The Three Leaps of Wang Lun (44 page)

“Don’t stop up your ears, Ch’ien-lung! How can awareness rise in men if not from unease, anxieties, nocturnal wanderings, from the wringing of hands, cries for help to the four quarters.”

“Oh you are cruel. I thought you an ocean of gentleness and am disappointed.”

“Let me weep with you. And let me pray that you remain strong and that it doesn’t drain from you.”

Ch’ien-lung, in despair, had knocked his forehead against the golden chairarm. His shoulders and arms heaved jerking at the groaning expansion of his ribcage. He was no longer aware of the Tashi-lama’s presence. A sense of grey abandonment overwhelmed him.

The holy man took the mitre from his head. His shaven skull was dewed with fine drops of sweat. In the silence, broken only
by the Yellow Lord’s snuffling breath, minutes grew to long hours. The quiet was preserved by no more than a little husk, thin as a rubber membrane; beyond it pressed a gaseous mixture that threatened at any moment to rip through the husk. Panchen Rinpoche rustled to the altar, grasped his prayer sceptre, threw himself down. When he stood and looked around, Ch’ien-lung’s piercing troubled gaze was fixed on him. The holy man stepped hesitantly back; slowly he put the mitre with its Buddha images back on his head. He bowed to the Yellow Lord, who sat bolt upright, face revealing the great warrior Emperor; said, “If it please Your Majesty, I go now to my devotions.”

“I beg Your Holiness to favour me tomorrow with instruction.”

“I shall devise a task and beseech the Changkya Hutuktu to occupy himself with the Mongolian caravans tomorrow as well.”

The next afternoon at the same hour Ch’ien-lung and Paldan Ishe entered the hall of the three chairs. A massive ornament gleamed in front of the holy man’s chair. Smooth black tripod of wood with a circular top painted green, wide as a man’s outstretched arm. On this disc the miniaturist’s art had built a wonderful city of glinting metal, precious stones and brightly coloured materials. Within the encircling wall houses crowded with upswung roofs. Memorial arches, temples; broad avenues quartered the city, in which a high holiday was being celebrated, numerous banners waved from painted poles, magnificent prayerwheels had been pulled into the streets. In the centre rose a hall with a dome of smooth crystal. Four steps led to a hushed, pillarfringed room: a golden deity kept silence within. It was a model of the City of Gods on the world mountain Sumeru.

After the formulaic exchange of greetings and thanks the two rulers sat down side by side. Yellow sunlight fell slanting through the hall.

The Yellow Lord appeared lively, expansive. Paldan Ishe’s breastpiece glittered: a Kalmuck present, a blue halfmoon-shaped brooch; little chains that hung from it supported two round plates of silver inlaid with coral, rock crystal and little pearls. The chains ended in long silken tassels that dangled in the great lama’s lap.

The Panchen spoke first: “The learned Changkya Hutuktu laments that his duties once again keep him from his appointment with you and me.”

Ch’ien-lung laughed. “I consider it quite disrespectful of the learned Hutuktu. Some other spiritual judge could perhaps be found for the caravans and cattleherds. Your Holiness will permit me to express sympathy at the presumption of such a servant, who has grown accustomed in my realm to too great an independence. You have only to say the word, and I’ll make arrangements for his punishment.”

“So, the Changkya Hutuktu didn’t feel quite secure in leaving you and me alone?”

“Your Holiness doesn’t know Ch’ien-lung. In one respect I haven’t aged a single year: in my delight in fine, bright summer weather. On such days I feel only Heaven above me, and I’m convinced that It means well with me. Paldan Ishe, on such days Ch’ien-lung needs no advice; today he’s brimming with happiness because the flower of the snow country is here to share it.”

“I doubt what use I can be to Your Majesty. The sun and bright days are lovely, but they’re superfluous. I hope Your Majesty won’t say such things to me.”

“What should I say to Your Holiness? Should I begin like yesterday, and drag the unease of my night into this lovely day? You’d look at me with sympathy but would urge, ‘Good, good, more, more!’ Because you don’t want to understand that old man as I am, I cannot learn new wisdom. It’s a lovely day; I sincerely regret not
being able to receive the wise Hutuktu. Let you be sole instructor, Panchen Rinpoche.”

“Where a river undermines its banks one does not lightly erect a pagoda.”

“I wish, Panchen Rinpoche, that the Hutuktu were with us to hear you. Aren’t you a murderer in your sympathy for me, in your desire to save me? I praise this day that sets me on my feet and makes me happy again after your harsh ‘No’ of yesterday. But the sun mustn’t shine and the larks mustn’t sing, because for you they’re superfluous. You don’t know, Panchen, what you mean to me, how I waited for you these last months! The sight of you in the garden made me tremble; it affected me as if a sort of judgement were closing in on me. I was mistaken, and shall act as if I’d merely received a visit from the ruler of Tibet, who is about to offer me inordinate quantities of presents.”

“Beat against me.”

“I shall remain as I am, unaltered. My forefathers thought as I do. We worship you without having the strength to follow you. Yes, there’s an icebreath about your teaching.”

“I have prayed for you to Amithaba. If I thought I could kindle that little light that bums in you, then forgive me. Be the poor little man Ch’ien-lung, Emperor of the Middle Realm.”

“I am ruler of the greatest empire in the world, and I do not want to change. I was born the Son of Heaven and shall die upon the Dragon Throne.”

“If you won’t rue this lovely day and if it won’t darken the sunlight for you, I should like to ask Your Majesty about the things that troubled you yesterday. Why did Your Majesty’s troops drive those thousands of people into the Mongolian town where they met their end?”

“Those people were rebels, Paldan Ishe, who calumniated my
dynasty, founded a kingdom of their own in my northern province. They had a mendacious way of putting into practice the holy Wu-wei, the non-resistance of Lao-tzu. Instead of tending fields, raising children, they roamed the countryside; begged, seldom prayed, yearned for the Western Paradise. Because they claimed to have acquired supernatural powers through their union with fate, thousands of honest men and countless women streamed to them from every side. My officials couldn’t simply stand by and watch. They tried to disperse them. Some sections of the population also found the movement threatening. And this was the beginning of their end.”

“I am not yet clear as to the beginning. But the end I know: Ch’ien-lung has grown uneasy. Who thought it a good idea to attack the sectarians? They themselves, as Your Majesty remarked, attacked no one.”

“The name of the mandarin was not made known to me.”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“This is no crime, Your Holiness: to drive men who’ve abandoned wives and children back to their homes, to whip sons who’ve forgotten the service of their ancestors back to a sense of duty. Fields must be ploughed, sown; taxes must be raised for the upkeep of the commonwealth. When wives, who should be a shadow and an echo in the house, run about with sectarians, then they should be made to kneel on little chains. Immodest wives and concubines who leave their homes to do whore’s duty among people who shamelessly call themselves ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ should be punished according to the custom of the region: buried alive, sewn into sacks and drowned, killed with eight cuts.”

“All this is right. I say nothing. I cannot understand how such a splendid beginning could lead to such a lamentable end.”

“No, Panchen Rinpoche, that remains a mystery. Criminals should be dealt with exactly as I’ve said. And yet it’s like a head
that only now looked grave and dignified and suddenly twists its mouth and eyes like a tiger and roars. What is this head, Panchen Rinpoche? Why does it gape at me?”

“Let it be, Ch’ien-lung. Put away your soul. I raise my sceptre. The Buddha Sakyamuni has unveiled the causes of existence and of your quandary. In the first light of dawn, Knowledge came to the king’s son of Kapilavastu before his mound. She knitted cause together with cause; I take the threads, loosen the knot. The sects wandered in darkness, sought Buddha and found him. You fell upon men and women. You have created a thousand restless ghosts. You have unnaturally prolonged the chain of their rebirths. No one can sleep when a thousand wailing, accusing ghost-knuckles rap by night on door and post. Ch’ien-lung, you must place cause beside cause.”

“What must I do to break the chain? I know my ancestors disapprove of something here. But I can’t bring these people back to life. I didn’t know these sectarians. I’ll arrange sacrifices for them.”

The holy man laughed. Reflectively he stroked the silken tassels of his breastpiece. “How utterly different lands and peoples are. Ten days journey to the east of Tibet everything has changed, and no one knows of the destruction of worlds, or of the cycle of birth and death. The Hundred Families you call yourselves: not even death shatters a family; your ancestors remain with you. How smooth, how polished, bowed in domestic comfort over the earth. A stick of incense atones for this plunge into the cascade of rebirths. A dish of butter compensates a soul for a millennium of prolonged torment. So, sacrifice to the ghosts of these dead in your own way. Erect wayside shrines for them. Spare the remainder of the Wu-wei sect.”

“My head is empty, finds no firm ground. You want to help me, you want to help me!”

“The day is lovely again. To be mild, to be calm; such is the
hand that frees every bolt. Come to me, old man, find yourself before you die.”

The old Yellow Lord stared before him. “The most reverend gentleman from the Mountain of Mercy has a soft, gentle way of loosening threads. I shall take sacrifices of atonement to my ancestors; I shall go to the tombs at Mukden. Contrive atonement for Wang Lun and his burdened adherents. K’ang-hsi, Yung-cheng wish it.”

Ch’ien-lung straightened his back. The pope of the yellow church drew his rosary of bones through his right hand; his face was turned towards the Emperor.

The Emperor was surrounded by the shades of his powerful ancestors. They pressed upon his highdrawn shoulders, they scrutinized their drooping descendant. The Emperor squirmed: these were K’ang-hsi, Yung-cheng, who should accept him into their quiet circle. Through their mist shone the bronzed frank visage of the holy man of Tashilunpo.

In confusion and trembling the Yellow Lord tottered to his feet, stood before the stranger, pulled his silken sleeve. “You, Paldan Ishe, are the sceptre-bearing lama. Ch’ien-lung is afraid. Have you advised him well?”

They had managed to follow the trail of Wang Lun the criminal for no more than a week after the events in Yangchou. He ran in broad daylight through western towns; no one dared come near him. This man of giant strength threw unsuspecting passers-by aside; superior forces he eluded by his cunning. He was last seen about the time of the first snowfall in Hochien, to the west of the Imperial Canal, outside the walls of this populous city.

Since then he had not been seen in the northern province. Neither that winter nor the following summer was anything heard
of Wang Lun. Even among the brothers and sisters there circulated only vague rumours of him. Ngo, the former captain of the Imperial guard, seemed to know the most of Wang’s whereabouts; it was Ngo that Wang met outside the walls of Hochien. From him it was learned that Wang was alive; he conceded now and then in a hesitant manner that Wang would soon appear again, but as soon as talk turned to the founder of the Wu-wei sect Ngo fell silent, looked away and was despondent.

Wang Lun had quit the northern province two days after learning from Ngo details of the Broken Melon’s downfall. The tale had travelled faster than Wang, who had had to lay up for a whole day. Lanky Ngo knew little of the circumstances; some of what he was told he forgot under the dreadful weight of the whole.

When Wang stood before him, his face haggard, eyes bloodshot, transformed into a demon of revenge and battle, just brain and arm for his infamous Yellow Leaper, Ngo was so alarmed that Wang had to hold him fast by the jacket.

They walked along under the wall. In a broken prison cage used by beggars as a night shelter they sat while Wang waited for Ngo to calm down. Then Ngo answered his questions, softly, flinching at the sound of his own voice, several times asking, “What is to become of you, Wang?”

Ngo was able to give some account of the turmoil that night in the Mongolian town, the attempts of some brothers to flee, deathleaps over the outer walls. He had more details of how the townsfolk entered the upper town at break of day. He knew the names of the leader of the former town guards and others, names of the exorcising bonzes. When Wang heard that not a single one of the besieged had survived the night he let out his breath, beat his breast groaning, sat there cast in bronze.

Then, as gusts of wind scattered loose snow over them from
the cage bars, Wang asked whose fate had been particularly commented on.

Ngo wouldn’t speak at first, related some incidents without being able to attach names to them, described how lovely Liang-li had been found still alive. He talked himself into a state of agitation and ended plaintively with Ma No’s death.

A piercing howl broke out from Wang; he grasped Ngo tight, blocked up his ears, turned away.

He ran from the cage through soft snow under the wall, pursued by Ngo. Wang howled without stopping, flung himself to the ground, beat the earth with his fists, pulled himself up. Finally they ran one behind the other to a little elevated spot. The screaming, drooling man sat down in the snow, raised his sword with both hands, swung it steadily through the falling flakes from right to left, from left to right. He lowered it, moaning kissed the blade, cast strange looks at puzzled Ngo. He rolled over the ground, down the hill, painted a long crimson streak in the white snow from his bloodspurting hand, slit at the wrist. Ngo fell to whimpering; he shook the man, heaved him up, pressed snow to the wound, pulled Wang along, who twisted his head with its contorted face around in circles, dragged the battered sword behind him with his right hand like a child his little cart.