Bridge of Birds mlanto-1

by Barry Hughart

  “Mere literary convention,” Li Kao said, with an airy wave of a hand. “Beauty is ridiculously overrated, and if that was all that the Star Shepherd wanted, he had the young goddesses of Heaven to choose from. The Star Shepherd had enough sense to want a peasant girl whose eyes held all the hope and joy and wonder in the world, and whose grin could fell an ox at fifty paces. Ask this ox here,” he said with a wink in my direction. “Ox, remind me to change my business sign so that the eye is nine tenths closed. I should have known that Lotus Cloud was immortal the moment that Miser Shen reacted to her exactly as you did.”

  Lotus Cloud stamped her foot. “I refuse to believe one word of this nonsense,” she said angrily.

  “Why should you? The Duke of Ch'in took you to the Old Man of the Mountain, who removed your memory,” Master Li said reasonably.

  He strolled over to the table and sat down, and placed the little crown and the Great Root of Power beside the wine jar. Then he opened his smuggler's belt, and the three feathers of the Kings of Birds jumped eagerly into place when he touched them to the rim of the crown.

  “It is truly said that men die like trees, from the top down.” Master Li sighed. “If my poor brains had not been riddled by wood rot and little green worms I might have considered the fact that Miser Shen was not jealous of Number Ten Ox, and Number Ten Ox was not jealous of Miser Shen. None of Lotus Cloud's lovers was ever jealous. Now that simply isn't human if we're talking about love, but it is very human indeed if we're talking about worship. One is not jealous of a fellow-worshipper, and the pure in heart will always recognize a goddess. I have had occasion to mention the purity of Ox's heart, and beneath his repulsive exterior Miser Shen was solid gold. I have no doubt that her other lovers were equally admirable, which is why I was unable to recognize the young lady myself.”

  He stood up and bowed to Lotus Cloud again.

  “There is,” said Master Li, “a slight flaw in my character.”

  He sat down and filled two cups from the wine jar and slid them across the table toward Lotus Cloud and me. Then he picked up one of the jewels that he had shown to the Key Rabbit.

  “My stupidity was such that I remained unaware of the obvious until I found this,” he said sadly. “It is a very rare pearl, jet-black, with one small white flaw in the shape of a star. Lotus Cloud, I once gave this pearl to Ox, who rolled it toward your feet. The next time I saw it was in a drowned city, where it was lying beside the casket that contained the duke's heart. Dear girl, I knew very well that you forgot about a gift of pearls and jade ten minutes after you received it, but it never occurred to me to wonder what happened to the stuff.”

  He turned and thoughtfully examined the crumpled robe upon the floor.

  “The Duke of Ch'in was abysmally stupid, but on one occasion he showed real intelligence,” Master Li said. “After removing the memory of the Princess of Birds, the Old Man of the Mountain almost certainly offered to transform her into a raindrop or a rose petal, for a stiff price, but the duke knew better. He lived only for money, and if he left Jade Pearl precisely as she was he would have something that was worth a thousand gold mines. You see, it is in the nature of men to worship a goddess and to bring her valuable offerings, and it is in the nature of a goddess to accept their worship and their offerings. The men are not being lecherous. The goddess is neither greedy nor promiscuous. They are merely acting out roles that were ordained at the beginning of time, and to my own certain knowledge Lotus Cloud has collected more pearls and jade than the entire army of the Duke of Ch'in. Every bit of it has wound up in treasure troves guarded by monsters.”

  Cold fingers were crawling over my spine, and I lifted my cup and drained it at a gulp. Lotus Cloud stood frozen, with her cup halfway to her lips.

  “I don't believe it,” she whispered.

  “I'll bet that the duke also struggled with disbelief,” Master Li said. Then he began to laugh—a real belly laugh, with a happy whoop at the end. “There is something indescribably comic about the greediest man in the whole world who gets his hands on the least acquisitive goddess in history,” he panted, wiping tears from his eyes. “Ox, the duke must have suffered terribly from ulcers until he discovered Lotus Cloud's one weak spot. Think about it. Think very carefully about pearls and jade, because it may help you to do something unpleasant.”

  He refilled my cup while I tried to think about pearls and jade. My mind refused to function at all, but something from deep down was trying to work its way up, so I stopped trying to think and let whatever it was take over. I closed my eyes tightly, and then I was inside a strange world of glowing milky whiteness, and a thirteen-year-old girl was looking at me gravely.

  “Ever since we held hands and recited the Orphan's Song, I knew that you would fall in love with Lotus Cloud,” Mouse said softly. “Ox, you must use all of your strength to touch the queen before the count reaches forty-nine. Forty-nine can mean for ever and ever and ever.” Mouse was fading into the whiteness. “Is not a thousand years enough?” she said faintly. “The birds must fly…. The birds must fly…. The birds must fly….”

  The image was gone, and I remembered that the world had been white because in my dream I had been inside a pearl, and with a sudden shock I understood the meaning of the pearl.

  I opened my eyes to find Li Kao looking at me with a stern expression, but kindly eyes.

  “Number Ten Ox, in a little while the watchman will rap three times, and the seventh day of the seventh moon will have come and gone,” he said quietly. “For the thousandth time the Star Shepherd will gaze down from the Great River at an empty sky, and for the thousandth time he will weep bitter tears. Thus he will weep throughout eternity, considering that the Emperor of Heaven quoted the odds against bringing the princess back to the stars at one in ten thousand billion trillion. Of course there is a slight chance that somebody might want to give the Celestial Bookmaker a heart attack.”

  Master Li slid the crown toward me. I blinked through my tears and picked it up. This was the only life that Lotus Cloud could remember, and she backed away fearfully.

  “No,” she whispered. “I love you, and you love me, and we can find a desert island and live happily ever after!”

  “That's the point,” I sniffled. “Ever after is such a very long time.”

  “I am afraid,” Lotus Cloud said desperately. “I don't want to be changed into something strange.”

  “Oh yes, you do,” I said sadly. “Lotus Cloud, you yawned in the presence of diamonds. Emeralds bored you to tears. I gave you a casket of gold, which you handed to the first person who asked for it. You have never asked for a new dress, and you wouldn't know what to do with a servant, but everything changed when I brought you pearls and jade. You could never quite remember, but you could never quite forget, and your eyes grew wide with hope and wonder, and your face was transfigured by longing, and a soul-shaking desire wracked your whole body, and with trembling hands you reached not toward pearls and jade, but toward yourself.”

  My heart was breaking as I maneuvered her into a corner. “Pearls and jade, and the name of the Princess of Birds,” I said gently, “was Jade Pearl.”

  Then I reached out and placed the little golden crown upon the head of the woman I loved.

  30. China!

  I suppose that there is only a slight chance that a person will be called upon to rescue a goddess, but the odds will increase dramatically if the person is as illustrious as are my readers, so I will offer two pieces of advice.

  Beware of her divine light, and take cover.

  No sooner had the crown touched Lotus Cloud's head than I was nearly blinded, and I sank to my knees and gazed at dancing black spots and bright orange pinwheels. Even then I could see in my heart that she had moved away from me, and when my eyes adjusted to the unearthly glow I saw that my beloved Lotus Cloud had picked up the Great Root of Power from the table and had walked outside to the garden. She was surrounded by a shimmering nimbus, and the crown upon her head flickered l
ike fire. The Princess of Birds paid no attention to me, and I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  “Dear boy, she has a great many things to think about,” Master Li said kindly. “Sit down with me at the table and have a drink. Have six or seven.”

  In the garden the dogs were crouched over the tiny pile of dust that had been the heart of their master. They were as still as statues. Lotus Cloud lifted her face to the night sky and uttered a low cry that was neither a song nor a whistle, but something in between, and the dogs jerked their heads up and appeared to be listening to a distant echo. Then Lotus Cloud dropped to her knees and bowed her head and clasped her hands together. She prayed for many minutes, and then she humbly banged her head against the ground. Lotus Cloud got to her feet and bowed her head over the Great Root, and for another minute she silently communed with her godmother. Then the Princess of Birds turned and lifted the Queen of Ginseng toward the huge looming shape of the Castle of the Labyrinth.

  Master Li grabbed the wine jar. He told me to follow his example, and then he crawled beneath the sturdy table and arranged some heavy pillows for further protection. “Ever since I was a wee lad, I have been addicted to spectacular endings,” he said nostalgically. “Pass your cup.”

  “Master Li, I don't think that I can handle any more wine,” I said shakily, as I stared with terrified eyes at the vast fortress upon the cliff.

  “Nonsense! Try saying ‘forty-four dead stone lions.’ ”

  “Forty-four dead stone lions.”

  “Sober as a Confucian,” Master Li declared.

  I could not dispute it. We were speaking the Peking dialect called Mandarin, in which “forty-four dead stone lions” comes out as ssu shih ssu ssu shih shih, if it comes out at all, so I passed my cup.

  I was not the only one who gazed in terror at the Castle of the Labyrinth. It was slowly twisting upon its foundations, as though it were being squeezed by a giant hand, and screams and shrieks rang through the streets of the greatest pleasure city in the world, and merchants and merrymakers and priests and prostitutes fell upon their knees and began babbling prayers and promises to repent.

  That monstrous monument to temporal power was dissolving. Invincible walls were bending like soft wax, and great stone slabs were spraying down like scattered grains of sand, and enormous steel gates were ripping apart like flimsy parchment. The iron towers melted into mud, and the drawbridges toppled into the moats, and the face of the solid cliff cracked and splintered, and the water from the moats shot over the edge of the cliff and glittered in the moonlight like silver as it plunged in a foaming cascade to the sea. Tunnels and torture chambers collapsed and buried forever the terrible secrets of the Duke of Ch'in, and in the depths of the labyrinth the tiger screamed for the last time.

  A great cloud of dust and debris billowed up and blotted out the moon, and stones and steel rained down upon the duke's city. Small pieces of wreckage crashed through the roof and pounded like drumsticks upon the table that covered us. Then a great gust of wind blew down from Heaven and the dust cloud vanished as though it had never been, and I stared in wonder at the Castle of the Labyrinth as you will see it today: a great twisted mass of wreckage scattered across the face of a cliff overlooking the Yellow Sea.

  Li Kao's eyes were shining, and he happily punched my shoulder. “One should not be miserly when it comes to a spectacular ending, and unless I am greatly mistaken, we are in for a whopper,” he said. “Listen.”

  The sound was faint at first. Then it grew stronger and stronger, deepening in pitch as the chorus swelled, and resolved itself into a great song of joy as a million birds, a billion, a trillion, every bird in China, including those that had to break out of cages, came flashing across the face of the moon toward their princess. The mobs in the streets jumped to their feet and took to their heels, howling in terror while the trees and shrubs bowed beneath a great wind of wings, and billions of blossoms whirled through the air and turned bawling bonzes into bouquets, and fleeing felons into flower arrangements.

  The great Phoenix, mightiest of all, led the way, and his flaming crown of feathers streaked across the sky like a meteor. Behind him flew the Eagle and the Albatross, the kings of the birds of land and sea. Then came the Owl, prince of the birds of night, and the Lark, prince of the birds of day, and the Swan, prince of the birds of rivers, and the Crane, prince of the birds of marshes, and the Parrot, prince of the birds of jungles, and the Petrel, prince of the birds of storms, and the Raven, prince of the birds of prophecy—I shall not give the entire list. Henpecked Ho might have drawn it up, since it covers twenty pages. Behind the officers flew the legions, and the world was fragrant with the sharp clean scent of the green twigs and branches that they carried in their claws.

  The crown upon the head of Lotus Cloud was shining even brighter than the crown of the Phoenix. She uttered another low cry, and the mighty Falcon, prince of the birds of war, slid silently down from the sky and landed in the garden. It was as big as a horse, and its talons glittered like swords, and its wise old yellow eyes glowed like smoky torches. Lotus Cloud ran up and wrapped her arms around the Falcon's neck and rested her cheek against its head. She stood like that for some time, and then she turned, unconsciously imperial, and looked straight at two gentlemen who were still crouched beneath a table. We found ourselves crawling out, and walking obediently into the garden. The Princess of Birds reached out and placed the Great Root of Power in my hands.

  “My godmother wishes to go with you,” she said softly. “She has suffered much, and she prays that in the village of Ku-fu she may be able to perform the task for which she was born. I have spoken to the Falcon, who alone of all living creatures may be able to get you there in time.”

  She turned to Li Kao.

  “I have a message that I do not understand,” she said simply. “The August Personage of Jade says that he will reserve a place for you in the constellation Scorpio, where you will rule as the red star Antares, whose sign is that of the fox, on the condition that you do not try to sell him any shares in a mustard mine.”

  “Conditions, conditions,” Master Li grumbled, but I could see that he was immensely pleased.

  Lotus Cloud gestured, and the Falcon bent down and Li Kao and I obediently climbed upon its back. Lotus Cloud leaned forward; her lips softly brushed my cheek.

  “I will never forget you,” she whispered. “Not through all eternity.”

  The princess stepped back. For the last time I saw her incredible grin, and she waved, and the great wings pumped once, twice, and then the prince of the birds of war shot up into the air. The Falcon wheeled around, and the wings flashed so swiftly that they were nearly transparent in the moonlight, and Master Li and Number Ten Ox set sail across the night sky of China.

  I turned and looked back, blinking through tears. A billion birds were beginning to build a bridge with their twigs and branches, and their princess was placing her foot upon the first step. Never again would I see her. Never again would I hold her in my arms. The Falcon turned its head, and its voice was surprisingly soft and gentle.

  “Number Ten Ox, why do you weep?” the Falcon asked. “The Princess of Birds has vowed to remember you throughout eternity, and by now you should know that men cannot come any closer to immortality without going insane.”

  The beautiful Bridge of Birds was climbing slowly toward the stars, and a great song was spreading across China. Faster and faster we sped through the sky, and on the ground below the peasants were running from the cottages and lifting little children in their arms to gaze at glory.

  “You see?” said the peasants. “That is why you must never give up, no matter how bad things may seem. Anything is possible in China!”

  We shot over a ridge to a small valley where men stood frozen in awe and wonder, and I began to feel a certain respect for Pawnbroker Fang and Ma the Grub, who were taking the opportunity to pick the pockets of their own lynch mob. The Falcon's burning eyes were lighting up the night like lighthouse beacons as
we flashed past, and then we swooped over another ridge and down into another valley toward an old well and a bricked-up hole in a wall.

  The Falcon was right. Why should I weep? Bright Star had shed enough bitter tears for both of us, but now her tears came from joy as she gazed at the Bridge of Birds, sparkling in the distance. The dancing girl and her captain were giving a great scholar the respectful attention he deserved, and Henpecked Ho gestured grandly at the glorious sky.

  “So the peasant girl knelt before the Emperor of Heaven, and he placed the little gold crown upon her head. ‘Arise, Princess of Birds!’ he commanded, and when Jade Pearl stood up she was astonished to see that she shone with a divine light….”

  The Falcon flashed past, and mountains and valleys disappeared as though China were being folded up like a map beneath us, and we shot down the side of a low mountain where three more ghosts were seated upon a rock, gazing up at the Bridge of Birds.

  “You know, I feel in my heart that I had something to do with this, although it scarcely seems possible,” Miser Shen said wonderingly. “I cannot imagine how anything so beautiful could be associated with someone so ugly as myself.”

  His wife kissed his cheek, and the lovely little girl in his arms looked up in surprise. “But, Daddy, you are very beautiful,” said Ah Chen.

  They vanished behind us. Another mountain and another valley vanished in a blur, and then the Falcon slowed and feathered its wings above a cemetery, where a tired and lonely old man was trudging between gravestones with a cadaver on his back. He tilted the head of the corpse toward the Bridge of Birds.

  “Now look here, if the birds can pull off a trick like that, surely you can manage something so simple as resurrection,” Doctor Death said reasonably. “Perhaps it would help if you understood how important it is. My wife was not pretty, but she was the most wonderful wife in the world. Her name was Chiang-chao, and we were very poor, but she could make the most delicious meals from a handful of rice and the herbs that she picked in the woods. She sang beautiful songs to cheer me when I was depressed, and she sewed dresses for wealthy ladies to help pay for my studies. We were very happy together, and I know that we will be happy together again.”