Bridge of Birds

by Barry Hughart

  A servant brought up the rear, dragging a cart filled with garbage and a mangy goat. The servant was a thug of low appearance with a bandage around his head, and he kept whimpering, "My ear!"

  "The house of Miser Shen," said Fat Fu, pointing ahead to a large unpainted building in front of which cheap incense burned before the statues of the Immortal of Commerical Profits, the Celestial Discoverer of Buried Treasures, the Lord of Lucrative Legacies, and every other greedy deity in the Heavenly Ministry of Wealth. "Miser Shen owns eight flourishing businesses, six houses in six different cities, one carriage, one sedan chair, one horse, three cows, ten pigs, twenty chickens, eight savage guard dogs, seven half-starved servants, and one young and beautiful concubine named Pretty Ping," said Fat Fu. "He acquired all of them by foreclosing mortgages."

  Ahead of us was an old peasant with a mule that was hauling a stone-wheeled cart that belonged in a museum.

  "Manure!" he shouted in a quavering melancholy voice. "Fresh manuuuuuuure!"

  Inside the house a rasping voice exclaimed, "Stone wheels? Stone wheels in Peking?" Shutters flew open and an extraordinarily ugly gentleman stuck his head out. "Great Buddha, they are stone wheels!" he yelled, and he vanished inside the house. A moment later I heard him scream, "Cook! Cook! Don't waste a second!" And then the front door crashed open and Miser Shen and his cook raced outside and fell in behind the ancient cart.

  They were carrying armloads of kitchen cutlery, which they began to sharpen against the slowly revolving stone wheels.

  "At least two copper coins saved, Master!" the cook cried.

  "What a bonanza!" howled Miser Shen.

  "Manure!" cried the peasant. "Fresh manuuuure!"

  Another pair of shutters flew open, and Fat Fu pointed toward a heart-shaped face and a pair of luscious almond eyes.

  "Pretty Ping," she said. "Pretty Ping owns one cheap dress, one cheap coat, one cheap hat, one pair of cheap sandals, one pair of cheap shoes, one cheap comb, one cheap ring, and enough humiliation to last twenty lifetimes."

  "More cutlery!" howled Miser Shen. "Bring the hoes and shovels too!"

  "One million mortifications," moaned Pretty Ping, and the shutters slammed shut.

  "Manure!" the old peasant cried. "Fresh manuuuure!"

  "The heat," Master Li panted, fluttering his fan in front of his face. "The stench. The noise!"

  "Our lord is weary and must rest!" Fat Fu shouted to One-Eyed Wong.

  "Even this pigpen will do," Master Li said weakly.

  One-Eyed Wong rapped Miser Shen's shoulder with his gold-tipped staff.

  "You there!" he bellowed. "A thousand blessings have descended upon you, for Lord Li of Kao has condescended to rest in your miserable hovel!"

  "Eh?" said Miser Shen, and he gaped at the gold coin that One-Eyed Wong slapped into his hand.

  "Lord Li of Kao shall also require a suite for his beloved ward, Lord Lu of Yu!" bellowed One-Eyed Wong, slapping a second gold coin into Miser Shen's hand.

  "Eh?" said Miser Shen, and a third gold coin smacked into his palm.

  "Lord Li of Kao shall also require a suite for his goat!" bellowed One-Eyed Wong.

  "Your master must be made of gold!" Miser Shen gasped.

  "No," One-Eyed Wong said absentmindedly. "His goat is."

  A few minutes later I found myself in Miser Shen's best room with Li Kao, the goat, and the garbage. The fake gold coins were concealed inside fish heads and mildewed mangoes, and Li Kao fed a shovelful of the stuff to the goat. This was followed by a pint of castor oil, and shortly thereafter he raked through the mess on the floor with a pair of silver tongs and extracted two glittering coins.

  "What!" he cried. "Only two gold coins? Miserable beast, do not arouse the wrath of Lord Li of Kao!"

  A dull thump from the hallway suggested that Miser Shen had toppled from a peephole in a dead faint. Li Kao gave him time to recover, and then tried again with the garbage and castor oil.

  "Four? Four gold coins?" he yelled furiously. "Insolent animal, Lord Li of Kao requires four hundred coins a day to maintain the style to which he is accustomed!"

  The dull thump shook the flimsy wall. After Miser Shen recovered, Master Li tried for a third time, and now his rage knew no bounds.

  "Six? Six gold coins? Cretinous creture, have you never heard of geometric progression? Two, four, eight, not two, four, six! I shall sell you for dog food and return to the Glittering Glades of Golden Grain for a better goat!"

  The sound of the thump suggested that Miser Shen would be unconscious for quite some time, and Master Li led me out into the hallway. As we stepped over the prostrate body he took my arm and said quite seriously, "Number Ten Ox, if we are to survive our visit to the Ancestress you must learn that a soldier's best shield is a light heart. If you continue with that long face and soggy soul you will be the death of us, and we will attend to the matter immediately." He trotted briskly up the stairs and opened doors until he found the right one.

  "Who are you?" cried Pretty Ping.

  "My surname is Li and my personal name is Kao, and there is a slight flaw in my character," he said with a polite bow. "This is my esteemed client, Number Ten Ox."

  "But what are you doing in my bedchamber?" cried Pretty Ping.

  "I am paying my respects, and my client is preparing to spend the night," said Master Li.

  "But where is Miser Shen?" cried Pretty Ping.

  "Miser Shen is preparing to spend the night with a goat."

  "A goat?"

  "It will be a very expensive goat."

  "A very ex... What are you doing?" cried Pretty Ping.

  "I am undressing," I said, because I had been well brought up and I would never dream of contradicting so venerable a sage as Li Kao. Besides, I had been told to obey him by the abbot, who was praying for my soul.

  "I shall scream!" cried Pretty Ping.

  "I sincerely hope so. Ah, if I could only be ninety again," Master Li said nostalgically. "Ox, flex a few muscles for the young lady."

  Pretty Ping stared at me, as Li Kao turned and trotted back down the stairs. I grinned back at a young lady whose family had fallen into the clutches of a usurer, and whose beauty had condemned her to the embraces of an elderly gentleman who was equipped with a pair of glittering little pig eyes, a bald and mottled skull, a sharp curving nose like a parrot's beak, the loose flabby lips of a camel, and two drooping elephant ears from which sprouted thick tufts of coarse gray hair. Her luscious lips parted.

  "Help," said Pretty Ping.

  The noises downstairs suggested that Miser Shen was acquiring a goat, some castor oil, and a load of garbage, and Pretty Ping and I took the opportunity to get acquainted. In China when young people wish to become acquainted they usually start by playing Fluttering Butterflies, because there is no better way to get to know somebody than to play Fluttering Butterflies.

  "Eat!" Miser Shen screamed to the goat.

  After young people have become acquainted it is customary to warm things up with the Kingfisher Union, because it is impossible to engage in the Kingfisher Union without becoming close friends.

  "Gold!" screamed Miser Shen.

  A cup of wine is then called for, and a discussion of relative merits that is usually resolved in favor of Hounds by the Ninth Day of Autumn.

  "Eat!" screamed Miser Shen.

  The young gentleman then plays the lute while the young lady dances in a manner that would cause a riot if performed in public, and they inevitably become entangled in Six Doves Beneath the Eaves on a Rainy Day.

  "Gold!" screamed Miser Shen.

  Now that friendship has been firmly established it is but a step and a jump to become soulmates, and the fastest way to become soulmates is Phoenix Sporting in the Cinnabar Crevice.

  "Eat!" screamed Miser Shen.

  This will lead to wine, love poems, and a return to Fluttering Butterflies, but slowly and drowsily, accompanied by giggles, and so it goes in China until the dawn, when somebody might calm down enough
to consider testing the purity of gold coins.

  "What is that appalling stench, O most perfect and penetrating of partners?" yawned Pretty Ping.

  "I fear that it marks the approach of Miser Shen, O beauty beyond compare," I said sadly, as I climbed out of bed and pulled on my trousers.

  "And what is that angry noise, O most tantalizingly tender of tigers?" asked Pretty Ping.

  "I fear that Miser Shen is arming his seven half-starved servants with clubs, O rarest of rose petals." I sighed, as I collected my sandals, tunic, jade-embroidered silver girdle, fine tasseled hat, and gold-splattered Szech'uen fan.

  "Merciful Buddha! What is the ghastly thing that is oozing obscenely through my doorway?" howled Pretty Ping.

  "I fear that it is a mound of goat manure, beneath which you should find Miser Shen. Farewell, O seduction of the universe," I said, and I jumped out the window to the street below.

  Li Kao was waiting for me, well rested after a pleasant night with Fat Fu and One-Eyed Wong, and he appeared to approve of the sparkle in my eyes. I bent over and he hopped up upon my back, and then I raced through the streets toward the city walls while behind us Miser Shen screamed, "Bring back my five hundred pieces of gold!"

  6. A Winsome Damsel

  Our path toward the house of the Ancestress ran through steep mountains, and most of the time Master Li rode upon my back. Sea sounds filled the immense sky as the wind blew through tall trees — pine surfs, as the poets say — and the clouds looked like white sails that were gliding across an endless blue ocean.

  One day we climbed down the last mountainside to a green valley, and Li Kao pointed ahead to a low hill.

  "The summer estate of the Ancestress should be on the other side," he said. "To tell the truth, I'm rather looking forward to seeing her again."

  He smiled at a memory of fifty years ago.

  "Ox, I hear that she's put on a great deal of weight, but the Ancestress was the most beautiful girl that I have ever seen in my life, and the most charming when she felt like it," he said. "Still, there was something about her that rang warning bells in my mind, and I was quite fond of old Wen. I was in high favor after the affair of Procopius and the other barbarians — I was even allowed to approach the throne on an east-west axis, instead of groveling up on my knees from the south — and one day I sidled up to the emperor and said with a sly wink that I had arranged for us to spy upon some newlyweds who were about to consummate the happy union. Wen was something of a voyeur, so we tiptoed to my suite and I opened a small curtain and pointed a pedantic finger.

  " 'O Son of Heaven,' I said, 'it would appear that marriage to a certain kind of female can have unfortunate side effects.'

  "The newlyweds happened to be praying mantises," said Master Li. "The groom was happily engrossed in copulation, and right on cue his blushing bride craned her pretty neck and casually decapitated him. The groom's hindquarters continued to pump away while the bride devoured his head, which says something about the location of his brains, and for a moment the emperor had second thoughts about wedding bells. But the Ancestress got to him and I was exiled to Serendip, which was quite fortunate because I wasn't around when she poisoned poor Wen and began massacring everyone in sight."

  We reached the top of the hill and I stared down in horror at an estate that resembled a vast military fort. It covered almost an entire valley, and it was surrounded by high parallel walls. The corridors between them were patrolled by guards and savage dogs, and everywhere I looked I saw soldiers.

  "I understand that her winter palace is really something," Master Li said calmly.

  "Can we really get into her treasure chambers and steal the Root of Power?" I asked in a tiny frightened voice.

  "I have no intention of attempting such a thing," he said. "We'll persuade the dear lady to bring the root to us. Unfortunately that means that we will have to murder somebody, and I have never truly enjoyed slitting the throats of innocent bystanders. We must pray that we will find somebody who thoroughly deserves it."

  He started down the hill.

  "Of course, if she recognizes me, the funeral will be ours, and for once she will abandon the axe in favor of boiling oil," he said.

  In the last town of consequence Li Kao made certain arrangements, such as purchasing an elegant carriage and renting the largest suite in the inn, and then he went to the town square and tacked one of Miser Shen's gold coins to the message board. I assumed that it would be stolen as soon as we turned our backs, but he drew mysterious symbols around it, and the townspeople who approached the message board turned pale and backed away hurriedly, muttering spells to protect themselves from evil. I had no idea what was going on.

  That evening the most alarming bunch of thugs that I had ever seen in my life paused at the message board, studied the coin and the symbols, and began trickling by twos and threes into the inn. Li Kao had set out jars of the strongest wine, which they swilled like hogs, growling and snarling and glaring at me with their hands on the hilts of their daggers. The animal noises stopped abruptly when Li Kao entered and climbed up upon a table.

  It was as if hands had been clapped over their filthy mouths. Their eyes bulged, and sweat poured down their greasy faces. The leader of the thugs turned quite gray with terror, and I thought that he was going to faint.

  Master Li was wearing a red robe that was covered with cosmological symbols, and a red headband with five loops. His right trouser leg was rolled up, and his left trouser leg was rolled down, and he wore a shoe on his right foot and a sandal on his left. He laid his left hand across his chest with the little and middle fingers extended, and he slid his right hand back inside the sleeve of his robe. The sleeve began to flutter in peculiar patterns as he wriggled the concealed fingers.

  Four of the thugs grabbed their leader and forced him forward. Cut-Off-Their-Balls Wang was shaking so hard that he could barely stand, but he managed to slide his own right hand inside his sleeve, and the sleeve began to flutter in response. Master Li's sleeve moved faster and faster, Cut-Off-Their-Balls Wang replied in the same silent fashion, and so it went for many minutes. At last Li Kao extracted his hand from the sleeve and gestured dismissal, and to my astonishment the thugs and their leader backed out of the room on their knees, humbly banging their heads against the floor.

  Li Kao smiled and opened a jar of better wine and motioned for me to join him at a table.

  "The lower the criminal, the more impressed he is with the childlike mumbo-jumbo of the Secret Societies," he said complacently. "For some reason Cut-Off-Their-Balls Wang is under the impression that I am a great grand master of the Triads, and that I intend to cut his gang in for a share of the loot when I make my move against the Ancestress. In the latter respect," said Master Li, "he is absolutely right."

  Two days later some aristocratic ladies who were returning to the estate of the Ancestress were ambushed by villains whose appearance was so terrifying that the guards fled and left the ladies to their fate. Things were looking very bad for them until two intrepid noblemen rode to the rescue.

  "On your knees, dogs, for you face the rage of Lord Li of Kao!" Master Li yelled.

  "Cower, knaves, before the fury of Lord Lu of Yu!" I shouted.

  Unfortunately, our lead horse slipped in some mud, and our carriage crashed into the ladies' carriage, and we were pitched on top of half-naked females who were screaming their heads off. We gazed groggily at a pretty jade pendant that was dangling between a pair of pretty pink-tipped breasts, and it took a moment for us to remember what we were doing there. Then we jumped down to engage the ruffians.

  Li Kao stabbed right and left with his sword, and I swung away with both hands — he was missing, of course, and I was pulling my punches short — and the thugs remembered that they weren't actually supposed to rob and rape anybody and began to do a very good job of acting. Once, when my foot slipped in the mud, a punch accidentally landed and sent the leader of the bandits sprawling. I forgot about the accident, and soon the b
andits fled in terror and we turned to accept the gratitude of the rescued ladies.

  Cut-Off-Their-Balls Wang had already lost his nose and both of his ears in back-alley battles, and he did not appreciate losing several teeth as well. He crept up behind me with a log in his hands.

  "A present for Lord Lu of Yu!" he yelled, and he swung with all his might, and I saw a glorious burst of orange and purple stars, and then everything turned black.

  I awoke in a very expensive bed surrounded by very expensive women who were battling for the honor of bathing the bump on my skull.

  "He wakes!" they shrieked at the tops of their lungs. "Lord Lu of Yu opens his divine eyes!"

  I had been brought up to be courteous, but there are limits.

  "If you don't stop that infernal racket, Lord Lu of Yu will strangle you with his divine hands," I groaned.

  They paid no attention to me, and the ear-splitting babble continued, and gradually I began to make some sense out of it. Our miraculous intervention had saved them all from rape and ruin, and the esteem in which we were held was not diminished by our fine tasseled hats, green silk tunics, jade-bordered silver girdles, Szech'uen fans, and money belts that bulged with Miser Shen's gold coins. This was all according to plan, but I was rather puzzled by repeated references to "the bridegroom," and I was trying to get up enough strength to ask a few questions when I began to realize that my wounds were far more serious than I had thought.

  I was sick enough to imagine that the floor was shaking, and that my bed was starting to bounce up and down. The hallucination was accompanied by a dull, rhythmic, pounding noise that gradually increased in volume, and the ladies suddenly stopped babbling. They turned pale and tiptoed quietly from the room through a side door, and I began to smell a revolting odor of rotting flesh.

  The bedroom door crashed open, and the woman who marched inside weighed approximately five hundred pounds. The floor shook as she marched toward my bed. The coldest eyes that I had ever seen, even in nightmares, glittered between puffy rolls of sagging gray flesh, and a massive swollen hand shot out and grabbed my chin. The icy eyes moved over my face.