Sandalwood Death (16 page)

I looked over at that swine and saw telltale flashes in his eyes light up his cadaverous face, like steel fresh from the furnace. His strange little hands, which were resting on his knees, began to twitch like tiny animals, and I knew that was not because the swine was frightened, for I do not believe there is anything in this world that can intimidate a man who has taken the lives of a thousand human beings. I knew that excitement was the cause of the twitching hands, no different from that of a wolf when it sees its prey. A sinister glow filled his eyes, but humble, submissive words emerged from his mouth. The swine may be a coarse, uncultured executioner, but his knowledge of Qing officialdom is bewilderingly extensive. He succeeds in things by keeping his inadequacies hidden, seizing his prey by feigning to let go, and pretending to be dull-witted. “Excellency,” he said as he bowed his head, “your humble servant is a man of little refinement who carries out only those punishments deemed appropriate by his superiors.”

Excellency Yuan had a big laugh over that, and when he was finished, he said with a kindly smile, “Grandma Zhao, you are unwilling to devise anything particularly brutal since he is your qinjia. Am I right in that?”

The swine truly is a demonic creature, for he detected the vicious undertone in Excellency Yuan’s mocking comment and the fiendish expression masked by the smile. He jumped out of the Dragon Chair, fell to his knees, and said, “Your humble servant has said that he has returned home to live out his days and would not dare to usurp the prerogatives of the local tradesmen . . .”

“So that is what has been bothering you,” His Excellency said. “The abler one is, the more he ought to do.”

Well, that swine said, “Since His Excellency extends such magnanimity, your humble servant will display his inadequacies.”

“Tell me, then,” His Excellency said, “down through the ages, from dynasty to dynasty, what forms of punishment have been used, official and popular. Speak slowly, one at a time, so the interpreter can pass them on to the foreigner.”

The swine said, “Your humble servant heard his shifu say that among the punishments permitted by the current regime, none exceeds the slicing death in terms of brutality.”

“That is your specialty,” His Excellency said. “It is the one you used on Qian Xiongfei in Tianjin. It is a worthy punishment, but death comes a bit too quickly, I think.”

His Excellency then turned and nodded meaningfully to me. Dear wife, few men are as crafty as Excellency Yuan, and no one is better informed. He clearly knew that Qian Xiongfei and I were related. Yes, he stared at me with a squinting smile, a smile that would have been welcome were it not for the light that shone from his eyes—like the sting of a scorpion or the bite of a hornet—and then, as if he had just been reminded, he said, “Gaomi Magistrate, they say that Qian Xiongfei, the man who tried to assassinate me, was your cousin. Is that true?” Dear wife, I felt as if I had been struck by lightning. Cold sweat oozed from my pores as I fell to my knees and banged my head on the floor as if I were crushing cloves of garlic. I tell you, dear wife, your husband’s head has been badly abused today! Backed into a corner, I was reminded of a rustic adage that goes, “Whether one lives or dies is already written somewhere,” and if I simply admitted the relationship, I would not have to suffer the consequences of trying to cover something up. So I said, “May it please Your Excellency, Qian Xiongfei was your humble servant’s third brother, but because my uncle had no heir, he raised him as his son.” His Excellency nodded and said, “A dragon has nine sons, each different from the others. I have read the letters you wrote to him, and they are worthy of a successful double candidate at the metropolitan examination. As the descendant of an illustrious family, you write eloquently, with fine calligraphy and an elevated tone. But you have not seen the letter he wrote to you, one in which he severed relations with you and poured out a stream of invective against you. Gaomi County, you are an honest man, and an intelligent one, and it has always been my belief that honesty equals intelligence. Gaomi County, though there are no wings on your cap, it is on the verge of soaring into the sky. Get up!” I tell you, dear wife, this has been an extraordinary day, with danger lurking at every turn. Pour the spirits, dear wife. It would be unreasonable for you to refuse me. I shall get drunk before I take my rest.

Dear wife, we know that my third brother suffered the slicing death in Tianjin, but were surprised to learn that his executioner was that swine Zhao Jia. How true the adage that “Old foes are fated to meet.” Yuan Shikai is a man of wisdom and wide experience, with honey on his lips and murder in his heart, and my misfortune will be certain now that I have fallen into his hands. Drink up, dear wife, take advantage of the good days, for the arrival of bad times is ensured. Man has but one life, grass sees but one spring. I am prepared for anything.

That swine cast a furtive look at me, his gaze sweeping across my neck, probably searching out the junctures to determine the best spot for the sword to enter.

Excellency Yuan left me standing there and turned to Zhao Jia. “Besides the slicing death, can you think of any other splendid forms of punishment?”

The swine said, “Other than the slicing death, the cruelest form of punishment approved by the current regime, Your Excellency, is cleaving at the waist.”

Excellency Yuan asked him, “Have you ever performed that?”

“Once,” the swine said.

“Describe it for the benefit of the Plenipotentiary,” Excellency Yuan said.

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“Your Excellency,” the swine said, “in the seventh year of the Xianfeng reign, your humble servant was a seventeen-year-old ‘nephew’ in the Board of Punishments Bureau of Detentions, serving his shifu, assisting the Grandma at executions and attentively studying his every move and action. The person to be killed by waist cleaving that day was a clerk at the Imperial Treasury, a big man with a mouth so large he could fit his entire fist in it. These clerks, Your Excellency, were master thieves, specializing in silver. Each time they entered the Treasury, they were required to strip naked. The same was true, of course, when they left. But that did not stop them from stealing silver. Can you guess, Excellency, where they hid the silver they stole from the Treasury? They hid it in their grain passages.” The sallow-faced interpreter asked, “What do you mean by a grain passage?” Excellency Yuan glared at the man. “The anus! Keep it short.” The swine said, “Yes, Excellency, I shall.” Throughout the history of the Qing, each year has seen a lessening of the silver in the Treasury, for which many innocent superintendents have died. The idea that clerks might be the culprits somehow never occurred to anyone. Every trade has its rules and customs, just as every family has its way of doing things. Even though the clerks received meager wages, they lived in lavish surroundings, dressed their womenfolk in finery, and displayed ostentatious wealth, all thanks to their grain passages. Now, one can say that such passages are tender spots sensitive to even a stray grain of sand. But those men had no trouble inserting a fifty-ounce silver ingot into them. At home, it turned out, they enlarged the openings to their rectums with sandalwood clubs soaked in sesame oil for years until the wood had turned red and was unbelievably slippery. They came in three sizes: small, medium, and large, and their use proceeded along those lines. The training went on day and night, until the passage was unnaturally wide and all was in readiness to steal silver from the Treasury. But that was a bad day for one of them. The clerk with the big mouth had stuffed three ingots up his grain passage, but while he was being searched on his way out, he grimaced and had trouble walking, as if he were carrying a bowl of water on his head or holding back an urgent bowel movement. The superintendent, suddenly suspicious, kicked him in the buttocks, which by itself was of no consequence. But the man relaxed just long enough for one of the ingots to slide out of his anus. The momentarily dumbstruck superintendent kicked him again and again, and out came the other two ingots. “You son of a bitch!” the superintendent cursed. “What you shoved up your ass is worth more than I make in three years!” The source of the clerks’ riches was a secret no longer. Now when they leave the Treasury, they are required to bend over and have their rectums reamed for hidden treasure. When the report reached Emperor Xianfeng’s ears, He was livid and angrily ordered that all the Treasury clerks be put to death and their property be confiscated. If that weren’t enough, He told Grandma Yu to devise a new means of execution, which was to jam red-hot pokers up their grain passages. All but the big-mouthed man, who was to be cleaved in half in public, a warning to the masses.

A sea of faces filled the marketplace on the day of the execution, for this was something new and exciting for people who had had their fill of beheadings. The chief witness to this solemn event was Excellency Xu, Vice President of the Board of Punishments. Also in attendance was Chief Justice Sang of the Supreme Court. The assigned team of executioners was up half the night in preparation. Grandma Yu personally sharpened the broadax, while First Aunt and Second Aunt—Third Aunt had recently died—prepared the wooden block, the ropes, and the other things they would need. I had always assumed that a sword was used for this punishment, but Grandma Yu told me that as far back as the founding of our calling, it was always a broadax. But before we set out, Grandma Yu told me to take a broadsword along in case anything went wrong.

They dragged the condemned man out, obviously drunk from the alcohol they’d poured down his throat. Red-eyed and foaming at the mouth, he thrashed around like a mad ox. He was as strong as an ox, almost too much for Second and Third Aunts, and every show of strength drew approving roars from the crowd, which further emboldened him. Finally they were able to tie him down on the wooden block, with First Aunt holding down his head and Second Aunt his legs. He fought us at every turn, flailing his arms, kicking with both feet, and twisting his body in all directions, like a snake, even arching his back like an inchworm. The chief witness found the display so disturbing that he gave the order before the team had the man completely subdued. So Grandma raised the ax high over his head and brought it down with all his might, creating a streak of white and a gust of wind. While the ax was still over Grandma’s head, absolute silence settled over the crowd; but when he buried it in the man’s body, a mighty roar erupted. I heard a slurping sound and watched as a tower of red shot into the air. The two aunts’ faces were drenched in blood. To Grandma’s discredit, one chop had not severed the man cleanly in half. At the last second he had twisted his body, and the ax had only cut through half his midsection. His inhuman shrieks drowned out the crowd noise as his guts slurped over the sides and covered the wooden block. Grandma wanted to make a second chop, but he had swung so hard the first time he’d buried the blade in the wood under the man’s body. When he tried to pull it free, the handle was too slimy with the man’s gore for him to get a grip. Jeers arose from the crowd; the victim’s arms and legs flailed wildly, and his horrifying screams rocked the area. The situation had turned ugly, and I knew instinctively what to do. Without waiting for Grandma to give the order, I stepped up, raised the broadsword over my head, and—teeth clenched, eyes shut—completed what Grandma had left undone. The one-time Treasury clerk was now severed in two. That had given Grandma enough time to gather his wits. He turned and announced to the chief witness, “The execution has been carried out. May it please Your Excellency!” The officials sat there in shock, their faces drained of blood. First and Second Aunts released their grip and, confused and bewildered, stood up. The lower half of the victim’s body was twitching, noticeably if not violently. The top half was a different story altogether. Excellency, you did not see it with your own eyes, and may not believe what I am about to tell you. Even people who saw it thought that their eyes were deceiving them, or wondered if it was all just a bad dream. The man must have been the reincarnation of a dragonfly, which can fly even without the lower half of its body. By pressing down with his elbows, he pushed his truncated body into an upright position and started bouncing up and down, his blood and guts soaking and getting tangled in our feet. The man’s face was the color of gold foil that shone in our eyes. His large mouth was like a sampan tossed on the waves, from which gushed incomprehensible, blood-soaked howls. Strangest of all was his queue, which curled up behind him like a scorpion’s tail, then fell back limply, over and over. The crowd was stilled, some with their eyes boldly open, others with their eyes timidly shut. A number of them were retching loudly. The ranking officials were by then galloping away on their horses, leaving the four of us standing there like wooden statues, eyes glued to the half clerk as he performed his remarkable feats. He kept it up for as long as it takes to smoke a bowlful of tobacco, before reluctantly pitching forward, gurgling noises emerging from his mouth; if you closed your eyes and listened, it sounded like a suckling infant.

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The swine went quiet after finishing his graphic description of the execution. Strings of slobber hung from his mouth, and his eyes rolled around in their sockets as he looked up at Excellency Yuan and the Plenipotentiary. The ghastly image of the dissevered Treasury clerk floated in front of my eyes, and I could almost hear the man’s screams. But Excellency Yuan obviously liked what he’d heard. He sat there squinting, not saying a word while the interpreter finished jabbering into the ear of von Ketteler, who cocked his head and looked first at Yuan and then at Zhao. His jerky movements and the look on his face reminded me of a hawk perched on a rock.

Excellency Yuan finally spoke up. “As I see it, Plenipotentiary, that is how we ought to do it.”

The interpreter translated Excellency Yuan’s comment in a soft voice. Von Ketteler said something in that devilish language of his, which the interpreter translated: “The Plenipotentiary wants to know how long the condemned can live after he’s cut in half.”