Ch’ien-lung bent to the sick man’s ear. “I am desolate that you should be suffering in my country, Your Holiness.”
Paldan Ishe seemed to want to laugh. He shook his head and gurgled.
Unperturbed by the enormity of the event that was about to pass, the parting of the Buddha from his most recent body, the old Emperor spoke. He asked often if the sick man understood him. Firm nods. With hard precision Ch’ien-lung related recent events, the disturbances, Mien’s infamy. Paldan Ishe’s eyes grew lively as Ch’ien-lung whispered. The holy man was in his element among heavy downcast souls. When Ch’ien-lung was finished he saw the brown globes of eyes move, but the sick man’s lips twitched, formed no words.
The Emperor rose, sternly threw back his head.
The next afternoon he sat again at the holy man’s bedside. The six bishops stood unmoving in their beggar rags along the walls, waited. The Emperor whispered more urgently, repeated his account, grasped the sick man’s knuckles, desired new advice, promised to erect new monasteries for the yellow church in every province.
The sick man strove for words, smiled. Only his look spoke, was silent. Anger twisted the Emperor’s face.
When the Emperor came next afternoon he found the holy man sitting up in bed. Only four bishops stood along the walls, barefoot, browncowled. Two were supporting the holy man, who kept his eyes closed, unable to open them again beneath the cushionlike swelling of cheeks, lids, forehead. The two shavenheads were supporting him because he had shown by signs that he wanted to walk. A heavy fug of incense shrouded the room. The Yellow Lord stood transfixed in the smoke. No glance met his. The holy man was turned with his face to the west. Ch’ien-lung’s palanquin went hastily back.
On a seesaw of delirium, turbidity, bright confusion Paldan Ishe woke and dreamed. Fleshtrussing cramps, hollow swaying over chasms, a clear feathery brightness alternated. The great weariness evaporated. The white walls of the labrang rose up, roofs gleamed in dull gold. The dead Dalai Lama appeared and walked quickly past under his umbrella. Master the images, meditate, meditate! Short rest in white halls. People, so many people, on camels, in carts; plunging, sinking people. Courtyard gates, sedan chairs, gongs. Help across the sea, great boats, small boats. Gigantic, incorporeal he dragged his luminous body leaving a phosphorescent wake, he was a pillar high as Heaven, revolving. No trembling beset him. He couldn’t tell if it was his feelings that he felt, if they were the feelings of others, many, countless others. Poised. Poised mysteriously between six mysterious syllables.
For three days and two nights the six bishops supported the holy man, who must die a Buddha. In pairs they propped up his back that grew ever rounder. One clasped the head and held it high. One pressed the peeling hands against the breast and several times pushed jutting elbows into the sides. One crossed the dying man’s legs. The sixth turned up the soles of his feet, which flamed red.
On the morning of the third day Amitabha left the body of Lobsang Paldan Ishe. The corpse stiffened in the position of a praying Buddha.
Weeks passed before Ishe’s body set off on the return journey to Tibet, months before it arrived in Tashilunpo, town of tears. The spirit of Buddha had already wandered long over beloved fields of snow, grassy steppe, stroked shaggy yaks, wandered here and there, sought the child in whom he would make his new home.
The people in the monastery Huang-szu in Peking embraced the snuffed out body of Lobsang Paldan Ishe, son of a civil official in Tibet. They embalmed it.
On the afternoon following the death the Imperial gong reverberated outside the monastery. In white mourning clothes the Emperor stood beltless, ringless, bareheaded before the bier, on its purple velvet a terrible Buddha crosslegged in yellow pontifical splendour, enthroned in dreadful peace.
Black gangrenous scabs hung down in shreds from a bloated face. Bloody slime dropped minute by minute from the mouth. Thick round protuberances in place of lips traversed the lower half of the face. Eyelids closed; but in some strange way they had lost their swelling so that next to the lumpish nose two greenly shimmering hollows sank into the skull. On the head drooped the mitre with five bejewelled Buddha-images. Gobs of slime trickled over the embroidered gold brocade on the breast and behind the neatly placed sleeves.
Right and left of the enthroned Buddha offerings for the dead stood on little tables: low pyramids of rice and pottery. Incense sticks burned. The bishops, the Changkya, stopped their mouths on the floorboards.
Ch’ien-lung stood rigid for many minutes. His glance swept to the window seat on which he had waited for the holy man’s awakening, to the east wall, where the timbers of the deathbed were stacked. In cold resignation he examined the features of the ascended lama. He felt no horror, followed the slow progress of a blood blister on the corpse’s lower lip and the discharge of the loathsome fluid.
It was right that this man should have been marked out. His body was rotten with pusfilled sores. He was no better than the chanting priests. His fate showed it clearly. Here the Mongolian town, there the pox: balanced in one pair of scales. The departed priest king had been unable to advise, for all his piles of books, Kandjur and Tandjur.
And now Ch’ien-lung grew uncertain. His frostiness dissolved. He fell on his knees before the enthroned corpse and wept, but none in the room knew that he wept in rage at the lama, in furious recrimination because the glorious sage had deceived him. Ch’ien-lung had allowed himself to be drawn, dazzled, onto the ice of this deceiver. And the Overbrimming-with-Grace had slipped free before he could be pinned down. He’d known how to spit blood, the corpse, cast looks of consolation, but the scornful priest couldn’t bring himself to a single syllable.
Ch’ien-lung ordered a sarcophagus of gold made in the form of a reliquary pyramid. Into it they lowered the body of Paldan Ishe. The hollows and the body were sprinkled with white salt.
The hundred days of Masses for his soul followed, in which the northern provinces, all of Mongolia took part. A whole people broke down in grief for the departed Buddha. And still the body had not reached Tibet.
The endless mourning train set itself in motion, not to the north but to the west. It dragged its way through the western provinces; people closed around the golden stupa and held it fast as if it were a pagoda sent to protect the district. The heavy shrine containing the corpse did not touch ground day or night; it slid from shoulder to shoulder. Taken up at Huang-szu amid the braying of huge trumpets it was laid down seven months and eight days later in Tashilunpo, in the white labrang that rocked with lamentations. Near Huang-szu in that same year the marble obelisk was erected which Ch’ien-lung dedicated to the holy man’s memory: capped by his golden mitre, to one side the altar for offerings, fringed with long silk pennants.
Two days after Paldan Ishe’s death the favourites of Ch’ien-lung sat in the little reception hall before the Son of Heaven’s dais. He himself gazed often through the wide open windows. Below him A-kuei squatted next to Chao Hui, Song; Chia-ch’ing too, whose courtesy visit had been granted by the Emperor, who was summoned to the audience without the boon of a private interview.
The twelve men were grouped at little tables, lacquered square tables around which black wooden stools were set, topped with yellow and red cushions. A larger, round table in the centre of the lower hall was laden with plates of fruit, melons, salads, salted duck eggs. Small bowls containing innumerable soups crowded the tables, swallows’ nests, shark’s fin with mushrooms, sea slugs, nenuphar root, bamboo shoots; roast duck with walnuts, chunks of roast pork. They concluded with sweetmeats, almonds, melon seeds. Servants flitted about with cups and winejugs. General bowing, raising of cups, taking seats all at once, murmuring.
Stringed instruments struck up. The use of fans was urged. Against the long wall of the hall opposite the Emperor’s dais a small stage opened. Dancers mounted the stage to nasal tones, the clack of wooden clappers. These bodies, so delicate and slender, belonged to eunuchs. Reserved mute glances from soft eyes; cheeks, mouths, eyebr
ows formed with the aid of paints; wigs and tinkling swaying silver pendants in black hair; black silk tunics in swelling folds, loose yellow trousers, small nimble feet in high green pumps of satin. Only now and then was one of the guests favoured with a glance. Dancing in pairs they placed peacock feathers on the stage, whirled quick as a flash through them, gracefully pulled each other close, sprang high over a feather and froze on tiptoe as they sprang, revolved slowly on their toes as crooked arms combatted above, sought and twined.
They danced in silence, a shadowplay. Ch’ien-lung kept glancing at Chia-ch’ing, who as usual sat alone in a reverie.
A tender female voice sang to viol and lute behind the stage. As the old song said: in muffled tones veiled by sadness, the bass strings roaring like a flood, the treble strings whispering, and as the notes came livelier they were like a rain of pearls onto a marble dish. The plaintive voice sang Tu Fu’s song: I am moved by deep sadness and lay myself down in the thick grass. I begin, my pain finds voice. Streaming with tears, streaming with tears. Oh, who could for long tramp the path of life, that all must travel alone? And as the old poem said: the song ended like a broken jar from which water gushes; and at the end a bow was drawn across the strings, which vibrated under a single touch as if cloth were being torn.
Ch’ien-lung nodded. The pockmarked enthroned Buddha from Tibet stood before his eyes; shreds of gangrenous black skin hung from his bloated cheeks, the once smooth straight forehead bulged like a hydrocephalic child’s. Arrived in Jehol a living Buddha from Tashilunpo; departed an ulcerous lump of flesh.
Viol, lute and women’s voices, at the Yellow Lord’s wish, sang thrice more Tu Fu’s song of transience. Then Ch’ien-lung rose. A eunuch stood at Chia-ch’ing’s side and whispered in his ear. Dance, song, feasting were interrupted by a solemn ninefold touching of the floor. As gaiety heightened in the hall, wild ribbon dances swirling as music goaded, acrobats in green and red sacks springing up, weaving curiously in and out, burrowing into each other, the Yellow Lord paced rapidly at Chia-ch’ing’s side beneath the unapproachable blackness of the cypresses whose dark flames soared, pillar after pillar, into the pink evening sky.
Ch’ien-lung wanted his son, whose chocolate brown overgown threw out flame-red folds in the speed of their pace, to account for himself in this matter; he knew which one.
Chia-ch’ing sighed, did not answer right away; suppressed his irritation and impatience, referred quietly to his letter in which he had reported Mien-k’o’s high treason to Jehol.
Ch’ien-lung was not satisfied; he wanted an oral account. The word “pardon” slipped from him and gave Chia-ch’ing a hint.
The Emperor wanted peace. Chia-ch’ing was astonished. There was something distressing in the notion that Ch’ien-lung could feel himself so weak.
Chia-ch’ing overdid his expressions of courtesy and devotion, declared himself absolutely innocent, with not a trace of bitterness in his tone.
The Emperor broke out in wild reproaches: they were a fine set, here in the Forbidden City; children after their father’s life; all filial piety gone; he couldn’t assure Chia-ch’ing strongly enough how sick he was of being a father to sons who hardly knew even the words ‘social order’. Age was creeping up on him; they’d observed aright. The behaviour of his children disgusted him; he was ashamed of his children.
Without rising to the accusations Chia-ch’ing sighed: he had hoped that the late Paldan Ishe would have succeeded in dispelling his father’s unease. Had the great Jewel of Learning not provided illumination in Jehol, not lighted the way?
“Lighted the way! Chia-ch’ing, we are not little boys. Just see how this jewel shone on me before it went out: ha, didn’t it deceive me, this Jewel of Learning, before it went out? The prefects send me despatch after despatch about rebellion. I rejoice in the flames. And that was Paldan Ishe, Panchen Rinpoche, the Ocean of Wisdom, treasure of the Mountain of Grace. It really didn’t call for so much wisdom.”
Chia-ch’ing whispered, probing cautiously: “The foreigner doesn’t know the earth spirits of our land. He speaks and deliberates with wisdom. Men of the east can hardly be calmed with Tibetan wisdom.”
Ch’ien-lung darted a strange look at his son; his face grew black as he turned again to the cypresses. He walked beside Chia-ch’ing like a stranger, after suffering so at his absence. To Chia-ch’ing’s horror, he sat down on the bench under the thuya tree at the foot of which the ghost doll of Mien-k’o and the woman P’ei had been buried. The Emperor sank heavily onto the little wooden bench, jutted his chin, looked at the ground that he brushed with his fan, spoke on, not releasing Chia-ch’ing from his gaze.
“You’re to be my successor, Chia-ch’ing. I’ve given up hope of finding a better. I can hope no more: all of you have turned it to gall. Here, see this little key that fits my writing desk. When Heaven calls me, you shall open my desk and find a document in the book Li Ch’ing naming you heir to the throne.”
He still gazed fixedly at Chia-ch’ing’s plump composed face. Chia-ch’ing stared sadly before him; his loose left eyelid twitched. “I don’t want to be your heir, Majesty. I can’t see any difference in the way you sent Pu-wang off to the Ili and send me to the throne of the Ta Ch’ing. You accuse me. I don’t deserve it.”
Both were silent. Refined singing from the guest hall wafted across. Oh, who could for long tramp the path of life, that all must travel alone?
The Emperor seemed to have forgotten the conversation. Chia-ch’ing was profoundly astonished at the extraordinary changes in his father’s expression: the strongest tension and complete exhaustion chased each other across it. Only now did Chia-ch’ing notice that Ch’ien-lung had brought back from Jehol hollowed temples, a mouth whose movement and lines had lost their sharpness. At first the Emperor had seemed still in command of his old impulsiveness, but from his eyes something helpless, woeful, anxious often escaped that was new in Ch’ien-lung. Chia-ch’ing was especially shocked by an occasional lowering, hunted expression that regularly preceded a look of apathy. This expression so unmanned the prince that with an obscure feeling of calamity he could barely restrain himself from leaving the spot.
He said, when he noticed his father straining constantly after the distant singing, “My father spent many days listening to wise sayings from the west. You were going to speak of them.”
“Of Paldan Ishe?”
“Yes.”
“Or of this bench? This pleases me more than Paldan Ishe. Do you know this bench? One night at the new moon they came creeping, three, four, one behind the other: the half blind woman P’ei, fat Mien-k’o, Pu-wang; a child with the heart of a criminal, Mrs Ying, whom I do not know. I was the fifth, Chia-ch’ing. Though I sat in Jehol or in the monastery of Kolotu’r and slept, this Mrs P’ei had me in her power as I slept. It is possible, no doubt of that; I recognize it in my ailments, when I lose myself for whole weeks and find myself again. She managed to squeeze me into the little jade doll, spirit me away with a movement of her hand like this, or this, or this; and then they carried me a living corpse here by this bench, down here into the earth. So the vampire, confined, half suffocating, could tear at me, at what the woman had left of me. Pu-wang, my son, stood there, and my son Mien-k’o; their eyes glittering with hungry joy, little Pu-wang, the swine Mien. I can well imagine that night. Where were you that night, Chia-ch’ing?”
“At the jade fountain on Wanshou-shan.”
“You were at Wanshou-shan. That’s how you attend to my interests, when I have need of you. If the dead weren’t with us we’d be quite forsaken. You are my only friend; I still place my hopes in you. The shades are my only friends.”
“I fear the Tibetan’s visit has overtaxed Your Majesty. You seem so exhausted; your arms are trembling.”
“That was the woman P’ei and Mien-k’o and Pu-wang, the whole tribe. They managed that much. They made me half mad, so that I begged Paldan Ishe for advice and counted myself lucky to receive it, I here on this bench, with tremblin
g arms, the son of Yung-cheng, grandson of K’ang-hsi. That’s the solution of this east-westerly riddle. No, Panchen Rinpoche, your wooden sceptre doesn’t make me shudder. Your black scabs, your peeling flesh are much more interesting to me. Unmasked.—Am I trembling much, Chia-ch’ing?”
“It comes from the lateness of the hour. If we go back to the guests in the hall, my father will feel better. Or if we walk across to the orchids. My orchids gave you pleasure once. Won’t you stand up? It would give me the greatest happiness to enjoy your confidence. I have neglected nothing, and shall neglect nothing, in my devotion to you. Won’t you stand up?”
“No, stay here a while.”
“Are you looking for something down there? Have you dropped something?”
Ch’ien-lung had bent forward and was grubbing with his jewelled fan in the earth.
“No, nothing. I haven’t dropped anything. I just want to show you I’m not afraid. I can stand up to this Madam P’ei and wicked Mien. It’s not the dark I’m afraid of. You should have seen me last night. When I walked past the guard out through the door. Through the garden. No one saw me. It doesn’t need four people just to carry one doll. You can carry it wrapped in linen in your arms like a child. It’s a little heavier, a little colder. I often carried Pu-wang like that myself; I’m very fond of children. A doll like that doesn’t cry. See here, Chia-ch’ing, I’ve found the place.”
He dug with an effort into the soil; some ribs of his white fan split and hung loose. He seemed to have found what he was looking for; he thrust in his hand, felt about. The soil loosened. He pulled out a white cloth by one end; something black came with it. Suddenly it rolled free of the cloth. Chia-ch’ing sprang up together with the Emperor, who snatched the doll up from the earth and showed it triumphantly to his cringing son.