Kang inspected his face carefully in the lamplight. She shuddered palpably, stepped back. 'Do 1 know you?' she said to herself. Then to him: 'I know you!'
The monk bowed his head. 'I don't know how, lady. 1 come from Soochow. Perhaps you've visited there?'
She shook her head, still disturbed, peering intently into his eyes. 'I know you,' she whispered.
Then to the servants she said, 'Let him sleep by the back gate. Guard him, and we'll find out more in the morning. It's too dark now to see a man's nature.'
in the morning the man had been joined by a boy just a few years younger than Shih. Both were filthy, and were busy sifting the compost for the freshest scraps of food, which they wolfed down. They regarded the members of the household at the gate as warily as foxes. But they could not run away; the man's ankles were both swollen and bruised.
'What were you questioned for?' Kang asked sharply.
The man hesitated, looking down at the boy. 'My son and 1 were travelling through on our way back to the Temple of the Purple Bamboo Grove, and apparently some young boy had his queue clipped about that time.'
Kang hissed, and the man looked her in the eye, one hand up. 'We're no sorcerers. That's why they let us go. But my name is Bao Ssu, fourth son of Bao Ju, and a beggar they had in hand for cursing a village headmaster was questioned, and he named a sorcerer he said he had met, called Bao Ssu‑ju. They thought I might be that man. But I'm no soulstealer. just a poor monk and his son. In the end they brought the beggar back in, and he confessed he had made it all up, to stop his questioning. So they let us go.,
Kang regarded them with undiminished suspicion. It was a cardinal rule to stay out of trouble with the magistrates; so they were guilty of that, at the least.
'Did they torture you too?' Shih asked the boy.
'They were going to,' the boy replied, 'but they gave me a pear instead, and 1 told them Father's name was Bao Ssu‑ju. I thought it was right.'
Bao kept watching the widow. 'You don't mind if we get water from the river?'
'No. Of course not. Go.' And she watched him while the man limped down the path to the river.
'We can't let them inside, she decided. 'And Shih, don't you go near them. But they can keep the gate shrine. Until winter comes that will be better than the road for them, 1 suppose.'
This did not surprise Shih. His mother was always adopting stray cats and castaway concubines; she helped to maintain the town orphanage, and stretched their finances by supporting the Buddhist nuns. She often spoke of becoming one herself. She wrote poetry: 'These flowers 1 walk on hurt my heart,' she would recite from one of her day poems. 'When my days of rice and salt are over,' she would say, 'I'll
copy out the sutras and pray all day. But until then we had all better get to the day's work!'
So, after that the monk Bao and his boy became fixtures at the gate, and around that part of the river, in the bamboo groves and the shrine hidden in the thinning forest there. Bao never regained a normal walk, but he was not quite as hobbled as on the night of Guanyin's enlightenment day, and what he could not do his son Xinwu, who was strong for his size, did for both of them. On the next New Year's Day they joined the festivities, and Bao had managed to obtain a few eggs and
colour them red, so that he could give them out to Kang and Shih and other members of t e ousehold.
Bao presented the eggs with great seriousness: 'Ge Hong related that the Buddha said the cosmos is egg‑shaped, and the Earth like
Giving red eggs: this was a south China custom, called 'sending happiness for the new year'. Possibly the author means to suggest the monk Bao had lied about his place of origin.
the yolk inside it.' As he gave one to Shih he said, 'Here, put it long~ ways in your hand, and try to crush it.'
Shih looked startled, and Kang objected: 'It's too pretty.'
'Don't worry, it's strong. Go ahead, try to crush it. I'll clean it up if you can.'
Shih squeezed gingerly, turning his head aside, then harder. He squeezed until his forearm was taut. The egg held. Widow Kang took it from him and tried it herself. Her arms were very strong from embroidery, but the egg stood fast.
'You see,' Bao said. 'Eggshell is weak stuff, but the curve is strong. People are like that too. Each person weak, but together strong.'
After that, on religious festival days Kang would often join Bao outside the gate, and discuss the Buddhist scriptures with him. The rest of the time she ignored the two, concentrating on the world inside the walls.
Shih's studies continued to go badly. He did not seem to be able to understand arithmetic beyond addition, and could not memorize the classics beyond a few words at the start of each passage. His mother found his study sessions intensely frustrating. 'Shih, 1 know you are not a stupid boy. Your father was a brilliant man, your brothers are solid thinkers, and you have always been quick to find reasons why nothing
is ever your fault, and why everything has to be your way. Think of equations as excuses, and you'll be fine! But all you do is think of ways not to think of things!'
Before this kind of scorn, poured on in sharp tones, no one could stand. It was not just Kang's words, but the way she said them, with a cutting edge and a crow's voice; and the curl of her lip, and the blazing, self‑righteous glare ‑ the way she looked right into you as she flailed you with her words ‑ no one could face it. Wailing miserably as always, Shih retreated from this latest withering blast.
Not long after that scolding, he came running back from the market, wailing in earnest. Shrieking, in fact, in a full fit of hysterics. 'My queue, my queue, my queue!'
It had been cut off. The servants shouted in consternation, all was an uproar for a moment, but it was cut as short as Shih's little pigtail stub by his mother's grating voice:
'Shut up all of you!'
She seized Shih by the arms and put him down on the window seat where she had so often examined him. Roughly she brushed away his tears and petted him. 'Calm yourself, calm down. Calm down! Tell me what happened.'
Through convulsive sobs and hiccoughs he got the story out. He had stopped on the way home from the market to watch a juggler, when hands had seized him across the eyes, and a cloth had been put across his face, covering both mouth and eyes. He had felt dizzy then and had collapsed, and when he picked himself off the ground, there was no one there, and his queue was gone.
Kang watched him intently through the course of his tale, and when he had finished and was staring at the floor, she pursed her lips and went to the window. She looked out at the chrysanthemums under the old gnarled juniper for a long time. Finally her head servant, Pao, approached her. Shih was led off to have his face washed and get some food.
'What shall we do?' Pao asked in a low voice.
Kang heaved a heavy sigh. 'We'll have to report it,' she said darkly. 'If we didn't, it would surely become known anyway, from the servants talking at the market. And then it would look as if we were encouraging rebellion.'
'Of course,' Pao said, relieved. 'Shall I go and inform the magistrate now?'
For the longest time there was no reply. Pao stared at Widow Kang, more and more frightened. Kang seemed under a malignant enchant
ment, as if she were even at that moment fighting soul‑stealers for the soul of her son.
'Yes. Go with Zunli. We will follow with Shih.,
Pao left. Kang wandered the household, looking at one object after another, as if inspecting the rooms. Finally she went out
of the compound front gate, slowly down the river path.
The Qing dynasty forced all Ilan Chinese men to shave their foreheads and wear a queue, in the Manchurian manner, to show submission of the Hans to their Manchu emperors. In the years before the White Lotus conspiracy, Han bandits began to cut their queues off as a mark of rebellion.
On the bank under the great oak tree she found Bao and his boy Xinwu, just where they always were.
She said, 'Shih has had his queue cut.'
B
ao's face went grey. Sweat sprang on his brow.
Kang said, 'We take him to the magistrate presently.'
Bao nodded, swallowing. He glanced at Xinwu.
'If you want to go on a pilgrimage to some far shrine,' Kang said harshly, 'we could watch your son.'
Bao nodded again, face stricken. Kang looked at the river flowing by in the afternoon light. The band of sun on water made her squint.
'If you go,' she added, they will be sure you did it.'
The river flowed by. Down the bank Xinwu threw stones in the water and yelled at the splashes.
'Same if I stay,' Bao said finally.
Kang did not reply.
After a time Bao called Xinwu over, and told him that because he had to go on a long pilgrimage, Xinwu was to stay with Kang and Shih and their household.
'When will you be back?' Xinwu asked.
'Soon.'
Xinwu was satisfied, or unwilling to think about it.
Bao reached out and touched Kang's sleeve. 'Thank you.'
'Go. Be careful not to get caught.'
'I will. If I can I'll send word to the Temple of the Purple Bamboo Grove.'
'No. If we don't hear from you, we will know you are well.'
He nodded. As he was about to take his leave, he hesitated. 'You know, lady, all beings have lived many lives. You say we have met before, but before the festival of Guanyin, 1 never came near here.'
'I know.'
'So it must be that we knew each other in some other life.'
'I know.' She glanced at him briefly. 'Go.'
He limped off upstream on the bank path, glancing around to see if there were any witnesses. Indeed there were fisherfolk on the other bank, their straw hats bright in the sun.
Kang took Xinwu back to the house, then got in a sedan chair to take the snivelling Shih to town and the magistrate's offices.
The magistrate looked as displeased as Widow Kang had been to have this kind of matter thrown in his lap. But like her, he could not afford to ignore it, and so he interviewed Shih, angrily, and had him lead them all to the spot in town where it had happened. Shih indicated a place on the path next to a copse of bamboo, and just out of sight of the first stalls of the market in that district. No one habitually there had seen Shih or any unusual strangers that morning. It was a complete dead end.
So Kang and Shih went home, and Shih cried and complained that he felt sick and could not study. Kang stared at him and gave him the day off, plus a healthy dose of powdered gypsum mixed with the gall~ stones of a cow. They heard nothing from Bao or the magistrate, and Xinwu fitted in well with the household's servants. Kang let Shih be for a time, until one day she got angry at him and seized what was left of his queue and yanked him into his examination seat, saying 'Stolen soul or not, you are going to pass your exams!' and stared down at his catlike face, until he muttered the lesson for the day before his queue had been cut, looking sorry for himself, and implacable before his mother's disdain. But she was more implacable still. If he wanted dinner he had to learn.
Then news came that Bao had been apprehended in the mountains to the west, and brought back to be interrogated by the magistrate and the district prefect. The soldiers who brought the news wanted Kang and Shih down at the prefecture immediately; they had brought a palanquin to carry them in.
Kang hissed at this news, and returned to her rooms to dress properly for the trip. The servants saw that her hands were shaking, indeed her whole body trembled, and her lips were white beyond the power of gloss to colour them. Before she left her room she sat down before the loom and wept bitterly. Then she stood and redid her eyes, and went out to join the guards.
At the prefecture Kang descended from the chair and dragged Shih with her into the prefect's examination chamber. There the guards would have stopped her, but the magistrate called her in, adding ominously, 'This is the woman who was giving him shelter.'
Shih cringed at this, and looked at the officials from behind Kang's embroidered silk gown. Along with the magistrate and prefect were several other officials, wearing robes striped with arm bands and deco~ rated with the insignia squares of very high‑ranking officials: bear, deer, even an eagle.
They did not speak, however, but only sat in chairs watching the magistrate and prefect, who stood by the unfortunate Bao. Bao was clamped in a wooden device that held his arms up by his head. His legs were tied into an ankle press.
The ankle press was a simple thing. Three posts rose from a wooden base; the central one, between Bao's ankles, was fixed to the base. The other two were linked to the middle one at about waist height by an iron dowel rod that ran through all three, leaving the outer two loose, though big bolts meant they could only move outwards so far. Bao's ankles were secured to either side of the middle post; the lower ends of the outer posts were pressing against the outsides of Bao's ankles. The upper ends had been pressed apart from the middle post by wooden wedges. All was already as tight as could be; any further taps on top of the wedges by the magistrate with his big mallet would press on Bao's ankles with enormous leverage.
'Answer the question!' the magistrate roared, leaning down to shout in Bao's face. He straightened up, walked back slowly and gave the nearest wedge a sharp tap with his mallet.
Bao howled. Then: 'I'm a monk! I've been living with my boy by the river! I can't walk any farther! 1 don't go anywhere!'
'Why are there scissors in your bag?' the prefect demanded quietly. 'Scissors, powders, books. And a bit of a queue.'
'That's not hair! That's my talisman from the temple, see how it's braided! Those are scriptures from the temple ‑ ah!'
'It is hair,' the prefect said, looking at it in the light.
The magistrate tapped again with his mallet.
'It isn't my son's hair,' the widow Kang interjected, surprising everyone. 'This monk lives near our house. He doesn't go anywhere but to the river for water.'
'How do you know?' the prefect asked, boring into Kang with his gaze. 'How could you know?'
'I see him there at all hours. He brings our water, and some wood. He has a boy. He watches our shrine. He's just a poor monk, a beggar. Crippled by this thing of yours,' she said, gesturing at the ankle press.
'What is this woman doing here?' the prefect asked the magistrate.
The magistrate shrugged, looking angry. 'She's a witness like any other.'
' 1 didn't call for witnesses.'
'We did,' said one of the officials from the governor. 'Ask her more.'
The magistrate turned to her. 'Can you vouch for the presence of this man on the nineteenth day of last month?'
'He was at my property, as I said.'
'On that day in particular? How can you know that?'
'Guanyin's annunciation festival was the next day, and Bao Ssu here helped us in our preparations for it. We worked all day at preparing for the sacrifices.'
Silence in the room. Then the visiting dignitary said sharply, 'So you are a Buddhist?'
Widow Kang regarded him calmly. 'I am the widow of Kung Xin, who was a local yamen before his death. My sons Kung Yen and Kung Yi have both passed their examinations, and are serving the Emperor at Nanjing and ‑'
'Yes yes. But are you Buddhist, I asked.'
'I follow the Han ways,' Kang said coldly.
The official questioning her was a Manchu, one of the Qianlong Emperor's high officers. He reddened slightly now. 'What does this have to do with your religion?'
'Everything. Of course. 1 follow the old ways, to honour my husband and parents and ancestors. What 1 do to occupy the hours before 1
rejoin my husband is of no importance to anyone else, of course. it is only the spiritual work of an old woman, one who has not yet died. But 1 saw what 1 saw.' 'How old are you?' 'Forty‑one sui.'
'And you spent all day on the nineteenth day of the ninth month with this beggar here.'
Age in Chinese reckoning was calculated by taking the lunar year of one's birth as year one, and adding
a year at each lunar New Year's Day.
'Enough of it to know he could not have
gone to the town market and back. Naturally 1 worked at the loom in the afternoon.'
Another silence in the chamber. Then the Manchu official gestured to the magistrate irritably.
'Question the man further.'
With a vicious glance at Kang, the magistrate leaned over to shout down at Bao, 'Why do you have scissors in your bag!'
'For making talismans.'
The magistrate tapped the wedge harder than before, and Bao howled again.
'Tell me what they were really for! Why was there a queue in your bag?' With hard taps at each question.
The Years of Rice and Salt Page 39