His Eminence raised his hand to stop his secretary and, bending slightly at the waist, stepped inside. I rushed in after him, wanting to see what would happen when tiger and panther met. I hoped they would be enemies at first sight—growling, their hackles raised, green lights shooting from their eyes, white fangs bared. The white tiger glares at the panther; the panther glares right back. The white tiger circles the panther; the panther does the same. No backing down. My niang told me that wild beasts display their aggressive power to potential enemies by snarling, glaring, and showing their fangs, trying to drive them away without a fight. If one shows a hint of vulnerability by pricking up its ears or wagging its tail or lowering its eyes, the other one will snap at it a time or two, and the battle is won. But if neither is willing to back down, a savage fight is inevitable. No fight, how much fun is that? A good fight, now that’s worth waiting for. And that’s what I was doing—waiting, no, hoping, for a tiger-panther fight to the death between my dieh and Magistrate Qian. They circle one another, faster and faster, more and more aggressively, alternating black and white trails of smoke, moving from the living room out to the yard, and from there to the street beyond, round and round and round, until I am dizzy just watching them, spinning like a top. At one point the two merge, with black encircling white, like an egg, and white encircling black, like a twisted rope. They spin from the east end of the compound to the west, and from the south to the north. One minute they are up on the roof, the next down deep in the well. A sudden shriek—mountains echoing, oceans roaring, rabbits mating—until finally the settling—heaven and earth—arrives. I see a white tiger and a black panther, separated by no more than a couple of yards, sitting on their haunches as they lick the wounds on their shoulders. My mind was awhirl from watching the tiger-panther battle, and I was wild with joy, trembling from fear, and damp with sweat, all at the same time. Nothing had been resolved—no winner and no loser. While they were locked in battle, tooth and claw, I was wishing that I could help my panther dieh somehow, but I never found an opening.
Magistrate Qian glowered at my dieh, a contemptuous smirk on his face. Dieh wore a contemptuous smirk as he glowered at Magistrate Qian. In his eyes, this County Magistrate, who had ordered his lackeys to beat Xiaokui nearly to death, was beneath contempt. Dieh was panther-savage, mule-stubborn, ox-bold. The looks in the combatants’ eyes were like crossed swords, embodying clangs that produced sparks, some of which blistered my face. They held their intense gazes, neither willing to turn away, and by then my heart was in my throat, on the verge of leaping out of my body and turning into a jackrabbit, its tail sticking up as it bounded away, out of the yard and onto the street, to be chased by dogs all the way to the southern foothills to graze on fresh grass. What kind of grass? Butter grass. Eats a lot, hits the spot, too much and it grows a pot. When it returns, in my chest it’s a knot. Their muscles were taut, claws unsheathed from the folds of their paws. They could pounce at any minute and be at each other’s throat. At that critical moment, my wife walked in, bringing her feminine perfume into the room. Her smile was a rose in bloom, petals arching outward, opening wide. Her hips shifted from side to side like braiding a rope. Her original form glimmered for a brief moment, but was quickly hidden beneath fair, tender, fragrant, sweet skin. She knelt down dramatically and, in a voice dripping with honey yet sour as vinegar, said, “Sun Meiniang, a woman of the people, bows down before His Eminence the County Magistrate!”
That bow took the steam out of Magistrate Qian. He looked away and coughed, sounding like a billy goat with a cold: ahek ahek ahek ahek, ahek ahek ahek ahek. It was obviously contrived. I might have been a bit of an idiot, but I was not fooled. He sneaked a glance at my wife, willing neither to look her in the eye nor to look for long. That look was a grasshopper, bouncing all over the place, until it finally smacked into the wall. His face twitched, a pitiful sight, whether from shyness or fear I could not say. “No need for that,” he said; “please get up.”
My wife stood up. “I understand that His Eminence has locked up my dieh, for which he was handsomely rewarded by the foreigners. I have prepared some good strong drink and dog meat to offer His Eminence my congratulations!”
After a hollow laugh and a pregnant pause, Magistrate Qian replied, “As an official in the service of the throne, I must carry out my duties.”
As she exploded in lascivious laughter, my wife reached up and audaciously tugged on the Magistrate’s black beard, then twisted his thick queue—how come my niang never gave me one of those?—and marched him over behind the sandalwood chair, where she grabbed my dieh’s queue and said, “You two, one is my gandieh, the other my gongdieh. My gandieh has arrested my real dieh and wants my gongdieh to put him to death. So, Gandieh, Gongdieh, my real dieh’s fate is in your hands.”
She had barely gotten this crazed talk out of her mouth before she ran over to the wall and had an attack of the dry heaves. The sight nearly broke my heart, so I walked up to shyly thump her on the back. “Have they driven you crazy?” I wondered aloud. She straightened up and, with tears in her eyes, growled, “You fool, where do you get off asking me that? At this moment I am carrying the next generation’s evil bastard for your family!”
My wife’s barbs were directed at me, but her eyes were on Magistrate Qian. My dieh was staring at the wall, probably looking for the fat gecko that often appeared there. Magistrate Qian’s rear end began to shift uncomfortably, like a boy trying to keep from soiling himself. His forehead was beaded with sweat. Diao Laoye stepped up and, with a bow to his superior, said, “Eminence, business first. His Excellency Yuan Shikai is waiting at Court for your response.”
Magistrate Qian mopped his brow with the sleeve of his robe and tidied his beard, which my wife had ruffled. He coughed, sounding more like a goat than a man, and then composed himself, clasped his hands in front of his chest, and, with obvious reluctance, bowed to my dieh. “Unless I am mistaken, you must be the renowned Grandma, Zhao Jia.”
My dieh, sandalwood prayer beads in hand, stood up and replied smugly, “I am your public servant Zhao Jia, and since I am holding a string of prayer beads that were a gift from the Empress Dowager Herself, you’ll forgive me for not kneeling before a local official.”
Once the words were out, he lifted the sandalwood beads, which looked to be weightier than a chain of steel, over his head, as if waiting for something to happen.
Magistrate Qian took a step backward, brought his legs together, and straightened his wide sleeves. Then, with a swish of those sleeves, he fell to his knees and banged his head on the floor. “I, Magistrate of Gaomi County, Qian Ding,” he called out, his voice cracking, “wish Her Royal Highness, our Empress Dowager, a long, long life!”
The ritual of respect completed, Magistrate Qian scrambled to his feet and said, “This humble official would never presume to trouble the revered Grandma on his own. I come on behalf of the Governor of Shandong, Excellency Yuan Shikai, who requests an audience.”
Dieh’s reaction to the invitation was to finger his beads, ignoring the request, and gaze at the gecko on the wall. “Honorable Magistrate,” he said, “the sandalwood chair upon which I have been sitting was a gift from His Imperial Majesty the Emperor, and the custom is to treat any object from His Royal Personage as if it were the Emperor Himself.”
Magistrate Qian’s face turned the color of the darkest sandalwood. Flames of anger seemed to burn in his chest, but he managed to keep them from bursting forth. I thought my dieh had gone a bit overboard by forcing the Magistrate to kneel, an act that could be seen as turning the world upside down, reversing the order of official and subject. But to do it twice? I think you’re flirting with danger, Dieh. Niang said it best: The Emperor is a mighty force, but a distant one. A County Magistrate is a low-ranking official, but local. It would not be hard for him to find an excuse to make our lives difficult. Magistrate Qian is not someone you want to provoke, Dieh. I told you how he broke my friend Xiaokui’s leg just because he spat at the M
agistrate’s palanquin.
Magistrate Qian rolled his eyes. “When did the Emperor sit in this chair?” he asked frostily.
“On the eighteenth day of the twelfth month in the Ji-Hai year of 1899 at the Imperial Residence in the Hall of Benevolence and Longevity. When the Empress Dowager heard Grand Steward Li’s report on how I had carried out my duties, She favored me with a private audience. It was then that She presented me with this string of Buddhist prayer beads, telling me that when I laid down my executioner’s sword, I ought to become a Buddha. She then had me seek a reward from the Emperor Himself. His Imperial Majesty stood up and said, “We have nothing at hand to give you, and if you are not bothered by a bulky object, you may take this chair with you.”
A smirk appeared on the County Magistrate’s gloomy face. “I am a man of little learning and few talents. Yet however ignorant and ill-informed I may be, I have read a classic or two, ancient and modern, domestic and foreign, and in none have I ever read that an emperor would willingly surrender the chair in which he is sitting to anyone—especially not to an executioner. I submit, Grandma Zhao, that this tale is a bit far-fetched, even for you, and that you display unwarranted audacity. Why not go further and maintain that His Imperial Majesty rewarded you with three hundred years of property belonging to the Great Qing Empire, including its rivers and mountains? You wielded a sword for the Board of Punishments for many years, from which we must conclude that you are familiar with most, if not all, national laws. And so, I ask you, how should your fabrication of an Imperial Edict, your bogus assertion that you have come into possession of Imperial furniture, be dealt with under the law, given that you have created a rumor that touches upon the persons of the Empress Dowager and His Imperial Majesty? The slicing death? Or perhaps being cleaved in two at the waist. Shall your entire clan be exterminated?”
Oh, Dieh, how could you make such wild claims first thing in the morning? Now look what you’ve done—we’re doomed. I was so frightened, my soul flew out of my body, but not before I fell to my knees to beg for forgiveness. “My dieh has offended you, Your Eminence,” I said to Magistrate Qian, “and he is fully deserving of being chopped to pieces that are then tossed to the dogs. But she and I are blameless, and I beg you to be lenient. Please do not exterminate our clan, for if you did, who would bring you dog meat and spirits from now on? On top of that, my wife has now informed me that she is carrying a child, and if there is no way to avoid extermination, you must wait until after the child is born.”
Diao Laoye rebuffed me: “Use your head, Zhao Xiaojia. Exterminating a clan means precisely that, not letting a single member off the hook. Do you really think they would let a son off just so you could have an heir?”
My dieh walked up and kicked me. “What are you up to, you no-account son? You are the perfect son so long as there is no trouble. But in a crisis, this is what you turn into!” Then he spun around to face Magistrate Qian. “Since the County Magistrate seems to believe that I am spreading a rumor to dupe him, why not ask the Empress Dowager and His Imperial Majesty in the capital? If you are afraid that is too great a distance to travel, we can go to the yamen to see what Excellency Yuan has to say. He ought to recognize this particular chair.”
My father’s brief monologue sounded as soft as silk, but a barb was hidden inside it. A stunned and frightened Magistrate Qian shut his eyes and sighed. Then, opening his eyes again, he said, “No need for that. I am a man of inadequate knowledge and deserve Grandma Zhao’s ridicule.” He cupped his hands in front of him in a gesture of respect, after which he once again lowered his wide sleeves, assumed a look of distress, and fell to his knees with a swish of those sleeves, facing the chair. When his head hit the floor this time, the sound resonated throughout the room. “I, Gaomi County Magistrate Qian Ding,” he said as loud as a curse, “wish His Imperial Majesty a long life, a very, very long life!”
My dieh’s hands quaked as he fingered his prayer beads. An irrepressible look of triumph shone in his eyes.
Now that he was back on his feet, the Magistrate said, “Grandma Zhao, may I ask if there are other Imperial treasures in your possession? I have been on my knees once and then twice, so I can surely do it yet again.”
With a smile, Dieh said, “Your Eminence, that is not my fault. The custom has been dictated by the Imperial Court.”
“Well, then, since there is no more, will Grandma Zhao accompany me to the yamen, where Governor Yuan and Plenipotentiary von Ketteler await?”
“May it please the Magistrate to have his men pick up this chair? I would like for Governor Yuan to determine its authenticity.”
Magistrate Qian hesitated for a moment. “Very well,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Come take this!”
The two wolf-yayi picked up the Dragon Chair and followed my father and Magistrate Qian, who walked side by side out our gate. My wife stayed behind to vomit in the yard, crying between her stomach upheavals, “Dear Father, you must live on, for your daughter is carrying your grandchild!”
I watched as Magistrate Qian’s face went from red to white, proof of his discomfort, while the look of arrogance and self-satisfaction on my dieh’s face was, if anything, more apparent than ever. The two of them vied to let the other mount the palanquin first, like officials of equal rank or best friends. In the end, they both chose not to climb aboard, while the yayi tried to squeeze the Dragon Chair inside. When they failed, they hung it upside down from the shaft. My dieh leaned into the palanquin to set his prayer beads inside, and then leaned back out, as the curtain fell to keep the sacred object from view. Now that his soft white hands were empty, he looked contentedly at Magistrate Qian. With a leering smile, the Magistrate raised his hand and—whack—spun my father’s head around with a slap that sounded like the squashing of a toad. Caught unawares, my dieh stumbled, trying hard not to fall, but the moment he steadied himself, a second slap, more savage than the first, sent him thudding to the ground, where he sat only semi-conscious, his eyes glazed over. He leaned forward and spat out a mouthful of blood and, it appeared, a tooth or two. “Forward!” Magistrate Qian commanded.
The carriers picked up the palanquin and trotted off, leaving the two yayi behind to pick my dieh up by his arms and drag him along like a dead dog. Magistrate Qian walked on, head high, chest out, the epitome of power and prestige, like a rooster that has just climbed off a hen’s back. The head-up posture did not serve him well, as he nearly fell when his foot bumped into a brick in the middle of the road, and would have had it not been for the quick action of Diao Laoye. Not so fortunate was the Magistrate’s hat, which fell to the ground in the flurry of activity. He reached down, scooped it up, and put it back on his head—cockeyed, as it turned out. He straightened it, then continued walking behind the palanquin, followed by Diao Laoye; the yayi brought up the rear with my dieh in tow, his legs dragging along the ground. A bunch of impudent neighborhood children fell in behind my dieh, bringing the total number in the procession to a dozen or more traveling along the bumpy road on their way to the county yamen.
Tears spurted from my eyes. Oh, how I wished I had thrown myself at Magistrate Qian for what he’d done. No wonder Dieh said I was the perfect son so long as there was no trouble, but in a crisis, I turned into a no-account son. I should have broken the man’s leg with a club; I should have cut open his belly with a knife . . . Well, I picked up my butcher knife and ran out of the yard, intent on chasing down Magistrate Qian’s palanquin. But my curiosity got the better of me, and I followed a trail of houseflies to the spot where the puddle Dieh had made lay in the sun. Yes, there they were, two of his teeth, both molars. I moved them around with the tip of my knife, feelings of sadness bringing fresh tears to my eyes. After I got to my feet, I turned toward their retreating backs, spat mightily in their direction, and cursed at the top of my lungs, Fuck you—followed, in a barely audible voice, by: Qian Ding.
CHAPTER FOUR
Qian Ding’s Bitter Words
The Gaomi Magistrate,
drunk in the Western Parlor, his mind on the lovely Sun Meiniang. (A drunken body, not a drunken heart!) Eyes limpid as ripples on an autumn lake, red lips, ivory teeth, a maiden young. Dog meat and strong drink stir my emotions, an affecting aria from the opera Maoqiang. No general can pass up a beautiful woman, the adage goes, a hero prostrates himself before feminine charms. You and I are like fish in water, cavorting together. We shy not from carrying on in the yamen court (outraging our ancestors). Alas, a shame that a dream that seems so right soon gives way to what is wrong. Fighting has broken out in Northeast Township, led by Sun Bing, once an opera singer with a beard so long. I think back to early days in Gaomi County, when he spouted nonsense in a song. When a red tally was tossed, he was detained at my command and sent in chains to be flogged. At a competition over beards, he was weak, I was strong. That day I first saw Sun Meiniang, like the Tang Consort reborn. The daughter of Sun Bing means that he and I to a single family must belong. The cruel German devils want to punish him with savagery at the hands of the executioner, Zhao Jia, gongdieh of the fair Meiniang . . .
—Maoqiang Sandalwood Death. Drunken ramblings
————
1
————
Please sit, dear wife. I cannot ask you to bother with the lowly chore of preparing food and drink. I have told you so a thousand times, and yet you treat my words as wind passing by your ear. So please sit, dear wife; tonight you and I shall drink to our hearts’ content, till we are both pleasurably tipsy, and then retire to my sleeping quarters. Do not fear the prospect of inebriation or how the spirits will loosen your tongue. Though it be true that we are in the depths of this compound, where secrets are safe, even in a teahouse or wine shop surrounded by a gathered crowd I would say what is in my heart, for I could not rest until I had my say. Dear wife, you are descended from a towering official of the Great Qing, born into a family of affluence, maternal granddaughter of Zeng Guofan, who came to the rescue of the dynasty, expending energy under the most difficult of circumstances, sparing no effort as a true loyalist amid a desperate state of affairs, to become a mainstay of the nation. The Great Qing would not exist today but for the Zeng family. A toast, dear wife, to us. Do not assume that I am drunk, for I am not. Oh, if only I were! While drink may have an effect on my body, my soul remains beyond its power. I will not mislead you, dear wife, nor could I if I tried, for this once-great dynasty is nearing its fated end. The Empress Dowager holds the reins of power; the Emperor is but a puppet. The rooster broods the eggs; the hen heralds the dawn—yin and yang are reversed, black and white all mixed up, with villains holding sway and black arts running wild. It would be a monstrous absurdity if the death knell of such a royal house were not struck. Let me have my say, dear wife, for I shall burst if I do not. Great Qing Court, you magnificent edifice on the verge of toppling, do so quickly and let your demise come swiftly. Why must you hang on between life and death, neither yin nor yang? Do not try to stop me, dear wife, and do not take my glass from me. Let me drink to my heart’s content and speak my piece! Revered Empress Dowager and He Who Has Received His Mandate from Heaven, as beneficiaries of a nation’s respect, how could You show no regard for Your exalted position and make a grand show of allowing an audience with an executioner? An executioner—the dregs of society, a man at the bottom of the heap! We who serve in official positions rise before dawn and do not eat until it is dark, performing our duties with diligence, and even a glimpse of the Dragon countenance is an event of earth-shaking rarity. Yet a bottom-feeding denizen spurned by dogs and pigs has been accorded the dignity of a grand and solemn audience, at which Her Royal Highness presented him with a fine ring of prayer beads and His Imperial Majesty favored him with the very chair occupied by His noble person, treatment that barely fell short of granting high rank and hereditary title. Dear wife, your esteemed grandfather, Zeng Guofan, devised strategies that ensured victory in his command of the nation’s armed forces in campaigns all across the land, winning glory in battle after battle, and yet His Imperial Majesty did not favor him with the chair in which He sat, did He? Your grandfather’s younger brother, Zeng Guoquan, charged enemy lines under heavy fire, engaging in bloody battles, narrowly escaping death time and again. But Her Royal Highness did not present him with a ring of prayer beads, did She? No, they chose to make gifts of a Dragon Chair and a ring of prayer beads to a bottom-feeding denizen spurned by dogs and pigs. And that overweening swine, a beneficiary of the Emperor and Dowager’s munificence, forced me to perform the reverential ritual of three bows and nine kowtows before the exalted chair and prayer beads—in other words, before him. If that can be tolerated, is there anything that cannot? Subjecting a successful candidate of the metropolitan examination, a grade five official, however modest his standing, to such humiliating treatment goes beyond indignation. And please do not insult me with the adage “A lack of forbearance in small matters upsets great plans,” for recent events make a mockery of so-called “great plans.” On the street, rumors are flying that the Eight-Power Allied Forces have reached the outskirts of the city and that Her Highness the Empress Dowager and His Majesty the Emperor are about to abandon the capital and flee to the west. The Great Qing Empire, many believe, will fall at any moment. At a time like this, of what use is forbearance? I forbear nothing! No, it is revenge I seek. Dear wife, when that swine placed the Dragon Chair and the prayer beads into my palanquin, I delivered two well-placed slaps across his cadaverous dog face, satisfyingly resounding blows with such force that the swine looked down and spat out two bloody dog teeth. The stinging sensation on my hand persists even now. Ah, how good it felt! Fill my cup again, please, dear wife.