The Three Leaps of Wang Lun (54 page)

A general murmur: “Good, good.”

The young man tottering excited on the table continued speaking. The old man tried to calm him with huzzas.

“Do you know who our most poisonous enemies are? Our enemy and yours? What’s our enemy called? The rock, the tree trunk, the broken lute? K’ung-tzu!”

It was taken up in the gangways: “The mandarins, the literati, K’ung-tzu, K’ung-tzu!” A general: “K’ung-tzu!” With a grinding of teeth: “The oppressers, the mandarins!” Goading: “K’ung-tzu!”

More rasping from the unsteady Eight Immortals table: “Who is Confucius? What does he want? The third evil! He taught us to wash our mouths, comb our hair, bow to princes, many good things, many bad. For us poor people he died long ago and has nothing more to say. Manchus, lamas and mandarins pray to him, and so we can’t pray to him. They’ve snatched him away from us, taken away from us what was good in him. His soul in Peking ought to be glad we don’t burn incense to him, but sweep him from our doorways with harsh words. I hate him, we all hate him,
the empty tin pan. The wise old gentleman who spoke before me was right: we must be weak in the face of fate, we have no other choice. We’re poor. Whoever throws away all he has, does well; but even he loses his head, like Li as he strolled. Oppressers, alien wolves, crocodiles, foxes are our fate. The Manchu swagger in their offices, cheat their way through the exams, overturn our carts and sedan chairs in the street, tramp paths wide with their broad feet. The villainous, godless dynasty! Their fate will be fulfilled, before ours or after ours. The longnoses will destroy the land, and it is all K’ung-tzu’s fault. We have nothing left but powerlessness.”

He had grown calmer as he spoke, cast off a mocking agitating shrillness in his tone, gestures, movements. Women walked about sobbing. Excited groups formed, dissolved, formed again. The young orator, drops of sweat on his pale forehead, sauntered shoulder to shoulder with Ngo down a gangway. Tears had sprung unbidden even into Ngo’s eyes. The magic word “Ming” hung in the air. It cropped up in every gathering of the White Waterlily, often among the Truly Powerless, as in other gatherings the chi-plant, the Isles of the East, the Western Paradise.

The long room was lit by many small paper windows. It grew dark. The rattling, rustling, drumming, calling, crying in the marketplace, temple yard died away. Through windows on the room’s narrow side, sheaves of light poured from the yard onto baskets, utensils. During the young man’s speech soft music, fine singing had been heard, now a declamation: the play was beginning.

While the crowd jostled, wrinkled brows, gave off a stink of sweat, two elderly men from the coolies’ guild grasped a little potbellied man by the arms and tried to pull him to the steps. This man, clean-garbed, sleek, was an educated man who owned a farm and a windmill for husking rice, and like many others held to the Ming tradition out of respect for his ancestors.

On the steps he smacked his lips, inundated by happy voices, bowed; people pressed about him. His head lay low between round padded shoulders. As he spoke, his little hands moved drolly up and down, left and right. He smiled. His performance was a showpiece, a hit. He said, in his soft, dark voice, “Once there was an abbot.” Several in the audience sang it back at him, lulled, showing their gums in delight. The man pulled his queue to his chest, stroked it like a child.

“Once there was an abbot. He lived at peace in his monastery. When the sun shone hot one noontime the abbot laid his hat on his face, fell asleep. He dreamed. He dreamed of a council of the gods. He saw the Three Great Pure Ones at a table, with them the Jade Lord, the charitable son of King Pure Virtue and Queen Moonlight. What I tell you is half a fairy tale. So the Jade Lord bent down to the abbot, raised his shoulders to tell a secret, said, ‘I’m going to have a woman wander into your monastery. She’ll be the mother of a great emperor. She’ll bear him under my sign: Sun and Moon.’ When the abbot woke up, he asked the porter whether any woman had come by. None had. The pious man went through every cell, every hall, climbed up to the hills, down into the caves. No child’s cry. In the evening a hawker with his cartload of junk came to the gate. His pregnant wife was with him. Both were dressed in rags. Sadly the abbot gave them pills so the birth would go right. The whole monastery slept. In the morning the child came. Soft music of flutes and panpipes was in the air, birds pecked the paper from the window where the mother lay. They perched as thick as on lime rods and warbled to the crying of the child. A halo appeared around the sun. So poor was the father that he had to fish a piece of red silk out of the river to wrap the child in. Little Yuan-chang, the trembling little maggot Yuan-chang was wrapped in a rag of red silk.

“And when he grew bigger he had to follow the cowherds into the meadows. Was himself a cowherd. And one day when there were five of them out there in the meadow he wanted to give them a treat. He went off, slaughtered a calf, stuck its tail in a cleft in the rocks. Yuan-chang stuck the calf’s tail in a cleft in the rocks. And then they called him their captain. But the man who owned the calf looked for the creature, found the tail. Took a rod, and two rods, and the boy had to flee in sorrow. Hungering through the meadows went Yuan-chang. But the Sun showed him the way, the Moon guided him on. A monk took him by the hand, took him to his cave, shaved his head. Yuan-chang, the shrimp Yuan-chang became cook boy in the monastery. Lamps he had to light in the rooms, censers he had to swing, heavy censers in his tender hands, herbs he had to dry, bells calling the whole day. He was in the monastery where his beggar mother had borne him. They beat him, teased him all around the house, even the abbot to whom the Jade Lord had revealed his prophecy. But once the abbot saw the boy with a ruddy glow about his face. The abbot was fearful. He sent him to the woods, to fetch kindling from across the swamp to make a fine sauce. Yuan-chang ran fast, sank in when he came to the swamp, sank in. Yuan-chang sank up to his shoulders, up to his neck, to his mouth. And as he cried out piteously and wallowed like a toad in the mire, cried for his dear father, his dear mother, out of the wood came a golden sprite. Ah, it’s a fairy tale, a pretty fairy tale, my grandfather told it me. The sprite pulled him out by the fingers. And he was no longer a cook boy. The water had set lots of white pearls about his neck, he was clad in purple and brocade from his immersion in the swamp. He had a girdle with jade clasps. Bedecked with finery, Yuan-chang strolled gracefully back to the monastery like an Imperial prince. And at once the abbot knew his name.”

They shoved against one another, hanging on his words, burst out powerfully with, “Ming, it was Ming!”

They went about smiling. The smith called out as rain spattered the windows, “We need a wall, a white wall around Peking!”

“Oh, why did the Mings die out? Why did the people desert them?”

“There are still Mings alive, they say there are some on the Yangtze.”

“Wang Lun’s supposed to be a Ming, that’s why the Emperor hates him so.”

“That’s just it. That’s why he hides himself away. He knows why. As soon as the Emperor catches him, he’s done for.”

“Or the Emperor’s done for.”

“Wang Lun knows he’s a Ming and the Emperor is protecting himself.”

A tremor appeared in Ngo’s delicate features. The young agitator and the teacher grinned. The old man winked at Ngo, shook his head. “They are right, and they are not right. Wang Lun is a Ming and more than a Ming.” Ngo’s eyes were shut in a reverie. “I should like to see Wang Lun soon.” “Yes, Ngo, we all need him.” Ngo sighed: “I’m not made for such deeds. If someone doesn’t take the load off me, I shall be the first to fall in battle.” Both the others lowered their heads too.

The old man and the agitator separated from Ngo. They took part in the radiance of faces, pumping of hands, walking up and down, stumbling in the gangways. Scrapings, rhythmic footfalls, giggling permeated the muffled turmoil. In a side alley someone had lost his wits, was indulging in bizarre grimaces, puffing himself up, jerking his head. Two others strutted in front of him: “Make way for the Taot’ai!”, jostled those in front and at the sides, always pouncing on the one nearest them. He wore coarse sacking instead
of a gown. On his smoothshaven skull he had placed a piece of gourd to represent a mandarin’s button. Made grotesque faces, strutted laughably pompous behind his runners, sat all of a sudden on a low wooden bench that he dragged from a pile, pretended to gallop off uttering shrill cries. A number of other men behind him tried to ape his movements, but for laughter couldn’t keep composure, tottered; until the galloping Taot’ai turned on his bench and with a swipe of his sabre, as it were, did for one of them. The whole assemblage rocked. Even the old sage had crawled onto an ornate cabinet and grinned down from it. The man who had been struck down grabbed the Taot’ai by the shoulders, aimed a punch at him. His neighbours joined in with enthusiasm. The rider defended himself, to roars of approval from the onlookers crept under his bench; then they overturned it and began to kick him. The old man screamed down from his cabinet: they weren’t to make him angry. They broke up slowly as the rider stood up and stared at the wall. They clapped him on the shoulder.

The spokesmen of the organizing committee made their way to a corner of the low storeroom. The gathering seemed over. Conversations took place in scattered groups. Men came up to the delegates in the corner, asked for details of who was there, which guilds were represented, who would speak. The answer they got was: everyone should wait. All would soon be revealed. The whole assembly had convinced itself that Wang Lun must come. The golden word “Ming” rose from many groups. The din abated when the spokesmen and Ngo stood, pressed through the gangway, the old teacher climbed the steps. Gravity made itself felt. The old man spoke like one casting accounts. Again accusations were hurled into the crowd against the Emperor, the mandarins, soldiers. The Truly Powerless were representatives, offspring of the people, had grown from a movement that could arise only at a time of oppression;
misfortune was their fate. And here bloomed the White Waterlily. United by the terrorism of the alien rulers, baseness of the mandarins: the Committee in Shantung would have reached the same conclusion. It had been decided that all should stand together and accept the decision of the Committee in Poshan. The land must be freed of the Manchu and the lying, deceiving officials driven out. “The Mings!” called two, three voices from the floor. The old man’s face became transfigured: yes, they must prepare again for the time of the Mings. As the Truly Powerless sought the Western Paradise, so friends of the White Waterlily and of Wang Lun must strive for the age of the golden Mings. Sadly he shook his head. Still they would have to wait, until Wang himself arrived, a week, two weeks more. Before then many misfortunes could occur. But Ngo was with them, and it was certain that in Peking itself Imperial troops would come over to them.

The crowd stood stock still. The old man had got down from the steps. “No decisioon?” broke over him. The theatre lights were still burning. The names “Wang Lun” and “Ming” echoed. The mass became looser. They shoved in droves through the doors, across the bottomless streaming temple yard into an unpopulated side alley, into the rainwashed park that belonged to the temple. Several remained in the storeroom, banged windows tight, curled up on soft bundles and snored.

Wang hastened to a little village near Hochien, inhabited now almost solely by his adherents and friends of the White Waterlily. Barely a week later he stood with eight hundred tolerably well armed soldiers behind the village. Solemn wrath, passionate disputes with his followers had preceded the enlisting of the Truly Powerless as soldiers. The transformation of these most peaceable of men—for none here had been provoked by direct attacks—into a mob of
warriors ready to kill and ready to die was achieved with difficulty.

Unopposed by Imperial troops Wang Lun marched on Hochien. And four weeks after Yellow Bell had sought out Ngo, three weeks after the gathering in the pawnshop, Wang threw his troops against the town walls. Gate guards, police were struck down, the occupying troops of the Imperial army first locked in, then driven over the walls with arrows; officials given mercilessly over to the rage of the populace. The great town fell unconditionally to Wang. People rejoiced in the streets. Wang’s soldiers had broken in like a pack of wild beasts: vicious under the violation of their souls, now truly vengeful. Victory meant nothing to them; they were spurred on to all their deeds for no further goal than to become peaceable beggars again, quiet artisans and labourers. Chao Hui could breathe again: the smoke was dissipating; now naked, jagged flames were breaking out.

The morning after the seizure of the town Wang Lun and Ngo sat in the yard of the locked magistrate’s yamen. They sat in a wooden shed that petitioners had to seek out. The streets were noisy: jubilant shooting, gongbeats in procession. Wang, in a grey dangling unbelted smock, wide straw hat on his head, had one leg over the other. His voice had taken on a hard, bright military tone. When he laughed, it rattled and croaked breastdeep like the neighing of a horse. His eyes gazed firm, straight ahead, right, left, seeking, controlling; he adopted a highhanded tone that gave the impression he had found a secret way to order, decide, explain. He observed Ngo good-humouredly. “Do you still hold it against me, from back then?” Ngo replied with a black look from under his brows, smoothed his simple gown: “All past, Wang.” “You had cause, Ngo. It was a cold bath for me, what you brought me about Ma No. Couldn’t take it too well at first.” And then Wang gave such a loud, free, uninhibited yelp that Ngo was reminded of his
laughter with the slut under the gate. “Belter skelter down the hill, through the snow, Yellow Leaper in the thick of it, had his fill. Nearly took my hand off. Ngo, what times they were!”

“Yes, yes, fine times. Wang, I’ve not changed much since those splendid times.”

“A thousand li, Lower Reaches, cormorant fishing calm a man down. Hey, what’s up, Ngo?”