The Three Leaps of Wang Lun (29 page)

Ma No sat silent, listened within himself. He recalled suddenly the first discussion between the Nank’ou beggars and Wang Lun in his hut. They’d pressed Wang into seeking the protection of the White Waterlily. For the Broken Melon there was no protection, they were friendless, Wang Lun had climbed to his feet with his long battle sword, slipped by night away from the camp of those who were once his brothers.

Seething hatred for Wang Lun erupted over Ma. His arm was shaken from within, his teeth ground. A decision raged from his knee into his toes, agitated his diaphragm so that his breathing stopped; lightning and thunderclaps reverberated through him.

The little bright prayer flags on the flat roofs across the lake flapped in the breeze, stretched.

In the mute dawn Ma No signalled to the camp. There was a rushing around the lake. Swiftly the monastery was surrounded before the monks inside were woken by the first three blasts of the conch for matins.

Ma banged with his fist on the door. Five of the brothers followed him across the yard up into the Chanpo’s lofty chamber. In the bare high room, a few steps leading down into it to a curtained space, the Chanpo stood in front of a finely carved wall table on which were likenesses of venerable monks. He was a man still young, with calm, spiritual features. Ma No in his patchwork gown had not deigned to be turned away by the porter; the abbot waited to hear what occasioned such urgency. He seemed disinclined for the moment to regard the six strangers as his guests; greetings concluded he remained silent.

Ma gave his name and those of his companions, explained
with cold restraint that he must treat with the abbot on a matter of importance.

To which came the answer: the distribution of alms was the office of a brother to whom the porter would now lead them; he would advise them also on medical assistance and the relief of immediate needs.

Ma No wished to speak with the Chanpo.

He invited them hesitantly to be seated on knee stools, with the admonition that early Mass would begin shortly.

Ma No, sitting, explained that their time was limited to the time between two breaths, and they would soon be at an end. Perhaps the adept of the holy Saktas texts had learned magical formulae from the discourse of the Gods, with which to save men from utter bodily annihilation.

The abbot was astonished at this learned beggar, and said slowly that he knew a few protecting syllables; turned his yellow eyes onto the man.

Perhaps, Ma continued, the learned abbot trusted in these protective syllables enough that he would join with them in their peril.

The Chanpo, more astonished, declared that he trusted in these syllables and in many others; but was the questioner perhaps a Gelugpa in disguise, seeking him out in this way and examining him; what did it all mean and who were they.

Ma No, likewise rising to his feet, said there was no need to break off a conversation that had just started, was almost at its goal; and an early Mass foregone weighed less in the scales of sanctity than the murder of a thousand men and women. For they’d best proceed without circumlocution and politeness. Would the illustrious Chanpo go down now into the plain with his five hundred monks, pursued by criminals but trusting in the Tantra formulae? Would the illustrious Chanpo mind casting an eye through the
open window to see what transformation the night had wrought. Two steps to the window, and the abbot pulled it open. Murmuring of monks in the yard; the shimmering lakeshore, as far as the eye could see in the early mist, blackened, decked over by hundreds of shifting bodies, men, women, wagons, handcarts; they kept so quiet that not even the monks outside on their way to Mass had any inkling.

The abbot’s face, square, frozen, did not turn; he croaked, “Are they the criminals who are to pursue us?”

Ma No, moving across beside him, quickly shut the window in his face. Those were the persecuted who sought protection with him. But of course no one could say for sure when the persecuted might not turn into persecutors and criminals. They were the Broken Melon; an unchaste name for the most chaste of things; they’d been massacred at dawn; their dead lay a day’s march behind on the open field; now he, Ma No, required lodging, strong walls and protection for his harried people.

There came a knock at the door; the abbot turned his head. He was unable to attend the service; let another take his place; let them not read too slowly, and then send the officiating Gelugpa brother up to him.

“What, in simple words, do you want from me, brother Ma No?”

“You must let us into your monastery, men and women, and then bar the gates, great Chanpo.”

“How can I protect you? Is the protection of persecuted armies any business of a monastery? One who stands in the open and draws lightning on himself should not blink at the thunderbolt.”

“No one’s blinking. We don’t need preaching. We need protection. If the great Chanpo and his monks don’t have enough space for us in the monastery, then the great Chanpo and his monks will have to leave the monastery. For a few weeks. Until things go better
for us. There’s no choice for us. That’s the straight answer. And the great Chanpo too has no choice—if he doesn’t want to stand there two days from now spattered with our blood lamenting his dreadful reincarnations. On his shoulders the weight of a hundred unfree souls.”

Ma No waited with his five brothers in a room on the ground floor; they drank again, after such a long time, fine hot tea in painted cups. The voices of the abbot and his deputy sounded raggedly from above. After an hour’s debate the abbot had them recalled. In his hand, his face colourless, he still held the sumptuous black prayer sceptre. Beside him stood his deputy, Mongol features in a sharp grey head. With impressive gentleness the abbot bade Ma No preserve the monastery well with all its treasures; he would send emissaries to him from the small monastery across the river, to which he would himself repair, and inform him when the danger was over for them and they could leave the monastery. He had prayed to Amithaba to save the souls of these persecuted unfortunates.

Ma walked stiffshanked across the yard that swarmed with excited monks. The gates opened; outside he was surrounded. Then a cheer arose that spread outwards like a flash fire.

When the hot sun stood on the meridian the mighty doors heaved open. From the many buildings monks streamed together, arranged themselves in line, tended to paraphernalia on the ground. The evacuation of the Chanpo and his entire body of monks was in progress. The throng before the gates parted.

Spirituality, the world’s supreme good, appeared among these paupers who were taking a dilettantish, much shorter road to the eternal Heaven of Bliss. In the van young novices with empty hands, uncovered heads; the Banti, bald round skulls with a little tuft of hair on the crown.

Five abreast, monks in long brown cowls down to their feet;
many had the red priest’s sash slung from left shoulder to right hip; some wore robes, loose yellow gowns leaving the right shoulder bare. All topped with black square-cornered caps. Murmuring. In pairs they carried red baskets with inscriptions enjoining devoutness. Behind in sedan chairs priests of all orders, among them in a yellow-trimmed chair the Chanpo. Between the highest priests students with cushions in their hands, bearing altarpieces and the seven treasures, animals ingeniously carved, cast; elephant, goldfish, horse, offering bowls of silver, embossed plates, jugs, bronze mirrors, holy symbols of the five senses. Covered carts drew forth the all-embracing Book, called the Mother: twelve heavy volumes with woodframed pages. In front, near the Chanpo, monks clanged gongs from time to time, pumped lungs into monstrous trumpets that rested on the shoulders of those in front.

On wide litters statues of the great Gods swayed; the immaterial uncovered faces looked out over the excited crowd, tolerated the fresh smell of the lake. There sat the king of shining beryl on the lotus throne; in his dangling right hand he held the mystical gold-coloured myrobalans; the two Buddhas with the lion’s face and the Precious Headdress accompanied him. The fearsome picture of the salvation-dispensing Goddess, riding on a sea of blood, emerged from the gloom of her chapel into the warm bright air; her three eyes that flashed lightning, her burning eyebrows were no match for the even cheerfulness of the sunlight that played with undiminished strength over her serpentridden face. At last the porter dragged his stale, stunted body past Ma No, wheezed dreary prayers as he gave him the padlock to the gate.

Trumpet blasts still blared from the right bank of the lake, now and then a gong beat. Jubilant, weeping, grave, the poor Broken Melon poured in absurd procession into the empty courtyard, mudcaked men, the wounded, bloodspattered, girls with bright
dresses and dried flowers in wild hair, the song girls with nervous laughter, the stammering babbling blind and crippled. They thronged into the courts, the chapels, the prayer halls from which the Gods of heaven had been withdrawn, filled every corner and every space up to the painted ceilings with their misery.

They settled into the monastery. While craftsmen were marvelling at the height and sturdiness of the brick walls, cripples and the wounded bedding down on red divans in the prayer hall, sisters hauling beans and millet from the storerooms and cooking them in the still warm cauldrons, up in the Chanpo’s room Ma No and his intimates sat, brooded. They kept exchanging sheepish glances; here were riches and protection; but this was not good. They sat in damp clothing in the neat, well decorated room; their shoes and gowns trickled dirty puddles onto the wooden floor. A sharp fusty vapour rose from the soaked fabric, irritated their noses; their eyes streamed. With an involuntary movement the younger, serious Liu asked, “Shouldn’t we go and pitch ourselves tents in the courtyard?”

Ma No went with them; he didn’t say no, didn’t say yes. Metaphysical conversations hummed in the low corridors of wood through which they passed. There had never been talk here of hunger, mankilling; the wood of the building was saturated with thoughts of the world’s creation and destruction. Ma No’s companions sensed nothing of this atmosphere. He tagged perforce along behind them; these rooms and passages excited him as if little ghosts, calling taunting ghosts, filled them. Absently he gave advice. From their old boards the people below were cobbling together huts, tents in the yards, in order to leave the halls unoccupied. He went slowly back to the Chanpo’s room, couldn’t tear himself from it. Alone in the great empty house he knelt in the
Chanpo’s room before the bare Buddha altar, pulled through his fingers a rosary that lay beside a hassock, told the beads. The reek of fusty clothes was overpowered by the balmy smell of incense.

“Once again Ma No, the ordained monk from P’ut’o-shan, sits in a monastery,” he said out loud to himself. He felt he was resting and wanted it to be good for a few moments. Besmirched the monk sat there in the monastery, and felt no shame, no fear. Even now the screams of the slaughtered rang in his ears. After that bloodbath he breathed, remembered he still lived; rosaries, Buddha statues, the precious altarpieces, jewels, let them all be carried away; he was alive, breathed, had found his way back. They’d taken the elephant, symbol of the five senses; Ma No’s features twisted in scorn: all that was false, that’s not how it’s done. A new method, another way! Bells, incense, prayers: they should have heard the poor sisters whimpering. They played games with the ancient hoary beasts, caricatured reflexions of an alien land. Every holy mountain, every sprawling monastery complex rose uselessly over the land around; the death rattle of a single brother was enough to send them tumbling. How imposingly the Chanpo had stood there, and now he was being carried to some little chapel and he, Ma No, the hermit from Nank’ou, sat in his place, laughed defiance at the empty altar table; the gods decamped when he arrived. What are monasteries? Places where you dream and take the wrong path. Only the walls are good, the roofs are good. They protect from storms at night and rain; they bar the way to ghosts; winter squats outside the door.

Protection from criminals. Oh, monasteries had a use. No ruffians bent on mischief could break in and sink spears into strange backs. How they’d slaughtered the brothers and sisters that morning; they’d fallen by the dozen though they’d prayed so hard. If the peasants hadn’t come, those brutes doing a Prefect’s dirty work
would have trampled all the young harvest. Bastards, bastards! He’d had to watch as they crushed his people, he was helpless against those bastards. And he wanted to be helpless. Somewhere in northern Chihli Wang Lun was prowling, Yellow Leaper at his side; he took murder and mankilling on his soul; the Truly Powerless were spreading. Only the Broken Melon, his sad poor sisters and brothers, were homeless, pathless.

Should a man die, should you really understand the great doctrine like this: fate comes from somewhere, you stand in its way and let yourself be chopped? Should you die? Should you?

Ma No turned from the floor over which he had crouched his body, noticed the rosary in his hand, laid it down, rubbed his hands, rubbed his temples.

Dying would be good. Why not? It wasn’t a question of living, but of arriving well prepared with laden arms at the gates of that calm lovely paradise. Years earlier, years later, wouldn’t make it any better.

Were they prepared, though? Were they prepared?

Ma No’s hand felt for the rosary. He stood upright, climbed the steps to the Chan-po’s richly hung bedroom; pulled aside the curtain, threw himself, rosary at his breast, onto the bed. An unfamiliar clatter echoed through the house: in the yard they were banging boards together; deep singing as from the inside of a tin can rumbled from a hall.

They weren’t prepared. They needed peace, time, dig in, burrow, walls, walls! Hammering boards was useless; that wasn’t how it was done. In the morning they’d be slaughtered, and nothing achieved. Weren’t the feet of their persecutors tramping already? Life was full of noise, full of hate and fear: that was no way. Walls, walls! Here were walls, here, here!

Stormy joy for the throng out there in the courtyards swept
through Ma No. His brothers and sisters, his, they were to walk the good road: his people. Better than the sons of Sakya.