The Ancestor Game

by Alex Miller

  The continuous blaring of an automobile horn cut through the air and my attackers dropped their sticks and stones and thrust themselves through the encircling cordon of onlookers, who let them pass with looks of mild surprise, as if the actors had unexpectedly invaded the stalls. The Pontiac glided slowly towards me and came to a stop. The Russian chauffeur got out of the car and helped me to my feet. I thanked him. The expressionless audience continued to gaze at us. An unforseen turn in the plot. The Russian removed his leather gauntlets and offered me his white linen handkerchief. When I looked puzzled he indicated a point above his own right eye. He watched me while I wiped the blood from my face. There was very little of it. Just a smear. In his gaze I read a sardonic amusement. I had heard Feng say this man claimed to be a prince, but I think it was a claim many of the Russians made. I wondered if he, too, were living for the duration of our stay in Huang’s house. I had not seen him since our arrival. He ignored my protests, took my arm firmly and led me to the rear door of the car.

  Madame Feng gazed at me from the blue interior. I climbed in and sat next to her. She asked me if I were badly hurt. I reassured her that I was not and told her the coat had saved me from serious injury. And anyway, I said, surprising myself with this for I did not believe it, I really don’t think they meant to do me any great harm. I was feeling strangely elated, as if I’d just had a strong drink. I wanted to smile broadly. I restrained myself with an effort and tried to look suitably serious. Madame Feng was looking particularly grim. The car rose and fell slowly, the body twisting on its chassis as it rode over the uneven surface of the crowded roadway. I leaned forward like a drunken man, my face for an instant close to hers. The Russian sounded his horn continuously. She sat in the corner of the seat, turned towards me and inspected me coldly. It is difficult to believe, she said eventually, in quite the degree of credulity that remark implies, Doctor Spiess.

  I held myself against the backrest of the seat and blinked at her, trying my hardest not to smile or to lurch towards her.

  They would have killed you within a few more minutes, I assure you, if I had not arrived.

  Oh no, surely not, I protested. If you had seen them you would have seen they were far more terrified than I was.

  They were bent upon murder. And murder, even for assassins, is a terrifying business, she said, as if she were explaining something to a person from another time who could not benefit from the information.

  I couldn’t bring myself to believe in the seriousness of this affair. Despite everything, I still felt myself to be under the benign influence of the memory of Rome, the blue sky and the golden dandelions sprouting from the shattered marble. The onlookers, I felt, had been right. The figure on the ground in the fur coat a moment ago had been an imaginary being. I turned to Madame Feng. How did you know where to find me?

  The whole of Hangzhou knew where to find you, Doctor, she said, with undisguised contempt. But not where you were going. I felt she was running out of patience with my attitude, but I was not able to make an appropriate adjustment to my mood.

  I told her I had been bound for the kilns.

  Then you were lost, she informed me.

  It was now I realised my error in going to Fenghuang Hill instead of to the kilns of Chiao-t’an to the south-west. I was shocked by my failure to have seen this obvious mistake sooner. My silly need to smile vanished. I had been behaving, it seems, in a way which had been slightly out of control. It began to seem quite possible I might even have experienced something like small blackouts, selective little patches of memory loss, as if something in me had been carefully concealing my true purpose from me. On considering it I found I had no recollection of the route I had taken after leaving the main road outside Huang’s gates. The fine, earthy yellow dust inches from my face as I knelt upon the roadway was the most real thing about the morning.

  Why didn’t you ask me before you went? She was very angry. Yu might have accompanied you. Then you would not have got lost. She looked away. I might have come with you myself.

  You shame me Madame, I said miserably. I felt I had failed a standard which she and I had tacitly contracted to maintain between us; an unspecified but an absolute standard all the same, of making the right choices about matters affecting our unusual existence in Hangzhou. I had been a disappointment. I was not the person she had thought me to be. Would I ever regain the ground with her which I had lost this morning? I knew even before I spoke that my apology was going to sound pompous. It was my father who composed it for me. I heard it in German in his voice before I spoke it aloud in English. I see I have made a grave error of judgement and put you to a deal of unnecessary trouble on my behalf, Madame. She made a snorting noise. I cleared my throat and continued, I am heartily sorry and do most sincerely apologise for it. She said nothing, but looked out of the window on her side of the car as if I’d not said anything. The silence was very unpleasant for me. I wanted to be forgiven. After a while I could stand it no longer and said, It is as well that no real harm has come of it.

  She laughed bitterly, It is certain your attackers do not share that view, she said, watching the peasants trudging along under their immense loads, loads so large it seemed they must be carrying them for a bet, or that they were living in a land ruled by an ogre. The most obscene perversity can seem normal if one is exposed to it for long enough. It takes a shock of some kind to make us see the absurd and the unjust in human affairs for what they are.

  No real harm! she said and turned to me, her eyes alight with fury, with dislike, with contempt. I involuntarily drew back into my corner. You have been in China twenty years and you have understood nothing yet, Doctor Spiess! It is impossible to insult you! Only Feng’s power protects you here. If your absence had not been reported to me the moment you left the house you would be dead. The consequences of your death would have been incalculable. As it is, your stupidity has already made inevitable the deaths of those who took advantage today of the opportunity you gave them to attack you. They will die, not you. This time. For there is nowhere here that such people as they can hide for very long. Feng and your friend the Chief of Police will put up a reward. It will not be a very large reward by your standards. But it will be large enough. No real harm has been done! Infinite harm has been done! she shouted, unable to contain her fury. There is no end to the harm you have done! It will go on and on, Doctor Spiess, and no one will ever be able to stop it! Even when you have all left China it will go on! You understand nothing! She leaned close to me and asked softly, Will you attend the executions of these wretched people? Will you? Answer me that! When they are lined up in the little yard behind the police barracks with their arms pinioned, humiliated by their captors, tired, hungry, frightened and dirty and without any hope, will you walk up to them arrogantly and spit in their faces to let them know how pleased you are to watch them die? Will you let them know you hate them as implacably as they hate you? Will you grant them this assurance, that they are dying for a reason and have been defeated by a real enemy? Will their deaths dignify you, Doctor Spiess? In some way? In a European way I have not understood? If that is the case, explain it to me and I shall be satisfied. Extraterritoriality? What does it mean to you? Why invent such an idea for the occupation of a country? What is the point? I think I understand. She sat back against the soft blue leather and drew deeply on her cigarette. You won’t spit in their faces will you? You will withhold your hatred from them, the only thing that might give some meaning to their deaths, and you will meekly forgive them. And they will die all the same. She laughed with genuine mirth. You see Doctor Spiess, although you have not understood us I have understood you. It is human life you value isn’t it? Not its worth. Just human life. As if it were gold and could be neither good nor bad nor worth more nor worth less but must always be worth the same no matter what. One human life is one human life to you. You are absurd! Like your democracy, which you imagine you got from the Greeks, who had slaves. One vote for each person. What a stupid idea! The
worst in your eyes possess the same value as the best. You have no way of differentiating between them. The cigarette smoke curled from her lips. I suppose you’ll try to have them reprieved so they can have another go at killing you in the future. She turned away.

  The car lurched over a deep pothole in the road and we lurched with it, over to the right then back to the left, our shoulders pressing together briefly, flung about like marionettes in a booth, some kind of travelling East-meets-West Punch and Judy show, even to the little blue curtains over the windows. She was right. The likely fate of my youthful attackers appalled me. We drove on in silence, gazing resolutely out of our respective windows at the dismal scene of desperate poverty and filth and unspeakable human degradation and suffering through which we were passing. I had noticed none of it this morning. Just the sunshine and the blossoms. The Russian blasted away continuously on the horn, having scarcely any effect, nudging the buttocks of people with the bumper of the car before they showed any awareness of our presence or attempted to move from our path. The Russian was forced repeatedly to bring the car to a halt and to wait while a top-heavy load was got to one side. And while he waited he pressed on the horn. No one objected. How much more quickly I had covered the distance on foot. I had been in a dream. The dandelions of Rome indeed!

  As if she wished to make certain I was left with no possibility of any comforting illusions about what had happened, when we were approaching the gates of the house, which stood open ready to receive us, Madame Feng said, I did not drive out here to save your life Doctor Spiess. She made the words out here sound as though we had ventured beyond the frontiers of civilisation. She turned from the window and looked at me. I came out here to save my own life and to secure the future of my son. The violence of her anger had left her. She observed me without interest. You are a child who has been left alone in the kitchen and has burnt himself and very nearly set the house on fire. It is not you, however, who will be punished for this. It is the person who left you alone in the kitchen who will be punished for it. I hope you understand that. I want you to understand that.

  These events took place a little over a week ago. Everything has changed. During all my years in China I have never felt myself to be closer to these people nor such a blind stranger in their midst. I have been sitting here at this table in my room by the open casement writing this account for the past four hours. It is two o’clock in the morning. It was raining earlier, now snow has begun falling in the garden. My fingers are so cold I cannot feel the pen. The snow is settling on the edge of the verandah, a greenish phosphorescence out in the darkness. Since that day I have been unable to sleep. I wake in the middle of the night and try to remember what terrible event lies just outside my mind. Then I recall the terror in the eyes of my assailants. I have seen how it is done. The prisoner has a rope around the neck and another above the elbows binding the arms behind the back. The prisoner’s hands and ankles are also bound. These children have become my victims. I am to be their murderer. Are there no innocent bystanders to the horror? Are we all murderers, and if murderers then torturers and rapists and thieves also? Villains of the lowest order? What good is our morality if there is no escape from culpability? Every hour of the day and night I expect the telephone to ring and to hear from Feng that they have been arrested.

  The only thing that has not moved but is now more sure than ever, is my love for the boy, my fateful offspring, my namesake, the other Lang Tzu, delivered by my own hands downwards into the disintegrating place of his departure.

  Hangzhou, 15 March 1928 My portmanteaux are packed and stand ready here beside me. The Russian is to arrive with the car at five thirty and I shall leave for Shanghai by the evening train.

  She has not relented. I am not to be given an opportunity to take my leave of Lang. When I entered the guest hall the day following her rescue of me on Fenghuang Hill, the doorway to the courtyard was deserted. It has remained so ever since. Wearing the fur I sat at the table and waited. No one appeared. The courtyard itself remained deserted also. An hour passed and Yu did not bring my dinner but still I continued to sit and wait. Did Huang himself observe my humiliation from his hidden place? I almost expected the woman to come and look at me again and make an object of me. What am I now? What would she see now? The woman who was the first and whom I had seen among the onlookers when I was crouched in the dust and being beaten. Was it she who went ahead of me to prepare the attack.? Eventually Yu brought me a bowl of soup. He was alone. The soup was a poor affair and I was given no spoon. I lifted the bowl to my lips and drank. The rice carrier did not appear. I looked out upon the empty courtyard. Once I was a great actor. Now I am an unworthy beggar. This land is filled with unworthy beggars. We each carry a giant’s load.

  Yesterday I at last met her father, the literary painter Huang Yu-hua. How different was our meeting from the experience I once imagined it might be. Despite Madame Feng’s determination to make them work unceasingly to repair its fabric, this house is decaying. It is falling apart. It is collapsing upon itself. The strange thing is, I have only noticed this during the past week. The place is sliding into ruin and her efforts to restore it will fail.

  Wrapped in my fur, which seems now to accuse me, I was returning from the hall. I was stiff from waiting, my hunger unsatisfied, yet I was suffering from indigestion. Giving in to an ungenerous impulse – a state of mind which I believe to be foreign to my nature – I was relishing my discovery of the evidence of decay all around me. As I passed along the gallery beside the faded carmine columns which dignify the inner entryway, I observed how the foundations had begun to subside unevenly beneath them. Then, looking up into the ceiling, I saw that the pediments had cracked and shifted. Here and there I was able to see the sky. So, I thought with a bitter satisfaction, this house will not last much longer. Lang himself will scarcely remember it. Suddenly I realised a figure stood before me in the dark passage. I stopped. Was I to be waylaid in the house itself? It took no more than a moment, however to see that the figure before me offered no threat.

  He stood a few paces outside the entrance to his study and his private rooms, at a point along the gallery where a visitor to the house catches a first glimpse of the formal garden lying beyond a small secondary hallway, in which there are usually some chairs with furs on them, as if at a particular hour someone is accustomed to sit there. Huang was waiting for me. He is of much the same build as I, a little shorter even, with a small frame. Despite his slightness of figure, his presence was imposing. He wore a long dark gown or coat, and his hands were clasped in front of him. His head was inclined a little forwards. When I saw him a small hope began to grow in me. I thought to myself, the posture of this man, this head of the household, signifies contrition, humility before his much-abused guest. He wishes to dissociate himself from the punishment inflicted upon me by his daughter. Remembering the last time I had kowtowed, I approached him and bowed in the European manner – a style of obeisance which preserves the dignity of the person who makes the gesture. At this he thrust his clasped hands towards me. I wondered what he intended until I saw he held a small cylindrical object. This he was clearly offering to me. Aha! I thought, a little gleam of hope leaping warmly within me, here is the gift of atonement! I took the box from him and thanked him. Before I could attempt any further speech, and without saying a word, he turned upon his heel and retreated into his study, closing the door firmly behind him. I stood there looking at his door, my thoughts busy with things to say. I had half a mind to knock on the door and insist that we pass at least a few moments together, that we share with each other something of the common courtesies. What had he given me?

  I made my way here to my room and opened his gift. Within the cylindrical box there was a small object nestling in a bed of very fine wild grass, which filled the room with the smell of autumn haymaking and made me think of picnics in the country. It was not until I cleared away the grass that I saw it was a piece of celadon. With care I took it from its nest. The g
ift was a teacup fashioned in the shape of a lotus flower.

  It is the finest piece of palace ware celadon I have ever seen. It lies before me now upon this table, its chameleon glaze a bluish-green, like ice reflected in the warm flame of my lamp against the cold light of the day. There can be no doubt this piece was made on Phoenix Hill by the artisans employed by Shao Ch’eng-chang for an emperor of the Southern Sung. If collecting can be dignified with the notion of a quest for the object which embodies the aesthetic ideal of the collector, then this teacup must mark the end of my search. Or, let me say with great sadness, that it would have so marked the end of my search, begun that sunny day among the ruins of ancient Rome on my hands and knees beside my father, if I had still been searching. If, that is, I had acquired such an object before my attempt to visit the kilns of Phoenix Hill. While I was still sufficiently blind or innocent or stupid to search for such things, as if I were a blameless child in a world of ceramic visions, and not a murderer.

  Huang has given me his finest lotus, his Lien! But it is not something I can possess. As I put my hand out and take it up this moment and hold it before me, its colour becomes a dove grey and the fine crackling of its clear lustrous glaze is made apparent in the altered light. How emotional I feel. This beautiful and precious thing is not mine. I can never own it. But I shall not return it to Huang or it will surely perish with him when this house falls into ruin. I shall receive it into my care. That is what I shall do. Then one day I shall return it to Lang. Here! I shall say, handing it to him in this box of wild grass, here is the finest piece of palace ware celadon to survive the centuries. It belongs to you. Once upon a time it belonged to your grandfather, the great literary painter, Huang Yu-hua, in whose gracious house I spent a few precious months of my life. I shall keep it and its memories safe until then. For me it can never be anything but a chance survival, a souvenir which ought to call to mind the quiet elegance, the restraint and the introspection of a civilisation long dead, but which calls to mind for me instead something else. A sad memorial of such things. Yet I do not feel bitterness now. I feel surprise. What is it I want? Perhaps I have never really been an antiquarian. Can I have done with antiquity? Scholars may look to the past but murderers must look to the future if they are to redeem themselves.