Everything Under the Sky (21 page)

I was stunned into silence. Had I heard properly, or had the gurgling stream running alongside confused me? Had Lao Jiang just said “immortality”?

“You're not going to tell me that Zhang Sanfeng is still alive, are you?”

“Well, he began studying at Wudang when he was seventy years old, and the chronicles say he died when he was a hundred and thirty. That is what we, the Chinese, call immortality: a long life in which to perfect ourselves and attain Tao, true immortality. Of course, that's how we've characterized it in the last millennium or millennium and a half. Before that, emperors were often poisoned by the immortality pills their alchemists prepared for them. In fact, the First Emperor, Shi Huang Ti was obsessed with discovering the secret to eternal life and went to great lengths to find it.”

“And here I thought the so-called immortality pills, the elixir of eternal youth, and the transmutation of mercury into gold were cooked up in medieval European pots.”

“No, madame. As with many things, alchemy was born in China and is thousands of years older than that in your medieval Europe—which is nothing more than a cheap imitation, if I may say so.”

That night we camped on the outskirts of Mao-ch'en-tu. We'd been traveling for three days, and the children—as well as those of us who weren't such children—were growing tired. However, Lao Jiang insisted we were going too slowly and needed to pick up the pace. He repeated, “Let your rapidity be that of the wind, your compactness that of the forest. In raiding and plundering be like fire, in immovability like a mountain,” more than once, but Fernanda, Biao, and I grew increasingly battered from sleeping on the ground. Our feet were blistered, and our legs ached at the end of a long day. It was too difficult a trek for inexperienced hikers such as we. Some nights we stayed with peasants whose houses appeared all alone in the middle of nowhere, but my niece and I found we much preferred sleeping out under the stars with the snakes and lizards, rather than subjecting ourselves to the torture of fleas, rats, cockroaches, and the unbearable smells in houses where people and animals shared the same room, covered in the owners’ gobs of spit and pig and chicken excrement. China is a country of smells. You'd have to grow up there not to suffer as Fernanda and I suffered. Luckily, there was plenty of water throughout Hubei province, and we were able to wash ourselves and our clothes quite regularly.

It soon became obvious we were not the only group traveling through the vast Chinese countryside with a long journey ahead. Whole families and entire small villages moved as slowly as a death caravan along the same paths, fleeing hunger and war. It was shockingly sad to see parents carrying their sick, malnourished children, plus old men and women piled into handcarts along with the furniture, bundles, and objects that must have been all the meager family possessions that hadn't been sold. One day a man offered his young daughter to us in exchange for a few copper coins. I was horrified, even more so when I learned that this was commonplace, because daughters, unlike sons, are not valued very highly within the family. My heart broken, I wanted to buy and feed the poor, hungry girl but Lao Jiang angrily forbade it. He said we'd only encourage human trafficking if we participated in it and that furthermore, as soon as word got out, we'd be hounded by hundreds of parents, all with the same aspirations. The antiquarian explained that people had begun to emigrate to Manchuria, fleeing banditry, famines due to droughts or floods, as well as the abusive taxes and murders by military leaders indifferent to the people's misery. Manchuria had been an autonomous state since 1921, governed by the dictator Chang Tso-lin,
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a former warlord. Economic activity was possible given the relative peace there, and the poor were thus arriving en masse.

Immersed in this river of humanity, we continued our journey to Wudang, passing villages that had recently been plundered and burned, the ruins still smoldering amid fields strewn with graves. We often came across regiments of mean-looking soldiers who shot anyone that resisted their thieving and violence. We luckily never suffered anything of the sort. On days we'd seen someone die, or bodies dumped by the side of the road, Fernanda and Biao couldn't sleep or would startle awake. It said a great deal, Lao Jiang commented, that the living would abandon their dead in strange lands without a proper burial in a country where ancestors and family are of the utmost importance.

Fifteen days after we left Hankow—and exactly one month after Fernanda and I had arrived in China—near a place called Yang-chia-fan a group of armed, dirty, ragged-looking young men planted themselves in our way and refused to let us pass. While the soldiers quickly took aim, the children and I, frightened half to death, sought cover behind the horses. One strapping young man walked toward Lao Jiang and, after wiping his hands on his threadbare pants, held out a medium- size folder. The antiquarian opened and carefully examined it. They then began to talk. Both seemed quite calm, and Lao Jiang gave no indication of danger. Though I was dying of curiosity, I didn't ask Biao what they were saying. I was afraid it might unnerve the rest of the group still standing behind their leader and didn't want them to begin firing on us or severing the tendons in our knees. The antiquarian came back a few minutes later. He said something to the soldier in charge, and they all lowered their weapons but remained looking stern. I couldn't help but notice an extreme expression of displeasure cross one of their faces.

“Don't be alarmed,” Lao Jiang said, resting a hand on the saddle of the horse we were hiding behind. “They're young peasant members of the Kungchantang, the Communist Party's revolutionary army.”

“And what do they want?” I whispered.

Lao Jiang furrowed his brow before answering. “It seems, madame, that someone from the Kuomintang let the cat out of the bag.”

“What? How can that be?”

“Calm down,” he entreated, looking worried. “I don't want to believe it was Dr. Sun Yat-sen himself, but he is an old friend of Chicherin, minister of foreign affairs for the Soviet Union,” he reflected out loud. “In any event, the Nationalists and the Communists have been on good terms to date, so it's not going to be easy to discover where the leak occurred.”

“So they know the whole story of the First Emperor's tomb?”

“No. They just know it has something to do with money, with riches. That's all. The Kungchantang, of course, now wants its share. These young men will join our soldiers to help protect us from the Green Gang and the imperialists. That is their mission. The one I was talking to is their leader. His name is Shao.”

That Shao wouldn't take his eyes off Fernanda, and I didn't like it one bit.

“Tell them to stay away from my niece,” I declared.

Political relations between the Kuomintang and the Kungchantang may well have been good, but during our entire strange journey neither the five Nationalist soldiers nor the Communist Shao and his six men said a word to one another, unless it was to argue at the top of their lungs. I think they might have killed one another if they could have, and if
I
could have, I'd have sent them all to some far-off village. Things were not that simple, however: Every now and then, when least expected, shots and shouting in the distance would make our hair stand on end. Our twelve champions, despite their political differences, would draw their weapons and surround us, hurry us off the trail and hide us behind a nearby mound or hill, protecting us until they were certain the danger had passed. Even so, coexistence had become quite uncomfortable, and by the time we reached the Qin Ling Mountains in mid-October—a month after we'd left the Yangtze in Hankow—I couldn't wait to walk through the monastery door. Unfortunately, the hardest part of our journey was still ahead; our ascent into the mountains would coincide with the start of winter. The stunning green landscapes bathed in white mist took our breath away. It even took our horses’ breath away, although our supplies had dwindled and they were only carrying barely enough food and replacement sandals to last us. We were now wearing coats with enormous, long sleeves—called “sleeves that stop the wind”—and fur hats, but Shao's young peasants braved frigid nights and glacial winds in the same clothes they'd been wearing in Yang-chia-fan. I waited in vain for them to leave, to refuse to travel farther, but the first snowfalls only made them laugh uproariously, and a small fire was enough for them to survive the icy nights. It was clear they were used to the harshness of life.

We finally reached a town called Junzhou.
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Located between Mount Wudang and the Han-Shui, that very same tributary of the Yangtze we'd left behind in Hankow a month and a half earlier, Junzhou was home to the immense, crumbling Jingle Palace. It was an ancient villa that had belonged to Zhu Di,
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third Ming emperor and a devout Taoist, who built almost all the temples in Wudang in the early fifteenth century. We decided it would be a good place to spend the night. Since it was a remote, deserted, and decaying mountain village, there were no inns, of course, so we had to stay with a well-off family. After receiving a considerable sum in payment, they allowed us to use their stables and provided us with a huge pot of a stew made of meat, cabbage, turnip, chestnuts, and ginger. The children and I had water, but, to my dismay, the rest drank a nasty sorghum liquor that warmed their blood and kept them up most of the night, amid passionate political speeches, party hymns, and boisterous arguments. I didn't see the antiquarian when the children and I curled up next to the animals for warmth, on the smelly straw and blankets. But there he was the next morning before sunrise, silently doing his tai chi before he'd even had his usual cup of hot water for breakfast. Careful not to wake Fernanda and Biao, frozen to the bone, I joined in the exercises, watching the first morning light illuminate a perfectly blue sky and enormous sheer peaks covered in forest, the green hue changing without ever losing any of its intensity.

Lao Jiang turned to me as soon as we'd finished the closing movement.

“The soldiers won't be able to accompany us to the monastery,” he said very seriously.

“I'm so happy to hear that!” I burst out. A lovely warmth was spreading through me despite the cold morning air. Tai chi had an odd way of bringing the body to just the right temperature. According to Lao Jiang, once you'd reached a state of relaxation, your mind and internal energy adjusted to one another like yin and yang. Even though the water in the pots was frozen, I felt splendid, as I did every morning after tai chi. It was no wonder I'd survived a trek of nearly 250 miles after years and years of total inactivity.

“The Green Gang could infiltrate Wudang Monastery, madame.”

“Then let the soldiers come with us.”

“I'm not sure you understand, Elvira,” he replied. I was completely taken aback by his use of my name for the very first time and looked at the antiquarian as if he'd lost his mind, but he paid no attention and continued speaking. “The Kuomintang soldiers could, perhaps, stay in the vicinity of the monastery with special permission from the abbot. The Kungchantang, however, oppose anything they consider superstition and doctrine that goes against the interests of the people. They could use rifle butts and bullets to take their beliefs out on the sacred images, palaces, and temples there. We can't have one and not the other. If the Communists stay, so do the Nationalists.”

“Then what about our security?”

“Will over five hundred monks and nuns who are experts in the martial arts be enough?” he asked ironically.

“Oh, my!” I replied, quite relieved. “Nuns as well? So Wudang is a mixed monastery? You didn't tell us that.”

The antiquarian turned around and ignored me, as was his habit when something annoyed him. However, I was beginning to understand that his actions weren't as rude as I'd first thought; they were simply the awkward reaction of someone who doesn't know what to say or do and therefore keeps quiet, avoiding the situation. The antiquarian was human, too, though it might not seem so at times.

Thus our militiamen remained in Junzhou, after serious protests by the Kuomintang lieutenant and Shao, the Communist leader. I felt most sorry for the village people who were going to have to put up with them until we returned. However, Lao Jiang's order was unequivocal and his reasons logical: We had to respect the monks of Wudang. It would not be in our best interest to arrive with armed soldiers. Such a show of force was a mistake we could not make, especially because this time we weren't going to find a hidden
jiance.
As indicated in the Prince of Gui's message, we were to humbly ask the abbot of Wudang if he'd be so kind as to give us the old piece that had been in the monastery's possession for centuries, ever since it was left there by a mysterious master geomancer named Yue Ling. I didn't say a word to anyone, of course, but I seriously doubted the success of our mission. I honestly wondered why the abbot of Wudang would ever agree to something like that.

The antiquarian, the children, and I headed toward the first of the monastery gates, still accompanied by our twelve guardian warriors. Xuanyue Men means “Gate to the Mysterious Mountain,” of all things, and this worried me right from the start. Mysterious Mountain? That didn't sound good—almost as bad as putting a gate on a mountain. Was there anything more absurd? However, Xuanyue Men was actually just a sort of commemorative stone arch some sixty-five feet high, the tops of its four columns and five tiered roofs lost in the forest canopy. It was certainly beautiful and didn't inspire the distrust its name suggested. There we said good-bye to the soldiers, who returned to Junzhou. Bundles in hand, we began our climb to the top, walking up the wide stone steps of a single ancient staircase that Lao Jiang called the “Divine Corridor” after he'd read the name carved into the rock. The first temple we came to was called Yuzhen Gong;
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it was colossal but empty. All we could make out from the door was an enormous silver-plated statue of Zhang Sanfeng, the great tai chi master, in the main hall.