Everything Under the Sky (31 page)

That night over dinner, the soldiers told us that they hadn't seen anything suspicious, and no one had told them about anyone other than pilgrims coming or going from the monastery. They seemed content, too content, as if this had become a vacation and they were having a lovely time, laughing boorishly and drinking sorghum liquor a little too euphorically for my taste. It appeared they'd stocked up in Junzhou, so there was plenty of it with our provisions. I was particularly happy I'd left Fernanda at the monastery, safe from all that. I couldn't imagine her sitting next to me witnessing such a scene. We filled the entire, miserable
lü kuan
that night and set out in the morning for Yunxian, “a mere forty-eight
li
away,” according to Master Red. Of the two brothers, he was the more inclined to converse—and
he
hardly opened his mouth.

The trails we took were no worse than the ones from Hankow to Wudang. I might even say it was better traveling, because we didn't meet all those sad caravans of peasants fleeing the wars en masse. The worst was yet to come once the snow fell, but for the time being we'd moved away from the most dangerous areas of conflict as we headed into mountainous regions that didn't interest the warlords. I could well understand why, once I saw the humble mountain village of Yunxian, located at a crossroads, circled by a river, and the awful paths that led there. It took us so long to walk those “mere forty-eight
li
” that it was well past dark when we arrived, without a hope of finding any lodging. We were forced to spend the night outdoors, battling freezing temperatures with huge bonfires and all the blankets we had. I had just managed to fall asleep when there was a terrible racket: the sound of shouting, banging, voices raising the alarm. I jumped up off the straw mat, my heart in my throat.

“What's going on?” I shouted repeatedly. Given the commotion and my fear, I hadn't realized I was speaking Spanish, which of course no one understood. Lao Jiang was standing beside me, along with the monks Red and Black, as the soldiers ran here and there with their weapons drawn. It had to be another attack by the Green Gang. I tugged on Lao Jiang's sleeve to get his attention, saying (in French), “We should hide, Lao Jiang. We're too exposed like this.”

But instead of listening to me, he turned toward the soldier who had taken the first shift on guard duty that night. The young man was happily striding toward us, holding Fernanda and Biao by the scruff of their necks. I let out an astonished gasp, unable to believe my eyes.

“What in God's name … ?” I began to shout angrily.

“Don't get mad, Auntie. Please don't get mad!” my nitwit of a niece implored, bawling. I had never seen her so dirty or shabby-looking, and my heart stopped. Had something happened to them? How had they gotten this far?

The uproar in camp was quieting down, and all that could be heard were bursts of laughter. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a few soldiers trying to calm the animals.

“What happened?” I asked, struggling to get my nerves under control. “Are you all right?”

Biao nodded, as taciturn and grimy as could be. Fernanda dried her tears on the wide sleeve of her Chinese coat and inhaled noisily, choking back her sobs.

“What on earth are you two doing here? I want an explanation! Now!”

“We wanted to come,” Biao murmured solemnly, staring at the ground. He was so tall that I had to lift my chin a little to look him in the face.

“I can't hear you!” I shouted, to the delight of the audience that had begun to sit down around us as if enjoying a wonderful show. It was no wonder: My shrieks could easily have passed for operatic Chinese caterwauling.

“I said we wanted to come,” the boy repeated.

“You did not have permission! We left you in the abbot's care!”

Neither of them said a word.

“Leave it be, Elvira,” Lao Jiang suggested. “Tomorrow I'll give Biao the punishment he deserves.”

“You will not cane him!” I exploded, shouting at the antiquarian in the same tone I was using to yell at the children.

“Please,
tai-tai.
I deserve it!” Biao pleaded.

“Everyone in this country is crazy!” I screamed like a madwoman, hearing more laughter behind me. “That's it! To bed! We'll talk about this tomorrow.”

“We're hungry,” my niece then confessed in an absolutely normal tone of voice. She was over being upset, and now she was making demands. Incredible! That filthy face of hers aroused no compassion in me.

“No dinner for the two of you today!” I declared with my hands on my hips. “To bed!”

“But we haven't eaten since yesterday!” she protested angrily.

“I don't care. You're not going to expire after a two-day fast! Now, where are your bags?”

“Over where the sentry found us,” Biao hurried to say.

“Well, go on and get them!” I ordered, turning to walk away. “Tomorrow's another day, and I won't be as inclined to kill anyone then. Hurry up!”

I crawled into my
k'ang
and refused to open my eyes even when I heard those two wayward teens prepare their beds next to mine. I could hear them whispering for a while, and then, slowly, everything became silent again. I pretended to sleep, because I had no other choice, when in fact I was awake all night worrying about how to make them go back to Wudang the next morning.

However, by the time the last soldier on guard duty woke us up and I saw them lying there fast asleep, I decided they might as well accompany us to Xi'an. They could stay in the city while Lao Jiang, the monks, and I went into the mausoleum. My first obligation was to look after my niece, to keep her by my side as long as she wasn't in any danger. She was better off with me than in a Taoist monastery, and no good Western citizen would disagree with me. It was funny to see that there were now six of us doing tai chi in the mornings. Fernanda and Biao enthusiastically joined in the exercise, no matter how cold or even how much snow there might be. By the end of November, when we reached a city called Shang-hsien,
⁴³
after nearly a month of hard journeying over terrible mountain passes in the frigid wind, battling snow squalls and landslides, we offered a magnificent display of harmony and coordinated movements.

The town of Shang-hsien, located in the very heart of the mountain range, in a small valley formed by the Danjiang River and the slope of Mount Shangshan, was a historically dangerous area. After Lao Jiang spoke with one of the locals, he explained that numerous battles had taken place there. Remnants of the ancient walls and a few cobblestone streets could still be seen. Over the past two thousand years, armies and peasant rebellions had gone through Shang-hsien to reach the great Xi'an (just sixty-two miles away), since it was located in the only pass through the Qin Ling Mountains from the south. The city even had an old
lü kuan
that, after we'd spent all that time in the mountains, seemed the height of luxury, when in fact it was nothing more than a squalid shelter. But I didn't mind: I was willing to kill or die for a nice hot bath.

After we ate a good dinner, Fernanda and Biao began a game of Wei-ch'i. The brothers Red and Black started off watching enthusiastically but soon joined in the game. The soldiers were drinking heavily and making a racket over in a corner of the large dining hall. Meanwhile, Lao Jiang and I examined our copy of the map from the
jiance
(I had used my colored pencils to draw it on a page of my sketchbook) and speculated on how little the architect Sai Wu had told his son about the traps inside the tomb. I often wondered why Sai Wu's son never received that letter. It was clear from the text that the slats were to accompany the boy and that his father's friend was to look after them until young Sai Shi Gu'er came of age. If the
jiance
and the boy were together and the
jiance
had never reached its destination, clearly the boy never reached Chaoxian either. I felt so much compassion for that newborn whose father had such ambitious plans for him and who likely died with the rest of the Sai clan. If that were the case, there'd been a weak link somewhere in the chain, and it could only have been the “trusted” servant with whom Sai Wu had sent his son and the letter. But how had the slats survived? We would probably never know.

We went to bed clean and satisfied—I might even say happy, knowing we were about to sleep on lovely, warm
k'ang
s placed on top of bricks that channeled heat from the ovens. This heavenly pleasure was an absolute Oriental luxury. However, my next memory of that night is of a voice whispering strange, violent words in my ear as something cold and metallic pressed against my throat. My eyes flew open, and I was instantly wide awake, only to discover I couldn't see a thing in the darkness and that a stranger was holding me with his hand over my mouth and nose so I couldn't move or even breathe. I wanted to scream but couldn't, and as soon as I began to struggle, the metal pressed deeper into my throat and a stream of warm blood trickled down toward my shoulder. I could tell by the smothered noises nearby that my niece was in trouble as well. We were about to die, and I didn't know what to do. As had happened in Nanking, the nearness of death, of which I was so afraid, actually made me feel stronger, even more alive. A flash went off in my head, and I remembered that there was a little table up against the warm bricks, not right at my feet but quite nearby, and on it was a large clay pitcher that would make quite a noise if it were to fall. However, if I stretched out to kick the pitcher, the knife would slice into my throat, severing the arteries. Then I heard my niece groan furiously and didn't hesitate another second: In a single motion, I moved my neck away by pushing my head back and to the left, into the assassin's chest, and stretched out my legs—my whole body—with such force that when my feet kicked the vessel, it flew through the air. The assassin holding on to me was surprised and angry, and he bashed me on the temple, but by then the loud crash as the pitcher hit the stone floor had been heard throughout the
lü kuan.
As I tried in vain to recover from the blow that had left me nearly unconscious, I heard a stifled exclamation and felt the assassin's arms go limp and release me. I collapsed onto the
k'ang,
but I heard a sharp, anguished scream from my niece, and I struggled to get up and help her.

“Don't move,” whispered the voice of Master Red (or it might have been Master Black, I never knew). “Your niece is fine.”

“Fernanda. Fernanda …” I called. The poor girl cried like a baby and held on tight to me, shaking like a leaf. I held her just as close while trying to make sense of what was happening, but I couldn't think. I was stunned. My head hurt like the devil, and the buzzing noise inside combined with the sound of shots being fired and shouting, banging coming from outside. The big dining hall had become a battlefield. It must be an attack by the Green Gang. These were their usual tactics, and this time they had come very close to making sure my niece and I weren't alive to tell the tale. Although we were still in danger, I thought with a start. We needed to move, get out of there, hide somewhere safe until the fighting was over. I was dizzier than a top and on the verge of vomiting as soon as my feet hit the floor, but Fernanda helped me stand, and with my arm around her neck I dragged myself to the door. In truth, I had no idea where to go; I was behaving irrationally. In order to leave the room, we'd have to go out into the dining hall, and that's where the shots were coming from.

“Oh, God, I hope Biao's all right!” I heard my niece say in a strangled whisper. My thoughts of escape had been ridiculous. I held on to Fernanda again or, rather, I leaned on her completely, and we went back into the dark, empty room, stepping on pieces of the shattered pitcher in our bare feet.

“What are you trying to do?” she asked in confusion.

“We have to hide,” I whispered. “It's the Green Gang.”

“But there's nowhere to hide!” she exclaimed.

A bullet whistled in through the door and slammed straight into the wall, sending bits of stone flying all around us. My niece screamed.

“Shut up!” I ordered, my mouth right next to her ear. “Do you want them to know we're here so they can come after us?”

She shook her head emphatically and took my hand, leading me to a corner of the room. On our way we had to step over the dead bodies of the two assassins who'd attacked us. I heard my niece move the blankets and bamboo mats off the
k'ang
s and come toward me. Still reeling, I realized she was wrapping me in one of the blankets, then in one of the mats until I was completely rolled up. She then leaned me casually against the wall. I had to admit it was a good idea, the best one available to us.

“What about you?” I asked from inside my suffocating refuge.

“I'm hiding, too,” she replied.

We didn't speak again until much later, when the struggle in the patio was over. I'd had a horrible time of it, and not only because of the fear. I don't know what that blasted assassin did to me, but the pain in my head, the anxiety, the dizziness, and worst of all the feeling of being about to lose consciousness at any second made the minutes I spent rolled up in those mats absolute heroics on my part. Just when I couldn't stand another moment, I thought I heard Biao's voice.

“Tai-tai!
Young Mistress!” He sounded very far away, as if he were calling out to us from another world, though he was surely nearby. “Young Mistress!
Tai-tai!
”

“Biao!” I heard my niece reply. I tried to speak, but all I remember is vomiting inside my narrow hiding place, and then nothing more.

I opened my eyes and saw a white adobe ceiling. My first thought was that I'd slept for a long time and, then, that there was too much light. I half closed my eyes and thought it was strange we hadn't gotten up at dawn to do our tai chi. Where was Biao? Why hadn't Fernanda woken me up?

“Tell Lao Jiang,” someone said. “She opened her eyes.”

Of course I opened my eyes. How ridiculous. Or had someone else opened her eyes? I had no idea what was happening.