Breaking Bamboo (2 page)

Wang Ting-bo sank back in his chair.

‘Beyond help,’ he muttered. ‘Dr Fung, surely you do not agree with Du Mau? And you, Dr Ku-ai? Surely something more may be attempted?’

However, these gentlemen sighed regretfully.

‘Very well,’ said Wang Ting-bo, tears glistening in his eyes.

Dr Shih rubbed his chin. The guild’s certainty that all was lost surprised him. But, of course, every physician encountered intractable cases. Then the Pacification Commissioner’s wife caught his eye. Her gaze was cold and fierce.

‘You at the back!’ she cried, shrilly. ‘You in blue robes! What do you say? You are Dr Yun Shih, are you not?’

He trembled slightly that she knew his name. There was a rustling of silks as heads turned.

‘My Lady must forgive my stupidity,’ he replied. ‘I have not examined your son and so cannot comment.’

The plain woman leaned sideways in her chair to address her husband.

‘Should not this one examine him as well?’

There was a long silence in the room. Dr Du Mau coughed delicately.

‘My Lady, with the utmost respect, although this man is generous with his remedies for the poor, he can hardly be expected to affect a cure when so many distinguished colleagues have spoken. Besides, Dr Shih is used to common people and their maladies. Your son’s noble blood would be quite beyond him.’

Shih lowered his gaze to the floor. Once, long ago, he had been addressed with respect as a lord’s son. This barely-retained memory, tinged with loss, coloured his cheeks.

‘Do not blame Dr Shih for being here, it is I who summoned him,’ said the Pacification Commissioner’s wife. ‘Husband, my maid told me this doctor cured her little brother of the dry coughing sickness – and many, many others in Water Basin Ward. She says he has a great way with sick children. I beg you, let him examine our son.’

Dr Shih knew it was prudent to agree with Dr Du Mau but the insult he had suffered kept him silent. He was also curious what would happen next. Wang Ting-bo shifted uncomfortably.

‘We will consult Dr Du Mau’s list of priests and magicians,’

he said in a peculiar, flat voice. ‘Only a fool opposes Heaven’s will.’

‘Husband, let Dr Shih see our son, at least!’

Dr Du Mau coughed again.

‘Any further disturbance would endanger the boy’s essential breaths,’ he warned. ‘I’m sure Dr Shih concurs. Is that not so?’

Du Mau fixed his junior colleague with a haughty stare.

Perhaps Shih was tired of snubs, perhaps the heat made him irritable. Whatever the reason, he replied: ‘It never injured anyone to take their pulse.’

There were sharp intakes of breath from his colleagues. At once he realised the gravity of his mistake. The slow closing of Dr Du Mau’s hooded eyelids hinted at a lifetime’s enmity.

‘There!’ cried the Pacification Commissioner’s wife. ‘What injury can it do?’

His Excellency Wang Ting-bo nodded. Tears were back in his eyes. He brushed them away angrily.

‘Very well. But if harm befalls my son because of this. . . let Dr Shih beware! In the meantime Dr Du Mau must consult such magicians as he sees fit.’

The great people rose and left the ancient throne room. Shih realised hostile eyes were watching him. He blinked at the flickering candles. An official touched his arm.

‘I will take you to the boy.’

Shih walked through the assembled doctors and, one by one, they showed him their backs.

*

He was led to a splendid bedchamber where incense and heat fogged the air. A four-poster divan shrouded by silk curtains stood in the centre from which a child’s plaintive coughing could be heard. In each corner of the room crouched a uniformed servant. Stray lanterns emitted a feeble light, their flames rigid in the breathless air. Tables laid with delicacies stood beside the boy’s bed: roast meat and honey cakes, fruit glazed with sugar. Enough for a large household. Despite its splendour – or because of it – the chamber was a forbidding place.

Shih felt a pang of disquiet for the little boy. When he treated the sick children of the poor, goodwill usually surrounded the child’s bed in the form of parents and uncles, aunts and grand-parents. This boy had been abandoned to the care of servants; his silk-curtained divan was an island drifting towards eternity.

Shih turned to the nearest servant.

‘Your name, sir?’ he asked.

The man had a long scar across his cheek and answered suspiciously: ‘We heard you were coming. I am Third Tutor Hu.’

Clearly there was to be no
sir
for Dr Shih.

‘What is the boy’s pet name?’ he asked.

Tutor Hu seemed surprised by the question.

‘We call him Little Tortoise. His official title is. . .’

‘Never mind it for now. Raise all the curtains, especially the southern window. Open them wide.’

‘That is not what the last doctor commanded,’ replied the Third Tutor. ‘He told us the incense must form a dense cloud if it is to trap favourable influences.’

Shih smiled politely.

‘Then it seems I must do it myself.’

He parted the southern shutters. The direction had been chosen carefully. Already he sensed an excess of
yin
in the room, whereas a south wind could only encourage much-needed
yang
.

As fresh night air cut through the sweet fog of incense, barely audible sighs of relief came from the servants. Lanterns flickered and brightened all round the long room. Dr Shih approached the bed.

A tall boy for his age, no more than seven years, Little Tortoise was curled up on a horsehair mattress, coughing as though his lungs would drown themselves. Dr Shih immediately recognised symptoms of the dry coughing sickness, a common ailment and one he had learned to counter in all its stages, for it was prevalent in Water Basin Ward where he lived.

But it was not his way to rush to a diagnosis.

He sat on the bed and smoothed the lad’s forehead, sticky with sweat. The perspiration on his fingers smelt of excess metal and water.

‘Little Tortoise,’ he said. ‘Can you look at me? I’ve come to make you better.’

Large, anxious eyes regarded him for a moment, then stared into empty air. Shih sensed the boy often looked away from those who addressed him – whether from pride or shyness he could not say.

‘How old are you, Little Tortoise?’

The boy trembled and Shih noted the extent of the shivering.

‘How old you are?’

As the boy tried to speak, Shih bent forward, sniffing his breath. He caught the word ‘seven’.

‘What! You are the tallest boy of seven I ever met! We can make a big, tall boy like you better before you know it. Seven, eh? How remarkable.’

While he talked, Shih took his own pulse, accustoming himself to the balances of
yin
and
yang
. Then he rested a practised finger on the boy’s three pulses, not thinking, heeding instinct.

He immediately judged the state of the disease to be chronic.

Yet the volume and strength of the pulse were not entirely hopeless. He tested both left and right wrist, breathing in time to the fluttering beneath his finger, noting how the boy gasped to inhale and exhale. A clear picture of the patient’s lungs formed – a mess of rotten and putrid elements, the bargain between the two undecided. He sensed a gathering crisis.

Though he always tried to be hopeful, Dr Shih’s misgivings were dark.

‘Bring a lamp closer,’ he commanded Third Tutor Hu in a soft, distracted voice.

Under the light, Dr Shih noted white predominating in the boy’s complexion, clearly indicative of
yin
. Set against that was the boy’s age. Seven denoted summer and the force of
yang
. He began to sense a possible cure. It must involve heat. The relevant element must be fire. Little Tortoise’s lungs were drowning in their own humidity, which stood between
yin
and
yang
, just as sweet was the central flavour or
kung
, the cardinal musical note. He must ease the lad towards
yang
, while retaining those elements of
yin
likely to strengthen him.

Dr Shih sniffed the wind. He had noted for several days that it blew from the west. This, too, must be counteracted. He suspected noxious air lay at the heart of the matter.

Glancing round, he noticed an open doorway on the western side of the chamber and indicated to Tutor Hu it should be closed.

Then Shih thought deeply, gently massaging the boy’s chest to comfort him. Above all, he felt surprised. Certainly there was a high possibility of death, a grave risk, but the case was not hopeless. Yet Dr Du Mau had stated no more could be attempted. Shih frowned at the only possible explanation – that because a cure was far from certain, Du Mau wished to avoid the Pacification Commissioner’s anger if the boy died. A fine strategy! Should Little Tortoise recover on his own, Dr Du Mau would be commended for advocating the intervention of holy men. Should he die, his judgement would be sadly confirmed. He could not lose either way. The only loser was Little Tortoise.

His diagnosis complete, Dr Shih stood up and adjusted the silk sheets so they covered Little Tortoise up to the chest. The child blinked up at him and his shivering subsided a little.

‘The tallest boy of seven I ever met!’ exclaimed Shih, and he was rewarded with the flicker of a smile.

Turning round, Shih discovered the Pacification Commissioner’s wife watching from the shadows. She had approached silently and he wondered how long she had been there.

‘Well?’ she asked, her eyes red from crying.

Dr Shih knew he should say Dr Du Mau was right, that nothing more could be done. His whole future depended on such prudence. And he was about to say it, being no hero by nature, when his eye fell on the boy’s pale face. He had seen that same look of longing for reassurance many times, as one longs for comfort from a parent. The knowledge that someone in this cruel, fickle world will nourish you, keep you safe.

‘There is no certain remedy for his illness,’ he said. ‘The pulse has a red appearance and the cough is obstinate. Without doubt, air has gathered in the boy’s heart, and he must not eat until it has been dispelled. The disease has come about through noxious air, we may be sure of that.’

‘How would you cure him?’ she asked, eagerly.

‘With fire,’ he said. ‘Water will always subjugate fire. In the process of quenching, Little Tortoise’s essential breaths might find a balance and then his
qi
will grow strong again.’

The Pacification Commissioner’s wife abruptly swept from the room, banging the door behind her. Dr Shih looked at Third Tutor Hu in alarm.

‘She’s seeking Wang Ting-bo’s permission to let you try,’ said the man. ‘And why not?’ he added. ‘Why not, indeed?’

Half an hour passed. Shih remained by the bedside, massaging the boy’s chest because the lungs are connected with the skin and rule over the heart. He was rewarded by gobbets of mucus when the lad coughed, but noted the secretion was black with stale blood. Too much
yin
, always with Little Tortoise, too much
yin
.

He looked up as Wang Ting-bo entered the room, accompanied by his wife. The Pacification Commissioner seemed angry.

‘I hear you wish to attempt a cure,’ he said.

His eyes avoided his perspiring son, yet were drawn to him against his will. Dr Shih rose and, to the amazement of the servants who were on their knees, led Wang Ting-bo to one side.

‘It is perhaps better if Little Tortoise did not hear us discussing him, sir,’ he whispered. ‘It might cause agitation. I will try my best to heal him, if that is your pleasure.’

‘My pleasure!’ Wang Ting-bo snorted. ‘I take no pleasure in any of this.’

Dr Shih bowed respectfully.

‘I must tell you, young man, that Dr Du Mau has once more advised against further intervention. I do not know what to do.

My wife argues for another attempt at a cure but she is a mother and a woman. One would expect that. I do not know what to do. Is that not strange?’

As he spoke the boy coughed and wheezed.

‘Let me be frank, Your Excellency,’ said Shih. ‘Your son may die, indeed it is likely, I cannot pretend otherwise. Yet I have had success with the dry coughing sickness. . .’ He paused before adding, with a wisp of irony: ‘Among humble folk with humble lungs, admittedly.’

Wang Ting-bo’s gaze was cold.

‘Do not fail,’ he said.

‘Your Excellency, I may fail,’ replied Shih, patiently. ‘As I have said . . .’

‘Do not!’ The Pacification Commissioner had turned red.

‘No one makes a monkey of me, young man!’

He stalked from the room and Dr Shih remembered that the common people often referred to great officials as monkeys in high hats.

Little Tortoise’s crisis was fast approaching. Under Shih’s orders the incense burners and tables laden with food were carried out. He insisted the mother sit beside her son, though she was reluctant. The lady’s expression indicated she considered herself very brave.

Apprentice Chung had been sent back to the shop for the ingredients of a herbal draught useful in such cases, as well as the case of needles. But as the boy’s breath whooped and clutched for air, Shih knew there was little time left. They should have called him earlier; now he must resort to desperate measures.

‘I am afraid we must cause your son distress,’ he told the mother. ‘You will hold both his hands firmly and fix your gaze on his face, saying reassuring things all the while.’

She nodded miserably, then burst out: ‘There is an evil influence in my house, doctor!
She
is the cause of all this. But I shall make that fox-fairy trouble us no more! Doctor, I have forced a promise from my husband that if our son recovers he will send her away forever!’

The Pacification Commissioner’s wife subsided into sniffling.

Dr Shih frowned. This was hardly the occasion to air such grievances.

‘I will apply moxa to Little Tortoise’s back,’ he said. ‘By this means
yang
shall be restored and his
qi
stimulated.’

Dr Shih rummaged in his bag and produced a wooden box decorated with fortunate spells. From this he took a cone of artemisia leaves, placing it on the exact point on the boy’s spine corresponding to the lungs. Taking a glowing taper he lit the dried leaves. They smouldered slowly. As the fire touched nerves, the boy cried out and Shih ordered Third Tutor Hu to hold him steady. Finally, Little Tortoise coughed up a great gobbet of green-black phlegm.