Then the prefect asked the questions, each accompanied by a tap of the mallet from the angry magistrate, and continuous gasping groans from Bao.
Finally, scarlet and sweating, Bao cried, 'Stop! Please stop. 1 confess. I'll tell you what happened.'
The magistrate rested his mallet on the top of one wedge. 'Tell us.'
'I was tricked by a sorcerer into helping them. 1 didn't know at first what they were. They said if I didn't help them then they would steal my boy's soul.'
'What was his name, this sorcerer?'
'Bao Ssu‑nen, almost like mine. He came from Soochow, and he had lots of confederates working for him. He would fly all over China in a night. He gave me some of the stupefying powder and told me what to do. Please, release the press, please. I'm telling you everything now. 1 couldn't help doing it. I had to do it for the soul of my boy.'
'So you did cut queues on the nineteenth day of last month.'
'Only one! Only one, please. When they made me. Please, release the press a little.'
The Manchu official lifted his eyebrows at Widow Kang. 'So you were not with him as much as you claimed. Perhaps it's better for you that way.'
Someone tittered.
Kang said in her sharp hoarse bray, 'Obviously this is one of those confessions we have heard about, coerced by the ankle press. The whole soul‑stealing scare is based on such forced confessions, and all it does is cause panic among the servants and the workers. Nothing could be worse service of the Emperor
'Silence!'
'You send up these reports and cause the Emperor endless worry and then when a more competent investigation is made the string of forced lies is revealed
'Silence!'
'You are transparent from above and below! The Emperor will see it!'
The Manchu official stood and pointed at Kang. 'Perhaps you would like to take this sorcerer's place in the press.'
Kang was silent. Shih trembled beside her. She leaned on him and pushed forward one foot until it stood outside her gown, shod in a little silk slipper. She stared the Manchu in the eye.
'I have already withstood it.'
'Remove this demented creature from the examination,' the Manchu said tightly, his face a dark red. A woman's foot, exposed during the examination of a crime as serious as soul
stealing: it was beyond all regulation.
No woman of breeding ever referred to her feet or revealed them in public. This was a bold person!
'I am a witness,' Kang said, not moving.
'Please,'Bao called out to her. 'Leave, lady.
Do what the magistrate says.' He could barely twist far enough to look at her. 'It will be all right.'
So they left. On the way home in the guard's palanquin Kang wept, knocking aside Shih's comforting hands.
'What's wrong, Mother? What's wrong?,
'I have shamed your family. 1 have destroyed my husband's fondest hopes.'
Shih looked frightened. 'He's just a beggar.'
'Be quiet!' she hissed. Then she cursed like one of the servants. 'That Manchu! Miserable foreigners! They're not even Chinese. Not true Chinese. Every dynasty begins well, cleansing the decay of the fallen one before it. But then their turn for corruption comes. And the Qing are there. That's why they're so concerned with queue‑clipping. That's their mark on us, their mark on every Chinese man.'
'But that's the way it is, Mother. You can't change dynasties!'
'No. Oh, 1 am ashamed! I have lost my temper. 1 never should have gone there. I only added to the blows against poor Bao's ankles.'
At home she went to the women's quarters. She fasted, worked at her weaving all the hours she was awake, and would not talk with anyone.
Then news came that Bao had died in prison, of a fever that had nothing to do with his interrogation, or so said the jailers. Kang threw herself into her room, weeping, and would not come out. When she did, days later, she spent all her waking hours weaving or writing poems, and she ate at the loom and her writing desk. She refused to teach Shih, or even to speak to him, which upset him, indeed frightened him more than anything she might have said. But he enjoyed playing down by the river. Xinwu was required to stay away from him, and was cared for by the servants.
My poor monkey dropped its peach The new moon forgot to shine. No more climbing in the pine tree No little monkey on its back. Come back as a butterfly And 1 will be your dream.
One day not long after that, Pao brought Kang a small black queue, found buried in the mulberry compost by a servant who had been turning the muck. It was cut at an angle that matched the remnant at the back of Shih's head.
Kang hissed at the sight, and went into Shih's room and slapped him hard on the car. He howled, crying 'What? What?' Ignoring him, Kang went back to the women's quarters, groaning, and took up a pair of
scissors and slashed through all the silk cloth stretched over the frames for embroidering. The servant girls cried out in alarm, no one could believe their eyes. The mistress of the house had gone mad at last. Never had they seen her weep so hard, not even when her husband died.
Later she ordered Pao to say nothing about what had been found. Eventually all the servants found out about the discovery anyway, and Shih lived shunned in his own house. He did not seem to care.
But from that time, Widow Kang stopped sleeping at night. Often she called to Pao for wine. 'I've seen him again,' she would say. 'He was a young monk this time, in different robes. A huihui. And I was a young queen. He saved me, then we ran off together. Now his ghost is hungry, and he wanders between the worlds.'
They put offerings for him outside the gate, and at the windows. Still Kang woke the house with her sleeping cries, like a peacock's, and sometimes they would find her sleepwalking in between the buildings of the compound, speaking in strange tongues and even in voices not her own. It was established practice never to wake someone walking in their sleep, to avoid startling the spirit and causing it to become confused and not find its way back to its body. So they went in front of her, moving furniture so she would not hurt herself, and they pinched the rooster to make it crow early. Pao tried to get Shih to write to his older brothers and tell them what was happening, or at least to write down what his mother was saying at night, but Shih wouldn't do it.
Eventually Pao told Shih's eldest brother's head servant's sister about it, at the market when she was visiting Hangzhou, and after that word
eventually got to the eldest brother, in Nanjing. He did not come; he could not get away from his duties.
Note that if it had been his father sick at home, or beset by ghosts, he would certainly have been given leave to go.
He did, however, have a Muslim scholar visiting him, a doctor from the frontier, and
as this man had a professional interest in possessions such as Widow Kang's, he came a few months later to visit her.
Two. The Remembering
‑Kang Tongbi received the visitor in the rooms off the front courtyard devoted to entertaining guests, and sat watching him closely as he explained who he was, in a clear if strangely accented Chinese. His name was Ibrahim ibn Hasam. He was a small, slight man, about Kang's height and build, white‑haired. He wore reading glasses all the time, and his eyes swam behind the lenses like pond fish. He was a true hui, originally from Iran, though he had lived in China for most of the Qianlong Emperor's reign, and like most long‑term foreigners in China, had made a lifelong commitment to stay there.
'China is my home,' he said, which sounded odd with his accent. He nodded observantly at her expression. 'Not a pure Han, obviously, but 1 like it here. Actually 1 am soon moving back to Langzhou, to live among people of my faith. 1 think 1 have learned enough studying with Liu Zhi to be of service to those wishing for a better understanding between Muslim Chinese and Han Chinese. That is my hope, anyway.'
Kang nodded politely at this unlikely quest. 'And you have come here to ... ?'
He bowed. 'I have been assisting the governor of the province in these r
eported cases of . . .'
'Soul‑stealing?' Kang said sharply.
'Well. Yes. Queue‑cuttings, in any case. Whether they are a matter of sorcery, or merely of rebellion against the dynasty, is not so very easy to determine. 1 am a scholar for the most part, a religious scholar, but I have also been a student of the medical arts, and so 1 was summoned
to see if 1 could bring any light to bear on the matter. I have also studied cases of ‑possession of the soul. And other things like that.'
Kang regarded him coldly. He hesitated before continuing. 'Your eldest son informs me that you have suffered some incidents of this kind.'
'I know nothing about them,' she said sharply. 'My youngest son's queue was cut, that 1 am aware of. It has been investigated with no particular result. As for the rest, 1 am ignorant. 1 sleep, and have woken up a few times cold, and not in my bed. Elsewhere in the household, in fact. My servants tell me that 1 have been saying things they don't understand. Speaking something that is not Chinese.'
His eyes swam. 'Do you speak any other languages, madam?'
'Of course not.'
'Excuse me. Your son said you were extremely well‑educated.'
'My father was pleased to educate me in the classics along with his sons.'
'You have the reputation of being a fine poet.'
Kang did not reply, but coloured slightly.
'I hope 1 shall have the privilege of reading some of your poems. They could help me in my work here.'
'Which is?'
'Well ‑ to cure you of these visitations, if such is possible. And to aid the Emperor in his inquiry into the queue‑clippings.'
Kang frowned and looked away.
Ibrahim sipped his tea and waited. He seemed to have the ability to wait more or less indefinitely.
Kang gestured to Pao to refill his tea cup. 'Proceed, then.'
Ibrahim bowed from his seat. 'Thank you. Perhaps we can start by discussing this monk who died, Bao Ssu.'
Kang stiffened in her wall‑seat.
'I know it is difficult,' Ibrahim murmured. 'You care still for his son.'
'Yes.'
'And 1 am told that when he arrived you were convinced that you knew him from somewhere else.'
'Yes, that's right. But he said he came from Soochow, and had never been here before. And 1 have never been to Soochow. But 1 felt that 1 knew him.'
'And did you feel the same way about his boy?'
'No. But 1 feel the same about you.'
She clapped her hand over her mouth.
'You do?' Ibrahim watched her.
Kang shook her head. 'I don't know why 1 said that! It just came out.'
'Such things sometimes do.' He waved it off. 'But this Bao, who did not recognize you. Shortly after he arrived, there were incidents reported. Queue‑chopping, people's names written on pieces of paper and placed under wharf pilings about to be driven in ‑ that sort of thing. Soulstealing activities.'
Kang shook her head. 'He had nothing to do with that. He spent every day by the river, fishing with his son. He was a simple monk, that's all. They tortured him to no purpose.'
'He confessed to queue‑clipping.'
'On the ankle press he did! He would have said anything, and so would anyone else! It's a stupid way to investigate such crimes. It makes them spring up everywhere, like a ring of poison mushrooms.'
'True,' the man said. He took a sip of tea. 'I have often said so myself. And in fact it's becoming clear that that is what has happened here, in the present situation.'
Kang looked at him grimly. 'Tell me.'
'Well.' Ibrahim looked down. 'Monk Bao and his boy were first brought in for questioning in Anchi, as he may have told you. They had been begging by singing songs outside the village headman's house. The headman gave them a single piece of steamed bread, and Bao and Xinwu were apparently so hungry that Bao cursed the headman, who decided they were bad characters, and repeated his order for them to be off. Bao cursed him again before leaving, and the headman was so angry he had them arrested and their bags searched. They found some writings and medicines, and scissors
'Same as they found here.'
'Yes. And so the headman had them tied to a tree and beaten with chains. Nothing more was learned, however, and yet the two were pretty badly hurt. So the headman took part of a false queue worn by a bald guard in his employ, and put it in Bao's bag and sent him along to the prefecture for examination with the ankle press.'
'Poor man,' Kang exclaimed, biting her lip. 'Poor soul.'
'Yes.' Ibrahim took another sip. 'So, recently the governor‑general
began looking into these incidents by order of the Emperor, who is very concerned. I've helped somewhat in the investigation ‑ not with any questionings ‑examining physical evidence, like the false queue, which 1 showed was made of several different kinds of hair. So the headman was questioned, and told the whole story.'
'So it was all a lie.'
'Indeed. And in fact all the incidents can be traced back to an origin in a case similar to Bao's, in Soochow
'Monstrous.' except for the case of your son Shih.'
Kang said nothing. She gestured, and Pao refilled the tea cups.
After a very long silence, Ibrahim said, 'No doubt hooligans in town took advantage of the scare to frighten your boy.'
Kang nodded.
'And also,' he went on, 'if you have been experiencing ‑ possessions by spirits ‑possibly he, also .
She said nothing.
'Do you know of any oddities . .
For a long time they sat together in silence, sipping tea. Finally Kang said, 'Fear itself is a kind of possession.'
'Indeed.'
They sipped tea for a while more.
'I will tell the governor‑general that there is nothing to worry about here.'
'Thank you.'
Another silence.
'But 1 am interested in any subsequent manifestations of ... anything out of the ordinary.'
'Of course.'
'I hope we can discuss them. 1 know of ways to investigate such things.'
'Possibly.'
Soon after, the hui doctor ended his visit.
After he was gone, Kang wandered the compound from room to room, trailed by the worried Pao. She looked into Shih's room, now empty, his books on their shelves unopened. Shih had gone down to the riverside, no doubt to be with his friend Xinwu.
Kang looked in the women's quarters, at the loom on which so much of their fortune resided; and the writing stand, ink block, brushes, stacks of paper.
Geese fly north against the moon. Sons grow up and leave. In the garden, my old bench. Some days I'd rather have rice and salt. Sit like a plant, neck outstretched: Honk, honk! Fly away!
Then on to the kitchens, and the garden under the old juniper. Not a word did she say, but retired to her bedroom in silence.
That night, however, cries again woke the household. Pao rushed out ahead of the other servants, and found Widow Kang slumped against the garden bench, under the tree. Pao pulled her mistress's open night shift over her breast and hauled her up onto the bench, crying 'Mistress Kang!' because her eyes were open wide; yet they saw nothing of this world. The whites were visible all the way around, and she stared through Pao and the others, seeing other people and muttering in tongues. 'In challa, in challa', a babble of sounds, cries, squeaks, 'urn mana pada hum'; and all in voices not hers.
'Ghosts!' squealed Shih, who had been wakened by the fuss. 'She's possessed!'
' Quiet please,' hissed Pao. 'We must return her to her bed still asleep.'
She took one arm, Zunli took the other, and as gently as they could, they lifted her. She was as light as a cat, lighter than she ought to have been. 'Gently,' Pao said as they bumped her over the sill and laid her down. Even as she lay there she popped back up like a puppet, and said, in something like her own voice, 'The little goddess died despite all.'
Pao sent word to the hui doctor of what had occurred, and
a note came back with their servant, requesting another interview. Kang snorted and dropped the note on the table and said nothing. But a week later the servants were told to prepare lunch for a visitor, and it was Ibrahim ibn Hasam who appeared at the gate, blinking behind his spectacles.
Kang greeted him with the utmost formality, and led him into
the parlour, where the best porcelain was laid out for a meal.
After they had eaten and were sipping tea, Ibrahim nodded and said, 'I am told that you suffered another attack of sleepwalking.'
The Years of Rice and Salt Page 40