Sandalwood Death: A Novel (Chinese Literature Today Book Series)

  I felt empty inside as I washed rice at the well. When I looked up, I saw the flying eaves of the towering City God Temple, where pigeons were cooing and crowding together, and I wondered what they found so interesting. The crisp clack of horse hooves resounded on the cobblestone road beyond the gate. Some German devils were riding by, their tall, rounded, feathered hats visible above the wall. The sight made my heart pound, since I was sure that my dieh was what was on their minds. Xiaojia, who by then had sharpened his butcher knife and readied the necessary tools, picked up a hooked Chinese ash pole and went into the sty, where he selected a black pig and quickly hooked it under the chin. Squeals tore from its mouth, and the bristles on its neck stood straight as it struggled to back up, its hind legs and rump flat on the ground, blood seeming to seep from its eyes. It was no match for Xiaojia, who hunkered down and pulled so hard that his feet sank at least three inches into the dirt, like a pair of hoes, as he backed up, one powerful step at a time, pulling the pig along like a plow, its feet digging furrows in the sty. In less time than it takes to tell, Xiaojia had pulled the pig up to the killing rack. Then, gripping the hooked pole in one hand and the pig’s tail in the other, he straightened up and, with a loud grunt, lifted a creature weighing two hundred jin up onto the rack, so disorienting it that it forgot to struggle—but not to squeal. Now that all four legs were sticking straight up, Xiaojia removed the hook from the pig’s chin and tossed it to the side, picking his razor-sharp butcher knife out of the blood trough in the same motion. Then—slurp—with the sort of casual indifference of slicing bean curd, he plunged his knife high in the pig’s chest. A second push and it was buried deep inside the animal, bringing an end to the squeals, which were replaced by moans that lasted only a moment. Now all that remained were the twitches—legs, skin, even the bristles. Xiaojia pulled the knife out and turned the pig over to let its blood spill into the trough below. Great quantities of bright, hot blood the color of red silk pulsed into the waiting trough.

  The stench of fresh blood hung over the half acre of our courtyard, which was big enough to accommodate dog pens and pigsties, Chinese roses and peonies, plus a rack for curing meat, vats to hold fermented drink, and an open-air cook pit. The odor attracted blood-drinking bluebottle flies that danced in the air, a testament to their keen sense of smell.

  Two yayi, attired in soft red leather caps, black livery secured around the middle with dark cloth sashes, and soft-soled boots with ridges down the middle, swords in scabbards on their hips, opened the gate. I knew they were constables, fast yayi from the yamen who tracked down criminals, but I did not know their names. Feeling a lack of self-assurance, since my dieh was in their jail, I smiled. Normally I would not have deigned to look their way, not at contemptuous toadying jackasses who were a scourge of the people. They returned my courtesy with nods and tiny smiles squeezed out of their fiendish faces. But only for a second. One of them reached under his tunic and pulled out a black bamboo tally, which he waved in the air and intoned somberly:

  “We bring orders from His Eminence the County Magistrate to escort Zhao Jia to the yamen for questioning.”

  Xiaojia came running up, bent humbly at the waist, still gripping his bloody butcher knife, and, with a bow, asked:

  “What is it, Your Honors?”

  With frosty looks, the yayi asked:

  “Are you Zhao Jia?”

  “I am Xiaojia; Zhao Jia is my dieh.”

  “Where is your dieh?” one of the puffed-up yayi demanded.

  “In the house.”

  “Inform him that he is to accompany us to the yamen.”

  I had taken all I was about to take from this pair of nasty dogs.

  “My gongdieh never goes anywhere,” I said angrily. “What offense has he committed?”

  My display of temper was not lost on them.

  “Mistress of the Zhao home, we merely follow orders,” they said, looking for sympathy. “And we are only messengers. If he is guilty of an offense, we do not know what it is.”

  “One moment, good sirs. Are you inviting my dieh to the yamen for a social visit?” Xiaojia asked, his curiosity bubbling over.

  “How should we know?” the yayi said with a shake of his head and an enigmatic grin. “Maybe he’ll be treated to some nice dog meat and millet spirits.”

  Of course I knew exactly what kind of dog filth and cow crap had come out of the little mutt’s yap: a not so subtle hint at what went on between Magistrate Qian and me. Xiaojia? How could a blubber-head like him have any idea what this was all about? He was only too happy to run inside.

  I followed him in.

  Qian Ding, you fucking dog, what are you up to? You arrest my dieh, but hide from me. Then early this morning, two of your lackeys show up to take my gongdieh away. The plot certainly thickens. First my own dieh, then my husband’s dieh, and now my gandieh, three diehs coming together in the Great Hall. I’ve sung the aria “Three Judges at Court,” but this is the first time I’ve heard of “Three Diehs at Court.” I doubt that you can stand being away from me for the rest of your life, damn you, and the next time I see you, I’m going to find out what you have in your bag of tricks.

  Xiaojia wiped his oily, sweaty face with his sleeve and said excitedly:

  “Good news, Dieh! The County Magistrate has invited you to the yamen for some millet spirits and dog meat!”

  My gongdieh remained seated in his chair, his bloodless little hands resting squarely on the arms. He made not a sound, and I could not tell whether he was resting calmly or putting on a show.

  “Say something, Dieh. The yayi are out in the yard waiting for you.” Xiaojia’s nerves were beginning to show. “Will you take me with you, Dieh? Seeing the Great Hall would be a real treat. All those times my wife went, she never once agreed to take me along . . .”

  I jumped in to put a stop to what the buffoon was saying:

  “Don’t listen to him, Gongdieh. Why would they invite you for a social visit? I’m sure they plan to detain you. Have you committed a crime?”

  My gongdieh lazily opened his eyes and sighed.

  “If I have,” he said, “it is what was expected of me. As they say, ‘Confront soldiers with generals and dam water with earth.’ There is nothing to get excited about. Go invite them in.”

  Xiaojia turned and shouted out the door:

  “Did you hear that? My dieh wants you to come in.”

  With a hint of a smile, my gongdieh said:

  “Good boy; that’s the right tone for people like that.”

  So Xiaojia went outside and said to the yayi:

  “Are you aware of the fact that my wife and Magistrate Qian enjoy a close relationship?”

  “You foolish boy,” his dieh said, shaking his head in exasperation before fixing his gaze on me.

  I watched as the smirking yayi pushed Xiaojia to the side, hands on the hilts of their swords, resolute and ruthless in their determination as they rushed into the room where we were talking.

  My gongdieh opened his eyes a crack, barely wide enough for two chilling rays to escape and smother the two men with contempt. Then he turned his gaze to the wall and ignored the intruders.

  After a quick exchange of looks that seemed to bespeak their embarrassment, one of them said officiously, “Are you Zhao Jia?”

  He appeared to be asleep.

  “My dieh is getting on in years and doesn’t hear so well,” Xiaojia said breathlessly. “Ask him again, but louder.”

  So the fellow tried again:

  “Zhao Jia,” he said more forcefully, “we are here by order of the County Magistrate to have you visit him in the yamen.”

  “You go back and tell your Eminence Qian,” he replied unhurriedly, without looking at them, “that Zhao Jia has weak legs and aching feet and cannot answer the summons.”

  That prompted another quick exchange of looks, followed by an audible snigger from one of the men. But he turned serious and, with a display of biting sarcasm, said:

  “Ma
ybe His Eminence ought to send his palanquin for you.”

  “I think that would be best.”

  This was met with an outburst of laughter.

  “All right, fine,” they said. “You wait here for His Eminence to come in his palanquin.”

  They turned and walked out, still laughing, and by the time they were in the yard, their laughter was uncontrollable.

  Xiaojia followed them into the yard and said proudly:

  “My dieh is really something, don’t you think? Everyone else is afraid of you, but not him.”

  One look at Xiaojia set them off laughing again, this time so hard that they weaved their way out the gate. I could hear them out on the street. I knew why they were laughing, and so did my gongdieh.

  But not Xiaojia, who came back inside and asked, clearly puzzled:

  “Why were they laughing, Dieh? Did they drink a crazy old woman’s piss? Baldy Huang once told me that if you drink a crazy old woman’s piss, you can laugh yourself crazy. That must be what they did. The question is, which crazy old woman’s piss did they drink?”

  The wretch replied, but for my benefit, not his son’s:

  “Son,” he said, “a man must not underestimate himself. That is something your dieh learned late in life. Even if the Gaomi County Magistrate is a member of the Tiger group, someone who passed the Imperial Examination with distinction, what is he but a grade five County Magistrate whose hat bears the crystal symbol of office in front and a one-eyed peacock feather in back? Even though his wife is the maternal granddaughter of Zeng Guofan, a dead prefect is no match for a live rat. Your dieh has never held official rank, but the number of red-capped heads he has lopped off could fill two large wicker baskets. So, for that matter, could the heads of nobles and aristocrats!”

  Xiaojia stood there with a foolish grin on his face, his teeth showing, likely not understanding what his father had just said. But I did, every word of it. I’d learned a great deal in my years with Magistrate Qian, and my gongdieh’s brief monologue nearly froze my heart and raised gooseflesh on my arms. I’m sure my face must have been ghostly white. Rumors about my gongdieh had been swirling around town for months and had naturally reached my ears. Having somehow found a cache of hidden courage, I asked:

  “Is that really what you did, Gongdieh?”

  He fixed his hawk-like gaze on me and said, one slow word at a time, as if spitting out steel pellets, “Every—trade—has—its—master, its zhuangyuan! Know who said that?”

  “It’s a well-known popular adage.”

  “No,” he said. “One person said that to me. Know who it was?”

  I shook my head.

  He got up out of his chair, prayer beads in his hands—once more the stifling aroma of sandalwood spread through the room. His gaunt face had a somber, golden glow. Arrogantly, reverently, gratefully, he said:

  “The Empress Dowager Cixi Herself!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Zhao Jia’s Ravings

  The adage has it: By the Northern Dipper one is born, by the Southern Dipper a person dies; people follow the Kingly Way, wind blows where the grass lies. People’s hearts are iron, laws the crucible, and even the hardest stone under the hammer dies. (How true!) I served the Qing Court as its preeminent executioner, an enviable reputation in the Board of Punishments. (You can check with your own eyes!) A new minister was appointed each year, like a musical reprise. My appointment alone was secure, for I performed a great service by killing the nation’s enemies. (A beheading is like chopping greens; a flaying differs little from peeling an onion.) Cotton cannot contain fire; the dead cannot be buried in frozen ground. I poke a hole in the window paper to speak the truth and admonish, prick up your ears if you seek to be wise.

  —Maoqiang Sandalwood Death. A galloping aria

  ————

  1

  ————

  My dear dissolute daughter-in-law, why do you glare like that? Do you not worry that your eyes will pop out of your head? Yes, that is my profession. From my seventeenth year, when I dissevered the body of a thieving clerk at the silver repository, to my sixtieth year, when I administered the lingering death to the would-be assassin of His Excellency Yuan Shikai, I earned my living at that calling for forty-four years. You still glare. Well, I have witnessed many glares in my life, some far more insistent than yours, the likes of which no one in all of Shandong Province, let alone you people, has ever seen. You need not even see them in person. Merely describing them could make you soil yourself out of fear.

  In the tenth year of the Xianfeng Emperor, a eunuch called Little Insect audaciously pilfered His Majesty’s Seven Star fowling piece from the Imperial Armory, where he worked, and sold it. A tribute gift from the Russian Tsarina to the Emperor, it was no ordinary hunting rifle. It had a golden barrel, a silver trigger, and a sandalwood stock in which were inlaid seven diamonds, each the size of a peanut. It fired silver bullets that could bring down a phoenix from the sky and a unicorn on land. No fowling piece like it had graced the world since Pangu divided heaven from earth. The larcenous Little Insect, believing that the sickly Emperor was rapidly losing his faculties, impudently removed the piece from the armory and sold it for the reported price of three thousand silver ingots, which his father used to buy a tract of farmland. The poor delusional youngster forgot one basic principle: Anyone who becomes Emperor is, by definition, a dragon, a Son of Heaven. Has there even been a dragon, a Son of Heaven, who was not endowed with peerless wisdom? One who could not foretell everything under the sun? Emperor Xianfeng, a man of extraordinary mystical skills, could see and identify the tip of an animal’s autumn hair with dragon eyes that appeared normal during the day, but emitted such powerful rays of light when night fell that he needed no lamp to put brush to paper or to read a book. It was said that the Emperor planned a hunting expedition beyond the Great Wall and called for his Seven Star fowling piece. A panicky Little Insect made up bizarre explanations for why that was not possible: first an old fox with white fur had stolen it, then it was a magical hawk that had flown off with it. Emperor Xianfeng’s dragon mien turned red with anger, and He handed down an Imperial Edict, ordering that Little Insect be turned over to the Office of Palace Justice, which was responsible for disciplining eunuchs. The standard employment of interrogation tactics secured a confession from the miscreant, so angering His Majesty that golden flashes shot from His eyes. He jumped to His feet in the Hall of Golden Chimes and roared:

  “Little Insect, We shit upon eight generations of your ancestors! Like the rat that licks the cat’s anus, you are an audacious fool. How dare you practice your thieving ways in Our home! If We do not make an example of you, We do not deserve to be Emperor!”

  With that, Emperor Xianfeng decided that Little Insect would be subjected to a special punishment as a warning to all, and He called upon the Office of Palace Justice to read him a list, not unlike a menu for an Imperial meal. Officials presented all the punishments used in the past for the Emperor’s selection: flogging, crushing, suffocating, quartering, dismemberment, and more. After hearing them out, the Emperor shook His head and said, “Ordinary, too common. Like stale, spoiled leftovers. No,” He said, “you must seek advice from the experts in the Board of Punishments to provide an appropriate punishment.” On the very night that His Excellency, President of the Board of Punishments Wang, received the Imperial Edict, he went looking for Grandma Yu.

  Who was Grandma Yu? you ask. My mentor, that’s who. A man, of course. So why do I call him Grandma? Listen, and I will tell you. It is a reference peculiar to our profession. Four executioners are listed in the Board of Punishments register. The oldest, most senior, and most accomplished among them is Grandma. Next in line, ranked by seniority and skills, are First Aunt, Second Aunt, and Young Aunt. During the busy months, when there is more work than they can handle, outside helpers are taken on, and they are called nephews. I started out as a nephew and gradually worked my way up to Grandma. Easy? No, by no means. I served the Board
of Punishments as Grandma for thirty years. Presidents and Vice Presidents came and went, but only I remained as tall and sturdy as Mt. Tai. People may despise our profession, but once someone joins its ranks, he looks down on all people, in the same way that you look down on pigs and dogs.

  To continue, His Excellency, Board President Wang, summoned Grandma Yu and me, your father, to his official document room. I, barely twenty that year, had been elevated from Second Aunt to First Aunt, an unprecedented promotion and a display of great Imperial favor.

  “Xiaojiazi,” Grandma Yu said to me, “your shifu did not ascend to First Aunt until he was over forty, while you, young scamp that you are, have reached the plateau of First Aunt at the age of twenty. Like sorghum in the sixth month, you have shot upward.”

  But that is talk for another time.

  “His Imperial Majesty has issued an edict to the Board of Punishments to provide a special, even unique, punishment for a eunuch who stole a fowling piece,” Board President Wang said. “You are the experts, so give this your full attention. We do not want to disappoint His Imperial Majesty or show this Board in a bad light.”

  A sound like a moan emerged from Grandma Yu’s mouth.

  “Excellency,” he said after a moment, “your humble servant opines that His Imperial Majesty loathes Little Insect because he has eyes but does not see. We must therefore carry out the Emperor’s will.”

  “How true,” Board President Wang said. “What do you have in mind? Tell me quick.”

  “There is a punishment,” Grandma Yu said, “known as Yama’s Hoop, named after the doorway to the King of Hell’s realm. Another name for it is Two Dragons Sport with Pearls. I wonder if it might be appropriate.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  So Grandma Yu described Yama’s Hoop in detail, and when he was finished, His Excellency beamed in delight.