“The street walks on people’s toes, a dog flies in tail to nose. Pick up the dog and hit a brick, the brick bites the hand of a man expecting a lick~~meow meow~~”
My beggar escort carried me southward, leaving the yamen gate behind. After slanting off the main road, we traveled another ninety paces or so until we were in front of the Temple of the Matriarch, whose roof tiles made a good bed for cattails, known locally as dogtail grass. The beggars had stopped singing and screeching once we were off the main road, for that is when they broke cadence and quickened their pace, and it was also the moment I realized that today’s procession was not about stocking up on provisions, but was all about me. If not for them, by then I’d likely have been lying dead, bayoneted by a German soldier.
My rattan chair was no sooner settled on the temple’s chipped and cracked stone steps than two of the beggars picked me up by the arms and bundled me into the dark confines.
“Is she with you?” a voice in the darkness asked.
“She is, Eighth Master!” said the two men who had carried me in.
There, on a tattered mat in front of the statue of the Matriarch, fumbling with something that gave off a bright green light, sat Zhu Ba.
“Light a candle!” he commanded.
His words hung in the air when a little beggar lit a piece of touch paper and with it the stubby half of a candle hidden behind the statue. Light suffused the temple’s interior, including the guano-covered face of the Matriarch. Zhu Ba pointed to the ratty mat he was sitting on.
“Have a seat.”
At this point, what could I say? I sat down without a whimper—I had to, since I had no feeling in my legs. My poor legs! Ever since Dieh was imprisoned, you’ve been running all over the place, leaping and jumping, until you’ve worn the soles right off your shoes . . . dear left leg, precious right leg, this has all been hard on you.
Zhu Ba stared holes in me, apparently waiting for me to say something. The green light from whatever he was fumbling with was now more muted, but thanks to the bright candlelight, I was able to discern that it was a gauzy sack that held hundreds of fireflies. For a moment I couldn’t imagine why this village elder was playing with bugs. Once I was settled on the mat, all the other beggars found places to sit, except for those who sprawled on the floor. But whether seated or lying down, none of them said a word, and that included Hou Xiaoqi’s sprightly little monkey, which squatted at his feet and limited itself to jerky movements of its head and clawed feet. Like Zhu Ba, they all had their eyes glued to me, and that too included the monkey. I greeted Zhu with a kowtow.
“Compassionate and merciful Master Zhu—! Tears flow before a word she can say, the distressed young woman cannot find her way. Please, Eighth Master, save my dieh from the Provincial Governor Yuan, the German von Ketteler, and the minor county official Qian Ding—Three dignities a ruthless plan do make, to impale my dieh on a sandalwood stake—the executioners will be my gongdieh, Zhao Jia, and my husband, Zhao Xiaojia. They are determined to make the process inhumanely cruel, forcing him to linger impaled between life and death for five days, until the rail line between Qingdao and Gaomi is completed. I beg Eighth Master to save him, and if that cannot be done, then to kill him with merciful speed. The foreign devils’ conspiracy must be foiled, oh, Eighth Master . . .”
“I tell you, Meiniang, worry not; eat some mutton rolls while they are hot.” Once he had sung these two lines, Eighth Master said, “These rolls did not come to us as alms. I sent a boy to buy them at the home of Jia Si.”
A young beggar dashed behind the Matriarch’s statue and emerged carrying an oilpaper packet in both hands. He placed it on the mat in front of me. Zhu Ba touched it to see if it was hot, and said:
“People are iron, food is steel, and you will starve if you miss a meal. Have one while it’s still hot.”
“My situation is too dire to have any appetite for stuffed rolls, Eighth Master.”
“Sun Meiniang, don’t give in to alarm, for that ruins harvests and to the heart brings harm. It’s said that earth can stop a flood and a general can block an army, so hear me out and eat your rolls while they’re warm.”
Zhu Ba stuck out his right hand, the one with the extra finger; he waved it in front of my eyes, and a glistening dagger appeared. A flick of the dagger, and the oilpaper parted to reveal four steaming stuffed rolls. Song Xihe’s layered cakes, Du Kun’s baked wheat buns, Sun Meiniang’s stewed dog meat, and Jia Si’s meat-filled rolls were Gaomi’s most famous snack foods. Plenty of shops in Gaomi sold dog meat, so why had mine become one of the famous four? Because it tasted better than everyone else’s. And why was it so tasty? Because I secretly stuck a pig’s leg in with the dog meat, and when everything in the pot—meat, raw ginger, a bit of cinnamon, and prickly ash—was boiling, I stirred in a bowlful of strong spirits. That was my secret recipe. Master Zhu Ba, if you find a way to save my dieh, I’ll bring you a cooked dog’s leg and a jug every day for the rest of your life. One large roll sat atop three others on the oilpaper in the shape of a candelabrum. Their reputation was well earned. Jia Si’s rolls, steamy white as snow, tops twisted into a plum-blossom bow, a spot of red in the center~~a spun-gold date, charming and mellow. Zhu Ba laid his dagger down in front of me, an invitation to spear one of the rolls. Either he was concerned that I might burn my fingers if I picked one up, or he was afraid that my hands were not clean. I waved off his offer, reached down, and grabbed one. It warmed my hand as the fragrance of leavened dough filled my nostrils. With my first bite I devour that gold-spun date, and its sweetness coats my throat. The red date slides into my stomach, where it awakens juices there afloat. With my second bite I open the wheaten folds, and expose the mutton-carrot filling inside. The mutton is salty, the carrot sweet, with leeks and ginger the taste is complete. If you’ve not eaten Jia Four’s rolls you haven’t lived. Now, I may not have been a pampered heiress, but I was a respectable woman, and should not display traits of anything less in front of all those beggars. Small, dainty bites were called for, but my mouth had a mind of its own, and before I knew it I had gobbled up half a roll that was larger than my fist. I’d been taught that a decent girl chewed slowly and swallowed with care, but my throat acted like a greedy hand, reaching up and pulling down every bite as soon as it entered my mouth. The first roll was gone before I had a chance to actually taste it, and I had to wonder if it had really found a home in my stomach. I’d heard that beggars have an uncanny ability to strike down a dog through a wall and move objects by thought alone. I could not be sure, but that roll seemed to have entered my mouth and slid down to my stomach, though in fact it had done no such thing, and now lay in the stomach of somebody else, somebody like Zhu Ba. That is the only way to explain why my stomach seemed empty and why I felt hungrier than I’d been before the roll disappeared. Then my willful hand snatched the second roll out of its wrapping, and, like its predecessor, I finished it off it in three or four bites. Now that I’d put away two of the rolls, my stomach actually felt like there was something in it. So I turned to the third roll, wolfed it down, and now there was a heaviness in my stomach. By then I was stuffed, but I reached out for the last roll anyway. In my little hand it looked bigger than ever, had greater heft, and wasn’t all that appealing. The mere thought that three big, heavy, ugly things just like it were already nestled in my stomach sent an embarrassing belch up and out of my mouth. But while my stomach was sated, my mouth was not. With three large rolls having laid a foundation down there, I could eat more slowly for a change, and at the same time pay a bit of attention to my surroundings. I looked up and saw Zhu Ba staring at me, and behind him were dozens more twinkling eyes. All those beggars were watching me, and I knew that in their eyes I had gone from something approaching a goddess to a common woman with a greedy mouth. They ought to change the adage that “Man eats to live” to “Man lives to eat.” Nothing makes you worry about dignity like a full belly, and nothing overcomes thoughts of shame quicker than an empty one.
&nbs
p; “Had enough?” a smiling Zhu Ba asked after I’d polished off the last roll.
I nodded abashedly.
“Well, then,” he said softly, his hands busy with the dagger and the sack of fireflies, his eyes emitting a green light, “now you can listen to what I have to say. To me, your dieh is a true hero. You probably don’t recall—you were very young—but he and I were quite close at one time. He taught me twenty-four Maoqiang arias, which gave my youngsters here something they could trade for food. Why, it was your dieh who helped me devise this Beggars’ Day idea. You can put aside everything else, and I am ready to rescue your dieh for his bellyful of Maoqiang arias alone. I’ve already come up with a foolproof plan. I’ve bought off the jailer, Old Fourth Master, known to you as Su Lantong, that scar-eyed old reprobate, who will help us with a scheme known as stealing beams and changing pillars—in other words, a switcheroo. I’ve already found someone to take your dieh’s place—that’s him over there.” He drew my attention to a beggar fast asleep in the corner. “He says he’s had a full life, and he looks enough like your dieh to get by. He’ll willingly die in your dieh’s place. Of course, after he’s gone, we’ll set up a memorial tablet and burn incense for him every day.”
I fell to my knees and kowtowed in the man’s direction; tears filled my eyes.
“Old Uncle,” I said, my voice quaking, “righteousness such as yours reaches the clouds, for you are prepared to die for a cause. With high moral character, your name will live for all eternity. Only a hero of gigantic stature would willingly sacrifice his life for my dieh, and that burdens my heart. If his life is saved, I will see that he writes you into a Maoqiang opera, so that your courageous deed will be the stuff of song for the masses . . .”
The man opened his eyes—droopy as a drunken cat—gave me a bleary look, then rolled over and went back to sleep.
————
2
————
I awoke from a terrible nightmare just before nightfall. In the dream I’d seen a black pig standing like a gentleman on the stage erected on the Tongde Academy parade ground. My gandieh, Qian Ding, was standing behind the pig, but the space in the center was reserved for a red-headed, green-eyed, big-nosed foreigner with an injured ear. If that wasn’t the man who killed my stepmother, slaughtered my stepbrother and sister, butchered all those villagers, and had the blood of our Northeast Township on his hands, Clemens von Ketteler, I don’t know who it was! My eyes blazed when they spotted my mortal enemy, and it was all I could do to keep from charging and sinking my teeth into his neck. But for a defenseless young female, that would have been suicidal. Seated beside him was a red-capped, square-jawed official with a moustache, and I knew at once that he was the celebrated Governor of Shandong, Yuan Shikai, the man who had ordered the execution of the Six Gentlemen of the Hundred Days’ Reform, who had murderously put down the Righteous Harmony Boxer movement in Shandong, and who had brought back my gongdieh, that horrid creature, to put my dieh to death in the cruelest manner imaginable. Stroking his moustache and narrowing his eyes, he sang:
“Sun Meiniang, Queen of Flowers in song, a cute little thing, and a face to go along. No wonder Qian Ding was smitten, for even my heart itches to you to belong.”
I was secretly delighted. That seemed to be the moment for me to kneel down and beg for my dieh’s life. But then Excellency Yuan’s face hardened, like frost settling over a green gourd. A curt signal from him brought my gongdieh, carrying a sandalwood stake saturated with sesame oil, followed by Xiaojia, oil-soaked date-wood mallet in hand—one tall, one short, one fat, one skinny, the yin and the yang, a madman and a moron—up to the black pig. Yuan Shikai eyed Qian Ding and said, his voice dripping with contempt:
“What do you have to say, Eminence Qian?”
Qian Ding prostrated himself at the feet of Yuan Shikai and von Ketteler and said, his voice suffused with reverence:
“To ensure that nothing goes wrong at tomorrow’s execution, your humble servant has invited Zhao Jia and his son to practice on this pig. With your permission, of course.”
Excellency Yuan looked over at von Ketteler, who nodded his approval. Yuan Shikai nodded his, a signal for Qian Ding to get up, quick-step his way over to the black pig, reach out and grab it by the ears, and say to my gongdieh and Xiaojia:
“Commence.”
My gongdieh placed the tip of the sandalwood stake, from which sesame oil still dripped, up against the pig’s anus and said to Xiaojia:
“Commence, son.”
With his legs spread, Xiaojia spat into his hands, made a circle in the air with his oil mallet, and gave a mighty whack to the butt end of the stake, half of which slurped its way up inside the pig. An involuntary arching of the back was followed by an ear-shattering screech. The animal lurched forward, knocking Qian Ding off the stage. The “oof!” when he hit the ground sounded as if he had landed on the head of a drum. The next thing I heard from him was a shrill:
“Heaven help me! I could have been killed!”
Now, although I was unhappy with Qian Ding, we were, after all, lovers, and it pained me to see him hurt. So despite the fact that I was pregnant, I jumped down off the stage and tried to help up the man I held in my heart. His face had a deathly pallor, his eyes were shut, and for all I knew, he could have been dead. So I bit his finger, pinched the groove between his nose and upper lip, and kept at it till I heard him sigh and saw the color return to his face. He clutched my hand and, with tears spiraling in his eyes, said:
“Ah, Meiniang, you are what makes my heart beat, so tell me, am I dead or alive, am I dreaming or am I awake, am I a man or a ghost?”
“Dearest Qian Ding, my love, though I say you are dead, you live on, though I say you are awake, you sleep on, and though I say you are a man, you look like a ghost.”
All hell broke loose up on the stage, A beaten drum, a clanging gong, a cat fiddle goes li-ge-long. A black pig, sandalwood stake up its rear, in circles runs, chased by my gongdieh and his son. The pig bites off Yuan Shikai’s leg, blood everywhere, then takes off half the German commander’s buttocks. How happy I am, two unlucky stars have fallen, but thunder and lightning prove me wrong. Yuan Shikai’s leg returns, von Ketteler’s buttocks are whole again, they sit on the stage looking fit and strong. But the black pig is no more, replaced by Sun Bing, to whom I belong. He suffers cruel torture, as the air fills with mallet sounds~~bong bong bong~~and the stake splits his body, his screams loud and long . . .
My heart pounded in my chest, and cold sweat soaked through my clothes.
“Did you have a nice sleep?” Zhu Ba asked, his eyes smiling.
“Eighth Master,” I said sheepishly, “I’m so embarrassed to have fallen asleep at such a critical moment . . .”
“That is a good sign, for people capable of accomplishing great things at critical moments are normally able to enjoy good food and a restful sleep.” He placed four more rolls in front of me. “Eat these while I tell you what’s happened today. This morning, your gongdieh put the finishing touches on his sandalwood stakes, and the County Magistrate erected an Ascension Platform across from the opera stage on the Tongde Academy parade ground. By the platform stands a matted shed, a large stove in front, a small one in back, there for your gongdieh and his son. The stakes steep in sesame oil, the fragrance traveling far. Oil in the large pot, beef in the small, for father and son it is an oily treat. But tomorrow at noon, one of those stakes will be driven up your dieh’s back, his life undone. The yamen entrance is still guarded like a fortress, security is tight, and there have been no sightings of your dear Qian Ding, Yuan Shikai, or von Ketteler. I sent one of my cleverest youngsters disguised as a food delivery boy, hoping he could get in through the gate to check things out. A German bayonet abruptly ended his mission. Going in through the main gate, it seems, is out of the question . . .”