The Book of Crows

by Sam Meekings

  ‘Got a light?’

  ‘Sure … Got a spare?’

  ‘Sure.’

  I joined the small group, lazily gathered before the glare. The stains on my torn suit, the dust matting my hair, the plastic bags still knotted around my ankles – none of that was out of place there. The dingy, the dirty and the dispossessed. The smell of sweat, of stale smoke. I studied the tops of the heads in front of me. Greasy, wild, lank, dirty or balding, none of them could have seen a bath or a barber for at least a month.

  ‘What’s on?’

  ‘Something from Hong Kong. Can’t understand a word. But the fighting’s good. The blood looks almost real, you know?’

  I nodded and peered a little closer. I’d seen this one before. Bruce Lee dancing circles round men with nunchucks. But I was happy to stand and watch, gulping from my fresh bottle. It helped the rest of the day get washed away, submerged by the tide of high kicks and lightning punches. Bruce was pummelling the crap out of some yellow-haired American. It was just like the old days. The whole group of us were united in our hatred, united in our satisfaction at the noble honesty of the humble working man pounding the corrupt imperialist into the concrete. United by ideas, bound by blood. But whereas the Red Guards were bound together by allegiance to a dream of a bright new future, our unity was severed as soon as the credits started to roll and the men began to stomp off one by one to their cramped homes and grumbling wives.

  I was tempted to sleep on the back seat. Hell, it’d be more comfortable than the old sofa again. But I’d only get another earful about letting my daughter down. So I drove back with the best part of my brain still stuck down that mine somewhere, and somehow I even managed a quick wash in the sink before I sunk down into a bottomless sleep, hoping beyond hope that anything but another day would meet me at the other end.

  Rain at Night

  PART 2 · MAY 815 CE

  Yuan Chen,

  My dearest friend, I have been delighted to hear of your many successes. I am glad that your family remains in rude health – it is a fine thing to have such a virtuous young man waiting to inherit the mantle of his family’s name, the flame of their pride. I have no doubt that he shall make you proud in the future, so do not be too harsh on him for his small failings. And I am heartened to learn of your daughter’s progress on the guqin, for nothing so marks out a young lady of fine birth as the ability to bring harmony to a household – remember the wisdom of Confucius, who taught that music binds hearts together, bringing balance and order into even the most chaotic of lives.

  Please accept my deepest gratitude for the poems you sent. Your work continues to inspire, and reading your carefully wrought words has sent me more than once to fetch water with which to mix the last of my ink sticks. I see that you have not wavered from our shared aim, of creating work that balances the natural language of the common man with an appreciation of those profound moments when everything is suddenly made unfamiliar. I too have been working to strip away all ornate and archaic language from my poems, in the hope that they will be able to touch not only the well-educated scholar but also the labourer sweating in the fields. To read, after all, is to experience the world again, to see with new eyes.

  I believe I am at last beginning to gain the confidence of the crown prince. Since I last wrote to you, I have progressed from the more menial duties of cataloguing the tradesmen’s accounts and expenses to judging pleas for pardons sent directly to the prince. These are, admittedly, few – for the young man’s position ensures that he serves more as a symbol for leniency than as an actual arbitrator of justice – yet they make for stimulating appraisal. The work has the entirely expected side effect of upsetting the eunuchs – who feel that they are better qualified to judge on matters of mercy than a lowly mandarin – and consequently I fear my name is hot on their tongues. As ever, I do my best to pretend that I do not notice their pinched faces always peering over my shoulders.

  Last month, however, I was presented with a wonderful opportunity. The prince’s history teacher – a senior Confucian with much renown in the city – was suddenly taken ill. The Confucian had recently been teaching the prince about how the present troubles with the rebelling provincial governors began. They had, understandably, been discussing the reign of the prince’s illustrious ancestor, the noble Emperor Xuanzong, whose long rule is still much spoken of even though it ended some sixty years ago. It so happens that in one lesson the Confucian had mentioned my poem about the emperor’s tragic romance with the concubine Yang Guifei. Indeed, it seems that wherever I go these days, people ask me if I am the same Bai Juyi who composed ‘The Song of Everlasting Sorrow’, and I have recently taken to denying it completely.

  Thus when I heard that I had been summoned to take over teaching the period to the crown prince while the Confucian remained in his sickbed, all on the basis of that single poem, I was naturally a little nervous. It certainly occurred to me that it might be some trick by the eunuchs to encourage me to loosen my tongue, in the hope that my exposition of the poem might include some slander of the former emperor – which would therefore provide the eunuchs grounds on which to banish me and give the prince a ‘lesson’ about the loyalty of mandarins. Yet it seemed more natural to assume that the Confucian himself had suggested me as he knew I would not make an attempt to usurp his position (as many of the senior scholars are keen to do), and because a discussion of poetry would provide something of a diversion for the young man. However, these thoughts did not do much to calm my nerves, and I spent many hours rehearsing what I would say before my appointment.

  As I was led through the inner chambers of the Eastern Palace, my mind was so busy going over all the things I wished to say to the prince that I paid little attention to the legendary silver statues, the ancient scrolls and the murals of yellow dragons that shimmered across the walls. My escort left me at the door of the prince’s study, where I stood for ten minutes waiting to be admitted. If this is one of the tricks the mighty employ to enhance the sense of awe and power, then it works. By the time I was called in, both my palms and my brow were damp.

  The crown prince was dressed in the long-flowing yellow robes of the imperial family, and greeted me from behind an ornate wooden table. He was tall – almost my own height – and had sharp, interrogative eyes unusual in one so pampered.

  ‘You must be our illustrious poet. Please, be seated,’ he said as soon as I entered.

  ‘I am most honoured to be granted an audience with your imperial majesty. Please let me say how proud I am to be given this opportunity.’

  He nodded – used, I am sure, to such deference. Then he sat across from me, and folded his arms down on the table.

  ‘Your poem intrigues me.’

  Like his noble father, the crown prince had evidently learnt that it is of the utmost importance for a ruler to speak as concisely and directly as possible, using no more words than is absolutely necessary. It seemed clear that he planned to lead the discussion, meaning I had wasted my time preparing a lecture about the period.

  ‘You do not strike me as a particularly romantic-looking fellow, and yet your verse is full of hyperbole and exaggeration.’

  I must admit that I was not expecting such criticism from someone so much younger than myself, but I tried to remain composed.

  ‘Sometimes it is necessary for a poet to exaggerate in order to create the desired effect.’

  ‘Hmm. You write that “Though there are three thousand beauties in the palace / his heart sees only one.” Can Emperor Xuanzong really have had three thousand concubines?’

  ‘That is what people say. Though you see, majesty, the high number here serves only to show that it is all the more remarkable that the emperor paid attention to one woman and one woman alone. The number need not be taken literally – it is used figuratively to show the incomparable beauty of Yang Guifei, and so helps to explain how your ancestor’s love for her blinded him to the other things going on around him.’

  ‘So yo
ur calculation is based on hearsay, conjecture and the desire to make a point? I see. A little later you say that the emperor showered so many gifts on Yang Guifei’s family – giving her siblings important titles and influential court positions – that mothers and fathers across the country began to wish they had borne girls instead of boys. This assertion is patently ridiculous. All families want boys, to carry on the name of the line and, in the country, to work on their farms. Yes, poet, you see I know something of the situation of the land that I may one day be responsible for. Furthermore, how can you claim to know the feelings of the general populace at that time when only the emperor can truly know the heart of his people?’

  ‘Again, I must apologise. Of course I cannot presume to know the will of the people – as your majesty so rightly points out, only one with the Mandate of Heaven can do that. I only wished to show how much the emperor cared for Yang Guifei – many people grow weary of flowery language that talks of love and furtive glances, yet everyone can understand the bestowing of titles and honour. They are the official representations of the private passion. I also wanted to suggest that people became envious of the favours shown to Yang’s family, since the fame of the love affair surely helped spark the concerns that led to the rebellion.’

  The young man nodded and I thought I saw – for a mere fraction of a second – a flicker of a smile. Was he toying with me? I was not sure. His retainers remained motionless behind us, their faces kept curiously blank, as if they were untroubled by the material world.

  ‘Let me ask you, poet, do you believe it?’

  ‘Forgive me, majesty, but believe what? That the events happened exactly as outlined in my poem? I would not dare suggest —’

  ‘No. I am asking you whether you believe that love is strong enough to consume a man in this way, whether you believe that love really could change history.’

  ‘That is a question each man must answer for himself. Yet if we are to judge a man, sometimes we must ignore his words and look instead to his actions, for these are the true measure of one’s convictions. Your great ancestor Emperor Xuanzong ruled for close to forty years, and presided over a flourishing empire. The first twenty years of his rule saw him defeat competing claims to the throne, put down border rebellions and re-establish the ancient trade routes with the west. It was the golden age of art and poetry – of Li Bai and Du Fu among others. It was not until around thirty years into his reign that the emperor became infatuated with this beguiling young lady. He was no longer a young man, and certainly not naïve about the ways of women or the ways of state. Perhaps the number of wives and concubines waiting on him did not actually reach the thousands as I stated in my poem, but it certainly numbered many hundred. He was a proud father, a benevolent ruler. We can therefore only imagine the inner conflict he was faced with when he found himself falling in love with the young wife of his eldest son.

  ‘That is what led me to conjecture that her beauty must have been incomparable. For one woman to stand out amid a whole palace of the most attractive women in the whole empire, she must have been remarkable. Though it should be noted that men always find themselves wanting the things that are just beyond their reach – history has a way of toying with us like that. Your ancestor was not the type of man to give up once he had his heart set upon something. He was, like all of your family, both resolute and blessed with a remarkable intelligence. He was able to persuade the young woman of the virtues of the Taoist vision of the universe, of the necessity of deep contemplation.’

  ‘You mean, he sent her to a convent.’

  There was that flicker of a smile again. I tried not to smile myself, for I was still acutely aware of the company I was in.

  ‘In a manner of speaking, yes. She became a Taoist nun, and as such could later be invited into the court as Spiritual Advisor.’

  ‘I suppose there are no records of how the prince felt about his father sending his wife away and then taking her as his own lover?’

  ‘Alas, no. We must assume that either he did not care about her in the same way …’

  ‘Even though she was clearly the most beguiling woman around.’

  ‘… or else he put the emperor’s needs before his own. Whatever the case, before long she was given the title of Guifei, marking her out as the favourite in the palace.’

  ‘Yes. In your poem they “spend burning nights beneath the lotus nets / and cannot be roused for the morning court”. Do you really imagine the emperor neglecting his sacred duties just to spend more time with a mere woman?’

  ‘I am afraid it is corroborated by the records of attendance for the last years of his reign. Of course, I am not suggesting that this love affair was the only thing that prompted the sudden problems in the dynasty – rather that it is a symbol of the changes that can affect the whole life of a man when he begins to see the world in a different way. As we get older, we tend to re-examine our lives, our feelings – this is what I imagine happening to Emperor Xuanzong.’

  ‘Then love is what the ancient sorcerers would call a particularly potent spell, that ensnares the senses.’

  ‘Forgive me, but your majesty makes it sound as if it were a disease, something to be avoided at all costs.’

  ‘Perhaps the story of my ancestor’s life is proof that it should be. Love is best left to the common man who has nothing better to worry about. I am grateful that my own bride has recently provided me with sons, and for that I thank her, but I would never break off affairs of state simply to visit her. No, love clearly muddies the mind – why else would the emperor appoint his lover’s cousin as prime minister, despite his obvious inabilities?’

  ‘Sometimes it takes the greatest foresight to consider the smallest details. The emperor probably thought that Yang Guozhong was likely to be loyal to him, since he was related to Yang Guifei. In much the same way, he probably thought he was building support by decentralising power and giving licence to regional governors. Perhaps it is that love diminishes our foresight, for it encourages us to live only in the present.’

  I was becoming aware that the scope of the lesson – though perhaps discussion would be a better term – was gradually shifting. Where I had sought to discuss the prisms through which we seek to understand the past, the crown prince seemed more interested in examining the effects of love.

  ‘Yes, your poem sees the emperor and his concubine spending all their time performing scenes from opera together – it is well known that through singing and dancing some priests seek to forget the world. Perhaps they were doing the same. But it did not work, did it, poet? I enjoyed the image you use in your poem, of the sound of erhus and zithers slowly being drowned out by the sound of war drums gradually drawing closer.’

  ‘The An Lushan rebellion, yes. An Lushan was a regional commander of a huge area in the north. As Yang Guozhong became ever more corrupt and the court descended into petty squabbles and money grabbing, the populace began to grow disenchanted. There had been floods, famines and bad harvests for a number of years, and yet at the same time taxes were being increased to fund the lascivious lifestyle of Yang Guozhong and his circle, while the infatuated emperor appeared to ignore everything except his beautiful concubine. It wasn’t difficult for a power-hungry man like An Lushan to drum up popular support under the pretence of ridding the court of corruption. Of course, I am certain a historian could give a far more comprehensive analysis of the causes of the rebellion. If I did not offer many details in my poem, that is only because there seemed to be no need to waste words describing something with which everyone is already familiar.’

  ‘I understand. New petty tyrants from distant outposts seem to appear every month these days. That is the true legacy of the love of which we speak. Love is fodder for tragedy. In your poem, you build upon descriptions of long, lazy nights where the emperor and Yang Guifei could not be separated from each other’s arms, only to suddenly turn to the violent end of the romance.’

  ‘It is a classical juxtaposition, intended to ma
ke the climax more dramatic.’

  ‘Indeed. The death scene is my favourite part of your poem. The details of this period are not new to me – everyone knows the story of my ancestor fleeing the capital with his concubine, of the imperial guard refusing to go any further without the emperor ridding himself of Yang Guozhong and Yang Guifei. How quickly the story of my ancestor’s anguish has been turned into popular legend! It seems that everyone can now recount how the emperor had no choice but to consent to the guards strangling his concubine, and there are many lurid stories that focus on her death throes, her broken body or her snapping bones.

  ‘Yet your poem is different:

  The emperor’s army makes its stand,

  refusing to march until she twists and cries.

  Her jade bracelets, her gold earrings

  fall into the mud and dust. No one moves

  save the emperor, who raises his wrinkled hands

  to cover his eyes.

  You do not show us the blood. You do not show us the moment of death. And yet we feel it, we are somehow a part of it. How do you do that, poet?’

  ‘I must confess, majesty, that I am not sure I can answer that question. Sometimes I am unsure of the source of the poems I write, where the feelings and impulses arise from.’

  ‘Hmm. I have heard many stories of love. And yet your poem is the first that presents emotions as so insistent that they overcome all else. Is there no room for sense, for morality, for duty? You present my ancestor not as an aged ruler making a single political mistake, but as a competent man ensnared by his feelings. You seem to be suggesting that it could happen to any of us – like catching the plague or being sent a curse. You depict a man who had single-handedly brought about a golden age in our great nation and ruled in an exemplary fashion for three decades suddenly being taken by surprise by a love that destroys every aspect of his former life, leaving him broken, crushed. I must confess, poet, that the idea frightens me. And you can be assured that I am not a man who is easily frightened. When the first wave of the An Lushan rebellion was subdued, and it was safe for the emperor to return to the capital, you show him defeated —