The Three Leaps of Wang Lun (55 page)

“Sorrow, Wang.”

“I can see that.”

“So.”

“Are you reproaching me?”

“Not at all, Wang. I can’t keep pace with the times.”

“My soldiers have a better grip on them. Bow to hand, arrow in, let it fly. In between, just one thought: hit the mark! Anyone who thinks differently is no use to me, he’s too good for me.”

“The Lower Reaches did you good. I envy you.”

Wang sprang up, pulled Ngo up by the hands. “Ngo, careful now. Take care, think twice, answer. When I lead my Truly Powerless into this—raising bows, aiming, shooting, always hitting the mark, am I doing right or wrong? Think twice, Ngo.”

Ngo slowly shook his head. “Let go of my hands. I’m happy you’re here.”

“That’s all very well. But—who are you? What am I to make of you?”

“Let’s sit down. I haven’t come as far as you. I’d rather have gone with Ma No to the Mongolian town and drunk your poison. Then I could have stayed where I was and wanted to be. They were the flower of your league, Wang, believe me, those who fell in the Mongolian town. Yellow Bell’s taken another road, you’ve taken another road, so have many others. I can’t follow you. I stick by you and forgive you Ma No’s tragedy. But what’s coming now I don’t
understand and can’t be a part of. I am a Truly Powerless, want to model myself on the Tao, stop struggling against fate, against the knocks that buffet me. I rode a horse before I came to you in the Nank’ou mountains, shot, swung a lance, a sword. What I suffered then and because I suffered so then, I sneaked away from horses and weapons and made my bed on your good teachings, teachings that are still so good. Being free, staying free, what can happen to me, what boy, what hopeless desire could torment me! You can hear it in my prattling: you didn’t deceive us. Our souls didn’t grub after riches, long life. Misfortune lit on us with a sigh; doorcreeping Misfortune, that adored, abused child, found a home with us. Wang Lun, the Lower Reaches can’t have taken all that from you. The rivers and the sea are so wild; the Great Dyke can’t hold firm; but they can’t have torn from you what is most certain, most immutable. I myself, Wang, helped with half a heart to prepare what has now come to pass. Yellow Bell told me: a sick man clings to the first thing he sees. But I know better now: it would have been better if we’d all fallen like the hundreds Chao Hui has already killed. That would be ten times, a thousand, countless times better, believe me, Wang Lun, please believe me, than for you to enter the city, slaughter, at best found a new kingdom that must soon become as bad as any other.”

Ngo, his expression calm, regarded Wang from forlorn convinced eyes.

The swarthy man was unmoved. “It’s good, Ngo, that you’ve spoken to me like this. I’ll give you an answer. A lot of my soldiers have said the same thing to me.”

“Yes, answer, tell me. You’ll heal me if you speak like you did to the beggars in the Nank’ou mountains. After all you haven’t changed, it makes me calm to see it, the same old Wang Lun on whom all build, I built and still build.”

Wang sprang up, sat again only when he started speaking. His voice was hard, relentless: “You know the Emperor issued an edict to have us exterminated. Who is the Emperor? What is it, this ‘emperor’? I know lightning, men killed by rivers, on the water, beneath beech trees; you can be crushed by a landslide, there are floods, fires, wild beasts, snakes. And demons. They can kill any of us. There’s little enough protection from them. What is this ‘emperor’? What is it founded on, this outrageous, shameless presumption of the Emperor to have us all killed? He’s a man like you, me, the soldiers. Because his ancestor, the dead man from Manchuria, marched in and conquered the Ming empire, the Emperor Ch’ien-lung has the right to slaughter the Truly Powerless and me. Does his ancestor’s deed put him on a level with floods, landslides, thunderbolts? You need to demonstrate the fact, Ngo. Until you can refute poor dead Chu, who saw emperors as intruders and mass murderers, I assert that they are the fate of the Broken Melon and the Truly Powerless. I’m not going to take poison of my own accord. I’ll send them packing to where they belong. Our league lives on soil that belongs to us.”

“This is new, I’ve not heard this from you before, Wang. I don’t know if I can cope with it.”

“You’d better, and fast, dear brother.”

Ever more astonished, Ngo: “Quite right, quite right. What should I do? These are things I’ve said myself—to others.”

Wang raised his hands. “So we agree.”

Ngo, shifting, his voice unsure: “What does that mean, Wang—we agree? What are we agreed on?”

“What do you want of me? Why must you press me so? Do I owe you something? Have I stolen something from you? The Emperor’s an intruder, so Chu said; you have to come to terms with it, Ngo. There’s nothing more to say.”

Ngo rolled up his eyes; Wang’s gaze wandered over the empty yard. They were silent. Wang clapped his knee. “The others came to terms with it.”

An eternity of silent waiting and glances. When a procession gonged past the yamen and Ngo, jumping at every drumbeat, looked towards the door Wang stamped to his feet in disgust, walked up and down in the plank shed, his face suddenly suffused with anger, planted himself in front of Ngo, rested one knee on the bench.

“I don’t give a damn. You choose your own way. I don’t want to see anyone who has no faith in me. You for sure I don’t need; one less makes no difference. Forcing me to—Idon’tknoow what.”

Gaunt Ngo got wearily to his feet. Clear face, clear voice: “I’m going now, Wang.”

“Just what I mean. Wants to force me. But no faith. Not a trace of faith. What didn’t I give you all. I made you invincible, resccued you from—. And when I come at last nothing but white walls, planks. Questions, why why, why? It’s not enough for me to come and say such and such and such. It’s all to be paid for in ready cash, accounted for on five sides so nothing goes astray. Hah, I’ve got your measure, haven’t I?”

“I don’t know who you’re talking to.”

“To Ngo.”

“Wang, I’m loyal to you. I ask because I am no insensate wall. I can’t go into this battle; I’ve fled from it. You gave me a few years of peace. Thousands are dead because they didn’t want to go back and now here you come, want to throttle me, one of those still alive, and I’m not even supposed to ask a favour of you.”

“Favours, questions. Just let me hear one more ‘why’! You roused me to a fury once. Just keep on talking. Yesterday I took this town; we’ve been skirmishing these past few days. You were supposed to be easy on me. I say the Emperor’s an intruder. The Emperor
Ch’ien-lung has no right to issue edicts against us. You have to understand that. He’s a hangman, he’s not fate. There’s nothing there to check over.”

“I’m not checking anything over any more, Wang, excuse me, I’m still loyal to you.”

“You’re still checking me over, you! You always doublecheck everything. I’m telling you everything so you know it too. That’s all. Now get this through your head:

“It—was—not—granted—to—us to be Truly Powerless. It—was—not—granted to us. Now I’m going to squeeze myself dry for you.

“Five times I dreamed about the Mongolian town. Then I realized. Yes, you’d better hear it all, just listen, don’t butt in. That’s why I fled to the Lower Reaches, that’s why I ridiculed you, kicked you out. I was wrong in the Nank’ou mountains. Fate strikes at us with its hoof wherever we appear. A Truly Powerless can only be a suicide. And they were, and I saw it in the Mongolian town and the Emperor’s generals saw it too. And that’s stupid, Ngo, and I can’t bear to see it, and that’s why I’ve come back, because I’m to blame and it can’t go on like this for ever. Everyone must be struck down, and all at once, and I with them in one heap. Yes, the Mongolian town was better, and that’s the way it must be for us, only worse.”

On unsteady legs Ngo approached Wang, who spewed his words out at the wall of the shed, froth on his white lips, and touched his dangling arm. “But it can’t be true, Wang Lun, it can’t be true.”

When Wang uttered a moan, Ngo let go his arm. Wang flung down his straw hat, sank back onto the bench, groaned. “It’s a shame, it’s a filthy shame.”

He rubbed the back of his skull against the planks. His pinched rigid face stared straight ahead. “Go. I don’t want to know about
you, Ngo. Don’t make me lose patience. Run away, Ngo, run away. I’m afraid for you, I beg you. Get away from here fast.”

Ngo, confused, swayed on the wooden door like an automaton.

As the door slammed shut behind him Wang’s fists drummed against the woodwork. Blood pounded through the claws that ripped loose the bench on which he had been sitting, splintered and scattered it. He set bitterly to work on the flimsy hut, raged across the sunbright yard. “Villains, they’re villains here, scoundrels, assassins! I’ve fallen into a snakepit.” Ran his back, knees hard against the tottering, creaking structure. “Why don’t I kill myself?”

Two hours later smoke wafted from the yamen windows; the two front buildings screeched, scolded, howled mouthfuls of flame. When they were about to break down the door it moved, opened from inside. Wang Lun rasped through the gap; sick bellicose glances: the yamen was to bum down, they’d better look to the neighbouring buildings.

That evening a council of war convened in the Town God’s temple. Thirty men attended, twenty captains of the existing forces and ten from the town, representing guilds. Ngo appeared, invited at Wang Lun’s wish. The discussion, which lasted into the night, concerned the organizing of the young men of the town and how to arm them. Here for the first time proposals were aired for making Wang king. Wang Lun’s plan—to prepare for a direct assault on Peking after joining up with renegade Guards—was approved. A proclamation was to be issued: the Dragon Throne was to be regained for the Ming Dynasty.

At noon next day, after the troops had finished their drill and wrestling practice, Ngo approached quickstriding Wang, who was wiping sweat. They walked through muddy side alleys towards the centre of the town.

The former officer’s delicate face vibrated, became a shade
paler: “I shan’t beat about the bush. I have to ask your pardon.”

Wang, fingers dismissive, not looking: “Work, Ngo, don’t talk.”

“It has to happen. I’ve considered the whole matter, Wang.”

“About the Emperor?”

“About the Emperor too. I’ll stay by you. I shall ride to Peking with you. Who is to become king?”

“What do you mean? Perhaps you, or—yes, a Ming prince from the southern provinces.”

“Not you. Well then, that’s all right, Wang. I’ll stay with you. We’ll leave bygones alone.”

Wang cast a suspicious sidelong glance. “You’ll ride with us?” “You think my tone a little flat, you mean. That’ll pass. I have a great desire to ride with you. To the northwest, Peking. We’ll break through the walls off the Vermilion City. I have a good idea of all the things we’ll need. Houses, walls, gardens, palaces—we’ll destroy them all. I hope nothing remains of the Vermilion City.”

“Destroy it all?”

Ngo, passionately: “I can’t ride with you unless you’re going to raze the Vermilion City, Wang. It must be razed; I’ll ride willingly for that.”

“Well, well, as you like. It makes no difference. A few houses make no difference.”

They turned a corner, stood in the marketplace in front of a little house which Wang had taken for his quarters. Wang narrowed his eyes, considering, then invited Ngo in. A woman came awkwardly forward. The two men sat in a smoky room on the mat, slurped tea.

Wang after a pause, immersed in thought: “I’m still alive, as you see. The yamen burned down.”

“Let’s not speak of that.”

“Life turns like a millwheel. You never know which side you’ve
got hold of. Now once again I’m—not burned.”

Ngo very softly: “It’s like that for all of us.”

“You can sob, rage, roar, if only you know where you are. Anyone could kill me and I wouldn’t know if he was right or wrong.”

“I’m not to blame for that, Wang.”

“What are they doing now, in the Lower Reaches? My wife, back with her family. She’ll know my name by now, won’t grieve much for me. That’s a blessing. But there’s something else in the Lower Reaches that comes years later and tells me I must return, because something in me is not yet ready. Always there are clouds somewhere, water, something undefined that years later remembers and wants me to return.”

“Wang, did someone fetch you back?”

“It’s all the same. I’ve come back. The position of the millwheel. Ma No hadn’t finished the business. Oh how I envied that man. He wasn’t a priest; he was much braver than me, though he never touched a sword. He did it all so quickly while I was running, seeking help, rousing up the White Waterlily. Shut up his band, suffered what I knew they would; then made the leap, founded his kingdom. It’s all happened already.”

“We shall all perish and gain our Western Home.”

“I’d like to go once more to Nank’ou or to Chinan-fu and remember.”

Wang darted a glance at Ngo. “Or should I really try it? Who can tell beforehand what’s possible? Fish jump high and a moment later suffocate in the net. Perhaps Ma No wasn’t good-we have to bear arms, have horses, cities.”

“Yes, well, you’re right, Wang. Clouds and water are bad luck. We need hopes.”

Wang’s upper lip curled grimly. “It’s enemies I need, Ngo, must have. I’m not yet choking in a net. I won’t give the Emperor
that pleasure. The Emperor’s the enemy. You don’t chase after the Western Paradise like going to the theatre. I thought too lightly of it. Our Western Home lies in the K’unlun mountains behind crags and ice, up above all clouds and water.”

“Yes, that’s all good.”

Laughter pulsed nearer beneath Wang’s voice. “The Western Paradise lies beyond Peking. We’re so many, that was our misfortune. If it was you and me and ten others nothing would have happened to us. We were thousands, and thousands are already dead, and the Emperor’s frightened of every shadow. Thousands from his provinces congregating, wanting to join the Wu-wei—that gnaws at his spleen. And it dines on my heart.”

He let out a mocking, ringing snort of laughter. Cheerfully he poked wistful Ngo’s cheeks, hot under helpless eyes, sang out fullthroated through the house.