The Three Leaps of Wang Lun (13 page)

Ma knew nothing of the dream when he awoke. The only sound that echoed in his ears was his groaning. Through such dreams the wave of restlessness drove deeper into him. He began to criticize the regulations of the monastery. Instead of the ever deeper absorption, ever more strenuous overcoming of the Will that the teaching required, he awaited the final highest state like a lover his tryst. And knew with piercing clarity that he deceived himself in every absorption that the golden Buddhas were so far from him, so inscrutable.

But he had to attain them if he were not to suffer endless rebirths; he had to reach the Shore of Salvation if he were not to drown. That was what the Tha-mo drilled into him, the good Law of the Worlds, of breathing beings, of the destruction and renewal of worlds. He ran one day to the beach; a boatboy ferried him across; his wanderings began. During ten years of wandering through the provinces of Anhui, Kiangsu and Honan nothing had changed in him.

Ma No kept clear of monasteries now. He passed the years aimlessly, pushing his barrow with the Buddhas like a kaki-hawker,
until at last he settled by the mountain road near Nank’ou Pass. He prowled around holy Wut’ai-shan, could not tear free of things from which only his inadequacies excluded him. The fisherman’s son from Hunkang-ts’un quickly became for him a deeper source of contemplation than the hundred and eight figures on the soles of Sakyamuni’s feet and the eighteen conditions of unattachment. This fellow who dogged his every step was quite clearly one of those vagabonds that the demobilized army had flooded the province with. He intruded on his host. His questions, his fixating stare offended. What offended Ma No most was the way Wang treated the Buddhas: at first like one of those coarse Chinese towards his employees or lawyers, praising them or sending them away after some job well done; later with an obtrusive intimacy that tormented Ma. Tormented him because he felt that it was useless to inveigh against it, that Wang had unaccountably established contact with these silent, mild beings.

Jealously Ma shut up his hermit’s cell for days at a time, refused entrance to his familiar guest, in there in front of the shelf aped Wang’s lip-pursings, head-bowings, calm squinting. When he felt no access of peace he hurled reproaches at Wang, spat on his own feet for being so stupid as to let the petty jealousies of the monastery in again. To think that this net mender knelt on the bamboo mat in front of the shelf as if Ma No was just a temple keeper, before the Buddhas that Ma had trundled with him ten years through the endless provinces of Anhui, Kiangsu, Honan, this footpad, who for sure had a man’s death on his conscience.

A struggle developed between him and Wang, a chewing over of reproaches, slow brimming antagonism. Wang kept coming back. He could never hear enough of sutras and sayings from holy books. Willy-nilly Ma No had to give him more; the hulking fellow just nodded as if he took it all for granted. Ma No thought such behaviour
shameless, and he wrung his thin hands, gave himself for lost in his own home, was inhibited from bolting the door against Wang. When the ruffian crouched on the grime crusted mat, repeated teachings in his awkward manner, the little monk sat down breathless beside him, anxiously put out fingers to touch him, sniffed at him. Twice in a passion he showed Wang the door.

It was a still moment, one that caused the mountains around Ma No to recede, when one evening after Wang left Ma found himself doing something remarkable. He was observing the snowladen sky in a deliquescent absorption, when all at once he knew that he was Wang’s inferior and did not mind. Suddenly that night the memory of his absorption rose before him. Dull astonishment at this state of affairs: and did not mind. He was Wang’s inferior and did not mind. The feeling crawled tightly over his skin, turned his heart to a feather; tenderly, appetizingly, the thought in him went out towards Wang with kneebending abasement: “Oh, how good it is to be Ma No.”

Only for minutes.

Then he checked himself, warily stifled it all, laid himself down in front of his body and dispersed the feeling.

Was aghast finally at himself and the whole incident. Dragged himself into sleep.

Could not face Wang the next few days; was ashamed to see him; stabbed and bit himself. But this image persisted in him undisturbed:
Snowladen sky, and I am Wang’s inferior
. It emerged from his breast and pulled him along behind it, growing, growing. He considered for several nights if he shouldn’t go wandering again. Stayed, to his own astonishment. Approached Wang abjectly. Their peculiar conversations resumed. Days followed when Ma No became impatient if the vagabond didn’t come tramping in, when he tried to find out what he was doing, hurried in search of the outcast gang.

The priest taught the vagabond with a sense of unease. Everything in him was prepared for abdication.

An icy cold spell set in at the start of the New Year. The cliff paths became too slippery to use. On the high hills snow lay like a quilt in layers many feet thick. If anyone stepped in the white mass it did not compress softly; it clinked gently like a thousand slate. The snow cut hands. The air, at first of a deep green transparency, took on a grey hue.

A Mongol caravan wending its way from the northern passes progressed as far as the Nank’ou mountains. In one night thirty-five mules froze; in the morning two bears sat immovable with threatening bloodshot eyes beside a horse, which had either frozen to death or been torn to pieces alive. Balls of tea and silk, huge skins were left lying on the final pass. The pilgrims wintered in a village farther back.

After this caravan no one came over the road to Wut’ai-shan. It was enough to congeal blood, split mountains. The stamping mills stopped work. The river, narrower than usual, blew air through its valleys that was thick enough from cold to choke on.

The footpads and criminals had infiltrated some of their number into villages that lay east and west of the mountains. The others stayed for a little while on the pilgrim trails that were their living. Then everywhere small and large bands gathered together in desperation. The paths behind which the caves and huts of the homeless were tucked would soon be unclimbable; then there would be no forward and no back.

The band to which Wang belonged took refuge in several twisting narrow caves, protected from the wind, along the road above Ma’s hermitage. They were about fifty strong. But two days later, after five of them had gone in search of starving, freezing
comrades along the still passable roads, hillsides, valleys, they grew to eighty. There was no long debate. The nine most respected decided that the little village of Pat’a-ling, about six hours’ trek away, should be plundered and taken over.

During the downward climb the same thought occurred to several of them and spread among the others: none of the villagers should be allowed to slip away. They must either be locked up or killed. From the band, which not far from the village had happened on another clueless little group of thirty, there came as it ran down a continuous yelling, collapsing, pleading to be helped along. The stronger ones held their mouths open from hunger and bit the wind; they ran blindly. They took turns to carry the older and lighter vagabonds on their backs. They ran the last part of the way through an undulating valley completely silent, in a long line that thickened towards the rear, the strongest like windhounds in front, heedless of those behind.

The village had fifty houses lying along a single street, except for four houses that stood around an evergreen oak where the road from the hills entered the village. It was from these houses that the people first saw the leaping of men over the cliff known as Shen-yi, the falling and rallying of more and more men. They approached rapidly across the blue-white snow; they looked as if they were being chased. Their queues flew out behind, could be seen swinging like whips over their shoulders.

The wife of peasant Lei was the first to yell from her yard: “Bandits! Bandits! Bandits!” Women, children, then men with beds behind them ran down the village street, banged on doors, disappeared into houses. Whimpers and screams swirled over the houses, borne from roof to roof, trembled along the empty road.

From the hills the pattering came nearer, an irregular crackling and rasping, extended movement that seemed not even to
take breath. Livid faces with immobile features, hands swinging to and fro like clubs. Bodies that ran insensibly. Torsoes sitting stiffly on hips, as if riding horses. Behind the long line of single runners black groups swam, hand clutching hand. Disconnected stragglers whirled arms like hammers, smashed holes in the wall of air before them.

The few villagers who remained at their doors watching the long wedge sweep onwards also saw the black cawing swarm of birds that had left the mountains with the vagabonds.

The first robbers hurled themselves like rocks against doors. They jumped up behind each other, pushed forward. The next arrivals to the neighbouring door. They overran each other. The screaming faded; from the mountain-runners in the houses poured icy cold and the horror of the dying. They couldn’t open their jaws, their eyes didn’t blink. The last houses were barricaded. A howling rose outside, a bellowing of wounded beasts, so that the women crawled into hiding places. The living outside lifted fallen bodies clear and ran their headshaking torsoes against the wooden bars. Then suddenly the peasants opened the doors, felled the whimpering scarecrows with axes, ran to neighbouring houses, hacked at wheezing mouths. Stragglers, the strongest, carrying the lame on their backs, raced into the village, dumped their loads in the first yard, followed the screams, crushed the peasants like missiles, throttled them, smashed their children onto the street, wordlessly, with no change of expression.

The dead froze thin and stiff on the road.

The rabble pressed trembling into the houses. These toughs embraced and stroked each other. Strong and weak succumbed to a shuddering. They broke out in a dull snivelling that they couldn’t shake off even hours later. They devoured blubbing whatever they found. Not a finger was lifted against anyone in the houses.

As darkness fell, twenty of the younger ones went from house to house distributing axes, flails, telling off night watches.

The band’s plan was to stay in the village as long as the worst of the cold weather held, then pull out together. The inhabitants were apprised of this. It was not possible to notify the village headman; he had been slain with all his family.

They had no cause to fear treachery during this time. The nearest place lay six hours off, and the road was impassable.

For a whole month the village was completely cut off. Among the bandits a sense of brotherhood developed. At this time Wang attained the power over these hundred men that his role as chief demanded. In the daily quarrels, regulation of dealings with inhabitants, detailing of watches, the necessary scouting parties, his physical strength and careful diplomacy prevailed; the esteem of the older people pushed him to the fore.

Before two weeks were up the footpads were promising themselves that after pulling out of the village they wouldn’t split up, but would press on under Wang’s captaincy in search of a more comfortable life. Wang left them one morning, disappeared into the mountains for two days.

He ran to Ma No, found him cheerful, buried under piles of covers and tow, lying grinning in a corner of his hut; brought him rice, beans, teal eaves.

When he returned he spoke a lot with the older men, day and night. That they were poor outcast wretches. That no one should do to them what they themselves didn’t do to others. That nothing was more terrible than men killing each other, and the sight was unbearable. Ma No, the hermit from P’ut’o-shan, had told him many good and precious things about the golden Buddhas, especially about lady Kuan-yin who had a thousand arms on
each shoulder and gave women babies. They were his friends, and should do as he did. Fate alone had brought them so much suffering already, so much suffering; who could say why Heaven hated them? When the cold spell eased he would go through the villages and tell everyone, even the mandarins, what he thought. He was set on that.

Those who knew him from the stamping mills were not in the least surprised to hear him speak in this vein; they expected such talk from his lips. They had no thought of turning away from him. His views completely agreed with theirs. Heaven hated them; why should anyone make it worse.

They were a gregarious lot, with definite ideas about all kinds of things, worldly wise, in many respects a cut above the average of their countrymen. There were hardly five among them who did not consider themselves driven out, downtrodden, or have the impression of leading an unfree, constrained life.

Many were victims of a strong impulse that they could not control, indeed did not want to control, who summoned up and sharpened all their cunning in the service of this impulse with which they identified themselves. There were opium smokers, gamblers with faces of some refinement, elderly men. Not a few had a trade, cheated on and off, were found out and punished, now felt themselves hounded by the police, allowed trick to pile on trick, spite on spite, overstepped the bounds and at bottom were glad to be free as a bird with one stroke, flown from an oppressive legality. These were the fortunate, who felt little bitterness in their freedom.

The worst in this regard were the hotheads, the vengeful, unbridled. They had allowed themselves, mostly young, to be dragged onto a fateful path because of an ambition, a romance, a jealousy, stood apart from their family, clan, neighbours, among whom their impulses like their crimes were a sin, went around with evil looks,
cursed themselves, chewed on the inseverable rubber of their suffering. Nothing served them well; they were capable of anything; they were to be left alone. They were close tongued, always there when something was going on or planned, gave vent to their cruelty where they could, were closely watched by their fellows.

Then there were many who waited, who had attached themselves only to have somewhere in the Eighteen Provinces to live. They were discharged soldiers, still dressed in ragged blue tunics and hopeful of re-enlistment. Cripples from little hamlets unable to support them, who now thronged the pilgrim routes. Fit, serious men who had lost families in floods; the kind for whom a failed harvest was a yearly guest; the kind who at first, as a temporary expedient, went in shame to the far mountains to beg, then could not break loose and saw no way out.