Taming Poison Dragons

by Tim Murgatroyd

  Once reminded of my existence, he would hatch a thousand cruel troubles. The sides of the Imperial Way were green with fruit trees, plum, peach, pear and apricot, some still showing a blush of blossom. But I did not notice. My thoughts were a swirl of imagined enemies and failures. I was entirely turned inwards – and that is blindness, unless one seeks acceptance of the Way.

  The carriage of a high official approached through the crowd. Was it Lord Xiao? At once I sought a place to hide, hurrying into a girdle merchant’s arcade. I did not listen as the fellow jabbered at me, holding out costly belts, and soon he fell silent, eyeing me curiously. I was finding it hard to breathe. My heart raced painfully.

  At last I judged the danger past and emerged in time to see the carriage turning into the gateway of the Jade Disk Tea-House. My fears instantly doubled. I felt certain it contained Lord Xiao and his mocking cronies.

  For a moment I considered turning back. But Su Lin was waiting in there. What would she think if I failed to arrive? And the carriage might be carrying anyone.

  However hard or far I fled, I would never outrun fear.

  Light-headed, I walked over to the gatehouse.

  The Jade Disk Tea-House was like all such places. No doubt it exists still. Around a central courtyard were dozens of sumptuous rooms, red and green stairways, painted blinds to ensure privacy when conducting a liaison or shady business deal. These curtains were seldom lowered, as the main reason for visiting the Jade Disk Tea-House was merely to be seen there. Miniature pines and vases of flowers stood in tasteful locations. Waiters flowed round elegant chairs with trays of rarest tea, or aniseed cakes, or health-giving cordials. An atmosphere of constant chatter, punctuated by the melodies of singing girls. I stood awkwardly by the entrance until a waiter rushed over. My forehead and hair were damp with sweat.

  He examined me, assessing my potential for tips.

  ‘I am here to meet a lady,’ I said, as haughtily as I could.

  ‘Miss Su Lin.’

  At once his eyes brightened. He led me to a long private room on the first floor. Here sat Su Lin, fanning herself and chattering gaily to a man in the uniform of a viscount.

  She had dressed exquisitely for the occasion. Her silks shimmered, as did her coiled hair. The official smiled politely as I arrived.

  ‘Well, well,’ said the fellow. ‘It seems an honoured guest has displaced me.’

  I said nothing. Perhaps strain showed on my face.

  Perhaps I was a trifle grim. Certainly I felt that way. He excused himself and I nodded curtly as he left.

  ‘You could have shown a little more courtesy to Viscount Shao,’ she said, pouting humorously though I could tell she was troubled. ‘A man like that is not without influence.’

  I sat beside her, taken aback by such a greeting.

  ‘Really?’ I said.

  ‘Of course.’

  Then she explained his offices and friends in a gay, playful tone as though it was all a wonderful game. I barely listened.

  ‘You are the reason I am here,’ I replied. ‘No one else, whatever strings they can pull.’

  She bit her plump, carmine lip. A waiter brought me a cup of tea and hovered expectantly. I waved him away. Su Lin nodded to one of her serving women who promptly tipped him. It was all very smooth and designed in advance not to embarrass me.

  ‘You seem uncomfortable,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘Are you unwell?’

  For once her disappointment did not affect me. In fact I found it curious.

  ‘Perhaps I am,’ I said. ‘This is a strange place to meet.’

  ‘Why? I come here often.’

  ‘But I do not. And that is why it is a strange place to meet.’

  She sighed, and sipped a cup of jasmine tea. One of the leaves stuck to her upper lip. She brushed it away delicately. Then she asked her maids to wait outside. No doubt they listened by the door.

  ‘You have not visited me for a whole week,’ she whispered. ‘I do not know what to think.’

  ‘I have been composing poems. Besides, how am I to know when you are free or engaged?’

  Su Lin had developed a particular way of expressing frustration. It was confined to the angle of her eyebrows.

  When we first met her emotions had been more obvious and natural. Still the changes of her face fascinated me.

  ‘I have heard such delightful news,’ she announced.

  ‘Can you guess what it is?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘Then I shall tell you. A certain person – I mean the one who has promised to help you – has hinted that he will use his influence to have me play at the Feast of Lanterns.

  Before the Son of Heaven himself!’

  Now I understood her brittle gaiety. Such a prospect was worth a year’s anxiety.

  ‘I am pleased for you,’ I said.

  She pouted again. Her eyes reached for my own but I glanced away.

  ‘Oh, Yun Cai,’ she whispered. ‘What is wrong? I thought we would have such a gay celebration! And surely there is much to celebrate.’

  I held out my hands helplessly. Any reply resembling the truth would suggest self-pity. How I longed for her to respect me.

  ‘I know what it is,’ she said in a low voice. ‘You feel restless because you do not have a position worthy of your talent. No wonder you feel strange when you cannot be yourself. And having to live in the backroom of a wine shop by the Pig Market! The whole situation is absurd.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Please do not condemn Cousin Hong for poverty. He is very good to me. Besides, I am poor myself.’

  ‘That is the problem,’ she said, eagerly. ‘How glad I am that you mention it! I have been thinking. Will you listen if I tell you some of my thoughts?’

  ‘I always love to hear you talk,’ I said.

  This seemed to relieve her.

  ‘I have had the most wonderful idea. In a few months the Imperial examinations are to be held. You are so clever. And I thought, why should not my Yun Cai enter when he is far more worthy than all the others. If you passed, which I am sure you will, you’d be granted a fine posting. And anyway, the gentleman of whom we spoke has promised to support your candidature.’

  I looked at her in surprise. She had been canvassing my interests in a way which surely proved love. The Imperial examinations were the highest test, overseen by the Son of Heaven himself. Those who succeeded were guaranteed prosperity – assuming they did not displease His Highness. Even P’ei Ti had not yet gained such honour, though he planned to sit the examination that autumn.

  ‘Do you really think I could pass through the Vermilion Doors?’ I asked. ‘In my current situation? And His August Excellency will really act as my sponsor?’

  ‘Of course! You must believe in yourself and stop dreaming your life away. Then you will be free and depend on no one. I beg you to at least consider it.’

  I sipped my tea while she watched. Suddenly it tasted less watery.

  ‘If I studied hard, who knows?’ I said, thinking aloud. ‘The worst is that I should fail. Better men than I have failed.’

  ‘So you will enter?’ she asked, eagerly.

  I met her deep, almond eyes. Could she not love me as I was? I let the question float, like wisps of steam.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ll try, at least.’

  Su Lin took my hand.

  ‘Now you are yourself,’ she murmured.

  ‘Oh, I’m always myself,’ I said.

  We were interrupted by a young woman entering the room, bowing as she came. It was one of the tea-house’s singing girls. Her lowered eyes evaded Su Lin, evidently paying dutiful homage to a superior. Then I understood how high Su Lin had risen in her profession. A compulsion to prove myself her equal – no, her superior – made me affect a yawn. I remembered the proverb: Why should not sparrows possess the dreams of swans?

  Su Lin flushed with pleasure. When the singing girl had gone I squeezed her hand.

  ‘A proud moment for y
ou,’ I said, mastering envy.

  She fanned herself, cooling hot cheeks. The glow beneath her make-up reminded me of other times, when that warmth had been for my sake alone. I longed for her to desire me.

  ‘Are you engaged this evening?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, yes. But no, if you want. It is not someone important. I could always be ill.’

  ‘Then be ill with me,’ I said. ‘I could make you better.

  And in the morning I’ll begin my studies.’

  She met my glance in her old, frank way.

  ‘Must my success come between us?’ she asked. ‘It would make me so unhappy.’

  Her honesty, vulnerable and well-meant, brought tears to us both.

  ‘I was jealous for a moment,’ I said. ‘That is a trifle. It changes nothing between us. Sometimes clouds cover the sun, but they always blow away for us. Then our day is bright.’

  Our tension dissipated into nervous laughter, eye-dabbing and smiles.

  *

  ‘What a fool I am, always hanging on your clever talk,’ she said, in her thickest Chunming accent.

  We left without bothering to finish our tea. That evening I begged her to lie on the bed naked, white jade softened by lamp light, while I lay beside her in my clothes, delighting in the warm, fragranced places of her body. Fully provoked by touch and taste, she pulled off my silk robes and we loved each other. I cradled her head on my chest as she slept, thinking of the texts I must learn by heart, thinking until sick of thought. Hope and depression, light and shadow. Was that our last night of untainted joy? There must have been others. How long ago it seems and far away, like a ship of many lanterns dwindling.

  It was a time for love, if marriage may be called love. On a bright, summer morning, before the first hints of autumn, a sedan chair carried by two sweating porters arrived outside Cousin Hong’s wine shop. People leant from windows to watch as a plain-faced girl in second-hand silks climbed out, carrying a baby wrapped in hemp.

  She looked round in a daze at her new home.

  By the gatehouse stood three men awaiting her impatiently: Hong, myself, and the bridegroom. My cousin’s children threw handfuls of rice and seeds and shiny cash coins onto the street as she stepped towards us, her head lowered modestly – though the babe in her arms suggested it was a little late for that. I could not help smiling at the strained dignity of the bridegroom beside me.

  ‘Mi Feng,’ I whispered. ‘Go inside. We will lead her to where you sit.’

  The bride, Su Lin’s former maid, reluctantly passed her infant son to Cousin Hong’s wife for safe-keeping, then was escorted to the courtyard where cups and wine were laid out. The couple knelt and faced each other, drinking in turn from the same bowl, while a small crowd of well-wishers murmured and joked. It did not do to joke too loudly. One could never be sure how Mi Feng might take it.

  The bride came with a small dowry of cash and household necessities provided by Su Lin who had chosen not to join our celebration. Her absence grieved me. Within less than a year she had grown too good for us. I grieved, too, that I had not been able to afford a banquet for my loyal servant on his wedding day, the man who had saved my life a dozen times over. So it was. I could only show my goodwill through petty presents. Cousin Hong paid for the wine we drank, the food we ate. Once again I was the poor relation.

  Perhaps my shame showed for Mi Feng took me to one side.

  ‘Well, my Lord,’ he said. ‘It’s you I should thank for all this.’

  I stiffened.

  ‘If I could have afforded more, I would have gladly given it,’ I replied. ‘It is Hong you should thank.’

  He laughed in a way I had not heard before, without a trace of harshness. It made me wonder to see him softening.

  ‘He wouldn’t own this place if you hadn’t given him the money. But I don’t mean that, sir. It’s time to settle down.

  I’m contented enough.’

  *

  ‘Then I am contented, too.’

  He seemed embarrassed to have said so much.

  ‘And you have a fine son,’ I said.

  A son seemed the finest thing in the world, if for no other reason than a man could encourage him to succeed where he had not.

  Cousin Hong bustled over.

  ‘What are these long faces for? Little General, you are always frowning these days.’

  The way Mi Feng’s eyes lit up at the sight of his new employer made me jealous. No doubt that was a fault in me.

  So Mi Feng and his family took up residence in a tiny room beside the gatehouse and the wine shop rang with a baby’s cries. His wife helped in the kitchen and everyone seemed happy except me.

  Ambition swelled and tormented me. Day by day the Imperial Examinations approached. Whenever I saw Su Lin or P’ei Ti they talked eagerly of my fine prospects until I dreaded disappointing them. They urged me to attend the Society of the Western Lake and enter my poems for the monthly competition. I did go, though only to watch and renew old acquaintances. I felt too tender to risk failure in the poetry competition. Besides, I dreaded attracting the jealousy of Lord Xiao by winning.

  Nevertheless, my most recent verses found an eager audience, thousands of copies circulating through cheap wood-cut prints. Needless to say, none of the profits came my way.

  I decided enough was enough.

  Mi Feng was arguing with his wife in the kitchen of Hong’s wine shop and, though I carried an armful of books to the brick steps overlooking Jewel Cloud Canal, their voices disturbed my concentration. It was strange to witness so masterful a man as Mi Feng being shaped by his new wife, yet part of him evidently welcomed the change. As we all did.

  She cooked meals of such flavour that Cousin Hong gained dozens of new customers. Spicy dishes, warming the blood with ginger, a dozen herbs turning plain ingredients into a banquet. And she could be tender with her husband, if patience is tenderness, listening for hours while he boasted and talked about his life. I believe this talk was a great unburdening. The exact details were kept from me. He was always reluctant to show weakness when I was around. With his wife he felt no such inhibition.

  At first I felt offended to be denied the truth about his past. Yet I owed him too much to sustain a resentment.

  There are limits to the frankness between master and servant; and he was no longer even my servant.

  But, for all the goodwill surrounding me in Hong’s establishment, I’d had enough.

  ‘You wish to say something but don’t know how,’ Su Lin commented one night in the plain way she reserved for me.

  We lay in each other’s arms, my head upon her breast.

  Fragrance of perfume and musky sweat. Her silken sheets moulded round my skin.

  ‘You are so distant,’ she coaxed. ‘If you shared your burden it would be lighter.’

  I rolled over and stared at the ceiling, unable to express what did not make sense.

  ‘Are you trying to punish me for some fault?’ she asked.

  ‘You are cruel not to explain.’

  That word opened the cage where I’d imprisoned my thoughts.

  ‘Cruel people take pleasure in another’s misery,’ I said.

  She considered this. In the close air of a hot summer night, our breath rose and fell.

  ‘You make me miserable when you hide yourself away,’

  she said. ‘What have I done to make you withdraw from me? Ten days have passed since you last visited.’

  I rolled over on the bed until I lay on my front.

  ‘Not everything I feel relates to you,’ I said.

  She stiffened beside me.

  ‘Do I bore you, is that it?’

  ‘Oh, Su Lin,’ I said. ‘When you talk like that it is just a kind of game!’

  ‘Then what troubles you?’ she asked. ‘Am I not enough for you?’

  How could I answer without hurting her? But I tried.

  ‘I’m sick of the city,’ I said. ‘I cannot study for the Imperial examinations in these conditions.
If I am to succeed, as everyone seems to believe I must, I require space to think. The city is wasting my essential breaths.’

  She pulled me over to face her.

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I must go away for a while. That is all.’

  It was dark, yet light enough to find each others’ eyes.

  ‘I remember the first time my broker ordered me to sing,’ she said. ‘It was a few weeks after Father sold me, as we travelled to the capital. My broker wished to make a little money by parading me in a roadside wine shop. Of course, everyone knew I had a fine voice, but that was beside the point. Singing for strangers is not the same as for loved ones, especially if one is shy. My broker – or should I say, owner, for he seemed to own everything I was – shook me until my teeth rattled. “Sing!” he commanded. So I did, my voice broken by sobbing. Then he beat me and said again: “Sing!” This time I did not sob, all my notes were pure. So you see, Yun Cai,’ she said, sadly. ‘I know what it is to study under hungry eyes. And I hope you do not think I encourage you to sing in the examinations in the way that horrible man did me.’

  I replied with all my tenderness and ardour. Afterwards, we both pretended to sleep.

  The next day I set my affairs in order and left Cousin Hong’s house followed by a youth hired to carry my bags of scrolls.

  ‘Take this message to P’ei Ti,’ I told Hong. ‘I’ll send the boy back with news of where I may be found should it be necessary to summon me in a hurry. P’ei Ti will know exactly what I mean.’

  Many roads lead to and from the capital and I could have taken any of them. I picked the Western Highway, the one heading toward Wei Valley, because just as the compass always points north, so the heart points home. In truth, I had no idea where I was heading.

  Li after li passed beneath our feet. We slept in villages where gibbons cried mournfully all night. Hill country, wooded country. At once I felt at home. On the fifth day I came across a small monastery overlooking a narrow lake surrounded by steep hills. I knew at once, here was the place I sought. A passing peasant told me I had arrived at Five Gong Monastery.

  ‘Is it Daoist or Buddhist?’ I asked.