Jake Maroc - Shan Part 44

"I saved Mao tong zhi's life." He was bursting with it. He fairly shouted it out. To Zilin, it was like getting slapped in the face. Confucius said that pride was held dear only by the wicked. It was ant.i.thetical to his Five Virtues: Justice, Benevolence, Politeness, Fidelity and Wisdom.

"This is not a matter to be trumpeting in public," Zilin said. "Why not?" Huaishan Han said. "How many men can say they performed such a deed, eh? Precious few."

Zilin had noticed that over the past six months Huaishan Han hadbegun to answer his own questions. "That is an even better reason to keep such knowledge to oneself."

"No, no. That is precisely the att.i.tude we must do away with. The atmosphere is filled with patriotism. We are marching on Korea, you know. *Resist America and Aid Korea' is our new national campaign. It is sure to catch the spirit of the people, don't you think?"

Zilin said nothing. He knew when he was being asked a rhetorical question. He thought of the people of China, tired, sick, still nursing their wounds, burying their dead from the long, arduous years of war. There wasn't one of them, he'd wager, who wanted this war. But, he reminded himself, he himself had argued for it. It had become a political necessity. But that did not mean that he liked what he had to do. He saw the overriding need for it, how the future good of China would be served by it. But that did not negate the deaths and suffering that would be engendered by it. He shuddered inwardly and, not for the first time, wondered how long his conscience could bear the weight of the wailing spirits.

Already the dead rose up in his dreams, wrapping their skeletal arms around Athena and Mai, keeping them from him. He was used to speaking to the spirits of his wives in his dreams. Like a balm smoothed on the wounds inflicted during his long days, these conversations served to, at least temporarily, soothe his own tortured spirit. But for some time even that little surcease had been denied him.

Babbling wraiths and cackling demons conspired to haunt his nighttimes until sleep itself began to fill him with dread. And when at last, exhausted beyond endurance, he did fall asleep, sitting up, an open book in his lap, he dreamt of the spring night, four twenty-four, at the lip of the spirit well. Die and die again. To awake with a start, a heavy lurch of his heart, his eyes wide and staring about as if to pin some intruder to the wall.

But there was no one in the villa. No one but himself.

"The people need direction, a renewed energy," Huaishan Han was saying. "They need to put their hearts and minds into winning this war in Korea, the war here at home. There is much to do, s.h.i.+ tong zhi. We are out to change the world, after all. That can be no easy task. We require unswerving dedication from every comrade."

"We need money as well," Zilin said soberly. "All the good intentions in the world will avail us nothing unless we find the capital somewhere to fund Mao's reforms. It will not come from our economy. As of now, we have none. We are barely able to feed our own people, let alone finance the industry we must have in order to survive." Hewas wondering, if they were successful in Korea, how Stalin would choose to pay the enormous debt he would owe them. It occurred to him that perhaps they would get less than they antic.i.p.ated.

"Money, yes," Huaishan Han said, meditatively. "There is much talk of money at the ministries."

"So much," Zilin said, "one might almost think we were turning into capitalists." He laughed but his friend did not follow suit.

"There is nothing amusing about such a thought," Huaishan Han said somberly. "There are powerful enemies who seek to infiltrate our new power structure. They are all capitalist-readers, or are you so unaware of recent developments."

"Oh, I still keep in touch," Zilin said somewhat ironically. "I have not retired in your absence." But he was thinking of the Soviets. In the future, he believed that Moscow, not Was.h.i.+ngton, would stand as China's implacable enemy. For Stalinas for the Soviet leaders who would follow his iron fistthere could only be one form of Communism. He saw how any deviation from the Moscow line would be viewed as heresy, a potential threat to its design of world hegemony. In Moscow's view, there could be only one eventual winner in world ideologies.

And, in a way, Mao's road was more dangerous to the Soviets than capitalism. At least with Was.h.i.+ngton, they could point the finger at the rich man's exploitation of the working cla.s.s, the poor. But the same could not be said in China. Here, the differences were more subtle, and therefore, more difficult to dismiss or deal with. And the Soviets' strong suit, Zilin well knew, was not subtlety.

In the stifling night, a cuckoo sang and then was still. Strings of lights could be seen over the top of the wall that enclosed the garden. The cicadas droned, an all metallic symphony. The thick bed of peonies that Senlin happily tended each day perfumed the thick air.

"It is good to be a hero," Huaishan Han said. "It is important to have heroes in a country in transition." He sounded as if he were trying to convince himself. Self-importance had become more and more precious to him ever since he had joined the State Security Forces. Zilin remembered the conversation with Mao. We will be forced to depend more and more on the Ministry of Public Security, Mao had said. The secret police, Zilin had corrected. If you would call them that, yes. And Zilin had said, I cannot condone a reign of terror. Was that why he had been excluded from that small, elite ceremony? Abruptly, he said, "How did you save Mao's life?" Huaishan Han took a cigarette out of a chased silver case, tampedits end on the burnished top. The case was not Chinese, Zilin saw, but rather of Western manufacture.

"Where did you get that?"

Huaishan Han either did not hear the question or preferred to ignore it. He pocketed the case and lit up. He smoked for a while. When he had a.s.sured himself that he was in control of the conversation's pace, he said, "In Hong Kong, I discovered a plot on Mao's life. That, in fact, was why Lo Jui-ch'ing dispatched me on this mission. *You are the only one,' he said, *who we judge capable of successfully carrying out such a difficult a.s.signment.' "

Zilin was not impressed. He knew Huaishan Han was lying since Mao had already told him that it had been Mao himself who had been sending Huaishan Han on his last several missions. Including this one.

Zilin wondered why his friend was standing here, lying to him when he could have been inside with his wife, whom he had not seen in almost two months.

Huaishan Han continued to puff on his cigarette, the smoke drifting from his half-open lips. "Our intelligence was correct," he went on after a time.

"And so you returned home, the triumphant warrior," Zilin said with an edge to his voice, "to claim your prize."

"But not alone," Huaishan Han said with a little smile. "I brought with me the enemy."

"The enemy?"

"The capitalist who was masterminding the operation to a.s.sa.s.sinate Mao tong zhi. He is my prisoner."

"Can you see it? The ocean. I can see the whole expanse of it, the moonlight s.h.i.+ning on the surface, the motion making tiny pinpoint spotlights that I can feel as well as see. They're hot as an open fire."

Senlin opened her eyes, stared into Zilin's face very close to hers. "Do you see it? The ocean, I mean."

"No."

"Why, I wonder?" She peered down through the shadows the stand of moso bamboo cast them in. She turned their hands over. "I thought if we touched a if we were linked in some way a you would be able to see it too."

"But I can't," Zilin said. "This is your talent, Senlin. Not mine."

"No," she said firmly. "It is ours." She recalled the opening of her spirit at the moment of the clouds and the rain, when he was deep inside her. She wondered if she was wrong, if, indeed, a more intimateconnection of the flesh was required. "I am certain of it. I had no sightat least a sight of this kindbefore I met you."

"You mean before I took you to Fazhan."

Her eyes fluttered closed at the mention of the Black Hat feng shui man. She was so exquisite, he thought. So frail of body, so strong of will. The combination recalled to mind the translucent vases from out of his country's past. And he thought, Beauty is its own strength.

"No," Senlin said now. And that was another thing. She knew her own mind. "I would not try to deny what happened to me that night. I know better than anyone what was pulled out of me by Fazhan's incantations. The spirit of Hu chao, consort to the last of the Ming emperors."

"Evil may be called by many names."

"You think Hu chao was only evil?" Senlin sighed. "Her spirit was a twisted, hideous thing. Made so by the evil that had been done to her. Evil entered her and she was consumed by it. Evil destroyed her body but it also corroded her spirit."

"And how came this evil spirit into you?" Zilin said, half mocking.

"The Soongs have a long history," Senlin said steadily. "Perhaps Hu chao was my great-great-great-great grandmother."

"It is not even certain whether she had any children," Zilin said.

"Then she was reborn in me."

This talk of spirits and possible reincarnation disturbed him. He was a Buddhist; he was in tune with the land, with the rise and fall of qi. These were no mysteries to him; neither were they magic. They merelywere.

Feng shuigeomancywas one matter, this was another entirely.

"Either way," he said, "the evil is gone."

Senlin, hidden within the bower made by the rustling of the high bamboo, was struck by slivers of dark and light. "The evil, yes." They moved across the exquisite planes of her face. "But something remains." Like moonlight across the face of the ocean. "Something calls." Brilliant pinpoints, sparking like lightning play in the crests of the endless waves. "Can you tell me what?"

He could feel their heat upon his flesh, ten thousand minuscule fires burning. Appearing, disappearing, reappearing, the sprinkle of Stardust.

Calling?

Opened his mouth but no sound coming out, vibrations that carried from him to her and, thence, outward onto the spangled bosom of the ocean.

Where are we?

Beneath the rus.h.i.+ng water, the deep cool currents running, scissoring each other, whirling, carrying along the universe of diverse life that breathed water instead of air. The songs of the whales, calling, calling, the echoes reverberating upon them, rippling flesh that was no longer flesh, playing upon skin that was invisible.

And then Senlin and Zilin came together in a way that was wholly different from the way they had merged before. And far more intimate. In that moment of ultimate fusion, he knew that she was right. Somehow this was not she, not he, but a result of both. The music they heard, saw, scented, felt, was the harmony of their qi, playing one upon the other, twining a a becoming whole.

The war in Korea ground on. The first fantastic swell of early Chinese victories brought a kind of euphoria, elevating the internal morale of a country that had taken a beating in the war and now, suddenly, found for itself a kind of worldwide prestige. Where before, the Chinese soldier was an object of ridicule after suffering one defeat after another, suddenly the nations of the world were tendering a measure of respect for China's new-found military prowess.

As China's fortunes in Korea blossomed, so did the young career of Mao's elder son, Mao An-ying. Whether it was the boy's talent or, perhaps, some canny commander's subtle plot to advance his own career, Mao An-ying was promoted to serve at the field headquarters of the Second Chinese Army.

American bombers overflying the perimeter unloaded on the encampment like squatting beasts, destroying all who plotted their defeat there. Mao An-ying was no exception.

The news was brought to Mao as quickly as possible. But, as one may imagine, there was some delay as soldiers under frantic orders combed the stinking, smoking debris for signs of life. A general at last made the identification of Mao's elder son.

"War," Mao would tell Zilin sometime later, "is like bitter tea. The fortification it brings is tempered by the taste of ashes it leaves in one's mouth."

"This is evil, what we do."

"Does it seem so to you?"

"Yes."

*Then we must end it."

She let out a deep groan, her forehead pressed against his chest. "I cannot."

Zilin stroked the raven's-wing cascade of her hair. In the moonlight, it appeared as if silver thread were laced through it. He thought of the boundless energy of the sea.

"Your husband," he said. "Does he ask questions about your health?" He never used Huaishan Han's name when he was with Senlin.

"He sees me eat, he sees me go outside," she whispered. "That is sufficient for him."

"Do you talk?"

"Sometimes, yes."

"And a touch?" Now it was his turn to whisper.

"Do you mean are we intimate?"

He nodded, wordless.

Senlin put the palms of her hands on his chest, pushed her head away from contact with him. Her black almond eyes peered at his as if they could pierce the shadows of their enfolding bower. "My answer, I think, is more important than the question, neh?"

Women, Zilin thought, are so much wiser than men in ways their male counterparts do not even know exist.

"Would you believe me if I told you that whether I tell the truth or lie to you it is the same?"

"No."

"But it is." She put her palm along his cheek. "There is no difference."

"The truth," he said, "differentiates itself from all else. There is no ideal in this imperfect world but that. The truth."

Senlin spread her arms wide. "But the truth does not reside here, in the world around us. It is in da-hei, in the great darkness within which all spirits reside. The only truth is what occurs when we are together in da-hei."

"Then you are intimate with him."

"You have no right to ask the question."

"No right?"

"He is my husband, not you,"

"Cruel to say."

"But it is the truth." She looked at him. "The truth is your G.o.d, not mine." Her fingers stroked his face. "I do not want to hurt you. Instead, you have hurt yourself."

Zilin closed his eyes. "It could not be avoided."

"No," she said. "Not if you were determined to unearth the truth."

The truth, Zilin thought. She was quite right. It was his G.o.d. It was no good blaming her for his own frailty. He searched inside himself, cleansing himself of his anger.

When he opened his eyes, he thought of Huaishan Han's cigarette case. Not for the first time. He had only been afforded a glimpse but he was certain there was something about it that was familiar.

He took hold of Senlin's hand and, thinking of the truth, his master, he said, "I want you to do something for me."

More than a week pa.s.sed before she was able to bring it to him. For one thing, Huaishan Han was out of the city for part of the time and he took it with him. For another, he was covetous of it, even at home. It took some doing, then, for Senlin to spirit it away and then it was only for a couple of minutes.

The cigarette case of Western manufacture.

Of course Zilin had had to convince her. "He is my husband," she said. "You are asking me to plot against him."

"You are already involved in a plot against him," he pointed out.

"He is your best friend," she said. "Why are you doing this? Friends do not plot against one another."

Zilin looked out at the larch and pines beyond the perimeter of their stand of bamboo. A crescent moon much like the one that had risen that night on the four twenty-four rode thin c.u.mulus, breaking them apart upon its sharp horns like gossamer.

He thought about what the Communists had done to Senlin. He wondered if Huaishan Han knew what had happened to her at his former master's hands. He thought not. Why would she have told him? And Huaishan Han would never have asked.

"It is not friends I think of now," he said. He spoke as much to himself as he did to her. "It is China. You told me some time ago that you thought the truth was my G.o.d. Well, perhaps that is so. But it is China for which I toil. I would gladly give my life to ensure its future."

"Why do you fear for China's future?"

How to explain it all to her? How to make her see that he was a celestial guardian of his country? "Who controls China," he said, "may one day control all of Asia. If China makes a mistake, if it falls into the wrong hands or comes under evil influence, there may well be no turning back. China is so ma.s.sive, its peoples so mult.i.tudinous that once policy is set, it is difficult to change. China has its own momentum, and it is the momentum of a behemoth.

"China needs a guardian. Someone to ensure that it first survives, then prospers, and finally, becomes powerful. A Jian."

Senlin stared at him for a moment before she said, "You?" "I do only what must be done."

"But how can you?" she asked. "You cannot see the future." "No," he said. "Mostly I work in the dark." "Then you must make mistakes, you must regret some actions." "Some, yes, perhaps," he conceded. "It is regrettable but, I fear, unavoidable."