible.

  Prominent eyes? He smiled. Certainly.

  A shaved head? The policeman looked confused.

  An overcoat? No, nothing like that.

  A hat? A black hat? Nobody wore hats anymore, not even foreigners.

  Layers of sweaters? A red scarf? A hat like that and an overcoat that big?

  The policeman hid his smile. Not even an American would dress so strangely. For a moment he had thought he knew whom they were talking about but obviously it wasn’t the same person. He shook his head. Unfortunately he couldn’t help.

  Geraty, said Quin. Ger-a-ty. He must have been here.

  Suddenly the policeman’s face was serious. The word came out with a hiss.

  Galatiiii?

  That’s him, said Quin. Was he here?

  The policeman laughed. He clapped his hands three times.

  Galatiiii, he hissed triumphantly.

  He lowered his eyes solemnly.

  Galati-ti-ti, he whispered, rocking back and forth as he repeated the name. The first time he had said it with his head thrown back, smiling. The second time he pronounced the syllables respectfully with his head bowed.

  Where? said Quin. Where?

  The policeman pointed toward the square. He waved his hand for Quin to follow and started down a narrow street that led to the waterfront.
There were a few small piers with fishing boats clustered around them. Although it was a cool October day the shops along the harbor were open to the sun. The policeman marched stiffly along the quay swinging his arms.

  Galatiiii, he chanted. Galati-ti-ti.

  A group of children playing in the street dropped their ball and ran up behind Quin. An elderly crone, her back bent into a question mark by a lifetime of planting rice, hobbled up to him and clutched his sleeve. She tugged, grinned, kept pace with him over the cobblestones tapping her cane. Women came out of the shops and fishermen left their nets to join the procession.

  Galatiiii, hissed the policeman.

  Galati-ti-ti, sang the marching crowd.

  The procession stretched the length of the waterfront. First came the strutting policeman, then Quin with the dwarf hanging from his sleeve, the children, the fishermen and their wives and mothers.

  They left the harbor and followed a road along the shore. Ahead lay a high, rocky point, perhaps a half-mile away, that formed the bay of the village. The point ended in pine trees and cliffs. The sandy road became an uphill path.

  Someone had brought a crude set of chimes. Someone else had brought a drum. The chimes clanged and the drum boomed as they climbed through the rice paddies into a pine grove, along a ledge above the sea, through a defile in the rocks that led to an open clearing. Two hundred feet away a small Japanese house stood on the very edge of the promontory.

  The policeman waited until the entire procession had wound through the rocks and entered the field. When everyone was standing along the fringe of the forest he bowed his head and clapped three times.

  Galatiiii, he shouted.

  Galati-ti-ti, chanted the congregation.

  The policeman turned and went to stand with the rest of the crowd. The dwarf gave Quin’s sleeve a final tug and hobbled off on her cane. The crowd waited. Quin was alone in the middle of the clearing.

  At last the door to the little house opened. A huge figure dressed in kimono wallowed out into the sun. He was enormous, his white hair long and silky. He smiled and benignly raised his arms. The multitude bowed.

  Three claps from the giant. One hand went up, the forefinger and middle finger pointing skyward, the medicine and little fingers held down by the thumb to make the pillar and the circle, the symbol of life, the sign of the preacher.

  A deep and resonant prayer in Japanese, a short sermon, a rousing benediction. Three loud claps again to end the ceremony. The crowd laughed happily.

  Galatiiii, whispered a reverent voice.

  Galati-ti-ti, shouted the multitude.

  Chimes tinkled, the drum struck a beat. The villagers began to file out of the clearing, the old men rocking on the even ground, the women cackling noisily, the children pushing and pulling, the ancient dwarf rattling the stones with her cane. Quin stared at the huge fat man in kimono.

  Buffalo. What in God’s name is going on here?

  The giant tossed his head, his hair flew, he burst into laughter. Tears ran down his face, he choked, his massive belly heaved up and down. He howled and his feet broke into a clumsy dance that carried him across the clearing, an enormous Buddha prancing in the afternoon sun. He crashed into the trees and came thundering back grunting and wheezing, gurgling, spinning in circles. He staggered, caught himself, hiccupped.

  In God’s name, he moaned. That’s what you said, nephew, don’t deny it. That’s what you said, and as it happens the work that goes on here is no more and no less.

  They sat on the narrow terrace of the house, the sea breaking on the cliff a hundred feet below. Behind Geraty lay the bay, the harbor, on the far side the fishing village.

  He was wearing a formal black kimono and the short black jacket that went with it. A layer of immaculate white undergarments showed at his chest. The pockmarks had all but disappeared, his eyes no longer bulged from his head. He was heavier than ever, but his deeply tanned face and long, flowing hair gave him a robust appearance. A seagull glided over the house and dipped down the cliff. Geraty followed its flight.

  Buffalo. Why did you really walk into the bar that night in the Bronx?

  Geraty stirred. He turned away from the sea and gazed at Quin.

  Because of my mother. Because I hated to think of her being forgotten after the way she died.

  How did she die?

  In more agony than you’ll ever see. We watched her. The old man insisted she be sterilized and took her to a quack doctor. He and the quack had some drinks and by the time the quack opened her up he was drunk. Instead of tying the fallopian tubes he tied a part of the intestines. She lasted three days.

  How old was Maeve?

  Eight. Only eight, saints preserve us. There were just the two of us, and I was old enough to take it but she wasn’t.

  What happened to her?

  A couple of years later the old man was locking up the bar one night. Drunk? Stinking as usual. He saw a light in the pool hall across the street and let himself in the back door to see what was going on. What was going on was three of his customers fucking Maeve on a pool table. He laid them out and then beat her until she was unconscious. The next day, when he saw what her face looked like, he locked himself in the cellar with a case of gin and swallowed the key. Planned to starve himself to death but it was winter, too cold for him down there. He died in that cellar all right, but not the way he expected. He ruptured his bowels digging for the key.

  Then what? The war?

  The war, the Great War. Eddy Quin signs up to be a hero and comes home with his leg full of shrapnel. I didn’t see much of him then, I was traveling for a drug company.

  How did Maeve get to Shanghai?

  Delicate fingers. Somehow she got mixed up with an Indian after the war who had delicate fingers. He was passing himself off as a Hindu prince fighting for the motherland. He talked her into joining the cause and coming back to India with him, but when they got there it turned out the prince’s father was a half-caste, mostly white, a butcher who made his living slaughtering sacred cows and selling the beef to the English. Maeve got back on the freighter and ran out of money in Shanghai.

  Where she met Adzhar?

  Where she met Adzhar. She was hysterical and conceited but she appealed to men, some men, young ones who liked her looks or older ones who liked the way she believed in things, tried to believe in things. Adzhar took care of her and got her going, even bought her a bookstore so she could make a living. If he hadn’t been so kind, maybe she would have grown up and stopped talking about causes and heroes with delicate fingers. Adzhar’s friends used to come to the bookstore, revolutionary exiles most of them. One of them was a young man he’d recruited back in Paris when he was still working for Trotsky, the hero with the shrapnel in his leg who used to play stickball with me as a kid. Maeve hadn’t known him before really, she was too young, but she got to know him then.

  Did he tell you what he was doing?

  No, she did. She told me all about it and how she was helping him, she was proud of that. A year or two after she went to Shanghai, there were some investigations in the drug business in the States and I had to get out of the country. I went to Canada, and the only job I could find was with a company that had just decided there was a fortune to be made peddling leprosy drugs in Asia. Leprosy drugs? For some reason they thought Asia was full of lepers waiting to buy an American cure. But I needed credentials, so I took the job and got sent to Tokyo. A little later Maeve showed up with the baby she’d had by Kikuchi. She told me all the wonderful things she was doing for the world and then she mentioned the baby. She wanted to get rid of it and asked me to help. I went to Lamereaux.

  Did he know who the father was?

  Of course. I told him.

  Well, when he took the child to Lotmann to raise, did he tell Lotmann who the father was?

  No. Buddhist custom doesn’t work that way. You’re not supposed to know who the child belongs to. You take it as an act of charity.

  One of them was a C
atholic priest and one of them was a Jewish rabbi. What’s Buddhist custom got to do with it?

  Japan. They were both living in Japan.

  I got it, buffalo. Charity. That’s the word, isn’t it? Well, that brings us up to the Gobi network and the end of the Gobi network. You weren’t working then, were you? During the eight years the net was running?

  No, I had money saved from the States.

  Sure you did. Sure.

  Quin sat a minute or two in silence. When he got to his feet he moved slowly. It was something he hadn’t done in a long time, measuring that kind of distance. He pushed his left shoulder out and swung from far back, putting all his weight behind the fist.

  He caught Geraty full in the face. Geraty went over, toppled backward, sprawled on his back across the terrace. Blood ran from his nose and mouth. Quin took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wrapped it around his hand. He was shaking.

  Like it, buffalo? Feel right? That was for a guy with a gimp leg who tried to make it and went crazy and a woman who tried to make it and took a high dive. And a broken-down Jesuit and a girl who was working as a whore as a kid and your fucking Marco Polo and your fucking Elijah and all those other poor fucking ticket-buyers who were trying to do something, anything, what does it matter, while you were loping around the edges of the circus whacked out on booze and horseradish, doing your jackal number on booze and horseradish, sneezing and scratching and whacked out in your damn fake costumes playing the impostor. But most of all, buffalo, it’s for Little Gobi, let’s call him that, not Big but Little, a guy who never tried to do anything at all and never hurt anyone. Those are people you’re talking about, don’t you know that? So she was conceited and hysterical and he thought he was going to be a hero, so fucking what? What the hell do you think you’ve done with your life? The gimp finds out he’s not a hero and his woman finds out she’s made a mess of it, the General tries and gets strung out and Lamereaux tries and gets strung out, and Little Gobi does nothing at all and gets his head knocked in and what the hell are you doing all that time? You didn’t do what Lamereaux did or what the General did or the gimp and his woman, you just sat on your ass doing nothing, not trying, doing nothing at all. You make me sick, buffalo. You and your shit. You and your liar’s dice. You and your arrogance and your stench and your fat ass and your speeches and your saints and your lies. You talk about other people after the way you’ve lived? Sitting on top of that kind of garbage? Just where do you get off thinking you can do something like that? Who the fuck do you think you are, going around faking everything in sight? A clown playing God?