Everything Under the Sky (25 page)

“So?”

“You, Elvira, need to work on moderation. The
Tao Te Ching
insists that the mind must always be still and at peace, emotions contained and controlled by our will, the body rested, and the feelings calm. Anything else is harmful to our health. A mind that is agitated by heightened emotions only leads to unhappiness and illness. Your objective should always be moderation, a happy medium. Fernandina isn't going to die. She simply has a cold. I don't deny that it could become serious if not treated properly, but she's in very good hands. She'll soon be back in class with the other novices.”

“She will not; you can be sure of that! I will not allow her to go to another class!”

“Moderation, madame, please: moderation to face your niece's illness, moderation to confront your financial difficulties, and moderation to stand up to your own fears.”

I received the blow he had just dealt with dignity and looked at him out of the corner of my eye, somewhat offended. “What are you talking about?”

“Throughout our trip here, whenever I saw you sitting quietly, gazing into the distance, the look on your face was always anxious and worried. Your tai chi movements are rigid; they don't flow. Your muscles and tendons are stiff. Your chi is blocked at several points along the meridians in your body. That's why the abbot advised moderation. You need to know you can overcome anything in life, because your strength is boundless. Don't be so afraid. Moderation is one of the secrets to health and longevity.”

“Leave me alone!” I managed to say through my tears. There was my niece, horribly sick with heaven knows what, and the antiquarian thought he had the right to preach some bygone words written in an old book that was completely unknown in the civilized world.

“Should I go?” he asked quietly.

“Please!”

Still fuming, I fell asleep on the floor, my head resting on Fernanda's
k'ang.
Luckily, it wasn't long before my niece woke up (or I might have fallen ill myself from the damp and cold) and began squirming under the blankets.

“Get your head off my legs, Auntie! I'm boiling.”

I opened my eyes, drowsy and disoriented.

“How are you?” I stammered.

“Just fine. Never better.”

“Honestly?” I couldn't believe it. In the blink of an eye, she had gone from a near-delirious fever to the picture of health.

“Honestly,” she replied, pulling back the covers and hopping out of her
k'ang.
“Where are my clothes?”

“You're not going anywhere today, young lady,” I declared. “You have not fully recovered.”

After a long—very long—look of indignation, came a never-ending stream of protests, condemnations, promises, and laments that left me absolutely cold. Under no circumstances would I let her out of the house that day. By the end of the afternoon, however, I was deeply regretting my decision: Fernanda's wails and complaints were so loud in the silence of the monastery that a crowd of monks and nuns had gathered outside to see what was happening. Still, I was happy: better loud and crying than her usual silent and taciturn.

We'd lost a full day of work, so after a good night's sleep and a session of tai chi in which I tried hard to show Lao Jiang just how flexible my tendons and muscles were, Biao and I left the house in high spirits, determined to achieve our goal. I had gotten it firmly into my head that the old woman from the temple would be a reliable source of information and told Biao we should head straight to where we saw her two days earlier. However, the old woman's cushion sat empty. A young nun was industriously scrubbing mud off the doors and the portico; her efforts seemed somewhat pointless given that it was still raining and anywhere you stepped off the paths that ran between the buildings, you sank into muck up to your ankles. Biao asked her about the alleged centenarian.

“Ming T'ien will be here later,” she explained. “She's so old we don't let her get up until the hour of the Horse.”

“Which is the hour of the Horse?” I asked Biao.

“I'm not sure,
tai-tai,
but I think it's midmorning.”

A boy younger than Biao came running down the path carrying an umbrella. He was wearing the white outfit of a novice in the martial arts and not the blue cotton the servants who came to clean our house wore.

“Chang Cheng!” he shouted.

“It's so strange to see someone running!” I said to Biao as we left Ming T'ien's temple. “Everyone here walks as if they're in an Easter procession.”

“Chang Cheng!” the boy repeated, waving his hand in the air to get our attention. Was he looking for us?

“What does ‘Chang Cheng’ mean?” I asked Biao.

“It's the Chinese name for the Great Wall,” he replied. By now it was patently obvious the boy was coming for us.

“Chang Cheng!” the young runner yelled, not at all out of breath, as he stopped in front of me and bowed. “Chang Cheng, the abbot would like me to take you to Master Tzau's cave.”

I looked at Biao in surprise.

“Did he really just call me ‘Great Wall’?”

Biao nodded with a toothy grin.

I was outraged. “Ask him why he's calling me that.”

The two boys exchanged a few words, and then Little Tiger, trying to remain serious, said, “Everyone in the monastery has been calling you Great Wall since yesterday,
tai-tai,
ever since Young Mistress’ cries were heard all over Mount Wudang. They're calling you Chang Cheng and her Yu Hua Ping, or ‘Pot of Rain.’ ”

Those poetic yet pompous-sounding Chinese names must have been an attempt at humor.

“We'd better go with the novice,
tai-tai.
Master Tzau is waiting.”

Why would the abbot want me to visit this master who lived in a cave? The only way to find out was to follow the boy. So, trusting that the visit would be over before the hour of the Horse, we began a long walk in the pouring rain. On our way we passed many impressive temples, climbed up and down numerous sets of stairs, and came across several patios where monks and novices were practicing complicated martial arts, toiling in the rain wearing snow white outfits that contrasted beautifully with the dark gray stone and red temples. Some were working with extremely long lances, others with swords, sabers, fans—every weapon imaginable. In one of those open areas, several feet below a long bridge the two boys and I were crossing, a figure in white waved its arms to get our attention. It was Fernanda. I wondered how she'd known that it was us under the umbrellas when so many others were walking along that labyrinth of bridges, paths, and stone staircases decorated with thousands of carved caldrons, cranes, lions, tigers, tortoises, snakes, and dragons, some of which were truly frightening.

We finally reached the entrance to a cave after climbing one of the Mysterious Mountain peaks. The novice said something to Biao and, after bowing, ran off downhill.

“He said we're to go in and find the master.”

“But it's as black as your hat in there,” I protested.

Biao didn't say a word. I think he wanted us to leave as quickly as possible. Like me, he wasn't at all happy about going into a sinister-looking cave where who knows what kinds of bugs and animals might bite or attack us. However, we had no choice but to obey the abbot, so we swallowed our fear and, closing our umbrellas, went into the cave. There was a light way in the back, and we walked very slowly toward it. The silence was absolute; the sound of the downpour at our backs became fainter the farther in we went. We wound our way through passageways and galleries dimly lit by torches and oil lamps. The path was heading down into the mountain, and an oppressive sensation began to constrict my throat, especially when it became so narrow that we had to walk sideways. The air was thick and smelled of rock and humidity. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, we came to a natural cavity that suddenly opened up at the end of a tight corridor. A monk so old he could've been a hundred or a thousand sat on a wide rock protuberance rising up out of the ground like a thick trunk cut low down. He was absolutely still, his eyes closed and his hands crossed in front of his stomach. At first I was afraid he might be dead, but upon hearing us approach he half opened his eyelids and looked at us with the strangest yellow eyes. I nearly screamed in terror. Biao quickly stepped back and hid behind me, so there I was, trying to be the bravest person in the world, acting as a shield between a devil and a frightened boy. The devil slowly lifted a hand tipped with nails so long they curled in on themselves and motioned for us to come closer. I wasn't sure what to do. Something inside stopped me from taking even one more tiny step toward that diabolical apparition, and it wasn't just the repugnant stench of filth and ox dung. He spoke, but Biao didn't translate. Nearly all of the old man's teeth were gone, and the few that remained were as yellow as his eyes and his fingernails.

I elbowed Biao and heard him gasp. “What did he say?” I managed to croak.

“He said he's Master Tzau and we shouldn't be afraid to come closer.”

“Oh, certainly! Why not?” I replied without moving.

From somewhere behind him, the master pulled out a worn black leather tube and opened it by removing the top part. It wasn't very long, no more than the span of a hand, and not much wider than a bracelet. When he opened it, the bunch of little wooden sticks inside made a soothing sound that reverberated off the walls of the cavern. It was then I discovered that those walls were covered in strange signs and characters that had been carved into the rock. Someone had spent many years in that faint light, patiently chiseling long and short lines, like Morse code, and Chinese ideograms.

The spirit with yellow eyes spoke again, his voice like the screeching of train wheels along the tracks. I think every hair on my body stood on end.

“He insists we come closer. He says he has a lot to teach us by order of the abbot and doesn't have time to waste,” Biao translated.

But of course! Why hadn't I thought of that? Naturally a thousandyear-old monk sitting on a rock all day inside an underground cave would have any number of things to do.

Frightened half to death, we moved toward the big rock as Master Tzau pulled the wooden sticks out of the leather cylinder as gingerly as would a woman whose nail polish has yet to dry.

“He says that's far enough,” Biao whispered when we were about six feet away. “We're to stop here and sit on the ground.”

“Just what I needed,” I mumbled, obeying. From down there the master looked like the statute of an imposing, pestiferous god. Poor Biao still had trouble sitting, and it took a few seconds before he found a kneeling position that was more or less comfortable.

The yellow-eyed spirit lifted a dry old hand in the air to show us the sticks he was holding.

“Since you are a foreigner,” he said, “there is no way you can understand the depth and meaning of the
I Ching,
also known as the Book of Changes. That is why the abbot has asked me to explain it to you. Using these sticks, I can tell you much about yourself, your current situation, your problems, and what course of action to take so matters can be resolved in the best way possible.”

“The abbot wants you to speak to me about clairvoyance and fortune-telling?” The look on my face couldn't have expressed my opinion any more clearly, but surely it was as inscrutable to the Chinese as theirs was to me, because the master continued his lecture as if I hadn't spoken.

“It is not about clairvoyance or fortune-telling,” the old man replied. “The
I Ching
is a book that is thousands of years old and contains the wisdom of the universe, nature, and mankind, as well as the changes they are subject to. Anything you want to know can be found in the
I Ching.
”

“You said it was a book….” I commented, looking around to see if there was a copy of this
I Ching
anywhere.

“Yes, it is a book, the Book of Changes.” The devil with the yellow eyes let out a sinister little laugh. “You won't see it, because it is all in my head. I have studied it for so long that I know the sixty-four hexagrams by heart, as well as its rules, symbols, and interpretations, not to mention the Ten Wings, or commentaries, appended by Confucius, as well as the many treatises written over the millennia by more important scholars than I regarding this wise book.

“The
I Ching
describes both the internal order of the universe as well as the changes that occur within it, and it does so by means of the sixty-four hexagrams. The wise spirits use these to tell us of the different situations in which we humans can find ourselves and, according to the law of change, predict how such situations are going to evolve. Thus the spirits that speak through the
I Ching
can advise those who consult them about future events.”

Good Lord, I thought. Why am I wasting my time? I have absolutely no interest in spirits!

“You'll find fortune-tellers you can pay to cast the
I Ching
on every street in China,
tai-tai,
” Biao whispered to me. “But none of them are really worthy of respect. It's a great honor for Master Tzau to be your oracle.”

“If you say so,” I said doubtfully.

Biao glanced up at the master. “We should apologize for the interruption.”

“Go on, then. Hurry up. I want to speak to that old nun Ming T'ien before lunch.”

“The Book of Changes,” Master Tzau continued, oblivious of my disinterest, “was one of few books that were saved when the First Emperor ordered that all books be burned. Thanks to the fact that he was a devout follower of the philosophies of yin and yang, the Five Elements, the
K'an-yu
or feng shui, and the
I Ching,
we can continue to consult the spirits today.” Now, this was a different matter, I thought, perking up my ears. I'd pay attention if he kept talking about the First Emperor. But he didn't, of course. It had been nothing more than a colorful anecdote.

“He told me to ask you what you want to know so he can cast the sticks,” Biao said.

I didn't have to think twice. “Well, tell him I want to know, in order of importance, the four objectives for the life of a Taoist from Wudang. Make it clear I'm not talking about the objectives of any Chinese Taoist, but specifically Taoists from this monastery.”