Salamander (31 page)

He halted, holding his breath, turning his head this way and that. He heard a scrape of gravel behind him and whirled around, but could see nothing. He turned again to hurry away and there before him in the path was a crouched tiger, its striped hide silvered by moonlight. Djinn stared, rooted to the spot more by wonder than fear. With a loping spring that seemed to happen very slowly, the huge beast leapt up on its hind legs, swung a paw, and batted Djinn to the earth.

He lay staring up at the stars, his breath slapped out of his body, and then the tiger was over him, a blur of shadows, its great mouth breathing fetid gusts that steamed over the lenses of the eyeholes. Djinn shut his eyes and waited, expecting at any moment to feel talons peeling him out of his shell like a soft-boiled egg. Instead he heard the beast’s bristled snout scraping against the face plate, and a loud wet snuff. One of the tiger’s whiskers slipped through a breathing hole, tickling Djinn’s nose. Unable to stop himself, he sneezed, the sound amplified in the spirals of the automaton’s vocal passage to a staccato gunshot. The tiger recoiled with a grunt, its claws scrabbling on the loose stones of the path, and then it turned tail and bounded back into the darkness.

It won’t be long before he gets over his surprise
, Djinn thought, and he scrambled to his feet. Awkwardly he hoisted himself into the upper branches of a nearby tree and clung there, shivering in the night air and wondering how his sense of the path his own life was to take could have failed to predict this gruesome and spectacular end. Here he was, alone, in a forest in the middle of a vast country that knew nothing of him, friendless, unloved, almost certain to be eaten by a ravenous beast of prey and perish unmourned. It was not in character, to be sure, but
yet it was perfect in its own way, he admitted to himself, his only regret being that no one was here to find out how right he had been about his future.

Not long afterward the tiger returned, padding along the forest floor at a much more sedate pace and followed by a slender figure, cloaked and hooded in green, carrying a bow and a quiver of arrows. The tiger slunk to the base of the tree where Djinn had imagined himself concealed by leaves and shadows.

The green figure reached the tiger’s side, peered up into the tree, tapped its bow against the trunk.

– It’s no use, a muffled voice said. If you don’t climb down, I’ll shoot you down.

A woman
, Djinn realized.

– The tiger will not hurt you, she said.

– Then why did he pounce on me just now?

– He’s seen plenty of people disguised as automatons before, so there must’ve been something different about you. The two of us like to keep this forest free of murderers, thieves, and generally suspicious characters. Which are you?

– Neither, blurted Djinn. None, I mean.

– Then you have nothing to fear. Now climb down or I’ll begin to think you’ve got something to hide and I’ll send my friend here up after you.

When Djinn had inched his way painstakingly to the ground, he saw that the woman, like him, was encased from head to foot in porcelain. The face was that of an archer with a pencil-thin beard and, like Ludwig, a smile.

– I’ll wager you’re another foreigner in disguise.

Djinn nodded wearily. Exhausted by his ordeal, he allowed himself to be led without protest to a cave deep in the woods.
A well-furnished cave, he saw with surprise when they had ducked through the mossy entrance, tapestried and cushioned and warmed by cheerful yellow lanterns. The woman bade him sit where he liked, lit a small fire in a woodstove and brewed tea. In one corner lay a heap of gears, springs, and glazed potsherds that had obviously once been part of one or more porcelain messengers.

– I find them abandoned quite often, the woman said, noticing the direction of his gaze, and I bring them here. I use the parts for everything from knives to dishes. My friend must have thought you were defective in some way, and that’s why he pounced.

– Defective?

The woman undipped her armour piece by piece, ending with her face plate, then shook out her matted hair. Beneath the porcelain shell she was tightly wrapped in a gauze-like fabric, the ends of which she proceeded to unwind and then to fan herself with. When she saw Djinn’s stare she excused herself, went behind a folding paper screen, and re-emerged in a tunic and breeches.

– One carries one’s upbringing, she said. Even into the forest.

Djinn and the woman sat on straw mats and sipped tea from tiny clay bowls. The tiger stretched out at their feet and commenced licking its great shaggy paws.

– I was wondering how you managed to feed yourself in that thing, the woman said. It looks a lot less removable than mine.

– I was worried about that myself, Djinn said. But along the way children would run up and slip nuts and seeds through my faceplate. They knew an automaton must get hungry like everyone else.

While they drank he told the woman where he had journeyed from, and spoke of Flood and his search for Finest Tortoise.

– You’re not the only one who guessed my secret, Djinn said. There was a ferryman who figured it out pretty quickly, but then he himself was in disguise.

– In disguise, echoed the woman. Don’t tell me. He had once been a salt merchant.

– That’s right. How did you know?

The woman remained silent.

– You were the maid, Djinn said.

– His wife loved him, she muttered with an angry shake of the head. Truly, devotedly. And he rewarded that love with jealousy.

Possessiveness ruled his heart as it always had, and made him unable to love. He wanted only the desirable wife, not the desiring woman. Each night he would wish her a restful sleep and retire to his own chamber to go over his accounts, as if careful management of his business was all that was needed to guarantee a harmonious home life.

– The poor girl was desperate to give him a child, and begged me for help. My first thought was that she was not yet comfortable with the act of love, and so I penned letters, purportedly from the salt merchant, letters of such passion that they might accomplish what that dried old carp could not. She saw through my scheme and begged me to think of some other means to her desire. I told her what I knew of the arts of love, but she refused to hear a maid speak so plainly of such intimacies.

As a last desperate resort they drugged her husband at night so that they could slip away undetected and carry out the maid’s next plan. She knew that since time immemorial, women who
wished for love would go down to the Ford of Amorous Longing. Its waters were said to anoint the soul of a woman with an irresistible allure. Every night they came secretly to the river’s edge and Pool of Jade would bathe in the frigid water until her perfect alabaster skin turned blue.

– That last night, with the wind and high water, the current proved too strong. On her way back to the bank she lost her balance and was swept out of my sight.

The woman reached out and scratched behind the tiger’s ears. The great beast purred contentedly.

– But the tooth mark, Djinn said. Whose teeth left that bite?

The woman smiled bitterly.

– Before I came to work for her, I was a seamstress. The faster I worked, the more money I made for my family. I bit through so many threads, chewed so many pins, I wore a groove in this tooth, here.

She opened her mouth and tapped one of her eye teeth.

– You bit her.

The woman nodded, staring into her teacup.

– I loved her as a maid should love her mistress and protector, and for a long time I did not suspect the true nature of my feelings.

When she penned those passionate letters she did not understand she was giving voice to her own unacknowledged desires. One night she attempted to teach her mistress various methods of seduction. To show Pool of Jade where and how to touch a man, she touched her. They embraced. They kissed. All at once both of them knew this was no longer a lesson. For one moment they belonged only to one another. And already in that moment they knew this could not be.

– If we were to live, it had to begin and end right then and
there. And so I fled and hid in my chamber. Much later she came to my room and, saying not a word, bared her shoulder. Softly I kissed her burning skin. Like a butterfly her fingers alighted on my neck. Then I felt her nails sink into my flesh and I bared my teeth and inflicted the bite that her husband found upon her. She cried out and tore herself away. We never spoke again of that night.

The woman shook her head sadly, and poured out the dregs of her tea.

– After her death I wandered and finally came to live here, in this forest, where I befriended a tiger cub whose mother had been killed by hunters. I began to find the empty shells of automatons and I vowed then to become the protector of the lost in these woods.

– Of all people, Djinn said, that I should encounter you.

– It is not surprising. The road you were on is known in these parts as the Dragon Vein Stretching a Thousand Miles. Every mile of it is crowded with people like me, like the ferryman, like yourself, people with stories. And all of these stories are in some hidden way linked to one another, like the blood of the dragon flowing beneath its impenetrable hide.

Inside Ludwig, Djinn smiled.

– And now my story is here as well, he said.

– Although we don’t know the ending yet.

The tiger opened its jaws in a vast yawn.

– Right, my friend, the woman said, patting the tiger’s flank. Time for bed.

Without further ceremony she fluffed up a heap of pillows and settled into them, tucking her hands under her head.

Djinn lay back on the stone floor. His porcelain armour had been chafing him ever since he set out on this journey, and
made for very uncomfortable sleeping. He lay on one side and then the other, grunting angrily each time he was forced to try another position.

The woman sat up.

– Can’t you take any of that off?

– Not without help, Djinn said.

She stirred the coals in the stove and slid over to him.

– There’s a little metal pin in back, where the queue is painted on, Djinn said, reaching around to the rear headpiece. The woman’s hair brushed against his ear. Her skin smelled of pine and mossy earth and something like dappled spring sunlight.

– It’s really wedged in, and I can’t quite …

– I see, the woman said. Here, I’ve got it.

She pried open and lifted away the halves of Ludwig’s skull. Djinn felt his face and hair steam in the night air.

– Thank you, he said. I’m Djinn.

– My name is Peony. She hefted the automaton’s face plate. This is an unwieldy design. Here we make them easier to get in and out of.

– A lot of people go around disguised as clockwork messengers?

She laughed.

– There haven’t been any clockwork messengers for a long time. Most people know that, but it’s convenient to pretend otherwise. One never knows when one might need a little concealment. And it occurs to me that with a little stealth, and luck, it wouldn’t be so difficult to get our hands on some of that paper you’re after.

– You think so?

– Your idea was good, but this … this was all wrong.

She handed him the automaton’s faceplate and he looked at it for the first time since Flood had taken his height and then entombed him in this glazed sarcophagus. Here was the smile he had worn every league of his journey. No wonder the children had come running to him. He felt a pang of belated affection for Ludwig, and at the same time a desire to liberate his flesh once and for all. To remember, through the simple caress of air on naked skin, just who had been inhabiting this shell.

– If it’s not too much trouble, Djinn said, those hinge things in the back, between the shoulder blades … ?

– Just a moment.

Soon Djinn was naked to the waist and Ludwig’s breastplate and arms lay on the floor of the cave. Peony looked him up and down.

– Those are beautiful tattoos.

He started to speak and then hesitated. His shoulders slumped.

– I understand, she said. A very long story, like the dragon vein. We can continue our talk in the morning. I have many questions about the world beyond China.

She leaned towards the lantern, her hair sliding across her face, her shoulder catching the light.

– I could answer a question or two now, Djinn said. It’s really no trouble.

– Well, for one thing, Peony said, sitting up again, I’ve often wondered if all men are as obtuse about matters of the heart as they are in my country. I’ve always cursed that stupid salt merchant. He had love right in front of him and he couldn’t see it.

– Foolish, Djinn agreed, blissfully scratching his nose for the first time in weeks.

– I mean to say, Peony continued, that opportunities for the incomparable delights of love arise so fleetingly, and often so miraculously, that we truly insult heaven if we let them slip through our fingers.

The tiger raised its head and sniffed. It rose up, stretched, and padded slowly out of the cave.

– It’s almost as if he understood you, Djinn said, twisting his aching neck from side to side, and decided to go in search of a mate.

– I wish him good fortune, Peony said, drawing closer to Djinn and laying a hand on his cold porcelain thigh. And bliss. Now let’s see about the rest of these hinges.