Shifu, You'll Do Anything For a Laugh (10 page)

He picked up his two prized possessions — a cleaver and a pair of scissors — one in each hand. The distinctive stink of fox and the rustling of the vines grew more acute. It was climbing toward him on the vines. Granddad had thought all along that this attack would happen in deep night. A fox's resourcefulness and liveliness is tied to the darkness of night. This broad daylight challenge to recover lost territory and avenge the murder of its cubs surprised him. When troops advance, a general mounts a defense; when floodwaters rise, there will be dirt to stop it. In other words, things will take care of themselves. Having faced far greater dangers many times, Granddad was calm and self-assured. Compared to most days, when all he did was lie low, this morning promised plenty of excitement. On the other side of the ocean, mighty mounted troops were at that moment parading past their heroic leader as he announced in a booming voice the creation of the People's Republic, while below, hundreds of thousands of faces were bathed in hot tears.

Clinging to a thick vine with its claws, the fiery red fox climbed to the level of the cave where Granddad was hiding. She wore a crafty smile and squinted in the bright sunlight. The circles around her eyes were jet black, and thick golden eyelashes sprang from her eyelids. It was the mother fox. Granddad saw two rows of dark teats, swollen with milk for the cubs she had lost. The large, fleshy red fox clung to the purple vine, her bushy tail sweeping alluringly back and forth, like a rogue melon, like an evil flame that can make even iron will waver.

Granddad felt a sudden weariness in the hand holding the cleaver. His fingers grew stiff, sore, and numb. The source of his problem lay in the fox's expression. She should have been baring her teeth in a savage snarl, instead of wagging her tail seductively and smiling sweetly. The sight stupefied Granddad and turned his fingers numb. The gently swaying vine was only a couple of feet away from the mouth of the cave. The fireball overhead shone down on the leaves of the underbrush, transforming them into shards of gold foil. All he had to do was reach out and chop through the vine to send the fox plunging into the valley below, but he couldn't lift his hand. The enchantment of the fox was boundless, the heft of his cleaver immeasurable. Legends of foxes surged into his mind, and he wondered when he had amassed so much fox lore. With no pistol at hand, he felt his courage wane. Back in those days when he'd sat astride his black steed, weapon in hand, he had feared nothing.

High-pitched trills from the fox accompanied the wagging of her tail, imitating the sound of a weeping woman. Granddad couldn't understand why he hesitated, why he was suddenly impotent. Aren't you still the bandit Yu Zhan'ao, who killed without batting an eye? He clutched the crumbling handle of his knife and hunkered down to await the attack from the fox as it swung back and forth on the vine. His heart was thumping, and spurts of icy blood rushed to his skull, suffusing the area in front of his eyes with the color of ice and water. Prickly pains attacked his temples. Apparently, the fox had seen through his plan of action. She was still swinging, but the arc was lessening. Now Granddad would have to lean way out to hack at her. The look on her face was more and more that of a lustful woman. It was a look with which he was very familiar. Granddad sensed that in an instant the fox could transform herself into a woman in white mourning clothes. So he thrust himself forward, grabbed the vine with one hand, and with the other aimed at the fox's head.

The fox swooped down. Granddad lunged after it, and nearly fell out of the cave. But he managed to strike the fox on the head with his rusty knife. Then, just as he was drawing his body back into the cave, he heard a scream above him. A hot, fetid smell descended with the scream, enveloping his body. A large fox bore down on his back, its paws wrapped tightly around his chest and abdomen, its taut, bushy tail fanning the air excitedly. The coarse fur pricked painfully into Granddad's thighs. At the same time he felt the fox's hot breath on his neck, which hunched inward by reflex. Goose bumps covered his legs, as something dug excruciatingly into the nape of his neck. The fox was biting him. Only then did he comprehend the treachery of foxes in Hokkaido, Japan.

It was now impossible for him to retreat back into his cave. Even if he somehow managed to fight his way back in, the fox he'd injured slightly could climb in after him, and then the male and the female would attack, one in front, one in back, and Granddad would be a dead Granddad. He analyzed the situation with lightning speed. If he was willing to risk his life, there was a slim chance he'd survive. The male fox's razor-sharp teeth tore into him, and he could feel them touching bone. Crouching down quickly and letting the pitted cleaver and scissors fall to the valley floor, he grabbed a vine with both hands and, with the male fox clinging to his back, swung out and hung in the air.

Bright red beads of blood oozed from the wounds on the female fox's head. This Granddad saw as he leaped out of the cave. Hot blood from his neck ran onto his shoulders and flowed down to his abdomen and buttocks. The fox's teeth seem to be embedded in the fissures of his bones. Bone pain is seven or eight times worse than pain in the muscles; that was a conclusion he'd drawn from his experiences in China. And the teeth of a live animal are more terrible than shrapnel. The pain unleashed by the former is filled with the vibrancy of life; that of the latter is heavy with death. Granddad had hoped to rely on this death-defying leap to fling the male fox off his back, but its unyielding claws shattered those hopes. Like magnets or barbed hooks, they clung to Granddad's shoulders and waist. Its mouth and teeth had fused with his neck. The injured mother fox made things even more difficult for him, since she was not hurt badly enough to fall off the vine. Climbing forward another half meter or so to focus her attack, she bit into his foot. Even though the soles of his feet were so hard and calloused they were not bothered by brambles or thorns, he was, after all, only human, flesh and blood, and her sharp teeth were too much for him. He howled in pain as tears of agony clouded his vision.

Granddad shook himself hard. The foxes shook with him, but their teeth remained clamped into his flesh; if anything, they dug in even deeper. Let go, Granddad! Falling would be better than living like this. But he held the vine in a death grip. Never, in the long life of that vine, had it withstood such force. It creaked and twisted, as if groaning. Its roots were on the gentle slope of the mountain above the cave, where purple flowers were in full bloom amid red and yellow leaves that had fallen from high above. It was there that Granddad had discovered the crisp, sweet, juicy mountain radishes, which he'd added to his menu. It was also there that he'd discovered the serpentine fox path, which he'd followed — using vines to get to the melons — all the way to the foxes’ lair, where he'd killed the cubs and flung them out of the cave. Granddad, if you'd known that you'd be suspended in the air, racked with pain, you wouldn't have killed those cubs and taken over the cave, would you? His ashen face was the color of steel. He said nothing.

The vine swung back and forth, sending dirt from above the cave raining down. The sun shone brightly, making the stream on the west side of the cave glisten as it snaked down to the trees in the valley. The village beyond the valley twirled on the beach, on which tens of thousands of ocean waves shimmered and broke, one rolling hard behind the other, never resting. The music of the ocean filtered into Granddad's ears, ten thousand galloping horses one minute, light dancing melodies the next. He clutched his vine tightly, determined not to let go.

The vines sent warnings to man and fox alike; man and fox kept twisting them about. They began to snap angrily. The mouth of the cave slowly rose in the air. Granddad held on for dear life. The precipice moved upward, as the lush, green valley rushed up to meet him. The cool, refreshing air of the forest and the smell of rotting leaves formed a soft cushion that cradled Granddad's belly. The long purple vines danced in the air. He could feel, he could sense, that the fox at his feet had broken loose from her vine, and as she fell she turned a graceful somersault, like a heavenly fire. Ocean waves tumbled onto the beach, curving like a horse's mane.

As he fell, Granddad had no thoughts of dying. He said that after his rope had broken in three attempts at suicide in the forest one year, he knew he would not die. He had a premonition that his final resting place would be back in Northeast Gaomi Township, on the other side of the ocean. And since he'd rid himself of the fear of death, falling became a rare opportunity to experience joy. His body seemed to flatten out, his consciousness turning transparently thin. His heart stopped beating, his blood ceased its flow, and the pit of his stomach was slightly red and warm, like a charcoal brazier. Granddad sensed the wind peeling the male fox away from him — first its legs, then its mouth. That mouth seemed to have taken away something from his neck, but it seemed to have left something as well. His burden was abruptly lifted, and Granddad smoothly turned three hundred and sixty degrees in the air. That revolution gave him a chance to look at the male fox and at its pointy, savage face. Its fur was greenish yellow, except for the belly, which was white as snow. Naturally, he could see that it would make a fine pelt, something he could make into a leather vest. The treetops rose faster and faster — pagoda-shaped snow pines, birches with white bark, and oaks with yellow leaves fluttering like butterflies. He tumbled into their outstretched canopies.

Granddad was still holding on to the spiraling vine for dear life when it caught on a strong but yielding limb of an oak tree. As he hung in the canopy of the tree, he heard the crack of branches snapping. He fell into the crotch of a thick limb and sprang up into the air; again he hit the limb and again he bounced into the air. Finally he came to rest under the vibrating tree, just in time to see the two foxes, first one and then the other, as they thudded into the thick carpet of dead leaves. Like a pair of explosives, the two soft bodies sent rank mud and rotting leaves flying off in all directions. Two dull thuds rustled the dead leaves, the older ones fluttering down to blanket a pair of similarly dead foxes. Gazing down at the brilliantly colored foxes as they were being buried by red and yellow leaves, Granddad suddenly felt his chest expand with heat. A sweet taste filled his mouth, and a red flag slowly unfurled in his skull. Lights went on all around him, and his pain vanished into thin air. His heart overflowed with warm sentiments toward the foxes. The image of them descending gracefully into a bed of red and yellow leaves flowed in and out of his mind. Curtly I said, Granddad, you passed out.

The call of a bird awakened Granddad. The scorching noonday sun baked parts of his skin, streams of glorious golden light filtering through gaps between branches and leaves. Light green squirrels leaped nimbly about the tree as they plucked acorns and gnawed at the husks, exposing the white flesh underneath with its subtle bitter aroma. Granddad began to grow aware of his body. His internal organs were all right; his legs were all right. His foot ached, and there were black clots of blood and torn flesh where the female fox had bitten. His neck hurt where the male fox had buried his teeth. Unsure of where his arms were, he searched for them and found them raised high over his head, still grasping the vine that had saved his life. Experience told him that they were dislocated. He straightened up. Dizzy, he stopped looking down. Using his teeth, he pried his fingers off the vine. Then, with his legs and the tree trunk for support, he worked his arms back into their sockets. He heard the pop of bone and felt sweat ooze from his pores. A woodpecker was attacking a tree nearby. The pain in his neck returned with a vengeance, as if the woodpecker's pointy beak were tapping on one of his white nerves. The cries of birds in the forest could not drown out the sound of ocean waves, and he knew that the ocean was very close. The moment he lowered his head he felt dizzy, and that was the greatest peril in climbing down from the tree. But it would be suicide to stay where he was. His guts were tied in knots, his throat was parched.

Straining to get his nearly useless arms working, he put his legs and belly to work as he began his descent from the tree, forcing his body hard against the trunk. But his efforts were not rewarded, as he tumbled headlong down to the ground. The carpet of rotting leaves cushioned his fall. He'd fallen too short a distance to cause an explosion. The sweet, acrid stench rising up from under him overwhelmed his sense of smell. He got to his feet and, with the sound of water in his ears, began to stumble forward. The stream was hidden beneath the rotting leaves, and as his foot stepped down on them, a coolness rose toward him, and water seeped up from where he had stepped. He lay on his belly and parted the rotting leaves, layer after layer, where the sound of the water was the loudest. It was like peeling away the layers of a flat cake. At first the water was murky; he waited a moment until it cleared. Then he lowered his head to drink, and the cold water rushed past his chest into his stomach; the fetid taste didn't come until later. That brought to my mind the moment during the war when he had lapped up the hot, dirty, tadpole-infested water of the Black Water River.

Once Granddad had drunk his fill, he felt much better and more energetic. All that water staved off his hunger for the time being. He reached up to feel the wound on his neck. It was a pulpy mess, and he recalled the stabbing pain when the fox's teeth snapped off as the animal was ripped away. Gritting his teeth, he probed the wound with his finger. As expected, he found a pair of fangs. Removing them started the flow of blood again, but not much, and he let it flow long enough to cleanse the wound. Then he held his breath and cleared his mind. From the powerful current of myriad forest smells, he picked out the unique, pungent scent of red-leafed loosestrife, and followed it to a spot behind a tall pine tree. I have never found reference to this plant in any illustrated encyclopedia of Chinese herbs. Granddad picked some of the herb and chewed it into a paste, which he rubbed on his wounds, one on his neck and another on his foot. To treat his dizziness, he went looking for purple-stalked peppermint. After tearing off a couple of leaves, he kneaded them until juice came out, then stuck them on his temples. Now his wounds no longer hurt. Beneath a chestnut oak tree he ate a few clusters of nonpoisonous mushrooms, and followed that with some sweet mountain leeks. He was in luck, for he also discovered some wild grapes. Once he'd satisfied his hunger, he emptied his bowels and bladder. He had now turned himself back into an energized mountain spirit.