by Lao She
Scorpion finally confessed the truth: the morning bath spectators had been invited out from the city and were all upper-class Cat People. Ordinarily the upper class would never have got up so early, but the opportunity to watch an Earthman bathe was too rare to pass up. Moreover, Scorpion had agreed to provide succulent reverie leaves for the occasion. Each person gave him ten National Souls (the standard monetary unit in Cat Country) for the privilege of watching me. And at no extra cost, each spectator got two succulent and juicy leaves of the very best quality.
Why you bastard, I thought to myself. Putting me on display as though I were your personal property! Before I had a chance to explode, Scorpion had a deceptive explanation all ready. ‘Look at it this way: A National Soul is a National Soul. Getting other people’s National Souls into one’s own hands is certainly an honourable undertaking,’ he said while walking at a fast pace, which didn’t seem to interfere in the least with his devious reasoning. ‘Now although I didn’t talk it over with you beforehand, I knew that you certainly wouldn’t oppose such an honourable undertaking. You’d still get to take your bath as usual, and I’d take the opportunity to obtain a few National Souls. The spectators would broaden their understanding, and it would be a profitable undertaking all round. Very profitable!’
‘But who is going to take the responsibility for the people who died of fright during all your nonsense?’
‘You scared them to death, so it doesn’t matter! If I killed somebody,’ Scorpion continued breathlessly ‘then although I’d get away with it, I’d still have to pay out a few leaves. After all, the law is nothing but a few words engraved on stone and you can always get around it if you have enough leaves. As a matter of fact, if you’ve got the leaves, you don’t even have to worry about murder. With you, a foreigner, it’s easier yet. You don’t even need leaves. Kill anyone you please and no one will dare say anything. In any case, Cat Country law doesn’t apply to foreigners. You wouldn’t even have to spend a single, solitary leaf. How I’d love to be a foreigner like you! For instance, if you kill someone in the countryside, then as a foreigner, you can just leave him there as a snack for those white-tailed hawks and forget about it. If you kill a man in the city, then all you have to do is go to the local courthouse and report it. Our judge will even apologise for inconveniencing you!’ Scorpion seemed extremely envious of me and I even seemed to detect a few tears in his eyes. I was about to shed a few myself. Pitiful Cat People! What kind of life did they have? What guarantees were there for their rights and security?
‘But those two who died were influential people. Won’t their relatives make trouble for you?’
‘Of course they will! Who do you think it is that’s plundering the forest at this very moment? They sent scouts over quite a while back to see what you were doing. As soon as you were a good distance from the forest, they started pillaging. One of their people died, and now they’re avenging him by stealing my reverie leaves! Hurry!’
‘Are men and reverie leaves exactly equivalent in value?’
‘The dead are dead, but the living still have to eat reverie leaves. Hurry!’
Suddenly it occurred to me – perhaps because I too had been contaminated by the cat-men, or perhaps because I had been struck by what he had just said about the living and the dead – that I ought to get some National Souls out of him myself. For if I ever left him – and after all, the two of us really weren’t good friends – what in the world would I use to buy things with? Since it was my morning bath that he had charged admission for, I certainly ought to be entitled to a share of the profits. Had I not found myself in that unusual situation, I don’t think that such a low thought would ever have occurred to me. But since the situation was what it was, I’d have to look out for myself. The dead were dead, but the living still had to eat reverie leaves – he had a point there!
When we got close to the reverie forest, I stopped. ‘Scorpion, how much money have you taken in during the last two days?’
My question took him by surprise. He rolled his eyes around. ‘Fifty National Souls and two counterfeit bills. Hurry!’
I turned around and walked away, taking great and decisive strides. He caught up with me. ‘A hundred! A hundred!’ I kept right on going, and he kept adding to the amount until he reached a thousand. I estimated that in the last two days there had been at least several hundred spectators, and that he had certainly taken in much more than a thousand, but I was getting tired of the game. ‘All right, Scorpion, give me five hundred or we’ll part company right here and now!’
Scorpion was well aware that for every minute he argued with me, he lost a few more leaves. With a pair of tear filled eyes, he answered, ‘It’s a deal.’
‘If after this, you ever again try to make money off me without telling me about it, I’ll set fire to your reverie forest.’ I pulled out my box of matches and patted it. He promised it would never happen again.
By the time we got to the forest, there wasn’t a soul there. No doubt a scout had reported my imminent arrival and they had all fled in advance of our coming. Twenty or thirty of the trees on the edge of the forest were already completely bare. Scorpion let out a cry and collapsed to the ground.
A RELUCTANT SERVANT OF THE GREAT SPIRIT
THE REVERIE forest was truly beautiful. The leaves had already grown slightly larger than the palm of a man’s hand. They were thick and of a rich green, bordered with a ring of burnished gold. The most succulent of the ripe leaves had become slightly mottled so that from a distance one would have taken the forest for a garden of mixed flowers. The sunlight from the grey sky fingered its way into the trees and made the colours of these flower-leaves still richer and even more serenely beautiful. They didn’t have that kind of glossiness that sometimes dazzles one’s eyes, but were rather possessed of a gentle beauty that captivated the beholder and gave him a sense of tranquillity. It was something like looking at an old watercolour whose colours are still fresh, but whose paper has in the course of the years lost its sheen.
And now every day from dawn until dusk the forest was enclosed by a ring of spectators – and yet they weren’t really spectators. With eyes closed and noses thrust forward, they all inhaled the rich aroma of the leaves. Their mouths were open and watering so profusely that the shortest string of saliva was a foot long. Whenever a breeze arose, without changing their stance in the slightest, they would crane their necks around and follow it so as to breathe in whatever perfume was contained in the air. They reminded one of snails slowly doing neck exercises after a rain. If by chance a ripe leaf fell from a tree, they would immediately open their eyes, and their mouths would twitch in anticipation. It was almost as though they had perceived the faint sound of the falling leaf with their noses! But before they could gather up enough nerve to go over and pluck up the precious leaf, Scorpion, in a flurry of fur, would beat them to it, and from all sides a cry would go up that sounded very much like the moan of a wronged ghost.
Scorpion transferred five hundred soldiers to guard the reverie forest, but he took care to station them far from the forest itself. For had they been close to it, they would have been the first to steal the leaves. Actually he had no choice but to bring them there, for according to the customs of Cat Country, the harvest of the reverie leaves was a most important event, and troops had to be transferred for the sake of appearance if nothing else. Everyone knew that the soldiers wouldn’t really protect anything, but it would be a public insult to the officers and men not to use them for this strange kind of guard duty in which they didn’t feel responsible for guarding anything. Scorpion was something of a bigwig in the society and, of course, he didn’t want people to criticise him. Therefore, in order to avoid flouting Cat Country customs, he had to transfer the troops whether he wanted to or not. However, he did take the precaution of stationing them more than two miles away so that their rapaciousness would not lead to calamity. When the breeze grew a bit stronger and began to blow in the direction of the army camp, Scorpi
on immediately issued an order to the gallant five hundred to retreat a mile or so more in order to avoid the possibility that they might follow the scent and plunder every last leaf. The only reason that the soldiers followed his orders was that I was there; if it hadn’t been for me, they would have long since mutinied. There was even a common saying among the Cat People that goes, ‘If a foreigner so much as coughs, five hundred cat-troops will fall prostrate from fear.’
Apart from the five hundred troops, Scorpion had twenty family retainers who served as his personal bodyguards. It was upon these valiant men that he really depended for the forest’s protection. All of them were blessed with a full and deep understanding of righteousness, and were fully loyal and reliable. But if by chance they became too excited, it wouldn’t be beyond them to tie up Scorpion and take over the reverie forest themselves. However, because of my presence they didn’t dare take it into their heads to do this; and thus they were able to preserve their deep understanding of righteousness and loyalty.
As harvest time drew near, Scorpion was really beside himself with activity: he had to watch his personal bodyguards to make sure they didn’t eat the leaves behind his back; he had to keep an eye on the wind direction in case the doughty five-hundred needed to be withdrawn further; and he had to keep watch on the spectators to make sure he didn’t lose so much as half a leaf of what dropped from the trees. In order to keep his own energy up, Scorpion was now eating up to thirty reverie leaves at a single sitting. It was said that if you could manage to eat more than forty at a time, you could go for three days without sleep. On the fourth day, however, you’d have the honour of joining your ancestors. Reverie leaves were funny things. If you took them in small doses, they would give you a lift, but you wouldn’t feel like working. If you took them in large doses, you’d be able to work hard for a short time, but then you’d die. Scorpion was in a bind: he had to eat lots of the leaves in order to stay awake to watch over the forest, and yet he was well aware that if he ate too many of them, he would die. But he couldn’t permit himself to cut down on them as though he were afraid of death – even though he was, in fact, terrified of death. Poor Scorpion!
He did cut down, however, on my evening meal of regular food. He felt that if I didn’t have quite as much to eat in the evening, then I’d be more alert during the night. Scorpion was using the same methods to deal with me that he used on his own people. The security of the reverie forest was entirely dependent on me, therefore I’d have to be alert at night, and therefore, I’d have to eat less at the evening meal. This was a good example of Cat Country logic: the ablest people ought to receive the lowest rewards. Once, I got so angry at the paltry amount I was given that I threw the whole meal on the ground along with the eating implements. The very next day my food was as abundant as it had been before. I had finally learned how to handle the Cat People, but I didn’t feel too proud of myself.
Now a breeze began to blow the whole day long. It was the first time this had happened in my experience on Mars. When I first arrived, there had been no wind at all. When the reverie leaves turned red, there was occasionally a slight breeze, but this was the first time it had blown continuously. Tinged with every imaginable colour, the reverie leaves swayed beautifully to and fro in the wind. After the sun had set, Scorpion and his bodyguards worked straight through the night in the heart of the forest to build a large wooden frame. It must have been at least fifty or sixty feet tall. Though I didn’t know it yet, they were preparing it for me. The light breeze that had blown all day and continued into the night was known in Cat Country as the ‘reverie breeze’. The onset of the reverie breeze signalled a change in season. There were only two seasons in Cat Country: the first half of the year was the ‘passive season’ (no wind); and the second half of the year was the ‘active season’ (wind and rain).
In the midst of a morning dream, I heard a great racket outside my little room. When I crawled out to look, I saw Scorpion standing at the head of a column consisting of his twenty bodyguards. He had the tail feather of a hawk stuck behind his ear and a large wooden stick in his hand. Each of the bodyguards seemed to be holding something too. I couldn’t be sure, but it looked as though they were carrying various kinds of musical instruments in the ready position. Another wave of Scorpion’s baton and the musical instruments began to make a racket. They played their instruments in such a fashion that it was obvious no one felt the slightest inclination to harmonise with anyone else. The high and low notes of the wind instruments were equally unpleasant to the ear, and identically long and drawn out to the point that the bodyguards’ eyes almost popped clear out of their heads before they took another breath. Having pulled in another lungful of air, they began blowing again, leaning first forward and then backwards in order to utilise every last bit of breath they had, but still unwilling to take a fresh one. It seemed as though they wouldn’t stop until they had collapsed inwards like a paper-bag with the air sucked out of it. As a matter of fact, two of them got so out of breath that they collapsed on the ground, but they still kept on blowing! The music of Cat Country lays great emphasis on the length and volume of a note. The percussion instruments were of wood and looked something like castanets. The musicians banged on them for all they were worth, although there was no discernible rhythm.
Then the wind instruments grew shriller, and the percussion instruments more erratic. It appeared the cat-musicians would have considered it an honour and pleasure to blow and beat themselves to death. After three rounds of this, Scorpion’s stick went up in the air and, mercifully, the music stopped. All twenty body guards squatted down and panted for breath.
Scorpion took the feather from behind his ear, walked over to me very respectfully, and said, ‘The time has arrived. Please ascend the altar and oversee the harvest of the reverie leaves in the name of the God of Spiritual Brilliance.’ It must have been that I was hypnotised by the music, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say stunned by the racket, for although I felt like laughing more than anything else, without thinking, I obeyed. He placed the feather behind my ear and began leading the way. I followed, and the twenty musician-bodyguards fell in behind me. We arrived at the tall scaffold and Scorpion climbed up on it. He prayed for a while to heaven, and the musicians accompanied his prayer with a bit more racket. He climbed down and asked me to go up.
It was as though I’d completely forgotten I was a grown man, and had become a playful child again, totally entranced by a new toy. Like a little monkey, I scampered up. When Scorpion saw that I had reached the highest point on the scaffold, he gave a wave of his stick and the twenty musicians scattered to all sides. Taking up their posts at a considerable distance from each other at the edge of the forest, they turned about and faced the trees. Scorpion scampered off, only to return a while later leading a considerable number of soldiers, each of whom had a big club in his hand and a bird feather stuck behind his ear.
When they got to the edge of the forest, the whole formation halted and Scorpion pointed up to the scaffold. They all raised their clubs in my direction as if they were saluting me. You see, as the direct representative of the Great Spirit, I was supposed to have come to protect the reverie leaves for Scorpion, who was, of course, most beloved by the Great Spirit. If the soldiers, while harvesting the leaves, were to try to hide any of them away or eat them on the sly, then I, as direct representative of the Great Spirit, would strike that erring soldier down with a bolt of lightning from my hand. The source of that ‘lightning’ would be, of course, the yishu that I carried tucked inside my belt. The twenty musician-bodyguards were my aids, and if they saw any funny business, they’d signal Scorpion with their instruments. He in turn would pray to me to loose a bolt of my lightning.
After the ceremony for the Great Spirit was over, Scorpion ordered the soldiers to divide into teams of two. One man would climb the tree to pick, and the other would stay on the ground to stack the leaves as they were handed down. No one was allowed to work on the trees closest to
me. The reason for this, Scorpion told them, was that it would be dangerous to get too close to the direct representative of the Great Spirit, for if a breath from the nose of the Great Spirit’s representative touched one of them, that man would immediately fall, paralysed, to the ground like a wet rag and never be able to rise again. Therefore these trees would have to be left for Scorpion to pick personally. It seemed that Scorpion had been just as successful in hypnotising the soldiers as he had been with me, for they immediately broke up into teams of two and set to work.
Scorpion must have eaten an especially heavy meal of the best leaves, for he was running back and forth supervising things as fast as a shuttle on a loom. He had his club constantly poised in case he had to bring it down on the head of an erring soldier. I heard later that every time they had a reverie leaf harvest, the landlord was expected to club to death a couple of soldiers and bury them under the trees in order to insure a bountiful harvest the following year. Sometimes when the landlord hadn’t had the foresight to provide himself with a foreigner like me to serve as the Great Spirit’s representative, the soldiers would bury the landlord under the trees instead and make off with the entire harvest. Such mutinous troops would also steal the wood of the trees to make clubs, for an army of cat-men equipped with reverie tree clubs was considered to be almost invincible.
And so it was that I came to be perched, like some giant and ungainly parrot, up there on the scaffold. Now what in hell was I doing that for? I was tempted to laugh, but refrained – after all, I didn’t want to interfere with the customs of the Cat People. Since I had come here in the first place to observe everything that I could, I’d just have to play along with things and join in their group activities no matter how ridiculous they might be. Fortunately there was a little breeze so it wasn’t too hot up there. I had Scorpion get someone to fetch me one of the grass covers that I had woven to cover my food with, which I used as a sun hat. I wasn’t going to be a victim of sunstroke if I could help it.