Everything Under the Heavens (Silk and Song) (6 page)

Next to Ahmed’s stall green-glazed earthenware jars of olive oil, big enough to hold both Johanna and Jaufre with room to spare, were stacked against bales of hay. The vendor had set up a crude wooden table with a bowl of the oil available for tasting. Placed conveniently next door was a naan stall. A woman in a colorful scarf tied low on her forehead, her sleeves turned back to her elbows, was kneading a mass of dough in a large open bowl. Her husband presided over the oven, a tall earthenware pot larger than the oil urns, buried in glowing coals. He tore off chunks of dough to pat them into rounds and slap them against the inside surface of the pot. When that side had browned he peeled them off and slapped them down again on the other, uncooked side. The smell of baking bread made Johanna’s stomach growl and the baker’s wife smile. She gave them two rounds each, saying with a twinkle, “Still the finest bread in all of Kashgar, yes, young miss?”

“Oh, yes, thank you, Malala! Is Fatima here?”

“She is, young miss,” Malala said. “She is on an errand for me at present, but doubtless you will see her while you are here. Inshalla.” She waved them off so she could serve a growing line of hungry customers. Half of them called out greetings to Johanna and inquiries after the goods her father would be selling.

“Who’s Fatima?” Jaufre said.

“Malala and Ahmed’s daughter,” Johanna said. “I’ve known her forever.”

They stood next to the olive oil stall, tearing off chunks of warm naan to dip into the sample bowl and wolf it down. The olive oil man topped off the bowl and continued his pitch to the crowd. “The very finest olive oil to be had within a thousand leagues! The first pressing of the season, from the vineyards of Messenia! A delicate flavor and a sturdy body, perfect for both cooking and dressing!” He smiled benignly down at the two urchins with his product dripping off their chins. “And, ladies and gentlemen, the best prices this side of the Levant!” He leaned forward and said to Johanna, “Young miss, you will tell your father, the honorable Wu Li, that Yusuf the Levantine says this is the best press of oil in a generation, yes? The cooks of Cambaluc will pay any price for it.”

Johanna nodded, her solemnity belied somewhat by the smearing of the best press of oil in a generation across her face with the back of her hand. “Be sure I will tell him so this evening, Yusuf.”

He bowed, his hand on his heart. “Then I am content. Approach, good sirs, approach! Oil of Messenia, the first pressing! The taste, ah, the taste!” He kissed his fingers to the sky. “The taste will make you swoon!”

He winked at Johanna and she fainted dead away into the arms of a startled Jaufre, to the chuckles of the surrounding crowd.

After that they went to wool sheds to watch the sheep being shorn, where the shearer gave Johanna samples of this year’s wool clip with an adjuration that she hand them over to Wu Li as soon as possible because everyone knew how fine was the wool harvested from the flocks of Ibrahim the Berber and his supply was already dangerously low. They proceeded to the cow barns to watch the auction, and then to the horse yard, where they spent the rest of the afternoon watching a group of men comprising three generations of the same family buy a small Arabian stallion with a hide as black as ebony, from another family of four generations. A representative of each generation from each family got to ride him the length of the yard and back again. He was a lovely sight, his graceful neck arched, his nose stretched out to drink the wind, his tail flying behind him as he seemed to float above the ground that passed so swiftly beneath his hooves. “See the tall man?” Johanna said. “The tallest man is always the broker.”

“And if he isn’t tall?” Jaufre said.

“Then he wears a tall hat,” Johanna said.

They watched the tall man conduct the lengthy negotiations between the two parties, and as the sun slanted low over the white bulk of the Pamir Mountains a boy not much more than their own age was allowed to lead the stallion away, his face lit with joy and pride.

They returned to the caravansary at dusk, lips stained with pomegranate juice, oil on their chins and bread crumbs caught in the folds of their clothes. Jaufre, who had spent the day in a very good imitation of a carefree child, saw Wu Li and was recalled immediately to the fact of his recent history. The anxiety that made him seem so much older than his years settled over his features again.

Before he had to force himself to ask, Wu Li answered. “I’m sorry, Jaufre. There is still no word.”

That evening, as the sun was just a memory in the western sky and the full moon only a pearly promise in the east, everyone staying in the caravansary gathered in the courtyard, around a large fire that had burned down to a circle of glowing coals. The members of the individual caravans grouped together to recline on blankets and lean against saddles. Everyone brought food and shared it, dumplings from Cambaluc, skewers of barbecued goat’s liver from Yarkent, pickled eggs from Kuche, chicken tagines spiced with salty lemon from Maroc, black olives from Greece, the wonderful naan of Kashgar, all of it washed down with delicious sips of wine from Cyprus, decanted with pride from a wooden barrel by a trader who had brought it all the way from Antioch.

Jaufre, sitting miserable and silent behind Johanna, couldn’t remember when the music began, or how, but at some point he became aware of words being sung, accompanied by an instrument of some kind. He looked up and saw four members of the caravan from Antioch, the one that had brought the wine from Cyprus, sitting together on a blanket placed near the fire so that its light could fall on their faces, eyes half closed. One voice was very deep, the other three much higher. They were accompanied by a fifth man on a wooden wind instrument with a flared lip, whose notes were sweet and plaintive.

It was a dialect of Persian with which he was unfamiliar, but after the first verse he began to catch the words. It was a marching song, sung by a caravaner always on the Road, the dust of the desert sticking in his throat, the thin air of the mountains leaving him gasping for breath, the pickpockets of Samarkand relieving him of what little money the girls of Trebizond had left behind. The Road was mother, went the chorus, the Road was father, the Road was sister, the Road was brother, the Road was home for such as they. The triumphant finish was greeted by enthusiastic applause, and one by one each of the companies stepped forward to sing their own songs, of first love, of lost love, of lost virginity, of ancient legends and not too modern wars, of the monsters that lurked in the dark around every corner of the Road. The Antioch caravan sang a forlorn song about a lost Jerusalem and the Tashkent caravan retaliated with a song about a pillaging group of ruthless Crusaders annihilated to the last man by righteous warriors of the Crescent. At the ending of each song both groups shouted good-natured insults that no one took seriously.

The moon was directly overhead by now and bright enough to cast long shadows in the courtyard. A group of Tuaregs assembled before the fire, their cheches wonderfully twisted and knotted about their heads, their hands and faces blue from the indigo dye that stained their clothes. They sat in a semicircle, each with his legs wrapped around skin drums of various sizes and graduated notes. One began a simple rhythm of single beats. After a moment or two a second drum joined in, countering the first’s rhythm. A third rhythm wove joyfully above and below first and second. A fourth used his drum to back up a song in which he was instantly joined by his brethren. A fifth man shook heavy metal rattles in rhythm with the drums and began to dance around the circle and then into the seated audience, shaking his rattles and enticing them to join in. It wasn’t hard, as even Jaufre couldn’t keep his feet still.

Johanna noticed, and put her lips to his ear. “Do you know the song?”

He shook his head.

“They sing of Tin Hinan, the Tamenokalt from Tafilalt. A long time ago she united all the Tuaregs into one tribe. They call her ‘the mother of us all.’” Her eyes sparkled in the firelight. “The song says that she is buried in a desert even larger than the Taklamakan, where the sand is red, not yellow, and the dunes are as high as mountains.”

“You would like to see it,” he said.

She looked surprised. “Of course. I want to see everything. Don’t you?”

Before he could answer a cry went up. “Wu Li! Shu Ming! Young miss! Young miss! Young miss!”

Jaufre, surprised out of his misery, looked at his companions.

Wu Li rose to his feet and bowed, his face grave but his eyes twinkling. He raised Shu Ming to her feet with a courtly hand and led his family of three to the blanket by the fire. They settled down, Shu Ming plucking at the strings of a delicate lap harp, Wu Li with a small skin drum that produced a soft beat beneath the heels of his hands. Johanna sat before them, Shu Shao and Deshi the Scout arrayed themselves behind them, and the five voices blended as one. Wu Li’s was low and mellow, Shu Ming’s warm and feminine, Johanna’s high and pure, Shu Shao and Deshi the Scout underpinning the rhythm in time with Wu Li’s drum.

White petals, soft scent
Friend of winter, summoner of spring
You leave us too soon.

The camel drivers of Wu Li’s caravan hummed the base note, giving it a rich, full presence in the still courtyard. The firelight flickered on the blue-tiled walls of the caravansary, looming up out of the dark all around them. The fountain tinkled, and the stars shone overhead in defiance of the radiant light of the moon.

Jaufre, listening, understood dimly that the song was not about a plum tree at all. Somehow, scarcely aware, the hard knot of agony and loss beneath his breastbone began to ease, just a little.

The next day Wu Li, having emptied the last pack of every item either brought with them from Cambaluc or acquired along the way, and having crossed and crossed again every street and alley of Kashgar where there was something for sale, began to entertain offers to buy or trade. Jaufre ushered the sellers into Wu Li’s presence, and announced their names and their goods. He was alive to the importance of first impressions and took care with his bows and his manners.

Johanna stood at Wu Li’s elbow, guardian of Wu Li’s bao. This was a small jade cylinder with Chinese characters carved in bas relief on one end. When a deal was struck, Johanna would remove the lid from a tiny, shallow jade pot, revealing it to be filled with a red paste, which Jaufre later learned was a mixture of ground cinnabar, oil and threads of silk. Wu Li would press the end of the bao into the paste and stamp a small square of paper, upon which had been written the details of the deal just concluded with the merchant then before him.

The bao was Wu Li’s seal, the three carved characters representing his family name and the words “trader” and “honest.” The seal had been conferred on his father by the khan and was known from one end of the Road to the other and on all its various routes. It represented Wu Li’s word and bond to deal fairly with all who did business with him. All sellers left Wu Li’s tent clutching a square of paper with the agreed-upon figures scribbled on it and the stamp of the House of Wu in one corner, a guarantee of good faith payment immediately upon presentation. Most of them exchanged it for coin when Wu Li’s men appeared to load the purchased goods onto a camel, but a seller could choose not to accept coin for his goods immediately. Instead, they might redeem the piece of paper a month or even a year from the day it was stamped, for coin or for goods of equal value, from Cipangu to Venice.

Yusuf the Levantine, self-confessed dealer in the very finest olive oil to be had within a thousand leagues, bewailed the price Wu Li refused to go above, but he winked at Jaufre on his way out, tucking his precious piece of paper securely into his sash.

Jaufre looked at Johanna. She smiled and stood even more proudly behind her father.